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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wizard casts Fog Cloud on the goblin. The area around the goblin is heavily obscured. The goblin has the blinded condition.
next in initiative, the ranger wants to fire their longbow at the Goblin.
heavily obscured says: You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. the Blinded condition says: "Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Advantage, and your attack rolls have Disadvantage."
So, the goblin is blinded, therefore attack rolls against it have Advantage. The Ranger is blinded so attack rolls are at disadvantage.
advantage and disadvantage cancel out.
result: the Ranger shoots their arrow at the goblin, who they cannot see, with a normal 1d20 attack roll.
Did I miss anything?
I think that makes sense.
Heyo! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
I try to keep the peace and be neutral most of the time…
If you are just setting up a scenario and simply declaring that the goblin has the blinded condition, then that's fine. But if you are trying to say that the goblin has the blinded condition because it is located within a Fog Cloud, that's incorrect.
However, in this case the distinction is somewhat moot since it is very reasonable to rule that the fog is blocking the defender's Line of Sight to the attacker and therefore the attacker is attacking with the benefit of the Unseen Attacker rules. The end result is what you have described -- a normal attack roll.
Fog CLoud: "You create a 20-foot-radius Sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The Sphere is Heavily Obscured."
Heavily Obscured: "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. "
Are you saying the goblin can see normally while IN the HEAVILY OBSCURED space as long as they are looking at something OUTSIDE the HEAVILY OBSCURED SPACE???
they are BLIND if they look at their FEET? But they can see the ranger 60 feet away clear as day and attack normally?
They can't look two feet down to see the ground, cause the ground is in the heavily obscured space, so they are blind to that. But they can look through 10 feet of heavily obscured fog and see the ranger 60 feet away?
Interesting proposition.
completely bonkers from a realism point of view. but interesting....
I play that fog cloud gives you the blinded condition. You can't see anything except yourself.
Heyo! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
I try to keep the peace and be neutral most of the time…
Oh my goodness. If that's the case, Darkness is garbage but Fog Cloud is AMAZING.
Fog CLoud: "You create a 20-foot-radius Sphere of fog centered on a point within range. The Sphere is Heavily Obscured."
Heavily Obscured: "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. "
Fog Cloud means I can see OUT of the cloud, but people cant see IN. That's not fog. That's BETTER magical darkness. If I'm standing in a large field at night in the darkness. And 60 feet away, a goblin is standing by a bonfire, I can see OUT of my area of darkness IN to the lighted area of the bonfire, and I can see the goblin. But the goblin cant see IN to my dark area. That's what Fog Cloud is describing. The ONLY effect listed for Heavily Obscured is you are blind trying to see something INSIDE the heavily obscured area. But nothing says you are blind looking OUT of the heavily obscured area. That's not how fog acutaly works in real life. But the rules dont impose blindness looking THORUGH many squares of heavily obscured terrain as long as the target is in the open, in an unobscured square. You could be standing in 100 feet deep jungle, all heavily obscured, but you can perfectly see the goblin standing out in the open grassy field.
that is SO weird and not intuitive at all.
magical darkness, on the otherhand, is now grossly overrated:
Darkness: "For the duration, magical Darkness spreads from a point within range and fills a 15-foot-radius Sphere. Darkvision can’t see through it, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it."
Darkness: An area of Darkness is Heavily Obscured.
Heavily Obscured: "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. "
So, Darkness spell creates darkness, any area that is dark is heavily obscured, heavily obscured areas impose blindness to target anything INSIDE the dark area, but not OUT of the dark area. HOWEVER, teh Darkness spell specifically adds that you also CANT SEE THROUGH this dark area, meaning you cant target anything outside the darkness either.
So, the only way to see THROUGH magical darkness is devil sight, tremosense, blindsight, etc. So you need to get that feature to see OUT of the magical darkness and see the goblin standing by teh bonfire, and target them noramlly.
or, just cast fog cloud on you, and you can target anyone outside the cloud just fine.
I have NEVER seen a campaign run fog cloud this way.
I really only use darkness when I want to disable someone with see invisibility but NOT truesight. I have a rule that in the Darkness spell, Faerie fire works a little differently so that darkness is a bit better. I don't like using darkness that much though.
Heyo! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
I try to keep the peace and be neutral most of the time…
For clarity, I rule that you can't see anyone in the fog cloud if you're outside, and vice verse. Faerie fire functions normally. Which means that yes, fog cloud becomes much better,
Heyo! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
I try to keep the peace and be neutral most of the time…
You're using a lot of homebrew, which is fine. but I'm trying to understand the rules, RAW. There's some stuff that RAW is bonkers and some stuff that RAW is just badly written and explained. I want to clear up any misunderstandings I might have before I homebrew this one.
That's a good idea. Check RAW first, then homebrew. I tend to do both at once, leading to rather chaotic sessions.
Heyo! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
I try to keep the peace and be neutral most of the time…
There are threads about this idea TarodNet is a master of finding threads on this forum so if he finds this one he can link you the discussions.
From memory most people saw a difference between natural darkness and magical darkness and yes fog cloud. It got long, lots of arguments back and forth which I don't really want to get into. If I knew how to tag people I'd tag TarodNet so they can link things. They are really nice and helpful with things like this.
You're not missing anything to me it's how i handle Heavily Obscured area such as one created by Fog Cloud spell.
Hi adventurer! You summoned Tarod successfully xD
And yeah… this topic comes up from time to time (I ordered them chronologically! :D). My ruling is the same as what LinkArcher and Plaguescarred said.
That's correct. There's nothing about the rules for a Fog Cloud or about the rules for any Heavily Obscured space that actually causes the Blinded condition to be applied to a creature all the time. Creatures are only actually blinded "while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space".
Yes, this is generally how the rules work for any Heavily Obscured space when only that rule is used.
This is NOT the end result in the Fog Cloud example because of a different rule as I explained in my earlier post. A DM can reasonably rule that dense fog is a phenomenon that blocks Line of Sight to the attacker. The rules for Line of Sight are different than the rules for a Heavily Obscured area. In the case of being within a fog cloud, both rules apply. In this way, it's similar to if there is a brick wall somewhere between the defender and the attacking Ranger -- the brick wall interrupts Line of Sight, which causes the attacking Ranger to be Unseen. This is NOT the same thing as just saying that the defender is blinded -- which he is not.
It's actually exactly the opposite.
Both Darkness and Fog Cloud cast upon a defender cause the defender to become located within a Heavily Obscured area. However, the Fog Cloud prevents the defender from seeing OUT of the cloud because of a different rule -- the fact that the fog interrupts Line of Sight.
Magical Darkness does not do that. Casting Darkness onto the defender is a buff for the defender because the defender is now located within a Heavily Obscured space, but the defender CAN see OUT of the darkness -- exactly like in your campfire example. The reason why this happens is because Darkness is NOT a phenomenon that interrupts Line of Sight.
Regarding cloud of fog, I'd like to add the rule from the DMG:
"A DM can reasonably rule that dense fog is a phenomenon that blocks Line of Sight to the attacker."
I cannkt find the phrase "line of sight" in the PHB anywhere.
If this is homebrew, thats fine. But i am trying to understand the rules here as written.
It seems to be homebrew, as the spell for fog cloud says the area is heavily obscured, and the rule for heavily obscured specifically says "You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something IN a Heavily Obscured space."
The "IN" emphasis added by me.
Darkness spell actually describes the feature you describe: "magical Darkness spreads from a point within range and fills a 15-foot-radius Sphere. Darkvision can’t see through it, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it."
Darkness as a condition means: the area is again heavily obscured, and heavily obscured means, again, that you are blind targetting anything IN the ares.
But the darkness spell bit that says "darkvision cant see THROUGH it" would mean the Darkness spell blocks line of sight, to or from anyone in the aoe.
Whereas the fog cloud aoe is simply heavily obscured, and the rules say you are only blind when shooting INTO the area, not out.
The Darkness spell calls out that darkvision cannot see through it. But no such mention is made in fog cloud spell. So i would read that as saying the difference is intended, or old rules prevented firing out of fog cloud, but those rules are no longer in 2024 and fog cloud spell needs an update?
I see nothing in the spell description that suggests this "line of sight" idea kicks in for fog cliud, but it does seem clearly explained that line of sight is blocked in the Darkness spell
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2618910-fog-cloud
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/rules-glossary#HeavilyObscured
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/2619080-darkness
The rules describe Heavily Obscured Areas in a manner that a Fog Cloud is opaque, which i interpret effects that obscure vision this way to block Line of Sight as explained in the DMG.
"Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is (A) opaque. (B) You have the Blinded condition (see the Rules Glossary) when trying to see something there."
A AND B are mutually exclusive. If it is truly opaque, you cant see into or out of Heavily Obscured areas. But B specificslly says only that Heavily Obscured only invokes the Blinded condition when looking INTO the area.
I assume (A) is more flavor because it doesnt specify specific conditions. And also, its not entirely accurate all the time. If you are on an open field in total darkness, but a human is sitting next to a campfire some distance away, you are heavily obscured by natural darkness but you can see througb that darkness and see the human at his campfire.you can see them. They cant see you. That actually exactly fits what (B) is saying. But heavily obscured being "opaque" in that situation is just silly
It seems like the writers got a little fast and loose with the rules and mixed and matched darkness and obscuration. They are both heavily obscured, but you can see through darkness if something has a small circle of light 60 feet away. But you cant see through something like a thick jungle, even in broad daylight.
This is not homebrew. The rules for Line of Sight have been quoted and posted by someone else just before your post -- you may have been typing when that post hit the thread. I won't bother repeating that quoted rule here.
The rules for Line of Sight appear in the DMG instead of in the PHB. My own speculation as to why it was done that way is because the creators are giving the Dungeon Master the flexibility to determine which particular phenomena in their game actually interrupts Line of Sight and which do not.
I'm not sure what purpose your emphasis serves here. I'll try to elaborate slightly in case there is still some question about the rule.
The rule for a Heavily Obscured Area describes an area. In particular, it describes an area that is obscured from view from everyone (regardless of where they are located). It's not something that actually permanently inflicts some sort of Condition onto any creatures like some AoE magical effects do when they actually come into contact with a creature. It's just describing the fact that whatever might be located within the area cannot be seen. That mechanic is described as causing the blinded condition to any creature (regardless of where they are located) only "while trying to see something in" that area.
As it turns out, the interpretation of the rules for mundane Darkness and magical Darkness created by the Darkness spell are heavily contentious within the community.
To make a long story short, there are exactly two places within these rules where the authors were a bit sloppy. This makes it more difficult for many people to correctly interpret these rules. In both cases they chose to use a word which has a particular dictionary definition, but in context it is clear that the word is not being used that way:
1. "A heavily obscured area . . . is opaque."
For most people, this brings to mind a solid object. For example, I might have an opaque table made of solid oak in my dining room. But this word in this context is being used to describe an area, not an object. When the entire block of text for the rules for Obscured Areas (including Lightly Obscured Areas and Heavily Obscured Areas) is read all together, it is clear that the author is comparing and contrasting and is using transition and introductory phrases (a.k.a. flavor text) to set up the important mechanics. The important mechanic for a Heavily Obscured area (as confirmed in the Rules Glossary) is that a creature has the blinded condition when trying to see something in a heavily obscured space. The introduction for that concept describes that mechanic as "opaque". In other words, in this context, the word "opaque" means that a creature has the blinded condition when trying to see something in a heavily obscured space.
Remember, the concept is that the things that are located in the area cannot be seen because that area is obscured.
2. The Darkness spell: "Darkvision can't see through it".
The word "through" here is frequently taken out of context. In context, this statement is simply describing the fact that darkvision does not work the way that it normally does while trying to see something in the area. If the text meant that the area itself cannot be seen through, then they would have said that. There would have been no reason to even mention darkvision since darkvision cannot help you see through solid objects, for example.
So, let's back up. What does darkvision actually normally do? Well, there's a rule for that:
Next, the rule for mundane Darkness is simply that it is a Heavily Obscured area. What does that mean? It just means that the things in that area cannot be seen. UNLESS you have darkvision. So, if you have darkvision, instead of using the rule that says that the creature is blinded when trying to see something there, we instead treat that darkness "as if it were" Dim Light. And when it comes to Dim Light, we now have to turn to the rule for Lightly Obscured Areas instead of the rule for Heavily Obscured Areas. Mechanically, when such a creature tries to see an object that is located within Dim Light, they can see it just fine. An author might describe this as "seeing through" this lighting condition in order to locate such an object. If that object required making a perception check in order to spot it, such a check is made at disadvantage. In addition, using darkvision in this way causes you to see such objects in shades of gray.
Note that none of those rules have anything to do with whether or not you can actually see through an area -- for that we need to rely on the rules for Line of Sight. But we'll come back to that . . .
Fast forward to magical Darkness as described by the spell description for the Darkness spell. Mechanically, the Darkness spell creates mundane Darkness except that the properties of that mundane Darkness are modified in exactly the ways that are listed in the spell description, which is what makes it magical Darkness instead of mundane Darkness. One of the ways in which this Darkness is explicitly different than mundane Darkness is the fact that this particular Darkness prevents creatures with darkvision from being able to see the objects that are located within that area. This author decided to describe this as saying that such a creature is unable to "see through" this Darkness. It's sloppy. It's not talking about Line of Sight. It's talking about whether the objects within that area can be seen.
There are already several very long threads where people argue back and forth about this for ages and this stems from the fact that the authors just weren't careful enough when trying to describe these concepts. It's not really worth the time that it would take to read all the way through those and hopefully this doesn't turn into another one of those threads because all of the information has been presented and people are just going to play it however they want to play it.
In case it wasn't clear, in summary: You can see out of mundane Darkness. You can see out of the magical Darkness of the Darkness spell. You cannot see out of a fog cloud. (An argument could be made that if you are located at the very edge of the Fog Cloud, you could see out while remaining Unseen. The argument gets even stronger if you go through the trouble to take the Hide action there. But these details are likely beyond the scope of this discussion.)
So, the problem is, the DND rule books have a definition of Heavily Obscured
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/rules-glossary#HeavilyObscured
"You have the Blinded condition while trying to see something in a Heavily Obscured space. "
And then the rules go rambling on about what "obscured" means in a non-definitional area of the book, and they change the very definition of the term:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/playing-the-game#ObscuredAreas
"A Heavily Obscured area—such as an area with Darkness, heavy fog, or dense foliage—is opaque. You have the Blinded condition (see the rules glossary) when trying to see something there."
adding the bit that its "opague" completely changes the behavior of the space.
GAAAAHHHH
You are KILLING ME, wotc....