D&D 5E Magic weapons granting tremorsense, rather than shedding light: balanced?

[nevin]

If the item grants tremorsense but you can't use your normal vision then no problem.

I really think that is the way DND should go with different vision/ sensing paradigms. Infravision users / dark vision users should be at a disadvantage if expsed to bright light, fireballs etc. Tremorsense great for detecting monsters but you can't see walls, stationary objects, or even what the moving objects are doing. Just a general size and direction of movement. If somehow a pc got echolocation just someone screaming in thier ear would put them at a disadvantage.

Dm's usually cause thier own problems by assuming each type of vision is equivilant to normal sight. with the possible exception of infravision none of them are equivilant to sight for a pc that's grown up using normal/ infravision. You change your vision type and you don't automatically get to understand all the things that a creature growing up with it knows from experience and instinct.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What do you mean by balanced? 5e isn't balanced around magic items.

I mean is having a free on-demand light source that doesn't require the expenditure of resources or an extra hand to hold it comparable to not being able to see in the dark but having radar/sonar.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I really think that is the way DND should go with different vision/ sensing paradigms. Infravision users / dark vision users should be at a disadvantage if expsed to bright light, fireballs etc.

Man, if they had thought this way during D&D Next, we wouldn't have had the majority of PC races with darkvision, which has long since gone past silly and into the ludicrous. (If it were up to me, it'd be orcs and dwarves with darkvision among common races, and everyone else relies on some sort of light source.)

 

[Lanefan]

If the item grants tremorsense but you can't use your normal vision then no problem.

I agree with all of your post except this, in that tremorsense is using a different sense - touch rather than vision - and use of one shouldn't affect use of the other. Same as being able to see and hear at the same time.

I really think that is the way DND should go with different vision/ sensing paradigms. Infravision users / dark vision users should be at a disadvantage if expsed to bright light, fireballs etc. Tremorsense great for detecting monsters but you can't see walls, stationary objects, or even what the moving objects are doing. Just a general size and direction of movement. If somehow a pc got echolocation just someone screaming in thier ear would put them at a disadvantage.

Dm's usually cause thier own problems by assuming each type of vision is equivilant to normal sight. with the possible exception of infravision none of them are equivilant to sight for a pc that's grown up using normal/ infravision. You change your vision type and you don't automatically get to understand all the things that a creature growing up with it knows from experience and instinct.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree with all of your post except this, in that tremorsense is using a different sense - touch rather than vision - and use of one shouldn't affect use of the other. Same as being able to see and hear at the same time.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my games, I like magic items that force players to make meaningful decisions, especially once they're good enough to require attunement.

A sword that turns the wielder, essentially, into Daredevil, but which means they can't then do the stuff that the sighted can, is an interesting, meaningful choice.

 

[niklinna]

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my games, I like magic items that force players to make meaningful decisions, especially once they're good enough to require attunement.

A sword that turns the wielder, essentially, into Daredevil, but which means they can't then do the stuff that the sighted can, is an interesting, meaningful choice.

I think that's fine, but in this particular case I might prefer a helmet with no eye-holes that grants tremorsense, than a sword.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think that's fine, but in this particular case I might prefer a helmet with no eye-holes that grants tremorsense, than a sword.

Oh, dang, that's a really fun idea, too. I was vamping off of Grueslayer in the later games, but you're right, thematically, this is a lot more fun.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean is having a free on-demand light source that doesn't require the expenditure of resources or an extra hand to hold it comparable to not being able to see in the dark but having radar/sonar.

In that case, no. It's better.

But that doesn't matter, since 5e game design (unlike 3e/Pathfinder) doesn't include magic items in its encounter calculations.