Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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People are busy making the error of the converse. "Opaque objects block darkness" does not mean "non-opaque objects do not block darkness", and in fact opaque things that do not count as a barrier and thus do not provide total cover (such as a cloth) can block the spell.
What you can say about darkness is "the developers don't understand standard terminology for vision". Seriously, anyone who understood what they were doing would have solved this problem by making darkness and heavily obscured different effects. Since they have not done so, we have no way of telling what the darkness spell actually does.
(sorry for snipping your post. I just wanted to address this part)
I agree with you that the Darkness spell can be blocked by a glass pane. I also remember a thread (Rules Clarifications) in which up2ng and Squirrelloid were discussing this interaction, along with some other spells (Wall of Force, Antimagic Field). Here's one of my replies from that thread:
Regarding Antimagic Field (also discussed in Rules Clarifications, btw), I don't think it provides Total Cover for the purpose of targeting. But this is a funny spell (*), so for entertainment's sake: Does Antimagic Aura affect the caster?
(*) as the Dev once said:
And I still don't agree. Obstacle-ness is assessed on a case-by-case basis. The obstacle must actually obstruct the thing in question, otherwise it's not an obstacle. And if it's not an obstacle to the thing, it cannot contribute to Cover against it, because Cover requires obstacles. It makes no sense to say something is an obstacle which does not impede the thing in question.
How do you determine what's an obstacle to various things? DM adjudication, but should follow basic logic. The rules provide no guidance on how we determine what an obstacle is. This is where we use reality or logic to decide. Light is light, we know it shines through glass, so glass is not an obstacle to light. Psychic effects are psychic, they ignore physical things, because they aren't physical by definition, and cannot interact with physical things.
(Non-opaque) Glass is not an obstacle to light, so cannot not provide cover against it because being an obstacle is required to contribute to cover. And Darkness is described in the same way as the Light spell with regards to what obstructs it, so glass is also not an obstacle to it. And magical light is still light.
D&D treats cover as a binary property.
It does not.
"Walls, trees, creatures, and other obstacles can provide cover..." (Emphasis added).
So the first thing to note is that these things can, not do provide cover. The second thing is that it is obstacles that provide cover. (Note that the specific examples are all classed as potential obstacles, because 'and other obstacles' implicitly puts them in the category of obstacles).
So, obstacles can provide cover. To know what an obstacle is, we have to go to colloquial English, because the game never defines the word. And to be an obstacle, you must obstruct. This is inherently a relative condition, because what obstructs one thing will not necessarily obstruct another thing.
AMF should count as an obstacle to magic, because it obstructs magic. An antilife shell is an obstacle to living creatures - if you threw a dwarf, they would bounce off the Anti-life shell, because it is Total Cover against dwarves (and other living things). A wooden wall is an obstacle to a medieval sword, but not to a lightsaber (which passes right through it as if it wasn't there).
The fundamental question the cover rules require us to answer is 'would this thing be stopped by that object/field/whatever'. If the answer is no, it is not an obstacle, and thus cannot contribute to cover.
That does not mean cover is not binary, it means that those things might not provide cover at all. Cover is something you either have or don't have.
The text says those things "can" provide cover because they still have to meet the requirements for cover. A wall does not provide Total Cover to a standing Medium creature if the wall is 3 feet tall. A tree does not provide 3/4 cover if the tree is the pre-decorated Charlie Brown Christmas tree. A gnome (creature) does not provide half-cover to an Ogre. It doesn't say they "do" provide cover because cover needs to be determined by the size of the obstacle and the size of the creature. If the game wanted you to determine what types of objects would provide cover from some spells/abilities and not others, there would be at least some explanation or example of that. The example with the Psychic Lance is a good one. You say that regular walls don't provide cover because it's "mental", but no where in the rules does it suggest that you can just say that mental abilities don't follow the "Clear path to target" rules. Specific beats general, but in this case there's no "specific". It's just the general rule, and you're using "vibes" as RAW.
You can absolutely rule the Psychic Lance and all other mental abilities ignore cover because you "think it should". That's perfectly acceptable homebrew. But RAW, nothing ignores cover unless it specifically says it does. You can absolutely rule that a thin wooden wall shouldn't fully protect a creature from the blast of the Meteor Swarm. Maybe you say "whatever damage it takes to break the wall is subtracted from the total damage the creature would normally take." Cool! That's honestly a fun and probably balanced take! But it isn't RAW.
Players shouldn't have to guess what things might or might not be actually providing cover based on DM whims.
RAW requires an "obstacle" to provide cover. There is no game definition of 'obstacle', so colloquial English governs. And colloquial English requires that it actually impede the thing in question. If it does not impede the thing, it is not an obstacle to the thing, and cannot provide cover against that thing.
It's not that it ignores cover. It's that there was never cover in the first place, because nothing between the attacker/caster and the target actually impedes whatever it is they were doing. The rules were adhered to meticulously.
Players don't have to guess. It's pretty obvious. Light behaves as you expect light to behave. Things which are definitionally not physical (a ghost, a psychic mindblast) ignore physical things because they pass right through them. Indeed, players will likely be more surprised at a DM who says that a clear glass pane blocks light.
Wall of Force is a great example here, because it says it blocks physical things, which means it does not block non-physical things. It tells you explicitly what kinds of things it is an obstacle to, and thus what it provides cover against. (And we know what they mean by physical, because it is also invisible, so it does not block light by definition). That means an illusion can pass through it, as can a beam of light, as can a psychic attack, because these things are not physical, and so it provides no cover from them and no barrier to them.
Bolded for emphasis. Exactly. That's been my argument all along.