Level Up (A5E) Darkvision

[ThatGuySteve]

Proposal: don't make Darkvision a default feature for any heritage. Let it be a choice of gift or heritage feature.

In the playtest document several cultures give Darkvision as a feature as a result of living in the dark, possibly requiring special concoctions to bring it on (presumably to explain how a human gets it). Why not say all heritages have the potential, but only those who have lived their lives in darkness have adjusted to bring it on.

I just noticed the Gnome heritage feature gave the rain for having Darkvision due to Gnomes mostly living underground. Of the Gnome culture, only Deep was described as living underground, not even hinted at anywhere else.

Giving out Darkvision to most heritages feels like it's just being done for the sake of the legacy of them having it.

 

[Faolyn]

I rather agree here. Optionally, I'd like to see them bring back Low Light Vision. Make it so you can see in dim light as if it were bright (perhaps only to 30 feet), but you can't see in darkness. I would prefer seeing elves, gnomes, and hill dwarfs have Low Light Vision. Full-fledged, 60-foot darkvision could be limited to most dwarfs, deep gnomes, shadow elves, and tieflings, or as an optional gift for the earlier races. Humans, halflings, and dragonborn don't need either.

 

[CapnZapp]

5th Edition makes it way too easy to have an all-darkvision party.

Yes you have always been able to create an all-Dwarf party in every edition, but previously that came with a heavy cost in group diversity.

In 5E, just avoid humans and halflings.

Replace the classic party of Human, Halfling, Elf and Dwarf with Half-Elf, Gnome, Elf and Dwarf, and you gain significant advantages at low-level.

I really hope Level Up brings back low-level vision in order to significantly reduce the number of Darkvision races.
And please don't provide easy access to Darkvision to many of the races without!

In my opinion, there should be no immediate or easy way for the classic party of Human, Halfling, Elf and Dwarf to avoid carrying light with them.

In particular, don't follow in Pathfinder 2's foot-steps, where Humans can access the ancestry feats of any other race, and where the obvious power choice for Elves is to play Cavern Elves (like Drow except without drawbacks: no light sensitivity, no evil alignment). On paper darkvision is much less common in PF2 than in 5E. In practical play, getting darkvision is so good (having to occupy one hand to hold a torch is a crippling requirement for most warriors) and so cheap the situation is just as bad there as in 5E.

 

[CapnZapp]

For an individual character Darkvision is not a strong choice. It's close to a ribbon ability in fact.

But once EVERY hero has it, it becomes a very strong choice.

Therefore darkvision needs to be priced as a strong ability.
It should not be handed out freely or cheaply at level 1.

 

[Faolyn]

In thinking about it some more, I've decided the idea that one can gain darkvision by drinking a concoction is not a good one. For starters, darkvision is a 2nd-level spell. While admittedly, it's a spell that is incredibly unlikely to be on anyone's Must Prepare list, it's still 2nd level. To get it permanently, before gamestart, is really quite ridiculous, and borders on setting a bad precedent.

Secondly, it does feel like something that should be an inborn trait, not one that should be acquired. I can see, perhaps, reducing penalties for non-darkvision people raised by darkvision people, but I can also see it just being one of those things that your human or halfling who was raised by dwarfs just doesn't get. Removing it as an ability that raised-by-darkvision-folk also helps to give potential background elements: your PC was mocked by their darkvision-enabled classmates, leaving them bitter; your parents went out of their way to make things easier for you, even at the expense of their own eyeball comfort; you decided to learn magic/artifice in order to give yourself darkvision, etc.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I be an outlier and radical change champion on this one. Make Darkvision ALWAYS tied to sunlight sensitivity and strip out from any humanoids who have settlements that utilize torches, lamps, or any other sort of lighting on a normal basis.

 

[Faolyn]

I be an outlier and radical change champion on this one. Make Darkvision ALWAYS tied to sunlight sensitivity and strip out from any humanoids who have settlements that utilize torches, lamps, or any other sort of lighting on a normal basis.

I actually quite like this, with the stipulation that smoked glasses (to mitigate penalties) should be available for purchase. They should be expensive, though, and breakable. Expensive enough that a low-level character would worry about replacing them.

 

[tetrasodium]

I be an outlier and radical change champion on this one. Make Darkvision ALWAYS tied to sunlight sensitivity and strip out from any humanoids who have settlements that utilize torches, lamps, or any other sort of lighting on a normal basis.

For that to work, a few things need to happen

• Darkvision needs to still be useful if you aren't a scout or have a human in your party
• vision rules need to be written in such a way that you don't need a vtt with dynamic FoW & light sources to track it because those penalties still apply even when the gm mostly handwaves light sourcesas @Jessica Wolfman noted above while I was writing this. Darker dungeons has a pretty good system where you add up the size of all the light sources in a room & get a lighting level based on the room size.
• vision rules, light sources, & ranges need to be written for darkvision with non-darkvision races pretty much falling to dc20 or the night is dark and full of terrors in the dark.

 

[CapnZapp]

The night should be dark and full of terrors. At low level.

That just about explains everything about the mistake of making darkvision so damn easy to get.

"Darkvision needs to still be useful if you aren't a scout or have a human in your party" What do you mean? I don't see why or how the rules need to change just because it is no longer easy to assemble an all-darkvision party of heroes.

The power of darkvision is to enable the whole group to ditch the torches and function under the cover of night. Then it's powerful - at low level, a game changer. In contrast, if just one or two party members have darkvision, the group can't do that. As long as the party remains easily spotted from a mile away (by carrying lights), darkvision is a pretty low value ability.

D&D is a group activity that isn't improved by one scout playing solo while the other players sit on their hands, so it's best the party explores together. That further reduces the value of individual darkvision.

The game has always worked for parties carrying light. I don't understand your point.

 

[tetrasodium]

The night should be dark and full of terrors. At low level.

That just about explains everything about the mistake of making darkvision so damn easy to get.

"Darkvision needs to still be useful if you aren't a scout or have a human in your party" What do you mean? I don't see why or how the rules need to change just because it is no longer easy to assemble an all-darkvision party of heroes.

The power of darkvision is to enable the whole group to ditch the torches and function under the cover of night. Then it's powerful - at low level, a game changer. In contrast, if just one or two party members have darkvision, the group can't do that. As long as the party remains easily spotted from a mile away (by carrying lights), darkvision is a pretty low value ability.

D&D is a group activity that isn't improved by one scout playing solo while the other players sit on their hands, so it's best the party explores together. That further reduces the value of individual darkvision.

The game has always worked for parties carrying light. I don't understand your point.

It comes down to how the game plays. A scout type pretty much regularly goes off on their own regularly becoming a party of one each time. For someone sneaking off to scout darkvision is a huge boon.
For a big crunchy fighter/noisy cleric/barbarian/clumsy wizard sorcerer warlock etc they stay back in a safe spot while bob goes off to scout. If chuck is a human...

Spoiler: lighthouse

Even if sir Becket can't see worth anything because a torch is 20 bright 20 dim, his player can see where all the baddies are & which are where unless bob is also denied & the penalties for not having darkvision are rarely enforced because light sources are frankly...

Spoiler: a mess.

Torch

• Torch: 20ft dim 20ft bright
• Candle 5ft dim 5ft bright
• Hooded lantern 30tft dim, 30 ft bright
• Bullseye lantern 120ft cone.. How the heck am I the gm supposed to run this at the table? stop the game & play round by round battleship?
• Bonefire?... not in phb but there are numerous cantrips to light or snuff one.
  Spoiler: xge create bonfire

  

  
  [*]Literally there is no light from a bonfire or campfirein 5e including the create bonfire spell & even 3.5 didn't seem any better. In all likelihood it probably wrks exactly the same if you have darkvision or not
• How do any of those affect the person carrying them or anyone standing in their light without gm fiat/houseruling? .. not like this

Darkvision doesn't start where darkness begins & extend 60ft, it starts at you & extends 20 feet past a torch. exactly the same as a lantern, or half a bullseye lantern. There are no lightsources made for darkvision but quite a few that will impose penalties on someone with superior darkvision. In practice A situation like standing watch in a camp with a campfire tends to treat both a nightblind human & an elf or drow elf the same at the AL tables I see around me. "He's in direct sunlight so disadvantage" comes up a lot at tables I'm at or tables around me, but "it's dark so you can't see/dim so disadvantage" almost never. Tell a human rogue that his 28 stealth check was ignored because he looks like a lighthouse & yourprobably up for a fight because none of the rules back that... Tell a drow or kobold "Yea it's in direct sunlight" & that's exactly how the rules are structured.

I agree that it's too easy for everyone to have darkvision in 5e without even trying