D&D 5E Darkvision and Magical Darkness

James Gasik said:

I mean it had always been my assumption it works this way (magical darkness > darkvision) because it's been that way for so long in the game's history. But to my mind, it still seems backwards.

One line in Darkvision "this ability has no effect in magical darkness" would set the precedent and then you wouldn't have to keep repeating it with every ability that creates "magical darkness".

There just isn't any real reason to do it the way it's done in the rulebooks, hence my confusion.

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Well, these are the same people that if you look in the index for Escape the Hoard, rather than using 2 characters and putting 93 to let you know which page to find it on, they'd rather use 21 characters and say See Defensive Tactics and make you now look somewhere else before you can know where to go. A lot of what they did with 5e are head scratchers.

The currently available Sage Advice says this:

Does all magical darkness block darkvision? Magical darkness blocks darkvision only if the rules text for a particular instance of darkness says it does. For example, the darkness spell specifies that it produces a magical darkness that obstructs darkvision. That obstruction is a feature of the spell, not of magical darkness in general.

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Where RAW and RAI differ, the FAQs in Sage Advice mention intent. For example, questions about whether a wizard is supposed to read from their spellbook when casting a ritual, or whether the Tough feat affects a druid in beast form both discuss what's intended. The FAQ about magical darkness & darkvision doesn't discuss intent, so RAW and RAI regarding the topic are the same.

This rule remains unclear in the 2024 phb unfortunately and still is a horrible design choice. The ruling makes no sense when you consider the monster ability devil's sight. This is still on the imp in the 2024 phb:
Devil's sight: Magical darkness doesn't impede the imp's darkvision.
This obviously implies that usually it does, but furthermore if the darkness spell is describing not the generic rules for Magical darkness but mechanics specific to the darkness spell itself, then devil's sight does nothing, since the imp can't see in the darkness spell not because it's Magical darkness but because the spell says so.

(Double post)

James Gasik said:

I mean it had always been my assumption it works this way (magical darkness > darkvision) because it's been that way for so long in the game's history. But to my mind, it still seems backwards.

One line in Darkvision "this ability has no effect in magical darkness" would set the precedent and then you wouldn't have to keep repeating it with every ability that creates "magical darkness".

There just isn't any real reason to do it the way it's done in the rulebooks, hence my confusion.

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Well, they also could have made a slowed condition so they didn’t have to repeat its effects in every spell and monster ability that slows people, but they chose not to do that as well!

darbyrm said:

This rule remains unclear in the 2024 phb unfortunately and still is a horrible design choice. The ruling makes no sense when you consider the monster ability devil's sight. This is still on the imp in the 2024 phb:
Devil's sight: Magical darkness doesn't impede the imp's darkvision.
This obviously implies that usually it does, but furthermore if the darkness spell is describing not the generic rules for Magical darkness but mechanics specific to the darkness spell itself, then devil's sight does nothing, since the imp can't see in the darkness spell not because it's Magical darkness but because the spell says so.

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This is exception-based design at work. You're proposing that the general rule and its exceptions would be sequenced like this:

• Darkness: Blocks normal vision, but darkvision can penetrate it to a specific range.
  • Devil's Sight: Grants darkvision that penetrates both normal and magical darkness. (Whuh? Who said anything about magical darkness? Whatever.)
    • Darkness (the spell): Creates an area of darkness that darkvision doesn't penetrate. (Well, I guess that does it, all darkvision is blocked, including Devil's Sight.)

That ordering is nonsensical, and interpreting the rules and exceptions in this way is perverse. Common-sense reasoning makes it clear that the exceptions should be sequenced like so:

• Darkness: Blocks normal vision, but darkvision can penetrate it to a specific range.
  • Darkness (the spell): Creates an area of darkness that darkvision doesn't penetrate. By implication, the darkness is magical since it's created by a spell.
    • Devil's Sight: Grants darkvision that penetrates both normal and magical darkness, thus including the area created by the Darkness spell.

There is no confusion in this except what people are bringing to it.

To me Hallow follows the Darkness spell, i.e. Darkvision does not help you, but Summon Fey does not.

Darkness spell: For the duration, magical Darkness spreads from a point within range and fills a 15-foot-radius Sphere. Darkvision can’t see through it, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it.

Hallow spell: Darkness fills the area. Normal light, as well as magical light created by spells of a level lower than this spell, can’t illuminate the area

The Fey stat says nothing of the sort 'The spirit fills a 10-foot Cube within 5 feet of it with magical Darkness, which lasts until the end of its next turn'.

I know it says magical Darkness, but nothing about not illuminating it

It's worth mentioning that none of the abilities that let you see through magical darkness actually grant you darkvision - both Devil's Sight and Truesight let you see normally in dark areas, nothing about treating it as low light or only seeing in shades of grey. So those abilities don't really have any bearing upon what types of darkness darkvision can penetrate.

occam said:

This is exception-based design at work. You're proposing that the general rule and its exceptions would be sequenced like this:

• Darkness: Blocks normal vision, but darkvision can penetrate it to a specific range.
  • Devil's Sight: Grants darkvision that penetrates both normal and magical darkness. (Whuh? Who said anything about magical darkness? Whatever.)
    • Darkness (the spell): Creates an area of darkness that darkvision doesn't penetrate. (Well, I guess that does it, all darkvision is blocked, including Devil's Sight.)

That ordering is nonsensical, and interpreting the rules and exceptions in this way is perverse. Common-sense reasoning makes it clear that the exceptions should be sequenced like so:

• Darkness: Blocks normal vision, but darkvision can penetrate it to a specific range.
  • Darkness (the spell): Creates an area of darkness that darkvision doesn't penetrate. By implication, the darkness is magical since it's created by a spell.
    • Devil's Sight: Grants darkvision that penetrates both normal and magical darkness, thus including the area created by the Darkness spell.

There is no confusion in this except what people are bringing to it.

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The specific to general only works when the mechanic is referenced directly. So if Devil's Sight said "The Darkness spell doesn't impede the Imp's darkvision." then it would overcome that mechanic. But, it says "Magical darkness doesn't impede the imp's darkvision." By Crawford's ruling this is nonsensical, because ALL darkvision is not impeded by magical darkness. That is like getting a magical item that lets you see in bright light. You would look at that and say 'Um, why do I need this, I can already see in bright light.'.

This this case we have 3 rule elements:
Darkvision: "If you have Darkvision, you can see in Dim Light within a specified range as if it were Bright Ligth and in Darkness within that range as if it were Dim Light." (Very General)
Devil's Sight (Creature Version): "Magical darkness doesn't impede the (creature)'s darkvision." (More specific, affects all spells that create darkness or wording that says 'Magical Darkness'.)
Darkness (Spell) "A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it." (Very specific, only darkness from this spell.)

In this case (using Crawford's interpretation) the spell is the most specific, it says 'A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness.' Devil's Sight has absolutely no bearing on this, it doesn't matter if it can see through magical darkness with Darkvision, all creatures can see through magical darkness with darkvision (according to Crawford) so the specific wording of Darkness blocks their darkvision. If there was a spell called Piercing Fire for instance that said 'The fire created by this spell ignores all resistances and immunities' it would be clear that a monster with fire immunity would not be immune to this spell, even if their resistance said 'works even on magical fire.' The spell text takes precedent. As I said, if the correct interpretation, as Crawford says, is that the Darkness spell doesn't explain what magical darkness is, and that the spell's rules are specific rules to the darkness spell only, it is the specific source and overrides Devil's Sight on the Imp which only generally lets them see in Magical Darkness - a completely redundant ability.

MarkB:
It's worth mentioning that none of the abilities that let you see through magical darkness actually grant you darkvision - both Devil's Sight and Truesight let you see normally in dark areas, nothing about treating it as low light or only seeing in shades of grey. So those abilities don't really have any bearing upon what types of darkness darkvision can penetrate.

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This is true for the Warlock's Devil's Sight and Truesight, but not for Creature's Devil's Sight. Creature's Devil's Sight is written "Magical darkness doesn't impede the (Creature)'s darkvision." Crawford's ruling makes this completely a useless ability as he ruled all darkvision isn't impeded by magical darkness - only by specific spells that are worded to block darkvision.

All that said I agree with you that Devil's Sight -should- work on the Darkness spell... but that is because I don't agree with Crawford's ruling. The Darkness spell says "Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it." You can look at it two ways, either Crawford's way in that the first and third sentences have nothing to do with each other, they are separate rules and thus a creature with darkvision not being able to see through this darkness has nothing to do with it being magical darkness OR the third sentence clarifies the first and explains how magical darkness works generally. If the latter, which is my interpretation and the interpretation that doesn't break other game mechanics and works as most player's assume it does (at least before Crawford's ruling), then Devil's Sight works just fine, and any spell that creates magical darkness follows the same rules including Summon Fey.

Finally, that third sentence causes even more problems for Crawford's ruling on Summon Fey. The 10' cube of Magical Darkness actually does absolutely nothing when you fully apply Crawford's ruling. "The fey can fill a 10-foot cube within 5 feet of it with magical darkness, which lasts until the end of its next turn." This does not mention that non-magical light can't illuminate it, and Crawford says that is part of the Darkness spell not magical darkness in general... so.... any light source can illuminate the fey spirit's magical darkness. That means the only place it works is in an area already in darkness. In other words, just like creature's version of Devil's Sight, this ability does nothing when applying Crawford's ruling.

At my table magical darkness blocks Darkvision and nonmagical light. If i design an encounter or area containing magical darkness as opposed to mundane one, it won't be so they're effectively similar.

If i run a published adventure and magical darkness is encountered somewhere, i'd rule the same way unless specifically noted otherwise.