Well, I would rule that whatever you do to completely cover your object with darkness on it would be your free object interaction (and I feel like it would be lenient to let you just close your hand around it anyway). Then the second interaction to reveal the object again would cost your action.
You could, in theory, use your free object interaction every round to alternate between dark and light... leaving yourself exposed for half of the time. That would be the extent of what I would allow.
I wouldn't even allow covering the rock with your hand; it's unlikely to form a perfect seal and even the slightest gap will cause Darkness to completely leak out.
Well the spell description gives 'bowl' and 'helm' as examples of things that can cover it. I can cup my hands together and make an airtight seal when I blow through them...but I have really fat squishy fingers. But yeah, definitely one too many actions.
Yeah, I probably wouldn't allow all of those things together. Doesn't seem intended that casting Darkness on something small makes it into a strobe light. RAW, it's because it's one too many object interactions.
Thematically, it's because it seems to be trying to have both things be true - the battlefield to be bright so that the PC can attack, but ALSO have it be dark so that they can hide. It's abusing the turn-based mechanics of the combat to do something that thematically makes no sense to me.
(BTW, what weapon are they using to do this attack? If it's a melee weapon, the enemy could probably get an attack of opportunity as the rogue moves away... and if it's a bow or crossbow, those are two-handed and so it's even more iffy for the PC to keep a magic stone in their hand during this...)
So since I don't like it from both a theme AND rules point of view, I'd be against it. Not, like, super-super opposed; if the player really wanted to and it was particularly awesome given the situation, I might allow it - but I don't really like it. (Especially since this seems like a *repeatable* tactic. And I don't want literally every fight to become a stupid strobe light show.)
I'd probably try and see if there's a way for the player to do something similar but without the thematic or rules weirdness. Could they put the rock in a particular place on the battlefield, and then move in and out of that zone of darkness using their move? That makes more sense - a corner of the room is in darkness, a sneaky rogue pops his head out, shoots an arrow, then jumps back into the obscuring darkness. I would of course let them do it every other turn - if they plop that stone into a pocket instead of their hand I could totally believe that they could do that every other turn.
Yes, the context was about 8 crossbowmen with 2 attacks each against a defending lvl7 party on a large battlefield. The party had a circle of magic stones the crossbowmen couldn't cross, but could still fire into. The character was a shadow monk and that's what ended up happening, dropping the darkness farther out in a stationary location to hit and run from. The monk was race goblin so could disengage, attack, extra attack, and retreat back to darkness for disadvantage on any bolts her way.
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I was curious what most DMs would rule on this.
Say a PC has cast darkness on a stone. On their initiative they:
1. Close hand on stone to make normal light.
2. Attack Creature
3. Open hand on stone to make darkness.
4. Move
5. Bonus Action Hide
Too many actions?
Well, I would rule that whatever you do to completely cover your object with darkness on it would be your free object interaction (and I feel like it would be lenient to let you just close your hand around it anyway). Then the second interaction to reveal the object again would cost your action.
You could, in theory, use your free object interaction every round to alternate between dark and light... leaving yourself exposed for half of the time. That would be the extent of what I would allow.
Yeah, I agree with Wolf, too many interactions.
I wouldn't even allow covering the rock with your hand; it's unlikely to form a perfect seal and even the slightest gap will cause Darkness to completely leak out.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Well the spell description gives 'bowl' and 'helm' as examples of things that can cover it. I can cup my hands together and make an airtight seal when I blow through them...but I have really fat squishy fingers. But yeah, definitely one too many actions.
Yeah, I probably wouldn't allow all of those things together. Doesn't seem intended that casting Darkness on something small makes it into a strobe light. RAW, it's because it's one too many object interactions.
Thematically, it's because it seems to be trying to have both things be true - the battlefield to be bright so that the PC can attack, but ALSO have it be dark so that they can hide. It's abusing the turn-based mechanics of the combat to do something that thematically makes no sense to me.
(BTW, what weapon are they using to do this attack? If it's a melee weapon, the enemy could probably get an attack of opportunity as the rogue moves away... and if it's a bow or crossbow, those are two-handed and so it's even more iffy for the PC to keep a magic stone in their hand during this...)
So since I don't like it from both a theme AND rules point of view, I'd be against it. Not, like, super-super opposed; if the player really wanted to and it was particularly awesome given the situation, I might allow it - but I don't really like it. (Especially since this seems like a *repeatable* tactic. And I don't want literally every fight to become a stupid strobe light show.)
I'd probably try and see if there's a way for the player to do something similar but without the thematic or rules weirdness. Could they put the rock in a particular place on the battlefield, and then move in and out of that zone of darkness using their move? That makes more sense - a corner of the room is in darkness, a sneaky rogue pops his head out, shoots an arrow, then jumps back into the obscuring darkness. I would of course let them do it every other turn - if they plop that stone into a pocket instead of their hand I could totally believe that they could do that every other turn.
Yes, the context was about 8 crossbowmen with 2 attacks each against a defending lvl7 party on a large battlefield. The party had a circle of magic stones the crossbowmen couldn't cross, but could still fire into. The character was a shadow monk and that's what ended up happening, dropping the darkness farther out in a stationary location to hit and run from. The monk was race goblin so could disengage, attack, extra attack, and retreat back to darkness for disadvantage on any bolts her way.