Sometimes during a fight, you might seek cover, such as by diving behind a small barricade or ducking behind a tree. When you take cover behind something that makes attacking you more difficult (but not impossible), attack rolls against you are made at disadvantage.

You usually can’t be targeted if you’re entirely behind a substantial object like a wall, even if you’re technically in range of the attack. However, you might still be affected by nearby explosions or similar effects.

Some effects require the target be in your line of sight. You have line of sight if you can see the target (though in some situations, the GM might decide the effect can’t go through a glass window or similarly transparent object). This just denotes whether or not a target can be seen by the character. For alternatives to this rule for characters that are blind, see “Adjusting Abilities and Spells” in chapter 1.

Darkness can also make certain actions more challenging. The GM should reflect this in the difficulty of an action roll.