D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Xetheral]

Well, this gets back to my view that a silhouette, a visual effect, cannot itself be heavily obscured. A creature or object might be heavily obscured (or unseen for some other reason), and as a result you might be able to see its silhouette under the right circumstances. As a DM, though, I'm not introducing a silhouette without some good reason because I think it would tend to confuse whether the creature or object could be seen or not, and my goal is to present a clear situation to the players that can be engaged with. Also, a point of clarification, for a heavily obscured creature's location to be known is the default, unless it is also hidden.

That totally works. My point was that making it work requires going beyond the text, no matter what solution one prefers.

I agree that a heavily obscured creature's location is known, if it is within hearing range. A silhouette revealing a creature's location can often be relevant at distances beyond effective hearing range.

 

[Hriston]

That totally works. My point was that making it work requires going beyond the text, no matter what solution one prefers.

I agree that a heavily obscured creature's location is known, if it is within hearing range. A silhouette revealing a creature's location can often be relevant at distances beyond effective hearing range.

I'm not sure what you mean by "going beyond the text" which is probably why I didn't get your point. I don't see the vision and light rules as a fantasy physics engine or as an attempt to simulate how light and vision work in the real world. I view them as I do the rest of the rules, as a resolution mechanic for processing fiction to find out what happens next. I don't know if that fits into one of your categories.

Ah yeah, about the silhouette at a distance, if a creature is heavily obscured beyond audible range and not trying to hide then a silhouette might be a good way to telegraph its presence to the players. In practice though, if a creature is at that type of distance (more than 120 feet away maximum) and heavily obscured, I treat it as undetectable by normal means.

 

[Xetheral]

I'm not sure what you mean by "going beyond the text" which is probably why I didn't get your point. I don't see the vision and light rules as a fantasy physics engine or as an attempt to simulate how light and vision work in the real world. I view them as I do the rest of the rules, as a resolution mechanic for processing fiction to find out what happens next. I don't know if that fits into one of your categories.

By "going beyond the text", I simply mean that the written rules aren't comprehensive enough to resolve issues relating to silhouettes and opaque objects. There are many ways to fill in the gaps in the rules, and it sounds like your approach works well and is consistent. I see the other proposed approaches for filling in the gaps in the rules as equally valid. Some approaches might be more faithful to more of the text than other approaches, but since everyone needs to fill in the gaps I don't think it's meaningful to say that one approach to gap-filling is RAW and another is not-RAW. Sure, we could argue about which is more-Raw and which is less-RAW, but since the RAW in this case is incomplete there's no objective standard by which to measure.

Ah yeah, about the silhouette at a distance, if a creature is heavily obscured beyond audible range and not trying to hide then a silhouette might be a good way to telegraph its presence to the players. In practice though, if a creature is at that type of distance (more than 120 feet away maximum) and heavily obscured, I treat it as undetectable by normal means.

It sounds like I likely use shorter effective hearing ranges than you do, so it probably comes up more at my table. I also might be somewhat more simulationist in the sense that I'm going to describe something as a silhouette if, in my determination, it would be visible as a silhouette, and not simply for telegraphing purposes. Just different styles.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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.

Okay. It creates darkness that can't be illuminated, but that darkness can exist on a spectrum (no pun intended) from pitch-black to just very dark and still count as "darkness" is all I've been trying to get across. I essentially agree with you about the second part, but I'm also not bothered by a DM who would rule it that way, even if I might chose not to.

We're all, to differing extents, at least partially treating the rules as an abstraction of the real world and ruling accordingly. @Hriston is ruling that the benefits of being Heavily Obscured apply to creatures whose locations can be seen as a silhouette; I'm ruling that creatures visible as a silhouette aren't Heavily Obscured; @Crimson Longinus is ruling that squares in which creatures could cast silhouettes aren't in darkness from the perspective of observers who could see silhouettes. It's impossible to objectively identity a point on this spectrum as the dividing line between RAW and not-RAW. To the extent that which is which even matters, the question of which is which only has subjective answers, because the rules are too simplistic to be run as-is as a description of the physics of light in the game world: rulings will be required, at every table. In other worlds, the RAW itself for vision and obscurement is not well-defined.

This is a good analysis. Even RAW/not-RAW exists on a spectrum, or at least, the line can be hard to define.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

It might be that way. 1e describes it as blackness(no light at all) and normal light doesn't work. 2e describes it as pitch black and normal light doesn't work. 3e describes it as shadowy and only provides a 20% miss chance. And I don't know about 4e. 5e hearkens back to 1e for a lot of things, so they might have gone back to the TSR darkness and not what WotC did in 3e, or maybe not. You can't really tell from the wording, although the 3e wording calls out it's shadowy nature, while the 5e wording does not.

I personally would and will run it as pitch blackness. I also don't think that it makes for worse narrative. The penalty for attacking an invisible being which you cannot see at all is disadvantage. Being in pitch black just means that you and your opponents are effectively invisible to one another.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It might be that way. 1e describes it as blackness(no light at all) and normal light doesn't work. 2e describes it as pitch black and normal light doesn't work. 3e describes it as shadowy and only provides a 20% miss chance. And I don't know about 4e. 5e hearkens back to 1e for a lot of things, so they might have gone back to the TSR darkness and not what WotC did in 3e, or maybe not. You can't really tell from the wording, although the 3e wording calls out it's shadowy nature, while the 5e wording does not.

I personally would and will run it as pitch blackness. I also don't think that it makes for worse narrative. The penalty for attacking an invisible being which you cannot see at all is disadvantage. Being in pitch black just means that you and your opponents are effectively invisible to one another.

5e RAW makes "pitch blackness" cause NO penalties whatsoever. You can't see your opponent, so you have disadvantage. They can't see you so you have advantage. The two cancel each other out, and you just fight like normal. Unless anyone is hiding, you know where each other are, so you just fight like normal. RAW, the spell does nothing to two combatants.

Out of curiosity, how do any of you deal with that? (IE how do you run it/what uses do you find for the spell?)

 

[Maxperson]

5e RAW makes "pitch blackness" cause NO penalties whatsoever. You can't see your opponent, so you have disadvantage. They can't see you so you have advantage. The two cancel each other out, and you just fight like normal. Unless anyone is hiding, you know where each other are, so you just fight like normal. RAW, the spell does nothing to two combatants.

Out of curiosity, how do any of you deal with that? (IE how do you run it/what uses do you find for the spell?)

This is where rulings over rules needs to come into play. Obviously, the advantage portion is due to the attacker being able to see the target that can't see him, so he gets advantage. If both are in total darkness and cannot see each other, it makes no sense for an attacker to have advantage on the swing, so only disadvantage should apply.

 

[Nefermandias]

My only real gripe with your Darkness blocking vision beyond the affected area is that it becomes no different than a cloud of black smoke instead of the magically induced ausence of light you would expect from the spell description.

 

[pwhimp]

I'm in the opaque black globe camp because I think it far more closely matches the spell text, but I definitely get the criticisms. The opaque globe interpretation practically makes it a portable fog cloud spell. There's also some verisimilitude breaking when total blackness has no effect on movement or attacks within the globe, but that's more of a general rule gripe than a darkness-specific one.

 

[Hriston]

By "going beyond the text", I simply mean that the written rules aren't comprehensive enough to resolve issues relating to silhouettes and opaque objects. There are many ways to fill in the gaps in the rules, and it sounds like your approach works well and is consistent. I see the other proposed approaches for filling in the gaps in the rules as equally valid. Some approaches might be more faithful to more of the text than other approaches, but since everyone needs to fill in the gaps I don't think it's meaningful to say that one approach to gap-filling is RAW and another is not-RAW. Sure, we could argue about which is more-Raw and which is less-RAW, but since the RAW in this case is incomplete there's no objective standard by which to measure.

I'm honestly not sure what sort of issues you're referring to. Silhouettes and opaque objects are just elements of the fiction that act within the fiction like silhouettes and opaque objects. There's a rule that you can't place an area of effect on the other side of an intervening opaque object which is about all that's needed. The only place I've seen issues like these come up is in online discussions like this where someone is trying to poke holes in someone else's interpretation of the rules.

It sounds like I likely use shorter effective hearing ranges than you do, so it probably comes up more at my table. I also might be somewhat more simulationist in the sense that I'm going to describe something as a silhouette if, in my determination, it would be visible as a silhouette, and not simply for telegraphing purposes. Just different styles.

That was the maximum possible range I use for normal levels of sound. I determine that number randomly, so usually it's around 70 feet. If a creature is trying to be quiet, it's half that number. I keep the fiction what I would call loose outside of combat, so I've never been in a situation where established fiction constrained me to narrate a silhouette, but I can imagine it happening.