Value of low-light vision?

[Anax]

The change to how low-light vision works was explicitly mentioned somewhere as one of the things they did to simplify matters--also the reason no core races have darkvision. The idea is that you shouldn't have to describe the room in three different ways for three different characters. (The one who sees only 20', the one who sees 40', and the one who sees 60' but it's all black and white.)

According to the RAW, a character with normal vision can see in an area of low illumination, but not as well as he'd like. Any enemy in low lighting conditions has concealment, etc. A character with low light vision sees perfectly well in this area and to him the enemies do not have concealment.

One way to look at the "well lit area" not providing added distance is to say that the eyes of a character with low-light vision are more adaptable to low lighting conditions. However, that doesn't mean that their eyes aren't still affected by bright light. If an area is well lit, their pupils contract and they're getting no more benefit from the light than a person with normal vision. That is: Their eyes adapt to the brightness of the lantern and they see just as far as someone without this benefit.

Is this unrealistic? Yeah, sure. Does it deal with the "you shouldn't have to describe what the players can see in more than one way" problem? Pretty much. Does it work pretty well just as long as you don't demand that it make perfect physical sense? Absolutely: You can have varying lighting conditions and some characters gain an advantage in some of those conditions, and at the same time you don't have to send half of your players outside the room every five minutes. Sounds like a win-win scenario to me.

 

[iyalovoi]

I believe you fogot one useful issue of low-light vision.
Many areas have dim light, which grants concealmant to enemies, but party almost always have sunrods, which have 20 radius. It is quite enough to lit almost any encounter, but light from sunrod can't penetrate through walls, pillars and e.t.c. What does it means? It means that in areas, which is lit by dim light, monsters which are hidding behind obstacles, will have concealment because sunrod can't reach them. That's give great advantage to PC's with low-light vision, since they can see them precisely. In our game session, moster likes to hide behind pillars, because they gains cover/concealment, which greatly buffs their defences. But elf ranger ignores concealment.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Balance? So, are you claiming that doubling the range in 3E WAS unbalanced? I think you are overstating the balance issue. Remember, monsters with Low Light would gain the same advantage.

In the whole of 3e (or maybe 3.5...), there were precisely 3 creatures without lowlight vision or better. Humans, halflings and lizardmen.

So: having normal vision was a penalty rather than low light being a benefit.

And if your DM cared to enforce it, it was a big penalty.

 

[Stalker0]

Well looking back on this issue, low light so far has not come up in my game once

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@ normal vision a penalty in 3.5: yes

@ low light vision not useful when bright light is near you: yes realistic enough, although i would say a (single) torch just sheds dim light... and i would rule a cavern lit by many torches spread out sparsely beeing dim light in total... (because of reflected light etc)

@ usefulness: in 3.5 low light vision was the best you could get... when travelling at night you have a really big advantage, i think in 4e it should also be the same

@ sneak attack in 3.5: yes, a human rogue can´t do sneak attack damage in darkness and has to sneak at half speed... I just allowed any rogue sneak attack in dim light... especially when he has dark vision... (at least when he knows the anatomy of his victim... its not hard to find the throat of a human... really... maybe he might miss a protective item in the dark...)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Well looking back on this issue, low light so far has not come up in my game once

It tends not to. Any human or halfling will insist on having a bright light source around at all times, and any ambushing creatures that use darkness tend to have darkvision OR use magical darkness that ignores vision type.

Playing as a human or halfling rogue however feels really crippling once you realise that you can't even mug someone in a darkened alley.