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View Full Version : Umbral Sight in Underdark/Dungeon Campaign Overpowered?



Yakmala
2020-08-29, 11:33 PM
This is a question with an entirely subjective answer, but I'm interested in other players/DM's opinions, especially if you have firsthand experience.

Simply put, is the Gloom Stalker's 3rd level Umbral Sight overpowered in a campaign where nearly every creature relies on darkvision? For example, the Out of the Abyss or Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaigns or any homebrew underdark/dungeon crawl.

Assuming no one in the party needs a light source to navigate, you are effectively invisible all the time, giving you advantage on every attack. This benefit only gets stronger when combined with feats such as Elvish Accuracy, Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Mastery.

And yes, from a lore standpoint, this is literally what the subclass was designed for, but it does seem very strong to have it active at all times. And this isn't even taking into account the extra defense that is provided by having creatures either unable to see you or attacking you at disadvantage.

One way a DM can counteract this is tossing in creatures with natural tremorsense or blindsight (which makes perfect sense for underground creatures), but I don't know how frequent this is in the published hardcover adventures such as OOtA or DotMM.

Thoughts?

Corran
2020-08-29, 11:43 PM
It is also offset by simply having allies to whom this benefit does not extend. So during the typical dnd encounter, your role as a gloom stalker is not really any different than that of any other ranged dpr, you try to kill enemies fast enough while also trying to stay out of harm's way. Umbral sight helps with these, but on its own it's not really winning you any fights. Though yeah, it's a substantial boost, especially for the level you get it, both in combat and out of it (eg scouting), and where it really shines is that it makes it a lot harder for your character to get killed in some situations. Now, if we were talking about a whole team of (drow) gloom stalkers, that would be scary indeed.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2020-08-29, 11:49 PM
Darkvision is the equivalent of dim light, it's not good for seeing details or doing work. Traveling creatures will use darkvision in order to not be noticed, but any settlements or even dungeon crawls are more likely than not to have lighting.

In Out of the Abyss in particular, the Faerzress areas of lingering ancient magic are at least dimly illuminated, making that feature useless in such areas as the Whorlstone Tunnels.

Hytheter
2020-08-29, 11:58 PM
Don't forget that your party won't be able to see you either, which means they can't target you with certain beneficial effects,