Let's talk about Darkness, again...

[Silpharon]

I thought I had a handle on Darkness, then I read this post by ftafp and my expectations/assumptions were re-challenged:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?633388-The-Other-Kind-of-Crafting-A-Guide-to-Permanent-Spells

I thought a magical light source could only affect the Darkness sphere if it came from an item or a spell with level above that of Darkness, and then only if the radius of that light spell overlapped with the Darkness sphere.

Rereading the spell for the 20th time makes it clear these thoughts weren't true. What's true:

It does make a nice perfect sphere of darkness
A creature's darkvision trait/ability can't see through this darkness
Non-magical light cannot illuminate it
If a spell light source illuminates an area that overlaps Darkness, that spell is instantly dispelled if it came from a cantrip, 1st, or 2nd level spell (this does not scale with Darkness upcasting)

... And that's it

So what can we take from this? If I look at this with fresh eyes not cluttered with prior conceptions:

This spell blocks all natural light from passage (as if it were an opaque wall at the edge of the sphere and throughout the sphere). Taking this a step further, if darkvision works in complete natural darkness (inside a box for instance), then the creature would need to be sensing emission, which is a bit further down the infrared electromagnetic spectrum for normal temperatures. This is conceivable, especially in a fantasy world. So Darkness is really blocking non-magical electromagnetic radiation in at least the visible to infrared regime.
Magical light can illuminate it. More specifically, any magical light can be seen through it (regardless of spell level!). The distinction here is that if a magical light created by a spell has a radius that overlaps the darkness, it is dispelled (if it's a cantrip, 1st, or 2nd level). But light source radius does not equal ability to see the light from within darkness. This is obvious when you think about real life lanterns and such. If I'm 100 yards away in pitch darkness, I can see a guy holding a lantern, but he can't see me. There are plenty of physics reasons why that's the case that we won't delve into here.
For the casual observer during the day, the spell would indeed look like a black sphere, but any magical light sources could be seen through it. At night, if only magical lights were at work (that weren't dispelled), it would effectively look transparent!


The implications here are significant. This means I really could place a light cantrip, continual flame, magical tinkering light, etc, by my enemy, get enough distance not to dispel those things (magical tinkering isn't dispelled regardless), cast Darkness and have sight of the enemy without him having sight of me (advantage!). This becomes more useful with Familiars or other means to generate the lights at range.

What do you guys think about this? Am I off base somewhere?

[Tanarii]

It doesn't specify that it makes an opaque sphere of darkness, nor that it blocks light. Just that things inside it cannot be illuminated.

It's entirely possible to interpret the Darkness spell as creating an area of magically enforced non-illumination, that doesn't prevent seeing things on the other side (with regular vision), and doesn't prevent a light source within it illuminating things outside it (if the radius of the light source is big enough) or on one side of it illuminating things on the other side (again if the light source is big enough).

Generally speaking in forum analogies, opaque Darkness is commonly referred to as Inky Blot Darkness, and magically enforced non-illumination darkness as Vantablack Darkness.

[f5anor]

This means I really could place a light cantrip, continual flame, magical tinkering light, etc, by my enemy, get enough distance not to dispel those things (magical tinkering isn't dispelled regardless), cast Darkness and have sight of the enemy without him having sight of me (advantage!). This becomes more useful with Familiars or other means to generate the lights at range.


It seems to me that you are right here. The following seems to be the guidance provided by the rules.

First, all light sources come with a narrowly defined range, such as the following:


A lamp casts bright light in a 15-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.

Moreover, these are the effects generated by these ranges:




Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.
Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.
Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.



Finally, this is the impact that light conditions have:




A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.






Blinded condition.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.



The following seems reasonable to me:

Every light source creates bright light at some limited radius. and bright light lets most creatures see normally.
Darkness creates a heavily obscured area, and a creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
Attack rolls against blinded creatures have advantage, and the blinded creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
The above rules do not discuss the impact on creatures trying to see outside an area of darkness.


In summary, based on the above, it seems that indeed there are no penalties for a creature inside a darkness area, that is attacking creatures outside the darkness, as long as the targets are inside a brightly or dimly lit area. In fact the attacker insider the Darkness area would have advantage.

Obviously, this does not mean that you can actually see within the darkness, so melee attacks would suffer from the above limitation (unless with greater reach), as well as even simple things such as walking would be a challenge.

[Keltest]

It doesn't specify that it makes an opaque sphere of darkness, nor that it blocks light. Just that things inside it cannot be illuminated.

It's entirely possible to interpret the Darkness spell as creating an area of magically enforced non-illumination, that doesn't prevent seeing things on the other side (with regular vision), and doesn't prevent a light source within it illuminating things outside it (if the radius of the light source is big enough) or on one side of it illuminating things on the other side (again if the light source is big enough).

Generally speaking in forum analogies, opaque Darkness is commonly referred to as Inky Blot Darkness, and magically enforced non-illumination darkness as Vantablack Darkness.

While its true that it doesnt specify it, the fact that the darkness acts as a visual obstruction strongly leans into the inky blot interpretation, since i can see a silhouette of my enemy just fine against any backlighting, and know where he is, and generally not actually be functionally blind while trying to look at things inside the sphere.

[clash]

While its true that it doesnt specify it, the fact that the darkness acts as a visual obstruction strongly leans into the inky blot interpretation, since i can see a silhouette of my enemy just fine against any backlighting, and know where he is, and generally not actually be functionally blind while trying to look at things inside the sphere.

There is a third interpretation that I think tends to implement the written rules much better.

Rather than inky blot or silhouette, treat anything not illuminated within the darkness as invisible. The area is heavily obscured but it doesn't obscure areas beyond it.

[Silpharon]

It doesn't specify that it makes an opaque sphere of darkness, nor that it blocks light. Just that things inside it cannot be illuminated.
Interesting... Well given that the spell causes "magical darkness [to] spread" and "a creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness" (though magical light illuminates it). I can't see how that interpretation works. If it does not block light, how could a creature with darkvision not see through it?

[Keravath]

Darkness has been discussed a lot :) .. there seem to be two points of view .. the more popular (from what I have seen) heavily obscured region of magical darkness and the alternate view of creating a region of magically enforced natural darkness. Folks don't tend to be budged from either side of the discussion.

The biggest issue with the way you are trying to look at it is that you are combining magic and physics while this is a cool approach it doesn't necessarily work since magic can break any "laws" of physics we are familiar with.

From a rules perspective, light sources have a range - eg 15' bright light and 30' dim light. Beyond that range the light source is not considered intense enough to illuminate the area and it is still considered "darkness".

In the real world of course, you can still see the light source from distances far greater than that which it illuminates. Which is where most of the conflicts with the rules as written begin. The rules for darkness and heavily obscured need to be rewritten because they do not do a good job for natural darkness which you can see out of or through.

What the rules say is the following:
"A heavily obscured area-such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage-blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."

"Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness."

Magical Darkness
"A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

illuminate: make (something) visible or bright by shining light on it; light up.

So RAW, even natural darkness creates a heavily obscured area which blocks vision entirely. If you try to see into it you are effectively blinded. (You are also effectively blinded if you try to look through it or out of it since the area is heavily obscured and blocks vision entirely so the clarification for looking in is redundant). Most people house rule it that natural darkness doesn't work that way since it doesn't make sense in many cases - but that is what RAW says.

However, magical darkness creates a region where nonmagical light can't illuminate it. It is important to note that the spell does not say that objects or creatures inside the area can't be illuminated - the spell states that darkvision can't see through it AND the entire space can't be illuminated. By definition, this means that light can't propagate there at all since the air itself, dust in the air, all of the many particles present floating in the air - pollen etc - can't be illuminated. The entire space affected by the spell can't be illuminated and the only way that works is if the spell magically blocks non-magical light from entering.

I understand the interpretation of magical darkness creating a region of magically enforced natural darkness but it is mostly based on the house rule treating natural darkness differently from the way the rules are written.

----

The question you have is whether you could see the magical light source from inside the area of magical darkness because the light is magical. It would be a DM call. There are several possibilities.

The DM could rule -
- if you are not within the illuminated region of a magical light then you can't see it from within magical darkness
- if the magical light source would be dispelled if it was closer to the darkness then the magical light isn't "powerful" enough to penetrate the magical darkness so you wouldn't see it but you could see magical light from other sources
- you can see the magical light source itself but there is nothing that says the reflected light from a magical light source is still magical - so you see the source but nothing it might be illuminating.
- you can see both the magical light source and the area it illuminates

----

TL;DR The discussion of magical darkness, natural darkness and light sources won't end until WotC rewrites the vision and light rules to make darkness different from fog and foliage.

[Segev]

However, magical darkness creates a region where nonmagical light can't illuminate it. It is important to note that the spell does not say that objects or creatures inside the area can't be illuminated - the spell states that darkvision can't see through it AND the entire space can't be illuminated. By definition, this means that light can't propagate there at all since the air itself, dust in the air, all of the many particles present floating in the air - pollen etc - can't be illuminated. The entire space affected by the spell can't be illuminated and the only way that works is if the spell magically blocks non-magical light from entering.

I understand the interpretation of magical darkness creating a region of magically enforced natural darkness but it is mostly based on the house rule treating natural darkness differently from the way the rules are written.

You were doing pretty well for presenting arguments neutrally and sticking to the text of the spell, except for this section, where you veer off into injecting things that aren't there to make a claim in favor of ink blot darkness being the one true interpretation. (I would pull a reverse card and argue that vantablack is actually the one true RAW, but I don't really want to reignite that side of the argument.)

Suffice it to say that true vacuum cannot be illuminated, and yet we can see stars. Dust in the air being illuminated doesn't prevent a dust storm from actively blocking you from seeing anything on the far side of a thick enough dust cloud. It is in no way a house rule to rule that magical darkness behaves just like nonmagical darkness, save that it prevents certain kinds of light sources from dispelling it and, if the rules say so, prevents darkvision from letting you see things in it.

[da newt]

tangential question: if there is a magical light source that is NOT created by the casting of a leveled spell it illuminates the area of magical darkness, right? A moon touched sword, twilight sanctuary, etc ...


Just to concur with everyone - the vision / darkness / obscured rule set are a jumbled mess.

[Segev]

tangential question: if there is a magical light source that is NOT created by the casting of a leveled spell it illuminates the area of magical darkness, right? A moon touched sword, twilight sanctuary, etc ...

This does seem to be what the RAW say. If it is not a leveled spell, neither it nor the darkness are dispelled (in the "turn off the spell" sense), but the magical light will illuminate the area of darkness.

[Keravath]

You were doing pretty well for presenting arguments neutrally and sticking to the text of the spell, except for this section, where you veer off into injecting things that aren't there to make a claim in favor of ink blot darkness being the one true interpretation. (I would pull a reverse card and argue that vantablack is actually the one true RAW, but I don't really want to reignite that side of the argument.)

Suffice it to say that true vacuum cannot be illuminated, and yet we can see stars. Dust in the air being illuminated doesn't prevent a dust storm from actively blocking you from seeing anything on the far side of a thick enough dust cloud. It is in no way a house rule to rule that magical darkness behaves just like nonmagical darkness, save that it prevents certain kinds of light sources from dispelling it and, if the rules say so, prevents darkvision from letting you see things in it.

Sorry :) ... I was trying to stay neutral but I tend to interpret the wording from a "real world" perspective. If you have a volume of space that can't be illuminated - that is the same as saying that light can't pass through it.

Having light propagate through a region of space means that it can interact with anything that is present there and that interaction IS illumination. So the only way that a region of space can't be illuminated as the Darkness spell describes is if light doesn't propagate there.

Physically, they mean the same thing.

The vanta black approach says that the objects inside the area of darkness don't reflect light and end up being visible as silhouettes but that isn't actually what the spell says. It states that the entire area of the spell can't be illuminated not just any objects or creatures within the area.

It's one of those situations where one person thinks the words are clear and another thinks they mean something else and it comes down to just a different basic understanding of the meaning of the words involved. In this case "illuminate".

P.S. Yes you can see light from stars very far away but parts of the spectrum have been affected by absorption by interstellar gases between the star and here. That light is very much illuminating particles along its path - just usually not wavelengths we can see unaided. Similarly, light illuminates air molecules and other particles in the air. Atmospheric absorption spectra happen because some particles in the air absorb light at specific wavelengths. In addition, the particles of the atmosphere also scatter light which is also an interaction and can be considered "illumination".

The only way to avoid illumination in a specific volume of space is for light to not propagate there.

Anyway, that is the basis for the ink blot approach to magical darkness.

--------------

The other approach is a magically enforced natural darkness. It is dark but light can pass through it, you can see out of it but something in it is still "heavily obscured" though I am not sure how the silhouette approach would work with hiding since being heavily obscured allows a creature to hide so their location won't be known even if you can still see the silhouette.

This approach interprets "illumination" to mean that the objects inside can't reflect light which would make them visible.

I'm not sure how this interpretation works with darkvision since the spell explicitly says that darkvision can't see into the area of the spell - so a creature using only darkvision would see an ink blot based on the spell description even if normal vision sees silhouettes.

[Tanarii]

No, illuminate doesn't mean light passes through, it means to make something visible by shining light on it. It requires an object for light to interact with. The spell is specific the area can't be illuminated, that doesn't necessarily preclude light from passing through the area and illuminating things outside of it.

That potentially holds even with the Inky Blot model, given the way light works by lighting up areas in in 5e. Darkness can be seen as interacting with the light sources rules by overlapping areas, and areas inside the spell effect are dark and unable to be seen through, while areas outside of the spell effect are lit up, even if the light source causing it is inside or on the other side. That's a (potentially) additional ruling needed on top of the opaque Inky Blot ruling.

[Segev]

Sorry :) ... I was trying to stay neutral but I tend to interpret the wording from a "real world" perspective. If you have a volume of space that can't be illuminated - that is the same as saying that light can't pass through it.

Having light propagate through a region of space means that it can interact with anything that is present there and that interaction IS illumination. So the only way that a region of space can't be illuminated as the Darkness spell describes is if light doesn't propagate there.

Physically, they mean the same thing. You are not using "illuminate" correctly. Things within a space being unable to be illuminated doesn't mean light can't enter nor pass through that space. It means that those things cannot reflect light. It could mean they're invisible, or it could mean they're, well, better-than-vantablack at absorbing light. Or, with magic, it could mean the light simply stops existing when it hits them. In any event, light that hits nothing passes through unhindered. The word "illuminate" doesn't mean "light is passing through," but rather "light is bouncing off."


The vanta black approach says that the objects inside the area of darkness don't reflect light and end up being visible as silhouettes but that isn't actually what the spell says. It states that the entire area of the spell can't be illuminated not just any objects or creatures within the area. And nothing in the space is illuminated. Space is never "illuminated." Space lets light pass through it, illuminating things within or beyond it.

[Keravath]

You are not using "illuminate" correctly. Things within a space being unable to be illuminated doesn't mean light can't enter nor pass through that space. It means that those things cannot reflect light. It could mean they're invisible, or it could mean they're, well, better-than-vantablack at absorbing light. Or, with magic, it could mean the light simply stops existing when it hits them. In any event, light that hits nothing passes through unhindered. The word "illuminate" doesn't mean "light is passing through," but rather "light is bouncing off."

And nothing in the space is illuminated. Space is never "illuminated." Space lets light pass through it, illuminating things within or beyond it.

Physically, that isn't true. Light from stars interacts with clouds of interstellar hydrogen and certain frequencies are absorbed. Space is only transparent at certain frequencies.

Light is constantly interacting with particles. Scattering, absorption, reflection. It is what "illuminate" means :) ... you are lighting up the particles in the air.

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring08/atmo336s1/courses/fall13/atmo170a1s3/1S1P_stuff/scattering_of_light/scattering_of_light.html

Anyway, this is what I mean by the definition of illuminate - some folks only think it applies to macroscopic items - others think it applies to anything the light can interact with - thus two different interpretations of the Darkness spell.

"We can see fluorescent ionizied hydrogen only when hydrogen is illuminated"

https://sites.ualberta.ca/~pogosyan/teaching/ASTRO_122/lect14/lecture14.html

[Keravath]

Deleted since I decided it was a pointless comment :) ... sorry.

[Burley]

Interesting debate about physics and space, but there's a logical fallacy in comparing space to the Darkness spell:

Space is an absence of stuff (a vacuum, as stated above), where the Darkness spell creates something that takes up space, namely a sphere of magical darkness. If it were a vacuum, everything within the spell would suffocate and non-magical lights would snuff out from lack of combustible air.

So, rather than discuss how light travels in a vacuum, you should ask how light travels through magically created globes of darkness, which, I suppose, is the topic. As said above, we see things as "illuminated" when light bounces off of the object and reaches our eyes.

If objects in the darkness cannot be illuminated, perhaps the magic simply turns everything absolute black, where they absorb all light rather than it bouncing off.

Also, magical light would not be visible through the darkness. The Daylight spell uses similar (but opposite) language, in that darkness spells of equal or lower level are dispelled. So, instant magical light, like the sunbeam spell would cut through without dispelling, but ongoing sources, i.e. Daylight, would dispel the Darkness, rather than being visible through it.

[Chronos]

The problem with the rules isn't actually with the Darkness spell. The problem with the rules is with the rules for darkness in general, including nonmagical darkness. It's just that the spell makes it easier for those problems to be relevant, and harder for a DM to just houserule it as "the way things really work".

In short, the problem is that the rules say that darkness provides total obscurement. This means that, by the rules, all darkness, including natural darkness, works according to the "inkblot" interpretation. Which means, for instance, that if you're in a dark tunnel or cave, you can't see someone outside, or at the entrance, because there's a region of total obscurement in between you and them. Which is of course absurd, but it's what the rules say.

When the rules say something absurd, then of course we want to houserule them. But once you're houseruling, the question ceases to be one of which interpretation of magical darkness is correct, and becomes one of which interpretation should be correct. Which is of course a matter of taste, which is why it's so hard for the differing sides to come to a consensus here.


All that said, from the OP:

If a spell light source casts light that overlaps Darkness, that spell is instantly dispelled if it came from a cantrip, 1st, or 2nd level spell (even if upcast)
This, at least, is not quite correct. A spell that's cast out of a third-level slot is a third level spell, even if it could be cast from a lower slot. So an upcast light spell of some sort won't be dispelled by overlapping with a Darkness spell.

One interesting implication, though: This applies to all spells of 2nd level or lower that produce light, even if that's not the only effect of the spell, and the Darkness dispells the illuminating spell completely. Which means, for instance, that Darkness could be used to nullify various fire-based spells.

[Keltest]

Are there actually any fire spells below 3rd level that linger? I would also suggest that light from magical fire is nonmagical light.

[da newt]

"If objects in the darkness cannot be illuminated, perhaps the magic simply turns everything absolute black, where they absorb all light rather than it bouncing off." - if this is true then we are right back to the inky blot as 'everything' includes the air in the area. You can't see into, out of, or through.

To my way of thinking this is the only logically coherent way that darkness can work - anything else just makes it even more wonky and contradictory.

Darkness is just a special case fog - it has nothing to do w/ IRL physics. In the DnD realm air is only transparent when light is present, where there is no light the air is heavily obscured = opaque = dark air. If you have dark vision you can see through X range of dark air, but not magical dark air. If you have true sight or devil's sight you can see through magical and non-magical dark air to range X. If you have blindsense you can sense objects/creatures but cannot see them. If you have tremorsense you can sense the location where they touch the ground that you are also touching, but cannot see them. It's a mess, but it is what it is.

[Kane0]

Are there actually any fire spells below 3rd level that linger? I would also suggest that light from magical fire is nonmagical light.

Create Bonfire is a cantrip, Continual Flame is 2nd.

Edit: Darkness can't be modelled by physics as we know it because it behaves differently, like some weird anti-light and not simply the absence of light. The darkness can be stopped by covering up the thing emitting it, which is wacky to think about. If there is magic darkness filling an area it is actively eating up the light or something, so you can't see into, out of or through it even if you normally would be able to thanks to something like darkvision.

[Corran]

The implications here are significant. This means I really could place a light cantrip, continual flame, magical tinkering light, etc, by my enemy, get enough distance not to dispel those things (magical tinkering isn't dispelled regardless), cast Darkness and have sight of the enemy without him having sight of me (advantage!). This becomes more useful with Familiars or other means to generate the lights at range.

What do you guys think about this? Am I off base somewhere?
Debatable, since it's going to be a DM ruling whether you can see out of darkness. But you've got the basics of the idea down, and what's best is that it can work without relying on magical darkness. Natual darkness and distance can be enough. So light some arrows and send them towards the enemy to light his position, or use dancing lights, or send a familiar/unseen servant/other minion ahead with some light source while you are staying at the back, or simply increase your own darkvision range if sharing the advantage is not too important (eg because scouting in small numbers). You could grab a spell or two for snuffing out lights if you so will, though there is not real need to go overboard here since this situation will mostly happen when the encounter somehow starts at a long distance. So you need either a DM who plays the monsters even before the roll initiative, or you need some good scouting and coop from your team to force engaging from a distance yourselves.


tangential question: if there is a magical light source that is NOT created by the casting of a leveled spell it illuminates the area of magical darkness, right? A moon touched sword, twilight sanctuary, etc
Yes. Sacred weapon (devotion paladin) for another example.

[Tanarii]

The problem with the rules isn't actually with the Darkness spell. The problem with the rules is with the rules for darkness in general, including nonmagical darkness. It's just that the spell makes it easier for those problems to be relevant, and harder for a DM to just houserule it as "the way things really work".

In short, the problem is that the rules say that darkness provides total obscurement. This means that, by the rules, all darkness, including natural darkness, works according to the "inkblot" interpretation. Which means, for instance, that if you're in a dark tunnel or cave, you can't see someone outside, or at the entrance, because there's a region of total obscurement in between you and them. Which is of course absurd, but it's what the rules say.

When the rules say something absurd, then of course we want to houserule them. But once you're houseruling, the question ceases to be one of which interpretation of magical darkness is correct, and becomes one of which interpretation should be correct. Which is of course a matter of taste, which is why it's so hard for the differing sides to come to a consensus here.
Not only that, it's debatable how the badly written rule works. Does it flat out block vision (per the first part of the rule) so that you cannot see through it to the other side, or is the second part where it says creatures are effectively blinded when trying to see something in the area they're effectively blinded an explanation of the game effect of that blocking vision, meaning it only stops you from seeing into the area, not through it? If it's the latter, it works for normal darkness and not opaque obscuring. If it's the former it works for opaque obscuring but not normal darkness.

So yeah, the rules on heavily obscured are broken one way or the other, before we even start talking about the Darkness spell specifically. And once we decide how normal darkness works, and then how the spell affects vision, we can start talking about how it interacts with normal 5e light (which changes the light level in a specified area) depending on the source) outside the spell area when the spell area is on top of the light source, and when the spell area is between the light source and part of the lit zone (e.g. a bullseye lantern). And then we get to talk about the various interactions with magical light.

Good times :smallamused:

[Silpharon]

This, at least, is not quite correct. A spell that's cast out of a third-level slot is a third level spell, even if it could be cast from a lower slot. So an upcast light spell of some sort won't be dispelled by overlapping with a Darkness spell.

This was a miscommunication on my part, I meant if Darkness was upcast, that those are still the restrictions. I'll fix that now.

BTW, excellent discussion going here. I appreciate the civility and willingness to dig in. It's clear we need to settle natural darkness effects before we can delve further into magical darkness. I need some time to digest before posting further thoughts, but definitely great insights from you all!

Edit: I'll be looking around for "sage advice" on the topic. I know it's not RAW, but maybe it will help with RAI (by JC at least).

[f5anor]

So RAW, even natural darkness creates a heavily obscured area which blocks vision entirely. If you try to see into it you are effectively blinded. (You are also effectively blinded if you try to look through it or out of it since the area is heavily obscured and blocks vision entirely so the clarification for looking in is redundant). Most people house rule it that natural darkness doesn't work that way since it doesn't make sense in many cases - but that is what RAW says.


I would like to argue that the confusion you are pointing out, comes from not accepting the actual RAW. If you read the rule literally, the whole topic makes sense enough.

When you look inside the darkness, you suffer from the blinded condition. This makes perfect sense to me, I would expect it should to everyone.

When you do not look inside the darkness, there is no impact on you. I would expect this also makes perfect sense.

I agree that this leaves out a lot of scenarios, such as looking past, etc. but this is where you just have to accept that its just DnD and 5e at that.

On a very basic level the only two options that really matter for targeting purposes (lets face it, thats what we are talking about) are looking inside, or looking outside the darkness.

[f5anor]

Debatable, since it's going to be a DM ruling whether you can see out of darkness.

I would argue that the rule is clear here, darkness does not stop you from seeing outside the darkness, only inside.


A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

Specific beats general after all.

So even if this is, I have to admit, a bit difficult to visualize, RAW states that you can stand inside a dark area and you can see everything clearly outside that area, but are effectively blinded when looking at objects inside the area.

[Keltest]

I would argue that the rule is clear here, darkness does not stop you from seeing outside the darkness, only inside.



Specific beats general after all.

So even if this is, I have to admit, a bit difficult to visualize, RAW states that you can stand inside a dark area and you can see everything clearly outside that area, but are effectively blinded when looking at objects inside the area.

To see something outside the area, you first have to look through the area. I cant see my monitor without looking through the space above my keyboard.

[Segev]

To see something outside the area, you first have to look through the area. I cant see my monitor without looking through the space above my keyboard.

Which means that, if you're standing outside the radius of dim light shed by your monitor, and the room your computer is in is otherwise unlit, you cannot see your monitor at all.

If you're in a peasant cottage at night with a candle lit in one corner of the room, you cannot see the flame if you stand more than 10 feet away, nor anything illuminated by it, per the interpretation of the RAW you are espousing.

[Keltest]

Which means that, if you're standing outside the radius of dim light shed by your monitor, and the room your computer is in is otherwise unlit, you cannot see your monitor at all.

If you're in a peasant cottage at night with a candle lit in one corner of the room, you cannot see the flame if you stand more than 10 feet away, nor anything illuminated by it, per the interpretation of the RAW you are espousing.

Thats correct, if i have something that, say, prevents the light from my monitor from reaching me. Perhaps a magical effect that prevents illumination of anything in the area, for example.

[Tanarii]

I would like to argue that the confusion you are pointing out, comes from not accepting the actual RAW. If you read the rule literally, the whole topic makes sense enough.

When you look inside the darkness, you suffer from the blinded condition. This makes perfect sense to me, I would expect it should to everyone.

When you do not look inside the darkness, there is no impact on you. I would expect this also makes perfect sense.
Your interpretation ignores that it says it blocks vision in the line before. It also means that the heavy obscuring rules are broken for Fogs and Foliage.

Personally I agree that is the intended interpretation of the errata'd rule on heavy obscuring, that it now works properly for normal darkness. You are effectively blinded when trying to see things inside it, but not in lit areas, including on the other side of it. And that the rule on heavy obscuring is broken for fogs and opaque obscuring.

In other words, my opinion is the "blocks vision" is a broadly descriptive statement, which is then narrowed down to the detail of how it works, which is by making you effectively blinded for things in the area only. ie apply the rules of that condition when attacking something in the area or trying to make a ability check to see something in that area. But not on the other side of it.

[Segev]

Thats correct, if i have something that, say, prevents the light from my monitor from reaching me. Perhaps a magical effect that prevents illumination of anything in the area, for example.

Per the RAW of D&D 5e that you quoted, all you need is nonmagical darkness between you and your monitor. Note that the obscurement rules say nothing about whether the source of obscurement is magical or not, and discuss darkness without discussing whether it's magical or not.

It is, however, an extremely common house rule - especially for those who support magical ink blot darkness - to treat magical darkness differently than they do nonmagical darkness, in ways that the spell doesn't call for. It is, however, the nonmagical darkness that gets the house ruling, at least by the interpretation of the RAW that supports ink blot darkness. Because it house rules nonmagical darkness to NOT be an ink blot, despite the rules supporting ink blot magical darkness applying to nonmagical darkness just as much (until they house rule nonmagical darkness to ignore the RAW).

[Keltest]

Per the RAW of D&D 5e that you quoted, all you need is nonmagical darkness between you and your monitor. Note that the obscurement rules say nothing about whether the source of obscurement is magical or not, and discuss darkness without discussing whether it's magical or not.

It is, however, an extremely common house rule - especially for those who support magical ink blot darkness - to treat magical darkness differently than they do nonmagical darkness, in ways that the spell doesn't call for. It is, however, the nonmagical darkness that gets the house ruling, at least by the interpretation of the RAW that supports ink blot darkness. Because it house rules nonmagical darkness to NOT be an ink blot, despite the rules supporting ink blot magical darkness applying to nonmagical darkness just as much (until they house rule nonmagical darkness to ignore the RAW).

Magical darkness explicitly blocks nonmagical light, full stop. Regular darkness does not. There is no rule that says you cannot perceive the existence of a light source through regular darkness even if the light itself is not bright enough to illuminate the area of darkness meaningfully. There is such a rule for magical darkness.

Maybe more to the point, everybody knows how ordinary nonmagical darkness works already. Complaining about them not spending a lot of effort on modeling a phenomenon that people understand intuitively seems like a bit of a waste of energy.

[Tanarii]

Magical darkness explicitly blocks nonmagical light, full stop
Citation needed.

[Keltest]

Citation needed.


A creature with Darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

The spell text. Emphasis mine.

I would rather not have a repeat of the argument where the air inside a sphere of darkness doesnt count as illuminated, or the vacuum if you do it in space. I think its silly and you wont change my mind on that.

[Tanarii]

The spell text. Emphasis mine.
Citation still needed. You citation doesn't say it blocks non magical light, full stop.

It says the area cannot be illuminated. That has nothing to do with blocking non magical light.

[Keltest]

Citation still needed. You citation doesn't say it blocks non magical light, full stop.

It says the area cannot be illuminated. That has nothing to do with blocking non magical light.

Thats what the words mean. If light is passing through it, its illuminating it. Thats how light works.

[Segev]

Magical darkness explicitly blocks nonmagical light, full stop. Regular darkness does not. There is no rule that says you cannot perceive the existence of a light source through regular darkness even if the light itself is not bright enough to illuminate the area of darkness meaningfully. There is such a rule for magical darkness.

It doesn't block nonmagical light. It just doesn't permit nonmagical light to illuminate things in its area.

You (or someone else, to whom I was responding) were(/was) quoting the rules on obscurement to support the notion that, by the RAW, magical darkness uses the ink blot model. The obscurement rules do not call out "magical" darkness, but just refer to "darkness," which means that, if the RAW support ink blot darkness, they support it regardless of whether it's magical or not. The only differences between the darkness spell's darkness and regular, nonmagical darkness are those spelled out in the darkness spell's text: darkvision cannot see through it (there's plenty of argument over the exact meaning of that phrase that I hope not to go into) and nonmagical light cannot illuminate things within it. (Plus some stuff about magical light sources being extinguished if they try and aren't high enough level, or dispel the darkness spell if they are high enough level.)

Nothing in there about the darkness spell's darkness creating an ink blot; that comes from the obscurement rules, if you choose to read them that way (which, to be fair, you have to if you want fog to work correctly and don't want to rule the same obscurement rules to work differently on fog and darkness).

[Tanarii]

Thats what the words mean. If light is passing through it, its illuminating it. Thats how light works.
Your citation is failing due to you not understanding what illuminating means :smallamused:

[Keltest]

So if you and I stand on the opposite sides of a sphere of darkness, and i hold up a candle, and everything in the sphere suddenly shows up in silhouette, you will tell me that you still cant see anything inside the sphere?

Perhaps there is a person in between us in the darkness sphere. He raises his hand above his head. Would you say that you could not perceive him doing that?

[Keravath]

One thing to keep in mind with the "vanta-black" interpretation. A creature in the magical darkness still can't see anything since light can not illuminate their eyes. So creatures inside are still blinded by the magical darkness.

The rules also say that you are effectively blinded looking into an area of darkness.

Mechanically, the big difference between the two - assuming that targeting of silhouettes isn't allowed and being a silhouette doesn't prevent hiding and still counts as unseen - would be that you could see through "vanta-black" magical darkness while you could not with the ink blot interpretation.

[Burley]

So if you and I stand on the opposite sides of a sphere of darkness, and i hold up a candle, and everything in the sphere suddenly shows up in silhouette, you will tell me that you still cant see anything inside the sphere?

Perhaps there is a person in between us in the darkness sphere. He raises his hand above his head. Would you say that you could not perceive him doing that?

Things are illuminated when light bounces off of things and into our eyes.

Light works by light (which is both a particle and a wave and sometimes both or either) hitting an object, the object absorbing and reflecting certain wavelengths of the light (which determines color and intensity) and the remaining reflected wavelengths travel to our eyes.
The spell Darkness would make it so that light doesn't bounce off of anything within the sphere, or (maybe more accurately, since being a emanation implies something makes up the sphere) the sphere stops light from entering in the first place by absorbing all light, letting no wavelengths reflect off, so we'd see only inky black.

There would be NO silhouette, because the light is not able to A) enter the sphere, B) bounce off of the objects within or C) escape the sphere. So, if you have a lantern and there's Darkness between us, I see Darkness, regardless of your lantern.

[Segev]

So if you and I stand on the opposite sides of a sphere of darkness, and i hold up a candle, and everything in the sphere suddenly shows up in silhouette, you will tell me that you still cant see anything inside the sphere?

Perhaps there is a person in between us in the darkness sphere. He raises his hand above his head. Would you say that you could not perceive him doing that?Same question, but no magical darkness. You're just at one end of a long corridor, unlit by anything save your candle, and I am at the other, with the same person or people doing the same things in the darkness between us.

Now, how do you answer your own question, in this circumstance?


One thing to keep in mind with the "vanta-black" interpretation. A creature in the magical darkness still can't see anything since light can not illuminate their eyes. So creatures inside are still blinded by the magical darkness.

The rules also say that you are effectively blinded looking into an area of darkness.

Mechanically, the big difference between the two - assuming that targeting of silhouettes isn't allowed and being a silhouette doesn't prevent hiding and still counts as unseen - would be that you could see through "vanta-black" magical darkness while you could not with the ink blot interpretation.Once again, consider this situation with nonmagical darkness. You're getting overly scientific on how eyes work when you try to argue that eyes must be illuminated to be able to see; by that logic, Invisible creatures cannot see, either.

There is no mechanical difference between being in nonmagical and magical darkness with respect to the effects you're discussing. We can bring in the effect on darkvision and on light sources' abilities to illuminate the area, but a simple magically-glowing sword with no spell level associated with its light will bring us back to the same consideration.

If you're on one side of a darkness spell's AoE and I'm on the other, and I hold up a magically glowing sword whose light radius ends before the darkness spell's AoE begins, can you see me or my magically glowing sword?

If we remove the magical darkness, but you still are standing in nonmagical darkness at the same distance (thus, well outside the radius of my sword's magical lighting), can you now see me and my magically glowing sword?

Please cite rules to explain any differences in your answers to these two questions.

[f5anor]

... I agree that is the intended interpretation of the errata'd rule on heavy obscuring, that it now works properly for normal darkness. You are effectively blinded when trying to see things inside it, but not in lit areas, including on the other side of it. And that the rule on heavy obscuring is broken for fogs and opaque obscuring.

In other words, my opinion is the "blocks vision" is a broadly descriptive statement, which is then narrowed down to the detail of how it works, which is by making you effectively blinded for things in the area only. ie apply the rules of that condition when attacking something in the area or trying to make a ability check to see something in that area. But not on the other side of it.

We are in agreement.

While clearly imperfect, as pointed out by others in this thread, this is the most reasonable (and most RAW) interpretation. Given the imperfections of 5e this is the best we can go for, and it even makes sort of sense.

[CapnWildefyr]

Recently there was another thread about broken mechanics... what we have here, regarding darkness and light spells, is just that.

I think the problem is that the rules for obscurement, concealment, darkness, lighting, and certain spells are blended together. Half the time the rules seem to be written only from the perspective of a creature in the area, and do not explicitly talk about creatures looking into the area or looking through the area. The spell descriptions don't get into these either, but rely on them. They all refer to each other. This means all the interpretations for each of them stack, one onto the other, like experimental error. Interpretation of obscurement + interpretation of darkness + interpretation of darkness spell = :smallconfused:

It would be better if these all just explicitly stated their game impacts directly, rather than referring to each other. For example, the rules say "Darkness creates a heavily obscured area." but also "A heavily obscured area--such as darkness..." Each defines itself in terms of the other. It's no wonder we get pages and pages of discussion about this.

Rant over. Thanks.:smallbiggrin:

[Darth Credence]

Same question, but no magical darkness. You're just at one end of a long corridor, unlit by anything save your candle, and I am at the other, with the same person or people doing the same things in the darkness between us.

Now, how do you answer your own question, in this circumstance?

I'd still be interested in hearing your answer to this question. Hearing how it works for non-magical darkness is not that interesting, IMO, but understanding how people think that would go for magical darkness with the vanta-black model is.
I'll even clarify what, exactly, I would be interested in knowing. Forget candle, let's say a bonfire on one end, patch of magical darkness in the middle, and person on the far end. If a person is standing in the middle of the patch of darkness, does the person outside of it see that person moving around in silhouette? If no, why? Is it because the light somehow passes through things inside there? If yes, how does that square with things being heavily obscured in that area, and people trying to look into the darkness being effectively blinded?

For further consideration, here is the sage advice that seems most on topic to me:

Is the area of a darkness spell opaque, i.e. blocks line of sight? So, can two creatures in a large well lit room standing on opposite sides of the area of a darkness spell see each other? I’m guessing not but just trying to reconcile the spell against how normal darkness works.
Without some ability to see through darkness, whether magical or mundane, that area is impenetrable to vision (heavily obscured, in game terms).
Seems to be saying they consider inky blot to be the correct ruling, but it still isn't exactly clear.

[da newt]

PHB pg 183
"A heavily obscured area - suck as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage - blocks vision entirely."

Unless you decide to homebrew the above RAW to longer exist, darkness (magic or non-magic) blocks vision entirely. Darkness is opaque in DnD.

[Keravath]

Once again, consider this situation with nonmagical darkness. You're getting overly scientific on how eyes work when you try to argue that eyes must be illuminated to be able to see; by that logic, Invisible creatures cannot see, either.

There is no mechanical difference between being in nonmagical and magical darkness with respect to the effects you're discussing. We can bring in the effect on darkvision and on light sources' abilities to illuminate the area, but a simple magically-glowing sword with no spell level associated with its light will bring us back to the same consideration.

If you're on one side of a darkness spell's AoE and I'm on the other, and I hold up a magically glowing sword whose light radius ends before the darkness spell's AoE begins, can you see me or my magically glowing sword?

If we remove the magical darkness, but you still are standing in nonmagical darkness at the same distance (thus, well outside the radius of my sword's magical lighting), can you now see me and my magically glowing sword?

Please cite rules to explain any differences in your answers to these two questions.

I actually wasn't going by anything scientific - I was going by the rules in the darkness spell.

"Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 1 5-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

If non-magical light can't illuminate anything within the range of magical darkness then that includes the eyes of creatures there. If the eyes can't be illuminated they can't see anything.

In the case of invisible creatures, the spell description says nothing about the eyes of creatures not being illuminated or that the creature under the effects of an invisibility spell is blinded. In fact, assuming that an invisible creature couldn't see is based on a particular "model" of invisibility. Either way, an invisible creature can see because the rules don't say otherwise.

In the case of magical Darkness the spell explicitly states that nothing inside can be illuminated and if that is the case then creatures inside can't see since seeing requires the eyes to be illuminated.

----

"There is no mechanical difference between being in nonmagical and magical darkness with respect to the effects you're discussing. We can bring in the effect on darkvision and on light sources' abilities to illuminate the area, but a simple magically-glowing sword with no spell level associated with its light will bring us back to the same consideration."

If there is no difference between nonmagical and magical darkness then the rules are pretty clear that darkness blocks vision entirely even though that makes no sense in the real world. So if you are going to use that as a starting point you have to start with the house rules that make darkness behave as we expect. (in natural darkness, in the real world, you can see the glowing sword because the light illuminates your eyes - RAW you can't, even if that makes no sense - but that is what the rules very clearly state).

In terms of what we expect natural darkness to behave as ... you can see light sources through natural darkness because your eyes are being exposed to the light source and its reflections. This light is illuminating your eyes and is translated into images.

D&D divides darkness into bright light, dim light and darkness. In the real world, you can't see things in darkness because they aren't reflecting sufficient light into your eyes. Clearly, RAW for natural darkness where it is treated as a heavily obscured area only makes sense when looking into the darkness (either from within it or outside it).

Your second example also involves a DM call. Light from a magical source is considered magical. (Is reflected light from a magical source also magical?) The Darkness spell only dispels sources of light from spells of 2nd level or less. So the sword is a magical light source that Darkness does not dispel so the Darkness area has no effect on it. However, the DM has to decide if reflected magical light is still magical. Can you use a mirror to create beams of magical light?

Anyway, if you are using RAW and darkness blocks vision entirely then the sword can be seen in neither case. If you are using house rules that make darkness behave as we expect then the magical sword can be seen in both cases since the light is magical not produced by a spell of 2nd level or less and magical Darkness does not prevent illumination by magical light - only non-magical.

So whether you use RAW or house rules for natural darkness - then both natural and magical darkness give the same answer for the source of magical light (RAW you can't see, house rules you can).

However if the sword was replaced with a lantern then RAW the darkness, magical or otherwise, blocks vision entirely so it would not be seen. Using house rules for natural darkness you could see the lantern in normal darkness but not through magical darkness because the magical darkness prevents anything in the area from being illuminated which means creatures in there can't see non-magical light from outside because their eyes can't be illuminated.

[Tanarii]

PHB pg 183
"A heavily obscured area - suck as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage - blocks vision entirely."

Unless you decide to homebrew the above RAW to longer exist, darkness (magic or non-magic) blocks vision entirely. Darkness is opaque in DnD.
Or, yknow, you could include the rest of the rule. Then it becomes ambiguous if darkness blocks vision, or if the actual result of "blocks vision entirely" = "effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions) when trying to see something in that area". At which point obscuring such as opaque fog only affects creatures trying to see something in the area (as opposed to on the other side of it).


Rant over. Thanks.:smallbiggrin:
10/10 would read again. :smallbiggrin:

[f5anor]

PHB pg 183
"A heavily obscured area - suck as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage - blocks vision entirely."

Unless you decide to homebrew the above RAW to longer exist, darkness (magic or non-magic) blocks vision entirely. Darkness is opaque in DnD.

Here is the full text of the rule.



A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

The RAW is specific that you have to look inside the area.

[Silpharon]

The RAW is specific that you have to look inside the area.

The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn't work for fog or foliage. If you are in the middle of a fog cloud, you wouldn't expect the see the clear area on the outside. Simply put, the RAW rules aren't effective in handling both darkness and real obscuration effectively. WotC seems to not have made an effort to fix this either.

Going back to inky blot magical darkness, I think that is supported (RAI) through Sage Advice (directly pulled from the Sage Advice Compendium):


Does all magical darkness block darkvision?
Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.

The word "obstructs" here supports that nonmagical light does not pass through the sphere.

[Keltest]

Why can't fog being opaque just be a separate thing from its obscurement properties? Not everything needs to be explicitly written in a single rule, and 5e presumably doesn't need to explain how seeing things works.

[Segev]

I'd still be interested in hearing your answer to this question. Hearing how it works for non-magical darkness is not that interesting, IMO, but understanding how people think that would go for magical darkness with the vanta-black model is.
I'll even clarify what, exactly, I would be interested in knowing. Forget candle, let's say a bonfire on one end, patch of magical darkness in the middle, and person on the far end. If a person is standing in the middle of the patch of darkness, does the person outside of it see that person moving around in silhouette? If no, why? Is it because the light somehow passes through things inside there? If yes, how does that square with things being heavily obscured in that area, and people trying to look into the darkness being effectively blinded?

The RAW on heavy obscurement would, depending on how you read it (and I forget which is the more recent edit to it; my apologies), either make all darkness (magical or not), fog, smoke, and even thick brush - anything that counts as "heavy obscurement" - transparent, but keep you from seeing anything within it, or would make it opaque, blocking line of sight through it.

Focusing on darkness, if the RAW for obscurement make all obscurement opaque, then you cannot see the bonfire if you are standing outside of its radius of dim light, because there is a region of heavy obscurement (darkness) between you and the bonfire. This is true regardless of whether the darkness is from the darkness spell or from simply being too far from the bonfire.

If the RAW for obscurement make all obscurement transparent (but make you unable to see whatever lies within the region of heavy obscurement), you can see the bonfire on the far side of the region of darkness, but if there is a person within the region of darkness, you cannot see them.

Now, obviously, these rules are unsatisfying for actually modelling what we expect darkness, fog, smoke, etc. to be.

We want to see silhouettes against the bonfire if there are people dancing in the darkness outside its radius, even if we can't make out any details. We do not want to see the bonfire nor the silhouettes if an eversmoking bottle was opened between us and the bonfire.

My argument for vantablack magical darkness is simply that you treat magical darkness the same way you treat nonmagical darkness. If you rule (house rule or otherwise) that darkness is transparent and you can see silhouettes if backlit by distant light sources, then you should rule that the same is true for magical darkness. If you rule (house rule or otherwise) that darkness is opaque and that standing outside the radius of dim light of a bonfire means you cannot see the bonfire nor anything lit by it, then you should rule the same is true for if there is magical darkness between you and the bonfire.

Most people who argue for ink blot darkness, in my experience, rule (house or otherwise) that nonmagical darkness is transparent, despite ruling that darkness creates an ink blot.

[Keltest]

Why should magical and nonmagical darkness be treated the same? Even with the vantablack model there are obvious differences like whether or not darkvision can see through it that differentiate the two. The darkness spell, at least, is obviously more than just a patch of ordinary darkness put where it shouldn't be.

[Segev]

Why should magical and nonmagical darkness be treated the same? Even with the vantablack model there are obvious differences like whether or not darkvision can see through it that differentiate the two. The darkness spell, at least, is obviously more than just a patch of ordinary darkness put where it shouldn't be.

They should be treated the same except where the rules say to treat them differently. Darkness can't be illuminated by nonmagical lighting, and darkvision can't see through it. It doesn't say that, "Unlike regular darkness, the magical darkness created by this spell is opaque," or anything of the sort.

If I'm 100 feet away from you in a corridor with no lighting other than the magical sword I'm holding, can you see me? By at least one interpretation of the RAW, you cannot, because there is darkness between us, and the RAW can be interpreted to say it is effectively opaque. By another (or possibly with a house rule), you can, which is more or less what you'd expect real darkness to behave like: you can't see the hand in front of your face (except as a silhouette against my sword's light, perhaps), but you can see me and the sword in the sword's light pretty clearly.

If I cast darkness centered 50 feet from me, between the two of us, can you see me and my sword? Under the first interpretation, still no, but you also haven't got any idea that anything's changed, because the darkness spell's AoE doesn't make the nonmagical darkness you're standing in any less opaque. If you have darkvision, you can tell that the darkness has encroached closer, I guess, since darkvision would have to render darkness transparent in its radius.

Under the second (possibly house ruled) interpretation, yes, because the darkness spell's darkness inherits the (possible house) ruling that you can see light sources in the distance, through areas of pure darkness, and nothing in the darkness spell description says it is more opaque than regular darkness. If you have Darkvision out to 60 feet, though, you can tell something's changed because you can no longer make out the walls and floors where I cast the darkness spell.

[Keltest]

You might be looking at a different rule than I am, because I don't see any reading of the obscurement rules that make Darkness opaque. If you're in light, then you aren't in darkness, thus you aren't obscured.

[Chronos]

Quoth Keltest:

...and 5e presumably doesn't need to explain how seeing things works.
It does when it includes magical effects that change how seeing things works, in ways that wouldn't be possible under our physics.

[Keltest]

It does when it includes magical effects that change how seeing things works, in ways that wouldn't be possible under our physics.

Fog isnt possible under our physics? Im genuinely confused by the rebuttal.

[Segev]

You might be looking at a different rule than I am, because I don't see any reading of the obscurement rules that make Darkness opaque. If you're in light, then you aren't in darkness, thus you aren't obscured.

Okay. Then how does that change if the darkness is magical, using only the RAW?

[da newt]

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area."

The first sentence states that a "heavily obscured area - blocks vision entirely." Therefor you cannot see through it because it blocks vision entirely.

The second sentence states that IF you try to see something in the heavily obscured area THEN you effectively suffer from the blinded condition. Specifically. This sentence does nothing to change the first sentence or limit it. It does not address what happens when you try to see through, beyond, or out of a heavily obscured area - but the first sentence clearly does as it states in very plain words the heavily obscured area blocks vision completely.

(and of course none of this has anything to do with how light or vision works in our world)

[Tanarii]

Okay. Then how does that change if the darkness is magical, using only the RAW?
And what house rule is implemented to make heavy obscuring work for fog? (Assuming the the RAI is non-opaque, it'd be a house rule.)

[Keravath]

Fog isnt possible under our physics? Im genuinely confused by the rebuttal.

I think he was referring to the fact that the rules treat darkness, fog and foliage identically as far as the rules as written go and that these three things REALLY do not behave the same in the real world. Fog is possible, darkness is possible but thick fog in the real world can block vision of light sources and lit areas through it while natural darkness does not.

However, RAW, both darkness and fog are considered heavily obscured areas and block vision entirely which results in several behaviours when dealing with natural darkness that really don't make sense for most folks (especially from a physics perspective).

D&D then introduces the Darkness spell (magical darkness) on top of the rules for natural darkness that are fundamentally broken from a real world experience perspective. (No one I have ever heard of plays normal darkness as it is described in the PHB). This causes some "discussion" as folks differ on how they want to interpret magical darkness and the rules as written aren't tight enough to make clear which interpretation was intended. :)

-----

I think the main reason WotC doesn't bother with these types of issues is because they don't matter at a fundamental level - except for AL, every DM runs their game using their interpretation of the rules so ultimately it doesn't make any difference since a DM will still do whatever they want no matter what is written in the book. However, I pretty much disagree with that perspective since making rules that aren't clear (when they really could be with very little effort) just invites rules arguments in groups and at the table. Having a DM simply say ... "my game, my rules" ... is a fine justification but it isn't one that typically works well when folks are trying to have fun creating a cooperative narrative.

[Keltest]

Okay. Then how does that change if the darkness is magical, using only the RAW?

Because regular light cant illuminate the darkened area of magical darkness, which makes it opaque. Not "does not", but "can not".

[f5anor]

The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn't work for fog or foliage. If you are in the middle of a fog cloud, you wouldn't expect the see the clear area on the outside. Simply put, the RAW rules aren't effective in handling both darkness and real obscuration effectively. WotC seems to not have made an effort to fix this either.


I am not sure I agree, the only difference I see is that this comparison is a bit apples to oranges. You compare an effect with limited area (magical darkness or light source in natural darkness, both come with clear range limits) to fog, an effect that is for all practical intents and purposes endless.

Obviously, if you are in an endless effect you always look inside it, since its not possible to look outside, because you cant see the end of it.

In terms of foliage I argue the same applies, if you are hidden in a tree and the foliage extends just a short distance from your eyes, then clearly you can see well enough the people outside the tree. If you are in a huge forest with no visible end, obviously once more, you cannot see the end of it and therefore cannot look outside.

Not sure what is the issue here.

[f5anor]

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area."

The first sentence states that a "heavily obscured area - blocks vision entirely." Therefor you cannot see through it because it blocks vision entirely.

The second sentence states that IF you try to see something in the heavily obscured area THEN you effectively suffer from the blinded condition. Specifically. This sentence does nothing to change the first sentence or limit it. It does not address what happens when you try to see through, beyond, or out of a heavily obscured area - but the first sentence clearly does as it states in very plain words the heavily obscured area blocks vision completely.


Specific beats general, the second sentence more precisely specifies when the opaqueness actually applies.

Opaqueness obviously is not relevant if you are not looking into the opaque effect, isn't this obvious?

[Telok]

Away from rules so don't have answers to: Does the spell say the area can't be illuminated, or that objects & creatures in the area can't be illuminated? I mean, sort of like fireball right? Fill the area with flame & everything is burnt, but put a sealed crate in and the stuff in the crate is unaffected. Put a medium/large glass box with a candle in it and does the darkness fill the box or obscure it?

Also, do I need to re-link the images of 3d modeling with negative value lights?

[f5anor]

Away from rules so don't have answers to: Does the spell say the area can't be illuminated, or that objects & creatures in the area can't be illuminated? I mean, sort of like fireball right? Fill the area with flame & everything is burnt, but put a sealed crate in and the stuff in the crate is unaffected. Put a medium/large glass box with a candle in it and does the darkness fill the box or obscure it?




Darkness
2nd-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, M (bat fur and a drop of pitch or piece of coal)
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness.

If any of this spell's area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled.

Basically it works the same way as normal darkness, except that it also affects Darkvision, cant be illuminated by light sources, and has a precisely defined area of effect (including around corners) without a dim light area around it. Also, it can "dispel" magical light created with a spell of 2nd level or lower.

[Silpharon]

Alright... I've read enough to put something down to consider. Thank you all for the great dialog, I've learned a lot from this, and you definitely contributed! I am going to attempt to infer RAI guidance, as RAW is open to multiple interpretations. I will start at the basics and get to magical darkness. Inferences are in italics.

Natural Darkness and Obscuration
Quotes from PHB Vision and Light:

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured.
Obscuration affects specific areas on the map

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
I believe the author was considering a creature being inside this heavily obscured area and trying to see something within it. Thus, "Blocks vision entirely" refers to vision into the heavily obscured specific areas.

Note that "in that area" is not "from that area" in the second sentence, and backs up the RAI interpretation of the first sentence. We will address fog and foliage separately.


Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights).
A creature can't see into darkness, but can see out of darkness.

This is also backed by common sense. The alternative would suggest a creature could not see the moon on moonlit nights, which as seen above is still "darkness".

Illumination

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.
Light creates illumination, and illumination generates regions of "bright light" or "dim light" within natural darkness.

At this point we can state that if two nearby creatures are in darkness sans obstructions, and one lights a candle, the other can see it regardless of whether it is standing in darkness or not.

Line of Sight
Oxford definition:

a straight line along which an observer has unobstructed vision.
A creature can "see" another creature if it has line of sight.
From the DMG:

To determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If at least one such line doesn't pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision-such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog-then there is line of sight.
Dense fog is opaque and obstructs vision. Dense foliage would also obstruct vision at the DM's prerogative. Thus, a creature could not see a target through these conditions.

The Fog Cloud spell creates fog that heavily obscures an area, which therefore means it's an opaque cloud, which therefore means it's a dense cloud, which therefore means it obstructs vision and line of sight is lost if it intersects the cloud.

Magical Darkness
In addition to my OP, which I still think is accurate and contains details on the Darkness spell, here is more information for RAI inference from the Sage Advice Compendium:

Does all magical darkness block darkvision?
Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.
The Darkness spell creates an obstruction to line of sight from non-magical light sources. It's like an inky blot sphere against natural light, though there is no stipulation that magical light could not pass through it. As such, regions of "bright light" or "dim light" illuminated by magical sources can be seen through it as normal.

Note that this isn't the case for all magical darkness, just "Darkness" darkness. Also as a reminder, the dispel rules in the Darkness spell only apply to spells with overlapping illumination regions, which should be read plainly, and is not relevant to this topic.

I think these RAI inferences conclude both inky blot AND not inky blot in the presence of magical light within view. It's also certainly not vanta-black. I hereby dub thee "black hole" darkness, sucking in natural light inside of a radius, but magical light is completely unaffected. Let me know if there are holes (ha) in here or how I could strengthen it. I'd like to edit the OP with this text.

[f5anor]

First of all, thanks for the good work in summarizing this difficult topic.



Magical Darkness
In addition to my OP, which I still think is accurate and contains details on the Darkness spell, here is more information for RAI inference from the Sage Advice Compendium:

The Darkness spell creates an obstruction to line of sight from non-magical light sources. It's like an inky blot sphere against natural light, though there is no stipulation that magical light could not pass through it. As such, regions of "bright light" or "dim light" illuminated by magical sources can be seen through it as normal.

Note that this isn't the case for all magical darkness, just "Darkness" darkness. Also as a reminder, the dispel rules in the Darkness spell only apply to spells with overlapping illumination regions, which should be read plainly, and is not relevant to this topic.


Regarding the above, I have a question. Given that all light sources have a specific range, and are not visible outside that range, and that Darkness will simply block natural light with overlapping range, and even "dispel" magical light sources (of sufficiently low spell level) with overlapping range, when does this RAI clarification apply?

Is it only for magical light of higher spell levels?

[Chronos]

Sure, fog clouds exist in the real world. And areas of natural darkness exist in the real world. We already know how both of those work; we don't need rules for either. But the first problem is that we do have rules for both, and the rules treat both of them the same way, even though real-world fog and darkness don't behave in the same way.

So we could just say "Well then, even though rules exist, just ignore them, and instead run things the way they work in the real world". But then the second problem arises, that the game also has effects that cause a region of darkness in an otherwise well-illuminated, unobstructed area. That's not something that can happen in the real world, and so we can't just say "run things the way they work in the real world". For magical darkness, we do need rules. But we've either already decided to ignore those rules and so have no idea how to handle magical darkness, or we're using the written rules that nonsensically treat darkness and fog the same way, or we're writing our own entirely-new rules.

[clash]

I've been following this whole thread and I've definitely changed my mind on things. I'm firmly in the vanta black approach as you are calling it. If there's a light source behind the darkness then yes you see the person's sillohuitte. I think that this is intended because with clever positioning it let's you see other people, if they are illuminated, while they can't see you. As the inky blot approach I don't see why you would cast it instead of fog cloud which is a whole spell level lower, but if you can see illuminated creatures and they can't see you, barring a light source behind the darkness, then it makes sense as a second level spell. Bear in mind it's still restricted both in placement and by the fact that if your enemy enters the area of darkness then you can't see them either.

[Keltest]

I've been following this whole thread and I've definitely changed my mind on things. I'm firmly in the vanta black approach as you are calling it. If there's a light source behind the darkness then yes you see the person's sillohuitte. I think that this is intended because with clever positioning it let's you see other people, if they are illuminated, while they can't see you. As the inky blot approach I don't see why you would cast it instead of fog cloud which is a whole spell level lower, but if you can see illuminated creatures and they can't see you, barring a light source behind the darkness, then it makes sense as a second level spell. Bear in mind it's still restricted both in placement and by the fact that if your enemy enters the area of darkness then you can't see them either.

Serious question, the rule on being obscured via darkness means you cant (or, i guess, shouldnt) see them. So why is being able to see them considered a merit of the vantablack model?

[Darth Credence]

The RAW on heavy obscurement would, depending on how you read it (and I forget which is the more recent edit to it; my apologies), either make all darkness (magical or not), fog, smoke, and even thick brush - anything that counts as "heavy obscurement" - transparent, but keep you from seeing anything within it, or would make it opaque, blocking line of sight through it.

Focusing on darkness, if the RAW for obscurement make all obscurement opaque, then you cannot see the bonfire if you are standing outside of its radius of dim light, because there is a region of heavy obscurement (darkness) between you and the bonfire. This is true regardless of whether the darkness is from the darkness spell or from simply being too far from the bonfire.

If the RAW for obscurement make all obscurement transparent (but make you unable to see whatever lies within the region of heavy obscurement), you can see the bonfire on the far side of the region of darkness, but if there is a person within the region of darkness, you cannot see them.

Now, obviously, these rules are unsatisfying for actually modelling what we expect darkness, fog, smoke, etc. to be.

We want to see silhouettes against the bonfire if there are people dancing in the darkness outside its radius, even if we can't make out any details. We do not want to see the bonfire nor the silhouettes if an eversmoking bottle was opened between us and the bonfire.

My argument for vantablack magical darkness is simply that you treat magical darkness the same way you treat nonmagical darkness. If you rule (house rule or otherwise) that darkness is transparent and you can see silhouettes if backlit by distant light sources, then you should rule that the same is true for magical darkness. If you rule (house rule or otherwise) that darkness is opaque and that standing outside the radius of dim light of a bonfire means you cannot see the bonfire nor anything lit by it, then you should rule the same is true for if there is magical darkness between you and the bonfire.

Most people who argue for ink blot darkness, in my experience, rule (house or otherwise) that nonmagical darkness is transparent, despite ruling that darkness creates an ink blot.
Since this post is a reply to a question, I'm going to take my best shot at figuring out how you were answering the question.

The question was: "Let's say a bonfire on one end, patch of magical darkness in the middle, and person on the far end. If a person is standing in the middle of the patch of darkness, does the person outside of it see that person moving around in silhouette?"
My best guess as to your answer here is that yes, you would be able to see that person moving around in silhouette. If that is incorrect, please tell me what your actual answer is so I'm not creating a strawman.
If that is the case, then anyone looking into the area is not effectively blinded, because they can see silhouettes. That seems like a fundamental problem with the vanta black model to me. Do you have an explanation for that? It also seems to directly contradict the tweet from Dan Dillon that I quoted.

[Burley]

Serious question, the rule on being obscured via darkness means you cant (or, i guess, shouldnt) see them. So why is being able to see them considered a merit of the vantablack model?

I'm with you. I've been reading this "vanta black" thing back and forth and it just doesn't, by RAW, RAI or real world application of how light works, make sense to me. It's a globe of black and only magical light of a sufficiently high level (magic items that don't say how strong (what level) their light is should be considered to have cantrip level light) can dispel it. Not pierce it, not vaguely light up the edges. Dispel.
This silhouette logic removes any strategic advantage of being inside the globe (like hiding).

[clash]

Serious question, the rule on being obscured via darkness means you cant (or, i guess, shouldnt) see them. So why is being able to see them considered a merit of the vantablack model?

To be clear I 100% think the by raw both regular and magical darkness is opaque and you can't see anything beyond it, even the moon. I don't think that was the intended effect though. I think the intention is that things in the darkness are obscured things in light are not even if darkness exists between them. I think darkness is a second level spell because it can allow you to see people while they can't see you. In order for that to be possible it must work by the vanta black model. Because the ink blot model is no different than fog cloud and if it's no different than why is it a spell level higher? So to me it seems clear this was the intention of the darkness spell, that it functions how we know regular darkness to function using common sense. Fog cloud has a longer duration and larger radius, darkness must be intended to function differently.

[Telok]

...stuff....

Thanks. They keep randomly changing the spell every edition and I end up getting confused and annoyed.

Personally, if I ran 5e I'd go with the black sphere/ink blot style. Not because of any raw, rai, rl physics, or magic nerfing, but because its simpler. Don't have to care about backlit stuff, illusions in darkness (seen people argue about illusions not making shadows because they don't really exist to reflect light and... ug, too much jank), whether or not to fiat advantage or negate disadvantage on silhouettes, etc. Just no light in, no light out, all disadvantage. Simple, easy, get on with the game.

[f5anor]

To be clear I 100% think the by raw both regular and magical darkness is opaque and you can't see anything beyond it, even the moon.

Allow me to argue that you are complicating this unnecessarily.

I agree with the assessment regarding opacity, and also with the assertion regarding this interpretation being RAW.

However the example involving the moon, is not really correct, based on the logic you express. The darkness of night is infinite for all creatures on the world, everyone out and about at night find themselves in the same darkness. Therefore, as per RAW they can clearly see light sources outside the darkness, when looking from the inside out.

Clearly the moon is a light source that finds itself outside the darkness of the night on the surface of the world.

I believe, that a lot of the unclarity and disagreements stem for the fact that people fail to take into account the size, and possibly the ubiquity, of the specific effect they theorize about, be it darkness, fog or foliage. Based on RAW, everyone inside the same effect will be able to perceive light sources external to the effect (darkness, fog or foliage).

[Silpharon]

First of all, thanks for the good work in summarizing this difficult topic.



Regarding the above, I have a question. Given that all light sources have a specific range, and are not visible outside that range, and that Darkness will simply block natural light with overlapping range, and even "dispel" magical light sources (of sufficiently low spell level) with overlapping range, when does this RAI clarification apply?

Is it only for magical light of higher spell levels?

Good question, and I think this was the same assumption that stumped me for a while. All light sources have an illumination range from which bright and dim light regions are formed. This does not mean the light source or what it's illuminating cannot be seen from outside the dim light radius. Quite the contrary, a creature in darkness can see into a distant illuminated region (and make attacks according to those attack sources' range specifications).

With that clarification, let's look at the Darkness spell scenario options.

A natural light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know non-magical light does not illuminate this darkness. We also know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the darkness looks inky blot.
A natural light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the light cannot be seen inside or through the sphere.
A magical light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. If the light source came from a spell of 2nd level or lower, the light source is dispelled. If instead it came from an item or higher spell level, it illuminates the darkness sphere like it didn't exist.
A magical light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. The sphere does not obstruct magical light. Thus, magically illuminated regions are visible inside or through the darkness sphere. This goes for any magical light source. The dispel rules only apply for overlapping illumination/darkness regions. In practice, if a creature with Darkness cast on himself is also in natural darkness, and there is a Light cantrip in the distance, the creature can see what is illuminated by that light. If he walks up to the light to within the dim light illumination region, the Light spell is dispelled and it goes dark.


Does that help?

[Demonslayer666]

If the darkness emanates from the object as per the spell description, the darkness is visible in the area of the spell. If it only created an effect of darkness on the objects in the area and was otherwise invisible, it would not say the darkness emanates from the object.

[da newt]

Completely ignoring RAW and real world physics, I've always played that darkness creates a special form of invisibility.

Anyone/thing in an area of darkness is invisible to creatures without darkvision or special senses. Darkvision allows you to see X range into normal darkness. Magic Darkness stops darkvision. But you can see through darkness and magic darkness to stuff outside it or on the other side of it - it just makes the stuff inside it invisible (so no silhouettes).

So far this has been easy to adjudicate in play and viewed as fair.

[Keravath]

Another observation ... from the shadow sorcerer.

"EYES OF THE DARK
Starting at 1st level, you have darkvision with a range of 120 feet.
When you reach 3rd level in this class, you learn the darkness spell, which doesn’t count against your
number of sorcerer spells known. In addition, you can cast it by spending 2 sorcery points or by expending a spell slot. If you cast it with sorcery points, you can see through the darkness created by the spell."

If the intended interpretation for magical darkness is natural darkness that you can see through. Why does the shadow sorcerer have the special feature that they can see through the darkness created by the Darkness spell ONLY if they cast it using sorcery points? The implication is that they can NOT see through the Darkness spell if it is cast normally. Otherwise the feature would be meaningless.

In addition, the part about blocking darkvision in the Darkness spell is also meaningless if a creature can already see through it with regular vision (including seeing silhouettes).

[f5anor]

Good question, and I think this was the same assumption that stumped me for a while. All light sources have an illumination range from which bright and dim light regions are formed. This does not mean the light source or what it's illuminating cannot be seen from outside the dim light radius. Quite the contrary, a creature in darkness can see into a distant illuminated region (and make attacks according to those attack sources' range specifications).

Indeed, this is a very good insight, thank you for clarifying. I have clearly missed this in my reasoning.

A light source creates an illuminated area, with a bright light zone and a dim light zone, beyond which there is darkness, however this does not mean that the only context where this light is visible is inside the illuminated area. Of course, creatures far outside this illuminated area, will have full visibility of the creatures inside the illuminated area and will even have advantage over them, as per the RAW. After all the attacking creature will be in the darkness, and will be attacking creatures in the light, which will have the blinded condition imposed on them, for purposes of this attack.

So far so clear.


With that clarification, let's look at the Darkness spell scenario options.
A natural light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know non-magical light does not illuminate this darkness. We also know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the darkness looks inky blot.

Check.



A natural light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the light cannot be seen inside or through the sphere.

Not sure how you mean this. As per the above example, creatures standing in darkness, far outside an illuminated area, will have full visibility of the creatures inside the illuminated area and will even have advantage over them. So, also creatures inside the magical Darkness, will see the natural light source, and the creatures inside the light source, far outside the range of the Darkness spell sphere.

To be clear, the creatures inside the Darkness, will still not be able to see each other, though, even with Darkvision.



A magical light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. If the light source came from a spell of 2nd level or lower, the light source is dispelled. If instead it came from an item or higher spell level, it illuminates the darkness sphere like it didn't exist.

Check.



A magical light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. The sphere does not obstruct magical light. Thus, magically illuminated regions are visible inside or through the darkness sphere. This goes for any magical light source. The dispel rules only apply for overlapping illumination/darkness regions. In practice, if a creature with Darkness cast on himself is also in natural darkness, and there is a Light cantrip in the distance, the creature can see what is illuminated by that light. If he walks up to the light to within the dim light illumination region, the Light spell is dispelled and it goes dark.


Check. But to be extra clear, the creatures outside the Darkness and inside the range of the magical light, will still have the blinded condition imposed on them, since the range of the magical light source is not sufficient to illuminate the Darkness affected area. The fact that the magical light is not obstructed by the Darkness, is correct, but not really impacting this scenario.

I have to agree, that there is room for shenanigans here, with respect to detecting the presence of creatures inside the Darkness, by trying to detect them blocking the magical light source in the distance. Even if they are not illuminated.

I do not consider this to be exploitable in the vast majority of cases though.



Does that help?

Thank you, indeed I appreciate the good analysis and insights.

I don't think I would have ever arrived at these insights without your help :smallsmile:

[Mellack]

As to why darkness might be a second level spell and fog cloud is 1st, I have a couple of reasons that do not rely on vision through them. Fog cloud is not movable, where darkness can be cast on an object and carried with you. It can even be turned off by covering that object. Those are big advantages to the darkness. Also, a fog cloud is itself noticeable. A block of fog in an otherwise clear region would generate some interest. Darkness blends into natural darkness and can draw much less attention.

[f5anor]

If the intended interpretation for magical darkness is natural darkness that you can see through. Why does the shadow sorcerer have the special feature that they can see through the darkness created by the Darkness spell ONLY if they cast it using sorcery points? The implication is that they can NOT see through the Darkness spell if it is cast normally. Otherwise the feature would be meaningless.

Even if a creature inside the Darkness could see other creatures outside, when inside an illuminated area, this does not mean that the creature inside the Darkness, can see in general. An example is that even if you can see the stars/moon in a dark night, this does not mean you can see in front of you.

In practice, this would mean that you basically cannot move freely or interact in any way inside the Darkness. The only benefit you have is that you can see creatures in the distance, if they are illuminated. This of course allows you to attack them with ranged attacks, as long as you don't need to move. I would say that melee attacks would not be possible under these conditions, unless you have Blind Fighting.



In addition, the part about blocking darkvision in the Darkness spell is also meaningless if a creature can already see through it with regular vision (including seeing silhouettes).

Indeed Darkvision, will not help you here, that's why there is Devil's Sight or Eyes of the Dark.

[Tanarii]

If you do some play testing with Darkness as Vantablack, I guarantee you'll start to see it's use shoot up, outside of casting it on arrowheads and shooting it into the enemy, or warlocks. Being able to create an area you can see out of but the enemy can't is incredibly useful. Hence why Warlocks with the invocation is so powerful.

Do I think it was the intended use? Heck no. Does it finally make it a useful spell compared to Fog Cloud, which is otherwise superior is almost all aspects? Heck yes! Possible too much so. :smallamused:

[Segev]

Because regular light cant illuminate the darkened area of magical darkness, which makes it opaque. Not "does not", but "can not".Even with nonmagical darkness only in this example, the light cannot illuminate the between the observer standing in darkness and the light source; if it could, that area would be at least dimly lit. The light cannot illuminate anything beyond the dimly lit radius of the light source.


Since this post is a reply to a question, I'm going to take my best shot at figuring out how you were answering the question.

The question was: "Let's say a bonfire on one end, patch of magical darkness in the middle, and person on the far end. If a person is standing in the middle of the patch of darkness, does the person outside of it see that person moving around in silhouette?"
My best guess as to your answer here is that yes, you would be able to see that person moving around in silhouette. If that is incorrect, please tell me what your actual answer is so I'm not creating a strawman.
If that is the case, then anyone looking into the area is not effectively blinded, because they can see silhouettes. That seems like a fundamental problem with the vanta black model to me. Do you have an explanation for that? It also seems to directly contradict the tweet from Dan Dillon that I quoted.

Actually, if you go strictly by the RAW, the darkness, magical or otherwise, behaves exactly the same way as if you had thick smoke or fog. This can be treated in one of two ways, depending on how you interpret the heavy obscurement rules:

1) The obscurement is opaque and blocks all light and lines of sight through the area. In this interpretation, fog and smoke behave as you would expect, while darkness is an ink blot even when nonmagical.
2) The obscurement is not opaque, and if you look into the obscured area, you cannot see anything in it, but if you look beyond it, you can see things beyond it. This makes fog and smoke transparent except when you're focusing your gaze on the space it occupies, at which point you are "effectively blinded" and presumably see the smoke/fog/darkness only.

Because of how the RAW are worded, the RAW would say that, no, you do not see silhouettes in the heavily obscured space; things there cannot be seen and are effectively invisible.

In interpretation (2), if you try to look at anything in the heavily obscured region, you are "effectively blinded," which presumably means you see nothing but the obscurement (i.e. the fog, smoke, magical or nonmagical darkness, or whatever), but if you look at something beyond it, you cannot see the things within it but you can see the things beyond it ,so you still see no silhouettes; again, things are effectively invisible inside the heavily obscured region. By the RAW.



This is, of course, not at all how we expect things to operate intuitively, which is why most people who study the RAW closely agree that the RAW on heavy obscurement are a bit of a mess, and pretty much everybody house rules (at least nonmagical) darkness to operate differently than fog or smoke, because interpretation (1) works well for how we expect nonmagical darkness to work, and (2) works well for how we expect smoke to work...kind-of.

In reality, we still house rule them, because we'd tend to rule that if you see a camp fire 100 feet away in an otherwise (nonmagically) dark space, and somebody walks between you and the camp fire fifty feet from you, you could see the silhouette, but not see the person as if they were actually lit up. The RAW, as discussed, would actually have you not see the silhouette, either, but most people would house rule that you do.

We also tend to house rule that smoke, fog, and similar things not only block light passing through them, but keep you from seeing things on the far side of them, regardless of which ruling on heavy obscurement we use as a base.

I would generally allow you to see silhouettes in dark areas if a source of light is beyond them for them to block. I would still treat you as having disadvantage to target them, due to the severe lack of normally-available visual information that tells you things like depth and distance, and the tendency for silhouettes of this sort to overlap and create false impressions of what is being seen. But this is a house rule.

[sithlordnergal]

Same question, but no magical darkness. You're just at one end of a long corridor, unlit by anything save your candle, and I am at the other, with the same person or people doing the same things in the darkness between us.

Now, how do you answer your own question, in this circumstance?



Non-magical darkness doesn't block light. Therefore, you can see the light because it is no longer absolute darkness.

[f5anor]

Actually, if you go strictly by the RAW, the darkness, magical or otherwise, behaves exactly the same way as if you had thick smoke or fog. This can be treated in one of two ways, depending on how you interpret the heavy obscurement rules:

1) The obscurement is opaque and blocks all light and lines of sight through the area. In this interpretation, fog and smoke behave as you would expect, while darkness is an ink blot even when nonmagical.
2) The obscurement is not opaque, and if you look into the obscured area, you cannot see anything in it, but if you look beyond it, you can see things beyond it. This makes fog and smoke transparent except when you're focusing your gaze on the space it occupies, at which point you are "effectively blinded" and presumably see the smoke/fog/darkness only.


Thank you for the very clear presentation of this complex topic. I have to say this thread is turning out to be quite illuminating (pun intended :smallsmile:)

Please allow me this observation, could it be that the only difference between the two options is really literally a matter of perception?

After all, if you are standing in front of a huge black sphere of darkness, you will have no choice but to look inside it, in which case you will not see anything. This would satisfy both options.

If you are standing further away, you will have a choice of either looking directly into the blackness or past it.
If you are looking directly into it, you will, once again, not see anything. This would satisfy both options.
If you are looking past it you will of course not be looking into the darkness, and then you will be able to see what is past it. This also would satisfy both options.


Is there really a practical case where you will try to look directly into darkness and expect to see what is behind it? This seems to me to be an artificial scenario.

[Osuniev]

I respect both the Inky Blot interpretation and the Vantablack interpretation, so I'm not trying to argue anyone is wrong (I believe the RAW rules on normal, non-magical darkness are written in an ambiguous way). In my games, I allaow Drakness to be cast with either interpretation, choice of the caster (it's powerful, but still not game breakin, in my opinion).

I just would like to give some pointers to the proponents of Inky Blot Darkness, so you can better understand the proponent of Vantablack Darkness (wich doesn't mean you need to agree ) :

- If I'm standing 300 feet away from a bonfire, and someone is in the darkness (non-magical) in between the fire and me, do I "see" him (in the real world) ?
It depends what you call "see" :
--> I can probably see that there's "something". In theory, I can see a silhouette if the bonfire is huge, like a forest fire. In practice, a bonfire wouldn't draw a FULL silhouette, but I would notice something. In game tems, that means I know the POSITION of the opponent, but I still have DISADVANTAGE to hit them.
--> I cannot see if that person is a goblin or a hobbit, I cannot see if they're drawing a bow, etc. In game terms, that archer would have ADVANTAGE to hit me.
--> If that person were to stop moving, crouch, etc... It's quite possible that I might not notice them. In game terms, it's possible for them to HIDE.

Note that whether you consider non-magical darkness to be opaque RAW, you probably agree with these 3 options when you play them at the table...

[Rukelnikov]

The vision rules in 5e suck I've gone on record saying this many times in the past, and have had my fair share of arguing over it on this very forum, I haven't finished reading this thread yet, and plan on making a longer post maybe tomorrow if I have time, but for now I'll say the following is a false dichotomy:


The RAW is specific that you have to look inside the area.


The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn't work for fog or foliage. If you are in the middle of a fog cloud, you wouldn't expect the see the clear area on the outside. Simply put, the RAW rules aren't effective in handling both darkness and real obscuration effectively. WotC seems to not have made an effort to fix this either.

The rules don't say wooden walls provide heavy obscurement for things on the other side of them, should we interpret that walls are transparent in 5e? No. Even without the rules for vision we have a tacit understanding that a wooden wall will block our vision. In the same manner, a shield blocks our vision, even if its not there in the object description. So if we acknowledge that things don't need to specify that they block vision in order to do it, then we also know foliage blocks our vision.

So the RAW allows for the blinded condition only being applied when looking into the heavily obscured area, while also allowing dense foliage (and wooden walls, shields, etc) to block vision.

[Osuniev]

Note that being in foliage doesn't necesserily mean you cannot see OUT of it. Anyone who's played hide and seek has the experience of seeing someone outside of your hiding place whilst they don't see you.

[Chronos]

Seeing out of a hiding spot in foliage means that you don't have total obscurement. You have partial obscurement, enough to allow you to hide, but with total obscurement, you can't see either way.

If you're in a situation where you can see someone's silhouette, then by real-world logic, you wouldn't be able to tell what they're doing with their arms while their arms are in front of their body, and even if they had arms off to the sides, you wouldn't be able to tell a forward motion from a backwards motion, so you probably would have a hard time dodging or otherwise defending against any attacks they might make. But you would still be able to see very clearly where the boundary is between "enemy" and "open space", and still have a very precise notion of where the center of the silhouette is, so you should have no difficulty attacking them. Translated into game terms, this would mean that they would have advantage to hit you, but you would not have disadvantage to hit them... except that the game rules don't go into that level of detail.


Quoth f5anor:


If you are standing further away, you will have a choice of either looking directly into the blackness or past it.

If you are looking directly into it, you will, once again, not see anything. This would satisfy both options.
If you are looking past it you will of course not be looking into the darkness, and then you will be able to see what is past it. This also would satisfy both options.
This interpretation leads to absurdities. Suppose that I have a long tunnel, illuminated by (nonmagical) torches. In the middle of the tunnel, there is a solid door, to block off the tunnel. The door is currently open, and there is a kobold standing in the doorway. A wizard, at one end of the tunnel, casts Darkness centered on the doorway. By your interpretation, the wizard can not see the kobold, and can not see whether the door is open or closed, because they're in the darkness, but she can still see the tunnel beyond the doorway. Now the kobold closes the door. Can the wizard still see the tunnel beyond the doorway, through the closed door? Can she see that the door is now closed, even though she can't see the door?

[f5anor]

This interpretation leads to absurdities. Suppose that I have a long tunnel, illuminated by (nonmagical) torches. In the middle of the tunnel, there is a solid door, to block off the tunnel. The door is currently open, and there is a kobold standing in the doorway. A wizard, at one end of the tunnel, casts Darkness centered on the doorway. By your interpretation, the wizard can not see the kobold, and can not see whether the door is open or closed, because they're in the darkness,

So far so clear


but she can still see the tunnel beyond the doorway.

I am not following you here, apologies:

Why would the Wizard be able to see through Darkness?
What is the logic that could motivate visibility through the walls, the doorframe, the roof in order to achieve vision past the Darkness?




A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

According to RAW the Wizard would be suffering from the blinded condition when looking into the Darkness.

Clearly regardless of Darkness spell, or not, the Wizard in your example cannot see through solid objects.

If there happens to be a gap of open space somewhere, then possibly the Wizard could see through that open space, if it is not covered by Darkness.


Now the kobold closes the door. Can the wizard still see the tunnel beyond the doorway, through the closed door? Can she see that the door is now closed, even though she can't see the door?

I do not follow your logic, apologies. Why would the Wizard be able to see through Darkness?

[Tanarii]

I am not following you here, apologies:

Why would the Wizard be able to see through Darkness?
What is the logic that could motivate visibility through the walls, the doorframe, the roof in order to achieve vision past the Darkness?




According to RAW the Wizard would be suffering from the blinded condition when looking into the Darkness.
Same question, except someone puts out the torches in the middle of the hallway.

Segev's explanation of the two interpretation of how heavy obscuring works is a meaningful and IMO commonly encountered situation in adventuring: light sources on either side of a patch of unlit area (which is by definition heavily obscured).

If heavy obscuring blocks vision, creatures in these two areas cannot see each other. If it blocks vision by making you effectively blinded while trying to see creatures in the heavily obscured area, they can.

[Keravath]

I respect both the Inky Blot interpretation and the Vantablack interpretation, so I'm not trying to argue anyone is wrong (I believe the RAW rules on normal, non-magical darkness are written in an ambiguous way). In my games, I allaow Drakness to be cast with either interpretation, choice of the caster (it's powerful, but still not game breakin, in my opinion).

I just would like to give some pointers to the proponents of Inky Blot Darkness, so you can better understand the proponent of Vantablack Darkness (wich doesn't mean you need to agree ) :

- If I'm standing 300 feet away from a bonfire, and someone is in the darkness (non-magical) in between the fire and me, do I "see" him (in the real world) ?
It depends what you call "see" :
--> I can probably see that there's "something". In theory, I can see a silhouette if the bonfire is huge, like a forest fire. In practice, a bonfire wouldn't draw a FULL silhouette, but I would notice something. In game tems, that means I know the POSITION of the opponent, but I still have DISADVANTAGE to hit them.
--> I cannot see if that person is a goblin or a hobbit, I cannot see if they're drawing a bow, etc. In game terms, that archer would have ADVANTAGE to hit me.
--> If that person were to stop moving, crouch, etc... It's quite possible that I might not notice them. In game terms, it's possible for them to HIDE.

Note that whether you consider non-magical darkness to be opaque RAW, you probably agree with these 3 options when you play them at the table...

Instead of a bonfire 300' away, consider the use of the Darkness spell on a bright sunny day with light all around since that is clearly another application of the spell. There is light passing through the Darkness from every direction. Any creatures inside would be clearly silhouetted against the daylight.

If I have a player aim an attack at a silhouette can I, as DM, reasonably say that the creature can't be seen? Does the creature in the magical Darkness have the option to make a stealth check and become hidden (thus presumably not revealing a silhouette somehow?).

Does a creature inside the Darkness have advantage to make attacks on creatures outside even though their silhouette can be clearly seen? How does this work with the rule that creatures outside are effectively blinded looking in when they can clearly and easily see the position of the creature due to the silhouette?

I agree that a silhouette isn't quite the same as having a clear view of the creature. However, it is certainly enough to be able to aim a ranged attack with no significant impairment when making the attack - except the rules say they are blinded?

I don't know but it seems to me that the magical natural darkness interpretation leads to a situation where the DM has to make a lot of rulings, regarding light outside vs inside - seeing though the darkness - silhouetting of objects and creatures in the darkness - application of advantage and disadvantage - some of which the players may disagree on when they say they can clearly see the silhouette so how can the DM rule that the character is blinded?

How can you even see silhouettes if you are blinded when looking at anything inside? Do you just focus your eyes on the far side of the Darkness so you aren't looking in but then happen to see everything there since you aren't blinded because you aren't specifically looking into the Darkness but through it?

Obviously, you can discuss what RAW says for much too long :) ... but personally, I find the ink blot interpretation just a lot easier to DM since there are no edge cases or weird light interactions like silhouettes that you can see if you don't look into the darkness but can't see if you do look into the darkness because you are blinded :)

As far as justifying Darkness as a 2nd level spell vs Fog Cloud -
- Darkness can be cast on an object, moved around, turned on and off by covering the object. Magical Darkness is really some sort of anti-light given the description of how it spreads around corners and blocks light.
- Darkness can be seen through if you have devil's sight or are a shadow sorcerer - Fog Cloud can't - though you can negate the effects of Fog Cloud in combat with blindsight.

As far as allowing everyone in Darkness to see out and everyone looking in being blinded thus granting everyone inside advantage on attack rolls and everyone outside disadvantage (as well as blocking op attacks for anyone inside the darkness), as DM, I find that too powerful for a 2nd level spell available to 3rd level characters. On the other hand, if a DM was running a game using the optional flanking rules (which I never use), perhaps they might not consider it an issue since advantage would be pretty common already.

So, honestly, my main reasons to use the ink blot interpretation are
- easy to DM and adjudicate lighting effects
- easy to explain to the players
- doesn't provide a easy way to generate advantage for everyone (and disadvantage to be hit) without investing in additional abilities like Devils sight - since personally, I think that is too powerful for a 2nd level spell that can last 10 minutes.

In addition, proper placement of the "vanta-black" version in the right terrain will even give the front line melee just inside the darkness advantage on attacks and disadvantage to be hit by adjacent opponents just outside the darkness. A second level bless can only affect 4 players, only adds 1d4 to attacks and saves, and only lasts 1 minute. The "vanta-black" version of Darkness can grant advantage to hit, disadvantage to be hit, ability to move without op attacks, and lasts 10 minutes ... and bless is generally considered a very good spell already. So just from a game balance perspective (for my games), I wouldn't use that interpretation of the spell. :)

[Keltest]

Same question, except someone puts out the torches in the middle of the hallway.

Segev's explanation of the two interpretation of how heavy obscuring works is a meaningful and IMO commonly encountered situation in adventuring: light sources on either side of a patch of unlit area (which is by definition heavily obscured).

If heavy obscuring blocks vision, creatures in these two areas cannot see each other. If it blocks vision by making you effectively blinded while trying to see creatures in the heavily obscured area, they can.

Being heavily obscured only blocks vision into the area that is obscured. In this case, ordinary darkness doesnt block vision into the lit areas, because theyre, well, lit. Fog would, not because its obscured, but because separately from the obscurement it is also opaque. Foliage could theoretically go either way depending on the circumstances, it would be a DM call about whether the foliage is thick enough to not see out of as well. Magical darkness is technically not totally opaque, but since it blocks normal light anyway, you would only be able to see areas lit via magical light through it, so functionally its very similar to being fully opaque.

[Keravath]

Same question, except someone puts out the torches in the middle of the hallway.

Segev's explanation of the two interpretation of how heavy obscuring works is a meaningful and IMO commonly encountered situation in adventuring: light sources on either side of a patch of unlit area (which is by definition heavily obscured).

If heavy obscuring blocks vision, creatures in these two areas cannot see each other. If it blocks vision by making you effectively blinded while trying to see creatures in the heavily obscured area, they can.

The issue here comes down to the vision rules as written being broken.

If you replace that darkness between the two areas of light with dense fog or foliage then the natural expectation is that they can not see each other.

"A heavily obscured area-such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage-blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."

Both sentences apply equally to darkness, fog and foliage. So if you want to go with RAW you either get a situation where characters can see through things that are known to be opaque (fog and foliage) or where darkness blocks light. RAW you can't apply the first sentence to fog and foliage and the second to darkness because the rules don't distinguish them.

Examples:

- Two clearings in a jungle with 50' of dense foliage in between. Characters in the foliage can't see. However, dense foliage doesn't block vision between the two clearing because you are only blinded when looking into the foliage. So the creatures in the clearings can see each other through 50' of dense jungle (ummm I don't think so).
- A creature in the jungle with 25' of thick foliage between themselves and the clearings can't see anyone else in the jungle but can clearly see the creatures in the clearings (again no).

Fog cloud is equally broken when applying just the "blinded when looking into heavily obscured areas". So if you decide to play darkness using just the second sentence then RAW you treat fog and foliage the same way - or you house rule it.

Either way, the discussion is essentially pointless because the rule that is fundamental to understanding the issue is intrinsically broken. At least, I don't see any way that the two sentences can reasonably apply to fog, foliage and darkness at the same time.

Personally, I go with the "blocks vision entirely" ... which is completely consistent with the "blinded when looking in" line since it is automatically true if the heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely ... and then house rule for natural darkness to behave as expected in the real world since that way at least the rules cover two of the three conditions reasonably well. At least that way I am using all of the RAW available. House ruling that darkness, fog and foliage don't block vision entirely requires ignoring that sentence in the rules entirely.

[Keltest]

The issue here comes down to the vision rules as written being broken.

If you replace that darkness between the two areas of light with dense fog or foliage then the natural expectation is that they can not see each other.

"A heavily obscured area-such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage-blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."

Both sentences apply equally to darkness, fog and foliage. So if you want to go with RAW you either get a situation where characters can see through things that are known to be opaque (fog and foliage) or where darkness blocks light. RAW you can't apply the first sentence to fog and foliage and the second to darkness because the rules don't distinguish them.

Examples:

- Two clearings in a jungle with 50' of dense foliage in between. Characters in the foliage can't see. However, dense foliage doesn't block vision between the two clearing because you are only blinded when looking into the foliage. So the creatures in the clearings can see each other through 50' of dense jungle (ummm I don't think so).
- A creature in the jungle with 25' of thick foliage between themselves and the clearings can't see anyone else in the jungle but can clearly see the creatures in the clearings (again no).

Fog cloud is equally broken when applying just the "blinded when looking into heavily obscured areas". So if you decide to play darkness using just the second sentence then RAW you treat fog and foliage the same way - or you house rule it.

Either way, the discussion is essentially pointless because the rule that is fundamental to understanding the issue is intrinsically broken. At least, I don't see any way that the two sentences can reasonably apply to fog, foliage and darkness at the same time.

Personally, I go with the "blocks vision entirely" ... which is completely consistent with the "blinded when looking in" line since it is automatically true if the heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely ... and then house rule for natural darkness to behave as expected in the real world since that way at least the rules cover two of the three conditions reasonably well. At least that way I am using all of the RAW available. House ruling that darkness, fog and foliage don't block vision entirely requires ignoring that sentence in the rules entirely.

I think if you read "blocks vision entirely" as pertaining only to the obscured area (which in context is IMO a valid reading of the sentence) as opposed to "is totally opaque" (which is technically also a valid interpretation, but as you note creates scenarios that dont make sense) then the rule works just fine.

[Rukelnikov]

The issue here comes down to the vision rules as written being broken.

Yeah


Examples:

- Two clearings in a jungle with 50' of dense foliage in between. Characters in the foliage can't see. However, dense foliage doesn't block vision between the two clearing because you are only blinded when looking into the foliage. So the creatures in the clearings can see each other through 50' of dense jungle (ummm I don't think so).

Replace "dense foliage" with "a 50' diameter 3 stories tower", "a 50' diameter 3 stories tower" is not said to block vision either, thus both creatures can see the other. In any case, the adjectives "opaque fog" and "dense foliage" allow the DM to decide if a given patch of fog's opacity is enough to qualify as "opaque", and if a given foliage's density is nough to count as "dense".


- A creature in the jungle with 25' of thick foliage between themselves and the clearings can't see anyone else in the jungle but can clearly see the creatures in the clearings (again no).

Again, replace "25' of thick foliage" with "inside a 25' radius 3 stories tower".


Fog cloud is equally broken when applying just the "blinded when looking into heavily obscured areas". So if you decide to play darkness using just the second sentence then RAW you treat fog and foliage the same way - or you house rule it.

Same as both above

[f5anor]

Same question, except someone puts out the torches in the middle of the hallway.

Segev's explanation of the two interpretation of how heavy obscuring works is a meaningful and IMO commonly encountered situation in adventuring: light sources on either side of a patch of unlit area (which is by definition heavily obscured).

If heavy obscuring blocks vision, creatures in these two areas cannot see each other. If it blocks vision by making you effectively blinded while trying to see creatures in the heavily obscured area, they can.

I assume I am too thick here, please bear with me.

Is this the scenario you are thinking of? A place where both ends of the room are illuminated and the middle is dark, far outside the range of illumination from both sides. We can also assume that a Darkness spell is cast in the middle of the natural darkness area.

Well in this case, for a person that is standing in one of the illuminated areas,

the darkness both natural and magical will be dark, i.e. if you look into it you will suffer from blindness condition. This means you can not see the illuminated areas past the darkness.
the illuminated areas will be clearly visible as long as the person does not look into the darkness, i.e. only when he looks past it.
If you cannot look past the darkness, you will only see darkness


I fail to understand, the complexity here.

I understand that this scenario makes more sense for the magical Darkness that can be imagined to be blocking the light. Also, this setup may feel strange when compared to a real life scenario, where the light source would always be visible, regardless of darkness.

Please bear in mind that you can still attack such targets, they are not per se invisible just because they are heavily obscured.

But in any case, this is how the RAW is defined, and it suits the needs well enough.

[Segev]

Non-magical darkness doesn't block light. Therefore, you can see the light because it is no longer absolute darkness.Nowhere does the darkness spell state that it "blocks light," either. It only says that (as is the case with nonmagical darkness outside the illumination radius of any light source) light doesn't illuminate things within it.


Thank you for the very clear presentation of this complex topic. I have to say this thread is turning out to be quite illuminating (pun intended :smallsmile:)You're welcome! I'm glad the explanation was helpful.


Please allow me this observation, could it be that the only difference between the two options is really literally a matter of perception?

After all, if you are standing in front of a huge black sphere of darkness, you will have no choice but to look inside it, in which case you will not see anything. This would satisfy both options.

If you are standing further away, you will have a choice of either looking directly into the blackness or past it.
If you are looking directly into it, you will, once again, not see anything. This would satisfy both options.
If you are looking past it you will of course not be looking into the darkness, and then you will be able to see what is past it. This also would satisfy both options.


Is there really a practical case where you will try to look directly into darkness and expect to see what is behind it? This seems to me to be an artificial scenario.Yes. If I am standing in the dark, say 50 feet away from a torch-bearing adventurer, I expect to be able to look through the darkness and see the creature holding the torch, because that creature is illuminated by the torch and there is nothing (except totally normal darkness) between me and that creature. This scenario can come up in "spy on and ambush some guards" plans fairly easily, and creates considerations about where guards really would have light.


Same question, except someone puts out the torches in the middle of the hallway.

Segev's explanation of the two interpretation of how heavy obscuring works is a meaningful and IMO commonly encountered situation in adventuring: light sources on either side of a patch of unlit area (which is by definition heavily obscured).

If heavy obscuring blocks vision, creatures in these two areas cannot see each other. If it blocks vision by making you effectively blinded while trying to see creatures in the heavily obscured area, they can.Exactly. Thank you for summarizing my too-long explanation so clearly.


Instead of a bonfire 300' away, consider the use of the Darkness spell on a bright sunny day with light all around since that is clearly another application of the spell. There is light passing through the Darkness from every direction. Any creatures inside would be clearly silhouetted against the daylight.

If I have a player aim an attack at a silhouette can I, as DM, reasonably say that the creature can't be seen? Does the creature in the magical Darkness have the option to make a stealth check and become hidden (thus presumably not revealing a silhouette somehow?). Yes, you can. If we're talking about house ruling darkness (magical or otherwise) to work as we expect in the real world, as opposed to how the RAW work, then the fact that the silhouettes deny you all sorts of information about the position of limbs, the depth of field, whether the silhouette is one thing or multiple things overlapping, etc., is sufficient to say that you cannot see the creature, only that there is Something There. A really good Investigation check might let an observer puzzle out some facts from prolonged observation, but still, you know little about the creature in most circumstances. The absolute best-case scenario for the observer is a single creature in a white room with that patch of darkness covering said creature, and in that case, you get a sharp silhouette if the creature is posing in ways that accent the outline. Which almost certainly means it isn't actually directing any weapons at you, if nothing else, since that involves stances that cause the weapons to overlap heavily with the body behind them, and immediately starts obscuring what's being used.


Does a creature inside the Darkness have advantage to make attacks on creatures outside even though their silhouette can be clearly seen? How does this work with the rule that creatures outside are effectively blinded looking in when they can clearly and easily see the position of the creature due to the silhouette?If we're sticking to strict RAW, then you don't see the silhouette, regardless of whether it's magical or nonmagical darkness. You see, when looking at something in the darkness, nothing but the ink blot. Possibly, you see nothing but darkness at all, if you interpret "effectively blinded" to apply to the observer, and not restricted to being blind solely wrt what is being observed in the obscured area.

I want to emphasize, if we work with pure RAW, that you do not see silhouettes, and either see nonmagical darkness as an ink blot or can see straight through all kinds of darkness as well as fog and other such things if you are looking past them. If you're strictly following the RAW, there is nothing distinguishing nonmagical darkness from magical darkness that would cause one to be an ink blot and the other to be vantablack; it's either-or, with both of them behaving the same way.


I agree that a silhouette isn't quite the same as having a clear view of the creature. However, it is certainly enough to be able to aim a ranged attack with no significant impairment when making the attack - except the rules say they are blinded?If we house rule it so that darkness behaves the way we expect it to IRL, and thus we can see the silhouette, yes, the lack of depth information, coupled with any possible overlapping of the silhouette with itself or other silhouettes, is sufficient to make it so that you have Disadvantage on attacks against the creature.

Please note that, even if the creature were Invisible, the RAW allow you to know where the creature is if it is not hiding. So there is no inconsistency, here; it's just easier to explain HOW you know where the silhouetted creature is than the Invisible one (which usually relies on "well, you can hear them moving, or something").


I don't know but it seems to me that the magical natural darkness interpretation leads to a situation where the DM has to make a lot of rulings, regarding light outside vs inside - seeing though the darkness - silhouetting of objects and creatures in the darkness - application of advantage and disadvantage - some of which the players may disagree on when they say they can clearly see the silhouette so how can the DM rule that the character is blinded?If we stick to the RAW, then darkness never behaves the way we expect it to, even if nonmagical, so the DM is likely already making a lot of rulings, possibly without even realizing it. Including to have darkness behave differently than thick smoke.


How can you even see silhouettes if you are blinded when looking at anything inside? Do you just focus your eyes on the far side of the Darkness so you aren't looking in but then happen to see everything there since you aren't blinded because you aren't specifically looking into the Darkness but through it?Again, if we're working with the RAW rather than house rulings, you don't see the silhouettes. But if we're working with strict RAW, then smoke, fog, magical darkness, and nonmagical darkness all behave identically, and all behave in ways that do not reflect how we expect them to in the real world. I can guarantee that nobody who wasn't deliberately making a point or otherwise running it for humor value has ever run heavy obcurement strictly by the RAW, and that most DMs who aren't heavily invested in this kind of rules analysis just assume they know how things work in the real world and make rulings based on that. Which is, largely, the intent of 5e's "rulings, not rules" philosophy.


Obviously, you can discuss what RAW says for much too long :) ... but personally, I find the ink blot interpretation just a lot easier to DM since there are no edge cases or weird light interactions like silhouettes that you can see if you don't look into the darkness but can't see if you do look into the darkness because you are blinded :) Sure. But then, the ink blot interpretation of nonmagical darkness is equally "easier to DM."

In addition, proper placement of the "vanta-black" version in the right terrain will even give the front line melee just inside the darkness advantage on attacks and disadvantage to be hit by adjacent opponents just outside the darkness. A second level bless can only affect 4 players, only adds 1d4 to attacks and saves, and only lasts 1 minute. The "vanta-black" version of Darkness can grant advantage to hit, disadvantage to be hit, ability to move without op attacks, and lasts 10 minutes ... and bless is generally considered a very good spell already. So just from a game balance perspective (for my games), I wouldn't use that interpretation of the spell. :)A second level spell is supposed to be stronger than an upcast 1st level spell. And "with careful placement" means you're already limiting the use and having to have teamwork and cooperation to make it work ideally. I see no issue.

I do want to touch on something I thought I saw in this post, but apparently missed in my quotes: Yes, by the vantablack/silhouettes interpretation, creatures whose silhouettes could theoretically be seen can hide, because they're heavily obscured. This even makes sense; they alter their outline to appear to be something else, or they step in front of or behind something else's silhouette, or they even crouch low to the ground to blend in with any unevenness of said ground, or the black circle on the ground made by the darkness.


The issue here comes down to the vision rules as written being broken.Absolutely. Note, again, that, by the RAW, you do not see silhouettes of creatures in dark areas, even if magic isn't involved. You could be standing inside a dark cave, looking out into the sunlit cave mouth, and if you waved your hand in front of your face, you wouldn't see its silhouette, because it's heavily obscured. Also, if you tried to look at your buddy five feet in front of you, who is also in the dark with you, you wouldn't see anything at all except utter darkness (not even the mouth of the cave), because you're "Effectively Blinded" while looking at something in the darkness.

Furthermore, as you outline below, if the cave had dense foliage choking its path to the opening, you could see straight through it if you're looking at things outside the cave mouth, but become "effectively blinded" if you try to look at something in the foliage.

So, yes, the RAW are fundamentally broken if their purpose is to simulate what we expect from reality.


If you replace that darkness between the two areas of light with dense fog or foliage then the natural expectation is that they can not see each other. Right. Smoke, fog, foliage, etc. behave differently, IRL, than natural darkness does. Unfortunately, part of the fundamentally broken nature of the RAW on heavy obscurement is that smoke, fog, foliage, etc. do not behave differently from (nonmagical or magical) darkness under the RAW for heavy obscurement. As you note here:


"A heavily obscured area-such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage-blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."

Both sentences apply equally to darkness, fog and foliage. So if you want to go with RAW you either get a situation where characters can see through things that are known to be opaque (fog and foliage) or where darkness blocks light. RAW you can't apply the first sentence to fog and foliage and the second to darkness because the rules don't distinguish them.

Examples:

- Two clearings in a jungle with 50' of dense foliage in between. Characters in the foliage can't see. However, dense foliage doesn't block vision between the two clearing because you are only blinded when looking into the foliage. So the creatures in the clearings can see each other through 50' of dense jungle (ummm I don't think so).
- A creature in the jungle with 25' of thick foliage between themselves and the clearings can't see anyone else in the jungle but can clearly see the creatures in the clearings (again no).

Fog cloud is equally broken when applying just the "blinded when looking into heavily obscured areas". So if you decide to play darkness using just the second sentence then RAW you treat fog and foliage the same way - or you house rule it.

Either way, the discussion is essentially pointless because the rule that is fundamental to understanding the issue is intrinsically broken. At least, I don't see any way that the two sentences can reasonably apply to fog, foliage and darkness at the same time. It's not pointless. Once we get to the point of understanding that the RAW are already fundamentally broken if what we're after is verisimilitude, we can stop leaning on the RAW to make (bad) arguments about how darkness and darkness work.


Personally, I go with the "blocks vision entirely" ... which is completely consistent with the "blinded when looking in" line since it is automatically true if the heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely ... and then house rule for natural darkness to behave as expected in the real world since that way at least the rules cover two of the three conditions reasonably well. At least that way I am using all of the RAW available. House ruling that darkness, fog and foliage don't block vision entirely requires ignoring that sentence in the rules entirely.See, here's the thing: you're house ruling nonmagical darkness to behave differently than the AoE of the darkness spell. Why the difference?

I have limited problem with the choice, mind, but it does highlight that the reason darkness doesn't actually create darkness, but instead creates a black opaque sphere, is simply because you rule it to be so.

Personally, I rule heavy obscurement about the same way you do, with opaque sources of it blocking line of sight and probably light (though arguably, fog thick enough to heavily obscure could still be backlit enough to show silhouettes, under certain circumstances; I believe some rock concerts use this effect on purpose), and with darkness being transparent but preventing you from seeing anything (except silhouettes) in the region of darkness. I just don't rule that darkness doesn't create darkness. I treat darkness as following the same rules as darkness, except for what the spell says it does differently, on the basis that if the spell were meant to behave differently than darkness, the spell wouldn't talk about illumination and lean on the underlying darkness rules and would instead use terminology that indicated it created a black sphere that blocks all sight.

Since we're house ruling anyway, it is of course valid to rule as you do. I just find it arbitrary and inconsistent, and do not find that it actually avoids edge cases because you're putting those edge cases you claim you're avoiding right back in when you deal with nonmagical darkness.

[Tanarii]

I agree that without house ruling RAW, you either never see silhouettes in an area of non-magical or magical darkness, or it's irrelevant to all game related effects. Due to being effectively blinded when trying to see things in the area of heavy obscurement. This holds even if you use the interpretation that you can see things on the other side of non-magical (and possibly magical depend on its specifics) darkness.

That's something new I got out of this thread.

[sithlordnergal]

Nowhere does the darkness spell state that it "blocks light," either. It only says that (as is the case with nonmagical darkness outside the illumination radius of any light source) light doesn't illuminate things within it.

Illuminate: make (something) visible or bright by shining light on it; light up.


In order to see through something, even a vacuum, it needs to be able to be illuminated. This means that even a vacuum is being illuminated when light is passing through it, allowing us to see the empty space. If it wasn't being illuminated, then a vacuum would be nothing but a spot of absolute darkness that light ignores.

You're basing your proof off the idea that illumination requires a specific item to be targeted by light, it technically doesn't. In this case, an area is considered "something", even if that area has "nothing" in it.

Since Darkness can't be illuminated at all, that means light can't pass through it at all. You can't see through it to the other side, you can't have light shine through it in any way, shape, or form. It becomes a vantablack blob in the middle of the lit room.

[Tanarii]

Illumination is (by definition) a reference to something being lit up. You illuminate the objects in the area, not the area.

[Keltest]

Illumination is (by definition) a reference to something being lit up. You illuminate the objects in the area, not the area.

None of the definitions im looking at actually preclude an area from being illuminated.

[Tanarii]

I think the most interesting thing at this point would be:

How do we rewrite Heavily Obscured so works for both normal darkness and opaque fogs?

How do we rewrite Darkness two ways, one that's clear it works like normal darkness that can't be lit up, and one that works as if an opaque fog that can't be lit up?

[Keravath]

Nowhere does the darkness spell state that it "blocks light," either. It only says that (as is the case with nonmagical darkness outside the illumination radius of any light source) light doesn't illuminate things within it.

...

Since we're house ruling anyway, it is of course valid to rule as you do. I just find it arbitrary and inconsistent, and do not find that it actually avoids edge cases because you're putting those edge cases you claim you're avoiding right back in when you deal with nonmagical darkness.

The reason why I think the Darkness spell blocks light and you don't comes down to our different understandings of the word "illuminate".

Your statement that Darkness says "light doesn't illuminate things within it" isn't quite correct.

The actual text is:

"Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

The text states that "this darkness" can't be illuminated by nonmagical light. It doesn't say "items within the darkness" or any specific thing that is within the darkness - it specifically refers to the darkness itself being incapable of being illuminated by nonmagical light.

Light traveling through any medium illuminates the contents of that medium. Light from stars illuminates gas clouds in interstellar space (where some of the light is absorbed). Light entering the earths atmosphere illuminates the sky and is refracted/reflected resulting in the sky appearing blue. Light illuminates the air and scatters (eg. heat shimmers over a hot highway in the summer) and many other examples. This is the definition of "illuminate" as I understand it and have seen it used in many fields. It does not mean just lighting up a chair or a person or a macroscopically sized object.

So when the spell description says "this darkness can not be illuminated by nonmagical light" ... it actually means that light can't propagate there since otherwise the light WOULD be illuminating the region of magical darkness. However, for someone using a different definition of illuminate - they get a different answer.

[Segev]

I agree that without house ruling RAW, you either never see silhouettes in an area of non-magical or magical darkness, or it's irrelevant to all game related effects. Due to being effectively blinded when trying to see things in the area of heavy obscurement. This holds even if you use the interpretation that you can see things on the other side of non-magical (and possibly magical depend on its specifics) darkness.

That's something new I got out of this thread.YEah, it is one of the dysfunctions of the RAW on the subject, in my opinion, but it IS what they say, as best I can parse it.


Illuminate: make (something) visible or bright by shining light on it; light up.


In order to see through something, even a vacuum, it needs to be able to be illuminated.You don't "see the vacuum." You see the things on the other side of it, or things within it. To illustrate, the light from a bullseye lantern shining on an object 20 feet away from the lantern, with the lantern pointing away from you but not obstructing your line of sight to the object, in an otherwise dark room, permits you to see the object, despite you being in darkness and none of the light source's light illuminating you nor the space behind the lantern.

You do not "illuminate" the dark area in order to see things in an area of bright illumination. You illuminate the area you can see things in, not (necessarily) the area between you and the things you see.


This means that even a vacuum is being illuminated when light is passing through it, allowing us to see the empty space. If it wasn't being illuminated, then a vacuum would be nothing but a spot of absolute darkness that light ignores.This is false. "Illuminate," by the definition you quote, means "to make something visible by shining light on it." The vacuum is not visible. The dark region between you and the bullseye lantern is not visible. None of it is illuminated. You see only the illuminated object, and nothing else. You can see this despite there being darkness between you and the illuminated object, between you and the brightly lit area, because darkness doesn't need to be illuminated for you to see through it.


You're basing your proof off the idea that illumination requires a specific item to be targeted by light, it technically doesn't. In this case, an area is considered "something", even if that area has "nothing" in it.Incorrect. I am basing my proof on the fact that you see things in an illuminated area, but you need not have all space between you and the illuminated area be illuminated in order to see those things. The illumination renders the illuminated objects visible. You've yet to provide any evidence that the dark area needs to be illuminated in order to see things in the illuminated area. (I have, actually, myself, provided an interpretation of the RAW on heavy obscurement that does give such evidence, but it also means that nonmagical darkness is ALSO an ink blot, and is therefore a dysfunctional ruling if you want nonmagical darkness to function in a manner recognizable from the real world's darkness.)


Since Darkness can't be illuminated at all, that means light can't pass through it at all. You can't see through it to the other side, you can't have light shine through it in any way, shape, or form. It becomes a vantablack blob in the middle of the lit room.All of this is incorrect, based on an incorrect idea of what "illuminate" means. I can say with confidence that the idea of what "illuminate" means is incorrect, because the definition you quoted in no way supports this use of the term. In fact, the definition you quoted suggests that empty space cannot be illuminated, nor does it need to be to see illuminated things beyond it.

For your claim to work, you would need to show that the area behind a bullseye lantern, with that lantern as the sole source, is illuminated; otherwise, you cannot stand behind the lantern and see anything it is illuminating, since by your claim, if you're not in an illuminated area, you cannot see anything but the darkness.


Illumination is (by definition) a reference to something being lit up. You illuminate the objects in the area, not the area.


The reason why I think the Darkness spell blocks light and you don't comes down to our different understandings of the word "illuminate".

Your statement that Darkness says "light doesn't illuminate things within it" isn't quite correct.

The actual text is:

"Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it."

The text states that "this darkness" can't be illuminated by nonmagical light. It doesn't say "items within the darkness" or any specific thing that is within the darkness - it specifically refers to the darkness itself being incapable of being illuminated by nonmagical light. Irrelevant. You're still relying on an idea that you must illuminate the region of darkness to be able to see anything beyond it. This means that you cannot stand in darkness and see any light sources, because in order to see them, you must be in the illuminated space.

This technically is what the rules say under one interpretation, but it results in all darkness being ink blot darkness, without even having to be magical.


Light traveling through any medium illuminates the contents of that medium. Light from stars illuminates gas clouds in interstellar space (where some of the light is absorbed). Light entering the earths atmosphere illuminates the sky and is refracted/reflected resulting in the sky appearing blue. Light illuminates the air and scatters (eg. heat shimmers over a hot highway in the summer) and many other examples. This is the definition of "illuminate" as I understand it and have seen it used in many fields. It does not mean just lighting up a chair or a person or a macroscopically sized object.

So when the spell description says "this darkness can not be illuminated by nonmagical light" ... it actually means that light can't propagate there since otherwise the light WOULD be illuminating the region of magical darkness. However, for someone using a different definition of illuminate - they get a different answer.You're getting hung up on a scientific interpretation of how vision works, which would also mean darkvision doesn't work at all since it works without light ever even hitting your eyes.

But leaving that aside, are you alleging that, if a bullseye lantern 10 feet in front of you and pointed away from you is shining on a gnome bard giving a performance, and there are five halflings standing between you and the bullseye lantern watching the show, that you are able to see the halflings? Remember, by the rules, the halflings and you are all in total darkness.

If you cannot see the gnome bard without the space between you and him being illuminated, and illumination will light up everything it touches, that would require that either you cannot see the gnome bard, or that the halflings and you are all illuminated and thus quite clearly visible, despite being in darkness.

[Chronos]

Quoth Tanarii:

I think the most interesting thing at this point would be:

How do we rewrite Heavily Obscured so works for both normal darkness and opaque fogs?
We don't. We separate them out into two different conditions, because they work differently. We should have one set of rules for foliage, fog, smoke, murky water, etc., because those all work more or less the same way, and then another set of rules for darkness.


Quoth Segev:

See, here's the thing: you're house ruling nonmagical darkness to behave differently than the AoE of the darkness spell. Why the difference?
Speaking for myself personally: A houserule is both possible and appropriate for nonmagical darkness, because I know from my life experience how nonmagical darkness works, and it's not the way the RAW says. So a houserule can consist simply of "Nonmagical darkness in the game works the same way as nonmagical darkness in the real world". There, done. But I can't use that houserule for magical darkness, and say "Magical darkness works the same way it does in the real world", because in the real world, the way magical darkness works is "it doesn't". So I have to use different rules for magical and nonmagical darkness, and the simplest choice there is to say "Nonmagical darkness is houseruled to work like real darkness, but magical darkness works the way RAW describes".

Another reason for this argument is that magical darkness is much more relevant to the rules than nonmagical darkness. PCs like to be able to see, so when confronted by nonmagical darkness, they'll either have darkvision (in which case it effectively isn't darkness), or they'll produce a light source of some sort (in which case it won't be darkness at all). Darkvision and light sources are both quite easy to come by and common in the game, with the effect that PCs will seldom actually need to worry about natural darkness. Usually when darkness is relevant, it's only because it's magical darkness, resistant to both most light sources and to darkvision, and so it might be assumed that magical darkness is what the general darkness rules are referring to in the first place.

[Segev]

Speaking for myself personally: A houserule is both possible and appropriate for nonmagical darkness, because I know from my life experience how nonmagical darkness works, and it's not the way the RAW says. So a houserule can consist simply of "Nonmagical darkness in the game works the same way as nonmagical darkness in the real world". There, done. But I can't use that houserule for magical darkness, and say "Magical darkness works the same way it does in the real world", because in the real world, the way magical darkness works is "it doesn't". So I have to use different rules for magical and nonmagical darkness, and the simplest choice there is to say "Nonmagical darkness is houseruled to work like real darkness, but magical darkness works the way RAW describes".

Another reason for this argument is that magical darkness is much more relevant to the rules than nonmagical darkness. PCs like to be able to see, so when confronted by nonmagical darkness, they'll either have darkvision (in which case it effectively isn't darkness), or they'll produce a light source of some sort (in which case it won't be darkness at all). Darkvision and light sources are both quite easy to come by and common in the game, with the effect that PCs will seldom actually need to worry about natural darkness. Usually when darkness is relevant, it's only because it's magical darkness, resistant to both most light sources and to darkvision, and so it might be assumed that magical darkness is what the general darkness rules are referring to in the first place.

Except that a consistent ruling of, "The darkness spell produces darkness that works like any other darkness, except for the listed changes," is just as viable. The problems claimed with treating it the way natural darkness works IRL exist for doing the same with natural darkness in the game, yet you feel it appropriate and not an issue to introduce a house rule to make natural darkness behave in game the way it does IRL, but not to introduce a house rule to make the darkness created by the darkness spell behave like natural darkness does in the real world (save for the specific change of light sources not lighting it up, which is more or less essential to having darkness magically created rather than naturally created).

The arguments in favor of ink blot magical darkness all apply to nonmagical darkness, yet the desire exists to make nonmagical darkness the vantablack model while magical darkness is the ink blot model. It puzzles me as to why.

[Tanarii]

I'm going to take a stab at this:

Fixed heavily obscured, while leaning room for some DM judgement on if something is opaque or not:
A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision through the area if opaque or or in the area if not. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions) when trying to see something in that area, as well as on the other side of it if opaque.

Fixed darkness spell (Vantablack):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating non-opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see into the area of this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area.
(Note that I chose to have darkvision not work in the area, so it matches normal sight. That's not required.)

Fixed darkness spell (Inky Blot):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area or allow creatures to see beyond it.

The only thing I'm not explicitly addressing with the Inky Blot spell version is magical light (that doesn't dispel the effect and isn't dispelled). It's still and indirect reference, since it's opaque. If you cast a magical light that neither dispels nor is dispelled, you would be able to see any areas it lights up if you have line of sight to them.

[Segev]

I'm going to take a stab at this:

Fixed heavily obscured, while leaning room for some DM judgement on if something is opaque or not:
A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision through the area if opaque or or in the area if not. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions) when trying to see something in that area, as well as on the other side of it if opaque.

Fixed darkness spell (Vantablack):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating non-opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see into the area of this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area.
(Note that I chose to have darkvision not work in the area, so it matches normal sight. That's not required.)

Fixed darkness spell (Inky Blot):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area or allow creatures to see beyond it.

The only thing I'm not explicitly addressing with the Inky Blot spell version is magical light (that doesn't dispel the effect and isn't dispelled). It's still and indirect reference, since it's opaque. If you cast a magical light that neither dispels nor is dispelled, you would be able to see any areas it lights up if you have line of sight to them.

First reading, it looks reasonable. Nice job. :smallcool:

[Keravath]

I'm going to take a stab at this:

Fixed heavily obscured, while leaning room for some DM judgement on if something is opaque or not:
A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision through the area if opaque or or in the area if not. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions) when trying to see something in that area, as well as on the other side of it if opaque.

Fixed darkness spell (Vantablack):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating non-opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see into the area of this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area.
(Note that I chose to have darkvision not work in the area, so it matches normal sight. That's not required.)

Fixed darkness spell (Inky Blot):
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot radius Sphere for the Duration, creating opaque heavy obscurement. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with Darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't light up the area or allow creatures to see beyond it.

The only thing I'm not explicitly addressing with the Inky Blot spell version is magical light (that doesn't dispel the effect and isn't dispelled). It's still and indirect reference, since it's opaque. If you cast a magical light that neither dispels nor is dispelled, you would be able to see any areas it lights up if you have line of sight to them.

Seems pretty good to me :) ... just need to get the game designers to pick their intended version of the Darkness spell.

The key element of the change was defining opaque vs non-opaque heavily obscured areas and giving the DM the tools necessary to define which category the conditions encountered in the game might fall into.

Natural darkness = non-opaque heavy obscuration
Dense fog or foliage = opaque heavy obscuration

[Tanarii]

One thing I'll not I explicitly left in was the effectively blinded rule of the heavily obscured. I did this because per a comment I made up thread, this removes the question of if silhouettes have a game impact. If you're effectively blinded trying to see something in a non-opaque darkness area, they don't. (Edit: also because I was trying to keep the rewrite to a minimum.)

If someone felt they should have an impact, they'd want to rewrite the way the heavily obscured rule for non-opaque far more significantly.

[Osuniev]

One thing I'll not I explicitly left in was the effectively blinded rule of the heavily obscured. I did this because per a comment I made up thread, this removes the question of if silhouettes have a game impact. If you're effectively blinded trying to see something in a non-opaque darkness area, they don't. (Edit: also because I was trying to keep the rewrite to a minimum.)

If someone felt they should have an impact, they'd want to rewrite the way the heavily obscured rule for non-opaque far more significantly.

I mean, silhouettes are a way to make explicit the fact that, RAW, blinded or not, you know the positions of the enemy if they are not hidden.
This is counterintuitive to many players, who expect Invisibility, Darkness, etc... to make it impossible for an enemy to locate them, without spending an action to Hide.

On the other hand, they do create the opposite issue of making it harder to imagine how one becomes hidden, but a situation in which silhouettes are EASY to spot is in fact pretty rare in DnD : you don't usually have a white screen behind the area where you cast Darkness, and a empty area where you cast Darkness.

If you've ever been startled while walking at night towards an illuminated area, because SOMEONE was in between but you thought they were a bush/a tree/you didn't notice anything, you know what I'm talking about.

If you've ever failed to notice a biker without lights on the road (despite the fact that there was a light source on the other side, like the rear lights of a car...), you know what I'm talking about.

If you've ever bumped into something in a dark corridor, despite the end of the corridor being lit up, you know what I'm talking about.

[Segev]

I mean, silhouettes are a way to make explicit the fact that, RAW, blinded or not, you know the positions of the enemy if they are not hidden.
This is counterintuitive to many players, who expect Invisibility, Darkness, etc... to make it impossible for an enemy to locate them, without spending an action to Hide.

On the other hand, they do create the opposite issue of making it harder to imagine how one becomes hidden, but a situation in which silhouettes are EASY to spot is in fact pretty rare in DnD : you don't usually have a white screen behind the area where you cast Darkness, and a empty area where you cast Darkness.

If you've ever been startled while walking at night towards an illuminated area, because SOMEONE was in between but you thought they were a bush/a tree/you didn't notice anything, you know what I'm talking about.

If you've ever failed to notice a biker without lights on the road (despite the fact that there was a light source on the other side, like the rear lights of a car...), you know what I'm talking about.

If you've ever bumped into something in a dark corridor, despite the end of the corridor being lit up, you know what I'm talking about.

Excellent points. It is surprisingly - to most people who don't deal with seeing things in the dark an awful lot - hard to actually distinguish things by their silhouettes.

[deljzc]

I've read the thread. I played on/off for 25+ years and thru many different iterations.

My opinion/favor is the "ink blot" method of what a magical darkness spell looks like.

That said, there are some homebrew ideas I think really clean up light/vision in 5e, which I don't really like at all.

I actually like the idea that being in an area of light (bright light) is defined as seeing details/reading. You need to be in bright light to read, pick locks, notice details down to 1", etc. This is regardless of darkvision.

I do not play darkvision bumps up levels of lights. All creature need light to see details.

That said, the RANGE of light and dim light can be impacted by the darkvision ability.

So let's say a torch provide 20' of bright light and 20' additional feet of dim light. Darkvision is an ability to me to EXTEND those ranges. So bright light might be 30' and dim light now an additional 30'. I think that makes the ability still very valuable.

I also think there should be a "see light source" range. So if I am in darkness, I can see someone holding a torch like 500' away or something. You create that as a range value just like every other light source. You are still in darkness. You can't read details, you are not in dim light. But you SEE the light from very far away.

Again, since darkvision always has to START with some degree of light source to work, it kind of eliminates the idea of any culture or race just walking around in the dark on purpose. To read or see details, you always need light. You don't need just dim light. Dim light never turns into bright light under any circumstance. All that changes is range.

I think that would make for a better rule set and probably need to rework the entire book, but I just think that makes more sense

[Tanarii]

I mean, silhouettes are a way to make explicit the fact that, RAW, blinded or not, you know the positions of the enemy if they are not hidden.
This is counterintuitive to many players, who expect Invisibility, Darkness, etc... to make it impossible for an enemy to locate them, without spending an action to Hide.Thats not "RAW" though. It's DM fiat wether or not you know the positions of not hidden enemies that you cannot see. They can require you to instead guess the location. However it's certainly a tool a DM can use to judge making a basis for their fiat decision, along with the normal consideration like are you close enough to hear them over background noise, smell them over background smells (unlikely for a human), or see tell-tale give aways of their presence automatically in the background environment (eg an invisible character in a downpour or walking in a sawdust floor).

[Segev]

Thats not "RAW" though. It's DM fiat wether or not you know the positions of not hidden enemies that you cannot see. They can require you to instead guess the location. However it's certainly a tool a DM can use to judge making a basis for their fiat decision, along with the normal consideration like are you close enough to hear them over background noise, smell them over background smells (unlikely for a human), or see tell-tale give aways of their presence automatically in the background environment (eg an invisible character in a downpour or walking in a sawdust floor).

To be fair, "it's the DM's choice" is accurate, but misleading, because if that's ALL it is, then the Hide action is pointless.

[Tanarii]

To be fair, "it's the DM's choice" is accurate, but misleading, because if that's ALL it is, then the Hide action is pointless.
Yes that's fair.
The default assumption: in combat creatures are generally watching for danger, if you come out of hiding an approach a creature, it will see you.
Another default assumption: invisible and other unseen creatures may give away signs of their passage, or be heard.
Last default assumption: you may have to guess location of an unseen target

Put those assumptions together: if there is no reasonable way for it to see you (ie pop up or approaching), hear you (distance, background noise), or tell-tales (signs of passage. Also silhouette is a good one!) you may not be able to pin point (avoid guessing the location of) a non-hidden enemy.

[Silpharon]

The rules don't say wooden walls provide heavy obscurement for things on the other side of them, should we interpret that walls are transparent in 5e? No. Even without the rules for vision we have a tacit understanding that a wooden wall will block our vision. In the same manner, a shield blocks our vision, even if its not there in the object description. So if we acknowledge that things don't need to specify that they block vision in order to do it, then we also know foliage blocks our vision.

So the RAW allows for the blinded condition only being applied when looking into the heavily obscured area, while also allowing dense foliage (and wooden walls, shields, etc) to block vision.
Completely agree - I changed my tune if you read my later post on page 3 with all the Vision and Light rules defined. I honestly think the rules are fine as-is, as long as they're read in context.

[Silpharon]

Ok guys, I think I have a firm grasp on vision, light, illumination, darkness, obstruction, etc, (see here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25353404&postcount=66), but I think my Darkness spell interpretation was still lacking.

I'm starting to feel like inky blot makes sense even against magical light (which makes me sad). For those of you that believe in vanta-black, please read my reasoning below, and tell me how you can justify otherwise:

Evidence

PHB Darkness Spell Description:

The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

XGE Shadow Sorcerer Feature (thanks Keravath for bringing this up):

If you cast [the Darkness spell] with sorcery points, you can see through the darkness created by the spell.

Official Sage Advice Compendium (SAC):

Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.


Inference

Per SAC, this darkness is special, and different from other magical darkness forms.
Per PHB, this darkness spreads around corners. That's not a natural phenomenon, and the "spreads" verb suggests that it has a substantive quality - i.e., it doesn't just affect a region, it spreads into the region. Guess what also "spreads around corners"? Fog Cloud
Per PHB, some magical light can illuminate it (those that aren't dispelled). In the OP, I was confused by the "illuminate" verb. If magical light can illuminate the sphere, why couldn't it be seen through the sphere? This is where I should not be thinking physics and instead be thinking rules. Illuminate is used to describe creating dim and bright light regions (see post linked above). That is the extent to which this rule can be read.
Per PHB, darkvision can't see through this darkness. Note that this is a different preposition used than with normal darkness, which prohibits vision "in" or more precisely "into" the region of darkness. Thus, this special darkness is opaque to darkvision.
Per SAC, point 3 is confirmed - this special darkness obstructs darkvision. An obstruction blocks line of sight.
Per XGE, point 3 is ultimately confirmed. We already confirmed that standard darkness (non-magical it magical) does not obstruct vision (see the SAC quote and my post link above). So that is not what the Shadow Sorcerer feature is referring to - instead it has to be referring to the caster's ability to get around the spell's opaque darkness, much like Devil's Sight.


Interpretation
I see no way this can't be inky-blot. In fact, I'm starting to question my OP. My stance on the topic is now the following:

Darkness spell scenario options:

A natural light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know non-magical light does not illuminate this darkness. We also know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the darkness looks inky blot.
A natural light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. We know darkvision is obstructed by this darkness. Thus, the light cannot be seen inside or through the sphere.
A magical light source is in illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. If the light source came from a spell of 2nd level or lower, the light source is dispelled. If instead it came from an item or higher spell level, it "pushes back" the "spread" of this darkness and illuminates the overlapping portion of the darkness sphere.
A magical light source is outside illumination range of the Darkness spell sphere. The sphere still obstructs darkvision, so why would a magical light source be visible? Magical light may illuminate the sphere if it comes in contact, but if it doesn't come in contact, I believe the obstruction rules still apply. The sphere is still inky blot.


I think a DM could rule that distant magic item or spell light from 3rd level or higher could be seen outside the sphere, but I don't believe this is RAW/RAI. Instead, I think it's an opaque sphere (I vision roiling blackness), that can get pushed back by certain magical light sources that are close enough, but otherwise is opaque (unless you have Devil's Sight or are a Shadow Sorcerer).

[CapnWildefyr]

Several pages ago, I posted that I thought disentangling the rules for obscurement, light, and spells would clarify things. I finally got around to taking a stab at it, FWIW. Obvisously the RAW discussion is one thing, but I think the rules are self-conflicting and honestly I think that there are multiple valid interpretations, so there will never be an end to the debate without homebrew/rewrite.


Light, Vision, and Concealment/Obscurement
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring--noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few--rely heavily on a character's ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.
Light
The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Note that any penalties for lighting apply to the target area, where a creature is looking, and not in intervening areas.
Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius. In bright (or “normal”) light, no penalties apply to checks based on vision. Creatures using eyesight can see normally, and the lighting imposes no additional restrictions on what can be seen or targeted or attacked.
Dim light is also called shadows. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light. In dim light, a creature has disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) tests that rely on sight. The DM may require a check for any skill that relies on vision, including for spell targeting, even though in bright light no check would have been needed.
In Darkness, a creature within darkness cannot see inside that area, and creatures outside the area cannot see into it. Direct spell targeting within or into the area is not possible. Combat is at disadvantage. Checks that rely on vision automatically fail. Area of effect spells can extend into regions of darkness, and can be centered in areas of darkness provided that the spell description permits blind targeting. (Examples: Lightning bolt can extend into darkness. A fireball can be cast to a range and elevation, but see the rules for spell targeting and obstructions.) Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.
Note that any penalties for lighting apply to the target area, where a creature is looking, and not in intervening areas. A creature holding a torch on a dark moonless night is in bright (normal) light, and any penalties that might apply to seeing that creature would come because of obscurement, cover, concealment, movement, distance, and similar – not because it is a dark, moonless night.
Different Types of Vision
Blindsight
A creature with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. For a creature with blindsight, lighting imposes no penalties within this radius. Creatures without eyes, such as oozes, and creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons, have this sense.
Darkvision
Many creatures in fantasy gaming worlds, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light. However, the creature can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Since darkness becomes dim lighting, a DM can choose to ask for a check to accomplish certain visual tasks (see the description of dim light above). A creature with darkvision sees in dim lighting as if it were bright light (normal lighting).
Truesight
A creature with truesight can, out to a specific range, see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, perceive the original form of a shapechanger, and perceive that a creature (or object) has been transformed by magic. Furthermore, the creature can see into the Ethereal Plane.
Concealment/Obscurement
Fog, foliage, smoke, crowds of creatures, and many other phenomena can obsure vision within and through an area.
A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. Such concealment may occur due to cover or visual obstructions. Concealment/obscurement in itself does not provide protection from attacks or damage.
In a lightly obscured area, such as patchy fog or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. Spells that target a creature or other object within a lightly obscured area require that the caster first make a check to see if the target is visible; if the check fails, the spell cannot be used.
In a heavily obscured area, such as an area of opaque fog or dense foliage, vision into, within, and through the area is blocked entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area or through that area. Direct targeting for spells is not possible, and attacks are made at disadvantage.
Cover
While some sources of cover can provide concealment/obscurement, cover and concealment/obscurement apply separately. Each imposes penalties and bonuses independently of the other.
Darkness Spell
Change the first paragraph to:
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. The magical darkness block vision within and through it area of effect. Even a creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

[Tanarii]

Several pages ago, I posted that I thought disentangling the rules for obscurement, light, and spells would clarify things. I finally got around to taking a stab at it, FWIW. Obvisously the RAW discussion is one thing, but I think the rules are self-conflicting and honestly I think that there are multiple valid interpretations, so there will never be an end to the debate without homebrew/rewrite.
If you're doing that level of rewrite, might as well split out out darkness like a moonlit night or there's some light vaguely around somewhere just not right where you are, and pitch black (underground with no lighting).

I can walk through my house with the lights off based on ambient light from outdoor lights or the other of the house. That's not possible in pitch black. I will get disoriented, inevitably move the wrong direction, and run into something.

[Silpharon]

Several pages ago, I posted that I thought disentangling the rules for obscurement, light, and spells would clarify things. I finally got around to taking a stab at it, FWIW. Obvisously the RAW discussion is one thing, but I think the rules are self-conflicting and honestly I think that there are multiple valid interpretations, so there will never be an end to the debate without homebrew/rewrite.

Nice job! I think you got the gist right. It could probably be done with fewer words, but clarification isn't a bad thing.

I think the main issue with the original text is with heavy obscuration. This in particular:


A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
When read out of context, the phrase "blocks vision" in the first sentence makes it seem the intent is that normal darkness is opaque. What they meant was:

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision within that area entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
In context, they're going over different regions of illumination, and describing the effects on creatures within those regions. It was not intended to address vision looking out of the region. This is evidenced by the clarification in the second sentence.

Furthermore, they should add the DMG text (p251) into the PHB in the same Vision and Light section. My addition in bold (which is implied but not explicit in the DMG).

A creature must have line of sight to see another space. To determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If at least one such line doesn't pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision-such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog-then there is line of sight.

I think with this clarification, the rest works itself out... Except for the Darkness spell itself, which could use some TLC.

Speaking of which, where are the vanta-black folks to provide rationale against my last post on page 4? I really want to understand your take on those quotes in concert.

[f5anor]

Yes. If I am standing in the dark, say 50 feet away from a torch-bearing adventurer, I expect to be able to look through the darkness and see the creature holding the torch, because that creature is illuminated by the torch and there is nothing (except totally normal darkness) between me and that creature. This scenario can come up in "spy on and ambush some guards" plans fairly easily, and creates considerations about where guards really would have light.


Many thanks to you Segev, to Tanarii, Silpharon, Chronos and everyone else in this interesting thread.

Of course, standing in a single room with multiple zones of light/darkness poses an interesting challenge to RAW.

I better understand your issue with the way darkness acts as solid cover in the above setup, based on the RAW.

I need to think about this more.

[Silpharon]

Many thanks to you Segev, to Tanarii, Silpharon, Chronos and everyone else in this interesting thread.
You're welcome of course... But the conversation stopped without anything being really settled. I thought we were getting somewhere too. When I started the thread I thought we'd only be talking about the spell, but found that the vision rules themselves needed clarification.


I better understand your issue with the way darkness acts as solid cover in the above setup, based on the RAW.
Normal darkness is neither opaque nor solid cover. In fact, no darkness is cover, that has to be a physical barrier of some kind.

The notion that normal darkness is opaque is reading RAW out of context. In natural writing, sentences are meant to be interpreted by their surroundings. See my post above on clarification of the Vision and Light rules.

[Silpharon]

BTW, I was just looking at the "Tricksy" style Fey Spirit from Tasha's Summon Fey spell. It has the following ability as part of it's Fey Step bonus action:


The fey can fill a 5-foot cube within 5 feet of it with magical darkness, which lasts until the end of its next turn.

This has got to be the vanta-black interpretation, because, per SAC, magical darkness only blocks darkvision if it says so.

This trick would be a fun way to get advantage against creatures without darkvision!

[Keltest]

BTW, I was just looking at the "Tricksy" style Fey Spirit from Tasha's Summon Fey spell. It has the following ability as part of it's Fey Step bonus action:



This has got to be the vanta-black interpretation, because, per SAC, magical darkness only blocks darkvision if it says so.

This trick would be a fun way to get advantage against creatures without darkvision!

I dont think the vanta-black actually has anything to do with whether any given darkness blocks darkvision actually. It would just look like all the color washed out of an area to someone with darkvision.

[f5anor]

The notion that normal darkness is opaque is reading RAW out of context. In natural writing, sentences are meant to be interpreted by their surroundings. See my post above on clarification of the Vision and Light rules.

I agree with that, I believe that RAW is written the way it is, in order to facilitate fantasy tropes and related class abilities. For example, Rogue hiding, and Stealth in general would be pointless in any closed environment that allowed clear visibility unrestricted by a specific max range for all light sources. The fact that light/darkness works as it does in 5e enables all these playstyles.

For my part, I interpret darkness as an area that provides sufficient obscurement for the aforementioned abilities/maneuvers to be feasible under the cover of darkness. This darkness, can function in a metaphorical sense as an opaque "cover" of sorts.

I can understand others frustration with this topic though, since the assumption that light has a clearly defined range and the darkness beyond it is opaque is a bit counterintuitive, at least in our modern life with ubiquitous strong lighting. Maybe people would be more willing to accept this, if they had more experience living with actual torches and candles as light sources.

[Keravath]

You're welcome of course... But the conversation stopped without anything being really settled. I thought we were getting somewhere too. When I started the thread I thought we'd only be talking about the spell, but found that the vision rules themselves needed clarification.

Normal darkness is neither opaque nor solid cover. In fact, no darkness is cover, that has to be a physical barrier of some kind.

The notion that normal darkness is opaque is reading RAW out of context. In natural writing, sentences are meant to be interpreted by their surroundings. See my post above on clarification of the Vision and Light rules.

The real problem is that, given the state of the rules, the issue can't really be settled since the rules are inherently contradictory and choosing one interpretation over another results in inconsistencies in behaviour between the phenomena of darkness/dense fog/thick foliage in the real world vs in the game. (since the rules treat these exactly the same).

The reason it died down was Tanari proposed a decent, fairly simple house rule that could be used by a DM that resolved some of the issues. Capnwildefyr also came up with a more extensive house rule re-write.

As far as the Darkness spell itself goes, the game designers need to rewrite it to make it clear what they wanted when they say that "light can't illuminate it" (the volume of magical darkness). Different people read that different ways resulting in different interpretations.

So, as far as the rules go, the discussion has progressed about as far as possible with a couple of good proposals on how to fix it depending on what the individual DM wants to do.

[Telok]

Question: how do people think illusions (like minor/major image) work in darkness?

The ink blot style is easy, they aren't seen. But I've had DMs rule illusions don't cast shadows because they aren't real objects there which begs questions when combined with the vanta black or "stuff in the spell is invisible" styles of darkness. Like "if illusions aren't reflecting light do they appear as if lit up in darkness?" and "if a physical interaction you can't see happens do they still go faint?"

I have basically zero faith that most DMs considered these sorts of thing and on the spot rulings tend to get janky or misremembered/forgotten and cause in play rule changes.

[Silpharon]

I dont think the vanta-black actually has anything to do with whether any given darkness blocks darkvision actually. It would just look like all the color washed out of an area to someone with darkvision.
Interesting interpretation, but I think "block darkvision" in WotC vernacular from SAC is referring to the "can't see through this darkness" or "obstructs darkvision".

It would seem that WotC view two styles of magical darkness. There is the type that spreads around corners and is obstructs darkvision (e.g. the Darkness and Maddening Darkness spells). Then there are the ones that don't include that language (e.g., Shadow of Moil spell and Tricksy Fey). The former is inky blot, the latter is vanta black. See the last post on page 4 for more details.

So while I understand where you're coming from, I believe not all magical darkness is vanta black.


The real problem is that, given the state of the rules, the issue can't really be settled since the rules are inherently contradictory and choosing one interpretation over another results in inconsistencies in behaviour between the phenomena of darkness/dense fog/thick foliage in the real world vs in the game. (since the rules treat these exactly the same).

My position is that the rules as intended are clear, and that there aren't inconsistencies with darkness, fog, foliage etc. The DMG fills the gap there (see my post above on this page). We don't need to significantly rewrite anything, just read the rules in context.

As for the conversation stopping, I was referring to the inky vs vanta discussion in light of the evidence pulled together on the last post of page 4 (including what you brought up about the Shadow Sorcerer). I'm trying to see if there can be a vanta explanation (for the Darkness spell specifically) given the evidence at play.

[Segev]

As for the conversation stopping, I was referring to the inky vs vanta discussion in light of the evidence pulled together on the last post of page 4 (including what you brought up about the Shadow Sorcerer). I'm trying to see if there can be a vanta explanation (for the Darkness spell specifically) given the evidence at play.

Simply that there is nothing in the text that says darkness does something to obstruct normal sight that regular darkness does not. So, if you're not house ruling the two to operate differently, whatever rulings you apply to one apply to the other in that respect.

[Silpharon]

Simply that there is nothing in the text that says darkness does something to obstruct normal sight that regular darkness does not. So, if you're not house ruling the two to operate differently, whatever rulings you apply to one apply to the other in that respect.

Thanks for the post Segev. I originally though that way, but the Sage Advice Compendium (an official WotC publication) says quite the opposite. It would be a houserule to suggest they act the same. The SAC says:

Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.
The Darkness spell operates differently than regular or other magical darkness sources. I've got the details in my last post on page 4.

[Rukelnikov]

Thanks for the post Segev. I originally though that way, but the Sage Advice Compendium (an official WotC publication) says quite the opposite. It would be a houserule to suggest they act the same. The SAC says:

The Darkness spell operates differently than regular or other magical darkness sources. I've got the details in my last post on page 4.

What Segev means is that if you don't houserule vision rules, then both the Darkness spell, and regular darkness block all vision. And if you houserule the vision rules so that you can see a torch 200 feet away from you, then nothing in the spell description says you wouldn't be able to see the same torch 200 ft away.

I'm not entirely sure I agree, but I understand where he's coming from.

[Chronos]

Quoth Silpharon:

This has got to be the vanta-black interpretation, because, per SAC, magical darkness only blocks darkvision if it says so.
I don't follow. Why can't it be a 5' cube of inkblot that creatures with darkvision can see through?

[Segev]

Thanks for the post Segev. I originally though that way, but the Sage Advice Compendium (an official WotC publication) says quite the opposite. It would be a houserule to suggest they act the same. The SAC says:

The Darkness spell operates differently than regular or other magical darkness sources. I've got the details in my last post on page 4.It says it doesn't permit darkvision. The spell also says it doesn't permit darkvision; Sage Advice is just reitterating that, unless I'm seriously misparsing something.

Darkness explicitly calls out that it prevents darkvision from working in its area. Whether this stops darkvision from seeing beyond its area is in debate; I would say it does not, but for the purposes of keeping the discussion as clear as possible, I prefer to focus on the form of vision darkness doesn't explicitly differ from regular darkness with: normal sight.

With normal sight, you either cannot see a torch held up in a vast dark cavern if you are 100 feet away from it, or you can, depending on how you read the Heavy Obscurement rules. Most people, I think, would rule that you can see the torch. After all, we're all familiar with how lit areas work, and that standing in deep shadow doesn't blind you to them.

The darkness spell makes no call out to preventing normal sight from seeing out of it, leaving us with the rules for normal darkness. So if you're standing in the area of a darkness spell and somebody is holding a light source outside of it, you can see the light source and that person just fine. They can't see into the area of the darkness spell any more than they can see beyond the dim light radius of their light source. If they have darkvision, they might see LESS well into the area of the darkness spell than beyond the radius of dim lighting, since darkvision cannot "see through" the darkness spell's magical darkness.


What Segev means is that if you don't houserule vision rules, then both the Darkness spell, and regular darkness block all vision. And if you houserule the vision rules so that you can see a torch 200 feet away from you, then nothing in the spell description says you wouldn't be able to see the same torch 200 ft away.

I'm not entirely sure I agree, but I understand where he's coming from.
Exactly.

[f5anor]

With normal sight, you either cannot see a torch held up in a vast dark cavern if you are 100 feet away from it, or you can, depending on how you read the Heavy Obscurement rules.

I must say, this thread is very educational, so much more than I expected.

While I can relate to why someone would expect to see a lit torch in the distance, I am not sure I can follow how RAW can be interpreted to allow this, given that all light sources have a well defined limited range.

Would you care to explain this?

[Keltest]

I must say, this thread is very educational, so much more than I expected.

While I can relate to why someone would expect to see a lit torch in the distance, I am not sure I can follow how RAW can be interpreted to allow this, given that all light sources have a well defined limited range.

Would you care to explain this?

For my read at least, obscurement only stops you from seeing into the obscured area, not out of it. Fog and brush are opaque, separately, which does it, and the brush is situational. Darkness isn't opaque, just dark, so you can see into lit areas just fine even if you aren't in them, excepting for magical sources of darkness, which are opaque to normal light in their area, and possibly other lights depending on the source.

[f5anor]

Thanks for the post Segev. I originally though that way, but the Sage Advice Compendium (an official WotC publication) says quite the opposite.

Actually, the PHB;p152 specifically states that darkness operates the same way that magical darkness does. I believe the SAC wording is meant to emphasize some specific details related to the spell.

[f5anor]

For my read at least, obscurement only stops you from seeing into the obscured area, not out of it. Fog and brush are opaque, separately, which does it, and the brush is situational. Darkness isn't opaque, just dark, so you can see into lit areas just fine even if you aren't in them, excepting for magical sources of darkness, which are opaque to normal light in their area, and possibly other lights depending on the source.

We are in agreement, darkness allows you to see outside of its area, as long as there is light to illuminate it.

However, illumination is well defined with a specific range per lightsource.

Allow me to venture an interpretation, I believe the RAW is that since all lights are only visible within their area of effect, said lightsource will not be visible outside the darkness if it’s range is shorter than the distance to the observer.

In other words darkness consists simply of all the space that is not illuminated by the indicated range of nearby lightsources.

[Keltest]

We are in agreement, darkness allows you to see outside of its area, as long as there is light to illuminate it.

However, illumination is well defined with a specific range per lightsource.

Allow me to venture an interpretation, I believe the RAW is that since all lights are only visible within their area of effect, said lightsource will not be visible outside the darkness if it’s range is shorter than the distance to the observer.

In other words darkness consists simply of all the space that is not illuminated by the indicated range of lightsources.

I mean, this sounds an awful lot like you said you agreed with me and then proceeded to disagree with me.

If I lit a torch on a sunny day outside, would the torch vanish from view when I got outside of its light radius? No, of course not. Visibility is based on the light level of the location being observed, not the observer.

[sithlordnergal]

So, there's an issue with the Vantablack argument that I haven't seen brought up yet. Now correct me if I'm wrong, the entire reason people feel the Vantablack method is correct is because darkness doesn't entirely block your vision. If you're in a dark tunnel, you can see the torch 50 feet away from you, therefore darkness doesn't block vision. Therefore magical darkness also doesn't block vision through it. That is the argument, correct?


But wouldn't that argument imply that you can see through the Fog Cloud spell to the other side, but you couldn't see anyone within Fog Cloud? And that people within Fog Cloud can see out of it to anyone not in the Fog Cloud, but immediately lose sight of them once someone enters the Fog Cloud?

Fog Cloud itself only states "You create a 20-foot-radius Sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The Sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. It lasts for the Duration or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it."

It doesn't say it creates an "opaque fog" or even a "heavy fog", just "fog". And you can't really claim "all fog is opaque" because we know that isn't true. You can see pretty easily through most levels of fog. And since darkness obscurement is treated exactly the same as fog obscurement, then wouldn't your ruling of "you can see through the Darkness spell because you can see through darkness" mean you can see through the Fog Cloud because nothing in the spell states its an opaque fog?

I agree that with the wording of Heavy Obscurement you can technically "only have it one way", either it completely blocks vision or it doesn't...but that road goes both ways. Either you can see through normal darkness, the Darkness spell, and Fog Cloud, or you can't see through any of them via RAW.

[f5anor]

If I lit a torch on a sunny day outside, would the torch vanish from view when I got outside of its light radius? No, of course not. Visibility is based on the light level of the location being observed, not the observer.

In this scenario, you would not be in darkness, right? There would be illumination provided by a greater lightsource, that’s why you would be able to see the torch still, regardless of range.

[Keltest]

In this scenario, you would not be in darkness, right? There would be illumination provided by a greater lightsource, that’s why you would be able to see the torch still, regardless of range.

It doesn't matter if I'm in darkness or not, because the torch is in light. Otherwise I could light a torch and suddenly see everything in areas the light doesn't reach because I'm illuminated. You've got it backwards.

[Segev]

So, there's an issue with the Vantablack argument that I haven't seen brought up yet. Now correct me if I'm wrong, the entire reason people feel the Vantablack method is correct is because darkness doesn't entirely block your vision. If you're in a dark tunnel, you can see the torch 50 feet away from you, therefore darkness doesn't block vision. Therefore magical darkness also doesn't block vision through it. That is the argument, correct?


But wouldn't that argument imply that you can see through the Fog Cloud spell to the other side, but you couldn't see anyone within Fog Cloud? And that people within Fog Cloud can see out of it to anyone not in the Fog Cloud, but immediately lose sight of them once someone enters the Fog Cloud?Correct; the way the Rules Are Written, there is an inherent dysfunction that fog, heavy foliage, smoke, and darkness all function the same way. Either they all block line of sight (making all darkness, including nonmagical darkness, opaque - the "ink blot" interpretation), or they do not and only obscure their own area (making smoke, fog, and foliage transparent, but still hide whatever is in their area).

I think - but could be mistaken about this - that different printings of the PHB actually list each of those as the way they work, with the later printing trying to correct the errors created by the former, but failing to recognize that it needed to distinguish between the two.

Most people rule that smoke, fog, foliage, et al behave differently than (nonmagical) darkness. Many then go on to rule that the darkness spell behaves like smoke, fog, and foliage rather than like nonmagical darkness. The darkness spell makes no such call-out, however.

Personally, even if the RAW said it was ink blot darkness when magical and not when nonmagical, I would prefer vantablack magical darkness. We don't need a 2nd level fog cloud that has a smaller area and just happens to also let Devil's Sight work within it, but nothing else. But something that lets you see out of it while hiding within? That's new and different. Better than fog cloud and not as inherently problematic to the party. Devil's Sight still is better than darkvision even then: you can see in color, and you can see INTO darkness OTHER things are hiding in, even if darkvision cannot.

[Keltest]

Darkness is a more reliable spell. Fog Cloud is dispelled with any moderate wind effect, which can include many creatures abilities as well as just natural wind. Darkness specifically needs a spell slot spent to dispel.

[Segev]

Darkness is a more reliable spell. Fog Cloud is dispelled with any moderate wind effect, which can include many creatures abilities as well as just natural wind. Darkness specifically needs a spell slot spent to dispel.

Perhaps; I have never seen that matter.

It has a couple things going for it even as an ink blot. But it isn't enough to be worth a second level spell slot, in my opinion.

[Keltest]

Perhaps; I have never seen that matter.

It has a couple things going for it even as an ink blot. But it isn't enough to be worth a second level spell slot, in my opinion.

You say that now, but wait until you want to hide from the dragon.

[PhoenixPhyre]

A thought, and one I'm not wedded to:

What if the range of the light is the range at such it can illuminate other objects, not the range it can be seen at? So 100' from a torch in otherwise empty darkness, you see the torch. But you don't see anything around it in enough detail to matter (ie they're heavily obscured by the intervening darkness). So a watcher on a tower sees the torches of the approaching army, but doesn't see any details about who is carrying them.

And note that "darkness" doesn't mean total absence of vision and light, merely that there isn't enough to see by to reach the "dimly illuminated" threshold. We know that because a normal night with moon still counts as being dark.

[Segev]

You say that now, but wait until you want to hide from the dragon.

Dragons tend to have blindsight.

[Tanarii]

What if the range of the light is the range at such it can illuminate other objects, not the range it can be seen at? So 100' from a torch in otherwise empty darkness, you see the torch. But you don't see anything around it in enough detail to matter (ie they're heavily obscured by the intervening darkness). So a watcher on a tower sees the torches of the approaching army, but doesn't see any details about who is carrying them.

Pretty sure that's the default assumption of most DMs.

Edit: Oh I see what you mean. It's a variation on only being able to see the area lit up if you're actually inside it, ie darkness preventing you from seeing out of it, effectively blocking line of sight.

[Rukelnikov]

So, there's an issue with the Vantablack argument that I haven't seen brought up yet. Now correct me if I'm wrong, the entire reason people feel the Vantablack method is correct is because darkness doesn't entirely block your vision. If you're in a dark tunnel, you can see the torch 50 feet away from you, therefore darkness doesn't block vision. Therefore magical darkness also doesn't block vision through it. That is the argument, correct?


But wouldn't that argument imply that you can see through the Fog Cloud spell to the other side, but you couldn't see anyone within Fog Cloud? And that people within Fog Cloud can see out of it to anyone not in the Fog Cloud, but immediately lose sight of them once someone enters the Fog Cloud?

Fog Cloud itself only states "You create a 20-foot-radius Sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The Sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. It lasts for the Duration or until a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it."

It doesn't say it creates an "opaque fog" or even a "heavy fog", just "fog". And you can't really claim "all fog is opaque" because we know that isn't true. You can see pretty easily through most levels of fog. And since darkness obscurement is treated exactly the same as fog obscurement, then wouldn't your ruling of "you can see through the Darkness spell because you can see through darkness" mean you can see through the Fog Cloud because nothing in the spell states its an opaque fog?

Wall of Stone doesn't say it creates opaque stone? Does that mean you can see thru a Wall of Stone? Does that in turn mean you can see thru every wall?

Its the purview of the DM to determine when your vision is blocked by a creature, object, atmospheric phenomena or whatever. So the same way the game doesn't tell you that objects block vision, and we still treat them as such, the game doesn't need to tell you that fog so thick you cant see anything inside it, is thick enough you can't see thru it. And it doesn't contradict vision rules, because they never say "objects block vision" and still we know they do.


I agree that with the wording of Heavy Obscurement you can technically "only have it one way", either it completely blocks vision or it doesn't...but that road goes both ways. Either you can see through normal darkness, the Darkness spell, and Fog Cloud, or you can't see through any of them via RAW.

I think reading it under the assumption that players and DM know how sight works makes them work.


A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

You suffer from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area (it doesn't say "something or someone", does that mean we can see cretures but not objects? No, we know how sight works).

If you are in darkness you can see a lit torch 200 ft away because the area you are trying to see something in is not heavily obscured.

The darkness spell does seem to be "Vanta Black", you can't see into the darkness but you can see outside from it from the inside. I think the "Vanta Black" label is what makes it harder to picture, if you just think "lights are out inside this sphere", makes it much simpler to imagine.

Can I see a lit torch inside the area? No, lights are out.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area? Yeah, its a brightly lit area.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area on the other side of a wall? No, there's a wall in between.
Can I see from one side of the dome to the other? Yeah, its a brigthly lit area.

Compare with Ink Blot Darkness:

Can I see a lit torch inside the area? No, there's dome a of black.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area? No, there's dome a of black.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area on the other side of a wall? No, there's dome a of black and there's a wall in between.
Can I see from one side of the dome to the other? No, there's dome a of black.

Compare with Fog Cloud:

Can I see a lit torch inside the area? No, there's too much fog.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area? No, there's too much fog.
Can I see a lit torch outside the area on the other side of a wall? No, there's too much fog and a wall in between.
Can I see from one side of the dome to the other? No, there's too much fog.

Ink Blot and Fog Cloud answers are all the same, the only difference would be for someone that can see in magical darkness, like having Devil's Sight.

Lights Out Darkness and Fog Cloud work very differently mechanically, as we can see from how we answered these questions.

Both Fog Cloud and Ink Blot Darkness, nullify vision for everyone inside, and block vision thru it, they are also very overt. Lights Out Darkness allows those inside of it to still see things outside of it, its great for ambushes, but if foes enter the area they can benefit from it as much as you can.

Just the fact that the Ink Blot interpretation reduces it mechanically to a worse Fog Cloud (less range, area and duration) unless you have a pretty specific feature, leads me to believe that "lights out" darkness is the better interpretation (RAW or not can be argued).

[Silpharon]

I don't follow. Why can't it be a 5' cube of inkblot that creatures with darkvision can see through?

Are you suggesting it would look like a 5' cube of opaque black to normal vision creatures, and grays to darkvision creatures?

If so, the main reason is that darkness is not opaque unless it is explicitly made so.

In the case of Shadow of Moil or Tricksy Fey, the magical darkness doesn't explicitly say a "creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness". While the Darkness and Maddening Darkness spells do say that. And while we may have thought that could be assumed, Sage Advice Compendium clarified that:

Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.
Obstruction is opaque, and that only occurs when specified [edit: for spells creating magical darkness]

[Rukelnikov]

Are you suggesting it would look like a 5' cube of opaque black to normal vision creatures, and grays to darkvision creatures?

If so, the main reason is that darkness is not opaque unless it is explicitly made so.

In the case of Shadow of Moil or Tricksy Fey, the magical darkness doesn't explicitly say a "creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness". While the Darkness and Maddening Darkness spells do say that. And while we may have thought that could be assumed, Sage Advice Compendium clarified that:

Obstruction is opaque, and that only occurs when specified.

Where is it specified Wall of Stone blocks vision?

Let's see how the Tricksy feature works:


Tricksy. The fey can fill a 5-foot cube within 5 feet of it with magical darkness, which lasts until the end of its next turn

What does PHB say about darkness under Vision and Light?


Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

So, replacing we get


Tricksy. The fey can fill a 5-foot cube within 5 feet of it with magical heavily obscured area, which lasts until the end of its next turn

What are the rules for heavily obscured area?


A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

Replacing again


Tricksy. The fey can fill a 5-foot cube within 5 feet of it, a creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area, which lasts until the end of its next turn

So, you could still be able to see someone outside the darkness just fine. It can be great to grant an ally advantage on attacks and enemies disadv to attack him/her/it (unless they have darkvision).

I've come to think the rules for obscurement and light conditions "work" (though they are extremely poorly conveyed, and likely poorly designed) if we assume that we understand how sight works, and that the "A creature effectively..." is the mechanical description of what "blocks vision entirely" is referring to.

[Silpharon]

Where is it specified Wall of Stone blocks vision?

The bold line is in reference to forms of magical darkness. Look above. Wall of Stone would be handled by line of sight rules.


So, you could still be able to see someone outside the darkness just fine. It can be great to grant an ally advantage on attacks and enemies disadv to attack him/her/it (unless they have darkvision).

Completely agree. I was just showing how that was different than the other 2 spells (at least according to my interpretation from SAC).


I've come to think the rules for obscurement and light conditions "work" (though they are extremely poorly conveyed, and likely poorly designed) if we assume that we understand how sight works, and that the "A creature effectively..." is the mechanical description of what "blocks vision entirely" is referring to.
Yep, I agree, and if you look in context, the "blocks vision entirely" statement is meaning "blocks vision entirely within that area". It's the line of sight rules from DMG that prevent creatures from seeing out of fog. They should've put that section alongside the Vision and Light section in the PHB.

[Rukelnikov]

The bold line is in reference to forms of magical darkness. Look above. Wall of Stone would be handled by line of sight rules.

Completely agree. I was just showing how that was different than the other 2 spells (at least according to my interpretation from SAC). The DMG uses "obstructs" language in their line of sight section to convey opaque vision, they even call out dense fog as a cause.

Yep, I agree, and if you look in context, the "blocks vision entirely" statement is meaning "blocks vision entirely within that area". It's the line of sight rules from DMG that prevent creatures from seeing out of fog. They should've put that block alongside the Vision and Light section in the PHB.

Kinda, but again, they are poorly written.

Imagine a creature inside a standing coffin in the middle of a room. A standing coffin seen from above (like in a grid) doesn't occupy the full 5 square feet its residing on, by the LoS rules, the creature could pick a corner of its square, trace a line to a creature 10 feet away from the coffin, and have LoS to it, because nothing blocks their squares corners. But it obviously doesn't have LoS because its inside an coffin.

[Silpharon]

It says it doesn't permit darkvision. The spell also says it doesn't permit darkvision; Sage Advice is just reitterating that, unless I'm seriously misparsing something.

I'm primarily caught on the "obstructs" word choice in the SAC. An obstruction is something that can't be seen through. The Darkness spell also uses "can't see through" instead of "can't see into" or "can't see within".


I prefer to focus on the form of vision darkness doesn't explicitly differ from regular darkness with: normal sight.

This is a good argument. It's very strange that only darkvision is mentioned. Either (a) the writer assumed the reader would apply the same affects to normal vision, knowing that darkvision was the more capable subset of vision, or (b) only darkvision needed clarification. You are suggesting the latter, where I was suggesting the former.


Most people, I think, would rule that you can see the torch. After all, we're all familiar with how lit areas work, and that standing in deep shadow doesn't blind you to them.

Absolutely, and I think this is the only interpretation that makes sense. The heavy obscuration rules have to be read alongside the DMG line of sight rules to really crystallize the intent. And common sense should reign for such a standard phenomena we all experience.


Creatures with darkvision... might see LESS well into the area of the darkness spell than beyond the radius of dim lighting, since darkvision cannot "see through" the darkness spell's magical darkness.


How could they see less well? Unless the darkness spell is opaque to darkvision creatures only, there wouldn't be a difference in perception.

[f5anor]

A thought, and one I'm not wedded to:

What if the range of the light is the range at such it can illuminate other objects, not the range it can be seen at? So 100' from a torch in otherwise empty darkness, you see the torch. But you don't see anything around it in enough detail to matter (ie they're heavily obscured by the intervening darkness). So a watcher on a tower sees the torches of the approaching army, but doesn't see any details about who is carrying them.

And note that "darkness" doesn't mean total absence of vision and light, merely that there isn't enough to see by to reach the "dimly illuminated" threshold. We know that because a normal night with moon still counts as being dark.

Excellent point, I believe you hit the nail on the head.

It is clear that the mechanics lack a distinction between visible and illuminating lightsources.

In order to make this distinction meaningful, the RAW would have to define three ranges per lightsource, bright light, dim light, and visible light.

To your example PhoenixPhyre, a torch could have a range of 20 (bright)/40 (dim) /200 (visible). So when standing in darkness at 100 feet from a torch you would still be able to see it, but you would not be illuminated by it.

Alternatively, you can always assume, as I believe most people do, that the torch is practically always visible. Given that such great distances are rarely even relevant in DnD.

I assume the designers did not include this info, due to its marginal utility, in order to keep things simple.

[Telok]

Thinking about it a bit... they could have just had someone do a picture of a darkness spell. In fact I can think of several spells that pictures would help with. Pretty sure this fiss jas gone well over a thousand words.

Honestly I always thought the benefit of Darkness over Fog Cloud was portability, the on/off switch, and no arguments about burning off the fog with a Fireball.

[Segev]

How could they see less well? Unless the darkness spell is opaque to darkvision creatures only, there wouldn't be a difference in perception.

If a group of drow are holding a torch in an otherwise dark chamber and there is a region of a darkness spell next to them, they can see beyond the 40 foot radius of dim light, out to another 80 feet, in black and white as if it were dim light. The area of magical darkness generated by the spell would, however, be dark, not dim light.

That's all I meant by that part.

[f5anor]

If a group of drow are holding a torch in an otherwise dark chamber and there is a region of a darkness spell next to them, they can see beyond the 40 foot radius of dim light, out to another 80 feet, in black and white as if it were dim light. The area of magical darkness generated by the spell would, however, be dark, not dim light.

That's all I meant by that part.

It just struck me that we are discussing this in far too abstract terms, in order for it to really make sense.

In the case of any lightsource, including a humble torch, what you actually perceive when you see it, is not only the object itself, but the whole illuminated area around it. Including all objects inside it.

This is the reason why the RAW states that you can see perfectly well the creatures/objects in an illuminated area, when you are yourself in darkness, as long as you look out of the darkness and into the light.

In your example, the drow would not only perceive the torch, but the whole illuminated area of bright (20 feet), and dim light (20 feet more) in total a sphere of a radius of 40 feet, glowing in the darkness.

When I picture it like this, I believe its clearly reasonable that the 15 feet radius (EDIT, corrected the radius to reflect 15 feet) inky blot created by the Darkness spell would potentially block the distant the 40 feet wide illuminated sphere created by the torch.

The reason being that the Drow would not be looking into the light (the torch lit sphere), but instead into the Darkness darkened sphere.

[Silpharon]

Kinda, but again, they are poorly written.

Imagine a creature inside a standing coffin in the middle of a room. A standing coffin seen from above (like in a grid) doesn't occupy the full 5 square feet its residing on, by the LoS rules, the creature could pick a corner of its square, trace a line to a creature 10 feet away from the coffin, and have LoS to it, because nothing blocks their squares corners. But it obviously doesn't have LoS because its inside an coffin.

Yeah, that wouldn't work out right by those rules. Thankfully, they added another paragraph right under that one:


This degree of precision is rarely necessary. You can determine line of sight as you do when playing without miniatures: make a call, and keep the game moving.
The designers didn't want to cover every scenario, so this is the "you know what we mean, just play" line.

[Segev]

It just struck me that we are discussing this in far too abstract terms, in order for it to really make sense.

In the case of any lightsource, including a humble torch, what you actually perceive when you see it, is not only the object itself, but the whole illuminated area around it. Including all objects inside it.

This is the reason why the RAW states that you can see perfectly well the creatures/objects in an illuminated area, when you are yourself in darkness, as long as you look out of the darkness and into the light.

In your example, the drow would not only perceive the torch, but the whole illuminated area of bright (20 feet), and dim light (20 feet more) in total a sphere of a radius of 40 feet, glowing in the darkness.

When I picture it like this, I believe its clearly reasonable that the 60 feet radius inky blot created by the Darkness spell would potentially block the whole of the 40 feet illuminated sphere created by the torch.

The reason being that the Drow would not be looking into the light (the torch lit sphere), but instead into the Darkness darkened sphere.

I'm not sure I follow you, here.

While darkness actually has a radius of 15 feet, not 60 feet, I am not sure that that is relevant to the point you're making. I am also not sure what the point you're making is, though. I will be using the 15 ft. radius for discussion purposes, to be clear, as that lets me get some overlapping areas that can be more illustrative.

The drow are standing loosely - say, in the fifteen by fifteen square surrounding - their torch, which is held by somebody at the center of that square. The center of a darkness spell lies twenty feet to the east of the torch, positioned so that one of the drow standing adjacent to the torchbearer is within the spell's fifteen foot radius, and the others are far enough west of the center of the darkness spell to be outside of it.

The rulings I would go with about what they can see are as follows:

The torchbearer and the drow outside the darkness can see each other in bright light, the colorful mosaic floor of the cave as if in bright light out to 40 feet from the torch (due to their Darkvision granting them the ability to see in dim light as if in bright light) to the north, south, and west, and cannot see their companion immediately east of the torchbearer nor the mosaic he is standing on in a 30 foot diameter circle stretching back from him due to the magic of the darkness spell. For 120 feet from their positions, anywhere the darkness spell and the light of the torch doesn't reach, the drow can see the mosaic in black and white, as if in dim light, making it harder to pick out details if they need perception checks to do so.

The drow inside the area of the darkness effect more or less sees the same thing the other drow do, and cannot see himself. He, like the others, can see roughly from 25 ft. to his east out to 35 feet to his east as if in bright light, due to the darkness spell's area stopping about 25 feet east of him and the torch's dim light extending another 10 feet beyond that (remember, the torchbearer is five feet to his west, so 35 feet to his east is 40 feet east of the torchbearer). Beyond that, he can see out to 120 feet to his (the drow in darkness's) east as if in dim light, in black and white.

All of them can see the adventuring party approaching from the east whose paladin and fighter make it impossible for them to stealth along, especially since the party have a lantern of their own illuminating them and the area around them. The party can also see the torch, and the drow around it, and that there's an odd black spot on the ground right near the torch, as if something were casting a great shadow. The party cannot see the drow in the magical darkness. If the drow step into the magical darkness with the torch, then the party would see a strangely lit annulus of the mosaic on the ground, but none of the drow nor their torch in the middle of that annulus.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Excellent point, I believe you hit the nail on the head.

It is clear that the mechanics lack a distinction between visible and illuminating lightsources.

In order to make this distinction meaningful, the RAW would have to define three ranges per lightsource, bright light, dim light, and visible light.

To your example PhoenixPhyre, a torch could have a range of 20 (bright)/40 (dim) /200 (visible). So when standing in darkness at 100 feet from a torch you would still be able to see it, but you would not be illuminated by it.

Alternatively, you can always assume, as I believe most people do, that the torch is practically always visible. Given that such great distances are rarely even relevant in DnD.

I assume the designers did not include this info, due to its marginal utility, in order to keep things simple.

Thinking about my own experience--

If I'm driving, I can see another car's headlights (the lights themselves) at effectively any distance. That doesn't help me see what's illuminated by those lights (ie the ground in front of them) except at much shorter ranges.

Another example--consider one of those concerts where everyone's holding a lit candle (or in modern times their phones with the flashlight turned on). Looking out over the sea of lights, you basically just see the lights. Not the things illuminated by them, except up close.

So being able to see the light =/= being able to see the things illuminated by the light. In the real world, this is because diffuse reflection (such as off a person or most objects) drops the intensity of the reflected light tremendously (since it's only illuminated by a fraction of the light source, and then only a fraction of the reflected light impacts our eyes, not counting the amount absorbed, which is non-trivial as well).

From this perspective, the direct effects ("cannot be illuminated") of darkness and regular darkness are the same, except darkness is harder to illuminate. No object within that area can be illuminated (ie become visible). The differences appear when you get closer or have darkvision or apply a light right nearby.

1) it snuffs out spell-based sources of light (that don't exceed its strength)
2) even darkvision cannot treat it as illuminated
3) a light source nearby or in the darkness would still be able to be seen from the other side (not ink blot), but if seen from above would have a "chunk" cut out of the bright area[1] where it impinges on the darkness. An object passing into the darkness from the light would disappear. Not leave an outline. Light in that volume of space does not interact with objects. Because even being blocked by it and leaving an outline is a form of illumination.

Part 3 is where it really departs from reality. Because we don't have magical darkness with these properties.

Other spells that create darkness don't (necessarily) have properties 1-2, but property 3 is (as far as I can tell) part of the nature of being non-normal darkness. Because otherwise they'd be useless in a normally-lit environment.

[1] if you had a torch (20 bright/20 dim) in the center of a darkness spell (15' radius) in an otherwise dark environment, you'd see (starting at the center and moving outward in any direction):
a) 15' of darkness with a torch light
b) 5' of bright light
c) 20' of dim light
d) darkness

[f5anor]

I'm not sure I follow you, here.

While darkness actually has a radius of 15 feet, not 60 feet, I am not sure that that is relevant to the point you're making. I am also not sure what the point you're making is, though. I will be using the 15 ft. radius for discussion purposes, to be clear, as that lets me get some overlapping areas that can be more illustrative.

The drow are standing loosely - say, in the fifteen by fifteen square surrounding - their torch, which is held by somebody at the center of that square. The center of a darkness spell lies twenty feet to the east of the torch, positioned so that one of the drow standing adjacent to the torchbearer is within the spell's fifteen foot radius, and the others are far enough west of the center of the darkness spell to be outside of it.

The rulings I would go with about what they can see are as follows:

The torchbearer and the drow outside the darkness can see each other in bright light, the colorful mosaic floor of the cave as if in bright light out to 40 feet from the torch (due to their Darkvision granting them the ability to see in dim light as if in bright light) to the north, south, and west, and cannot see their companion immediately east of the torchbearer nor the mosaic he is standing on in a 30 foot diameter circle stretching back from him due to the magic of the darkness spell. For 120 feet from their positions, anywhere the darkness spell and the light of the torch doesn't reach, the drow can see the mosaic in black and white, as if in dim light, making it harder to pick out details if they need perception checks to do so.

The drow inside the area of the darkness effect more or less sees the same thing the other drow do, and cannot see himself. He, like the others, can see roughly from 25 ft. to his east out to 35 feet to his east as if in bright light, due to the darkness spell's area stopping about 25 feet east of him and the torch's dim light extending another 10 feet beyond that (remember, the torchbearer is five feet to his west, so 35 feet to his east is 40 feet east of the torchbearer). Beyond that, he can see out to 120 feet to his (the drow in darkness's) east as if in dim light, in black and white.

All of them can see the adventuring party approaching from the east whose paladin and fighter make it impossible for them to stealth along, especially since the party have a lantern of their own illuminating them and the area around them. The party can also see the torch, and the drow around it, and that there's an odd black spot on the ground right near the torch, as if something were casting a great shadow. The party cannot see the drow in the magical darkness. If the drow step into the magical darkness with the torch, then the party would see a strangely lit annulus of the mosaic on the ground, but none of the drow nor their torch in the middle of that annulus.


Apologies for the error regarding the Darkness range, I was too hasty when looking it up.

Here is the diagram you had in mind (https://ibb.co/2FWpmBG), I trust.

T stands for torch
D stands for Darkness
E stands for Elf (Drow)
Yellow is the bright light
Light grey is the dim light
Dark grey is the Darkness area


I fully agree with your assessment. Some of the numbers are off by a few feet, but overall its spot on.

I would describe the surface of the Darkness spell effect as a fully opaque inky black, but this would be only for effect. In principle nobody knows how it would look like.

I interpret the RAW to mean that as long as anyone looks directly into the darkness/Darkness, they would be suffering from the blinded condition (when it comes to creatures inside the darkness/Darkness). If the Drow in this scenario would look past (meaning left and right, if possible up, or down) the Darkness, they would see normally to the extend of their 120 feet darkvision whetever lies left, right, up, down of the inkly blot.

[f5anor]

[1] if you had a torch (20 bright/20 dim) in the center of a darkness spell (15' radius) in an otherwise dark environment, you'd see (starting at the center and moving outward in any direction):
a) 15' of darkness with a torch light
b) 5' of bright light
c) 20' of dim light
d) darkness

Excellent analysis regarding how light and illumination behaves, fully agree.

What do you mean with "15' of darkness with a torch light"? I understand the 15' of darkness, but what do you mean with "a torch light"?

[Segev]

Apologies for the error regarding the Darkness range, I was too hasty when looking it up.

Here is the diagram you had in mind (https://ibb.co/2FWpmBG), I trust.

T stands for torch
D stands for Darkness
E stands for Elf (Drow)
Yellow is the bright light
Light grey is the dim light
Dark grey is the Darkness area


I fully agree with your assessment. Some of the numbers are off by a few feet, but overall its spot on.

I would describe the surface of the Darkness spell effect as a fully opaque inky black, but this would be only for effect. In principle nobody knows how it would look like.

I interpret the RAW to mean that as long as anyone looks directly into the darkness/Darkness, they would be suffering from the blinded condition (when it comes to creatures inside the darkness/Darkness). If the Drow in this scenario would look past the Darkness, they would see normally to the extend of their 120 feet darkvision whetever lies left and right of the inkly blot.

The diagram looks like a good representation. I'd have used circles, but your diagram is actually how 5e recommends reckoning things on a square grid. It illustrates the scenario perfectly; thank you for making it!

I would not, personally, describe the surface of the darkness spell's area at all, though I see where you're coming from. I would describe it as a region in a heavy shadow that makes it impossible to see anything inside, except possibly vague silhouettes.

Note that "seeing silhouettes" is actually beyond the scope of the level of detail 5e goes into. You can't see the creatures or objects or terrain if you're seeing only their beshadowed silhouettes, but it might be enough to justify being able to pick them out as targets that you attack with disadvantage, if the DM deems them clear enough. Very deep into "rulings, not rules," here, though. The RAW do state you're "effectively blinded" to the things inside the magically dark area. I do not interpret the text to mean you see nothing, even outside of it, even right in front of your face, if you try to look at something in the obscured area, as I find that an absurd result, and therefore I treat "effectively blind with respect to X" meaning "X is effectively invisible, except as it serves as an obstruction to line of sight."

[f5anor]

Note that "seeing silhouettes" is actually beyond the scope of the level of detail 5e goes into. You can't see the creatures or objects or terrain if you're seeing only their beshadowed silhouettes, but it might be enough to justify being able to pick them out as targets that you attack with disadvantage, if the DM deems them clear enough. Very deep into "rulings, not rules," here, though. The RAW do state you're "effectively blinded" to the things inside the magically dark area. I do not interpret the text to mean you see nothing, even outside of it, even right in front of your face, if you try to look at something in the obscured area, as I find that an absurd result, and therefore I treat "effectively blind with respect to X" meaning "X is effectively invisible, except as it serves as an obstruction to line of sight."

I see where you are coming from here. I recall similar confusion when discussing the effects of Invisibility.

In my mind the ability of characters to target something they cannot see (inside darkness/Darkness, or even something invisible) is not contingent on whether they can see at least something or not.

In principle, it could be a sound (coughing, sneezing, breathing, feet shuffling, etc.) that indicates to an attacker, that a creature might be inside the darkness. In a normal combat scenario, the endless stream of EB coming out of a specific point in the Darkness would be a good enough giveaway :smallsmile:

[PhoenixPhyre]

Excellent analysis regarding how light and illumination behaves, fully agree.

What do you mean with "15' of darkness with a torch light"? I understand the 15' of darkness, but what do you mean with "a torch light"?

I mean in this model, you'd see a flame, hovering in the darkness. Or not, depending on how you model the flame itself. Seen from a distance, it's the same as if it were normal darkness--you see the pinpoint of light direct from the source, but any reflection off other objects isn't visible enough to matter.

Yeah, up close that's going to look funny. That's magic for you.

And note @Segev--creatures don't block line of sight. So, at the level of 5e's rules, the difference between the two states collapses. At least I think so?

However, if you had a wall (assuming >> 30' in length) with a torch on a bracket, with darkness cast on the bracket or on the torch, you'd see (looking from a point within the torch's range, looking from infinitely far to the left and sweeping to the right to infinity, a total angular change of 180):

Darkness (no line of sight to anything) -- wall, dimly lit (20' linear section) -- wall, brightly lit (5' linear section) -- darkness (15' linear section) -- torch flame in darkness (infinitesimal) -- darkness (15' linear section) -- wall, brightly lit (5' linear section) -- wall, dimly lit (20' linear section) -- Darkness (no line of sight to anything).

Even in the middle chunk, you wouldn't have line of sight to anything beyond the wall--the wall breaks line of sight entirely.

However, if you replaced that with a wall with a 30' chunk taken out right in front of you and a person holding a torch in the same position, according to this model you'd see the same thing except that if there were areas of strong enough illumination on the other side so that you're in the illuminated area from those lights, you'd have line of sight on anything beyond the wall in that section.

I'll note that the VTT's that I'm familiar with run regular darkness as a trinary toggle based on the object being looked at, disregarding the observer as long as there aren't opaque objects in the way. For one thing, disregarding the actual effects here, that's way easier to code. :smallsmile:

[f5anor]

Now that we seem to have come to some conclusion here, what about the following question?

Do you think that a creature without Devil's Sight or Eyes of the Dark, would be able to see creatures outside the range of Darkness?

I mean, of course the creature (with or without Darkvision) could not see inside the Darkness, it could not even see its own hands. But according to the RAW I would expect that it could see perfectly well outside the range of the Darkness.

Do you agree?

[Segev]

I mean in this model, you'd see a flame, hovering in the darkness. Or not, depending on how you model the flame itself. Seen from a distance, it's the same as if it were normal darkness--you see the pinpoint of light direct from the source, but any reflection off other objects isn't visible enough to matter.

Yeah, up close that's going to look funny. That's magic for you.

Personally, I would not have the flame itself be visible inside the darkness, but I can see argument to rule otherwise. On the flame itself only, of course.

We have precedent - perhaps not from this edition? I'm not sure if I'm conflating 3.5 here - for "invisible light sources" that shed light despite not being able to be seen, themselves.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally, I would not have the flame itself be visible inside the darkness, but I can see argument to rule otherwise. On the flame itself only, of course.

We have precedent - perhaps not from this edition? I'm not sure if I'm conflating 3.5 here - for "invisible light sources" that shed light despite not being able to be seen, themselves.

Yeah. The presence or absence of the flame itself is, I think, somewhat a tricky issue. I could rule either way. And have run "sourceless" light in several games, where there's no single source, but the area is lit up.

[Silpharon]

Thinking about my own experience--

If I'm driving, I can see another car's headlights (the lights themselves) at effectively any distance. That doesn't help me see what's illuminated by those lights (ie the ground in front of them) except at much shorter ranges.

Another example--consider one of those concerts where everyone's holding a lit candle (or in modern times their phones with the flashlight turned on). Looking out over the sea of lights, you basically just see the lights. Not the things illuminated by them, except up close.

To be honest, I think you're taking that too far.

For headlights, you absolutely could see something that they are illuminating. It's just in that case, it's (1) a directed beam much like a Bullseye Lantern; (2) if you're looking towards the headlight, you aren't in good seeing geometry for reflections off objects in the way (like a deer); and (3) there is an eyeball dynamic range issue where you can't see the illuminated stuff because the headlights are so bright that your pupils constrict. 5e does not deal with all those intricacies: there are areas (spaces) that are illuminated brightly or dimly or not at all (darkness). A DM may decide to be more specific, but otherwise an illuminated area should be considered illuminated to all who can see it.

For candles (not cell phones, which are again directed like Bullseye Lanterns), typically you can see faces of the people holding them. The illumination range is small, but it's there.

If, as a DM, you want to claim your players' pupils are constricted from seeing the light source, and thence can't see the illuminated area, so be it... But that's house rule, not RAW (or RAI as I see it).

[Silpharon]

Personally, I would not have the flame itself be visible inside the darkness, but I can see argument to rule otherwise. On the flame itself only, of course.

Yeah that's an interesting question...

Vanta black is effectively stating that non magical illumination is being shadowed by an invisible magical obstruction (which is a nice contradiction, but it is magic). The same could be said for emissions from creatures/objects (given a thermal vision concept for pure darkvision).

I don't see why via vanta black perspective we wouldn't see the torch (and torch only as stated)...

[Segev]

Yeah that's all interesting question...

Vanta black is effectively stating that non magical illumination is being shadowed by an invisible magical obstruction (which is a nice contradiction, but it is magic). The same could be said for emissions from creatures/objects (given a thermal vision concept for pure darkvision).

I don't see why via vanta black perspective we wouldn't see the torch (and torch only as stated)...

To be clear, I am not trying to make an argument that it definitely should be ruled this way, and only explaining why I would make this ruling: To me, the darkness spell makes everything in it "magically dark." Nothing within can be "lit up" or "bright." The torch still sheds light, but as with an invisible torch, you can't see it; it is darkened. You can, however, see the things it illuminates outside the area of the darkness spell.

I do see the reasoning behind the opposite ruling: it's not invisible, and you can see the light it emits, which means you can see the flame itself as a light within the darkness. I dislike this as a mechanic despite thinking it could look really cool, so I would rule that you cannot see the flame in the darkness spell's area. But again, I can see both interpretations making sense within the "how it works" underlying framework I'm basing my rulings on.

[Silpharon]

To be clear, I am not trying to make an argument that it definitely should be ruled this way, and only explaining why I would make this ruling: To me, the darkness spell makes everything in it "magically dark." Nothing within can be "lit up" or "bright." The torch still sheds light, but as with an invisible torch, you can't see it; it is darkened. You can, however, see the things it illuminates outside the area of the darkness spell.

If I go with the interpretation that the darkness spell blocks the creation of emitted and reflected light within the sphere, then the torch is black, and it's also not illuminating outside the sphere.

If I go with the interpretation that the darkness spell blocks the creation of reflected light only within the sphere, then the torch is lit, and it is illuminating outside the sphere.

I think it would be the former case, as darkvision is blocked, which to me suggests creatures with darkvision can't see emissions (e.g. thermal) coming from inside the sphere. So creation of both emitted and reflected light is blocked.

[Sception]

If I go with the interpretation that the darkness spell blocks the creation of emitted and reflected light within the sphere, then the torch is black, and it's also not illuminating outside the sphere.

If I go with the interpretation that the darkness spell blocks the creation of reflected light only within the sphere, then the torch is lit, and it is illuminating outside the sphere.

Why would the spell block reflected light but not created light? Would it be easier to assume the spell simply blocks the passage of light through the affected area altogether?

[Silpharon]

Why would the spell block reflected light but not created light?
I think it blocks both, based on darkvision being blocked (which must see more than reflected light). I was just stating the two sides to that interpretation.

Would it be easier to assume the spell simply blocks the passage of light through the affected area altogether?

Absolutely! That's the inky blot interpretation, and it would make the sphere opaque. Based on my reading I'm disposed to think inky blot is RAI, but Sergy had a good point that the spell only talks about blocking darkvision, not normal vision. Why would it do that? One interpretation is that the normal rules apply to normal vision, and thus needed no clarification. This reasoning would lead to a vanta-black interpretation.

So I'm just trying to put a vanta-black hat on for a while and ponder the rules in that light. :)

[Keltest]

I think it blocks both, based on darkvision being blocked (which must see more than reflected light). I was just stating the two sides to that interpretation.


Absolutely! That's the inky blot interpretation, and it would make the sphere opaque. Based on my reading I'm disposed to think inky blot is RAI, but Sergy had a good point that the spell only talks about blocking darkvision, not normal vision. Why would it do that? One interpretation is that the normal rules apply to normal vision, and thus needed no clarification. This reasoning would lead to a vanta-black interpretation.

So I'm just trying to put a vanta-black hat on for a while and ponder the rules in that light. :)

The spell actually does talk about normal vision. It specifically mentions nonmagical light can't illuminate it. The quibble is whether this means that light cant pass through the area at all (inky blot) or simply that it cant be used to see anything in the area, but can otherwise pass through fine (vantablack).

The fact that the vantablack interpretation creates an incredibly silly scenario when combined with the rules for obscurement (you cant see them, but you can still tell if somebody is doing jumping jacks for example just by looking at them if theres backlighting outside the darkness) has led me to not consider vantablack to be a valid reading.

[Silpharon]

The spell actually does talk about normal vision. It specifically mentions nonmagical light can't illuminate it. The quibble is whether this means that light cant pass through the area at all (inky blot) or simply that it cant be used to see anything in the area, but can otherwise pass through fine (vantablack).

The fact that the vantablack interpretation creates an incredibly silly scenario when combined with the rules for obscurement (you cant see them, but you can still tell if somebody is doing jumping jacks for example just by looking at them if theres backlighting outside the darkness) has led me to not consider vantablack to be a valid reading.

While I agree that the vanta-black interpretation is tough to justify, I don't think "nonmagical light can't illuminate it" solves the riddle. Light and vision are distinct concepts. The fact that most lights can't illuminate the area is just clarification on how that area maintains its darkness.

The vanta-black reading suggests:

Normal vision creatures can't see into this darkness just like any other darkness. Ergo, just like normal darkness, it does not block the transmission of light through it.

Darkvision creatures can't see into this darkness, but they can normal darkness. Hence the need for the spell to make that point explicit. To me, this would indicate the spell disallows the emission or reflection of light in the area.

[Tanarii]

Darkvision creatures can't see into this darkness, but they can normal darkness. Hence the need for the spell to make that point explicit. To me, this would indicate the spell disallows the emission or reflection of light in the area.
Or that the spell shuts down the (background) magical feature of darkvision.

Edit: background magical as in dragon breath is background magical, not "spell" magical. So it doesn't necessarily say anything about how light behaves, because darkvision doesn't imply anything about how light behaves, it's just (background) magical. So the spell just calls out a magical feature that it shuts down.

[Segev]

The fact that the vantablack interpretation creates an incredibly silly scenario when combined with the rules for obscurement (you cant see them, but you can still tell if somebody is doing jumping jacks for example just by looking at them if theres backlighting outside the darkness) has led me to not consider vantablack to be a valid reading.

Do you then support nonmagical darkness also being an inky blot, on the basis that being able to see into a lit area when you are, yourself, in a region of nonmagical darkness, or there is one between you and the other lit area, also creates the same "incredibly silly scenario?"

[Silpharon]

Or that the spell shuts down the (background) magical feature of darkvision.

Edit: background magical as in dragon breath is background magical, not "spell" magical. So it doesn't necessarily say anything about how light behaves, because darkvision doesn't imply anything about how light behaves, it's just (background) magical. So the spell just calls out a magical feature that it shuts down.
Yeah, that's fair. I think it provides the same conclusion, right?

[Silpharon]

Do you then support nonmagical darkness also being an inky blot, on the basis that being able to see into a lit area when you are, yourself, in a region of nonmagical darkness, or there is one between you and the other lit area, also creates the same "incredibly silly scenario?"

I know you're talking to Keltest, but the notion that non-magical darkness creates an inky blot is clearly not RAI. That is truly a separate (solved from my perspective) issue from the darkness spell.

[Segev]

I know you're talking to Keltest, but the notion that non-magical darkness creates an inky blot is clearly not RAI. That is truly a separate (solved from my perspective) issue from the darkness spell.

The point is, his argument for why the darkness spell is an ink blot relies in the "incredible silliness" of the scenario he outlined if darkness is not an ink blot. I am pointing out that nonmagical, totally natural darkness results in the exact same "incredibly silly scenario." If that "incredibly silly scenario" is sufficient reason to necessitate darkness creating an ink blot, as rooted in the rules on Heavy Obscurement as Keltest referenced, then one should also rule nonmagical darkness to behave the same way, to avoid the same "incredibly silly scenario."

[Keltest]

The point is, his argument for why the darkness spell is an ink blot relies in the "incredible silliness" of the scenario he outlined if darkness is not an ink blot. I am pointing out that nonmagical, totally natural darkness results in the exact same "incredibly silly scenario." If that "incredibly silly scenario" is sufficient reason to necessitate darkness creating an ink blot, as rooted in the rules on Heavy Obscurement as Keltest referenced, then one should also rule nonmagical darkness to behave the same way, to avoid the same "incredibly silly scenario."

Im pretty sure ive made my opinion on darkness from the darkness spell and mundane darkness behaving differently (ie that they do so and its ok that they do) pretty clear at this point. I dont know why you keep asking me variations on the same question as if my response is going to change.

Unless something incredibly strange is happening, mundane darkness isnt going to get the same backlighting effect due to the border of dim lighting around the bright light. Yeah, you'll still get silhouettes in some cases, but not "vantablack person against a white background" silhouette.

[Tanarii]

The point is, his argument for why the darkness spell is an ink blot relies in the "incredible silliness" of the scenario he outlined if darkness is not an ink blot. I am pointing out that nonmagical, totally natural darkness results in the exact same "incredibly silly scenario." If that "incredibly silly scenario" is sufficient reason to necessitate darkness creating an ink blot, as rooted in the rules on Heavy Obscurement as Keltest referenced, then one should also rule nonmagical darkness to behave the same way, to avoid the same "incredibly silly scenario."
Exactly. All it takes is a guy with a lamp next to a white wall, and someone else between the lamp and the viewer in (normal) darkness.

And the important point from this thread is, in terms of game effects, silhouettes don't matter. You take the penalty as if you're blinded anyway. Although it may come into play when the DM is deciding, as they have to for any unseen opponent, if you have to guess their location or not.

[Rukelnikov]

Exactly. All it takes is a guy with a lamp next to a white wall, and someone else between the lamp and the viewer in (normal) darkness.

And the important point from this thread is, in terms of game effects, silhouettes don't matter. You take the penalty as if you're blinded anyway. Although it may come into play when the DM is deciding, as they have to for any unseen opponent, if you have to guess their location or not.

Like a person walking in a cinema after the movie already started.

[Segev]

Im pretty sure ive made my opinion on darkness from the darkness spell and mundane darkness behaving differently (ie that they do so and its ok that they do) pretty clear at this point. I dont know why you keep asking me variations on the same question as if my response is going to change.

Unless something incredibly strange is happening, mundane darkness isnt going to get the same backlighting effect due to the border of dim lighting around the bright light. Yeah, you'll still get silhouettes in some cases, but not "vantablack person against a white background" silhouette.

Thing is, it doesn't take something incredibly strange. So I cannot take your justification for magical darkness being an ink blot to be very convincing, when what you say is the deciding problem with "vantablack" is something you'll deal with if it isn't magical darkness.

[Xetheral]

Exactly. All it takes is a guy with a lamp next to a white wall, and someone else between the lamp and the viewer in (normal) darkness.

Magical darkness (with the vantablack interpretation), however, allows the silhouette to be much closer to the bright background than is possible with natural darkness. That drastically increases the likelihood of a clear silhouette. Also, magical darkness (again, with the vantablack interpretation) can create silhouettes in situations that can never come up with natural darkness, such as outdoors in broad daylight.


And the important point from this thread is, in terms of game effects, silhouettes don't matter. You take the penalty as if you're blinded anyway.

There isn't consensus on that. I for one would rule that a character is, by definition, not blinded with respect to a creature they can see. So if the creature is visible by their silhouette (which will be a situational determination), I would not impose any of the blinded penalties.

Out of curiosity, if vantablack existed in your game world, would you treat viewers as effectively blind against someone who puts on a vantablack suit and flies around in midair on a sunny day? If not, why would you treat viewers as blinded against someone shrouded in Darkness who flies around in midair on a sunny day? After all, under the vantablack interpretation of magical darkness the two scenarios are visually indistinguishable.

[Tanarii]

There isn't consensus on that. I for one would rule that a character is, by definition, not blinded with respect to a creature they can see. So if the creature is visible by their silhouette (which will be a situational determination), I would not impose any of the blinded penalties.As far as I'm concerned, it isn't a not a matter of consensus. There's no reasonable interpretation of " A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area." where you aren't making a house rule, not a ruling. That's pretty explicit. Even if I weren't to parse the one line and include any other rules, I don't think there's anything that would make a silhouette in a heavily obscured area an exception to this. (ie I don't see the potential of a lack of context due to parsing, unlike many of the other debates surrounding how darkness works.)

[Xetheral]

As far as I'm concerned, it isn't a not a matter of consensus. There's no reasonable interpretation of " A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area." where you aren't making a house rule, not a ruling. That's pretty explicit. Even if I weren't to parse the one line and include any other rules, I don't think there's anything that would make a silhouette in a heavily obscured area an exception to this. (ie I don't see the potential of a lack of context due to parsing, unlike many of the other debates surrounding how darkness works.)

By going with the vantablack interpretation of Darkness you've created a situation where it's easily possible for creatures to be clearly visible as a silhouette (e.g. casting the spell outdoors in the open during daytime). However, by definition of the Blinded condition, an observer who is effectively suffering the Blinded condition with regards to that creature can't see that creature. You therefore have a contradiction: the rules say the observer can't see the creature that the observer can clearly see.

So either you apply the effects of the Blinded condition despite the observer being able to see the creature, or because the definition of the Blinded condition isn't met you rule that the observer must not effectively suffer the condition with regards to the creature after all. (This is analogous to the related debate over whether a creature can have the Invisibile condition with respect to an observer who can see them. There is no consensus there either.)

It is true that this issue is not unique to the vantablack interpretation of Darkness--the necessity of ruling on how to handle the "effectively suffers the Blinded condition" rule with respect to a silhouette can occur with natural darkness. But with natural darkness the problem is much less acute since the likelihood of a situation with a clearly visible silhouette is far lower, since natural darkness can't exist in uniformly brightly lit areas the way Darkness can.

[Tanarii]

All of that applies to normal darkness anyway, as you note. But none of it is relevant to reading the rule.

It's pretty easy to come up with a mental model that it fits into. Even a night lit by moonlight, if not too brightly, still counts as darkness. So clearly being effectively blinded isn't not being able to see something at all. You just can't see it for rules adjudication purposes.

[Keltest]

All of that applies to normal darkness anyway, as you note. But none of it is relevant to reading the rule.

It's pretty easy to come up with a mental model that it fits into. Even a night lit by moonlight, if not too brightly, still counts as darkness. So clearly being effectively blinded isn't not being able to see something at all. You just can't see it for rules adjudication purposes.

Right, but again, its the difference between a bright backlighting literally within 5' of you, and 30 feet of dim lighting as the backdrop. One of these is a significantly more plausible scenario to be considered unable to see the silhouette in than the other.

[Segev]

Magical darkness (with the vantablack interpretation), however, allows the silhouette to be much closer to the bright background than is possible with natural darkness. That drastically increases the likelihood of a clear silhouette. Also, magical darkness (again, with the vantablack interpretation) can create silhouettes in situations that can never come up with natural darkness, such as outdoors in broad daylight.

Five feet rather than ten feet is "much closer?" There are plenty of light sources that light up five feet brightly and ten feet dimly, the candle being the most common in most settings. Sure, magical darkness can let you get to the very edge of the dark up against a region of bright light, but you can be within ten feet of a region of bright light and still be in natural darkness. You'll even be right next to a region of dim light, too.

[Silpharon]

Right, but again, its the difference between a bright backlighting literally within 5' of you, and 30 feet of dim lighting as the backdrop. One of these is a significantly more plausible scenario to be considered unable to see the silhouette in than the other.
I can see both perspectives, but I agree that for two creatures at the same height on a sunny day, it does seem like a silly scenario. I picture the creature in darkness pantomiming and holding up cardboard cutouts to confuse their enemies by playing the "where's the real me" game. And as was mentioned earlier, a vanta-black suit is pretty similar (at least against normal vision creatures).

Shadow of Moil is effectively the vanta-black darkness interpretation, but with flames of shadows wreathing the caster. This makes a bit more sense to me, as it wouldn't look like a static silhouette, but rather a shaky one with the "shadow flames".

Two questions:

For inky blot lovers, the darkness spell description only states that creatures with darkvision can't see through this darkness. What assumption does that make on creatures with normal vision? The most logical route to me is that normal vision creatures already couldn't see through darkness. This implies at least all magical darkness is opaque, if not all forms of darkness.
On that note, has there been evidence for other forms of magical darkness being opaque? I believe this could only lead to the conclusion that all darkness is opaque, which is unacceptable for gameplay, but the interpretation of the rules come a lot easier if that was the case.


Taking that to it's conclusion, could all the rules gel if we just edited the heavy obscuration rules to the following?

A heavily obscured area—such as magical darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in or through that area.

... [other rules]...

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area when attempting to see into that dim light...

Nonmagical darkness creates a heavily obscured area when attempting to see into that darkness. Characters face nonmagical darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.


With this fix, we wouldn't need to add the DMG Line of Sight block to this section for Vision and Light to stand on its own in the PHB.

[Keltest]

Magical darkness would pretty much all have to be opaque IMO, yes.

But i think we can all take a moment to appreciate that this isnt the 3.5 version, which outright uses an oxymoron to describe how Darkness works: "shadowy illumination."

[Silpharon]

Magical darkness would pretty much all have to be opaque IMO, yes.

But i think we can all take a moment to appreciate that this isnt the 3.5 version, which outright uses an oxymoron to describe how Darkness works: "shadowy illumination."

LOL, too true...

[Segev]

Magical darkness would pretty much all have to be opaque IMO, yes.

But i think we can all take a moment to appreciate that this isnt the 3.5 version, which outright uses an oxymoron to describe how Darkness works: "shadowy illumination."

No reason magical darkness has to be opaque any more than nonmagical darkness does.

And "shadowy illumination" was an explicit light level in 3.5. For those upset that 5e doesn't use "keywords" and the like, that was a keyword.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For those upset that 5e doesn't use "keywords" and the like, that was a keyword.

And one of the reasons that I'm glad 5e doesn't use keywords. Because they lend themselves to lots of absurdities. Proning an ooze from 4e, for instance.

Of course, I'm also against trying to read too much into rules. Or worrying about exactly what's RAW or not. So....yeah.

[Telok]

April 11, 2020 (on phone so just links)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h227-DywaYrX7bHRSBRT5yLyjJxVpei2/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X2e7mNqD3F1SJZBxy8L6tidsh3ahuFzR/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pwdl_5H-GSj8QYf3vht47sTFpMDRQv9_/view?usp=drivesdk

And the blender file if you want to play with light & dark yourself:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/104sFeKmJzRV6QititnEJiIAoUNdAcaF9/view?usp=drivesdk

[Silpharon]

No reason magical darkness has to be opaque any more than nonmagical darkness does.

With respect to the Heavy Obscuration rule by itself this is true. In light of the common-sense ruling that nonmagical darkness is not opaque (edit: backed by DMG p105), the options are either (a) go Inky Blot and house-rule with an adapted Heavy Obscuration paragraph like I did above; or (b) go Vanta Black and justify against the common readings of other rules.


A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
Vanta Black: They mean block vision in that area. The DMG line-of-sight rules fix the fog/foliage problem.
Inky Blot: They mean block vision entirely (in and through that area), but there's a mistake that nonmagical darkness is included in this without further explanation.

Darkness Spell: ... fill a 15-foot-radius sphere... The darkness spreads around corners.
Vanta Black: It's irrelevant that the nature of the darkness is described with substance much like Fog Cloud.
Inky Blot: Yeah, it fills up the space kinda like a black fog.

Darkness Spell: A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness.
Vanta Black: They meant "in/within" not "through".
Inky Blot: They meant what they said.

Shadow Sorc's Eye's of the Dark: If you cast [darkness] with sorcery points, you can see through the darkness created by the spell.
Vanta Black: They meant "in/within" not "through".
Inky Blot: They meant what they said.

Sage Advice Compendium: Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.
Vanta Black: They're talking about obstructing (or better phrased, preventing) the darkvision capability, not that there's an obstruction in line-of-sight.
Inky Blot: They're talking about blocking (hence obstructing) line-of-sight. Magical darkness from something like the Tricksy Fey can be seen through by creatures with darkvision (as that darkness becomes lightly obscured to them).

Shadow of Moil Spell: Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others.
Vanta Black: That's a neat spell that has a component similar to our Darkness spell.
Inky Blot: That's a neat spell that does what Vanta Black people want Darkness to do.

Pick your poison. I think I'm going inky blot, with the expectation that all magical darkness is heavily obscured (opaque unless you have darkvision and that darkvision isn't disallowed to see through it), and I will just clarify the heavy obscuration rules work with nonmagical darkness.

[Silpharon]

BTW, pg 105 of DMG:

Bright light in an environment of total darkness can be visible for miles
At least that debate can be closed.

[Tanarii]

BTW, pg 105 of DMG:

At least that debate can be closed.
Partially. Just because you can see the light itself doesn't mean you can see the area it's illuminating. Which was one aspect of that debate.

[Silpharon]

Partially. Just because you can see the light itself doesn't mean you can see the area it's illuminating. Which was one aspect of that debate.

I think the only obstacle for seeing the illuminated area was whether or not nonmagical darkness blocked vision through to it (which this new evidence dismisses). Was there some argument otherwise?

If you sneak up to a campfire, but are far enough away to not be illuminated to the point of dim light, you can still see the people warming their feet by the fire.

Taking it to the extreme: the illuminated slice of the moon is a brightly illuminated area, not a light source. Could an argument really be made that a character can't see the moon on a "moonlit night" (which by PHB is still considered darkness)?

[Silpharon]

Another data point. Clearly this is not official in anyway, but it is interesting to see how Baldur's Gate III handled this (which is based on 5e mechanics to an extent). Here's the spell description:

Create a cloud of magical darkness to Heavily Obscure and Blind creatures within. Creatures cannot make ranged attacks into or out of the darkness.
It's even more stringent than our Darkness, but it is inky blot. You can even become a Warlock and get Devil's Sight to keep from getting blinded in the game.