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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6047115" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Then how does it work?  There is a necessary verisimilitude to magic for many games, and many gamers.  If Hide in Plain Sight uses nearby shadows to provide the concealment needed to use stealth (thus negating the requirement to not be observed - the shadows drift in and conceal the target), and darkvision eliminates the concealment otherwise provided by shadows, then darkvision seems a useful counter for HiPS.HiPS does not enable the character to go undetected - it enables him to use stealth.  Will stealth work while the character is clanging a hammer loudly on his shield and singing out of tune tavern songs, simply because he has HiPS?  I'd say no - stealth allows you to be silent and undetected.  You are not being silent.  If an enemy has hearing so precise your heartbeat is like pounding drums to him, your stealth cannot enable you to avoid detection by that enemy.  And if your enemy can see through shadows and darkness, then the use of shadows and darkness to hide is reasonably ruled to be ineffective. Wait, WE'RE reading in extra words?Emphasis added.  If you are in total darkness, then there is no presence of light.  As the presence of light does not spoil darkvision, your assertion that the creature must be in total darkness to use his darkvision is contrary to the clear rules as written.   A creature with 60' darkvision can hold a torch which lights the area out to 20' and creates dim light 20' further out, and see normally out to 60'.  He gets the better of the two - he can see colour within the light, and can see in B&W out to 60'.Again, my preference is a game with some verisimilitude, where special abilities work for a reason.  I read the Shadowdancer as manipulating nearby shadows to provide the concealment required for stealth, consistent with the statement that "they weave together the shadows to become half-seen artists of deception".  The same HiPS ability could be explained by bizarre chameleon-like powers that enable the user to blend with his environment (an ability which likely also suffers when the viewer only sees in B&W, but maybe not - orange tigers blend with green foliage when the viewer sees in B&W), or by some quasi-invisibility bending of light around the user.  Neither of these, however, seem consistent with the Shadowdancer's description as "A mysterious adventurer who walks the boundaries between the real world  and the realm of shadows, and who can command shadows to do her bidding."A character is more than a bunch of game mechanics jumbled together with no rhyme or reason.  The abilities have a cause and effect.  Those should mesh with other rules of the game.  Prestige classes, especially, should fit the game world and add to its backdrop.  If they're just a set of mechanical attributes with no real tie to the game world, then they don't fit and should be removed from that game.Returning to the topic of adding words, I again note that the rules clearly state that darkvision does indeed work when you're not in total darkness.  As well, nothing in the HiPS descrpition actually says it cannot be used in total darkness.  It says you must be within 10' of dim light, not that you must be in either the dim or brighter light nearby.  Beyond dim light is often darkness.</blockquote>

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