Is there any way to get around sunlight sensitivity?

[CrackedChair]

I thought playing as a Kobold would be a interesting experience, but their sunlight sensitivity is a real detriment.

But is there any way I could get around this when it is daytime?

[Theodoxus]

Play in the underdark?

Most options are homebrew... sunglasses, etc. There's a headband of blindness, but that just moves the goalposts...

[PartyChef]

I did it by playing as a beastmaster and riding a wolf. We both had perpetual advantage from pack tactics. Just make sure to buy barding for the wolf and pack a lot of healing supplies as the wolf is semi squishy.

[xanderh]

Go adventuring when it's cloudy? I'm AFB, but isn't it only direct sunlight?

[TheCrowing1432]

Depends on what class you are playing, if its a magic class, sunlight sensitivity does not apply to magic attacks.

[nickl_2000]

Depends on what class you are playing, if its a magic class, sunlight sensitivity does not apply to magic attacks.

That's not completely true. It doesn't apply to spells with a DC. Spells, like firebolt or EB, use an attack roll, which has disadvantage due to sunlight sensitivity.

[N810]

Nocturnal schedule.
:mitd:

[Findulidas]

I thought playing as a Kobold would be a interesting experience, but their sunlight sensitivity is a real detriment.

Just always have the pack tactics activated. Its pretty easy. Just attack whatever your melee is attacking. It will remove not only the sunlight sensitivity but also ALL other disadvantages. That is if you have several. I mean the pack tactics means you can not only ignore sunlight sensitivity but also things like the targets being invisible and so on. I think thats the main reason its so broken to begin with, even in sunlight its still very strong.

[The Ship's dog]

Or have a familiar that constantly takes the Help action. You can just ready your action until your familiar takes the Help action. This is even better with a Chainlock for an invisible familiar (Imp) that can take the help action.

[clash]

Fog cloud spell to create a cloud above the battlefield. Nothing in the description says it needs to be on the ground. If you are aa druid you can eventually use call lightning instead for damage and blocking sunlight. Another option don't use attack rolls. Most spells and done cantrips use saves instead

[strangebloke]

Nocturnal schedule.
:mitd:

Yup.

Where in the rulebook does it say, 'must adventure during daytime?' Never leave your house during the day. Do all your shopping at night.

Darkness + devil's sight works as well.

Or just blot out the sun.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Have your party carry a 60 foot carnival tarp with them everywhere you go. Or better yet, hire a bunch of dumb schmucks to do it at the reasonable price of 2 silver pieces a day (no need for them to have any special skills, after all). Might want to hire more people than you actually need, I foresee a rather nasty turnover rate.

[CountWolfgang]

Stand in between the legs of a dragonborn or half orc, which ever you have. If you don't have either stand underneath whatever you're fighting. On the serious side use spells that are an automatic hit. E.g magic missile or anything with a save.

[sir_argo]

If I were a DM, I wouldn't allow sunglasses. The trait is there to balance out the the benefits of the other traits (most notably, the trait Opportunism). If a DM allowed sunglasses, please tell me what kobold in the world wouldn't be wearing them. Might as well not even have the trait.

There's a couple ways to get around the sunlight sensitivity, but one is redundant and the other unavailable. The first is to go with a class that lets you see in magical darkness and cast the darkness spell, such as Warlock's Devil's Sight or Mystic's Mastery of Light and Darkness. The problem with this is that, if you create magical darkness and have the ability to see in it, you already get advantage on attacks against most foes. So that makes the kobold's Opportunism redundant. The other method is to get Blindsight. Problem here is I just don't know of any viable way for your Kobold to get blindsight.

Last option is to just accept the disadvantage while in daylight and play with it. For the most part, it'll be offset by the Opportunism. So in daylight, you should be attacking normally, and at other times, with advantage. Honestly, that's a pretty darn good set up.

[Matrix_Walker]

If I were a DM, I wouldn't allow sunglasses. The trait is there to balance out the the benefits of the other traits (most notably, the trait Opportunism). If a DM allowed sunglasses, please tell me what kobold in the world wouldn't be wearing them. Might as well not even have the trait.

------

Last option is to just accept the disadvantage while in daylight and play with it. For the most part, it'll be offset by the Opportunism. So in daylight, you should be attacking normally, and at other times, with advantage. Honestly, that's a pretty darn good set up.

QFT

I could see the sunglasses being hard to come by, and quickly getting fought over and destroyed in a group of kobolds, but still...

It's a balance thing and not to be trifled with lightly!

[Rogozhin]

Kobold's are between 2 and 3 feet tall.

Tenser's Floating Disk floats 3 feet off the ground.

You have to be 20 feet away from it to get it to move but for standing cover in a sunny field this could work...

[Parra]

I have a Drow in my group that I DM. I allowed him to 'get a tan' so's to speak, basically that he had spent a significant portion of his life above ground that he was no longer effected by sunlight sensitivity, but it came at the cost of his superior Darkvision (60' instead of 120') and a small penalty to perception (-1)

Maybe ask the DM to do something similar? give you a different penalty to represent you overcoming the sunlight sensitivity.

[Kane0]

Well, lets see now...

Good old fashoined night time
A well worded Bestow Curse
Lots of Darkness / Fog Cloud spells
Lots of Smokesticks, or an Eversmoking Bottle
Cursed Gem of Brilliance / Reverse Driftglobe
Blindfold of True Sight
Blindsight / Tremorsense (eg Rogue)
Any source of advantage to counteract
Any action that doesn't need an attack/check on your part (eg Spells that use DCs)

[Blacky the Blackball]

That's not completely true. It doesn't apply to spells with a DC. Spells, like firebolt or EB, use an attack roll, which has disadvantage due to sunlight sensitivity.

Yep. Last time I played a drow I was a wizard and carefully avoided selecting any spell or cantrip that required an attack roll.

The only time the sunlight sensitivity ever affected me was with perception rolls (and roleplaying, of course).

[Mellack]

A familiar/unseen servant/hireling to carry an umbrella for you. Here is your goal.

https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/oots/images/5/5c/Newmitd.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20170402020217

[Sir cryosin]

If I were a DM, I wouldn't allow sunglasses. The trait is there to balance out the the benefits of the other traits (most notably, the trait Opportunism). If a DM allowed sunglasses, please tell me what kobold in the world wouldn't be wearing them. Might as well not even have the trait.

There's a couple ways to get around the sunlight sensitivity, but one is redundant and the other unavailable. The first is to go with a class that lets you see in magical darkness and cast the darkness spell, such as Warlock's Devil's Sight or Mystic's Mastery of Light and Darkness. The problem with this is that, if you create magical darkness and have the ability to see in it, you already get advantage on attacks against most foes. So that makes the kobold's Opportunism redundant. The other method is to get Blindsight. Problem here is I just don't know of any viable way for your Kobold to get blindsight.

Last option is to just accept the disadvantage while in daylight and play with it. For the most part, it'll be offset by the Opportunism. So in daylight, you should be attacking normally, and at other times, with advantage. Honestly, that's a pretty darn good set up.

All I can think able after reading this is the Squirtle Squad from Pokemon all the Squirtle's wearing different sunglasses.

[KorvinStarmast]

I thought playing as a Kobold would be a interesting experience, but their sunlight sensitivity is a real detriment. But is there any way I could get around this when it is daytime? Maybe it is meant to be a detriment to make up for the cool advantages.
I did it by playing as a beastmaster and riding a wolf. We both had perpetual advantage from pack tactics. Just make sure to buy barding for the wolf and pack a lot of healing supplies as the wolf is semi squishy. Interesting problem solving, and a nice use of the beast master class features.


If I were a DM, I wouldn't allow sunglasses. The trait is there to balance out the the benefits of the other traits (most notably, the trait Opportunism). Yeah.


Last option is to just accept the disadvantage while in daylight and play with it. For the most part, it'll be offset by the Opportunism. So in daylight, you should be attacking normally, and at other times, with advantage. Honestly, that's a pretty darn good set up. +1.

I have a Drow in my group that I DM. I allowed him to 'get a tan' so's to speak, basically that he had spent a significant portion of his life above ground that he was no longer effected by sunlight sensitivity, but it came at the cost of his superior Darkvision (60' instead of 120') and a small penalty to perception (-1) Interesting effort at balance and brew. No free lunch. The engineer in me likes this approach.

[Dalebert]

Or have a familiar that constantly takes the Help action. You can just ready your action until your familiar takes the Help action. This is even better with a Chainlock for an invisible familiar (Imp) that can take the help action.

Note: It can take the help action to help someone else. Assuming the DM is allowing your familiar to go on your turn (which most do just to keep things simpler) it just has to be adjacent to an enemy for pack tactics so you already cancel out disadvantage.


Darkness + devil's sight works as well.

This was going to be my suggestion as well. My kobold is a warlock with an imp familiar that also has Devil's Sight. If you go tome though, you can get a bat famliar with blindsight.


Kobold's are between 2 and 3 feet tall.
Tenser's Floating Disk floats 3 feet off the ground.


This is clever but will rarely work. If your enemy is still in sunlight, you still get disadvantage.

Similarly, to use the Darkness+Devil's Sight combo effectively, you have to get your enemy into the sphere of darkness as well. Good thing is you don't provoke AoO from enemies who can't see you.

[NecessaryWeevil]

If I were DM, I wouldn't allow an invisible adjacent familiar to grant advantage unless it interacted with the enemy in some way. In which case it's unlikely to survive most combats.

Either the opponent knows it's there, and thus can try to attack it, or they don't and so it doesn't distract them and thus grant advantage.

[sir_argo]

Darkness + devil's sight works as well.

This was going to be my suggestion as well. My kobold is a warlock with an imp familiar that also has Devil's Sight. If you go tome though, you can get a bat famliar with blindsight.


I'm not sure this works. Voice of the Chain Master lets you perceive through your familiar's senses, but it doesn't say you can use that to target an attack that originates from your own body. I guess that's the DM's call, but if I'm swinging my sword at something and trying to score a hit by watching the fight via the equivalent of a CC camera... that's pretty tough. I'd love to see an experiment at a shooting range where the shooters aim not down the the sights of the firearm, but wear VR goggles piping in an image taken from a camera mounted in a corner of the room.


Blindsight / Tremorsense (eg Rogue)

If you are referring to the 14th level Rogue ability, that is Blindsense, not Blindsight. To be honest, I'm not completely sure of the difference. The later counts as a sense with which you can target a foe. So if you have blindsight, you can use that to cast a spell that says, "a target you can see". A magic casting gray ooze would still be able to target you with his magic missile because he "sees" you with his blindsight. However, the former, Blindsense, just says you know the location of any hidden or invisible creature. To me, that sounds like it just detects it... but offers no assistance in targeting. But like I said, I'm not 100% on the difference between the two.

[Klorox]

I personally hate when a DM designs sunglasses and hands them out to any character with sunlight sensitivity.

It just seems silly.

[Quoxis]

Stand in between the legs of a dragonborn or half orc, which ever you have. If you don't have either stand underneath whatever you're fighting. On the serious side use spells that are an automatic hit. E.g magic missile or anything with a save.

Just make sure to never look up.

[Quoxis]

Offset the disadvantage with advantage - the pack tactics strategy has already been mentioned, but you can also use stuff like faerie fire, spells or attacks that knock enemies prone, blind/restrain/paralyze/stun them, or you make yourself invisible.

Edit: fear the recklessly attacking drow/kobold/duergar barbarian!

[JellyPooga]

But is there any way I could get around this when it is daytime?

There have been some suggestions already but this one has only been hinted at;

Suck it up and play it to the hilt.

Seriously. Don't try to "get around" it or mitigate it. Don't try to ignore this characterful feature of your chosen race. It's like trying to ignore a Halfling being short, a Half-Orc being stereotyped by most people he meets as a thug-like brute (whatever the reality of that character), or whatever other racial features your character might have that makes it interesting and fun to play as a member of that race. Complain (IC) about how it's too bright above ground. Avoid or even refuse to fight in daylight if you can possibly help it. If you can't, just take the disadvantage and point out to your companions how "useless" you are in such circumstances. Sure, take the opportunity to mitigate the disadvantage when you can, but don't try to find some permanent "fix" for it (like sunglasses); that defeats the point. You're a subterranean creature that doesn't do well in bright light; play that creature.

[Sirdar]

There have been some suggestions already but this one has only been hinted at;

Suck it up and play it to the hilt.

Seriously. Don't try to "get around" it or mitigate it. Don't try to ignore this characterful feature of your chosen race. It's like trying to ignore a Halfling being short, a Half-Orc being stereotyped by most people he meets as a thug-like brute (whatever the reality of that character), or whatever other racial features your character might have that makes it interesting and fun to play as a member of that race. Complain (IC) about how it's too bright above ground. Avoid or even refuse to fight in daylight if you can possibly help it. If you can't, just take the disadvantage and point out to your companions how "useless" you are in such circumstances. Sure, take the opportunity to mitigate the disadvantage when you can, but don't try to find some permanent "fix" for it (like sunglasses); that defeats the point. You're a subterranean creature that doesn't do well in bright light; play that creature.

Agreed, but take the Lucky feat to use that flavorful disadvantage to your advantage once in a while! :-)

[Beelzebubba]

There have been some suggestions already but this one has only been hinted at;

Suck it up and play it to the hilt.

Seriously. Don't try to "get around" it or mitigate it. Don't try to ignore this characterful feature of your chosen race. It's like trying to ignore a Halfling being short, a Half-Orc being stereotyped by most people he meets as a thug-like brute (whatever the reality of that character), or whatever other racial features your character might have that makes it interesting and fun to play as a member of that race. Complain (IC) about how it's too bright above ground. Avoid or even refuse to fight in daylight if you can possibly help it. If you can't, just take the disadvantage and point out to your companions how "useless" you are in such circumstances. Sure, take the opportunity to mitigate the disadvantage when you can, but don't try to find some permanent "fix" for it (like sunglasses); that defeats the point. You're a subterranean creature that doesn't do well in bright light; play that creature.

That's what our bitchy racist arrogant Drow does. But she sure doesn't admit being useless.

"What is your fascination with this horrid oppressive light, worms!?"

She's awesome and funny with it. We're usually laughing too much to care that she's using it to bully the rest of the party around.

[JackPhoenix]

Note that sunglasses wouldn't help anyway: the way Sunlight Sensitivity (in both drow and kobold) is worded, it would help with you being in direct sunlight, but it wouldn't do anything about the target being in the same.

It would make the light a little more tolerable and comfortable, though.

[Theodoxus]

That's what our bitchy racist arrogant Drow does. But she sure doesn't admit being useless.

"What is your fascination with this horrid oppressive light, worms!?"

She's awesome and funny with it. We're usually laughing too much to care that she's using it to bully the rest of the party around.

In our OotA game, two players were drow, and I was a high elf with Dawnbringer... they HATED my character, but I was the Life Cleric, so they never actively moved against me, but boy did I get a lot of "Can you turn that damn light off!"

[Naanomi]

True Polymorph or Reincarnate into a different race?

[Dalebert]

I'm not sure this works. Voice of the Chain Master lets you perceive through your familiar's senses, but it doesn't say you can use that to target an attack that originates from your own body.

It doesn't because you use your action to see through the familiar but that wasn't my point. My point was take Devil's Sight in either case but it's nice when you and your familiar can work as a team and it's also not impeded by your darkness.


Note that sunglasses wouldn't help anyway: the way Sunlight Sensitivity (in both drow and kobold) is worded, it would help with you being in direct sunlight, but it wouldn't do anything about the target being in the same.

*shrug* You can't really argue the RAW for a homebrew item. I'm assuming this is intended to be a 5e version (maybe mundane?) of the 3.x Goggles of Night(name?) which were a magic item that countered sunlight sensitivity. Sunglasses don't even prevent the kobold from being in direct sunlight so even that part is a houserule/homebrew item. If a DM says it exists, they can also decide that it just works. *shrug* I'm with the people who say not to do this though. It's both balance and flavor. Play it up.