D&D 5E Question on Illusory Dragon, Sickening Radiance, and Maddening Darkness spells

ScuroNotte said:

Illusory Dragon - As it is an illusion, if a creature has True Sight or immune to illusions, does it ignore the fear and damage completely or only gain advantage on saving throws as a creature who succeeds on an Investigation check as per the spell?

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The illusion is tangible because of the shadow stuff used to create it, but attacks miss it automatically, it succeeds on all saving throws, and it is immune to all damage and conditions. A creature that uses an action to examine the dragon can determine that it is an illusion by succeeding on an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the creature can see through it and has advantage on saving throws against its breath.

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Since it uses "shadow stuff" to create the illusion, I would treat a victim with True Sight as having successfully made the investigation check and having advantage on the save vs Breath.

ScuroNotte said:

Sickening Radiance - The wording of the spell indicates that the creature only needs to make a saving throw when it enters the spells area the first time or starts in the area to avoid damage, exhaustion, and negation of invisibility benefits. Does that indicate that the creature can travel through the spells area without needing to make more saving throws to avoid taking any further damage or levels of exhaustion. Is that correct?

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Yes, if they made the first ST when entering the area or starting their turn there, and they have enough movement to make it outside the area of the spell by the end of the their turn.

ScuroNotte said:

Maddening Darkness - It states that "light created by spells of 8th level or lower can't illuminate the area." But the Sunburst spell states that "This spell dispels any darkness in the area that was created by a spell." Which takes precedence.

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I think [MENTION=60210]jaelis[/MENTION] has the right of it here. Since Sunburst is instantaneous, it can dispel the Madding Darkness without illuminating the area. This is a nice compromise between two equal level spells as targets within the Madding Darkness area will not be subject to the Sunburst effects, but the Madding Darkness will be dispelled.

ScuroNotte said:

Sickening Radiance - The wording of the spell indicates that the creature only needs to make a saving throw when it enters the spells area the first time or starts in the area to avoid damage, exhaustion, and negation of invisibility benefits. Does that indicate that the creature can travel through the spells area without needing to make more saving throws to avoid taking any further damage or levels of exhaustion. Is that correct?

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Correct - as long as you do all of that traveling in a single turn.

This is pretty standard wording. Any time you spend part of your turn in the area, you have to make a saving throw; but once you've made the save, you're clear for the rest of the turn. You can stand in the area, move across it, or dart in and out, and you won't have to make additional saves.

But, the slate is cleared at the start of each new turn. So if you move into and out of the area three times on different turns, you have to make three saves.

This makes sense when you think about it. Sickening radiance fills the area; it isn't just a barrier around the edge. Its effects depend on how much time you spend in the evil light. Darting in and out should not result in more exposure than just standing in the middle! If anything, it should result in less, but there's a limit to how granular the rules can be.

jaelis said:

A question that might require a ruling would be whether a creature originally in the darkness suffers the effects of the sunburst spell. I would play that it does not, since sunburst only effects creatures in the light from the spell.

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I would think that the blindness effect would occur. If you were in a dark room and someone flashed a light into your eyes, you would be momentarily blinded by the effect. So I would think it would still occur in this scenario.

Dausuul said:

Correct - as long as you do all of that traveling in a single turn.

This is pretty standard wording. Any time you spend part of your turn in the area, you have to make a saving throw; but once you've made the save, you're clear for the rest of the turn. You can stand in the area, move across it, or dart in and out, and you won't have to make additional saves.

But, the slate is cleared at the start of each new turn. So if you move into and out of the area three times on different turns, you have to make three saves.

This makes sense when you think about it. Sickening radiance fills the area; it isn't just a barrier around the edge. Its effects depend on how much time you spend in the evil light. Darting in and out should not result in more exposure than just standing in the middle! If anything, it should result in less, but there's a limit to how granular the rules can be.

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If for the second saving throw you succeed, are you effectively invisible again or once you fail your invisible form is always outlined?

ScuroNotte said:

If for the second saving throw you succeed, are you effectively invisible again or once you fail your invisible form is always outlined?

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By my reading, the latter. If an effect ends on a successful save, it says so. In this case, the spell is quite definite about when the light ends: It ends when the spell does, full stop.

ScuroNotte said:

I would think that the blindness effect would occur. If you were in a dark room and someone flashed a light into your eyes, you would be momentarily blinded by the effect. So I would think it would still occur in this scenario.

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Fair enough... my reasoning was that the creature in the darkness would not actually see the flash of light, since "light created by spells of 8th level or lower can't illuminate the area." But perhaps you feel the darkness is dispelled too quickly to prevent the targets from being illuminated.

neogod22 said:

Since illusions do psychic damage based off of the belief it is real, someone with true sight will take no damage.

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I know that this is a thread from very long ago, but that's not the function of illusory dragon. It's shadow magic, so it's fully tangible the same as mirage arcane. Because of that, the targets take actual damage of various types such as fire and acid. That's also not the function of truesight. you would succeed on saves against visual illusions and can automatically identify them. So a creature with true sight would auto succeed on the fear save and discern the dragon as an illusion. Meaning they would have advantage against the damage but not auto-succeed as it is a tactile illusion with a functional form. Aside from auto-successes, true sight gives you no resistance against the damage of illusions. Maybe an oversight in the case of some spells, but most damaging illusions don't deal damage on the basis that they're believed, but by forcing the target to fully experience the damage. Which would also not be visual in nature. This is why you can save against an illusion, thus disbelieving it in most cases, and still take half damage.

neogod22 said:

Since illusions do psychic damage based off of the belief it is real, someone with true sight will take no damage.

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I know that this is a thread from very long ago, but that's not the function of illusory dragon. It's shadow magic, so it's fully tangible the same as mirage arcane. Because of that, the targets take actual damage of various types such as fire and acid. That's also not the function of truesight. you would succeed on saves against visual illusions and can automatically identify them. So a creature with true sight would auto succeed on the fear save and discern the dragon as an illusion. Meaning they would have advantage against the damage but not auto-succeed as it is a tactile illusion with a functional form. Aside from auto-successes, true sight gives you no resistance against the damage of illusions. Maybe an oversight in the case of some spells, but most damaging illusions don't deal damage on the basis that they're believed, but by forcing the target to fully experience the damage. Which would only be partially visual in that you could discern it as ficticious due to your sight resulting in a successful save. This is why you can save against an illusion, thus disbelieving it in most cases, but still take half damage. (a bit of a tangent, but one could even get around the autosave function by removing a visual from the illusion. for example: "you feel your innards begin to burn, as the recognizable sting of poison starts to flow through your veins" or "you feel the sharp pain of a blade piercing your back, but when you turn to view your assailant, the room lies empty as if they vanished the moment you realized you were in danger")