I have a question regarding light. How far can you see IT.

For instance, the Light spell makes 20 feet bright light and 20 more feet of dim  light. In total darkness, that is how far the user can see barring special senses.

But how far away can a creature perceive the light? Meaning if there is a creature 50 or 100 feet away in the darkness, can it see the light?

Potentially you can percieve light as far as your natural perception allows assuming no breaks in line of sight.  Darkness only breaks line of sight to things inside the darkness, not in light beyond the darkness.  Look at it this way:  If you are under a streetlight, and someone else is under a different one 200 feet away, the darkness between (assuming it's just darkness and not a physical obstacle) doesn't block your ability to see them in real life, so why would it in the game?  

Now, once the darkness gets involved it gets different as that darkness can't be seen through without special abilities.

Below are the rules for general sight:

"When traveling outdoors, characters can see about 2 miles in any direction on a clear day, or until the point where trees, hills, or other obstructions block their view. Rain normally cuts maximum visibility down to 1 mile, and fog can cut it down to between 100 and 300 feet.

On a clear day, the characters can see 40 miles if they are atop a mountain or a tall hill, or are otherwise able to look down on the area around them from a height."

Given these rules, I'd say you can use the same distances and assumptions to spot light in darkness.

The rules for vision are practically non-existent. Common sense tells us we should be able to see the light source from well outside it's area of illumination.

Officially? You're going to get a weird nonsensical answer if you try to parse this section literally. Just use common sense.

So my advice: If it is dark and you have line of sight to a light source, even far away, you can see that light source (and that area it illuminates too).

But, RAW: "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."

By RAW, darkness works the same way fog or dense foliage work, entirely blocking vision. (But again, no one actually plays it this way in practice because that's super silly)

Quote from Ravnodaus >>

Officially? You're going to get a weird nonsensical answer if you try to parse this section literally. Just use common sense.

So my advice: If it is dark and you have line of sight to a light source, even far away, you can see that light source (and that area it illuminates too).

But, RAW: "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."

By RAW, darkness works the same way fog or dense foliage work, entirely blocking vision. (But again, no one actually plays it this way in practice because that's super silly)

 a creature in a lit area is not "in" darkness, so the creature trying to see is not "blinded" by the darkness.  (this raises similar issues working backward with fog/foliage though, and it's proof that the vision and obscurement rules are some of the most confusing in the game.)

Basically, Darkness should block vision in, but not through (unless it is made by the spell version or a different effect that states otherwise), but fog/foliage blocks vision in and through, so one way or another the RAW will lead to some illogical outcomes.

Quote from iconarising >>

Quote from Ravnodaus >>

Officially? You're going to get a weird nonsensical answer if you try to parse this section literally. Just use common sense.

So my advice: If it is dark and you have line of sight to a light source, even far away, you can see that light source (and that area it illuminates too).

But, RAW: "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."

By RAW, darkness works the same way fog or dense foliage work, entirely blocking vision. (But again, no one actually plays it this way in practice because that's super silly)

 a creature in a lit area is not "in" darkness, so the creature trying to see is not "blinded" by the darkness.  (this raises similar issues working backward with fog/foliage though, and it's proof that the vision and obscurement rules are some of the most confusing in the game.)

Basically, Darkness should block vision in, but not through (unless it is made by the spell version or a different effect that states otherwise), but fog/foliage blocks vision in and through, so one way or another the RAW will lead to some illogical outcomes.

They're not really confusing, they're badly written. But I agree totally... Either way you choose to interpret them, they conflate darkness with fog and foliage. If you can see through the area of darkness to the other side, far off, then...well, fog's obscurement is the same wording, no... exact same words even... can you see through fog into an area far off behind it? Obviously it is wrong either way.

Better to use common sense. We intuitively know that you can see lights from far off. We intuitively know we can't see behind fog.

Hobbits should never cook bacon in the middle of the night whilst running from Ringwraiths.  Those wraiths will see them a mile away.