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

[the Jester]

They would have been better off not even having it in the PHB

I agree with you there!

Just a bad mechanic for a very popular race. Otherwise, just give the race a flat -2 in sunlight. I never understood disadvantage or advantage for environmental factors. Those should be constants.

No, no, no- a huge part of the appeal of 5e is cutting all those fiddly modifiers out. And if it's a major racial feature, let's really not ever go back to the fiddly modifiers, please. I've already seen how handy "roll an extra die" is when someone forgets dis/advantage, vs. going back and trying to catch all those stray +1s like people did in 3e and 4e. God, no. Disadvantage is absolutely a good mechanic, and it absolutely belongs here.

(Obviously YMMV, and does, but that's okay.)

 

[Uchawi]

I agree with you there!



No, no, no- a huge part of the appeal of 5e is cutting all those fiddly modifiers out. And if it's a major racial feature, let's really not ever go back to the fiddly modifiers, please. I've already seen how handy "roll an extra die" is when someone forgets dis/advantage, vs. going back and trying to catch all those stray +1s like people did in 3e and 4e. God, no. Disadvantage is absolutely a good mechanic, and it absolutely belongs here.

(Obviously YMMV, and does, but that's okay.)

Fair enough, take the bull by its horn and change advantage/disadvantage to +2/-2.

 

[the Jester]

Fair enough, take the bull by its horn and change advantage/disadvantage to +2/-2.

Good God, talk about defeating the purpose. All that would do is change the elegant and sweet dis/advantage mechanic into yet another fiddly bit. Putting the fiddly bits back in is an awful solution, at least for me. YMMV (obviously).

 

[Quartz]

No, no, no- a huge part of the appeal of 5e is cutting all those fiddly modifiers out. ... Disadvantage is absolutely a good mechanic, and it absolutely belongs here.

Spot on.

 

[Lackhand]

For those who listed fragility as a limiter for the sunglasses solution (implying: yes, sensitivity is optical in nature, yes, it's okay to use equipment to work around limitations within, uh, limits), here's my take on 5e fragility.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ty-and-Equipment-Damage&p=6461062#post6461062

Thanks for all the great discussion, guys!

 

[colincbn]

Ok, so if a race does not have darkvision allowing torches is an unfair advantage. The player chose it, he has to live with it. Yes there are tons of examples of NPCs with torches, and torch technology was around in ancient times. But allowing their use is unbalancing, and the mathematics of D&D is far more important than the Flavor.

Now replace darkvision with "sunlight sensitivity" and "torches" with "sunglasses" and read that again.

 

[Ancalagon]

In case it hasn't been said yet:

Block out the sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ok, so if a race does not have darkvision allowing torches is an unfair advantage. The player chose it, he has to live with it. Yes there are tons of examples of NPCs with torches, and torch technology was around in ancient times. But allowing their use is unbalancing, and the mathematics of D&D is far more important than the Flavor.

Now replace darkvision with "sunlight sensitivity" and "torches" with "sunglasses" and read that again.

Ahem. Torches come with severe built-in disadvantages. They make you visible to everyone, even outside darkvision range, for example. That means everyone can attack you at advantage with their ranged weapons.

A better analogy for snow goggles might be goggles of darkvision. I think the DMG calls them Goggles of Night, and rates them as Uncommon.

I'd probably allow a drow PC to fashion goggles good enough to let him see things that are in direct sunlight without penalty, as long as he isn't in direct sunlight himself.

 

[colincbn]

The way I see it there is no difference between a surface dweller who gets disadvantage in darkness (as in all humans for example), and a Underdark dweller who gets disadvantage in sunlight.

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition."

"Blinded
• A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage."

Getting around this huge (dare I say "character defining"?) liability with a simple torch, the light cantrip (a Cantrip!), Goggles of Night, or any of the myriad simple ways every single DM ever have used to deal with this is exactly the same as using a similar simple method to do the same thing reversed.

Far more important are the issues of prejudice a Drow would have to face. The Drow Warlock in my campaign chose to take the Mask of Many Faces Invocation to help get around it. That is a big deal since he had to put off Eldritch sight, Devils sight, or any of the other far more useful (in combat/exploring anyway) Invocations available.

Yes dealing with sunlight sensitivity should take effort. About the exact same amount as dealing with the Human's "Darkness Sensitivity"(tm).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

"A heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature in a heavily obscured area effectively suffers from the blinded condition."

You're using an old copy of the PHB. Post-errata, the text is this:

"A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see appendix A) when trying to see something in that area."

The original version made zero sense because it meant that holding up a candle in a dark cavern let you see everything perfectly (because you were not in darkness) but nothing hiding in the darkness could see you (because they were heavily obscured and thus blinded). No sane DM ever ruled it that way--the errata is just WotC catching up to common sense.

In other words, you can't see things that are in the dark.