D&D 5E Is 5e Darkvision A Good Design?

[Snarf Zagyg]

I hate darkvision in 5e. Many have already stated the issues with it, with which I agree. But I would restate the problem in terms of the history.

Originally, "darkvision" was a really special ability. In fact, there is still a debate about it w/r/t dwarf and elf PCs in OD&D.*

*It is really stupid and technical, and involves Chainmail, Supplement 1, and a level of rules parsing that I refuse to participate in!


But taking AD&D (1e) as a baseline, we get an expansion of races, with the twin (bad?) ideas that pretty much every demi-human (sorry, non-Stout halflings) gets infravision**, but the game itself remains stubbornly humanocentric. Which makes some sense (giving special abilities to the non-humans in exchange for level limits, etc.), but created this historical divide we see today.

**They also include ultravision, which is a cool concept, but don't bother making it available to any PC races, for reasons. Even though ultravision would make a lot more sense for forest-dwelling elves.

So the two big issues are that infravision was explained really poorly. If you read the 1e PHB and DMG, it is kinda sorta like infravision, but not really? It is in black and white, and detects heat, but can be active infravision, but ... so it's pretty difficult to run correctly. This issue is largely corrected by simplifying "infravision" to low-light darkvision.

The second issue is that not having dark vision becomes a significant disadvantage. Either you just kinda of "meh" it away (the never-ending torch/lantern) or you realize that it's a great default ability to have; so great, in fact, that they pretty much lard it on to all races so you don't have to keep up with the bookkeeping.***

*** That's why, when you look at those 5e "point buy" guides to making races, you don't have to spend anything for darkvision. It's just assumed.

....Except humans. Because we don't see in the dark.

 

[Helldritch]

As I said. Too many races have DV. With level restrictions I would not mind, but since those days are over, then there must be some drawback to DV. The drawback that I enforce is if a bright light source is brought up suddenly, you are blinded until you make a con save (at the end of your turn) to end the effect. The save is usually easy at 13. Most characters only need a 11 or better to save.
No save is required if you are in the dim light radius. This alone makes up for interesting tactics from the players and the monsters.

 

[GlassJaw]

I really dislike 5E darkvision for multiple reasons:

• it negates the darkness threat in the DM's toolbox
• it creates a massive disparity between the darkvision haves and have-nots
• too many races have it

Vision needs to be split into low-light and darkvision in order to nerf darkvision and to better spread the vision types across the races. I simply do the following:

Low-light vision: You can see in dim light as well as you do in bright light. Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on Perception checks relying on sight.

Darkvision: You treat darkness within 60 feet of you as dim light. When you do so, your vision is in black and white.

I'm ok with a race having darkvision and not low-light and vice versa. Cats can't see in complete darkness. Conversely, a creature accustom to pitch black conditions won't necessarily have the ability to see clearly and accurately at long range in shadowy conditions.

Also opens up the design space to give a race both.

 

[Fanaelialae]

IMO, it is common but hardly ubiquitous (even discounting humans).

If you look at the PHB common races, half of them don't have darkvision. If you include the uncommon races, 33% still don't have darkvision.

I get that some people would like it to be more rare (or nonexistent). Just pointing out that a fair portion of the races don't have DV.

 

[the Jester]

The question is simple, on the surface. Is it good design that 5e Darkvision has such a limited range, is mostly binary, and causes you to see in darkness as dim light and dim light as bright light, with no way (generally) to see in darkness without impairment?

I definitely preferred 4e's split of low-light and darkvision. On range, I think a limited range is not only fine, it's longstanding tradition.

As for "no way to see in darkness without impairment"- sure there is: bring a light. I'm absolutely fine with that one, and I think it's very good that everyone without blindsight of some kind suffers some degree of impairment in lightless conditions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I picked the bottom option, because I think it's both a good design and a bad design, in different ways.

It's a bad default choice for how characters with "vision in darkness" work. The should have gone with a simple implementation of low-light vision as the default for most races. It's easier to work with RP and description-wise, makes more immediate sense, players understand it better, and it means torches and the like are a necessity for pretty much everyone, rather all these stupid situations occurring where one or two party members need a torch and everyone else "doesn't" (except they kind of do, if you actually understand the rules).

So it's a bad design in the sense that it was a bad choice for a universal mode of vision (given the above), and it's a bad design in that the rules it works by are not laid out as clearly as they could be (people are still constantly surprised to find out you have Disadvantage on Perception checks when operating with Darkvision, just look at how often it comes up on any D&D board, especially more mainstream ones), and it's arguably a bad design in that, because of the way it works, any being that has it actually would need to and want to light areas it lived in, which makes some lore around those creatures dubious.

On the other hand, getting past the error of using it as the default mode of "seeing in the dark", it's a decent implementation of Darkvision. It's almost a direct throwback to 2E's "standard Infravision" (rather than the more elaborate "thermographic" infravision that about 9/10 groups seemed to play with - kinda makes sense as the DMG devotes almost an entire page to the latter), so pleases grogs. It's pretty straightforward in terms of functionality (barring the slightly counter-intuitive darkness disadvantage issue), and the fact that almost everyone as a 60' range on it makes it easy to deal with.

So it's a mixed bag. Low-light should have been the default, with Darkvision for special races, after 3E and 4E, though, it really should. Dwarves should have been the only PHB race with Darkvision (arguably Tieflings too).

 

[GlassJaw]

I definitely preferred 4e's split of low-light and darkvision. On range, I think a limited range is not only fine, it's longstanding tradition.

I do as well. Also interesting that none of the core 4E races had darkvision.

/offtopic - I've come around on my view of 4E. There is still a lot I don't like but I appreciate its design evolution a lot more than I did at the time. I could almost envision a "4.5E", but using the core of 5E and moving back towards 4E. But that's a topic for another thread.

 

[GMMichael]

The question is simple, on the surface. Is it good design that 5e Darkvision has such a limited range, is mostly binary, and causes you to see in darkness as dim light and dim light as bright light, with no way (generally) to see in darkness without impairment?

Obviously, it's good design. Thousands of D&D Next players approved.

I wouldn't design it that way though. The 5e, rulings-not-rules, bounded-accuracy way to do it should be:

"Darkvision: you can see everything within 60 feet of you as though it were well-lit."

 

[Maxperson]

Dagnabit! I keep forgetting that dim light penalty to visual perception.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fenrisvision: You can't see a damn thing outside 60', it's as dark as the pit of hell past the edges of the torchlight. You're on the last sputtering dregs of your final torch, and the things in the dark want to eat you.