Can I classify infravision as an age-old debate yet?

[The Dungeon Nazi]

In the thread about explaining why invisibility ends with an attack, Dr_Rictus says:

Because it's a magic spell, and attacking breaks the spell. Like kissing the frog in the fairy tale.

You're analyzing this way too much, basically.

This is the same explanation I've used for Infravision for years, and never really understood why it was considered broke or unbalancing or something. When reading through Sean K. Reynolds' rant on infravision, I never understood why you'd worry about things like whether or not invisibility prevents heat from escaping your body or rapidly cools the heat leaving your body. It's just magic, and that's it.

If your infravision has a range of 60', then you can't see a red dragon giving off lots of heat 70' away. Why not? Because it's magic, and that's how infravision works. Period.

What I can't stand above all else is that Salvatore used the concept beautifully in his Drizzt books, especially in Homeland. There are all these wonderful heat-based sights and innovations in Menzoberranzan, like Narbondel, and those little heated metal plates used for morse code.

I haven't seen any threads dealing with infravision, so I'm curious what everybody thinks about this.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

This is why I never liked infravision. In the early days we just didn't use it much (torches ruin it, so if you have humans with your group, you have to split off to use it -- plus, in a dark cave, you would be stumbling over rocks and such), but later we tried. In the end, I prefer low light vision. Elves, dwarves, etc., have vision something more like cats. They can see better and further in the dark than humans. For some magical creatures, it makes sense to just say that a vampire, for example, can see at night as well as a human during the daylight.

Anyone know where the idea of infravision for elves and dwarves came from? There is no suggestion of them seeing heat sources in Tolkien.

 

[N Hammer]

I think that was one of the big improvements in 3e...change IR vision to Low-light....I never understood why Elves got IR....

 

[hong]

I haven't seen any threads dealing with infravision, so I'm curious what everybody thinks about this.

Of course you're not going to see any threads dealing with infravision, because it doesn't exist any longer. Warp back in time five years, and things might be different.

Really, you said it yourself: it's magic. If it's magic, why bother with a pseudo-scientific handwave that doesn't get you anywhere? All that happens is that it opens up a whole can of worms regarding how infravision works in the presence of complicating factors. This is basically why darkvision in 3E dispenses with the technobabble. It's simple, straightforward (you see in the dark without needing a light source) and doesn't encourage people to ask curly questions.