As was already discussed, the sentence saying Heavily Obscured areas are opaque is followed out by a clarifying sentence about what it means by opaque. "You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there."
As was already discussed, the sentence saying Heavily Obscured areas are opaque is followed out by a clarifying sentence about what it means by opaque. "You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there."
It's not clear from context that they're trying to define opaque there (they use the term elsewhere in a way that corresponds to natural language), and that sentence is problematic for other reasons (if you try to see a target in a heavily obscured area, you are suddenly unable to see anything -- not just unable to see things in the obscured area).
As was already discussed, the sentence saying Heavily Obscured areas are opaque is followed out by a clarifying sentence about what it means by opaque. "You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there."
Opaque is defined in terms of how it’s defined in the dictionary: blocking the passage of radiant energy and especially light.
In the rules of D&D if your in darkness especially magical darkness where it specifically states that light can not illuminate it, and is considered an area that is completely opaque, then if your inside or outside or wherever you are that area does not allow anything to be seen.
If you’re outside of magical darkness, you are blinded to anything within that area of magical darkness and you are blinded to anything the magical darkness obscures or blocks on the other side of that area of magical darkness. If you are inside the area of magical darkness you are blinded to anything outside of the area. Inside magical darkness it is completely opaque and blocks non magical light.
So if you are inside an area of magical darkness, are are in fact blinded to anything outside of that area unless you have some means of vision that allows you to see into or through magical darkness.
[ note any magical light greater than the level of the magical darkness is capable of illuminating it, but also causes the magical darkness to longer be opaque thus dispelling it.]
So if your outside an area of magical darkness your attacking “blind” into it, and if your inside the magical area of darkness you are attacking “blind” anything outside of it.
Once the magical darkness is gone you are no longer “blind” to what that area was heavily obscuring.
Heavily obscured areas are meant to block line of sight making that area opaque to vision into that area, and it works the other way around. If you are inside an area of heavy obscurement, line of sight to anything outside that obscurement is also blocked.
You are basically putting an opaque object directly in the line of sight to prevent being seen and obscuring where your location might be.
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" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
Heavily obscured areas are meant to block line of sight making that area opaque to vision into that area, and it works the other way around. If you are inside an area of heavy obscurement, line of sight to anything outside that obscurement is also blocked.
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule. The actual text, word-for-word directly from the Glossary says this:
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
The concept of a Heavily Obscured area is that it's an area. It's not an object. It's an area that contains an effect which causes creatures and objects located within that area to be obscured from view. The area is obscured. It's an obscured area. Heavily.
If all darkness is truly as opaque as heavy fog, then humans are so blind at night that they can't see the stars. This is ridiculous and not a good faith interpretation of the rules, so the 2024 DMG suggests that we dismiss it. If we do, then no darkness is utterly opaque unless otherwise specified. If we don't, then all darkness is opaque by default.
In neither case does mundane darkness act like actual real world darkness while magical darkness acts like a cloud of black fog. But for the sake of argument, let's take that interpretation to its logical conclusion.
If the darkness spell effectively just creates fog, then why not just cast the actual fog cloud spell? It's one level lower. And unlike the darkness spell, it thwarts truesight. And you can use a higher spell slot to make a bigger fog cloud.
Furthermore, why are there magical darkness spells that render those inside Blinded? What effect does that have if magical darkness is basically just fog?
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule.
The actual rule is that if you're inside of an opaque effect, you can't see anything, because your line of sight touches or passes through an opaque effect.
If the darkness spell effectively just creates fog, then why not just cast the actual fog cloud spell? It's one level lower. And unlike the darkness spell, it thwarts truesight. And you can use a higher spell slot to make a bigger fog cloud.
If all darkness is truly as opaque as heavy fog, then humans are so blind at night that they can't see the stars. This is ridiculous and not a good faith interpretation of the rules, so the 2024 DMG suggests that we dismiss it. If we do, then no darkness is utterly opaque unless otherwise specified. If we don't, then all darkness is opaque by default.
In neither case does mundane darkness act like actual real world darkness while magical darkness acts like a cloud of black fog. But for the sake of argument, let's take that interpretation to its logical conclusion.
If the darkness spell effectively just creates fog, then why not just cast the actual fog cloud spell? It's one level lower. And unlike the darkness spell, it thwarts truesight. And you can use a higher spell slot to make a bigger fog cloud.
Furthermore, why are there magical darkness spells that render those inside Blinded? What effect does that have if magical darkness is basically just fog?
Thats the thing though, the darkness spell literally sates non-magical light can not illuminate it. If light can’t light the area up then that area is opaque. Mundane or natural darkness acts the same as IRL darkness, magical darkness is the exception to the normal rules, and rather than spend space writing out the difference between the two the writers use the readers common sense to fill the gaps.
Magical Darkness is not a fog, it’s just a region of space where no natural light can exist and would technically look solid in form.
And while TrueSight can not see through natural obstacles, magical darkness is not a natural phenomenon and makes using Truesight a viable option.
Using thick fog wouldn’t be any better, you still couldn’t see anything in or out of it unless you had a special sense. ( a fog cloud can be seen through with infravision, aka thermal sight, which many just assume is part of truesight. [ understand having to go through more discussions about that just leads right back here so best to just blanket cover everything generally and leave the details to places where needed.])
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" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
[Step 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 in an area of magical Darkness.
[Step 2] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
[Step 2 reworded] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in an area of magical Darkness.
Are you in an area of magical Darkness and trying to see something in that area? You have the Blinded condition.
Truesight thwarts the capacity of normal darkness, magical darkness, invisibility, visual illusions, magical transformations, and etherealness to impede vision. Fog cloud isn't any of those.
And fog cloud thwarting sight both ways is the whole point of using fog cloud. It's a huge reason why the darkness spell needs to do something more helpful to justify the higher slot.
And again, just because light can't illuminate an area doesn't mean that area is opaque. It just means you need some other way to see the area.
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
A fog cloud cast at the same level is a 40 foot Sphere. Trust me, it doesn't need to be moved.
The darkness spell lasts for ten minutes; you can carry it from one encounter to another, or cast it before combat.
Okay, sure. There are at least a few advantages the darkness spell has over fog cloud. But this is a second level spell. Spells of this level are dropping a group's speed to zero or giving you nearly automatic surprise for an hour. "Fog Cloud you can bring with you, but it's smaller and more senses work against it" does NOT sound like a second level spell.
Bringing it with you is even harder in 2024, because they removed its ability to target an object you are holding. You'd have to cast it on an unattended object, then pick up the object.
[Step 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 in an area of magical Darkness.
[Step 2] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
[Step 2 reworded] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in an area of magical Darkness.
Are you in an area of magical Darkness and trying to see something in that area? You have the Blinded condition.
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule. The actual text, word-for-word directly from the Glossary says this:
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
In Darkness you can't see having Blinded condition. It's not a buff unless you have a way to specifically see in it such as Devil's Sight.
have absolutely no logical connection to each other. An effect that causes the Blinded condition when trying to see something in the effect's area is not at all the same as claiming that "In Darkness you can't see having Blinded condition", which is a false claim. There is no text which says that you have the Blinded condition while in Darkness and therefore you cannot see.
So, I say again:
Check again. The Darkness spell does not say anything about causing any creature to have the Blinded condition. So, it doesn't do that.
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
I do wonder who the brilliant individual is that answers Sage Advice now.
Oh thats right it’s just advice, not actual rules.
RAW must stand on its own context without any intent implied by the designer.
So when RAW says otherwise, RAW says the spell of magical darkness specifically implies the rules for any magical effect that creates a similar effect is the RAW of how that Specific mechanic works.
If you want to repeat yourself, you have to repeat it every time you mention magical darkness. Or you just mention a similar effect like the darkness spell.
Just because it isn’t “spelled” out doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been printed.
If we actually played by absolute RAW, darkness is a wall you can’t see past unless you can see in the dark, period.
Magical darkness specifically implies not even darkvision works in the area of magical darkness.
Magicl darkness, however is is magically created acts the same regardless.
Foundation laid, it’s opaque and a heavy obstrustion to your vision. No line of sight unless you have a special ability that lets you see in MAGICAL darkness.
Otherwise, you do you.
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" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
Okay, sure. There are at least a few advantages the darkness spell has over fog cloud. But this is a second level spell. Spells of this level are dropping a group's speed to zero or giving you nearly automatic surprise for an hour. "Fog Cloud you can bring with you, but it's smaller and more senses work against it" does NOT sound like a second level spell.
By the time you're dealing with enemies with truesight, the difference between a level 1 slot and a level 2 slot is quite marginal.
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule.
The actual rule is that if you're inside of an opaque effect, you can't see anything, because your line of sight touches or passes through an opaque effect.
First, please quote this rule from the text if you know of one. It's possible that I've missed it somewhere. The rule for Line of Sight certainly doesn't mention anything about opacity:
Line of Sight: To determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If you can trace a line that doesn't pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision—such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog—then there is line of sight.
Second, this would still be irrelevant to the points being made in this thread.
The concept of an obscured area has nothing at all to do with Line of Sight. It has to do with an area that is obscured from everyone's view. It's an absolute property of the area itself, not a relative one which requires knowledge of two locations -- the from location and the to location as required by the rules for Line of Sight. It's a concept which dictates that things within the area cannot be seen because they are obscured. Maybe it's because those objects are simply invisible, who knows why they are obscured? This concept is an entirely separate concept from the concept of Line of Sight.
The word "opaque" is not even used in the Glossary summary for a Heavily Obscured area. When it is used in the main text, it is first used as an introductory phrase for the concept in a manner which is meant to differentiate it from how Lightly Obscured areas were previously described. Then, the text immediately follows up with exactly what the word means in this context, which is that when trying to see something in that area, the area is opaque as opposed to an area that is lightly obscured where you merely have reduced perception of the things that are within such areas:
You have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to see something in a Lightly Obscured space.
These two concepts are written in a way that is meant to have contrasting descriptions so that you can better understand the difference. But in both cases, the concept is written within the context of the area itself -- the "space".
If you attempt to look into an obscured space, you will have trouble seeing things there. Because the space is obscured. If the space is Lightly Obscured, you have reduced perception when trying to see something in that space. If the space is Heavily Obscured, you have the Blinded condition when trying to see something in that space. This is about trying to see the things that are in these spaces and nothing more:
Lightly Obscured
You have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to see something in a Lightly Obscured space.
Heavily Obscured
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
My stance remains that mundane darkness doesn't stop people inside from seeing out of it, nor does magical darkness. Even the types of magical darkness that can't be illuminated by mundane light or thwarted by darkvision still do not alter this property of darkness, as the light still exists even if it fails to illuminate something. I'm unsubscribing from this thread because we're just talking in circles.
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
I do wonder who the brilliant individual is that answers Sage Advice now.
Oh thats right it’s just advice, not actual rules.
RAW must stand on its own context without any intent implied by the designer.
So when RAW says otherwise, RAW says the spell of magical darkness specifically implies the rules for any magical effect that creates a similar effect is the RAW of how that Specific mechanic works.
Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium.
SAC is actually official, meaning anything stated within carries the same value as RAW from the books.
That said...
Your last line that I snipped there? Wrong. Spells and abilities do exactly what they say they do. If all magical darkness blocked darkvision, there would be a general rule about that. Because there isn't, any magical darkness that blocks darkvision must be spelled out.
I can think of two other spells right away that create magical darkness. Maddening Darkness specifies that it blocks darkvision. Hallow does not, so darkvision will still see through the magical darkness it creates.
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As was already discussed, the sentence saying Heavily Obscured areas are opaque is followed out by a clarifying sentence about what it means by opaque. "You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there."
It's not clear from context that they're trying to define opaque there (they use the term elsewhere in a way that corresponds to natural language), and that sentence is problematic for other reasons (if you try to see a target in a heavily obscured area, you are suddenly unable to see anything -- not just unable to see things in the obscured area).
Opaque is defined in terms of how it’s defined in the dictionary: blocking the passage of radiant energy and especially light.
In the rules of D&D if your in darkness especially magical darkness where it specifically states that light can not illuminate it, and is considered an area that is completely opaque, then if your inside or outside or wherever you are that area does not allow anything to be seen.
If you’re outside of magical darkness, you are blinded to anything within that area of magical darkness and you are blinded to anything the magical darkness obscures or blocks on the other side of that area of magical darkness.
If you are inside the area of magical darkness you are blinded to anything outside of the area. Inside magical darkness it is completely opaque and blocks non magical light.
So if you are inside an area of magical darkness, are are in fact blinded to anything outside of that area unless you have some means of vision that allows you to see into or through magical darkness.
[ note any magical light greater than the level of the magical darkness is capable of illuminating it, but also causes the magical darkness to longer be opaque thus dispelling it.]
So if your outside an area of magical darkness your attacking “blind” into it, and if your inside the magical area of darkness you are attacking “blind” anything outside of it.
Once the magical darkness is gone you are no longer “blind” to what that area was heavily obscuring.
Heavily obscured areas are meant to block line of sight making that area opaque to vision into that area, and it works the other way around. If you are inside an area of heavy obscurement, line of sight to anything outside that obscurement is also blocked.
You are basically putting an opaque object directly in the line of sight to prevent being seen and obscuring where your location might be.
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
Check again. The Darkness spell does not say anything about causing any creature to have the Blinded condition. So, it doesn't do that.
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule. The actual text, word-for-word directly from the Glossary says this:
The concept of a Heavily Obscured area is that it's an area. It's not an object. It's an area that contains an effect which causes creatures and objects located within that area to be obscured from view. The area is obscured. It's an obscured area. Heavily.
If all darkness is truly as opaque as heavy fog, then humans are so blind at night that they can't see the stars. This is ridiculous and not a good faith interpretation of the rules, so the 2024 DMG suggests that we dismiss it. If we do, then no darkness is utterly opaque unless otherwise specified. If we don't, then all darkness is opaque by default.
In neither case does mundane darkness act like actual real world darkness while magical darkness acts like a cloud of black fog. But for the sake of argument, let's take that interpretation to its logical conclusion.
If the darkness spell effectively just creates fog, then why not just cast the actual fog cloud spell? It's one level lower. And unlike the darkness spell, it thwarts truesight. And you can use a higher spell slot to make a bigger fog cloud.
Furthermore, why are there magical darkness spells that render those inside Blinded? What effect does that have if magical darkness is basically just fog?
Let's check again;
Darkness say magical Darkness spreads from a point
Darkness say it creates Heavily Obscured area.
Heavily Obscured say you have the Blinded condition when trying to see something there.
The actual rule is that if you're inside of an opaque effect, you can't see anything, because your line of sight touches or passes through an opaque effect.
Because the darkness spell is movable.
A fog cloud cast at the same level is a 40 foot Sphere. Trust me, it doesn't need to be moved.
Thats the thing though, the darkness spell literally sates non-magical light can not illuminate it. If light can’t light the area up then that area is opaque.
Mundane or natural darkness acts the same as IRL darkness, magical darkness is the exception to the normal rules, and rather than spend space writing out the difference between the two the writers use the readers common sense to fill the gaps.
Magical Darkness is not a fog, it’s just a region of space where no natural light can exist and would technically look solid in form.
And while TrueSight can not see through natural obstacles, magical darkness is not a natural phenomenon and makes using Truesight a viable option.
Using thick fog wouldn’t be any better, you still couldn’t see anything in or out of it unless you had a special sense. ( a fog cloud can be seen through with infravision, aka thermal sight, which many just assume is part of truesight. [ understand having to go through more discussions about that just leads right back here so best to just blanket cover everything generally and leave the details to places where needed.])
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
It's very simple:
[Step 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 in an area of magical Darkness.
[Step 2] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
[Step 2 reworded] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in an area of magical Darkness.
Are you in an area of magical Darkness and trying to see something in that area? You have the Blinded condition.
The darkness spell lasts for ten minutes; you can carry it from one encounter to another, or cast it before combat.
Truesight thwarts the capacity of normal darkness, magical darkness, invisibility, visual illusions, magical transformations, and etherealness to impede vision. Fog cloud isn't any of those.
And fog cloud thwarting sight both ways is the whole point of using fog cloud. It's a huge reason why the darkness spell needs to do something more helpful to justify the higher slot.
And again, just because light can't illuminate an area doesn't mean that area is opaque. It just means you need some other way to see the area.
Also Darkvision is affected by Darkness while other magical Darkness do not necessarily.
Okay, sure. There are at least a few advantages the darkness spell has over fog cloud. But this is a second level spell. Spells of this level are dropping a group's speed to zero or giving you nearly automatic surprise for an hour. "Fog Cloud you can bring with you, but it's smaller and more senses work against it" does NOT sound like a second level spell.
Bringing it with you is even harder in 2024, because they removed its ability to target an object you are holding. You'd have to cast it on an unattended object, then pick up the object.
The underlined portion above does not appear in the text. It's a made-up house rule. The actual text, word-for-word directly from the Glossary says this:
The following:
and:
have absolutely no logical connection to each other. An effect that causes the Blinded condition when trying to see something in the effect's area is not at all the same as claiming that "In Darkness you can't see having Blinded condition", which is a false claim. There is no text which says that you have the Blinded condition while in Darkness and therefore you cannot see.
So, I say again:
Check again. The Darkness spell does not say anything about causing any creature to have the Blinded condition. So, it doesn't do that.
I do wonder who the brilliant individual is that answers Sage Advice now.
Oh thats right it’s just advice, not actual rules.
RAW must stand on its own context without any intent implied by the designer.
So when RAW says otherwise, RAW says the spell of magical darkness specifically implies the rules for any magical effect that creates a similar effect is the RAW of how that Specific mechanic works.
If you want to repeat yourself, you have to repeat it every time you mention magical darkness. Or you just mention a similar effect like the darkness spell.
Just because it isn’t “spelled” out doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been printed.
If we actually played by absolute RAW, darkness is a wall you can’t see past unless you can see in the dark, period.
Magical darkness specifically implies not even darkvision works in the area of magical darkness.
Magicl darkness, however is is magically created acts the same regardless.
Foundation laid, it’s opaque and a heavy obstrustion to your vision. No line of sight unless you have a special ability that lets you see in MAGICAL darkness.
Otherwise, you do you.
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
By the time you're dealing with enemies with truesight, the difference between a level 1 slot and a level 2 slot is quite marginal.
First, please quote this rule from the text if you know of one. It's possible that I've missed it somewhere. The rule for Line of Sight certainly doesn't mention anything about opacity:
Second, this would still be irrelevant to the points being made in this thread.
The concept of an obscured area has nothing at all to do with Line of Sight. It has to do with an area that is obscured from everyone's view. It's an absolute property of the area itself, not a relative one which requires knowledge of two locations -- the from location and the to location as required by the rules for Line of Sight. It's a concept which dictates that things within the area cannot be seen because they are obscured. Maybe it's because those objects are simply invisible, who knows why they are obscured? This concept is an entirely separate concept from the concept of Line of Sight.
The word "opaque" is not even used in the Glossary summary for a Heavily Obscured area. When it is used in the main text, it is first used as an introductory phrase for the concept in a manner which is meant to differentiate it from how Lightly Obscured areas were previously described. Then, the text immediately follows up with exactly what the word means in this context, which is that when trying to see something in that area, the area is opaque as opposed to an area that is lightly obscured where you merely have reduced perception of the things that are within such areas:
These two concepts are written in a way that is meant to have contrasting descriptions so that you can better understand the difference. But in both cases, the concept is written within the context of the area itself -- the "space".
If you attempt to look into an obscured space, you will have trouble seeing things there. Because the space is obscured. If the space is Lightly Obscured, you have reduced perception when trying to see something in that space. If the space is Heavily Obscured, you have the Blinded condition when trying to see something in that space. This is about trying to see the things that are in these spaces and nothing more:
My stance remains that mundane darkness doesn't stop people inside from seeing out of it, nor does magical darkness. Even the types of magical darkness that can't be illuminated by mundane light or thwarted by darkvision still do not alter this property of darkness, as the light still exists even if it fails to illuminate something. I'm unsubscribing from this thread because we're just talking in circles.
SAC is actually official, meaning anything stated within carries the same value as RAW from the books.
That said...
Your last line that I snipped there? Wrong. Spells and abilities do exactly what they say they do. If all magical darkness blocked darkvision, there would be a general rule about that. Because there isn't, any magical darkness that blocks darkvision must be spelled out.
I can think of two other spells right away that create magical darkness. Maddening Darkness specifies that it blocks darkvision. Hallow does not, so darkvision will still see through the magical darkness it creates.