D&D 5E How Darkness helps the dungeon crawl experience immensely.

[iserith]

I think that's up to interpretation. I mean, you have disadvantage on perception checks, so in the very least, I'd think you'd have trouble reading. I suspect that a Drow arachnomancer is gonna want a few glowing mushrooms to read her spellbook.

Only if the spellbook has color illustrations. And maybe it does!

 

[nevin]

If so many races didn’t have Darkvision, and it wasn’t so burdensome to implement in game I might agree on the use of more darkness in the game. As it is, it’s just an annoyance to the point all my dungeons are essentially prelit these days.

Imo the old infravision rules worked far better. If darkvision is heat based vision then undead, fungi, and elementals except fire and ice can't be seen in a dark dungeon. Make true darkvision a monster only ability.

But to other comments it would s a pain running blind people through a dungeon. That's probably why dark vision was made so easy to obtain. Of course in an environment with darkvision, creatures still have stealth, and would develop natural and magical camouflage.

 

[iserith]

Imo the old infravision rules worked far better. If darkvision is heat based vision then undead, fungi, and elementals except fire and ice can't be seen in a dark dungeon. Make true darkvision a monster only ability.

But to other comments it would s a pain running blind people through a dungeon. That's probably why dark vision was made so easy to obtain. Of course in an environment with darkvision, creatures still have stealth, and would develop natural and magical camouflage.

With the disadvantage to Perception in dim light, there's some incentive there for even creatures with darkvision living in a dark environment to have some light here and there. It would make some tactical sense to have light set up defensively so as to have a better chance of avoiding surprise.

 

[James Gasik]

Or even to use bright light offensively. Imagine you're creeping down a dark, dimly lit tunnel. You're sure the enemy has detect you, but they haven't made an appearance yet.

Suddenly, the room is filled by dazzling bright light, reflected off of polished shields and mirrors, momentarily blinding your eyes, which had up until now been straining to notice any details in the gloom, and then you hear the shouts of the Hobgoblins attacking...

 

[iserith]

Or even to use bright light offensively. Imagine you're creeping down a dark, dimly lit tunnel. You're sure the enemy has detect you, but they haven't made an appearance yet.

Suddenly, the room is filled by dazzling bright light, reflected off of polished shields and mirrors, momentarily blinding your eyes, which had up until now been straining to notice any details in the gloom, and then you hear the shouts of the Hobgoblins attacking...

Yes, or put bright light on one side of a bridge where enemies would presumably be coming from and keep your side with all the archers in the darkness. Bonus points if the light sources are not easy to reach and out of range of a prestidigitation spell. Bullseye lanterns on the monsters' side of the bridge could outrange control flames spells too (though the PCs would be in dim light meaning monster Perception is at disadvantage if there are no light sources near PCs).

 

[Bill Zebub]

My human paladin got his hands on a 50gp ruby and got the cleric to prepare continual flame. Now his sword (which happens to be Shatterspike) is a perma-torch. Very handy.