D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[Iry]

We aren't playing a game. So explain. How do I have a double standard with wall of stone and darkness? Am I saying that one spell doesn't do exactly what it says?

Not being generally consistent with OOC expectatations opens the door to allow major issues in RAW. Like sleep not making you unconscious, or actions not needing to be visually consistent with mechanics.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not being generally consistent with OOC expectatations opens the door to allow major issues in RAW. Like sleep not making you unconscious, or actions not needing to be visually consistent with mechanics.

I'm not sure I follow. I'm talking spells not mundane things. My stance is that spells are explicit in what they do. Not that every rule for every interaction must be. That's why I'm puzzled by this double standard talk.

 

[Xetheral]

Unless they wanted to clarify that you couldn't see from outside a heavily-obscured area to inside it. Which they did. Kind of. Ish. They really didn't accomplish much with that erratum.

The errata was necessary for normal darkness to work properly. As originally written, anyone standing in normal darkness suffered from the Blinded condition and so couldn't even see distant light sources. This would have meant (e.g.) that stars couldn't be seen at night, torches would be invisible outside of their dim light radius, etc.

@FrogReaver The basic problem is that opacity and illumination are complex topics that don't lend themselves well to succinct rules. Ergo, trying to use a close reading of the obscurement rules to divine how the Darkness spells "actually" works isn't meaningful, because the rules don't support such a close reading. (For example, even the errataed version of the rules starts falling apart when trying to apply it literally to opaque heavy obscurement.) Instead, the DM just needs to decide if they want to treat the Darkness spell as an opaque inkblot or instead as a transparent zone of magically induced non-magical darkness. Neither interpretation can be excluded based on the text alone, so it's simply a judgement call.

Note, however, that the transparent zone of magically induced non-magical darkness interpretation is going to produce a ton of headaches when trying to figure out what such a zone looks like from the outside. The spell text certainly doesn't say, and trying to rely on physics is problematic, as you noted. (It's even more problematic in this case, because a physics-based approach will give entitely different answers depending on how detailed you want to get.)

The fact that the visual appearance of the spell under the "transparent zone of magically induced non-magical darkness" interpretation isn't included in the spell text is strong evidence, IMO, that the opaque ink-blot interpretation is RAI.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Bunny has casted a dakness spell around herself. What can the dog see?

 

[Iry]

I'm not sure I follow. I'm talking spells not mundane things. My stance is that spells are explicit in what they do. Not that every rule for every interaction must be. That's why I'm puzzled by this double standard talk.

You have arrived at an extreme outlier conclusion. It would be a double standard to allow one extreme outlier without permitting other extreme outliers.

 

[FrogReaver]

You have arrived at an extreme outlier conclusion. It would be a double standard to allow one extreme outlier without permitting other extreme outliers.

Not with a decent reason and litmus test for excluding the others.

 

[Hriston]

I agree with @FrogReaver that, just like a creature can see out of normal darkness into an illuminated area, there is no rule that suggests that a creature cannot see out of the radius of the darkness spell. That is an assumption that other posters are bringing in from outside of the game.

 

[Iry]

Not with a decent reason and litmus test for excluding the others.

A decent reason and litmus test for Darkness does not lead to the conclusion you have reached. Your conclusion is technically possible in the same way that Fireball does not say the explosion of fire fills the 20' radius. But I count it as an extreme outlier.

 

[Xetheral]

Bunny has casted a dakness spell around herself. What can the dog see?

This is a great example. Under the "opaque ink-blot" interpretation, the resolution is easy: the Dog can't see anything in or behind the darkness.

Under the "transparent zone of magically induced non-magical darkness" interpretation, things get much trickier. The Dog should be able to see the trees and the flowers, because they are illuminated and the intervening darkness is transparent. We know the Dog can't see the Bunny (because it isn't illuminated), but presumably it also can't see the illuminated mushroom, (because the Bunny itself is opaque and in the way). That would imply that the Dog sees Bunny's silhouette against the backdrop of the illuminated mushroom, but letting Dog see Bunny's silhouette conflicts with the errated rule that Dog is effectively blind with respect to Bunny. By that rule Bunny is effectively invisible, and the Dog can see the mushroom clearly, but that conflicts with the text of the Darkness spell that says nothing about invisibility. So under this interpretation of the spell, the DM still needs to fill in gaps like these.

Furthermore, neither the text of spell nor the text of the obscurement rules answer the question of whether the Dog can even tell there is a zone of darkness in the first place, or what that zone looks like if it can.

 

[Iry]

That is an assumption that other posters are bringing in from outside of the game.

My assumption is that nonmagical light cannot illuminate the area of darkness. I am bringing in the idea that light has to reach your eyes for you to see it. That's not strictly necessary in a world created by gods and magic, but allowing you to see without light reaching your eyes (and no other modifiers like blindsense) leads to all kinds of shenanigans.