Sure, like I said, I think the rules can and will be interpreted how the designers apparently intended, with the scenario that I mentioned being that casting Darkness on the archers means they cannot see out of the Darkness to the party. I was just explaining how I was surprised by up2ng's argument and how it changed how I understood the rules as written and how it would affect how I rule at my table. Obviously YMMV, and I think there's enough ambiguity in the rules to say that neither side is absolutely correct.
No, it says while you are in an area of darkness, you have the blinded condition. "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." If it meant while looking into a heavily obscured space, it should say 'You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something that is in a heavily obscured space.' As written, 'in a Heavily Obscured space' is a separate clause, and refers back to the subject of the sentence, you, not the object of the sentence.
You seem to be saying that the above statement regarding the blinded condition is very clear, but it isn't. I think it can very easily be interpreted the way I did (in which you are blinded to thinks in the Heavily Obscured space), as well as how you have interpreted it (you are blinded while in a Heavily Obscured space). For me, it makes sense that you are not blinded while in the space, for a few reasons. First, as has been stated, things like Hunger of Hadar very specifically say "creatures fully within the area are blinded.", whereas the rules for Heavily Obscured do not. Also, when I think about the Hide rules, and they say you can attempt to hide if you are Heavily Obscured, and Heavily Obscured talks about things like dense foliage, I imagine a creature hiding inside the tree line looking out, but hidden from view from people outside of the forest. To me this is classic spying/scouting behavior, hiding in the darkness or bushes, etc, and looking out at your prey or whatever. If being within the heavily obscured area meant you were blinded, then could you spy on people while hidden? Anyway, like I said, just showcasing my point of view. I totally get where you could read "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." as "You have the blinded condition while trying to see something while in a Heavily Obscured space.
As for darkness being opaque, in the rules there is no definition of opaque, so we would have to take common usage/definition of the term. However if we say all darkness gives a heavily obscured area, and heavily obscured means opaque, then you would not be able to see a torch from 50 feet away in a dark night, which seems rather silly.
As for magical darkness behaving different than mundane darkness, there is no real basis for anything in that except what is written in the spell itself, that Darkvision cannot see through it, and it spreads around corners. Those are the descriptions of how it is different from mundane darkness. Anything else, including "illuminating the air", is simply added as your interpretation. If we are going be RAW, then they are functionally the same except for the ways the spell says it is different (cannot be illuminated by non-magical light, spreads around corners, darkvision cannot see through it, and it can be blocked by covering the object with something opaque). Besides that, anything about blocking light or it being a substance in the air is really just conjecture/flavor, and not something the rules spell out.
But, like I said, I just thought it was interesting how my understanding shifted once I read through the rules and saw that there was actually a very good, rules-based case for using darkness as mobile concealment and that, in the scenario with the archers, before I would have thought casting it at the archers was the best use, but now I would rule casting it at the party is the best use.
I don't think there's a right-or-wrong in this case, as the rules are just honestly too vague. If I was at your table and you said "you're in magical darkness and cannot see out" I would simply say "Fair enough!" as it can make sense depending on the interpretation.
If I was at the edge of magical darkness, it is my understanding that there is no dim light so darkvison does not work. We can ignore darkvision. If the edge was just millimeters past my eyes, and my hand was on the other side, I could not see it.
It does not matter which side I am on, if I am standing outside the spell, my hand is just inside the spell, I can 't see the hand.
If I am inside the darkness and my hand is located outside the spell range I still can not see my hand.
If I can see the hand, then how far can I move so I can't see my hand? Also if I can see the hand, then are you stating that there is a "border" that allows some light to penetrate to allow me to see my hand?
If my hand is holding a match, does that influence my sight? It reads as if I could not see the match but I can see my hand?
Sure, like I said, I think the rules can and will be interpreted how the designers apparently intended, with the scenario that I mentioned being that casting Darkness on the archers means they cannot see out of the Darkness to the party. I was just explaining how I was surprised by up2ng's argument and how it changed how I understood the rules as written and how it would affect how I rule at my table. Obviously YMMV, and I think there's enough ambiguity in the rules to say that neither side is absolutely correct.
No, it says while you are in an area of darkness, you have the blinded condition. "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." If it meant while looking into a heavily obscured space, it should say 'You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something that is in a heavily obscured space.' As written, 'in a Heavily Obscured space' is a separate clause, and refers back to the subject of the sentence, you, not the object of the sentence.
You seem to be saying that the above statement regarding the blinded condition is very clear, but it isn't. I think it can very easily be interpreted the way I did (in which you are blinded to thinks in the Heavily Obscured space), as well as how you have interpreted it (you are blinded while in a Heavily Obscured space). For me, it makes sense that you are not blinded while in the space, for a few reasons. First, as has been stated, things like Hunger of Hadar very specifically say "creatures fully within the area are blinded.", whereas the rules for Heavily Obscured do not. Also, when I think about the Hide rules, and they say you can attempt to hide if you are Heavily Obscured, and Heavily Obscured talks about things like dense foliage, I imagine a creature hiding inside the tree line looking out, but hidden from view from people outside of the forest. To me this is classic spying/scouting behavior, hiding in the darkness or bushes, etc, and looking out at your prey or whatever. If being within the heavily obscured area meant you were blinded, then could you spy on people while hidden? Anyway, like I said, just showcasing my point of view. I totally get where you could read "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." as "You have the blinded condition while trying to see something while in a Heavily Obscured space.
As for darkness being opaque, in the rules there is no definition of opaque, so we would have to take common usage/definition of the term. However if we say all darkness gives a heavily obscured area, and heavily obscured means opaque, then you would not be able to see a torch from 50 feet away in a dark night, which seems rather silly.
As for magical darkness behaving different than mundane darkness, there is no real basis for anything in that except what is written in the spell itself, that Darkvision cannot see through it, and it spreads around corners. Those are the descriptions of how it is different from mundane darkness. Anything else, including "illuminating the air", is simply added as your interpretation. If we are going be RAW, then they are functionally the same except for the ways the spell says it is different (cannot be illuminated by non-magical light, spreads around corners, darkvision cannot see through it, and it can be blocked by covering the object with something opaque). Besides that, anything about blocking light or it being a substance in the air is really just conjecture/flavor, and not something the rules spell out.
But, like I said, I just thought it was interesting how my understanding shifted once I read through the rules and saw that there was actually a very good, rules-based case for using darkness as mobile concealment and that, in the scenario with the archers, before I would have thought casting it at the archers was the best use, but now I would rule casting it at the party is the best use.
I don't think there's a right-or-wrong in this case, as the rules are just honestly too vague. If I was at your table and you said "you're in magical darkness and cannot see out" I would simply say "Fair enough!" as it can make sense depending on the interpretation.
The problem here isn't the darkness spell (which works fine with Heavily Obscured areas being opaque), the problem is the normal vision rules. (If you're truly in an area of darkness, there's zero light, and you can't see anything, and the rules make sense. If there's light you can see, you aren't actually in darkness, just varying degrees of shadow, some of which are very dark to the point of concealing what is in them, but light still reaches them, and thus you can see out of them (and even into them to some small degree - it's not really 'heavily obscured' as defined by the rules, the sight distance is just even smaller than 'dim lighting')
ie, if there's bright light in the hallway, but the door is closed, and some amount of light is shining under the doorway, the reality is you can see the edges of furniture and other things. Not well, but enough that you are not "blinded" (= can't see at all) when looking around the room. Anyone who has woken up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night should be aware that it is rarely so dark that you are 'blinded'. So the rules for heavily obscured seem to assume the pitch black of an unlit mine/cave or a really dense fog cloud or similar.
Darkness is the pitch black of an unlit mine/cave. And it spreads, explicitly, so it's necessarily a kind of anti-light, because it pushes back lighting. You can't see into it because the air is in darkness, pitch unlightable darkness, and light can't travel through that or its not pitch unlightable darkness. It being opaque, as the rules say, makes perfect sense. (Remember that normal darkness is illuminable, so air is rarely in darkness, because there is almost always some light. The only times air is in natural darkness is in an unlit mine/cave scenario. So when Darkness fills the sphere, it's that kind of pitch blackness).
(And yes, opaque isn't a rules term, which means you use the standard dictionary definition = can't see through. That couldn't be more clear).
So yeah, the problem here is the normal vision rules, which don't handle natural darkness well.
FWIW, Illuminate means: "to supply or brighten with light" Miriam-Webster, "to light something and make it brighter" Cambridge, "to light up" Vocabulary.com. Since the air itself is in darkness, you cannot supply the air with light, brighten the air with light, make the air brighter, nor light up the air. And seeing through it requires brightening the air/lighting up the air, because that's what photons do as they pass through air. So the air being unilluminable darkness necessarily means impassable to light (can't see through).
If I was at the edge of magical darkness, it is my understanding that there is no dim light so darkvison does not work. We can ignore darkvision. If the edge was just millimeters past my eyes, and my hand was on the other side, I could not see it.
It does not matter which side I am on, if I am standing outside the spell, my hand is just inside the spell, I can 't see the hand.
If I am inside the darkness and my hand is located outside the spell range I still can not see my hand.
If I can see the hand, then how far can I move so I can't see my hand? Also if I can see the hand, then are you stating that there is a "border" that allows some light to penetrate to allow me to see my hand?
If my hand is holding a match, does that influence my sight? It reads as if I could not see the match but I can see my hand?
To me, there's basically two correct points of view:
Point A - Magical Darkness blocks all vision into, out of, and through the area occupied by Magical Darkness: In this case, if you are inside the Area of Darkness (AoD) and stick your hand out of the AoD, then you cannot see your hand. If you are outside of the AoD and stick your hand inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand. If you and your hand are in the AoD, then you cannot see your hand. If you and your hand are fully outside the AoD, then you can see your hand. Nothing about a match changes the above situation.
Point B - Magical Darkness creates an area that you cannot see into: In this case, if you are in the AoD and your hand is outside the AoD, then you can see your hand (it is not in Darkness). If you are outside the AoD and your hand is inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand (your hand IS in Darkness). If you and your hand are both inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand (it is in Darkness). If you and your hand are outside the AoD, you can see your hand (your hand is NOT in Darkness).
Another way to think of Point B is if you have a book in real life (yes, I know D&D is not a real-world physics simulator). If you are in a room that is completely dark, you cannot read the text on the page. If you stick the book into a beam of light, you can read the page, even though you yourself are in Darkness.
I think both of these are equally valid within the rules, so you (or your DM) would just pick one interpretation and stick with it. The designers, as indicated by Sage Advice, prefer (or intended) Point A. Take that as you will.
Now I am really confused about magical darkness. If I was at the edge of magical darkness, it is my understanding that there is no dim light so darkvison does not work. We can ignore darkvision. If the edge was just millimeters past my eyes, and my hand was on the other side, I could not see it.
"Normally" darkvision converts Darkness into Dim Light, and Dim Light into Light. "Magical Darkness" as a concept doesn't change this; some sources of it may say Darkvision doesn't work (therefore doesn't treat it as Dim Light).
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
Sure, like I said, I think the rules can and will be interpreted how the designers apparently intended, with the scenario that I mentioned being that casting Darkness on the archers means they cannot see out of the Darkness to the party. I was just explaining how I was surprised by up2ng's argument and how it changed how I understood the rules as written and how it would affect how I rule at my table. Obviously YMMV, and I think there's enough ambiguity in the rules to say that neither side is absolutely correct.
I do want to address where you say:
You seem to be saying that the above statement regarding the blinded condition is very clear, but it isn't. I think it can very easily be interpreted the way I did (in which you are blinded to thinks in the Heavily Obscured space), as well as how you have interpreted it (you are blinded while in a Heavily Obscured space). For me, it makes sense that you are not blinded while in the space, for a few reasons. First, as has been stated, things like Hunger of Hadar very specifically say "creatures fully within the area are blinded.", whereas the rules for Heavily Obscured do not. Also, when I think about the Hide rules, and they say you can attempt to hide if you are Heavily Obscured, and Heavily Obscured talks about things like dense foliage, I imagine a creature hiding inside the tree line looking out, but hidden from view from people outside of the forest. To me this is classic spying/scouting behavior, hiding in the darkness or bushes, etc, and looking out at your prey or whatever. If being within the heavily obscured area meant you were blinded, then could you spy on people while hidden? Anyway, like I said, just showcasing my point of view. I totally get where you could read "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." as "You have the blinded condition while trying to see something while in a Heavily Obscured space.
As for darkness being opaque, in the rules there is no definition of opaque, so we would have to take common usage/definition of the term. However if we say all darkness gives a heavily obscured area, and heavily obscured means opaque, then you would not be able to see a torch from 50 feet away in a dark night, which seems rather silly.
As for magical darkness behaving different than mundane darkness, there is no real basis for anything in that except what is written in the spell itself, that Darkvision cannot see through it, and it spreads around corners. Those are the descriptions of how it is different from mundane darkness. Anything else, including "illuminating the air", is simply added as your interpretation. If we are going be RAW, then they are functionally the same except for the ways the spell says it is different (cannot be illuminated by non-magical light, spreads around corners, darkvision cannot see through it, and it can be blocked by covering the object with something opaque). Besides that, anything about blocking light or it being a substance in the air is really just conjecture/flavor, and not something the rules spell out.
But, like I said, I just thought it was interesting how my understanding shifted once I read through the rules and saw that there was actually a very good, rules-based case for using darkness as mobile concealment and that, in the scenario with the archers, before I would have thought casting it at the archers was the best use, but now I would rule casting it at the party is the best use.
I don't think there's a right-or-wrong in this case, as the rules are just honestly too vague. If I was at your table and you said "you're in magical darkness and cannot see out" I would simply say "Fair enough!" as it can make sense depending on the interpretation.
Now I am really confused about magical darkness.
If I was at the edge of magical darkness, it is my understanding that there is no dim light so darkvison does not work. We can ignore darkvision. If the edge was just millimeters past my eyes, and my hand was on the other side, I could not see it.
It does not matter which side I am on, if I am standing outside the spell, my hand is just inside the spell, I can 't see the hand.
If I am inside the darkness and my hand is located outside the spell range I still can not see my hand.
If I can see the hand, then how far can I move so I can't see my hand? Also if I can see the hand, then are you stating that there is a "border" that allows some light to penetrate to allow me to see my hand?
If my hand is holding a match, does that influence my sight? It reads as if I could not see the match but I can see my hand?
The problem here isn't the darkness spell (which works fine with Heavily Obscured areas being opaque), the problem is the normal vision rules. (If you're truly in an area of darkness, there's zero light, and you can't see anything, and the rules make sense. If there's light you can see, you aren't actually in darkness, just varying degrees of shadow, some of which are very dark to the point of concealing what is in them, but light still reaches them, and thus you can see out of them (and even into them to some small degree - it's not really 'heavily obscured' as defined by the rules, the sight distance is just even smaller than 'dim lighting')
ie, if there's bright light in the hallway, but the door is closed, and some amount of light is shining under the doorway, the reality is you can see the edges of furniture and other things. Not well, but enough that you are not "blinded" (= can't see at all) when looking around the room. Anyone who has woken up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night should be aware that it is rarely so dark that you are 'blinded'. So the rules for heavily obscured seem to assume the pitch black of an unlit mine/cave or a really dense fog cloud or similar.
Darkness is the pitch black of an unlit mine/cave. And it spreads, explicitly, so it's necessarily a kind of anti-light, because it pushes back lighting. You can't see into it because the air is in darkness, pitch unlightable darkness, and light can't travel through that or its not pitch unlightable darkness. It being opaque, as the rules say, makes perfect sense. (Remember that normal darkness is illuminable, so air is rarely in darkness, because there is almost always some light. The only times air is in natural darkness is in an unlit mine/cave scenario. So when Darkness fills the sphere, it's that kind of pitch blackness).
(And yes, opaque isn't a rules term, which means you use the standard dictionary definition = can't see through. That couldn't be more clear).
So yeah, the problem here is the normal vision rules, which don't handle natural darkness well.
FWIW, Illuminate means: "to supply or brighten with light" Miriam-Webster, "to light something and make it brighter" Cambridge, "to light up" Vocabulary.com. Since the air itself is in darkness, you cannot supply the air with light, brighten the air with light, make the air brighter, nor light up the air. And seeing through it requires brightening the air/lighting up the air, because that's what photons do as they pass through air. So the air being unilluminable darkness necessarily means impassable to light (can't see through).
To me, there's basically two correct points of view:
Point A - Magical Darkness blocks all vision into, out of, and through the area occupied by Magical Darkness:
In this case, if you are inside the Area of Darkness (AoD) and stick your hand out of the AoD, then you cannot see your hand. If you are outside of the AoD and stick your hand inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand. If you and your hand are in the AoD, then you cannot see your hand. If you and your hand are fully outside the AoD, then you can see your hand. Nothing about a match changes the above situation.
Point B - Magical Darkness creates an area that you cannot see into:
In this case, if you are in the AoD and your hand is outside the AoD, then you can see your hand (it is not in Darkness). If you are outside the AoD and your hand is inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand (your hand IS in Darkness). If you and your hand are both inside the AoD, you cannot see your hand (it is in Darkness). If you and your hand are outside the AoD, you can see your hand (your hand is NOT in Darkness).
Another way to think of Point B is if you have a book in real life (yes, I know D&D is not a real-world physics simulator). If you are in a room that is completely dark, you cannot read the text on the page. If you stick the book into a beam of light, you can read the page, even though you yourself are in Darkness.
I think both of these are equally valid within the rules, so you (or your DM) would just pick one interpretation and stick with it. The designers, as indicated by Sage Advice, prefer (or intended) Point A. Take that as you will.
"Normally" darkvision converts Darkness into Dim Light, and Dim Light into Light. "Magical Darkness" as a concept doesn't change this; some sources of it may say Darkvision doesn't work (therefore doesn't treat it as Dim Light).
Character77006 There's a related SAC about whether magical Darkness blocks Darkvision:
So, for example, Hunger of Hadar doesn't block Darkvision.