Silly or stupid RAW rules

[Tanarii]

I'm not following what you are saying. Can you re-explain?

Swordsman 1 & 2 can be more than 120ft from the wall and still be seen silhouetted against the lit wall.

A character can be more than 40ft from a Torch or Light spell and be seen silhouetted against it. That's a direct line of sight and outside the range of the lighted area.

There's no functional difference between silhouette in a Darkness is just magically created "normal" darkness version of the spell, and that caused by actual darkness. If it's a problem for you for the spell and you feel the need to make house rules for it, you're going to have to make house rules for regular darkness anyway.

Which is fine. You're going to have to make a ruling on how Darkness works in the first place (because it's not clear). And you're going to have to make a house rule to make Fog Cloud make any sense too, since the errata broke it when it fixed normal darkness, allowing people to see the other side of fog and other opaque concealing, just not within it.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The issue is not really the spell but rules for darkness in general. The only difference between magical and mundane darkness is stopping darkvision and light spells.

In RL
If I was to stand at the back of a long cave. I could be enveloped in complete darkness unable to see an inch in-front of me. While at the same time easily seeing someone standing outside in daylight.
If I turned on a lantern the person outside could then see me too. But depending on the length of cave between us a third person could hug the wall or the floor and remain obscured to us.
If he didn’t we’d have the whole silhouette issue.
According to 5e rules I’m heavily obscured.

“A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area”
Now it does say blocks vision entirely, and if you take that line Independent of the second. Well it means I can’t see the guy outside the cave and he can’t see me if I have a lantern lit. Forget magical darkness being and only blob. Mundane darkness by raw is and inky blob.

If we take the second line as clarifying the first. Then that means if your standing in dense fog. You could clearly see someone standing outside the fog....

So the only thing to do is take the first line(blocks vision) and apply it to fog and such. You can’t see into or through that area your vision is blocked.
The second line, effectively blind towards “something in the area” applies to darkness.

Now in 5e D&D you aren’t hidden unless you try to hide. If you get stabbed by an invisible stalker. You know where it is until it takes an action to hide. You still have disadvantage because you can’t actually see him. But you don’t have to guess what square he’s in simply because he moved a few feet like in 3rd edition.

When it comes to darknes. If you take an action to hide and are successful. Then your silhouette from any back lighting is hidden.
If you don’t try to hide or fail to beat their perception then they know where you are. But that doesn’t mean disadvantage is negated.

If you treat darkness like and ink blot. Then it’s just a wind proof fog cloud.

[Aimeryan]

Which is fine. You're going to have to make a ruling on how Darkness works in the first place (because it's not clear). And you're going to have to make a house rule to make Fog Cloud make any sense too, since the errata broke it when it fixed normal darkness, allowing people to see the other side of fog and other opaque concealing, just not within it.

They didn't fix normal darkness; opaque fog and dense foliage still block vision entirely, as does darkness. The errata that seems to be frequently misunderstood only fixes the subject/observer line. Here, I'll do some direct quotes:

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

Vision and Light (p. 183). The second sentence of the third paragraph has been changed to “A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appen-dix A) when trying to see something in that area.”

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

Hope that clears it up.

[Segev]

They didn't fix normal darkness; opaque fog and dense foliage still block vision entirely, as does darkness. The errata that seems to be frequently misunderstood only fixes the subject/observer line. Here, I'll do some direct quotes:







Hope that clears it up.

Those quotes, taken together, mean one of three things:

• that it "blocks vision entirely," which means non-magical darkness is an opaque wall of blackness (and thus, if you're standing 40+ feet from a torch in an otherwise-dark room, you cannot see the torch nor anything else - barring darkvision)
• Creatures are blinded if they're trying to look into it, which means they can't see anything outside of it, either, if they're trying to look at something within it
• Creatures are only blind to things within fog, darkness, or dense foliage, and not to things outside of them, so whether it's nonmagical darkness, fog, or foliage, they can clearly see the kobold on the far side of it, but can't see the ogre within it.

These rules rely heavily on real-world experience-guided common sense to create rulings or even house rules that ignore the literal text and instead try to derive the intent and run based on it.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Segev's first point there is why, imho, the vision rules concerning darkness (nonmagical and magical) are so borked. One line about seeing a light in darkness could have prevented so many headaches. This is why I'm glad that I kept my 3.5E book Underdark, which specifically deals with seeing points of light in a sea of (nonmagical) darkness.

[Chronos]

The 5e rules for nonmagical darkness are weird and unrealistic, sure (and hence an appropriate topic for this thread), but that's not all that big a deal, because we have nonmagical darkness in our world, and so we know how it behaves, and we can use that real-world knowledge to figure out how it should work in the game (and in the process make a houserule, but it's quite possible that nobody at the table even realizes that, because they didn't bother to look up the written darkness rules because they didn't need to because it was obvious).

It's magical darkness that we don't have experience with, so for that, we do need the rules, and that's the point when we realize the rules are weird.


On weapon sizes, the 3rd edition rule changed from 3.0 to 3.5. In 3.0, a sword with an edged blade 3-4 feet long would be called a longsword, no matter who was using it, but a medium creature could use it in one hand, while a halfling would need two hands to wield it. A sword with a 2' blade would be a shortsword, and a human could easily use it as an off-hand weapon, but it'd be a main-hand weapon for a halfling. A sword with a 6' blade would be a greatsword, and a human could wield it two-handed, and a halfling couldn't wield it at all (but an ogre could wield it one-handed).

In 3.5, no weapon could be wielded well by a creature of a different size than the intended wielder, but there were versions of weapons sized for different creatures. So a halfling's greatsword and a human's longsword might look very similar, and they'd both deal the same damage, but you'd get a penalty for using the wrong one. And if a halfling did accept that penalty, they'd still need two hands for the human's longsword, and the human would need only one for the halfling's greatsword.

Either of these rules is perfectly fine and workable, and either one favors larger creatures (though smaller creatures had their own benefits). But they decided that all of this was too complicated in 5th edition, and came up with a simpler weapon rule (that incidentally only covers sizes other than Small and Medium on a case-by-case basis), and completely eliminated the rules that benefited small characters.


Oh, and IIRC, the Nymph's Kiss feat in 3rd edition was flexible enough to include a close Platonic friendship, but Lich-Loved was explicitly squicky.

[Corsair14]

Crossbow master giving 4 shots a round? Someone super fast with extremely high strength would be able to get off maybe two if they started with a loaded light crossbow. I simply ban this feat and direct people to YouTube videos of people who know what they are doing loading and firing them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Crossbow master giving 4 shots a round? Someone super fast with extremely high strength would be able to get off maybe two if they started with a loaded light crossbow. I simply ban this feat and direct people to YouTube videos of people who know what they are doing loading and firing them.

Do you also say that magic is all fake, because it's not possible in our world? The world of D&D is not our world, it's a fantastic world.

This is not a good solution (being basically "Guy at the Gym"). That effectively removes crossbows from the game, because there's always a better solution. Heroes are supposed to be heroic. Fantastic things are supposed to be fantastic.

[Xetheral]

I can try, though I first want to point out that the rest of the post from which this quote comes is house ruling something that the RAW do not say about lighting. Light, in 5e, is not modeled as "reflecting" off of things to create indirect lighting. While a DM could rule it doing so, that's not what the rules say it does.

Allowing indirect lighting to work like the real world is no more a houserule than is the existence of friction. If you want to define "houserule" that broadly, so be it, but I don't think the term is useful when defined that broadly. As I use the term, it doesn't require a houserule to run the game world like the real world where the rules are silent.

Anyway, even if you do rule that light bouncing off a wall will create a further area of bright light...

Let's say that you rule that the area of bright light caused by reflection off of the wall is another 20 feet from the wall. And the dim light is another 20 feet beyond that. Make the distance between Swordsman 1 in the diagram and the illuminated part of the wall 60 feet. He is now well outside of any brightly-lit or dimly-lit regions; he is in darkness. However, Swordsman 2 still is able to see the brightly-lit wall behind Swordsman 1, but Swordsman 1 is in darkness.

Does that clarify things?

Yes, thanks! I entirely agree that at large enough distances (or oblique enough angles) one can get Swordsman 1 to be both standing in natural darkness and silhouetted from the perspective of Swordsman 2. Such a silhouette, however, will be much less stark than the silhouettes commonly seen with the transparent interpretation of magical darkness, because of that increased distance or oblique angle. Magical darkness lets the backlight be much closer to the silhouetted creature than is possible with natural darkness, leading to silhouettes being more of an issue for magical darkness than they are for natural darkness, which was my original point.

Swordsman 1 & 2 can be more than 120ft from the wall and still be seen silhouetted against the lit wall.

A character can be more than 40ft from a Torch or Light spell and be seen silhouetted against it. That's a direct line of sight and outside the range of the lighted area.

There's no functional difference between silhouette in a Darkness is just magically created "normal" darkness version of the spell, and that caused by actual darkness. If it's a problem for you for the spell and you feel the need to make house rules for it, you're going to have to make house rules for regular darkness anyway.

Which is fine. You're going to have to make a ruling on how Darkness works in the first place (because it's not clear). And you're going to have to make a house rule to make Fog Cloud make any sense too, since the errata broke it when it fixed normal darkness, allowing people to see the other side of fog and other opaque concealing, just not within it.

See my response to Segev, above. I agree the issue with silhouettes applies to both natural and (if interpreted to be transparent) magical darkness. However, as starker silhouettes are more commonplace with magical darkness than with normal darkness, I claim that silhouettes are a more pertinent issue at the table if magical darkness is interpreted to be transparent than if it is interpreted to be opaque.

For a trivial example, under the transparent interpretation, any casting of Darkness outside during daytime without a backdrop in the area of the spell is going to create starker silhouettes than almost anything that can be arranged with natural darkness.

[Chronos]

Are any of those guys in the YouTube videos you link to 20th-level fighters?

[MaxWilson]

Edit: So I looked at the errata, and while it does make it better, it still doesn't remove the line that says that fog and darkness both "block" vision.

The original issue was that the PHB said that creatures within darkness are Blinded. That's totally insane and makes creatures in darkness unable to see creatures in the light.

If nonmagical darkness were intended to "block vision" in the sense of opacity (as opposed to rendering vision impossible), what would have been the point of that errata? You'd still be unable to see creatures in the light.

============================

I agree with you that seeing footprints in the sand does not count as seeing a creature. One can see footprints and still be effectively suffering the Blinded condition with respect to the creature itself. But I disagree with you that one can see any part of a silhouette of a creature while suffering the Blinded condition with respect to that creature. The Blinded condition prevents seeing entirely. I am aware of no RAW supporting your position that one can see a creature's silhouette even if one is suffering the Blinded condition with respect to that creature. If you are aware of something in the rules I'm overlooking, please let me know what page you're referring to.

By RAW, you are Blinded only with respect to that creature, not to the rest of the world. On what page in RAW does it say that the negative space around a creature is part of the creature?

When a creature is swallowed by a Behir, it's Blinded, but would you treat it as able to see the Behir because the Behir's silhouette is all around it and it knows exactly where the Behir is? If not, how is that different from a full-body shape from an invisible creature in the sand, or from a silhouette from a creature in darkness?

I'd like to know more about why you think the 60' bright light traits/120' dim light radius of a bullseye lantern carefully models the inverse square law. To me they just look like arbitrary numbers: double radius for dim light. If anything it VIOLATES the inverse square law because bright light sources given in the rules, such as the the sun, are not merely 4 times brighter than dim light sources given in the rules, such as an unusually bright moon.

Also, a diagram of how you run bullseye lanterns would help. Do you treat the lighting as omnidirectional once it hits a surface? Wouldn't that make the bullseye lantern itself omnidirectional from light hitting the floor? Help me understand what you're arguing.

[Segev]

Allowing indirect lighting to work like the real world is no more a houserule than is the existence of friction. If you want to define "houserule" that broadly, so be it, but I don't think the term is useful when defined that broadly. As I use the term, it doesn't require a houserule to run the game world like the real world where the rules are silent.

Lighting rules are what they are. If you wish to add new ones, you can, but that is a house rule.

Yes, thanks! I entirely agree that at large enough distances (or oblique enough angles) one can get Swordsman 1 to be both standing in natural darkness and silhouetted from the perspective of Swordsman 2. Such a silhouette, however, will be much less stark than the silhouettes commonly seen with the transparent interpretation of magical darkness, because of that increased distance or oblique angle. Magical darkness lets the backlight be much closer to the silhouetted creature than is possible with natural darkness, leading to silhouettes being more of an issue for magical darkness than they are for natural darkness, which was my original point.

No reason it would be fuzzier as an outline than if he was right up next to it: the shadow is still as sharp, and the lighting behind him still as visible. It is the ray tracing of the light from the wall as it is blocked by the dark-enshrouded figure that creates the sharpness of the lines.

That said, treating it as "fuzzy" is fine; it is, after all, hard to see per the rules.

But the same thing applies to magical darkness, unless you're using the ink blot model. I find the ink blot model to either be inconsistent (if you don't also use it for nonmagical darkness), or nonsensical (if you do). But nothing about "vanta black" model of magical darkness works any less well than the intuitive treatment of nonmagical darkness.

For a trivial example, under the transparent interpretation, any casting of Darkness outside during daytime without a backdrop in the area of the spell is going to create starker silhouettes than almost anything that can be arranged with natural darkness.

Untrue. Any silhouette created by an obstruction between the "backlighting screen" (e.g. a lantern-lit wall) and the observer will be equally sharp. It only gets fuzzy if the screen is between the obstruction and the observer.

[CapnWildefyr]

{a} The issue is not really the spell but rules for darkness in general. The only difference between magical and mundane darkness is stopping darkvision and light spells.

{b} Now in 5e D&D you aren’t hidden unless you try to hide. If you get stabbed by an invisible stalker. You know where it is until it takes an action to hide. You still have disadvantage because you can’t actually see him. But you don’t have to guess what square he’s in simply because he moved a few feet like in 3rd edition.

I added the {a} and {b} labels...

{a} if there is this much discussion, the light rules are confusing. Let's face it, if we each have to explain our reasoning in multiple paragraphs, it's unclear. If it's unclear, it belongs here.

{b} a small point, but the invisible stalker is a bad example here. "invisible" is not "hiding." You have disadvantage and the stalker has advantage, regardless, and you do not know where it is, because it's invisible, whether or not it also tries to be silent. If it steps away, you can't tell exactly where it went. You still have disadvantage, whether it moved or not, whether it's silent or not. You don't even get an OA as it moves away because you can't see it.

[Aimeryan]

The original issue was that the PHB said that creatures within darkness are Blinded. That's totally insane and makes creatures in darkness unable to see creatures in the light.

If nonmagical darkness were intended to "block vision" in the sense of opacity (as opposed to rendering vision impossible), what would have been the point of that errata? You'd still be unable to see creatures in the light.

I think the intent is pretty clear, however, the title is in regards to RAW - which this definitely falls into. The writers failing to clear up what is written is not exactly unheard of.

But nothing about "vanta black" model of magical darkness works any less well than the intuitive treatment of nonmagical darkness.

Being painted black makes you no more unseen than a hole is unseen, or a piece of charcoal, or wearing a ghillie suit - it requires additional situational circumstances to blend in and be unseen. It is very much not intuitive for a person painted black (no matter just how black that is) to be unseen on a bright day outdoors. Same goes for wearing a tablecloth over your head and pretending you are unseen.

A relatively large black opaque sphere stopping you from seeing someone somewhere inside, on the other hand, is very intuitive.

As is, the RAW on darkness is silly, while the RAW on Darkness is silly by proxy if the interpretation is one of inheritence, or, the Raw on Darkness is silly by itself if the inpretation is not one of inheritence.

[Segev]

Being painted black makes you no more unseen than a hole is unseen, or a piece of charcoal, or wearing a ghillie suit - it requires additional situational circumstances to blend in and be unseen. It is very much not intuitive for a person painted black (no matter just how black that is) to be unseen on a bright day outdoors. Same goes for wearing a tablecloth over your head and pretending you are unseen.

A relatively large black opaque sphere stopping you from seeing someone somewhere inside, on the other hand, is very intuitive.

As is, the RAW on darkness is silly, while the RAW on Darkness is silly by proxy if the interpretation is one of inheritence, or, the Raw on Darkness is silly by itself if the inpretation is not one of inheritence.

Your argument is failing to address a key component of my point: unless you are running non-magical darkness as also being opaque, you run into the same "painted black" problems. So you solve nothing by treating magical darkness as an ink blot if you do not also treat nonmagical darkness the same way.

Yet the rules for a creature in nonmagical darkness, regardless of whether there is lighting beyond him that he creates a silhouette against, is that he is obscured from sight. This "obscurement" doesn't mean he's hidden - any more than it does with magical darkness - only that he CAN try to hide. And that creatures have Disadvantage trying to attack him.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I {b} a small point, but the invisible stalker is a bad example here. "invisible" is not "hiding." You have disadvantage and the stalker has advantage, regardless, and you do not know where it is, because it's invisible, whether or not it also tries to be silent. If it steps away, you can't tell exactly where it went. You still have disadvantage, whether it moved or not, whether it's silent or not. You don't even get an OA as it moves away because you can't see it.

You are right invisible is not hiding, it’s inferior to hidden.
If it steps away you don’t get an OA because you can’t see it but you do still know where it is because it hasn’t taken an action to hide.
So you can still move up and attack without having to guess where He is. You only suffer disadvantage.
The rules in 5e D&D are set up in such away so you aren’t so helpless against unseen foes as you were in previous editions.

Invisibility does not automatically equal hidden, likewise being blinded either literally or effectively due to enemy obscurement does not make the enemy hidden unless they take a hide action.

So a creature concealed in darkness can not be seen by someone standing in the light. But he’s not automatically hidden especially after attacking.
That’s why I bring up the invisible stalker it’s always unseen but not always hidden.
You need to be clear on how being unseen works if your going to discuss how darkness should work.

[MrCharlie]

I added the {a} and {b} labels...

{a} if there is this much discussion, the light rules are confusing. Let's face it, if we each have to explain our reasoning in multiple paragraphs, it's unclear. If it's unclear, it belongs here.

{b} a small point, but the invisible stalker is a bad example here. "invisible" is not "hiding." You have disadvantage and the stalker has advantage, regardless, and you do not know where it is, because it's invisible, whether or not it also tries to be silent. If it steps away, you can't tell exactly where it went. You still have disadvantage, whether it moved or not, whether it's silent or not. You don't even get an OA as it moves away because you can't see it.

Actually, for b, unless it takes the hide action you do know exactly where it is. This is the point of invisible =/= hidden. An invisible stalker has advantage on it's attacks, and disadvantage to be hit, but once it reveals its location (or fails its stealth check) you don't have to use the rules for randomly attacking squares or guess where it is.

You are absolutely right that you don't get AOO though, odd as that may be.

Do you also say that magic is all fake, because it's not possible in our world? The world of D&D is not our world, it's a fantastic world.

This is not a good solution (being basically "Guy at the Gym"). That effectively removes crossbows from the game, because there's always a better solution. Heroes are supposed to be heroic. Fantastic things are supposed to be fantastic.

In real life bows were generally a better solution to using a crossbow, as long as you were trained with them and using a warbow with proper draw weight. The only real advantage was ease of use and better ergonomics with fortifications. If we remove crossbow expert and make crossbows simple, crossbows, like many of the simple weapons (and ring mail), would only be useful for hirelings and low-level adventurers without proficiencies.

I do agree it does not belong here, but I don't think his house rule is problematic in and of itself.

So many great answers! Thanks everyone who answered. I was busy with moving out, didn't expect the thread to explode like that. =)

Another i remembered is ritual casting. RAW doesn't seem to care if you are travelling ( by foot or horseback ridding) while casting them. Which doesn't make sense to me. Ritual evoke the image of summoning with a pentagram, an exorcist or a baptism. Possibly with a book/bible open to have the full steps of the ritual. Hell, you can still talk during a ritual while in most work of fictions, messing the ritual by even one syllable will often twist or fail it.

As a corollary to this, that ritual casting uses concentration, as does all casting of spells over multiple turns.

The only reason it's a stupid rule is that A. No one ever remembers it and B. The number of situations it applies to is miniscule-it exists entirely to screw up otherwise sensible spell combos like planar binding a conjured elemental without multiple casters being present, and to mess with exploration spells like detect magic.

It's independently stupid that the casting times and durations on the entire suite of planar binding/magic circle/conjure elemental spells are precisely 1 hour rather than 1 hour and 10 minutes or 2 hours or something, simply because it requires stupidly precise timing that should have been engineered out of the spells from a practical perspective given that they are explicitly meant to by synergistic.

I have also found that the surprise rules for 5e, if followed strictly, DO amount to the initiator going first, barring somebody with a higher initiative being immune to surprise or for some reason not surprised. Exactly as it should be.

I'll note as a general reply to this stack-the only other difference is that the surprised pseudo-condition ends after a creatures turn, so it is possible for an assassin rogue to get screwed out of his critical if he succeeds stealth but loses initiative. He gets a free round, but no advantage and no crit because the creature had its turn and is no longer surprised at the end of it. It also means that effects which trigger at the start of a turn, you know, work. Simply not giving people a turn breaks those.

Assuming I've been reading it right and the surprised "condition" ends at the end of your first turn, which is a bit ambiguous now that I re-read the rules. It's really a wording issue, in my mind, and a case where they didn't clarify things in a way that the rules text is consistent. So I'd say its stupid, not silly.

[Reach Weapon]

Out of curiosity, for whatever model you use, how detectable is the area of effect of the Darkness spell in regular darkness, (perceived) dim light, and bright light to an outside observer? Is it an automatic announcement of presence or if there are checks, what are they?

[quindraco]

You are right invisible is not hiding, it’s inferior to hidden.
If it steps away you don’t get an OA because you can’t see it but you do still know where it is because it hasn’t taken an action to hide.
So you can still move up and attack without having to guess where He is. You only suffer disadvantage.
The rules in 5e D&D are set up in such away so you aren’t so helpless against unseen foes as you were in previous editions.

Invisibility does not automatically equal hidden, likewise being blinded either literally or effectively due to enemy obscurement does not make the enemy hidden unless they take a hide action.

So a creature concealed in darkness can not be seen by someone standing in the light. But he’s not automatically hidden especially after attacking.
That’s why I bring up the invisible stalker it’s always unseen but not always hidden.
You need to be clear on how being unseen works if your going to discuss how darkness should work.

This isn't true, but it's... when I say it isn't true, I don't mean that it's false. That is, the rules you are referencing don't actually exist, so you're not contradicting any rules in your claim, you just don't have a completely firm rules basis.

Here's a forum post by someone else going over the 9 different rules references you need to try and handle a situation like this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dun...ight-blind#c13

As the linked post discusses, you simply can't correctly state that the rules state that you can just attack the stalker without guessing. They don't say that. What they do say is confusing and doesn't equip you to authoritatively state what the answer is.

As a result, I (or anyone else) can form several mutually exclusive and equally coherent RAW-based arguments for the exact mechanics of trying to locate and hit an invisible stalker.

[Segev]

I'll note as a general reply to this stack-the only other difference is that the surprised pseudo-condition ends after a creatures turn, so it is possible for an assassin rogue to get screwed out of his critical if he succeeds stealth but loses initiative. He gets a free round, but no advantage and no crit because the creature had its turn and is no longer surprised at the end of it. It also means that effects which trigger at the start of a turn, you know, work. Simply not giving people a turn breaks those.

Assuming I've been reading it right and the surprised "condition" ends at the end of your first turn, which is a bit ambiguous now that I re-read the rules. It's really a wording issue, in my mind, and a case where they didn't clarify things in a way that the rules text is consistent. So I'd say its stupid, not silly.

You are reading it correctly. This is a huge flaw in the design of the Assassin class. It should get its bonus damage on any creature that has not yet taken an action in combat, or it should at LEAST get a very big bonus to initiative so that it is very likely to go before anybody who's surprised goes. Perhaps, even, an Assassin should get the ability to attack a surprised creature as a Reaction (since I believe Reactions can be taken before your first turn as long as you are not, yourself, surprised).

Gloomstalker is an excellent multiclass for Assassins, since it gives Wisdom to Initiative on top of Dexterity, and it also grants an extra attack with an extra die of damage on the first round of combat.

Out of curiosity, for whatever model you use, how detectable is the area of effect of the Darkness spell in regular darkness, (perceived) dim light, and bright light to an outside observer? Is it an automatic announcement of presence or if there are checks, what are they?

If you use ink blot darkness, it would be as detectable as any other 30-foot diameter black sphere imposed on the environment. It would not be visible without Darkvision unless you're (a) using transparent non-magical darkness and (b) there's a light source or lit area you can move to have the magical darkblob obstructing your view of it. If you have Darkvision, it would be an easily-seen blob of blackness. If you have Devil's Sight, you probably don't even notice it exists in an otherwise-dark field.

If you use the "painted black" version, it's entirely unnoticeable without Darkvision, because it behaves like regular darkness if you don't have Darkvision. To creatures with Darkvision, it would appear as a region where the usual black-and-white dim lighting goes away, leaving it looking like your range of Darkvision has shrunk, or a "black spot" in it has developed within your range. It would likely be visible at a minimum as a black circle on the ground.

Incidentally, the "painted black" version of magical darkness is entirely invisible if it's centered up in the air with nothing inside it, but anything entering its AoE becomes a black splotch or silhouette while inside it.

[quindraco]

Out of curiosity, for whatever model you use, how detectable is the area of effect of the Darkness spell in regular darkness, (perceived) dim light, and bright light to an outside observer? Is it an automatic announcement of presence or if there are checks, what are they?

So far as I know, everyone automatically knows the light level as they perceive it to be in any space they're looking at, so there aren't any checks - you see darkness as darkness, dim light as dim light, and bright light as bright light. The only time this gets weird is when special rules start modifying, like Detect Magic (which should register the spell Darkness's darkness as magical).

[MrCharlie]

You are reading it correctly. This is a huge flaw in the design of the Assassin class. It should get its bonus damage on any creature that has not yet taken an action in combat, or it should at LEAST get a very big bonus to initiative so that it is very likely to go before anybody who's surprised goes. Perhaps, even, an Assassin should get the ability to attack a surprised creature as a Reaction (since I believe Reactions can be taken before your first turn as long as you are not, yourself, surprised).

Gloomstalker is an excellent multiclass for Assassins, since it gives Wisdom to Initiative on top of Dexterity, and it also grants an extra attack with an extra die of damage on the first round of combat.

Glad to see some validation. It's been a while since I've DMed for an assassin (mostly because people have learned by now that it's pretty heavily flawed) and I wanted to check that I wasn't being a ****.

Assassin also benefits from the Alert feat for the same reason. It depends on if their Wisdom is good or not-if it is they not only have to worry less about being surprised themselves (better perception) but gloomstalker is A. A valid multiclass and B. A very attractive one for multiple reasons on top of that.

I personally think that Assassins should get proficiency in initiative to combat this issue, but they should still have to deal with it to model those times when an assassin gets the drop on someone but can't quite land the blow before they start defending themselves. It's one of those interactions that makes sense to me but which sucks if invoked against the player. It would also give them, you know, an actual subclass when they aren't ambushing people.

[Telok]

Do I need to break out the darkness renders and blender file again?

[MaxWilson]

Do I need to break out the darkness renders and blender file again?

That was pretty awesome. But, I don't think any of the points under dispute would be solved that way unless you can also show motion, e.g. the silhouette of someone doing something in combat, and we have to guess whether they're advancing or retreating and whether they're parrying, etc.

[Telok]

That was pretty awesome. But, I don't think any of the points under dispute would be solved that way unless you can also show motion, e.g. the silhouette of someone doing something in combat, and we have to guess whether they're advancing or retreating and whether they're parrying, etc.

Great bloody ghu! I'm 3000+ miles from my computer, surrounded by family, and getting "alone time" by locking myself in the bathroom. I can't even convert bulk text to pdf book pages until sometime next week, let alone go from different types of negative-lighting a static scene to animating and timing multiple armatures in Blender.

Throw down a google search for freelance 3d animators, show them the existing pics, explain what you want, and pony up $100 USD for 3-5 hours of work. If anyone actually cares what the difference really looks like.

[Chronos]

Quoth Segev:

Your argument is failing to address a key component of my point: unless you are running non-magical darkness as also being opaque, you run into the same "painted black" problems. So you solve nothing by treating magical darkness as an ink blot if you do not also treat nonmagical darkness the same way.

The "painted black" situation usually isn't a problem for nonmagical darkness, because by far the two most common situations for nonmagical darkness are that you're either deep underground, or it's night. In either of those cases, what's behind the darkness is just more darkness, out to infinite space, or at least until you hit an opaque wall. If everything is dark, then there's no difference between the vantablack model and the ink-blot model. Now, nonmagical darkness doesn't always work this way: You could be in a cave, but still have line of sight to the distant daylit opening, for instance, or at night but in the vicinity (but not close vicinity) of an artificial light source. And so those cases, you have to rule differently, making up rulings that make sense. But those cases are rare.

[MaxWilson]

Great ----! I'm 3000+ miles from my computer, surrounded by family, and getting "alone time" by locking myself in the bathroom. I can't even convert bulk text to pdf book pages until sometime next week, let alone go from different types of negative-lighting a static scene to animating and timing multiple armatures in Blender.

Throw down a google search for freelance 3d animators, show them the existing pics, explain what you want, and pony up $100 USD for 3-5 hours of work. If anyone actually cares what the difference really looks like.

Right, that's why I said I don't think it would help.

Although if someone wants to find a 3D animator and explain what we need, I'd be happy to pony up the $100 USD for it, via Venmo or something. I'd be even happier if I had managed to learn enough about Blender to do it myself but alas... last time I tried I got stuck pretty quickly.

Essentially all we want is for a 3D animator to take an existing scene that they have, fill part of it with negative light/zero reflectivity in a 20' radius sphere, and then make us guess what the original scene was showing.

The "painted black" situation usually isn't a problem for nonmagical darkness, because by far the two most common situations for nonmagical darkness are that you're either deep underground, or it's night. In either of those cases, what's behind the darkness is just more darkness, out to infinite space, or at least until you hit an opaque wall. If everything is dark, then there's no difference between the vantablack model and the ink-blot model. Now, nonmagical darkness doesn't always work this way: You could be in a cave, but still have line of sight to the distant daylit opening, for instance, or at night but in the vicinity (but not close vicinity) of an artificial light source. And so those cases, you have to rule differently, making up rulings that make sense. But those cases are rare.

Light hitting an opaque wall is actually quite a common scenario in dungeon delving, arguably the most common scenario.

[Telok]

Essentially all we want is for a 3D animator to take an existing scene that they have, fill part of it with negative light/zero reflectivity in a 20' radius sphere, and then make us guess what the original scene was showing.

That's not bad, you just change/add a light point-source with the right parameters. Find a free/open Blender scene with the appropriate action. I might be able to do that next week or two.

[Tanarii]

The "painted black" situation usually isn't a problem for nonmagical darkness, because by far the two most common situations for nonmagical darkness are that you're either deep underground, or it's night. In either of those cases, what's behind the darkness is just more darkness, out to infinite space, or at least until you hit an opaque wall. If everything is dark, then there's no difference between the vantablack model and the ink-blot model. Now, nonmagical darkness doesn't always work this way: You could be in a cave, but still have line of sight to the distant daylit opening, for instance, or at night but in the vicinity (but not close vicinity) of an artificial light source. And so those cases, you have to rule differently, making up rulings that make sense. But those cases are rare.

Light hitting an opaque wall is actually quite a common scenario in dungeon delving, arguably the most common scenario.

And it's not like two points of light with someone/thing trying to sneak around in between them is particularly uncommon either. Especially since movement isn't impaired by darkness and missile fire against lit targets doesn't require you to be able to see your surroundings, you don't even need darkvision to get out of the radius of your allies light if your enemies also need light to see.

[Zalabim]

Funny thing about the rule for heavily obscured: it can be read with different emphasis.

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.

Blocks sight of everything inside the 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.

Effectively blinds every creature inside the area.

Fog should be expected to use both. Any area that uses only the first offers advantage on both offense and defense. I think giving the sentence the option of both meanings is the only way to make the rule work better without adding more lines to the rule. Also, using effectively blinded means a player doesn't ask to cure the blindness caused by being in fog with lesser restoration.