Can Blindsight bridge magical Darkness

dnd-5especial-sensesspellsvision-and-light

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).

Best Answer

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.