Darkvision: Don't forget the Disadvantage & limitations!

[CapnZapp]

In 3.5 everyone and their grandmother had darkvision.

No. Wrong.

In fact, it is precisely reverting to 3.5 I propose as the solution

Of the 5E PHB races Elves (except Drow), Half-Elves, and Gnomes lose darkvision. They gain low-light vision instead, but more importantly they join Dragonborn, Humans and Halflings in not having Darkvision.

Before my fix everyone and their grandmother had darkvision (especially if you choose Half-Elf over Human and Gnome over Halfling).

With my fix only Dwarfs, Half-Orcs and Tieflings can see in the dark.

That's a decrease from 66% (88% with easy substitutes) to only 33%. Much better

Sure you can still have an all-Dwarf party, but the chances of a regular group of players coming up with an all-Darkvision party goes from "disturbingly large" to "not worth fretting over".

That's what I call a good fix

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No. Wrong.

In fact, it is precisely reverting to 3.5 I propose as the solution

Of the 5E PHB races Elves (except Drow), Half-Elves, and Gnomes lose darkvision. They gain low-light vision instead, but more importantly they join Dragonborn, Humans and Halflings in not having Darkvision.

Before my fix everyone and their grandmother had darkvision (especially if you choose Half-Elf over Human and Gnome over Halfling).

With my fix only Dwarfs, Half-Orcs and Tieflings can see in the dark.

That's a decrease from 66% (88% with easy substitutes) to only 33%. Much better

Sure you can still have an all-Dwarf party, but the chances of a regular group of players coming up with an all-Darkvision party goes from "disturbingly large" to "not worth fretting over".

That's what I call a good fix

Since low light vision and darkvision merged, i think you should count darkvision and low light vision both for comparison. And furthermore I propose you look into the 3.5 mm and count the numbers of monsters without darkvision. You won't find a lot.

So please, don't introduce a 3rd vision type or we are back to what i stated first: describing everything 3 times...

 

[CapnZapp]

Since low light vision and darkvision merged, i think you should count darkvision and low light vision both for comparison.

No, I will not do that. Since un-merging them is the solution I propose, that's entirely unreasonable to ask.

And furthermore I propose you look into the 3.5 mm and count the numbers of monsters without darkvision. You won't find a lot.

Agree. But it's not relevant. Only player races are relevant to the issue at hand here: the PC party requiring light or not.

Rather than first handing out Darkvision like candy at Halloween and then having to unintuitively nerf it...

... I propose - wait for it - not doing any of that!

Try it. You'll find that running vision was easy and clear in 3rd edition, and that it is equally easy and clear in 5th edition, once you get rid of the 5E-specific vision changes! I know it is, because I'm running it that way myself

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No, I will not do that. Since un-merging them is the solution I propose, that's entirely unreasonable to ask.


Agree. But it's not relevant. Only player races are relevant to the issue at hand here: the PC party requiring light or not.

Rather than first handing out Darkvision like candy at Halloween and then having to unintuitively nerf it...

... I propose - wait for it - not doing any of that!

Try it. You'll find that running vision was easy and clear in 3rd edition, and that it is equally easy and clear in 5th edition, once you get rid of the 5E-specific vision changes! I know it is, because I'm running it that way myself

So we just disagree. Low light vision of 3.5 was much more annoying since you had to account for an unlimited range vision enhancement. But you may homebrew as much as you want if that is your solution. I know that darkvision in 5e is very well done and easily applied during game as I am running it that way myself.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Right. Which is why I wrote: "I think the main problem is that by ignoring this, darkvision kicks the crap outta human sight even more than it should." Still beats normal vision, but not nearly as much as it does if you forget the whole Disadvantage on Wisdom (perception) sight rolls.

Oh, right! Should have been more specific in my first post. I'll fix that. Thanks for bringing that up!

What brought it to the front of my mind was that I was listening to Critical Role on my commute to work and back when Mr. Mercer brings up that he tends to forget about such things with Darkvision. Which made me realize that for about the first year of playing 5e with my all dwarf group that I'd definitely been forgetting it. Once I started using it, dungeons and such became way more dangerous.

It also dawned on me that races that live underground that rely on Darkvision would have designed ways of hiding things to Darkvision that can only be revealed by having a light source. Sort of like special paints that are too subtle under Darkvision to perceive while being noticeable under light. Which also had my dwarf party sparking up dim light Dwarven Torches.

I’ve noted in multiple threads that unless an intelligent underdark creature is intending to be stealthy, they would be using magical or mundane dim lights. While you have an advantage in being stealthy in darkness with darkvision, so does your enemy. But if you light an area larger than long range of missile weapons or spells, you take that advantage away.

The other way to think about it is that we don’t wait until it’s dark to use a light. We wait until it’s dark enough to impair our vision. Underdark creatures are likely to do the same. Because they aren’t worried about the odd human that wanders down, they’re worried about the other underdark monsters.

 

[CapnZapp]

I’ve noted in multiple threads that unless an intelligent underdark creature is intending to be stealthy, they would be using magical or mundane dim lights. While you have an advantage in being stealthy in darkness with darkvision, so does your enemy. But if you light an area larger than long range of missile weapons or spells, you take that advantage away.

The other way to think about it is that we don’t wait until it’s dark to use a light. We wait until it’s dark enough to impair our vision. Underdark creatures are likely to do the same. Because they aren’t worried about the odd human that wanders down, they’re worried about the other underdark monsters.

This argument boils down to "I want creatures to use light in the underdark"

In reality, what you would go for in utter darkness, is not being detected.

Since light spreads fantastically far (even around corners) when it is pitch black, what you do not do, if you want to stay undetected, is light even the smallest light source.

Darkness is your friend. Light is your enemy.

Unless, of course, you're an alpha predator - just ask those angler fish...

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm fine with the 5e darkvision rules mechanically. But I do like thinking more about how exactly low-light vision and dark vision work. I always assumed that darkvision is just "magic" vision. But I'm thinking of treating it more like other the other hightened senses being perceived as sight (more on this at the end, below).

For those promoting using "low-light vision" instead of darkvision, how did that work in 3e (which I did not play)?

Underground caves are dark. Unless you add fantastical glowing fungi, etc., to help the players out, it will be pitch black. An owl or cat will be just as blind as me or you.

So with low-light vision should not help you underground. Well, I suppose you could use a very dim light source and get more out of it. Also, with low-light vision, you should be able to see in color or some colors. In the real world, many animals with low-light vision see color in almost complete darkness, including geckos, moths, bats, and lemurs (a primate! maybe that's where wood elves come from ;-) ). Human color receptors stop working when we get to about 1/2 moonlight. At that point our eyes switch to using more sensitive, but color-blind rods. But the Aye-Aye, a nocturnal lemur that has been nocturnal for millions of years has eyes tuned to see blue down to near ultraviolet even in dim light. Other nocturnal lemurs have eyes tuned to detect green at very low light. Bats have red and blue color vision at night.

Still, rods are more efficient than cones and the theory is that most species that spend all of their time in the dark (e.g. not active in twilight and bright moonlight) will eventually lose the ability to see color. Also, as impressive as the night vision of bats, lemurs, geckos, moths, and owls (who actually have mechanisms to capture light twice) is, all require some source of light. Well, bats have echolocation, but that is an entirely different ability.

So, how would dark vision work? By dark vision, I mean seeing in total darkness. Well, 50% of people can "see" their hands in total darkness. Of course their eyes are not capturing the image of the hands. That is not how vision works. You need light for your eyes to work. But our brain combines information from different senses to create our perceptions. So, perhaps dwarves, drow, etc. have evolved so that they are so sensitive underground to sounds, smell, touch, that they can perceive their surrounding as sight. What is neat about this, is that blindfolding a dwarf should not affect his dark vision.

Or perhaps Darkvision is that, mixed with infravision. For most animals, infrared is not detected with the eyes. Even with mammals, like the vampire bat, most animals with infrared vision have a pit that collects infrared radiation and combines it with vision from retinas in the brain, so animals probably "see" the infrared information. Again, covering the eyes should not prevent infrared vision. So, elves, dwarves, and gnomes could have lip dents.

Or its just magic.

NOTE: most of the information about animals seeing color at night in this post comes from a the following very interesting BBC Earth article: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141128-these-animals-see-colour-at-night

Interesting article on infrared vision: https://io9.gizmodo.com/under-the-right-conditions-humans-can-see-infrared-1665448040

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Darkvision in 3e works in darkness exactly like kn 5e. You see shades of grey up to 60ft. Underdark races usually see 120ft... shich means that if you rely on darkvision alone you have a problem.
Low light vision in 3e had unlimited range and you see in dim light as in bright light seeing all colours. Which means that often low light races had an advantage over darkvision races whenever there was the tiniest source of light.

 

[CapnZapp]

Darkvision in 3e works in darkness exactly like kn 5e.

No.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say.

5e imposes perception disadvantage to Darkvision, because Darkvision only provides dim light.

This is not so in d20 and Pathfinder.

My entire suggestion is based on the fact Darkvision in 3e does not work exactly like in 5e.

5e removed low-light vision from the game, and thus gave Darkvision to many races that should not have it. In return, the edition nerfed Darkvision and made it less intuitive to run.

So the easy, proven fix is to simply revert these changes.

When only Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Tieflings have Darkvision, we can drop this pesky dim light provision that only trips people up.

In addition, it makes it easier to keep in mind underdark races Do. Not. Carry. Light. under any circumstances when vulnerable in small groups since light gives you away from much greater distances than the area it illuminates!

 

[Ilbranteloth]

This argument boils down to "I want creatures to use light in the underdark"

Uh, no. It's an answer to questioning, "Why do intelligent creatures use light and when?" I don't particularly care when something uses light or not. That's kind of "up to them." But since I'm the DM and I need to know when they would choose to use light, I have to ask and answer those questions.

In reality, what you would go for in utter darkness, is not being detected.

I disagree. An intelligent creature capable of creating light wants to not be at a disadvantage. If dim light means I can see everything without hindrance, and darkness puts me at a disadvantage, then I'll use light.

For creatures without darkvision, dim light (when our Perception is at a disadvantage) means we walk into things. We can't read. We can't see very far, so if we're outside and there are creatures that might be hunting us, we won't notice them. When our Perception is impaired, we are at a significant disadvantage. The only time that we would not want to use light is specifically when we want to be undetected, and be stealthy. Because light would make that impossible.

For creatures with darkvision, they are at the same disadvantage in total darkness. For an intelligent creature capable of making light, they would do so in the same circumstances, although they would use dim light, since bright light is not needed.

Since light spreads fantastically far (even around corners) when it is pitch black, what you do not do, if you want to stay undetected, is light even the smallest light source.

Darkness is your friend. Light is your enemy.

Unless, of course, you're an alpha predator - just ask those angler fish...

Ahh, so there you go. If you want to stay undetected. Darkness is only your friend when it gives you an advantage. If you are lying in wait as an ambush, you have advantage on being stealthy, and almost every other creature has a disadvantage detecting you. But if you're trying to Stealthily walk through the underdark in darkness, with its uneven ground, rocks and things sticking out here and there, what you don't want to do is be the person that constantly kicking something, or hitting your shin, or knocking your head on a low stalactite, or slipping on damp, uneven ground, and constantly cursing and your equipment making noise, etc. Strap on some armor and several weapons like your average adventurer and try wandering through the woods on a moonless night and see how quietly and safely you can do it.

Darkness for a drow is no different. Laying in wait, especially if you've been able to select and prepare an ambush site where you know the terrain and won't have to worry about tripping on something? Absolutely. But when you're the one actually traveling? You want to make sure you see the Cave Fisher first, because that little strand in the dark will be almost impossible to see. Oops, didn't see that Gray Ooze? Perhaps you should have been using light. Oh, you broke your leg falling down a natural chimney? Yeah, it's really annoying that they're so hard to see in the dark. It would be much better to be able to have dim light as far as you can see so you won't be at a disadvantage noticing things like that.

See, most of the time creatures like drow, duergar, etc. aren't trying to stay undetected. They are going about their lives in their world. And their world is centered around dealing with other creatures of the underdark. It's not centered around "what happens if a bunch of humans come down?" since that's not a daily, maybe not even a yearly occurrence. Not to mention that if everything is in dim light, the humans are still at a disadvantage anyway.

If the drow are out hunting, they would want to be stealthy, and they'd go without the use of light. On the other hand, how frequently do humans hunt at night? In the same conditions that drow would be in darkness?

A drow guardpost? It would be lit by dim light to the range of vision. That way there are no surprises. Once you pass by the guardpost, within drow civilization, things would be dimly lit. For safety and convenience. A security patrol? It would be a show of force, not stealth. You would not only see them, but hear them coming. They aren't trying to remain undetected, they are trying to tell everything in the area to "stay away" or, if you're an intelligent being we allow around these parts, "follow our laws."

To me, the main reason why this is questioned is because we're always looking at it from the lens of drow vs. human, and also nocturnal animals vs. non-nocturnal animals. A lion or hyena has good vision at night, an antelope doesn't. So when they hunt at night, they are at a distinct advantage. But drow and other underdark creatures aren't at that distinct advantage. Everybody in the underdark can see just as well (or poorly) as you.