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Our party picked up a Lantern of Revealing:

While lit, this hooded lantern burns for 6 hours on 1 pint of oil, shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. Invisible creatures and objects are visible as long as they are in the lantern's bright light. You can use an action to lower the hood, reducing the light to dim light in a 5-foot radius.

Any reason we couldn't just forgo the oil and use a light cantrip?

I tend to think "no", because of meta-game thinking (Why the heck would it require oil if the damn thing is magical in the first place?) - but 'yes' because it has the exact same stats as a regular hooded lantern.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ If you have a second question you can use the Ask Question button to post it and get answers to it. I’ve removed the second question from this post. (You can retrieve a copy of the removed text by clicking on “edited” to open the edit history.) \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Jul 18, 2018 at 2:14

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You must supply oil

In general, the idea of putting a Light-infused object into a hooded lantern in order to benefit from the radius-reduction effect is probably sound, and clever. But if "spells only do what they say they do," then we should apply that to magic items as well.

The item's description clearly states

Invisible creatures and Objects are visible as long as they are in the lantern's bright light.

Emphasis mine. So they must be in the lantern's light, not the light of a magical rock carried by the lantern. And how does the lantern make light?

While lit, this Hooded lantern burns for 6 hours on 1 pint of oil, shedding bright light...

So the item clearly states that the magical effects come from the light that the lantern creates when burning oil.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I think this could benefit from a mention that many DM's don't track things like oil (Or even time in intervals specific enough to care about 6 hours of burning oil) and that a 'Yes' from a rules as fun perspective is quite reasonable. RAW is a no, but RAW is often boring. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Jul 18, 2018 at 8:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SeriousBri Since DM don't usually track things like oil or in-game time, it would be easier just assuming the lamp has some oil already. After all, the point of using things like oil and a lantern of revealing is that it does things that a normal "Ligth" spell doesn't - revealing invisible things. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rekesoft
    Jul 18, 2018 at 9:27

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