Darkvision Limitations: Why?

[Rejakor]

Like most of the dumb things in 3.5, some rules designer thought that having unlimited darkvision would be 'overpowered'.

Also, because they borked up the hiding rules, the most common source of the ability to hide, darkness, gets boned by darkvision especially if the darkvision is longer range.

People say it would be immersion breaking to give everyone HiPS, but I have done so, and it wasn't. Stealth experts in the real world are great at distracting people's attention and simply just being somewhere or moving in some way that people don't expect - apply that to DnD, and voila.

I also usually take the caps off darkvision for the same reason. LoS is already limiting enough.

[NichG]

@Maptools
Agreed, on all counts.
Have they fixed maptools darkness party sight yet?

There are a couple of weird things - you can move your token outside of your visible area when there's darkness and you don't have darkvision, and then you can't select it anymore. I've also had some issues with players having errors when there are vision obstacles, so I use them less than I'd like to.

[Hanuman]

Like most of the dumb things in 3.5, some rules designer thought that having unlimited darkvision would be 'overpowered'.

Also, because they borked up the hiding rules, the most common source of the ability to hide, darkness, gets boned by darkvision especially if the darkvision is longer range.

People say it would be immersion breaking to give everyone HiPS, but I have done so, and it wasn't. Stealth experts in the real world are great at distracting people's attention and simply just being somewhere or moving in some way that people don't expect - apply that to DnD, and voila.

I also usually take the caps off darkvision for the same reason. LoS is already limiting enough.

Ah here we are, good response.

How would additional DV stack? +perception?

Perhaps +1 perception in darkness for every 10' additional dv after 60'.

[Rejakor]

What? What does being able to see in the dark have to do with spotting things?

Are we talking about 4e here? Perception is a 4e skill, 3.5 uses Spot and Listen.


Regardless, darkvision wouldn't add anything to Spot ever.

If there is darkness and you can't see through it, then you don't even GET a spot check to notice stuff in it - just a listen.

If you do have a way to see through the darkness, it acts like regular spotting, i.e. -1 per 10' away.

[Hanuman]

Perception is a pathfinder skill, 3.5 search is included.

I proposed a rule so that when DV doesn't have a range cap that additional DV improves it's ability to see still, making it compatible with old bonuses that would be obsolete.

[Rejakor]

Well that would be pretty silly.

Perception or spot or whatever has nothing to do with DV. It would be better to simply add a small (very small) bonus to some other aspect of the race that had the 'extended' DV. Some races have very large DV. A race with 120' DV using that rule would gain a +6 racial to spot, which is pretty insane. But mostly it just doesn't make sense. Darkvision isn't eagle-eyed spotting prowess - it's a racial thing that lets you see in the dark at all. Maybe replace it with a conditional bonus when in the dark, or something. Like a +X on certain tasks when in the darkness reflecting a racial predilection for dark places and the ability to move through darkness with ease. But +6 on anything is moving pretty close to breaking the RNG.

[Diarmuid]

It would probably be considered shadowy illumination, so a 20% miss chance. Darkvision and Low-light vision would have no miss chance.

Unfortunately, that logic doesnt make any sense. Where does anything say that LLV ignores miss chance in shadowy illumination? The only interaction between LLV and Shadowy Illumination is that LLV doubles the range of shadowy.

If everything is shadowy (like how most people I've talked to treat "night time" under the moon/stars), an elf and a human can see exactly the same. There is no max range for seeing/targetting, but everything has 20% miss chance.

So while that glossary entry from the DMG seems to say LLV lets you see in moonlight with no issues...without specifically saying that LLV lets you see in shadowy with no issues, mechanically a human can see perfectly in moonlight as well due to moonlight not being shadowy illumination.

[Vaern]

Unfortunately, that logic doesnt make any sense. Where does anything say that LLV ignores miss chance in shadowy illumination? The only interaction between LLV and Shadowy Illumination is that LLV doubles the range of shadowy.

If everything is shadowy (like how most people I've talked to treat "night time" under the moon/stars), an elf and a human can see exactly the same. There is no max range for seeing/targetting, but everything has 20% miss chance.

So while that glossary entry from the DMG seems to say LLV lets you see in moonlight with no issues...without specifically saying that LLV lets you see in shadowy with no issues, mechanically a human can see perfectly in moonlight as well due to moonlight not being shadowy illumination.

Except that it specifically says that creatures with low-light vision can see on a moonlit night as well as they can during they day, as a benefit completely independent of doubling the area of light sources.

Humans do not have low-light vision, and therefore can not see on at night as well as they can during the day.

LOW-LIGHT VISION

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to her as a source of light.

Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

[Diarmuid]

Find me the section that says "moonlit = shadowy illumination" and I'll agree with you.

Without a mechanical definition of what "moonlit" means, there is no way to know how to apply vision related benefits/penalties per RAW.

[Curmudgeon]

Unfortunately, that logic doesnt make any sense. Where does anything say that LLV ignores miss chance in shadowy illumination?

Essentially, right in the Glossary entry:

low-light vision

The ability to see in conditions of dim illumination as if the illumination were actually as bright as daylight.

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination.

Couple that with my earlier DMG Glossary quote, and you've got the whole answer about low-light vision. Moonlight is shadowy illumination, and in those lighting conditions LLV lets you see normally.

So while that glossary entry from the DMG seems to say LLV lets you see in moonlight with no issues...without specifically saying that LLV lets you see in shadowy with no issues, mechanically a human can see perfectly in moonlight as well due to moonlight not being shadowy illumination.

That doesn't follow at all. Moonlight is shadowy illumination, and (as Jeraa pointed out) that causes Humans and others with normal vision to have a 20% miss chance. It's all right there in the Glossary entries. (I find it's much easier to just read those than to attempt to produce an answer without having checked the RAW first.)

[nedz]

Moonlight is shadowy illumination, and in those lighting conditions LLV lets you see normally.

That's not quite what it says here.

Vision And Light
...

In an area of shadowy illumination, a character can see dimly. Creatures within this area have concealment relative to that character. A creature in an area of shadowy illumination can make a Hide check to conceal itself.

...

Characters with low-light vision (elves, gnomes, and half-elves) can see objects twice as far away as the given radius. Double the effective radius of bright light and of shadowy illumination for such characters.

...

Ranges are given on the table in the link.

[Curmudgeon]

That's not quite what it says here.

If you check the online Glossary for "low-light vision" you'll find it's a bit more comprehensive than just what's in the SRD.

Source: PHB, DMG, MM, MM3

The SRD is an excellent resource, but it's not the only free source of D&D information provided by Wizards of the Coast.

[nedz]

Actually it seems less comprehensive, but certainly contradictory.

Ed: the SRD section I quoted can also be found in the PH p165,

Specific Trumps General ?

[Diarmuid]

The problem I see is a bit of inconsistency.

The SRD has this to say:

Low-Light Vision

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to her as a source of light.

Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

As well as this

Characters with low-light vision (elves, gnomes, and half-elves) can see objects twice as far away as the given radius. Double the effective radius of bright light and of shadowy illumination for such characters.

The Glossary which claims the PHB, DMG, MM, and MM3 as sources says this:

low-light vision

The ability to see in conditions of dim illumination as if the illumination were actually as bright as daylight.

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. They retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions. Thus, if a group of adventurers passes down a dark passage with a torch illuminating a 20-foot radius, an elf with low-light vision can see everything within 40 feet of the torch. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to her as a source of light.

The issue here is that we've got

LLV sees in moonlight like it does in daylight. Then we also have LLV sees in moonlight twice as well as a human.

Nowhere do I see how "far" a human can see in moonlight, and if moonlight does = shadow illumination then even if you were to say something like "human's can see 60' in shadowy illumination", that would just mean that LLV would see 120' in the shadowy, not that they completely ignore the miss chance.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Disclaimer; this is an argument based entirely on logic rather than anything in the RAW.

The moon is the lightsource on a moonlit night. Creatures with LLV treat a light-source as having twice the radius of bright illumination and twice the radius of shadowy illumination.

If the world itself is in the moon's radius of shadowy illumination for creatures without lowlight vision but in the bright illumination radius for creatures with LLV there's no conflict.

Creatures with LLV can see in the shadowy illumination of a moonlit night because the light-source's doubled bright illumination radius includes the whole surface-world.

[Hanuman]

Well that would be pretty silly.

Perception or spot or whatever has nothing to do with DV. It would be better to simply add a small (very small) bonus to some other aspect of the race that had the 'extended' DV. Some races have very large DV. A race with 120' DV using that rule would gain a +6 racial to spot, which is pretty insane. But mostly it just doesn't make sense. Darkvision isn't eagle-eyed spotting prowess - it's a racial thing that lets you see in the dark at all. Maybe replace it with a conditional bonus when in the dark, or something. Like a +X on certain tasks when in the darkness reflecting a racial predilection for dark places and the ability to move through darkness with ease. But +6 on anything is moving pretty close to breaking the RNG.

If a class feature or template grants +5'DV per level/HD to the creature's existing DV, it would make sense that instead of maximum range going up in a ruleset which has no maximum range, that they be able to use their DV to see things farther away sooner and more likely.

I'm sure a point is being missed, but it seems clear as day how DV relates to Seeing In The Dark. As in, you perceive things in darkness.

Improving that would be improving that, and if you can't imagine some fluff to go with that... well this is a roleplay forum.

[Duke of Urrel]

In the old days of D&D 3.0, there were Spot check penalties for human vision in moonlight and starlight: –5 and –10, respectively. (Page 60 in my old DM's Guide.)

This spared the need to argue over how far humans can see in moonlight, or the need to wonder whether moonlight is or is not "shadowy illumination." Humans can see as far as creatures with Low-Light Vision in moonlight or even starlight – only not as well.

The old rules also assigned concealment values for moonlight ("moderate darkness") and starlight ("near total darkness"): 10% miss chance and 40% miss chance, respectively. (Page 133 in my old Players' Handbook.)

These penalties, if we adopt them for 3.5 (and beyond), would also apply to creatures with Darkvision, but only outside of their range.

It makes no sense to say that either the light from the moon or the stars has a "range." Both of these things shed light from so far away, and the light is so diffuse when it hits the earth, that you have to consider the light to be spread equally everywhere, only dimly. This also is an argument for Spot check penalties.