Honestly, I agree. When you take in to account the darkvision of most monsters, even when those monsters spend a good deal of time doing their monster thing on the surface, this ability will really put a damper on classes that rely on having at least some obscurment or the like to do their thing.
I mean, if you've got a rogue sneaking around in a dungeon, even a rogue with the scheme that gives him low-light vision, there's very little he can do to avoid detection when his adversaries can see as well in total darkness as if they were actually standing 'round in broad daylight. There are a number of things a rogue can pull, such as hiding 'round the bend in a tunnel or behind various terrain features, but for the most part he's going to end up in a bad way. As a DM I've already let a number of these instances slide, just to give the scout in my party a snowballs chance in Dis, but it feels like I'm really "cheating" on behalf of the player in these instances (probably 'cause I'm doing exactly that). There are just so few instances, apart from those that I consciously construct for the scout types that I feel they wouldn't be immediately spotted, and probably long before they even laid eyes on the shadowy outlines of their foes.
Now, I know that the critters that dwell in the deep places are supposed to be scary as hell, but when it comes to orcs, goblins, gnolls, and other such critters that spend a fair bit of time on the surface, I can imagine that low-light vision would suffice when they find themselves back in the gloom.
There are very, very few creatures with anything that even remotely resembles "dark vision" in the natural world. Most critters that live in total darkness utilize some other form of sensory perception to let them know what's going on, but these are very specialized critters with very specialized organs and structures. On the other hand, there are many, many, many critters roaming about that utilize forms of "low-light vision". In fact, I'm willing to bet that half the people on these boards have one such example running around in their house somewhere. Mr. Fluffle's low-light vision isn't perfect, and he certainly couldn't see in near-total darkness, so I'm pretty sure an intrepid adventurer (or a jerk with a can of pennies) could have at least a small chance of sneaking up on him in the dark. Granted I'm referring to examples in the natural world, so this has little bearing on how things work in D&D worlds where half the inhabitants on a planet would likely be immigrants from another prime world, the creations of a Power or insane magic user, refugees from another reality, the descendants of a marooned space or plane-faring people, or any number of other possibilities that are, likely as not, the true story behind the origin of any D&D world's various tenants. Still, it's something to consider, eh?
Anyway, yeah, I agree. Too much darkvision. I'm not against specialized forms of perception, provided they make some kind of "sense", but I think darkvision should remain in the domain of those creatures that dwell in perpetual darkness (drown, deepspawn, grell, etc.)... or are really, really friggin' scary. Not that those examples I gave aren't scary. You know. Yeah.
Add: Oh, and I think drow should continue to suffer the effects of daylight. There's a reason why drow tend not to come up during the daylight hours, besides risking the displeasure of... everybody, and why encoutering wayfaring drow isn't something that occurs, like, ever. Unless something really, really bad is about to happen, that is.
Don't get me wrong, as a DM, I love drow. I just hate... one drow in particular. And all variations of that one drow. All. Variations. All of 'em. They ruined those books for me. Seriously.
Yep I'm way on board with ya about low light it makes sense, it's useful but not crazy powerful. And to give creatures a variation and flavor they don't all have to be low light 30 ft. Some slow moving brutes might only have low light 10 ft or 20 ft. A really fast hunter type creature could have low light 50 ft.
So we stop busting on the poor tee-shirt deprived Drow let me focus on another over vision powered monster type.
> The Zombie.
> I mean come on take a live commoner human smack it till it'd dead then bring it back as a zombie and whamo it has Darkvision 60 ft!!!???
I think it's way more interesting and spooky for the PCs to deal with a huge room of Zombies that are blind but have Blindsight 10 ft or 20 ft. You don't want to shoot them cause they will come towards the PCs (AKA Walking Dead). The PCs might try to all sneak by them (AKA Silent Hill). Everyone bites their nails as the dwarf fighter in plate and the clumsy wizard try to quietly weave through the horde (Staying just out of blight sight reach)!!!
Honestly, I agree. When you take in to account the darkvision of most monsters, even when those monsters spend a good deal of time doing their monster thing on the surface, this ability will really put a damper on classes that rely on having at least some obscurment or the like to do their thing.
I mean, if you've got a rogue sneaking around in a dungeon, even a rogue with the scheme that gives him low-light vision, there's very little he can do to avoid detection when his adversaries can see as well in total darkness as if they were actually standing 'round in broad daylight. There are a number of things a rogue can pull, such as hiding 'round the bend in a tunnel or behind various terrain features, but for the most part he's going to end up in a bad way. As a DM I've already let a number of these instances slide, just to give the scout in my party a snowballs chance in Dis, but it feels like I'm really "cheating" on behalf of the player in these instances (probably 'cause I'm doing exactly that). There are just so few instances, apart from those that I consciously construct for the scout types that I feel they wouldn't be immediately spotted, and probably long before they even laid eyes on the shadowy outlines of their foes.
Now, I know that the critters that dwell in the deep places are supposed to be scary as hell, but when it comes to orcs, goblins, gnolls, and other such critters that spend a fair bit of time on the surface, I can imagine that low-light vision would suffice when they find themselves back in the gloom.
There are very, very few creatures with anything that even remotely resembles "dark vision" in the natural world. Most critters that live in total darkness utilize some other form of sensory perception to let them know what's going on, but these are very specialized critters with very specialized organs and structures. On the other hand, there are many, many, many critters roaming about that utilize forms of "low-light vision". In fact, I'm willing to bet that half the people on these boards have one such example running around in their house somewhere. Mr. Fluffle's low-light vision isn't perfect, and he certainly couldn't see in near-total darkness, so I'm pretty sure an intrepid adventurer (or a jerk with a can of pennies) could have at least a small chance of sneaking up on him in the dark. Granted I'm referring to examples in the natural world, so this has little bearing on how things work in D&D worlds where half the inhabitants on a planet would likely be immigrants from another prime world, the creations of a Power or insane magic user, refugees from another reality, the descendants of a marooned space or plane-faring people, or any number of other possibilities that are, likely as not, the true story behind the origin of any D&D world's various tenants. Still, it's something to consider, eh?
Anyway, yeah, I agree. Too much darkvision. I'm not against specialized forms of perception, provided they make some kind of "sense", but I think darkvision should remain in the domain of those creatures that dwell in perpetual darkness (drown, deepspawn, grell, etc.)... or are really, really friggin' scary. Not that those examples I gave aren't scary. You know. Yeah.
Add: Oh, and I think drow should continue to suffer the effects of daylight. There's a reason why drow tend not to come up during the daylight hours, besides risking the displeasure of... everybody, and why encoutering wayfaring drow isn't something that occurs, like, ever. Unless something really, really bad is about to happen, that is.
Don't get me wrong, as a DM, I love drow. I just hate... one drow in particular. And all variations of that one drow. All. Variations. All of 'em. They ruined those books for me. Seriously.
Yep I'm way on board with ya about low light it makes sense, it's useful but not crazy powerful. And to give creatures a variation and flavor they don't all have to be low light 30 ft. Some slow moving brutes might only have low light 10 ft or 20 ft. A really fast hunter type creature could have low light 50 ft.
So we stop busting on the poor tee-shirt deprived Drow let me focus on another over vision powered monster type.
> The Zombie.
> I mean come on take a live commoner human smack it till it'd dead then bring it back as a zombie and whamo it has Darkvision 60 ft!!!???
I think it's way more interesting and spooky for the PCs to deal with a huge room of Zombies that are blind but have Blindsight 10 ft or 20 ft. You don't want to shoot them cause they will come towards the PCs (AKA Walking Dead). The PCs might try to all sneak by them (AKA Silent Hill). Everyone bites their nails as the dwarf fighter in plate and the clumsy wizard try to quietly weave through the horde (Staying just out of blight sight reach)!!!
Yup, I can see what you mean with regard to zombies, but when it comes to our corpsey friends as they exist within the Dungeons & Dragons universe we've moved away from the domain of "natural" science and into the realm of metaphysics and magic. These creatures, by their very nature, are creatures of profane magic, not biology. There have been instances in official sources (for whatever that's worth) where zombies have been created by plague, but those plagues have invariably been either magical in origin or linked to the meddling of one of the many powers related to death, plague or the undead.
So far as zombies go, I think it would work either way, really. They're lesser undead, and they retain what remains of their sensory organs to a greater or lesser extent (stuff falls off once in a while, it just happens), but what about other forms of undead like, say, skeletons? These guys have no eyes, they are commonly described as having "points of light" flickering within their eye sockets. Do they even see? I don't think their vision would be "sight" as we understand it, but does that even matter, really? I don't think it does. Then again, statistically, it suppose it does.
Should zombies be able to see in the dark? I think... maybe. How 'bout skeletons? I'd find it hard to justify them not being able to do so.
I get ya about the natural explanation over magic one. I do think the unholy act of magically animating the dead should give the zombie or skeleton a magical way of seeing it's world. I just think it should be more of an aura effect aka blindsight. So sure at a distance you can out maneuver and drop them but when the get up close they latch on and don't let go. AKA with blindsight 20 ft you'd have to run away or teleport to get away. Stealth would be useless right up close to them.
Now ranged undead should have different vision effects otherwise they are pointless in dark tombs and such but I would say low light again is more than good enough. Heck, that feature should cost the evil bugger that brought them back extra in the ritual! 25 GP worth of ritual powder to bring a skeleton to life but if you want it to see in the dark you have to add two 25 GP gems (glowing eyes).
My over arching theme here is yes keep all these cool vision powers but balance the world a bit with them.
Maybe they should add "Smell Sense" and "Taste Sense", this may sound like a joke, but in all seriousness I see Zombies as more of smelling people's fresh, juicy brains. Whereas a snake supposedly tastes the air to find prey.
Honestly I think these alternatives should be left for the DM.
My perfect campaign world: > Darkvision 15% > Blindsight 15% > Low light 30% > Normal vision 40%
DontEatRawHagis I think other sense types would be cool with their own challenges. Gust of wind could render a smell sense creature blind etc... Though I have to always remember that too many rules can bog things down. I love more depth but hate 2 hours of discussion to understand a zillion rules and cross effect rules. Oh the balance of it all.
AlmightyK I thought it was odd that even after the second update they still haven't explained a trait that 90% of the critters have. Come on WoTC chime in, I'm sure you have the rule already but just didn't include it in the how to play or DMG.
Provided there is no light source within thirty feet, creatures with low-light vision treat darkness as shadows and shadows as nomal light. So, I think we can safely assume that creatures with darkvision treat all "degrees" of darkness as normal light for the purposes of vision.
Honestly, I think the explanation of low-light vision could do with some revision. I'm not a literalist, so I simply assume that the vision of creatures with low-light vision wouldn't be hampered too badly by lower levels of illumination like, say, a torch or hooded lantern at their back. All types of vision, even darkvision, require some level of ambient light to function, else they wouldn't exactly be "vision" by definition; and the ability to see shadowed areas plain as day becomes kinda useless when your vision only works in areas where there aren't any bloody shadows.
Provided there is no light source within thirty feet, creatures with low-light vision treat darkness as shadows and shadows as nomal light. So, I think we can safely assume that creatures with darkvision treat all "degrees" of darkness as normal light for the purposes of vision.
Honestly, I think the explanation of low-light vision could do with some revision. I'm not a literalist, so I simply assume that the vision of creatures with low-light vision wouldn't be hampered too badly by lower levels of illumination like, say, a torch or hooded lantern at their back. All types of vision, even darkvision, require some level of ambient light to function, else they wouldn't exactly be "vision" by definition; and the ability to see shadowed areas plain as day becomes kinda useless when your vision only works in areas where there aren't any bloody shadows.
see, that would be an ASSUMPTION. but with assumptions is what also gets you the extra damage on magic attacks
and remember, in older editions darkvision was in black and white. does it still do that? we don't know
