D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Xetheral]

These 3 examples are from the very first page on the thread. Can you square these with your assertion above?

None of the three examples you provided appear to me to be a close parsing of the text. They're simply citing the text as justification, which is a different type of analysis.

I will grant, however, that all three are making a text-based claim contrary to yours, and @Iry even mentions "RAW". So even though I don't view them as engaging in a close parsing of the text, my assertion was overly broad regarding my understanding of the type of argument they were trying to make. I should have been more precise in how I distinguished my understanding of their claims versus yours. My apologies.

Do you have a response regarding the rest of my post where I discuss why I view your interpretation of the spell as creating holes that the DM has to fill, in contrast to the opaque ink-blot interpretation that can be run as-is?

 

[Emerikol]

It creates an impenetrable darkness. You are blind when in it and you can't see into it or through it.

That is my ruling. It's final. Go away or I start rolling on the wandering monster table.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

@Hriston seems to get them just fine so I don’t think they can be that confusing.

For the record, I found your argument clear, and even (to my surprise) compelling. I may even adopt it at my table because my players won't bother taking that spell as it stands (they way everyone else is reading it) because they can't hide in it without blinding themselves, and they can't blind their enemies with it without "effectively" blinding themselves relative to them.

So it seems "useless". Your way it at least does something, and I agree that it is a possible interpretation of the text.

(Though I may insist that they have to stand at the edge of the darkness to see out of it... if they are in the middle they would have to see "through" it, which the spell clearly does not allow) - I will have to think on that.

 

[Mistwell]

Citations?

I literally did that n Post #175. Which came before this post.

 

[Mistwell]

Those are posts by @Mistwell and @prabe, and one of them is making the same claim as the one you're trying to support. I meant an actual example of someone saying the thing you claimed they were.

Are you 1) being a jerk, or 2) not reading the post in full?

I literally quoted someone making that very argument. How are you not seeing it?

 

[Mistwell]

@Mistwell
Isn’t that what the spell says?

That's literally the topic of this entire thread. No it really does not say that. That really was you saying darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which normal vision doesn't have. Which is what Hriston and you claimed nobody had argued in this thread.

I am starting to wonder if you guys are messing with us. I know, it's April. Fess up, are you guys just messing with people in this thread? Because this is starting to read like a Monty Python skit to me. "Darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which regular vision doesn't have." "There, you just said it!" "No I didn't." "Yes, you did!" "No I didn't. Prove it." "OK here is the quote." "What quote?" "The one I just posted!" "That wasn't a quote of me, that was something you posted." "Yes, I posted a quote from you!" "No you didn't." "I most certainly did! I quoted you saying darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which regular vision doesn't have. It's right there!" "No you didn't. Prove it."

 

[FrogReaver]

That's literally the topic of this entire thread. No it really does not say that. That really was you saying darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which normal vision doesn't have. Which is what Hriston and you claimed nobody had argued in this thread.

I am starting to wonder if you guys are messing with us. I know, it's April. Fess up, are you guys just messing with people in this thread? Because this is starting to read like a Monty Python skit to me. "Darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which regular vision doesn't have." "There, you just said it!" "No I didn't." "Yes, you did!" "No I didn't. Prove it." "OK here is the quote." "What quote?" "The one I just posted!" "That wasn't a quote of me, that was something you posted." "Yes, I posted a quote from you!" "No you didn't." "I most certainly did! I quoted you saying darkvision has a disadvantage to see through magical darkness which regular vision doesn't have. It's right there!" "No you didn't. Prove it."

it amazes me how one can be so wrong about what a post says. Me Quoting the rules text as is that ‘those with darkvison cannot see through this darkness’ doesn’t have any bearing on whether I believe that texts means a character with dark vision standing in that darkness can see out of it - which is precisely the position I’ve taken

To elaborate a bit: the reason I quote that text and emphasize it as I do, is that the rules text quote does serve as a great counterpoint to anyone claiming the darkness spell behaves differently in regards to regular vision than non-magical darkness when there’s no actual indication in the text of the spell that it does so.

how this wasn’t blindingly obvious I’ll never understand. How you can turn this into an attack about being in bad faith is even more egregious.

 

[FrogReaver]

For the record, I found your argument clear, and even (to my surprise) compelling. I may even adopt it at my table because my players won't bother taking that spell as it stands (they way everyone else is reading it) because they can't hide in it without blinding themselves, and they can't blind their enemies with it without "effectively" blinding themselves relative to them.

So it seems "useless". Your way it at least does something, and I agree that it is a possible interpretation of the text.

(Though I may insist that they have to stand at the edge of the darkness to see out of it... if they are in the middle they would have to see "through" it, which the spell clearly does not allow) - I will have to think on that.

My take is that in relation to darkness ‘seeing through it’ always has the natural language implication of seeing into it.

take a field where on one side I’m in bright light and far away there’s someone else in bright light but otherwise in between is darkness. If I’m trying to see a cow in the field I might say ‘I can’t see the cow through the darkness’. I would never say I can see the ‘brightly lit far away person through the darkness’ because naturally when we talk about seeing through the darkness it implies we are trying to see something in the darkness.

 

[Mistwell]

it amazes me how one can be so wrong about what a post says. Me Quoting the rules text as is that ‘those with darkvison cannot see through this darkness’ doesn’t have any bearing on whether I believe that texts means a character with dark vision standing in that darkness can see out of it - which is precisely the position I’ve taken

To elaborate a bit: the reason I quote that text and emphasize it as I do, is that the rules text quote does serve as a great counterpoint to anyone claiming the darkness spell behaves differently in regards to regular vision than non-magical darkness when there’s no actual indication in the text of the spell that it does so.

how this wasn’t blindingly obvious I’ll never understand. How you can turn this into an attack about being in bad faith is even more egregious.

I will make this as simple as I can. Are these positions you agree with?

1) A character with darkvision cannot see through magical darkness;
2) A character without darkvision can see through magical darkness.

Ignore the "standing in" bit. Just answer this question.

 

[FrogReaver]

I will make this as simple as I can. Are these positions you agree with?

1) A character with darkvision cannot see through magical darkness;
2) A character without darkvision can see through magical darkness.

Ignore the "standing in" bit. Just answer this question.

it depends on what one means by the phrase ‘see through darkness’

what you take that phrase to mean isn’t the same as what I take it to mean. So I’m going to ask you to be more specific without using that ambiguous phrase, else this whole exercise is just going to create confusion.