Devil's Sight is different. That's the one that's actually weird. How does it work? Who knows. I like to imagine they emit evil beams that reflect back to them. Paladins can see these evil beams of course.
Nah, Devil's Sight is seeing the rays of darkness reflected off of objects, just like normal vision is seeing the rays of light reflected off of objects.
No such thing as rays of darkness? That just shows how ignorant you are of the true reality :)
It seems obvious to me, that darkvision is just what nocturnal creatures like owls have. They can see... In the dark. Generally, there's not enough darkness to make them blind in the real world. You could achieve such darkness using magic. (Or a totally sealed container. Or the inside of a froghemoth!)
Or any underground dungeon. It only takes a couple of corners to reduce light levels below what mundane night vision can deal with. If D&D didn't include dungeons, you could maybe interpret darkvision as a mundane trait, but as written it's clearly supernatural.
Basically, I think the game assumes a tiny amount of light in most situations. In the rare cases of total blackness, you see it say creatures are blinded, or can't see, or everything is heavily obscured. Examples: anything with a Swallow attack, Shadow of Moil, and indeed Darkness. In other words, a creature with darkvision is unable to see in absolute darkness, but it's so rare that there's no definition for absolute darkness. And there really shouldn't be. Having it laid out as a rule would make people use it more, and that would suck.
That's my take anyway. So to answer the question, yes, a creature with darkvision could see reflections in a mirror, under normal circumstances. If the area is in what I'm calling absolute darkness, then no, but that's obvious because anything that creates so-called absolute darkness will explain that darkvision can't see through it.
It seems obvious to me, that darkvision is just what nocturnal creatures like owls have. They can see... In the dark. Generally, there's not enough darkness to make them blind in the real world. You could achieve such darkness using magic. (Or a totally sealed container. Or the inside of a froghemoth!)
Or any underground dungeon. It only takes a couple of corners to reduce light levels below what mundane night vision can deal with. If D&D didn't include dungeons, you could maybe interpret darkvision as a mundane trait, but as written it's clearly supernatural.
But owls have darkvision. Are owls supernatural? What about badgers, or frogs? Rats? Spiders? They're all supernatural? Then what's *natural*?
But owls have darkvision. Are owls supernatural? What about badgers, or frogs? Rats? Spiders? They're all supernatural? Then what's *natural*?
A trait that does not exist in 5e. The core problem is that 5e merged what were in prior editions two different traits: night vision and darkvision.
In 3e and 4e, night vision doubled the effective range of light sources but had no effect in total darkness. This reasonably corresponds to what mundane animals have. Dark vision let you see in true darkness, and was mostly found on monsters (so you can have the skeletons in the lightless crypt still moving normally). 5e decided "that distinction is too confusing" and created a hybrid trait that... winds up with mundane animals either being blind in low light situations or having supernatural vision.
It's much the same problem as darkness vs concealment: 5e took two effects with very different behavior (a dark area and a fog cloud are not the same thing) and merged them. There are lots of things 5e did well, but the rules for perception are a giant train wreck.
Crystal caves actually reflect more light than normal caves. So any bio-luminescence would actually be reflected farther than normally. But aside from that...
In my games we tend to ignore any and all distance restrictions on Dark vision. They just do not make sense. and add way to much complexity to the game. Why does a darkvision character only see 120 ft and a normal vision character can see the stars.
I use torchlight as a limit to everyone. For the DV characters it overwhelms their DV and limits them to just normal torch light vision distance just like everyone else. If they want to see farther and use their DV they need to scout ahead.
If in an area that affords the NV character easy sight the DV character is reduced. Like is areas with streetlights. The DV character does not get to see through the lighted area into a shadow. If you can read by the light its too bright for a DV character.
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Nah, Devil's Sight is seeing the rays of darkness reflected off of objects, just like normal vision is seeing the rays of light reflected off of objects.
No such thing as rays of darkness? That just shows how ignorant you are of the true reality :)
But Vampires also need some light. Unless they have sonar like bats.
Vampires can summon bats to do the sonar for them. :P
Or any underground dungeon. It only takes a couple of corners to reduce light levels below what mundane night vision can deal with. If D&D didn't include dungeons, you could maybe interpret darkvision as a mundane trait, but as written it's clearly supernatural.
Basically, I think the game assumes a tiny amount of light in most situations. In the rare cases of total blackness, you see it say creatures are blinded, or can't see, or everything is heavily obscured. Examples: anything with a Swallow attack, Shadow of Moil, and indeed Darkness. In other words, a creature with darkvision is unable to see in absolute darkness, but it's so rare that there's no definition for absolute darkness. And there really shouldn't be. Having it laid out as a rule would make people use it more, and that would suck.
That's my take anyway. So to answer the question, yes, a creature with darkvision could see reflections in a mirror, under normal circumstances. If the area is in what I'm calling absolute darkness, then no, but that's obvious because anything that creates so-called absolute darkness will explain that darkvision can't see through it.
But owls have darkvision. Are owls supernatural? What about badgers, or frogs? Rats? Spiders? They're all supernatural? Then what's *natural*?
A trait that does not exist in 5e. The core problem is that 5e merged what were in prior editions two different traits: night vision and darkvision.
In 3e and 4e, night vision doubled the effective range of light sources but had no effect in total darkness. This reasonably corresponds to what mundane animals have. Dark vision let you see in true darkness, and was mostly found on monsters (so you can have the skeletons in the lightless crypt still moving normally). 5e decided "that distinction is too confusing" and created a hybrid trait that... winds up with mundane animals either being blind in low light situations or having supernatural vision.
It's much the same problem as darkness vs concealment: 5e took two effects with very different behavior (a dark area and a fog cloud are not the same thing) and merged them. There are lots of things 5e did well, but the rules for perception are a giant train wreck.
Crystal caves actually reflect more light than normal caves. So any bio-luminescence would actually be reflected farther than normally. But aside from that...
In my games we tend to ignore any and all distance restrictions on Dark vision. They just do not make sense. and add way to much complexity to the game. Why does a darkvision character only see 120 ft and a normal vision character can see the stars.
I use torchlight as a limit to everyone. For the DV characters it overwhelms their DV and limits them to just normal torch light vision distance just like everyone else. If they want to see farther and use their DV they need to scout ahead.
If in an area that affords the NV character easy sight the DV character is reduced. Like is areas with streetlights. The DV character does not get to see through the lighted area into a shadow. If you can read by the light its too bright for a DV character.