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.
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.
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?
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.
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.