Something That Never Made Sense: Light Radius

[I'm A Banana]

That being said, I do feel everyone should at least start the game on a level playing field. The building blocks being used to put my character together should be in generally same ballpark of usefulness. If option B gives me 3 times more options than option A without any drawbacks, is option A honestly a real option?

There's two ways to achieve this without ditching darkvision or flight or whatever.

The first is to provide easy, mundane ways that normal people can disable them, or some way in which they are unreliable. Darkvision being disabled due to bright light, for instance, or being unable to perceive a creature that is sneaking, or requiring some (even minor) effort. Flight that must be sustained with actions, or that is ended with damage, for instance.

The second is to provide other creatures with abilities that rival the ability in question. Humans might not be able to fly or to see in the dark, but +1 to every ability score? Nice.

If you combine all these options, you get the desired effect: Your dwarf makes sense and is mighty in the darkness, but your human doesn't feel weaker, and your dwarf can still be thwarted by a dude with a hooded lantern.

 

[Argyle King]

There's two ways to achieve this without ditching darkvision or flight or whatever.

The first is to provide easy, mundane ways that normal people can disable them, or some way in which they are unreliable. Darkvision being disabled due to bright light, for instance, or being unable to perceive a creature that is sneaking, or requiring some (even minor) effort. Flight that must be sustained with actions, or that is ended with damage, for instance.

The second is to provide other creatures with abilities that rival the ability in question. Humans might not be able to fly or to see in the dark, but +1 to every ability score? Nice.

If you combine all these options, you get the desired effect: Your dwarf makes sense and is mighty in the darkness, but your human doesn't feel weaker, and your dwarf can still be thwarted by a dude with a hooded lantern.

I do generally agree that there should be drawbacks and strengths to each option. I did not take from the original post of yours that I quoted that that was what you meant though. I took what you had posted as meaning you didn't feel abilities such as flight and darkvision were potent enough to make much of a difference to balance. If that is not what you meant, that I apologize for misunderstanding what you had said.

Darkvision that can be thwarted is a little better, but it still -imo- leans a little toward favoring those with it and those without it. The primary advantage to darkvision is being able to see in the dark. Someone with it is going to play to their strengths while trying to diminish their drawbacks. Staying away from light when you're trying to be stealthy in the dark is already something someone attempting stealth would do anyway; doubly so if they are trying to use darkvision. For someone with a lantern to be close enough to disrupt darkvision, the person using light would need to already be aware there was something out there in the dark.

Using actions to maintain flight doesn't really help either because the normal way of moving is by using actions already. Needing to use an action to fly is still preferable to needing an action to walk. Were you suggesting flying would require an additional action on top of what is normally needed to move?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I took what you had posted as meaning you didn't feel abilities such as flight and darkvision were potent enough to make much of a difference to balance. If that is not what you meant, that I apologize for misunderstanding what you had said.

So, for the sake of utter clarity, let me be precise:

I think that any D&D game which is unbalanced by the existence of PC flight, Large PC size, PC teleportation, PC divination, or PC's seeing in the dark, or similar things (PC's without opposable thumbs! PC's who can change form!), is not a sufficiently robust D&D for me to have fun with it.

These things SHOULD NOT make much of a difference for balance. If they do -- if a game with PC's with darkvision is unbalanced -- then the game is poorly designed for my heroic fantasy roleplaying purposes.

A D&D that meets my needs must be able to absorb these effects without being broken. The reason, ultimately, has to do with the needs of my heroic fantasy. The genre is filled with things that fly, things that are gigantic, things that see the future, things that travel immense distances in the blink of an eye, things that transform, and things that live in caves and see in the dark. These things should not be excluded form the reach of players. And since some of these things depend on what you are, they must be within the reach of players at the start of the game.

Part of what this means is that a D&D that meets my needs cannot depend on microbalance. Of course, in a particular encounter in the middle of the night, a person who can see in the dark will beat someone who cannot.

A D&D that is robust enough for me will be able to absorb that dominance without breaking. That is, even if the dwarf sees in the dark, the game won't become "easy" for the dwarf, the dwarf won't get more "screen time," and the dwarf won't define the way the game is played (forcing me to plan arround the dwarf, for instance). Same with flight, or divination, or Large size.

This mandates that D&D be able to take entire encounters -- sometimes even chunks of an adventure -- and not have the game session depend entirely on these things.

This is part of why I'm an advocate for things like "adventure-based resource management" and "three pillars of play." These principles help avoid a situation where seeing in the dark makes you suddenly too powerful to be a heroic fantasy PC.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, for the sake of utter clarity, let me be precise:

I think that any D&D game which is unbalanced by the existence of PC flight, Large PC size, PC teleportation, PC divination, or PC's seeing in the dark, or similar things (PC's without opposable thumbs! PC's who can change form!), is not a sufficiently robust D&D for me to have fun with it.

These things SHOULD NOT make much of a difference for balance. If they do -- if a game with PC's with darkvision is unbalanced -- then the game is poorly designed for my heroic fantasy roleplaying purposes.

A D&D that meets my needs must be able to absorb these effects without being broken. The reason, ultimately, has to do with the needs of my heroic fantasy. The genre is filled with things that fly, things that are gigantic, things that see the future, things that travel immense distances in the blink of an eye, things that transform, and things that live in caves and see in the dark. These things should not be excluded form the reach of players. And since some of these things depend on what you are, they must be within the reach of players at the start of the game.

Part of what this means is that a D&D that meets my needs cannot depend on microbalance. Of course, in a particular encounter in the middle of the night, a person who can see in the dark will beat someone who cannot.

A D&D that is robust enough for me will be able to absorb that dominance without breaking. That is, even if the dwarf sees in the dark, the game won't become "easy" for the dwarf, the dwarf won't get more "screen time," and the dwarf won't define the way the game is played (forcing me to plan arround the dwarf, for instance). Same with flight, or divination, or Large size.

This mandates that D&D be able to take entire encounters -- sometimes even chunks of an adventure -- and not have the game session depend entirely on these things.

This is part of why I'm an advocate for things like "adventure-based resource management" and "three pillars of play." These principles help avoid a situation where seeing in the dark makes you suddenly too powerful to be a heroic fantasy PC.

Agreed with most of that...which is why I adore HERO.

 

[Argyle King]

So, for the sake of utter clarity, let me be precise:

I think that any D&D game which is unbalanced by the existence of PC flight, Large PC size, PC teleportation, PC divination, or PC's seeing in the dark, or similar things (PC's without opposable thumbs! PC's who can change form!), is not a sufficiently robust D&D for me to have fun with it.

These things SHOULD NOT make much of a difference for balance. If they do -- if a game with PC's with darkvision is unbalanced -- then the game is poorly designed for my heroic fantasy roleplaying purposes.

A D&D that meets my needs must be able to absorb these effects without being broken. The reason, ultimately, has to do with the needs of my heroic fantasy. The genre is filled with things that fly, things that are gigantic, things that see the future, things that travel immense distances in the blink of an eye, things that transform, and things that live in caves and see in the dark. These things should not be excluded form the reach of players. And since some of these things depend on what you are, they must be within the reach of players at the start of the game.

Part of what this means is that a D&D that meets my needs cannot depend on microbalance. Of course, in a particular encounter in the middle of the night, a person who can see in the dark will beat someone who cannot.

A D&D that is robust enough for me will be able to absorb that dominance without breaking. That is, even if the dwarf sees in the dark, the game won't become "easy" for the dwarf, the dwarf won't get more "screen time," and the dwarf won't define the way the game is played (forcing me to plan arround the dwarf, for instance). Same with flight, or divination, or Large size.

This mandates that D&D be able to take entire encounters -- sometimes even chunks of an adventure -- and not have the game session depend entirely on these things.

This is part of why I'm an advocate for things like "adventure-based resource management" and "three pillars of play." These principles help avoid a situation where seeing in the dark makes you suddenly too powerful to be a heroic fantasy PC.

A valid opinion.


Mine is that I don't see (no pun intended) how having darkvision isn't a difference maker. Sight is one of the dominant senses that we have. While there are edge cases like the blind guy who has learned to click his tongue to use echolocation in a manner similar to a bat, not being able to see is generally a big deal. IMO, an advantage like that is going to be a game changer unless you saddle it with enough drawbacks that it ceases to be fun by virtue of sucking so badly elsewhere.

Basically put: If I can see in the dark, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure as many encounters as possible take place in the dark. At some point the GM might start just using enemies who also have dark vision, but then that's something which has changed somewhat drastically how encounter design is being done at the table -a game changer.

Everything I just said there also applies to flight, but even more so because the ability to fly is also extremely valuable in utility situations.

I'm not suggesting it is impossible to balance such things. There are rpgs I play which do, but those are still two abilities which are extremely useful; even in the style of game you mention. Traditionally, D&D's approach to such things (especially in the most recent version of the game) has been to place limitations on such things which I would feel fall into the category of the metagame of the system; that's something I prefer to avoid as much as possible.

All things considered, I think it's pretty safe to say you want vastly different things out of your rpg experience than I do. I think that is fine. I accept that not everyone plays the game the same way. However, I do not believe a D&D which is geared toward the things you mention to such an extent as you would prefer them to be is a game which can also fit the type of game I want to play. There's nothing wrong with that; I in no way expect the next edition of the game to bend to what I want. I'm just stating what seems to be the case. If I had to guess, I would guess that what D&D will become will more than likely be far closer to what you want than what I want.

When it comes to Darkvision, I don't feel it's an ability which should be so common. If I were in charge of D&D, I'm not so sure I'd even give it to dwarves and some of the other races which traditionally have had it.

 

[Mattachine]

Darkvision has always been annoyance in my games, especially at low level. The party with 3 demihumans and a human . . . poor, poor human.

Also, it simply obviates an interesting low-level challenge, lighting.

Finally, having most monsters have darkvision means that non-darkvision heroes can't get the drop on them . . . unless they end up with a darkvision item or spell. Lame.

In my campaigns, goblins and kobolds have lairs lit by torches and campfires.

Come to think of it, most old AD&D adventures had these humanoids use torchlight, despite having "infravision".