Darkvision: Don't forget the Disadvantage & limitations!

[Ilbranteloth]

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!

OK, so you want to revert it back the rules for an earlier edition? Fair enough. My vote is, well D&D the entire time it was produced by TSR, and they should all have infravision.

See, I like the dim light provision for darkness. Because it makes sense. It's not that they have perfect vision all the time, they have better vision than creatures without it. Infravision (the way it was described in D&D/AD&D) was an interesting approach, because it provided a very different experience in darkness. It would make it impossible for an animal to hide, simply because their radiant heat overpowered that of the air around them.

No, I much prefer the 5e approach. The only thing that doesn't make sense from a physics standpoint is that in total darkness underground, there wouldn't be enough radiant light for anybody to see, regardless of the quality of their vision. Magic is a possibility, but really doesn't make sense for every creature that has it.

From what I see, you have two issues with the current system:

1. Too many creatures have the ability to see in total darkness, to whatever degree. Although most of the creatures you're complaining about historically have had that abilit. Elves, for example, have always had the ability in D&D, it was nerfed when 3e came around with more granularity.

2. You want creatures with darkvision to have the same advantage against creatures without darkvision (including those with low-light vision, should it exist) that nocturnal creatures have against non-nocturnal creatures. Or to put it a different way, you want creatures with darkvision to not have any disadvantage in darkness.

Personally, I don't have a real issue with either of these, although I don't care for the "solution" which is that there is no middle ground for creatures with low light vision. For them, the three levels of light are bright, bright, and dark. Also, I don't think that creatures with darkvision should have no disadvantage in darkness, just an advantage against creatures with normal (or low-light/night) vision.

The reason is simple. I think we have a fundamental difference in what we think darkvision should do. You seem to think that darkvision means a creature can see in the dark as well as we can see in bright light. I think that darkvision means that they can see better than we can in dim light or darkness. I would agree that there are some creatures that I think should be able to see in darkness as well as we do in bright light, such as fiends. I'll get back to that idea in a moment.

If I cared to change it (and we haven't yet - I've asked and nobody in my group has any issue with elves having darkvision), it would be to have four levels of darkness:

Bright, Dim, Shadow, and Dark. Creatures with night vision would shift everything one step to the right, and darkvision two steps.

Bright: No penalties
Dim: Disadvantage on Perception
Shadow: Disadvantage on Perception and abilities requiring sight, and attacks.
Darkness: Any ability requiring sight fails, disadvantage on attacks.

Most light sources would have three radiuses, bright > dim > shadow. If you cared to, you could also define how far you can see a given brightness, probably tied to the radius of its brightest light. For example, you can see a bright light in darkness from a distance of 20x it's brightest radius. You can see a dim light from 10x it's brightest radius. Shadow from 5x. That means that you'll see a bonfire from farther away than a candle, since they have a different radius of bright light.

You have advantage on attacks if you don't have disadvantage on Perception (bright) and they have disadvantage on Perception (shadow or darkness).

Normal: bright, dim, shadow, dark.
Nightvision: bright, bright, dim, shadow.
Darkvision: bright, bright, bright, dim.

And for creatures like fiends (and maybe a feat available to tieflings):
Infernal vision: bright, bright, bright, bright. And probably dim in magical darkness.

So a creature with night vision would prefer dim light, because they aren't at a disadvantage, and they have advantage on attacks against creatures without nightvision.
A creature with darkvision would prefer shadow, since they have no disadvantage, but have advantage against creautures without darkvision.

The only creatures that would feel comfortable in total darkness are those with other senses that supplement or replace sight. And I think far more darkvision monsters should have these abilities, putting drow and such at a disadvantage against them.

Also, there's essentially a fifth category of "too bright" with the same effects of shadow. So creatures like drow with better darkvision have shadow (too bright), bright, bright, dim. Although I might argue that all creatures with darkvision might have this issue.

This provides more granularity, but also more complexity that most probably wouldn't care for.

 

[Asgorath]

This is one of the reasons I'm really happy we've transitioned from a battle map and miniatures to Roll20 for our games (though the end goal is a screen on the table with a Roll20 map and miniatures on top of their respective tokens). The dynamic lighting features of Roll20 make it really easy to manage darkvision and lighting/LoS in general, and it becomes very obvious how limited your vision is in large dark areas.

 

[CapnZapp]

OK, so you want to revert it back the rules for an earlier edition? Fair enough. My vote is, well D&D the entire time it was produced by TSR, and they should all have infravision.

No, I want to suggest the perfectly serviceable rules of 3rd edition. I want to flag the idea that maybe 5th edition made changes that are the root of the issue; and by reverting these changes, the problem also goes away

I also took the opportunity to set you straight, thinking that perhaps you base your opinion on a misassumption.

 

[CapnZapp]

From what I see, you have two issues with the current system:

1. Too many creatures have the ability to see in total darkness, to whatever degree. Although most of the creatures you're complaining about historically have had that abilit. Elves, for example, have always had the ability in D&D, it was nerfed when 3e came around with more granularity.

2. You want creatures with darkvision to have the same advantage against creatures without darkvision (including those with low-light vision, should it exist) that nocturnal creatures have against non-nocturnal creatures. Or to put it a different way, you want creatures with darkvision to not have any disadvantage in darkness.

First off, I'm not the one with the problems. I've already solved my game.

This is about this thread, where people are having difficulty remembering specifics about 5th edition darkvision. I am providing a suggestion on how to solve that. Perhaps surprisingly, this wasn't a issue before, so if you revert the changes from 3rd edition to 5th edition, maybe those issues go away?

Then:
1. Stop lumping together "creatures". This is not the first time you try to misinterpret my argument. We're talking about PHB player character races here.

And stop bringing up pre-3E editions. The edition where it just works, is 3E. So that's the edition we contrast 5E to.

2. I want to help people having issues with darkvision to get rid of those issues.

The reason 5E adds Perception disadvantage is because so many races get Darkvision, possibly in a misguided attempt to get Underdark denizens to use light out on patrol even though they have Darkvision. Many races get Darkvision because Low-Light Vision is removed.

Unremove Low-Light Vision, and you can return Darkvision to how many people intuitively understand it - it allows you to see in the dark.

No special case necessary. No torches needed. Which in turn gets rid of really stupid suggestions, such as revealing your position to every ambush monster far in advance by bringing light to the Underdark.

Player characters should be the only ones required to carry torches in the Underdark. This enhances the mystical terrifying nature of the place. Try it

 

[5ekyu]

"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."

I will confess i have not followed all of these posts si i may be misding context here that makes this statement one referencing a house rule on perception in dim light. If that is the case then what i am about to say is possibly wrong.

For standard rules, i think one thing we may be hitting is a snag on what perception checks are for and when they are needed.

Dim light, disadvantage only has an impact when a check is required *or* passive perception needed.

I have not seen in the rules (or routine play) perception checks required for reading, for seeing non-hidden objects, not walking into things etc.

If a GM requires these under normal lighting that is itself likely causing an amplification in the already problematic lighting rules by making perception checks a necessity for even normal daily functions.

In my games, no roll is required for these, under the too easy.

In dim light, disadvantage would not hurt those.

If a GM is also adding "must roll for normally routine" into dim light **and** adding in disadvantage then the GM is even more increasing the dim light problems.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

No, I want to suggest the perfectly serviceable rules of 3rd edition. I want to flag the idea that maybe 5th edition made changes that are the root of the issue; and by reverting these changes, the problem also goes away

I also took the opportunity to set you straight, thinking that perhaps you base your opinion on a misassumption.

My assessment of specifics may not be 100% correct. But it really boils down to this:

1. I don't think there is a problem to fix.

2. You do.

So, for folks that, like you, don't like the way the 5e rules work, the 3e rules are as good as any to go with, depending on your goals for the "fix." My point is that it's important to define the problem.

To me, having low-light vision that doesn't have an intermediate (dim) step is a problem. So your solution doesn't work for me.
To me, having a creature with darkvision to have disadvantage to Perception in darkness is not a problem. So your solution is not needed.

I agree that 5e made changes. And while I don't like them 100%, I don't dislike them enough to change them.

And more importantly, I think that the 3e rules are a step backward. I think they went too far in the opposite direction of AD&D. Infravision was a pain to use, but it still imposed penalties to those that had it. Darkvision took away the complexities, but also all of the disadvantages. So if I do make a change, it won't be to the 3e rules.

 

[CapnZapp]

So, for folks that, like you, don't like the way the 5e rules work

More like don't remember the way the 5e rules work...

Remember: the OP of this thread said:

"Too many people [] tend to forget the drawbacks of darkvision."

I'm assuming we're discussing ways to ameliorate this issue.

My approach is very direct: remove the things you tend to forget - since that's a proven way to handle it

, the 3e rules are as good as any to go with

Thank you.

Personally, I think the 3E darkvision rules are even better than "as good as any", since they're exactly the same as 5E Darkvision except that specific part people tend to forget!

Anyway. All that remains is to ask...

To me, having low-light vision that doesn't have an intermediate (dim) step is a problem.

What do you mean?

Wherever you have bright-dim-dark, you have it with low-light vision too?
(A torch just provides 40 ft bright light followed by 40 ft dim light, instead of the usual 20/20 ft.)

And above ground, you use the same DM adjucation for low-light vision at night as you adjucate regular vision during the day.

So I'm afraid I don't understand "having a dim step" (and what's good about it).

Regards,
Zapp

 

[UngeheuerLich]

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!

Darkvision from the srd 3.5

Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. Darkvision is black and white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise—invisible objects are still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally. The presence of light does not spoil darkvision.

So it is black and white vision without explicitely stating you see as if it was dim light.

And the distinction between low light and darkvision is a 3e thing. Before that it was infravision for elves amd dwarves alike. So it is really back to the roots.

So what are you trying to tell me? That because there are people who played 3e a lot mix up the rules? There are more rules that are more difficult for 3e players than players who never played it. So just purge your mind.

 

[cmad1977]

If people mix up the rule the fix is to...
Read the rule. It’s not that hard and an ‘all dark vision’ party isn’t a problem.

 

[CapnZapp]

So it is black and white vision without explicitely stating you see as if it was dim light.

What are you trying to insinuate here?

In 3E Darkvision does not impose any penalty on Perception. The reason it does not "explicitly state" you see as if dim light is because you don't see as if dim light.

So what are you trying to tell me? That because there are people who played 3e a lot mix up the rules? There are more rules that are more difficult for 3e players than players who never played it. So just purge your mind.

A strange thing to say in a thread specifically started because many players forget about pesky detail. If you don't have any issues, why are you even in this thread?