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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:01AM
#1
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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The ability Low-Light Vision, as written on the Dwarven Fighter's sheet reads:
"If there is no light within 30 feet of you, you treat shadows in that radius as normal light, and you treat darkness in that radius as shadows."
My understanding (and as pointed out by one of my players) is that if there is no light in an area, it's dark. There are no shadows, as for shadows to exist, there must be light present for which an object to cast a shadow.
As such, this means that as written, you treat any area of darkness as if it's just shadowy instead. What are the mechanical rules for this? How does an area of shadows affect movement and combat?
My assumption is that the intent of this ability is regarding the presence of light sources, not light, but even that feels kind of fuzzy or off to me... it's vague enough to create issues at my gaming table and at conventions.
My 2 copper pieces.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:06AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jan 17, 2010
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I believe it's meant to be light. If you read the descriptions on the lanterns or the light-giving spells, they all have a bright light radius. So I assume that if you have low-light vision and are a certain distance away from the closest light (why did they move away from squares? ><) then the low-light vision applies. There may still be shadows in that area due to the light source granting shadowy "light" beyond the bright light radius...And shadows provide some sort of cover according to the rules, while darkness provides more cover...
And yes, if you see where I'm going with this, this is way too annoying to deal with in an actual game situation.
Wizard's first rule: People are stupid.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:21AM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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While I agree with you for the most part, the problem is in the "So I assume" --- I've run games for over twenty years among friends and at a few conventions and I feel I know player nature well enough to know that this is just begging to pointlessly eat up game time trying to sort it out.
Certainly it could be regarded as a minor issue, but I'm assuming the purpose of the playtest is to provide feedback. Mine is a suggestion that they work on rewording the low-light vision and define it better - perhaps just have low-light vision remove penalties (if they exist) in situations of low-lighting - then define what low-lighting is.
Thus, have low-light vision reduce - or remove - penalties caused by poor lighting, but not the absence of lighting - which would require Darkvision - and leave it at that. All of this "treat shadow as light, and darkness as shadow" really just overcomplicates a pretty simple concept, in my opinion.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:24AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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Definitely some rewording. Low light is anything outside a bright light radius up to a certain point? With some common sense involved with twisty passage ways.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:25AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jan 17, 2010
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Where I was going with my post is that so much of what they have released today is really unpolished and makes it hard to believe that they have done any sort of initial testing at all.
Wizard's first rule: People are stupid.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:28AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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I agree that it seems unpolished. Or perhaps simply unedited? It's common that if most of the original testing was done with insiders then they may not catch things simply because they expect others to have the same assumptions they have. Which is where this phase steps in.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:29AM
#7
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Where I was going with my post is that so much of what they have released today is really unpolished and makes it hard to believe that they have done any sort of initial testing at all.
I am sure if they do different versions later on, things will be updated per our feedback.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:29AM
#8
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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Dardor - Yup I understood where you were going, and agree with you that it is unpolished. I'm sure they've done initial testing - sometimes things just slip through. Low-light vision is certainly low enough on the totem pole (i'd think) that it could slip by (just look at all the fuss in the fighter topic already!).
I'm hoping that the feedback request on rewording gets back to them, as that's the type of feedback and suggestions WOTC wants to hear, rather than just "This game is better than oxygen, all those other versions suck" or "This game is worse than crotch gnomes, any version of D&D is better". Neither of those seem particularly constructive.
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13 months ago ::
May 24, 2012 - 11:32AM
#9
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Dardor - Yup I understood where you were going, and agree with you that it is unpolished. I'm sure they've done initial testing - sometimes things just slip through. Low-light vision is certainly low enough on the totem pole (i'd think) that it could slip by (just look at all the fuss in the fighter topic already!).
I'm hoping that the feedback request on rewording gets back to them, as that's the type of feedback and suggestions WOTC wants to hear, rather than just "This game is better than oxygen, all those other versions suck" or "This game is worse than crotch gnomes, any version of D&D is better". Neither of those seem particularly constructive.
Hopefully they can root out the good feedback amongst the latter.
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