Normal vision, low-light vision, darkvision, oh my!

[Quasqueton]

In torchlight. . .

a human and a halfling can see 20' clearly, and another 20' shadowy.

a gnome and an elf can see 40' clearly, and another 40' shadowy.

a dwarf and a orc can see 20' clearly, and then 40' more feet in black and white. (No such thing as shadow to darkvision?)

So, the human and halfling cannot see the drow assassin 50' away. The gnome and elf can see a silhouette. The dwarf and orc see the drow perfectly, but only in black and white.

If the drow was 20' more away, the human and halfling still couldn't see him. The gnome and elf could still see just a silhouette. The dwarf and orc now couldn't see him at all.


Now think on this:

At night, under a starry sky. . .

a human and a halfling can see all around in shadowy condition.

a gnome and an elf can see all around clearly.

a dwarf and a orc can see 60' in black and white, but what do they see beyond that? Shadows?


Do you have problems with the various visions in D&D? I find them terribly difficult especially in good-sized underground battles.

Quasqueton

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. Underground is usually easy: Everyone with Darkvision wins.

Outside at night: Lowlight vision rules.

Humans: Seems they invented the streetlight.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I've often dispensed with darkvision and just treated it as low-light that didn't need any ambient light.

 

[Piratecat]

It's important to remember that walking around with darkvision leaves you feeling terribly exposed, because creatures with better darkvision can see you and you'll never know it. When my group was in the underdark and everyone had 60' darkvision, I drove this home by having hundreds of enemies surround them, take one step forward so that they were within sight, then take a step back so that they were effectively invisible. The players were more than a little bit paranoid.

 

[Quasqueton]

So no one really finds it all problematic with three different types of vision in the same group?

I'm also kind of amazed that only humans and halflings have "normal vision". What's so "normal" about it if only 2 out of hundreds of species have it? Low-light vision should be considered normal, and human vision should be considered half-blind.

Quasqueton

 

[Planesdragon]

I think it's horrid to have to descibe the same scene three times. So, I don't do it.

Every creature that had "low-light vision" gets "farsight" instead--they suffer half the range penalties for sensing (but not attacking.)

(almost) every creature that had darkvision gets "nightsense" instead: the ability to sense objects within five feet. Enough to navigate around in the dark and sense invisible creatures, but not enough to get a real "sight" by.

And I'm half tempted to toss out the farsight for most monsters. Elves are supposed to have exceptional sight, not sight as well as half the species in existance.

 

[Quasqueton]

That's an interesting way of handling it, Planesdragon. How's it been working in actual play?

Quasqueton

 

[Bulldogc]

see id much rather remove all of that(cept lowlight for surfacers that dont deserve infervision like elves) and jsut bring back infervision and perhapse ultravision.

 

[Klaus]

For dwarves and half-orcs, I guess darkvision feels like those scenes in Blair Witch Project where the guy is running with the camera at night and you can only see the girl running up ahead, some trees as they enter the light radius and then nothing more. It's near the end of the movie, iirc.

 

[Aries_Omega]

Oh my indeed

I like the system as is. It makes the Underdark more alien and scary. I did the same thing in which I have enemies move in and out of their darkvision range. It kinda reminds me of the monsters in Pitch Black a bit. As stated before....Lowlight rules above ground, Darkvision below ground and humans invented streetlights. Also if memory serves me right don't generic Elves get a bonus to search, spot and listen skills in addition to the autofind of secret and conceled doors?

Aries