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Ok so as our groups DM I was reading through all the monsters and bad guys in the Bestiary and suddenly it hit me. "How the heck are the surface races surviving at all in this world?"

If you take out the 5 evil or commoner humans in the bestiary there are only 4 creatures that DON'T have darkvision or blindsight/tremorsense! That's almost 90% of the things PCs have to fight against!

On the flip side the wonderful folk of the surface world or near surface (for you Dwarves).

> 0% have darkvison

> 50% have no vision aid at all!

Seems to me that one long dark winter is all it would take for the whole surface world to be whipped out. Heck even the drawbacks are unbalanced.

So a Drow comes to the surface to loot, pillage, get a tee shirt, etc...

At night Humans are straight out blind (without a light source) and he has a +5 to AC (total concealment) Drow has no negative effects.

Dawn comes up and bummer now the Drow has disadvantage on attacks (and that’s it)


Now don't get me wrong I don't want to start a super vision arms race here. I am asking WoTC to back it down the other way.
> Have creatures that live way underground like Drow and Mind Flayers have darkvision sure but give them a heavy price to pay if they get in sunlight.

> Near surface critters Goblins, Orcs, etc could have a smattering of low light vision but again don't go crazy.

> Undead and oozes and such should have some heightened sense maybe limited range blindsight etc...

> Surface folk and critters for the most part shouldn't have any vision aid

            

Oh I agree with ya on the feeling of something watching from the dark that mankind always has. Great spooky effect but I just don't want to have it be overkill with 90% of the critters out there able to see you while you can't see them.

Actually Low light 30 ft isn't too bad but Darkvision 60 ft for so many creatures is heavy handed in my opinion.

The other thing I want avoid which so many versions of D&D eventually fall into is that as more non-human races become available to PCs (especially the ones with a lot of powers like darkvision) suddenly you can't find a Human PC to save your life. Heck even the standard elf or dwarf become pretty rare. It's not the players fault they just gravitate toward the races that are clearly superior and that’s when the planet gets unbalanced.

      

Yep dim light isn't too bad. In fact it says it acts like your lightly obscured so only folks with talents that let them hide in in a lightly obscured space can really take advantage (AKA wood elf).

What I am more concerned with is anyone that doesn't have any vision aid (right now only humans, halflings, and 4 creatures in the whole bestiary) is totally hosed in darkness and everyone else (again 90% of the planet) is not.

You are considered blinded (Disadvantage to all your attacks, all attacks made on you have advantage, you can only move half speed, and since you can't see anyone, everyone has complete concealment so you have a +5 to your attacks assuming you can make out where they are because if you can't you aren't allowed to attack them at all)


Now I don't want this part changed it is actually quite realistic, being in complete darkness is tough I image for various reasons we've all experienced that fun.

What I don't like is that 90% of the planet doesn't have this problem so honestly natural selection should have whipped out the humans and poor hobbits a long time ago.

I hate to see a lot of creatures getting Disadvantages in the Sunlight. When Drow PCs come out the Disadvantage is going to hurt a lot of players. And we all know that Drow is coming eventually down the pipeline. Along with Two Scimitars. Even if its a few Player's Handbooks in the future.

As far as Darkvision goes I liked it when those races were just given Low light in 4e. Back in 3.5 I remember a feat that allowed Low Light to be exchanged for Darkvision, but I dont remember what it was.

All this talk about Light and Vision makes me want to play Zork. Beware of the Gru.