D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Hriston]

If a creature was in that darkness what would it look like?

It wouldn't look like anything because no one could see it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It wouldn't look like anything because no one could see it.

While I agree with that, I would argue that depending on what that creature was doing, you might be able to make out some sort of sign of them being there - a movement in the shadow, a glimpse of a silhouette that vanishes, etc. (Essentially whatever the DM feels like describing, including nothing, if they so desire). If the creature is hiding? Yeah, there's nothing there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You're all thinking a little too scientifically, which is why you're having trouble. The effect is IMPOSSIBLE.

The spell creates DARKNESS. It's transparent, but it's not allowing light to go through it. Whether or not it's not allowing 100% of light to go through it or not is where we're all at odds. Maybe it's not 100% perfectly all-the-time effective. But it's not anything other than an absence of light - IE darkness.

There are contradictions in the rules that suggest possibly not. There is reason to believe that in spite of the line "nonmagical light can't illuminate it" means that a source of nonmagical light won't cause the area of darkness to become an area of light, but may NOT mean that light can't go through it just enough that you can see what's on the other side, or possibly even see some movement/shadowy shapes/etc that are inside it. This is because OTHER RULES say that you CAN, and the spell is silent either way.

Everyone agrees that it's not very well worded to be sure.

I don't think that "what does the bloody thing look like" is a super sciencey question. Your side constantly fails to answer this very basic question in any coherent manner.

 

[Minato]

It wouldn't look like anything because no one could see it.

Okay, if Darkness is cast on a wall and there's a light source behind the wall, what would the wall look like? Would you not be able to see the wall and now be able to see the interior behind the Darkness, the x-ray vision interpretation? Cause if not, they must be able to see something of the creature, just like the wall.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think it makes sense to talk about the darkness as transparent, but I would say that the area of the spell is both transparent and dark. We've all, I imagine, had the experience of standing in daylight at the entrance of an unlit tunnel which is dark and through which the light at the other end of the tunnel can be seen. The medium that fills the tunnel, the air, is transparent, allowing light from the end of the tunnel to reach your eyes, and yet the tunnel itself is dark. This is the same thing. I anticipate that someone might object that the tunnel has opaque walls that make it dark, which is true, but the spell area doesn't need opaque walls to make it dark because its darkness is created by magic.

So let's say the spell is cast 60 feet above the caster in mid-air (which is completely possible according to the spell description). Looking up, I imagine the caster would see a black ring defining the outside of the sphere, with the blackness fading towards its center where the blue sky beyond could be seen as through a dark tunnel.

Oh! So now the darkness is not uniform, it is transparent in the middle but not on the edges! This gets even weirder. Logically this results things behind the bubble being visible through it only if they're near it's centre from the perspective of the looker, but not if they're near the edges...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It wouldn't look like anything because no one could see it.

Except you just said that the things behind the bubble are visible though the middle of the bubble. So does the things in the bubble become transparent, so that things behind them (and the bubble) can be seen?

 

[Hriston]

While I agree with that, I would argue that depending on what that creature was doing, you might be able to make out some sort of sign of them being there - a movement in the shadow, a glimpse of a silhouette that vanishes, etc. (Essentially whatever the DM feels like describing, including nothing, if they so desire). If the creature is hiding? Yeah, there's nothing there.

Right, I should have said it wouldn't look like anything in particular, but I was being terse. The DM could certainly describe any of the above as long as it doesn't amount to the creature being seen clearly enough that it can't try to hide.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the best science-y way to explain what the heck is happening with the “transparent darkness” interpretation would be that light does travel through area affected by the spell (that is the definition of transparent after all), but is magically suppressed while in the area. So, a photon might travel out from a torch and into the area affected by the spell, where it becomes “invisible,” but is still present. It continues to travel, unseen, through the area affected by the spell until it exits the area on the other side, whereupon it becomes visible again. Then it enters the eye of a creature, to whom it conveys information about what is on either side of the area affected by the spell, but no information about what is inside the area of the spell.

It’s wonky, and it still doesn’t explain what that would actually look like to an observer (I actually suspect it would look less like a bubble of darkness in front of the torch and more like the space the spell covers simply doesn’t exist.) But it’s the only way I can grokk the “transparent darkness” interpretation working in the standard model.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think the best science-y way to explain what the heck is happening with the “transparent darkness” interpretation would be that light does travel through area affected by the spell (that is the definition of transparent after all), but is magically suppressed while in the area. So, a photon might travel out from a torch and into the area affected by the spell, where it becomes “invisible,” but is still present. It continues to travel, unseen, through the area affected by the spell until it exits the area on the other side, whereupon it becomes visible again. Then it enters the eye of a creature, to whom it conveys information about what is on either side of the area affected by the spell, but no information about what is inside the area of the spell.

It’s wonky, and it still doesn’t explain what that would actually look like to an observer (I actually suspect it would look less like a bubble of darkness in front of the torch and more like the space the spell covers simply doesn’t exist.) But it’s the only way I can grokk the “transparent darkness” interpretation working in the standard model.

What this would look like would depend on whether the spell prevents things inside it from reflecting/emitting light that becomes visible once it leaves the bubble. If no, everything would look perfectly normal from outside the bubble, things in it could be seen just fine. If yes, it would look like all surfaces in the area were just plain flat black, but things could still be seen clearly as silhouettes. In either case everyone in the area would be blinded.

 

[Seramus]

You're all thinking a little too scientifically, which is why you're having trouble. The effect is IMPOSSIBLE.

That's fair, but I need to know how to describe it to my players. And my players need to know what to expect so they can make informed choices / plan accordingly.