Were they BLIND when making this?! [Darkvision] thought experiment

[Melzentir]

Stop the presses. Writers, DM's and editors gather round.

The entry on d20srd.org states the following:

Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature.

Darkvision, however, is by no means at all an extraordinary ability.
It is a very ordinary ability possessed by an estimated 85% of all creatures.
I have made a list at the bottom of this post for reference.

Eyes in the Dark



Since the internet likes cats so much, here is an image of the world in our thought experiment.


In fact, if the sun were to go out, most creatures in the D&D world would be able to perform quite well since they could still see 60ft ahead of them. Sure, they might no longer be able to see, but most daily tasks such as farming, cooking, almost all trade crafts, melee combat and ranged combat up to 60ft and more would be of little difficulty. Some of you might scream at me that the world would turn into a giant popsicle and photosynthesis would do so right along with it, but let's turn a blind eye to those consequences for a second and pretend the world would be entirely dark but otherwise function normally. No starlight either.

Dwarves in particular would most likely begin to scavenge or inhabit the crumbling remains of human, elven, halfling and gnomish cities after their former inhabitants have gone insane* and either murdered each other or starved to death. The aforementioned races could perhaps become exotic slave pets to the monstrous races who now face little resistance within the material plane now that most of civilization is gone.

A few less Eyes in the Dark

Just like humans, liches, ghosts and werewolves do not have darkvision and thus would swiftly be hunted down by the centaurs, griffins and Animated Objects who totally can see in the dark. Yes, with strange ages even death may die, but before then our sources of fear and children's bedroom tales will be wiped off the earth by a random assortment of rather mundane things-turned-killer. Werewolves being hit by spoons again and again till death? What a foul mockery by the gods it is to see our deepest fears cower and die, bent and broken by our own ordinary crafts long after we ourselves have been slain by them.



A poor, helpless creature sure to become extinct soon
We always knew silverware was their bane

Some Colossal creatures in fact might have darkvision of only 60ft and thus, being 64ft or taller, be unable to see their toes without hunching. Colossal Dragons, now incapable of seeing further than twice their body size (64ft against 120ft) would scarcely fly around at all because of the well-founded fear of crashing into something, such as a mountain, or perhaps a castle filled with depraved anarchist cannibals, rambling incoherently about dinnerware. Though they could use their breath weapons for short lived burst of light, they would mostly stick to the ground and be much more likely to starve to death than they already were.


Tiny dots of Light in the Dark

Of course, torches, candles and other light sources would skyrocket in value in the peasant farmlands, at least while the food stocks still last. Some wizards and other classes may in fact be able to create sources of light for up to 10 minutes per day per spell cast, becoming even more like the ridiculously powerful gods they already were. Spamming the permanency spell however would rapidly drain their XP to the point where they'd lose the ability to create light, and the existing dots of light within abyss would become sacred holy grounds of value beyond measure. Of course, until an evil wizard decides to dispel them all. Or you know, any of the dozens of spellcasting races with darkvision out there. And they'd become virtual tar pits of conflict considering the fact that all now-blind creatures such as humans and halflings would be drawn to them like moths to the flame, with all the man-eating darkvision creatures gleefully taking advantage of such congregations.

As humans, our survival in this world depends on light, but is starting to look like we are the aliens in a world that does not need light.



Planet earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do

What deity could have intervened upon witnessing the primordial darkness filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes, and judged that humans, for all their inventiveness and heroism, should depend on light, and provide the cure for their impediment all the same? Do the other races not view them with a mixture of pity and envy, that the daylight should be a relatively much greater gift to them than it is to all others? It would almost seem that such a large aspect of the world was made for them specifically.

Bugger it

Whoever wrote all those creature entries surely did not have darkvision themselves because clearly most of the creatures who have it do not need it at all. It is an element that is completely out of place in most cases. All the writers were so preoccupied with designing their creature to be the coolest and most special one out there that they failed to realize the same trick was being carried out by the majority of creatures already.

In my opinion the current distribution of darkvision in the game makes most of the player character races severely visually handicapped instead of making the others 'extraordinary'. Do we not all agree that the definition of normal is that which is most common? If so then we can conclude that within most established settings such as Eberron, Forgotten Realms and yes dear DM's out there, in all likelihood your very own homebrew setting too, being unable to see in the dark is extraordinary.

In summary: Most civilizations crumbled, remaining civilizations immediately without trade or allies, the non-dwarf PC's in tears and the world ruled by animated objects and a potpourri of warring darkvision races.

My conclusion: Remove darkvision from the game entirely and replace it with [Needs Light To See] for races currently without it. It would save gallons of ink yearly in printing all those statblocks around the world.

Spoiler: The list, A to L

Show

I have made a list in a word document containing all creatures from A to L. I only went so far because at that point I felt like my point was made. I also wholly regret making this list, not only because halfway through I thought to myself I could have been doing a dozen that in contrast to this would be considered clinically sane, but also because the truth hurts so much. There are so many in this list that just shouldn't have darkvision for any reason other than to give them an edge against players, which is the most stupid reason. Next thing you know we're slapping multiple creature templates on every farm animal we can get our hands on just so that they taste better. In fact I'd consider that to be more of a justification for doing so than... this! Excuse me for stamping around in vehement dissatisfaction, here it goes already.

Darkvision:
Aboleth
Achaierai
Allip
Angel
Animated Object
Ankheg
Aranea
Archon
Arrowhawk
Athach
Avoral
Azer
Barghest
Basilisk
Behir
Belker
Blink Dog
Bodak
Bralani
Bugbear
Bulette
Celestial Creature
Centaur
Chaos Beast
Chimera
Choker
Chuul
Cloaker
Cockatrice
Couatl
Delver
Demon:
Babau
Balor
Bebilith
Dretch
Glabrezu
Hezrou
Marilith
Nalfeshnee
Quasit
Retriever
Succubus
Vrock
Derro
Devil (all kinds)
Doppelganger
Dragon Turtle
Dragonne
Drider
Elementals (all kinds)
Elf (Drow only)
Ethereal Filcher
Ethereal Marauder
Fiendish Creatures
Frost Worm
Gargoyles
Genies (Djinn and Efreet)
Ghaele
Ghoul
Gibbering Mouther
Girallon
Gnoll
Goblin
Golems (all)
Gorgon
Gray Render
Grick
Griffon
Hag (all kinds)
Half-Celestial
Half-Dragon
Half-Fiend
Harpy
Hell Hound
Hippogriff
Hobgoblin
Homunculus
Howler
Hydra
Inevitable
Invisible Stalker
Kobold
Kraken
Krenshar
Lamia
Lammasu
Leonal
Lillend

Blindsight:
Assassin Vine
Darkmantle
Destrachan
Grimlock

No darkvision or blindsight:

Dinosaurs (all kinds)
Dire Animals (except the Dire Bat who has blindsight)
Dryad
Eagle, Giant
Elf (all kinds except Drow)
Ettercap
Ettin
Formians
Fungus
Genies (Janni only)
Ghosts
Giants
Gnomes
Halfling
Lich (okay)
Lizardfolk
Locathah (even though they look like they come from the seafloor, where it's perpetually dark)
Lycantropes

* : There is a novel that explores the idea of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. link

Spoiler: Disclaimer

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This entire post was written in dark satirical humor, and if you fail to see that, you obviously lack darkvision.

Also, if anyone wants to fish around the d20srd monster list and come up with something to surprise/annoy/entertain me and the other playgrounders, you're more than welcome.

[Alex12]

Minor note: liches and ghosts both actually do have darkvision, since they're undead.
All undead have darkvision as a function of being undead unless the creature description specifically says they don't.

[The_Snark]

Some wizards and other classes may in fact be able to create sources of light for up to 10 minutes per day per spell cast, becoming even more like the ridiculously powerful gods they already were. Spamming the permanency spell however would rapidly drain their XP to the point where they'd lose the ability to create light, and the existing dots of light within abyss would become sacred holy grounds of value beyond measure.

I suspect Continual Flame would be the go-to spell for lighting, not Permanency cast on other light spells. Still has a material component, but it's not too hard to acquire (only a little harder than creating holy water, which is reasonably commonplace in most settings). There are other long-lasting spells that would help, but that's the lowest-level.

The Ring of the Darkhidden would suddenly become an extremely powerful item.

But yeah, darkvision is weirdly commonplace - possibly an artefact of the days when the game was centered around dungeon delving. The ability itself is sort of silly, actually; want to know why werewolves don't get darkvision? Because they're based on wolves, and wolves can't see in the utter absence of light, because that isn't physically possible. Arguably, darkvision ought to be a (Su) ability rather than (Ex).

[Milo v3]

Permanency is irrelevant, since there is a super low level spell called Continual Flame. So mages would probably make a living covering everything in those effects rather than losing any xp.

[Jack_Simth]

Permanency is irrelevant, since there is a super low level spell called Continual Flame. So mages would probably make a living covering everything in those effects rather than losing any xp.

Which is:
a) Duplicable without the component via Shadow Evocation, although that'll give the DM headaches when he tries to figure out how it works.
b) Available as an at-will spell-like ability to the lowly Lantern Archon, obtainable at little to no resource cost by Lesser Planar Binding by a 9th level wizard. Oh yes, and Making Light to let people survive is probably well-aligned with the purpose of an "always Lawful-Good" LANTERN archon, it costs the archon nothing but a bit of time, and there's no real risk to the Archon, so they probably wouldn't even mind spending a few days to enchant a few thousand pebbles too much.

So yeah, the transition would be annoying, dead magic zones would be a pain (but then, they always are...) but for the most part it wouldn't make all that much difference.

[heavyfuel]

Darkvision, however, is by no means at all an extraordinary ability.
It is a very ordinary ability possessed by an estimated 85% of all creatures.

To be fair. That's 85% of the types, not game term, of creatures that exist. The races from the PHB as well as animals are a vast majority of the relevant life in the world (insects like ants and roaches are more in number, but they're not monsters and don't technically get the darkvision Vermins got. Virus and bactera also surpass, but are just as statless and all mentioned here are equally irrelevant)

So while plenty of creatures get Darkvision, these creatures are rare when compared to Humans, Elves and Halflings.

[TypoNinja]

Common among extraordinary creatures maybe.

The ability is extraordinary when compared to a base human. Which is what the game is built around. Everything is modifiers from a base human.

[XionUnborn01]

To be fair. That's 85% of the types, not game term, of creatures that exist. The races from the PHB as well as animals are a vast majority of the relevant life in the world (insects like ants and roaches are more in number, but they're not monsters and don't technically get the darkvision Vermins got. Virus and bactera also surpass, but are just as statless and all mentioned here are equally irrelevant)

So while plenty of creatures get Darkvision, these creatures are rare when compared to Humans, Elves and Halflings.

I agree. Just because 85% of entries in MMs have darkvision doesn't mean that 85% of everything alive has darkvision. In most settings, humans are at the very least suggested to be a predominant species. If there were as many ogres as there are people, we would have a problem. Same with undead, if there were huge armies of them roaming the countryside, there wouldn't be much of a population left.

85% of species get darkvision, 85% of the population does not.

[Milodiah]

Yes, but why would humans survive in a world where not only 85% of the apex predators, but every other sentient race could operate nearly uninhibited in darkness?

Clearly someone has never fought a night battle. They're horrible.

[Powerdork]

want to know why werewolves don't get darkvision? Because they're based on wolves, and wolves can't see in the utter absence of light, because that isn't physically possible. Arguably, darkvision ought to be a (Su) ability rather than (Ex).

Reminder that the Extraordinary ability type is explicitly noted to be able to contain those abilities that break laws of physics.

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

Seeing visually in the utter absence of light is extraordinary, but it's not Magic^TM. I hate when people forget that about (Ex) abilities...

[Elana]

Of course if this is just a thing about taking the sun away from the world, we should not count beings that do not live on that world to see how many can survive without.

Removing all outsiders would trim the list down somewhat.

Also I don't think animated objects really count either. (or at least they are outnumbered 100:1 by people with light spells)

[SinsI]

Yes, but why would humans survive in a world where not only 85% of the apex predators, but every other sentient race could operate nearly uninhibited in darkness?

Clearly someone has never fought a night battle. They're horrible.

Because humans get a much more useful Free Feat instead of semi-useless Darkvision. They are also not dim-wits that stay in diapers for half a century, and breed at a much faster rate than most sentient races except for goblins, orcs and kobolds.

[Milodiah]

Because humans get a much more useful Free Feat instead of semi-useless Darkvision. They are also not dim-wits that stay in diapers for half a century, and breed at a much faster rate than most sentient races except for goblins, orcs and kobolds.

Darkvision is only perceived as useless because nobody even considers darkness. In history there simply weren't many night battles and other things because not being able to see in the dark is actually pretty debilitating.

[Marlowe]

60' Darkvision wouldn't make a lot of difference if we're talking about a major battle at night.

[Erik Vale]

Except with inteligently planned night raids/attacks where the soldiers were highly trained.
Say. Kobolds on the attack. Or any number of groups that could work well together, have darkvision, access to compasses, and happen to be intelligent. Kobolds were the first to come to mind, but they generally don't attack.
So perhaps drow raiding parties when doing large scale raids.

[Milodiah]

60' Darkvision wouldn't make a lot of difference if we're talking about a major battle at night.

60' night vision was about what our capabilities were in the early '60s, and it made a hell of a difference.


Trench raiders in the First World War moved hand-on-shoulder because they didn't have 60' night vision with which to keep together.

[Andezzar]

Darkvision is only perceived as useless because nobody even considers darkness. In history there simply weren't many night battles and other things because not being able to see in the dark is actually pretty debilitating.

60ft - 120 ft dark vision is pretty useless in battles as well. Most creatures can outrun their field of vision.

[Milodiah]

60ft - 120 ft dark vision is pretty useless in battles as well. Most creatures can outrun their field of vision.

I can't see the treeline 25 feet away from my window right now. Darkness is everywhere, military application is just my go-to point being military myself. It's nearly impossible to explain just how prevalent darkness is in the pre-industrial world, simply because we as individuals have never experienced it in its truest forms. We have electricity, after all. Flick of a switch and it's gone. But before flashlights and lightbulbs, and before oil lamps were everywhere, it was either candles, open flames, or darkness.

Just as a proof of concept, imagine how much worse Vietnam would have been if Charlie could see in the dark. Every single one of them. Without actively trying to, or with special equipment (in D&D terms magic).

[TypoNinja]

Yes, but why would humans survive in a world where not only 85% of the apex predators, but every other sentient race could operate nearly uninhibited in darkness?

Clearly someone has never fought a night battle. They're horrible.

For the same reason Tigers, Wolves, Loins or any other beastie totally able to make a meal of a human being doesn't rule the real world.

We don't think about it because we're human, but we are scary good at some things. Its typical to us, because we're us, but if we didn't excel at something we wouldn't be here.

Humans Cheat the best.

Most forms of life on this planet do something better than we do, yet here we are top of the heap. Why? We Cheated. Tools. Worse Humans don't do one thing. Dogs smell, a shark swims, eagles have crazy good eye sight. What are humans known for? Anything. Pick a Human hes good at something that another one isn't. Some of us run, some of us swim, some of us hunt, some of us think, some of us fight, some of us build, some of us shoot, some of us breed, some of us teach.

And we'll live anywhere. Most other species have fairly limited ranges, most species don't do well or outright die when taken from their usual habitat. From coffee to Tigers, lizards, fish, insects, all kinds of things live where they live. Not us Humans though, we'll live anywhere, even places things shouldn't live. We put a city of 2 million people in the middle of a desert.

We Cheat.

[Milodiah]

You forget that the D&D world has several dozen other competing races that share those attributes with us. The dwarves even go above and beyond us. +2 to CON, inherent immunity to poison and magic? Hell of a survival trait there. Putting cities under ****ing mountains also beats deserts by a mile.

[Extra Anchovies]

For the same reason Tigers, Wolves, Loins or any other beastie totally able to make a meal of a human being doesn't rule the real world.

I just want to point out the humorous implications of this typo.

[Milodiah]

I just want to point out the humorous implications of this typo.

Just thought of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" for some reason.

[Andezzar]

I can't see the treeline 25 feet away from my window right now. Darkness is everywhere, military application is just my go-to point being military myself. It's nearly impossible to explain just how prevalent darkness is in the pre-industrial world, simply because we as individuals have never experienced it in its truest forms. We have electricity, after all. Flick of a switch and it's gone. But before flashlights and lightbulbs, and before oil lamps were everywhere, it was either candles, open flames, or darkness.

Just as a proof of concept, imagine how much worse Vietnam would have been if Charlie could see in the dark. Every single one of them. Without actively trying to, or with special equipment (in D&D terms magic).

Of course Vietnam would have been worse if one side had dark vision and the other didn't.

On the other hand, in a D&D world those light switches aren't far away either. there are light spell, there are torches and lanterns etc. Even in prehistoric times, people kept fires going to have light and heat.

So I doubt that the side without darkvision would simply sit in darkness and await their end. They would make light, block lines of sight and lay traps.

Also by darkvision being not very useful in battle, I did not mean the close confines of jungle or trench warfare, but more genre appropriate setups like large armies meeting on a field. If all you can ever know are the 60 ft around you, knowing what your enemy does 65 ft away is very difficult.

[TypoNinja]

You forget that the D&D world has several dozen other competing races that share those attributes with us. The dwarves even go above and beyond us. +2 to CON, inherent immunity to poison and magic? Hell of a survival trait there. Putting cities under ****ing mountains also beats deserts by a mile.

No, even the other humanoid species are sterotyped/button holed. Wild elves live in the woods, high elves live in the cities, and sun elves, and night elves and moon elves. Dwarves are so typical that I don't even need to specify what fantasy world they come from, they are all the same, right down to the terrible Scottish accent.

They all have racial traits, attitudes, and affinities.

We have races of intelligent tool users yes, but no races of adaptable cheaters.

Putting a city under a mountain inst a feat of crazy, it just takes patience. Dwarves have all their resources nearby, food, water, building materials. Simply persistence is required in the absence of power tools. And there are upsides to burying your cities in a world with so many flying nasties.

Meanwhile we have Vegas a city of almost 2 million people, who can't even feed itself, in the middle of a desert. California at least has the excuse of being sea coast. Nevada is pretty much a desert in the middle of nowhere, we imported everything, building supply, people food, the water.

Other species live in places that can support them, Humans would make a place that can support them.

[Milodiah]

Work that's totally cheapened in a world where "importing water" is a 1st-level spell.

All I'm going to say is that until we as a society become advanced enough and bored enough to(be able to) input the entirety of a D&D world's basic information into an insanely overcomplicated simulation program which realistically extrapolates every single tiny thread like "can see 60 feet in the dark" or "can purify food twice per day", let alone the huge things like "can summon a wall of iron from nothing" or "the freaking WISH SPELL" into a fully fleshed out simulacrum of reality in this imaginary cobbled-together world, we'll never be able to fully argue this topic.


So basically we have to wait for Dwarf Fortress to be finished sometime around 2030




At the very least you have to admit it appears way too often and way too erratically in monster entries.

[Erik Vale]

For those saying 'Light' and 'Create Water' etc, do remember that in standard dnd, almost no one can cast those spells. You have a handful of casters in a town of hundreds, each being trained in said town as an apprentice or being assigned from somewhere else. The disparity of numbers doesn't change much, and almost all wizards are low level. So yes, humans cheat, but in long-term, permanent Darkness, that wizard best be spending his minutes of light helping people make torches because otherwise people are blind.
And thorpes? No... Those sort of cease existing.


As to those counterpointing Dwarves etc as not being as adaptable, that's because of world fluffs and races being almost completely humans with funny hats, which causes them to act less adaptable then they should be.
Though, they are all less adaptable than humans due to the 1 less feat and skill points... Except elves who invest in Elven Dillante who also pray not to have a plague go through their territory.

[Alex12]

Even in the modern world, if some kind of permanent darkness were to hit that still magically handwaved all the other problems of eternal darkness like plants not growing, I'd expect humanity to have an adjustment period.

If a world where there are other tool-using races, many of whom don't like humans? Small towns, those that don't have the ability to produce items of Continual Flame or hit a DC 30 Craft (alchemy) check to make Liquid Sunlight pellets (alchemical items that glow as brightly as torches and can also be used as crappy sling ammunition against light-vulnerable creatures, see Complete Scoundrel 110) or otherwise make permanent light sources, will probably be swarmed over by kobold or goblin raiders.

Let's look at this mechanically, since D&D lighting rules are kinda weird (IRL, if someone else is standing in a lighted area, it's actually really easy to see them, regardless of if you're in the light or the dark yourself, and torches are actually pretty crummy light sources)

In areas of darkness, creatures without darkvision are effectively blinded. In addition to the obvious effects, a blinded creature has a 50% miss chance in combat (all opponents have total concealment), loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, takes a -2 penalty to AC, moves at half speed, and takes a -4 penalty on Search checks and most Strength and Dexterity-based skill checks.

Mechanically speaking, that's pretty crippling. One bonus feat really isn't gonna make up for that, and that's not even counting the gnomes, elves, half-elves, and halflings that also don't have darkvision. And, given that even goblins and kobolds aren't stupid, they're going to be smart enough to take out the light sources first.
Torches don't cast any light at all out past 40 feet, and only fully illuminate within 20 feet, weigh a pound, and carrying one prevents the use of 2-handed weapons like bows. If it's in the dark and nobody has light sources, a level 1 kobold with any kind of ranged attack at all would destroy an equally-equipped equally-leveled human.

Night battles were rare throughout human history because both sides always had the same level of needs-light-to-see. If one side doesn't need light to see at least within 60 feet, that's a huge tactical advantage, and will actively encourage attacks at night against foes that can't.

[Erik Vale]

Additionally, outside of light, you can see light sources up to 10* their maximum light range away, so any surviving non-darkvision townships would be visable from 400+ft away, making them easy to find once plans were in place.
However, compass sales would boom, particularly of magic ones that instead, say, pointed you where you wished to go instead. [Say, continuous item of find the path]

[Grinner]

Minor observation: Wouldn't what most animals possess be better termed low-light vision? They still require some manner lighting, just not as much us.

And by that logic, shouldn't dwarves have shiny eyes?

[Melzentir]

Thank you all for your contributions to this thread. It just surprised me that the entries for Liches and Ghosts didn't state that they could see in the dark. Of course they're undead, but if they were blind in the dark to me it would be quite humerous.

As for the 85% of creatures, I was simply referring to the amount of entries in the monster list. You make a valid point however, indeed I did not point out that species are not evenly distributed within populations. Thank you.

As for additional possibilities to create sources of light such as Continual flame, yes, indeed those few would be highly valuable. But the point remains that they would be very scarce, and furthermore be more likely to serve as big neon signs saying "Hey all you darkvision monsters out there, free tasty snacks here!". So you'd have to use them very sparingly, perhaps in short bursts to see what you need to see and then move far away quickly. I wouldn't feel any less hunted while having light than without it. I've played enough DayZ to know that.

The Vietnam War comparison gave me a hearty laugh. The Apocalypse of Blindness would be like that, but with dwarves running around plundering everything and the few dots of light in the world being mercilessly stamped out by monsters and goblins within a few years. Which... sounds exactly like Dwarf Fortress.

And by that logic, shouldn't dwarves have shiny eyes?

Beware the smell of brew and iron when you head out into the dark. By the time you hear their thick drunken accents yodeling on about digging and treasure, it is already too late.