Devil's Sight + Darkness = Pact of the Blade Win?

[dukeofwolfsgate]

I'm trying to build a character around this possibly exploitative combination and need advice.

If I choose the Devil's Sight at lvl 2 and Pact of the Blade at lvl 3, then use the Darkness spell on say, my pact weapon or something else I'm carrying, does this allow me to have advantage on all my attack rolls in melee while my opponents have disadvantage for the same?

As far as the Darkness spell goes, can anyone help explain: "nonmagical light can't illuminate it." Does that mean that something as simple as the Light spell can render this tactic useless?

Additionally, what patron do you think I should choose?

[numerek]

I'm trying to build a character around this possibly exploitative combination and need advice.

If I choose the Devil's Sight at lvl 2 and Pact of the Blade at lvl 3, then use the Darkness spell on say, my pact weapon or something else I'm carrying, does this allow me to have advantage on all my attack rolls in melee while my opponents have disadvantage for the same?

As far as the Darkness spell goes, can anyone help explain: "nonmagical light can't illuminate it." Does that mean that something as simple as the Light spell can render this tactic useless?

Additionally, what patron do you think I should choose?

higher level slots cancel each other, so a 2nd level darkness can be cancelled by 3rd level light which can be cancelled by a 4th level darkness, so if you are straight warlock at 9th level you would always be casting darkness as a 5th level spell which it would take light cast as a 6th level spell to cancel your darkness. If you get counterspell you could try to stop someone casting light.

As far as the devil sight darkness it is a well known tactic some people believe that the downsides it can cause for your party makes it not as great as you might think.

I wrote a post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?417196-Druid-Warlock-team) where I talk about a druid wild shaping into a beast with blindsight would also be able to see in magical darkness.

[Giant2005]

The combination is powerful, but only as powerful as your DM wants it to be.
I may have made a little too much use of the combination on one of my Bladelocks, then suddenly it became relatively common for enemies of all varieties to possess Devil's Sight too.

[Fable Wright]

As far as the devil sight darkness it is a well known tactic some people believe that the downsides it can cause for your party makes it not as great as you might think.

I mean, the downsides are pretty minimal, unless the party was getting advantage in some other way. Blindness gives advantage to attacking opponents, and disadvantage to the blind attacker. In short, in Darkness, for everyone but you, it forces all Advantage and Disadvantages to cancel out. All attack rolls will only be rolled once, as long as you can clearly communicate the location of targets within the darkness. Except you, who will have Concentration-duration Foresight, which is pretty decent. Even better if the party gets blindsight and joins in on the Foresight.

As for patron, it depends on what you want to them. Damage-dealing? Infernal Pact, no question. Temp HP buffer and Hurl Through Hell are great, resistance to damage type of choice is great when hunting elemental enemies, and it provides nifty out of combat boosts with Dark One's Own Luck. Fey pact is when you need interpersonal interactions, and Great Old One is when you want out-of-combat utility almost exclusively.

[Safety Sword]

I see your Darkness and raise you Cone of Cold.

Yeah, I really don't care where you are in your sphere of darkness.

[numerek]

I see your Darkness and raise you Cone of Cold.

Yeah, I really don't care where you are in your sphere of darkness.

Yeah any saving throw based attack that doesn't need to target a creature.

[Toadkiller]

Even the lowly Poison Spray. It seems kind of meh to me. It's kind of a I'm looking out for me the rest of the players can just listen to the exciting story.

After the first time shutting down the rest of the table I would expect to be on the receiving end of some friendly area spells. "Whoops, didn't see you there".

[Giant2005]

After the first time shutting down the rest of the table I would expect to be on the receiving end of some friendly area spells. "Whoops, didn't see you there".
It doesn't shut down anyone, the others can act just fine and in some scenarios they would be better than fine as the enemies would be unable to have Advantage against them (Which could be very significant when fighting enemies with Pact Tactics).

[Fable Wright]

I see your Darkness and raise you Cone of Cold.

Yeah, I really don't care where you are in your sphere of darkness.

Sure. You do that. I am happy to force you to use your 5th level spells to deal with my 2nd level one, and get solid use of Counterspell.

Granted, you have a point in that AoEs don't use attack and damage rolls. My counterpoint, though, is that most monsters don't use AoEs, and if they do, you may have just tricked them into friendly-firing their allies.

[Steampunkette]

Poison Spray requires a target you can see that you puff the poison at.

[lordshadowisle]

higher level slots cancel each other, so a 2nd level darkness can be cancelled by 3rd level light which can be cancelled by a 4th level darkness, so if you are straight warlock at 9th level you would always be casting darkness as a 5th level spell which it would take light cast as a 6th level spell to cancel your darkness.
I wrote a post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?417196-Druid-Warlock-team) where I talk about a druid wild shaping into a beast with blindsight would also be able to see in magical darkness.

Well to be exact the spell is daylight (light is a cantrip), though I don't see why anyone would be preparing it in place of dispel magic.

Darkness is a wash for the rest of party, since disadvantage on attacking is countered by disadvantage on defending. This might actually be good, since it also negates enemy advantages like pack tactics. Your party may also engage in nonsense flair actions like attacking while prone/balancing on a unicycle without cost, since any advantage cancels all disadvantages.

[Jamesps]

I wouldn't build a character around this combo as there will be a lot of scenarios come up where you won't want to use it. That said, if used only when appropriate it's a nice trick to have in your bag. I suggest treating it as such and making sure you have other things to do that are also effective.

[Safety Sword]

Sure. You do that. I am happy to force you to use your 5th level spells to deal with my 2nd level one, and get solid use of Counterspell.

Granted, you have a point in that AoEs don't use attack and damage rolls. My counterpoint, though, is that most monsters don't use AoEs, and if they do, you may have just tricked them into friendly-firing their allies.

I was probably going to do it anyway. So you've done nothing except annoy your party members who now can't see the bad guys near/in your Darkness.

Darkness is great in theory and not so great in actual game play. Same goes for the Darkness/Devil's Sight combo.

[PhantomRenegade]

Safety Sword is right, remenber that darkness is magical, so normal darksight(whatever the name is, i forget, you know what i mean) doesn't touch it, so while you're happily hacking away at the enemy the rest of your party is effectively blinded too.

This may work if your "blade" is a ranged weapon(not sure if this works) allowing you to block nobody's line of sight while getting advantage on every attack, but if its for melee only it really sucks for the rest of the party.

[Giant2005]

Safety Sword is right, remenber that darkness is magical, so normal darksight(whatever the name is, i forget, you know what i mean) doesn't touch it, so while you're happily hacking away at the enemy the rest of your party is effectively blinded too.

This may work if your "blade" is a ranged weapon(not sure if this works) allowing you to block nobody's line of sight while getting advantage on every attack, but if its for melee only it really sucks for the rest of the party.

They are effectively blinded and fighting against effectively blinded opponents.
They have disadvantage for attacking while blind but they gain advantage for attacking a blind opponent and it comes out as a wash (They attack normally). It only sucks for people that would be attacking with advantage anyway (The with mounted combat or pact tactics). However when fighting against enemies that would have advantage normally, they would lose their advantage too.

[Battlebooze]

Using Devil's Sight and Darkness is a good tactic, if your party isn't screwed up by the darkness.

It can also be countered with a first level spell though, Fog Cloud. If a pesky Warlock is hiding in his darkness, just drop a Fog Cloud there and listen for the "Nooooooo!"

[numerek]

Using Devil's Sight and Darkness is a good tactic, if your party isn't screwed up by the darkness.

It can also be countered with a first level spell though, Fog Cloud. If a pesky Warlock is hiding in his darkness, just drop a Fog Cloud there and listen for the "Nooooooo!"

A druid wild shaped into a creature with blind sight would still be fine.

[Toadkiller]

They are effectively blinded and fighting against effectively blinded opponents.
They have disadvantage for attacking while blind but they gain advantage for attacking a blind opponent and it comes out as a wash (They attack normally). It only sucks for people that would be attacking with advantage anyway (The with mounted combat or pact tactics). However when fighting against enemies that would have advantage normally, they would lose their advantage too.

You have a very nice DM or are one. How do they find the enemy to start this "no impact on being blinded" fight? My ruling would be "you hear something nearby, but can't tell it its friend or foe without asking. If you ask they'll hit first and can then move. What do you do?"

[coredump]

It also depends on if your DM plays that every PC 'just knows' where every creature is.

If the PCs don't have some inherent knowledge of where everyone is (even in complete darkness) then they will have to guess where the enemy is. Greatly slowing down their ability to be effective.

[Person_Man]

The combination is powerful, but only as powerful as your DM wants it to be.

+1

The big pro to this method is that your enemy basically needs magic (light, counterspell, area of effect, etc) or special senses to counter it.

The big con is that its not actually that difficult to counter, and in tight dungeons your allies probably won't appreciate you imposing Darkness on them.

I personally am not a fan of this combo, because it tends to make games less fun for the non-Warlock players. But obviously your mileage may vary depending on your group.

[Shining Wrath]

+1

The big pro to this method is that your enemy basically needs magic (light, counterspell, area of effect, etc) or special senses to counter it.

The big con is that its not actually that difficult to counter, and in tight dungeons your allies probably won't appreciate you imposing Darkness on them.

I personally am not a fan of this combo, because it tends to make games less fun for the non-Warlock players. But obviously your mileage may vary depending on your group.

As I said to my table last session: "Everyone wants their character to be awesome. But if one character is too awesome, everyone else gets to watch and say "Thank you, awesome guy, for being awesome again"".

[Xetheral]

You have a very nice DM or are one. How do they find the enemy to start this "no impact on being blinded" fight? My ruling would be "you hear something nearby, but can't tell it its friend or foe without asking. If you ask they'll hit first and can then move. What do you do?"

In 5e, one of the advantages of being magically unseen is the ability to hide without total cover or obscurement. Many people interpret this to mean that if you *don't* take an action to hide while magically unseen, enemies still know where you are. (Of course, that's not the only interpretation.)

[monkey3]

Be careful of bugging your party. I've had to Dispel Magic our Warlock's Darkness because after casting it, he was the only one who could act! Well, there are 5 other people who also came here to play.

If you want to fly around 50' up in your globe of darkness, flinging rays down at the mobs, however, be my guest. Just don't stop me from playing.

[Ruslan]

The combination is powerful, but only as powerful as your DM wants it to be.
I may have made a little too much use of the combination on one of my Bladelocks, then suddenly it became relatively common for enemies of all varieties to possess Devil's Sight too.
An old-time player I knew used to say: "Being able to make yourself immune to a particular type of damage once per day is powerful. Being constantly immune to a particular type of damage is meaningless. Your DM simply won't use it."

[Submortimer]

It's best if you do this while mixing in either Rogue(For sneak attacks) or Monk(for lots of attacks). I recently got to try out my 5 Swashbuckler/3 Great Old One Warlock, and it worked out very, very well. He was generally away from the group, but with the potent combo of Darkness + Devil's Sight + Sentinel, I would pick out one target, wrap them in shadow, and they'd never leave. A pair of short swords ensured that I got 4 chances to get sneak attack damage every round (due to advantage), and I almost never missed them when they tried to run away from me.

[Dominuce2112]

I'm trying to build a character around this possibly exploitative combination and need advice.

If I choose the Devil's Sight at lvl 2 and Pact of the Blade at lvl 3, then use the Darkness spell on say, my pact weapon or something else I'm carrying, does this allow me to have advantage on all my attack rolls in melee while my opponents have disadvantage for the same?

As far as the Darkness spell goes, can anyone help explain: "nonmagical light can't illuminate it." Does that mean that something as simple as the Light spell can render this tactic useless?

Additionally, what patron do you think I should choose?

I wouldnt base him around that one trick. Its awesome, dont get me wrong. It literally saved me from dying when I had 2 HP. A solid 5 rounds of these giant crab monsters missing their attacks and myself landing mine.

However, I wouldnt do it often, and I cant do it often. I could tell the DM was getting irritated because this encounter was about to be lost and I should of been down but we came out alive. (hes kind of brutal, but its fun). So using it every big fight just means hell throw one more big fight at me. Or throw something that can see in magical darkness, or a higher level light spell.

If youre going to be playing this thing for as long as possible, id make sure I have another reason to play a bladelock other than that single trick.

[Psikerlord]

I'm trying to build a character around this possibly exploitative combination and need advice.

If I choose the Devil's Sight at lvl 2 and Pact of the Blade at lvl 3, then use the Darkness spell on say, my pact weapon or something else I'm carrying, does this allow me to have advantage on all my attack rolls in melee while my opponents have disadvantage for the same?

As far as the Darkness spell goes, can anyone help explain: "nonmagical light can't illuminate it." Does that mean that something as simple as the Light spell can render this tactic useless?

Additionally, what patron do you think I should choose?

We ruled devil's sight does not work in magical darkness. Coz it is OP.

[Ardantis]

I just put the finishing touches on my Bladelock, and I took the combo. But I alerted my DM, making him aware that I had it and that it could be bad for the party if misused. We just are switching over from 3.5, so I felt it was only fair.