D&D 5E Eliminating darkvision from most races

[iserith]

The game will not break if you take darkvision away.

That said, I've been running a chiefly dungeon-crawling game since July and I can tell you that it is just as scary with darkvision than not. Because the party that plays it every week can change, I get to see it from perspectives of parties with lots of darkvision and parties without it at all. In most sessions, there's a mix of those that have it and those that don't. Those that don't have it use torches or are supported by casters with light or dancing lights (the latter of which has seen quite a lot of use in this campaign).

Now, I get the benefit of running this game with Roll20 and using dynamic lighting which only reveals to the players what their characters can actually see. So there's always that area that is just beyond one's vision, even with a drow's darkvision. Therefore, it would seem to me that in a game not played in Roll20 with dynamic lighting, it's just a matter of good description from the DM hinting at what faceless horrors may lay in the darkness beyond and therefore removing darkvision is not required.

Also, your initial post really emphasizes what you want as DM. But what do your players want? Because that's just as important.

 

[Bacon Bits]

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.

So in my own homebrew universe, I am thinking about getting rid of darkvision for all but Drow and Snirvneblin. Are there some potential game-breaking problems if I do that? Have any thoughts on running a game without racial darkvision?

I don't see any problem with removing darkvision completely. 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.

There are some other options:

1. If you don't want to eliminate it completely, the easiest thing to do is to eliminate the ability of darkvision to function in darkness. So it would just allow creatures to use dim light as bright light. However, such creatures have no lightly obscured vision then at all, which is a bit weird. You could explain it by saying that the glare of light prevents it, but it's still odd because all light sources would appear as uniform spheres with a line between light and darkness. This is the closest analog to low-light vision, but doesn't do anything to correct the problem that creatures with darkvision see further than those without.

2. Another option is to just heavily reduce the distance. Give PC races darkvision of 5' or less, and only allow dim-to-bright conversion within that range. That makes it useful for navigation or melee combat in a pinch, but sharply limits it's usefulness.

3. A third option is to change the ability completely for PC races. Make darkvision a last resort kind of thing. Eliminate the dim-to-bright conversion. Next, although it allows vision of a sort in complete darkness, it only reveals the rough shapes of objects and nothing more. You don't even get something as distinct as a silhouette. You'd have no visual means of determining two creatures apart if they were the same size category without studying them for some time. Just barely enough to navigate a cave by and sense movement, but nothing more. Additionally, say that being in range of any light at all spoils it. Essentially, everything is still considered heavily obscured except for determining the size and location of it, and objects smaller than a given size would effectively be imperceptible. Think of being outside in overcast moonlight, or being in a room at night illuminated by just the light bleeding in from outside, and that's what I'm thinking of. You could call it "shadowvision" or something along those lines.

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't see any problem with removing darkvision completely.

This is true...

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.

...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.

 

[Dausuul]

So in my own homebrew universe, I am thinking about getting rid of darkvision for all but Drow and Snirvneblin. Are there some potential game-breaking problems if I do that? Have any thoughts on running a game without racial darkvision?

I run a humans-only campaign, and it's not a problem. In fact, it works out rather nicely since the whole party is in the same boat. If one of them can't see, then none of them can see, and it's a top priority for everybody to solve.

I do think some minor compensation is appropriate for the races that lose out, but it need not be anything very big. Something like, dwarves can always tell directions and depth underground; elves ignore difficult terrain resulting from natural (nonmagical) undergrowth; etc.

 

[Leatherhead]

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.

Nothing done at any table is ever going to be absolutely true, striving for complete accuracy is going to be an exercise in wasting time no mater the circumstances. I have even heard tales of groups that even ignore the use of dice in favor of some other mechanic. It is better to instead talk of things that are mostly accurate. This way of playing, in particular, was common enough of an occurrence to be incorporated into the next editions ruleset, so we can assume it was fairly widespread.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Nothing done at any table is ever going to be absolutely true, striving for complete accuracy is going to be an exercise in wasting time no mater the circumstances.

I'm not talking about what you or anyone else does at their table when I mentioned accuracy - I'm talking about your choice of statements on this forum.

Our statements, unlike our table conditions, absolutely can be made accurately.

This way of playing, in particular, was common enough of an occurrence to be incorporated into the next editions ruleset, so we can assume it was fairly widespread.

You didn't claim something was "fairly widespread", you claimed it, according to your chosen phrasing, as being the only way of playing.

 

[Lanliss]

I am going to vote for changing it how you see fit.

I have one country/setting within my world called The Mist, which is pretty much just a big moving dome of thick mist out on the sea. This mist is magical in nature,and chokes all forms of vision and light. Normal vision is limited to 30 feet, with Dim light vision out to 60. Darkvision can see normal out to 60, dim light to 90, then darkness that they cannot pierce. Torches and lanterns only help the normal races by allowing them to see normal out to 60, they still see nothing beyond that. Lastly, there are Devil's Sight warlocks, who see all sorts of terrible things that are used to floating outside the edge of people's vision.

All of those changes are important to setting the tone of the area, as it is my horror setting.

EDIT: I remembered my document wrong. Normal vision gives you 30 feet bright light, 60 feet dim light. Dark vision gives 60 feet bright light, no dim light. Torches work on par with darkvision, 60 feet of bright light with no dim light. Only magical vision can pierce the darkness at the edge of vision.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

In my opinion there is one race that shoulden't have darkvison to start with, and that is the fire genasi.
in my worlds i would remove darkvision from the fire genasi and replace it with a ability that the genasi can chose to have it's fiery hair shed light as a torch.

 

[Uller]

I think the OP is on to something. For surface races to invade a dark place occupied by underground races/monsters they should be at a tremendous disadvantage. The suggestion to replace darkvision with "low-light vision" is a good one I think.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm not talking about what you or anyone else does at their table when I mentioned accuracy - I'm talking about your choice of statements on this forum.

Our statements, unlike our table conditions, absolutely can be made accurately.

Should I appended the word "most" to my first post in this thread? I honestly thought such a thing would be inferred due to the context of the discussion.