Houseruling Drow and their racial ability to cast Darkness

[terodil]

Hi, good folks of the playground,

let me preface this by saying that I'm perfectly aware of how 5e RAW prescribes this stuff to work: Drow cannot see through the darkness they create with their own racial feature to cast Darkness 1/LR. A lot of this rests on the keyword 'magical' (darkness) -- after all, this darkness is not just a space with no light, but it's some sort of black hole that even swallows the light that is emitted on the other side of it, relative to the observer. I get all that.

But I'm just not happy with this. It irks me all over, flavour-wise. Everything about this ability screams to me: 'Drow use this to exploit their natural superiority in darkness against enemies that have no such ability.' Or in other words: I feel Drow should get more mileage out of this racial ability than a run-of-the-mill wizard casting Darkness would. So I'm entirely willing to houserule this somewhat. The question is, how to alleviate this issue while minimising the damage to the mechanical side of the game? I don't have an issue if this increases the CR of all Drow, since I can easily consider this while designing my encounters; but as a relative newbie I'm afraid I'm not aware of what other things this might/will break.

I see a few options:

- Option A: Specifically exempt drow from being affected by their racial darkness, i.e. their racial ability would become a separate Darkness effect, leaving the spell Darkness unchanged. Clumsy. :smallconfused:

- Option B: Pair 'sun-light sensitivity' with 'darkness affinity', a racial feature that allows them to ignore disadvantage from complete and/or magical darkness. I feel like Tom while Jerry sneaks up behind him wielding a comically oversized wooden mallet, ... but... the symmetry... it's so beautiful... :smalleek:

- Option C: Let each drow see through their very own darkness only? (i.e., Drow would still be blinded when in darkness created by another creature, even other Drow.) It could easily be explained by analogy to how humans generally ignore their own breathing noise or how they ignore seeing their noses. Not bad. :smallsigh:

- Option D: Change their racial darkvision (which already is a special case with its 120' range compared to the default 60' range for dwarves, other elves etc.) to some sort of heatvision and ignore that heat waves are just infra-red light. I believe Drow even used to have this in older editions? I have a feeling that this would break tons of other stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment (what about invisibility?). But I do like the flavour. :smallredface:

- Option E: ?

What do you think? Note, again, that I explicitly want to deviate from RAW here, and know that there will be a price to pay for this, but I would still appreciate help to keep the damage to the game system as low (or at least, as clearly defined) as possible while getting closer to the flavour of hunters changing the terrain to their benefit (without shooting themselves in the foot at the same time, like a run-of-the-mill wizard casting Darkness would run the risk to). Thank you!

[Unoriginal]

If you have to go with it, go with C.

Keep in mind that what most Drow are guaranteed to be fighting in their lives are other Drows. Make sense they couldn't see through others' Darkness.

Note that it's a straight up power boost for the Drow, and that should be re-balanced in other ways

[Honest Tiefling]

If you have to go with it, go with C.

Keep in mind that what most Drow are guaranteed to be fighting in their lives are other Drows. Make sense they couldn't see through others' Darkness.

I feel like you're not wrong, but that Lolth is kinda a jerkface who may give her race an advantage against other races but not necessarily her own. She might think that if you get attacked by your own racial ability, you probably shouldn't be breeding anyway.

[Theron_the_slim]

I would change their darkness so that it wouldn´t be considered magical darkness (for the effect of overcoming darkvision)

Making the drow see through their darkness would be really powerful (I mean even as a Warlock it´s pretty much pure cheese and this is just a racial that every drow gets) and balancing it this way would throw the balance very much in one direction (since this move becomes so much better than their other stuff)

This still would be considered a buff, since non-darkvision races would still be in the same situation (especially since it still kills the lights), but it gives a group the option to prepare for and even counter this tactic (and there can never be enough of those kind of abilities)
Buffing the human and halfling of the group with darkvision before the dungeon delve and most of the drow would be very likely to waste their first turn for their most common tactic, that´s a decent advantage for a group.

[SociopathFriend]

I will say that the fluff books like Drizzt have included that ability to produce Darkness and maintains they cannot see through it. In fact a common activity for young Drow is their version of chicken where both sides cast Darkness and Levitation and stand over a pit while they can't see.
First one to back out of the sphere loses.

Typically neither exits and they both die when the Levitation gives out.

This is not some new addition to 5e. AFAIK Drow have had issues with magical darkness for decades.

[Pex]

For the Drow PC in my game in exchange for not being to able to cast Darkness at all as a racial trait he no longer has sunlight sensitivity. Whether it's a balanced trade or not I don't know and don't really care. It fits the theme of Drow redemption returning to the Light that's a thing in my world. He can still cast Dancing Lights and Faerie Fire. There are roleplaying restrictions in that he has to be Good and worship a particular deity. That means something for my game if only a ribbon peripheral in the general.

[Keravath]

Case C is the same as the shadow sorcerer ability to see through their own darkness when cast with sorcery points so a similar mechanic already exists in the game.

You could also do something like give the drow 5’ blind sight to reflect their ability to manage in the dark.

Personally, I don’t really have any issues with it as written so I probably wouldn’t change it.

[Honest Tiefling]

For the Drow PC in my game in exchange for not being to able to cast Darkness at all as a racial trait he no longer has sunlight sensitivity. Whether it's a balanced trade or not I don't know and don't really care. It fits the theme of Drow redemption returning to the Light that's a thing in my world. He can still cast Dancing Lights and Faerie Fire. There are roleplaying restrictions in that he has to be Good and worship a particular deity. That means something for my game if only a ribbon peripheral in the general.

I think sunlight sensitivity is hard to evaluate, because it's very hard to know if night time raids/underground adventures are going to be a thing or not. It's going to vary a lot on the initial premise, and then on character choice.

From a role playing perspective, I think it is very thematically appropriate and interesting to ditch Darkness for removal of Sunlight Sensitivity.

[HappyDaze]

I will say that the fluff books like Drizzt have included that ability to produce Darkness and maintains they cannot see through it. In fact a common activity for young Drow is their version of chicken where both sides cast Darkness and Levitation and stand over a pit while they can't see.
First one to back out of the sphere loses.

Typically neither exits and they both die when the Levitation gives out.

This is not some new addition to 5e. AFAIK Drow have had issues with magical darkness for decades.

In the books, does Drizzt need a wad of bat fur and coal/pitch to use his innate darkness?

[JNAProductions]

In the books, does Drizzt need a wad of bat fur and coal/pitch to use his innate darkness?

I don't think anyone needs material components to use their racial spells.

[HappyDaze]

I don't think anyone needs material components to use their racial spells.

In the books, you mean, because in the game everyone does unless it specifically says otherwise (which, for Drow, it does not).

[JNAProductions]

In the books, you mean, because in the game everyone does unless it specifically says otherwise (which, for Drow, it does not).

Huh. Probably a typo.

I certainly wouldn't require a component pouch or focus to cast them via a racial ability.

[SociopathFriend]

In the books, you mean, because in the game everyone does unless it specifically says otherwise (which, for Drow, it does not).

In the books all Drow have a symbol of their house that they use for such things- which I imagine would in 5e count as the Arcane Focus.
Granted back when Drizzt started they could Levitate too and IIRC straight-up could see heat- neither of which stuck around in 5e. One of the first things Drizzt had to learn was how to Levitate when he was a child so he could clean a statue.

I believe that's an oversight/forced PC weakness mind you- the Drow in the MM states they possess innate spellcasting and need no components:
Innate Spellcasting. The drow's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 11). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: dancing lights 1/day each: darkness, faerie fire

But even Drizzt when another Drow or himself drops the Darkness cannot see through it- through any of his vision-senses including heat.
He just has fine enough senses outside of sight that he can battle through it anyways. One would imagine other Drow have similar- though lesser- variations of these same skills.

[terodil]

So many interesting points! Thank you everybody for your input!

A few things I'd like to specifically pick up on: Firstly, thank you for giving me some context with how Drow darkness is handled in established lore. I've never read those books so it's valuable input, and obviously part of the info I picked up on my research around the web was erroneous. I had to chuckle at the chicken bit! I've started reconsidering this entire enterprise, at least, though I'll admit I'm maybe too much in love with the flavour of hunters-in-the-dark.

Now to the problem itself:

- Turning the Drow racial darkness into a non-magical darkness: I'm afraid I don't quite see why you'd still call it a buff, Theron. True, drow would no longer attack with disadvantage, but neither would 90% of the player races, and as you say, a simple spell turns that into 100%. It'd buff both to the same degree, but it'd remove the spell's usefulness for areas that are already dark -- though I give you that one annoying torch, of course. It would also remove the tactical element of darkness as a playfield equaliser. Mmmm. Anything I'm not seeing here (no pun intended)?

- 5' blindsight: Eeep. This would also make Drow immune to the blind condition when engaging in melee, which is too powerful of a buff imo. I'd be looking for ways to prevent them getting blinded in their own darkness, not to make them able to see when blinded.

Going over all the options again, would there be any massive issue with giving Drow the ability to ignore disadvantage caused by darkness? Obviously it'd be a significant buff. But as I said, I don't mind buffing NPCs (can account for that while planning encounters), and I currently have no drow in the party at all. I might have a temporarily allied drow NPC at some point (no, not Drizzt), so what would be the tax you'd impose for this advantage? Make him lose one of the racial ASIs?

What tax would you impose if I made Drow able to ignore their very own Darkness only?