Lighting Rules

[Razamir]

Ok, my group is bothered by the fact that a torch only lights up 20 feet and if you are 21 feet out you are totally hidden. 'You don't know he's there' is what the dm usually says. Are there any rules for concealment just outside of torch range? Maybe spot penalties. My group is big time 'by the book' and I can't find anything about levels of darkness.

Thanks

 

[Archer]

Use the mechanics of range increments, at each range increment the concealment is increased 25%. Low light doubles the range increments and stuff like moonlight reduces the maximum level of concealment.

 

[pontus]

Do this then:

21 feet: total darkness (50% miss chance)
20 feet: near total darkness (40% miss chance)
19 feet: moderate darkness (10% miss chance)
18 feet and less: light (no miss chance)

 

[CRGreathouse]

21 feet: total darkness (50% miss chance)
20 feet: near total darkness (40% miss chance)
19 feet: moderate darkness (10% miss chance)
18 feet and less: light (no miss chance)

If I wanted to simulate realism:
0'-10' - 0% concelament
10'-15' - 50% concelament
15'-20' - 75% concelament
20'-25' - 90% concelament

 

[pontus]

If I wanted to simulate realism:
0'-10' - 0% concelament
10'-15' - 50% concelament
15'-20' - 75% concelament
20'-25' - 90% concelament

Bah! Why go for realism when you can go for being difficult?

 

[Artoomis]

"By the book" a torch lights up to 20' and that's it. This is obviously a simplification for faster, less complicated gameplay, but them's the rules.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Bah! Why go for realism when you can go for being difficult?

In my game, 19' is 0% concealment and 20' is 100% concealment. I just said "if".

 

[Dr. Zoom]

The concealment rules in the PH apply in differant degrees of darkness. Beyond the torch radius is total darkness, though, unless you have low light vision or darkvision.

Also, you could use the rules for spotting and listening for invisible creatures in the DMG. This would work for those in total darkness.

 

[Christian]

This is not the first time this issue has come up on these boards. (Surprise, surprise.) I think that before, it was on the House Rules boards, where it belongs.

A house rule I liked was to treat each increment of 20' as reducing the illumination level by one. So 21' to 40' is partial darkness (like moonlight), 41' to 60' is near-total darkness (like starlight), and beyond 60' is total darkness.

There are some interesting arguments for and against this rule, which don't belong on this particular board. However, it did raise a question for me-when I was reviewing the rules to implement it, I couldn't find the effect on the miss chance for darkness for low-light vision. With partial darkness, Spot checks are at -5 (-0 for low-light vision); with near-total darkness, they're at -10 (-5 with low-light vision) according to the visibility table. Fine-but there's also a 20% and 40% miss chance in those cases, and I couldn't find any notes altering those probabilities for low-light. Has anyone found anything I missed? (Yes, I have an actual rules question. Anyone who wants to discuss the pros and cons of the house rules suggested in this thread, please open a topic on the House Rules board & I'll mix it up with you. )

 

[Razamir]

Thanks Christian, but this does belong here. Like I said in my email my group is a 'by the book' group and I was looking for a solution in the one of the books.