Darkvision and Spyglass

[GodOfCheese]

My players are in a remote area and some of them have Darkvision. It occurred to me that there might be some obvious benefits of using Darkvision with a Spyglass or similar item. I'm looking for game balance reasons why I should or should not allow this use. Has anyone come across this and had to rule on it?

Please, no appeals to physics . What I'm looking for are impacts on gameplay and potential abuses first and foremost, and staying true to the genre second.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

If you allow optical magnification to affect darkvision, expect to be seeing it a lot. Darkvision is an extraordinarily handy ability. Note that a magic item to grant the ability takes up a slot and costs 12,000 gp. Note that there are class abilities that only bump darkvision by 30 feet at a time. Note how rare darkvision beyond 60 feet is.

I wouldn't recommend allowing this.

(And I just can't help it: Optical lens magnification is based upon light. Darkvision is not. It just somehow exists. There's no light-based vision to boost via magnification.)

 

[FEADIN]

SRD:
Spyglass

Objects viewed through a spyglass are magnified to twice their size.

With Darkvision objects beyond 60' can't be seen (viewed), the spyglass don't help unless they are in the 60' range.

It doesn't says: "You can see twice as far".

 

[azhrei_fje]

Heh-heh, that's pretty clear. Good catch.

 

[GodOfCheese]

good points. Thanks!

 

[Berod Oyeghirn]

What about a mirror ?

If a mirror lies within the range of your darkvision, can you see on it the reflection of things further away ? What about the reflection of things which fall out of your darkvision range when you add (distance from said thing to the mirror)+(distance from the mirror to your eyes) ?

 

[Maldor]

SRD:
Spyglass

Objects viewed through a spyglass are magnified to twice their size.

With Darkvision objects beyond 60' can't be seen (viewed), the spyglass don't help unless they are in the 60' range.

It doesn't says: "You can see twice as far".

are you sure thats the spyglass it sounds more like the magnifing lens description.