Level
2nd
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
60 ft
(15 ft )
Components
V, M *
Duration
Concentration
10 Minutes
School
Evocation
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Control
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.
If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness.
If any of this spell's area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled.
* - (bat fur and a drop of pitch or piece of coal)
I'm not sure I agree with what some people are saying about the darkness being see-through... First of all, the text says " A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it." Since it is an orb, that means the air within the orb also can't be illuminated. If light cannot illuminate anything within the orb, including the air, there's no way for it to pass through it and appear on the other side. There's also the term "through". If someone can't see through the darkness, that implies that it is opaque. Literally not see-through.
And, I mean, what on Earth would the point of the spell be, if you could see light on the other side of it? If you cast it on yourself, people would still be able to see your silhouette as long as there's a light nearby.
@articas
Imagine, if you will, a dark hallway 200 feet long with torches spaced 100 feet apart. The torches would cast 20 feet of bright light, 20 feet of dim light. This leaves 20 feet of unlit area that you can't "see" inside of but can see the other lit torch area boyond the darkness.
A creature could hide in this darkness for disadvantage on attacks made against it and avantage for attack made on creatues in the darkness. Exept for other creatures with darkvision.
The darkness spell would make it so that creatures with darkvision see the exact same thing as creatures without darkvision. Giving the same 20 feet of see trough space that a creature can hide in for (dis)advantage on attacks.
But that violates the description of the spell. It isn't see-through. It says so in the description. "A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness". It says they can't see through the darkness. Not that they can't see in the darkness. That implies that the darkness is entirely opaque.
Which is totally reasonable. Darkness does not simply affect surfaces, it affects the air. How does light travel through darkness, when darkness is literally defined as the absence of light? If light can travel through darkness, then the sphere of the Darkness spell is being illuminated. Which it can't be.
You cannot see light without being in the light. Even if you're standing in darkness, and you see light far away. You can only see that light because the light is bouncing off of that surface and into your eyes.
Also, the pedant in me feels the need to point out that the darkness spell has a radius of 15 feet. Not 20.
Take a gander at the below link
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/adventuring#VisionandLight
This describes natural darkness like nighttime and enclosed areas as heavily obscured.
Heavily obscured states "A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area."
If you were to take this literally, it would mean that no one could ever see the moon at night time. This is clearly not the case.
Ultimately, it's up to the dm to make a final ruling
Obviously it's always up to the DM. If a DM chose for it to be so, this spell could be a way to summon breadsticks. But when it comes to a standard interpretation from which a DM can deviate, it seems pretty clear to me that the orb of darkness is opaque.
But this is magical darkness. It is a spell that explicitly cannot be seen through or illuminated by non-magical means. It is a sphere filled with darkness. In real non-magical darkness, just like with non-magical light, there's obviously going to be a spectrum. And the light of the moon would not be enough to be considered in dim light, as opposed to darkness.
But once again, this spell explicitly states "nonmagical light can't illuminate it". Which pretty clearly implies that even the light of the moon does not illuminate the inside of the sphere.
(As an edit, I'd like to add that Jeremy Crawford has confirmed that being inside the darkness spell leaves you blinded. https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/12/22/what-happens-if-the-crearure-inside-the-darkness-has-devils-sight/ Which does confirm that the darkness is opaque.)
A cool idea:
"Poor Man's Foresight: if you have a Planar Bound Earth Elemental (so, no concentration requirement), you can cast Darkness on a rock and give it to the earth elemental. Since it has Tremorsense, it will get advantage to hit any non-flying foes (unless they have a way to see through Darkness), and they will in turn have disadvantage to attack it."
Source: https://www.enworld.org/threads/spell-combos-under-concentration-economy.427645/
Jeremy Crawfords tweets are no longer offical rullings. meanwhile there is an official erreta to the PHB posted after that tweet that changes the heavily obscured rule.
"A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area."
A general rule in dnd is that "A spell does, what the spell says it does". Nothing in the spell description states that it is opaque, nothing states that it blocks light. What the spell says it does is create and area of darkness, which is a defined envoronment effect.
Does magical Darkness affect Blindsight?
No. Blindsight does not depend on any light at all and will work just fine in magical darkness.
Except, as it says in what you yourself quoted, a heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely. An entire sphere that blocks vision entirely would literally have to be opaque. Imagine casting this spell in the middle of the day in a desert, with light both coming from above and reflecting off of the sand from every direction. If the darkness was see-through, it wouldn't obscure anything. At best, it would make you look like a silhouette standing in a weirdly black patch of sand.
Once again, the entire area of the sphere is heavily obscured. Not just you, personally, while you happen to be standing in it.
It's also worth noting that, in instances where things aren't obscured to you they've taken the time to specify. Like with the Staff of Swarming Insects "The insects remain for 10 minutes, making the area heavily obscured for creatures other than you."
And you might then say, "But what about regular darkness? Wouldn't that be the same way?" The answer there is that with regular darkness it can still be somewhat illuminated. Like what you quoted. A moonlit night. But that isn't true for the darkness spell. It states that the area inside the orb cannot be illuminated by nonmagical light, at all.
As you said, a spell does what the spell says it does.
its funny arguing this spell because both sides have to ignore half the heavily obscured rules to make their point.
So my counter point is thus. if you want to hardline that first line of the heavily obscured description then Regular darkness is classified as heavily obscured, therefore Darkness blocks vision entirely.
It could certainly be written better, there's no doubt. However, I'm going to argue that regular darkness is different from magical darkness. As I already did, in my previous post.
Fact is, based on what we're given, that regular darkness can be moderately illuminated. But this isn't true for the magical darkness of the Darkness spell. It can't be illuminated by any kind of non-magical light. That's enough, in my opinion, to conclude that you can't treat it the same as regular darkness, and also explains why you can see things whilst in regular darkness.
The Darkness spell has a bit that we can dissect. Firstly calling it magical darkness. Magical darkness itself is not defined in any way in the rules but we can define magical and darkness separately. Magical is defined in the Sage Advice Compendium as thus:
according to this defining it as magical simply means it meets the requirements set above to be classified as magical thereby targetable by effects such as dispel magic and affected by anti-magic zones.
Darkness itself is also defined:
Then of course heavily obscured because that's mentioned:
We all know that darkness does not "block vision". in fact the DMG contradicts this on pg.105 allowing us to see "through" darkness:
so, thus far we've covered that being magical just means its darkness created by a spell, and the darkness it creates should be treated as normal darkness. But the spell description goes on to add some more effects:
Now remember that a general rule to follow is that a spell does, what the spell says it does but this is where it gets tricky. "Darkvision can't see through this darkness" written as is, implies that only darkvision can not see through it. I do not think that this is the intended effect. so we can assume one of two different paths is the intended effect. Either the wording can mean "Normal vision and darkvision can't see through this darkness" OR "Darkvision can't see into this darkness". I believe that the intended effect is the latter, especially with the errata change to heavily obscured areas.
Lastly, I would like to make a comparison between the wording of the Darkness spell and another spell that has clearly defined wording with a similar effect, Hunger of Hadar.
The clear wording of Hunger is that the sphere is blackness and creatures fully within are blinded. These keywords could have easily been added to the darkness spell. If WoTC had intended Darkness to work as a black void they certainly had the ability to have said so.
I feel like you're sort of dancing around my point. You bring up the quote about the fact that the darkness spell can't be illuminated by nonmagical light, but don't address it.
Regardless, this brings up how you should interpret Hunger of Hadar, too. Because the way I've generally seen that spell interpreted, the blindness caused by that spell also blinds people with Devil's Sight and Truesight. The spell is causing the blinded condition, it isn't just blocking vision. Which means that we're tangling with a different beast here.
Is possible bards also can use that spell as well?
What are some of the individual advantages between this spell, Shadow of Moil, and Hunger of Hadar?
Say you cast Darkness around yourself and some enemies and you have Devil's Sight, would you be able to cast or attack with a weapon since Darkness is a concentration spell?
Isn't concentration only preventing you from concentrating on other things, or failing a save after taking damage?
Note: you can have major advantage in battle by taking precautions against the magical darkness such as: warlock ability or looking through a familiar to see targets outside the darkness or looking through bat familiar's senses inside or outside the darkness.
Tip: have a bat familiar hidden in your pocket/cloak, cast darkness, steal items.
Power gaming: look for or craft a ring that has a perpetual darkness spell cast on it.
Holy hell, I just realized I could laywaste my party's druids by banishing their Moonbeams with Darkness! HELL yES!!! That spell is so annoyingly powerful... among the highest output per level spells in the damn GAME.