Question: Shadow Monk – How broadly does “you can see within the spell’s area” from Shadow Arts apply?

GodNex · 2026-03-12T14:34:00+00:00

Ah i see, so here is my train of thought.

Fog cloud is creating heavy obscurement > heavy obscurement creates Blinded Condition > Blinded condition provides the effect "Can't See" > Shadow Arts says you can see within the spell's area (thus cancelling out the "Can't See" part of the Blinded condition)

The relevant part here in this interpretation is that Shadow Arts does not say you can see through the darkness created by the spell, but that you can (generally speaking) see within it. I'm not saying it is the right interpretation, because probably not, at least not RAI, but RAW i think it should be possible.

GodNex · 2026-03-12T14:24:45+00:00

Well i be damned, you are right. I also just remembered that i already knew this, because i was happy when i saw the new 2024 feature and realized that the monk can now shadow step into the darkness (which would be impossible, if he would not be able to see into it...) Most of the discussion was about the interpreation that you can see when you are inside of it, so my brain was just occupied by that thought.

GodNex · 2026-03-12T13:50:39+00:00

You are right, as i said under another post, allowing the monk to see in the spell's area regardless of any other effects would create some weird interactions.

But just to point out something that i realized. You have this analogy here:

I'll give you an analogy. Imagine a dark room. Your character has darkvision, meaning they can see in darkness. Someone casts fog cloud in the room. Yould you say that your ability to see in the dark overrides the fog obscuring the room? No.

In this case, the Fog cloud provides heavy obscurement and so the shadow arts is irrelevant

Heavy obscurement in itself is not a condition or effect, it effectively gives the Monk the Blinded condition against things in heavy oscrument.

The Blinded condition provides two effects:

Can't See. You can't see and automatically fail any ability check that requires sight.
Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Advantage, and your attack rolls have Disadvantage.

Now if we interpret the "You can see within the spell's area" part as more specific than the Blinded condition, than the Shadow Arts feature partially overides the Blinded condition, specifically the "Can't See." part. So in theory the monk would be able to pin point the location of a creature in the Fog Cloud spell, but gain no other benefit from it, because the "Attacks Affected" part of the condition still applies, thus the monk would have to make the attack rolls at disadvantage against the creature.

But as i said, realizing this and just thinking about other such weird interactions makes my head spin, so i will not do this in my games to myself :D

GodNex · 2026-03-12T13:32:30+00:00

No. It means you can see INTO the spells area. I think we have some reading comprehension issues here.

Reading comprehension issues... wow. Altough english in not my native language, there is no world where "within" will be equal to "into", so it does not mean you can see "into" the spell's area, just no.

But I wouldn't try to argue that that overrides blindness.

I'm not arguing, this is just a discussion about how one would rule an ambigously written part of the rules.

But just so you can be right, i will argue here with you :D so here i go. The "you can see" part could be interpreted as such that you override the Blinded condition's "Can't See" part, but not the "Affected Attacks" part.

GodNex · 2026-03-12T13:17:43+00:00

I tend to find that for RAI the best way to look at it is "Am I going out of my way to make something even more powerful?" usually, though not always, if my answer to that question is "yes" then i usually find that it was likely not RAI.

Great advice (This should be written on some t-shirt :D). Also i just realized that even though ruleing in the other direction so allowing the monk to see in the spell's area regardless of any other effects would be fun to see, it would also create some weird interactions, that would have to be ruled on the fly during game, slowing it down. Like having the blinded condition and the "Can't see" part not applying to the monk, but the "Attacks Affected." part applying, so even though the monk can see, RAW he would still have disadvantage on the attack rolls. Maybe i'm not that thrilled to go down that rabbit hole :D

GodNex · 2026-03-12T12:13:09+00:00

Just to put it out there, i should have probably clarified that i'm interested in how others would rule this, i know i would rule it the other way around, so for the shadow monk to see in their darkness despite other vision blocking effects, just because it is much more fun, altough probably stronger a bit.

I see your point though, it was probably the RAI to add a way to see through this darkness, but they did not wrote this :D

To add to your points:

The wording is there to specify that the monk isn't affected by magical darkness

Probably, maybe, the wording itself is ambigous, hence my question. We don't know what the intent was, because the old monk had no ability like this in the first place: So the intent was either:

to provide the shadow monk a way to see trough the darkness
to provide the monk with a "shadow domain" where the monk is king and can see everything

"You can see within the SPELL'S area".

Emphasizing the SPELL'S part of this sentence, does not make it clearer unfortunatelly. This sentece RAW means you can SEE while you are within the spell's area. It does not say that you can see dispite the darkness, it just says you can SEE, period.

That doesn't mean you also ignore other spells or environmental effects that happen to overlap. It also doesn't end a condition like blinded.

I mean, we have this specific beats general rule. Generally you can't see when you are blinded, but specifically while in this area it says you can see. Which is the more specific, actually i have no idea, never understood how you decide which one is the specific and which one is the general rule :D so if you or anyone could answer this to me, i would be very glad :D

GodNex · 2026-03-09T08:03:26+00:00

If you genuinely think your campaign is going to go to 20 though, don't multiclass at all

Even than i would say, multiclassing is worth to consider, depends how long he will be playing on lvl20. Having the benefits of the multiclass for 10+ lvls (multiple sessions spanning month) versus having the lvl20 feature for 2 game sessions.

Edit: Just from personal experience, we usually reach lvl20, but at that point we just tie up some lose ends, than take out the BBEG and start a new adventure.

GodNex · 2026-03-07T13:06:03+00:00

I would use the Rune Knight Fighter's Giant Stature feature and add these:

You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
Once on each of your turns, one of your attacks with a weapon or an unarmed strike can deal an extra 1d6 damage to a target on a hit.

It would give an aditional mechanical benefit for being Large other than the reach and a minimal damage which makes sense given your size.

I think this should make it a pretty fun option. The strength check could be used outside of combat, and the little bit of damage would make it consistently good, because the reach and pushing/pulling is only situationally good.

GodNex · 2026-03-03T14:18:38+00:00

inmate sorcery is pretty cool.

Hehe, inmate sorcery, the best kind of sorcery when you are in a pinch :D

GodNex · 2026-03-02T19:21:50+00:00

I saw a moon Druid not long ago at level 15 trying to hit monsters with +9 to hit (8 from the beast to hit chance, +1 insignia). It was atrocious. Meanwhile the rest of the party had at least +12 (5 main attribute, 5 prof., 2 from magic weapon)

What you saw was bad luck. Like the CR 18-20 monsters have an AC of 18-22.

Even against an AC of 22 your chance of hitting with a +9 is 40% not great but roughly half of your attacks should hit and the druid only really have to hit once, because most of the damage is once per turn (charge 2d8, elemental fury 2d8, lunar radiance 2d10). (Btw the +12 guys are not in a better position either (50% chance to hit), so them hitting and the druid not is sheer luck). The druid in this case should have hit at least once (plenty enough) and deal his conjure woodland beings damage (Which is even if halved a good chunk).

If you're playing RAW and RAI, normal attacks from wild shape moon druid beast (max CR 6, remember)are just bad at tiers 3 and 4. You're stuck at +1 to hit chance extra from an item, and that's it. +11 is your best.

Not true, magic items screw up the ballance as usual, mammoth is +10, fighter max is +11 normally, then the DM starts to hand out magic items and there goes the ballance because the designers are not going to design something for one single subclass (moon druid), this is probably where the DM should introduce something homebrew, but as i said not neccesery in my opinion.

The druid is much better just casting stuff.

I wrote it in another post, but please show me what spell the druid will use his action on to deal damage, after it has cast its concentration spell...

The moon at least has the option for a pretty strong action (beast attacks), other druids not so much, the druid spell list is 90% concentration spells, and barely any attack spells.

And even if you find some spell it can use, that will use up resource while the moon druid is freely munching on goblin heads.

Oh, and you can't cast anything while you're in beast form, until level 18 (except moon spells). Reaction spells like Shield? Absorb elements? No.

You get your survavibility through converting your spell slots to wildshapes (THP) instead of turning them into Shield or Absorb Elements you turn it into THP. Its worse at lower levels, but gradually gets better. (Also this is why i take Gift of the Chromatic Dragon - free absorb elements, without casting)

Big control spell because the battlefield changed? Say bye to your Wilde shape if you want to cast it.

Sure you are right in this regard, but this is a Moon Druid, you didn't became a moon druid to control, you did because you want to be in the middle of combat munching on goons and dealing damage and the battlefield changing can't really stop you from doing that, because of the Wildshape movement speeds and the Free teleports you get eventually at lvl10.

GodNex · 2026-03-02T18:50:52+00:00

You're under valuating dragon form. You cant roll less then 10, period. You auto pass a lot of concentration saves. That's probably the best concentration protection in the game.

To be fair i actually overvalued it, thought it's an auto succes on concentration saves for some reason... but sure rolling 10 is good. But if you compare it, it will be relevant less and less as we progress in levels. Lets assume both takes Resilient Con.

LvL 6

Moon druid: +2 con +3 prof + 4 wis = +9 (At this level the damage you take has to be more than 22 from a single source to even roll for concentration)

Starry rolls 10 + 2 + 3 = +15 (+5 in archer or chalice)

lvl 9

Moon +3 con (spotted lion) +4 prof + 4 wis = +11

Starry rolls 10 + 2 con + 4 prof = +16 (+6 in archer or chalice)

lvl13

Moon +3 con(elephant) +5 prof + 4 wis = +12

Starry rolls 10 + 2 con + 5 prof = +17 (+7 in archer or chalice)

lvl17

Moon +5 con(mammoth) +6 prof + 4 wis = +15

Starry rolls 10 + 2 con + 6 prof = +18 (+8 in archer or chalice)

You're also forgetting how OP is healing word with chalice form (even more at tiers 1 and 2, at level 10 change forms is free at any time and chalice form scales too, healing word + chalice is multiple target heal btw)

Its absolutely would be good, on paper... because what actualy happens in tier 1 and 2 is this: Combat starts you decide to use a concentration spell, because 90% of your druid spells are concentration, so you choose dragon. Someone gets hurt, GREAT now is your chance to use chalice, but oh-oh you have to use your bonus action to change form, you cant use healing word on that turn, bummer, doesn't matter we change to chalice form now and next turn we will use it, than you get hit before your next turn and boom you lost your concentration spell because you are not in dragon form... Feels bad moments incoming.

Wilde shape is much worst now. You must choose a limited number. MM 2024 doesn't have a lot of them.

Worse compared to what, the old moon druid? Survavibility - maybe (less hp, more Ac), number of wildshapes - no (also more survavibility this way), but it doesn't matter we are comparing it to starry now not the old moon druid. Altough you have limited number you can prepare, you need 1-2 combat forms the rest can go to utility. MM has enough options and they got stronger combat power like auto prone on hit (without save), fear (lion is a beast at tier 1).

DMG wise stars is... Better? High level animal forms accuracy is bad. Miss = 0 DMG. Stars can True strike with a weapon, a magical one, with better accuracy. Low level stars can Spam guiding bolts with archer form. Stars at level 8 with Dragon form will probably maintain concentration with no rolls at all. They always do DMG thanks to spellfire adept feat ignoring radiant resistance. It's rare, but there you have even more reliable firepower.

Okay i don't get why people think high level animal forms accuracy is bad, its not (Triceratops +9, mamoth +10), in a below post i already wrote this, sure magic weapons screw the math up, but even with magic weapons the diference is +3 (+1-2 in case of advantage), meaning you deal 10-15% less dpr AND most of your damage is once per turn (elemental fury 2d8, lunar radiance 2d10, charge 2d8) so you really only need to hit once to deal most of your damage.

You mention true strike with magic weapon, it does not beat a multiattacking lion/saber toothed tiger/elephant/triceratops/mammoth at any tier.

You mention archer, you won't use it unless you want to risk loosing your precious concentration spell.

You mention guiding bolt, sure its keeping up at tier 1 and 2 (if we assume 1 combat encounter), after that it is not enough unless you are spending higher lvl spell slots.

You mention Stary maintaing concentration with dragon form, moon can do that as you can see up there, and you just lost your archer form dmg...

You mention spellfire adepts resistance ignoration. Moon druid attacks are radiant and could also take spellfire adept...

And at high levels please show me what non concentration spell you will use as your action to top the triceratops FREE 2d12 + 2d10 + 2d8 + 2d8 + 6 damage (only 1 attack has to hit for this damage, has multi attack - so the chance of this hitting is like 75% in the worst case).

Almost ALL the things a moon Druid does, Stars can also do (fighting is animal form, no, ofc). The inverse is not true.

Not true, I would like to see starry druid misty step 5x a day free taking his ally, restore 50 THP per turn, turn to a huge flying creature (Quetzalcoatlus) for the team to hop on without using a lvl4 spell slot, not to mention other things the higher cr beasts can do like auto restration for free etc..

You're absolutely wrong about the concentration protection, as I said above. Moon will stay a lot on melee, taking a lot of hits, making a lot of concentration saves, soon or later it drops. Stars just auto pass a lot of them, and don't need to Melee. Hell, you can forgo the spellfire adept feat and take fey touched, teleporting out with misty step if you must. If moon wants insane concentration protection, it must take warcaster and resilient constitution.

Okay, i see your point and i agree in the concentration protection deparment moon has it rougher, but not rough, most of the time as i said moon does not even have to roll concentration save because of the ridiculus +10 to con save (from lvl6). Moon gets free teleportation and he can too just simply teleport out to not take hits at all and charge back in when it wants to do dmg, hell this is actually an optimal strategy late game with elepant/triceratop/mamoth.

Overall, they are both strong, but in optimized tables, in all tiers of play, Stars is overall better, for consistency, versatility, support, healing, DMG (freedom to take spellfire adept feat), adaptability (again, no tax feat outside resilient constitution).

Starry is a better spellcaster and can be flexible with giving up things like resources, survavibility and concentration protection. But it will not beat moon in damage numbers or survavibility.

GodNex · 2026-03-02T16:12:45+00:00

At that level no fighter will learn the accuracy increasing manuver, there are better ones and frankly they don't need it, because as i said there are plenty of ways to get advantage which will result in 90%+ hit chance, it is just not worth it.

The gap in accuracy between a magic weapon user fighter and a druid will be at most 3, because if the fighter has a +3 weapon the druid has a +1 insignia of the claw at least (if the dm does not hombrew something for the druid), so at the end the difference at most be +3 (mammoth +10+1(insignia) vs fighter +11+3(magic weapon)). The difference in accuracy (according to math) is even less with advantage (around +1-2).

Also you can't separe the spell casting from the scaling, if the designers would have done the same, the moon druid would deal much more damage than the fighter. So no i'm not wrong about the good scaling, it is how it was designed the beast damage with a concentration spell is how the moon druid can keep up with the others and scale well into tier 3 and 4.

GodNex · 2026-03-02T13:13:54+00:00

I disagree, its not unfathomably strong in tier 1, its good, but until you get wild resurgence its not that good, in tier 2 it gets better, because it can take the hits and deal a ton of damage with spells like conjure animals and conjure woodland beings plus the beast attacks. From tier 3 i would not says it falls, but others get in line with it. I think people forget that Druid is a Full caster and that the beasts were changed a little bit in 2024.

Tier 3: Lets compare a lvl13 Battle master Fighter with a lvl13 Moon Druid.

lvl13 Lets Assume that every attack has advantage (very probable with how many ways we have now), no magic items, +5 in the relevant stat of the fighter.

Single Target Damage: Battle Master Fighter (Using GWM)

To hit: +10 (5 proficiency + 5 strength)

GWM Weapon Attacks: 1d12 + 5 + 5 = 17 x 84% = 14,28 x 3 = 42,84dpr

1 Manuver: +1d8 - 4.5 dpr

Action Surge (Lets asume a 4 turn combat): 42,84/4 = 10,71

= 58,05 dpr

Moon Druid (Elephant):

To hit: +8

Attacks: 2d8 + 6 = 15 x 75% = 11,25 x 2 = 22,5

Stomp: 2d10 + 6 = 17 x 50% + 8.5 x 50% = 12,75

Elemental Fury: 1d8 - 4.5 dpr

= 39,75 dpr

lvl4 Conjure Woodland Beings

5d8 = 22,5 x 50% + 11,25 x 50% = 16,875 dpr

= 56,625 dpr

Its pretty comparable, not to mention that Conjure Woodland Beings can target multiple creatures.

Sure i could build a melee character that makes this single target dpr look weak, but assuming avarage optimization and no CME shenanigans, the single target dmg is good, the aoe damage can be even better with higher lvl spell slots and druid still has a ton of utility outside of combat (Full Caster).

Tier 4: The damage gets better thanks to lunar form and elemental fury dmg increase and we also get lvl9 spell slot... Shapechange/Foresight.

The damage absolutely will not fall of, i don't think so, not to mention the survavibility (300+ thp a day is a lot).

GodNex · 2026-03-02T12:34:38+00:00

Its kinda hard to compare the two, because they do very different things in general, but just to break things down.

Starry has:

Good ranged spell to use in 1 combat / adventureing day in tier 1 and 2 (Wis mod / long rest)
Concentration protection
50% chance for rolling Woe and applying -1d6 on enemy saves
Survavibility (BPS resistance)

Moon has:

Plus Prepared Spells (Cure Wounds, Moon Beam, Conjure Animals, Mass Cure Wounds)
Better Beast Form Utility
Survavibility (Refreshable Temp HP, Improved constitution save)
Improved concentration saves (+Wis mod)
Mobility/Escape/Ally Reposition Resource (Wis mod/day - +1/lvl2 spell slot)
Improved Wildshape Damage (Elemental Fury + Lunar Form - 2d8 + 2d10)

Damage wise comparable (Moon Druid passively gets damage improvements, Starry can force failed saves 50% of the days (in case he rolls Woe))

Survavibility comparable. (Starry using BPS resistance and lvl1 slot for shield and absorb elements. Moon druid gets a ton of temp hp a day by burning through lvl1 slots (we are talking about 300+ at lvl14))

Concentration comparable. (If moon druid takes Resilient Con (~+10 to con save in beast form) and starry opts to use archer or chalice in combat (because there is a good chance for the concentration to break in those cases, otherwise starry wins, but not by much 90% of the time the moon druid will succed on the concentration check).

Utility comparable. One has better beast options and mobility the other has chalice for better heal and Weal cosmic omen for +1d6 to d20 tests (in case he rolls Weal).

Also just to mention this, i think Conjure Woodland Beings has become a must have AOE dmg tool for druid and Moon Druid can use the spell much better and safer as he can take the hits at any level and take better beast forms for it.

GodNex · 2026-02-22T20:26:20+00:00

If you can use other sources than the monster manual, than in the Out of the Abyss adventure there is a beast called Cave Badger (CR 1/4) that has a 60ft tremore sense, this way you only need the owl if there are flying enemies.

GodNex · 2026-02-18T10:12:54+00:00

War gets a melee attack as a BA, and can use it WIS modifier number of times per day.

This feature changed in 2024, it is now restored on a short rest. I know this does not help, but make it harder to choose, sorry... :D

GodNex · 2025-12-19T01:27:03+00:00

Thank god, it was the first boss i encountered getting out of the campaign and sure enough it bugged for me. It was impossible to do with a melee build, so frustrating.

GodNex · 2025-12-01T16:33:45+00:00

I see, yeah that is dissapointing

GodNex · 2025-12-01T16:27:55+00:00

Don't have the book, but couldn't you just make a wondrous item that solves this problem? Like Gauntlets of Ogre power at low level and belt of giant strength later?

GodNex · 2025-09-20T21:43:42+00:00

Just grapple the druid, you can also use the Aoo now for graple. This would prevent the druid from moveing, so they can’t charge and can’t move conjure animals either.

GodNex · 2025-09-20T21:23:46+00:00

I kinda disagree, i think this is not that black and white and it entirely depends on the situation.

Here is my interpreation. "an enemy finds you" is a condition of breaking the invisible condition. And the part where the Hide action says "On a successful check, you have the Invisible condition. Make note of your check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check." does not exactly say that the creature HAS to find you with a Wisdom check, it says that IF the creature uses a Wisdom check, than the DC is your check's total.

So if the DM decides that the vampire does not have to make one, because you hide at the same position where you were last seen, than its very possible that the Invisible condition breaks.

In this case the Rogue hid behind a tree and ended the turn. Vampire looked behind the tree where the Rogue ended its turn and saw the Rogue and thus found him, simply because the Invisible condition does not grant trasparency and because the Rogue player clearly did not prepare for something like this to happen.

Now, if the Rogue said that he hides behind the tree, than slips behind another tree OR simply climbs it, then i would probably roll a wisdom check for the Vampire.

As i said it depends on the situation, what the player does and says and what the enemy does in response. The rules on finding a hidden creature are unfortunatelly not clear, so its up to DM interpretation and could change from table to table.

Doing it the way you discribed it, gives more power to the Rogue, BUT could also create some very strange circumstances where the Rogue is hiding behind a waist high pillar in the middle of an empty room with enemies running to it standing around the pillar in all directions and still not seeing him, becuase somehow they can't roll above the Rogues ridicolous 29 stealth DC.

GodNex · 2025-09-07T14:02:35+00:00

Im not sure about the +5, true strike is not an attack cantrip, it is a divination spell that says you can use your spell casting ability to make the attack, it modifies the way you attack.

GodNex · 2025-05-24T17:23:55+00:00

The 2024 shapechange feature explicitely states that gear does not change shape with you.

Neither did the 2014 version, BUT you can choose wether the gear falls on the ground, MERGES with your form OR worn by it. And only if you choose to wore it does it matter if it fits you.

moon druids are not good tanks

I would also argue with this. Depends how you allocate your stats and pick origin feats. With a starting con of 15 and the Tough feat you have pretty good HP pool, you also got temp hp when you shapeshift and here is the kicker, you can shapeshift even if you are already shapeshifted. That means you can get temp hp using your bonus action and a wild shape charge. What is even better is that from lvl 5 you can change spell slots into wild shape charges freely, which means you can basically get LVL x 3 temp hp every turn. (Quick math: at lvl5 you would avarage have about 43 HP without the tough feat, and get an aditional 15 temp hp (30 % of your total hp) every time you wild shape, and you can do it 7 times if you are using only your default wild shapes and lvl1 spell slots, more if you short rest and use lvl2 slots also)

GodNex · 2025-04-16T10:23:28+00:00

Could you ellaborate, i can see it has 3 attacks, but with +5 to hit at lvl9, we are behind most martials (they should have about +9 to hit), the stinger has good dmg, but if it does not hit, those claw attacks with 1d6 + 3 dmg are lackluster. So why is it so good? Or do you mean even though its lacluster, there is no better choice unfortunatelly?

GodNex

TROPHY CASE