Darkness remains one of the most effective divide and conquer moves I regularly make, surpassing even walls, because of the access to the spell and multiclass flexibility. Blinding enemies regularly has made my party immune to dangerous spells.

In situations like this, I often like to ask myself "what do the monsters know?" For instance, in the example from the video of the battle with gnolls, if a PC did cast darkness, what would the gnolls actually know? It might be the first time in their entire life that they can't see (day or night, even in pitch black caves, those gnolls could see at least 60 feet). Now they are completely blind and they don't know why. They assume it's some kind of magic but they have no way to know if one of the invading PCs cast blindness or darkness or some other magic that took away their sight. Furthermore, they don't know if moving anywhere will fix it. The gnolls don't know it's just 15' radius from that warlock over there. They don't know that backing away from the warlock will restore their vision. What if it's 100 feet? 1,000? What if the magic is cast on them so moving anywhere is useless? What if they are just permanently blind? Since they don't know any of this, I would generally have them try to retreat to wherever they feel safest. Maybe their lair, or something like that. Sure, after they retreat a short distance they emerge from the area of Darkness and they can see again. Now they can make sensible decisions with whatever movement or actions they have remaining. Or maybe they collapse to the ground and beg for mercy. I won't metagame them by looking at the circle on the battlemat and having them use exactly enough movement to move forward, out of the darkness, next to some PC, and still have their attack ready - they just wouldn't even know that they could do that.

11:35 You do have enough movement. Darkness has a 15-ft radius so, assuming you have 30 ft of movement, you can move up next to your wizard, take your shot, then move back so that your wizard is just outside the darkness (or potentially just inside it, so he can pop out and cast his spell on his turn, then go back into the darkness so that enemies can't see him). Plus, if you have a couple levels of rogue (which I'd consider on any character using this build), then you definitely have enough movement with cunning action.

My party has been going through a murder maze for the last three sessions full of tight corners and corridors. There were exactly zero encounters where the Darkness spell wouldn't have just swallowed two thirds of the party; thank god i wasn't a devil's sightlock! Darkness also kind of throws off the math in another way, since in a real party you'll get advantage due to a buff or something, and we don't usually include that in DPR calculations while the darkness always gets calculated. It might be worth doing a video on buffs in DPR calculations since self-supplying buffs is something i see a lot of optimized builds doing when their party members might have just been able to supply it.

with the advent of blind fighting for martial characters I think this combo is easier to adjust to than before where you'd just be screwed if you didn't have devils sight

I’m currently playing a 4th level Dao Genie pact of the chain Warlock, I utilize this tactic by casting darkness on my familiar and we both throw magic stones (the cantrip) at the enemy then it flies to where the darkness doesn’t impact the other players, if it can’t fly it stays with me and we can use our object interaction to hide/reveal the darkness. It’s effective!

I've been playing in a campaign for a couple of months and I decided to try out this combo since I was going to be playing a warlock. I've only used it once and that's because another player randomly cast darkness. I just can't find a time where it wouldn't actively hurt my party. I guess if you playing more theatre of the mind stuff it would be more useful but, with maps you're usually too close together for it to be truly effective imo.

Monty from Dungeon Dudes (trained lighting designer) did a great video on his view of how to make darkness work like it would in real life and Kelly’s shadow sorcerer character uses elven accuracy, darkness and eyes of the dark really well without causing problems for the rest of the party. Link -> kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d7KYls1506ysh2w.html One of the problem’s highlighted in Chris’ video though is that an AoE spell has flexible range but a fixed area of effect radius. Darkness has a range of anywhere within 60 feet but the 15 foot radius cannot be reduced. I think the radius should be flexible, though that might reduce its effectiveness as it would be more obvious where they were within the darkness of the radius was only 2.5 feet for example. Another minor point is the AoE of darkness is a sphere. 10 feet in front of you the darkness does not reach as high above the floor as it does 5 feet in front of you (if you are the target of the spell). This is more difficult to judge and keep track of perhaps than just treating it like a 15 foot radius cylinder with uniform height throughout. Maybe casting on an imp familiar (with devil’s sight) is a niche fix to this where you can get them to hang back by 10 feet. Or you could get the imp with darkness on them to fly up to the enemies and blind them and have the casters throw in AoE spells. I wonder if the imp could use their invisibility to hide themselves and the darkness… probably not. Anyway… interesting video. Thank you :)

I don't like the darkness/darkvision thing because it's gimmicky and kind of breaks immersion outside of the right kind of battlefield scenarios (so not a core concept of the build), but in your cavern example you could mix and match the movement and free object interaction to achieve the goal of not screwing your team over. Round 1: Cast Darkness and cover the object with free interaction Round 2: Uncover the object, attack, move out of the way Round 3: Move back in, attack, free object interaction to cover the object Repeat 2 and 3 as needed I think I'd roll my eyes if anyone actually pulled that move, and I agree with the rest of your video, but it was functionally available.

Another issue that I don’t think you mentioned is that the darkness spell costs an action to cast - potentially costing the caster their first turn of combat. I know the 10 minute duration allows for players to pre-cast it before combat but in my experience opportunities to pre-cast buff spells before combat are very rare. Obviously this varies table to table, but I thought it was worth mentioning

I used this combo exactly one time to clear out a dungeon full of goblins and some other baddies. The DM ended up just handwaving the entire encounter and said I killed all of them (left one alive to question). Nobody else in the party did anything in the encounter because I was moving through the cramped caves on my own. It was the first and last time I will ever use this kind of character because it ruined everyone else's fun in the encounter. Only exception would be if everyone in the party has some method of seeing through the darkness or we're splitting up.

I think these are great points that should be made every time this combo is recommended. I should point out, I do remember when you did your warlock guide just before TCoE you did bring up this combo. You mentioned that it was a circumstantial spell but one you wanted to have in your toolbox even at higher levels; sounds like you’ve softened on that since! Which is fair. One of the things I like to do is cast darkness on a coin and hand it to my familiar. In most games I play, the familiar’s turn comes right after yours, so when your turn is done and the advantage is used, they fly thirty feet straight up, or back in the tunnel-whatever route takes them to a place where party members aren’t interfered with, and they ready their action. Then just before my turn, they use their readied action to Dash onto my shoulder-and now I can move if enemies have gotten into melee with me, make my attacks, and repeat the cycle. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it makes the party a lot friendlier to the idea.

I think one thing you missed is how effective a combination of moving and covering can be. I played a character like this and I would cover the object of the darkness or move away on alternating turns. I think my darkness only interfered with other players a few times. On the other hand, the unreliability thing came up a lot.

I used this combo in a game rather effectively when I could as a genie pact warlock with the concentration-free level 6 fly ability they get. I would pop on a darkness spell and fly upwards if the space allows for it. That way I wasn’t screwing my party over with the spell. The only downside I guess is having to wait until level 6 to really start using it, and some enemies we would encounter by then did have the attributes and immunities mentioned, but I still used the combo where I could. By level 2 I had devil sight and replaced the other invocation with improved pact weapon for the bow at level 3, sharpshooter at level 4, thirsting blade by level 5, then the concentration-free fly by 6. That was honestly one of my favorite builds to play

Audio quality went way up over the last year!

Not arguing that this spell combo can be problematic if you don't communicate with your party but a lot of other spells would not be optimal with the situations you presented. Cloud kill, fog cloud, sleet storm and fireball for literally any character other than the evocation wizard would not work in the places you described. The combo is niche but it promises good power to players that want to try it. I think it would be easier and more productive to give ways that this combo can excel. Say you have a enemy ballista or other stationary large damage dealing instalation. You can cast darkness on a stone and use a sling to target the enemy using the ballista. Now you have done damage and rendered the ballista blind. If you have this on a high mobility character you can try and cut off enemy casters or healers in the back lines. Maybe team up with a player with blind fighting and take turns wacking the enemy tank with the advantage helping chip away at that high ac. This combo is far from perfect but it is also far from bad. It just requires communication with your party and good judgment.

awesome video chris! I came to the same realization after lots of trial and error with this combo (mainly around blindfighting) and am now over 1 year (40+ games) into a high optimization campaign where one character could (but hardly ever does, and isnt reliant on) this combo - and we hardly ever see it due to the impact we saw from it, where in too many cases your own party is affected worse than the enemy you were trying to hinder with it.

Most creatures' blindsight is only 10, 30 or 60ft, and tremorsense is almost always 60ft. You should be able to move outside of this range a lot of the time. Probably not 60ft indoors very often, but all other situations.

Thank you! I've seen this combo recommended so many times, but you are the first person to properly address the question I've always had about it, which is the same question I have about doing extensive long-range scouting with a Tomelock familiar: "What is everyone else at the table doing while you're having your fun?"

Chris, I always appreciate your points. And while I have never been a HUGE fan of this, you made realize that if you utilize BOTH object interaction AND smart movement on alternating turns, you can help alleviate some of the party burden depending on the space available.

Blindsight... That moment my Sorcerer finally got greater invisibility to take advantage of his elven accuracy feat and learned everything he'd want to use the combo on had blindsight.

Its a tool. When it works on an encounter it has a dramatic effect. However, like many dramatic effects, it requires the team to be on board to get the most out of it. My group doesn't always use it or plan around it, but they enjoy the spell and blind / devils sight on occasion because its a fun tactical combination, especially when working with one or two members who don't have ds / bs. Again, its just a tool, and sometimes its the right one, but if it's your only tool, you're probably a bad repairman.

Devil’s sight has a lot of advantages outside of just magical darkness. The 120’ range and lack of disadvantage to perception checks that dark vision gives in darkness come to mind. So for characters that do not have dark vision it is essential and for those who have it it is still not a bad option. And if you have devils sight, darkness is not a waste of a spell slot. But don’t build a character around it. Now as a DM building an encounter around 2 Yuan-ti who had devils sight and 2 Giant Constrictor Snakes with blind sight and the ability to grapple and drag players into magical darkness, that was interesting.

The best application I have seen of Darkness fogging the field in 5e was in a bar fight. The room was a massive 60ft+ long, so the guy could use it on half the battlefield. What it did was essentially soft lock a few of the enemies like an MMO tank would. Three guards were stuck dealing with the Darkness Monk, while the rest of the party whittled down the other forces. Incredibly effective, and the only time I have seen a Darkness build in play. Every other time, that player did other things in combat when Darkness wasn’t the best option. I think the key was that even though he could do it, and it was mechanically best for him with little resource commitment, he made sure he had other options. That said, he wasn’t optimal by a long shot, but he was effective.

It occurs to me that using Misty Visions/Silent Image exactly the same way is only marginally less reliable advantage/disadvantage (it can be investigated as an action, and requires your action to move it) while providing a long list of benefits: - It's completely party friendly thanks to its smaller more manageable area and more options for letting party members see through it - It requires only a spell or an invocation, not both - It provides variety in combat, not just "I cast Darkness, I attack" yawn - Related to the above, it demands creativity at the table and rewards smart interesting play - It has massive utility and story potential, especially when paired with Minor Illusion for auditory illusions - Misty Visions has unlimited uses - Silent Image is available through Magic Initiate/Shadow Touched, so the combo is not restricted to characters with the spellcasting feature -It directly encourages flavours other than edge, but if you really want your edgy boi, you can make the illusion of a big blob of magical darkness.

I literally just made a level 12 Arcane Trickster looking forward to this combo. However, here's how I see it: the Rogue is always trying to mainly just apply sneak attack. The hand crossbow feats do most the lifting and you can easily get off your sneak attack without this combo. What I like about this being part of my build in this case is that it's not reliant on it, and that devil's sight and darkness, like you said, both have applications elsewhere outside of this combo. So even my build has this as a focus, I'm not disheartened by your revelations tho VERY glad to be aware of them. Thanks as always!

One of the other players in a game I was in tried this combo. He did pretty well about not screwing up the rest of the party with his Darkness spells, but it seemed like every enemy spellcaster lobbed _fireballs_ at the edge of the "unnatural patch of darkness;" if an encounter didn't include hostile spellcasters then melee opponents would flood the area of darkness and flail about wildly, offsetting the Disadvantage with raw numbers.

Darkness/Devil Sight is still my go to for hexbow warlock since it doesn't really need to concentrate on much else and can use its other spell slot(s) for eldritch smite. I don't run an elf for elven accuracy, but rather a fairy for the flight

Learned something, always worth a like.

The improvement in your audio quality compared to three years ago is amazing! Nice and crisp now ^^

As a DM, we're finally on the last section of Wild Beyond the Witchlight (excellent adventure, highly recommend for any party who can be slightly goofy), and Darkling Elders appeared in a combat. They really changed the combat when one of them cast darkness and they both had blindsight to 30 ft. My group had a hard time with it, as like Treantmonk says, it messes with so many abilities and spells. However, my group also said that it added a good challenge that they hadn't dealt with before. So, I think this combo is like an aunt who can't help but spoil you - good in small doses.

One version of this combo I have used to positive effect is with a gloomstalker/shadow monk combo. As a shadow monk you can give the party dark vision. Then instead of using darkness to cover you, you cast it over the prominent light sources in the area. It's not as strong as the devil sight version but works well to allow the whole party to function and you just create an area of shadow for you to stalk the gloom from. This works especially well in lower level games of course for the reasons you pointed out.

Over on my channel, we are running a party that is very close to getting something useful out of this combo without planning it. The Paladin/Rogue and the Fighter both took Blind Fighting without first talking it over and the Astral Monk got the ability to see in magical Darkness at level 6. It's just the Artificer that needs it now. And I guess we'd need some way to cast the Darkness spell, as well...

12:24 Oh, you just gave me an example of thief rogue being good, I think I'll remember that one. Thanks Treatmonk.

Exactly! That's why I use blind fighting style (maybe through the fighting initiate feat) and the fog spell (maybe through the magic initiate feat). Totally different ;)

It's still somehow both mind blowing and nostalgic that eventually I would get to see a face cam of my favorite D&D3.5 author from the wizards forums with the best color coding in his guides.

Not once have I considered the possibility of magic items lighting up magical darkness, but dang that was part of the spell the whole time. Thanks for pointing this out in your video cause I would never have payed that line much attention.

I had run Hexbow Lock with darkness 2-3 years ago. I never cast Darkness on any items I was carrying, I always cast it in a static location, and tried to get in and out in my turn, It mostly worked and no other players had issues. But as the levels increased we kept going up against Demons, Dragons, Purple Worms and what have you, and I ended up resorting to different means to get advantage, with varying levels of success.

I’ve only seen this combo twice, but it worked reasonably well both times. One memorable instance was when the party was being pincer attacked by a mob of Yuan-ti and their pet basilisks from the corridor behind us, and the dungeon’s bosses in front of us. The hexblade pulled this combo off, alongside their specter, to block the minions/basilisks so the rest of the party could focus on the bosses. The other occasion was a shadow monk with the Mobile feat. They do have enough movement to make sure the party isn’t getting screwed over, and it’s a pretty nice defensive buff to the squishy monk. I guess, my perspective on this is that it’s fairly situational, and I’ve found it is best as a defensive tactic. Disadvantage to be hit, interrupting enemy sight-based effects - these make this combo worthwhile.

It's a lot harder to get, but I feel like Shadow of Moil is the team-friendly version of this strategy. But you pretty much have to be a Warlock or pick it up with a Bard's magical secrets in order to use it. Smaller radius to avoid stepping on the party's toes, deals melee return damage like Fire Shield, and still heavily obscures you in darkness, allowing you to get advantage easily.

For the example at 10 minutes you could leave the object creating darkness off to the side such as in the top left so you are at the edge of it and nobody is blocked. You could also give it to your familiar to move in and then away using reaction movement. I'm not saying that it can't be harmful, I just think that if you plan well you can make it work without interfering with the party Edit: in terms of the covering it up not having enough interactions, you could also use your familiar to close it using a readied action right after your turn and use your own action to open it or visa versa Edit 2: I agree with the final statement that if a build needs this combo to work, it doesn't work. It's a cool combo and fun when there's a situation that it works well in, but I agree that it isn't super reliable.

Personally as a GM i would rule that uncovering and covering an item effected with darkness with a cloak is one object interaction. I know it’s not exactly how the interaction rules work but for the sake of my players fun i would allow it

I think a big reason it might be popular is that it’s very accessible, flashy, and the perks of it are kind of obvious. It can be included in a single-class Warlock build and nets an obvious tactical advantage where it works.

12:05 To be honest, if you combo item interaction juggling with the previous mentioned hit & run tactics, you can usually avoid screwing the party over and you can also get spells casted on you. Small rooms limitation apply (though, I would usually try and attack from a corridor/tunnel if this is the case) and obviously monster immunity to darkness. In my personal experience: -If you have decent tactical skills, you are playing with an experienced party and there is good communication between party members, usually there is no tactical downside. This however doesn't apply to 90% of random pick up groups on roll20, so know your teammates and communicate with them before picking this combo up. - Darkness immunity is a big weakpoint of this combo but, unlike poison resistance, darkness immune creature ARE NOT evenly distributed among levels of play. At low levels such monsters are rare, unless you are playing a devil-themed campaign (but in that case you would probably have enough information to know this combo will be bad for the entire campaign). Funny side note: if you are playing solo then a Staff of Swarming Insects would be an awesome pick for a magic item that could save you the need for darkness AND devil sight and would totally work on 70% of the darkness immune creatures too (only blidsight creatures would see you, but blindsight usually have a limited range so you could usually work around that too). It's way party-unfriendlier than darkness though, so careful.

In situations with tight corridors or medium sized rooms one could opt to not cast the spell centered on themselves. You could cast the spell centered on a point 10 feet away from yourself (say 10 feet back the way you came) and still have the edge of the sphere to stand in and gain the benefits of the combo from. Sure it doesn't move with you, but its an option. If you don't want to waste the up to 10 minute duration you could invest in a bag of 1000 ball bearings. They're very cheap and lightweight, cast darkness on a ball bearing and place/toss that bad boy where you want it (even carrying it on yourself of you want the effect centered on you). There are other workarounds. Dnd is a tactical game too, in some situations my suggestions could still be suboptimal, but still viable without being a detriment to the rest of the party. Anyway thanks for all your content Chris, I look forward to it every week!

Cast darkness on an object that is tied to you with a 15' rope LMAO. Finding ways to get darkness to work can actually be REALLY fun, as long as you consider dicking over your party members as a failure condition of your problem solving. In my experience, party members are often really supportive and try to creatively assist as well. The party who did this in my game did what you suggested and all took the eldritch adept feat and took devil sight, roleplaying it as all pledging to the fiendish patron which was already a custom patron and they ended up forming a cult XD. They had their fun and became more and more ambitious, and the story just wrote itself. As their infamy grew, they became targets for bounty hunters and even other adventurers, who would do their research on the party and developed counter measures vs them. Had a whole bait and trap scene where the party was trying to assassinate a king who had placed a bounty on them, and the throne room ended up being filled with daylight spells and also several counter measures to directly counter their features, and the party had to fight their way out, all going down except one. Was super fun to play the rescue mission which of course cinematically happened during the execution with the captured party members' players playing one shot cultist characters. Super fun stuff

The solution I found for the party unfriendly part of this combo is using the summon fey spell instead of the darkness spell and summoning the Tricksy. It casts darkness that only covers my character, and can even do some extra damage if I'm not worried about it getting killed in combat.

Daylight actually straight up dispells the darkness spell

OK, request for a follow-up video--going over the ways of getting advantage, what works consistently, maybe what types of builds would go for what types of advantage, pro's and cons of the ways.

Most of the issues seem to stem from the fact that you're casting Darkness on yourself, and just engulfing an entire arena in darkness, when you can, in fact, cast it in a more advantageous point away from yourself, or just cast it onto an object you can throw into a more advantageous position. You don't need to be in the dead center of the spell for it to take effect you know.

I do have a PC that uses this, although it is situational. The character is a variant human eldritch knight with the sharpshooter and eldritch adept feats. Even without darkness, these feats are not wasted. As a human and an archer, the ability to often target enemies 60' before they can target you may provide advantage. When Darkness is cast, it is cast on a the dagger blade of a bonded weapon, and sheathing the dagger hides the darkness until needed. With sharpshooter, the dagger can then be thrown fairly accurately up to 60 feet to provide darkness in an area that does not interfere with the rest of the party. The eldritch knight may then move into position with a combination of movement and misty step. The dagger may be retrieved at any time with a bonus action. After that, it may then be sheathed or redeployed. This works best large spaces.

Darkness seems to be just like every other spell in the game. It’s fantastic when used in the right context, but worthless when used in the wrong context.

Just want to point out that to have both sharpshooter and elven accuracy at level 6 would require being a fighter.

I ran into this problem in our group as well. The sorcerer and cleric couldn't cast the spells they wanted so just sat out of combat for half the session. I talked to the warlock player about this and we decided to perform a ceremony with all the other characters on a 10day rest period where they could see through magical darkness, but only hers. This took away the tension and has even allowed teamwork to developed now between the warlock and the rogue that wasn't happening before.

Glad you posted this! Literally at my last session our hexblade used this Darkness combo and took up almost the entire battlefield, screwing over myself, who couldn't target the big bad even though I had Hunter's Mark on him, and dividing our party so we couldn't help each other. Caused a lot of unnecessary tension between me and him, and I don't play DnD to get into arguments with my friends

To me, in most scenarios, this combo just always felt like it had too many moving parts to be worthwhile.

The invocation from Eldritch Adept can be changed each level, so the limitations of Devil's Sight at higher levels would be irrelevant. "Whenever you gain a level, you can replace the invocation with another one from the warlock class."

I love this combo. Of course you can create a device that allows you to cover and uncover the darkness at will, but what I do is I am not solely reliant on darkness, and also use fairy fire to create advantage as well. That helps in those type of situations. The key to understanding is that Darkness is not going to be up for every fight anyway. Always a chance it can drop on a bad constitution save. The combo has lots of wonderful role-play advantages too.

I've been using this and find it fun. If the combo causes an issue I just drop concentration. I've saved lives with darkness all the time. Also, this strat allows for crazy good mobility because of reaction attacks needing sight. Currently PAM lvlv5 hexblade but working towards lvl 3 echo knight which will be sick.

There is exactly one situation when I've recommended building around this combo: in a oneshot, with a DM who is on board with the cheese, and a party where every person is built to be able to effectively use Darkness through Blind Fighting or Devil's Sight. Just to expand on that a bit: I specifically mention a oneshot because anything longer and the combination is going to be repetitive, or the main gimmick of the party will be practically useless when trying to spice up combat. Darkness is the hammer and every problem and combat is a nail. Neither is particularly fun. Stomping through a oneshot with silly Darkness shenanigans can be fun if everyone is on board.

If you were to do this, you can combine both covering/uncovering darkness with moving out of the way so it's at least workable in situations with the room. For example, on your turn you can uncover the darkness, shoot, then move out of the way. Next turn you move into range, shoot, then cover the darkness. You don't need to move to and from position on the same turn.

My players, who recently finished the campaign and are preparing for the new one, had a hexblade warlock with this combo. At first, it screwed up the fighter who could no longer see, so that player avoided using it. However, at one point early in the campaign, the fighter made a deal with the Raven Queen to save an NPC's life in exchange for his service. With that, he ended up going for that second level, resolving the issue. I am glad you addressed this though, as while it is a fun combo at times, I find that a lot of people don't realize the consequences or that implications it brings until they're in the thick of it and half the party has to sit on the sidelines.

Thank you!!! I like blindsight, it's really cool on a shadow monk but rangers can use obscuring mist for a tactic that is similarly ill advised. I guess a moon druid with a feat (or a form with blindsenses) could do similar.

My experience has been that any build that requires advantage has reliability issues - there will always be encounters where you can't get advantage. So that is far from unique to this particular mechanism for advantage. Having had a character who can do something similar to Darkness + Devil's Sight (due to campaign specific factors), there are two big points missed in this analysis: 1. In open terrain it's easy to avoid interfering with other characters. 2. You don't have to be in the center of the Darkness effect. So in the dungeon example at the beginning of the video, the darkness and the character using it could have been to one side of the entrance. In the campaign in question fights were mostly outdoors, so the first factor above was usually in play. Due to costs, both mechanical and character, imposed by campaign the campaign specific factors I only did this a few times. But it worked well when I did and keeping the darkness away from other characters was rarely (if ever) an issue.

The opaque covering condition for darkness can make it effective for considerate players. If you cast it on a coin or a candle in a hooded lantern or something, you can use free item interactions each round to uncover it at the start of your turn for advantage, then recover it at the end of your turn to not screw everyone else over

I played a Hexblade warlock (the most stereotypical edgelord that I could come up with) using this Darkness/Devil's Sight combo for a one shot. There were only 2 combat encounters and both were in large rooms. The first encounter, there were 20-30 goblins and 5 large chunky creatures that I don't remember. We kind of split up with me covering one side of the group and the rest of the party concentrated on the other two sides. I cast Darkness and just taunted the enemies as I picked them off. The DM was using "the rule of cool" so a lot of what happened would probably not work in a regular game, but the enemy would get lost, run into objects/each other and fall prone, or stay in place as they were too scared to move. It worked VERY well and I had a lot of fun doing it. The second encounter was against a Beholder and his goons. It was a very complicated encounter, but the short version of the story is that the party was using my Darkness as cover from the Beholder's Eye Rays. While I agree that it's not as OP as originally believed, but it does have it's advantages and disadvantages. For a normal campaign, I wouldn't build a character around this combo specifically, but I'd still use it, but keep it in my back pocket as an option.

A consideration is dropping your darkness'ed marble into a 10ft sleeve of sorts (say a false tail), put it on a spearhead, etc. There are ways to effectively reduce it to a 5ft radius. Aside from the "hold it in your palm/mouth and open/close" method. At that point I'd say it's down to houseruling (never get into a ruleslawyering fight over clever tricks, it just invites more creativity). Might even simplify it and say your character can do some study to make a 5ft darkness spell variant. Up to the DM :). I wouldn't say the list of "immune" monsters disqualifies it. Most users will be ranged, and those sights tend to be limited. You'll lose your gimmick occasionally, as does everything. Just have some diversity so you'll still be useful. Probably a lot more useful than the melee fighter is when dealing with flying enemies ;). Worth remembering that making your character overpowered can just bite you in the ass. The DM ups the CR and you're right where you started... except every other feature you could have, is now too weak. Or your DM doesn't up the CR, and you instantly kill the BBG with your darkness-DS-EA-hexblade'scuse'd critical supersmite. Probably doesn't improve the experience.

It worked a couple times in a party with a shadow sorcerer and a hexblade. If everyone else in the party was down or incapacitated somehow, the sorcerer would cast Darkness with Sorcery Points that allowed her to see through it. The two of them would turtle up in the darkness and fight until everyone was dead, then they’d check to see if the rest of the party had bled out. Didn’t happen that often but when it did it was super exciting.

Cloud Rune RAI probably requires you to be able to see the new target of the attack, but RAW you only need to see if the original target is not you. It doesn't say you have to be able to see the new target. You can use the Cloud Rune while completely blind. a few seconds later and there's another wack example. The cleric can just cast Spirit Guardians before you cast Darkness, or while the others are outside of it. Sure that won't always be an option, but acting like the two tactics cannot coexist is deliberately false

I only have one counter in defense of a party optimized for seeing in magical darkness, which is that both the fighting initiate feat and eldritch adept feat allow you to change your chosen style/invocation when you level up, meaning a party could theoretically use these feats at early levels when magical darkness superiority is a powerful strategy, and then swap out for a new fighting style or eldritch invocation at higher levels. I’d say while the cost of building an entire party on this theme is still high, it’s a little lower than this video seemed to imply due to this caveat. A unified party built around shared vision capabilities can be very powerful in the bulk of day-to-day lower level encounters as long as they have other cards up their sleeve for antithesis encounters, and as long as they recognize the need to transition to new strategies as such encounters become more frequent at higher levels.

I have a group of 3 and we all have devil sight. I only have two spells as straight warlock. I cast the darkness and go at it. What I found is I agree with you. One is we complete most battles without issue. Just ripping them to shreds. So the dm has no choice but to increase the difficulty. This has been an issue for her. Hard to account for this ability. She did throw a bone devil at us and we struggled. We are still having a great time as always but this trick is limiting. Plus the one round set up is hard . Thanks for the video.

For tier 1/2 play, at least, I've found that the maneuver is a definite difference-maker. I've also found that its effectiveness is subject to both PC build restrictions, as well as topographical restrictions, where appropriate. In my situation, it was a game that happened well over a year ago. I was involved in a 6 person party featuring: a Paladin (either Oath of Vengeance or Devotion, one of the two, don't exactly remember which one), a Samurai, an Arcane Trickster, a Circle of the Moon Druid, and a Twilight Domain Cleric. I was personally playing as a martial-based half-elf Hexblade Warlock (w./Elven Accuracy), and all were at level 4. In this scenario, we were in a bottleneck situation inside of a cavern that included a sniper-based 'killzone' using orcs hiding behind walls with really narrow arrow slits. (The slits were so narrow that attacking through them imposed disadvantage, regardless of range.) After going through the area the first time, our party took a beating and we narrowly escaped. We then went back in, and, using rope from my pack, we tied the rope around each of us, with me in the lead (using the Darkness/Devil's Sight trick). We got through the 'killzone', and I took down roughly half of the orcs singlehandedly, but it came at the cost of quite a bit of fun for the rest of the party. (To clarify, there was somewhere around 15 to 20 half-orcs with x-bows and various martial weapons.) I had to drop darkness halfway through that encounter so that others could join in. It was one of those "memey" situations were people were grumpy after the fact, and all I could really respond with was "But did you die?!". At the time, I felt like there was no clean way out of this situation without at least half of us getting killed in the process, unless I'd pulled that stunt off. Certainly not table friendly at times, but it definitely has its uses in tier 1/2 play (which is where a fair amount of play happens).

I have a shadow monk I intend to give devil's sight, the added mobility from his shadow teleport will hopefully allow him to go after enemy back line guys and avoid messing with party. Not relying on it to work, but it may be a handy out as well in cases where he's stuck in bright light and can port to dark or dim if he can only start in dark or dim.

One of my personal favorite use cases that I deserves more attention than the darkness devil sight combo is the stinking cloud, blind fighting, and excellent poison saving throws combo. Does everything darkness does to your enemy and more if they fail their con save.

This combo is A tool in my arsenal, not THE tool in my arsenal. Though everything TM said is true, I've found very few occasions where it's worked against us because (knowing and learning exactly how All my party's abilities work) I avoid the situations he points out. Also, I don't use it Primarily as a damage tool (though it's nice) but as a Tactics tool. Some examples I can remember off hand: 1. Offensive mobile wall: To divide forces, buy time if ambushed, block line of sight from archers, shut down casters, etc. While it doesn't block movement, when combined with Rogue Scout for example, Skirmisher can effectively keep a slow enemy in the darkness for a couple of rounds. 2. Defensive Cover: One time our fighter was swarmed and dropped. The following turn order was Me, mob(caster), mob(ranged), mob(melee multiattack), cleric. Even though I knew it blocked the cleric's Healing Word, to avoid a possible insta-kill (prone multiattack Advantage, magic missiles, etc) before cleric could save him, I threw my (Darkness) dagger near the fighter. This effectively removed two of the threats (the ranged and caster switched to easier targets they could see... namely Me ;p) and the melee's advantage was negated. Still landed one hit (Crit was the only way it could get past fighter's AC) for 2 Fails, but Cleric was able to stumble through the darkness, grab the fighter, and Cure Wounds. 3. Ambush: Mold Earth (10 foot pits on the enemy side with ramparts on the backside making it a 20 foot climb). Darkness to obscure the hole. Simple tactic that worked a few times with a choke point and little planning. After the first time, we'd dig a hole near the exit (usually right before a corner) on our way in. If we had to flee in a hurry, warlock would take flank, hold action coming around the corner until everyone was over the hole (and scrambling up the wall) and then drop Darkness. Baddies fall in hole, take a little damage. Party can determine whether to shoot ducks in a barrel or take advantage of the delay and beat feet. 4. Synergy: One AL, I found out our fighter And paladin had both coincidentally picked up blind fighting. That was fun, to say the least...

I briefly played a half elf celestial warlock with the combo (including elven accuracy). I only got to use it once, but it was glorious. The battle was in a wide open room, so I didn't interfere with the party, I could both heal and deal good damage, and through the entire fight multiple enemies were trying and failing to hit me. I didn't lose a single hit point. I felt so powerful. The next random encounter we had was against monsters with tremor sense.

You could choose the point from which the darkness emanates to be a tiny string on the handle of the weapon you are holding, do your attacks, then cover it with your hand. On your turn you uncover it and do your attacks. I think it would work. You dont get the defensive bonus, but you gain advantage and dont hinder your allies.

Since you made that first video about the hexbow, Tasha's came out and with it: summon fey. I played something very similar to your build in that game, except I relied on summon tricksy fey instead of darkness. This only works with ranged builds, since you can't have your fey move darkness until after your turn, but you get all the benefits of darkness, you don't screw your fellow players since it's only 5 ft, it lasts a whole hour now, if your fey doesn't die and you get the benefits of a fey being who can attack too! It's particularly good at keeping your fey safe, since they run in, attack, then teleport back to you after. And if you fight creatures that see through magical darkness, you can just summon a different type of fey, or go with a different spell. Only issue here is that I noticed a definite uptick in creatures who could see through my magical darkness while I played this character. Not sure if I was just overly sensitive to it or not, but it did sap some of the fun for me.

Use familiar for object interaction to pull off the cover/uncover darkness projector. Most tables have familiar act at same initiative, but even if they don’t the familiar can delay action til you are done acting. Even have the familiar act autonomously and cover/uncover and take up optimal position if you want darkness to persist between actions or force movement/opportunity attacks.

I had a tiefling ranger in my party that cast the darkness on a pebble in his mouth, he would open his mouth take his shots at advantage and then close his mouth to cut off the darkness.

Darkness almost caused a TPK at my table because they were fighting a few mages and the warlock cast devils sight defensively because she knew most spells were line of sight but the enemy mages just carpet bombed the outside edge with fireballs and almost killed the whole party because they were clustered in the darkness and couldn’t see to cast counter spell

Back in 2017-2018, I played a Hexblade Warlock in Adventurer's League tables from 1 to 10, no multiclass. I *NEVER* caused any issues to any of the other party members using _Darkness + Devil's Sight_ combo and later, _Shadow of Moil._ And that was because I used a *Polearm* (reskined as a War Scythe). By using a reach weapon, I was able to move in and out of melee range at 10 feet to make melee attacks. It was awesome and no party member were affected. That extra 5 feet reach basically gives you equivalent of 10 feet of extra movement. And when that doesn't work (foes have blindsight or the room is too small), just use some other strategy, like blasting enemies from the back lines with Eldritch Blast + Hex.

Darkness is a spell that regularly sits on a characters spell list and never used, we theory crafted (starting at 3rd) and then ran a combat slog for a Shadow Sorcerer (Human taking the Metallic dragon feat for more healing), Celestial Warlock (Drow), Battlemaster Fighter (Drow) party that tried to use it but the 3-man party unfortunately didn't work due to missing a decent healer (Celestial soul couldn't keep people up on their own) and the Blind Fighting Fighting Style didn't allow for the fighter to provide enough in combat unfortunately or not as much as Dueling would have, Casters had a hard time balancing between being useful and keeping darkness up so the advantage would be useful. We did have one fight with a group of blindsight creatures (Skeletons) but we just happened to roll above 75% on every dice we rolled except for initiative and the encounter was over in like 2 rounds as we were running the cleaving rules (a 52 damage 1/4 Staff attack will take out 4 skeletons which is nice to know when you crit with cleaving rules applied) (6+7 on the weapon dice, +4 from 18 cha from pact of the tome Shilaegh, then Commanders Strike (Group Meme for Battlemaster) gave another 4+5 and then they were vulnerable to the damage...) Ironically Huner of Hadar was the better spell for the combo as you could fight through the effect instead of walking around with it. But we got to 7th before moving onto more interesting characters (and we got more than 4/7 people to turn up)

I hate to say it, but in the map scenario you presented, dipping in and out of range would have been just fine, and the sample PC DID have the necessary movement to do so... you just moved them further away than they needed to be (they only needed to move 15' to clear the wizard's sight, but you moved them 20') in order to make the claim that they couldn't do so (and also ignored that the wizard himself can move outside of the AOE on his turn, and in fact might actually prefer to be under the protection of Darkness until its his turn). And that was with a pretty convenient map to try and make your point! So I have to say that this argument was unconvincing, and in fact I think your evidence shows the opposite... that this tactic can work in most scenarios as long as one uses optimal positioning (strongly enabled by adding Flight capability, I should add, to put the Darkness AOE above the party). And in the small number of cases where bad positioning can't be avoided, you can just not deploy this tactic. As well, covering/uncovering becomes more feasible when using a summons IWO to help you (e.g. familiar). In regards to Blindsight/True Sight/Tremorsense, those are definitely tough... while this can fairly frequently be mitigated by exceeding their range, that's not always possible given the map, so I do think this is a valid point, but not a reason to scrap the tactic. Nothing really works 100% of the time, so having backup tactics is always a good idea.

You can interact with am object at any point in your turn, so in the main example you could alternate shooting, uncovering the darkness, and running away with running back in, shooting, and covering the darkness again. But after the wizard casts their sight spells you wouldn't even have to worry about it since cantrips don't rely on sight. There are plenty of ways to work around the drawbacks of this combination by piloting it intelligently and communicating and cooperating with your party, it can hurt your enemies and help your party in all the same ways it can hurt your party and help your enemies. And if it will hurt your party, don't use it. Just like every other spell in the game it's a tool to be utilized, sometimes it'll be a great option and sometimes it won't. Even assuming no drawbacks ever, no one should be suggesting always using it 100% of the time over all other options in the first place.

I haven‘t watched the full video yet so I don‘t know if it is discussed, but there is a good way to make it work. If you are a Warlock you can go Pact of the Chain and take a flying monster like the Imp as you familiar. Cast darkness on the Imp rather than on yourself. The Imp also has devils sight so it isn‘t hindered by the spell. Now you can let the Imp fly in such a way that you can control far better what parts of the map are in darkness. You could in theory let it fly at such a height that only the head of your enemy is in darkness. I don‘t know if medium creatures are limited to 5ft in height RAW or if their actual height counts. But most humanoids are larger than 5ft. So it your darkness radius is 15ft. The imp could fly at 20ft. Now every ally would see the biggest part of the enemy while the enemy sees nothing and thus doesn‘t know at which height darkness ends. The enemy might find out of course but your imp can also adjust it‘s position if need be.

I played a human hexblade warlock who took devil's sight primarily for the darkvision. My DM allowed me to take that one invocation that means you don't need to sleep as well, so it was super useful for keeping watch at night. I was able to make good use of darkness for its intended utility effects, sure, but I only managed to effectively combo the two in combat twice when we got ambushed from both sides: I used darkness and devil's sight to hold off the guys on the left while the rest of my party delt with the guys on the right first. I never regretted taking devil's sight+darkness, but it was NOT as broken as people make it out to be, nor did I ever really intend it to be.

I played a Hexblade warlock with this combo who would usually cast Darkness on her own armor before wading into battle with her "hexed" glaive. It was very effective and only hindered the party occasionally - but I was still glad when I could finally switch Darkness with Shadow of Moil for that same tactic to no longer hinder my team.

Don't forget to cast it on a tongue piercing. That way you can simply open or close your mouth to cover or uncover the darkness item. For bonus cheese, talking is a free action so you can just say "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh" with your free talking action while you attack. Now you don't even have to use a manipulate action to cover/uncover it. If the DM claims that you could only cast it on a held item and not a worn item, then instead cast it on a coin and then put the coin in your mouth. There's always a way outsmart the GM and ruin the fun!

You got me thinking about dual wielding a moontouched and a "shadowtouched" with darkness cast on it, the idea being attacking with the sheated darkblade, only to follow it up with the lightblade, sheating and unsheathing every time you attack. Technically speaking, I don't know if it would work, but assuming it does, I'm wondering if a hexblade can significantly beat baseline with this trick before reaching 9th level, when greater invisibility would make it obsolete. Problem is, the only way to get a moontouched sword without the help of your DM is an artificer infusion and, as the concept of a drow for wielding light and shadow is amazing, you got two classes that don't get access to fighting styles and build up on different stats that one would normally dump

A player I have used the combo, and it was fine because I often have wider more open fight areas, at least for my setting. Another thing to note is I feel like this is usually a warlock thing, and if you take more levels in warlock you can upgrade to shadow of moil at level 7 in warlock. Shadow of moil avoids truesight and doesn't have the same darkness that inhibits your team, which I think is relevant since its mostly high level monsters that get truesight or devil's sight. The spell is a second level spell, relying on it when any full caster probably gets either shadow of moil or greater invisibility is probably not ideal, though it could be an option for certain encounters if they are easier and more suitable for darkness play. Obviously it needs a lot more planning than people let on, and often people gloss over the team aspect since builds can't assume your players builds, and this is one of those cases. I'd like to know how frequently you think the spell works overall, as it may be worth considering as an option and using a dpr calculation of how often it can reasonably be used similar to other conditional abilities.

I could see this combination working a lot better with either a 2 level dip in Rogue or starting as a Goblin for ba dash. That way we can reliably move up 30 feet, shoot with advantage, and then use our ba to move back to the starting position. With covering/uncovering, you could combine it with your movement suggestion. If we assume we start at the position near the wizard with it covered (in case we lose initiative), we can uncover it, shoot & then move. Next turn, we can move back, shoot and then cover it. This removes the enemies having disadvantage to attack us, but still gives us the same damage without screwing over our team mates. Going back to the Rogue, going 3 levels for Thief Rogue would allow us to cover & uncover on the same turn. Again, we no longer get the protection of darkness, but we can still use it for the damage. I think there are ways to get this to work inside of a game without screwing over other people, it just takes more thought/preparation than some might think. RE the true sight/blind sight, this has always been an issue. I will say that quite a few creature with blindsight have 10-60ft. If we can get further out than this, we still gain the benefits. So these creatures won't always be a hard counter, but it is worth discussing when talking about how reliable this build can be.

I can still imagen a few situations however in which darkness might just be a (caution required) safety for sunlight sensitivity based races (Kobold, Duergar and Drow) prior to MMTOM or if those races from that book aren't allowed, than in the situation that you need to be out of the sunlight but very other few options it could be usable.

I used this combo but already knew the limitations. I took Pact of the Chain (Imp familiar) on a coin the imp can cover by closing it's hand. I used it to 'block vision' like a moveable wall from enemies from my party (so not the frontline) but blocking the frontline from their spellcasters/archers worked really well when there were split groups of enemies. It worked fine but was situational and really had to plan ahead for the party, such as creatures being engaged by the party. Using it also to allow creatures to be lead by my imp through opportunity attacks or going to use my action to bring up a downed character. Just have to be creative with your uses.

Thanks friend, you saved me alot of trouble, now i will leave the darkness be ;)

I played a darkness hexblade warlock all the way to level 20. Given at the time I had already heard horror stories about the misuse of the darkness/devil's sight combo, I tried very hard to be courteous in how I used it. And there were a lot of times it wasn't practical. When I did end up using it, it was often as a tactical maneuver to isolate part of an enemy group or provide cover for a fellow party member who was in over their head. And there were a few epic moments that came out of that. Eventually, I got Shadow of Moil for guilt-free darkness and things were great for a while. But as I faced off ever increasing CR monsters, it became more an more likely that they were going to see right through any tricks. At top tier play, most of the illusion school of magic becomes useless. I eventually I just abandoned shadow of moil for more reliable spells. I still have darkness for old times sake, but it almost never gets cast in combat.

My 3 player group currently all have Devils Sight! 😁 …. Hope this is TreantMonk approved! 😬

You and Colby, with your Problems! :P

I've wanted to try this combination, but you bring up a lot of excellent point that I'll need to consider.

I have an idea, but I don't know if it is an old idea, I have never heard of it. It will work mainly for warlocks but it also works for any class with access to summon fey. Cast summon fey, choose the trickster, they can cast a 5ft darkness that last one round. They can do this every round. So you can enter this 5ft square and shoot Eldritch blasts on the enemy. And the build doesn't really on this tactic, because summon fey and the warlock class are powerful by themselves. It is just an extra for when you have the opportunity.