Darkness: I Attack the Darkness!
Usable By: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: 2
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Components: V, S, M (bat fur and a drop of pitch or piece of coal)
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it.
If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn’t being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness.
If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled.
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
An eerie shadow extends from the corner, growing and dousing light as it moves. You stumble back down the cold stone castle corridor, falling prone as the darkness fills your field of view. Before you can pull yourself up and turn, it envelops you, casting you into a darkness beyond shut eyes and sleep, but a true, deep blackness of nothing with only void around you and an eerie silence to accompany it.
Darkness can be super cool. I’m always a proponent of getting your inner evil edgelord out to play from time to time, and boy does Darkness fit into almost every character you could want to play with that aesthetic. Mechanically, it's a minimally better Fog Cloud. The main notable exception is when its paired with the warlock invocation Devil’s Sight, but for the most part, Darkness is going to be a mobile smoke bomb that blinds everything near it for up to ten minutes.
There is a lovely little nesting doll of rules mechanics to get to how Darkness affects in game mechanics. An area full of darkness is considered heavily obscured; creatures within a heavily obscured area are considered blinded when trying to see out of or into the area. Blinded creatures have disadvantage one weapon attack rolls, weapon attack rolls against them have advantage, and automatically fail checks that require sight. Functionally, you’re making an AOE blind cloud you can move that even affects creatures with Darkvision. Neat!
Taking advantage of this will look similar to how you can take advantage of Fog Cloud, as both mechanically just are areas of heavily obscured space attached to a spell slot. Fog Cloud is slightly larger, has a longer potential duration, has a longer cast range, scales with up-casting better, but misses out on the flexibility in game mechanics Darkness offers. Fog Cloud just affects an area; Darkness can do that too, but also can be fixed to an object. That object can be concealed to “block” the darkness from spreading like an inverse-light. You can have it on you prepared to pull out as part of interacting with an object on your turn to, with no other actions required, instantly surround yourself in Darkness. You can keep it on you as you move, and it can’t be dispelled by a stiff breeze; Darkness will work in every environment you’d want. Fog Cloud is easily dispersed by just being outdoors on a breezy day. You can have confidence when you cast Darkness you’re getting your Darkness.
Pitch black can be used to undertake tasks under cover, discreetly remove threats, blind enemies to hinder their attacks or force movement, or any number of other nifty things. It's a fairly complex tool to play around with, and won’t always be apparently powerful outside of getting a one sided blind effect when you can see through the magical darkness (namely through effects like Devil’s Sight). If you want to have advantage on all your attack rolls and impose disadvantage on all enemy attack rolls, that combination works. Otherwise, Darkness is a neat little tool that is marginally better than Fog Cloud in some unique ways. While similar, both existing is helpful, and there is enough meaningful distinction between them I think you have plenty of reasons to consider taking either one or the other.
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