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.
IME most people have been running it correctly, including new players, in spite of it being worded wrong, so apparently the intent isn't
too unclear, but it definitely isn't worded correctly.
As for lawyering, I was referring to the assertion that because you see in dim light as bright light, seeing in darkness as if it's dim light means you see in darkness as bright light. That isn't a natural reading, it's a bit by bit extrapolation of the exact wording with no regard for what the sentence is meant to say by a casual, natural, reading.
That’s what I’ve been saying. And yes, it’s worded that way in all the race entries.
I know, man. I was recognizing that in the text you quoted.
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.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense. You just went in circles. The text as written implies that "darkness as dim light" extends as far as you can see. That part needs errata. Nothing in the text implies that you see as if in bright light while standing in a lightless 60ft room.
There is no "which in turn". The meaning of the sentence clearly does not stack the second clause onto the first. It clearly refers to them as different cases that cause you to see differently. Because that is clear in the sentence structure and wording, it is then clear (with the rules clarification from SA) you see brightly in an area that is objectively dim light, and dimly in an area that is objectively darkness, within the stated range.
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.
Eh, I'd rather just make Darkvision make more sense by making it explicitly fit Charlequin's initial reading, and leave it at that, or make improved darkvision work that way.
I never really thought it made much sense for elves to have darkvision (or infravision), so when I designed my the elves for my homebrew setting I gave them telescopic vision instead. For a race that favors archery, that makes more sense to me.
OK, you really gonna just drop that and then not explain how you made telescopic vision work in 5e mechanical terms?