A Lack of Vision

[DEFCON 1]

So, some basic questions for feedback and assessment:

- Do you play the lighting rules as presented so that most outside at night is indeed blinded fully obscured visibility?
- To what extent do you mitigate the lighting rules with handwaves, easy access to DV items, or just pretty much ignoring it after maybe some initial setup?
- Do you find frequent scenes where the 5e raw visual blindness fun to play through?
- Do you find it very frequent that after even a short period of play (or chargen) all the PCs have DV-type vision because they just do not want the hassle? if so, did the characters with DV racial features get an extra added something or did they just see their racial feature handed out or hand waved?
-Have you implemented a house rule that changes the lighting stuff (or even if not a rule script around them)?

I place Vision firmly in the same camp as Languages, Encumbrance, Food & Water Rationing, Spell Components, Weather, Open Hands and Item Switching, and all other rules tied to possible challenges during the Exploration pillar. Were I to play a campaign wherein that sort of micro-level detail of resourcing was a part of the style of play of the game, then I would definitely use them. But then again... were that the case, I'd also make up more detailed, granular and specific house rules to that "mini-game" of resource tracking.

There are a lot of rules that are in the game simply for legacy reasons, or so that there is a basic baseline for each and every DM of every style and experience level to use and/or ignore by their choice. They are basic precisely so that those that want to handwave them can, and those that want more detail can layer additional rules upon them.

But just like the Stealth rules, the designers KNEW that every single DM was going to run each and every one of these things in their own preferred way anyway and there was going to be no consensus on how they should work. So there was no point in going too far into the weeds designing intricate systems that 95% of the playerbase was going to ignore or change anyway.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Well the solution to this is really simple.
The 1/2ling carries a light source.....

He could, but then he must have a free hand (no dual-wield, no shield, no two-hands), and becomes a burden for any stealth attempt.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I tend to parse the lighting conditions a bit more finely, but that's about it.

In anything other than pitch black (or magical) darkness, I allow people to treat darkness as dim light to 10 feet. You can generally tell where people are and the general layout of the environment, but still suffer disadvantage on rolls relating to vision. You can navigate well enough to avoid most obstacles and can engage in melee combat to some extent.

I also use bright light to 60 feet, dim light beyond that quite a bit. Demi-dim light? This gives the periphery a slight disadvantage for ranged combat, slight advantage for stealth and allows some tactical decisions at range.

But generally, I don't worry too much about specified light levels. I tend to think contextually when I'm running a game. If, on a roll:
*You can't see something you either can't interact with it (such as targeting it with a lot of spells) or you have to make a guess as to where something is or how best to interact with it. Such guessing is mentioned in the stealth rules but not expanded upon with any sort of DM advice. I generally just ballpark some odds and do a roll. I usually use 1in2 (4-6 on a d6), 1in3 (5-6 on d6), 1in4 (4 on a d4), 1in6, 1in10 and 1in20. So if an enemy could be in one of 4 possible 'spaces' the odds on 1in4. I use 1in10 and 1in20 for wide open fields of darkness where an enemy might be anywhere off into the night.
*You can't see an enemy clearly enough to target it effectively, quickly notice it, or whatever, you suffer disadvantage to your roll.

 

[5ekyu]

Is this problem specific to 5e though? Managing light has always been an issue...

I do not recall from,earlier editions that outside at night on moonlit nights was defaulted to the same as blinded. I can ssy thst i do not recall in 1-3e thinking that camping putside without a fire meant we could not see someone 5' from us unless we had darkvision.

 

[5ekyu]

Well the solution to this is really simple.
The 1/2ling carries a light source.....

If thats how your gm plays it, yes.

By RAW most light sources have a very limited radius of effect and if one looks at many "fight scenes" that radius becomes a significant element of play every round, especially when attacks from unseen get the advantages. That hafling gets a major whammy when the circumstances are handled RAW.

But, as i stated, it seems like some GMs simply handwaves it.

 

[5ekyu]

Right. Or just put a torch on the wall in the room.

A torch in a room of 40' or less is not the setting for every encounter.

Outside at night attackers can be shooting you at short range for a number of weapons from farther than your torchlight and get advantage.

 

[jaelis]

A torch in a room of 40' or less is not the setting for every encounter.

Outside at night attackers can be shooting you at short range for a number of weapons from farther than your torchlight and get advantage.

OK, that makes more sense I agree. For one, I dismiss the rule that moonlit nights are still dark; first it is unrealistic and second it makes outdoor encounters at night hard. So I'm with you on that; my solution would be to have moonlight if I don't want a fight in the dark. Here I'd be happy if the rules were different.

Past that, I'd be happy to let a campfire illuminate more than 60 ft, which pretty much covers the range of darkvision anyway. An if you are in the dark shooting at a target near the fire, I'd play you can see them, but I'd impose disadvantage because I think it is hard to see shadowy figures around a bright source. This I'm pretty happy leaving up to DMs to handle; I think it would be hard to come up with reasonable all-purpose rules.

 

[ccs]

He could, but then he must have a free hand (no dual-wield, no shield, no two-hands), and becomes a burden for any stealth attempt.

None of that means that the rules should be changed.
The 1/2ling (or human, or Dragonborn) player will just have to accept their limitations & play smarter.
For ex: starting with talking to the other players about wether needing a light source in the party is going to be problem.

 

[5ekyu]

OK, that makes more sense I agree. For one, I dismiss the rule that moonlit nights are still dark; first it is unrealistic and second it makes outdoor encounters at night hard. So I'm with you on that; my solution would be to have moonlight if I don't want a fight in the dark. Here I'd be happy if the rules were different.

Past that, I'd be happy to let a campfire illuminate more than 60 ft, which pretty much covers the range of darkvision anyway. An if you are in the dark shooting at a target near the fire, I'd play you can see them, but I'd impose disadvantage because I think it is hard to see shadowy figures around a bright source. This I'm pretty happy leaving up to DMs to handle; I think it would be hard to come up with reasonable all-purpose rules.

See this is mostly my point.

In this case they put such a big deficit that in most cases GMs will simply ignore the rules. There are quite a few refs to that effect.

So what i would rather have is far more user friendly vision rules (treat everything as bright or dim except for actual obscuration or magical) and then have darkvision be a fscet that provides an advantage that like most racial features is a little bit helpful.

That puts "do i play a dv race" as not such a major issue.

5e seems to generally work racial and class and backgrounds from a basis of "functional play as default" with thr features being "i.provements" and not from "seriously hurt without it in common circumstances."

But, my experience says many just look for an excuse to ignore the rule (someone has a light, right?) as opposed to using it.

So a normal 5e baseline plus edge for DV would give a playable elrment.

I am **not** wanting a comprehensive light rule, just a workable base and DV edge.

 

[jaelis]

OK tangent time about moonlight:
The rules say that a candle produces bright light in 5 ft, dim in 10 ft radius. This seems reasonable to me.

A standard candle is a well-defined thing in science. It produces illumination of 0.008 lux at 5 ft and 0.001 lux at 10 feet.

Wikipedia says a full moon gives 0.05 to 0.3 lux. So that should be bright light.
A moonless clear night with air glow (?) gives 0.002 lux, that should be dim.
An overcast night gives 0.0001 lux. THAT should be dark.