It's a 'pendulum swing' back towards vague natural language after previous editions' love affair with closely-parsed 'Rules As Written,' and precise jargon & 'exception based design.'
In case you didn't know, any of the errata that apply to the text of the Basic Rules have been incorporated into the online PDF and HTML versions. I find the errata document itself is helpful for finding out what's been changed and perhaps the intent behind the changes, but it doesn't give you the final language, or tell you what hasn't been changed.
BasicPHB_Page65 said:A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area.
But... the text you quote in post #17 doesn't appear in the Basic Rules 3.4. It says this instead:
That's actually pretty clear, and I have no criticisms for the writing there.
Hmmm. The only HTML version I know of is the Basic rules v0.2 here:
I don't know of a resource that has 0.3.4 in HTML format.
"Creatures are blinded while in the magical darkness" does not equal "barrier that obscures all vision," because it doesn't affect creatures outside the darkness.My feeling is that if the designers meant for the magical darkness to be a barrier that obscured all vision, they would have just said that creatures are blinded while in the magical darkness.
What we should all learn by this:P
Look at that. What I quoted was the html version, and I hadn't even read what I was quoting. I was actually looking at the text you quote from the pdf. I've noticed several times where the html version has been amended imperfectly. I just prefer to use it because it's slightly more accessible.
As for casting it on a tree in a bright field? Yeah, if we run it that way, the tree would still block your view, effectively creating a shadow. That makes sense to me. Why are you casting Darkness in a bright field?