D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Mistwell]

Yes. With their darkvision

OK, now instead pretend both people are in the area of darkness. Can the one with darkvision see the torch which is outside the darkvision with their darkvision, and can the one without darkvision see the torch without darkvision?

 

[FrogReaver]

I really have and now you're being rude. You don't know where I am going with this. You can wait or not, but please stop being a jerk to me.

How about we all stop being rude.

 

[Charlaquin]

They haven't asked any direct question though?

They asked if a creature without Darkvision can see a torch that is outside the zone of darkness, if the zone of darkness is between the creature and the torch.

 

[FrogReaver]

OK, now instead pretend both people are in the area of darkness. Can the one with darkvision see the torch which is outside the darkvision with their darkvision, and can the one without darkvision see the torch without darkvision?

Yes. Both can see the torch, even with darkvision.

 

[Nefermandias]

Yeah, as far as I can tell, @FrogReaver 's interpretation is that the sphere of darkness acts just like normal darkness that you can see out of but not in, except that darkvision doesn't pierce it.

The part that is really hard to conceptualize is that somehow you can also see things on the other side of it.

I know it's not really relevant, but it's easier to visualize if you read the 3.5 version of the spell. Darkness used to only give concealment to any creature inside it's area. It did absolutely nothing to anything outside of it.

 

[Hriston]

To be fair, @Hriston took the same position when this was discussed in 2015.
That's consistency!

Ah yes, this thread. I've been thinking back to it during this discussion. It changed my mind about darkness.

 

[Nefermandias]

They asked if a creature without Darkvision can see a torch that is outside the zone of darkness, if the zone of darkness is between the creature and the torch.

They can. Both the one with Darkvision and the one with normal vision. Darkness spell is the same as natural Darkness, except for the few differences specified in the text.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, as far as I can tell, @FrogReaver 's interpretation is that the sphere of darkness acts just like normal darkness that you can see out of but not in, except that darkvision doesn't pierce it.

The part that is really hard to conceptualize is that somehow you can also see things on the other side of it.

Right, but that interpretation is relying on the phrasing “a creature without Darkvision can’t see through this darkness.” The implication of which would be that a creature with Darkvision can’t see anything on the other side of the Darkness, but a creature without Darkvision can.

 

[Xetheral]

You don't have to overcomplicate things. According to @FrogReaver (and apparently, RAW after the errata) all that the Darkness spell really do is creating a transparent bubble of darkness with the special properties of not having any interaction with Darkvision or any form of light that's not created by a spell of lvl 2 or higher.
It's no different of normal Darkness in any other sense and most definitely doesn't make Darkvision worse than normal vision.
You guys are probably missing a bit of context in this discussion.

I've previously pointed out how interpreting the spell as magically induced non-magical darkness produces gaps that the spell text does not resolve. In particular, it doesn't answer the question of what magically induced non-magical darkness in an otherwise well-lit area would look like to an observer standing outside the darkness.

Is the boundary noticable? Are creatures/objects inside silhouetted (violating the heavy obscurement rules) or invisible (not suggested by the text of the spell)? Do they cast shadows outside the area? Do non-magical light sources in the area of darkness cast light outside of the darkness?

And saying "it works just like normal darkness" doesn't answer these questions because normal darkness cannot exist in an otherwise well-lit area.

 

[Charlaquin]

They can. Both the one with Darkvision and the one with normal vision. Darkness spell is the same as natural Darkness, except for the few differences specified in the text.

How can the one with Darkvision do so if they can’t see through the darkness? Seeing the torch on the other side of the darkness literally requires seeing through the darkness.