Darkvision.

[Neoh]

Hey guys, I've been wondering, what's your opinion on darkvision? Just in general, how you feel about it as a mechanic.

And also, have you played in a party with a majority of players without darkvision? How did you handle it? Torches, Spells, not going out at night, other? Was it annoying? Was the DM making easier encounters or setting them up differently from usual? Did you receive some magic items to counter the lack of darkvision? Did you find it more challenging?

[HappyDaze]

When there is no light at all, I place heavy emphasis on darkvision turning darkness into dim light. This is still suboptimal for a great many things, so disadvantage flows freely in such conditions. As a result, while darkvision is better than normal (human) vision in such situations, everybody is best off using light sources for most activities. This includes PCs and the monsters (orc caverns are likely lit with burning torches or phosphorescent moss and both dwarf & drow cities have magical lighting).

[EggKookoo]

I'm fine with darkvision but I find it mostly a convenience to avoid having to carry torches everywhere. In my current Eberron campaign, I have an elf, a warforged, a tiefling, a shifter, and a goblin. Only the warforged doesn't have it, and it hasn't really been a problem.

One thing I try (and often fail) to remember is that darkvision has a range, typically 60 feet. It's not like they can just see everywhere. And even in the equivalent of dim light provided, vision-based checks suffer disadvantage.

[Neoh]

*Snip*.

True, and people tend ignore this, which works even more at the disadvantage of races that lack darkvision.

*Snip*.

I think it's a bit too big of a convenience. I mean, there are too many races with darkvision and too few that lacks it. I often see people ask "Why would I play a Halfling Rogue when I can't even do my job properly?".

Yeah, I sometimes forget the range too, probably because it doesn't come up that often, it's pretty rare to have encounters that starts hundreds of feet apart.

[EggKookoo]

Yeah, I sometimes forget the range too, probably because it doesn't come up that often, it's pretty rare to have encounters that starts hundreds of feet apart.

Not for encounters so much, but outdoors at night? Sixty feet is pretty close when you're out in the open. But in a more concrete example, a few sessions back they stumbled into a monstrously huge cavern. Ceiling 100 feet up, and the far end hundreds of feet away. I got partway through describing it before realizing they wouldn't see any of that.

[Maelynn]

Hey guys, I've been wondering, what's your opinion on darkvision? Just in general, how you feel about it as a mechanic.

And also, have you played in a party with a majority of players without darkvision? How did you handle it? Torches, Spells, not going out at night, other? Was it annoying? Was the DM making easier encounters or setting them up differently from usual? Did you receive some magic items to counter the lack of darkvision? Did you find it more challenging?

What has been really confusing for me at first, was that some people seem to think that a torch somehow cancels out the effects of darkvision. I never understood that reasoning, because it makes no sense and the PHB entries for Darkvision or torch or even Light in general say nothing about it. However, these people were so persistent that I reckoned I must be wrong and just went with their version. Even when I started DMing I continued to have doubts about this as one of my players held the same opinion, until a few weeks ago when I decided to do some research about it and get the right answer once and for all. Apparently, there's nothing in 5e that says a light source has a negative effect on Darkvision. My conclusion is that it's probably a remnant from an older edition and those players unwittingly drag it into 5e. I know that the player in my party has already done so on occasion, so it wouldn't surprise me.

For me, what really helps is looking at it like a Venn diagram. Just use overlapping circles for bright light, dim light, darkvision, and wherever they overlap you go with the brightest one or apply changes where necessary. Made it so much easier for me.

As for using it, in a previous party we had a Human who was the only one without Darkvision, and she had to make sure she used torches. Often she'd just grab the shirt of another character to function as a guide dog, especially so as not to give away our position. I don't recall the DM ever giving her disadvantages in dim light, which can either be an oversight or a deliberate eschewing of detailed rules in favour of the game experience. Knowing him, I'd wager it's the latter.

At my table, the party also has 1 character (Halfling Fighter) who doesn't have Darkvision. I've tried to give him the appropriate disadvantage wherever applicable, but it was tough and tiresome to keep track of it all. At some point I decided to kill several birds with one stone: he dipped a level into Cleric and replaced his armour/weapon, and had often proclaimed he was after a 'magical flaming sword' because he wanted to be a hero and all heroes had flaming swords. So, when his deity bestowed the clerical powers upon him, he provided him with a sword that burned with bright silver flames when wielded. Or at least, that's what the Halfling sees. To the rest of the party, it's just a sword. I passed the player a note saying that the flames of the sword provided light akin to a torch and follow the same rules. Again, the rest of the party don't see this light. The player knows what's up and appreciated the joke, his character however hasn't realised yet. Mostly because he has INT as a dump stat and partly because he's too happy with his magical flaming sword to really care.

[Neoh]

*Snip*.

Yeah I'm more talking from a player's view, we often assume the things happening are happening or rather close to us.
Haha, well, as long as you don't spoil anything too important I guess it's fine, just wasted a bit of time and ended up with "Actually you guys can't see anything but the ground around you and the wall at your back".

*Snip*.

I've seen a similar kind of confusion, players that believed a guy with darkvision would get blinded by a torch or light spell.

Yeah when there's only 1 or 2 players that lack darkvisions, they often end up just being able to follow behind another player that can see. It's more an issue for parties where they have a majority of players without darkvisions, seeing how monsters tend to have it or some variant that helps them perceive things.

As I thought, it often ends up being annoying enough for the player that the DM ends up helping him so he won't have to be frustrated every session.
I wish darkvisions was done better so that there wouldn't be such a big disparity between races.

[Guy Lombard-O]

What has been really confusing for me at first, was that some people seem to think that a torch somehow cancels out the effects of darkvision.

I see the same weird thinking with Devil's Sight. If everything's not 100% darkness, then it can't function.

[TigerT20]

Generally, I find it a bit weird. I feel low-light vision should be brought back and darkvision be placed under the 'only magical races get' label. Because it doesn't make sense that an elfs 'improved nightvision from living in twilight forests' works in pitch darkness. But then I remind myself that 'darkness' is anything less than a supermoon.
This is how I generally have it so far homebrew rules-wise:

Most races with it get 'low-light vision'. This is just darkvision that only turns dim light to bright light.
Underground races get 'darkvision' which works as written, but there has to be some form of lighting in the dictionary terms. You can't use this if there isnt so much as a small patch of glowing moss. You don't have laser eyes.
Races like tieflings and aasimar get laser eyes. They can see even in a region with no light sources. Up to 60 feet anyway.

In terms of 'light source disrupts it', its less of a D&D rules thing and more a realism/versimilitude thing. Picture this scene: You are in your bedroom at night. The lights are off. You can see fairly well, enough to note the fact that the pile of clothes looks like a gibbering mouther come to eat you whole while you sleep. You walk to the bathroom, through a corridor lit by a lamp. When you get back, you can no longer see the gibbering mouther. Not because its moved, but because your eyes are on 'seeing with light mode' not 'seeing in the dark' mode. If you adjust to the dark, when you look at the light again, it will seem brighter than it is until you adjust again. We can assume this sort of thing is even worse if you have darkvision

[da newt]

I find that having a gloomstalker (or other darkness optimized PC) in the Party tends to decrease the frequency of limited light encounters helping the non-darkvision party members.

Whenever you ask if there are dark shadows in the room, or is it dark enough for me to be invisible it seems that there is plenty of light. Conversely, have a couple non-darkvision party members in the party asking can I see, is it too dark, do I need to light a torch or something and it seems like the whole world is darker than Gotham ...

[KorvinStarmast]

One thing I try (and often fail) to remember is that darkvision has a range, typically 60 feet. It's not like they can just see everywhere. And even in the equivalent of dim light provided, vision-based checks suffer disadvantage.

That's a think that at our tables needs to get constant emphasis.

[Contrast]

I see the same weird thinking with Devil's Sight. If everything's not 100% darkness, then it can't function.

While I agree Devil's Sight should just allow unaffected vision regardless of light levels there is some RAW backing to that. I would probably run it per the below at an AL table if I ever GM'd one.

You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.

Darkness is defined in game. No mention of dim light, means you do not get to ignore its effects.

The darkvision issue is, I imagine more a thing of people not reading the rules and assuming it works like real life night vision, rather than the Devil's Sight thing which is a case of people reading the rules very carefully.


I made the mistake of making a character with a non-darkvision race for a campaign thats been running during the shutdown. The DM hasn't tried out Roll20 before and is enjoying messing around with the dynamic lighting and various visual things. As a result every single encounter has either been in the dark or involved mixed areas of light and dark. It has been quite problematic, made more frustrating by the fact that I know when I forget to impose the penalties on myself the DM never notices/remembers so it always feels like a self nerf. Though a lot of this depends on if anyone else in the party is willing/able to have a free hand/has the Light cantrip or if stealth is a thing your party regularly tries to engage in.

My personal preference is to replace almost all versions of darkvision with low light vision (changes dim light to normal) and reserve proper darkvision for the spell and true nightmares of the dark places.

[Guy Lombard-O]

While I agree Devil's Sight should just allow unaffected vision regardless of light levels there is some RAW backing to that. I would probably run it per the below at an AL table if I ever GM'd one.

Sorry, I was unclear about my gripe.

I wasn't saying that Devil's Sight should just work as if you always have bright light regardless of the actual lighting conditions (although that would be nice). I think the RAW is clear enough that it doesn't help with dim light.

My problem is when you're in a party with torches or such and in bright light, then 40' away it becomes darkness, and the DM thinks that since you're in light yourself, the Devil's Sight is ruined and does nothing for the darkness 40' - 120' from you. That is annoying.

[Quietus]

What has been really confusing for me at first, was that some people seem to think that a torch somehow cancels out the effects of darkvision. I never understood that reasoning, because it makes no sense and the PHB entries for Darkvision or torch or even Light in general say nothing about it. However, these people were so persistent that I reckoned I must be wrong and just went with their version. Even when I started DMing I continued to have doubts about this as one of my players held the same opinion, until a few weeks ago when I decided to do some research about it and get the right answer once and for all. Apparently, there's nothing in 5e that says a light source has a negative effect on Darkvision. My conclusion is that it's probably a remnant from an older edition and those players unwittingly drag it into 5e. I know that the player in my party has already done so on occasion, so it wouldn't surprise me.

I would wager that this may have something to do with previous editions. Darkvision wasn't a thing, Dwarves had "infravision" - they would see heat sources, rather than just seeing in the dark. In cases like that, yes, a torch would blind them by being such an intense source of heat as to create problems.

Note that this is 100% armchair information, I never played during those days. Just been around long enough to absorb some information about this.

[Yora]

One thing I try (and often fail) to remember is that darkvision has a range, typically 60 feet. It's not like they can just see everywhere. And even in the equivalent of dim light provided, vision-based checks suffer disadvantage.

As phrased in the PHB, darkvision lets you treat dim light as bright light within 60 feet, and darkness as dim light with infinite range.

[elyktsorb]

90% of people and games forget darkvision is even a thing while they are playing. If the party consists of all characters without darkvision, night time excursions just barely happen or torches are outright ignored.

If the team is all darkvision then it is well and truly ignored.

If there is 1 person with darkvision they will always mention it anytime it might be dark, prompting the light spell or torches to be brought out.

As someone who plays races that typically don't have darkvision (like halflings) out of all the games I have played,(like around 10 or so) 4 of them have accounted for my lack of darkvision. 1 of them merely gave my character goggles to circumvent it, and the other three it actually had to be dealt with. But of those 3 one was a very homebrew setting, and the other 2 were pathfinder modules that the DM converted to 5e.

I think darkvision would be more interesting if it had an immediate mechanical effect that was noticeable upon getting it. Like if having darkvision gave you a bonus to perception in the dark (as opposed to just negating a negative) and if it gave you a detriment in too bright of an environment. ( I mean if we were going to make it realistic darkvision would have to make it so colors were less bright or something and such, complicated eyeball biology)

[EggKookoo]

As phrased in the PHB, darkvision lets you treat dim light as bright light within 60 feet, and darkness as dim light with infinite range.

From the Basic Rules PDF, page 68.

Darkvision

Many creatures in the worlds of D&D, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in dim light as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

[Yora]

The character race trait goes "You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray."
The limited range version makes much more sense, given how darkvision always worked in 3rd edition. And I feel quite certain that that's how it was always meant to work. But the PHB and the Basic Rules still describe darkvision in two different ways.

[EggKookoo]

But the PHB and the Basic Rules still describe darkvision in two different ways.

Right, that's partly why it's one of those things that falls through the cracks for me. In the end I find it easier to justify that darkvision as a whole is limited to 60 feet, or whatever. It's not too weird that it would be able to convert nearby dim to bright but somehow infinite dark to dim, but it's less weird to just say it has a range and that's it. As rules ambiguities go, it's hardly the worst thing to deal with.

[Galaxander]

Seems to me, the sensible thing for a DM (assuming they don't want to homebrew different racials or whatever), would be to make true darkness pretty rare. Say there's always moonlight, or the residual light from the candle three rooms over, or patches of luminous lichens. A tiny bit of light makes a big difference in what would otherwise be total darkness, enough to let a halfling rogue at least find their way around, even if still eating disadvantage.

[Tanarii]

As phrased in the PHB, darkvision lets you treat dim light as bright light within 60 feet, and darkness as dim light with infinite range.

How do you figure?
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light.

Pretty clear that it works within 60 feet.

[Samayu]

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light.

Two clauses, separated by a comma:
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light
and in darkness as if it were dim light.

There is no range listed in the second clause.

[False God]

I regularly refer to it as "jerkvision" because it bypasses one of the simplest early-game tension building mechanics.

[Grey Watcher]

Generally, I find it a bit weird. I feel low-light vision should be brought back and darkvision be placed under the 'only magical races get' label. Because it doesn't make sense that an elfs 'improved nightvision from living in twilight forests' works in pitch darkness. But then I remind myself that 'darkness' is anything less than a supermoon.
This is how I generally have it so far homebrew rules-wise:

Most races with it get 'low-light vision'. This is just darkvision that only turns dim light to bright light.
Underground races get 'darkvision' which works as written, but there has to be some form of lighting in the dictionary terms. You can't use this if there isnt so much as a small patch of glowing moss. You don't have laser eyes.
Races like tieflings and aasimar get laser eyes. They can see even in a region with no light sources. Up to 60 feet anyway.

In terms of 'light source disrupts it', its less of a D&D rules thing and more a realism/versimilitude thing. Picture this scene: You are in your bedroom at night. The lights are off. You can see fairly well, enough to note the fact that the pile of clothes looks like a gibbering mouther come to eat you whole while you sleep. You walk to the bathroom, through a corridor lit by a lamp. When you get back, you can no longer see the gibbering mouther. Not because its moved, but because your eyes are on 'seeing with light mode' not 'seeing in the dark' mode. If you adjust to the dark, when you look at the light again, it will seem brighter than it is until you adjust again. We can assume this sort of thing is even worse if you have darkvision

Eh, I kinda prefer that there aren't half a dozen different versions of "can see in the dark" floating around and you have to keep track of which one each player has.

While I agree Devil's Sight should just allow unaffected vision regardless of light levels there is some RAW backing to that. I would probably run it per the below at an AL table if I ever GM'd one.



Darkness is defined in game. No mention of dim light, means you do not get to ignore its effects.

The darkvision issue is, I imagine more a thing of people not reading the rules and assuming it works like real life night vision, rather than the Devil's Sight thing which is a case of people reading the rules very carefully.


I made the mistake of making a character with a non-darkvision race for a campaign thats been running during the shutdown. The DM hasn't tried out Roll20 before and is enjoying messing around with the dynamic lighting and various visual things. As a result every single encounter has either been in the dark or involved mixed areas of light and dark. It has been quite problematic, made more frustrating by the fact that I know when I forget to impose the penalties on myself the DM never notices/remembers so it always feels like a self nerf. Though a lot of this depends on if anyone else in the party is willing/able to have a free hand/has the Light cantrip or if stealth is a thing your party regularly tries to engage in.

My personal preference is to replace almost all versions of darkvision with low light vision (changes dim light to normal) and reserve proper darkvision for the spell and true nightmares of the dark places.

Funnily enough, I spent a good chuck of today making a big list of what changes I'd make to make Darkvision less common. It's not complete because I don't have a complete book collection, but I've gone from 32 race options with Darkvision down to eight and generally feel good about my substitutions (a few, like High Elves and Half-Elves, don't GET a substitution, but I feel like they do OK without it).

(If you want to see it, it's here, but it's incomplete because I don't have the full set of books: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing )

Some highlights:

Fallen Aasimar keep Darkvision, but lose the light cantrip. Other types of Aasimar keep the cantrip, but lose the Darkvision.

Non-Drow Elves don't have Darkvision, but Wood Elves get something I called "Preternatural Senses," which negates disadvantage for looking through cover in natural settings (eg leaves, snowstorms, etc.).

I'm tempted to turn down the "default" radius from 60 to 30 or even 15, but I think the default radius is "torchlight + 20 feet" on purpose.

[Yora]

Seems to me, the sensible thing for a DM (assuming they don't want to homebrew different racials or whatever), would be to make true darkness pretty rare. Say there's always moonlight, or the residual light from the candle three rooms over, or patches of luminous lichens. A tiny bit of light makes a big difference in what would otherwise be total darkness, enough to let a halfling rogue at least find their way around, even if still eating disadvantage.

Certainly a viable aesthetic choice. But that's not what real caves, abandoned minds, or tombs are like. Those literally have zero light anywhere. Even underground passages beneath a castle would not have someone replace all torches every 30 minutes, especially when there's usually only one or two people using it on any given day.
I think total darkness is one of the main thing that makes underground places interesting adventure environments. Something that usually gets ignored because much of fantasy is film and videogames which communicate their stories visually. But there is so much fun to be had with darkness. Veins of the Earth is a whole RPG book basically dedicated to managing the darkness in caves.

[Galaxander]

Certainly a viable aesthetic choice. But that's not what real caves, abandoned minds, or tombs are like. Those literally have zero light anywhere. Even underground passages beneath a castle would not have someone replace all torches every 30 minutes, especially when there's usually only one or two people using it on any given day.
I think total darkness is one of the main thing that makes underground places interesting adventure environments. Something that usually gets ignored because much of fantasy is film and videogames which communicate their stories visually. But there is so much fun to be had with darkness. Veins of the Earth is a whole RPG book basically dedicated to managing the darkness in caves.

Of course, but it's a balancing act between how fun your players will find that vs. how much they'll feel like they made a terrible mistake by rolling a race without darkvision.

And I think some degree of light is a totally logical choice for anyplace with inhabitants that don't have 20/20 darkvision. A natural cave that doesn't have an orc camp in it or whatever would be total darkness for sure.

[Tanarii]

Two clauses, separated by a comma:
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light
and in darkness as if it were dim light.

There is no range listed in the second clause.

"
"Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct -- the best kind of correct."

But also /rolleyes

Thanks for pointing it out though. I was missing the technical parsing going on for the forest.

[Democratus]

Recently started playing on Roll20 (for the obvious reasons).

One of the true eye-opening (pun intended) revelations was how important lighting was.

We had one party member with a light spell, and 2 party members with darkvision. Line of sight and darkness was a big deal.

When playing on the tabletop, players would assume that they could just communicate with each other to help know where all the creatures were. But when we were actually dealing with LOS and darkness, it wasn't that simple.

Players got attacked by creatures standing right next to them, but they couldn't see. Spell casters were unable to accurately drop area-of-effect spells. The front line fighter with the light source ran off to kill something leaving the party in darkness.

It was awesome! :D

[Segev]

Given how Superior Darkvision on Drow and svirfneblin is worded, simply extending darkvision’s range to 120 ft., the intended reading is clear. And the intended reading is not a technically improper one, given how implied verbiage works. So it’s clearly an incorrect reading to read it as infinite range.

[CapnWildefyr]

"
"Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct -- the best kind of correct."

But also /rolleyes

Thanks for pointing it out though. I was missing the technical parsing going on for the forest.

But this is not a case of specific overriding general, I don't think. The "general rule," as posted by EggKooBoo, is really specific in that darkvision is restricted by a range for both dim light and darkness, and RAI would have to be that this range therefore is not infinite. I think its more a case of a misplaced comma in the racial description.

This interpretation is also consistent with Segev's points.