Generally speaking, the spell does exactly what it say and nothing else.
Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light.
Until the spell ends, you have resistance to radiant damage. In addition, whenever a creature within 10 feet of you hits you with an attack, the shadows lash out at that creature, dealing it 2d8 necrotic damage.
There is nothing to suggest it stops true sight or darkvision. It also doesn't say that these things negate the spell. The spell does exactly what it says regardless of truesight or darkvision. Same would be true with devil's sight. The spell can create darkness though. So if you do not have any kind of way to see in darkness, you wouldn't be able to see through the darkness this creates effectively blinding yourself. Independent of this, the spell causes the caster to become heavily obscured to others. This effectively means they are blinded with regards to the caster. So yes, you gain advantage on attacks against creatures in range and they attack you at disadvantage. However, if the spell creates darkness and you can't see in the dark, you're effectively blinded too and the advantages and disadvantages are all negated. This would mean creatures attack you normally and you attack them normally. It's an extremely important part of the spell that you have darkvision if you're creating darkness. If you're not, then it doesn't really matter.
Thank you for your response. But im not sure i completley understand.
the spell creates shadow flames that make you heavily obscured. How is that different from standing behind a bone fire and being unseen. The result of these flames is they produce darkness instead of light. I belive jeremy crawford said darkvision does not work. But it was less clear about true sight and devils sight. At least it was confusing to me lol. I hope devils sight work or else the spell is really uselss to me. But keeping darkvision form working greatly helps me in gaining advantage.
Here is what Jeremy Crawford said about it in a tweet:
Shadow of Moil heavily obscures you, full stop. The spell also dims the light around you. The fact that you're heavily obscured is a result of the flame-like shadows surrounding you, not the result of being in darkness. This means you're heavily obscured even to darkvision. DnD
It's basically what I said, but more eloquently.
If you're still confused, break the spell up into singular sentences and it should become pretty clear. Don't try to read something that isn't there. Here is what the spell does.
Flame-like shadows wreathe your body until the spell ends, causing you to become heavily obscured to others. Effect - You're heavily obscured to others. That basically means creatures are blind with regards to you. Blind provides specific benefits; you gain advantage on your attacks and enemies have disadvantage when attacking you. True sight, darkvision, devil's sight does not negate this effect. You are still heavily obscured to a creature with true sight or literally anything else. They're effectively blind when attacking or dealing with you. This has nothing to do with the next point.
The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light. Effect - if you're in dim light already, it makes the area around you dark. You'll need to be able to see through this using racial darkvision, devil's sight, or some other means otherwise you're effectively blind too due to not being able to see in darkness.
The second paragraph seems self explanatory.
Hope this helps clear it up. It's a really cool spell.
I feel like it is important to point out that the spell does not blind you for not having darkvision. Darkness is not opaque (unless specifically stated like with darkness). You can't see something that is in darkness (which may include yourself or a melee target), but you can see into areas of brighter light through the darkness.
That's a good point. If your target is in the darkness region, or within 10 feet, you'll want a method to see them. If the target is beyond the 10 feet then there is no added effect of this spell.
Thanks again. But if im heavily obscured from them are they equally heavily obscured from me. I have devils sight and darkvision so not concerned with darkness its the heavily obscured part
The one thing worth noting is that enemy with blindsight or tremorsense could still attack a Shadow of Moil caster without disadvantage, since being heavily obscured applies only to sight.
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Since it's flame like shadows i take that to mean they are moving in a flame wave like manner.
As such does it stop true sight? I belive it stops darkvision.
Does it stop devils sight?
Also enemies hit with disadvantage. Does the warlock get advantage to attack?
Generally speaking, the spell does exactly what it say and nothing else.
There is nothing to suggest it stops true sight or darkvision. It also doesn't say that these things negate the spell. The spell does exactly what it says regardless of truesight or darkvision. Same would be true with devil's sight. The spell can create darkness though. So if you do not have any kind of way to see in darkness, you wouldn't be able to see through the darkness this creates effectively blinding yourself. Independent of this, the spell causes the caster to become heavily obscured to others. This effectively means they are blinded with regards to the caster. So yes, you gain advantage on attacks against creatures in range and they attack you at disadvantage. However, if the spell creates darkness and you can't see in the dark, you're effectively blinded too and the advantages and disadvantages are all negated. This would mean creatures attack you normally and you attack them normally. It's an extremely important part of the spell that you have darkvision if you're creating darkness. If you're not, then it doesn't really matter.
Thank you for your response. But im not sure i completley understand.
the spell creates shadow flames that make you heavily obscured. How is that different from standing behind a bone fire and being unseen. The result of these flames is they produce darkness instead of light. I belive jeremy crawford said darkvision does not work. But it was less clear about true sight and devils sight. At least it was confusing to me lol. I hope devils sight work or else the spell is really uselss to me. But keeping darkvision form working greatly helps me in gaining advantage.
Here is what Jeremy Crawford said about it in a tweet:
It's basically what I said, but more eloquently.
If you're still confused, break the spell up into singular sentences and it should become pretty clear. Don't try to read something that isn't there. Here is what the spell does.
The shadows turn dim light within 10 feet of you into darkness, and bright light in the same area to dim light. Effect - if you're in dim light already, it makes the area around you dark. You'll need to be able to see through this using racial darkvision, devil's sight, or some other means otherwise you're effectively blind too due to not being able to see in darkness.
The second paragraph seems self explanatory.
Hope this helps clear it up. It's a really cool spell.
I feel like it is important to point out that the spell does not blind you for not having darkvision. Darkness is not opaque (unless specifically stated like with darkness). You can't see something that is in darkness (which may include yourself or a melee target), but you can see into areas of brighter light through the darkness.
That's a good point. If your target is in the darkness region, or within 10 feet, you'll want a method to see them. If the target is beyond the 10 feet then there is no added effect of this spell.
Thanks again. But if im heavily obscured from them are they equally heavily obscured from me. I have devils sight and darkvision so not concerned with darkness its the heavily obscured part
No. The spell says precisely what it does. You are heavily obscured to them. You see them normally.
If it heavily obscured everyone it would be a very pointless spell.
With regard to point 1, you're spot on.
The one thing worth noting is that enemy with blindsight or tremorsense could still attack a Shadow of Moil caster without disadvantage, since being heavily obscured applies only to sight.