Shadow of Moil reduces light in the 10' radius around you by one step (bright-> dim, dim->darkness).
Say you're standing outside at noon, and have Sunlight Sensitivity. You cast Shadow Of Moil -- are you still "in sunlight"? (It's dim sunlight, but still sunlight, right?)
I'd rule that dim light never counts as direct sunlight, which is what sunlight sensitivity cares about. The light is being obscured.
The shade of buildings, trees, and clouds are also all dim light and don't impact sunlight sensitive creatures. This is even relevant in some modules (notably curse of strahd and rime of the frost maiden).
Its important when making a ruling here to distinguish between bright light and sunlight. From a sage advice: "A sensitivity to sunlight is a trope in fantasy, associated with creatures of darkness. It's usually more metaphysical than biological," and from another: "The text of Sunlight Sensitivity specifies that sunlight is the problem for the creature. Bright light in general is fine."
From these two, I would rule that sunlight is unique property of the sun's light. Doesn't matter how dim it is - either naturally at dusk or dawn or magically through spells like Shadow of Moil. You would still be in "sunlight" and still be affected by Sunlight Sensitivity. Sunlight Sensitivity isn't about the creature's eyes being hurt from the light of the sun, it has more to do with the magical properties of the sun and creatures of darkness.
Since Dawn states "This light is sunlight." It would also affect Sunlight Sensitivity on a creature in Shadow of Moil.
Shadow of Moil reduces light in the 10' radius around you by one step (bright-> dim, dim->darkness).
Say you're standing outside at noon, and have Sunlight Sensitivity. You cast Shadow Of Moil -- are you still "in sunlight"? (It's dim sunlight, but still sunlight, right?)
I'd say no since the spell makes you heavily obscured. If it blocks vision entirely, it's because you're imprenetrable by any light, including sunlight i would logically assume. Therefore you would not be in direct sunlight.
I don't like penalties. I won't play a character who has them. I've been told many times how I wouldn't be allowed in someone's game. So I'm not so good when it comes to advice.
With that in mind, when someone takes a penalty, they have chosen to suffer it, and they ought to not be allowed any way to get around it. Sunlight sensitivity triggers when you or the target is in direct sunlight, Dawn creates it, so they argue about how exact the range is, and how easy it is to avoid, so if someone casts Daylight on you and keeps you inside it, Shadow of Moil works just fine, out to 10 feet, you are covered, and anything outside that range that is in sunlight triggers your sensitivity.
At least they should get a magic item that fixes it. In my opinion, it's much to easy to get around a curse laid by Corrilian Larithian himself, that's got to be a Legendary curse, with an item that is only rare like the knaves eyepatch unless they have two of them, one for each eye. That would leave them one Attunment slot left, if they want to go that route.
For myself, I make anyone suffer the full penalty for anything they have chosen to have. A lot of people just can't stand that.
The thing is though, 5E is not intended to be played with round-the-clock disadvantage all day every day. At the point where you let a player make a drow, and then they are making build and roleplay decisions to try to create shade (occupying a free hand with a parasol, taking special spells and magic items that create dim light, just trying to stick to the shadows and avoid patches of bright light during the daytime).... they're doing what they're supposed to. If you say "I don't care, this story takes place outside during daytime, and you'll always have disadvantage on everything in that context no matter what you try to do".... you've probably being too hard on your player, who does not represent the drow race as a whole, but rather is an exceptional and heroic individual and can be cut some slack.
I would rule Shadow of Moil compensates for sunlight sensitivity within its area of effect in the example you gave. You are still in sunlight, but you are no longer in direct sunlight.
It's something that applies to all penalties, but I'll be specific about Drow, and Sunlight Sensitivity. It's not all day. It's not every day. Drow are just great at night. Their Sunlight Sensitivity doesn't bother them then. That's about half the day more or less. They get Superior Darkvision too.
So in my game, I advise against playing a Drow. If they want to play a heroic one, that's ok, and they no longer get Sunlight Sensitivity. They also renounce all the benefits of the Drow race. No more innate spells, no more Superior Darkvision, I will let them keep normal Darkvison. Any magical equipment they might have had loses it's magic. When you voluntarily take a penalty, you can't reasonably expect not to suffer from it. I have a simple rule. It doesn't matter what I think, anyone can do what they like, but if 2 people complain, we have a problem. I'll discuss it with the group, if we can't work something out, I'll take it private, and if we still can't get a meeting of the minds, you get one of two choices; change your character, or find another game.
From these two, I would rule that sunlight is unique property of the sun's light. Doesn't matter how dim it is - either naturally at dusk or dawn or magically through spells like Shadow of Moil. You would still be in "sunlight" and still be affected by Sunlight Sensitivity. Sunlight Sensitivity isn't about the creature's eyes being hurt from the light of the sun, it has more to do with the magical properties of the sun and creatures of darkness.
In that case, how would you rule an overcast day? It's still sunlight, just dimmer. CoS would be much different if an overcast day still counts as sunlight.
From these two, I would rule that sunlight is unique property of the sun's light. Doesn't matter how dim it is - either naturally at dusk or dawn or magically through spells like Shadow of Moil. You would still be in "sunlight" and still be affected by Sunlight Sensitivity. Sunlight Sensitivity isn't about the creature's eyes being hurt from the light of the sun, it has more to do with the magical properties of the sun and creatures of darkness.
In that case, how would you rule an overcast day? It's still sunlight, just dimmer. CoS would be much different if an overcast day still counts as sunlight.
As far as curse of strahd is concerned: (quote from Curse of Strahd) "By the will of the Dark Powers, the sun never fully shines in the lands of Barovia. Even during the day, the sky is dimmed by fog or storm clouds, or the light is strangely muted. Barovian daylight is bright light, yet it isn’t considered sunlight for the purpose of effects and vulnerabilities, such as a vampire’s, tied to sunlight. Nevertheless, Strahd and his vampire spawn tend to stay indoors most of the day and venture out at night, and they are subject to sunlight created by magic."
The only reason Curse of Strahd plays this way is a specific magical exception, not because "overcast days aren't sunlight". And even overcast days are "bright" (from Vision and Light in the PHB) "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."
I think the Curse of Strahd is not a good example here, because it's specifically a horror game with different rules just to make Strahd more foreboding.
Now, I'm not really leaning one way or the other here (despite my loaded question earlier). However, I can't really see anything that requires the sunlight to still be "bright" in order to count.
From these two, I would rule that sunlight is unique property of the sun's light. Doesn't matter how dim it is - either naturally at dusk or dawn or magically through spells like Shadow of Moil. You would still be in "sunlight" and still be affected by Sunlight Sensitivity. Sunlight Sensitivity isn't about the creature's eyes being hurt from the light of the sun, it has more to do with the magical properties of the sun and creatures of darkness.
In that case, how would you rule an overcast day? It's still sunlight, just dimmer. CoS would be much different if an overcast day still counts as sunlight.
I would use the ambient daylight as my marker. Bright sunlight outside on even a completely overcast day = sunlight sensitivity in effect. Clouds heavy enough to shade the ambient outdoor light from bright to dim = no longer in direct sunlight. For me, it would take fog or mist to accomplish that under natural circumstances. Or one of those REALLY nasty storms rolling in, like where it makes the light-sensitive streetlights come on in the middle of the day in real life.
Obviously, the rules don't provide such a scale, so it's up to the storyteller. Also, weather doesn't generally happen without reason, at least in any game I have run, played or watched, so if this phenomenon is happening, it is for a story reason.
But I would rule you are not in direct sunlight, which is a stipulation of the feature.
You're assuming this is a PC. The monster rules don't mention direct sunlight in the trait anywhere (not even the entry for Drow).
If I decide this works, it makes a great tool for certain NPCs, such as vampires or creatures of shadow. And sure, I could just rule it's a special power or something, but I like to think through such things in case my players turn it around later ;)
I may decide that the more careful rewording of the feature they use for Races should be the case for all monsters as well, which would make it consistent at least.
Shadow of Moil reduces light in the 10' radius around you by one step (bright-> dim, dim->darkness).
Say you're standing outside at noon, and have Sunlight Sensitivity. You cast Shadow Of Moil -- are you still "in sunlight"? (It's dim sunlight, but still sunlight, right?)
Here's a lower-level question for you: Darkness, which has always had at least two distinct interpretations, essentially rooted in the fact that a creature without darkvision can normally see "through" darkness (for example, in a very large pitch black cave, if someone 200 feet from you lights a bonfire, you'll see the bonfire through the darkness). The spell specifies that for an observer with darkvision, it acts like an ink blot - they can't see through it, so it behaves like Fog Cloud with respect to their vision - but is silent on modifying the rules for one without darkvision. Nonmagical light can't "illuminate" what's inside it, which does not necessarily mean the photons don't reach their targets - spells can do many things, and there are methods for preventing illumination that don't require eating the photons before they reach their targets. If a normal person can see a bonfire with a Darkness spell between them and the bonfire - and the spell certainly can be read to believe that they can - what exactly is happening to photons within the spell is clearly a deeper mystery than for Fog Cloud.
Another fly in your ointment is being invisible. Most sources of invisibility aren't mental - the thing rendered invisible is genuinely transparent. There are significant similarities between Shadow of Moil and Greater Invisibility - so many that anyone with access to both has to seriously consider which one to actually learn/prepare. However, invisible creatures aren't automatically blinded, so somehow their brain is receiving visual stimuli. If the spell works by duplicating photons to eject the right photon where it needs to and blocking reflected photons - so photons pass through the spell, being duplicated, then bounce off and are absorbed - then the creature's eyes receive untampered sunlight if it was sunlight coming in, and therefore the creature is in sunlight.
The tl;dr here is that almost none of these spells are written thoroughly enough for your question to have a RAW answer. Fog Cloud, Darkness, Greater Invisibility, and Shadow of Moil are excellent spells to consider simultaneously when trying to decide on a ruling or rulings.
As far as curse of strahd is concerned: (quote from Curse of Strahd) "By the will of the Dark Powers, the sun never fully shines in the lands of Barovia. Even during the day, the sky is dimmed by fog or storm clouds, or the light is strangely muted. Barovian daylight is bright light, yet it isn’t considered sunlight for the purpose of effects and vulnerabilities, such as a vampire’s, tied to sunlight. Nevertheless, Strahd and his vampire spawn tend to stay indoors most of the day and venture out at night, and they are subject to sunlight created by magic."
The only reason Curse of Strahd plays this way is a specific magical exception, not because "overcast days aren't sunlight". And even overcast days are "bright" (from Vision and Light in the PHB) "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."
I think the Curse of Strahd is not a good example here, because it's specifically a horror game with different rules just to make Strahd more foreboding.
Now, I'm not really leaning one way or the other here (despite my loaded question earlier). However, I can't really see anything that requires the sunlight to still be "bright" in order to count.
Rime of the Frost Maiden Spoilers:
In RotFM, "dim light" is responsible for an Underdark race with Sunlight Sensitivity invading the surface
Illumination
So long as the Everlasting Rime lasts, natural light in Icewind Dale is never brighter than dim. In normal (non-blizzard) conditions, twilight extends from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Icewind Dale is otherwise dark until Auril’s aurora or the full moon appears in the night sky.
The long nights and sunless days are a blessing to Xardorok Sunblight, a duergar who longs to carve out a domain for himself on the surface and enslave the people of Ten-Towns in the process.
Throughout the adventure, there is no mention of the Duergar being in any way disadvantaged by the dim light when they're encountered on the surface.
In conclusion, "dim light" during daytime is not "sunlight" when WotC is writing adventures.
As far as curse of strahd is concerned: (quote from Curse of Strahd) "By the will of the Dark Powers, the sun never fully shines in the lands of Barovia. Even during the day, the sky is dimmed by fog or storm clouds, or the light is strangely muted. Barovian daylight is bright light, yet it isn’t considered sunlight for the purpose of effects and vulnerabilities, such as a vampire’s, tied to sunlight. Nevertheless, Strahd and his vampire spawn tend to stay indoors most of the day and venture out at night, and they are subject to sunlight created by magic."
The only reason Curse of Strahd plays this way is a specific magical exception, not because "overcast days aren't sunlight". And even overcast days are "bright" (from Vision and Light in the PHB) "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."
I think the Curse of Strahd is not a good example here, because it's specifically a horror game with different rules just to make Strahd more foreboding.
Now, I'm not really leaning one way or the other here (despite my loaded question earlier). However, I can't really see anything that requires the sunlight to still be "bright" in order to count.
Rime of the Frost Maiden Spoilers:
In RotFM, "dim light" is responsible for an Underdark race with Sunlight Sensitivity invading the surface
Illumination
So long as the Everlasting Rime lasts, natural light in Icewind Dale is never brighter than dim. In normal (non-blizzard) conditions, twilight extends from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Icewind Dale is otherwise dark until Auril’s aurora or the full moon appears in the night sky.
The long nights and sunless days are a blessing to Xardorok Sunblight, a duergar who longs to carve out a domain for himself on the surface and enslave the people of Ten-Towns in the process.
Throughout the adventure, there is no mention of the Duergar being in any way disadvantaged by the dim light when they're encountered on the surface.
In conclusion, "dim light" during daytime is not "day light" when WotC is writing adventures.
That is a pretty good argument for this working even without "direct sunlight" being mentioned in the monster trait. I think I'll let this combo work. My poor players ;)
Shadow of Moil reduces light in the 10' radius around you by one step (bright-> dim, dim->darkness).
Say you're standing outside at noon, and have Sunlight Sensitivity. You cast Shadow Of Moil -- are you still "in sunlight"? (It's dim sunlight, but still sunlight, right?)
What if the effect is created by the Dawn spell ?
I'd rule that dim light never counts as direct sunlight, which is what sunlight sensitivity cares about. The light is being obscured.
The shade of buildings, trees, and clouds are also all dim light and don't impact sunlight sensitive creatures. This is even relevant in some modules (notably curse of strahd and rime of the frost maiden).
Its important when making a ruling here to distinguish between bright light and sunlight. From a sage advice: "A sensitivity to sunlight is a trope in fantasy, associated with creatures of darkness. It's usually more metaphysical than biological," and from another: "The text of Sunlight Sensitivity specifies that sunlight is the problem for the creature. Bright light in general is fine."
From these two, I would rule that sunlight is unique property of the sun's light. Doesn't matter how dim it is - either naturally at dusk or dawn or magically through spells like Shadow of Moil. You would still be in "sunlight" and still be affected by Sunlight Sensitivity. Sunlight Sensitivity isn't about the creature's eyes being hurt from the light of the sun, it has more to do with the magical properties of the sun and creatures of darkness.
Since Dawn states "This light is sunlight." It would also affect Sunlight Sensitivity on a creature in Shadow of Moil.
I’ve always treated sunlight as a subtype of bright light, but I do suppose there’s some judgment calls there.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I'd say no since the spell makes you heavily obscured. If it blocks vision entirely, it's because you're imprenetrable by any light, including sunlight i would logically assume. Therefore you would not be in direct sunlight.
I don't like penalties. I won't play a character who has them. I've been told many times how I wouldn't be allowed in someone's game. So I'm not so good when it comes to advice.
With that in mind, when someone takes a penalty, they have chosen to suffer it, and they ought to not be allowed any way to get around it. Sunlight sensitivity triggers when you or the target is in direct sunlight, Dawn creates it, so they argue about how exact the range is, and how easy it is to avoid, so if someone casts Daylight on you and keeps you inside it, Shadow of Moil works just fine, out to 10 feet, you are covered, and anything outside that range that is in sunlight triggers your sensitivity.
At least they should get a magic item that fixes it. In my opinion, it's much to easy to get around a curse laid by Corrilian Larithian himself, that's got to be a Legendary curse, with an item that is only rare like the knaves eyepatch unless they have two of them, one for each eye. That would leave them one Attunment slot left, if they want to go that route.
For myself, I make anyone suffer the full penalty for anything they have chosen to have. A lot of people just can't stand that.
<Insert clever signature here>
The thing is though, 5E is not intended to be played with round-the-clock disadvantage all day every day. At the point where you let a player make a drow, and then they are making build and roleplay decisions to try to create shade (occupying a free hand with a parasol, taking special spells and magic items that create dim light, just trying to stick to the shadows and avoid patches of bright light during the daytime).... they're doing what they're supposed to. If you say "I don't care, this story takes place outside during daytime, and you'll always have disadvantage on everything in that context no matter what you try to do".... you've probably being too hard on your player, who does not represent the drow race as a whole, but rather is an exceptional and heroic individual and can be cut some slack.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I would rule Shadow of Moil compensates for sunlight sensitivity within its area of effect in the example you gave. You are still in sunlight, but you are no longer in direct sunlight.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's something that applies to all penalties, but I'll be specific about Drow, and Sunlight Sensitivity. It's not all day. It's not every day. Drow are just great at night. Their Sunlight Sensitivity doesn't bother them then. That's about half the day more or less. They get Superior Darkvision too.
So in my game, I advise against playing a Drow. If they want to play a heroic one, that's ok, and they no longer get Sunlight Sensitivity. They also renounce all the benefits of the Drow race. No more innate spells, no more Superior Darkvision, I will let them keep normal Darkvison. Any magical equipment they might have had loses it's magic. When you voluntarily take a penalty, you can't reasonably expect not to suffer from it. I have a simple rule. It doesn't matter what I think, anyone can do what they like, but if 2 people complain, we have a problem. I'll discuss it with the group, if we can't work something out, I'll take it private, and if we still can't get a meeting of the minds, you get one of two choices; change your character, or find another game.
<Insert clever signature here>
In that case, how would you rule an overcast day? It's still sunlight, just dimmer. CoS would be much different if an overcast day still counts as sunlight.
As far as curse of strahd is concerned: (quote from Curse of Strahd)
"By the will of the Dark Powers, the sun never fully shines in the lands of Barovia. Even during the day, the sky is dimmed by fog or storm clouds, or the light is strangely muted. Barovian daylight is bright light, yet it isn’t considered sunlight for the purpose of effects and vulnerabilities, such as a vampire’s, tied to sunlight.
Nevertheless, Strahd and his vampire spawn tend to stay indoors most of the day and venture out at night, and they are subject to sunlight created by magic."
The only reason Curse of Strahd plays this way is a specific magical exception, not because "overcast days aren't sunlight".
And even overcast days are "bright" (from Vision and Light in the PHB)
"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."
I think the Curse of Strahd is not a good example here, because it's specifically a horror game with different rules just to make Strahd more foreboding.
Now, I'm not really leaning one way or the other here (despite my loaded question earlier). However, I can't really see anything that requires the sunlight to still be "bright" in order to count.
I would use the ambient daylight as my marker. Bright sunlight outside on even a completely overcast day = sunlight sensitivity in effect. Clouds heavy enough to shade the ambient outdoor light from bright to dim = no longer in direct sunlight. For me, it would take fog or mist to accomplish that under natural circumstances. Or one of those REALLY nasty storms rolling in, like where it makes the light-sensitive streetlights come on in the middle of the day in real life.
Obviously, the rules don't provide such a scale, so it's up to the storyteller. Also, weather doesn't generally happen without reason, at least in any game I have run, played or watched, so if this phenomenon is happening, it is for a story reason.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
But I would rule you are not in direct sunlight, which is a stipulation of the feature.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You're assuming this is a PC.
The monster rules don't mention direct sunlight in the trait anywhere (not even the entry for Drow).
If I decide this works, it makes a great tool for certain NPCs, such as vampires or creatures of shadow. And sure, I could just rule it's a special power or something, but I like to think through such things in case my players turn it around later ;)
I may decide that the more careful rewording of the feature they use for Races should be the case for all monsters as well, which would make it consistent at least.
Here's a lower-level question for you: Darkness, which has always had at least two distinct interpretations, essentially rooted in the fact that a creature without darkvision can normally see "through" darkness (for example, in a very large pitch black cave, if someone 200 feet from you lights a bonfire, you'll see the bonfire through the darkness). The spell specifies that for an observer with darkvision, it acts like an ink blot - they can't see through it, so it behaves like Fog Cloud with respect to their vision - but is silent on modifying the rules for one without darkvision. Nonmagical light can't "illuminate" what's inside it, which does not necessarily mean the photons don't reach their targets - spells can do many things, and there are methods for preventing illumination that don't require eating the photons before they reach their targets. If a normal person can see a bonfire with a Darkness spell between them and the bonfire - and the spell certainly can be read to believe that they can - what exactly is happening to photons within the spell is clearly a deeper mystery than for Fog Cloud.
Another fly in your ointment is being invisible. Most sources of invisibility aren't mental - the thing rendered invisible is genuinely transparent. There are significant similarities between Shadow of Moil and Greater Invisibility - so many that anyone with access to both has to seriously consider which one to actually learn/prepare. However, invisible creatures aren't automatically blinded, so somehow their brain is receiving visual stimuli. If the spell works by duplicating photons to eject the right photon where it needs to and blocking reflected photons - so photons pass through the spell, being duplicated, then bounce off and are absorbed - then the creature's eyes receive untampered sunlight if it was sunlight coming in, and therefore the creature is in sunlight.
The tl;dr here is that almost none of these spells are written thoroughly enough for your question to have a RAW answer. Fog Cloud, Darkness, Greater Invisibility, and Shadow of Moil are excellent spells to consider simultaneously when trying to decide on a ruling or rulings.
Based on the context of the original post, yes.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Rime of the Frost Maiden Spoilers:
In RotFM, "dim light" is responsible for an Underdark race with Sunlight Sensitivity invading the surface
Throughout the adventure, there is no mention of the Duergar being in any way disadvantaged by the dim light when they're encountered on the surface.
In conclusion, "dim light" during daytime is not "sunlight" when WotC is writing adventures.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
That is a pretty good argument for this working even without "direct sunlight" being mentioned in the monster trait. I think I'll let this combo work. My poor players ;)
What about my original post suggested it was a PC? There are a lot more creatures with Sunlight Sensitivity than there are PC races.