I agree that it's a good spell in general and by RAW, of course it affects creatures on land the same as it does in water. I'm just not sure that it makes thematic sense that creatures with 100% swim speed don't get some kind of advantage to getting out of it. That might just be a quibble, but I also think in suggests a terrestrial bias that we have as humans that a spell that would limit a terrestial creature would have the exact same effect it would have on an aquatic one.
The way the text is written implies the sphere of water is in constant motion, either of it's own accord or by the intention of the caster in order to actively contain potential victims. Logically, if this were not the case, there would be nothing holding any victim with adequate swimming ability for any significant period of time. Especially if that creature is adapted for life in water.
I ran a Triton in Season 7 of Adventurer's league and was fortunate enough to have DMs who would allow my character to see underwater when sufficiently deep.
Basically, if we were deep enough for the depth of water to cause darkness then the character could see since the racial feature is to be immune to the drawbacks of a deep sea environment. Top drawbacks being: Darkness, crushing pressure and cold.
Not giving Triton's darkvision when they've had it in past monster manual entries is bizarre.
That's an interesting take on the feature. I would rule that to be fair as well. All these things out here saying the deepest places of the water are total darkness, well that's a giant drawback of being deep lol
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
If DM’s used the darkness rules as they’re written it would make Darkvision a lot less useful though. It only lets you see in darkness as if it was dim light and you can only see shades of grey, not color. Dim light means disadvantage on perception checks, which makes a real light source something that even characters with Darkvision would appreciate and use. Warlocks with Devil’s Sight being the exception to this of course.
It really doesn't make sense for them not to, especially underwater. If I were to DM a game and someone played a Triton, at the very least I would give them DV underwater. At least that would be more useful underwater than some of the other things they have.
The way the text is written implies the sphere of water is in constant motion, either of it's own accord or by the intention of the caster in order to actively contain potential victims. Logically, if this were not the case, there would be nothing holding any victim with adequate swimming ability for any significant period of time. Especially if that creature is adapted for life in water.
I ran a Triton in Season 7 of Adventurer's league and was fortunate enough to have DMs who would allow my character to see underwater when sufficiently deep.
Basically, if we were deep enough for the depth of water to cause darkness then the character could see since the racial feature is to be immune to the drawbacks of a deep sea environment. Top drawbacks being: Darkness, crushing pressure and cold.
Not giving Triton's darkvision when they've had it in past monster manual entries is bizarre.
That's an interesting take on the feature. I would rule that to be fair as well. All these things out here saying the deepest places of the water are total darkness, well that's a giant drawback of being deep lol
Published Subclasses
The problem with darkvision is two-fold:
It's pretty hard to balance optical capability (by game mechanics & realism) when you only have one tier of non-standard, illumination-based vision...
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
If DM’s used the darkness rules as they’re written it would make Darkvision a lot less useful though. It only lets you see in darkness as if it was dim light and you can only see shades of grey, not color. Dim light means disadvantage on perception checks, which makes a real light source something that even characters with Darkvision would appreciate and use. Warlocks with Devil’s Sight being the exception to this of course.
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It really doesn't make sense for them not to, especially underwater. If I were to DM a game and someone played a Triton, at the very least I would give them DV underwater. At least that would be more useful underwater than some of the other things they have.
They live in the darkest parts of the ocean. Agreed many fish are blind but have other senses that assist in moving around and gathering food.
I love this idea, but instead of tremor sense, I was thinking True Seeing up to 60', underwater only of course