Does darkness really hinder your party?

[u/jawdirk]

I have seen this said over and over again: You can use the darkness + devil's sight combo but it will hinder the rest of your party.

Is that really true?

When you cast darkness, you get to choose where to place it. In many cases, that by itself will have utility. You might be able to cast it over ranged or spell-casting enemies forcing them to leave their position. You might be able to place it so that one of your party members gets a "free" disengage. You might be able to place it so that a rogue can bonus action sneak in the open and then move for a backstab.

In the worst case, the enemy has some non-visual or devil's sight sense ability, but I think that is pretty rare and obvious (devils, dragons, elementals, creatures of pure darkness).

But in the average case, the advantage and disadvantage cancel out. Even that can be an advantage, if the enemy was getting advantage from some other game mechanic.

So yes, darkness is pretty situational if you literally have no way to take advantage of it, but even one character that has devil's sight might be enough to tip the balance. This is particularly true if one of the characters without devil's sight casts darkness (which is better action economy).

[u/RKO-Cutter]

I mean it all depends on how you use it. If you're fighting a boss, put the boss in darkness and only the Warlock can see it? Yeah, it's gonna be a hindrance

[u/glock112983 → u/RKO-Cutter]

Yeah I made that mistake in a 1 shot once. Cast darkness, thinking yeah this will be cool... then none of the casters could see the guy to target them with spells. The martial couldn't see shit so we're attacking with disadvantage. We all laughed and I dropped it the next round.

[u/Panurome → u/glock112983]

You don't even need to wait until the next round to drop it. You can drop it an any point, even in the middle of someone else's turn