Blind to Blindness

Fauchard1520 · Oct 2, 2018

Whenever I'm playing human or dragonborn, I tend to have trouble remembering my lack of darkvision (comic for illustrative purposes). Same deal when I'm DMing: it always seems to slip my mind, and I never remember to enforce it properly. How do you guys incorporate light and darkness at the table? Any tips for making it more "present" in the game world?

ad_hoc · Oct 2, 2018

Fauchard1520 said:
Whenever I'm playing human or dragonborn, I tend to have trouble remembering my lack of darkvision (comic for illustrative purposes). Same deal when I'm DMing: it always seems to slip my mind, and I never remember to enforce it properly. How do you guys incorporate light and darkness at the table? Any tips for making it more "present" in the game world?

When we form a party someone takes on the duty of providing light. Then there is an assumption that it is the default.

A change then to darkness (or brighter light to out a far distance) is noticed as it is out of the ordinary.

It's important to remember that monsters that live in the dark are comfortable there. Darkvision only treats darkness as dim light, so everyone will have trouble seeing if the party is in darkness.

It is usually best to have a light source.

Kobold Stew · Oct 2, 2018

In my experience this is the rule that gets omitted most in 5e: that dim light imposes disadvantage on perception checks.

It's not especially well-written on PHB 183, but it is there, as well as on those few abilities that make an exception (such as the Barbarians' Eyes of the Eagle and the Skulker feat).

If you want to make darkness present, even for characters with Darkvision, enforce that rule. Everything you want will follow from that.

Blue · Oct 2, 2018

Light flows naturally.

But really my only tip is that my players ask what they can see. So maybe the secret is training them.

Last night's session in nigh pitch-black in the Underdark in a very large area had two characters with darkvision (who would miss things far away), two normal-sighted characters using a consumable magic unguent (Dark Salve - you spread it on your eyelids and when you close your eyes you can see through the dark as if it was a well lit day. With no other effects, really, Honest.) who could see the whole battlefield in the huge lava bubble, and a long-standing warforged homebrew variant who "sees in the dark" by have his eyes light up as lamps for 30' - which also betrays him to anyone else in the dark.

On the other hand, I rarely have "dim light" except as the outskirts of normal light. I forget to apply that all the time.

iserith · Oct 2, 2018

Even for in-person games I use Roll20 with dynamic lighting. You see what your token can see, which can be set to have darkvision. This makes it nice and easy plus I can play with darkness and illumination as a real effect that hinders or helps the monsters or PCs in a way that's easy to manage.

Oofta · Oct 2, 2018

When I describe a scene, part of that description is light. If it's a new group, I remind people of the disadvantage caused by dim light and ask if anyone has a light source.

Satyrn · Oct 2, 2018

I generally say that the range of a light source is "the room." That is, if there is a bright light source in a room, that whole room is illuminated, and adjacent rooms are dimly lit (if the doors are open, obviusly).

That works most of the time, and exceptions that exist are readily handled by DM rulings. The two most common: A bright light in a large room will illuminate half the room with the rest of the room being dimly lit; and for open spaces I'll just use the light source's listed radius.

Fauchard1520 · Oct 18, 2018

iserith said:
Even for in-person games I use Roll20 with dynamic lighting. You see what your token can see, which can be set to have darkvision. This makes it nice and easy plus I can play with darkness and illumination as a real effect that hinders or helps the monsters or PCs in a way that's easy to manage.

What's your setup like? I'm moving from an apartment to a proper house this year, and considering what kind of setup I want for my next table.

iserith · Oct 18, 2018

Fauchard1520 said:
What's your setup like? I'm moving from an apartment to a proper house this year, and considering what kind of setup I want for my next table.

For in-person games, it's just a power strip and some laptops connected to the wifi.

Blind to Blindness

Fauchard1520

Adventurer

ad_hoc

(they/them)

Kobold Stew

Last Guy in the Airlock

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Oofta

Legend

Satyrn

First Post

Fauchard1520

Adventurer

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Similar Threads