Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling

[Micah Sweet]

Right. I get that unlimited attack cantrips have some annoying worldbuilding implications in that they make the world feel more magic-ful, but they're mostly there so the Wizard doesn't have to resort to a dagger or crossbow or just standing in the back.

It's the utility ones which have more of a gameplay impact.

Worldbuilding is as important as gameplay to me.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I say the Interpretation of Dark Vision ruins dungeon crawls.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, I like the monsters being able to see in the dark.

So...much...scarier.

Yeah, I assumed he meant no PCs with darkvision. That's what I want.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yep. Maybe others played differently... but for me the focuses of dungeon crawling were about exploring areas, fighting monsters, and working your way around traps. That was what dungeon crawling was about. The whole resource-management thing was there, sure... but we weren't playing for that... that was just some smaller thing we had to keep half-an-eye on while doing all the important other stuff. As you say... there were plenty of ways to get around the lighting issue, so it never ended up being "a thing" that we had to get tactically savvy with or work on.

It didn't hurt that torches were cheap and weren't exactly bulky, nor was lamp oil, so running people out of them wasn't going to be common most of the time; people were more likely to pull back because they'd run out of spells well before that.

 

[Reynard]

I say the Interpretation of Dark Vision ruins dungeon crawls.

What interpretation? the rules are pretty straight forward.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is a big issue with darkvision IMO. It's a simplistic stand-in for literally all forms of better vision. We used to have more granular ways (not way, ways) to determine what a being can and can't see, and I think that was worth it personally.

Though honestly, barring blindsight (which was hard to get), you could go a long time with whether you have darkvision or infravision and whether it was 60' or 120' making a big difference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree. I've been fortunate enough to have had experience with real world 'dungeons' a couple of times, and it wasn't until I had that experience that I appreciated just how vital light and light sources are. Removing the need for those does the game a real disservice, IMO.

Also, IMO, I'm inclined to think that almost every creature and species that currently has darkvision should have it removed entirely, and the few that retain it should have it downgraded to low-light vision only.

That's a way old fight though; pretty much everything the D&D sphere wanted to use as dungeon or underground monsters has had low-light/dark/blindsight capability for a very long time now, because otherwise it brought up the question of how they operated, and most designers didn't want to fuss with it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Wasn't it 3rd edition where 0-level spells were introduced? IIRC they were more utility spells, and if they did do damage, it was minimal at best 1d3 maybe? You make a good point that I hadn't thought of that without cantrips that do damage spell caster are forced to resort to mundane weapons. I'm not opposed to cantrips, but I do think that unlimited casting at 1d6 (or more) damage is a little excessive.

If its less than a D8 you're back to every mage being a crossbowman.

 

[R_J_K75]

The unlimited scaling attack cantrips allows some offensive power to get through numerous encounters and allows the spell slots to be strategic as they should be. No longer were all the slots taken by blasting and controlling spells.

Good point that I'd not thought of as well. To me the concepts in AD&D were simpler sometimes. For instance, wizard spell casting; you had to rest 8 hours to memorize spells, you picked your spells, and you couldn't re-fill those spell slots again until you used those spells. Things have become a lot more fluid since then with 5E. For as long as I've played D&D, I'd say I've read and played 5E the least, so I don't always catch on to the rule subtleties and tend to fall back on the AD&D game design philosophies more often than I probably should.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I assumed he meant no PCs with darkvision. That's what I want.

That doesn't save you unless you draw a really hard line between playable species and opponent species.