D&D 5E Drow "Sunlight Sensitivity" workarounds?

[Queer Venger]

If I had a drow player this would be my solution. How long has the drow be out of his natural environment? If his background dictates that he has been out in the world for a while I would rule that he/she has grown accustomed to sunlight and has adapted but the drawback is his dark vision isn't as effective anymore or completely non existent. But if the player states his character is fresh to the above world and he and the rest of the players are fine with the handicap then go with it. It's a defining trait of the race. How did drizzt deal with this? Was it ever addressed in the books?

I belive in Crystal Shard it mentions early that Driz'zt has adjusted for decades in the bright reflective snows of the Icewind Dale tundra. He still pulls down the hood of his robe to shield him from the more extreme brightness. So using this example if your drow pc has been living in the surface for a few years he should no longer have disadvantage to his rolls, that is how I would rule it as DM.

 

[Mirtek]

Drizzt dealt with it by being a novel character who does not have to deal with game mechanics and game balance.

Really, just striking it off because the players says my drow has been on the surface for X years is even worse than striking it off by throwing some spare change to buy some googles at it

 

[UngeheuerLich]

(Maybe this belongs in Homebrew? Not sure!)

One of the characters in my 5e campaign is a drow wild sorceror.
The party has been doing a lot of (daytime) wilderness adventuring.
The player and I are both getting a bit bored of him always rolling everything with disadvantage.

So: here are some workarounds I've come up with.

1) High-Quality Smoked Glass Goggles. Fragile and finicky, but ideal.
Cost: as magnifying glass.
These goggles completely eliminate the wearer's light sensitivity trait while worn. Their fragility lives in the plot, not the rules. They probably block darkvision, but the wearer can just take them off for night uses.

2) Low-quality Smoked Glass Goggles: The Village Bottleblower's Version.
Cost: as glass bottle.
These goggles eliminate the disadvantage on attacks -- but not perception -- against foes within 30'. Outside of that range, the sunlight sensitivity is replaced with interference from the warped glass.

Drow are, of course, a magical and poison-loving people. Isn't there a biochemical solution here?
Yes. Good thing we just got that DMG excerpt!

3) A drow suffering any penalty from sight rot loses their daylight sensitivity (limiting darkvision to 30').
4) A drow may inhale the smoke of an incense composed mostly of the drug Malice and lose daylight sensitivity (limiting darkvision to 30') for 1hr, Con save DC 10.
5) A fantasy opiate drug could constrict the pupils; grant some temprary hit points, inflict 1 level of fatigue, and vision-wise provide the same effect as the above (con save DC 10 negates). Names for this substance might be Villein, Poppy's Milk, or Dragonsbreath?

And finally, there could straight up be some magic solution, like:
6) Potion of Clearsight, a common philtre which negates vision-based penalties for 1 hr.

My question: what can the enterprising DM do to encourage players away from the stable, sure-bet that are the fantasy sunglasses represented by option (1)?

I could rule it's beyond the skill of the local craftsmen, but telescopes exist and the player isn't being unreasonable; they're traveling to a large city with alchemists and astronomers next, so I can't delay forever.

I could come up with some sort of drawback -- suggestions? It's not enough that they look goofy in smoked shades, since the character is drow; they've already accepted visual prejudice as a thing. And I can't balance them with a wisdom(perception) penalty, since sunmmlight sensitivity already gives them that!

I want this to cost ongoing resources, at least until the player can obtain the sort of magical resources it'd take a character of another race to get darkvision

Help!

All good ideas.

Should be expensive and incovenient. About as much as a torch in underdark.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

A traveling salesgnome passing through the Underdark offers the following solution: "Tired of brightness sensitivity? Sunlight make you sick? Try wearing Vennix' Everdark Hood! With this good on, you'll be able to wander the bright reaches above without fear or discomfort! A veritable bargain at 5,000 gp, or the equivalent in gems, platinum, or silver."

Vennix' Everdark Hood is a black cloth hoodie that activates when first pulled up over the head. This cursed hood only affects Underdark races, curing their sunlight sensitivity by converting them into the equivalent surface race (so a drow becomes a high elf, a duergar becomes a hill dwarf, a svirfneblin becomes a forest gnome, and so on). Once activated, the hood may only be removed by casting a remove curse spell, but this does not restore the creature's original race; only a wish spell or the equivalent may do so permanently, though spells such as shapechange may temporarily allow the assumption of the original race's form and abilities.

Caveat emptor, and be careful what you wish for.

 

[Lancelot]

I'm in the camp of those who are suggesting that negating a major balancing feature of a race with a pair of cheap goggles is a significant DM choice. I wouldn't allow it at my table, because I suspect my other players would consider it unfair.

Here's what I'd personally do...

1) There is D&D precedent for a drow to adjust to surface life. We all know who that precedent is, bless his purple eyes and dual-scimitars. Hence, it doesn't make sense to just disallow it completely. The D&D lore says that a drow can overcome their sunlight sensitivity. However, the lore also says that it took Driz'zt a long time, and he lost some of his innate drow capabilities. If I recall correctly, he still had faerie fire, but he lost the usual darkness, levitate, etc, abilities of high level drow.

2) So, I'd use the downtime rules. 5e has already established you can learn a new language or tools proficiency with 250 accumulated days of downtime. I'd require the same for a drow character to overcome their sunlight aversion. As a balancing feature, however, I would also remove at least two of the drow's spell-like powers. As their connection to the Underdark fades, their faerzvress (Underdark radiation) infused powers also diminish. Just like Driz'zt.

3) There are several benefits of this approach. [a] It creates a long-term goal for the character. It uses an established and consistent 5e mechanism that everyone understands. [c] The character will start with the standard drow racial features and will, over time, slowly more towards the new state. [d] The DM controls the available amount of downtime, so can pace the transition according to their own schedule. [e] It's consistent with historical D&D lore. [f] It makes an attempt at game balance by removing some drow racial benefits, without just "turning the character into an elf".

For the record, I'm skeptical about the "goggles solution" for more reasons than just game balance. The goggles shown previously in this thread would certainly reduce light intake, but they're also going to mess with general sight in combat. They're going to badly hurt peripheral vision, they'll be easily broken (which would be nightmarish in melee), can come off in the heat of battle, etc. They might reduce the pain and discomfort of sunlight sensitivity, but I personally think they wouldn't do much for reducing disadvantage on attack rolls... except in calm, sniping situations from range. At best, I'd allow the goggles to remove disadvantage for ranged attack rolls only, when the wearer is not moving. If the wearer is moving, or in melee, the many disadvantages of wearing fragile medieval goggles should still provide disadvantage on attack rolls... or maybe even grant enemies advantage on their melee attacks rolls versus the wearer.

 

[transtemporal]

Or, just a thought. Do nothing. The player chose the race. Play the race. Deal with the restrictions that they, themselves, chose for the character.

Don't like sunlight sensitivity? Don't make a character that has it.

Yeah, I agree. Allowing a purchaseable item to negate a mechanical disadvantage means drow effectively don't have the disadvantage. I would possibly allow drow to replace their 5th level Darkness spell with an 8-hour Shade spell instead that negated the sensitivity. Its conceivable the drow would've developed such spells for missions on the surface world.

Why is that different to an item? Because they have to expend one of their daily resources to use it whereas the permanent item only costs gold, which is in high supply in 5e.

 

[Cannyjiggit]

Outside of magical solutions amd a long and dangerous quest to find the mystical spyglass of Ban'Ray I would make the player keep the downsides of this or any other character. Would you allow Dwarves and Halflings to buy blade style leg extenders to increase their speed to 30?

However, there is the aspect of being a fair DM. Sunlight sensitivity specifically mentions "direct sunlight".
Are there any clouds or weather in your campaign?
Is every day filled with blazing sunshine in your campaign area? If so, then why didn't the Drow move somewhere with more clouds? Desert areas really do not suit Drow. He should be praying for rain
Other than around midday, cities and towns will have shade of some sort on most streets etc.
Will your campaign always be set outside under direct sunlight? Struggling now is the reverse side of becoming SuperElf when the party go down into a dark dungeon (if the other players allow him that much freedom). 120' darkvision is a huge advantage in the dark where opponents could all potentially end up with disadvantage instead.

If you do allow a mundane purchase to overcome it (and I hope you realise by now I think its a bad idea and there are other ways you can give the player a break), then you absolutely should make it expensive, made with rare ingredients (that the player will have to find) and fragile (item makes a saving throw every critical hit maybe?). I would also have it retain the perception disadvantage, remove darkvision completely, all vision beyond 30' and probably impose some other disadvantage such as an initiative penalty.
Players (and I currently am one) should not be able to just ditch the downsides of their characters whether that be mechanical like this or other aspects like social interactions for characters with low CHA, good priests performing evil deeds, stealthy characters bypassing disadvantage with certain armours etc etc

 

[Warunsun]

So, I'd use the downtime rules.

This post seems very reasonable to me. It takes a lot of time and the character would loose some of his drow abilities to compensate for loosing his only racial disadvantage. In most of my campaigns I wouldn't allow a player to make a drow elf just the same as I wouldn't allow them to play an aquatic elf or a duergar dwarf. Some sub-races are intended to be monsters or strange/rare. There is certainly room for drow player characters in some campaigns like PlaneScape or SpellJammer for example. Since wacky races like Lizardman and Aasimar are represented in those highly fantastic settings. Even half-orcs should be considered a stretch despite being one of the classic races. The common people just hate them. I often bring up the infamous Night of Terror where every orc, half-orc, and hobgoblin in the cities of Narwell and Safeton was knifed, lynched, or burned alive by the humans then living there when someone mentions wanting to play a half-orc.

 

[Kobold Stew]

If a player wanted a Drow without Sunlight Sensitivity, I would balance it my adjusting other darkness-related features of the race:

1. Remove Sunlight sensitivity.
2. Change Superior Darkvision to regular (60') Darkvision.
3. Remove the ability to cast the darkness spell at fifth level.

 

[lkj]

Interestingly, this has come up in a game I'm going to start soon. A player and I came up with a very cool backstory for a drow monk. He loves the character, and I have incorporated that backstory into the lore of the campaign world. But when he finally got around to creating the character (months later), he told me he might move away from the drow and a big part of the character concept. He mentioned that I like to do a lot of outdoor adventures (very true) and that he knew he'd get frustrated if his character was working at disadvantage for a large portion of the game. He wasn't complaining, and he wasn't lobbying for a fix. He just decided that, as fun as the backstory was, it wouldn't be all that fun to play.

So I told him that he should go ahead with character and that I wouldn't constantly screw him over with light sensitivity. I also told him that it would, however, definitely come into play sometimes and that it would still be used against him. Just not as a constant irritant.

Well, this thread has got me thinking about how to handle that specifically. I agree the drawback shouldn't just be shrugged off. But I'm also not going to have every day be cloudy or force all the adventures below ground.

So just to throw it out there, how about something like this-- Let's say there is a salve or an herbal concoction that can remove the light sensitivity for a few days. But as a consequence it suppresses inherent drow magic. This would mean either halving or removing darkvision and making the character unable to cast dancing lights, faerie fire or darkness. Or if that is too harsh, maybe it allows, with effort, to only cast one of those spells in a given day.

This way the player makes a choice to sacrifice his abilities. But because the elixer lasts several days, the effects will often go beyond a specific mission. It can't simply be turned on and off with the sunlight. It also adds some fun adventure hooks-- having to get the elixer or its ingredients (which will be relatively expensive and rare). I can also envision an adventure scenario where some villain adapts or spikes the elixer to cause other effects and slips it to the character (not to screw the character over so much as to drive a story perhaps or setup a hated villain).

Anyway, just curious what people think.

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