D&D 5E DMi suggestion - adjudicating attacks inside Darkness

[FrogReaver]

...

That is all very well put. Another example is where drow drop Darkness on the party and start peppering them with crossbow bolts. If we follow RAW and say that the drow have advantage because the players can't see their attackers, and disadvantage because the drow can't see the party, then that creates a situation that feels problematic. Of course, the party can make the same claims in shooting at the drow. But what is happening here? Mutually blinded ranged opponents behaving pretty much as if they were sighted?!

Square peg meet round hole. You are trying to make D&D combat be too much a simulation. It's not.

The rules are just there to give a structured way of resolving combat. Yes it's not realistic that two blind archers will kill each other just as quickly as two archers that can clearly see each other. But the combat rules aren't trying to model blindness or realism. Instead they are trying to provide a structured system to resolve whether the players win a combat. As such what matters in the combat resolution system is whether one combatant has some kind of "advantage" over the other. If two characters are both affected by the same condition then they have no "advantage' over each other. They are equals again. So if the combatants are on equal footing then why sit there rolling miss after miss on both sides instead of resolving the combat normally?

I know which way sounds more fun. I also know which way sounds more "realistic"...

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

What if I tell you instead that you have a room with 2 teams of 4 people… Everyone close their eyes and start swinging sticks at each others general direction. What happens?

Each team moves forward, continually talking to one another.

"Bob, sounds like I'm a little forward of you."
"Alice, I've got a foe to my right should be straight in front of you."
"Eve, sounds like there is a foe on your right."
"Trent, watch where you wave that sword! I'm here on your left!"
"Alice, I'm running behind you now."

That is the rationale of "In combat, everyone knows where everyone is."

Now, if you want chaotic, drop a darkness and a silence on the battle!

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

What if I tell you instead that you have a room with 2 teams of 4 people… Everyone close their eyes and start swinging sticks at each others general direction. What happens?

Each team moves forward, continually talking to one another.

"Bob, sounds like I'm a little forward of you."
"Alice, I've got a foe to my right should be straight in front of you."
"Eve, sounds like there is a foe on your right."
"Trent, watch where you wave that sword! I'm here on your left!"
"Alice, I'm running behind you now."

That is the rationale of "In combat, everyone knows where everyone is."

Now, if you want chaotic, drop a darkness and a silence on the battle!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Blind archers attack each other normally?

The interactions between sight and archery are just strange in 5E anyway. Why should it be easier for me to hit a zombie with my crossbow bolt when I'm invisible or hidden in a thicket? Why should it be harder for me when I poke my head out of the thicket (and thus cease being unseen)? What is physically happening in this case that suddenly makes it harder for me to hit the zombie just because it can see me?

Granting advantage to invisible melee combatants makes sense, because you can dynamically alter your attack sequence to exploit flaws in their defense and they cannot respond effectively due to not being able to see you/your stance/etc. But for ranged attacks it really makes no sense at all--a crossbow bolt can really only come in on one vector to hit you, and it really doesn't make a difference if you can see the shooter's finger twitch or not when he's firing it. For ranged attacks, what plausibly matters is whether or not you know the shooter's location--not whether you can see him. And even that only justifies an attack bonus to the extent that you believe active defenses are being used against ranged attacks, i.e. if you think crossbow bolts and Eldritch Blasts are being parried in the same way that melee weapons are. (I myself don't believe that--I think active defense against ranged attacks in 5E consists of Dodging and/or dropping prone or special monk abilities which let you parry or snatch missiles as a reaction.)

 

[Ganymede81]

I houseruled it so that you only get advantage to hit targets that can't see you as long as you can see them.

This way, two blinded foes will attack each other with disadvantage instead of normally. It is a super simple fix.

 

[guachi]

How about in darkness attack at disadvantage; dexterity doesn't apply to AC?

Heavily armored foes certainly aren't dodging the blow; they are letting their armor absorb the blow. Lightly armored foes are mostly dodging incoming attacks; but they can't dodge an attack they can't see.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

For ranged attacks, what plausibly matters is whether or not you know the shooter's location

It is not the archer's location that matters — it is the archer's existence.

If you don't know there is an archer drawing a bead on you then you can't make any attempt to dodge or block.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It is not the archer's location that matters — it is the archer's existence.

If you don't know there is an archer drawing a bead on you then you can't make any attempt to dodge or block.

And if there's an invisible crossbowman shooting at you, or an archer hiding in a thicket, you are perfectly aware of his existence. The fact that you can't see his trigger finger twitch isn't relevant. (You probably couldn't see his finger twitch at range anyway.)