Should darkvision be a thing as a race ability?

[Throne12]

So I know all DM have had some kind of trouble with players have darkvision. Even if you think you dont you do, you plan encounters around, or dont plan encounters using darkness, most probably for get the disadvantage and the only see in shades of grey.

So with every race but human, halfling, and dragonborns the only one with out. It makes other to get darkvision almost if not unplayed or used.

Also on another note when was the last time someone used a torch, light cantrip, dancing lights, lanterns or ect.

Would it be bad to tell the players at session 0 that no race other then races that live underground excluding Dwarf keep there darkvision. So that's deep gnome, drow, duragar, kolbots, goblins.

[stoutstien]

I believe they should have used other enhanced senses but the rules don't support it as is. Scent, hearing, and feeling could all be as impactful as dark vision.

[Sindal]

Bad? No, anything a table agrees to is fair game.
It's the same as telling a group "My world has no dwarfs" for instance. If everyones fine with that then there isn't really much problem.

I don't personally see the point but that's my opinion. I wouldn't complain if you told me that only certain people have dark vision. Though it might be a good idea to atleast replace it with something else otherwise your just removing something 'because you don't feel like dealing with it'. People with dark vision can see a bit more in a spooky cave but that's more or less it. The only thing dim light gives is a penalty to perception (Which doesn't affect combat) and everyone still has a 'i can't see that far' range. Because there ARE so many ways to get around not being able to see, i never design with or without dark vision in mind.

"You can all see the room? Great. You all see the hulking undead beholder staring you in the face. Roll intiative"

[diplomancer]

This is an interesting experiment, specially if you want to capture the "feel" of old basic D&D. Of the 7 possible classes (fighter, cleric magic-user, thief, elf, halfling and dwarf), only the dwarf and elf had infravision... which made Dungeons really scary places to be, since tipically only one of the characters, at best, would have infravision, while the underground critters we fought all had then.

The game has moved from the paranoia that situation would entail for PCs in a Dungeon, and I'm not sure I would enjoy it so much for a long campaign. But for a one-off it would be fun.

[Tetrasodium]

I believe they should have used other enhanced senses but the rules don't support it as is. Scent, hearing, and feeling could all be as impactful as dark vision.

I agree with this to a degree, but really the big problem is that there are no penalties for not having darkvision. Tracking light sources is kind of a pain to do so nobody really does it very strictly. Un;ess you are using something like arkenforge & a tvbox (I can't recommend that enough for in person meatspace play) or a vtt, it can be incredibly taxing on a GM to hide creatures & stuff due to light. At most, the penalty for not having darkvision is "You need a free hand for a torch", & often it's handled by "why wants to hold the torch" under the default rules. Alternate rules exist to make lighting an aggregate ambient thing with different light levels existing based on the sum & size of a room, but you still have the fact that so much of the core 5e rules are setup to make it easy to do x & ignore the fact that variant human or whatever doesn't have darkvision.


There should absolutely have been enhanced senses other than just darkvision though. In the past there has been multiple types of darkvision with different names depending on version, scent, blind/tremor-sense(still technically exists), life-sense(?), & more

[False God]

The problem I tend to have with darkvision and lighting is mostly tracking. It works fine in an RTS where the computer calculates what is or isn't visible. It's just a pain on the tabletop.

I used to rely on darkness for theme, but thanks to 5e's proliferation of darkvision, I mostly use corners now. Lot harder to see what's around a corner.

[Tetrasodium]

The problem I tend to have with darkvision and lighting is mostly tracking. It works fine in an RTS where the computer calculates what is or isn't visible. It's just a pain on the tabletop.

I used to rely on darkness for theme, but thanks to 5e's proliferation of darkvision, I mostly use corners now. Lot harder to see what's around a corner.

the light & shadow rules I linked to(better link) are a great bridge back to making darkness useful again. I run my in person meatspace game with arkenforge & a tvbox so could (and have) make the software track it automagically but it was too easy to just make it pointless in 5e. The basic nutshell is that light souces range from +0.2/tiny (a candle) up to +16/gargantuan(a burning building) with a torch, lantern/brazier(small/med/large) being +1/+2/+4 with rooms having a scale (tiny to gargantuan) that requires a given amount of light ranging from 1-32 in order to get from darkest to brightest light & various types of vision having penalties (or lack of) for various levels of lighting.

[GlenSmash!]

Roll20 has a pretty neat lighting feature that really emphasizes the fact that my human barbarian is the only party member without darkvision, and the fact that I carry a torch when necessary has made my life easier but has drawn unwanted attention to the party as a whole.

It'll also highlight the change when I multiclass into Gloom Stalker.

[Contrast]

My personal preference is to turn almost all versions of darkvision into low light vision (can see in dim light as normal within X feet, no benefit in total darkness).

Still provides an advantage while not turning it into a total have and have nots thing and doesn't render actual darkness pretty moot.

[Ravinsild]

So I know all DM have had some kind of trouble with players have darkvision. Even if you think you dont you do, you plan encounters around, or dont plan encounters using darkness, most probably for get the disadvantage and the only see in shades of grey.

So with every race but human, halfling, and dragonborns the only one with out. It makes other to get darkvision almost if not unplayed or used.

Also on another note when was the last time someone used a torch, light cantrip, dancing lights, lanterns or ect.

Would it be bad to tell the players at session 0 that no race other then races that live underground excluding Dwarf keep there darkvision. So that's deep gnome, drow, duragar, kolbots, goblins.

Do you mean in the PHB because Kenku from Volo's also do not have Darkvision, neither do Triton, or Lizardfolk (surprisingly), Firbolg, Goliath, I would say Aaracokra but nobody allows those, Tortle, either Giths, Changling, Warforged, Kalashtar, Centaur, Minotaur, Loxodon, or Vedalkin.

[Tetrasodium]

I would be a drow with two levels of warlock for Devil’s Sight. I”d be leery of other nerfs though and would ready an action to find another table.

Devils sight is a problem in itself. On top of so much of 5e being built to make not having darkvision painless, the few situations like darkness spells that should make not having vrs having it clear treat both regular & superior darkvision as being no different than normal vision in order to make devils sight better.

[CapnWildefyr]

There's not a lot of official word on darkvision, but an awful lot of banter. I've been dealing with this for an upcoming adventure I'm running, too. It's easy to say, "Gee, you can see everything in the dark" because it can be a pain to track light sources. But...

As many have pointed out, the rules provide for disadvantage in dim lighting, which is what someone with darkvision gets when in darkness. What does that mean? RAW I have no idea. RAI? Same.

For me, though, I have a hard time thinking you can read, for example, or even see that letters are there unless it's written in high contrast, like big black letters on white paper. Example: A lever near a chasm in an abandoned dwarven mine could seem like the thing you use to extend a bridge to the other side, and you might never see the letters above it that say "Pull level for certain death." Easy trap for dwarves to make -- assuming the dwarves knew to always carry some light in the "safe" areas of their own mines, then only stupid, illiterate orcs and goblins won't be able to read it... In other threads, people have pointed out that the disadvantage imposed in "dim" light can make intelligent denizens of the underground use more light than you'd initially think, and even in the Underdark it might scare off some predators that don't want to be seen. (like a campfire in the woods)

Another point: while you can see even a candle from a LONG way off in total darkness, and can see light spilling around corners and under doors (if there's a gap), YOU HAVE TO BE LOOKING. I think that DMs forget that sometimes. Imagine being a guard posted next to a bridge in the Underdark. No one's come that way in months or years, and they were friends. You've got to stand there for 4 or 8 hours. Worse, maybe you have a second guard to talk to, gamble with, drink with... How alert are you? Or, maybe you're a squad of orcs in a guard room with a closed door. Sure, there's light coming from under the door as a party of PCs approaches. How long will it take you to notice? Were you all gambling? Reading orc poetry? Sleeping? Fighting? If they're NOT alert, why would they get a +5 for advantage? If they are, then yes, they probably will be ready.

I'm not saying that light sources underground cannot cause problems, just that there are situations where it might not be too disadvantageous.

So: If the DM plays darkvision so the players still have to remember that there is disadvantage, and if they need light except when trying to be stealthy, it's not horrible that some races don't have it, and not game-breaking that many do.

[Tetrasodium]

There's not a lot of official word on darkvision, but an awful lot of banter. I've been dealing with this for an upcoming adventure I'm running, too. It's easy to say, "Gee, you can see everything in the dark" because it can be a pain to track light sources. But...

As many have pointed out, the rules provide for disadvantage in dim lighting, which is what someone with darkvision gets when in darkness. What does that mean? RAW I have no idea. RAI? Same.

For me, though, I have a hard time thinking you can read, for example, or even see that letters are there unless it's written in high contrast, like big black letters on white paper. Example: A lever near a chasm in an abandoned dwarven mine could seem like the thing you use to extend a bridge to the other side, and you might never see the letters above it that say "Pull level for certain death." Easy trap for dwarves to make -- assuming the dwarves knew to always carry some light in the "safe" areas of their own mines, then only stupid, illiterate orcs and goblins won't be able to read it... In other threads, people have pointed out that the disadvantage imposed in "dim" light can make intelligent denizens of the underground use more light than you'd initially think, and even in the Underdark it might scare off some predators that don't want to be seen. (like a campfire in the woods)

Another point: while you can see even a candle from a LONG way off in total darkness, and can see light spilling around corners and under doors (if there's a gap), YOU HAVE TO BE LOOKING. I think that DMs forget that sometimes. Imagine being a guard posted next to a bridge in the Underdark. No one's come that way in months or years, and they were friends. You've got to stand there for 4 or 8 hours. Worse, maybe you have a second guard to talk to, gamble with, drink with... How alert are you? Or, maybe you're a squad of orcs in a guard room with a closed door. Sure, there's light coming from under the door as a party of PCs approaches. How long will it take you to notice? Were you all gambling? Reading orc poetry? Sleeping? Fighting? If they're NOT alert, why would they get a +5 for advantage? If they are, then yes, they probably will be ready.

I'm not saying that light sources underground cannot cause problems, just that there are situations where it might not be too disadvantageous.

So: If the DM plays darkvision so the players still have to remember that there is disadvantage, and if they need light except when trying to be stealthy, it's not horrible that some races don't have it, and not game-breaking that many do.

That touches on one of the things I like about the cumulative light sources thing I linked to earlier. You might not notice the light from a single candle of the sneaky guy scouting ahead, but the light of a birthday cake worth of candles plus a torch is going to be plenty noticeable

[Gryndle]

Not all DMs have an issue with darkvision. I've been playing and DMing since the 80s and literally never gamed with anyone that had issue with it (in its myriad forms) as a racial ability. I've only heard of it being a problem at all on these forums.

[Anymage]

Not all DMs have an issue with darkvision. I've been playing and DMing since the 80s and literally never gamed with anyone that had issue with it (in its myriad forms) as a racial ability. I've only heard of it being a problem at all on these forums.

If it's one guy's shtick, it's a little trickier for the DM to remember, but that's the case with any one shtick. (Unless that shtick is "knowing all the spells", but that's a separate issue.) If your race is your class and seeing in the dark has appreciable opportunity cost, it's okay.

If everybody can see in the dark, everybody can just roll with it. That's how I remember much of 2e when everybody was demihuman and people just stopped caring about light.

The problem is when almost everybody can see in the dark, but one or two guys can't. That turns it from darkvision being a racial perk into darkblindness being a racial drawback in a game where racial drawbacks aren't really a thing. More importantly, it's just extra hassle for the darkblind guy to have to remember that he can't see stuff when the description is there for everybody else. It's better when everybody has at least roughly the same sensory acuity unless it's specifically someone's shtick.

Granted, I'd be more a fan of "everybody can see in the dark" over "nobody can see in the dark" unless I had some specific reason for wanting to make light sources a thing. Players are happier with options and buffs over restrictions and nerfs, and letting the humans, halflings, and dragonborn see in the dark won't break anything. But there is a reason why this can create a hassle, and it's understandable that peoples knee-jerk response is to remove said hassle.