D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[FitzTheRuke]

No, it's not that. I accept that the game state 'darkness' can also mean, really, really dark but still not total pitch-black. But the difference I was trying to explain was that I consider the visibility from the point of view of the one who is looking, thus visibility is subjective, not objective. The same thing can be obscured to one person but not to another. Darkvision of course commonly creates this situation, but other factors should logically cause it too, like the relative positions of the onlookers.








For example here bunny is next to dense foliage. I'd rule she is heavily obscured to the dog, but not obscured at all to the cat. Pretty normal situation. In some situations lightning conditions might require similar directional assessment.

Yeah, I'm not sure anyone would disagree with you here. From all this discussion I gather that some people might, if the trees were instead some kind of magical darkness (just assume that the spell had a different area for this example). Because Bunny is standing in Bright Light, and so is illuminated through the darkness enough (probably not totally visually, but enough) to be not Heavily Obscured. (Perhaps bunny appears to be in Dim Light, I don't know). I'm not saying I agree with that, (I would probably rule the same as you), but I DO understand it. I don't think it's hard to understand, and I wouldn't argue with my DM if they ruled that way.

... Are you beginning to understand that our perspectives are not as different as you've inferred?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Normal darkness sure, but not the spell. The spell specifically says that non-magical light doesn't illuminate it, so there is nothing but blackness within the spell. No shades of grey at all. Since it also negates darkvision, there is no way to see at all while inside of it, or into it if you are outside of it. All ambient light ceases to have any effect.

Right, but FrogReaver was making the suggestion that "doesn't illuminate" could simply mean "doesn't cause the area to become any brighter than it already is" IE "does not negate the spell". And doesn't HAVE to mean "does not allow any light whatsoever to pass through the area". Illumination INCLUDES going from low-illumination to higher levels of illumination. We all understand that it is easy to read that line and assume NO-LIGHT. But it doesn't HAVE to, if you consider that "Heavy Obscurement" and "Darkness" include gradients where you can see a bit, but not terribly well.

I would argue that INCLUDING those gradients is better for your narrative, as it helps to explain why the ONLY penalties are failing perception checks and having disadvantage on attacks (and the reverse). No chance of bumping into walls or tripping over things, you can still dash, etc. Seems like you can see a bit to me. YMMV.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, I'm not sure anyone would disagree with you here. From all this discussion I gather that some people might, if the trees were instead some kind of magical darkness (just assume that the spell had a different area for this example). Because Bunny is standing in Bright Light, and so is illuminated through the darkness enough (probably not totally visually, but enough) to be not Heavily Obscured. (Perhaps bunny appears to be in Dim Light, I don't know). I'm not saying I agree with that, (I would probably rule the same as you), but I DO understand it. I don't think it's hard to understand, and I wouldn't argue with my DM if they ruled that way.

... Are you beginning to understand that our perspectives are not as different as you've inferred?

Well, there really aren't just two sides. Like the visibility rules, that's just a simplification that fails to reflect the reality properly. For example whilst you and I still disagree, your position is closer to mine than Hriston's. BTW, things in brightly lit areas seen though the darkness spell appearing dimly lit would be consistent with how you attempted to describe how you imagine the spell looking. It most definitely would not be RAW at all though. Not that this should stop anyone from running it that way.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Well, there really aren't just two sides. Like the visibility rules, that's just a simplification that fails to reflect the reality properly. For example whilst you and I still disagree, your position is closer to mine than Hriston's. BTW, things in brightly lit areas seen though the darkness spell appearing dimly lit would be consistent with how you attempted to describe how you imagine the spell looking. It most definitely would not be RAW at all though. Not that this should stop anyone from running it that way.

We generally agree. (I put it as "sides" the whole time to illustrate this!)

The only thing I would add is that it's not a stretch if someone wants to rule that bunny is lit enough to count as bright light (as RAW, for not being in the darkness/obscurement area) even IF she's still visually a little shadowy for standing behind the spell. It's only a matter of degree. The visualisation could be exactly the same.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right, but FrogReaver was making the suggestion that "doesn't illuminate" could simply mean "doesn't cause the area to become any brighter than it already is" IE "does not negate the spell". And doesn't HAVE to mean "does not allow any light whatsoever to pass through the area". Illumination INCLUDES going from low-illumination to higher levels of illumination. We all understand that it is easy to read that line and assume NO-LIGHT. But it doesn't HAVE to, if you consider that "Heavy Obscurement" and "Darkness" include gradients where you can see a bit, but not terribly well.

Yeah, you correctly identified the part of the rules where 'what is RAW' fails. The rule say what they say, they will not contain any more information about what 'cannot be illuminated' actually means.

I would argue that INCLUDING those gradients is better for your narrative, as it helps to explain why the ONLY penalties are failing perception checks and having disadvantage on attacks (and the reverse). No chance of bumping into walls or tripping over things, you can still dash, etc. Seems like you can see a bit to me. YMMV.

Though the rules are the same even if you were literally blinded. Furthermore, 'can't see' is part of the rules, and the GM is perfectly free to assign any situational effects that might arise from that, such as requiring acrobatic tests to not trip in difficult terrain etc.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right, but FrogReaver was making the suggestion that "doesn't illuminate" could simply mean "doesn't cause the area to become any brighter than it already is" IE "does not negate the spell".

These are two different things. Any amount of light entering the area would make it brighter. It’s possible to interpret it to mean “doesn’t make it bright enough to change the effective level of obscurement.” But that’s a pretty radical interpretation of “can’t be illuminated” if you ask me.

 

[Hriston]

It does for them, and that's what matters. It literally doesn't matter one bit whether area is obscured or not if no one is looking, it only matters what the effect is for those who are looking.

"For them" but not actually to the players at the table, and that's what matters. Darkvision is an exception to the rule that creatures cannot see things (clearly) that are in an area of darkness because a creature with darkvision sees in darkness "as if" it were dim light. There has to be an underlying understanding that there is a heavily obscured area of darkness in the shared fiction for that exception to apply to it in the first place.

The explanation is that I understand how vision works. I could of course go into more detail, but at this point it is obvious that it would be a waste of time.

So your explanation for our disagreement is that I don't understand how vision works. How convenient for you to not have to explain why you think my games are filled with absurdities.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

These are two different things. Any amount of light entering the area would make it brighter. It’s possible to interpret it to mean “doesn’t make it bright enough to change the effective level of obscurement.” But that’s a pretty radical interpretation of “can’t be illuminated” if you ask me.

Sure, but we are also talking about an area that (usually) STARTED illuminated. All that's being suggested is that the Darkness spell did not bring the original illumination down to zero. Any visual effect (light technically passing through it, so you can make out things on the other side) would not increase the illumination (by any effective measure).

Again, the only difference in our positions is how ABSOLUTE you choose to make the conditions. Which always, always leaves contradictions (I'm not saying that I'm not leaving contradictions TOO - I'm only arguing that it works well enough to work just as well.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure, but we are also talking about an area that (usually) STARTED illuminated. All that's being suggested is that the Darkness spell did not bring the original illumination down to zero. Any visual effect (light technically passing through it, so you can make out things on the other side) would not increase the illumination (by any effective measure).

If you really think the intended interpretation of the Darkness spell was that it decreases but does not eliminate the ambient illumination in the affected area to the point that it counts as darkness and doesn’t allow it to increase from there, all I can say is that sounds far-fetched to me. I also still can’t see how that would allow one to see things that are outside the area through it more clearly than one can see things that are within the area.

 

[Hriston]

The word illumination is used in the rules for light to refer to three categories of illumination: (1) bright light - defined as daylight and areas immediately surrounding "sources of illumination", (2) dim light - defined as intermediate areas between bright light and darkness, twilight, or the light of a super-moon, and (3) darkness - defined as light levels as divergent as the light of a normal full moon down to absolute darkness.

So when the spell says "nonmagical light can’t illuminate it", this references the game's categories of illumination, meaning that the category of the area of darkness created by the spell cannot be increased to dim or bright light by any nonmagical source of illumination.