👁️5e - Vision and Light👁️

Most creatures rely on sight for even the most mundane, everyday tasks. Adventurers are no different, and the amount of light in a given area impacts their ability to perform both in and out of combat. Other environmental features {like fog or heavy rain) may obscure a creature’s vision and cause difficulty.

A 💡Lightly Obscured area is one that creates a minimal, but not insignificant, amount of visual impairment. A moderately wooded area, lingering smoke from a sacked town, dim lighting, and the like can all cause an area to be lightly obscured.

When within this area, creatures have DISADV on Perception checks that rely on sight. See also: 💡Dim Light.

An area that is 💡Heavily Obscured may be a shoreline cloaked in dense fog, a jungle full of thick foliage and hanging vines, or darkness (magical or otherwise), that obstructs vision completely. A creature in this area is considered ☠️Blind.

Three types of lighting exist within an area: bright light, dim light, and darkness.

💡Bright Light is the most common. Even on a cloudy day the sun provides bright light, as do torches, bonfires, magical lights, and other similar sources (though often within a limited radius). Most creatures suffer no penalties from being in a brightly lit area.

💡Dim Light creates a 💡Lightly Obscured area. Dim light is typically found on the outer reaches of artificial light sources, such as the depths of a room lit only by candles or the outer ring of a bonfire. Dim light can also be found during dawn or twilight, or beneath a full moon.

💡Darkness creates a 💡Heavily Obscured area. Creatures venturing out at night, delving underground, or traveling into a windowless dungeon without any alternate sources of light will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.

Blindsight

Not everything relies on vision to sense the world. A creature with 👁️Blindsight is not affected by 💡Darkness or other 💡Heavily or 💡Lightly Obscured areas, and can see through ☠️Invisibility, within a certain radius. Creatures adapted to the darkness (like bats and moles) or creatures without eyes (like purple worms) have blindsight.

Figments: Creatures that do not rely on visual sight, noted as having blindsight (blind beyond this range), are immune to visual illusions (such as those created by minor illusion).

Darkvision

Many creatures within the realms of medieval fantasy are gifted with sensitive sight. 👁️Darkvision allows a creature to see within 💡Darkness as if it were 💡Dim Light, and dim light as if it were 💡Bright Light, though the creature cannot perceive colors while in darkness, only shades of gray.

Truesight

Some especially powerful creatures, like particularly old dragons, have 👁️Truesight. This allows a creature to see in normal or magical 💡Darkness, perceive ☠️Invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect illusions and succeed on its saving throw against them, and perceive the original form of a shapechanger or creature that is transformed by magic.

A creature with truesight can also see into the Ethereal Plane.