Are ranged attacks into an area of heavy obscurement made without disadvantage?

Question

Facing a large group of enemy archers, I cast a spell such as Darkness or Fog Cloud which creates heavy obscurement around me and my companions.

The next turn is that of one of the enemy archers. Can they simply shoot us just as they were doing previously, with no disadvantage, because them not seeing us and us not seeing them cancels out?

I base this assessment on the following rules:

Heavily Obscured (p183, PHB):

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A).

The Blinded condition (p290, PHB):

A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage.

Attacking a creature that can't see you or that you can't see (p193-4, PHB):

When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll.

When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.

Advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out (p173, PHB):

If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and only one grants advantage or vice versa. In such a situation, you have neither advantage nor disadvantage.

Now given that my allies are now Heavily Obscured from the archers, they could take the Hide action, and if successful the archers would have to guess their position to try and shoot them (still no disadvantage, I believe). But if none of us take the Hide action, does the spell do precisely nothing in terms of making us harder to hit?

Answer 1

Yes, but there’s more.

You are correct in assuming that an archer firing into an area of heavy obscurement has a normal attack roll due to advantage imposed by the target not seeing them and disadvantage imposed by them not seeing the target.

However, the part between your unseen attacks quote is also relevant to the attack. The question you ask in your post is also different than the question in your title. You asked additionally, “Does the spell do precisely nothing in terms of making us harder to hit?”

And so I quote the part you left out:

PHB Pages 194-195. This is true whether you’re guessing the target’s location or you’re targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.

The DM can determine whether the attack hits or misses without referring to the attack roll in certain circumstances. For example, if you cast the Fog Cloud spell and then use your movement to move out of the cloud or elsewhere within the cloud, but still remain mutually obscured to the enemy, the enemy would have to be able to hear you to get a normal attack roll.

If it’s ruled that the enemy can’t hear you, perhaps by a low perception check roll, passive perception at the DM’s discretion, or the deafness condition, then the attacker would have to guess your location. The attack could then automatically miss regardless of any attack roll up to the discretion of the DM. In the event your location is guessed correctly, however, the attack is made without either advantage nor disadvantage.

So, to answer your second question: no, the spell does not do absolutely nothing to make you harder to hit. You should also consider the case where the enemies have advantage before the Fog Cloud spell, as well, and the effect that it has on cancelling out said advantage.

Answer 2

Short answer, yes.

No one can see anyone; everyone has both advantage and disadvantage; therefore, all attacks are made with a single d20.

Fog Cloud and Darkness can still save you from getting hit, though:

• Your party can take the Hide action and move around, at which point the enemy archers will have to guess a 5ft square to shoot at and hope someone is there.
• If you run from melee range, there are no opportunity attacks if your opponent can't see you.
• If your opponents had advantage on their attacks, fog/darkness effectively cancels that advantage.

Rules Errata

Note that the rules for Obscurement have been modified by errata:

Vision and Light (p. 183). A heavily obscured area doesn’t blind you, but you are effectively blinded when you try to see something obscured by it.

The old wording would have meant that someone hiding in the shadows wouldn't be able to see someone standing under a street light, and that would be silly.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/rules-references-august-2017 has a link to this and all other Player's Handbook errata.

Answer 3

The current accepted answer is out of date

The spell makes you harder to hit

If you look at the errata from 2017, your section for heavily obscured should say:

A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

Your use of the spell is exactly how you are supposed to use Fog Cloud under the current rules, because:

• You will be able to see the enemy archers (they are not inside the Fog Cloud, therefore they are not heavily obscured, therefore you are not Blinded when you try to see them)
• They will not be able to see you (you are inside the Fog Cloud, therefore you are heavily obscured, therefore they are Blinded when they try to see you.)

As a result:

• They will have disadvantage attacking you (attacking an unseen target)
• You will have advantage attacking them (attacked by an unseen attacker)
• Your use of the spell prevents you from becoming a pincushion.

The archers will still know exactly where you are, because you are not, at this point, hidden. They do not need to guess where you are, because they can still hear/smell/etc. you. However, because you are currently unseen, you will be able to use the Hide action inside of the Fog Cloud, which will make you hidden, at which point they will no longer know which square you are in and will have to guess which square to attack.

Some people might now make the argument that "you can't see them because it says an heavily obscured area blocks vision entirely", but if you use that reasoning, 5e vision falls apart entirely. If you want to rule that heavily obscured areas block all vision through it and not vision into that area, you've essentially created a world where as soon as it becomes dark, everybody is condemned to living inside small bubbles of solitary light, because you would not be able to see other people who are carrying light sources through the heavily obscured darkness in-between.

Rules only do what they say

It was pointed out in chat that "realistically, fog will block your vision so it does not need to be spelled out", but this does not mesh with the idea that rules only do what they say. If an area that is heavily obscured was supposed to block all vision through it (and not into it) it would say so, there would be absolutely no reason to specify how the area interacts with vision, and the errata does absolutely nothing. If you already can't see through an heavily obscured area "because of logic", then why even define that you count as blinded when trying to see something inside of it, when you would simply be unable to see anything inside or behind of it?

At the end of the day, Dungeons & Dragons 5e is not a tactical wargame, despite having its roots in similar games in the past. Having to keep extensive track of line of sight through every heavily obscured area along the way, many of which are going to be circular in shape because of spells, detracts from gameplay and is a level of realism simulation that the game is simply not meant for.