[RPG] Does this Warlock ability combo allow the whole party to ignore Darkness

dnd-5espellsvision-and-lightwarlock

I've got a lvl 3 Warlock who's made a pact with a Great Old One. The combo in question goes like this:

  • Awakened Mind (30 ft telepathy at lvl 1)

  • Pact of the Chain w/ Imp (Imps have devil sight)

  • Voice of the Chain Master (Warlock can perceive through familiar's senses)

  • Darkness (lvl 2 spell, 15ft radius of magical darkness)

Does this combo allow the warlock to become ridiculously overpowered by being able to see using the Imp's devil sight and inform the party of enemy positions telepathically?

or

Does the rest of the party, unable to actively see the enemies, still have the same disadvantage as they usually do in Darkness (disadvantage on attacks, advantage on defense), despite having up-to-the-moment position details being conveyed telepathically?

Is there some middle ground others have tried out in this situation? Beyond the two approaches mentioned above, I've been thinking something along the lines of "teammates have no disadvantage, but warlock would have to use their action to relay all the information or else they will get disadvantage again."

It sounds like it could be an amazing combo, but the line between "amazing" and "broken" can be pretty blurry sometimes.

Best Answer

First, we will assume that your DM has deemed that the Telepathy of the Warlock is 2-way, as it was intended as only one way. You don't technically need the Great Old One's ability as Voice of the Chain Master allows this anyway.

Second, if you attack an opponent you can't see you would still have disadvantage, the only gain you would get with this combination is that you can help them target the correct location on the field of battle as per PHB page 194 and 195.

Also, you can do the same thing with Devil's Sight invocation instead and cut out the "Middle-Imp". It seems that you have a lot of redundancies and a DM, such as myself, could deem that you would be unable to point out but one or two of the occupied locations but not more as it would take time for the imp to communicate to you then you to your colleagues. This of course would have to be done using no visual queues which a kind DM would overlook but another could easily require int checks to help in targeting while interpreting the Warlock's instruction.

Bottom line is that your teammates still cannot see them so they still have disadvantage, they just won't have that auto-miss chance for targeting incorrectly. This all assumes the targets don't take the Hide action. There is a difference between unseen and hidden in the rules.

Additional note, the Devil's Sight that is granted by the invocation is better than the Devil's Sight that is present on devils, as the invocation allows you to see normally and the devils simply use their darkvision within it, which means they have disadvantage on perception based on sight.

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance o f 120 feet. PHB page 110

Versus

Devil's Sight. Magical darkness doesn't impede the devil's darkvision. MM page 70

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