(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.
I don't see how your diatribe about what illumination is helps your case.
The reason is because people are conflating the idea that a particular area of darkness cannot be illuminated with the concept that light is unable to travel through the area (to reach your eyes, for example). I was explaining that those are two separate concepts and that the Darkness spell addresses one of these concepts and is silent on the other.
An area of Darkness in 5e is an area where the objects within it cannot be seen. It means nothing more than that. Those are the rules as they are written. Claiming that no light can reach your eyes while you are located within an area of darkness is demonstrably false considering that the rulebook explicitly uses this example:
Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)
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.
Hopefully it is obvious why these statements are contradictory without it having to be pointed out. If one photon is not enough to illuminate an area, then it should be obvious that it is possible for more than zero photons to travel through an area without illuminating it. Especially considering the fact that illumination in this game refers to the process of changing an area of darkness into an area of Dim Light or Bright Light or changing an area of Dim Light into an area of Bright Light. And that requires quite a lot of light. After all, even moonlight is unable to accomplish this in most cases, according to the rulebook.
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.
The silhouettes that I am talking about are not illuminated. The area is still an area of darkness. These silhouettes would be just indications that my Line of Sight to a well-lit area is partially blocked for some unknown reason. In the campfire example there would just be an area of blackness covering up a portion of the area around the campfire that I would normally be able to see. Nothing more than that. If I attempted to look at this blackness, I would not actually see anything. That's because I would be blinded while trying to see something that's within an area of darkness. However, if I am NOT trying to see something that's within an area of darkness, then I am NOT blinded. When trying to see the things that are within the area around the campfire, I would be able to see most of those things, but I would also notice that there is some sort of silhouette of blackness blocking my Line of Sight to a portion of the area around the campfire.
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.
So, you don't think that there's any error in the idea that the spell might "block" darkvision but not regular vision? That's certainly possible but it's pretty unlikely.
It is far more likely that this portion of the spell was written in error in exactly one of two possible ways:
-- The spell should "block" darkvision and also regular vision.
OR
-- The spell is attempting to say that darkvision does not function in the manner that it normally does -- in which case the author should not have use the phrase "can't see through it" and instead should have used a description that more accurately describes the intent.
In context, it's pretty obvious that it's the second option, although it's not a slam dunk.
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.
It's true that there is no formal definition given, but there are plenty of context clues to be able to understand what is meant in game terms. This concept is open to interpretation. My interpretation is the best one, but there could be others.
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.
This is incorrect for a couple of reasons.
The game explicitly goes out of its way to explain that being located in mundane darkness does NOT cause the blinded condition. You ONLY have the blinded condition when trying to see something that's within the area of darkness. That cannot be reiterated strongly enough. It's an incredibly important distinction.
Also, darkness does not mean absolute darkness whereby the presence of even a single photon of light creates Dim Light. That's not how either of those two broad categories of light are described. The game simplifies things into three broad categories, each of which encompass many different levels of illumination. Darkness is one of those categories. Remember, a moonlit night is classified as an area of darkness.
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.
No. That second sentence is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the information that is given in that first sentence.
Just because you cannot see the things that are within an area of Darkness does NOT mean that you cannot see through the Darkness. One is the concept of being an area that is Heavily Obscured from view. The other is the concept of a physical obstacle to your Line of Sight. These two concepts should not be conflated. They mean different things.
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.
It's not wrong. It's my example. I created it. I am saying that there is darkness between the streetlights and so there is darkness there -- I am the one that is setting up the example.
Furthermore, the conclusion that you are drawing here is incorrect, as seen in my previous posts about photons. For example, if in our real world we lived in a world where we had no moon and we had only one single faint star in our entire night sky . . . if we were outside in such an environment we would see absolutely nothing. For all intents and purposes we would perceive this environment as absolute darkness. And yet, we would still be able to look up and see that single star shining in our sky. That's because light from that star is traveling through our darkness, but it provides exactly zero illumination to our area.
Can you identify a single table where Darkness has been played like you say where you weren't the DM?
This is irrelevant. In RAW discussions it doesn't matter how people typically play it. It only matters what is written.
However, yes, some tables do play it the way that I am describing. In one case, the people involved made the astute observation that a large portion of the Darkness spell is written and designed in a converse manner to the Light spell:
Light spell:
Covering the object with something opaque blocks the light.
Darkness:
Covering that object with something opaque, such as a bowl or helm, blocks the Darkness.
It becomes even more clear with the 2014 versions of both spells, but the implication is obvious -- in both cases you are meant to use a strategy of carrying this spell effect around with you and blocking it when that is advantageous and leaving it unblocked when that is advantageous. They are both buffing the party in similar ways.
Darkness is described as opaque and opaque in this context clearly means "blocks light",
Actually, it's the context clues that make it clear that this is NOT what is meant by "opaque" in this game. It means that the things that are located within the area in question cannot be seen at all (as opposed to clearly or with some difficulty).
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.
No, all of that is incorrect. There is no reason to assume that the radius of illumination of the moon would reach all the way to our world in 5e -- other sources of light only have a radius of 20 feet, 40 feet, etc. The book is not saying anything about being under a thick canopy such that the moonlight somehow cannot reach you. It is saying that unless it's a full moon then the moonlight alone is not strong enough to promote the area out of the Darkness category and into the Dim Light category. A moonlit night is considered to be darkness, as per the rule book. And yet, people can always look up through this darkness and see the moon because of course they can.
Look, the darkness spell says "magical Darkness spreads from a point within range and fills a 15-foot-radius Sphere." It's not like regular darkness. It spreads. It occupies open air and makes open spaces dark. It's not just the absence of light. It's a non-physical thing which absorbs all light (which isn't sufficiently magical to overcome it). That text you quote about blocking it with an object reinforces this - it's a non-physical substance which spreads from the origin point or item. It radiates darkness like the light spell radiates light. It really is a black ball that is impenetrable to any normal sight, including darkvision.
The spell didn't need to call out normal vision, because normal vision can't see into darkness. And since the darkness emanates and blocks illumination, that means no seeing through either because the air is also in darkness. It only needed to call out darkvision, which normally can see through darkness.
(If there's light you can see, there isn't darkness between you, there's at least dim light, at least with respect to the light itself. And the game says you can encounter darkness at night, not that everything is darkness at night. The moon (if out/visible) provides dim light to everything the light of the moon can hit. Shadows at night are in darkness.)
You're fond of quoting the designers. Crawford has specifically (and repeatedly) said that Darkness is not like non-magical darkness, so you can't treat it like non-magical darkness (if you don't think the spell description is enough, but you require a designer to tell you how it works). (He's also said devil's sight only sees through the Darkness spell, not Hunger of Hadar, which I disagree with him on, but that implies nothing can see through Hunger except a True Sight spell according to Crawford).
Seeing requires more than a single photon, too. Any amount of light sufficient for seeing is sufficient for illumination, and that amount of light cannot enter or pass through a darkness spell, because it would illuminate the open space, which cannot be illuminated.
"No, all of that is incorrect. There is no reason to assume that the radius of illumination of the moon would reach all the way to our world in 5e -- other sources of light only have a radius of 20 feet, 40 feet, etc. The book is not saying anything about being under a thick canopy such that the moonlight somehow cannot reach you. It is saying that unless it's a full moon then the moonlight alone is not strong enough to promote the area out of the Darkness category and into the Dim Light category. A moonlit night is considered to be darkness, as per the rule book. And yet, people can always look up through this darkness and see the moon because of course they can."
RoFL. I suppose you think the light of the sun doesn't illuminate the world during the daytime in DND either, because it can't have bright light out to that radius, right? So daytime is also in darkness? I don't need the rulebook to tell me that moonlight makes the default dim light, i only have to look outside at night when the moon is visible.
It really is a black ball that is impenetrable to any normal sight, including darkvision.
The spell description for the Darkness spell simply does not say either of these things. They are made up statements. The rule of thumb is that spells do exactly what they say. Nothing more and nothing less.
And since the darkness emanates and blocks illumination, that means no seeing through either because the air is also in darkness. It only needed to call out darkvision, which normally can see through darkness.
Drawing that conclusion makes no sense. Whether or not you can see "through" Darkness as opposed to "into" Darkness has nothing to do with the properties of mundane darkness or of the Darkness spell. The properties of darkness are ONLY such that you cannot see "into" it, meaning, you cannot see the things that are within it. This is the concept of a Heavily Obscured area. An entirely separate concept -- the concept of Line of Sight -- is what dictates whether not you can see "through" an area, and that concept has nothing to do with mundane darkness or the Darkness spell.
Darkvision states this: "you can see . . . in Darkness within that [specified] range as if it were Dim Light." This means that you can see "through" the area as if it were Dim Light, which means that you can do it. This doesn't really matter of course because you can already see "through" darkness anyway, since nothing actually blocks your Line of Sight. It also means that you can see the things that are "within" the area as if the area were Dim Light. THIS makes a really big difference. That's because with normal vision you are blinded when trying to see something within an area of Darkness. So, the Darkness spell stating that Darkvision "can't see through it", if taken super literally without context, means almost nothing. That's because you would just use your normal vision to see through it. If it actually means that you can no longer use your Darkvision to see the things that are within the Darkness as if the area were Dim Light (which is the correct interpretation), then this is a much more meaningful portion of the spell effect.
And the game says you can encounter darkness at night, not that everything is darkness at night. The moon (if out/visible) provides dim light to everything the light of the moon can hit.
This is absolutely NOT the written rule. It says this:
Dim Light. Dim Light, also called shadows, creates a Lightly Obscured area. An area of Dim Light is usually a boundary between Bright Light and surrounding Darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as Dim Light. A full moon might bathe the land in Dim Light.
Darkness. 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.
The only reasonable interpretation of this rule is that a moonlit night (with the exception of some especially bright full moon nights) is classified into the category of Darkness for the purposes of which rules we should be using when attacking enemies and so on. Each of these are broad categories. For the purposes of being able to see "through" the darkness, there is no mechanical difference between a moonlit night and absolute darkness (such as the sort of darkness that is provided by the Darkness spell).
You're fond of quoting the designers. Crawford has specifically (and repeatedly) said that Darkness is not like non-magical darkness, so you can't treat it like non-magical darkness (if you don't think the spell description is enough, but you require a designer to tell you how it works). (He's also said devil's sight only sees through the Darkness spell, not Hunger of Hadar, which I disagree with him on, but that implies nothing can see through Hunger except a True Sight spell according to Crawford).
I actually am not fond of any such thing. In a great many threads, I have pointed out how the designers are wrong in their informal comments about RAW and sometimes even within the Sage Advice, which is merely a glimpse into possible RAI, but not RAW. If Crawford has said as you describe above, then he was wrong when he said it. In addition, you always have to check the date on such comments, most of which were made before the 2024 version of the rules were released, making most of those older comments obsolete.
Hunger of Hadar is beyond the scope here, but this is an example of a spell that changed quite dramatically from the 2014 version to the 2024 version. One detail to note about Hunger of Hadar though -- that spell description explicitly states: "creatures fullywithin it have the Blinded condition". That verbiage is conspicuously absent from the general rules for mundane darkness and also from the spell description for the Darkness spell. People often make the assumption that darkness and the Darkness spell actually do this, but they do not. The fact that Hunger of Hadar goes out of its way to be explicit about that means that it is necessary to do so because it's not the default for Darkness.
Seeing requires more than a single photon, too. Any amount of light sufficient for seeing is sufficient for illumination, and that amount of light cannot enter or pass through a darkness spell, because it would illuminate the open space, which cannot be illuminated.
This is simply not the case in the real world nor is it the case in the game world. For real world examples, see my red LED in a pitch-black bedroom example and my single star in a night sky example. Some quick google searching will inform the reader as to the difference between the amount of light that can be detected vs the amount of light that is required for illumination. Inability to illuminate an area does not lead to a conclusion that light cannot pass through an area. It just doesn't. They are two separate concepts.
In game terms, of course, the inability to illuminate is talking about promoting the area all the way up to the Dim Light or Bright Light categories, as would be the case if the Daylight spell were cast in such a way that it overlaps with the AoE of the Darkness spell, for example. The game never explicitly says this but there are plenty of context clues. Most places in the game that talk about illumination will be referring in some way to the game's simplified model of bright light, dim light and darkness.
I am trying to help you by explaining how these things work in this game. If you do not appreciate my efforts, then you do not need to continue posting.
I suppose you think the light of the sun doesn't illuminate the world during the daytime in DND either, because it can't have bright light out to that radius, right? So daytime is also in darkness?
If you are actually asking -- no, I do not think that. There is actually a rule for this as well:
Bright Light. Bright Light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide Bright Light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.
So, by default, the sun provides bright light. The outdoor environment would have to be subject to extremely unusual levels of cloud cover or inclement weather to plunge the bright light provided by the sun into the category of Dim Light.
I don't need the rulebook to tell me that moonlight makes the default dim light, i only have to look outside at night when the moon is visible.
Well, you would be creating a homebrew rule in that case. In this game, the Rules As Written state that a moonlit night is classified within the category of Darkness.
Look, let's keep this simple. The spell explicitly states that darkness spreads from the point. This isn't just stuff in deep shadow. The air is covered in darkness. It's a nontangible thing that occupies the air. If you can't see in that air, you can't see through that air. Because to see through it, you have to see in it. Not being able to see in that air means the whole thing is pitch black. You can't even see there is open air there.
And yes, if you're inside Darkness, that means you're blind (bar a way that does work explicitly), because you can't see in the air all around your head, so you can't see through that air either.
This is all necessarily required. If there's a light in the distance shining through nonmagical darkness, you can clearly see in the air between that light in yourself, because otherwise you could not see the light. The light illuminates its own path.
What you're arguing for is making the sphere invisible (with light just magically passing through it and not being affected by anything in the area), and that's not what the spell says at all. If the spell meant invisibility, it would say so.
This isn't just stuff in deep shadow. The air is covered in darkness. It's a nontangible thing that occupies the air. If you can't see in that air, you can't see through that air. Because to see through it, you have to see in it. Not being able to see in that air means the whole thing is pitch black. You can't even see there is open air there.
Again, the spell description simply does not say any of this. Spells only do what they say.
The existence of a magical spell effect that fills a specific AoE in and of itself has no real consequential mechanical meaning. It only matters what that magical effect actually is and does as determined by the spell description. The spell description of the Darkness spell states that the spell effect is an area of magical Darkness. On D&DBeyond, the word Darkness is linked to the rules for mundane darkness. From this portion of the description alone, there is nothing at all different about this magical darkness than regular mundane darkness. The actually differences are explicitly written into the spell -- this magical darkness is such that Darkvision can't see through it and that nonmagical light can't illuminate it. That's it. (Along with the bits about being able to cover the object and how it interacts with overlapping spells) Those are all of the differences from how mundane darkness works. Nothing more and nothing less. Spells do what they say.
And yes, if you're inside Darkness, that means you're blind (bar a way that does work explicitly), because you can't see in the air all around your head, so you can't see through that air either.
This is incorrect. Again, note that the Hunger of Hadar spell explicitly declares that creatures fully within the area are blinded. The Darkness spell does not say that, nor do the general rules for mundane darkness. Spells only do what they say.
This is all necessarily required. If there's a light in the distance shining through nonmagical darkness, you can clearly see in the air between that light in yourself, because otherwise you could not see the light. The light illuminates its own path.
None of this is true in real life or in the game. Some quick google searching on the topic would be helpful here.
What you're arguing for is making the sphere invisible (with light just magically passing through it and not being affected by anything in the area), and that's not what the spell says at all. If the spell meant invisibility, it would say so.
Who said anything about an invisible sphere? The sphere is filled with darkness, which just means that creatures cannot see things that are within the sphere. Darkness does not blind the creature, nor does it actually create any sort of physical interruption of the creature's Line of Sight. Nothing about any of these rules prevents the creature from looking out of the darkness and into a more well-lit area or detecting distant light sources such as the stars in the sky.
This isn't just stuff in deep shadow. The air is covered in darkness. It's a nontangible thing that occupies the air. If you can't see in that air, you can't see through that air. Because to see through it, you have to see in it. Not being able to see in that air means the whole thing is pitch black. You can't even see there is open air there.
Again, the spell description simply does not say any of this. Spells only do what they say.
The spell description absolutely does say that. It radiates darkness. That's not at all like normal darkness. The air is in darkness. The air can't be illuminated. Ergo, you can't see through it. It's an opaque sphere because the darkness is in the air.
Who said anything about an invisible sphere? The sphere is filled with darkness, which just means that creatures cannot see things that are within the sphere. Darkness does not blind the creature, nor does it actually create any sort of physical interruption of the creature's Line of Sight. Nothing about any of these rules prevents the creature from looking out of the darkness and into a more well-lit area or detecting distant light sources such as the stars in the sky.
You did, when you said light can pass through it.
The sphere is filled with darkness that obscures even the air. You can't see through it, because right in front of you is darkness. To see through it is to see into it, and that you can't do.
What you want to be true is akin to invisibility or a pocket dimension or something. It involves no darkness, you just magically can't see what's in the area, but the light just travels straight through it without interacting with it. That's literally invisibility.
Darkness doesn't work like that. It interacts with light, it doesn't ignore light and let it pass through.
(Light propogates through space. It has to traverse each planck length discretely, and definitionally it is illuminated, because it is light = illumination. You can see a light source normally because the air between you and the light source is full of photons, and thus it is not darkness, definitionally. Natural darkness is where almost no light can reflect off the surface and reach your eyes, ie, there are no photons in the air from that source. So if the air itself is in darkness and can't be illuminated, as per the Darkness spell, there can't be enough photons in the air to see by, or it's illuminating the darkness. If the light is traveling through the space and not interacting with things in the darkness, that's definitionally invisibility of anything in it, not darkness. So Darkness must absorb/block photons, or the spell cannot work as described).
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RAW (Rules As Written): Up2ng is technically correct.
RAI (Rules As Intended / Common Play): Squirrelloid is functionally correct.
Here’s Why:
What the Spell Actually Says (PHB p.230 / SRD):
“Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it.” — Player’s Handbook (2014, p.230); also on Roll20 Compendium
Key details:
It says nonmagical light can’t illuminate it, not that “no light can pass through.”
It says darkvision can’t see through it, implying creatures can’t see inside the area — but it doesn’t explicitly say vision can’t pass through it to things beyond.
What Up2ng Is Arguing
He’s reading RAW literally:
“Heavily obscured” (PHB p.183) means you can’t see into the area, not necessarily that line of sight is physically blocked.
Nothing in the spell text says it absorbs or blocks light, only that it can’t be illuminated.
Therefore, the spell doesn’t describe an opaque sphere — just an area where vision fails.
This interpretation fits the exact wording and aligns with RAW-only logic.
What Squirrelloid (and R3sistance) Are Arguing
They interpret Darkness as a visually opaque sphere:
Because it’s a heavily obscured area (“blocks vision entirely,” PHB p.183), most DMs treat it like you can’t see into or through it.
“Spreads from a point” suggests the air is filled with magical darkness, so sight stops at the boundary.
That’s the common RAI and how the Sage Advice rulings read it.
Official Clarification (Sage Advice / Jeremy Crawford)
Jeremy Crawford has said:
“Magical darkness creates an area that blocks vision entirely. You can’t see through it, even to the far side.” — Jeremy Crawford on X (Dec 2017)
This isn’t a new rule but confirms Rules As Intended — Darkness is functionally opaque.
The Bottom Line
Perspective
Interpretation
Who’s Right
RAW (literal text)
Light can pass through; you just can’t see things inside it. You could theoretically see what’s beyond.
✅ Up2ng
RAI / Common Table Use
The area is fully opaque; you can’t see through or into it.
✅ Squirrelloid
Physics/Realism
Irrelevant — D&D abstracts light and vision.
❌ Not applicable
Summary
RAW doesn’t technically say magical darkness blocks light or vision completely — only that you can’t see through it with darkvision and that nonmagical light can’t illuminate it. However, official commentary and most DMs treat it as blocking sight in both directions, effectively making it an opaque sphere for tactical purposes.
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This isn't just stuff in deep shadow. The air is covered in darkness. It's a nontangible thing that occupies the air. If you can't see in that air, you can't see through that air. Because to see through it, you have to see in it. Not being able to see in that air means the whole thing is pitch black. You can't even see there is open air there.
Again, the spell description simply does not say any of this. Spells only do what they say.
The spell description absolutely does say that. It radiates darkness. That's not at all like normal darkness. The air is in darkness. The air can't be illuminated. Ergo, you can't see through it. It's an opaque sphere because the darkness is in the air.
No. The spell description has been quoted. It absolutely does not say these things. You are making up functionality for the spell that is not written.
The air is in mundane darkness too. There is no difference there. The magical darkness of the Darkness spell and mundane darkness behave in identical ways for the most part. The differences are explicitly written into the spell description.
Who said anything about an invisible sphere? . . .
You did, when you said light can pass through it.
Ummm, those aren't the same thing. I have many glass windows in my house and light can pass through them. The glass panes are not invisible -- I can see them.
To see through it is to see into it, and that you can't do.
Seeing "through" it and seeing "into" it is two different things, dictated by two different rules. One follows the rules for Heavily Obscured Areas. The other follows the rules for Line of Sight. Darkness prevents creatures from seeing the things that are within the area. It does not prevent creatures from seeing through the area. It does not generally blind a creature (by forcing the creature to have the blinded condition). Instead, a creature ONLY has the blinded condition when trying to see something within the area.
Darkness doesn't work like that. It interacts with light, it doesn't ignore light and let it pass through.
Nothing in the game says anything like this.
Here is what the game actually has to say about darkness:
Darkness. 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.
Or, from the Rules Glossary:
Darkness
An area of Darkness is Heavily Obscured.
Mechanically, that is all that is happening in areas of darkness. Anything more than that is just assumptions and homebrew inventions.
(Light propogates through space. It has to traverse each planck length discretely, and definitionally it is illuminated, because it is light = illumination. You can see a light source normally because the air between you and the light source is full of photons, and thus it is not darkness, definitionally. Natural darkness is where almost no light can reflect off the surface and reach your eyes, ie, there are no photons in the air from that source. So if the air itself is in darkness and can't be illuminated, as per the Darkness spell, there can't be enough photons in the air to see by, or it's illuminating the darkness. If the light is traveling through the space and not interacting with things in the darkness, that's definitionally invisibility of anything in it, not darkness. So Darkness must absorb/block photons, or the spell cannot work as described).
Unfortunately, your own definition of Darkness does not align with how the game defines the Darkness category of Light:
Light
The presence or absence of light determines the category of illumination in an area, as defined below.
Bright Light. . . .
Dim Light. . . .
Darkness. 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.
Because it’s a heavily obscured area (“blocks vision entirely,” PHB p.183), most DMs treat it like you can’t see into or through it.
Just an FYI, the "blocks vision entirely" is old verbiage from the 2014 edition. This has since been updated in the 2024 rules and replaced with the word "opaque". The word "opaque" is absent from the Rules Glossary definition.
Vision and Light
Some adventuring tasks—such as noticing danger, hitting an enemy, and targeting certain spells—are affected by sight, so effects that obscure vision can hinder you, as explained below.
Obscured Areas
An area might be Lightly or Heavily Obscured. In a Lightly Obscured area—such as an area with Dim Light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage—you have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque. You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there.
When read all the way through all at once (context clues) it should become reasonably clear that the word "opaque" here is just a stylistic transition word (flavor text) as the author compares and contrasts the concepts of a Lightly Obscured area to a Heavily Obscured area. It also serves as an introductory word which is immediately followed by what is actually meant by that word in this context. In other words, "opaque" in this context means that you have the Blinded condition when trying to see something there.
For completeness, this is how it reads in the Rules Glossary:
Heavily Obscured
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
RAW (Rules As Written): Up2ng is technically correct.
RAI (Rules As Intended / Common Play): Squirrelloid is functionally correct.
I agree with your overall analysis on this topic. However, I would push back on the notion that the other interpretation is the "RAI" interpretation, although I do agree that it is clearly the "Common Play" interpretation.
I believe that it was actually intended to be played as I've described. The main reason for this has to do with all of the effort that the spell description goes through to suggest a tactic where you would cast the spell onto an object and then carry that object around with you. In addition, this portion of the description parallels very closely with that same portion of the spell description of the Light spell -- and in the case of the Light spell, it is very common for people to actually play it this way, including the common tactic of casting Light onto an object and carrying it around with you. All of this is even more compelling in the 2014 version of the spell which explicitly allowed you to cast the Darkness spell onto an object "that you are holding". To me, it really reads like the spell was designed and intended for people to do exactly that.
From Darkness (2024):
Alternatively, you cast the spell on an object that isn’t being worn or carried, causing the Darkness to fill a 15-foot Emanation originating from that object. Covering that object with something opaque, such as a bowl or helm, blocks the Darkness.
From Light (2024):
Covering the object with something opaque blocks the light.
I disagree on RAW. The darkness radiates from the source. That is not behaving like normal darkness. And no light can illuminate anything in it. That means it can't illuminate the air. It can't illuminate your retinas (so you can't see anything while in the darkness). Unlike normal darkness, which is just the absence of light (and so light can pass through the open air above the darkness), this is an energy that blankets the entire area, including the open air, in the absence of light. And that's what it says, RAW.
Can you see through a fog cloud? No. A fog cloud blocks all sight. Opaque means you cannot see through it. Definitionally. Changing 'blocks vision entirely' to 'opaque' is just less words for the same sense, so nothing has actually changed.
As to the 'cover it up to block it', that's been present in the Darkness spell since at least 1st edition AD+D. And Darkness was absolutely an impenetrable sphere of blackness in prior editions. So that is not hinting at a strategy for seeing out of it, because that's some weird interpretation you have that was never true in the history of D+D, despite the 'carry it around with something blocking it' always existing. Instead, the entire purpose of doing that was to blind people in the darkness (generally because you had some sort of blindsight, blindfighting, truesight, or other way to see in the darkness), and to be able to turn it on and off at will. (Also, it made more sense back then, when spells just had duration and there was no 'concentration', so it didn't cost anything but the spell slot and could passively remain up for the duration).
Finally, I'd note that "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." is better read as: while trying to see something, you are blind while in a heavily obscured space. (If they meant the thing you were trying to see was in a heavily obscured space, the better language would have included "that is" between 'something' and 'in'.) And indeed, it doesn't make sense to say you're blind while trying to look into a heavily obscured space, because you're not blind, you can see things not in the heavily obscured space at the same time you're looking at the heavily obscured space. You only have the blinded condition while you can't see anything, which only makes sense if you are the one inthe heavily obscured space. After all, the blinded condition says "you can't see", not just 'you can't see one area'. So up2ng's interpretation of Heavily Obscured is almost certainly wrong, RAW. And this better aligns the choice of the word 'opaque' with the declared effect, so we don't have to assume its a meaningless word choice = more parsimonious.
Similarly, "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque. You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there." '..trying to see something there' makes more sense if you're the one there, given what the blinded condition does. And that is not an improper reading of that language.
I think up2ng's position is absolute nonsense. If someone did manage to ask a designer if that was how darkness worked, they'd probably laugh in your face. Good luck finding any table that plays that way.
Uh, yeah, let me know if im just plain wrong :Thumbs_Up:
I don't agree with the verdict for the "RAW" part. Here's my simple interpretation:
[A] Darkness creates a Heavily Obscured area. Characters face Darkness [...] in an area of magical Darkness.
[B] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space (e.g. an area of magical Darkness)
But the thread derailed a couple of days ago, the OP’s question was already answered, and I'm not mad enough to rehash this topic, since the arguments here are basically the same as in past threads. My humble recommendation: check out other threads and make your own ruling/verdict:
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.
The reason is because people are conflating the idea that a particular area of darkness cannot be illuminated with the concept that light is unable to travel through the area (to reach your eyes, for example). I was explaining that those are two separate concepts and that the Darkness spell addresses one of these concepts and is silent on the other.
An area of Darkness in 5e is an area where the objects within it cannot be seen. It means nothing more than that. Those are the rules as they are written. Claiming that no light can reach your eyes while you are located within an area of darkness is demonstrably false considering that the rulebook explicitly uses this example:
Hopefully it is obvious why these statements are contradictory without it having to be pointed out. If one photon is not enough to illuminate an area, then it should be obvious that it is possible for more than zero photons to travel through an area without illuminating it. Especially considering the fact that illumination in this game refers to the process of changing an area of darkness into an area of Dim Light or Bright Light or changing an area of Dim Light into an area of Bright Light. And that requires quite a lot of light. After all, even moonlight is unable to accomplish this in most cases, according to the rulebook.
The silhouettes that I am talking about are not illuminated. The area is still an area of darkness. These silhouettes would be just indications that my Line of Sight to a well-lit area is partially blocked for some unknown reason. In the campfire example there would just be an area of blackness covering up a portion of the area around the campfire that I would normally be able to see. Nothing more than that. If I attempted to look at this blackness, I would not actually see anything. That's because I would be blinded while trying to see something that's within an area of darkness. However, if I am NOT trying to see something that's within an area of darkness, then I am NOT blinded. When trying to see the things that are within the area around the campfire, I would be able to see most of those things, but I would also notice that there is some sort of silhouette of blackness blocking my Line of Sight to a portion of the area around the campfire.
So, you don't think that there's any error in the idea that the spell might "block" darkvision but not regular vision? That's certainly possible but it's pretty unlikely.
It is far more likely that this portion of the spell was written in error in exactly one of two possible ways:
-- The spell should "block" darkvision and also regular vision.
OR
-- The spell is attempting to say that darkvision does not function in the manner that it normally does -- in which case the author should not have use the phrase "can't see through it" and instead should have used a description that more accurately describes the intent.
In context, it's pretty obvious that it's the second option, although it's not a slam dunk.
It's true that there is no formal definition given, but there are plenty of context clues to be able to understand what is meant in game terms. This concept is open to interpretation. My interpretation is the best one, but there could be others.
This is incorrect for a couple of reasons.
The game explicitly goes out of its way to explain that being located in mundane darkness does NOT cause the blinded condition. You ONLY have the blinded condition when trying to see something that's within the area of darkness. That cannot be reiterated strongly enough. It's an incredibly important distinction.
Also, darkness does not mean absolute darkness whereby the presence of even a single photon of light creates Dim Light. That's not how either of those two broad categories of light are described. The game simplifies things into three broad categories, each of which encompass many different levels of illumination. Darkness is one of those categories. Remember, a moonlit night is classified as an area of darkness.
No. That second sentence is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the information that is given in that first sentence.
Just because you cannot see the things that are within an area of Darkness does NOT mean that you cannot see through the Darkness. One is the concept of being an area that is Heavily Obscured from view. The other is the concept of a physical obstacle to your Line of Sight. These two concepts should not be conflated. They mean different things.
It's not wrong. It's my example. I created it. I am saying that there is darkness between the streetlights and so there is darkness there -- I am the one that is setting up the example.
Furthermore, the conclusion that you are drawing here is incorrect, as seen in my previous posts about photons. For example, if in our real world we lived in a world where we had no moon and we had only one single faint star in our entire night sky . . . if we were outside in such an environment we would see absolutely nothing. For all intents and purposes we would perceive this environment as absolute darkness. And yet, we would still be able to look up and see that single star shining in our sky. That's because light from that star is traveling through our darkness, but it provides exactly zero illumination to our area.
The spell description for the Darkness spell says no such thing.
This is irrelevant. In RAW discussions it doesn't matter how people typically play it. It only matters what is written.
However, yes, some tables do play it the way that I am describing. In one case, the people involved made the astute observation that a large portion of the Darkness spell is written and designed in a converse manner to the Light spell:
Light spell:
Darkness:
It becomes even more clear with the 2014 versions of both spells, but the implication is obvious -- in both cases you are meant to use a strategy of carrying this spell effect around with you and blocking it when that is advantageous and leaving it unblocked when that is advantageous. They are both buffing the party in similar ways.
Actually, it's the context clues that make it clear that this is NOT what is meant by "opaque" in this game. It means that the things that are located within the area in question cannot be seen at all (as opposed to clearly or with some difficulty).
No, it doesn't. And you won't be able to quote anything from any official publication that says that it does.
No, all of that is incorrect. There is no reason to assume that the radius of illumination of the moon would reach all the way to our world in 5e -- other sources of light only have a radius of 20 feet, 40 feet, etc. The book is not saying anything about being under a thick canopy such that the moonlight somehow cannot reach you. It is saying that unless it's a full moon then the moonlight alone is not strong enough to promote the area out of the Darkness category and into the Dim Light category. A moonlit night is considered to be darkness, as per the rule book. And yet, people can always look up through this darkness and see the moon because of course they can.
Look, the darkness spell says "magical Darkness spreads from a point within range and fills a 15-foot-radius Sphere." It's not like regular darkness. It spreads. It occupies open air and makes open spaces dark. It's not just the absence of light. It's a non-physical thing which absorbs all light (which isn't sufficiently magical to overcome it). That text you quote about blocking it with an object reinforces this - it's a non-physical substance which spreads from the origin point or item. It radiates darkness like the light spell radiates light. It really is a black ball that is impenetrable to any normal sight, including darkvision.
The spell didn't need to call out normal vision, because normal vision can't see into darkness. And since the darkness emanates and blocks illumination, that means no seeing through either because the air is also in darkness. It only needed to call out darkvision, which normally can see through darkness.
(If there's light you can see, there isn't darkness between you, there's at least dim light, at least with respect to the light itself. And the game says you can encounter darkness at night, not that everything is darkness at night. The moon (if out/visible) provides dim light to everything the light of the moon can hit. Shadows at night are in darkness.)
You're fond of quoting the designers. Crawford has specifically (and repeatedly) said that Darkness is not like non-magical darkness, so you can't treat it like non-magical darkness (if you don't think the spell description is enough, but you require a designer to tell you how it works). (He's also said devil's sight only sees through the Darkness spell, not Hunger of Hadar, which I disagree with him on, but that implies nothing can see through Hunger except a True Sight spell according to Crawford).
Seeing requires more than a single photon, too. Any amount of light sufficient for seeing is sufficient for illumination, and that amount of light cannot enter or pass through a darkness spell, because it would illuminate the open space, which cannot be illuminated.
"No, all of that is incorrect. There is no reason to assume that the radius of illumination of the moon would reach all the way to our world in 5e -- other sources of light only have a radius of 20 feet, 40 feet, etc. The book is not saying anything about being under a thick canopy such that the moonlight somehow cannot reach you. It is saying that unless it's a full moon then the moonlight alone is not strong enough to promote the area out of the Darkness category and into the Dim Light category. A moonlit night is considered to be darkness, as per the rule book. And yet, people can always look up through this darkness and see the moon because of course they can."
RoFL. I suppose you think the light of the sun doesn't illuminate the world during the daytime in DND either, because it can't have bright light out to that radius, right? So daytime is also in darkness? I don't need the rulebook to tell me that moonlight makes the default dim light, i only have to look outside at night when the moon is visible.
The spell description for the Darkness spell simply does not say either of these things. They are made up statements. The rule of thumb is that spells do exactly what they say. Nothing more and nothing less.
Drawing that conclusion makes no sense. Whether or not you can see "through" Darkness as opposed to "into" Darkness has nothing to do with the properties of mundane darkness or of the Darkness spell. The properties of darkness are ONLY such that you cannot see "into" it, meaning, you cannot see the things that are within it. This is the concept of a Heavily Obscured area. An entirely separate concept -- the concept of Line of Sight -- is what dictates whether not you can see "through" an area, and that concept has nothing to do with mundane darkness or the Darkness spell.
Darkvision states this: "you can see . . . in Darkness within that [specified] range as if it were Dim Light." This means that you can see "through" the area as if it were Dim Light, which means that you can do it. This doesn't really matter of course because you can already see "through" darkness anyway, since nothing actually blocks your Line of Sight. It also means that you can see the things that are "within" the area as if the area were Dim Light. THIS makes a really big difference. That's because with normal vision you are blinded when trying to see something within an area of Darkness. So, the Darkness spell stating that Darkvision "can't see through it", if taken super literally without context, means almost nothing. That's because you would just use your normal vision to see through it. If it actually means that you can no longer use your Darkvision to see the things that are within the Darkness as if the area were Dim Light (which is the correct interpretation), then this is a much more meaningful portion of the spell effect.
This is absolutely NOT the written rule. It says this:
The only reasonable interpretation of this rule is that a moonlit night (with the exception of some especially bright full moon nights) is classified into the category of Darkness for the purposes of which rules we should be using when attacking enemies and so on. Each of these are broad categories. For the purposes of being able to see "through" the darkness, there is no mechanical difference between a moonlit night and absolute darkness (such as the sort of darkness that is provided by the Darkness spell).
I actually am not fond of any such thing. In a great many threads, I have pointed out how the designers are wrong in their informal comments about RAW and sometimes even within the Sage Advice, which is merely a glimpse into possible RAI, but not RAW. If Crawford has said as you describe above, then he was wrong when he said it. In addition, you always have to check the date on such comments, most of which were made before the 2024 version of the rules were released, making most of those older comments obsolete.
Hunger of Hadar is beyond the scope here, but this is an example of a spell that changed quite dramatically from the 2014 version to the 2024 version. One detail to note about Hunger of Hadar though -- that spell description explicitly states: "creatures fully within it have the Blinded condition". That verbiage is conspicuously absent from the general rules for mundane darkness and also from the spell description for the Darkness spell. People often make the assumption that darkness and the Darkness spell actually do this, but they do not. The fact that Hunger of Hadar goes out of its way to be explicit about that means that it is necessary to do so because it's not the default for Darkness.
This is simply not the case in the real world nor is it the case in the game world. For real world examples, see my red LED in a pitch-black bedroom example and my single star in a night sky example. Some quick google searching will inform the reader as to the difference between the amount of light that can be detected vs the amount of light that is required for illumination. Inability to illuminate an area does not lead to a conclusion that light cannot pass through an area. It just doesn't. They are two separate concepts.
In game terms, of course, the inability to illuminate is talking about promoting the area all the way up to the Dim Light or Bright Light categories, as would be the case if the Daylight spell were cast in such a way that it overlaps with the AoE of the Darkness spell, for example. The game never explicitly says this but there are plenty of context clues. Most places in the game that talk about illumination will be referring in some way to the game's simplified model of bright light, dim light and darkness.
I am trying to help you by explaining how these things work in this game. If you do not appreciate my efforts, then you do not need to continue posting.
If you are actually asking -- no, I do not think that. There is actually a rule for this as well:
So, by default, the sun provides bright light. The outdoor environment would have to be subject to extremely unusual levels of cloud cover or inclement weather to plunge the bright light provided by the sun into the category of Dim Light.
Well, you would be creating a homebrew rule in that case. In this game, the Rules As Written state that a moonlit night is classified within the category of Darkness.
Look, let's keep this simple. The spell explicitly states that darkness spreads from the point. This isn't just stuff in deep shadow. The air is covered in darkness. It's a nontangible thing that occupies the air. If you can't see in that air, you can't see through that air. Because to see through it, you have to see in it. Not being able to see in that air means the whole thing is pitch black. You can't even see there is open air there.
And yes, if you're inside Darkness, that means you're blind (bar a way that does work explicitly), because you can't see in the air all around your head, so you can't see through that air either.
This is all necessarily required. If there's a light in the distance shining through nonmagical darkness, you can clearly see in the air between that light in yourself, because otherwise you could not see the light. The light illuminates its own path.
What you're arguing for is making the sphere invisible (with light just magically passing through it and not being affected by anything in the area), and that's not what the spell says at all. If the spell meant invisibility, it would say so.
Again, the spell description simply does not say any of this. Spells only do what they say.
The existence of a magical spell effect that fills a specific AoE in and of itself has no real consequential mechanical meaning. It only matters what that magical effect actually is and does as determined by the spell description. The spell description of the Darkness spell states that the spell effect is an area of magical Darkness. On D&DBeyond, the word Darkness is linked to the rules for mundane darkness. From this portion of the description alone, there is nothing at all different about this magical darkness than regular mundane darkness. The actually differences are explicitly written into the spell -- this magical darkness is such that Darkvision can't see through it and that nonmagical light can't illuminate it. That's it. (Along with the bits about being able to cover the object and how it interacts with overlapping spells) Those are all of the differences from how mundane darkness works. Nothing more and nothing less. Spells do what they say.
This is incorrect. Again, note that the Hunger of Hadar spell explicitly declares that creatures fully within the area are blinded. The Darkness spell does not say that, nor do the general rules for mundane darkness. Spells only do what they say.
None of this is true in real life or in the game. Some quick google searching on the topic would be helpful here.
Who said anything about an invisible sphere? The sphere is filled with darkness, which just means that creatures cannot see things that are within the sphere. Darkness does not blind the creature, nor does it actually create any sort of physical interruption of the creature's Line of Sight. Nothing about any of these rules prevents the creature from looking out of the darkness and into a more well-lit area or detecting distant light sources such as the stars in the sky.
The spell description absolutely does say that. It radiates darkness. That's not at all like normal darkness. The air is in darkness. The air can't be illuminated. Ergo, you can't see through it. It's an opaque sphere because the darkness is in the air.
You did, when you said light can pass through it.
The sphere is filled with darkness that obscures even the air. You can't see through it, because right in front of you is darkness. To see through it is to see into it, and that you can't do.
What you want to be true is akin to invisibility or a pocket dimension or something. It involves no darkness, you just magically can't see what's in the area, but the light just travels straight through it without interacting with it. That's literally invisibility.
Darkness doesn't work like that. It interacts with light, it doesn't ignore light and let it pass through.
(Light propogates through space. It has to traverse each planck length discretely, and definitionally it is illuminated, because it is light = illumination. You can see a light source normally because the air between you and the light source is full of photons, and thus it is not darkness, definitionally. Natural darkness is where almost no light can reflect off the surface and reach your eyes, ie, there are no photons in the air from that source. So if the air itself is in darkness and can't be illuminated, as per the Darkness spell, there can't be enough photons in the air to see by, or it's illuminating the darkness. If the light is traveling through the space and not interacting with things in the darkness, that's definitionally invisibility of anything in it, not darkness. So Darkness must absorb/block photons, or the spell cannot work as described).
I think we've got another 58-pager here, folks
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TL;DR Verdict
RAW (Rules As Written):
Up2ng is technically correct.
RAI (Rules As Intended / Common Play):
Squirrelloid is functionally correct.
Here’s Why:
What the Spell Actually Says (PHB p.230 / SRD):
Key details:
It says nonmagical light can’t illuminate it, not that “no light can pass through.”
It says darkvision can’t see through it, implying creatures can’t see inside the area — but it doesn’t explicitly say vision can’t pass through it to things beyond.
What Up2ng Is Arguing
He’s reading RAW literally:
“Heavily obscured” (PHB p.183) means you can’t see into the area, not necessarily that line of sight is physically blocked.
Nothing in the spell text says it absorbs or blocks light, only that it can’t be illuminated.
Therefore, the spell doesn’t describe an opaque sphere — just an area where vision fails.
This interpretation fits the exact wording and aligns with RAW-only logic.
What Squirrelloid (and R3sistance) Are Arguing
They interpret Darkness as a visually opaque sphere:
Because it’s a heavily obscured area (“blocks vision entirely,” PHB p.183), most DMs treat it like you can’t see into or through it.
“Spreads from a point” suggests the air is filled with magical darkness, so sight stops at the boundary.
That’s the common RAI and how the Sage Advice rulings read it.
Official Clarification (Sage Advice / Jeremy Crawford)
Jeremy Crawford has said:
This isn’t a new rule but confirms Rules As Intended — Darkness is functionally opaque.
The Bottom Line
Summary
RAW doesn’t technically say magical darkness blocks light or vision completely — only that you can’t see through it with darkvision and that nonmagical light can’t illuminate it.
However, official commentary and most DMs treat it as blocking sight in both directions, effectively making it an opaque sphere for tactical purposes.
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No. The spell description has been quoted. It absolutely does not say these things. You are making up functionality for the spell that is not written.
The air is in mundane darkness too. There is no difference there. The magical darkness of the Darkness spell and mundane darkness behave in identical ways for the most part. The differences are explicitly written into the spell description.
Ummm, those aren't the same thing. I have many glass windows in my house and light can pass through them. The glass panes are not invisible -- I can see them.
Seeing "through" it and seeing "into" it is two different things, dictated by two different rules. One follows the rules for Heavily Obscured Areas. The other follows the rules for Line of Sight. Darkness prevents creatures from seeing the things that are within the area. It does not prevent creatures from seeing through the area. It does not generally blind a creature (by forcing the creature to have the blinded condition). Instead, a creature ONLY has the blinded condition when trying to see something within the area.
Nothing in the game says anything like this.
Here is what the game actually has to say about darkness:
Or, from the Rules Glossary:
Mechanically, that is all that is happening in areas of darkness. Anything more than that is just assumptions and homebrew inventions.
Unfortunately, your own definition of Darkness does not align with how the game defines the Darkness category of Light:
Just an FYI, the "blocks vision entirely" is old verbiage from the 2014 edition. This has since been updated in the 2024 rules and replaced with the word "opaque". The word "opaque" is absent from the Rules Glossary definition.
When read all the way through all at once (context clues) it should become reasonably clear that the word "opaque" here is just a stylistic transition word (flavor text) as the author compares and contrasts the concepts of a Lightly Obscured area to a Heavily Obscured area. It also serves as an introductory word which is immediately followed by what is actually meant by that word in this context. In other words, "opaque" in this context means that you have the Blinded condition when trying to see something there.
For completeness, this is how it reads in the Rules Glossary:
I agree with your overall analysis on this topic. However, I would push back on the notion that the other interpretation is the "RAI" interpretation, although I do agree that it is clearly the "Common Play" interpretation.
I believe that it was actually intended to be played as I've described. The main reason for this has to do with all of the effort that the spell description goes through to suggest a tactic where you would cast the spell onto an object and then carry that object around with you. In addition, this portion of the description parallels very closely with that same portion of the spell description of the Light spell -- and in the case of the Light spell, it is very common for people to actually play it this way, including the common tactic of casting Light onto an object and carrying it around with you. All of this is even more compelling in the 2014 version of the spell which explicitly allowed you to cast the Darkness spell onto an object "that you are holding". To me, it really reads like the spell was designed and intended for people to do exactly that.
From Darkness (2024):
From Light (2024):
I disagree on RAW. The darkness radiates from the source. That is not behaving like normal darkness. And no light can illuminate anything in it. That means it can't illuminate the air. It can't illuminate your retinas (so you can't see anything while in the darkness). Unlike normal darkness, which is just the absence of light (and so light can pass through the open air above the darkness), this is an energy that blankets the entire area, including the open air, in the absence of light. And that's what it says, RAW.
Can you see through a fog cloud? No. A fog cloud blocks all sight. Opaque means you cannot see through it. Definitionally. Changing 'blocks vision entirely' to 'opaque' is just less words for the same sense, so nothing has actually changed.
As to the 'cover it up to block it', that's been present in the Darkness spell since at least 1st edition AD+D. And Darkness was absolutely an impenetrable sphere of blackness in prior editions. So that is not hinting at a strategy for seeing out of it, because that's some weird interpretation you have that was never true in the history of D+D, despite the 'carry it around with something blocking it' always existing. Instead, the entire purpose of doing that was to blind people in the darkness (generally because you had some sort of blindsight, blindfighting, truesight, or other way to see in the darkness), and to be able to turn it on and off at will. (Also, it made more sense back then, when spells just had duration and there was no 'concentration', so it didn't cost anything but the spell slot and could passively remain up for the duration).
Finally, I'd note that "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." is better read as: while trying to see something, you are blind while in a heavily obscured space. (If they meant the thing you were trying to see was in a heavily obscured space, the better language would have included "that is" between 'something' and 'in'.) And indeed, it doesn't make sense to say you're blind while trying to look into a heavily obscured space, because you're not blind, you can see things not in the heavily obscured space at the same time you're looking at the heavily obscured space. You only have the blinded condition while you can't see anything, which only makes sense if you are the one in the heavily obscured space. After all, the blinded condition says "you can't see", not just 'you can't see one area'. So up2ng's interpretation of Heavily Obscured is almost certainly wrong, RAW. And this better aligns the choice of the word 'opaque' with the declared effect, so we don't have to assume its a meaningless word choice = more parsimonious.
Similarly, "A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque. You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there." '..trying to see something there' makes more sense if you're the one there, given what the blinded condition does. And that is not an improper reading of that language.
I think up2ng's position is absolute nonsense. If someone did manage to ask a designer if that was how darkness worked, they'd probably laugh in your face. Good luck finding any table that plays that way.
I don't agree with the verdict for the "RAW" part. Here's my simple interpretation:
[A] Darkness creates a Heavily Obscured area. Characters face Darkness [...] in an area of magical Darkness.
[B] You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space (e.g. an area of magical Darkness)
But the thread derailed a couple of days ago, the OP’s question was already answered, and I'm not mad enough to rehash this topic, since the arguments here are basically the same as in past threads. My humble recommendation: check out other threads and make your own ruling/verdict: