How far can you see at night?

Doug McCrae · Jun 12, 2007

We know lowlight vision doubles how far you can see but what's the initial value? I couldn't find this in the rules anywhere.

The Blow Leprechaun · Jun 12, 2007

I think it's assumed that at night, if you don't have a light source out, you can't really see anything:

SRD said:
In areas of darkness, creatures without darkvision are effectively blinded.

Otherwise, low-light vision doubles your range based on the light source used. Even with low-light vision, if there's no light, you're still SOL. Transition times (like twilight) would require a houserule, but I think figuring that it takes 3 hours to go from daylight to darkness is fair, so each hour I'd adjust the 60' bright light down by a third until it's gone, and people with low-light vision get double that (120' down by a third each hour). Something like that.

Jhaelen · Jun 12, 2007

Doug McCrae said:
We know lowlight vision doubles how far you can see but what's the initial value? I couldn't find this in the rules anywhere.

It's no longer part of the rules in 3.5. It's supposed to be covered by the general rules for spotting someone. You could also use the 3.0 rules if you have access to them. Or you could simply houserule it, of course.

TheGogmagog · Jun 12, 2007

Unfortunately you won't find an answer at all.
I like The Blow Leprechaun's answer as the closest to RAW interpretation as any.
There are also references to 'starlight' witch is not defined in 3.5, the only defined interpretation is shadowy illumination, which doesn't have a distance associated independent of a light source.
My answer to how far can you see is Infinite without obscurement. Gaze up at night you will see stars practically infinite distance away. It's only limited to practically, by obscurement (interstellar matter) or terrestrial clouds. This results in the SRD claim of being able to see twice as far in being nonsensical, and tossed out in this situation.
There are also encounter distances in DMG traveling section, but those are defined in terms of obscurement (Trees, Fog, Walls), and not by lighting conditions. IIRC.

I'll see if I can find previous discussions on the topic.

The Blow Leprechaun · Jun 12, 2007

The way I see it, you have to distinguish between "how far can you see?" and "how far can you see, usefully?"

You can see a long way - but how far can you see and still distinguish anything of note? On a moonless night, you can't really tell what anything is very much in front of you. A DM could do a number of things to alleviate this - maybe the world has five moons so it's never all that dark, but I wouldn't. Doing so reduces the benefit of playing a character with darkvision (or attacking your players in the middle of the night with a monster that has it).

It's like when the military with night-vision goggles raids a village in the middle of the night. You know someone's there, but you can't react to them as well as you could in daylight. Those are the dudes with darkvision. The rest of us are the villagers.

At night, you are not actually blind, but you are functionally blind - penalized while doing anything that requires sight (which is a lot of things, naturally).

werk · Jun 12, 2007

The Blow Leprechaun said:
You can see a long way - but how far can you see and still distinguish anything of note? On a moonless night, you can't really tell what anything is very much in front of you.

This is shadowy illumination to me, and has a concealment miss chance because of it. If there is any light, but not bright light, you can see as far as that light illuminates.

All a DM needs to ask is two questions...is it bright light? is it totally dark? If either answer is yes, problem solved, if the answer is no to those, it's shadowy.

The spot skill should explain everything else with regard to seeing at a distance.

Markn · Jun 12, 2007

Hmmm, I believe in Underdark (FR supplement) it states that you can see a light source up to 20 times the distance of light source. So a torch gives off a 20' bright light so you can see that torch up to 400 feet away. Something like that anyways. I'm going on memory and I am work so I can't double check this.

This may or may not answer your question but it should be noted.

Someone · Jun 12, 2007

This question comes often. The answers:

SRD said:
Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

The SRD also speaks of areas of shadowy illumination. Probably moon/starlight qualify at this, extrapolating from the quote above, but it's up to the DM. In that case, the radius would be unlimited.

Christian · Jun 12, 2007

This isn't RAW, but I've found it simplifies things greatly. Forget all of the stuff about doubling distances, and just look at illumination levels. If you have low-light vision, you count shadowy illumination as brightly lit. The end.

So, for example, a torch illuminates 20' brightly and up to 40' of shadowy illumination. For someone with low-light vision, that's 40' of bright illumination. A moonlit night is shadowy all over; for someone with low-light vision, that's just like daytime. A moonless night is impenetrable darkness.