A fog cloud causes the area within the cloud to be heavily obscured, so you cannot see targets in the fog, but you can see targets on the other side of the fog just fine, and if you're inside the fog you can see people outside.
Darkness is even worse, because it only blocks line of sight for dark vision (it creates darkness, which prevents normal vision seeing into the area, but says nothing about seeing through the area or out of the area -- unless you have dark vision, in which case it blocks you). I think we've always treated darkness as blocking LoS, but it's possible that's actually not the intent.
Making fog behave sensibly makes it useless (outside attackers cannot see into the area, giving them disadvantage, but then people in the for cannot see who is attacking them, giving the attackers advantage).
While we're at it: you can't see someone 1' away in a fog cloud?
Yeah, some logic and common sense had to get thrown out in order to make the rules simple (mostly) and useful. I would treat fog as not being able to see past, but that is a personal ruling.
For the record, light (mostly) makes sense. If you are in darkness, you can still see someone in light. Darkvision doesn't change that.
Double blindness is one of those things that don't make much sense on the surface, but when you think about it: neither side knows where the other is, so they have to randomly pick a square to attack that may be empty. Then if they happen to choose right, the advantage and disadvantage cancel out because neither side can aim or dodge.
A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
The errata adds:
A heavily obscured area doesn't blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it.
So I guess it's on us to decide whether we want to consider something behind a fog cloud to be obscured by it. On a cloudy night, I cannot see the moon even though neither I nor the moon are inside the cloud. On the other hand, you could also make the argument within the rules that the wisps of fog inside the cloud itself obscure what it inside the cloud, but behind it, the sun (or other light) can illuminate things better and make them easier to see. But the same ruling would need to apply to things like dense foliage. I cannot see you if you are inside the hedgerow, but I can see you if you are behind it?
I would suggest whatever you go with, just apply it consistently.
EDIT: I know this is the rules subforum, not house rules, but for the sake of sanity, I recommend making one minor change to the way you run the blindness condition (bold is my addition): Attack rolls against the creature have advantage if the attacker can see the target, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
I think the best case here is to treat them the way that you think they should be treated, rather than exactly how they're treated on the page. Both darkness and fog are given as examples of what might cause an area to become heavily obscured. The rules also do say that heavily obscured areas block vision entirely. Taking just that sentence, you should not be able to see through heavy obscurement. But then the very next sentence says that the effects only occur when trying to see something in the area. Which is it, rules? Even in the errata'ed version, the rule doesn't help. You might say that something behind a fog cloud is obscured by it (likewise with magical darkness), but what about non-magical darkness?
The problem is that if you can see through heavy obscurement you can see through fog, but if you cannot see through heavy obscurment then you can not see a lit object if any darkness exists between you and it. You really do have to either treat it obviously (that is not RAW) or use the (similarly vague) cover rules and say that some areas of heavy obscurment provide total cover to creatures behind them while others do not.
Unlike fog, darkness (at least of the non-magical variety) is not opaque. A lit object will illuminate non-magical darkness up to its range of brightness and that counteracts its obscuring nature. The Darkness spell accounts for this by saying that non-magical light cannot illuminate it. It seems a little silly to say that you cannot see a torch more than 40 feet away in non-magical darkness, but I think the idea is that it doesn't produce enough light for someone that far away to determine who or what is holding the torch and the designers went with simplified language. If a lit object doesn't have a stated range of illumination, (create bonfire for instance), then it's up to the DM to determine how much light that object should produce.
Making fog behave sensibly makes it useless (outside attackers cannot see into the area, giving them disadvantage, but then people in the for cannot see who is attacking them, giving the attackers advantage).
Exactly. Fog cloud as written with the unseen attacker rules (that have been discussed at length recently) is best used to delete advantage that an enemy gains from some other source.
But this brings up another problem: If you are in (non-magical) darkness and can see a creature that is in an area of light, then you should be able to see from any heavily obscured area to any non-obscured area. Again, I think the only solution here is to use some logic here, and treat it the way that it makes sense.
But this brings up another problem: If you are in (non-magical) darkness and can see a creature that is in an area of light, then you should be able to see from any heavily obscured area to any non-obscured area. Again, I think the only solution here is to use some logic here, and treat it the way that it makes sense.
Is this a problem? Any rogue looking for sneak attack understands the advantage of attacking unseen from a heavily obscured lightly obscured position.
But this brings up another problem: If you are in (non-magical) darkness and can see a creature that is in an area of light, then you should be able to see from any heavily obscured area to any non-obscured area. Again, I think the only solution here is to use some logic here, and treat it the way that it makes sense.
Is this a problem? Any rogue looking for sneak attack understands the advantage of attacking unseen from a heavily obscured position.
Yes. It implies you can see out of fog but not into it, as if it is one way.
My bad. I thought you were talking about non-magical darkness. My response was intended for that context. I would say if you are on the very edge of darkness or foliage or fog, you would only be lightly obscured, which I feel is backed up by the rules. So the rogue in my example could technically be detected, although perception checks against them would be at disadvantage. I wouldn't bother with that at all and would just let them be assumed as unseen unless going up against a particularly perceptive creature like a dragon. I will go back and edit my post to change heavily obscured to lightly obscured. Thanks for helping me realize I should have used the other term.
The fog cloud spell does say you are heavily obscured anywhere in its area of effect, so that would count as "opaque fog" as described in the description of a heavily obscured area. That also means you cannot see through it to things beyond the fog. I would treat darkness the same way since it's magic.
The fog cloud spell does say you are heavily obscured anywhere in its area of effect, so that would count as "opaque fog" as described in the description of a heavily obscured area. That also means you cannot see through it to things beyond the fog. I would treat darkness the same way since it's magic.
This is how I'd run it too, but the problem is that it isn't explicit in the rules this way. The rules make no distinction between heavily obscured areas that are opaque or transparent (other than the modifier to fog that is used to differentiate it from patchy fog).
A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
So really, I just went a LONG ways around to get to an answer to the OP that would have been much simpler.
OP: "A fog cloud causes the area within the cloud to be heavily obscured, so you cannot see targets in the fog, but you can see targets on the other side of the fog just fine, and if you're inside the fog you can see people outside."
"You create a 20-foot-radius sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured."
"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely."
Personally, when I read that a heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely, I interpret this to mean into, out of and through.
OP: "A fog cloud causes the area within the cloud to be heavily obscured, so you cannot see targets in the fog, but you can see targets on the other side of the fog just fine, and if you're inside the fog you can see people outside."
"You create a 20-foot-radius sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured."
"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely."
Personally, when I read that a heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely, I interpret this to mean into, out of and through.
You guys both seem to be implying that you are using the rules as written, but actually seem to be applying different rules to darkness and other forms of obscurment. That isn't how the rules are written. Every form of heavily obscured area should be treated identically. If i cannot see out of a fog cloud, then I cannot see a torch in the distance, and vice versa.
I missed the clause about "blocks vision entirely', but unfortunately that's not clearly defined, and the next sentence, which would be lexically expected to be a clarification, says "A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area," does not talk about seeing through the area, and there are both plausible types of obscurement that would affect seeing through the area (fog) and that would not (mundane darkness).
While we're at it, Wall of Fire specifies that it is opaque, which is a natural language term but undefined in the rules. It seems like a useful concept though...
I also treat wall of fire as something you cannot see through. It has come up for the purpose of targeting spells through it in my game. It never occurred to me I might be doing it wrong.
I guess the argument comes down to a separation of opaque and heavily obscured. An area that is heavily obscured can not be seen into. Something that id opaque can not be seen through (we don't need rules for this, we have dictionaries).
Darkness is heavily obscured, but not opaque. You can see through and out of it, but not in to it.
Dense fog is opaque and heavily obscured. You can't see in, out, or through it.
Wall of fire is just opaque, and you can't technically fit inside the effect. You can't see through it, in and out shouldn't come up.
That all fits the RAW and matches real world expectations. I think I solved it. Take that half written rules, I filled in the blanks.
I guess the argument comes down to a separation of opaque and heavily obscured. An area that is heavily obscured can not be seen into. Something that id opaque can not be seen through (we don't need rules for this, we have dictionaries).
It's desirable to define terms of art, as sometimes they don't match common language. In any case, it's not a problem mechanically to say dense fog is opaque, it's just that it doesn't say so.
I'd actually be tempted to do the equivalent of what 3.5e did, and change "The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. " to "The sphere spreads around corners. Its area is lightly obscured, and more than 5' of fog is opaque, heavily obscuring anything behind it".
I guess the argument comes down to a separation of opaque and heavily obscured. An area that is heavily obscured can not be seen into. Something that id opaque can not be seen through (we don't need rules for this, we have dictionaries).
Darkness is heavily obscured, but not opaque. You can see through and out of it, but not in to it.
Dense fog is opaque and heavily obscured. You can't see in, out, or through it.
Wall of fire is just opaque, and you can't technically fit inside the effect. You can't see through it, in and out shouldn't come up.
That all fits the RAW and matches real world expectations. I think I solved it. Take that half written rules, I filled in the blanks.
I think what you describe is perfectly reasonable and something that I said was probably the best solution in my first reply (make it work the way that makes sense). I just think it fits with RAW, but isn't RAW. Whether you can see through heavily obscured areas (whether they are opaque or not) has to be added to make the rules function the way that they probably should.
You could also decide that the obscurement rules are fine, but choose to make opaque obscurement provide (total) cover.
A fog cloud causes the area within the cloud to be heavily obscured, so you cannot see targets in the fog, but you can see targets on the other side of the fog just fine, and if you're inside the fog you can see people outside.
Darkness is even worse, because it only blocks line of sight for dark vision (it creates darkness, which prevents normal vision seeing into the area, but says nothing about seeing through the area or out of the area -- unless you have dark vision, in which case it blocks you). I think we've always treated darkness as blocking LoS, but it's possible that's actually not the intent.
Making fog behave sensibly makes it useless (outside attackers cannot see into the area, giving them disadvantage, but then people in the for cannot see who is attacking them, giving the attackers advantage).
While we're at it: you can't see someone 1' away in a fog cloud?
Yeah, some logic and common sense had to get thrown out in order to make the rules simple (mostly) and useful. I would treat fog as not being able to see past, but that is a personal ruling.
For the record, light (mostly) makes sense. If you are in darkness, you can still see someone in light. Darkvision doesn't change that.
Double blindness is one of those things that don't make much sense on the surface, but when you think about it: neither side knows where the other is, so they have to randomly pick a square to attack that may be empty. Then if they happen to choose right, the advantage and disadvantage cancel out because neither side can aim or dodge.
The rule for heavily obscured says:
The errata adds:
So I guess it's on us to decide whether we want to consider something behind a fog cloud to be obscured by it. On a cloudy night, I cannot see the moon even though neither I nor the moon are inside the cloud. On the other hand, you could also make the argument within the rules that the wisps of fog inside the cloud itself obscure what it inside the cloud, but behind it, the sun (or other light) can illuminate things better and make them easier to see. But the same ruling would need to apply to things like dense foliage. I cannot see you if you are inside the hedgerow, but I can see you if you are behind it?
I would suggest whatever you go with, just apply it consistently.
EDIT: I know this is the rules subforum, not house rules, but for the sake of sanity, I recommend making one minor change to the way you run the blindness condition (bold is my addition): Attack rolls against the creature have advantage if the attacker can see the target, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I think the best case here is to treat them the way that you think they should be treated, rather than exactly how they're treated on the page. Both darkness and fog are given as examples of what might cause an area to become heavily obscured. The rules also do say that heavily obscured areas block vision entirely. Taking just that sentence, you should not be able to see through heavy obscurement. But then the very next sentence says that the effects only occur when trying to see something in the area. Which is it, rules? Even in the errata'ed version, the rule doesn't help. You might say that something behind a fog cloud is obscured by it (likewise with magical darkness), but what about non-magical darkness?
The problem is that if you can see through heavy obscurement you can see through fog, but if you cannot see through heavy obscurment then you can not see a lit object if any darkness exists between you and it. You really do have to either treat it obviously (that is not RAW) or use the (similarly vague) cover rules and say that some areas of heavy obscurment provide total cover to creatures behind them while others do not.
Unlike fog, darkness (at least of the non-magical variety) is not opaque. A lit object will illuminate non-magical darkness up to its range of brightness and that counteracts its obscuring nature. The Darkness spell accounts for this by saying that non-magical light cannot illuminate it. It seems a little silly to say that you cannot see a torch more than 40 feet away in non-magical darkness, but I think the idea is that it doesn't produce enough light for someone that far away to determine who or what is holding the torch and the designers went with simplified language. If a lit object doesn't have a stated range of illumination, (create bonfire for instance), then it's up to the DM to determine how much light that object should produce.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Exactly. Fog cloud as written with the unseen attacker rules (that have been discussed at length recently) is best used to delete advantage that an enemy gains from some other source.
But this brings up another problem: If you are in (non-magical) darkness and can see a creature that is in an area of light, then you should be able to see from any heavily obscured area to any non-obscured area. Again, I think the only solution here is to use some logic here, and treat it the way that it makes sense.
Is this a problem? Any rogue looking for sneak attack understands the advantage of attacking unseen from a
heavily obscuredlightly obscured position.EDIT: My bad
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Yes. It implies you can see out of fog but not into it, as if it is one way.
My bad. I thought you were talking about non-magical darkness. My response was intended for that context. I would say if you are on the very edge of darkness or foliage or fog, you would only be lightly obscured, which I feel is backed up by the rules. So the rogue in my example could technically be detected, although perception checks against them would be at disadvantage. I wouldn't bother with that at all and would just let them be assumed as unseen unless going up against a particularly perceptive creature like a dragon. I will go back and edit my post to change heavily obscured to lightly obscured. Thanks for helping me realize I should have used the other term.
The fog cloud spell does say you are heavily obscured anywhere in its area of effect, so that would count as "opaque fog" as described in the description of a heavily obscured area. That also means you cannot see through it to things beyond the fog. I would treat darkness the same way since it's magic.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This is how I'd run it too, but the problem is that it isn't explicit in the rules this way. The rules make no distinction between heavily obscured areas that are opaque or transparent (other than the modifier to fog that is used to differentiate it from patchy fog).
Here's what i was referring to, from Vision and Light:
So really, I just went a LONG ways around to get to an answer to the OP that would have been much simpler.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
OP: "A fog cloud causes the area within the cloud to be heavily obscured, so you cannot see targets in the fog, but you can see targets on the other side of the fog just fine, and if you're inside the fog you can see people outside."
"You create a 20-foot-radius sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured."
"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely."
Personally, when I read that a heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely, I interpret this to mean into, out of and through.
You guys both seem to be implying that you are using the rules as written, but actually seem to be applying different rules to darkness and other forms of obscurment. That isn't how the rules are written. Every form of heavily obscured area should be treated identically. If i cannot see out of a fog cloud, then I cannot see a torch in the distance, and vice versa.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't know what to add to this discussion. We have both quoted the sections we find relevant.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I missed the clause about "blocks vision entirely', but unfortunately that's not clearly defined, and the next sentence, which would be lexically expected to be a clarification, says "A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area," does not talk about seeing through the area, and there are both plausible types of obscurement that would affect seeing through the area (fog) and that would not (mundane darkness).
While we're at it, Wall of Fire specifies that it is opaque, which is a natural language term but undefined in the rules. It seems like a useful concept though...
I also treat wall of fire as something you cannot see through. It has come up for the purpose of targeting spells through it in my game. It never occurred to me I might be doing it wrong.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I guess the argument comes down to a separation of opaque and heavily obscured. An area that is heavily obscured can not be seen into. Something that id opaque can not be seen through (we don't need rules for this, we have dictionaries).
Darkness is heavily obscured, but not opaque. You can see through and out of it, but not in to it.
Dense fog is opaque and heavily obscured. You can't see in, out, or through it.
Wall of fire is just opaque, and you can't technically fit inside the effect. You can't see through it, in and out shouldn't come up.
That all fits the RAW and matches real world expectations. I think I solved it. Take that half written rules, I filled in the blanks.
It's desirable to define terms of art, as sometimes they don't match common language. In any case, it's not a problem mechanically to say dense fog is opaque, it's just that it doesn't say so.
I'd actually be tempted to do the equivalent of what 3.5e did, and change "The sphere spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. " to "The sphere spreads around corners. Its area is lightly obscured, and more than 5' of fog is opaque, heavily obscuring anything behind it".
I think what you describe is perfectly reasonable and something that I said was probably the best solution in my first reply (make it work the way that makes sense). I just think it fits with RAW, but isn't RAW. Whether you can see through heavily obscured areas (whether they are opaque or not) has to be added to make the rules function the way that they probably should.
You could also decide that the obscurement rules are fine, but choose to make opaque obscurement provide (total) cover.
Is there really any confusion about whether you can see through something that is opaque?
"Not all those who wander are lost"