D&D (2024) Darkvision: it's here to stay for most races. What penalties could be added to keep is viable, but still have incentive to use light?

[Horwath]

Now darkvision turns darkness into dim light at given range.

dim light only has penalty(disadvantage) to sight based perception.

What if that penalty broadens up to anything relying on sight that isn't attack roll?

I.E:
Investigation; you need to see fine details
Insight; black and white vision and low detail, you might miss some body language clues,
Thief tools; again, fine details matter here
Most of artisan tools;
Possible stealth on the move; you could miss some clutter on the floor due to poor vision. Some Perception check(with disadvantage) might negate this.
Survival; foraging, some poisonous berries might slip in with edibles due to color.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Now darkvision turns darkness into dim light at given range.

dim light only has penalty(disadvantage) to sight based perception.

What if that penalty broadens up to anything relying on sight that isn't attack roll?

I.E:
Investigation; you need to see fine details
Insight; black and white vision and low detail, you might miss some body language clues,
Thief tools; again, fine details matter here
Most of artisan tools;
Possible stealth on the move; you could miss some clutter on the floor due to poor vision. Some Perception check(with disadvantage) might negate this.
Survival; foraging, some poisonous berries might slip in with edibles due to color.

This is no nerf. This is already how it is now. People just ignore it.

 

[CleverNickName]

This is no nerf. This is already how it is now. People just ignore it.

Yep. If even a single character in the group has darkvision, I'll make sure that the players never encounter a single darkened room.

Mysterious glowing fog. Bioluminescent mushrooms. A full moon over every forest clearing, a torch in every sconce, a bonfire in the center of every room, whatever it takes. I hate darkvision so much that I'll invent any reason at all to ignore it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yep. If even a single character in the group has darkvision, I'll make sure that the players never encounter a single darkened room.

Mysterious glowing fog. Bioluminescent mushrooms. A full moon over every forest clearing, a torch in every sconce, a bonfire in the center of every room, whatever it takes. I hate darkvision so much that I'll invent any reason at all to ignore it.

View attachment 258893

The funniest thing for me is, Darkvision was supposed to be a simplification and to make everything easier than the Infravision/Ultravision or Low-Light Vision/Darkvision days, but I find it's way more of a pain than those days, especially as it's usually on like, 60-80% of the party. People with Low-Light Vision tended to use lights too, whereas Darkvision people tend not to, which I think is at the core of the problem. I think we should just bring back Low-Light Vision, honestly.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

A 35 gp tax on the starting gold would be fine. So the party can pool to buy a low end Goggle of Night (starting at 101 gp) for their sight-impaired companions. It's not a penalty, it's helping a friend with disabilities.

 

[tetrasodium]

I desperately have thst the omission of dark vision from the glossaethsr includes tremorsense indicates a total rework of dark vision. The rules for it are so bad that I almost wind up forces to put lights everywhere.


Even if I give out clip on lights with no hand use my experience is that players will just refuse to use them "because monsters might see them"... So I stopped trying things like that too. The fact that I need to describe things for everyone else & ease of no dark vision players to just go with that makes it even more worthless for me to try. Running with a local vtt capable of handling vision and such does not even allow me to limit vision on the screen to dark vision range because the ranges are so silly long that it's effectively the same as everyone running around with modern excessive floodlights.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I desperately have thst the omission of dark vision from the glossaethsr includes tremorsense indicates a total rework of dark vision. The rules for it are so bad that I almost wind up forces to put lights everywhere.


Even if I give out clip on lights with no hand use my experience is that players will just refuse to use them "because monsters might see them"... So I stopped trying things like that too. The fact that I need to describe things for everyone else & ease of no dark vision players to just go with that makes it even more worthless for me to try. Running with a local vtt capable of handling vision and such does not even allow me to limit vision on the screen to dark vision range because the ranges are so silly long that it's effectively the same as everyone running around with modern excessive floodlights.

My experience is similar. Never mind that the monsters have Darkvision and no PC with Darkvision ever seems to manage to get the drop on them, but they get into overcomplicated "no lights" situations whilst the one human has to basically hide or stand and stare into the darkness or whatever.

The only solution I can see is to make it so Darkvision is not so common (which could be done by turning most of it into Low-Light Vision) or just to turn all of it into Low-Light Vision so that no lights at all is still usually a bum idea.

 

[Horwath]

My experience is similar. Never mind that the monsters have Darkvision and no PC with Darkvision ever seems to manage to get the drop on them, but they get into overcomplicated "no lights" situations whilst the one human has to basically hide or stand and stare into the darkness or whatever.

The only solution I can see is to make it so Darkvision is not so common (which could be done by turning most of it into Low-Light Vision) or just to turn all of it into Low-Light Vision so that no lights at all is still usually a bum idea.

there is always a problem if you use a light source and your enemy does not.

Now they see you, but you do not see them.

Enjoy being peppered from 150ft with perma advanatage(if terrain give that opportunity OFC)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

there is always a problem if you use a light source and your enemy does not.

Now they see you, but you do not see them.

Enjoy being peppered from 150ft with perma advanatage(if terrain give that opportunity OFC)

Not just terrain.

For that to happen they need:

A) Terrain.

B) The correct weapons.

C) Not to be terrible with them.

The vast majority of monsters just don't even have a ranged attack. Let alone one worth using and with 150' range. The chances of all that lining up in D&D are pretty damn low in most games.

 

[tetrasodium]

My experience is similar. Never mind that the monsters have Darkvision and no PC with Darkvision ever seems to manage to get the drop on them, but they get into overcomplicated "no lights" situations whilst the one human has to basically hide or stand and stare into the darkness or whatever.

The only solution I can see is to make it so Darkvision is not so common (which could be done by turning most of it into Low-Light Vision) or just to turn all of it into Low-Light Vision so that no lights at all is still usually a bum idea.

I'm almost exclusively sa GM & players getting the drop on monsters is more common than not during dungeon crawls. Intelligent darkvision having monsters use lights where they live... They use them everywhere... more lights than nondarkvision races in fact just to svoid having to deal with the terrible darkvision rules that tried to eliminate the relevance of darkness in all situations other than the most obnoxious of hostile GM style gotcha traps.