D&D 5E Is 5e Darkvision A Good Design?

[Hoffmand]

I just think the ability is given to way too many critters.

 

[Nebulous]

Dark vision simply isn’t that powerful. It’s nice but seeing in dim-light sucks.

Only if the DM consistently enforces it and makes it sucky. It is an easy thing to forget or ignore.

 

[nevin]

I think Darkvision is fine but I like regular light cutting it out. Then party with a light source isn't going to get surprise but anyone looking at them can't use darkvision. this creates the dynamic of "do we want to sneak in with darkvision or blanket the area with light and go in boldly"

But overall I preferred infravision. I think the most overlooked part of infravision is that undead have no body heat. I remember great games where the party suddenly realized they were surrounded by undead, or the vampire simply followed them unnoticed in the dark. Also reptiles, fungus creatures and plant creatures are cold blooded.


I think the big problem with Darkvision is too many races have it and it's too easy to obtain so it's really not an issue in most games thus removing the reason for monster's to have it. Monsters seeing in the dark when you can't sucks. I honestly wouldn't have a problem removing it from PC's. It would make certain magic items more useful.

 

[RoyalDragon69]

Darkvision is a good design because 5e wasn't ment to be a 3.5 repeat. 5e explains just enough to get your imagination going. Then it let's you shine with your ingenuity.
Notice how in 5e it doesn't go into much detail about how darkvision works. Is it magic? Is it an evolutionary trait (IE: cats eyes)? Why does it only have 60' of range? The reason they left so many questions unanswered is so that you the player/ DM may decide how things work.
Does Darkvision work with a telescope? I'll have you know that darkvision does work with a telescope. The rules as written don't say anything about this. Does that mean the answer is no? Of course not XD! However do you or your players have the knowledge of science, technology, & how magic works in 5e to explain how it would work?
In conclusion, that is the challenge & experience I believe the creators would like us to enjoy.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Darkvision is a good design because 5e wasn't ment to be a 3.5 repeat. 5e explains just enough to get your imagination going. Then it let's you shine with your ingenuity.
Notice how in 5e it doesn't go into much detail about how darkvision works. Is it magic? Is it an evolutionary trait (IE: cats eyes)? Why does it only have 60' of range? The reason they left so many questions unanswered is so that you the player/ DM may decide how things work.
Does Darkvision work with a telescope? I'll have you know that darkvision does work with a telescope. The rules as written don't say anything about this. Does that mean the answer is no? Of course not XD! However do you or your players have the knowledge of science, technology, & how magic works in 5e to explain how it would work?
In conclusion, that is the challenge & experience I believe the creators would like us to enjoy.

In short, 5e's design goal was to generate endless Threads like this one.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Darkvision is a good design because 5e wasn't ment to be a 3.5 repeat. 5e explains just enough to get your imagination going. Then it let's you shine with your ingenuity.
Notice how in 5e it doesn't go into much detail about how darkvision works. Is it magic? Is it an evolutionary trait (IE: cats eyes)? Why does it only have 60' of range? The reason they left so many questions unanswered is so that you the player/ DM may decide how things work.
Does Darkvision work with a telescope? I'll have you know that darkvision does work with a telescope. The rules as written don't say anything about this. Does that mean the answer is no? Of course not XD! However do you or your players have the knowledge of science, technology, & how magic works in 5e to explain how it would work?
In conclusion, that is the challenge & experience I believe the creators would like us to enjoy.

None of that means it’s well designed. It just means the design goals were consistent, but there are several ways those goals could have been accomplished.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Even when they do run it that way (I do), disadvantage on Perception checks isn't enough of a penalty to offset the advantage of being able to function in complete darkness. That's just too valuable a capability. And it makes humans, halflings, and dragonborn a huge liability for the party in darkness: either they light a torch and blow stealth for the whole team, or they try to wander through blind.

I would much prefer for every PC race to have the same problem with total darkness and thus be on the same footing for the "Should we light a torch?" question. 3E-style low-light vision, which treats dim light as bright light and doubles the effective range of point light sources but is still blind in the dark, would have been a much more party-friendly way to model the eyes of elves and dwarves and the like. Maybe especially "dark-friendly" races like tieflings get a version of devil's sight on top of low-light vision: they can ignore magical darkness, but still need light to do it.

Once you get into class features and magical effects, I'm more okay with actual darkvision and devil's sight. Those are perks you earn. But the baseline assumption should be that everybody needs a torch or suffers the consequences for not having one together.

I like what your laying down here. I just don't like to have too many house rules, because that just becomes mental baggage I have to carry to every session.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I do as well. Also interesting that none of the core 4E races had darkvision.

/offtopic - I've come around on my view of 4E. There is still a lot I don't like but I appreciate its design evolution a lot more than I did at the time. I could almost envision a "4.5E", but using the core of 5E and moving back towards 4E. But that's a topic for another thread.

Start that thread please.

 

[Pauln6]

I think that there are a lot of nuances that get overlooked. Disadvantage on perception checks to see but only those with the skulker feat or a specific ability can hide in dim light so technically they can see targets in the dark.

A torch or lantern provides illumination to a greater distance so demi humans can't moan about the annoying humans quite so much in this edition.

I think it's fine.

I saw the note about 'blowing Stealth' for team but the team can't Stealth in dim light and most monsters have darkvision too.

 

[Fenris-77]

I saw the note about 'blowing Stealth' for team but the team can't Stealth in dim light and most monsters have darkvision too.

Pardon? Of course they can use stealth in dim light.