D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[FrogReaver]

One thing to consider here: If they intended for the spell to work as it had in prior editions, they have an obvious tool to have used that would allow for that interpretation. They'd just have said the area within the magical darkness is heavily obscured (likely with some caveats). They either should have done that had the intention of magical darkness been to block sight through the field of darkness, or they should have been clear that it was not intended to work that way given the history of the spell in prior editions.

It is a poorly worded spell.

Interestingly, it’s really not worded much different than fog cloud and no one has any issues with fog cloud.

 

[Xetheral]

So your take is that silhouettes are never heavily obscured?

I would say that silhouettes are never heavily obscured by transparent heavy obscurement. Opaque heavy obscurement can obscure a silhouette just fine.

What they probably should have done when writing the rules was treat natural darkness separately from heavy obscurement. Then heavy obscurement could have been exclusively opaque, which would have simplified the wording. Natural darkness could instead have its own rules, maybe something along the lines of: "Creatures in an unlit area are generally unseen, but particular observers may be able to see them if they obstruct a lit area or are within range of the observers' darkvision."

 

[FrogReaver]

I would say that silhouettes are never heavily obscured by transparent heavy obscurement. Opaque heavy obscurement can obscure a silhouette just fine.

I would say a silhouette is a visual phenomenon and as such if you can’t see it then it doesn’t exist. What would be obscured in that situation would be the creature or object that would otherwise be creating the silhouette.

I think there’s a strong case that silhouettes are not heavily obscured since one side of them tends to be lit. That may or may not be the case with the darkness spell but I think it answers the natural darkness silhouette question.

What they probably should have done when writing the rules was treat natural darkness separately from heavy obscurement. Then heavy obscurement could have been exclusively opaque, which would have simplified the wording. Natural darkness could instead have its own rules, maybe something along the lines of: "Creatures in an unlit area are generally unseen, but particular observers may be able to see them if they obstruct a lit area or are within range of the observers' darkvision."

Sure.

 

[Democratus]

Except that people keep insisting that the the things behind the bubble are visible just fine. So there actually isn't any darkness for the people inside the bubble to blend into. A person looking at them would see them as stark silhouettes against the background created by the things behind the bubble.

Darkness doesn't block light. I can see a light far away, even though there is darkness between myself and the light. Makes perfect sense to me.

Not a logical impossibility. This is 1+1=3 level stuff.

There are no logical impossibilities here. I can imagine all of this quite consistently.

However, also..yes. Magic is capable of creating "logical impossibilities". Portable holes, time travel paradoxes, effect-before-cause...all of these are common tropes of magic.

One need only read any Lovecraft-inspired materiel to find buildings with impossible geometries, creatures that exist and don't exist all at once, and other "impossibilites."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Darkness doesn't block light. I can see a light far away, even though there is darkness between myself and the light. Makes perfect sense to me.

If you're seeing light, what you're seing is by definition is not darkness!

There are no logical impossibilities here. I can imagine all of this quite consistently.

How? If one can clearly see the area behind the darkness what is preventing the things in the darkness being clearly visible against that as stark silhouettes?

However, also..yes. Magic is capable of creating "logical impossibilities". Portable holes, time travel paradoxes, effect-before-cause...all of these are common tropes of magic.

One need only read any Lovecraft-inspired materiel to find buildings with impossible geometries, creatures that exist and don't exist all at once, and other "impossibilites."

So are you perhaps suggesting that darkness now creates some sort of Lovecraftian sanity breaking unreality?

 

[Democratus]

If you're seeing light, what you're seing is by definition is not darkness!

How? If one can clearly see the area behind the darkness what is preventing the things in the darkness being clearly visible against that as stark silhouettes?

So are you perhaps suggesting that darkness now creates some sort of Lovecraftian sanity breaking unreality?

No. I'm saying magic can create sanity breaking unreality - among other things that would otherwise be impossible.

Darkness is one such thing. An area of darkness that would otherwise be lit by ambient conditions.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Obscured by what! You cannot just handwave logical impossibility with 'but it's magic.' It feels to me that in this thread I am trying to explain to a bunch of blind people how vision works!

Look, if it helps you, imagine it as TRANSLUCENT. Get yourself a black translucent d20, if you don't already have one, and say that "it looks like this, but without the numbers, the edges, and more nebulous. If you want something directly behind it to be just as obscured as something inside it, go for it. Heck, if you want to stick with it being absolutely opaque like a perfect light-blocking black sphere, you do you.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Look, if it helps you, imagine it as TRANSLUCENT. Get yourself a black translucent d20, if you don't already have one, and say that "it looks like this, but without the numbers, the edges, and more nebulous. If you want something directly behind it to be just as obscured as something inside it, go for it. Heck, if you want to stick with it being absolutely opaque like a perfect light-blocking black sphere, you do you.

Yes, I can imagine it being translucent just fine. That is logically coherent. But as you note, that means that the things behind it are just as obscured than things inside of it. There simply is not a coherent description of this where that would not be the case.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, I can imagine it being translucent just fine. That is logically coherent. But as you note, that means that the things behind it are just as obscured than things inside of it. There simply is not a coherent description of this where that would not be the case.

If I tried to describe regular darkness to you and how I couldn’t see things in it but could see light past it then I’m sure you would call that logically incoherent as well...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If I tried to describe regular darkness to you and how I couldn’t see things in it but could see light past it then I’m sure you would call that logically incoherent as well...

The area in which you can see light is not darkness. Darkness is defined as absence of light, if you see light, it's not darkness. Now if we imagine seeing some distant small spots of light, but everything else is dark, then sure it's still mostly darkness. But imagine this spell in a middle of a field on a bright day. Everything outside of it is perfectly lit. If you see that through the area of the spell, then that area most definitely is not darkness, it has loads of light coming through it. And to get back to rules, the text especially says, that the area cannot be illuminated. If the light is visible trough the area, then that light is illuminating it, but that is not allowed.