Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
So, I got confused by a rules question. And I don't agree with the explanation I was given at table, based on the RAW.
Disadvantage/Advantage don't stack and they cancel each other out, correct? So, if 2 sources of disadvantage apply, and 1 source of advantage applies...is it correct to say that the roll is normal, and not at disadvantage?
Scenario: Magical darkness as an aura, but the creature is hit with an upcasted Faerie Fire at 3rd level. But if you failed the constitution save for this darkness (some special Shar variant), your character gains the blinded condition. So blinded and darkness both give disadvantage, neither stacking. And the target has Faerie Fire (which, due to be upcast is not dispelled by the darkness), which gives advantage. So disadvantage and advantage cancel out and, even blinded, the roll is a 'normal' roll, correct?
Is my understanding correct here? I was told that the darkness effect cancelled the advantage from Faerie Fire, but that Blindness would apply disadvantage. That doesn't appear consistent with the explanation above. Did they misunderstand this rule, or am I missing something here? If I'm missing something please advise.
The rules for Advantage/Disadvantage are straightforward in that they cancel each other and the roll has neither of them, so if handled differently, i'd say it's either misremembered or houseruled somehow.
Specifically with Faerie Fire, there's a requirement that you be able to see it to get the advantage. If you're blinded, you can't see it.
The explanation may have been confused, but the result seems correct.
That's a very good point. Not being able to see the creatures affected by Faerie Fire would mean the advantage didn't exist at all, not that it was canceled out by disadvantage.
pronouns: he/she/they
The description was that it was visible through the darkness as a light in the middle of it. And, when asking about the nature of the blindness, it was described as "blurry blindness", not completely "blackout" blindness. In which case I would think the cancellation effect would still be in place.
However, if the blindness did render it unseeable, then it would all make sense.
I don't think you can see Faerie Fire through a Darkness spell. It is pure black darkness.
The Faerie Fire in this case was cast at 3rd Level, so the Dim Light shed by that spell lights up a portion of the area that was previously filled with that Darkness. The portion of the Darkness that is still dark is heavily obscured, but the Dim Light is not heavily obscured, so you are not blinded by obscurement when trying to see something there (something that's within the Dim Light, such as the outlined creature). However, in this scenario, it appears that some other effect was causing the creature to have the Blinded condition, which messes with the ability to see anything at all -- heavily obscured or not.
Darkness (the spell) is an impenetrable sphere of blackness (unless you have sight like True Seeing or Devil's Sight, which ignores it). So the Faerie Fire is lit (because it is high enough level), but you cannot see it inside or through the Darkness, because the darkness blocks your line of sight to it.
Nonmagical Darkness works differently. They are not the same, and the ways in which Darkness (the spell) works differently are detailed in the spell, including the fact that the magical Darkness it creates radiates. (Also, any light that actually overpowers it... dispels it.)
Oh. No, that's wrong. The darkness from the Darkness spell is just ordinary darkness with a couple of specific tweaks which can be placed at a desired location as a magical effect. The only differences from ordinary darkness are that it causes darkvision to work incorrectly and it can only be illuminated by magical light of sufficient strength. Like ordinary darkness, the affected dark areas create a heavily obscured area so you can't see the things that are within it, but if an area within it is lit then you can see into that area just fine.
No, it doesn't.
When was the last time you saw normal darkness radiate through a glass pane? Because the Darkness spell does that.
The magical darkness of the spell explicitly spreads from a point, something normal darkness doesn't do. It "fills" a 15' radius sphere, something normal darkness doesn't do, because normal darkness is not a thing, it's an absence. Magical darkness from the Darkness spell is a thing that radiates like light radiates.
Darkness from the spell is an object or effect that blocks vision.