Does Devil's Sight enable one to see into Hunger of Hadar?

Question

The hunger of Hadar spell (PHB, p. 251) creates a black void of darkness, which cannot be penetrated by light. This means that no one can see in, and those inside cannot see at all, which is a handy way to damage and control enemies since they don't know which way is out.

This also means that characters cannot easily attack those inside.

The Devil's Sight eldritch invocation, however, enables a warlock to see normally in magical and non-magical darkness.

Does this enable the warlock to see into the area of blackness created by hunger of Hadar and attack creatures inside? Are there any other sight mechanics that allow someone to see in or out of the spell?

Answer 1

If the Warlock is inside, NO. If they are outside, Maybe.

The real key here is the wording on Hunger of Hadar. The spell breaks itself down into being inside the sphere, and being on the outside looking in. We'll use that same breakdown as well.

(emphasis mine)

A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point with range and lasting for the duration. ... No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded. - *Hunger of Hadar, Player's Handbook

Inside

If you are fully inside of the sphere you have the blinded condition. Devil's Sight does nothing to counteract that condition.

“A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight

Outside

This is where the RAW gets fuzzy. As Justin T mentioned,it would be a DM discretion issue on "blackness" being the same as "darkness". Within the text of Hunger of Hadar it mentions opening "a gateway to the dark between the stars". This uses the word dark, so I would probably rule that you can see into it. At the end of the day though, it would be up to your DM.

Answer 2

Jeremy Crawford has ruled No:

Devil's Sight is meant to pierce the dark created by a spell like darkness, not the void of hunger of Hadar.

Reference: Twitter

As Crawford's tweets are no longer considered official rulings, and this question/answer does not appear in the Sage Advice compendium, I don't believe there is currently an official ruling on this question.

The "blackness" does not say that it is magical (or natural) darkness, so it may be darkness or something else, but this is not made clear by the spell or any future rulings. So if your group does not consider Crawford's rulings as canon, DM discretion would apply.

Answer 3

Based on updated Sage Advice, Hunger of Hadar blinds creatures inside the spell, but does not block the simple darkvision of those outside it. Devil's Sight isn't required.

A character with devil's sight or even just darkvision, that is not blinded, can see into the area of the Hunger of Hadar.

According to the Sage Advice Compendium:

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.

The Hunger of Hadar spell does not say that it blocks darkvision (PHB 251):

You open a gateway to the dark between the stars, a region infested with unknown horrors. A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point within range and lasting for the duration. This void is filled with a cacophony of soft whispers and slurping noises that can be heard up to 30 feet away. No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.

Compared to the Darkness spell, that does state so (PHB 230):

A creature with darkvision can't see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can't illuminate it.

The spell states that it creates blackness for which I cannot find any effects defined in game terms. There is no indication that it creates darkness or any other kind of obscured area.

However the spell states that "No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area" and an area where light is absent is darkness. This is also backed up by the rules in the sense that there are 3 stages of illumination, and only darkness fits when there is no light, according to (PHB 183):

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness. Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius. Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light. Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Therefore a character without darkvision or similar traits cannot see into the area, anyone with darkvision can only see there as if it was dim light.

Dim light in darkvison (PHB 183):

Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in dim light as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned.

Devil's sight does not have such a limitation, anyone with this trait can see normally into the Hunger of Hadar (PHB 110):

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.

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It was not really part of the question, but as others mentioned, characters inside the Hunger of Hadar are blinded and therefore cannot see anything, even if they have darkvision or devil's sight. They would need something like blindsight in order to see.

Answer 4

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet. - Devil's Sight, Player's Handbook

A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point with range and lasting for the duration. ... No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded. - Hunger of Hadar, Player's Handbook

The answer to this question hinges upon whether darkness and blackness are equivalent for the purposes of Devil's Sight. I would rule that they are, but your DM may feel differently.

Answer 5

Hunger of Hadar says:

A 20-foot-radius void appears on a point you choose. Its filled with whispers and slurping that can be heard up to 30 feet away. No light can illuminate the area, and creatures fully in it are blinded. The void's area is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts its turn in the area takes 2d6 cold damage. Any creature that ends its turn there must succeed on a Dexterity save or take 2d6 acid damage.

Almost anyone can see in

Hunger of Hadar doesn't prevent people with darkvision from seeing into it. The only thing that stops people outside from seeing in is that the area is unlit. Devil's Sight thusly confers no advantage in this situation, beyond the additional range with the darkvision as compared to most races. The only people who can't see in, then, are those who few weirdos who lack darkvision (i.e. halflings, humans, and dragonborn without class features to the contrary).

It's important to remember that spells only do what they say they do; while Darkness creates magical darkvision-stopping darkness, it does so because it says it does. Other magically created darkness is just dark.

Almost no one can see out

Hunger of Hadar doesn't stop you from seeing out cause it's dark. Hunger of Hadar stops you from seeing out because it inflicts the 'blinded' condition. That's a much stronger condition that just 'I can't see'; even with blindsight you are still subject to "Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage."

Indeed, rather than mere blindsight or tremorsense, a more powerful ability like immunity to the blinded condition would be needed to render Hunger of Hadar ineffective against a target.

So, Devil's Sight doesn't really matter

Like was said on twitter:

Devil's Sight is meant to pierce the dark created by a spell like darkness, not the void of hunger of Hadar.

That's not because you can't see in with it; that's because you'd be able to see into it anyways. The cool thing Devil's sight lets you do is see through magic darkness you otherwise wouldn't have been able to. The rest of the time it's just fancy darkvision.

Answer 6

You can not stare into the void

The problem is that Hunger of Hadar uses a game term that isn't defined. When that happens, we generally go with the colloquial definition, but that doesn't really help us because we need a mechanical game term answer in order to determine how that term would be used in-game with other mechanics.

What is blackness?

Hunger of Hadar says:

A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears... No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.

What we have is a sphere of blackness. But what is that? It's given some further definition later where it says that nothing at all can illuminate the area. That suggests that this isn't like regular darkness because that can be illuminated. It's also not like magical darkness, because that can also be illuminated with a spell of the right level.

One could interpret it not working against darkvision, but that's just a potential interpretation. You could also lean into the lack of any illumination possible, which suggests there is nothing to be seen inside regardless of any ability (except maybe blindsight?)

With the lack of clarity, a ruling is required and a discussion should be had at the table as to what works for everyone. But the description of a void that allows no light, either magical or mundane, to illuminate it evokes an area that is simply not visible.

Answer 7

Outside, looking in

Hunger of Hadar:

A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point with range and lasting for the duration...No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.

Nowhere does the spell explicitly say that it produces 'darkness'. Rather, it produces "blackness and bitter cold". Within the rules, 'cold' is a kind of damage, and the spell later quantifies this as 2d6 per turn. But 'blackness' has no game description, although its natural use in English suggests that it may be related to darkness. Thus, as NautArch says in their answer, we need to define blackness.

The spell also says that no light can illuminate the area, and that creatures within it are blinded. Is this the within-game definition of blackness? Possibly. We can't be sure, but ultimately it doesn't matter - because if 'no light can illuminate and blindness within it' is the definition of blackness, then we know how to apply it. And if this is not the definition of blackness, we still have to apply 'no illumination, and blindness' as a spell effect, and since we don't know what blackness means we cannot apply it anyway.

The fact that no light can illuminate the area is related to the lighting conditions defined by the rules (and cited in full by findusl's answer). In brief:

The presence or absence of light creates three categories of illumination:
When an area is fully illuminated, it is in "bright light".

An area between bright light and darkness is "dimly lit", as is an area that is illuminated by a particularly weak source of light.

An area that is insufficiently illuminated, or not illuminated at all, is in darkness.

Thus, although the spell description does not explicitly say that the sphere is an area of darkness, by telling us that it cannot be illuminated we know that it fits the game definition of darkness.

For the purposes of who can see in this darkness, we might need to know whether or not it is magical. As the Sage Advice Compendium tells us (v. 2.7 p.21), since the blackness is produced by a spell and powered by spell slots, this would be magical darkness. However, Sage Advice (v. 2.7, p.3) also tells us:

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.

We can conclude that the 'blackness' produced by the spell is magical darkness, but it is magical darkness of the kind which does not block darkvision.

Thus, from the outside looking in, the blackness of the spell would block the vision of only those who cannot normally see in darkness. Those with Darkvision are allowed to treat the magical darkness as dim light, and those with Devil's Sight can "see normally" (that is, with no penalties on Perception checks, and the ability to see colors).

Inside

As per the spell description, creatures actually within the blackness are Blinded, meaning they "can’t see and automatically [fail] any ability check that requires sight." This will supersede both Darkvision and Devil's Sight, since using these requires that the creature to be able to see. The only creatures that will be able to see out of the blackness are those who rely on a sense other than vision to see (such as those with Blindsight).

Answer 8

It references blackness, not darkness. That's not the same. Void of space or a black rift in reality, not just some darkness.