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.
There's a lot for me to catch up on since my last post in this thread. I won't be able to respond to everything since too much has been written. I'll try to correct the most egregious misinformation as well as respond to any direct questions or comments about my posts.
First, a general thought:
If a DM were to propose an interpretation whereby a creature IS capable of seeing "out of" and "through" an area that is categorized as mundane darkness, but insists that the creature is NOT capable of seeing "out of" and "through" the magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell based purely on the phrasing that "nonmagical light can’t illuminate it", then that would not be totally unreasonable. I can understand how that determination is reached. It's not the correct interpretation and it's not the best interpretation but at least there is some commonsense logic behind it.
If, on the other hand, a DM were to propose an interpretation whereby a creature goes outside into a clear night and is unable to see the moon and the stars above and is unable to see a not-too-distant campfire, then that would be totally unacceptable and I would refuse to play in that game. Such an interpretation is also incorrect, but more importantly, it is far too damaging to normal gameplay. It also defies obvious common sense.
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.
The spell description doesn't make this particular distinction between this magical darkness and mundane darkness.
Areas in this game are 3-dimensional. There's no such thing as "the open air above the darkness".
The easiest way to see why the idea that "you can't see anything while in the darkness" is incorrect is because the spell does not actually cause the Blinded condition. Compare this against the wording for the Hunger of Hadar spell (which is a higher-level spell):
and creatures fullywithin it have the Blinded condition
Can you see through a fog cloud? No. A fog cloud blocks all sight.
This is correct. But the reason why this is correct has nothing to do with the rules for Heavily Obscured Areas. This is caused by a different rule -- the rule for Line of Sight:
Line of Sight
To determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If you can trace a line that doesn't pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision—such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog—then there is line of sight.
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.
It is true that in a vacuum the phrase "while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space" is linguistically ambiguous.
It can be read as: "while trying to see something [that is] in a Heavily Obscured space".
It can also theoretically be read as: "while trying to see something [while you are located] in a Heavily Obscured space".
In full context of the entirety of the block of rules for Vision and Light (Playing the Game --> Exploration --> Vision and Light), the first interpretation is correct, and the second interpretation is wrong.
Obscured Areas
An area might be Lightly or Heavily Obscured.
These concepts are talking about areas that are obscured. Note the "ed" in "obscured". This is a passive property of the area. It describes the area. The area itself is obscured from view. That's what an obscured area means.
Note that the game is NOT calling it a "Heavily Obscuring Area" or a "Blinding Area". It's NOT like an AoE that is filled with some sort of magical spell effect which actively "targets" or "affects" creatures who come into contact with it. That's not the concept at all. It's a concept where the area itself has a certain property such that the area is obscured from view.
It would be pretty strange to emphasize that a creature in a certain location has the blinded condition "while trying to see something", just generally. So, if I'm not trying to see anything, then I don't have the blinded condition, otherwise I have it? Does this mean that I can unfocus my eyes and just try to rely on peripheral vision? What do you mean I have the blinded condition while trying to see something? An author would never write such a thing in that way. Again, refer back to how the author actually writes this within the spell description for Hunger of Hadar, quoted above.
Most importantly, under that interpretation, if I am standing outside of the Heavily Obscured Area, I would be able to see into it and see everything that's within it perfectly fine. Because I am not blinded while not "located within" the area. Right? No, that's wrong obviously. When a bunch of objects are located within total darkness, I cannot just back up a little bit and look again from farther way and all of a sudden, *poof!*, all of those objects can be seen crystal clear as if they are bathed in bright sunshine!
No. That's not how it works. The area itself is obscured from view. You have the blinded condition when trying to see something [that is] in the area. That is the only correct interpretation.
Blocks light is basically the dictionary definition of the word Opaque, show where it means anything then that, this is just your own assertion that it means anything but the dictionary definition at this point.
This hyperfocus on the use of the word "opaque" in a vacuum without any context is absolutely infuriating. It means something other than what you are saying in the very next sentence of the PHB:
You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there.
Note also that this "opaque" term is totally absent from the Rules Glossary definition of the concept:
Heavily Obscured
You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space.
The main text is using a certain style of paragraph writing. It's not just a giant list of bullet points. There is prose. The sentence in question is being used as a transition of concepts from Lightly Obscured Areas to Heavily Obscured areas by showing contrast between them and also introducing the concept at the same time. The concept is then fully explained in the very next sentence. There is a certain flow to the writing when read in its entirety and in context.
Words need to be read in context.
For example, in a vacuum, we might read this:
"The door is closed."
What does that mean? We can make assumptions.
Now let's compare:
"The door is closed. That doorway leads into the bathroom."
OR
"The door is closed. The opportunity that was available to you yesterday has expired and is no longer available today."
Was your assumption correct? It probably depends on which of these two options are actually written -- it depends on the additional context that is provided by surrounding text. In a vacuum, our initial phrase doesn't really seem like it can mean the second thing based on the definitions of the individual words. But it's a common expression that has a certain understood meaning, nonetheless.
The book takes many liberties in not fully describing things, the wording is not that the Moon doesn't illuminate everything, it's that there are still areas of darkness within a moonlit night.
Absolutely not. The text is very clear about this. It has to do with these terms representing categories of light:
Light
The presence or absence of light determines the category of illumination in an area, as defined below.
. . .
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.
Moonlit nights (with the explicit exception of some full moon nights) are categorized within the Darkness category. In the 2014 rules, the exception was written as: "A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light".
Also there is no reason to assume the radius of illumination of the sun would reach the forgotten realms within 5E, since again, that also has no radius.
We can safely assume that it does since daytime creates an environment of bright light by default:
As such, there is no reason to assume that a moonlit night refers to anything but a night of the full moon and as such it'll be down to the DM to determine which areas of a map are lit and which are in darkness due to shadow.
This is false. See the rules for Darkness, quoted above.
If the opposite door was closed (and fit well enough that only a little bit of light could be seen through the crack under the door), most of the room would be in darkness, but the crack under the door is not, nor a small radius around it, and the air between your eyes and the door is illuminated enough that you can see the light under the door.
This is not what illumination means and it's not the reason why you can see the light under the door. You see that light because that light travels through the space and reaches your eyes even though it's not enough light to actually illuminate the space at all.
Furthermore, in this game, Darkness is a broad category of light -- it doesn't always mean absolute darkness (since even moonlit nights are considered to be Darkness).
Furthermore, in real life, even when you are traversing a deep cave such that you are in absolute darkness, you are not actually blind. You can still see just fine. It's just that there is nothing to see at the moment. You are still seeing through the space if you are not actually blind and your eyes are open. You just can't see anything. If someone were to turn on a small light at the far end of the passage, you would be able to see that light even though you still cannot see your own hand right in front of your face because the light isn't strong enough to illuminate your immediate area.
Magical Darkness . . . has intangible "substance" to it.
This is made up. There is nothing in the spell description that says this and there is nothing in the general rules for spell effects which says this. It's a reasonable way to think of an existing AoE spell effect in our own minds, but there is no mechanical effect like this within the game.
__________
Sadly, this post has already gotten too long. I will have to catch up on the rest of the discussion later. My apologies for the length of the post, but there is a lot of discussion happening in this thread.
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
I've said it before, but that is a terrible ruling on their part. Under that ruling a devils, devils sight can not see through the darkness spell, and in fact its ability to see through magical darkness does literally nothing as its just restating what Darkvision does. Now a warlocks devils sight works fine as it is not Darkvision. Why there did not put magical darkness in the glossary as a separate darkness I will never get. Then Darkvision and Darkvision that can see through magical darkness would make sense.
There's a lot for me to catch up on since my last post in this thread. I won't be able to respond to everything since too much has been written. I'll try to correct the most egregious misinformation as well as respond to any direct questions or comments about my posts.
First, a general thought:
If a DM were to propose an interpretation whereby a creature IS capable of seeing "out of" and "through" an area that is categorized as mundane darkness, but insists that the creature is NOT capable of seeing "out of" and "through" the magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell based purely on the phrasing that "nonmagical light can’t illuminate it", then that would not be totally unreasonable. I can understand how that determination is reached. It's not the correct interpretation and it's not the best interpretation but at least there is some commonsense logic behind it.
Well since it seems to match the RAI maybe it is the correct determination and the best interpretation and there is more commonsense logic to it that you think. It is not just that nonmagical light can't illuminate it, but that is a large part of it but darkvision can not see through it, not just into it but through it. Both of these lines are letting you know its a zone that blocks vision entirely if you do not have a way to counter 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?
Let's assume that surrounding the radius of the magical Darkness created by the Darkness spell is Bright Light. The common interpretation is that if your eyes are located within this darkness then you would not be able to see your hand no matter where your hand is located. And that if you your eyes are located outside of this darkness then you would not be able to see the hand if the hand was within this darkness (for a different reason, I guess). This is the interpretation that the spell effect actually blinds the creature that is located within it, even though the spell does not actually say that.
The correct interpretation is that if you are inside and the hand is inside then you cannot see it. If you are outside and the hand is inside then you still cannot see it. If you are outside and the hand is outside then you can see it (obviously). But, if you are inside and the hand is outside, then you CAN see it. This is because you are only blinded while trying to see something within the area.
If we consider the case of a "torch" instead of a "match" -- if you light a torch and you and your torch are both inside of the magical darkness, the torch would not illuminate any of the space that's within the magical darkness and you would not be able to see any of the light from the torch. The torch WOULD still be lit though -- so, if you were to move yourself and your torch outside of the magical darkness you would see that you are holding a perfectly well-lit torch that is functioning normally.
There's also a weird edge case where if you and your torch were both inside of the magical darkness but near the edge of the radius, some portion of the radius of the torchlight would actually illuminate some areas that are outside of the magical darkness. And you WOULD be able to see that area illuminated. Consider an odd example of magical darkness cast within a much larger area of mundane darkness, such as a moonlit night. Your torch in that scenario would have a rather odd effect, but it actually would help you to see some things that you were unable to before lighting it.
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.
For the most part, Hunger of Hadar doesn't need to state that it blocks Darkvision because that spell explicitly causes creatures fully within it to have the Blinded Condition. When you are Blinded, you cannot use your Darkvision. A notable exception would be if you are outside the area -- in that case you cannot see anything within that area with your normal vision, but you CAN see things within that area with your Darkvision as if the area were Dim Light.
It is not just that nonmagical light can't illuminate it, but that is a large part of it but darkvision can not see through it, not just into it but through it.
This has been addressed previously. There are two ways to interpret the bit about darkvision within the spell description of the Darkness spell:
-- Literally: Darkvision actually cannot see through this area. As long as we're being literal, there's nothing that actually says that regular vision cannot see through this area. Only darkvision. So, you have an odd scenario that when looking "out of" the magical darkness, you are limited to using only your regular vision if the area beyond is illuminated by Dim Light instead of being able to use your darkvision for that purpose. This interpretation is fine.
-- In Context: The better interpretation is that the spell is attempting to state that darkvision does not function properly when trying to see things that are within the area. So, whether you are located inside of the area OR outside of the area . . . if you are attempting to see things that are within the area then they will appear to be in Darkness (instead of appearing to be in Dim Light via the use of your Darkvision) and therefore you are blinded while performing this activity regardless of whether or not you have Darkvision.
Magical Darkness blocks Darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of Darkness says it does. For example, the Darkness spell specifies that Darkvision can’t see through it. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not a feature of magical Darkness in general.
I've said it before, but that is a terrible ruling on their part. Under that ruling a devils, devils sight can not see through the darkness spell, and in fact its ability to see through magical darkness does literally nothing as its just restating what Darkvision does. Now a warlocks devils sight works fine as it is not Darkvision. Why there did not put magical darkness in the glossary as a separate darkness I will never get. Then Darkvision and Darkvision that can see through magical darkness would make sense.
Sorry, MyDudeicus, I think I'm missing something.
You said "Under that ruling a devils, devils sight can not see through the darkness spell", but at the same time "devils sight works fine as it is not Darkvision"?
I think what they're getting at is that in the 2014 rules actual devils generally do not have that Devil's Sight ability — they generally only have Darkvision, which wouldn't allow them to see through the Darkness spell.
In the 2024 Monster Manual, most of them have something like "Darkvision 120 ft. (unimpeded by magical Darkness)" which seems intended to get around that specific issue.
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.
For the most part, Hunger of Hadar doesn't need to state that it blocks Darkvision because that spell explicitly causes creatures fully within it to have the Blinded Condition. When you are Blinded, you cannot use your Darkvision. A notable exception would be if you are outside the area -- in that case you cannot see anything within that area with your normal vision, but you CAN see things within that area with your Darkvision as if the area were Dim Light.
That's right, because Hunger of Hadar doesn't block Darkvision, while you're outside, you can target enemies inside the spell using Devil's Sight, Darkvision or Truesight.
I think what they're getting at is that in the 2014 rules actual devils generally do not have that Devil's Sight ability — they generally only have Darkvision, which wouldn't allow them to see through the Darkness spell.
In the 2024 Monster Manual, most of them have something like "Darkvision 120 ft. (unimpeded by magical Darkness)" which seems intended to get around that specific issue.
Oh, Devils as a monster :( now I get it! That "devils, devils sight" bit was what I missed, sorry.
yeah sorry i was not clear on that. The monsters devils their devils sight is like Devils Sight: Darkvision 120 ft, can see through magical darkness. Which if Darkvision can see through magical darkness, makes that ability redundant.
I think both Darkness and magical darkness should be in the glossary with significant differences. Making it clear magical darkness creates a field of obscurement that blocks vision from seeing into or through and that Darkvision can't see into/through. With normal darkness hopefully working closer to how darkness in reality works.
At least with how my brain works 3/4es system of key words with heavy use of the glossary made parsing rules much easier than the natural language approach.
I think both Darkness and magical darkness should be in the glossary with significant differences. Making it clear magical darkness creates a field of obscurement that blocks vision from seeing into or through and that Darkvision can't see into/through. With normal darkness hopefully working closer to how darkness in reality works.
The reason why they didn't do that is because it's not true.
There is no difference between mundane darkness and magical darkness other than what is explicitly written into whichever effect creates the magical darkness. On the online version of the Darkness spell, for example, within the phrase "magical darkness", the word "darkness" is hyperlinked, and it leads the reader back to the general rules for mundane darkness. Meaning, this is what the spell creates . . . mundane darkness, as a baseline. Except that it's magical and it differs from mundane darkness in the ways that are explicitly written into the spell description of the Darkness spell.
In other words, different spells might create different "types" of magical darkness. The magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell is different than the magical darkness that is created by the Hunger of Hadar spell, for example.
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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.
There's a lot for me to catch up on since my last post in this thread. I won't be able to respond to everything since too much has been written. I'll try to correct the most egregious misinformation as well as respond to any direct questions or comments about my posts.
First, a general thought:
If a DM were to propose an interpretation whereby a creature IS capable of seeing "out of" and "through" an area that is categorized as mundane darkness, but insists that the creature is NOT capable of seeing "out of" and "through" the magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell based purely on the phrasing that "nonmagical light can’t illuminate it", then that would not be totally unreasonable. I can understand how that determination is reached. It's not the correct interpretation and it's not the best interpretation but at least there is some commonsense logic behind it.
If, on the other hand, a DM were to propose an interpretation whereby a creature goes outside into a clear night and is unable to see the moon and the stars above and is unable to see a not-too-distant campfire, then that would be totally unacceptable and I would refuse to play in that game. Such an interpretation is also incorrect, but more importantly, it is far too damaging to normal gameplay. It also defies obvious common sense.
The spell description doesn't make this particular distinction between this magical darkness and mundane darkness.
Areas in this game are 3-dimensional. There's no such thing as "the open air above the darkness".
The easiest way to see why the idea that "you can't see anything while in the darkness" is incorrect is because the spell does not actually cause the Blinded condition. Compare this against the wording for the Hunger of Hadar spell (which is a higher-level spell):
This is correct. But the reason why this is correct has nothing to do with the rules for Heavily Obscured Areas. This is caused by a different rule -- the rule for Line of Sight:
It is true that in a vacuum the phrase "while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space" is linguistically ambiguous.
It can be read as: "while trying to see something [that is] in a Heavily Obscured space".
It can also theoretically be read as: "while trying to see something [while you are located] in a Heavily Obscured space".
In full context of the entirety of the block of rules for Vision and Light (Playing the Game --> Exploration --> Vision and Light), the first interpretation is correct, and the second interpretation is wrong.
These concepts are talking about areas that are obscured. Note the "ed" in "obscured". This is a passive property of the area. It describes the area. The area itself is obscured from view. That's what an obscured area means.
Note that the game is NOT calling it a "Heavily Obscuring Area" or a "Blinding Area". It's NOT like an AoE that is filled with some sort of magical spell effect which actively "targets" or "affects" creatures who come into contact with it. That's not the concept at all. It's a concept where the area itself has a certain property such that the area is obscured from view.
It would be pretty strange to emphasize that a creature in a certain location has the blinded condition "while trying to see something", just generally. So, if I'm not trying to see anything, then I don't have the blinded condition, otherwise I have it? Does this mean that I can unfocus my eyes and just try to rely on peripheral vision? What do you mean I have the blinded condition while trying to see something? An author would never write such a thing in that way. Again, refer back to how the author actually writes this within the spell description for Hunger of Hadar, quoted above.
Most importantly, under that interpretation, if I am standing outside of the Heavily Obscured Area, I would be able to see into it and see everything that's within it perfectly fine. Because I am not blinded while not "located within" the area. Right? No, that's wrong obviously. When a bunch of objects are located within total darkness, I cannot just back up a little bit and look again from farther way and all of a sudden, *poof!*, all of those objects can be seen crystal clear as if they are bathed in bright sunshine!
No. That's not how it works. The area itself is obscured from view. You have the blinded condition when trying to see something [that is] in the area. That is the only correct interpretation.
I don't get it. This is support for my RAW interpretation. This means that I don't have the Blinded condition while trying to see something elsewhere.
This hyperfocus on the use of the word "opaque" in a vacuum without any context is absolutely infuriating. It means something other than what you are saying in the very next sentence of the PHB:
Note also that this "opaque" term is totally absent from the Rules Glossary definition of the concept:
The main text is using a certain style of paragraph writing. It's not just a giant list of bullet points. There is prose. The sentence in question is being used as a transition of concepts from Lightly Obscured Areas to Heavily Obscured areas by showing contrast between them and also introducing the concept at the same time. The concept is then fully explained in the very next sentence. There is a certain flow to the writing when read in its entirety and in context.
Words need to be read in context.
For example, in a vacuum, we might read this:
"The door is closed."
What does that mean? We can make assumptions.
Now let's compare:
"The door is closed. That doorway leads into the bathroom."
OR
"The door is closed. The opportunity that was available to you yesterday has expired and is no longer available today."
Was your assumption correct? It probably depends on which of these two options are actually written -- it depends on the additional context that is provided by surrounding text. In a vacuum, our initial phrase doesn't really seem like it can mean the second thing based on the definitions of the individual words. But it's a common expression that has a certain understood meaning, nonetheless.
Absolutely not. The text is very clear about this. It has to do with these terms representing categories of light:
Moonlit nights (with the explicit exception of some full moon nights) are categorized within the Darkness category. In the 2014 rules, the exception was written as: "A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light".
I do. And the game explicitly does. See above.
We can safely assume that it does since daytime creates an environment of bright light by default:
This is false. See the rules for Darkness, quoted above.
This is not what illumination means and it's not the reason why you can see the light under the door. You see that light because that light travels through the space and reaches your eyes even though it's not enough light to actually illuminate the space at all.
Furthermore, in this game, Darkness is a broad category of light -- it doesn't always mean absolute darkness (since even moonlit nights are considered to be Darkness).
Furthermore, in real life, even when you are traversing a deep cave such that you are in absolute darkness, you are not actually blind. You can still see just fine. It's just that there is nothing to see at the moment. You are still seeing through the space if you are not actually blind and your eyes are open. You just can't see anything. If someone were to turn on a small light at the far end of the passage, you would be able to see that light even though you still cannot see your own hand right in front of your face because the light isn't strong enough to illuminate your immediate area.
This is made up. There is nothing in the spell description that says this and there is nothing in the general rules for spell effects which says this. It's a reasonable way to think of an existing AoE spell effect in our own minds, but there is no mechanical effect like this within the game.
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Sadly, this post has already gotten too long. I will have to catch up on the rest of the discussion later. My apologies for the length of the post, but there is a lot of discussion happening in this thread.
I've said it before, but that is a terrible ruling on their part. Under that ruling a devils, devils sight can not see through the darkness spell, and in fact its ability to see through magical darkness does literally nothing as its just restating what Darkvision does. Now a warlocks devils sight works fine as it is not Darkvision. Why there did not put magical darkness in the glossary as a separate darkness I will never get. Then Darkvision and Darkvision that can see through magical darkness would make sense.
Well since it seems to match the RAI maybe it is the correct determination and the best interpretation and there is more commonsense logic to it that you think. It is not just that nonmagical light can't illuminate it, but that is a large part of it but darkvision can not see through it, not just into it but through it. Both of these lines are letting you know its a zone that blocks vision entirely if you do not have a way to counter magical darkness.
Let's assume that surrounding the radius of the magical Darkness created by the Darkness spell is Bright Light. The common interpretation is that if your eyes are located within this darkness then you would not be able to see your hand no matter where your hand is located. And that if you your eyes are located outside of this darkness then you would not be able to see the hand if the hand was within this darkness (for a different reason, I guess). This is the interpretation that the spell effect actually blinds the creature that is located within it, even though the spell does not actually say that.
The correct interpretation is that if you are inside and the hand is inside then you cannot see it. If you are outside and the hand is inside then you still cannot see it. If you are outside and the hand is outside then you can see it (obviously). But, if you are inside and the hand is outside, then you CAN see it. This is because you are only blinded while trying to see something within the area.
If we consider the case of a "torch" instead of a "match" -- if you light a torch and you and your torch are both inside of the magical darkness, the torch would not illuminate any of the space that's within the magical darkness and you would not be able to see any of the light from the torch. The torch WOULD still be lit though -- so, if you were to move yourself and your torch outside of the magical darkness you would see that you are holding a perfectly well-lit torch that is functioning normally.
There's also a weird edge case where if you and your torch were both inside of the magical darkness but near the edge of the radius, some portion of the radius of the torchlight would actually illuminate some areas that are outside of the magical darkness. And you WOULD be able to see that area illuminated. Consider an odd example of magical darkness cast within a much larger area of mundane darkness, such as a moonlit night. Your torch in that scenario would have a rather odd effect, but it actually would help you to see some things that you were unable to before lighting it.
For the most part, Hunger of Hadar doesn't need to state that it blocks Darkvision because that spell explicitly causes creatures fully within it to have the Blinded Condition. When you are Blinded, you cannot use your Darkvision. A notable exception would be if you are outside the area -- in that case you cannot see anything within that area with your normal vision, but you CAN see things within that area with your Darkvision as if the area were Dim Light.
This has been addressed previously. There are two ways to interpret the bit about darkvision within the spell description of the Darkness spell:
-- Literally: Darkvision actually cannot see through this area. As long as we're being literal, there's nothing that actually says that regular vision cannot see through this area. Only darkvision. So, you have an odd scenario that when looking "out of" the magical darkness, you are limited to using only your regular vision if the area beyond is illuminated by Dim Light instead of being able to use your darkvision for that purpose. This interpretation is fine.
-- In Context: The better interpretation is that the spell is attempting to state that darkvision does not function properly when trying to see things that are within the area. So, whether you are located inside of the area OR outside of the area . . . if you are attempting to see things that are within the area then they will appear to be in Darkness (instead of appearing to be in Dim Light via the use of your Darkvision) and therefore you are blinded while performing this activity regardless of whether or not you have Darkvision.
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I am caught up! Hooray!
Sorry, MyDudeicus, I think I'm missing something.
You said "Under that ruling a devils, devils sight can not see through the darkness spell", but at the same time "devils sight works fine as it is not Darkvision"?
I think what they're getting at is that in the 2014 rules actual devils generally do not have that Devil's Sight ability — they generally only have Darkvision, which wouldn't allow them to see through the Darkness spell.
In the 2024 Monster Manual, most of them have something like "Darkvision 120 ft. (unimpeded by magical Darkness)" which seems intended to get around that specific issue.
pronouns: he/she/they
That's right, because Hunger of Hadar doesn't block Darkvision, while you're outside, you can target enemies inside the spell using Devil's Sight, Darkvision or Truesight.
That's the point I tried to make.
Oh, Devils as a monster :( now I get it! That "devils, devils sight" bit was what I missed, sorry.
yeah sorry i was not clear on that. The monsters devils their devils sight is like Devils Sight: Darkvision 120 ft, can see through magical darkness. Which if Darkvision can see through magical darkness, makes that ability redundant.
I think both Darkness and magical darkness should be in the glossary with significant differences. Making it clear magical darkness creates a field of obscurement that blocks vision from seeing into or through and that Darkvision can't see into/through. With normal darkness hopefully working closer to how darkness in reality works.
At least with how my brain works 3/4es system of key words with heavy use of the glossary made parsing rules much easier than the natural language approach.
The reason why they didn't do that is because it's not true.
There is no difference between mundane darkness and magical darkness other than what is explicitly written into whichever effect creates the magical darkness. On the online version of the Darkness spell, for example, within the phrase "magical darkness", the word "darkness" is hyperlinked, and it leads the reader back to the general rules for mundane darkness. Meaning, this is what the spell creates . . . mundane darkness, as a baseline. Except that it's magical and it differs from mundane darkness in the ways that are explicitly written into the spell description of the Darkness spell.
In other words, different spells might create different "types" of magical darkness. The magical darkness that is created by the Darkness spell is different than the magical darkness that is created by the Hunger of Hadar spell, for example.