Does the invisibility from the warlock's "One with Shadows" Eldritch Invocation end if the area of darkness you're in becomes lit?

Question

Warlocks get access to the following Eldritch Invocation at 5th level:

When you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible until you move or take an action or a reaction.

If the warlock is in a dim-light/dark area (either because it's an area inside without lights or it's outside at night) and becomes invisible, and the area later becomes lit (the warlock waits until daytime, or a character nearby lights a lantern), does the warlock remain completely invisible?

Answer 1

Yes, you remain invisible.

The text states:

When you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible until you move or take an action or a reaction.

We can break it up to determine how it works.

When you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible

This is the only condition that must be met for you to become invisible. If you are in dim light or darkness, and you can take an action, you can become invisible full stop.

until you move or take an action or a reaction.

These are the only conditions that cause you to lose invisibility. The invisibility ends when you either move, take an action, or take a reaction. Transitioning from dim light/darkness to full light is not moving, taking an action, or a reaction, so the invisibility remains.

If you're worried about this being overpowered, remember that in 5E invisibility is not that useful by itself. It doesn't actually make you any stealthier or harder to detect than normal. The only thing it does is give people disadvantage against you (which is powerful no doubt), and it allows you to hide in plain sight. However, hiding is an action, which according to the text you quoted removes the invisibility. Since your Warlock can't hide without losing his invisibility, he will still be detectable by everyone around him. All this lets your Warlock do is get disadvantage on attacks against him as long as he doesn't move or take actions/reactions.

Answer 2

I've DMed a character who uses this ability and ran it RAW. Not being able to move or act pretty much restricts him to using it to be spooky.

If a player tries to constantly ambush people they would not be getting a massive advantage since they would instantly be visible.

If it ends because someone walks past with a torch it makes the ability practically useless.

Answer 3

By RAW, there's absolutely nothing that makes lighting a relevant point after the invocation is activated.

As clarification, another answer stated that you still roll a Hide check when invisible, but that's simply not true. "An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a special sense." If they were being perceived with Tremorsense or Blindsight (obscurement required), then perhaps... but that's a different question entirely.

And last but not least, it's not exactly the best choice on the invocation list. It's niche in terms of use-case, and limiting besides.

Allowing creative use of mechanics to, by proxy, allow more playstyles to exist and flourish or flounder on their own... That's one of the marks of a good DM.

To those looking to (wrongly) rules lawyer - or worse yet, make things up out of pure spite for invisibility - your players out of what you think is something OP: Be a good DM. To players looking to do the same to your DM or fellow players: Be better. Let people have fun.

Answer 4

from a logical thinking perspective I would say lighting a candle might not be enough as then there would still be shadows. but if it's becomes day light all shadows get a lot softer or non-existing thus would mean there are no shadows to be invisible in.

Answer 5

I will overrule the RAW and say "You will lose invisibility!"

I do agree with Percival's answer; as we all know, we generally adopt the mechanics verbatim. But if I'm DMing this, I will overrule that and say that the Warlock will lose invisibility. Why?

Well, because the specific Eldritch Invocation is named One with Shadows. If there is a light source and he stays in a specific area illuminated by the light (no more shadows), then there are no more shadows to be one with. Clearly this is not same as the invisibility spell, and should be treated differently.