D&D 5E The Impenetrable Darkness

[Plaguescarred]

5E's Impenetrable Darkness syndrome all over again! This happened during 4E early days during first PHB release for those who remember and still happen here. As written, when you are in darkness, you are blinded and cannot see any remove lit area and people within, which is a problem RAW. Any obscured area by darkness block vision which makes you not see through them. That is okay for magical darkness, but natural darkness should not act that way.


Not many will surly run it that way, but it should probably be updated at some point like 4E did, for consistency reasons.

BR65 Heavily Obscured: A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque
fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature
in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the
blinded condition (see the appendix).

BR65 Darkness: Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters
face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit
nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a
subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

BR 105 Blinded: A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails
any ability check that requires sight. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and
the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage.

 

[Nemio]

Can't you just fire Magic Missile at the Darkness?
(Sorry, I had to do it )

I think most people will use common sense and use it the way you described.

 

[MortalPlague]

5th Edition, more than 3rd or 4th, will rely upon the DM to apply common sense to things like this. I like that they aren't wasting the ink to spell out every corner case in the rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

5th Edition, more than 3rd or 4th, will rely upon the DM to apply common sense to things like this. I like that they aren't wasting the ink to spell out every corner case in the rules.

ITIL that dark places in D&D are a "corner case"!

It's godawful writing, I hope you can agree, because it raises questions over whether even magical darkness does this.

 

[Rune]

From the thread title, I thought this was going to be a discussion on the arbitrary (if traditional) range limit on darkvision. Seriously, does limiting the range add anything (but complexity) to the game?

 

[Plaguescarred]

IDK, but I'd be fine with darkvision working up to eyesight.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

From the thread title, I thought this was going to be a discussion on the arbitrary (if traditional) range limit on darkvision. Seriously, does limiting the range add anything (but complexity) to the game?

Not that I can tell. I kind of feel like D&D has been getting successively worse with how it handles vision in just about every edition after 2E, though, so YMMV.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Darkvision can see through non-magical darkness.

In other cases, make some light so that you can see.

There is also the ability of the DM to use common sense in cases when the darkness level isn't complete but still impairs vision- simply apply disadvantage on all vision related ability checks. So at night under a full moon, regular vision would have disadvantage but underground blindness is actually appropriate.

 

[zoroaster100]

I'm not seeing the problem. The rules already say that darkness under a full moon is partial obscurement rather than total. Is the objection just that this should extend to darkness under any significant moonlight, and that total darkness should only apply underground when you have no light source?

 

[Dausuul]

I'm not seeing the problem. The rules already say that darkness under a full moon is partial obscurement rather than total. Is the objection just that this should extend to darkness under any significant moonlight, and that total darkness should only apply underground when you have no light source?

No. The objection is that if you are in a huge underground vault (no intervening walls), and 100 feet away there is a guy with a torch, a strict reading of the rules would say you cannot see the torch. You are outside the torch's light radius, therefore standing in a heavily obscured area, therefore blind and unable to see anything.

This is an absurd outcome. A light source should be more visible in darkness rather than less. If you are close enough to see the torch in daylight, you are close enough to see it in the dark. More generally, whether you can see a given thing at a given distance depends on how well illuminated that thing is, not how well illuminated you are.

The cause of the problem is that D&D is using the obscurement rules to handle both darkness and fog. In reality, the way darkness affects vision is quite distinct from the way fog affects it. However, I'm pretty okay with leaving this one to DM judgement and common sense.