Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling

[MGibster]

So they've made it even stronger.

There's a limited range. Orcs and dwarves have darkvision to 120 feet and I think the other species in the PHB it's 60 feet.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure. There are costs to that too, though. Unless their are lighters in the setting/game, or easy magical light, light on and off is harder than always on. A hooded lantern, for example, doesn't really solve the issues with carrying a light around because if it was totally opaque, it would also smother the flame.

But yes, explorers can certainly use light as tool when convenient.

A wax or other impregnated wick isn't that hard to light with a spark striker I've been told, and that's easily up to the tech otherwise indicated in most games. Its apparently only slightly harder with flint and steel for someone experienced with it.

And I'm not assuming the primary purpose of darksight is to avoid revealing your presence; having everyone have good vision not dependent on a few light sources seems as much or more of one.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Much like Shadowdark, His Majesty the Worm ties lighting to multiple aspects of your dungeon experience. Since you're in a mythic underworld, you're going through weird and dark landscapes that have varied lighting experiences and mostly dark. If you totally run out of light, you get to roll on a table and see what happens to you (stagger home traumatized forever, lose all your equipment, get eaten by a grue, etc). This makes the resource of lighting really matter, and finding a dungeon merchant to sell you some more torches at the last moment before you delved too deep for what you had exciting - now lets see what they demand of you...

It thus lines out Darkvision as incompatible with the tone and resource balance it wants.

Sure, but from the sound of it that's closer to doing something like exploring the Underdark than the typical dungeon.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's a limited range. Orcs and dwarves have darkvision to 120 feet and I think the other species in the PHB it's 60 feet.

As I recall, it also used to be better than dim light within its range and lack of color vision.

 

[greymist]

Wasn't it 3rd edition where 0-level spells were introduced? IIRC they were more utility spells, and if they did do damage, it was minimal at best 1d3 maybe? You make a good point that I hadn't thought of that without cantrips that do damage spell caster are forced to resort to mundane weapons. I'm not opposed to cantrips, but I do think that unlimited casting at 1d6 (or more) damage is a little excessive.

Cantrips first appeared in Unearthed Arcana, for AD&D 1E. I believe orisons (for clerics) were from 2E.

As others have said, it’s the utility cantrips in 5E that ‘wreck’ some of the resource management/deal with the dark.

I voted yes to the poll although I think it might be possible to keep dungeon-crawling viable with Darkvision in place. Still, in my new campaign that we just Session Zeroed yesterday I am going all-in with house rules, including: no darkvision for PCs, monsters only; Light is now a Level 1 spell; and no Bags of Holding!

We’ll see how the resource management works. The group consists of two players who played 2E back in the day; one player who played 1E, 2E, and a bit of 3E, and one new player, this will be his third campaign ever (all 5E).

I’m planning on using 10 minute ‘dungeon’ turns when the group is exploring. It will be a background mechanic with me simply estimating the passing of time and then advising the players that their torch is sputtering every hour.

I don’t have a ‘dungeon’ planned to start, but there some dark caves in Session 1.

As an old-timer, I’m look forward too seeing if they enjoy it. If so, it will be an impetus to learn how to use dynamic lighting on Roll20.

 

[R_J_K75]

Cantrips first appeared in Unearthed Arcana, for AD&D 1E. I believe orisons (for clerics) were from 2E.

I am aware of this. 5E I believe is when they really started leaning into offensive and more useful utility spells as fire at will cantrips.

I voted yes to the poll although I think it might be possible to keep dungeon-crawling viable with Darkvision in place. Still, in my new campaign that we just Session Zeroed yesterday I am going all-in with house rules, including: no darkvision for PCs, monsters only; Light is now a Level 1 spell; and no Bags of Holding!

As a DM I haven't given it much thought as to how I'd go about it exactly, but I'd be interested to hear how removing darkvision for PCs and increasing light to a memorized 1st level spell works out. As a player I'd be OK with this.

I’m planning on using 10 minute ‘dungeon’ turns when the group is exploring. It will be a background mechanic with me simply estimating the passing of time and then advising the players that their torch is sputtering every hour.

I can't remember if the 10-minute turn was an optional rule in the 2014 DMG but removing it as core rule was a mistake that goes back to 3E, although there was the take 10 and take 20 actions, but those only came into play for certain circumstances if memory serves me. Wasn't really the same as continuously tracking time. It's a good way to more accurately track the passage of time and per day use of abilities and magical items. Not to mention it's kind of fun to shock the players when they finally reach the surface and/or civilization, and they find out how long or little they were actually in a dungeon.

As an old-timer, I’m look forward too seeing if they enjoy it. If so, it will be an impetus to learn how to use dynamic lighting on Roll20.

Early on during COVID I spent a few days figuring out the dynamic lighting function in Roll20. Game day comes, and it sputters out like the aforementioned torch. It was a waste of time for me and my group. I'm sure they have made improvements since then and in all fairness, I was using a crappy $225 HP laptop from Bj's Wholesale Club. The dynamic lighting feature and fog of war feature was cool when I tested it by myself but when I got more players online the program just lagged to the point I had to shut the features off. If your computer can handle it (I'm assuming that's what my problem was), I'd say it's worth taking the time to learn if you play online.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Characters with darkvision can see in the dark out to perhaps 120 feet. Fine. What does that mean? It means GMs can't use "jump scares" of monster leaping into the radius of a lantern or torch and attacking the party in melee. Okay. Well... if "jump scares" are really that important to a GM to "startle" or "frighten" the players of characters with darkvision... then they will have to make the change of the monsters leaping out from behind cover and attacking at range (or even possibly still at melee depending on how the tunnels and caverns are set up and how quickly they can advance on the party.) But in either case, the effect is the same-- monsters have successfully used stealth to get the jump on the PCs. And that occurred whether or not the PCs could "see in the dark".

Look, I get it... when a DM narrates what the players see, hear, and smell in a dungeon... there is a psychological switch that flips in a lot of people when the description only goes out to a certain distance that makes the unknown past that "scarier". But that's only because we've been trained by media to react to the jump scare of the thing that will kill us easily. But in gaming? Most encounters that GMs build are relatively balanced fights and fighting at melee range is no different or more deadly that fighting at range... so it does not functionally matter if a monster leaps out at the party and attacks in melee in a single action as part of a "jump scare". Getting engaged in melee in a single round occurs all the time in games like this regardless... inside and outside of dungeons... so the distance a monster has to travel from being "unnoticed" to "noticed" and then attacking the party is not that big of a deal-- especially when attacking in melee is not appreciably better or deadlier than attacking from range. So jump scares don't really have much of a point in D&D-adjacent games like this.

Now if there's another game out there (outside the D&D fantasy sphere) that makes getting attacked in melee range by a "grue" a virtual death sentence, and thus you need to notice them earlier at range and kill them all before they move up to you... then sure, things like having enough light sources matter. But I'm willing to bet that those kind of non-D&D dungeon-crawlers with those kinds of creatures don't have darkvision as an option in the first place.

 

[Starfox]

Darkvision is mandatory for certain roles, primarily for scouting but also for stealth in general. As this is a part of the game both I and my players enjoy. I am making darkvision much less common in my next campaign; the goblins will now be using torches and campfires just like everybody else.

 

[Mannahnin]

Good point that I'd not thought of as well. To me the concepts in AD&D were simpler sometimes. For instance, wizard spell casting; you had to rest 8 hours to memorize spells, you picked your spells, and you couldn't re-fill those spell slots again until you used those spells. Things have become a lot more fluid since then with 5E. For as long as I've played D&D, I'd say I've read and played 5E the least, so I don't always catch on to the rule subtleties and tend to fall back on the AD&D game design philosophies more often than I probably should.

AD&D had much more granular memorization rules. Down to how much time per spell level to memorize, and you could replace unused spells, though you didn't have to.

I'd argue that the well-lit Backrooms is one of the best megadungeons of all time.

That IS very cool, but it has dark areas and the contrast between dark areas where you can't see anything and the lit areas creates a huge amount of suspense and trepidation in that video.

The poll doesn’t reflect the answer as “no”. The difference in darkvision and torches is that torches have a cost. It’s a potential drain on resources; whereas darkvision is only a source. Freebies for all! No restrictions, no pain points, no resource management.

Darkvision DOES have a few restrictions. Disadvantage on perception, inability to see color or to read text are downsides and pain points.

I'm not sure the economic issues are the most important. You can only carry so much, and the more torches you care, the less treasure you can come out with. On tope of that, torchbearers and other hirelings come with their own problems -- attracting hungry wandering monsters not least among them.

Again, when someone can show me the cost for light, other than perhaps the very first time someone goes out, is high enough for that drain to not be invisible, come talk. Otherwise I stand by my opinion. Across my OD&D days I could have off my more long-lasting character probably bought enough torches for a thousand dungeon runs and not even noticed.

This might be possibly different in a game with a very conservative money model, but if someone wants to tell me OD&D didn't have proper dungeon crawls...well, yeah, I'm gonna be over here rolling my eyes.

It's the bulk and encumbrance that's the resource issue with torches in AD&D (and OD&D if you do more with encumbrance than just saying "all your misc equipment weighs 80" as in the example on page 15 of Men & Magic). They weigh 25cn each, so they do add up, and they burn pretty quickly; an hour in which you get 5 moves/turns and a rest in when in dungeon exploration mode (and each fight rounds up to a Turn). Yes, torchbearers, hirelings, mules, and potentially bags of holding down the road all could mitigate or eliminate the encumbrance issue, but they do have their own limitations and complications. Hirelings and bearers and animals typically have low HP and are subject to morale checks if you're playing this style, introducing a Shadowdark-like vulnerability of the light.

Continual Light is definitely a huge factor once you get access to it, but it's also a big, bright light, and may impact your ability to surprise monsters even more than torches or a lantern. (Though that's up to DM adjudication, of course).

I agree that plenty of tables even back in the 70s minimized resource management in terms of encumbrance and light sources, though. I just think that others did indeed make it a core part of dungeon play and that the game reasonably supported that.

Any number of dungeons I saw were mule-capable; there's actually a pretty limited number of places a human can get into a mule can't, and they all involve either wiggling (in which case you can't carry much in or out anyway) actively climbing (which is isn't clear in most games most characters can do worth a darn) or swimming (ditto, and has a bunch of associated problems).

It is an interesting wrinkle to include such obstacles in dungeons. I ran into them a few times in the 1974-style OD&D games I played in online during the pandemic. A 10' pit trap at an intersection can also prove an uncrossable obstacle to a mule. An ascent up or descent down a cliff to enter the dungeon or within the dungeon to continue presents challenges in terms not only of being unable to bring a mule, but in terms of slowing entry and retreat.

I can't remember if the 10-minute turn was an optional rule in the 2014 DMG but removing it as core rule was a mistake that goes back to 3E, although there was the take 10 and take 20 actions, but those only came into play for certain circumstances if memory serves me. Wasn't really the same as continuously tracking time. It's a good way to more accurately track the passage of time and per day use of abilities and magical items. Not to mention it's kind of fun to shock the players when they finally reach the surface and/or civilization, and they find out how long or little they were actually in a dungeon.

To my recollection even 2E AD&D is missing the dungeon exploration procedures, despite keeping the 10 minute Turn as a unit of time.

Early on during COVID I spent a few days figuring out the dynamic lighting function in Roll20. Game day comes, and it sputters out like the aforementioned torch. It was a waste of time for me and my group. I'm sure they have made improvements since then and in all fairness, I was using a crappy $225 HP laptop from Bj's Wholesale Club. The dynamic lighting feature and fog of war feature was cool when I tested it by myself but when I got more players online the program just lagged to the point I had to shut the features off. If your computer can handle it (I'm assuming that's what my problem was), I'd say it's worth taking the time to learn if you play online.

Dynamic lighting is a resource hog, yes. But it's also awesome if you can support it.

One of my greatest experiences in online play during the height of the pandemic was a B/X game of Stonehell, a megadungeon, where the DM used dynamic lighting and a single token representing the party on the map, occupying a 10' square. With 30' light in all directions, so just three more squares around us. That created an AWESOME feeling of being a little point of light in a big, dark place.

I had joined an existing group which had already done a bunch of exploring and learned a good bit of the first few levels, so we also weren't always using maps. Sometimes we were just navigating from people's memory, like Mike Mornard and the other first wave guys described doing in the Blackmoor dungeon. And in those situations getting lost was a real possibility. One time we dropped down to the third or fourth level and opened a crypt which released a spectre, and in fleeing we accidentally made a wrong turn into a dead-end room. The DM wasn't too cruel- only one guy got energy drained as we fled past the horrible thing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

…um, not all at once. I don’t quite know what you’d do with a featureless plain of a dungeon except maybe have marauding Beckett plays.

I thought you were going to say a trapped secret door in the dark with treasure behind it.