D&D General How do you really handle illumination in your games?

[Charlaquin]

I generally want to make illumination matter, and since it's a complicated topic I typically go back and review the rules frequently, almost every time when preparing a new adventure.

But then while running the game I often totally forget about it, and end up essentially handwaving it.

It's easy not to forget about the obvious cases, such as when someone/something is invisible or trying to hide and sneak, as well as taking into account cover and other physical concealment that might obscure vision (fog, foliage...).

What I keep forgetting, is to handle regular areas of bright light vs dim light vs darkness. I would really like to make light sources ranges matter, but most of the time I just end up assuming that if one PC has any light source, then everyone can basically see a whole dungeon room at once.

Note that I play exclusively in person, so I don't have the aid of "fog of war" features from a VTT.

How precisely do you enforce illumination rules in your games, and how do you manage to keep everything in mind?

In D&D 5e, trying to make light a limited resource is kind of a fool’s errand. Tons of PC species have Darkvision, and every spellcaster has access to at least one cantrip that makes light, which means the only time the party will ever need to keep track of light as a limited resource is when there’s a human or halfling or something in the party and there isn’t a spellcaster in the party who took a light generating cantrip. And even in that case, the first time any of them gets to learn an additional cantrip they’ll probably take a light generating one.

Vision ranges are mostly a pain to deal with on the tabletop, because it’s extremely inconvenient to describe only part of a room. And, personally, I tend to treat dungeon exploration as partially abstract, so when I’m describing a room, I’m assuming the party is at least moving around in the room to cast their light around. What vision ranges do matter for though is encounter distances. If the monsters have a greater vision range than the PCs do, they can easily attack from the darkness unseen (and vice-versa). If both sides’ vision ranges are equal, combat doesn’t start before the monsters and PCs are within that distance of each other, and a fleeing creature really only needs to get beyond their enemies’ vision range to escape.

 

[Voadam]

I generally find it too fiddly to fuss with. Theatre of mind I might mention it, but battlemaps I don't really sweat it.

Light cantrips are ubiquitous in 5e. So is darkvision in core nonhumans and even the warforged artificer in my group made nightvision goggles early on.

In 3e sunrods were 100 gp so soon available.

In AD&D continual light was a 2nd level cleric spell with permanent duration and no costly spell component. Plus many magic swords generated light.

So torches were only a low level thing in most games.

Dealing with the edges of light ranges is very fiddly and not something I find fun to track and manage. When I was DMing a 5e game on fantasy grounds the fog of war effect was neat, but I did not like having to add in walls on every map (including the FG version ones of the modules I was running) so I soon gave it up.

 

[Plaguescarred]

When i play in Theater of the Mind, i arbitrarily determine what can be seen based on distance and conditions. When i Grid Play, i use Line of Sight rules to determine vision between spaces on the map so it's rarely a problem one way or another.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think D&D would benefit from more abstract range categories.

• Arm’s Reach for melee attacks and anything else that has a range of “touch” or 5 feet, and the distance of a candle’s bright light.
• Long Reach for melee attacks with reach weapons, and the limit of a candle’s dim light.
• Short Range for the distance a character can move in one turn of combat without dashing, the typical range of thrown weapons and hand crossbows, the limit of a torch’s bright light, and the limit of typical Darkvision.
• Medium Range for the distance a character can move if they dash, the typical range of shortbows, light crossbows, and slings, the extended range of thrown weapons and hand crossbows, the limit of a torch’s bright light, and the limit of improved Darkvision.
• Long Range for the typical range of longbows and heavy crossbows and the extended range of shortbows, light crossbows, and slings.

 

[JohnSnow]

I absolutely despise Darkvision and think the game would be better off without it, except as a short-duration spell that a character can cast. Low-light vision? Maybe. It's one of the things I like about Shadowdark.

And before anyone comes at me with "But what about Dwarves, they live underground!" I'll just note that Tolkien's dwarves couldn't see in the frakking dark, and it's noted (frequently) that they carry and use torches. Of all of the characters going through Moria, Frodo is noted as having the best ability to see in the dark of anyone in the Fellowship, save possibly Gandalf.

It is debatable whether this is due to an ability given him by the Ring, a side-effect of his stabbing by the Witch King, or both.

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

I wanted darkness to play a fairly important role in my campaign. I told my players up front that most species in my world wouldn't be receiving darkvision, unless it's a species that lives almost exclusively underground, like Drow or Duergar.

My players are currently exploring a megadungeon cavern system, with some caverns having quite open spaces, so even with light sources like bullseye lanterns, light spells, torches, etc they're at points unable to illuminate all around them. And this matters when they're in a fight and surrounded by enemies that are using the party's own light sources against them (and the party can, in turn, do the same against the enemies). One of my players picked up Starry Wisp, a cantrip that lights up creatures when they're hit, and its been greatly beneficial to the group.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied. It helps that I play on a VTT and I can, on the fly, give tokens light if they light up a torch, and set up walls that they can't see through.

Edit: Also, when Darkvision is involved (because a couple players did find ways to obtain it), I do absolutely enforce that you can only view things in gray colors, and give disadvantage on perception checks relying on sight if they don't actually have any light sources with them.