At level 14, a Circle of Spores Druid receives their Fungal Body class feature:

Fungal Body

At 14th level, the fungal spores in your body alter you: you can’t be blinded, deafened, frightened, or poisoned, and any critical hit against you counts as a normal hit instead, unless you’re incapacitated.

"Can't be blinded" is interesting, because of how Vision and Light works. You would think that not being able to see in darkness or through fog would be an external environmental problem, but actually it's just being blinded!:

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.

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.

Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.

Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Darkness is a Heavily Obscured Area, for creatures that don't have Darkvision. A creature trying to look at a Heavily Obscured area is Blinded as to that area. But a level 14 Spore Druid can't be Blinded. Therefor, even without darkvision, a level 14 Spore Druid can see normally in Darkness (and even in Darkness!), and also in other types of Heavily Obscured areas like opaque fog, dense foliage, etc.

Yep, you've found another rule that RAW provides justification for over ruling probable RAI applications.

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.

Bolded relevant text. A wall blocks vision entirely. Heavily obscured is a physical barrier. You are not blinded per the blinded condition, you are a creature effectively suffering from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

I'm not certain it isn't RAI, nor is it necessarily a ludicrous conclusion. The Spore Druid's features very much describe them constantly being surrounded by clouds of spores which can and do react to and communicate with the Druid... is it so much of a stretch to conclude that they eventually develop Spore-o-Vision that let's them perceive things with senses not wholly reliant on light? We are not talking about a "physical barrier" that provides total cover, like a wall dividing rooms, but rather permeable obstructions (e.g. dense foliage), haze, and light conditions. "Blocks vision entirely" doesn't appear to mean anything more than "blinded," and with Fungal Body, that is no longer possible for one reason or another.

Read it together, effectively blinded. It means that you aren't blinded in the least, you use the effects laid out in the blinded condition's description, however. They didn't feel like creating another condition (Fully Obstructed View of a Spatial Area as Perceived by a Creature, or some other ridiculously named effect)with the same effect as something else that already exists. That's the RAW, as you like to say.

No, it's not completely ridiculous, especially if they said the spores gave you blindsight, echolocation or infrared(or anything similar). That is not the case.

I dunno, pick your dictionary of choice, but googling the word "effectively" and reading the top results from Merriam, Cambridge, or Dictionary.com leads me to the conclusion that in the English language, "effectively" usually means "actually" or "really."

I don't think that it would be reasonable to assume that a creature immune to Poison could be "effectively poisoned," or immune to Fear be "effectively frightened," so I don't know why a creature immune to Blinded should be able to be "effectively blinded."

Here is an example of "effectively" for you. Deafened is another condition you are immune to. If I drop a sphere of Silence on you, you are effectively Deafened. You aren't Deafened, the whole area around you is incapable of carrying sound to you to register. You would be completely immune to Blindness/Deafness I would imagine.

Smoke/Fog IS a physical barrier, physical does not mean you can not move through it, it means it has substance(is tangible). It quite literally blocks light and your vision. Darkness, even magical should not affect you in my mind as I hope that is the actual intent of the immunity.

Huh. Well, fungal body gives immunity to the blinded condition, but I don't really see where heavily obscured areas actually apply the blinded condition to people trying to peer through them.

Quote from WolfOfTheBees >>

Huh. Well, fungal body gives immunity to the blinded condition, but I don't really see where heavily obscured areas actually apply the blinded condition to people trying to peer through them.

 If you read all the posts, you would know that was what my argument actually was.

Yeah, but it's effectively meaningless :)

Quote from Chicken_Champ >>

Yeah, but it's effectively meaningless :)

 Ah, so this implies that you do know in idiomatic English how 'effectively' is used...

Then you are effectively incapable of understanding the rule because we know that you can understand idiomatic English but you refuse to apply that understanding to rule text.

There's a zero percent chance I'd let that fly.  

In all seriousness, “effectively” means “actually” or “in the way that matters” or “has the effect of” or “in the truest sense.” “Effectively” is NEVER used to mean “not.”

Certainly the darkness/heavy obscurement rules COULD (should?) have been written in a way that didn’t rely on the blinded condition... “creatures and objects in areas that are heavily obscured are effectively invisible?” If that were the rule, Fungal Body wouldn’t do much. But that’s not the rule we have, it says that obscurement is being blinded, and fungal body makes you immune.

RAW it works, y’all are free to disregard it in your games if you so choose.

Quote from Chicken_Champ >>

In all seriousness, “effectively” means “actually” or “in the way that matters” or “has the effect of” or “in the truest sense.” “Effectively” is NEVER used to mean “not.”

Certainly the darkness/heavy obscurement rules COULD (should?) have been written in a way that didn’t rely on the blinded condition... “creatures and objects in areas that are heavily obscured are effectively invisible?” If that were the rule, Fungal Body wouldn’t do much. But that’s not the rule we have, it says that obscurement is being blinded, and fungal body makes you immune.

RAW it works, y’all are free to disregard it in your games if you so choose.

You’re not really properly expressing how “effectively” is actually used in English. If something is “effectively” true, what that means is that it’s technically not true, but it might as well be. Being “effectively blinded” means you’re not actually blinded, but you still can’t see. “Effectively” doesn’t emphasize “not,” but it always means “not,” because the entire point of the word is “not x, but it doesn’t matter that not x.”

By the letter of the rule, heavy obscurement explicitly does not confer the de iure blinded condition, but confers its effects regardless. This is important, because it’s why you can’t lesser restoration your way out of heavy obscurement.

RAW, Fungal Body does not prevent the penalties of being heavily obscured, because the penalties of being heavily obscured are not actually tied to the imposition of a condition, only to its effects.

I do take what you’re saying about lesser restoration... but it wouldn’t work because while it REMOVES, blinded, it doesn’t in any way protect you from being re-blinded the next time you glance in the direction of heavy obscurement?

Gentle Repose “effectively” extends the time you can raise someone. It ACTUALLY does so.

Do a dndbeyond search for “effectively”, what you’ll find in every case is “effectively” being used as “actually.”

Quote from Chicken_Champ >>

I do take what you’re saying about lesser restoration... but it wouldn’t work because while it REMOVES, blinded, it doesn’t in any way protect you from being re-blinded the next time you glance in the direction of heavy obscurement?

Gentle Repose “effectively” extends the time you can raise someone. It ACTUALLY does so.

Do a dndbeyond search for “effectively”, what you’ll find in every case is “effectively” being used as “actually.”

Gentle Repose is actually a fantastic example, because it does not actually extend the time limit on raising the target. The time limit for Raise Dead, for example, remains 10 days, and Gentle Repose doesn’t change that. It just prevents time spent under its duration from counting toward that time limit.

”But that’s just semantics” is the entire purpose of the word “effectively.” The distinction here is almost never going to matter, until it does, as in the case of Fungal Body and the blinded condition.

In every case that I found*, you could easily substitute the idiomatic, conversational English meaning of "effectively." "Functionally, but not technically" seems to fit pretty much anywhere "effectively" is written.

In fact gentle repose even gives the caveat that proves that the effect of the spell doesn't technically break the normal rules while still providing the functional extension mentioned.

*where the other meaning of effectively (in an effective manner) wasn't obviously intended.

Quote from SagaTympana >>

Quote from Chicken_Champ >>

In all seriousness, “effectively” means “actually” or “in the way that matters” or “has the effect of” or “in the truest sense.” “Effectively” is NEVER used to mean “not.”

Certainly the darkness/heavy obscurement rules COULD (should?) have been written in a way that didn’t rely on the blinded condition... “creatures and objects in areas that are heavily obscured are effectively invisible?” If that were the rule, Fungal Body wouldn’t do much. But that’s not the rule we have, it says that obscurement is being blinded, and fungal body makes you immune.

RAW it works, y’all are free to disregard it in your games if you so choose.

 

You’re not really properly expressing how “effectively” is actually used in English. If something is “effectively” true, what that means is that it’s technically not true, but it might as well be. Being “effectively blinded” means you’re not actually blinded, but you still can’t see. “Effectively” doesn’t emphasize “not,” but it always means “not,” because the entire point of the word is “not x, but it doesn’t matter that not x.”

By the letter of the rule, heavy obscurement explicitly does not confer the de iure blinded condition, but confers its effects regardless. This is important, because it’s why you can’t lesser restoration your way out of heavy obscurement.

RAW, Fungal Body does not prevent the penalties of being heavily obscured, because the penalties of being heavily obscured are not actually tied to the imposition of a condition, only to its effects.

 Thank you for finding the words that I searched for, and wasn't able to locate.

The manner in which you are “effectively blinded” by darkness or other heavy obscurement is not substantially different from many other spells and effects which in no uncertain terms “blind” you, without doing physical damage to your eyes. Generally there’s two types of Blind effect: those that last for a set duration usually involve bursts of light or substances getting in your eyes, or other similar effects which damage your eyes physically. Those that last while in a location/situation usually involve an absence of light or visual obstruction, just like heavy obscurement.  See Wall of Sand blocks line of site and blinds you while you are in the opaque swirling sand, just like opaque fog or darkness would do. A swallowed creature (Giant Toad or similar) is Blinded, not because their eyes have been dissolved, but because they’re in a stomach with no light. 

Tell me truthfully, if a character were wearing a blindfold or a sack over their head, would you be splitting hairs over whether they are “blinded” or “effectively blinded” while it’s on their head? Wouldn’t it seem like a distinction without a difference, especially since monsters like the Rug of Smothering impose Blinded when wrapped around a character’s head?

There are NO other examples in 5E of rule text using “effectively” as a qualifier for the purpose of clarifying “not really”. If something is “effectively extended,” it is treated as extended for everything that cares about that. If something is “effectively constrained,” its constrained. There is no particular reason to impose a stricter more hair-splitty reading of “effectively blinded” as it relates to this Level 14 feature, when we all know that the wording around vision/invisibility/hiding/senses is already messy and imprecise.

I mean we proved you wrong with your example. You are not making your argument in good faith.

What? No you haven’t. In 5E, I don’t see any example of there being a meaningful distinction between suffering a condition and suffering the EFFECT of that condition anywhere else. To draw that as a line with rule significance, in this and only this instance, doesn’t seem supported, and feels like singling out Fungal Body for special (mid)treatment.