D&D 5E Revisiting RAW Darkness Spell

[BookTenTiger]

The full rule there with errata now says:

A heavily obscured area--such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage--blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

It was changed so that characters in non-magical darkness could see illuminated areas outside of the non-magical darkness. Since characters in normal darkness can now see out of it - that kind of renders the rest of that argument moot?

But if you are going pure Rules as Written, Darkness still says:

can't see through this darkness

How could a character see into or out of magical darkness if they can't see through it?

 

[ECMO3]

So the way I look at this is the magical darkness stops light from going through it, therefore you can't see something on the other side of it, you can't see out if you are inside, you can't see in if you are outside and you can't see through it. When you "see" something, what you are doing is collecting and responding to light photons reflecting off of whatever you see. Those photons are hitting the rods and cones in your eyes. The light has to travel from the light source (sun, torch, daylight spell) to the object, they hit the object and bounce off to your eye.

Central to my opinion on this - imagine it is a bright sunny summer day and you are in an open field. You cast darkness in the middle of the field. That area is now completely dark, darker than the deepest cave, that much is without debate. Because it is dark, that means the direct sun light can not go through that barrier or enter that area, if you conjure a vampire in the center of it, he is chill and hanging out (for 10m minutes). If direct sunlight won't penetrate, then certainly sunlight reflecting off of whatever you would "see" on the other side or outside of it certainly wouldn't penetrate. Similarly sunlight could not get to anything inside for you to see inside.

 

[Hriston]

I will say, pre-errata there was a rule that stated you were blinded when in heavy obscurement. So in fairness, at one time the rules stated that in any darkness you couldn't see out without darkvision and since the spell darkness explicitly precluded darkvision then no PC could see out of it. But with the errata that rule went away and opened up the door to being able to see out of normal darkness. I think most haven't really went about reevaluating darkness spell in light of this errata. I know I hadn't till just today.

It said (as it still does) "effectively blinded" as opposed to officially or explicitly blinded, and the additional words of the erratum clarify why that was the case and make the nonsensical interpretation that a creature could not see things in a well lit campsite because it was in the encircling darkness impossible. That interpretation was never the intent.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I'm going to go with the "Darkness creates a black blob that blocks line of sight" interpretation, since the alternative is that my players will all be hanging out in Darkness all the time and shooting out with Advantage. They'd probably Sharpshoot as well, the bastards!

 

[FrogReaver]

But if you are going pure Rules as Written, Darkness still says:



How could a character see into or out of magical darkness if they can't see through it?

'can't see through this darkness' only applies to characters with darkvision in the actual spell text.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm going to go with the "Darkness creates a black blob that blocks line of sight" interpretation, since the alternative is that my players will all be hanging out in Darkness all the time and shooting out with Advantage. They'd probably Sharpshoot as well, the bastards!

IMO That's a wonderful reason to rule it that way and is likely the way I would go as well, but doesn't answer which is RAW.

 

[FrogReaver]

So the way I look at this is the magical darkness stops light from going through it, therefore you can't see something on the other side of it, you can't see out if you are inside, you can't see in if you are outside and you can't see through it. When you "see" something, what you are doing is collecting and responding to light photons reflecting off of whatever you see. Those photons are hitting the rods and cones in your eyes. The light has to travel from the light source (sun, torch, daylight spell) to the object, they hit the object and bounce off.

Central to my opinion on this - imagine it is a bright sunny summer day and you are in an open field. You cast darkness in the middle of the field. That area is now completely dark, darker than the deepest cave, that much is without debate. Becauseit is dark, that means the direct sun light can not go through that barrier or enter that area, if you conjure a vampire in the center of it, he is chill and hanging out (for 10m minutes). If direct sunlight won't penetrat, then certainly sunlight reflecting off of whatever you would "see" on the other side or outside of it certainly wouldn't penetrate. Similarly sunlight could not get to anything inside for you to see inside.

And you don't think it's possible to have magical darkness that simply surpresses all effects of light as it passes through the magical darkness?

 

[Hriston]

Sure. We can go with Fireball since I already mentioned it. The radius of damage is 20', but it doesn't specify how big the explosion of flame is. Could be a bottlerocket size and set almost nothing on fire, or it could be several miles wide. Both outlier interpretations, but technically possible.

Or Mind Blank, since there is no definition of effect, could prevent you from sensing your own emotions or read your own thoughts even with mundane means. Doubly so if you don't have a brain because the world operates without chemical reactions and the creation of every thought is magical.

Revivify doesn't say it requires a whole body. Cast it on a severed head.

Raise Dead talks about the soul rejoining the body, but Ressurection and True Ressurection don't provide that service. Living creatures running around without souls.

Yadda, yadda.

How is any of this an example of "the collateral damage [the interpretation of darkness that things outside the area of darkness that are illuminated are visible from within the area of darkness] causes if we apply it to other aspects of the game"? That interpretation doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything you're talking about.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

IMO That's a wonderful reason to rule it that way and is likely the way I would go as well, but doesn't answer which is RAW.

Who cares? This is game written in casual tone, there is no strict RAW, it all requires interpretation and common sense.

 

[BookTenTiger]

'can't see through this darkness' only applies to characters with darkvision in the actual spell text.

Even if, somehow, characters with Darkvision could not see a torch on the other side of the darkness, and characters without Darkvision could, what about this:

nonmagical light can't illuminate it.