How far a man can see under star/moonlight.

And, how far a man can see in the darkness with a campfire? Is any supplement contain such kind of information?

Partial darkness doesn't actually limit your sight range, it just makes things harder to see. Even under starlight, you could see something miles away, as long as you have line of sight.

In game terms, anything short of total darkness simply increases the DC of all Spot checks. You can find the modifiers at the bottom of this SRD page. (The modifier for starlight happens to be +10, or +5 for a character with low-light vision.)

For combat, anyone in darkness has Concealment, which gives all attackers a miss chance. It's described on this page.

Light sources just remove all darkness modifiers within a certain radius. I treat a campfire as equivalent to a torch, so its radius is 20'. Anyone within 20' of the fire can be Spotted normally, and can be attacked without a miss chance; characters near the fire do suffer these penalties when attacking those further away.

Ok, then, a party is camping under moon light (moderate darkness?), with a campfire.
Maybe, like this?

*Normal sight

Spot
up to 20...no modifier
over 20....DC +5 from moon light

Combat
up to 20...no miss-chance
over 20....10 % miss-chance from moderate darkness

*with Low-Light Vision

Spot
up to 40...no modifier
over 40....DC +0 (+5 from moon light, -5 because of low-light vision)

Combat
up to 40...no miss-chance
over 40....10 % miss-chance from moderate darkness (or no miss-chance?)

*with 60 ft. Dark Vision

Spot
up to 60...no modifier
over 60....DC +5 from moon light

Combat
up to 60...no miss-chance
over 60....10 % miss-chance from moderate darkness

Now I am assuming that

Moon Light = moderate darkness (+5 spot DC) = 10 % miss chance
Star Light = slightly worse than moderate darkness (+10 Spot DC) = 20 % miss

Do you think this interpretation is reasonable?

Also, I am wondering how I shall decide miss-chance for low-light vision under star light or moon light. Shall I reduce miss chance at some degree? Or shall I remove the miss chance at all?

On page 144 of the PHB it covers Light Sources in table 9-7. It states that a torch lights a 20 ft. radius.

I am still looking for the starlight, moonlight, and vision modifications. I know that I have seen something that details the mods to DCs in those conditions.

THe one difference is that starlight doesn't gives those with low-light a miss chance at all, and darkness doesn't for darkvision.

If you read over those +'s to dc for light conditions, you'll notice they talk about when to add for just normal vision and when to add for low-light, etc.

Stalker0 said:

THe one difference is that starlight doesn't gives those with low-light a miss chance at all, and darkness doesn't for darkvision.

If you read over those +'s to dc for light conditions, you'll notice they talk about when to add for just normal vision and when to add for low-light, etc.

Click to expand...

The problem is that I am not sure how to combine the light conditions shown in concealment table (moderate darkness, near total darkness & total darkness) and conditions shown in encounter rule (moonlight, Starlight, total darkness). I think moonlight=moderate darkness is reasonable. But wondering if starlight=near total darkness is fair or not. Usually, sky full of stars are far from "near total" darkness.

Regarding Darkvision, they are useful only within certain range, and no use beyond that. So, in the above example, no spot DC modifier and no miss-chance within 60 ft., and same DC modifier and miss-chance as normal vision beyond that. Am I missing something?

Shin Okada said:

The problem is that I am not sure how to combine the light conditions shown in concealment table (moderate darkness, near total darkness & total darkness) and conditions shown in encounter rule (moonlight, Starlight, total darkness). I think moonlight=moderate darkness is reasonable. But wondering if starlight=near total darkness is fair or not. Usually, sky full of stars are far from "near total" darkness.

Regarding Darkvision, they are useful only within certain range, and no use beyond that. So, in the above example, no spot DC modifier and no miss-chance within 60 ft., and same DC modifier and miss-chance as normal vision beyond that. Am I missing something?

Click to expand...

This is a problem I've also had to deal with.

Low-lights description says that they see as well in moonlight as they do in daylight. So you don't apply any penalties to them in moonlight for either spot checks or miss chances. In starlight, give them a 10% miss chance for moderate darkness.

A character with darkvision wouldn't get any penalties to vision within 60ft. Past that, do just what you would do for humans. Give 10% for moonlight, and from 20-40% for starlight (I personally think 40 is a little much, but that's just me).

So there are situations where low-light is better than darkvision

Also, consider the radius of torches and light spells as daylight for the purposes of spot dcs and miss chances, believe me it will make your life a lot easier.

Where did you guys find the mods for star light, moon light, and such? On what page of what book, please? Thanks.

I sitll can't find it...

dkilgo said:

Where did you guys find the mods for star light, moon light, and such? On what page of what book, please? Thanks.

I sitll can't find it...

Click to expand...

DMG page 60 - they're in the very first part of Chapter 3, Encounter Distance. Which evidently I need to read and re-read a couple of times.

Thanks.

I will need to do the same.