A Lack of Vision

[Bradley Hindman]

In my opinion two rule changes from edition to edition have exacerbated this problem. 1) The elimination of low-light vision in favor of darkvision has changed the balance so that often only one or two characters in a party can't see in the dark. Further, all of the underground races now have darkvision so you have to wonder why they would bother erecting light sources in their lairs. 2) Previously darkvision was infravision. Infravision wasn't nearly as useful. Sure, you could see the hot orc whose body temperature caused it to emit infrared light. But, in a dark empty underground room, everything (except yourself of course) would be the same temperature. Infravision would only allow you to see a uniform gray. Hence, infravision was not very useful for sneaking around in dungeons. Of course, I approve of removing the "sciency" explanation of infravision from my fantasy game, but the conversion to darkvision is a dramatic upgrade.

In my games, I like the imagery of orcs and goblins living in poorly lit (but not completely dark) caves. I want the ability to see in complete darkness to be truly terrifying and rare. Hence, in my next campaign, I will likely convert almost all darkvision to low-light vision. This still allows the races with low-light vision to sneak up on a group of goblins who are guarding a torch-lit cave entrance. But, it ensures that both the goblins and the adventurers will need light sources.

 

[jaelis]

See this is mostly my point.

In this case they put such a big deficit that in most cases GMs will simply ignore the rules. There are quite a few refs to that effect.

So what i would rather have is far more user friendly vision rules (treat everything as bright or dim except for actual obscuration or magical) and then have darkvision be a fscet that provides an advantage that like most racial features is a little bit helpful.

That puts "do i play a dv race" as not such a major issue.

5e seems to generally work racial and class and backgrounds from a basis of "functional play as default" with thr features being "i.provements" and not from "seriously hurt without it in common circumstances."

But, my experience says many just look for an excuse to ignore the rule (someone has a light, right?) as opposed to using it.

So a normal 5e baseline plus edge for DV would give a playable elrment.

I am **not** wanting a comprehensive light rule, just a workable base and DV edge.

It would be weird to me though if a human weren't genuinely blind in a dark cave or overcast night. But I'm not sure you're saying they wouldn't be, it sounds like maybe you just won't generally use dark caves or overcast nights? Which is what I say too, I don't quite understand why that favors a change in the rules.

Is it that you want darkvision to have more impact when playing with "it's hardly ever truly dark" rules?

 

[Wiseblood]

5ekyu is on to something here. I may have more to say later when I have had more time. I have thought and do think that the rules for vision and light are logistically and narratively onerous.

DEFCON1 if you handwaive vision and light aren't you essentially nerfing those with DV? Is the rule bad to you and this was the work around Or is it something you rarely/never use because of another reason?

 

[jgsugden]

My vision system is far more complex. I have in my game:

1.) Low light vision (Treat dim light like full light) - Tends to be dor dusk and dawn hunting races/species
2.) Darkvision (you produce a black and white light source that only you can see, and extends only to the radius of your DV). - usually subterranean races.
3.) Infravision (you can see heat within dim or darker light) - night hunting races often have it.
4.) Ultravision (you can see ultraviolet light, which is generally just used for secret writings and certain types of magical lighting). Magical races with "strange" characteristics, like Gith, Illithid and Drow have it, but it is rare.
5.) Blindsight (colorless sight that sees invisible - like darkvision, it works like light that emanates from you that only you can see, but does sense invisible)
6.) Demonsight (What demons have - unlimited range full color darkvision)
7.) Truesight (Essentially sees all - magical in nature and is described as something )

Dim light conceals.

This is the same model for vision I've used for about 20 years and it friggin works with rare questions about vision arising. The terminology gets adjusted for every edition, and I have to decide which vision to give to which monsters (orcs, half-orcs and other surface night hunting races have infravision and/or low light vision in my games rather than darkvision, while subterranean races tend to have darkvision, etc...), but common sense prevails in most situations.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I think the problem is not the rule for lighting itself, but the fact that most races have an natural ability to ignore the rule, making it easily forgotten or handwaved since it sucks to say: ''Ok, you enter the room. Everybody, but the Halfling sees X''. It feel more like a punishment for not taking a race with darkvision than a fun bonus to those who have it.

Yeah. I haven't done it yet, but I'm thinking of retconning darkvision into old-school low-light vision for all PC races: double the effective range of light sources, ambient dim light functions as bright light, but darkness is still darkness. Just so the party is all on the same page with respect to needing a light source to function.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, some basic questions for feedback and assessment:
Do you play the lighting rules as presented so that most outside at night is indeed blinded fully obscured visibility?

No.

To what extent do you mitigate the lighting rules with handwaves, easy access to Dv items, or just pretty much ignoring it after maybe some initial setup?

Prettymuch completely. Did anyone remember to write 'torch' on the character sheet, anyone have a light cantrip? OK, not going to worry about it.

Do you find frequent scenes where the 5e raw visual blindness fun to play through?
Do you find it very frequent that after even a short period of play (or chargen) all the PCs have DV-type vision because they just do not want the hassle? if so, did the characters with DV racial features get an extra added something or did they just see their racial feature handed out or hand waved?

' No' to all, since I de-emphasize problems with lighting.

have you implemented a house rule that changes the lighting stuff (or even if not a rule script around them)?

Script around them, I guess. I run a lot of intro games, new players like humans, having them blinded half the time wouldn't be conducive to a fun first play experience, so not big on the utterly dark environments, and put convenient light sources on all the pregens.

Any thoughts or ideas on this notion - changing DV and its ilk to some form of advantage in poor lighting as opposed to inflicting lighting issues as the default?

In the spirit of 5e, I think.

Any thoughts on other ways to reflect the benefits of "in this lighting i am better off" that are possibly more interesting or active? I have ideas but am interested in hearing others.

Back in the day, I re-named Infravision 'Dark Sight' and used an odd history-of-science theory of vision, combined with a world composed of only a few 'elements.' Here goes: Light & Darkness are opposed, tangible elements, so any given area is generally filled with one or the other. Darkness & fire also tend to oppose eachother, as do Earth & Light (obviously, earth & fire are the 'stronger' elements). Normal vision works because (I am not making this up, it really was a pre-Newtonian theory) your eyes emit 'rays' that touch distant objects, allowing you to see them. Light does not block these rays, darkness does. Dark Sight uses rays with the opposite associations, so creatures with darksight see perfectly in total darkness (even find it a bit of a 'glare') and are completely blind in sufficiently bright light. Not momentarily blinded while their eyes adjust.
Thus there was a downside to darksight.

Again, the overall objective is to create a case where the "i have darkvision" is an advantage to have that does not require really onerous penalties applied to everyone without Dv in a lot of scenes *and* that is playable enough that the whole Dv/lighting doesn't get "worked around" out of play after even a few sessions.

Sounds reasonable at first blush.

 

[5ekyu]

It would be weird to me though if a human weren't genuinely blind in a dark cave or overcast night. But I'm not sure you're saying they wouldn't be, it sounds like maybe you just won't generally use dark caves or overcast nights? Which is what I say too, I don't quite understand why that favors a change in the rules.

Is it that you want darkvision to have more impact when playing with "it's hardly ever truly dark" rules?

If you look across most of the fiction, movies, even adventures how frequently do you encounter a few blind and a few sighted?

How often do you see glowing moss or shrooms or even little glowing bugs or lightning and so on illuminating those scenes?

The cases where "its dark (or other special effect) enough to be blinding" are presented rarely in the source material and when they are it is an intended frature of the scene.

Its not just "cloudy at night" level frequency.

Also, if you look at the ways light sources can be taken out, its not hard at all to construct an attack scheme thst focuses on this easy was to throw all the humans and halflings into blindness.

Seems a major condition to be so easily created.

Again, if in your games blindness is easily managed or you have handwaved it or just ignore it - thats great.

Just ignoring rules is fine.

As noted in the first post, i expect some to.

What i was hoping to get to is a different approach which rewards those with the better not hammer those without that leaves things playable and fun without onerous.

But thats fine if you go other directions.

Enjoy.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Back in the day, I re-named Infravision 'Dark Sight' and used an odd history-of-science theory of vision, combined with a world composed of only a few 'elements.' Here goes: Light & Darkness are opposed, tangible elements, so any given area is generally filled with one or the other. Darkness & fire also tend to oppose eachother, as do Earth & Light (obviously, earth & fire are the 'stronger' elements). Normal vision works because (I am not making this up, it really was a pre-Newtonian theory) your eyes emit 'rays' that touch distant objects, allowing you to see them. Light does not block these rays, darkness does. Dark Sight uses rays with the opposite associations, so creatures with darksight see perfectly in total darkness (even find it a bit of a 'glare') and are completely blind in sufficiently bright light. Not momentarily blinded while their eyes adjust.

I always love to see people bucking the assumption that the underlying scientific truth in a fantasy world is identical to ours.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If you look across most of the fiction, movies, even adventures how frequently do you encounter a few blind and a few sighted?

Perhaps the most famous scene in J.R.R. Tolkien is "Riddles in the Dark".

Just sayin'.

How often do you see glowing moss or shrooms or even little glowing bugs or lightning and so on illuminating those scenes?

The film adaptation of "Riddles in the Dark".

Just sayin'.

 

[Nevvur]

I removed racial dark vision from my latest campaign. It's still a class feature/spell/magic item for those with access to it, but I wanted to run a game where dark vision isn't so common and darkness is... scarier, I guess?Honestly, it's been hit and miss per scene whether its a hassle or an immersive feature. Part of me reminisces on earlier campaigns with easy DV, but the change has produced some cool moments that would've been impossible otherwise.

I generally abide by RAW (including PHB errata re: blinded), but apply common sense in specific situations. For instance, a person standing just outside the outer rim of torch light might still be readily detectable if he's wearing shiny metal armor. Torch light doesn't just stop travelling after 40 feet, only its effective illumination. I also dim torches and similar light sources to half their illumination if you drop them on the ground.

One of my most common DM mistakes is forgetting about dim light and disadvantage on perception. I mostly play on roll20 where it's easy to illustrate light sources, but even then it's one of those rules that seems to slip my mind a lot. Personally, I'd be fine with removing the dim light category entirely, and just treat areas as light or dark.