Ridding Elves and Half-Elves of Darkvision

[Charlaquin]

And you rule out the possibility that it was intended to communicate something else?

^^

No, I literally said that once I realized my reading of the distance at which you can see in darkness was not the designers’ intent it became clear that my reading of the interaction between the way you treat different light levels must not have been the designers’ intent either.

 

[clearstream]

No, I literally said that once I realized my reading of the distance at which you can see in darkness was not the designers’ intent it became clear that my reading of the interaction between the way you treat different light levels must not have been the designers’ intent either.

I mis-parsed your negative. Your comment makes far more sense now My fault, entirely.

 

[Charlaquin]

No, you wouldn’t. It’s still darkness.

It is darkness, but you can see in it as if it was dim light, in which you can see as if it was bright light. You don’t see in it as humans see in dim light, you see in it as if it was dim light. And if it was dim light, you would see in it as if it was bright light. Ergo, you see in it as if it was bright light.

Again, I understand that’s not the intent, but it is a logically valid interpretation of the words, and it’s the one I (mistakenly) thought was correct up until now.

There aren’t two abilities, there is one ability. It lets you see as if darkness were dim light, and dim light were bright light. It doesn’t change the level of light in the area. The area is either bright, dim, or dark, regardless of any creature’s vision.

It doesn’t have to change the level of light, it changes the way you see in the light.

 

[Aldarc]

Personally, I would give Dwarves, Half-orcs, and Tieflings low-light vision, give Elves advantage on Perception checks, and eliminate darkvision entirely.

But that's just me.

I appreciate more elegant solutions like this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Its purpose is because it is biological. When you go from dark conditions to bright, your eyes need a few seconds to adjust. Making it an action reflects those few seconds of disorientation. If you don't like the action cost, simply make it that during the turn of transition, you have disadvantage on perception/investigation checks, Dex saves, and attack rolls. Then you could still act, but at a penalty.

Ok, but what does it add to the game?

It is darkness, but you can see in it as if it was dim light, in which you can see as if it was bright light. You don’t see in it as humans see in dim light, you see in it as if it was dim light. And if it was dim light, you would see in it as if it was bright light. Ergo, you see in it as if it was bright light.

Again, I understand that’s not the intent, but it is a logically valid interpretation of the words, and it’s the one I (mistakenly) thought was correct up until now.


It doesn’t have to change the level of light, it changes the way you see in the light.

The rules language doesn’t work that way. The sentence as a whole is structured as one ability, that changes how you see in different light, not as two separate abilities. It also is referring to lighting conditions as they are in the game world, not as you treat them.

Importantly, when there are two interpretations of a line of rules text in a “plain speech” set of rules text, you simply discount the completely nonsensical one. It is nonsensical for the rule to be worded the way it is, if the rule is that you see in dim light and darkness as if they were bright light. It wouldn’t just be poorly worded, it would be completely incompetent to word it the way it is, because it would create incredible confusion, because the most obvious interpretation is that the two conditions are being treated differently.

 

[Charlaquin]

The rules language doesn’t work that way. The sentence as a whole is structured as one ability, that changes how you see in different light, not as two separate abilities.

One ability that changes the way you see in two different lighting conditions.

It also is referring to lighting conditions as they are in the game world, not as you treat them.

It says “you see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light.” If it were bright light, you would not suffer disadvantage on attacks and vision-related checks in it. It also says, “and in darkness as if it were dim light.” If it were dim light, you would suffer disadvantage on attacks and vision based checks in it, unless it were within 60 feet of you, in which case you would see in it as if it were bright light. This is, in my opinion, the most natural reading of the text. It is evidently not the intended function of the rule, and fine, I’m perfectly happy to accept that. I just think it could have been phrased with less ambiguity.

Importantly, when there are two interpretations of a line of rules text in a “plain speech” set of rules text, you simply discount the completely nonsensical one. It is nonsensical for the rule to be worded the way it is, if the rule is that you see in dim light and darkness as if they were bright light.

Right, which is why when I realized that the intent was for the range at which you can see in darkness as if it were dim light is limited to the same radius at which you can see in dim light as if it were bright light, it became clear to me that the intent was not for you to treat darkness within that radius as if it were bright light, because that would be dumb. But because the wording is also not clear that the range at which you can see in darkness as if it were dim light is limited at all, my initial interpretation is still a valid natural reading of the text, arguably a more natural one than the intended one.

It wouldn’t just be poorly worded, it would be completely incompetent to word it the way it is, because it would create incredible confusion, because the most obvious interpretation is that the two conditions are being treated differently.

My argument is that it is what you call an incompetent way to word it, because the most obvious interpretation (to me) is that the difference in how the rule treats the two different conditions is the range at which it changes the way you treat them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One ability that changes the way you see in two different lighting conditions.

If the rule was that it changes them in the same way, it would say that, though. It doesn’t. If you have to “lawyer” with a string of literal logic (rather than natural reading) to get the rule to say something, it doesn’t say that.

It says “you see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light.” If it were bright light, you would not suffer disadvantage on attacks and vision-related checks in it. It also says, “and in darkness as if it were dim light.” If it were dim light, you would suffer disadvantage on attacks and vision based checks in it, unless it were within 60 feet of you, in which case you would see in it as if it were bright light. This is, in my opinion, the most natural reading of the text. It is evidently not the intended function of the rule, and fine, I’m perfectly happy to accept that. I just think it could have been phrased with less ambiguity.

I don’t see the ambiguity. It clearly restricts the ability to within the range of the ability.
Edit: actually, the wording is simply objectively wrong in (at least some, I’m not gonna read them all to make sure they’re the same) instances of the race feature entries. It literally says what your first interpretation is, and needs to be errata’d.

The MM description (which is also the description in the compendium on DDB if you want to just read the text of darkvision) makes it explicitly clear that the entire ability is limited to the range of the creature’s darkvision, with the first sentence.

Right, which is why when I realized that the intent was for the range at which you can see in darkness as if it were dim light is limited to the same radius at which you can see in dim light as if it were bright light, it became clear to me that the intent was not for you to treat darkness within that radius as if it were bright light, because that would be dumb. But because the wording is also not clear that the range at which you can see in darkness as if it were dim light is limited at all, my initial interpretation is still a valid natural reading of the text, arguably a more natural one than the intended one.

we agree on that last part, for sure.

My argument is that it is what you call an incompetent way to word it, because the most obvious interpretation (to me) is that the difference in how the rule treats the two different conditions is the range at which it changes the way you treat them.

it’s poorly written in regards to where the darkness part of it ends, not in terms of the text implying that you see in darkness as bright light within x feet.

 

[Grognerd]

It seems possible to make ‘darkvision’ and ‘dimvision’ identical statistically, except that the dimvision requires at least some lightsource, no matter how small − even a single star would suffice.

I like this. It captures the general flavor that people seem to be wanting, and doesn't over-complicate what 5e intentionally simplified.
(Of course, I also disagree entirely with the notion that 5e 'over-simplified' the vision issues, since worrying about 12 different levels and types of vision is not fun for me and mine. Of course, OMMV.)

 

[Charlaquin]

If the rule was that it changes them in the same way, it would say that, though. It doesn’t. If you have to “lawyer” with a string of literal logic (rather than natural reading) to get the rule to say something, it doesn’t say that.

I’m not “lawyering” anything. “You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.” The most natural reading of that, in my opinion, is that you can see in all darkness as if it were dim light, and you can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, which means that in a lightless environment, you’d have a 60-foot radius around yourself in which you can see as if it were bright light, and beyond that you can see as if it were dim light.

Knowing that the intent is for the “within 60 feet of you” part to apply to the “, and in darkness as if it were dim light” part, it becomes clear that you are meant to be able to see in darkness within 60 feet of you differently than you are meant to see in dim light within 60 feet of you. But it is extremely unclear that that is the intent, which is why I believe my incorrect interpretation to be the most natural one.

Edit: actually, the wording is simply objectively wrong in (at least some, I’m not gonna read them all to make sure they’re the same) instances of the race feature entries. It literally says what your first interpretation is, and needs to be errata’d.

That’s what I’ve been saying. And yes, it’s worded that way in all the race entries.

The MM description (which is also the description in the compendium on DDB if you want to just read the text of darkvision) makes it explicitly clear that the entire ability is limited to the range of the creature’s darkvision, with the first sentence.

Well, I haven’t read the monster manual cover to cover. I usually just look up whatever stat block I happen to need, and stat blocks don’t specify how Darkvision works. I assumed it worked the same way for monsters as it does for PC races, and the way it’s worded for PC races suggests the interpretation I’ve been defending here.

we agree on that last part, for sure.
it’s poorly written in regards to where the darkness part of it ends, not in terms of the text implying that you see in darkness as bright light within x feet.

It doesn’t imply that you see in darkness as bright light, it implies that you see in all darkness as dim light, and that you see in dim light within 60 feet of you as bright light. Since you see in all darkness as dim light, you’d never have darkness within 60 feet of you to treat as bright light, because you’re already treating it as dim light, which you in turn treat as bright light if it is within 60 feet of you.

And once more for clarity: I now understand that this interpretation is wrong, but I stand by my assertion that it is the most natural way to read the text of dark vision in the PC race entries.

 

[CapnZapp]

Again the elegant solution is to roll back WotC's ill-advised changes. This solves everything because nothing about low-light and dark vision was broken in 3E.