D&D 5E Eliminating darkvision from most races

Saeviomagy said:

I'd say the biggest problem is that it makes sneaky rogues basically impossible UNLESS you also remove darkvision from most NPCs.

My thoughts would be to ensure that most civilized NPCs don't have darkvision at all unless it's supposed to be a headline feature of the race, meaning that any civilized settlement will be lit.

FWIW, only some underdark races would qualify. I'm not sure that drow would.

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A creature with darkvision has disadvantage on Perception checks against your rogue when underground.

A creature within a normally lit room doesn't have disadvantage on their Perception checks.

So the rogue is up to 25% (approx +5 bonus) more effective against creatures with darkvision than in normal circumstances.

Unless you are talking about a rogue with darkvision against a target without. In which case removing darkvision from the NPCs so your rogue can be more effective hardly seems like a reasonable rules expectation.

Darkvision is presumably biological (or due to magical biology), so civilization wouldn't have any impact one way or the other. The way I see it, dwarves, gnomes and (half-)orcs have darkvision because they are predominantly subterranean races. Elves have darkvision to represent the fact that they have much better vision, such as in the forest at night, than humans. In 3e this was separated out to be low-light vision, which was a change from OD&D through 2e.

Mechanically, low-light vision doubled the range of vision in existing light. So it didn't improve their vision in darkness, just made it better in dim light. The only issue I have with that is that it doesn't represent them being able to see better (as a cat does at night, for example), just farther. So they still have disadvantage to Perception checks, just for a longer range. So from a flavor standpoint, that doesn't work as well for me, because I think they see better at night than humans, not necessarily farther.

So I think it is a headline feature of elves, dwarves, gnomes, and (half-)orcs. By their heritage, darkvision certainly makes sense for dragonborn and tieflings as well.

So I don't see any particular reason to change things, in part because the lore makes sense to me, and in part because it has much less of an impact than most people seem to think it does.

CapnZapp said:

But the true power is if your party can ditch torches and lanterns entirely. That is very powerful, since no longer will you be giving off light that could be seen for miles. Thus enabling a lot of scenarios where monsters and foes won't see you coming.

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Except that most underdark creatures have superior darkvision which means they will still see you before you can see them.

CapnZapp said:

Darkvision is very powerful in a group where everybody has darkvision.

Which leads back to the original complaint. If you have to play, say, an all-Dwarf team, most people would probably feel that to be... off somehow: too powergamey. And so the equilibrium works: having darkvision isn't that great, because somebody will be playing a human, say.

But if Elves have darkvision, that really changes things (I've found). No longer do you need to go to any particular lengths to enable an all-Darkvision (and therefore much more powerful) party; you just need to switch out Half-Elf for Human, and something like Gnome for Halfling. (Nobody likes Dragonborn anyway )

Thus what must have seemed like an innocous change to the 5E, and mostly a welcome opportunity for simplification, is really a much bigger change that isn't good for the game in my opinion.

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It wasn't just a simplification, it was a return to form. Elves in OD&D to 2e had the same infravision as dwarves, gnomes, half-orcs, and some halflings. 3e was where a break was made to differentiate, by adding low-light vision. 4e modified it to that weird scenario where creatures with low-light vision can either see, or not. There's no in-between.

secondhander said:

Oh, nice suggestion. I might have to try this. So how would dim light work exactly? Would a human have disadvantage on perception checks, and low-light creatures not? Are there any other mechanics differences?

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It depends, 4e low-light vision is either you can see or you can't. So dim light becomes bright, and darkness remains the same.

3e low-light vision extended the range of vision. So a torch is 20' bright, 20' dim, and an elf would see 40' bright, 40' dim. Darkness is still darkness.

If I were to implement it at all, it would be the 3e version which makes much more sense to me. The problem I have with it, is it doesn't really model a creature that has better night vision. Now 5e doesn't currently grant creatures such as cats and hyenas any sort of improved night vision.

The question is, can they see farther, or can they see better? Most nights in the game currently fall under the category of darkness, if for no other reason that there's a difference between day, twilight, and night.

So a different approach might be to differentiate between darkness and total darkness. And that only creatures that have superior darkvision can see in total darkness. Or call one nightvision and the other darkvision. So for an elf, dim light still becomes bright light, and darkness becomes dim light, but in a subterranean location with no light source at all, it doesn't help.

I could go along with that, because it still indicates that an elf, cat, hyena, and other nocturnal animals have better night vision. That is, they actually see better in dim light than a human, and would not have disadvantage on Perception checks in dim light. You might need to define a radius of "absence of light" of perhaps 120 feet, maybe more, when determining whether a creature's nightvision works.

Ultimately, I think I like the "no penalty > disadvantage > blind" progression better than "no penalty > blind."

And from what I can tell, it's only elves and half-elves that people are complaining about. It's easy enough to say half-elves don't inherit the trait, so that leaves elves as the contentious point. With so many other races having it, not to mention a reasonable lore (and the entire history of D&D), I really don't see a reason to remove it.

The Human Target said:

Because light sources can be extinguished.

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Darkness spell, or unexplained region of magical darkness in the Underdark

The Human Target said:

They can be of varying strengths, providing areas of light and shadow.

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They have bright light - no penalty, and dim light, disadvantage on Perception checks, and darkness, which equals blindness.

Darkvision is lacking the blindness, but underground it equates to "everything is dim light if you don't have a light source," so disadvantage on Perception checks.

The Human Target said:

They can be placed and moved.

They can run out of fuel.

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Yes to both, although with continual flame available, fuel becomes irrelevant. Even without a spell caster in the party, hiring a wizard to cast continual flame on a few items is trivial.

The Human Target said:

Darkvision can do none of those things.

Also, a party is very likely to contain humans and halflings. So having a bunch of races with darkvision is already kind of pointless, as the party is going to need to carry light anyway.

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Darkvision does it slightly differently. And agreed on the last point. Although even with a party of all characters with darkvision, it's highly recommended to have some light sources available because it will still improve your chances of survival. Disadvantage on all Perception checks is a hefty penalty. And not being able to see drow when they can see you is too.

Ilbranteloth said:

Except that most underdark creatures have superior darkvision which means they will still see you before you can see them.

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That's still the exception to the rule. You didn't mention the Underdark, and you even talked about NPCs.

Besides, even if "most" underdark creatures had 90 ft or 120 ft darkvision (a claim I find dubious), it still wouldn't mean you couldn't play a sneaky rogue.

Even if you stumble upon a completely darkened outpost manned by Drow (say), and are discovered, you can still hide and do your thing. And I'm saying that as a DM that has run Out of the Abyss.

Anyway, that's a discussion for another topic. You certainly don't have to worry about the 120 ft darkvision of select monsters to choose the Rogue class.

What you do need to worry about (as a DM) is the relative ease with which a group of players can form a darkvision-only party. In other words, the OPs complaint.

Sure there are many ways to ameliorate this. My preferred tweak is to focus on elves (and half-elves) only: to me that's a very simple, very unintrusive tweak that more or less fixes the issue completely

Ilbranteloth said:

It wasn't just a simplification, it was a return to form. Elves in OD&D to 2e had the same infravision as dwarves, gnomes, half-orcs, and some halflings. 3e was where a break was made to differentiate, by adding low-light vision. 4e modified it to that weird scenario where creatures with low-light vision can either see, or not. There's no in-between.

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Not all throwbacks to the old days are good. By that argument you wouldn't mind THAC0 either...

No, if we look at fantasy games more generally, it's very common to separate elf night vision from dwarf "infravision". Low-light vision isn't some outlier or strange thing.

To me, that 3e adapted that was a very good thing indeed. Not that I would have said so at the time. It's actually not until now - with 5e - it's very clear that simplifying everything into darkvision goes a step too far.

It upends the balance - suddenly humans, halflings and dragonborn are exceptions. That also means your comparison is halting. In the good old days, humans were a much stronger norm. Playing a demihuman was more exotic then than now. This was even built right into the rules, with level limits for everybody except humans.

I'd argue that now in 5e more races need to lack darkvision.

CapnZapp said:

That's still the exception to the rule. You didn't mention the Underdark, and you even talked about NPCs.

Besides, even if "most" underdark creatures had 90 ft or 120 ft darkvision (a claim I find dubious), it still wouldn't mean you couldn't play a sneaky rogue.

Even if you stumble upon a completely darkened outpost manned by Drow (say), and are discovered, you can still hide and do your thing. And I'm saying that as a DM that has run Out of the Abyss.

Anyway, that's a discussion for another topic. You certainly don't have to worry about the 120 ft darkvision of select monsters to choose the Rogue class.

What you do need to worry about (as a DM) is the relative ease with which a group of players can form a darkvision-only party. In other words, the OPs complaint.

Sure there are many ways to ameliorate this. My preferred tweak is to focus on elves (and half-elves) only: to me that's a very simple, very unintrusive tweak that more or less fixes the issue completely

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I was responding specifically to your assertion that "ditching torches...(enables) lots of scenarios where the monsters and foes won't see you coming."

The fact is, when their darkvision is twice yours, they can still see you coming. That doesn't mean they always will, just like when you are carrying a light source, a sneaky rogue or other character can still sneak up on the outpost. My point is that carrying a light source or not doesn't specifically enable or deny that tactic from either side.

The tactics differ slightly if you are using a light source or not, but darkvision (even a party consisting of all races with darkvision), don't eliminate any particular tactics completely.

The OP is complaining that too many creatures have darkvision and it ruins his sense of atmosphere, and also tactics that are in play without the use of light sources.

Risks of Light Sources: Creatures can see you coming before you can see them. This also applies when not using a light source and the creature have superior darkvision (or other senses). It's easy enough to see that would include Aboleths, angels, behirs, beholders, couatl, death knight, demi-lich, demons, devils, dragons, drow, etc. While a light source acts more as a beacon, drawing attention to you, even without a light source you are at a distinct disadvantage in the Underdark. Clever characters will use the light source exactly as that, a beacon, to mislead and draw attention away from some or all of them. Plus, outdoors is when a light source like that is the most problematic. Underground, with relatively short or windy passages, it's less problematic in terms of being seen at a great distance.

There are also potential issues with fuel and resources, but with multiple spells that provide light, including permanently, it's really a non-issue not because of darkvision but because of magic.

I also feel reading should be more difficult, if not impossible in dim light. Again, dim light in the game is dark enough that it mechanically hinders your Perception. Go outside at late twilight/dusk and especially in the woods. Everything naturally turns grayish. It's much easier to hide from somebody, like when we played Ghost in the Graveyard as kids. That to me is darkvision - low light enough that you have disadvantage on Perception.

Impacts Stealth: The only situation that could be better is a creature with darkvision against a creature without, because they are effectively blind. Otherwise, when in a scenario where everybody has darkvision and there are no light sources, then everybody has disadvantage on Perception checks, which only improves a Stealth opportunities.

Impacts Atmosphere: This is a question of DMing. When descending into Undermountain down the deep well in the Yawning Portal, your eyes (darkvision or not), still need to adjust, beyond that it's just a slightly different description: "As your feet find themselves on firm footing, you're standing in the shaft of light from above, which seems to form a barrier from the civilized world to the inky darkness ahead of you. As you walk farther from that light, it's like being in an endless twilight, a mix of dark and darker, everything a muted gray of one shade or another, until about 20 paces ahead of you is nothing by black, empty darkness." If it were me, I'd still want better light a lot of the time.

The only other argument I've seen is "too many races have darkvision" but the complaints as to why that's a problem seems to fall under one of those three categories. Why do I "need to worry about" this as you say? It sounds like I might "need to worry about" the small number of races that don't have darkvision. Eliminating elves just takes away one possibility (a popular one, of course) but it's still extremely easy to make a party of only races that have darkvision.

The only sort of argument that makes any sense to me is that creatures of the surface (elves) shouldn't be able to see as well underground as those from the Underdark. To start with, they don't because of the superior range of their darkvision (which isn't new either btw, at least back to AD&D). The only solution that really makes sense to me is to differentiate between nightvision and darkvision. That way creatures such as elves (along with nocturnal animals and monsters) still have superior vision in the dark, relative to humans, but it doesn't give them the same advantage underground. I like that approach quite a bit, not because it reduces the ability of elves, but that right now there is nothing that gives nocturnal creatures an advantage. If I'm going to add nightvision, then it's a question of whether I think elves should have darkvision or nightvision. Personally, I don't have an aversion to them having darkvision anyway, so I probably won't change it. But I'll think about it, and probably see what the rest of our group thinks.

secondhander said:

Thanks for the reply, but I understand those rules. I know the distance limits and that perception checks still have disadvantage. Even with those limitations though, it still removes the ambiance I want in a dungeon crawl. For example, being lowered in to the well in the Yawning Portal and only having the light pouring in from above from the distant hole to the tavern. Pitch black passages lay ahead. The adventurers would have to take a beat to take out a torch and light it, or have their wizard cast some sort of light spell.

With the prevalence of darkvision, all that is lost. And that takes something special away, in my opinion.

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Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but I would remove darkvision from all playable races. I would limit it to specific monsters. I would make it a DM mechanic only.

CapnZapp said:

This is true...

...but this isn't.

Viewed individually, darkvision might not seem like much. So far I'd agree.

But the true power is if your party can ditch torches and lanterns entirely. That is very powerful, since no longer will you be giving off light that could be seen for miles. Thus enabling a lot of scenarios where monsters and foes won't see you coming.

Darkvision is very powerful in a group where everybody has darkvision.

Which leads back to the original complaint. If you have to play, say, an all-Dwarf team, most people would probably feel that to be... off somehow: too powergamey. And so the equilibrium works: having darkvision isn't that great, because somebody will be playing a human, say.

But if Elves have darkvision, that really changes things (I've found). No longer do you need to go to any particular lengths to enable an all-Darkvision (and therefore much more powerful) party; you just need to switch out Half-Elf for Human, and something like Gnome for Halfling. (Nobody likes Dragonborn anyway )

Thus what must have seemed like an innocous change to the 5E, and mostly a welcome opportunity for simplification, is really a much bigger change that isn't good for the game in my opinion.

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You misunderstand. I'm not saying darkvision isn't powerful or utilitarian.

I saying that looking at the abilities that races are given, darkvision does not seem to carry a significant design cost. Races that have darkvision don't appear to lack any abilities or perks. Possessing darkvision does not give you a penalty of some kind, nor do races that lack darkvision grant a bonus or additional ability somewhere. I'm saying that if, for example, you were to assign a point cost to abilities on races, then the point cost of darkvision is apparently not very significant.

Yes, it's a useful ability. However, the designers seemingly ignored that in designing the races, or valued it very low. Therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that the developers consider possessing darkvision to largely be based on a criteria of flavor and not of power. Humans and halflings don't lack darkvision because they're more powerful. Dwarves and elves don't possess darkvision because they need an extra ability. Conclusion: Removing darkvision is not a game design concern because adding it wasn't a concern for the designers.

Bacon Bits said:

You misunderstand. I'm not saying darkvision isn't powerful or utilitarian.

I saying that looking at the abilities that races are given, darkvision does not seem to carry a significant design cost. Races that have darkvision don't appear to lack any abilities or perks. Possessing darkvision does not give you a penalty of some kind, nor do races that lack darkvision grant a bonus or additional ability somewhere. I'm saying that if, for example, you were to assign a point cost to abilities on races, then the point cost of darkvision is apparently not very significant.

Yes, it's a useful ability. However, the designers seemingly ignored that in designing the races, or valued it very low. Therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that the developers consider possessing darkvision to largely be based on a criteria of flavor and not of power. Humans and halflings don't lack darkvision because they're more powerful. Dwarves and elves don't possess darkvision because they need an extra ability. Conclusion: Removing darkvision is not a game design concern because adding it wasn't a concern for the designers.

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I did not object to the latter part of "The ability doesn't seem to count for much, power wise, so I wouldn't think you'd need to compensate races that lose out", only the first part. I replied while under the impression you were talking about your evaluation, not some game designer's. Moreover, I replied in the (perhaps mistaken) belief you joined the ranks of people mistakenly believing that just because a single DV-enabled party member in a group of torchbearers can't do much, the ability isn't worth much. It is - it's just qualified by the condition that all of them put out their torches.

But never mind that. I've already explained it once, and besides, you might well have agreed with me all along.

Instead, let's talk about how the cost of darkvision is besides the issue.

Even if we remove darkvision from most races, we probably all agree the goal isn't to remove it from every race (that is reasonably accessible to the players). Since the players can always create a team of dwarves (say) to gain an all-darkvision party, what we're doing can't be about a hard prevention.

Now, yes, what we are trying to prevent; or rather, what we're trying to reduce the likelyhood of, is the end result of an all-darkvision party (or, in the OPs words, "no torches").

But since we can't (and probably shouldn't) prevent a determined set of players, we will focus on the more general case. We need to offer enough non-DV races so that someone picks one of them.

And by switching away elves and halv-elves, I've found my sweet spot:

If the players won't want to strike all of human, halfling and elf from their list of prospective race of their character (and remember, all it takes is a single player making this decision) we have achieved success.

That's what I call making an impact with a minimal change.