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If you are in an area of magical darkness, and you have limited range blindsight, you will be able to perceive normally within that radius, as per the definition of blindsight:

A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.

Assume you are not blind beyond that range like for example, the Barlgura demon, which has 30' blindsight, 120' darkvision, and no further limitations.

  1. Does this allow you to look "through" the area of magical darkness with blindsight and see beyond it using their other senses, that normally would be blocked by magical darkness?, or

  2. Does it only allow you to see within the area of blindsight, and your other senses are still blocked by the darkness, so you cannot look beyond it outside of your radius of blindsight?

This question discusses if the magical darkness blocks vision through it, or just creates absence of light, and the answers tend to cluster around it blocking vision through it if you just have darkvision. (The top rated answer says that is up to the DM, but includes this as an option). However, it also does not address the situation where you have another special vision sense that allows you to see in a given radius in spite of the magical darkness. (I think this makes it more likely that the answer is option 2, but that is exactly my question).

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    \$\begingroup\$ I looked at that other question before posting, to avoid posting if what I am intersted in was already answered. and do not think it is a duplicate. It is asking how blindsight works IN magical darkensss. I assume it as a given that you can perceive normally in the radius of blindsight there. What I am unsure about and am asking is if that means you can see beyond your blindsight range, if the blindsighte covers all of the magical darkness. There may well be another Q&A for that I did not find, in which case I would be happy for this to be marked a dupe of it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Oct 16, 2022 at 19:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ This seems to me to be an exact duplicate. If the answers to the linked duplicate are unsatisfactory, bounty that question. I see no reason to have this as a separate question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Oct 16, 2022 at 20:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ Duplicate doesn't seem quite appropriate here, this is a far more specific question and I think it's unreasonable to for the linked question to cover every possible sub-question, we have seperate questions to handle that. I'm holding off from changing this right away. You might instead want to address how: Does the Darkness spell block vision? doesn't answer the question (unless it does), it might be a better target. \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 11:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ Okay, I think I'm understanding your question, but I want to be sure. You're asking "if your blindsight can see all the way through darkness, can you use your regular vision to see what is on the other side of the darkness that normally you would not be able to see?" \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 17:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Someone_Evil I think it would be perferrable to have an explicit line of argument why the combination of two sets of vision will not overcome the darkeness (i.e. why option 2 is the correct answer), but if it is a duplicate, then it would be better as one of the question you suggest, so I switched that. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 17:47

2 Answers 2

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Blindsight does not change your regular sight.

The rules for blindsght state:

A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.

And that's it. Nothing here changes how a creature's conventional sight functions when it also has blindsight. So if you cannot see beyond an area of darkness with conventional sight, having blindsight doesn't change that. You just know what the area of darkness and anything beyond it that is still within your blindsight radius looks like.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Unofficial tweet from Jeremy Crawford related to this answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tarod
    Commented 12 hours ago
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If the creature had blindsight and normal vision and was in an area of darkness (the absence of a light source), and further way, there was a light source, like a torch or lantern, the creature would be able to see within their blindsight range and within the range of the light source. However, there would be a gap of darkness the creature could not see in.

Magical darkness is different. It actually blocks vision, like thick smoke or fog or ink from a squid. It is opaque, even to those with darkvision, but not to those with Devil's sight. Without Devil's sight, the creature would not be able to see outside of their blindsight range unless they left the magical darkness. The magical darkness doesn't block blindsight, but it would still block other senses.

In either case, the blindsight doesn't create any sort of "bridge".

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Even normal darkness creates heavy obscurement and thus rules as written, blocks vision entirely, like fog. It is not different in that regard (although that result is unexpected, I would not rule that way, and even the games authors sometimes forget to realize this, DMG 105) \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Mar 26 at 2:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, they errata'd it, but for sure, even the update isn't really clear, no pun intended. All they added was "in that area" but whether or not it's opaque is probably more from common sense than from the opaque rules :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Wyrmwood
    Commented Mar 26 at 2:34

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