D&D 5E Eliminating darkvision from most races

[ClearlyTough69]

I think the darkvision mechanic works well, but is indeed too prevalent amongst player races. How about nerfing the darkvision of most races by reducing the range to 30 feet or even 15 feet?

 

[machineelf]

I think the darkvision mechanic works well, but is indeed too prevalent amongst player races. How about nerfing the darkvision of most races by reducing the range to 30 feet or even 15 feet?

Could work. I am really intrigued by Caliburn101's suggestion of bringing low-light vision back into the game and distinguishing it from darkvision. I'm not going to change vision rules on my players mid-campaign, but I think I will try it out when they start their next campaign.

 

[Leatherhead]

That's not completely accurate. People already learn the light cantrip with no alteration to how many cantrips anyone gets.

Sure, more often than not it will only be one character in the party that has it, but it is not at all a waste of a cantrip choice, even as one of the character's first 3 cantrips chosen. Because it has benefits that a torch or lantern doesn't have, like being able to toss your light-source down the hall without feeding heat to brown mold or breaking the light source, or drop it into water without it extinguishing, and generally not causing any smoke to obscure your vision or consuming your limit oxygen supply at a greater rate should you ever end up sealed in somewhere.

Eh, that's what Continual Flame is for.

In fact, back in Second Edition, a Continual Flame rock or holy symbol from the friendly priest back in town was one of the first "magic" items our party got every time we rolled new character, right after a healing potion. 3rd edition replaced this tradition with Everburning Torches.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Darkvision is handy but it's no replacement for normal vision. Relatively short range and dim light equivalence for disadvantage of Perception checks are both key. Also there are lots of good PC races out there that don't have Darkvision, making lighting necessary.

 

[CapnZapp]

When I DM, one of the things I really like to establish is mood and setting for my players. I want to play up the dread and unknown when they venture into a dark, damp dungeon. I want them to almost hear the scraping of the flint and the crackling fire as they light their torch. I want them to see the light dance upon the cavern walls, or light an ancient underground tomb that hasn't seen light in hundreds of years. I want them to wonder what else lurks out in the darkness just beyond where their light reaches.

I also want their light spells to be meaningful and useful. I want magical potions of darkvision, or goggles of night, to be coveted items.

But the fact that most all the races have darkvision simply ruins things. Sure it makes it easier of DMs that want to forget about running lighting and vision rules anyway, but I want to run those rules. That's a big part of the ambiance of dungeon crawling, in the way I run my games.

I agree completely, and I want to at least move elves (and half-elves) back to low-light vision myself.

It is simply too easy to tweak the "standard" party of human, dwarf, elf, halfling if you run 5e as-is: by instead playing half-elf, dwarf, elf, gnome.

By changing elf away from darkvision, the all-darkvision team becomes too far removed from many common racial compositions of the party. Now you must actively seek out races that give you an all-DV-party.

My hopes are that players will not do that; and thus they will be having the full torchlight experience

TL;DR: The simplification of vision modes into only darkvision was one simplification too many, and made it too cheap to get darkvision for everybody.

 

[CapnZapp]

A comment regarding something secondhander said: "If you don't mind widely prevalent darkvision in your games, go for it."

More specifically - if you don't mind, why are y'all posting arguments that go counter to secondhander's goals in this thread. Eh?

Yet another example of how here at ENWorld people immediately try to shoot down threads where people are not content to just leave things alone.

 

[77IM]

Echolocation is a restricted form of blindsight. Bats basically have blindsight, and then a trait that says something like, "Echolocation. The bat's blindsight does not function while it is deafened." (paraphrasing, you get the idea.) A few other monsters have stuff like this too.

I've been toying with defining Low-Light Vision in the same way. "Low-Light Vision. Your darkvision does not function in areas that are not within 60 unobstructed feet of an area of either dim or bright light." Or something like that. So the darkness still yawns for characters with low-light vision, it's just 60 feet farther out.

Now I'm wondering why Tremorsense isn't defined this way. E.g., "Tremorsense. The spider's blindsight only functions on creatures and objects in contact with a solid surface in common with the spider." Maybe there are just so many creatures with Tremorsense that it's easier to define it once, up-front.

 

[DEFCON 1]

There is nothing mechanically going to be a problem if you remove darkvision from some/all of the races. After all... people run games with all humans and those do fine without darkvision.

But if you're looking to do it strictly because of "atmosphere"... I personally question whether you're really getting what you think you're looking for? Cause here's the thing... with a bunch of PCs without darkvision, here's what you get:

- If they don't have a light source and are walking around in complete darkness... monsters can get right up next to a person and still be considered Heavily Obscured, thereby letting them make a Stealth check to be Hidden. But they still have to make a check. And thus the question really is... how often were you planning monsters to do that, versus just them hiding behind Heavily Obscuring terrain like they normally would? They have to make Stealth checks regardless... so unless you think melee "jump scares" have been so greatly missing from your games that you are desperate to get them back... combat wouldn't really be all that different. After all... if you are a bunch of kobolds in a cave... why are you ever going to run up and engage them in melee to begin with (in the hopes those silly humanoids can't see you as you do) instead of staying back behind cover and shooting them (thus gaining the cover bonus to AC?)

- If they do have a light source... then the matter of darkvision is negated regardless. And instead all that is up in the air is playing the "Who's holding the lantern" mini-game. Now, if you are a DM that has a hardon for "handedness" during games and who has what in which hand and can you cast a spell with this hand full or take that hand off to take this thing out as your one free action after you used your action to drop that thing so the hand was free, so on and so forth... adding a lantern or torch as "one more thing they have to worry about and keep straight!" probably is a good thing for you. Buuuuuuuut... if you are one of the other 98% of DMs who doesn't spend their time worrying about it because it's just as much of a PITA as worrying about Encumbrance... what'll happen is one or two PCs will carry lanterns or torches, and no one will ever mention or concern themselves about light ever again. Thus the "atmosphere" is exactly the same-- the PCs are walking around caves being able to see out to a certain distance.

So while certain DMs would indeed get some mileage out of reducing (if not outright eliminating) the number of people who can always be in essentially 60' of Dim Light regardless of where they are... most DMs never actually set up challenges for those kinds of scenarios anyway. Or at least... not so often that you actually notice you haven't done one in a long time because the entirety of the group is walking around in the dark.

Speaking personally? I have so many different fricking ways to challenge PCs that not using one of the hundreds of ways I have is not a loss. At all. But yeah... if in a particular style of campaign I want to run I think it would be? Then sure... not allow races with darkvision, or nerf/remove darkvision from that campaign. Whatever. Game will play fine either way.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Eh, that's what Continual Flame is for.

Again, not completely accurate. You are phrasing how your group happens to do/have done things as if it is the only way any group can do/has done things.

 

[Gadget]

I agree with the OP. It was one of the things that 4e got right in limiting the number of races that had dark vision. While I appreciate the simplification of combining low light/dark vision, having everyone and their cousin get it kind of makes it a pointless. Despite the limitations on 5e darkvision, I wouldn't mind eliminating it from most or all PC races. It was good enough for Tolkien, good enough for me.