Darkvision is pervasive in D&D 5E. Most of the playable races have it, almost all of the monsters have it. Tasha's even introduced an option to let everyone have it. It is just pervasive.
I've seen many adventuring groups with one poor human being lead around in the dark by his group mates who refuse to light a light. Presumably there are whole underground cities with nary a light source to be had...hmm, that just doesn't jib with typical fantasy world visions. It also makes dungeon delving a different thing than what I want to run. So, I'm going to look deeper into this topic in this post and make sure I know how I want to handle this topic.
Before delving into the dark, I want to provide some links that I reviewed while thinking about this topic and then a bit of RAW extracting to set a level playing field.
Web Links on the Topic
I'm far from alone by being bothered or confused about light/dark/vision in 5E. Here are some sources that I reviewed:
- Just About Sick Of Darkvision, posted on Morris's Unofficial Table Top News in 2015. The author delves into how absolutely common darkvision is and how it seems to imply absurdities in world design.
- Ask Angry: Seeing in the Dark, posted by (of course) the Angry GM. Angry rants quite a bit before concluding that the effect of light in game is highly dependent on the DM.
- A treatise on Darkvision, posted by the Nerd-O-Mancer of Dork. The author's approach is to eliminate the dark part of darkvision and replace it with something closer to low light vision.
- Darkness, Light, and Vision: Dungeons and Dragons 5e Rules Explained, video by the Dungeon Dudes in 2019. The dudes review the rules, share opinions and suggest a couple of house rules.
- Darkvision in 5E D&D:: What's the DEAL?, video posted by Complex Games Apologist in 2020. The apologist talks around the subject mixing common sense with rules while poking a bit of fun at the Dudes for seemingly taking the rules to mean what they say.
Rules As Written (RAW)
This is basic stuff, it is addressed in the basic rules.
Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring--noticing danger, finding hidden objects, hitting an enemy in combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few--rely heavily on a character's ability to see. Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.A heavily obscured area--such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage--blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness....DarkvisionMany creatures in fantasy gaming worlds, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
The above references the blinded condition that is defined as follows:
Blinded
- A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
- Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
The rules as written contain both a couple of things that bother me and tend to gloss over potential issues of operating in Dim Light. I want to dive into those just a bit before addressing how I intend to handle this topic.
Normal Darkness Blocking All Vision
The bit of the rule that states: A heavily obscured area--such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage--blocks vision entirely. Implies that an observer standing on a hill top can not see the fires of a camp at the base of the hill because of the darkness between his position and the fire. The second sentence has a slightly different meaning, applying only to things in the area, which seems to not be what was intended as things like fog and dense foliage block vision both where they are and to anything further away in that direction.
Seeing through darkness is easy, seeing something in darkness is hard. RAW just totally misses that mark.
The rule makes a lot more sense if the word, magical, is inserted in front of darkness and or beyond is added at the end. Doing so gives me the following, hopefully more intuitive house rule:
Vision and Light: A heavily obscured area--such as magical darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage--blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in or beyond that area. Normal darkness only affects objects within it.
Two Blind Combatants
The rules on the blinded condition when applied to two combatants in the dark gives them each advantage and disadvantage which results in them fighting normally. This seems wrong. I'd expect two people groping about in the dark to take a little longer to land telling blows. It also negates a possible benefit of AOE damage in darkness which doesn't need to see its target.
While 5E is rigorous on advantage and disadvantage being offsetting. Sometimes that feels wrong, though it is a vastly simplifying choice that I think must be retained. If I just insert the necessity to see a blinded target to have advantage, I get to the result I want something like this:
Blinded, change second bullet too: Attack rolls against a blinded, visible creature have advantage. A blinded creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.
Reining in Darkvision
After digging into the rules, I feel I have reinforced the importance of picking a character race (there are tons of them) blessed with darkvision as an ability. From what I have gathered darkvision is barely more than zero cost in terms of race trade-offs, races that have it lose essentially nothing for having the perk. TCoE in an optional rule, says that Darkvision is equivalent to one skill -- I can't imagine not taking darkvision at that cost and with the way it is normally handled.
I've read several posters who advocating stripping it from most races, or nerfing it with limitations such as only working in dim light. That is an appealing idea to me. Others have suggested making it universal, but I like using darkness in dungeons as one features of a dark deep place. Darkness just seems like an important thing, something I don't want to hand wave away.
Effect of Dim Light
An alternative is to really dig into that bit on what dim light provides and makes sure there are meaningful limitations on it.
In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, ... creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Reading that narrowly, it's not much of an issue. It only applies to active perception checks, no big deal. That is the way it is usually treated. What if, instead it is read much more broadly, interpreted to mean it is difficult to see in dim light. That's really not much of a stretch and could result in quite a few other disadvantages to operating in dim light:
- Passive Perception subject to a -5 penalty, (essential disadvantage on a passive check)
- Double movement cost in unfamiliar areas, (footfalls must be watched more carefully)
- Reading is difficult or impossible, (Ink on a page is nothing more than shadows)
- Traps may be impossible to see, (Is that a pit ahead or just floor, can't see well enough to tell)
- Stealthy movement is at disadvantage or 1/2 (again) speed.
There may be other disadvantages too operating in dim light, but that is a start. Limitations like these make sense to me and support the low cost of having darkvision by making it less powerful; which, in turn encourages use of some light source providing bright light.
Vulnerability of Darkvision
I can also imagine allowing certain attacks to focus on darkvision. Suppose a creature traveling in darkness using darkvision is popped with bright light. That flash of light coming into existence would be very much blinding, presumably more so than to a non-darkvision creature exposed to the same effect. Might the creature be stunned for a round and blinded for a few more (d6) if they fail a DEX save?
I'm considering the following house rule (creating a flash-bang tactic without the bang):
A creature using darkvision in the dark suddenly subject to bright light must make a DEX save or be blinded. At the end of each round, a CON save may be made to restore vision. If daylight is used, stunned for one round and then blinded on failure. Creature is blinded for 1 round on successful save.
Certain spells can be crafted in "dark" light, visible only to creatures using dark vision. Some of these would be:
- Dark Illusions (any variety)
- Dark Hypnotic Pattern
- Dark Color Spray
- Dark Shroud - Cantrip similar to Light but creates an area that negates darkvision
A dark variety would need to be prepared as normal, taking up a spell slot.
Active Darkvision
The vulnerabilities suggest a need to be able to turn on/off dark vision. I imagine this to be essentially something like a lens that a creature either has active or not. I will typically assume darkvision to be active, but:
A creature with darkvision can activate/deactivate it with a free action.
Seeing Further in the Dark
RAW ignores reflections and further light sources. That is sensible in that the topic can get waaaay complicated, but it is something I think worth mentioning and jotting down a basic ruling on.
First everyone assumes they can see a light source a long way off. That totally makes sense, the amount of detail is of course attenuated by distance, but a normal eye can see pretty much any light source that is in its line of sight. They can also see objects revealed by that light to the degree allowed by distance.
Second, reflective objects can be noticed far beyond the light cast by a source and generally usable. How much further? Well, that is pretty situational. I think I'll start with a double a light source's dim light circle and increase from there. Objects that gather/concentrate light (e.g. eyes with darkvision) are visible as glints of light at twice again the distance. Distance to the reflections can only be roughly guessed.
Third, an object in darkness but silhouetted by a more distant light source is apparent to an observer who would see what appears to be a shadow without details. The observer may target such a target at disadvantage as distance in this situation is hard to estimate accurately.
Attempting to put these rather common sense based thoughts into rule-speak, I get the following:
Extended Vision in the Dark: (1) Distant light sources are visible if in LOS and objects they illuminate may be seen. (2) Reflective objects glint at twice or more the distance from the light source. Objects that are especially good at gathering and concentrating light (darkvision eyes) glint at four times the lights radius. Distance to a glint can only be guessed imposing disadvantage on any attacks. (3) Silhouetted objects can be seen and targeted at range with disadvantage.
Discord comment from Jon, 12/2/20:
ReplyDeleteAs for darkvision there is some things to note:
• A flashbang to stun darkvision creatures would likely be a WIS save, rather than DEX, since it attacks your sensory abilities and isn't something you dodge, like a boulder.
• Punishing darkvision users is definitely 1 way of reducing their ubiquity, but the other is to stop punishing non-darkvision users. The reality about torches and light sources is that they are so damned inconvenient. The common reason for the 1 blind human led by 4 elves and orcs in D&D is that the elves and orcs want to stealth. They want to use their class features. They don't want to alert the enemy to their exact location with a brilliant pillar of light broadcasting their location to every creature in the area, regardless of whether or not they have darkvision. Darkvision isn't a reward, it's the "get out of jail free" card of the darkness rules of 5e. Perhaps a better way to address darkvision is to cut back on all the damned penalties that exist if you don't have it. Or to make scenarios where having a torch isn't suicidal. Most dnd dungeons have the heroes as the only non-enemy sentient creature in the area. Maybe sometimes the enemies could exist in the city, where many passersby have torches as they go about their lives. Maybe sometimes the enemies live in a temple where they have torches on the walls so they can navigate their homes. It just seems silly to create circumstances where the options are between having a torch or a blinded ally.
• The sad part about the flashbang attack rules that you posted is that you could fail your save and be blinded for d6 rounds.... or take someone without darkvision and permanently be blinded in darkness. That's choosing between a shit and a turd, as the saying goes.
• It's important to note that class features, such as the Gloomstalker's ability at level 3 to be invisible to creatures that rely on darkvision, are magics that are relatively accessible and can be common traits in the worlds of D&D. A level 3 gloomstalker hasn't unearthed some ancient and powerful, unknown magic. He's using something akin to a cantrip. It's common knowledge to those who want to stalk about unseen. Any assassin worth his / her salt would use such tricks. Certain invisibility spells would exist in a world of darkvision that hide the target from darkvision... hell, maybe it just lasts much longer since the potency of magical energy to hide yourself from a small subset of lowlight darkvision users is less than to turn you utterly invisible.
not complaints about the system you're talking about, just some things I thought about.
Ultimately, I agree. Darkvision is a real problem in 5e. You either have it or you're blind in most places where you really, really want to see. Oh, and there are cantrips you can get that require concentration(!?) that can shed light (like dancing lights) just so you won't be blind when your elf buddy is just walking about all normal without a care in the world.
I just think the penalty for not having darkvision should be less. Using Dim Light rules is appropriate in a lot of places. While players hate rolling at disadvantage, DMs kinda want the stealthed creature hiding in the inky darkness to be .... hard to notice at the least. And darkvision only turns darkness into Dim Light and Dim Light in to bright light. (which implies that it turns bright light into.... ouch light? just exhibit A on why Drow are such a well designed race)
I'm trying to make the dark more of a scary, unknown, versus an inconsequential thing. Also I like choices where something is both good and bad. Darkvision as I have played it in 5E is just filled with goodness, no down side. What I propose still leaves it as pretty durn good, but a bit less so I think.
DeleteI think you actually have a great idea on the Gloomstalker thing. Define a cantrip similar to light that blocks the benefits of darkvision in a similar area. Like light it would be non-concentration. I'll come back to this and add something to that effect.
Similarly, we could have "dark invisibility" that works very much like a gloomstalker's ability. It should be cheaper and/or better in someway than the conventional spell. Perhaps non-concentration or a level lower to cast. Not sure which or either would make sense.
There would also be a "dark greater invisibility" assuming the regular version breaks on an attack like invisibility.
My thinking on the Flash was DEX save to close eyelids fast enough to protect your vision. Maybe make the subsequent blindness something cleared by a WIS or CON save at the end of each round. I'm favoring CON as it is a stat that everyone values and wouldn't make Clerics and such naturally superior at this.
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