D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Crimson Longinus]

You see an area that looks dark.

It might be hard to describe, because it doesn't exist in the real world, but I honestly don't know why it seems so hard to imagine. It's dark. It's a dark area. It doesn't get brighter when you hold a torch up to it, but you can see light sources on the other side. What does it look like? It looks like whatever is there, only everything is a whole lot darker, so details are hard as heck to make out. You might not be able to see anything in the area at all, or maybe you can. That all depends on what's going on, where it is, and what's behind it. All we know is that it's dark, and it looks dark.

This simply cannot work if it doesn't also block the line of sight to things behind it. Things are unseen in darkness because you cannot tell them apart from their surroundings; everything looks black. If the background can be seen just fine trough the bubble, this simply doesn't work. Stop imagining it in some murky tunnels with faint distant torches, imagine it in a bright day at a flat field. There are people on both sides of it, and in it. It is literally impossible to describe how the people could see each other through it just fine, but not see people in it.

 

[Democratus]

It is literally impossible to describe how the people could see each other through it just fine, but not see people in it.

Not impossible at all. You just described it. "You can clearly see things on the other side of the patch of darkness. But within, all seems dark and obscured."

How is this possible? Magic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not impossible at all. You just described it. "You can clearly see things on the other side of the patch of darkness. But within, all seems dark and obscured."

How is this possible? Magic.

Obscured by what! You cannot just handwave logical impossibility with 'but it's magic.' It feels to me that in this thread I am trying to explain to a bunch of blind people how vision works!

 

[Democratus]

Obscured by what! You cannot just handwave logical impossibility with 'but it's magic.' It feels to me that in this thread I am trying to explain to a bunch of blind people how vision works!

Obscured by darkness, obviously.

And yes, you absolutely can handwave impossibility with 'magic'. That's what magic is for.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Obscured by darkness, obviously.

Except that people keep insisting that the the things behind the bubble are visible just fine. So there actually isn't any darkness for the people inside the bubble to blend into. A person looking at them would see them as stark silhouettes against the background created by the things behind the bubble.

And yes, you absolutely can handwave impossibility with 'magic'. That's what magic is for.

Not a logical impossibility. This is 1+1=3 level stuff.

 

[gatorized]

Not if it teleports light to the other side or supresses it as it passes through it

With magic you kind of have to think outside the box...

Neither of which are effects of the spell.

 

[gatorized]

.

 

[FrogReaver]

Neither of which are effects of the spell.

Spells don’t get into physics minutia - which leaves us to speculate on those phenomenon.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not at all. I was responding to your contention that RAW could be read to mean that silhouettes are always heavily obscured (and thus never seen) in 5e, and pointing out the complication that produces for the silhouettes of walls.

So your take is that silhouettes are never heavily obscured?

 

[jgsugden]

One thing to consider here: If they intended for the spell to work as it had in prior editions, they have an obvious tool to have used that would allow for that interpretation. They'd just have said the area within the magical darkness is heavily obscured (likely with some caveats). They either should have done that had the intention of magical darkness been to block sight through the field of darkness, or they should have been clear that it was not intended to work that way given the history of the spell in prior editions.

It is a poorly worded spell.