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Here's the plan, and I think it's possible..

  1. Move close to my ally Bobby
  2. Bonus action use Metamagic to cast Quickened Spell Darkness on my dagger's blade (or a tennis ball, doesn't matter)
  3. Free object interaction to Sheath dagger (or pocket ball) (which I just read should block the darkness)
  4. Action: "ready Action" to draw dagger when I see Bobby shoot an arrow

Bobby moves 30 feet (15 to me, then 15 more towards escaping) and shoots an arrow at our enemies

  1. Reaction/Readied Action Draw dagger putting me & Bobby in defensive darkness

On subsequent turns could I basically repeat the sheath, move, and ready to draw thus shrouding us in darkness while Bobby shoots in the light as we make our escape?

One issue that's already apparent is that the initiative order would have to go Me>Bobby>everyone else for this to work.

Are there any other issues?

SoggyShorts
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4 Answers4

26

This works

The trigger of your Readied Action finishes before the action, so Bobby will get of his shot

When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger.

Your linked questions already covers if darkness is blocked, and you can move, take one action (including the Ready action), one free object interaction and one bonus action in your turn, so the action economy also works.

As you observe, it depends on exact initiative order. Also note that the enemies can Ready actions too, for example to shoot at you or Bobby the moment the light goes back on when you pocket your ball or sheathe your knife.

Oblivious Sage
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Nobody the Hobgoblin
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    Oh that's excellent, I hadn't thought about enemies being able to ready actions. So (with my DM) we could probably pull it off for a couple of rounds. Generally we're rewarded for thinking outside the box even if it is a bizarre exploit. Probably because my DM loves coming up with her own to break us if we try them again, and a bunch of readied actions would do that – SoggyShorts Nov 02 '23 at 16:12
  • Keep in mind though that Anything preventing the OP from Seeing Bobby "shoot an arrow" will leave OP standing there in the light, having wasted their action for the turn. So if Bobby has to make a melee attack, or an obstruction blocks OP from having vision on Bobby, etc, that's basically the risk/cost that intelligent enemies can exploit to counter the benefit of a potentially strong strategy. – Danger Lake Nov 30 '23 at 22:53
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This is a loophole in the rules

Whether this works, depends on what is acceptable at your table. Many DMs explicitly forbid exploiting technical loopholes, regardless of the fact it should work rules as written.

The thing is, characters act simultaneously in the game world. They don't stay frozen, waiting for "their turn". However, the rules use turns to structurize the game process. Exploiting these rules creates unfair (and most probably unintended) situation, which contradicts common sense.

In the middle of a fight you come closer to your archer Bobby and blind him (and yourself) with the Darkness spell. How would this work without turns? What would happen in the game world?

The battle continues, blades are clashing, your teammates are probably struggling, and you have no idea what's happening, because you can't see anything. When are you going to deactivate the spell, in what particular moment? You might say "when my turn begins", but the character doesn't know that.

You could convince the DM this course of actions is plausible. But be ready (s)he won't agree, and the plan won't go well, even being 100% RAW. The DM has every right to ignore the rules, when they fall short.

Thomas Markov
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enkryptor
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    I’ll be throwing a bounty at this as soon as the button is available. “How does this actually work in the narrative” is such an under-appreciated heuristic for examining rules interactions, imo. – Thomas Markov Nov 01 '23 at 10:45
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    I think in the narrative, everything happening at the same time, you just pull out the light for an instant and repocket it, and it is in that instant that your pal shoots his arrow at the opposition (kinda reversing who reacts). But honestly, it is very hard to consistently map turn based combat resolution to an "everything happens at the same time" narrative, they are just that different. Another egregious issue is when a larger group acts all on the same ini, but each (typically monster) in the group can adjust their actions based on the outcome of the last one acting. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Nov 01 '23 at 12:34
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    This borders on the line of assuming D&D is a physics simulator. You're literally suggesting ignoring rules for the sake of physical realism. And down we go into the rabbit hole of deciding which rules to follow, which rules to modify, and which rules to ignore. – ikegami Nov 01 '23 at 15:37
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    @ikegami narrative consistency is not "physical realism". – enkryptor Nov 01 '23 at 15:50
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    I didn't said neglecting common sense is inherently bad. However, it can destroy suspension of disbelief, so a particular DM might decide otherwise. – enkryptor Nov 01 '23 at 15:57
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    There isn't nothing narratively inconsistent with waiting for another player to shoot their arrow before sheathing their dagger. This isn't about narritive consistency. Your answer suggests you should ignoring the rules to provide physical realism ("The thing is, characters act simultaneously in the game world. They don't stay frozen, waiting for "their turn".") – ikegami Nov 01 '23 at 16:00
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    Sure, in a physical simulation, another player would have some amount of light during their turn even if rule-wise they didn't. The narrative is therefore that they weren't able to take advantage of the light. They swung just before the light came on, or the enemy wasn't exactly where they thought it would be, etc. – ikegami Nov 01 '23 at 16:10
  • And when the darkness drops does Bobby know what to shoot at? – Loren Pechtel Nov 01 '23 at 16:46
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    @ikegami: I notice that part of your argument for allowing this RAW-possible tactic is that it is narratively possible in-world for PCs who don't know about turns. I think that's very important. Refinements include: darkness wielder verbally counts down to when they'll temporarily drop the darkness, so the archer already has their bow drawn, ready to quickly scan the scene, pick a target, and fire. After they loose the arrow, that's when you can re-apply Darkness. So they're nocking a new arrow onto bow in the dark, getting ready for the next countdown. – Peter Cordes Nov 01 '23 at 18:01
  • A house-ruled compromise for this loophole could be for the DM to let you roll a check each time you want to perfectly sync this action. If you fail you don't get the timing perfectly right and Bob has to shoot in the dark, or the enemies can attack before the darkness comes down. – Falco Nov 02 '23 at 12:45
  • 5e combat has quite specific rules, which often don't really make sense from realism or real world logic point of view. Trying to apply instant realism to some surreal cases, while ignoring others is going to feel bad. If you can't trust the rules, what can you trust? So I'd like this answer to state an example specific (ie. anybody can read and apply the rule to any combat encounter) house rule to handle this situation. "The DM should do an ad-hoc ruling to maintain realism" is IMO a poor answer here... – WakiNadiVellir Nov 02 '23 at 13:02
  • Good link, I never would have found that, and solid point about simultaneous actions. I especially like the part about "how does he know when to end the darkness?" I mean he's a smart guy and skilled at counting to 6 exactly? Heh. – SoggyShorts Nov 02 '23 at 16:21
  • This isn't even an issue for DMs. Every time the darkness goes away, a guy shoots and then the darkness returns. How long before the enemies start holding actions to shoot when the darkness goes away? One of them is shooting, the other is doing nothing and probably controlling the darkness. Shoot that guy when the darkness vanishes. – John Turner Nov 03 '23 at 15:28
  • @ThomasMarkov, thank you! – enkryptor Nov 07 '23 at 13:35
  • I see no reason that this would be problematic. OP is expending an action every turn, relying on another player for their character to do anything. Any turn Bobby does not "shoot an arrow" OP is standing there doing nothing. This is the "in-game narrative" of two characters coordinating their actions closely. Once one decides to make a new plan, the other is either in darkness or wasting an action to change course. The rules are pretty clearly followed. Is it a little exploitable? That's not really the question. Anything that prevents OP from Seeing Bobby fire, renders OP's turn wasted. – Danger Lake Nov 30 '23 at 22:47
  • @DangerLake I'm fine with putting on Darkness when Bobby fires. The question is — when the caster is supposed to remove it? – enkryptor Dec 01 '23 at 07:54
  • Through any number of methods, all of which are flavor, not bound by hidden rule mechanics. Example: Counting regular intervals of 6, darkness is on seconds 3-6 while on counts 1-2 OP sheaths so Bobby can fire, minor training for setup. OR Using a ready signal, Bobby gives a verbal "ready" once his arrow is knocked and ready to fire, knife being sheathed briefly once the signal is given. OR a physicial/psychic signal is given, the list of possibilities continues. The question asked is rules based, "Are there any other issues" with this scenario. Per the rules, all concerns have been addressed. – Danger Lake Dec 01 '23 at 14:25
  • To call this a loophole is a bit much. It's clearly defined as a "Readied action" which has been shown to be fine so long as: Turn order lines up, Bobby is seen by OP, OP uses an action, and Bobby shoots an arrow every turn. It's akin to an archer standing at the edge of a fog cloud, stepping out to shoot and then backing into the fog cloud. Non-physics simulation says that Fog cloud has a rigid edge of effect, but really, you'd be able to see the archer walking in and out with 6 second intervals, but no one is calling that a loophole. This is a solid "Yes this works" situation not a debate. – Danger Lake Dec 01 '23 at 14:34
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This sounds like Help with extra steps (almost)

It's true that this feels a little cheesy and relying too much on RAW - possibly bending a little the idea that characters act simultaneously (and introducing interesting questions about how fast darkness travels and reaction times).

But in the end, you spend an entire action to pull it off.

Compare your scenario with just having permanent Darkness. Your sheathing-unseathing trick is then the same* as granting Bobby advantage, as the advantage would cancel the disadvantage.

There are a few ways to sacrifice an action to gain advantage, albeit with some extra restrictions (but consider you burned a lv2 spell slot+metamagic!):

  • The Help action gives advantage to the first attack roll but requires you to be within 5ft of the target (so not ideal for fleeing)
  • True strike: a cantrip that gives advantage to the first attack roll but it's only self-cast
  • Guiding Bolt: 1st level cleric spell but you also deal damage (requires attack roll) and gives advantage to the first attack roll
  • Just attack: 2 attacks with disadvantage result in 0.6 hits (assuming +5 to hit and AC15) while 1 normal attack results in 0.55 hits on average. Granted, the damage output difference between the characters could make it better if one attacked normally.

Tl;dr: It's not a groundbreaking exploit, it's RAW, it's cool!

*It could be that Bobby can gain advantage in some other way as well, in which case removing the darkness is different from giving advantage (because advantage (bobby's)+advantage(yours)+disadvantage(darkness)=nothing while advantage(bobby's)+ removal of darkness disadvantage (yours) = advantage). In this case, the dagger trick becomes more powerful than the previous actions and perhaps it shouldnt be applied.

** The darkness trick doesn't have this limitation (assuming you make a tweak to the trigger to be "when Bobby fires his second/third/... arrow"). Perhaps, to keep this balanced, Bobby can only get one attack without disadvantage while the dagger is sheathed due to reaction times?

falsedot
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  • "It could be that Bobby can gain advantage but only if he's in light. This would stretch things a bit too much!" It is actually not as rare as you think. Samurai Fighting Spirit gives advantage on all attacks for one turn, for example. Using the OP's trick, the samurai can benefit from this advantage. Using the permanent darkness, the samurai can't get this benefit. – justhalf Nov 02 '23 at 06:19
  • @justhalf sorry, I meant that the dagger trick would stretch things too much ie be more powerful; i've edited to clarify! – falsedot Nov 02 '23 at 13:44
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This would work, but in my opinion the best use for a tag-team Darkness combo is with animate objects. Before the bard/wizard whoever starts flinging haunted gold coins at people, cast darkness on one of them. AFAIK, Animate Objects is one of a pretty small list of spells that don't require you be able to see the thing you're casting on, so the caster enchants the coins etc and then they fly off.

Then you can move the darkness at-will essentially (well the animate objects guy can), and generally the objects will all get advantage on their many, many attacks since they have blindsight and are in a darkness bubble. That can then be compounded by crusader's mantle, poison, etc if you really want to go wild, although you're going to hit diminishing returns. Will give you great flexibility with where the darkness goes, boost the damage of an already pretty damaging spell, and gives you good utility by directing the darkness to block line of sight for an enemy caster etc.

Note you do have to cast darkness before he casts animate objects, after they are animated they are constructs/creatures and no longer eligible for the spell. If the DM says that breaks the original darkness spell, a caltrop bent into a loop on one end with a ring or washer or whatever in it will allow you to get around that.

RexRingtail
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  • That's a neat twist, I must admit I've never reached level 9 so that spell wasn't even on my radar. One thing of note though is that your idea would require 2 casters since they are both concentration spells. – SoggyShorts Dec 04 '23 at 11:20