Why the hate on hexblade?

[stoutstien]

It at least prevents the effect from giving them zero speed, because by itself being incapacitated does nothing to your movement. You're basically a running block of Ice. I can't find a source for Freedom of Movement for Warlock though, so my best guess is through a magic item or multiclassing.

I don't see much utility in this combo though, it seems like a heavy investment for just one turns worth of temp HP. It's always going to be at least 50 temp HP though, so at the very least you're going to soak a decent amount of damage.

Trickster's escape lv 7 invocation. FoM once a LR no slot cost.

[Corran]

It at least prevents the effect from giving them zero speed, because by itself being incapacitated does nothing to your movement. You're basically a running block of Ice.

I have no words. Picturing the scene is pretty funny.

Trickster's escape lv 7 invocation. FoM once a LR no slot cost.

Ah, that's right, thanks!

[ProsecutorGodot]

Trickster's escape lv 7 invocation. FoM once a LR no slot cost.

It's literally right underneath Tomb of Levistus in Xanathar's, how could I possibly miss it.

[Sorinth]

There is no expected number of short rests. RAW there is no number provided. It's recommended to have 2 but DM is to adjust it as he sees fit. Again, if you have session = adventuring day, sure 2 is enough but if you play more like 2-3 session = adventuring day than 3 short rests is very logical for short rests classes. If you google "5e short rests per day" you mostly see that people say 2-3. Also Jeremy said that it's recommended to have 2 but it for DMs to adjust that.

The exact words from the DMG are "In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests". Sorry but likely is a synonym for expected not recommended. And yeah like I said it's going to vary a lot from table to table and adventure to adventure. That's precisely why it's important to mention those kinds of caveats because someone coming for advice might have an idea about how frequently they will rest and it can impact the decision.

Besides even with 2 rests if you actually would check my numbers - my calculations stays because I calculated his slots 3 TIMES. Which means - Initial beginning of the day, 1 short rest and second short rest. Which totally gives 3x numbers which is what I provided. If I was to calculate 3 short rests + initial slots, my calculations would be way higher because I'd multiply it by 4 which I didn't. So please check first numbers.

The higher tiers go and more slots long-rests classes have, it's important to be sure that short rests classes can also keep up with resource spending.

You also assumed that the 17th level Paladin wouldn't ever smite a Fiend or Undead, which seems unlikely. And despite claiming you chose level 17 to help the Paladin out it's actually the opposite, a high level actually helps Hexblade a lot more.

From levels 2-4, Paladin is smiting and Warlock can't.
From levels 5-10, the Warlock is smiting 3 times over the whole day since according to you he's also casting darkness or Shadow of Moil. Meanwhile the Paladin is smiting 6-9 times. So at 5th the Warlock is doing 9d8 worth of smites, meanwhile the Paladin is at 14d8, at level 10 the Warlock is up to 15d8 whereas the Paladin is at 25d8.

It's only at higher levels when Warlock starts getting more spell slots that his smite potential becomes better then a paladin, and even then an important distinction is that the Hexblade can't go nova like the Paladin can.

You are making arguments that make no sense. Dueling vs Curse is totally not related. Curse is more like Oath Feature, like VoE or SW. Dueling is just +2 to damage. Nobody builds Hexblade for 1 handed weapons. It makes no sense for class with constant advantage. Besides Dueling without advantage < advantage. Higher accuracy always put DPR higher. Which is why blast warlocks are still in top DPR charts for AC of 20+ and are higher than GWM Fighters because accuracy is the most important thing in higher Tier gameplay.

First off plenty of Paladin/Hexblades will go Sword/Spear and Shield which was what I was using as the base but even if we want to compare using two handed weapons then it needs to be noted that GWF also adds damage and even though I know there is some debate, by RAW the Paladin would re-roll all 1s and 2s from his smite dice which is a huge boost to smite damage.

But you ignored the actual point which is that in the standard 6-8 encounters per day and 2 short rests most of the time the Hexblade isn't getting his bonus damage or expanded crit range. He's cursing an opponent in less then half the encounters, and in actual play even when he uses the curse he's probably only attacking the cursed target 80% of the time. Not too mention if he's using his spells to gain advantage every encounter then he has no or almost no slots to smite until the very late game.

You are basically glossing over the Hexblade limitations by either assuming he's always coming off a short rest or is at the highest tier of play.

"Big bad and minions" - again bad example. Hexblade with Darkness around him with Glaive can put groups of enemies into blinded zone where he has all the tools like advantage, forcing enemies to have disadvantage, protecting himself from spells etc. Hexblade will have much better DPR due to fact that he has advantage for every enemy during encounter. Only Oath of Devotion can have that once he has 20 CHA. And it's only accuracy flat bonus vs advantage and Hex adv is better due to also negatively affecting enemies + expanding crit chance. Actually when it comes to "Big Bad and minions" - here is where Vengeance Paladin can shine, VoE Big Bady and solo focusing him.

By using darkness against a group of enemies you are also preventing your party from helping, so even if you are maximizing your individual damage it's probably not actually an overall increase in party damage. Not too mention by casting a spell you are 1 round behind in damage compared to the Paladin who simply attacked right away. Similarly using the curse costs you a round where you could have BA attacked since you no doubt have PAM.

Also I Am sorry to say but if someone is mentioning "Dueling" and "Higher Levels" in the same sentence then that person have no idea about optimizing and min-maxing character. If you want to compare max efficiency of Paladin vs Hexblade then you need to compare them using GWM at least with probably PAM, because nobody who has any sense of properly building character will not use Sharpshooter or GWM on Hexblade, when whole kit gives you tons of ways to always have advantage. It's the same like with Barbarians. Class is made for -5/+10 feat.

You seem to be missing the point, comparing max efficiency isn't actually all that useful because most of the time you won't be in a situation where can use your max efficiency. It's like taking the Assassin and focusing on how much damage he can do with his auto-crit. It's not nearly as relevant to a normal adventuring day as you are making it out to be.

[Sorinth]

I'd say it's exactly the opposite. Paladins are nova classes, they can choose to expend all their smite slots in a boss fight, and their dps will be competitive with a PAM/GWM Hexblade (well not quite, but it's relative). The problem is they don't have anywhere near the sustain and their average dpr will fall way behind over the course of a day..

As Benny mentions, the fundamental issue with single class Hexblade, is the self advantage aspect from silly combos like darkness/ds. It completely breaks DnD 5e when combined with feats like SS, GWM, PAM, Elven Accuracy. If you homebrew that advantage away, the class is all of a sudden much less scary and what I would call relatively balanced (at least the single class aspect).

If you don't, single class Hexblades can output dpr values that even exceed dedicated damage spec melee like crossbow bm warriors, and zealot barbarians. That was clearly not intended for a Gish.. I mean in practise this often involves the Hexblade splitting up from the main party, so as not to annoy them with darkness and can lead to ridiculous scenarios where the Hexblade solos his side before the rest of the party kills their side (this actually happened in one of our campaigns where our Hexblade solo'd a boss).

I'd still say a well build paladin is right up there amongst the best builds in the game b/c of the group utility and defense he/she brings, but from a pure I c u, u c me, smash pov, its hard to compete with a Hexblade.

Now consider what happens when you have 4 or 5 hexblade multiclasses in a party (all with say devil sight), and all of a sudden encounters which were designed to make you think, are now trivialized by the sheer single target dps that these sorts of builds can bring.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I wasn't talking about boss fights, just fights where there is a leader whose better then the rest. So I was still considering it a situation where you don't want to waste all your slot because you know you have to keep going forward with at best a short rest. In those situations the Hexblade will curse and possibly smite/cast a spell because he'll get those resources back before the final battle of the day.

[Benny89]

snip

{Scrubbed}

And darkness screwing party members is generally exagerration. Since you don't provoke Opportunity Attacks, you just attack and move out each turn. Smart positioning is important for any hexblade and Darkness also allows for great manouvering around battlefield. It's only 15 feet radius, that is half of your speed + 10 feet reach weapon like Glaive. You can position yourself well even in smaller places. {Scrubbed}

[Segev]

In my experience, having hit level 5, the ritual-cast of Leomund's tiny hut largely lets the PCs short rest whenever they like. You can interrupt the ritual-casting, but it's harder to justify. A key, I think, is to make them measure long-rest resources expended that still might have value if they press onwards against the time spent. (For instance, if they summoned something that lasts an hour with a long-rest resource.)

[ProsecutorGodot]

And darkness screwing party members is generally exagerration. Since you don't provoke Opportunity Attacks, you just attack and move out each turn. Smart positioning is important for any hexblade and Darkness also allows for great manouvering around battlefield.

I don't think it is, building your character around the darkness+devils sight combination is a selfish maneuver that is admittedly not always going to be negative for your party but saying that it's an exaggeration to call it one isn't true.

You prevent your party spellcasters from targeting most spells in this zone, you prevent your ranged martials from helping you out from a safe distance and you may even endanger your melee martials because their lack of sight makes them easier to hit. It goes without saying that you will not always experience these detriments, but they do exist and the scenarios that showcase them aren't actually all that rare. Remember that Darkness is decent size AoE and anywhere indoors it's likely to cause more harm than good with party positioning being constrained by the size of rooms and the controlled spaces of allies and enemies.

[Benny89]

I don't think it is, building your character around the darkness+devils sight combination is a selfish maneuver that is admittedly not always going to be negative for your party but saying that it's an exaggeration to call it one isn't true.

You prevent your party spellcasters from targeting most spells in this zone, you prevent your ranged martials from helping you out from a safe distance and you may even endanger your melee martials because their lack of sight makes them easier to hit. It goes without saying that you will not always experience these detriments, but they do exist and the scenarios that showcase them aren't actually all that rare. Remember that Darkness is decent size AoE and anywhere indoors it's likely to cause more harm than good with party positioning being constrained by the size of rooms and the controlled spaces of allies and enemies.

Again, other players have brain too. Nothing prevents caster from also moving to different position and adjust. It's all about working together. Me and my Sorcerer didn't have any problems with to the point where he was casting his Darkness on me becasue he was Shadow Sorcerer and we were positioning together smart to benefit both from it. Our Barbarian was smart and he was focusing on different enemies to not lose his Reckless attacks advantage, while our fighter learnt that unless he has advantage from some spell- he attacks normally inside darkness because disadvantage and advantage cancel each other so Fighter and enemy inside Darkness still roll normally. And our cleric with Spirit Guardians didn't care because it's AOE and again inside Darkness he was attacking enemies normally with his weapon.

It's all about working as team and no tactic is bad if you can make it work as a team. It's not that hard to figure out from level 3 to 20....

[ProsecutorGodot]

Again, other players have brain too. Nothing prevents caster from also moving to different position and adjust.

Nothing about their positioning allows them to target a spell that requires line of sight into a sphere of darkness either. If they can't see it, they can't target those spells. This is even worse if they're inside the sphere of darkness and end up having to spend precious movement to leave it, you've actively harmed their ability to position in this case.

It's all about working together.

Which the strategy at its core inhibits greatly, making it the "I am the Warlock and I fight alone in my darkness" show.

Me and my Sorcerer didn't have any problems with to the point where he was casting his Darkness on me becasue he was Shadow Sorcerer and we were positioning together smart to benefit both from it.

It's good that you were partied with one of the few spellcasters who can see through magical darkness then.

Our Barbarian was smart and he was focusing on different enemies to not lose his Reckless attacks advantage, while our fighter learnt that unless he has advantage from some spell- he attacks normally inside darkness because disadvantage and advantage cancel each other so Fighter and enemy inside Darkness still roll normally. And our cleric with Spirit Guardians didn't care because it's AOE and again inside Darkness he was attacking enemies normally with his weapon.

I'm surprised the enemies all stood still so your martials could continue striking the same position over and over, otherwise how would they hit enemies that could use the same strategy of avoiding opportunity attacks and leaving your party members to deal with fighting literally nothing in darkness.

Your enemies can employ the same strategies, they should also be intelligent. When they act intelligently the only characters that can react with a leg up are the ones who can see inside the darkness, now we're right back where we started with the Warlock (and/or Shadow Sorcerer) being the only one having all options in the encounter while actively limiting much of their allies.

This is purely nitpicking as well, but I hope your Cleric cast Spirit Guardians before your Darkness because they have to specify creatures they can see as immune to its effects on cast, if they go after you in initiative (generally more likely for a Cleric to go after a Warlock) and you cover the party in Darkness then Spirit Guardians will start hitting your allies, assuming they aren't just forced to change their plans because of your "better" plan.

It's all about working as team and no tactic is bad if you can make it work as a team. It's not that hard to figure out from level 3 to 20....

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying that it isn't a very team oriented strategy except for teams that take great strides to form around it. Even then, I'd be very surprised if the strategy remained all that viable at higher levels where it becomes more common to fight enemies with Blind Sight, True Sight and Tremor Sense who ignore the Darkness while your allies are still suffering the downsides.

That's just my take on it at least, I've tried the combo myself and players in my games have tried it and even though it's had spectacular results it more often results in the Warlock being the one shining while everyone else fumbles around in the dark.

[diplomancer]

What does the tier 4 hexblade does for mobility? Paladin has his steed.
A melee-class with low mobility in tier 4 is only good with either party support or DM coddling.

[Lockwolfe]

If you have long adventuring days with several short rests then Hexblades will be stronger. If you have shorter adventuring days then Paladin will be stronger.

My experience has been that Warlocks are unlikely to get more than one or two short rests. Sometimes parties are forced into a second combat without a short rest. I know many DMs that run 1-encounter-per-day games. D&D isn’t balanced for that, but it is still common for less experienced DMs and role play focused groups.

Hexblades will excel at battles against a single target but are less effective against multiple foes. They also require more set up to be used effectively. You are using your actions and bonus actions to set up spells or move hex around. Taking up PAM and GWM means lower constitution, meaning your hit points are low for a melee character and you will lose concentration on your spells.

Hexblades don’t do much besides damage. Perhaps some debuffs here and there, but they don’t have many options and lack utility outside of combat. Paladin can do more nova damage in a single fight, heal their allies, and has access to Revivify, Aura of Vitality, and Bless. Paladins can afford to focus on Strength and Constitution, Hexblades still need Charisma, Constitution for HP and concentration, and some Dexterity for their AC.

Hexblades are great if you want to just do damage. Paladins are better well-rounded. Hexblades are fine if your DM limits short rests. I don’t know what the experience of most players are, I’m curious what is common for the majority of groups. For groups with many short rests Hexblade may be overpowered.

I will concede that Hexblades are consistently good through all tiers of play. Personally I don’t think any class was intended to be weaker at certain tiers of play and is a design flaw that happens when creating a game like D&D. You may disagree and feel that is a part of game balance. Perhaps you would be right. I also admit that Hexblades don’t struggle with range or melee, but neither does Bladesinger, Eldritch Knight, most Rogues, Swords Bard, etc. so I’m not very concerned in that respect, though it is fair to bring up when directly comparing with Paladins.

[Segev]

It's less of a bad thing if your DM rules that darkness prevents you from seeing things within it, but not on the other side nor outside of it. It is, after all magical darkness, not an image of a solid black ball or a ball of black smoke thick enough you can't see even an inch through it.

[Lockwolfe]

It's less of a bad thing if your DM rules that darkness prevents you from seeing things within it, but not on the other side nor outside of it. It is, after all magical darkness, not an image of a solid black ball or a ball of black smoke thick enough you can't see even an inch through it.

That would be some sort of invisibility, not darkness. I’m not sure I understand your interpretation.

[Segev]

That would be some sort of invisibility, not darkness. I’m not sure I understand your interpretation.

Picture a 100-foot hallway with a series of lights illuminating it. Turn off (or extinguish) all but the one at one end. Stand at the other end. Can you see somebody standing under the light, despite you standing in what D&D would say is complete darkness, and probably not being able to see yourself or your buddies standing next to you?

[JumboWheat01]

Picture a 100-foot hallway with a series of lights illuminating it. Turn off (or extinguish) all but the one at one end. Stand at the other end. Can you see somebody standing under the light, despite you standing in what D&D would say is complete darkness, and probably not being able to see yourself or your buddies standing next to you?

I'll admit, I always thought of Darkness as some sort of big black cloud, but there is logic to this train of thought too.

[Segev]

I'll admit, I always thought of Darkness as some sort of big black cloud, but there is logic to this train of thought too.

I used to, as well, until I realized that we already have that. It's called fog cloud. Sure, it's not "black," but it does everything magical darkness does (except with Devil's Sight), if magical darkness is really "black fog."

And it's not darkness if it's a black fog. Darkness isn't an ink blot. It's a region of no light to see by.

Now, I'm not going to tell DMs who rule it as a solid black opaque intangible sphere that they're doing it wrong and can't rule that way, but it doesn't make sense to me to rule it that way and call it "darkness."

[Sorinth]

In my experience, having hit level 5, the ritual-cast of Leomund's tiny hut largely lets the PCs short rest whenever they like. You can interrupt the ritual-casting, but it's harder to justify. A key, I think, is to make them measure long-rest resources expended that still might have value if they press onwards against the time spent. (For instance, if they summoned something that lasts an hour with a long-rest resource.)

Generally the best way to handle things like this is by having dynamic story elements. When the PCs take a rest (Long or Short) it gives time for the enemies to become alerted to the presence of the PCs and react.

For example, in that hour long rest maybe they've organized patrols, or doubled the size of exisitng patrols. Maybe people went to the armoury to load up on one-shot magic items.

Maybe doors that were previously locked are now barricaded so the PCs can't just pick the lock anymore. Maybe a side passage they planned on using to avoid the bulk of the enemy is now blocked with a lowered portcullis.

Traps that in normal times aren't loaded are now turned on. If they know where the PCs are likely to head then ambushes can be planned/reinforced. Maybe a message requesting reinforcements was sent out.

There are many ways for a DM to make resting not a safe proposition, the key of course is in letting the players understand that these things were consequences of them deciding to take a rest so that it's in the back of their mind next time they want to rest.

[Segev]

Generally the best way to handle things like this is by having dynamic story elements. When the PCs take a rest (Long or Short) it gives time for the enemies to become alerted to the presence of the PCs and react.

For example, in that hour long rest maybe they've organized patrols, or doubled the size of exisitng patrols. Maybe people went to the armoury to load up on one-shot magic items.

Maybe doors that were previously locked are now barricaded so the PCs can't just pick the lock anymore. Maybe a side passage they planned on using to avoid the bulk of the enemy is now blocked with a lowered portcullis.

Traps that in normal times aren't loaded are now turned on. If they know where the PCs are likely to head then ambushes can be planned/reinforced. Maybe a message requesting reinforcements was sent out.

There are many ways for a DM to make resting not a safe proposition, the key of course is in letting the players understand that these things were consequences of them deciding to take a rest so that it's in the back of their mind next time they want to rest.

Yeah, I'll be trying things like that. The difficulty right now is how spread out everything is in the encounter region. The ruined city they're in is vast, and supposedly sparsely-populated by the various encounter groups, few of which have reason to spend an hour waiting on the PCs to do anything. That will change soon, I think, as they gather the macguffins, though they have the potential to broker some sort of alliance with the primary competition due to an NPC they have on-hand.

They really only have one short-rest PC in the party, though, so it's not too big of a deal. Their hit dice are limited in quantity. Long resting is feasible, but taking whole days off will see them...losing the race.

[Sorinth]

{Scrub the post, scrub the post}

And darkness screwing party members is generally exagerration. Since you don't provoke Opportunity Attacks, you just attack and move out each turn. Smart positioning is important for any hexblade and Darkness also allows for great manouvering around battlefield. It's only 15 feet radius, that is half of your speed + 10 feet reach weapon like Glaive. You can position yourself well even in smaller places. {Scrub the post, scrub the post}

I don't play much Tier 4 it's true, but I've quite a bit of experience playing both Paladin and Hexblade {Scrubbed}. Especially since you admitted that your experience is not actually following the 5e expected short rests.

[Chaosmancer]

I'm surprised the enemies all stood still so your martials could continue striking the same position over and over, otherwise how would they hit enemies that could use the same strategy of avoiding opportunity attacks and leaving your party members to deal with fighting literally nothing in darkness.

Not to open that kettle of fish, but technically, the DM might say it doesn't matter if they follow the logic that "unseen" does not mean "hidden". In that case, any enemy that would move so the fighter would lose track of them would have to take the Hide action.

And considering they went with the interpretation of darkness being normal rolls because blind is canceled by unseen attacker, I think it is likely they would go with the "need to take hide action" interpretation as well.

[Sorinth]

Picture a 100-foot hallway with a series of lights illuminating it. Turn off (or extinguish) all but the one at one end. Stand at the other end. Can you see somebody standing under the light, despite you standing in what D&D would say is complete darkness, and probably not being able to see yourself or your buddies standing next to you?

But in that hallway if there was someone standing in front of you, between the light source you would see their silhouette. How do you handle that case since clearly the darkness spell should prevent you from seeing a silhouette?

[Segev]

But in that hallway if there was someone standing in front of you, between the light source you would see their silhouette. How do you handle that case since clearly the darkness spell should prevent you from seeing a silhouette?

Why? It just prevents you from targeting them clearly. You can't pick out the creature from the rest of the silhouettes you're seeing, as they merge and shift with the normal movement of combat (under most circumstances where this matters, anyway). You can identify "there's something there" and attack with disadvantage if you're using an attack roll thing, but anything that requires you to SEE them just can't target them because you can't see them, just a shadow/silhouette.

You could probably construct a situation where the silhouettes are all clearly picked out individually, but that's going to be rare in real situations. If they're so obvious that they're actually obscuring the lit stuff beyond them, then you'd also have to give cover to anything in the lit area beyond if the whole hall were lit up. Typically, this doesn't happen, so clearly these silhouettes aren't that obstructive.

Getting depth on them would be really hard, too, since there's no edge between any two that overlap.

[Sorinth]

Why? It just prevents you from targeting them clearly. You can't pick out the creature from the rest of the silhouettes you're seeing, as they merge and shift with the normal movement of combat (under most circumstances where this matters, anyway). You can identify "there's something there" and attack with disadvantage if you're using an attack roll thing, but anything that requires you to SEE them just can't target them because you can't see them, just a shadow/silhouette.

You could probably construct a situation where the silhouettes are all clearly picked out individually, but that's going to be rare in real situations. If they're so obvious that they're actually obscuring the lit stuff beyond them, then you'd also have to give cover to anything in the lit area beyond if the whole hall were lit up. Typically, this doesn't happen, so clearly these silhouettes aren't that obstructive.

Getting depth on them would be really hard, too, since there's no edge between any two that overlap.

Well I disagree that you wouldn't be able target someone with a spell if you can see their silhouette.

On a bright sunny day out in the open the silhouettes are going to be pretty clear, and only things behind them would be hard/impossible to see due to the lack of depth. In fact if you're a Halfling and everyone else in the area is Human sized. You'd actually have a very easy time seeing the others because the background is the sky, whereas they would have a near impossible time finding you because they are looking down to see you.

Wasn't there a thread a while back showing that if you are in a dark tunnel and at the end of the tunnel there's someone holding a torch that by RAW you can't actually see the torchbearer because you are actually suffering from the blinded condition.

[Segev]

Well I disagree that you wouldn't be able target someone with a spell if you can see their silhouette.

On a bright sunny day out in the open the silhouettes are going to be pretty clear, and only things behind them would be hard/impossible to see due to the lack of depth. In fact if you're a Halfling and everyone else in the area is Human sized. You'd actually have a very easy time seeing the others because the background is the sky, whereas they would have a near impossible time finding you because they are looking down to see you.

Now, please take all this justification, and clearly illuminate the area. Can your halfing target anything "down range" that was illuminated before, or is he blinded by all the people closer by?

We have a tendency to get hung up on just how clear and vision-obscuring silhouettes must be when we abstract away that same occlusion in play all the time when there's no magical darkness involved.

Specifically, if I wasn't making statements about "magical darkness," but we were just working with nonmagical darkness, nobody would be questioning how it works nor pretending that the rules create a problem that wasn't already there in the rules for spotting creatures to target to begin with. Certainly, I haven't seen threads arguing that nonmagical darkness shouldn't obscure creatures that are between the viewing character and a source of light that nevertheless puts those creatures outside the illuminated radius.

It's a bit of an abstraction, but no more than with nonmagical darkness. In other words, treating magical darkness as an illusion of a solid black ball doesn't actually solve the problems raised when people are trying to object to treating it like nonmagical darkness (except for the part about darkvision not letting you see in the affected region). The problems still exist with nonmagical darkness, and nobody seems to have issue, there.

Wasn't there a thread a while back showing that if you are in a dark tunnel and at the end of the tunnel there's someone holding a torch that by RAW you can't actually see the torchbearer because you are actually suffering from the blinded condition.

I think that's pre-errata, when they also had rules that said that being inside a fog cloud meant you could see perfectly well outside of it, but anybody even trying to spot you inside it was totally blinded.

[Zalabim]

You could probably construct a situation where the silhouettes are all clearly picked out individually, but that's going to be rare in real situations. If they're so obvious that they're actually obscuring the lit stuff beyond them, then you'd also have to give cover to anything in the lit area beyond if the whole hall were lit up. Typically, this doesn't happen, so clearly these silhouettes aren't that obstructive.

I'm not going to pretend to understand everything you just said here, but the rules do say anything behind the creature should have cover. That's true regardless of whether you can see the thing granting cover or not.

[Segev]

I'm not going to pretend to understand everything you just said here, but the rules do say anything behind the creature should have cover. That's true regardless of whether you can see the thing granting cover or not.

I've never seen anybody treat a party in a corridor as having the front-liners provide cover from the back-liners for the monsters charging at them from the other side of the hall. Maybe they should; if so, I again don't see how this differs from if it's lit brightly, lit dimly, or non-magically dark, and therefore why it should be different if it is magically dark.

[Mikaleus]

I can't help but feel like at least some parts of the hexblade (such as using CHA for attack and damage rolls for weapons) should have been part of the blade pact instead. That would have solved most of the issues people had with it. You'd need at least a 3 level dip to gain the benefits, rather than a 1 level dip. Hexblade appears to be an obvious extension of the blade pact; there's not much incentive to go blade pact with other patrons, and while hexblades can do fine with other pacts they get the most out of the blade pact.

Personally, I could see reworking the blade pact to included using CHA for weapons and giving medium armor and shields, and reworking the hexblade patron to not give these benefits but to work well with either martial or caster playstyles. A hexblade blade pact would feel about like what a hexblade blade pact does now, but there'd be a big difference if you go blade pact with a different patron or hexblade with a different pact.

One argument against this would be that a hexblade blade pact would have to wait until 3rd level to use their weapons effectively.

I think adding Cha for attack and rolls being an aspect specific to the blade pact would have allowed for a greater diversity in blade pact warlocks. Totally agree with what you said.

I for one, would love to play an Archfey warlock with a blade pact, rather than having to flavour the existing Hexblade patron to be a member of the Unseelie court.

I actually like the Hexblade, but I don’t tend to multiclass etc

[Tanarii]

It's less of a bad thing if your DM rules that darkness prevents you from seeing things within it, but not on the other side nor outside of it. It is, after all magical darkness, not an image of a solid black ball or a ball of black smoke thick enough you can't see even an inch through it.

Oh now you've gone and opened a whole kettle of worms.

Btw afaik MaxWilson was the first on these boards to suggest that interpretation for the 5e Darkness spell. I liked it as well. We all just assume it's an Inky Blot Darkness, but the spell doesn't say that. That said, I've always run it as Inky Blot. All the players expect it.

I've never seen anybody treat a party in a corridor as having the front-liners provide cover from the back-liners for the monsters charging at them from the other side of the hall. Maybe they should; if so, I again don't see how this differs from if it's lit brightly, lit dimly, or non-magically dark, and therefore why it should be different if it is magically dark.

I've only seen brand new AL DMs that didn't know the cover rules NOT enforce the rule that allies provide cover to enemies. It's one of the few important limiters on ranged attackers. Barring sharpshooter of course.

[Segev]

Oh now you've gone and opened a whole kettle of worms.

Btw afaik MaxWilson was the first on these boards to suggest that interpretation for the 5e Darkness spell. I liked it as well. We all just assume it's an Inky Blot Darkness, but the spell doesn't say that. That said, I've always run it as Inky Blot. All the players expect it.


I've only seen brand new AL DMs that didn't know the cover rules NOT enforce the rule that allies provide cover to enemies. It's one of the few important limiters on ranged attackers. Barring sharpshooter of course.

I may be guilty of "new DM"ing this, then. I'll take a closer look at cover rules for use in my game; it could make the party's tactics more interesting. I fully expect they'll take advantage of them, too; I will try to introduce them by having them act in the party's favor, first.


I know I didn't voice it strongly on the boards first; MaxWilson may well be the one who deserves that credit. But I've been puzzled at the "ink blot" interpretation a lot, and oft-dissatisfied with it because it makes it not really feel like "darkness" so much as "black fog."


Even with the cover rules, though, it is no different with magical nor nonmagical darkness. I definitely haven't seen anybody argue that a creature outside of darkvision range and not in a lit area is targetable without Disadvantage just because there's a light source somewhere on the far side of it. I've only seen people try to raise this argument about why the non-ink-blot interpretation of magical darkness somehow makes magical darkness do nothing or otherwise behave "weirdly."

When in truth, the non-ink-blot interpretation doesn't introduce anything that nonmagical darkness doesn't also introduce.