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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9551814" data-attributes="member: 7006">Characters with darkvision can see in the dark out to perhaps 120 feet.&nbsp; Fine.&nbsp; What does that mean?&nbsp; It means GMs can't use &quot;jump scares&quot; of monster leaping into the radius of a lantern or torch and attacking the party in melee.&nbsp; Okay.&nbsp; Well... if &quot;jump scares&quot; are really that important to a GM to &quot;startle&quot; or &quot;frighten&quot; 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.)&nbsp; But in either case, the effect is the same-- monsters have successfully used stealth to get the jump on the PCs.&nbsp; And that occurred whether or not the PCs could &quot;see in the dark&quot;.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 &quot;scarier&quot;.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; But in gaming?&nbsp; 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 &quot;jump scare&quot;.&nbsp; 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 &quot;unnoticed&quot; to &quot;noticed&quot; 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.&nbsp; So jump scares don't really have much of a point in D&amp;D-adjacent games like this.Now if there's another game out there (outside the D&amp;D fantasy sphere) that makes getting attacked in melee range by a &quot;grue&quot; 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.&nbsp; But I'm willing to bet that those kind of non-D&amp;D dungeon-crawlers with those kinds of creatures don't have darkvision as an option in the first place.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9551814, member: 7006"] 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 [I]behind cover[/I] and attacking at range (or even possibly [I]still[/I] 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 [I]regardless[/I]... 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. [/QUOTE]

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