I am the DM. A player just got Shadow of Moil. He thinks that his attacks against creatures in melee should be at advantage because he is "heavily obscured" to them. I agree that their attacks on him are at disadvantage but I am not convinced that his should get advantage. I would be inclined to give his first attack advantage but once the enemies see that the "Shadow Monster" is attacking them, they are going to be prepared for those attacks so no more advantage.
Should he get advantage on all attacks against every creature that can see him while he has this spell going?
The rules say that as long as they are heavily obscured, their attacks are at advantage. That player is considered unseen to the monster, which means advantage, even if they think they see a smoke monster.
Heavily obscured make creatures trying to observe the player effectively blinded when doing so.
Blinded while trying to view the player means that attack rolls against that player are at disadvantage and the player's attacks are at advantage.
For the spell's duration, the player is heavily obscured, so all of this is true for the duration.
Only (maybe) Truesight and (maybe?) blindsight overcome the obfuscation provided by the spell. (And as Sposta points out below, probably some monster senses like tremorsense.)
Does this feel a little overpowered for a 4th level spell?
1. Advantage on attacks against ALL creatures.
2. All attacks against the caster are at disadvantage.
3. Anyone who attacks the caster within 10' takes 2D8 damage.
4. Resistance to radiant damage
5. Messing with the lighting conditions
In my opinion it is on par with Greater Invisibility. Greater Invisibility also grants advantage to attacks and disadvantage to attacks received. Greater Invisibility also makes you untargetable by spells and effects that require the enemy to be able to see you.
I am the DM. A player just got Shadow of Moil. He thinks that his attacks against creatures in melee should be at advantage because he is "heavily obscured" to them. I agree that their attacks on him are at disadvantage but I am not convinced that his should get advantage. I would be inclined to give his first attack advantage but once the enemies see that the "Shadow Monster" is attacking them, they are going to be prepared for those attacks so no more advantage.
Should he get advantage on all attacks against every creature that can see him while he has this spell going?
Even though the enemies see the shadow monster, they don't see the attacks. The advantage system condenses everything from being completely unknown by a completely unprepared enemy through taking 2 seconds to aim a little better into the same effect. So yes, advantage.
Does this feel a little overpowered for a 4th level spell?
1. Advantage on attacks against ALL creatures.
2. All attacks against the caster are at disadvantage.
3. Anyone who attacks the caster within 10' takes 2D8 damage.
4. Resistance to radiant damage
5. Messing with the lighting conditions
Not really. It is still less versatile than greater invisibility at the same level, because at least G. Invis can target allies and is much less noticable while getting benefits 1 and 2.
Benefit 3 is only useful while in melee, but you are concentrating on a spell, you don't want to be in melee. Benefit 4 is a rare damage type. And prestidigitation can put out torches to replicate benefit 5, which in minor because you are already obscured anyway and almost everything has darkvision.
I am the DM. A player just got Shadow of Moil. He thinks that his attacks against creatures in melee should be at advantage because he is "heavily obscured" to them. I agree that their attacks on him are at disadvantage but I am not convinced that his should get advantage. I would be inclined to give his first attack advantage but once the enemies see that the "Shadow Monster" is attacking them, they are going to be prepared for those attacks so no more advantage.
Should he get advantage on all attacks against every creature that can see him while he has this spell going?
Heavily obscured means that you can not be seen.
A creature affected by shadow of moil can see fine. Other creatures can not see them because they are heavily obscured. The rules on unseen opponents and targets says that if you can't see your target you have disadvantage on your attack rolls and if your target can't see you then you have advantage.
With Shadow of Moil, the caster can see the creatures around them while the creatures around them can't see the caster. As a result the caster has advantage on their attack rolls while the creatures around them have disadvantage on attack rolls to hit the caster.
So yes ... they should have advantage on all attacks against every creature because they CAN'T see him while the spell is going. The caster is heavily obscured - they can't see him but the caster can still see them. They will also have disadvantage when attacking the caster of Shadow of Moil.
P.S. Truesight doesn't see through Shadow of Moil in the same way it doesn't see through fog cloud. It isn't an illusion and isn't covered by any of the clauses of Truesight. Shadow of Moil creates a heavily obscured area that blocks vision entirely ... so senses that don't depend on vision, presumably blind sight and tremorsense would likely still be able to locate the creature.
Tremorsense is an odd case since it is based on detecting vibrations based on both creatures being in contact with the same surface. It doesn't work for flying creatures for instance. A DM could rule that tremorsense would reveal the location of a creature but not let the creature "see" them in the context of the vision rules since although their presence is known, tremorsense might not be capable of telling the creature which way the target is looking or what they are doing in terms of waving their arms, waving a sword or shooting a bow - but the rules on tremorsense aren't that detailed so it is a DM call on how they want to run it. The simplest is just to consider tremorsense as "sight" and leave it at that.
Experienced or clever enemies should be clever or knowledgeable enough to turn off the light (which obviously doesn't work so well if the light source is the sun) or cast Darkness (which does) to give disadvantage to everyone. Other than that - really cool spell. Never heard about it before, on account of my unreasonable dislike for the warlock class.
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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.
Experienced or clever enemies should be clever or knowledgeable enough to turn off the light (which obviously doesn't work so well if the light source is the sun) or cast Darkness (which does) to give disadvantage to everyone. Other than that - really cool spell. Never heard about it before, on account of my unreasonable dislike for the warlock class.
If the warlock has Shadow of Moil then they likely also have Devil's Sight so Darkness might not be a great choice. The better plan would be to cast Fog Cloud which works against pretty much everything except blindsight and possibly Tremorsense though both also prevent targeting allies with spells that require the caster to see their target. It also depends on whether the DM has any house rules for situations when no one can see each other (some DMs go with everyone having disadvantage rather than just cancelling advantage/disadvantage - though either way both the attacker and defenders are on an even footing).
The better plan would be to cast Fog Cloud which works against pretty much everything except blindsight and possibly Tremorsense though both also prevent targeting allies with spells that require the caster to see their target.
While this SAC article addresses blindsight in terms of opportunity attacks rather than in terms of spellcasting as you have, it does say that blindsight allows a creature to "see" within its range and the general rule requirement on seeing your target appears to be the same for OAs and for casting relevant spells. I would let them cast a spell that requires they see the target within the range of their blindsight.
The better plan would be to cast Fog Cloud which works against pretty much everything except blindsight and possibly Tremorsense though both also prevent targeting allies with spells that require the caster to see their target.
While this SAC article addresses blindsight in terms of opportunity attacks rather than in terms of spellcasting as you have, it does say that blindsight allows a creature to "see" within its range and the general rule requirement on seeing your target appears to be the same for OAs and for casting relevant spells. I would let them cast a spell that requires they see the target within the range of their blindsight.
SELF ONLY greater invisibility. IMO, the self only part is a pretty big step down. 2d8 damage shield. Fire shield has a similar effect but lasts 10 minutes without concentration. Radiant damage resistance = mostly a ribbon. Lighting condition = neat but also mostly a ribbon. This is definitely powerful for a 4th level spell but I would compare it in power level to polymorph.
In the end I think people do it mostly (if not exclusively) for the obscurement effect.
Tremorsense is an odd case since it is based on detecting vibrations based on both creatures being in contact with the same surface. It doesn't work for flying creatures for instance. A DM could rule that tremorsense would reveal the location of a creature but not let the creature "see" them in the context of the vision rules since although their presence is known, tremorsense might not be capable of telling the creature which way the target is looking or what they are doing in terms of waving their arms, waving a sword or shooting a bow - but the rules on tremorsense aren't that detailed so it is a DM call on how they want to run it. The simplest is just to consider tremorsense as "sight" and leave it at that.
Most (all?) creatures that have tremorsense also have blindsight or darkvision, which is a weird thing to give them if it only applies to creatures not joined by a substance (e.g- flying); I've always taken that to mean tremorsense alone isn't enough, and treat it as an awareness of where creatures are only, so you'd know where to attack but be at disadvantage for it being unseen. Other senses are then used to "see" the target. In the specific case of shadow of moil though the darkvision + tremorsense combo wouldn't be enough as they're not in normal darkness, they're heavily obscured.
But yeah it's not very well defined, and we don't get any good examples of how tremorsense is intended to be run; for example, can you Hide from a creature with tremorsense? It's hard to imagine that even a Rogue being really stealthy is able to move without causing any vibrations at all, especially if they don't even know the purple worm is in the area yet (so they can't do the Dune trick of moving irregularly or whatever).
However how tremsorsense works is a topic in its own right; the TL;DR version is "tremorsense vs. shadow of moil = unclear". 😉
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Yea so the whole Crux is whether or not Tremor-sense counts as sight. Per RAW it does not, BUT that can be overruled and I can't say I would be upset if a DM did so. It does say 'pinpoint' which is very crucial wording and I think its said that way to indicate it knows the exact location not just a general sense. But yes per RAW Tremor-sense + Darkvision would not be enough because DV does not see through Shadow of Moil. In the case of a Purple Worm Blindsight + Tremorsense = you are seen within 30ft. As far as stealth goes Tremorsense states if you're in contact with the ground it can pinpoint your location. Only incorporeal and flying creatures are immune to this effect so technically even the best Ninja on the planet cannot hide from tremorsense if he's on the ground, but we run into the same issue. IF he's successfully 'stealthing' and the creature does not also have Blindsight does it get disadvantage on attacking the Rogue? It knows he's there but when it pops out its like "Oh..where is he?" Idk for me personally I always think of the movie Tremors. I dont see how being stealthy, invisible or obscured by Shadow of Moil would deter creatures like that. They come up under where they sense your 'feet' as it were. Being obscured doesnt change that IMO.
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I am the DM. A player just got Shadow of Moil. He thinks that his attacks against creatures in melee should be at advantage because he is "heavily obscured" to them. I agree that their attacks on him are at disadvantage but I am not convinced that his should get advantage. I would be inclined to give his first attack advantage but once the enemies see that the "Shadow Monster" is attacking them, they are going to be prepared for those attacks so no more advantage.
Should he get advantage on all attacks against every creature that can see him while he has this spell going?
The rules say that as long as they are heavily obscured, their attacks are at advantage. That player is considered unseen to the monster, which means advantage, even if they think they see a smoke monster.
Does this feel a little overpowered for a 4th level spell?
1. Advantage on attacks against ALL creatures.
2. All attacks against the caster are at disadvantage.
3. Anyone who attacks the caster within 10' takes 2D8 damage.
4. Resistance to radiant damage
5. Messing with the lighting conditions
Considering that it is one of 2 spell slots for the warlock that short rest and requires concentration, no.
Wouldn’t Tremorsense get around it too.
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In my opinion it is on par with Greater Invisibility. Greater Invisibility also grants advantage to attacks and disadvantage to attacks received. Greater Invisibility also makes you untargetable by spells and effects that require the enemy to be able to see you.
Probably, but that wasn’t listed in the player facing section I was looking at (vision and light rules).
Even though the enemies see the shadow monster, they don't see the attacks. The advantage system condenses everything from being completely unknown by a completely unprepared enemy through taking 2 seconds to aim a little better into the same effect. So yes, advantage.
Not really. It is still less versatile than greater invisibility at the same level, because at least G. Invis can target allies and is much less noticable while getting benefits 1 and 2.
Benefit 3 is only useful while in melee, but you are concentrating on a spell, you don't want to be in melee. Benefit 4 is a rare damage type. And prestidigitation can put out torches to replicate benefit 5, which in minor because you are already obscured anyway and almost everything has darkvision.
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Heavily obscured means that you can not be seen.
A creature affected by shadow of moil can see fine. Other creatures can not see them because they are heavily obscured. The rules on unseen opponents and targets says that if you can't see your target you have disadvantage on your attack rolls and if your target can't see you then you have advantage.
With Shadow of Moil, the caster can see the creatures around them while the creatures around them can't see the caster. As a result the caster has advantage on their attack rolls while the creatures around them have disadvantage on attack rolls to hit the caster.
So yes ... they should have advantage on all attacks against every creature because they CAN'T see him while the spell is going. The caster is heavily obscured - they can't see him but the caster can still see them. They will also have disadvantage when attacking the caster of Shadow of Moil.
P.S. Truesight doesn't see through Shadow of Moil in the same way it doesn't see through fog cloud. It isn't an illusion and isn't covered by any of the clauses of Truesight. Shadow of Moil creates a heavily obscured area that blocks vision entirely ... so senses that don't depend on vision, presumably blind sight and tremorsense would likely still be able to locate the creature.
Tremorsense is an odd case since it is based on detecting vibrations based on both creatures being in contact with the same surface. It doesn't work for flying creatures for instance. A DM could rule that tremorsense would reveal the location of a creature but not let the creature "see" them in the context of the vision rules since although their presence is known, tremorsense might not be capable of telling the creature which way the target is looking or what they are doing in terms of waving their arms, waving a sword or shooting a bow - but the rules on tremorsense aren't that detailed so it is a DM call on how they want to run it. The simplest is just to consider tremorsense as "sight" and leave it at that.
Experienced or clever enemies should be clever or knowledgeable enough to turn off the light (which obviously doesn't work so well if the light source is the sun) or cast Darkness (which does) to give disadvantage to everyone. Other than that - really cool spell. Never heard about it before, on account of my unreasonable dislike for the warlock class.
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.
If the warlock has Shadow of Moil then they likely also have Devil's Sight so Darkness might not be a great choice. The better plan would be to cast Fog Cloud which works against pretty much everything except blindsight and possibly Tremorsense though both also prevent targeting allies with spells that require the caster to see their target. It also depends on whether the DM has any house rules for situations when no one can see each other (some DMs go with everyone having disadvantage rather than just cancelling advantage/disadvantage - though either way both the attacker and defenders are on an even footing).
While this SAC article addresses blindsight in terms of opportunity attacks rather than in terms of spellcasting as you have, it does say that blindsight allows a creature to "see" within its range and the general rule requirement on seeing your target appears to be the same for OAs and for casting relevant spells. I would let them cast a spell that requires they see the target within the range of their blindsight.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
So would I :)
SELF ONLY greater invisibility. IMO, the self only part is a pretty big step down.
2d8 damage shield. Fire shield has a similar effect but lasts 10 minutes without concentration.
Radiant damage resistance = mostly a ribbon.
Lighting condition = neat but also mostly a ribbon.
This is definitely powerful for a 4th level spell but I would compare it in power level to polymorph.
In the end I think people do it mostly (if not exclusively) for the obscurement effect.
Don’t forget that it looks cool. That’s a big reason to use it right there. 😉
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Most (all?) creatures that have tremorsense also have blindsight or darkvision, which is a weird thing to give them if it only applies to creatures not joined by a substance (e.g- flying); I've always taken that to mean tremorsense alone isn't enough, and treat it as an awareness of where creatures are only, so you'd know where to attack but be at disadvantage for it being unseen. Other senses are then used to "see" the target. In the specific case of shadow of moil though the darkvision + tremorsense combo wouldn't be enough as they're not in normal darkness, they're heavily obscured.
But yeah it's not very well defined, and we don't get any good examples of how tremorsense is intended to be run; for example, can you Hide from a creature with tremorsense? It's hard to imagine that even a Rogue being really stealthy is able to move without causing any vibrations at all, especially if they don't even know the purple worm is in the area yet (so they can't do the Dune trick of moving irregularly or whatever).
However how tremsorsense works is a topic in its own right; the TL;DR version is "tremorsense vs. shadow of moil = unclear". 😉
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Yea so the whole Crux is whether or not Tremor-sense counts as sight. Per RAW it does not, BUT that can be overruled and I can't say I would be upset if a DM did so. It does say 'pinpoint' which is very crucial wording and I think its said that way to indicate it knows the exact location not just a general sense. But yes per RAW Tremor-sense + Darkvision would not be enough because DV does not see through Shadow of Moil. In the case of a Purple Worm Blindsight + Tremorsense = you are seen within 30ft. As far as stealth goes Tremorsense states if you're in contact with the ground it can pinpoint your location. Only incorporeal and flying creatures are immune to this effect so technically even the best Ninja on the planet cannot hide from tremorsense if he's on the ground, but we run into the same issue. IF he's successfully 'stealthing' and the creature does not also have Blindsight does it get disadvantage on attacking the Rogue? It knows he's there but when it pops out its like "Oh..where is he?" Idk for me personally I always think of the movie Tremors. I dont see how being stealthy, invisible or obscured by Shadow of Moil would deter creatures like that. They come up under where they sense your 'feet' as it were. Being obscured doesnt change that IMO.