The Darkness Spell: D&D 5e Analysis

Is the Darkness Spell + Devil's Sight combo unplayable in D&D? Or worse, does it make you a terrible player and worse person? Or is the spell an excellent concealment spell that makes your party far more effective and dangerous in combat? Let's find out.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro

#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #initiative #optimization #optimize

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[theshadowbadger]

One other trick I really like is dissonant whispers, which doesn’t call for sight, only that your target can hear. The fact that they can’t see makes it viable to force enemies to run into dangerous terrain you otherwise wouldn’t be able to force them into (evard’s black tenticles is my personal favorite).

[SirKnico]

When I had this combo my favorite way to use it, would be as a social reset. When negotiations went wrong, I would cast it upon the whole group and try to once again plead our case to avoid bloodshed. Enemies are a lot more open to stop the fight, when they are shrouded in darkness and know you can see them.

[thomasschultz]

Dude this was such a good video. Im. Currently on a raid-party of 8 level 14 highly optimized adventurers and the map control that dakness gives you, even at rhis level, is INSANE

[MegaCyberleader]

sometimes you have to embrace the darkness before you can love the light.

[AMorphicTool]

I've been playing a Kalashtar Shadow Sorcerer recently, darkness is very much a case-by-case basis when used. The Warlock in our party has devil's sight and casting darkness on his sword is EXTREMELY powerful. He can jump from opponent to opponent with ease and as a control sorcerer who can see into the darkness I can assist from afar if he gets into bother.

When we're in close quarters, I usually cast darkness on an object before a fight begins and then obscure it, often I need to drop concentration for something like Hold Person, but it's a really great spell for the brown pants moments like a party member going down. As a shadow sorcerer, the sorcery point cost to re-cast it makes it very cheap, especially at low levels. With it obscured its an ace up your sleeve for whenever it's relevant.

People who say darkness is useless haven't seen it used well. It is far from useless.

Also, being captured and using mental link to say into your captors head "No, you don't understand. I'm not trapped in here with you, *mimes blowing out candles* *activates darkness* you, are trapped in here with me." Is one of the most badass moments I have ever experienced.

[Riddlewizard]

Thank you for this.
I play a Human Wizard, and took Devil's sight when the DM gave me a feat. I had been thinking of ways to utilize Darkness, and this helps accomodate the party. Now I'm going back to my original plan of casting Continual Flame on the wick of a Lantern.

[christopherboylan]

Impressive video, great content - I just found the channel and am very pleased.

[kingdragoonmk]

Id love to see your take on a "Undying Phoenix" Build
Fire, Destruction, Renewal...
Ancient and Primal...

[MiroAcronymity]

Thanks for the video! Came at the right time. I have a shadow monk/rogue with a pinch of twilight cleric. I have not yet had an opportunity to cast darkness, but this will help. I am planning to use a coin as the spell's target that can be hidden or even thrown at enemies.

[leohale]

Nice analyses of the Darkness spell and Proper use.

[WarpstormChronicles]

As a warlock put the darkness on your imp and it can move into optimal position and also has an action to cover and uncover the cause of the darkness in addition to the warlock.

[dmitrybr]

I ould like to add another way of countering the darkness, available at very 1st lvl. "Useless" Artificer 1lvl ability "Magical Tinkering" gives an option to make a tiny object to shine in 5/5 ft radius. It is not as cool as Continual Flame, but it is 1lvl option, that not many people know about. Combined with Arcane Trickster mage hand and/or Familiar it is really interesting.

[mikegilkey]

So glad you mentioned Bilbrons and Dragons. He has such great vidoes

[Nedoiko]

I dont find the object interaction cover/uncover to be much of an issue, it's one of my preffered tactics and its always a way of doing flavorful stuff, the main I do is putting the object in my mouth and terrify the enemy by having the darkness spill out of it while i talk, just opening and closing with my free action as per the rules, but you can do things as getting a pet rat, or a familiar, have something like a best friends forever wristband, cast darkness on it, and let the pet take care of the second covering or uncovering, Familiars are already common enough in optimized settings, and sometimes its arguable if its even an object interaction to tell your rat familiar to get inside your clothes.

One thing i still need to playtest is mixing hexblade with summon fey and do a similar thing, having the square of darkness that the fey summons be put on your space, the only problem beign that it doesnt move from there

[NobodyDungeons]

So, what I do is put a continual flame upcast to 3rd level into a hooded lantern, making covering and uncovering it much easier.

[harmonickolobok]

Darkness dispells 2nd level(or lower) spells that produce light. Flaming sphere description explicitly says that it produces light.

[TheTheoser]

I want to know if I cast darkness on myself why enemies can run away from me with their full movement. What's the point of chasing them

[gurugru]

Whoa I hadn't considered Alert. That could be a gamechanger!

[GraceMcCown]

I've always had a bone to pick with treantmonk since the old days of pf1e where he listed celestial armor in every single character guide he put up. Not because he called it the best armor in the game, i honestly agree on that front, but because he put on every guide that the armor could be further upgraded, despite that it directly falls under the pf1e RAW definition of an armor that can't be upgraded due to having abilites that can't be linked to a specific enchantment in the books. Well, the more specific bone to pick is that every minmaxing pf1e player under the sun takes his word on RAW as gospel and tells you that you're wrong no matter what you point out or what rules you cite.

[martonbenkovics]

okey, big question about the spell you mentioned but i don't really understand
do you KNOW where the creatures are in the map in 5e when you can't see them?
like, lets say the pc is in one side of the Darkness and the enemy is in the other side (after some round and moving around in the spell), having 20ft between them. Now, can my pc go exactly to the enemy, becouse they know where it is or not, becouse they can't see it?
or, if my ranger is inside the Darkness, could it shoot an enemy outside the spell (with disadvantage) without seeing it?
ir lets switch it and my wizard tries to get the enemy inside the spell, could they do it with a Firebolt, targeting that one enemy (with disadvantage) or should they use Fireball for it?

the same questions goes to an invisible creature, if it isn't hiding