D&D 3e/3.5e/d20The forum for conversations specifically related to the rules and procedures of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, 3.5 Edition, or any fantasy game using the d20 system or a variant thereof (commercially published or not).
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.
@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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote:
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diarmuid
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.)
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.
__________________
π = 4
Consider a 5' radius blast: this affects 4 squares which have a circumference of 40' — Actually it's worse than that.
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
Quote:
Originally Posted by SRD
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:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glossary
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.
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.
__________________
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell
Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LTwerewolf
[...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
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.
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.
RSS Feeds: 
Re: Darkvision Limitations: Why?
