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Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9550974" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>No, it does not, because it just results in the party using light sources... and at a base mechanical level using light sources does not impact anything much more than looking out in the "dim light" of darkness with darkvision. Characters without darkvision and a torch will see things out in the "dim light" just like characters with darkvision and no light source will. The only difference is that the party's light source will "alert" potential enemies out there that see the torch. But then again... even in a party with all darkvision, there will probably be party members who are going to be wearing armor that will preclude using stealth, which means light source or no-- other creatures will usually know where the party is. It doesn't matter if there's a light source to see or not... the sounds of the party will mean they won't be able to sneak their way through the entire dungeon (which I think seems to be the thing that people who hate darkvision always seem to think is going to happen... all the "tricks" of the dungeon are bypassed by the party "sneaking their way" through the entire thing.)</p><p></p><p>On top of that... attacking someone while hiding or being hidden only gives you advantage on your attack... which means most monsters who are "hiding" out there in the darkness aren't really gaining a whole lot. We don't consider Rogues who hide with their Cunning Action every round and then attacking from hiding to gain advantage to be that big a deal or some overpowered thing... so why would we believe it's such a big deal when monsters can attack from "the darkness" and get advantage? Not to mention the fact that a tremendous number of dungeon creatures that would attack the party are melee creatures and thus have to run up to the characters and their light sources-- thereby leaving their precious "darkness" behind and losing its bonus anyway. Attacking from the darkness isn't really all that big of a gain all things considered.</p><p></p><p>This idea that the darkness can be "scarier" is true... but only from a <em>narrative</em> perspective. The DM narrating things to fire the player's imaginations to instill some bit of fear. But from a game mechanics perspective... being in the darkness is no different than being invisible or using Dexterity (Stealth), and those mechanics can be annoying to work around-- but work around them we do. And it ends up not being all that big a deal. But if we are talking the <em>narrative</em> perspective of dungeon crawling... then no DM needs to or should be relying on the singular "fear" of being attacked from the darkness as their one way of creeping out the players, because you can only go to that well so many times before the PCs "being attacked by monsters in the darkness" becomes an overused trope and it loses all its power. The DM will need to use their imagination and come up all manner of <em>other ways</em> to make things scary-- and those ways won't be impacted by characters with darkvision or not.</p><p></p><p>TL-DR: Monsters attacking from "the darkness" is not the end-all-be-all schtick DMs think it is... which means parties made up of nothing but characters with darkvision that reduce the effectiveness of that schtick are actually forcing DMs to be more creative. And that's a good thing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9550974, member: 7006"] No, it does not, because it just results in the party using light sources... and at a base mechanical level using light sources does not impact anything much more than looking out in the "dim light" of darkness with darkvision. Characters without darkvision and a torch will see things out in the "dim light" just like characters with darkvision and no light source will. The only difference is that the party's light source will "alert" potential enemies out there that see the torch. But then again... even in a party with all darkvision, there will probably be party members who are going to be wearing armor that will preclude using stealth, which means light source or no-- other creatures will usually know where the party is. It doesn't matter if there's a light source to see or not... the sounds of the party will mean they won't be able to sneak their way through the entire dungeon (which I think seems to be the thing that people who hate darkvision always seem to think is going to happen... all the "tricks" of the dungeon are bypassed by the party "sneaking their way" through the entire thing.) On top of that... attacking someone while hiding or being hidden only gives you advantage on your attack... which means most monsters who are "hiding" out there in the darkness aren't really gaining a whole lot. We don't consider Rogues who hide with their Cunning Action every round and then attacking from hiding to gain advantage to be that big a deal or some overpowered thing... so why would we believe it's such a big deal when monsters can attack from "the darkness" and get advantage? Not to mention the fact that a tremendous number of dungeon creatures that would attack the party are melee creatures and thus have to run up to the characters and their light sources-- thereby leaving their precious "darkness" behind and losing its bonus anyway. Attacking from the darkness isn't really all that big of a gain all things considered. This idea that the darkness can be "scarier" is true... but only from a [I]narrative[/I] perspective. The DM narrating things to fire the player's imaginations to instill some bit of fear. But from a game mechanics perspective... being in the darkness is no different than being invisible or using Dexterity (Stealth), and those mechanics can be annoying to work around-- but work around them we do. And it ends up not being all that big a deal. But if we are talking the [I]narrative[/I] perspective of dungeon crawling... then no DM needs to or should be relying on the singular "fear" of being attacked from the darkness as their one way of creeping out the players, because you can only go to that well so many times before the PCs "being attacked by monsters in the darkness" becomes an overused trope and it loses all its power. The DM will need to use their imagination and come up all manner of [I]other ways[/I] to make things scary-- and those ways won't be impacted by characters with darkvision or not. TL-DR: Monsters attacking from "the darkness" is not the end-all-be-all schtick DMs think it is... which means parties made up of nothing but characters with darkvision that reduce the effectiveness of that schtick are actually forcing DMs to be more creative. And that's a good thing. [/QUOTE]
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