I am going to go against everything standardized and popular in 5e and say that the reason why it is so contradictory is because your interpretation, as is everyones, is incorrect. Allow me to explain,. First. 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 AREA is heavily obscured. inside it. Not outside it. Now. the next sentence can be better understood by looking at its inverse. You are blinded trying to see something IN that area. NOT OUT of that area. Another way to look at it, which is not clear but should be, is that You are blinded trying to see something In that area FROM OUT OF THAT AREA. If you look at it like that, your light pole example makes sense by the rules. Let's look again at the first sentence from this viewpoint. A heavily Obscure area, etc etc, blocks vision entirely FROM OUTSIDE the area TO INSIDE IT. This wording corrects the situation to a manner that every rogue archer knows. That you attack from the shadows unseen at advantage. However, this upends everyones view of fog cloud. In this view, if you are inside fog cloud, you can attack anyone outside the fog cloud AT ADVANTAGE, and anyone attempting to attack you while you are inside will suffer disadvantage (unseen) and have to guess your location if hidden. In both darkness and Fog cloud, if you are both inside (yourself and your opponent), then you are both concealed, and therefore you are both at advantage and disadvantage and it cancels out. Hears the real mind blower though. That means you can do the same with the spell DARKNESS. why? because it clearly states Magical darkness creates an area heavily obscured.
"Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters ......... or in an area of magical darkness".
It does have different properties than regular darkness, and those different properties are clearly stated. You can not see "through it" with dark vision. There for, you can not see through it with normal vision either, know how dark vision works.
When you think about foliage, you think about wood elves sending arrows from who knows where. That's right folks. You use heavy obscurity of forrest to hide in and attack at advantage to those in a clearing. This is why wood elves have Mask of the Wild. So they can hide even in lightly obscured natural areas and attack. There was an errata that read
"Vision and Light (p. 183). A heavily obscured area doesn’t blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it."
I Don't know why that errata has changed, but it gives away the purpose of heavy obscurity as a hiding position, not an obstacle. That's right. We've been using fog cloud wrong....
This will create an issue though. you are standing in light, there is darkness 2 ft in front of you for twenty feet, and then light again. You can see through the darkness. In the Darkness spell it Cleary tells you you can't see through it with dark vision and natural light can not illuminate it. So ok, that clears up that you can not see through it to the other side. However I have not found a clear definition for dense forest. I would assume you can't see through a pocket of heavily obscured forest, breaking this train of thought. So a Dm call. With Fog cloud it's the same issue.
And if you are in the center of a 20 ft radius darkness? Does the darkness prevent you from shooting out of it into a lighted area? No. There is no rule that says any part of an obscured area functions any different than any other part of an obscured area, though I would understand if a DM made that call. Heavily obscured forrest provide the same issue.
When you are blind folded, you are not under a heavily obscure area, you are under the condition, "blinded", caused by a physical item, same as hiding behind a book case. So your example unfortunetaly does not work.
also, darkness spell, clearly states light can not Illuminate it, giving it a property different from normal darkness.
When you are blind folded, you are not under a heavily obscure area, you are under the condition, "blinded", caused by a physical item, same as hiding behind a book case. So your example unfortunetaly does not work.
also, darkness spell, clearly states light can not penetrate it, giving it a property different from normal darkness.
Exactly. However even from normal darkness, the further back you are in it, the harder it is going to be seeing out, due to contrast issues, plus likely perspective issues depending on the source of the darkness. A forest is not going to be obscuring due to darkness but rather trees and foliage...
It's an irrelevant made up mechanic. If I am in an open space that is 600 ft. There is 595 ft of darkness, I am at the opposite end of you and you standing with little spot light on the last 5 ft with an apple on your head. I can take that 600ft shot without disadvantage if I have sharpshooter. If it is dim light that you are standing in, the DM might rule at disadvantage being range attacks are sight based and dim light is considered a lightly obscured area, giving disadvantage to sight based perception checks.
Also, If I have a spot light on my head as well, and the darkness is between us, it does not change any game mechanics as per raw.
How it happens it's irrelevant. Could be gigantic cave. Doesn't matter. It's a fake world. The scenario is used to explain RAW. And yes. Raw does not cover everything, but actually, it covers most things people think aren't cover. I realized for instance while monitoring this thread that in the case of the forest being a heavily obscured thing, trees are also considered cover. There is no direct relationship between different levels of cover and different levels of Obscurity. That connection must be decided by the DM currently as far as I can tell. So a Heavily obscured forest provides full concealment but your ability to see through it from the other side is limited by the amount of cover it provides, not it's obscurity. From inside it is the same. The DM must first rule how much cover the forest provides. Three quarters cover allows the PC inside it to attack outside of it, and if it is total cover he can not attack outside of it. It's obscurity provides the PC inside with advantage on attack rolls to creatures outside of it. There is nothing in any rules set that says Heavily obscured prevents people from seeing outside the area of obscurement. The rules say the opposite. By default, those outside the heavily obscured area are of the blinded condition to anything inside the area of concealment. So I answered my own question with the forest issue. It is just most people don't know the rules well enough to connect how different rules affect other rules. Now. You can totally ignore rules, interpret rules differently, and do whatever you want. But this is a discussion on actual raw interpretation, not subjective viewpoints.
Right.... I already cover the reason why you could or COULD NOT, depending on the level of cover.It doesn't seem you were able to understand this.
"So a Heavily obscured forest provides full concealment but your ability to see through it from the other side is limited by the amount of cover it provides, not it's obscurity"
....and if it is total cover he can not attack outside of it."
reading comprehension is what makes the players hand book difficult so I understand.
Right. I am talking rules. So when you say something like The light and torches and what not, it needs to be connected to a specific RAW. Everything is connected to a raw. Not how you see it. I get how you see it. But that's not the discussion here.
If you're in an area of complete darkness you can still see the castle upon the hill whose fires are lit. Yes.
When trying to see something that isn't in areas of darkness, you can see them, because they're not in darkness. Even if you are in darkness.
Right. Now the RAW for you standing in complete darkness is
1-"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."
and
2-"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".
Since you can see out of the darkness to the castle, and as far as I know, there is no rule that changes the "Heavily Obscured" aspect of darkness. At this point, you can see out of a Heavily Obscured area. Which means that when it says "Blocks vision completely" in the definition, it can not be talking about the character being inside the heavily obscured area, otherwise, you would not be able to see the castle upon the hill on fire. This sets the rule for heavy obscurity. That you can see out of a heavily obscured area, unless another rule set interferes.
If you're in an area of complete darkness you can still see the castle upon the hill whose fires are lit. Yes.
When trying to see something that isn't in areas of darkness, you can see them, because they're not in darkness. Even if you are in darkness.
Ok, fine, yes, in situations that were not in question. Yes you can see lights in or through normal darkness. If this was not so, there would be no such thing as light since every light source, including the sun, is shining into areas that would be dark if there was no light shining there. You can see the moon and stars at night. You can see a torch someone is carrying from outside its effective illumination radius. This is no secret aspect of RAW.
The OP was, in their OP, talking about standing in the middle of a fog cloud, forest or magical darkness field.
The rules make no distinction between a fog cloud, an area of heavy foliage, or an area of darkness. It calls them all "Heavy Obscurement" and then attempts to parse vision rules as if they're all identical.
You, I, and everyone who has ever played the game defies this area of RAW as a matter of practicality and sanity. Obviously you can see out of a dark room into a lit room. Intuition is plainly clearly guiding us on this we know it is undeniably true according to all reasonable explanations of reality. But. The RAW says your vision is blocked entirely. If you're standing in a dark area, you should be entirely and completely blind in every way, entirely unable to see the lit torch burning 50ft away from you.
Unless "Vision is entirely blocked" doesn't mean that mechanically and is just descriptive. And that you can see out of areas of heavy obscurement into areas that aren't obscured. but if that is the case, if you're in a fog cloud you can see into areas outside the fog cloud just fine.
That's the trick. RAW: darkness, fog, foliage... all identical. All "heavy obscurement".
Edit: Fun Fact. The vision rules actually describe something entirely foreign to what your character can see and instead...believe it or not, describe what the player should be able to see. From like a top down perspective of a battlemap. You can see anything that is outside areas of obscurement because you're looking down from above at the whole battlemap. You can see the other side of the fog cloud because it isn't obscured. Which...funnily enough, is what you can generally see as a player by looking at the battlemap.
I think ENWorld had a thread on this. It turns out there are two ways people play magical darkness.
First, let's discuss normal darkness. In particular that you can see out and through. If there is a dark tunnel between me and a fire, I am blinded only with repsect to things in the dark tunnel. I can see (and target) the firelit things on the other side. If I am actually in the dark tunnel (unseen to targets in the firelit area) I get advantage on rolls to attack them. The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area.
The two ways of ruling magical darkness are the inkblot idea and the supression idea.
The inkblot idea presents magical darkness much the same as an area of fog or mist or heavy foliage. You can't see into it, you can't see out of it, and you can't see through it. Areas of magical darkness look like black globes from the outside. The black globe areas cast shadows. Essentially, it is a better fog cloud (better because wind doesn't move it, warlocks can see through it, if cast on an item then you can move and cover it, and it dispels light-producing spells).
The suppression idea presents magical darkness as somehow suppressing vision, but only for those inside its area. If you are inside the area, you can't see anything, inside or outside. From the outside, you can see into it and you can see through it (and in fact those outside the darkness might not even realise magical darkness is present, since it casts no shadows and doesn't look like a black blob). Essentially it is a multi-target no-save blindness spell. In my opinion, this is too powerful for a second level spell.
Which idea a game uses is very important. Suppression darkness is pointless when cast on you - it's only effective when you cast it on your enemies. Inkblot darkness is great cast on you, especially if you are an archer of some kind who can see through it (warlock :-). It's also great cast on your enemies, or anywhere on a line from them to you.
I think ENWorld had a thread on this. It turns out there are two ways people play magical darkness.
First, let's discuss normal darkness. In particular that you can see out and through. If there is a dark tunnel between me and a fire, I am blinded only with repsect to things in the dark tunnel. I can see (and target) the firelit things on the other side. If I am actually in the dark tunnel (unseen to targets in the firelit area) I get advantage on rolls to attack them. The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area.
The two ways of ruling magical darkness are the inkblot idea and the supression idea.
The inkblot idea presents magical darkness much the same as an area of fog or mist or heavy foliage. You can't see into it, you can't see out of it, and you can't see through it. Areas of magical darkness look like black globes from the outside. The black globe areas cast shadows. Essentially, it is a better fog cloud (better because wind doesn't move it, warlocks can see through it, if cast on an item then you can move and cover it, and it dispels light-producing spells).
The suppression idea presents magical darkness as somehow suppressing vision, but only for those inside its area. If you are inside the area, you can't see anything, inside or outside. From the outside, you can see into it and you can see through it (and in fact those outside the darkness might not even realise magical darkness is present, since it casts no shadows and doesn't look like a black blob). Essentially it is a multi-target no-save blindness spell. In my opinion, this is too powerful for a second level spell.
Which idea a game uses is very important. Suppression darkness is pointless when cast on you - it's only effective when you cast it on your enemies. Inkblot darkness is great cast on you, especially if you are an archer of some kind who can see through it (warlock :-). It's also great cast on your enemies, or anywhere on a line from them to you.
There is already a spell for suppressing vision. It is called Blindness/Deafness.
I think ENWorld had a thread on this. It turns out there are two ways people play magical darkness.
First, let's discuss normal darkness. In particular that you can see out and through. If there is a dark tunnel between me and a fire, I am blinded only with repsect to things in the dark tunnel. I can see (and target) the firelit things on the other side. If I am actually in the dark tunnel (unseen to targets in the firelit area) I get advantage on rolls to attack them. The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area.
The two ways of ruling magical darkness are the inkblot idea and the supression idea.
The inkblot idea presents magical darkness much the same as an area of fog or mist or heavy foliage. You can't see into it, you can't see out of it, and you can't see through it. Areas of magical darkness look like black globes from the outside. The black globe areas cast shadows. Essentially, it is a better fog cloud (better because wind doesn't move it, warlocks can see through it, if cast on an item then you can move and cover it, and it dispels light-producing spells).
The suppression idea presents magical darkness as somehow suppressing vision, but only for those inside its area. If you are inside the area, you can't see anything, inside or outside. From the outside, you can see into it and you can see through it (and in fact those outside the darkness might not even realise magical darkness is present, since it casts no shadows and doesn't look like a black blob). Essentially it is a multi-target no-save blindness spell. In my opinion, this is too powerful for a second level spell.
Which idea a game uses is very important. Suppression darkness is pointless when cast on you - it's only effective when you cast it on your enemies. Inkblot darkness is great cast on you, especially if you are an archer of some kind who can see through it (warlock :-). It's also great cast on your enemies, or anywhere on a line from them to you.
There is already a spell for suppressing vision. It is called Blindness/Deafness.
This one of those things I disagree with:
"The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area."
This is false. The rules are right. The interpretation is wrong. That is the whole point to this post. Your interpretation of heavily obscured is wrong.
"The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area."
This is false. The rules are right. The interpretation is wrong. That is the whole point to this post. Your interpretation of heavily obscured is wrong.
The rules don't match up with reality, which I think was Greenstone_Walker's point. This discussion has come up I think 3 times since I started frequenting this forum, but people never expect it because it's so weird, which I think is why it keeps coming back.
Here's the rules source for how light "works". I should point out that of course we have additional rules sources that also directly interact with vision in a variety of ways that may contradict this, but the link is to how light in areas works, which is the topic here.
If Adam is standing in Dim Light and Bob is standing in Bright Light, Adam is at Disadvantage to see Bob and Bob is not at Disadvantage to see Adam, even though the real world works nothing like this, because Dim Light only impedes the vision of those in it.
Likewise, Dim Light won't impede those looking across it - like in the real world - but moderate foliage and patchy fog won't, either. If Adam and Bob are both in Bright Light and looking at each other through patchy fog or moderate foliage, they are not at disadvantage.
This is because Lightly Obscured is " dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage", and it's impossible for realistic rules to support that, because realistically, the first one acts nothing like the second two.
As you mentioned in the OP, Darkness does impede the vision of those looking into it, which means - vis a vis item 1 above - Darkness does not act like Dim Light but worse. They work fundamentally differently.
On a fundamental level, 5E defines Heavily Obscured as "darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage", so you have the same problem as in 1.2. No set of rules could possibly be realistic, because the first one acts nothing like the latter two in the real world.
So since you're focused on Heavily Obscured in this thread, there's no possible interpretation of Heavily Obscured which is consistent with the real world, because you can't be consistent with Darkness and Opaque Fog at the same time. You can simulate one if you do a good job, but not the other.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy example: Adam is in Bright Light and Bob is in Bright Light but there is Darkness between them. Can Adam see Bob just fine?
If you say yes, then you must give the same answer for Opaque Fog, which means you are getting Fog "wrong". If you say no, then you are getting Darkness "wrong".
"If Adam is standing in Dim Light and Bob is standing in Bright Light, Adam is at Disadvantage to see Bob and Bob is not at Disadvantage to see Adam"
no...You literally made that up. There is no rule ANYWHERE that says a person is at disadvantage to another. What does that even mean? Disadvantage to what? to see? The only disadvantage that dim light creates is against Passive perception. You looking for traps? You are at a disadvantage in Dim light. You can not hide in dim light for that situation to occur, unless;ess you have mask of the wild or the skulker feat. Then and only then...
"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.
If a person is hidden in a lightly dim area with the skulker feat or Mask of the Wild, then the person looking for someone hiding in dim light has disadvantage on his perception check. That is the whole point to having those feats. because you can't hide in dim light like you can in darkness. Why would the person hiding have disadvantage on the person not hiding and not in dim light? that person is not obscured?!?! So I won't even bother to read the rest because I don't think you can show a rule to back up your first supposed rule. It is backwards. That is a major part of the problem. The backwards viewpoint to rule interpreting. It is the one obscured that benefits. If you are obscured, a person has trouble seeing you. Not the other way around.
Yea .... No... It is not a rule that Dm's can disregard the rules. It is just a simple fact of life. And this has nothing to do with incorrect vs correct rule interpretation. You can disregard a rule, and that is one thing, and you can not understand a rule, and that is another.
"If Adam is standing in Dim Light and Bob is standing in Bright Light, Adam is at Disadvantage to see Bob and Bob is not at Disadvantage to see Adam"
no...You literally made that up.
he didn't make that up; that's how the rules work.
There is no rule ANYWHERE that says a person is at disadvantage to another. What does that even mean? Disadvantage to what? to see? The only disadvantage that dim light creates is against Passive perception.
That is what we're talking about, yes, what you can see and how lighting/obscurement affects it. Welcome to the topic.
You looking for traps? You are at a disadvantage in Dim light. You can not hide in dim light for that situation to occur, unless;ess you have mask of the wild or the skulker feat. Then and only then...
People can hide in dim light. people can hide in bright light. people can hide in darkness. There is not a lighting requirement for hiding. Can lighting help you hide? yes. But there isn't any one lighting condition required to hide.
"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.
Good, you know the rule.
It is always nice when people quote rules so we can all be sure we're on the same page and have read the reference materials. I would, however, advise you reread this sentence again and pay close attention to precisely what it is saying. Who. What. Where. Who has disadvantage? Creatures. Which creatures? The creatures in the area of dim light do. Disadvantage on what? Perception checks that rely on sight.
What does that mean? That means standing in a small patch of dim light during a brightly lit day gives YOU disadvantage on your perception checks to see anything, even the stuff in broad daylight. You are now a creature, in dim light, making a perception check that relies on sight. Bam, disadvantage for you.
If a person is hidden in a lightly dim area with the skulker feat or Mask of the Wild, then the person looking for someone hiding in dim light has disadvantage on his perception check. That is the whole point to having those feats. because you can't hide in dim light like you can in darkness. Why would the person hiding have disadvantage on the person not hiding and not in dim light? that person is not obscured?!?!
This is addressed above. Agains, the penalty to perception checks is to the creature IN the dim light, per RAW. And anyone can hide in dim light areas if there is a place for them to hide. Dim light doesn't magically prevent hiding.
So I won't even bother to read the rest because I don't think you can show a rule to back up your first supposed rule.
You're not going to understand what's going on here with that attitude.
It is backwards. That is a major part of the problem. The backwards viewpoint to rule interpreting. It is the one obscured that benefits. If you are obscured, a person has trouble seeing you. Not the other way around.
Here you go trusting your intuition and understanding of reality, instead of actually reading and parsing what the book says to do. You're not alone, which is why this topic comes up from time to time. The books tells us to do some truly bizarre things for vision/obscurement/lighting. Many, maybe even most people actively and knowingly ignore the default lighting rules and do what actually makes sense instead.
The PHb rules on Vision and Light are, perhaps ironically, written from a limited perspective.
They say that "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."
It could have said something like, "If conditions cause vision to be lightly obscured, creatures will have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. These conditions occur in situations such as when looking into an area of dim light, when looking through patchy fog or when trying to look through moderate foliage in a situation in which you have been unable to gain a line of sight."
You can be in a darkened cave and, even though seeing your feet may be between difficult to impossible, you can clearly see what's going on outside of the cave.
You can be surrounded by patchy fog which obscures vision by virtue of its opaque quality.
You are in moderate foliage and there is movement by: you, the thing you are attempting to observe or the foliage, then I think that it would be fair to apply disadvantage on perception checks. If there is no movement between you, the thing you are attempting to observe or the foliage then, once you have noticed that the thing exists, you could logically just move around until you have a clear line of sight.
Similarly, they say that "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.
It could have said something like, "If conditions cause vision to be heavily obscured, creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something that is obscured to this extent. These conditions occur in situations such as when looking into an area of natural darkness, when looking through opaque fog or effects such as of the darkness spell or when trying to look through dense foliage in cases in which a line of sight has not somehow been enabled."
I must say heavily obscured from effects and normal darkness don't match perfectly as written.
An heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area. So if you're anywhere in it, you can't see past it, including heavy fog, darkness etc.
It works well for effect impeding vision such as heavy sow or fog, but not for normal darkness as it should not block vision entirely, only making you blinded when trying to see something in it. Like this, you can see outside darkness, but not heavy fog, snow etc.
This is based off of this video
https://youtu.be/ALhcjHnFHW8
I am going to go against everything standardized and popular in 5e and say that the reason why it is so contradictory is because your interpretation, as is everyones, is incorrect. Allow me to explain,. First. 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 AREA is heavily obscured. inside it. Not outside it. Now. the next sentence can be better understood by looking at its inverse. You are blinded trying to see something IN that area. NOT OUT of that area. Another way to look at it, which is not clear but should be, is that You are blinded trying to see something In that area FROM OUT OF THAT AREA. If you look at it like that, your light pole example makes sense by the rules. Let's look again at the first sentence from this viewpoint. A heavily Obscure area, etc etc, blocks vision entirely FROM OUTSIDE the area TO INSIDE IT. This wording corrects the situation to a manner that every rogue archer knows. That you attack from the shadows unseen at advantage. However, this upends everyones view of fog cloud. In this view, if you are inside fog cloud, you can attack anyone outside the fog cloud AT ADVANTAGE, and anyone attempting to attack you while you are inside will suffer disadvantage (unseen) and have to guess your location if hidden. In both darkness and Fog cloud, if you are both inside (yourself and your opponent), then you are both concealed, and therefore you are both at advantage and disadvantage and it cancels out. Hears the real mind blower though. That means you can do the same with the spell DARKNESS. why? because it clearly states Magical darkness creates an area heavily obscured.
"Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters ......... or in an area of magical darkness".
It does have different properties than regular darkness, and those different properties are clearly stated. You can not see "through it" with dark vision. There for, you can not see through it with normal vision either, know how dark vision works.
When you think about foliage, you think about wood elves sending arrows from who knows where. That's right folks. You use heavy obscurity of forrest to hide in and attack at advantage to those in a clearing. This is why wood elves have Mask of the Wild. So they can hide even in lightly obscured natural areas and attack. There was an errata that read
"Vision and Light (p. 183). A heavily obscured area doesn’t blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it."
I Don't know why that errata has changed, but it gives away the purpose of heavy obscurity as a hiding position, not an obstacle. That's right. We've been using fog cloud wrong....
This will create an issue though. you are standing in light, there is darkness 2 ft in front of you for twenty feet, and then light again. You can see through the darkness. In the Darkness spell it Cleary tells you you can't see through it with dark vision and natural light can not illuminate it. So ok, that clears up that you can not see through it to the other side. However I have not found a clear definition for dense forest. I would assume you can't see through a pocket of heavily obscured forest, breaking this train of thought. So a Dm call. With Fog cloud it's the same issue.
And if you are in the center of a 20 ft radius darkness? Does the darkness prevent you from shooting out of it into a lighted area? No. There is no rule that says any part of an obscured area functions any different than any other part of an obscured area, though I would understand if a DM made that call. Heavily obscured forrest provide the same issue.
When you are blind folded, you are not under a heavily obscure area, you are under the condition, "blinded", caused by a physical item, same as hiding behind a book case. So your example unfortunetaly does not work.
also, darkness spell, clearly states light can not Illuminate it, giving it a property different from normal darkness.
It's an irrelevant made up mechanic. If I am in an open space that is 600 ft. There is 595 ft of darkness, I am at the opposite end of you and you standing with little spot light on the last 5 ft with an apple on your head. I can take that 600ft shot without disadvantage if I have sharpshooter. If it is dim light that you are standing in, the DM might rule at disadvantage being range attacks are sight based and dim light is considered a lightly obscured area, giving disadvantage to sight based perception checks.
Also, If I have a spot light on my head as well, and the darkness is between us, it does not change any game mechanics as per raw.
"However even from normal darkness, the further back you are in it, the harder it is going to be seeing out, due to contrast issues,"
That is a made up mechanic. Not raw. That is the point.
How it happens it's irrelevant. Could be gigantic cave. Doesn't matter. It's a fake world. The scenario is used to explain RAW. And yes. Raw does not cover everything, but actually, it covers most things people think aren't cover. I realized for instance while monitoring this thread that in the case of the forest being a heavily obscured thing, trees are also considered cover. There is no direct relationship between different levels of cover and different levels of Obscurity. That connection must be decided by the DM currently as far as I can tell. So a Heavily obscured forest provides full concealment but your ability to see through it from the other side is limited by the amount of cover it provides, not it's obscurity. From inside it is the same. The DM must first rule how much cover the forest provides. Three quarters cover allows the PC inside it to attack outside of it, and if it is total cover he can not attack outside of it. It's obscurity provides the PC inside with advantage on attack rolls to creatures outside of it. There is nothing in any rules set that says Heavily obscured prevents people from seeing outside the area of obscurement. The rules say the opposite. By default, those outside the heavily obscured area are of the blinded condition to anything inside the area of concealment. So I answered my own question with the forest issue. It is just most people don't know the rules well enough to connect how different rules affect other rules. Now. You can totally ignore rules, interpret rules differently, and do whatever you want. But this is a discussion on actual raw interpretation, not subjective viewpoints.
Right.... I already cover the reason why you could or COULD NOT, depending on the level of cover.It doesn't seem you were able to understand this.
"So a Heavily obscured forest provides full concealment but your ability to see through it from the other side is limited by the amount of cover it provides, not it's obscurity"
....and if it is total cover he can not attack outside of it."
reading comprehension is what makes the players hand book difficult so I understand.
If you're in an area of complete darkness you can still see the castle upon the hill whose fires are lit. Yes.
When trying to see something that isn't in areas of darkness, you can see them, because they're not in darkness. Even if you are in darkness.
I got quotes!
Right. I am talking rules. So when you say something like The light and torches and what not, it needs to be connected to a specific RAW. Everything is connected to a raw. Not how you see it. I get how you see it. But that's not the discussion here.
Right. Now the RAW for you standing in complete darkness is
1-"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."
and
2-"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".
Since you can see out of the darkness to the castle, and as far as I know, there is no rule that changes the "Heavily Obscured" aspect of darkness. At this point, you can see out of a Heavily Obscured area. Which means that when it says "Blocks vision completely" in the definition, it can not be talking about the character being inside the heavily obscured area, otherwise, you would not be able to see the castle upon the hill on fire. This sets the rule for heavy obscurity. That you can see out of a heavily obscured area, unless another rule set interferes.
The rules make no distinction between a fog cloud, an area of heavy foliage, or an area of darkness. It calls them all "Heavy Obscurement" and then attempts to parse vision rules as if they're all identical.
You, I, and everyone who has ever played the game defies this area of RAW as a matter of practicality and sanity. Obviously you can see out of a dark room into a lit room. Intuition is plainly clearly guiding us on this we know it is undeniably true according to all reasonable explanations of reality. But. The RAW says your vision is blocked entirely. If you're standing in a dark area, you should be entirely and completely blind in every way, entirely unable to see the lit torch burning 50ft away from you.
Unless "Vision is entirely blocked" doesn't mean that mechanically and is just descriptive. And that you can see out of areas of heavy obscurement into areas that aren't obscured. but if that is the case, if you're in a fog cloud you can see into areas outside the fog cloud just fine.
That's the trick. RAW: darkness, fog, foliage... all identical. All "heavy obscurement".
Edit: Fun Fact. The vision rules actually describe something entirely foreign to what your character can see and instead...believe it or not, describe what the player should be able to see. From like a top down perspective of a battlemap. You can see anything that is outside areas of obscurement because you're looking down from above at the whole battlemap. You can see the other side of the fog cloud because it isn't obscured. Which...funnily enough, is what you can generally see as a player by looking at the battlemap.
I got quotes!
I think ENWorld had a thread on this. It turns out there are two ways people play magical darkness.
First, let's discuss normal darkness. In particular that you can see out and through. If there is a dark tunnel between me and a fire, I am blinded only with repsect to things in the dark tunnel. I can see (and target) the firelit things on the other side. If I am actually in the dark tunnel (unseen to targets in the firelit area) I get advantage on rolls to attack them. The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area.
The two ways of ruling magical darkness are the inkblot idea and the supression idea.
The inkblot idea presents magical darkness much the same as an area of fog or mist or heavy foliage. You can't see into it, you can't see out of it, and you can't see through it. Areas of magical darkness look like black globes from the outside. The black globe areas cast shadows. Essentially, it is a better fog cloud (better because wind doesn't move it, warlocks can see through it, if cast on an item then you can move and cover it, and it dispels light-producing spells).
The suppression idea presents magical darkness as somehow suppressing vision, but only for those inside its area. If you are inside the area, you can't see anything, inside or outside. From the outside, you can see into it and you can see through it (and in fact those outside the darkness might not even realise magical darkness is present, since it casts no shadows and doesn't look like a black blob). Essentially it is a multi-target no-save blindness spell. In my opinion, this is too powerful for a second level spell.
Which idea a game uses is very important. Suppression darkness is pointless when cast on you - it's only effective when you cast it on your enemies. Inkblot darkness is great cast on you, especially if you are an archer of some kind who can see through it (warlock :-). It's also great cast on your enemies, or anywhere on a line from them to you.
There is already a spell for suppressing vision. It is called Blindness/Deafness.
She/Her College Student Player and Dungeon Master
This one of those things I disagree with:
"The D&D rulebook ges this wrong. Normal darkness is not a heavily obscured area - its just an unlit area."
This is false. The rules are right. The interpretation is wrong. That is the whole point to this post. Your interpretation of heavily obscured is wrong.
The rules don't match up with reality, which I think was Greenstone_Walker's point. This discussion has come up I think 3 times since I started frequenting this forum, but people never expect it because it's so weird, which I think is why it keeps coming back.
Here's the rules source for how light "works". I should point out that of course we have additional rules sources that also directly interact with vision in a variety of ways that may contradict this, but the link is to how light in areas works, which is the topic here.
So since you're focused on Heavily Obscured in this thread, there's no possible interpretation of Heavily Obscured which is consistent with the real world, because you can't be consistent with Darkness and Opaque Fog at the same time. You can simulate one if you do a good job, but not the other.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy example: Adam is in Bright Light and Bob is in Bright Light but there is Darkness between them. Can Adam see Bob just fine?
If you say yes, then you must give the same answer for Opaque Fog, which means you are getting Fog "wrong". If you say no, then you are getting Darkness "wrong".
Sorry, I can't get past this part
"If Adam is standing in Dim Light and Bob is standing in Bright Light, Adam is at Disadvantage to see Bob and Bob is not at Disadvantage to see Adam"
no...You literally made that up. There is no rule ANYWHERE that says a person is at disadvantage to another. What does that even mean? Disadvantage to what? to see? The only disadvantage that dim light creates is against Passive perception. You looking for traps? You are at a disadvantage in Dim light. You can not hide in dim light for that situation to occur, unless;ess you have mask of the wild or the skulker feat. Then and only then...
"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.
If a person is hidden in a lightly dim area with the skulker feat or Mask of the Wild, then the person looking for someone hiding in dim light has disadvantage on his perception check. That is the whole point to having those feats. because you can't hide in dim light like you can in darkness. Why would the person hiding have disadvantage on the person not hiding and not in dim light? that person is not obscured?!?! So I won't even bother to read the rest because I don't think you can show a rule to back up your first supposed rule. It is backwards. That is a major part of the problem. The backwards viewpoint to rule interpreting. It is the one obscured that benefits. If you are obscured, a person has trouble seeing you. Not the other way around.
Yea .... No... It is not a rule that Dm's can disregard the rules. It is just a simple fact of life. And this has nothing to do with incorrect vs correct rule interpretation. You can disregard a rule, and that is one thing, and you can not understand a rule, and that is another.
he didn't make that up; that's how the rules work.
That is what we're talking about, yes, what you can see and how lighting/obscurement affects it. Welcome to the topic.
People can hide in dim light. people can hide in bright light. people can hide in darkness. There is not a lighting requirement for hiding. Can lighting help you hide? yes. But there isn't any one lighting condition required to hide.
Good, you know the rule.
It is always nice when people quote rules so we can all be sure we're on the same page and have read the reference materials. I would, however, advise you reread this sentence again and pay close attention to precisely what it is saying. Who. What. Where. Who has disadvantage? Creatures. Which creatures? The creatures in the area of dim light do. Disadvantage on what? Perception checks that rely on sight.
What does that mean? That means standing in a small patch of dim light during a brightly lit day gives YOU disadvantage on your perception checks to see anything, even the stuff in broad daylight. You are now a creature, in dim light, making a perception check that relies on sight. Bam, disadvantage for you.
This is addressed above. Agains, the penalty to perception checks is to the creature IN the dim light, per RAW. And anyone can hide in dim light areas if there is a place for them to hide. Dim light doesn't magically prevent hiding.
You're not going to understand what's going on here with that attitude.
Here you go trusting your intuition and understanding of reality, instead of actually reading and parsing what the book says to do. You're not alone, which is why this topic comes up from time to time. The books tells us to do some truly bizarre things for vision/obscurement/lighting. Many, maybe even most people actively and knowingly ignore the default lighting rules and do what actually makes sense instead.
I got quotes!
The PHb rules on Vision and Light are, perhaps ironically, written from a limited perspective.
They say that "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."
It could have said something like, "If conditions cause vision to be lightly obscured, creatures will have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. These conditions occur in situations such as when looking into an area of dim light, when looking through patchy fog or when trying to look through moderate foliage in a situation in which you have been unable to gain a line of sight."
You can be in a darkened cave and, even though seeing your feet may be between difficult to impossible, you can clearly see what's going on outside of the cave.
You can be surrounded by patchy fog which obscures vision by virtue of its opaque quality.
You are in moderate foliage and there is movement by: you, the thing you are attempting to observe or the foliage, then I think that it would be fair to apply disadvantage on perception checks. If there is no movement between you, the thing you are attempting to observe or the foliage then, once you have noticed that the thing exists, you could logically just move around until you have a clear line of sight.
Similarly, they say that "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.
It could have said something like, "If conditions cause vision to be heavily obscured, creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something that is obscured to this extent. These conditions occur in situations such as when looking into an area of natural darkness, when looking through opaque fog or effects such as of the darkness spell or when trying to look through dense foliage in cases in which a line of sight has not somehow been enabled."
I must say heavily obscured from effects and normal darkness don't match perfectly as written.
An heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area. So if you're anywhere in it, you can't see past it, including heavy fog, darkness etc.
It works well for effect impeding vision such as heavy sow or fog, but not for normal darkness as it should not block vision entirely, only making you blinded when trying to see something in it. Like this, you can see outside darkness, but not heavy fog, snow etc.