Seeing/attacking out of Darkness

The description of the darkness spell makes it clear that creatures within it gain concealment, whether attacked by enemies from within or without. What about when a creature within a darkened area is viewing and attacking (for example, with a ranged weapon) a creature outside the area? Suppose someone in the area of a darkness spell shoots an arrow at someone standing in normal light conditions outside it. Does the attacker have any problems viewing, targeting or hitting the enemy due to the darkness spell?

shilsen said:

The description of the darkness spell makes it clear that creatures within it gain concealment, whether attacked by enemies from within or without. What about when a creature within a darkened area is viewing and attacking (for example, with a ranged weapon) a creature outside the area? Suppose someone in the area of a darkness spell shoots an arrow at someone standing in normal light conditions outside it. Does the attacker have any problems viewing, targeting or hitting the enemy due to the darkness spell?

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Hmmm...this would have been clear-cut with earlier versions of the Darkness spell. By the wording of the rules and the way that such shadowyness would probably work on a quasi-realistic model, I would say that they have no problem shooting people who aren't in the radius.

dancing in the dark...

We had this question too, with regard to regular darkness, but it seems to be about the same situation (if not, sorry for hijack)

Monster (with bow) hiding in cave.
Party (with torch) approaches monster.

Party is 80' away from monster, monster has no lowlight or darkvision.
Torch emits light in a 20' radius, shadowy light 40' radius.

The party cannot see the monster, but can the monster see the party?

The players said that the monster could see the party because they are illuminated and within his regular vision distance, heck, we were in range for his bow so he must be able to see this far. (what is regular light vision range, with clear conditions?) The DM argued that since he wasn't in the torchlight, he couldn't see us until we were 40' from him. Was the only time I've seen a party argue with the DM so the enemy got a fair shake.

Common sense says he can see the party, but we couldn't find anthing in the rules about creatures in darkness seeing anything outside that darkened area.

I am 150' away from you on a moonless night in a field. You are holding a lit torch. I can see and target you. You can neither see nor target me.

Illumination/darkness is a way of labelling things in an area as being visible or having concealment or having total concealment. In the case of the Darkness spell, the spell parially conceals things in its area. It has no effect on things outside its area. Someone inside can easily target something outside, without that 20% miss chance.

SRD said:

To determine whether your target has concealment from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that provides concealment, the target has concealment.

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So the enemy outside the darkness has concealment if you are in the spell's area.

Bad Paper said:

I am 150' away from you on a moonless night in a field. You are holding a lit torch. I can see and target you. You can neither see nor target me.

Illumination/darkness is a way of labelling things in an area as being visible or having concealment or having total concealment. In the case of the Darkness spell, the spell parially conceals things in its area. It has no effect on things outside its area. Someone inside can easily target something outside, without that 20% miss chance.

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but can you see what you are doing? how to aim the bow? how to move your body? and so on?

ThirdWizard said:

So the enemy outside the darkness has concealment if you are in the spell's area.

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The weirdness with the minutaie of the new spell's wording, though, is that none of the squares grant concealment, but rather the spell gives concealment directly to any creature in the area itself. I could certainly see your way working too, that's why its such an interesting question.

i attack the darkness.




i cast magic missile

Rystil Arden said:

The weirdness with the minutaie of the new spell's wording, though, is that none of the squares grant concealment, but rather the spell gives concealment directly to any creature in the area itself. I could certainly see your way working too, that's why its such an interesting question.

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Okay, that is interesting. Only creatures in the area have the concealment, not objects! I suppose the question becomes a question of what concealment means. Basically, the rules say that you have concealment if... you have concealment. It isn't that well defined.

Personally, I run the 3.0 version, so I'm not up on the dimness spell.

ThirdWizard said:

Okay, that is interesting. Only creatures in the area have the concealment, not objects! I suppose the question becomes a question of what concealment means. Basically, the rules say that you have concealment if... you have concealment. It isn't that well defined.

Personally, I run the 3.0 version, so I'm not up on the dimness spell.

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I use the 3.0 Darkness also; I'm with you on that one...

i attack the darkness.




i cast magic missile

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Dead Alewives, always good