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If I have true sight and a darkness spell is cast on me (or pebble next to me), can I see within the spell area?
Can I see a potential target not within the spell area?
That leads to, can I shoot arrows at a target located outside of the spell area? Effectively, the target and others see arrows being fired out of the darkness, but can't actually see the shooter.
Truesight's definition specifically says that you can see in both normal and magical darkness, so yes, you can see within the spell area, up to the range limit of your Truesight.
You can see things outside the spell area if your Truesight extends that far. If it doesn't — i.e., if there's still an area of darkness between the limit of your Truesight and the outer edge of the darkness spell — then you can't. Either way, you can shoot arrows at a target outside the area; if you can't see them, you have disadvantage on the attack roll.
Note: if your true sight extends beyond the darkness, you can still only see to the limit of your true sight, even if your regular vision could see farther, because your true sight is separate from your regular vision, and your regular vision can't see through the darkness.
. . . your regular vision can't see through the darkness.
Regular vision can always see through darkness. It just cannot see anything that's within the darkness. Nothing about the Darkness spell changes that.
Do you have something to cite on that? Pretty sure by RAW Darkness Heavily Obscures, thus making you blinded to anything on the other side for the purposes of "that you can see" targeting.
. . . your regular vision can't see through the darkness.
Regular vision can always see through darkness. It just cannot see anything that's within the darkness. Nothing about the Darkness spell changes that.
Well, that's a hot take.
Darkness literally radiates darkness. No vision can penetrate it besides True Sight and vision types that specifically say they can. Light can't illuminate it. (BTW, that means you can't see through it, because vision requires light, and light literally can't travel into or through it).
It would be kind of amazing if "Darkvision can't see through it" didn't also imply regular vision couldn't see through it.
Darkness literally radiates darkness. No vision can penetrate it besides True Sight and vision types that specifically say they can. Light can't illuminate it.
Darkness is basically like a wall. A thin treeline (not an orchard). All "normal" line of sight vision stops.
. . . your regular vision can't see through the darkness.
Regular vision can always see through darkness. It just cannot see anything that's within the darkness. Nothing about the Darkness spell changes that.
Do you have something to cite on that? Pretty sure by RAW Darkness Heavily Obscures, thus making you blinded to anything on the other side for the purposes of "that you can see" targeting.
From the Rules Glossary:
Heavily Obscured
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
This game concept causes the area itself to be obscured from view. This rule doesn't cause any barrier to Line of Sight. Of course, in most cases the phenomenon which creates the heavily obscured area will also block Line of Sight due to its specific nature -- but darkness doesn't do that. Although obviously not an exhaustive list, it is notable that darkness is not included as an example of something that blocks Line of Sight in the DMG:
Line of Sight
. . .
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.
Darkness literally radiates darkness. No vision can penetrate it besides True Sight and vision types that specifically say they can. Light can't illuminate it.
Darkness is basically like a wall. A thin treeline (not an orchard). All "normal" line of sight vision stops.
Darkness literally radiates darkness. No vision can penetrate it besides True Sight and vision types that specifically say they can.
The spell does not say this and nothing about the rules for mundane darkness says this either.
When your character goes outside on a clear night can they see the stars in the sky? Can they see the people that are sitting around the campfire that is blazing 150 feet away from you? Of course they can.
It would be kind of amazing if "Darkvision can't see through it" didn't also imply regular vision couldn't see through it.
In this context this is clearly referring only to the fact that creatures with Darkvision can normally see objects within areas of darkness because that area normally appears as Dim Light to them. In the case of the magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell, such creatures are explicitly unable to do that. In that sense, they cannot "see through" this type of darkness to the objects within it as they normally could. More precise phrasing could have been used there, but it's very clear in context what the statement means in this particular case. (The same goes for the infamous "opaque" term that is found elsewhere -- a more careful word should have been used there but it's very clear in context what that actually means in the place where it is used.)
Light can't illuminate it. (BTW, that means you can't see through it, because vision requires light, and light literally can't travel into or through it).
No, those don't mean the same thing.
Whether or not a space is illuminated does not determine whether or not there might be some light travelling through it. Darkness does not necessarily mean the total absence of light. In game terms it just means that you are blinded when trying to see something within the dark area. Meaning, the area is not illuminated well enough for you to be able to see the things that are within.
Imagine that you are in your bedroom and it is so dark that you cannot see the objects within. However, you left your computer tower running and that is indicated by a small red LED light that is located on its side, facing the room. When you look in that direction, you CAN see that light. However, that light is not enough to illuminate the rest of the room. Depending on its brightness, maybe it's enough to very slightly illuminate a surrounding inch or two of your computer tower in grayscale, but everything else is still totally dark. So, there is actually some light passing through the rest of the room -- but the rest of the room is not illuminated.
Just because the Darkness spell specifies that the area cannot be illuminated does not mean that light cannot pass through the area. It also does not say anything about physically blocking your Line of Sight through or out of it.
In addition, the fact that this magical darkness cannot be illuminated does not make it function any differently while not illuminated than mundane darkness while that mundane darkness is not illuminated. So, if you do not have Darkvision and you are not attempting to illuminate the darkness, then you are in exactly the same situation while standing within this magical darkness than you would be if you were standing in mundane darkness.
Lastly, as a reminder, the Darkness spell is meant to be cast on yourself or onto an object that you will pick up and carry around with you as a buff to yourself. The concept of "lurking in darkness" is meant to be advantageous to the lurker, not the lurkee. This can be seen even more clearly in the 2014 version of the spell, but the text goes through a whole lot of trouble to describe a mechanic where you can cover and uncover an object that is radiating this magical darkness as the need arises. Situationally, you might need to be searching for something close by, so you would block the Darkness and allow in the light. Then, in some other situation, you might want to try to set up a "I can see you, but you cannot see me" situation, in which case you would unblock the object, covering yourself in Darkness so that you cannot be seen.
Remember, nothing about mundane darkness or the Darkness spell causes any creatures to become generally blinded. Instead, creatures (inside or outside the darkness) are only blinded when trying to see something within the dark area.
“An effect that blocks vision” would seem to include any effect that heavily obscures an area, so we’re gonna have to disagree that Darkness not being specifically named excludes it.
Darkness is the absence of light, so how is describing it like a wall incorrect?
When your character goes outside on a clear night can they see the stars in the sky? Can they see the people that are sitting around the campfire that is blazing 150 feet away from you? Of course they can.
I will make a bold assumption and assume you have never actually been in a place where there is no light pollution and the sky is actually clear and free of any clouds/pollution/or anything blocks or refracts vision into the the sky. And I hope you never actually experience that situation. Being on a ship in the middle of an ocean, or in a desert is close, but there is always a chance of clouds or other things that can slightly distort some of ones vision slightly.
If you are free of those factors you realize that darkness outside is not very dark. You can read a paperback book because it is so bright. You can see neighbors and people 200 feet away. The night time sky is so very bright, but the shadows created from the stars/moon are very dark. You can see the distinct bark of fallen trees like in daylight, but the shadow that fallen tree makes is nothing but pure black. You are confusing darkness with minimal sources of light. You can see on a clear night people around a campfire and stars because the darkness is easily removed by starlight and a fire. What you are calling darkness of a night sky is not actually dark, but an absence of light. If you are inside a windowless room/box with no source of light, that is truly darkness. When you can't see your hand inches from your face, that is darkness.
A magical darkness does not allow any conventional light to penetrate. Because conventional light cannot penetrate, you can't see on the other side, AKA wall.
There's definitely a contradiction here, and it boils down to one word. In Chapter 1, in the "Vision and Light" section, we have: 1) "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque." 2) "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..."
So, does "opaque" mean you can't see the moon? (There's no distinction between "natural" Darkness and "magical" Darkness here.)
And whole play-tactics, like "cast Darkness near the ranged character so they can't shoot anything outside without Disadvantage" do kinda hing on this.
“An effect that blocks vision” would seem to include any effect that heavily obscures an area,
Why? Those concepts have nothing to do with each other. The concept of a heavily obscured area is that you cannot see the things that are within that area. Maybe there's just a magical effect in there that turns everything in there invisible? Who knows? Some effects that heavily obscure an area might also be an effect that blocks vision while some others might not. You handle that on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific nature of the effect.
“An effect that blocks vision” would seem to include any effect that heavily obscures an area,
Why? Those concepts have nothing to do with each other. The concept of a heavily obscured area is that you cannot see the things that are within that area. Maybe there's just a magical effect in there that turns everything in there invisible? Who knows? Some effects that heavily obscure an area might also be an effect that blocks vision while some others might not. You handle that on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific nature of the effect.
How does “An area of Darkness is heavily obscured” not meet the requirements for “an effect that blocks vision” when we’re talking about the Darkness spell?
Darkness is the absence of light, so how is describing it like a wall incorrect?
Darkness is not defined that way in the game and it does not have to mean that in real life either -- sometimes it can be more of a relative term or an approximation.
From the Rules Glossary:
Darkness
An area of Darkness is Heavily Obscured.
That's it. That's what the game says about darkness. The reason that the area is heavily obscured is because there is not enough light to illuminate the area.
In real life there is a continuous gradient of nearly infinite levels of illumination all the way down to absolute darkness. The game greatly simplifies this into three categories -- light, dim light, and darkness. The darkness category does not have to only include absolute darkness. It can also include situations where there simply isn't enough light to illuminate the area. Whenever that happens, we follow certain rules, such as that you have the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
If you are free of those factors you realize that darkness outside is not very dark. You can read a paperback book because it is so bright.
Yes, that's true because of the continuous gradient that we have in real life that I mentioned earlier. The game explicitly simplifies this:
Darkness. Darkness creates a Heavily Obscured area. Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)
The game categorizes outdoors at night into the darkness category and as such we follow certain rules that are associated with that. But note the very obvious example of a moonlit night -- meaning, night that is litby the moon. That is not an absence of light. That is a level of light that falls into the darkness category because it is not enough light (in this game at least) to be able to see anything that is within the area of darkness. But that does not mean that you cannot look through the darkness to see the moon on a moonlit night. Of course you can. You will be able to see the moon itself as well as everything inside of the area that the moon illuminates because nothing is actually physically blocking your vision when you look at the moon. When looking at the moon you are NOT blinded, since you are NOT looking at something that is within the darkness.
A magical darkness does not allow any conventional light to penetrate. Because conventional light cannot penetrate, you can't see on the other side, AKA wall.
Again, the spell does not say that. It specifically says that light "can’t illuminate it". That's all. The rules for mundane darkness do not support your claim either. There is nothing about an inability for any light to be able to penetrate the area. Nothing of that sort at all.
“An effect that blocks vision” would seem to include any effect that heavily obscures an area,
Why? Those concepts have nothing to do with each other. The concept of a heavily obscured area is that you cannot see the things that are within that area. Maybe there's just a magical effect in there that turns everything in there invisible? Who knows? Some effects that heavily obscure an area might also be an effect that blocks vision while some others might not. You handle that on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific nature of the effect.
How does “An area of Darkness is heavily obscured” not meet the requirements for “an effect that blocks vision” when we’re talking about the Darkness spell?
Because when an area is heavily obscured it just means that things that are within that area cannot be seen. There is no further explanation as to why -- that is handled on a case-by-case basis. In the case of Darkness, there is nothing about that phenomenon in and of itself that suggests that it would be an effect that blocks vision the way that a fog cloud would, for example. It just means that certain things cannot be seen.
There's definitely a contradiction here, and it boils down to one word. In Chapter 1, in the "Vision and Light" section, we have: 1) "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque." 2) "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..."
So, does "opaque" mean you can't see the moon? (There's no distinction between "natural" Darkness and "magical" Darkness here.)
And whole play-tactics, like "cast Darkness near the ranged character so they can't shoot anything outside without Disadvantage" do kinda hing on this.
I agree that the author should have chosen a different word or used a few additional words for clarity there when it comes to the use of the word "opaque". Fortunately, this word does not appear at all in the Rules Glossary definition for a Heavily Obscured area. To me, this heavily indicates that the word is just being used as a flavor text introductory descriptor to describe the phrase that actually is used in the Rules Glossary. Meaning, in context, opaque is just another way of saying that things within the area cannot be seen at all, in contrast with Lightly Obscured areas where things can be seen with some difficulty. It appears to just be stylistic writing which has no mechanical meaning -- it's just a transition from one idea to another.
Play tactics like you've described do indeed depend on the interpretation, but they aren't necessarily lost either way, they just need to be executed differently. For example, if you want the enemy ranged attacker to have disadvantage, the strategy would be to cast Darkness upon yourself and your entire party. That way, that enemy cannot see any of you and therefore would be blinded when attempting to target you and thus the attack would be made at disadvantage. Better yet, do what the spell description is suggesting and cast Darkness on an object that you carry around with you under a cover of some sort ahead of time. Then, in this situation you save on some action economy by just uncovering the object to create the darkness around yourself and your party (perhaps at the cost of an object interaction, for example).
First, Darkness is an evocation spell. That means it magically creates something (generally energy of some sort). ie, magical darkness is an intangible thing, not just the absence of light. If it was just the absence of light, it would be an illusion spell. (Yes, spell school actually tells you something about how a spell works).
Second, the darkness spell says light cannot illuminate it. That means light cannot travel through it, because to do so, it would have to illuminate inside the area of darkness. And since light is how we see, that means you can't see through it.
Third, Darkness literally says "Darkvision can't see through it". That's not an error or poor wording. Darkvision can not (and has never been able to) see through magical darkness. And before D+D had darkvision, neither infravision nor ultravision could see through it either. Nor can any other sight (which relies on light, because darkness cannot be illuminated).
Darkness is not a buff where i can see out and you can't see in. It's a total vision block. If you're inside darkness, no light can illuminate your retina.
(Note: this is also how darkness has worked in every single edition of D+D going back to the OD+D white box)
You can see the stars and the (reflected light from the) moon and a campfire because natural darkness can be illuminated, that is, light can travel through it, because natural darkness is just the absence of light. Magical darkness cannot be illuminated, so you cannot see the stars or the moon through it, nor a campfire. No light can pass magical darkness.
Magical Darkness is why the Warlock's devil sight is useful. It's why blindsight is useful and so hard to get with decent range.
(I am also confused what you even think is going on, where there's a sphere of magical darkness that you can't see anything, but you can see through to the other side of it normally? What does that look like? Assume there are objects and creatures inside the magical darkness - if you can see through it, then you can necessarily see things in the darkness, because they block your line of sight in places, so you could see a creature moving around just fine solely by the moving black shape against what's behind it - ie, light would have to illuminate the magical darkness. What you think it says is logically impossible.)
There's definitely a contradiction here, and it boils down to one word. In Chapter 1, in the "Vision and Light" section, we have: 1) "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque." 2) "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..." So, does "opaque" mean you can't see the moon? (There's no distinction between "natural" Darkness and "magical" Darkness here.) And whole play-tactics, like "cast Darkness near the ranged character so they can't shoot anything outside without Disadvantage" do kinda hing on this.
I agree that the author should have chosen a different word or used a few additional words for clarity there when it comes to the use of the word "opaque". Fortunately, this word does not appear at all in the Rules Glossary definition for a Heavily Obscured area. To me, this heavily indicates that the word is just being used as a flavor text introductory descriptor to describe the phrase that actually is used in the Rules Glossary. Meaning, in context, opaque is just another way of saying that things within the area cannot be seen at all, in contrast with Lightly Obscured areas where things can be seen with some difficulty. It appears to just be stylistic writing which has no mechanical meaning -- it's just a transition from one idea to another.
I prefer that interpretation, but I think they messed up in using the word "opaque." And they probably didn't want to add another paragraph to explain the difference between Darkness and actually-opaque obscurement, as much as they probably should have added it.
Play tactics like you've described do indeed depend on the interpretation, but they aren't necessarily lost either way, they just need to be executed differently. For example, if you want the enemy ranged attacker to have disadvantage, the strategy would be to cast Darkness upon yourself and your entire party. That way, that enemy cannot see any of you and therefore would be blinded when attempting to target you and thus the attack would be made at disadvantage. Better yet, do what the spell description is suggesting and cast Darkness on an object that you carry around with you under a cover of some sort ahead of time. Then, in this situation you save on some action economy by just uncovering the object to create the darkness around yourself and your party (perhaps at the cost of an object interaction, for example).
This is a big reason why I prefer the "Darkness isn't properly opaque" version --- it means there's greater diversity between spells (between Darkness and Fog Cloud, for example) and how they are used.
If Darkness was meant to be "just a harder-to-get-rid-of fog" they would have called it something else.
(I am also confused what you even think is going on, where there's a sphere of magical darkness that you can't see anything, but you can see through to the other side of it normally? What does that look like? Assume there are objects and creatures inside the magical darkness - if you can see through it, then you can necessarily see things in the darkness, because they block your line of sight in places, so you could see a creature moving around just fine solely by the moving black shape against what's behind it - ie, light would have to illuminate the magical darkness. What you think it says is logically impossible.)
So you'd have no depth perception of anything inside, and couldn't distinguish silhouettes from each other, at all. This would include the ground. The effect would make everything inside look like a "cutout" of reality.
If I have true sight and a darkness spell is cast on me (or pebble next to me), can I see within the spell area?
Can I see a potential target not within the spell area?
That leads to, can I shoot arrows at a target located outside of the spell area? Effectively, the target and others see arrows being fired out of the darkness, but can't actually see the shooter.
Truesight's definition specifically says that you can see in both normal and magical darkness, so yes, you can see within the spell area, up to the range limit of your Truesight.
You can see things outside the spell area if your Truesight extends that far. If it doesn't — i.e., if there's still an area of darkness between the limit of your Truesight and the outer edge of the darkness spell — then you can't. Either way, you can shoot arrows at a target outside the area; if you can't see them, you have disadvantage on the attack roll.
pronouns: he/she/they
Thank you.
Note: if your true sight extends beyond the darkness, you can still only see to the limit of your true sight, even if your regular vision could see farther, because your true sight is separate from your regular vision, and your regular vision can't see through the darkness.
Regular vision can always see through darkness. It just cannot see anything that's within the darkness. Nothing about the Darkness spell changes that.
Do you have something to cite on that? Pretty sure by RAW Darkness Heavily Obscures, thus making you blinded to anything on the other side for the purposes of "that you can see" targeting.
Well, that's a hot take.
Darkness literally radiates darkness. No vision can penetrate it besides True Sight and vision types that specifically say they can. Light can't illuminate it. (BTW, that means you can't see through it, because vision requires light, and light literally can't travel into or through it).
It would be kind of amazing if "Darkvision can't see through it" didn't also imply regular vision couldn't see through it.
Darkness is basically like a wall. A thin treeline (not an orchard). All "normal" line of sight vision stops.
From the Rules Glossary:
This game concept causes the area itself to be obscured from view. This rule doesn't cause any barrier to Line of Sight. Of course, in most cases the phenomenon which creates the heavily obscured area will also block Line of Sight due to its specific nature -- but darkness doesn't do that. Although obviously not an exhaustive list, it is notable that darkness is not included as an example of something that blocks Line of Sight in the DMG:
This is incorrect.
The spell does not say this and nothing about the rules for mundane darkness says this either.
When your character goes outside on a clear night can they see the stars in the sky? Can they see the people that are sitting around the campfire that is blazing 150 feet away from you? Of course they can.
In this context this is clearly referring only to the fact that creatures with Darkvision can normally see objects within areas of darkness because that area normally appears as Dim Light to them. In the case of the magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell, such creatures are explicitly unable to do that. In that sense, they cannot "see through" this type of darkness to the objects within it as they normally could. More precise phrasing could have been used there, but it's very clear in context what the statement means in this particular case. (The same goes for the infamous "opaque" term that is found elsewhere -- a more careful word should have been used there but it's very clear in context what that actually means in the place where it is used.)
No, those don't mean the same thing.
Whether or not a space is illuminated does not determine whether or not there might be some light travelling through it. Darkness does not necessarily mean the total absence of light. In game terms it just means that you are blinded when trying to see something within the dark area. Meaning, the area is not illuminated well enough for you to be able to see the things that are within.
Imagine that you are in your bedroom and it is so dark that you cannot see the objects within. However, you left your computer tower running and that is indicated by a small red LED light that is located on its side, facing the room. When you look in that direction, you CAN see that light. However, that light is not enough to illuminate the rest of the room. Depending on its brightness, maybe it's enough to very slightly illuminate a surrounding inch or two of your computer tower in grayscale, but everything else is still totally dark. So, there is actually some light passing through the rest of the room -- but the rest of the room is not illuminated.
Just because the Darkness spell specifies that the area cannot be illuminated does not mean that light cannot pass through the area. It also does not say anything about physically blocking your Line of Sight through or out of it.
In addition, the fact that this magical darkness cannot be illuminated does not make it function any differently while not illuminated than mundane darkness while that mundane darkness is not illuminated. So, if you do not have Darkvision and you are not attempting to illuminate the darkness, then you are in exactly the same situation while standing within this magical darkness than you would be if you were standing in mundane darkness.
Lastly, as a reminder, the Darkness spell is meant to be cast on yourself or onto an object that you will pick up and carry around with you as a buff to yourself. The concept of "lurking in darkness" is meant to be advantageous to the lurker, not the lurkee. This can be seen even more clearly in the 2014 version of the spell, but the text goes through a whole lot of trouble to describe a mechanic where you can cover and uncover an object that is radiating this magical darkness as the need arises. Situationally, you might need to be searching for something close by, so you would block the Darkness and allow in the light. Then, in some other situation, you might want to try to set up a "I can see you, but you cannot see me" situation, in which case you would unblock the object, covering yourself in Darkness so that you cannot be seen.
Remember, nothing about mundane darkness or the Darkness spell causes any creatures to become generally blinded. Instead, creatures (inside or outside the darkness) are only blinded when trying to see something within the dark area.
“An effect that blocks vision” would seem to include any effect that heavily obscures an area, so we’re gonna have to disagree that Darkness not being specifically named excludes it.
Darkness is the absence of light, so how is describing it like a wall incorrect?
I will make a bold assumption and assume you have never actually been in a place where there is no light pollution and the sky is actually clear and free of any clouds/pollution/or anything blocks or refracts vision into the the sky. And I hope you never actually experience that situation. Being on a ship in the middle of an ocean, or in a desert is close, but there is always a chance of clouds or other things that can slightly distort some of ones vision slightly.
If you are free of those factors you realize that darkness outside is not very dark. You can read a paperback book because it is so bright. You can see neighbors and people 200 feet away. The night time sky is so very bright, but the shadows created from the stars/moon are very dark. You can see the distinct bark of fallen trees like in daylight, but the shadow that fallen tree makes is nothing but pure black. You are confusing darkness with minimal sources of light. You can see on a clear night people around a campfire and stars because the darkness is easily removed by starlight and a fire. What you are calling darkness of a night sky is not actually dark, but an absence of light. If you are inside a windowless room/box with no source of light, that is truly darkness. When you can't see your hand inches from your face, that is darkness.
A magical darkness does not allow any conventional light to penetrate. Because conventional light cannot penetrate, you can't see on the other side, AKA wall.
There's definitely a contradiction here, and it boils down to one word. In Chapter 1, in the "Vision and Light" section, we have:
1) "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque."
2) "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..."
So, does "opaque" mean you can't see the moon? (There's no distinction between "natural" Darkness and "magical" Darkness here.)
And whole play-tactics, like "cast Darkness near the ranged character so they can't shoot anything outside without Disadvantage" do kinda hing on this.
Why? Those concepts have nothing to do with each other. The concept of a heavily obscured area is that you cannot see the things that are within that area. Maybe there's just a magical effect in there that turns everything in there invisible? Who knows? Some effects that heavily obscure an area might also be an effect that blocks vision while some others might not. You handle that on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific nature of the effect.
How does “An area of Darkness is heavily obscured” not meet the requirements for “an effect that blocks vision” when we’re talking about the Darkness spell?
Darkness is not defined that way in the game and it does not have to mean that in real life either -- sometimes it can be more of a relative term or an approximation.
From the Rules Glossary:
That's it. That's what the game says about darkness. The reason that the area is heavily obscured is because there is not enough light to illuminate the area.
In real life there is a continuous gradient of nearly infinite levels of illumination all the way down to absolute darkness. The game greatly simplifies this into three categories -- light, dim light, and darkness. The darkness category does not have to only include absolute darkness. It can also include situations where there simply isn't enough light to illuminate the area. Whenever that happens, we follow certain rules, such as that you have the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
Yes, that's true because of the continuous gradient that we have in real life that I mentioned earlier. The game explicitly simplifies this:
The game categorizes outdoors at night into the darkness category and as such we follow certain rules that are associated with that. But note the very obvious example of a moonlit night -- meaning, night that is lit by the moon. That is not an absence of light. That is a level of light that falls into the darkness category because it is not enough light (in this game at least) to be able to see anything that is within the area of darkness. But that does not mean that you cannot look through the darkness to see the moon on a moonlit night. Of course you can. You will be able to see the moon itself as well as everything inside of the area that the moon illuminates because nothing is actually physically blocking your vision when you look at the moon. When looking at the moon you are NOT blinded, since you are NOT looking at something that is within the darkness.
Again, the spell does not say that. It specifically says that light "can’t illuminate it". That's all. The rules for mundane darkness do not support your claim either. There is nothing about an inability for any light to be able to penetrate the area. Nothing of that sort at all.
Because when an area is heavily obscured it just means that things that are within that area cannot be seen. There is no further explanation as to why -- that is handled on a case-by-case basis. In the case of Darkness, there is nothing about that phenomenon in and of itself that suggests that it would be an effect that blocks vision the way that a fog cloud would, for example. It just means that certain things cannot be seen.
I agree that the author should have chosen a different word or used a few additional words for clarity there when it comes to the use of the word "opaque". Fortunately, this word does not appear at all in the Rules Glossary definition for a Heavily Obscured area. To me, this heavily indicates that the word is just being used as a flavor text introductory descriptor to describe the phrase that actually is used in the Rules Glossary. Meaning, in context, opaque is just another way of saying that things within the area cannot be seen at all, in contrast with Lightly Obscured areas where things can be seen with some difficulty. It appears to just be stylistic writing which has no mechanical meaning -- it's just a transition from one idea to another.
Play tactics like you've described do indeed depend on the interpretation, but they aren't necessarily lost either way, they just need to be executed differently. For example, if you want the enemy ranged attacker to have disadvantage, the strategy would be to cast Darkness upon yourself and your entire party. That way, that enemy cannot see any of you and therefore would be blinded when attempting to target you and thus the attack would be made at disadvantage. Better yet, do what the spell description is suggesting and cast Darkness on an object that you carry around with you under a cover of some sort ahead of time. Then, in this situation you save on some action economy by just uncovering the object to create the darkness around yourself and your party (perhaps at the cost of an object interaction, for example).
up2ng, you are just incredibly wrong here.
First, Darkness is an evocation spell. That means it magically creates something (generally energy of some sort). ie, magical darkness is an intangible thing, not just the absence of light. If it was just the absence of light, it would be an illusion spell. (Yes, spell school actually tells you something about how a spell works).
Second, the darkness spell says light cannot illuminate it. That means light cannot travel through it, because to do so, it would have to illuminate inside the area of darkness. And since light is how we see, that means you can't see through it.
Third, Darkness literally says "Darkvision can't see through it". That's not an error or poor wording. Darkvision can not (and has never been able to) see through magical darkness. And before D+D had darkvision, neither infravision nor ultravision could see through it either. Nor can any other sight (which relies on light, because darkness cannot be illuminated).
Darkness is not a buff where i can see out and you can't see in. It's a total vision block. If you're inside darkness, no light can illuminate your retina.
(Note: this is also how darkness has worked in every single edition of D+D going back to the OD+D white box)
You can see the stars and the (reflected light from the) moon and a campfire because natural darkness can be illuminated, that is, light can travel through it, because natural darkness is just the absence of light. Magical darkness cannot be illuminated, so you cannot see the stars or the moon through it, nor a campfire. No light can pass magical darkness.
Magical Darkness is why the Warlock's devil sight is useful. It's why blindsight is useful and so hard to get with decent range.
(I am also confused what you even think is going on, where there's a sphere of magical darkness that you can't see anything, but you can see through to the other side of it normally? What does that look like? Assume there are objects and creatures inside the magical darkness - if you can see through it, then you can necessarily see things in the darkness, because they block your line of sight in places, so you could see a creature moving around just fine solely by the moving black shape against what's behind it - ie, light would have to illuminate the magical darkness. What you think it says is logically impossible.)
I prefer that interpretation, but I think they messed up in using the word "opaque." And they probably didn't want to add another paragraph to explain the difference between Darkness and actually-opaque obscurement, as much as they probably should have added it.
This is a big reason why I prefer the "Darkness isn't properly opaque" version --- it means there's greater diversity between spells (between Darkness and Fog Cloud, for example) and how they are used.
If Darkness was meant to be "just a harder-to-get-rid-of fog" they would have called it something else.
The best explanation I've heard is "like everything in the area is covered in perfect vantablack" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack)
So you'd have no depth perception of anything inside, and couldn't distinguish silhouettes from each other, at all. This would include the ground. The effect would make everything inside look like a "cutout" of reality.
https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/11/KAPO_Lisson-NY-2023_504_001-Y-1536x1028.jpg is a real photograph of a real object, for example. Also https://research-assets.cbinsights.com/2021/07/12005349/32267-80-2_galleryLarge-1-e1511906337391-min-1024x798.jpg
So imagine that applied to everything within a sphere.
If Darkvision can’t see through Darkness, so can't normal vision.