D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Hriston]

The rule as you interpret it, ignores any semblance of common sense. This is a rulings over rules edition and it should be ignored as you interpret it.

It is sensible for an attack against a target that cannot see its attacker to have advantage.

It doesn't treat it like that. If the attacker is blinded, he has disadvantage to attack the defender. The defender does not have disadvantage back, since he can see.

I don't understand this. What would the defender (target of the attack) have disadvantage on? Under the normal rule, bonuses and/or penalties are applied to the attacker's roll.

 

[Xetheral]

The rules are silent on this question. Note: It's not logically inconsistent to rule heavy obscurement caused by different sources behaves different in situations not covered by RAW. Also Note: A wall does not create heavy obscurement.

I agree that the rules are silent on that question. That was my point--it's a gap in the rules.

I also agree that it isn't logically inconsistent to rule differently regarding different types of heavy obscurement to address gaps in the rules. But there are multiple ways to fill those gaps--there isn't just one "correct" way; if there were, we wouldn't agree that the rules are silent.

Let's add whether or not solid objects create heavy obscurement to the list of gaps. I'd certainly say a creature inside an opaque wall (e.g. a ghost) was in heavily obscurement, but you make a good point that the rules don't say so explicitly.

The ordinary definition of illuminate is to not make something bright/brighter.

Yes it is. Here's the very first definition from Merriam Webster that I quoted earlier in the thread:

1a(1): to supply or brighten with light

That's pretty explicit that to "illuminate" something can ordinarily mean to make it brighter.

You are framing these questions so incorrectly, as if one side is trying to be super technical there and the other side is just trying to use the natural meaning of the word. I assure you I'm using the natural meaning of illuminate when I say illuminating the spell darkness isn't possible but doesn't require a total absence of light.

I'm only trying to identify gaps in the rules where the DM has to make a call because @Hriston said they weren't sure what sort of gaps I was referring to. I'm not trying to use the existence of these gaps to argue for or against any particular resolution to them. I'm only presenting them as support of my claim that the DM is always going to have to make such judgement calls: the RAW itself is not well-defined.

It's not so simple that one persons take is more realistic than the others though and proposing that as the only reason does the discussion as a whole a disservice.

I entirely agree that different people can have different ideas of what is more or less realistic, just as different people can have different ideas regarding what resolutions to the gaps I pointed out best fit with the text.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I also agree that it isn't logically inconsistent to rule differently regarding different types of heavy obscurement to address gaps in the rules. But there are multiple ways to fill those gaps--there isn't just one "correct" way; if there were, we wouldn't agree that the rules are silent.

You are doing a thing here, typical on the internet, unfortunately. You've got it backwards. This whole thread has been about a poster suggesting a different perspective to the standard "Inkblot" interpretation of the Darkness spell. A few of us have agreed that we like it, use it, or agree with it, and we have had to defend it as a viable option.

No one (to my knowledge) on that "side" has ever at any point suggested that everyone has to stop using the "inkblot" version because "our" version is "right". We've only tried to explain what it MEANS and that it has (potential) VALUE and that it is not, in fact, a complete wrong mess of the rules and/or the fiction.

No one (that I know of) disagrees with you that there are multiple ways to fill those gaps. This is just one of them, and we've been trying to explain why we like it, in the face of criticism.

 

[Xetheral]

This is completely bizarre. The rules aren't creating these so-called gaps. I'll try to explain why. I'll have to de-construct your ridiculously long list to do so, so apologies if there are any formatting errors.

It doesn't need to. "DM decides" is an explicit part of the rules. Most of what you've posted here is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the rules. They don't tell you what fiction to establish. They provide a framework for adjudicating changes to the established fiction.

I put together your first and last paragraphs, because read together they're making me think we're talking past east other. I'll try to explain--maybe we can better isolate where we agree and disagree.

First, I entirely agree with you that "DM decides" is an explicit part of the rules. The vision/light/obscurement rules are short and non-comprehensive, by design. (And, as commentary, I think that's better than trying to be comprehensive, even if I would have written the short rules differently.) So the DM has to make a ruling in situations the text of the rules doesn't cover. The DM can't simply plop down light sources and objects/walls and have the rules exactly determine who sees what (as if the rules define the physics of light in D&D). Are we in agreement so far? I think we are, based on what you said above, and based on your mention in the discussion of the examples of the DM choosing light levels on a square-by-square basis--if we're not in agreement to this point, any clarification would be helpful.

The gaps I listed were examples of issues regarding light/vision/obscurement that the rules don't explicitly discuss. I apologize that they came across to you as bizarre, but since I think we agree that the DM needs to make rulings, I don't understand how the existence of gaps requiring rulings comes across as bizarre?

Where I think we disagree regards which of my examples are places the DM will need to decide, and which are covered by the rules. That's totally cool--there is room for disagreement over where the rules are non-comprehensive without affecting my claim that the rules are not comprehensive.

You definitely seem to be taking issue with how literal some of my examples are, and I find that somewhat confusing because it seems to me like you are the one arguing in favor of a more-literal interpretation of the rules. For example, yes, I am familiar with what "opaque" means, and I would rule that anything opaque blocks someone from seeing beyond it. But it sounds like you would rule that dense foliage (which, absent magical transparent plants, is, of course, opaque) does not block vision of creatures on the other side. Indeed, both of the examples of heavy obscurement in the book other than darkness ("dense foliage" and "opaque fog"), are opaque, but it sounds like you would nevertheless let someone see past them unless "there is something opaque (like a wall or a tree trunk) in a heavily obscured area"? You'd expressed as much in response to @Crimson Longinus's dense foliage example, which is why I included examples that didn't take the common definition of opaque for granted, since you didn't appear to be using it. Again, I apologize that you apparently found the example preposterous, I just don't see how it can be preposterous if you're (e.g.) letting the Dog see the Bunny on the opposite side of the dense foliage. Could you please clarify?

Are you serious? Of course! Again, you know what opaque means. You know how light interacts with opaque objects. You know what a shadow is. The rules don't have to answer these questions for you to be complete.

Similarly, my intent with the shadow example was not to raise something you would consider preposterous. The rules don't mention shadows with regards to illumination at all, and given how close a parsing of the text some posters in this thread have advocated, it seemed reasonable to me that someone (not necessarily you) would argue that the light from a light source would fill the entire area of its radius, spreading around corners, which in turn would affect the interaction of shadows and light levels. Does that make sense?

Since you objected to the length of my list of examples, I'm going to not discuss the others--I think we can probably nail down where we are disagreeing with what we have so far. I appreciate that you took the time to respond to all of them, and if you would instead prefer a complete response, please let me know.

 

[Xetheral]

You are doing a thing here, typical on the internet, unfortunately. You've got it backwards. This whole thread has been about a poster suggesting a different perspective to the standard "Inkblot" interpretation of the Darkness spell. A few of us have agreed that we like it, use it, or agree with it, and we have had to defend it as a viable option.

No one (to my knowledge) on that "side" has ever at any point suggested that everyone has to stop using the "inkblot" version because "our" version is "right". We've only tried to explain what it MEANS and that it has (potential) VALUE and that it is not, in fact, a complete wrong mess of the rules and/or the fiction.

No one (that I know of) disagrees with you that there are multiple ways to fill those gaps. This is just one of them, and we've been trying to explain why we like it, in the face of criticism.

I think there's been some confusion caused multiple lines of conversation being mixed. My list of examples that @FrogReaver was referring to was provided in response to @Hriston's mention of not being sure what sort of general gaps in the vision/light/obscurement rules I was referring to.

In the post you quoted I was not attempting to make any claim regarding interpretations of the darkness spell, and in particular I was not trying to suggest that anyone has argued we have to stop using the ink-blot interpretation. Since it evidently came across that way, I apologize for the confusion.

My mention of there not being one "correct" way to fill the gaps was instead a reference to multiple posters declaring that @Crimson Longinus's method of filling the gap in the rules relating to silhouettes (i.e. their ruling that a dark square can be treated as not-dark from the perspective of observers who can see a backlight through that square) was "wrong" by RAW, despite RAW being silent about silhouettes. Again I apologise for not being more clear.

 

[Maxperson]

It is sensible for an attack against a target that cannot see its attacker to have advantage.

Yes. Yes it is. Provided the attacker can also see the target. Otherwise it's just random cluster.

I don't understand this. What would the defender (target of the attack) have disadvantage on? Under the normal rule, bonuses and/or penalties are applied to the attacker's roll.

Hitting back. Both are blind. So they are just flailing away with disadvantage.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I apologise for not being more clear.

No worries. It's hard as heck to be at all understood via text alone. I've been utterly misunderstood several times in this thread myself!

I think the only point anyone has ever made regarding RAW, was simply to illustrate that their interpretations were no less valid than another poster's, because they chose this or that, some of which includes sticking clos*er* to RAW (as they see it), not that their interpretation was overall more valid. (If that makes any sense). I suppose that I could be wrong, though.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think there's been some confusion caused multiple lines of conversation being mixed. My list of examples that @FrogReaver was referring to was provided in response to @Hriston's mention of not being sure what sort of general gaps in the vision/light/obscurement rules I was referring to.

In the post you quoted I was not attempting to make any claim regarding interpretations of the darkness spell, and in particular I was not trying to suggest that anyone has argued we have to stop using the ink-blot interpretation. Since it evidently came across that way, I apologize for the confusion.

My mention of there not being one "correct" way to fill the gaps was instead a reference to multiple posters declaring that @Crimson Longinus's method of filling the gap in the rules relating to silhouettes (i.e. their ruling that a dark square can be treated as not-dark from the perspective of observers who can see a backlight through that square) was "wrong" by RAW, despite RAW being silent about silhouettes. Again I apologise for not being more clear.

I think the issue isn’t saying there’s a gap, it’s defining gap so broadly
that something that is defined by rules becomes a gap because you don’t like that the rules don’t carve out an exception to a particular situation. In this case: silhouettes.

if it helps, my personal take on silhouettes is that a creature creating a silhouette is not in an area of dark light because to create a silhouette a relatively bright light has to be striking your backside.

 

[Xetheral]

No worries. It's hard as heck to be at all understood via text alone. I've been utterly misunderstood several times in this thread myself!

I think the only point anyone has ever made regarding RAW, was simply to illustrate that their interpretations were no less valid than another poster's, because they chose this or that, some of which includes sticking clos*er* to RAW (as they see it), not that their interpretation was overall more valid. (If that makes any sense). I suppose that I could be wrong, though.

For reference, here's the exchange where multiple posters were saying @Crimson Longinus was wrong by RAW despite the rules being silent on silhouettes and backlighting.

Spoiler: Exchange

White room time! Two lit torches are placed 100 feet apart on a flat plain outdoors on a typical moonlit night (not a super-moon). Each torch provides bright light in a 20 foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. There are no other light sources. What is the level of obscurement of the 20 foot space between the dim light radii of the two torches?

Hint: I am referencing actual rules for this.

To whom? Considering that it is such a small area and this is flat plain, I'd probably rule it to be lightly obscured regardless of the POV of the onlooker. With a larger gap I might need to consider the POV of the one looking and think what they actually see. Reason: makes sense, and it's the GMs job to make case-by-case judgements on such thing.

This again seems to hint to a difference between top-down tactical play and to theatre of mind play. Which is not to say that I don't ever use maps, but they're just a tool.

Wrong answer! The obscurement level of a given area is not subjective. It is determined by the DM. Since you, as DM, have established that the area between the torches is lightly obscured, what is its light source, given that the illumination provided by the torches does not reach it and the moonlight is not sufficient?

That's why we keep disagreeing and walking in circles. If we really want to reach and meaningful conclusion, we should stick to RAW. We were just talking about a response from a WotC employee, right?

It is determined by DM for the purposes of each situation and that situation may vary. Doing it otherwise leads to nonsense. standing behind bushes might provide obscurement to viewers from on direction, but not from another. Similarly some things might provide obscurement when seen from ground level, but not from the air. And of course obscurement is subjective, or how do you think darkvision works?


In this case it would be the combined minuscule amount of light coming from three differnt sources, two torches and the moon.

But you're looking this whole thing from the wrong perspective. I'd describe what the characters see, and then assign obscurement level that seems to make sense based on that.

By 5e rules , provided the torches are 100ft apart , and there are no other light sources then the area between is darkness.

And, to better place this reply in its context: my related point is that since the rules are not comprehensive, when individual DMs fill in the gaps in the rules, there's no objective way to say that some extra-textual gap-filling is RAW and other extra-textual gap-filling isn't.

 

[FrogReaver]

For reference, here's the exchange where multiple posters were saying @Crimson Longinus was wrong by RAW despite the rules being silent on silhouettes and backlighting.


And, to better place this reply in its context: my related point is that since the rules are not comprehensive, when individual DMs fill in the gaps in the rules, there's no objective way to say that some extra-textual gap-filling is RAW and other extra-textual gap-filling isn't.

But My post there wasn’t about silhouettes? In fact, I don’t see any post quoted about silhouettes??