When is a vampire in sunlight?

Question

I am the DM of a group of players that are planning some crazy ways to fight a vampire. I'm looking for a general rule (or rulings) on what counts as sunlight to deal with some of the possibilities.

Vampires have lots of bad things happen to them in sunlight, including but not limited to the following malus:

Sunlight Hypersensitivity. The vampire takes 20 radiant damage when it starts its turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

But when exactly are they "in sunlight"?

Some example situations that a general rule should handle:

• Sunlight comes down from the sun and hits them directly (obviously in sunlight here)
• Sunlight comes through glass and hits them
• Sunlight comes through clouds and hits them
• Sunlight bounces off a mirror (or several) and hits them
• During the day, the vampire is under the shade of a tree. That area is not dark, as a result of indirect sunlight.
• Sunlight bounces off the moon and hits them
• Sunlight comes from a distant star and hits them

About broadness - I could split this question into several, asking about each of these situations - but that would not solve my problem of what the general rule is so I can make sensible rulings on the fly about odd variations of sunlight-redirecting that my players might try.

Answer 1

As there is no general rule, the best I can give is what I do.

Can you see the sun?

I rule that if the creature can see the (image of) the sun, they're in sunlight. How would this fit your examples? Reflections count if they're clear enough to see the image of the sun, so mirrors count, but a building or the moon would not. Wispy clouds would not block sunlight, but a thunderstorm would.

It seems very clear that the intent of the rules is that the sun refers to the star around which the world orbits and no others.

Answer 2

As a dm I would rule sunlight that would cause an area to be brightly lit, as opposed to dim or low-light, as a direct result of the sun would count. So enough mirrors would do it. But a sufficently stormy day could be safe.

Answer 3

It's largely DM discretion. RAW, it's ambiguous. RAI, it's generally obvious that this is intended to make vampires nocturnal.

Personally, my rules for this are as follows:

1. Direct sunlight, including light within the area of effect of spells that say they produce 'daylight' or 'sunlight', always applies unless something explicitly says otherwise.
2. Indirect sunlight (reflected, passed through glass, etc), only applies if it's properties have not been visibly changed, or the rules explicitly treat it differently.
3. If an area contains enough areas within it that rule 2 applies to that it's statistically likely that the vampire could move around between them with minimal effort, I treat the whole area as safe for the vampire.
4. Areas of shadowy illumination count as safe as per rule 2.

Now, beyond that, I have a generic house rule that would apply here too, namely, I always say that any aspects of physics not explicitly covered by the rules behaves just like real life. Photonics (the study of light) is largely not covered by the rules, so most behaviors of light from real life also apply in game in my games.

This means for your examples, my rulings as DM would be the following:

• Direct sunlight:. Exactly as you said, by virtue of above rule one.
• Through glass:. Depends on the glass. Heavily tinted glass and darkly colored glass would not count, but clear glass such as what would normally be used for windows does, all based on rule 2 above. Through gemstones (I've actually had this come up before, one of my players splurged and got a carriage with windows made of solid milky quartz (among other extravagances)) works the same.
• Through clouds: it depends on the clouds. Total cloud cover does not count, minimal cover does, both based on rule 2 above. The cutoff point I normally use is 70% cloud cover. Much less than that, and it's too hard to keep to the shadows of the clouds, based on rule 3.
• Reflected in a mirror:. Almost always counts, provided it's what someone these days would call a mirror. Mirrors made of simple steel, tin, aluminum, copper, gold, or other metals that recolor the light or don't reflect it very well count only on a case by case basis (and I make it clear to my players if they count or not). Also based on rule 2 above.
• Under the shade of a tree:. Shadows are safe as per rule 4 above. In most cases, the whole area under the tree is safe as per rule 3 above, though this functionally requires you to be under the shadow of the canopy (so stuff like acacia trees is tricky).
• Bounced off the moon:. As per my house rule, this is reflected sunlight. As per the exception to my second rule above for these cases, this is no longer sunlight, because a number of spells and effects treat it specifically differently from sunlight, so it's safe (which appears to be in line with RAI).
• Light from stars: There are a number of things that require sunlight but won't work with starlight in previous editions. Later editions behave as previous editions unless stated or ruled otherwise (and I know of no rules or rulings for 5e that say otherwise), thus starlight is not sunlight. Based on this, it's safe (and this also aligns with apparent RAI).

Now, it's probably worth noting as well that I usually don't run 5e games (I do on occasion, but they're not the norm for my groups). In 3.5e, I handle things differently, because disadvantage isn't a thing in 3.5e, at least not like in 5e. There, you take numeric penalties on things. With 3.5e, I instead treat filtered sunlight (shadows, through colored or dark glass, through clouds, or reflected by imperfect mirrors) as applying a penalty on all rolls (not just attack rolls and ability checks, but also saves and damage rolls) scaled based on the 'purity' of the sunlight.

The other thing to consider here because I play older editions is that direct sunlight doesn't weaken vampires in earlier editions, it destroys them (on the second round of exposure). Quoting directly from the 3.5e Monster Manual:

Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape.

This aspect of total destruction is a large part of why I'm so liberal about what counts as 'safe'. It makes things a bit harder for my players, but I have a couple of regulars who often voluntarily contract vampirism or lycanthropy (or become a lich) simply for the bonuses they provide, so I tend to rule in ways that don't make them completely useless except at night or indoors.

Answer 4

The Sunlight Hypersensitivity (further: SH) is designed to make Vampires more nocturnal, so this leads me to believe the moon reflection and distant stars' light should not count for the Vampire's SH.

Other than that, it is in your purview as DM to decide what counts as "in sunlight" for the Vampire's SH, but you should most likely have a rule and have it discover-able to the players. For example, I would rule the Vampire's SH as being triggered by whenever light from "the sun" (as distinct from other stars) touches the Vampire with enough strength to cause a shadow. (This means all of your other bullets would trigger SH under my ruling).

Answer 5

This might be a DM ruling, but I think it's generally an easy one. Essentially, the sun is an effect that emits sunlight for an unlimited range (the range isn't actually unlimited, but when you need to get further than Mars before the effect wanes, it may as well be). Anything that impedes a path between the sun to a target, means that creature is not is sunlight.

I come to this conclusion by virtue of there being multiple elements within the game that specifically generate sunlight and do so for a specified range. For example, the sunburst spell deals a pile of radiant damage to creatures in a 60-foot radius and the light it creates is specifically stated to be sunlight. Were a creature behind total cover relative to a sunburst spell, they would be exempt from the effects of it.

So applying this logic to your original list:

• Sunlight comes down from the sun and hits them directly (obviously in sunlight here) Definitely in sunlight; much regret on vampire life choice
• Sunlight comes through glass and hits them Glass is impeding line of effect; safe while the glass remains
• Sunlight comes through clouds and hits them Clouds are impeding line of effect; safe while the clouds remain
• Sunlight bounces off a mirror (or several) and hits them Looking at a sunburst outside its effect radius is not harmful, so bounced sunlight doesn't count either.
• During the day, the vampire is under the shade of a tree. That area is not dark, as a result of indirect sunlight. I'm leaning towards no unless it is an unusually thick tree, streaks of sunlight usually cut through tree canopies, so although most of the vampire is not in sunlight, some of the vampire is; much regret on vampire life choice
• Sunlight bounces off the moon and hits them Same as with the mirrors
• Sunlight comes from a distant star and hits them This comes back to what I'd stated initially about the actual effect range of the sun's radius for sunlight. This is wholly a DM call, but it should be tempered with consideration for how vampires exist and persist in the world. It's a lot harder for them to be widespread, regional threats that their reputation suggests if they can only go out on cloudy nights.

Answer 6

Note: I will use basic physics knowledge for this.

1. Obviously he is damaged.
2. Unless the glass is magical and specially designed for vampires sunlight hypersensitivity, he is damaged.
3. Obviously he is damaged since it doesn't matter how much light he recieve, just the fact that he is or not receiving the sunlight (and he is).
4. Reflection doesn't change the light nature, so he is damaged.
5. If he sees the object, then part of the sunlight is reflected to him, as said before, reflection doesn't change light nature, so he is damaged.
6. Still reflection, but as in fiction vampires usually resist that particular reflection for whatever reason, he is not damaged (but if you want to apply physics, he does).
7. This would have the same answer as the 6th, they should but in fiction universes were vampires exist, they aren't usually affected (unless they should based in physics).

Also I would like to add that even with sunglasses he would be taking part of the sunlight so he would be damaged. (I know this wasn't asked but wanted to add it as a curiosity.)

Also, I wanted to state that in “Which wavelength of light from Sunlight burns Vampires in Vampire Diaries / The Originals?” on SF&F SE, it is said that the part of the light spectrum that affects vampires is UV (this would affect the 2nd and 3rd answer depending on the mirror's and the cloud's refractive index). I know that link isn't related to D&D 5e but you could use that as reference if you wanted (just giving you some tools you can use to justify your decision as DM). Remember you are the game master and you decide what of the light affects the vampire.

Addition: If you see something illuminated by sunlight, then you are receiving that sunlight, why is this? Well, the sunlight is reflected over the material, which, depending on itself, can absorb some parts of the light (determining its colour), then the reflected sunlight goes to your eyes and your photoreceptor cells receive them (then your brain, uses the information received by the photoreceptor cells and defines the environment where you are, with its colours and all that stuff). Therefore, if something is illuminated by sunlight and you see it thanks to sunlight, then you are receiving that sunlight (this would be the explanation of a vampire being damaged if it goes to the exterior in a sunny day, even if he is under a shadow).

Answer 7

Answering this is your Job as DM

Ultimately as the DM it's your job to make this call. I'd posit that since vampires don't have reflections in mirrors, reflected sunlight is largely ineffective. Generally they're not affected by full moons or starlight (in a world with multiple suns, they might be affected by only one). So quantity is important too.

I'd probably rule that direct sunlight (including through transparent material like glass) has full effect.

For some situations I'd give partial effect... probably disadvantage but little or no damage. Thick clouds, alchemically treated stained glass.

For reflected light from a mirror, I'd probably give them a save of some sort to ignore it, otherwise they'd act at disadvantage due to the psychological fear of sunlight even if doesn't actually affect them.

If you're players are planning this, a successful skill challenge should allow them to suss out exactly what will and will not be effective.