So I have seen alot of DM complain about races with darkvision and try to find ways to handicap it or try to remove it, I am here to say you don't its not that great to start with. So first off lets coversomething EXTREMELY important and VERY overlooked for the darkvision feature and that is LIGHTING! all races with darkvision can see in dim light as though it were bright and darkness as if it were dim light, now the second overlooked thing is is all races with darkvision feature (minus Fire Genasi) say "You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey." (circling back to to the fire Genasi, there darkvision sates: "everything you see in darkness is in a shade of red") now keeping this in mind a creature with darkvision will be able to make most things out fine in complete darkness like a humanoid out in the open BUT because they are seeing in dim light that is disadvantage on perception checks and a plenty to passive perception and now the second and more important one, they can't see colors, Blood, acid, poison and slime will all look the same! maybe there is a colored pattern on the wall with a puzzle they wont be able to solve because they can see colors, these two things is a massive handicap to most classes as it makes picking out a creature hiding much MUCH harder as well as doing things like detecting traps....unless the warlock as devils sight then they can see in darkness just as well as bright light....or they have a bullseye lantern witch gives them a massive 120 foot cone of light (60 feet bright and 60 feet dim) but its a bright ass cone of light!
Now I have a few homebrew rules for dealing with darkness, fight off light adjustment, if a creature remains in darkness long enough there eyes will adjust to the dark giving creatures without darkvision dim light vision up to 15 feet or 30 feet with a good perception check, but it takes at least a hour in complete darkness to gain this vision and then it works the other way around for ALL creatures that have been in bright light, if the light goes out without warning even a creature with darkvision will lose there darkvision for a few moments (about two rounds before they get half there vision back and another 4 rounds till they get the full 60 feet) after having there lights go out or being exposed to a extremely bright light from things like spells and magic items, furthermore a creature must choose between using the vision from a light OR tehre own darkvision, they can't get both at once due to the way eyes work in real life.
now moving on to other sight options for creatures: Blind sight, tremor sense and true sight and how they work based on there descriptions so first off bling sight, this is using other senses to tell where things are in place of eyes but to be more specific hearing, now alot of people use this as a excuse that they can see creatures while blind or in total darkness and or can't otherwise see, now the way I always rule this is that it allows the creature to know where things are but unless they have it naturally or have trained with it for years they sill have disadvantage on attack rolls on creatures they can't actually see because while you know where it is you still can't see it so the creature would be able to tell where your attacks are coming from and dodge it. furthermore rendering a creature deaf will render it completely blind and unable to tell where anything is so everything but area of effect abilities will automatically miss. moving onto tremor sense this, now the way this works is very simple: vibrations (if you have seen the movie tremors you know how it works) if a creature steps on something like dirt or sand the creature with tremorsense KNOWS where it is, if it is stepping on something hard like stone that don't allow vibrations though it they can't see, also any very loud sounds (like things that deal thunder damage) will alert the creature, this also means items like boots of elvenkind or spells like silence won't protect you from being spotted by a creature with this feature and lastly truesight, truesight is a magical type of vision that lets a creature see though magical effects such as darkness or invisibility BUT despite that it is very easy to get around this ability due to the fact it is magical, spells like Nystul's Magic Aura (a level 2 spell) can though it for a loop and a level 3 spell nondetection COMPLETELY negates it because even if it is natural from like a dragon truesight is 100% a magical divination effect (unless you want to argue that dragons and seeing into the ethereal plane is not magic) there are also a plethora of class features and magic items that protect from divination magic...also thin sheets of lead so you really want to get into it.
and lastly another little homebrew rule I use based off real science, being blind or in complete darkness makes it pretty much impossible to walk in a straight line, so creatures that are blind have to flip a coin when moving forward to determine witch direction they veer off to, they can still move in the general direction they want but lets say they know there is a creature 30 feet ahead of them and want to slam into it they would veer left or right of it baring a perception check, now when BLIND and DEAF movement becomes chaotic as you lose the ability to tell witch way your going so the DM gets to roll to see where the creature is going to go.
hoped this post shed some light (pun not intended) on the way vision works and how to make some improvements to how lighting works in there game and how it affects your victims....I mean players, experience
Yeah a bunch oh DMs actually and it's kind of sad, I personally LOVE to **** with players with darkvision, like this
DM me: you guys are in a dark underground fortress, there is a large flooded tunnel what do you guys do?
Players: daoud I do a perception check in the hallway *goes ahead and rolls and gets a 26*
Me: ok with that you notice several mechanisms along the walls your not sure what they do
Player A: does it look like there is anything in the water?
Me: nope looks like plane water and smells like stagnate water that has been there for awhile
Player B: ok looks save I am going to jump in and start to slowly cross
Me: ok you place that first foot in the "water" and you immediately feel a massive burning sensation make a dex save
Player B: mmm dont like this *rolls well and passes the DC* ok does that pass
Me: yep your able to pull you foot out fast enough dispite the pain pull your foot out but you take *rolls damage* 18 acid damage to your foot and you movement speed is going to be halfed till you get some magical healing within the next few hours
Player C: oh I use cure wounds right away on him
Me: ok he has normal speed now
Player A: YOU TOLD MS IT LOOKED LIKE WATER!
Me: yeah it did but if you would have used a light you would have seen the yellowish color to it, but with your darkvision ot looked like plane water
dark vision is not that strong it is considered equal in power to prof in a single skill and will not have much effect if you have laterns or know the light cantrip
So I have seen alot of DM complain about races with darkvision and try to find ways to handicap it or try to remove it, I am here to say you don't its not that great to start with. So first off lets coversomething EXTREMELY important and VERY overlooked for the darkvision feature and that is LIGHTING! all races with darkvision can see in dim light as though it were bright and darkness as if it were dim light, now the second overlooked thing is is all races with darkvision feature (minus Fire Genasi) say "You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey." (circling back to to the fire Genasi, there darkvision sates: "everything you see in darkness is in a shade of red") now keeping this in mind a creature with darkvision will be able to make most things out fine in complete darkness like a humanoid out in the open BUT because they are seeing in dim light that is disadvantage on perception checks and a plenty to passive perception and now the second and more important one, they can't see colors, Blood, acid, poison and slime will all look the same! maybe there is a colored pattern on the wall with a puzzle they wont be able to solve because they can see colors, these two things is a massive handicap to most classes as it makes picking out a creature hiding much MUCH harder as well as doing things like detecting traps....unless the warlock as devils sight then they can see in darkness just as well as bright light....or they have a bullseye lantern witch gives them a massive 120 foot cone of light (60 feet bright and 60 feet dim) but its a bright ass cone of light!
Now I have a few homebrew rules for dealing with darkness, fight off light adjustment, if a creature remains in darkness long enough there eyes will adjust to the dark giving creatures without darkvision dim light vision up to 15 feet or 30 feet with a good perception check, but it takes at least a hour in complete darkness to gain this vision and then it works the other way around for ALL creatures that have been in bright light, if the light goes out without warning even a creature with darkvision will lose there darkvision for a few moments (about two rounds before they get half there vision back and another 4 rounds till they get the full 60 feet) after having there lights go out or being exposed to a extremely bright light from things like spells and magic items, furthermore a creature must choose between using the vision from a light OR tehre own darkvision, they can't get both at once due to the way eyes work in real life.
now moving on to other sight options for creatures: Blind sight, tremor sense and true sight and how they work based on there descriptions so first off bling sight, this is using other senses to tell where things are in place of eyes but to be more specific hearing, now alot of people use this as a excuse that they can see creatures while blind or in total darkness and or can't otherwise see, now the way I always rule this is that it allows the creature to know where things are but unless they have it naturally or have trained with it for years they sill have disadvantage on attack rolls on creatures they can't actually see because while you know where it is you still can't see it so the creature would be able to tell where your attacks are coming from and dodge it. furthermore rendering a creature deaf will render it completely blind and unable to tell where anything is so everything but area of effect abilities will automatically miss. moving onto tremor sense this, now the way this works is very simple: vibrations (if you have seen the movie tremors you know how it works) if a creature steps on something like dirt or sand the creature with tremorsense KNOWS where it is, if it is stepping on something hard like stone that don't allow vibrations though it they can't see, also any very loud sounds (like things that deal thunder damage) will alert the creature, this also means items like boots of elvenkind or spells like silence won't protect you from being spotted by a creature with this feature and lastly truesight, truesight is a magical type of vision that lets a creature see though magical effects such as darkness or invisibility BUT despite that it is very easy to get around this ability due to the fact it is magical, spells like Nystul's Magic Aura (a level 2 spell) can though it for a loop and a level 3 spell nondetection COMPLETELY negates it because even if it is natural from like a dragon truesight is 100% a magical divination effect (unless you want to argue that dragons and seeing into the ethereal plane is not magic) there are also a plethora of class features and magic items that protect from divination magic...also thin sheets of lead so you really want to get into it.
and lastly another little homebrew rule I use based off real science, being blind or in complete darkness makes it pretty much impossible to walk in a straight line, so creatures that are blind have to flip a coin when moving forward to determine witch direction they veer off to, they can still move in the general direction they want but lets say they know there is a creature 30 feet ahead of them and want to slam into it they would veer left or right of it baring a perception check, now when BLIND and DEAF movement becomes chaotic as you lose the ability to tell witch way your going so the DM gets to roll to see where the creature is going to go.
hoped this post shed some light (pun not intended) on the way vision works and how to make some improvements to how lighting works in there game and how it affects your victims....I mean players, experience
I have started to read and interpret the darkvision rules as a creature with darkvision has to BE IN dim light to see in dim light as bright light, and BE INdarkness to see in darkness as dim light. Meaning, you can't be standing out in the open and in bright light, at the opening to a cave that has 10' of dim light followed by total darkness, and see into the darkness, even though the darkness is only 15' away from you. You have to be standing in a space of darkness to see in the darkness.
Recently, we started in a game where all of us were Warforged. The DM made a slight Homebrew and said that all of us had Darkvision but it was only to 30' so we can't fo shooting stuff too far away without alternate light or better Darkvision sources.
I have started to read and interpret the darkvision rules as a creature with darkvision has to BE IN dim light to see in dim light as bright light, and BE IN darkness to see in darkness as dim light. Meaning, you can't be standing out in the open and in bright light, at the opening to a cave that has 10' of dim light followed by total darkness, and see into the darkness, even though the darkness is only 15' away from you. You have to be standing in a space of darkness to see in the darkness.
I love it, consider it stolen.
Also, I don't think darkvision is too powerful, I think too many races have it. It makes sense for races that have lived underground for ages, but not surface dwellers.
So I have seen alot of DM complain about races with darkvision and try to find ways to handicap it or try to remove it, I am here to say you don't its not that great to start with.
So first off lets coversomething EXTREMELY important and VERY overlooked for the darkvision feature and that is LIGHTING! all races with darkvision can see in dim light as though it were bright and darkness as if it were dim light, now the second overlooked thing is is all races with darkvision feature (minus Fire Genasi) say "You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey." (circling back to to the fire Genasi, there darkvision sates: "everything you see in darkness is in a shade of red") now keeping this in mind a creature with darkvision will be able to make most things out fine in complete darkness like a humanoid out in the open BUT because they are seeing in dim light that is disadvantage on perception checks and a plenty to passive perception and now the second and more important one, they can't see colors, Blood, acid, poison and slime will all look the same! maybe there is a colored pattern on the wall with a puzzle they wont be able to solve because they can see colors, these two things is a massive handicap to most classes as it makes picking out a creature hiding much MUCH harder as well as doing things like detecting traps....unless the warlock as devils sight then they can see in darkness just as well as bright light....or they have a bullseye lantern witch gives them a massive 120 foot cone of light (60 feet bright and 60 feet dim) but its a bright ass cone of light!
Now I have a few homebrew rules for dealing with darkness, fight off light adjustment, if a creature remains in darkness long enough there eyes will adjust to the dark giving creatures without darkvision dim light vision up to 15 feet or 30 feet with a good perception check, but it takes at least a hour in complete darkness to gain this vision and then it works the other way around for ALL creatures that have been in bright light, if the light goes out without warning even a creature with darkvision will lose there darkvision for a few moments (about two rounds before they get half there vision back and another 4 rounds till they get the full 60 feet) after having there lights go out or being exposed to a extremely bright light from things like spells and magic items, furthermore a creature must choose between using the vision from a light OR tehre own darkvision, they can't get both at once due to the way eyes work in real life.
now moving on to other sight options for creatures: Blind sight, tremor sense and true sight and how they work based on there descriptions
so first off bling sight, this is using other senses to tell where things are in place of eyes but to be more specific hearing, now alot of people use this as a excuse that they can see creatures while blind or in total darkness and or can't otherwise see, now the way I always rule this is that it allows the creature to know where things are but unless they have it naturally or have trained with it for years they sill have disadvantage on attack rolls on creatures they can't actually see because while you know where it is you still can't see it so the creature would be able to tell where your attacks are coming from and dodge it. furthermore rendering a creature deaf will render it completely blind and unable to tell where anything is so everything but area of effect abilities will automatically miss.
moving onto tremor sense this, now the way this works is very simple: vibrations (if you have seen the movie tremors you know how it works) if a creature steps on something like dirt or sand the creature with tremorsense KNOWS where it is, if it is stepping on something hard like stone that don't allow vibrations though it they can't see, also any very loud sounds (like things that deal thunder damage) will alert the creature, this also means items like boots of elvenkind or spells like silence won't protect you from being spotted by a creature with this feature
and lastly truesight, truesight is a magical type of vision that lets a creature see though magical effects such as darkness or invisibility BUT despite that it is very easy to get around this ability due to the fact it is magical, spells like Nystul's Magic Aura (a level 2 spell) can though it for a loop and a level 3 spell nondetection COMPLETELY negates it because even if it is natural from like a dragon truesight is 100% a magical divination effect (unless you want to argue that dragons and seeing into the ethereal plane is not magic) there are also a plethora of class features and magic items that protect from divination magic...also thin sheets of lead so you really want to get into it.
and lastly another little homebrew rule I use based off real science, being blind or in complete darkness makes it pretty much impossible to walk in a straight line, so creatures that are blind have to flip a coin when moving forward to determine witch direction they veer off to, they can still move in the general direction they want but lets say they know there is a creature 30 feet ahead of them and want to slam into it they would veer left or right of it baring a perception check, now when BLIND and DEAF movement becomes chaotic as you lose the ability to tell witch way your going so the DM gets to roll to see where the creature is going to go.
hoped this post shed some light (pun not intended) on the way vision works and how to make some improvements to how lighting works in there game and how it affects your victims....I mean players, experience
I was not aware that people thought darkvision was too powerful.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Yeah a bunch oh DMs actually and it's kind of sad, I personally LOVE to **** with players with darkvision, like this
DM me: you guys are in a dark underground fortress, there is a large flooded tunnel what do you guys do?
Players: daoud I do a perception check in the hallway *goes ahead and rolls and gets a 26*
Me: ok with that you notice several mechanisms along the walls your not sure what they do
Player A: does it look like there is anything in the water?
Me: nope looks like plane water and smells like stagnate water that has been there for awhile
Player B: ok looks save I am going to jump in and start to slowly cross
Me: ok you place that first foot in the "water" and you immediately feel a massive burning sensation make a dex save
Player B: mmm dont like this *rolls well and passes the DC* ok does that pass
Me: yep your able to pull you foot out fast enough dispite the pain pull your foot out but you take *rolls damage* 18 acid damage to your foot and you movement speed is going to be halfed till you get some magical healing within the next few hours
Player C: oh I use cure wounds right away on him
Me: ok he has normal speed now
Player A: YOU TOLD MS IT LOOKED LIKE WATER!
Me: yeah it did but if you would have used a light you would have seen the yellowish color to it, but with your darkvision ot looked like plane water
I love the acid story but I like to use spider webs which will alert the spiders. Darkvision cant see webs.
dark vision is not that strong it is considered equal in power to prof in a single skill and will not have much effect if you have laterns or know the light cantrip
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I have started to read and interpret the darkvision rules as a creature with darkvision has to BE IN dim light to see in dim light as bright light, and BE IN darkness to see in darkness as dim light. Meaning, you can't be standing out in the open and in bright light, at the opening to a cave that has 10' of dim light followed by total darkness, and see into the darkness, even though the darkness is only 15' away from you. You have to be standing in a space of darkness to see in the darkness.
Recently, we started in a game where all of us were Warforged. The DM made a slight Homebrew and said that all of us had Darkvision but it was only to 30' so we can't fo shooting stuff too far away without alternate light or better Darkvision sources.
I have started to read and interpret the darkvision rules as a creature with darkvision has to BE IN dim light to see in dim light as bright light, and BE IN darkness to see in darkness as dim light. Meaning, you can't be standing out in the open and in bright light, at the opening to a cave that has 10' of dim light followed by total darkness, and see into the darkness, even though the darkness is only 15' away from you. You have to be standing in a space of darkness to see in the darkness.
I love it, consider it stolen.
Also, I don't think darkvision is too powerful, I think too many races have it. It makes sense for races that have lived underground for ages, but not surface dwellers.