D&D 5E Old Ways of Playing

[Stormonu]

In a similar vein, but on the opposite side of the table, I had a long time friend bring up Infravision (he hadn't played since 2E days). I'd forgotten that with the change to Darkvision, with infravision you can't see undead because they are the same temperature as the surrounding air.

 

[Viking Bastard]

...with infravision you can't see undead because they are the same temperature as the surrounding air.

Was that an official thing, as I've always played them as being chilly cold.

 

[Kinak]

Was that an official thing, as I've always played them as being chilly cold.

Yeah. The Illithiad even called out illithids hating mindless undead because they couldn't see them using infravision or telepathy.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Redthistle]

How do undead see anything except life forms then? Like walls, spells, their own weapons...

Uhmmm ... tremor sense? It would explain the horror movie trope of undead reaching up from the grave just as hapless characters move through the cemetery.

Inanimate gossip? Come to think of it, even the living find themselves talking to walls sometimes; after all, it's well known that walls have ears. They must be wonderful listeners. Now we know what they do with all that one-sided conversation - they pass it on to the undead just for s**** and giggles.

Spells? I got nothing.

Their own weapons ... d'oh! I just remembered. None of this is real. They sense their own weapons just because we want them to. No fun fighting a pile of bones on the ground, after all.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The idea of detecting life force rather than seeing is one of those things that sticks out to me like a sore thumb as causing more problems than it solves. I imagine a bunch of undead in crypts constantly bumping into walls and tripping over coffins.

Assuming it also applies to sensing unlife, then at least it explains why powerful undead surround themselves with minions. They need those skeletons and zombies bumping into all the walls and obstacles so they know where they are.

 

[Savage Wombat]

In a similar vein, but on the opposite side of the table, I had a long time friend bring up Infravision (he hadn't played since 2E days). I'd forgotten that with the change to Darkvision, with infravision you can't see undead because they are the same temperature as the surrounding air.

In the old Baldur's Gate game, characters with infravision could see the monsters illuminated with red when you were fighting at night. Undead monsters lacked this marker.

 

[Henrix]

In a similar vein, but on the opposite side of the table, I had a long time friend bring up Infravision (he hadn't played since 2E days). I'd forgotten that with the change to Darkvision, with infravision you can't see undead because they are the same temperature as the surrounding air.

That's the way I ran it as well.

I hated infrared vision - taken as really seeing heat would cause a tremendous amount of trouble, so you had to fudge it. (No, you cannot see the slightly warmer footprints left in order to track. No, I can't bother having hot air block your line of sight.)

But the bit about not being able to see undead in the dark was fun, and made them scary.

Another DM introduced the concept that ghosts and shadows and such were colder than the environment, which made them visible.


I did prefer the difference between low light and darkvision, however, and still think of elves as not seeing in the dark but perfectly in starlight.
(I'll probably reintroduce that as a houserule.)

 

[Paraxis]

I did prefer the difference between low light and darkvision, however, and still think of elves as not seeing in the dark but perfectly in starlight.
(I'll probably reintroduce that as a houserule.)

I wanted low light vision to ignore dim lighting conditions, and dark vision to make darkness dim light. Some creatures would have both but most would just have one or the other.

So elf with low light can see in the woods with the stars and moon above just as good as a human in sunlight, a dwarf wouldn't have any benefit in that situation but in the darkness of a cave he would see as it was dim light. Call the combination Ultravision and give that to undead so they see in utter darkness like a human in sunlight.

Basically break up the current darkvision into smaller components.

 

[KarinsDad]

I wanted low light vision to ignore dim lighting conditions, and dark vision to make darkness dim light. Some creatures would have both but most would just have one or the other.

So elf with low light can see in the woods with the stars and moon above just as good as a human in sunlight, a dwarf wouldn't have any benefit in that situation but in the darkness of a cave he would see as it was dim light. Call the combination Ultravision and give that to undead so they see in utter darkness like a human in sunlight.

Basically break up the current darkvision into smaller components.

We've done this in the past. Whenever a new edition comes out, we tend to blow off many of our old house rules and try to play by the current RAW for a while. Pretty soon, old house rules get forgotten.

 

[Piratecat]

We used to let anyone with infravision track fleeing enemies by the heat of their footprints. Some movie—was it Predator?—influenced our AD&D game far more than it should have.

It used to be the case that anyone using infravision or ultravision was blinded for a round when regular light was kindled. I STILL find myself thinking this is true, even though it hasn't been for 15 years.