(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.
So imagine that applied to everything within a sphere.
That still involves illuminating the silhouettes of whatever is in the darkness. And that doesn't happen, because you can't illuminate anything in the darkness. So that is RAW not how it works.
Darkness is and always has been an opaque black sphere. It has to be, it's the only way the spell functions as described.
I don't see how your diatribe about what illumination is helps your case. No, one photon is not enough. You need many photons. But that means no photons can travel through it, because otherwise at least part of the area of the darkness spell is illuminated.
Nor does your answer to what looking through darkness does make any sense as an explanation. You're illuminating the silhouettes, and illumination is explicitly forbidden.
You have no evidence and no proof that the wording on darkvision is an error. There's no reason to believe its in error at all. If you have to start by believing part of the text is in error, you better have strong textual reasoning from elsewhere to believe that is so, and none of the other text you've cited requires it to be in error. You're simply interpreting the spell incorrectly.
Illumination is not defined in game terms. It does not mean dim light or better. It means what the word illumination normally means. So no evidence for your interpretation there.
Regardless, if you can see the silhouettes, you're effectively in dim light. Lack of at least dim light means you can't see anything. So if you can see silhouettes, you are not following RAW, even if we assume illumination = at least dim light. You have to be able to see nothing in the area of darkness, including not seeing silhouettes. And that must mean it's impossible to see through.
Your streetlight example is just wrong. There is no darkness between the streetlights in that example, because if there was, you couldn't see the other streetlight. The light shining from the far streetlight means that the line between must be at least dimly lit, because light is reaching your eyes. Darkness means no light reaches your eyes. Sure, some dip in the ground might be in darkness, but not everything between you and the other street lamp can be.
Magical Darkness, however, creates a sphere of this stuff. The spell stops light from penetrating it - that's what makes it darkness. You can't see through it. If you could, it would be illuminated, and that would violated the RAW of the spell. If there was magical darkness between two street lamps, you could not see the other street lamp through it without violating the rules as written.
Can you identify a single table where Darkness has been played like you say where you weren't the DM?
Darkness is described as opaque and opaque in this context clearly means "blocks light", I don't get how people are flinging out multi-paragraph responses against this. This is because the rules don't care about light on a cosmic level but on the level of the local played map. Personally I do believe the rules are very lackluster when it comes to light as technically it does not say how you treat an area between yourself and a source of blight or dim light, which should technically be treated as an area of darkness. As such, I can understand the confusion but this is dragging on too long for something that there is a very clear and simple answer for, darkness blocks light in D&D.
2) "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..."
As far as the the Moon goes, the Moon literally casts Dim Light, since there is dim light between yourself and the moon, there is no darkness in the middle, unless somebody were to cast the darkness spell, that is, or create some other form of magical darkness.
So what the text does means is only that there is still darkness outside at night even on moonlit nights. For example, if you're walking through a forest, the canopy of the trees will block the moon light from illuminating the ground, you are facing darkness while being outside and it's a moonlit night. The shadows of buildings also are likely to now be areas of darkness at night where the midday sun, they would probably be brightly lit or at worst dimly lit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That still involves illuminating the silhouettes of whatever is in the darkness. And that doesn't happen, because you can't illuminate anything in the darkness. So that is RAW not how it works.
Darkness is and always has been an opaque black sphere. It has to be, it's the only way the spell functions as described.
I don't see how your diatribe about what illumination is helps your case. No, one photon is not enough. You need many photons. But that means no photons can travel through it, because otherwise at least part of the area of the darkness spell is illuminated.
Nor does your answer to what looking through darkness does make any sense as an explanation. You're illuminating the silhouettes, and illumination is explicitly forbidden.
You have no evidence and no proof that the wording on darkvision is an error. There's no reason to believe its in error at all. If you have to start by believing part of the text is in error, you better have strong textual reasoning from elsewhere to believe that is so, and none of the other text you've cited requires it to be in error. You're simply interpreting the spell incorrectly.
Illumination is not defined in game terms. It does not mean dim light or better. It means what the word illumination normally means. So no evidence for your interpretation there.
Regardless, if you can see the silhouettes, you're effectively in dim light. Lack of at least dim light means you can't see anything. So if you can see silhouettes, you are not following RAW, even if we assume illumination = at least dim light. You have to be able to see nothing in the area of darkness, including not seeing silhouettes. And that must mean it's impossible to see through.
Your streetlight example is just wrong. There is no darkness between the streetlights in that example, because if there was, you couldn't see the other streetlight. The light shining from the far streetlight means that the line between must be at least dimly lit, because light is reaching your eyes. Darkness means no light reaches your eyes. Sure, some dip in the ground might be in darkness, but not everything between you and the other street lamp can be.
Magical Darkness, however, creates a sphere of this stuff. The spell stops light from penetrating it - that's what makes it darkness. You can't see through it. If you could, it would be illuminated, and that would violated the RAW of the spell. If there was magical darkness between two street lamps, you could not see the other street lamp through it without violating the rules as written.
Can you identify a single table where Darkness has been played like you say where you weren't the DM?
Darkness is described as opaque and opaque in this context clearly means "blocks light", I don't get how people are flinging out multi-paragraph responses against this. This is because the rules don't care about light on a cosmic level but on the level of the local played map. Personally I do believe the rules are very lackluster when it comes to light as technically it does not say how you treat an area between yourself and a source of blight or dim light, which should technically be treated as an area of darkness. As such, I can understand the confusion but this is dragging on too long for something that there is a very clear and simple answer for, darkness blocks light in D&D.
As far as the the Moon goes, the Moon literally casts Dim Light, since there is dim light between yourself and the moon, there is no darkness in the middle, unless somebody were to cast the darkness spell, that is, or create some other form of magical darkness.
So what the text does means is only that there is still darkness outside at night even on moonlit nights. For example, if you're walking through a forest, the canopy of the trees will block the moon light from illuminating the ground, you are facing darkness while being outside and it's a moonlit night. The shadows of buildings also are likely to now be areas of darkness at night where the midday sun, they would probably be brightly lit or at worst dimly lit.