The Darkness spell creates a 15 foot radius area of magical darkness. This seems like it could be really useful. But when you actually get into the rules for darkness, it doesn't really do much at all.
The darkness will give disadvantage on attacks, right? Or is it advantage? Actually it's both.
"When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll."
"When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it."
Within the area of darkness, most creatures can't see or be seen. Advantage and disadvantage therefore cancel out, and it's a straight roll. One effect, at least, would be to neutralize any other source of advantage or disadvantage, since any number of sources of advantage and any number of sources of disadvantage cancel out. Screw you, rogues.
What about attacking into or out of the darkness? It seems to me it's the same. The darkness prevents you from seeing into or through it if you're outside it, and it prevents you from seeing anything if you're inside it. If either attacker or target is in the darkness, it's a straight roll.
The one exception would be if a creature has a non-visual sense like Blindsight, Tremorsense, or Truesight.
But wait, can you even tell a target is there in the darkness, or know where it is to target it? Yes! Unless a creature uses the Hide action, their position remains known from cues such as sound. Becoming undetected requires two actions: one to cast Darkness, and one to Hide. It's possible for these two actions to be taken by two different creatures, but it takes a lot of actions for not a whole lot of results. Attack, cast a spell, or move outside the darkness, and you can be detected again.
Am I getting something wrong here? Is there a good use of this spell?
In my games unless you can see in darkness, all attacks into, through, or while inside are at disadvantage. I know what the rules say but in this case they don't make sense.
Two fighters which can see each other will fight better than two fighters that cannot see each other.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
What about attacking into or out of the darkness? It seems to me it's the same. The darkness prevents you from seeing into or through it if you're outside it, and it prevents you from seeing anything if you're inside it. If either attacker or target is in the darkness, it's a straight roll.
There's nothing in the spell that says you can't see things outside the sphere that are in areas of dim light and bright light. The only thing it says it is blocks darkvision.
Am I getting something wrong here? Is there a good use of this spell?
Darkness stops opportunity attacks, protection fighting style, counterspell (and every other spell that has the requirements of "that you can see"), and many other features and abilities. It is a great tool for GTFO situations.
It also dispels effects like faerie fire, light, guiding bolt (and possibly effects like create bonfire and color spray, depending on how you rule the light requirement).
It also, you know, stops people seeing what you are doing, which is immensely valuable. :-)
The darkness prevents you from seeing into or through it if you're outside it, and it prevents you from seeing anything if you're inside it.
What makes you think that? The only text in the spell that talks about that only impacts creatures with Darkvision.
Okay, thanks. I guess I assumed if creatures with Darkvision couldn't see through it, certainly creatures without Darkvision couldn't either. I guess it's supposed to mean the darkness blocks Darkvision, so you can't see things in ordinary darkness behind it, but objects in light behind it are still visible, and lit objects outside it are visible to creatures inside. Literally, though, it would mean if you have Darkvision, your ordinary vision is blocked as well.
I guess I am applying too much science. I thought if the darkness blocked light entering it, it would also block the reflected light by which you can see an object. But I guess I should think of it as blocking light sufficient to count as bright or dim light, but not blocking light reflected from a surface.
So basically, anything inside can't be seen by normal vision or Darkvision, but things outside can be seen if they are in dim or bright light. So creatures inside would have advantage on attacks against creatures outside, and creatures outside would have disadvantage on creatures inside.
You were right in your original post, you cannot see into, out of, or through magical darkness unless you have Blindsight or something like the Warlock invocation Devil's Sight. The spell blocks regular vision as per the general rules on vision and light, plus darkvision because of the spell text.
It is still a useful spell as Lunali pointed out, just more for utility rather than advantage on attacks.
You were right in your original post, you cannot see into, out of, or through magical darkness unless you have Blindsight or something like the Warlock invocation Devil's Sight. The spell blocks regular vision as per the general rules on vision and light, plus darkvision because of the spell text.
It is still a useful spell as Lunali pointed out, just more for utility rather than advantage on attacks.
Hmm, it is indeed confusing, as there are many overlapping rules applicable: rules of the Darkness spell itself, rules for light, rules for obscurement, rules for advantage and disadvantage based on sight, and rules for hiding.
I was at first convinced by your reasoning, and it might have been a factor in my original conclusion, although I forgot where the source of my belief that you can't see through darkness came from. But I think there isn't quite enough in the rules you linked to support your conclusion.
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.
"Blocks vision entirely" does seem to imply your conclusion. However, the next clarifying sentence only refers to seeing objects in that area, not beyond it, or seeing objects outside from within.
By common sense, areas of non-magical darkness don't block vision passing through them. You can stand well outside the radius of dim light of a campfire on a moonlit night and still see the campfire. Yet the rules, interpreted as you did, would imply you cannot. Some of the other sources of heavy obscurement, like fog or dense foliage, should block vision through them, but I think darkness, magical or otherwise, only blocks vision inside it.
I most often see Darkness cast by a warlock with Devil's Sight. That effectively grants you advantage on all your attacks and disadvantage on opponent's attacks against you. That's rather powerful in my experience.
And yes, the vision and light rules are too shallow and can seem confusing and illogical. As I read RAW, you can see what is on the opposite side of heavily obscured areas such as an area of darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage, but not what is within the area. To me, this makes sense regarding darkness, but is nonsense when it comes to opaque fog and the like.
I most often see Darkness cast by a warlock with Devil's Sight. That effectively grants you advantage on all your attacks and disadvantage on opponent's attacks against you. That's rather powerful in my experience.
And yes, the vision and light rules are too shallow and can seem confusing and illogical. As I read RAW, you can see what is on the opposite side of heavily obscured areas such as an area of darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage, but not what is within the area. To me, this makes sense regarding darkness, but is nonsense when it comes to opaque fog and the like.
Yes, one of the deeply strange and inescapable conclusions the vision and light rules lead to is that darkness and fog obey the same rules, even though in the real world they absolutely do not.
Yes, one of the deeply strange and inescapable conclusions the vision and light rules lead to is that darkness and fog obey the same rules, even though in the real world they absolutely do not.
Though in the case of the Darkness it's often been read as blocking line of sight, though I'm not sure that's correct. If it doesn't block line of sight, you don't need Devil's Sight, any ranged attacker can just lurk within a bubble of darkness and get advantage against anyone more than 15' away from them, which is incredibly powerful.
Yes, one of the deeply strange and inescapable conclusions the vision and light rules lead to is that darkness and fog obey the same rules, even though in the real world they absolutely do not.
Though in the case of the Darkness it's often been read as blocking line of sight, though I'm not sure that's correct. If it doesn't block line of sight, you don't need Devil's Sight, any ranged attacker can just lurk within a bubble of darkness and get advantage against anyone more than 15' away from them, which is incredibly powerful.
Well, it explicitly does block line of sight for creatures with darkvision.
By common sense, areas of non-magical darkness don't block vision passing through them. You can stand well outside the radius of dim light of a campfire on a moonlit night and still see the campfire. Yet the rules, interpreted as you did, would imply you cannot. Some of the other sources of heavy obscurement, like fog or dense foliage, should block vision through them, but I think darkness, magical or otherwise, only blocks vision inside it.
I agree on this regarding nonmagical darkness, the rules are oversimplified and do not handle that situation very well, but magical darkness is a different story and I believe it should behave the same as heavy fog or dense foliage.
Taking a common sense approach, regular darkness is just an absence of light. This does not prevent light rays from passing through areas of darkness to reach your eyes, which is what allows you to see a campfire at night from far away. On the other hand, the Darkness spell states that "nonmagical light can't illuminate it", which suggests that any regular light simply stops when it touches the area of darkness. Those light rays from the distance campfire cannot reach you across the area of magical darkness.
Taking a common sense approach, regular darkness is just an absence of light. This does not prevent light rays from passing through areas of darkness to reach your eyes, which is what allows you to see a campfire at night from far away. On the other hand, the Darkness spell states that "nonmagical light can't illuminate it", which suggests that any regular light simply stops when it touches the area of darkness. Those light rays from the distance campfire cannot reach you across the area of magical darkness.
Alternatively, it could be taken to mean that light doesn't reflect inside the area.
Taking a common sense approach, regular darkness is just an absence of light. This does not prevent light rays from passing through areas of darkness to reach your eyes, which is what allows you to see a campfire at night from far away. On the other hand, the Darkness spell states that "nonmagical light can't illuminate it", which suggests that any regular light simply stops when it touches the area of darkness. Those light rays from the distance campfire cannot reach you across the area of magical darkness.
Alternatively, it could be taken to mean that light doesn't reflect inside the area.
Even then, you’d be able to see objects within the magical darkness as black silhouettes if they stand between you and a brighter background, which is frequently the case with a confined area of magical darkness created by the spell.
Still, I favor this interpretation, and I think the intent is that such darkness is sufficient to impose disadvantage / advantage and give you the opportunity to hide, while not necessarily making you 100% invisible in all circumstances.
Am I getting something wrong here? Is there a good use of this spell?
Darkness stops opportunity attacks, protection fighting style, counterspell (and every other spell that has the requirements of "that you can see"), and many other features and abilities. It is a great tool for GTFO situations.
It also dispels effects like faerie fire, light, guiding bolt (and possibly effects like create bonfire and color spray, depending on how you rule the light requirement).
It also, you know, stops people seeing what you are doing, which is immensely valuable. :-)
Two fighters which can see each other will fight better than two fighters that cannot see each other.
Why do you say that? Your opponent can't see to dodge your attacks, so fighting in darkness is more effective.
I agree completely with your top statement.
Regarding my comment I think it is something you should experience. Just to get personal perspective. See if you can get a couple friends, some markers (cones or somesuch) and a basketball court. The boundaries would be the area inside the 3 point mark (not exact but closest most convenient area for darkness). Have a fight in the space. First hit wins. Be sure to time it.
Then blindfold the participants and try it again. See which fight takes longer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Regarding my comment I think it is something you should experience. Just to get personal perspective. See if you can get a couple friends, some markers (cones or somesuch) and a basketball court. The boundaries would be the area inside the 3 point mark (not exact but closest most convenient area for darkness). Have a fight in the space. First hit wins. Be sure to time it.
Then blindfold the participants and try it again. See which fight takes longer.
A better equivalent would be that situation with a group of professional basketball players who are highly trained at passing accurately and often by using cues other than direct line of sight. Also the defenders get two baseball bats to deflect shots, allowing them to actively defend from threats they can see.
It's not perfect because adv/dis are very broad modifiers, but it's not as completely illogical as you make it seem. Active defense is an important thing in D&D, and when you can't see you can't do it.
Regarding my comment I think it is something you should experience. Just to get personal perspective. See if you can get a couple friends, some markers (cones or somesuch) and a basketball court. The boundaries would be the area inside the 3 point mark (not exact but closest most convenient area for darkness). Have a fight in the space. First hit wins. Be sure to time it.
Then blindfold the participants and try it again. See which fight takes longer.
A better equivalent would be that situation with a group of professional basketball players who are highly trained at passing accurately and often by using cues other than direct line of sight. Also the defenders get two baseball bats to deflect shots, allowing them to actively defend from threats they can see.
It's not perfect because adv/dis are very broad modifiers, but it's not as completely illogical as you make it seem. Active defense is an important thing in D&D, and when you can't see you can't do it.
Which is why I said all attacks in darkness are at disadvantage even though the rules say it would be regular rolls.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Even then, you’d be able to see objects within the magical darkness as black silhouettes if they stand between you and a brighter background, which is frequently the case with a confined area of magical darkness created by the spell.
But the rays from the brighter background can't penetrate the area of darkness, thus the thing inside the darkness won't appear silhouetted by any light on the far side of the darkness.
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The Darkness spell creates a 15 foot radius area of magical darkness. This seems like it could be really useful. But when you actually get into the rules for darkness, it doesn't really do much at all.
The darkness will give disadvantage on attacks, right? Or is it advantage? Actually it's both.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets
"When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll."
"When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it."
Within the area of darkness, most creatures can't see or be seen. Advantage and disadvantage therefore cancel out, and it's a straight roll. One effect, at least, would be to neutralize any other source of advantage or disadvantage, since any number of sources of advantage and any number of sources of disadvantage cancel out. Screw you, rogues.
What about attacking into or out of the darkness? It seems to me it's the same. The darkness prevents you from seeing into or through it if you're outside it, and it prevents you from seeing anything if you're inside it. If either attacker or target is in the darkness, it's a straight roll.
The one exception would be if a creature has a non-visual sense like Blindsight, Tremorsense, or Truesight.
But wait, can you even tell a target is there in the darkness, or know where it is to target it? Yes! Unless a creature uses the Hide action, their position remains known from cues such as sound. Becoming undetected requires two actions: one to cast Darkness, and one to Hide. It's possible for these two actions to be taken by two different creatures, but it takes a lot of actions for not a whole lot of results. Attack, cast a spell, or move outside the darkness, and you can be detected again.
Am I getting something wrong here? Is there a good use of this spell?
Crowd control, area denial, sneaking through a small area or just exploit warlock's devil's sight invocation.
My personal favorite use for it is that it's a hard counter to beholders
In my games unless you can see in darkness, all attacks into, through, or while inside are at disadvantage. I know what the rules say but in this case they don't make sense.
Two fighters which can see each other will fight better than two fighters that cannot see each other.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
What makes you think that? The only text in the spell that talks about that only impacts creatures with Darkvision.
There's nothing in the spell that says you can't see things outside the sphere that are in areas of dim light and bright light. The only thing it says it is blocks darkvision.
Darkness stops opportunity attacks, protection fighting style, counterspell (and every other spell that has the requirements of "that you can see"), and many other features and abilities. It is a great tool for GTFO situations.
It also dispels effects like faerie fire, light, guiding bolt (and possibly effects like create bonfire and color spray, depending on how you rule the light requirement).
It also, you know, stops people seeing what you are doing, which is immensely valuable. :-)
Why do you say that? Your opponent can't see to dodge your attacks, so fighting in darkness is more effective.
Okay, thanks. I guess I assumed if creatures with Darkvision couldn't see through it, certainly creatures without Darkvision couldn't either. I guess it's supposed to mean the darkness blocks Darkvision, so you can't see things in ordinary darkness behind it, but objects in light behind it are still visible, and lit objects outside it are visible to creatures inside. Literally, though, it would mean if you have Darkvision, your ordinary vision is blocked as well.
I guess I am applying too much science. I thought if the darkness blocked light entering it, it would also block the reflected light by which you can see an object. But I guess I should think of it as blocking light sufficient to count as bright or dim light, but not blocking light reflected from a surface.
So basically, anything inside can't be seen by normal vision or Darkvision, but things outside can be seen if they are in dim or bright light. So creatures inside would have advantage on attacks against creatures outside, and creatures outside would have disadvantage on creatures inside.
You were right in your original post, you cannot see into, out of, or through magical darkness unless you have Blindsight or something like the Warlock invocation Devil's Sight. The spell blocks regular vision as per the general rules on vision and light, plus darkvision because of the spell text.
It is still a useful spell as Lunali pointed out, just more for utility rather than advantage on attacks.
Hmm, it is indeed confusing, as there are many overlapping rules applicable: rules of the Darkness spell itself, rules for light, rules for obscurement, rules for advantage and disadvantage based on sight, and rules for hiding.
I was at first convinced by your reasoning, and it might have been a factor in my original conclusion, although I forgot where the source of my belief that you can't see through darkness came from. But I think there isn't quite enough in the rules you linked to support your conclusion.
"Blocks vision entirely" does seem to imply your conclusion. However, the next clarifying sentence only refers to seeing objects in that area, not beyond it, or seeing objects outside from within.
By common sense, areas of non-magical darkness don't block vision passing through them. You can stand well outside the radius of dim light of a campfire on a moonlit night and still see the campfire. Yet the rules, interpreted as you did, would imply you cannot. Some of the other sources of heavy obscurement, like fog or dense foliage, should block vision through them, but I think darkness, magical or otherwise, only blocks vision inside it.
I most often see Darkness cast by a warlock with Devil's Sight. That effectively grants you advantage on all your attacks and disadvantage on opponent's attacks against you. That's rather powerful in my experience.
And yes, the vision and light rules are too shallow and can seem confusing and illogical. As I read RAW, you can see what is on the opposite side of heavily obscured areas such as an area of darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage, but not what is within the area. To me, this makes sense regarding darkness, but is nonsense when it comes to opaque fog and the like.
Yes, one of the deeply strange and inescapable conclusions the vision and light rules lead to is that darkness and fog obey the same rules, even though in the real world they absolutely do not.
Though in the case of the Darkness it's often been read as blocking line of sight, though I'm not sure that's correct. If it doesn't block line of sight, you don't need Devil's Sight, any ranged attacker can just lurk within a bubble of darkness and get advantage against anyone more than 15' away from them, which is incredibly powerful.
Well, it explicitly does block line of sight for creatures with darkvision.
I agree on this regarding nonmagical darkness, the rules are oversimplified and do not handle that situation very well, but magical darkness is a different story and I believe it should behave the same as heavy fog or dense foliage.
Taking a common sense approach, regular darkness is just an absence of light. This does not prevent light rays from passing through areas of darkness to reach your eyes, which is what allows you to see a campfire at night from far away. On the other hand, the Darkness spell states that "nonmagical light can't illuminate it", which suggests that any regular light simply stops when it touches the area of darkness. Those light rays from the distance campfire cannot reach you across the area of magical darkness.
Alternatively, it could be taken to mean that light doesn't reflect inside the area.
Even then, you’d be able to see objects within the magical darkness as black silhouettes if they stand between you and a brighter background, which is frequently the case with a confined area of magical darkness created by the spell.
Still, I favor this interpretation, and I think the intent is that such darkness is sufficient to impose disadvantage / advantage and give you the opportunity to hide, while not necessarily making you 100% invisible in all circumstances.
I agree completely with your top statement.
Regarding my comment I think it is something you should experience. Just to get personal perspective. See if you can get a couple friends, some markers (cones or somesuch) and a basketball court. The boundaries would be the area inside the 3 point mark (not exact but closest most convenient area for darkness). Have a fight in the space. First hit wins. Be sure to time it.
Then blindfold the participants and try it again. See which fight takes longer.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
A better equivalent would be that situation with a group of professional basketball players who are highly trained at passing accurately and often by using cues other than direct line of sight. Also the defenders get two baseball bats to deflect shots, allowing them to actively defend from threats they can see.
It's not perfect because adv/dis are very broad modifiers, but it's not as completely illogical as you make it seem. Active defense is an important thing in D&D, and when you can't see you can't do it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Which is why I said all attacks in darkness are at disadvantage even though the rules say it would be regular rolls.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
But the rays from the brighter background can't penetrate the area of darkness, thus the thing inside the darkness won't appear silhouetted by any light on the far side of the darkness.