How does Heavily Obscured work?

The issue with the "common sense" interpretation is that it demands a far more granular approach to lighting than is afforded by the rules. Essentially, you want a rules interpretation where you've got some real number value of illumination that gradually declines from the light source. What the rules actually say is that "we're not going into all that complexity, just use these three discrete values".

So if we've got that torch in an area of otherwise complete darkness, you cannot see the torch at all more than 40' away. Yes, you could rewrite the rules to represent the fact that real world light decreases exponentially with distance and human eyesight has various thresholds of detection. But it's a lot easier just to have options A, B, and C so we don't have to deal with all of that.

Ultimately, the problem with virtually all of these "common sense" interpretations is cherry picking. You're upset that lighting doesn't follow the physical laws surrounding real world illumination but you're just fine with nonsensical notion that I can hit a skilled fighter 10 times with a broadsword and he'll keep on trucking because he's got enough "hit points".

Even on this particular issue, the notion of 'one way' vision isn't very realistic. To even see that torch, it needs to be shedding light on you. So regardless of where you put the range limits, if you can see the torch, the torch can 'see' you. Certainly, it might be more difficult one way, but the light is traveling the entire distance.

Quote from VerilyRaze >>

The issue with the "common sense" interpretation is that it demands a far more granular approach to lighting than is afforded by the rules

 No it doesn't. All it demands is changing "darkness" and "heavily obscured" into different conditions.

Quote from VerilyRaze >>

The issue with the "common sense" interpretation is that it demands a far more granular approach to lighting than is afforded by the rules. Essentially, you want a rules interpretation where you've got some real number value of illumination that gradually declines from the light source. What the rules actually say is that "we're not going into all that complexity, just use these three discrete values".

So if we've got that torch in an area of otherwise complete darkness, you cannot see the torch at all more than 40' away. Yes, you could rewrite the rules to represent the fact that real world light decreases exponentially with distance and human eyesight has various thresholds of detection. But it's a lot easier just to have options A, B, and C so we don't have to deal with all of that.

 That's actually not what the rules say though. The rules say that if you are trying to see an object/creature that is in an area that is Heavily Obscured, such as in darkness, then you have the blinded condition when trying to perceive that object/creature. In this example, the lit torch is NOT in an area of darkness, and thus not in an area that is heavily obscured, and you would not have the blinded condition when trying to perceive it. You could see it clearly, whether you are in an area that is heavily obscured or not. 

The thing that stops you from being able to see something while YOU are in an area that is heavily obscured or THROUGH an area that is heavily obscured is NOT found in the rules for "heavily obscured". It's found in the rules 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.

For the OP, the fog quality of the stinking cloud creates an effect that blocks vision, and thus blocks "Line of Sight". This is also true of a solid objects, dense fog clouds, and dense foliage. That's why you have the blinded condition trying to see something in a fog cloud and trying to see something on the other side of the fog cloud, but you DON'T have the the blinded condition when trying to see something on the other side of an area of darkness. Darkness does not block line of sight. It is not an effect that blocks vision. Fog is. This is exactly why it is absolutely RAW to see a lit torch from over 40 feet away if there is nothing between you and the torch. 

Quote from MaximusArael020 >>

Quote from VerilyRaze >>

The issue with the "common sense" interpretation is that it demands a far more granular approach to lighting than is afforded by the rules. Essentially, you want a rules interpretation where you've got some real number value of illumination that gradually declines from the light source. What the rules actually say is that "we're not going into all that complexity, just use these three discrete values".

So if we've got that torch in an area of otherwise complete darkness, you cannot see the torch at all more than 40' away. Yes, you could rewrite the rules to represent the fact that real world light decreases exponentially with distance and human eyesight has various thresholds of detection. But it's a lot easier just to have options A, B, and C so we don't have to deal with all of that.

 That's actually not what the rules say though. The rules say that if you are trying to see an object/creature that is in an area that is Heavily Obscured, such as in darkness, then you have the blinded condition when trying to perceive that object/creature. In this example, the lit torch is NOT in an area of darkness, and thus not in an area that is heavily obscured, and you would not have the blinded condition when trying to perceive it. You could see it clearly, whether you are in an area that is heavily obscured or not. 

The thing that stops you from being able to see something while YOU are in an area that is heavily obscured or THROUGH an area that is heavily obscured is NOT found in the rules for "heavily obscured". It's found in the rules 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.

 

For the OP, the fog quality of the stinking cloud creates an effect that blocks vision, and thus blocks "Line of Sight". This is also true of a solid objects, dense fog clouds, and dense foliage. That's why you have the blinded condition trying to see something in a fog cloud and trying to see something on the other side of the fog cloud, but you DON'T have the the blinded condition when trying to see something on the other side of an area of darkness. Darkness does not block line of sight. It is not an effect that blocks vision. Fog is. This is exactly why it is absolutely RAW to see a lit torch from over 40 feet away if there is nothing between you and the torch. 

Unfortunately, this is not true. In Chapter 1, under vision and light you see both the description of Heavily Obscured areas (which includes Darkness) as "opaque", as well as the condition that Darkness is rather common, even on moonlit nights.

This is definitely a case where RAW gives rather nonsensical results, even in a world of magic... mostly because this Darkness is "mundane", not magical. The fix is quite easy, however, and has been stated already: just allow mundane darkness to be seen through, just not into.

I don't believe the rules are giving nonsensical results. As I pointed out, most of the examples people are using as 'nonsensical' don't involve darkness at all but rather Dimly Lit conditions. So really what people find nonsensical is the specific ranges for light sources (such as those 20/40 ranges for torches). However, this is no more unreasonable than allowing players to stab one another with daggers from 5' away. I'm a pretty big guy, but I don't have 5' arms.

I mean, whether you keep torch distances the same, but allow creatures to see through (the opaque, by rules text) Darkness, or just extend "dim light" to "reasonable ranges", you are effectively doing the same thing: changing the rules to be less nonsensical when it comes to Darkness.

Quote from sabin76 >>

Quote from MaximusArael020 >>

Quote from VerilyRaze >>

The issue with the "common sense" interpretation is that it demands a far more granular approach to lighting than is afforded by the rules. Essentially, you want a rules interpretation where you've got some real number value of illumination that gradually declines from the light source. What the rules actually say is that "we're not going into all that complexity, just use these three discrete values".

So if we've got that torch in an area of otherwise complete darkness, you cannot see the torch at all more than 40' away. Yes, you could rewrite the rules to represent the fact that real world light decreases exponentially with distance and human eyesight has various thresholds of detection. But it's a lot easier just to have options A, B, and C so we don't have to deal with all of that.

 That's actually not what the rules say though. The rules say that if you are trying to see an object/creature that is in an area that is Heavily Obscured, such as in darkness, then you have the blinded condition when trying to perceive that object/creature. In this example, the lit torch is NOT in an area of darkness, and thus not in an area that is heavily obscured, and you would not have the blinded condition when trying to perceive it. You could see it clearly, whether you are in an area that is heavily obscured or not. 

The thing that stops you from being able to see something while YOU are in an area that is heavily obscured or THROUGH an area that is heavily obscured is NOT found in the rules for "heavily obscured". It's found in the rules 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.

 

For the OP, the fog quality of the stinking cloud creates an effect that blocks vision, and thus blocks "Line of Sight". This is also true of a solid objects, dense fog clouds, and dense foliage. That's why you have the blinded condition trying to see something in a fog cloud and trying to see something on the other side of the fog cloud, but you DON'T have the the blinded condition when trying to see something on the other side of an area of darkness. Darkness does not block line of sight. It is not an effect that blocks vision. Fog is. This is exactly why it is absolutely RAW to see a lit torch from over 40 feet away if there is nothing between you and the torch. 

Unfortunately, this is not true. In Chapter 1, under vision and light you see both the description of Heavily Obscured areas (which includes Darkness) as "opaque", as well as the condition that Darkness is rather common, even on moonlit nights.

This is definitely a case where RAW gives rather nonsensical results, even in a world of magic... mostly because this Darkness is "mundane", not magical. The fix is quite easy, however, and has been stated already: just allow mundane darkness to be seen through, just not into.

 The word "Opaque" in this case is flavor text, and is not describing the rule. When you look at the Rules Glossary, the ONLY thing it says about Heavily Obscured is "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space." Nothing about opaque, blocking line of sight, etc. 

There's a lot in the Basic Rules section that is stated in the Vision and Light section that is obviously descriptive, but not defining/setting a rule. Dim light states "A full moon might bathe the land in Dim Light," but then Darkness states "Characters face Darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights)..."

If we are taking the flavor text as rules, then moonlight nights would be both Dim Light and Darkness, but only maybe Dim Light if the moon is full? But even if the moon is full, it still might be Darkness, because it says "MIGHT bathe...".

Under Hit Points it says "Hit Points represent durability and the will to live." However this doesn't mean that all creatures with Hit Points have a "will to live", does it? Do constructs have a "will to live" because they have Hit Points? Do Animated Objects? Once a creature is brought to 0 Hit Points have they lost all will to live? 

There's lots of places in the rules where it gives short, non-exhaustive lists of what can constitute a certain thing, or where it vaguely describes things. But in general those descriptions are meaningless: it is the RULES that come with them that are important. And in this case, the only RULE associated with Heavily Obscured is that you are blinded when trying to see something in there. "Opaque" is the "will to live" of Vision. It doesn't hold any special meaning as a a rule.

I'm pretty sure sure I said something about this before...

I hope the GM isn't confused by the pile of opinions.

*sigh*

If the word "opaque" is flavor with no mechanical meaning, then are we now going to be looking through fog clouds? And where do the rules end and the flavor begin? The line of sight rules look kind of promising, since it doesn't list darkness, except that it lists things the block vision—the very definition of "opaque"—with a non-exhaustive list. And, well, there's no rules glossary definition for LoS, so is that entire thing just flavor text? If not, why not?

Again, we are stuck because we either treat mundane darkness as blocking vision like the other things listed next to the word "opaque" or we treat that as flavor and see through everything that creates Heavily Obscured areas.

And what about magical darkness? Can you see through that? What rules would you quote to make that ruling one way or the other?

As I said in my first post in this thread... We all wish the rules were written the way you describe. They just aren't. Darkness should have specifically been treated differently from fog clouds, but here we are.

Quote from MaximusArael020 >>

For the OP, the fog quality of the stinking cloud creates an effect that blocks vision, and thus blocks "Line of Sight".

The rules say that all heavily obscured areas are opaque, and if we assume not all sources of heavily obscured is opaque, we have no way of knowing which effects are opaque, because the only spells that specifically mention being opaque are spells that create opaque walls, not spells that create heavily obscured areas.

Quote from sabin76 >>

 

And what about magical darkness? Can you see through that? What rules would you quote to make that ruling one way or the other? 

It would make the Darkness spell much more effective for infiltration / escape if it didn't create a super obvious bubble of Darkness.