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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dvvega" data-source="post: 116849" data-attributes="member: 524">In regards to the Darkvision Question ...(HIDE = Hide Skill, HIPS = Hide In Plain Sight supernatural ability)You cannot HIDE under any form of observation, so if you're within the Darkvision range of the opponent in question, forget HIDE.Low Light vision would be worse for the Rogue in question, because vision range is effectively double for any source of light. So the party of humans at the campfire (about 30 to 60 feet of sight from light then darkness) is prey to Rogues, while the elf with them can see them.HIPS allows the use of HIDE even under observation with considerable penalties. So at first it would seem that HIPS would be appropriate versus Darkvision using opponents. However, if you are in total darkness, are there really any shadows about? Some thoughts:1) If there were no shadows in darkness then why would any underground races ever develop sneak rogues? We can see the classical stereotypes here: Dwarven Locksmith, Gnomish Tinkerer ... do they have the traditional thief amongst them? Perhaps this is why those stereotypes exist. 2) In a pseudo evolution, there is always ambient light somewhere. Even in most deep undergroun caves you have light coming from phosphorescent materials such as fungi, or beetles, or other genetic mutations. Even an underground stream can carry a light's reflection for a distance (as the light refracts within the top of the water - it's not too far but you can do it with certain wavelengths of light). The deeper you go, the more chances of things that give off their own light. This could account for general darkness and pools of "extra darkness". However the biggest disadvantage is that the deeper you go into a cave system, the more reliant on touch and sonar the creatures get. So most of them would end up with Blindsight. If I remember corrently, in the old 2e rules, Drow eyes actually glowed red in the dark because they were generating their own heat wavelengths to use their 120' infravision. They basically bounced heat rays off their surrounds which gave them sight.So if you accept (1) Shadowdancers are useless anyway, since they can't HIPS and if they were out of the darkvision range then they could just use HIDE anyway.If you accept (2) then everyone can use all their abilities, and it fits into a fantasy world more smoothly.As an aside, why would a Shadowdancer even go underground. They seem more of the stealthy spy/assassin types, more suit for contracts in a city.</blockquote>

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