I'm having a lot of trouble trying to divine the intent of the darkness spell in PF. It starts off easily enough:
This spell causes an object to radiate darkness out to a 20-foot radius. This darkness causes the illumination level in the area to drop one step, from bright light to normal light, from normal light to dim light, or from dim light to darkness.
Ok, so it just lowers the light level, that seems pretty easy to run. But, this is then qualified/contradicted by
Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness. Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.
Imagine an area brightly lit by torches. What happens when I cast a darkness spell? Is the light reduced by one step, as per the first quote, or to complete darkness, since the second part tells us to ignore torches? A pedantic/literal reading might suggest the latter, but that doesn't jibe with how the spell as a whole is worded, so I'd be kind of surprised if that's the actual intent. (Especially when comparing to the 3.5 version of the same spell.)
Does anything different happen in an area brightly lit by sunlight, or is the first rule only applicable to (stronger) magical light effects?
Is there any clarification from other parts of the rules or the designers? Is there something about the darkness spell itself I've misread?
Best Answer
Ah, finally found the Pathfinder FAQ. (It's weirdly hard to locate, as a little tab at the bottom of the core rulebook product page.) It contains the following:
This clarifies the intent quite nicely. Sorry for answering my own question, but it is exactly what I was looking for!
Now the bit about "ambient natural light level" is a still unclear (would it include, for instance, environmental light such as glowing fungi?) but it at least gives something to work with.