[3.5/PF] Orcs/Half-orcs and Darkvison

[Tetsubo 57]

I've never understood why orcs and half-orcs have darkvision. I just don't see them as subterranean creatures. To me they are the quintessential barbarian cultures. Which means living outdoors a great deal. Possibly nomadic or semi-nomadic. And it would seem to me to be a whole lot more useful if they had low-light vision. In my last campaign I gave them low-light vision as a replacement for darkvision. Has anyone else ever questioned their darkvision?

[thirsting]

I guess they having darkvision is more to do with them being creatures of night, rather than subterranean..

[Tetsubo 57]

I guess they having darkvision is more to do with them being creatures of night, rather than subterranean..

But low-light vision is a whole lot more useful. Darkvision only goes out to 60'... I would much rather have vision that worked at a further range.

[Aroka]

Pretty much - nocturnal rather than subterranean.

More to the point, though, orcs are a legacy creature ripped wholesale from Tolkien, and Tolkien's orcs are both violently nocturnal and often subterranean - the old dwarfholds of the Misty Mountains are mostly home to goblins and orcs (and there's even Goblintown, which they apparently dug themselves; Gram and Moria were dwarfholds). This means they have great night-eyes, seeing fine in absolute darkness (cf. The Hobbit, although that's not necessarily a consistent source - I think the dwarves have difficulty seeing in the dark, while in LotR Gimli can more or less see in the dark).

[subject42]

But low-light vision is a whole lot more useful. Darkvision only goes out to 60'... I would much rather have vision that worked at a further range.

I always looked at it as an evolutionary kink that came from their predator ancestors, kind of like how humans have three-color vision because our ancestors needed to be able to spot fruit.

[grarrrg]

orcs are a legacy creature ripped wholesale from Tolkien, and Tolkien's orcs are both violently nocturnal and often subterranean

In fact, Tolkien Orcs are so very nocturnal that direct sunlight physically hurts them. Uruk-Hai were bred to be more resistant to sunlight.
On a related note trolls would turn to stone in sunlight.

(movies not necessarily withstanding) Whenever they were out and about during the daytime it was usually cloudy (sometimes natural, sometimes magical clouds)

[Maroon]

It's a holdover from earlier editions, back when none of this "noble savage" business existed. Orcs were big smelly things hiding in cramped smelly caves, not green-skinned tribesmen. It came down to player characters needing torches to see in the dungeon and monsters not needing torches to see in the dungeon (it went as far as monsters hired by player characters losing the ability to see in the dark). It's of the same lineage as forcing stuck doors (which opened for monsters) and monsters lurking around in rooms (unless they were a random encounter). None of the other monsters went up for air; why would orcs?

I'm personally of the school of thought that orcs are reincarnated evil men crawling up from the underworld as larvae, and seeing in the dark is a gift from their demonic overlords, but I'm hardly representative of fantasy gaming as a whole. There's no reason to think that your orcs have to have darkvision, or crappy racial stats, or whatever.

I'm guessing WotC didn't really care about orcs and just copied whatever TSR did in AD&D. But the single pre-D&D appearance of orcs is in Tolkien's work, and they lived underground. It's only Saruman's "fighting Uruk-Hai" that didn't mind running around in the sunshine much.

[Aroka]

I'm personally of the school of thought that orcs are reincarnated evil men crawling up from the underworld as larvae, and seeing in the dark is a gift from their demonic overlords, but I'm hardly representative of fantasy gaming as a whole. There's no reason to think that your orcs have to have darkvision, or crappy racial stats, or whatever.

I love that idea. I will steal it. Yoink.

[Aotrs Commander]

This means they have great night-eyes, seeing fine in absolute darkness (cf. The Hobbit, although that's not necessarily a consistent source - I think the dwarves have difficulty seeing in the dark, while in LotR Gimli can more or less see in the dark).

Which is interesting, since my re-imaged Orcs had low-light vision instead of darkvision (with the option for 240' plus dazzled in daylight as a feat) because I thought felt a more Tolkien-like flavour! Daft innit?

(Mind you, I never liked darkvision as described by 3.x anyway.)