Darkness Domain Help

[Silvanshei]

I am working on converting my current campaign ideas to 5e and I could use some help fleshing out my cleric domain. I have not actually played 5e yet, but am planning on my game being the first for my group. The only other religion is the Church of Light, which had an Inquisition about 50 years ago, but many still follow. The Church of Dark arose during the Inquisition as a sort of rebellion and is mostly focused on defense and remaining unseen by the opposing priests. The domain spells are not set in stone if you have better/more interesting suggestions.

Dark Domain Spells


Cleric Level
Spells


1st
detect magic, fog cloud


3rd
darkness, pass without trace


5th
nondetection, protection from energy


7th
evard's black tentacles, greater invisibility


9th
antilife shell, mislead



Bonus Cantrip
When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain the blade ward cantrip if you don't already know it.

Blindfold
Also at 1st level, you can interpose darkness between an attacking enemy and an ally. When an ally is attacked by a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on hte attack roll, casusing darkness to cover the attacker's eyes before it hits or misses. An attacker that can't be blinded is immune to this feature. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dusk
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to grant yourself magical sight.
As an action, you present your holy symbol, and create magical shadows that cover your eyes. This shadow grants you the ability to see in darkness as if you had darkvision to a range of 60 feet for 1 hour. This allows you to see through magical darkness as well. You can split this ability up between yourself and another creature, but the time is reduced to 30 minutes.

Move Unseen
At 6th level, you gain the ability to teleport short distances through darkened areas. When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that is in dim light or darkness.

Potent Spellcasting
At 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip.

Deeper Darkness
Starting at 17th level, whenever you create an area of magical darkness, any hostile creatures in the area must make a Constitution saving throw against your spellcasting DC. On a failure, it is blinded for 1 minute

EDIT: updates spell list with input from Ninja_Prawn and ZenBear. Also changed up the Channel Divinity ability. Changed Move Unseen to be usable from any dim light or darkness area.
EDIT: Changed move unseen to 6th level and added Potent Spellcasting to keep this in line with the other domains. Added in the capstone.

[Ninja_Prawn]

First of all, I suggest Antilife Shell and Mislead as the 5th-level domain spells.

Deeper Darkness is fine, but... I kind of want it to come earlier, seeing as how it's so central to the domain. Also, why limit it to your own darkness?

Do you need to concentrate on Radiance of the Dusk? If you do, I don't really see the point. You get Darkness as a domain spell from level 3, so all this does is save you a spell slot. Even if you don't need to concentrate, it's still kind of redundant.

Actually, why not make the Channel Divinity feature give you 10 minutes of Devil's Sight? Or maybe even Truesight?! Then you could do something else with the 6th level feature.

Again, for Move Unseen, I would lift the restriction on it being your own darkness. It seems like an unnecessary sting. Darkness is darkness!

[ZenBear]

I think Pass Without Trace should be on the list, probably in place of Invisibility, much as that spell does fit I think PWT fits a little better.

[Silvanshei]

Do you guys have any ideas for the now empty 6th level feature or a good capstone?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Do you guys have any ideas for the now empty 6th level feature or a good capstone?

Just checked my PHB. All the other domains get either Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike at level 8. Therefore I think you should follow suit (probably Potent Spellcasting), and shift Move Unseen to level 6.

As for the domain-capstone... the other domains don't get all that much at level 17 (outdoors-only flight is pretty underwhelming by this point), so I would advise against anything too powerful. Best would be something that extends or builds on a previous feature... maybe combining Move Unseen with some kind of attack? Or allowing you to teleport someone else with you? Or making you invisible until the start of your next turn whenever you use it?

[Silvanshei]

Just added in a capstone ability. Think that it is inline with the other domains?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Lingering Darkness
Starting at 17th level, whenever a creature leaves the area of any magical darkness that you have created, the darkness clings to them. They are considered still inside the darkness on their next turn.

Ok... so how does this work? Are they still invisible (except to you and your warlock buddy)? If they have abilities that work while they're in darkness (e.g. they're a shadow monk), can they use them? How deep is the 'clingy' darkness?

I don't know if this is better, but as an alternative, you could make it something like "whenever you create an area of magical darkness, any hostile creatures in the area must make a Constitution saving throw against your spellcasting DC. On a failure, they are blinded for 1 minute." I feel like it's less ambiguous, lets you shut down people with truesight, and doesn't get in the way of your mundane allies as much.

[Silvanshei]

I was thinking more along the lines of the darkness clinging to their heads, obscuring their vision only. Your idea does seem a lot less ambiguous and the wording is more in line with 5e. Thanks for all your help!

Probably be dropping a couple of more conversions down soon. (Paladin: Oath of the Light and Barbarian: Path of the Warcryer)

[Ninja_Prawn]

Barbarian: Path of the Warcryer

So... when I read that, I imagined a huge, bearded man with a greataxe in one hand and a bell in the other, shouting "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" :smalleek:

[Silvanshei]

Yea, the name needs work, I know. Its pretty much a barbarian that goes around screaming during battle to do multiple thing (damage, debuff enemies and buff allies).

[Ninja_Prawn]

Kind of like the in Skyrim? That'd be a good primal path, I reckon.

[ZenBear]

Kind of like the in Skyrim? That'd be a good primal path, I reckon.

There's a 4E Barbarian subclass that does this. A conversion could work.