D&D 5E Drow Darkness

[ren1999]

How does the Drow Darkness work during combat?

Can the Drow cast on herself and use it for cover? Can she attack without penalty? Can she see where she is going?

 

[ren1999]

Yeah, well, no responses. The Drow is pretty broken.

First, reloading the hand crossbow should take a full action. So the two attacks ain't going to work as is.

The Drow can;
shoot the hand crossbow and attack with the short sword on the first round
or
attack with the short sword twice
or
attack with the short sword and reload the hand crossbow
or
or reload the hand crossbow and shoot

Darkness is vague. If the Drow casts magical darkness on himself then it should obscure the vision of his enemies allowing him to attack at advantage for 1 turn. But since faerie fire already does that, darkness should do something else. Foes of the Drow attack him at disadvantage for 1 round?

 

[was]

...If I remember correctly, Darkvision does not work in magical darkness. Using that logic, a drow casting darkness on themselves would be blinded. I think it's probably geared more towards distracting or disorienting a foe. That way you can either flee, or strike them when they stumble out of it.. catching them offguard.

 

[Plaguescarred]

The sphere created by Darkness blocks line of sight and doesn't exclude its creator so Drow effectively don't see in their Darkness.

As for Reload you have a point, it conflict with hand crossbow multiattacks

 

[ren1999]

O.k. then. The Drow touches something and casts a 15 foot radius area of darkness. Anyone stepping in this area is blind and moves at half speed and attacks at a disadvantage. Anyone attacking someone in the sphere of darkness also attacks at disadvantage. This lasts for 2 rounds unless the Drow does something else which breaks the concentration and the Darkness spell.

I was unable to find spell concentration rules in 5th edition. Are there? If the Drow is attacked, is there a chance the Darkness spell will be broken?

 

[Plaguescarred]

Drow Darkness works differently than the Darkness spell, it's an innate power that doeosn't require concentration among other things.

 

[ren1999]

Drow Darkness works differently than the Darkness spell, it's an innate power that doeosn't require concentration among other things.

I will indicate that it doesn't require concentration and then try to get people to play test it again.