So I have a player who wants to play a triton tempest cleric.  He plans on being a former pirate whose crew was killed due to a mistake by another player.  Now as tritons are supposed to be deeps sea dwellers looking at them I was initially confused that they don't have dark vision.  Then I saw this in their abilities "you ignore any of the drawbacks caused by a deep, underwater environment." from their guardian of the depths ability.  I thought that reasonably this could mean that if you are fully submerged in water you don't have disadvantage for melee attacks in water, it is not difficult terrain for you, and by feeling the currents you have blind sense out to 60'. Now I am not sure if this seems a reasonable or overpowered interpretation.  Since they weren't given straight dark vision, but have to be able to function I thought that a current focused blind sense could work and needing to be fully submerged to use these features, as far as I have seen, seemed too situational to be overly powerful as this is for a tyranny of dragons campaign not a high sea adventure.  What do my fellow DM's think?

Quote from Calnar >>

So I have a player who wants to play a triton tempest cleric.  He plans on being a former pirate whose crew was killed due to a mistake by another player.  Now as tritons are supposed to be deeps sea dwellers looking at them I was initially confused that they don't have dark vision.  Then I saw this in their abilities "you ignore any of the drawbacks caused by a deep, underwater environment." from their guardian of the depths ability.  I thought that reasonably this could mean that if you are fully submerged in water you don't have disadvantage for melee attacks in water, it is not difficult terrain for you, and by feeling the currents you have blind sense out to 60'. Now I am not sure if this seems a reasonable or overpowered interpretation.  Since they weren't given straight dark vision, but have to be able to function I thought that a current focused blind sense could work and needing to be fully submerged to use these features, as far as I have seen, seemed too situational to be overly powerful as this is for a tyranny of dragons campaign not a high sea adventure.  What do my fellow DM's think?

 I forget where I saw this linked on these forums.

but it was something about how in water there is normal light to about 600 ft deep in the D&D world lore. And then after that it is dim light for awhile then darkness.

But it has always bugged me too that tritons don’t have darkvision/something RAW written out, that they have a way of “seeing” when underwater.

 Found it:

Quote from DxJxC>>

And according to rules printed in GoS, the ocean stays relatively bright for quite a ways down:

Sunlight Zone. The sunlight zone extends from the water’s surface to a depth of 650 feet. This area of the sea has the same natural illumination conditions as above the water.

Twilight Zone. The twilight zone is between the depths of 650 and 1,000 feet. When the sunlight zone above is bathed in natural bright light, the twilight zone is filled with dim light. If the sunlight zone is filled with dim light or darkness, the twilight zone is dark.

Midnight Zone. Any depth below 1,000 feet is considered the midnight zone, since no natural light from the surface penetrates this deep.

And the DMG describes depths of over 100 feet as "deep," so everything checks out.

^ MVP.

If you’d like to add that, should be fine, but the “drawbacks of deep underwater environment” are probably the drawbacks listed in the DMG underwater section, not any and all circumstances one might find deep underwater. A Triton doesn’t gain resistance to Fire damage just because undersea vents are a thing, or immunity to being pushed by currents or anything, any more than a Goliath gets cold resistance or immunity to falling off cliffs.

”Swimming through deep water is similar to traveling at high altitudes, because of the water’s pressure and cold temperature. For a creature without a swimming speed, each hour spent swimming at a depth greater than 100 feet counts as 2 hours for the purpose of determining exhaustion. Swimming for an hour at a depth greater than 200 feet counts as 4 hours.”

pretty sure that’s all that that language is intended to address (although, as a race with a swim speed, it ALREADY didn’t apply to them).

I always give my triton players darkvision, I never understood that logic behind them NOT having it. 

While looking for something else, I just stumbled on both this thread and this update, which is welcome news:

While Mythic Odysseys of Theros is not a valid resource for Adventurers League play, the team at Wizards of the Coast has used it to make a change to the Triton race — granting Triton characters the Darkvision trait. This is an intentional change to the race itself, and the Wizards team will be updating Volo’s Guide to Monsters to reflect this change. As a result, Adventurers League-legal Triton characters do now have darkvision.