Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Darkness spell

Patch#5

I'm not sure if the spell works as intended but when cast outside of combat on npcs (friendly or not) they get blinded status and immediately run outside the spell effect area - they take the shortest route (how can a blinded npc do that is beyond me). When cast in combat all enemies will dash out of the darkness area in their turns. You can't attack blinded targets in the spell effect area simply because they don't stay there. In my opinion this renders the Darkness spell rather useless, especially for the melee warlock build. Unless you use it to move targets out of the area - that works perfectly

There's this goblin boss in the Blighted village Fezzerk. During the fight I cast the Darkness spell on him and he was still able to make a ranged attack - throwing something at Shadowheart. I'm pretty sure ranged attacks should not be possible when inside the spell effect area so maybe it's bugged a bit. What do you think guys?

It would be nice when they randomly run in any direction, and absolut cool when they even drop down cliffsides or other holes in the way because they are blind.
Running vs a wall and stun themselves. So many options and funny too.
Like good old Slapstick.

But run they should, or go, bec not everybody is so low on intelligence to run blindly.

The only problem i have with Darkness is that its still working like wall for your characters inside ...
So you cannot cast outside when you have devil's eyes eldrich invocation (allowing wich, as i understanded it, is its only reason to its existence). :-/

I'd absolutely love that
The issue now is that though blinded they take the shortest way out of the spell effect area which doesn't make sense. Blinded npcs should have no way of knowing the best way out. They should wander helplessly in the dark (maybe find the way out by accident) so they can be taken advantage of whether you are a thief or an assassin or just for the fun.


Yeah, if you have Devil's Sight which makes you not suffer the Blindness while standing in it and there's no any other sight restricting condition you should be able to range attack or cast.

This is something new in patch 5, and it was implemented to stop an exploit where if you used Darkness, or Fog Cloud on a vendor they would stay in it and let you steal everything from them without penalty. So now NPC's will try to run out of it which makes sense.

But you are saying used in combat they won't engage you in melee in the Darkness spell, or they run out of it? Honestly that sort of makes sense. Although yeah, there should be a chance of falling off a cliff blind. Wonder if that would be hard to implement.

Id love to see people walk off the edge because they can't see! But to make it fair they would have to make it possible for allies as well, like when its their turn you can't see around you or something!

I see, I never used the spell before patch 5. I guess they had to address the exploit in some way. Thinking What the use of the spell is now. Getting enemies move from certain position by making them run outside the spell area works fine. Creating an area between you and the enemy so that they can't cast spells or shoot at you, hm, you can't to that to them either. Use it to sneak by npcs/enemies? Yeah, possibly.


I was ok with them not being able to engage me in melee as blinded enemy simply can't do that, but since they dash out of the dark area (as if they actually saw which way to go) I can't engage them either and that bothers me. Why having Devil's Sight when there's no one in the dark area except you? There's nothing to see.
I'm ok with the ranged warlock build actually I just wanted to try the melee build i heard about.

So if you are in darkness with an opponent and you have devils sight can you target them without penalty or no?

If you have Devil's Sight, Darkness have no effect on you (as far as i understand it) unless there is something else (like fog mist, for example)
If your oponent have Devil's Sight, the story should be the same ...

So duel between two Devil's Sight Warlocks, would mean just wasted spell slot with zero effect, by using Darkness.

That's the issue - being in darkness with anybody as they all run out of it after I cast the spell as if they were not blinded. But when i hit Spacebar to put the game into turn-based mode so they won't move since it's my turn I can target and attack them no problem. Maybe it was designed to be like that, it may change in the future.

But is there any penalty to the attack, or disadvantage?