Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Has anyone built a party so that they are all capable of seeing in a monk’s magical darkness? Currently I am trying to build a party (my friends asked me to make their characters for them) with a warlock using devil’s sight, a shadow monk, a fighter using blindsight, and a cleric that is so far unable to see, but should be fine just staying away. Thoughts on better ways to optimize? Is it even worth it?
The problem with the cleric staying away is they can’t see you to heal you. Someone drops innocent that darkness, and it’s really hard to get them back up.
I’ve been playing a shadow monk, and it’s pretty annoying I can’t use one of my main class features without nerfing the rest of the party, so I feel your pain.
Edit to add: dwarf tremorsense can help situationally.
Other related builds that could be worth a look is Twilight Cleric, Gloomstalker Ranger and Shadow Sorcerer.
Exactly my thoughts. Gloom Stalker possibly duel classed with Twilight Cleric.
Problem with this - neither of these subclasses give a character the ability to see in magical darkness, as created by the Shadow Monk's Darkness spell. That would take a feature like the Warlock's Devil's Sight that lets you see in magical darkness, or a special sense like Blindsight or Tremorsense.
That said, I have played in a party that all found a way to see in magical darkness. The Fighter took the Blind Fighting style, as did the Paladin, the Rogue took the Skulker Feat, and the Warlock took the Devil's Sight invocation. Having the entire party able to easily get advantage on enemies that were in the Shadow Monk's Darkness was very potent, and trivialized a lot of encounters.
Well warning flag #1 is your friends asking you to build their characters with no guidance what so ever. You definitely should not design them all around one particular strategy without confirming with your friends that they think that strategy is fun. There is also a ton of enemies that can see through darkness (roughly the same number as are immune to poison), so depending on your DM this might be all for naught since the DM could just decide to make devils the main enemy of the campaign and now the one strategy you've built around is basically useless.
Warning flag #2, your casual dismissiveness of one entire character in this party. I don't know anyone who plays a cleric who would be happy sitting out of combat, waiting for hurt members of the party to come back and ask for healing. You should not be building characters for your friends if you aren't going to ensure each and every character is equally important to the success of the party. It's going to feel really bad for whomever you assign the cleric to, to be told "yeah just go stand behind the wall, while we do all the cool stuff".
Overall I'd say this is not worth it at all because this table is going to fall apart extremely quickly. Your friends aren't at all invested in the game and you are not invested in ensuring they engage with and enjoy the game. You need to involve them in the creation of their characters so that they are excited to play them, and think what they can do is cool and fun.
They were not totally uninvolved, they selected certain aspects of their characters. I simply am the one filling out the sheets and trying to form a cohesive build. For example the classes were each chosen by the players and they each rolled for their own stats.
the cleric has expressed more interest in the role playing portion and in being more monetarily involved rather than in combat. Also part of the reason for this thread was to see if anyone had an idea on giving the cleric a way to see. The cleric is very important to the party, but not as a combatant.
in addition the party is not being built around the use of this one ability. The characters are each going to be capable of doing plenty of other things. I was simply trying to make it so that the shadow monk would be able to use its darkness ability without wrecking the rolls of a every other player.
It should be noted, that a Cleric CAN heal a target that they can not see. Cure Wounds does not require sight, and it becomes very efficient healing if the Cleric is concentrating on Beacon of Hope to max out those dice rolls.
Heal is usually thought of as the best healing spell when you need to restore a lot of HP at once. It heals for 70HP. Upcasting Cure Wounds to 6th level (same as Heal), while Beacon of Hope is active will restore a whopping 12d8+WisMod maximized, or 101HP (assuming 20 Wis), and it can be done while standing inside the Darkness spell.
If I was in a fight - or better yet, if I was leading a bunch of guys in a fight - and most of my enemies were in darkness, essentially impossible for me to fight, while one was standing out in the open ... then that one guy would have a very hard time of it. I'd focus down the one guy I could.
As a player, I don't think I'd 100% enjoy being the only target in every fight.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
dwarf stone cunning gives tremorsense to 60 feet for 10 minutes, pb/day, but it only works when you're standing on stone. not dirt, not a wood floor in a building, etc.
blind fighting is only good to 10 feet. and the only classes that get access to fighting styles are: fighters(lvl1), paladin(lvl2), ranger(lvl2). maybe take dips in those classes.
The weirdest, but most reliable way I can think to do this is have every player take magic initiate feat, take Find Familiar spell, and summon a bat. they have blindsight to 60 feet.
Slightly less weird, but also less reliable, have as many casters as you can get Find Familiar spell, and have them cast it into a Ring of Spell storing. Have each nonspellcaster player go around and cast the spell and summon a bat. It will work right up until the bat is killed by an AOE spell, and then everyone is blind. and it will take a long time for each PC to attune to the ring and cast find familiar again.
if you want this to be reliable and workable, the only way is to give eveyone a 2 level warlock dip and just take Devil Sight.
it seems that Darkness spell is overrated.
if you cast Fog Cloud on yourself, you can see out of the cloud just fine, but enemies are BLIND to seeing you, which means you attack them with advantage.
you dont need any special features to see out of the cloud. It just works that way.
magical Darkness requires Devil Sight to see out of.
Magical Darkness is a little more stable. Fog Cloud can be blown away by a wind. But a lot smaller investment to get advantage on attacks.
All the "block vision but I can see through" tactics are overrated. Getting advantage on attacks isn't hard, there are tons of ways to do it without potentially crippling one or more of your party members:
1) Barbarians and Rogues both can just choose to have advantage. Many subclasses have additional ways: e.g. Vengeance Paladin, Trickery Cleric, Samurai Fighter.
2) Knocking prone using Topple Mastery, or the Shove unarmed strike option, or the Shield Master BA Shove, or spells like Grease, Hideous Laughter, Command.
3) Vex weapon mastery.
4) So many spells : e.g. Faerie Fire, Blindness, Hold, Guiding Bolt, Entangle.
5) DM-dependent flanking or strategic positioning.
6) Heroic Inspiration from various feats.
7) Grappler + Grappling.
It's not just about getting advantage on attacks. Enemies can't target you with spells and get disadvantage on their attacks.
Not really. Most enemy spells are AoE or defensive, enemy special abilities rarely depend on sight - I had a warlock who tried the Darkness-Devil's Sight combo all pouty because the dragon wyrmlings just blasted them with their breath attack instead. Enemies can also simply move out of the darkness and attack the squishy casters who aren't in your Darkness area without disadvantage, and if the whole party huddles in the darkness it's just begging for an AoE. The frightened condition and grappling are better defensive options as they block their movement as well as giving them disadvantage.
There's also just a lot of enemies who can see through it. We had a party with a HB cleric class that got a 30ft Darkness aura that all allies could see through and then we happened to fight: a deep-sea serpent (Blindsight), a dragon (Truesight), some earth elementals (Temorsense), and a bunch of big bug things (Blindsight), and that Darkness aura didn't do anything for us.
"then we happened to fight"
If you have a player with darkness spell and devil sight and you constantly run into monsters that negate that players feature, i would suggest that the DM might just be directly shutting down specific player features.
DMs want to have fun to. A party the uses the exact same strategy every combat is boring AF to DM. Of course you counter-play them so they have to adapt and try something else.
Amusingly, this very thing happened this weekend: Cleric cast Fog Cloud, everyone hid in it - except the barbarian, who was too far away, otherwise engaged, and was made into a pin cushion =)
It's the job of the GM to challenge players. If players use the same tactics all the time, the GM kinda has to come up with ways to beat it. Whether it be undead who don't need to see, or using AoE that makes it less attractive to stand around inside the Darkness, or something like that. Summon monsters that can see in the dark, flood the area somehow, ready actions - so when the archer pops out to shoot, you lightning lure them into melee with the barbarian.
Darkness isn't that hard to counter.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
This!!! I think the idea he has i great as part of a party's unique make up but the party better have the abililty to function in a normal environment and adapt to other fights or they will be lambs to the slaughter when a DM gets bored. Hell the party might get bored. Flexability and thinking on the fly is part of the fun of this game. Cool concept but don't be a one trick pony.