The change to the lighting system from RAW 5e hasn't made all-darkvision parties weaker at all and the disadvantage in dim light is not fun to play. For example, in a room filled with Dim Light a full darkvision party can happily attack every enemy with no disadvantage at all. Any non-darkvision member can only attack with disadvantage unless an area is lit up. The area being lit up for their turn is entirely dependent on getting the correct Initiative order. This change was made so that all darkvision parties weren't as strong but they still are much stronger than a mixed party. There are ways to get around the dim light issue for non-darkvision characters, but the darkvision characters don't need to worry about those conditions. They are free to attack normally without any restrictions.
I don't know what the solution to this is, but currently having some members be really weak due to lighting really affects my enjoyment of some of the battles and can make them tedious and unfun to play.
Edit:
Possible solutions discussed with Discord community:
1. More flammable objects in battles (for lighting purposes only)
2. A popup for readied attacks stating if you want to trigger the attack on a moving enemy (to help with the solution of getting an enemy into bright light who tries to move out of it)
3. The ability to cast Light on arrows (or perhaps light them by other means?). If the attack hits it could stick in the enemy, lighting them up. If it misses it could light an area nearby.
4. Buff non-darkvision races in some way to make up for the disadvantage.
One or more of these solutions could help potentially alleviate the issue. The issue won't be completely removed unless light becomes a non-factor, which doesn't seem like a solution the dev team wants to take.
It also provides perverse incentives when fighting ranged enemies that have darkvision.
Normally when you are fighting an enemy with darkvision and you do not you can use a light on yourself and this does not effect the enemy. You are no worse off compared to what you were. But now if you use light on yourself the enemy can see you! If they're outside of 20 ft from you all you have done is grant them advantage(well remove their disadvantage)*! The light has made things worse for you. It made you easier to attack. You're better off not using light until you can get close enough for melee. Which is really counter intuitive.
*it should grant them advantage(but i havent played a non darkvision party to figure it out yet) because they can see you but you cannot see them and so should effectively be blinded for the purposes of attacks.
I disagree .. there are several options to use Light offensively (Dancing Lights, Flaming Sphere) and defensively (Light, torch). Part of the game mechanics are encouraging every party to have to use light (there is an entire boss fight in the EA to teach the power of light on sensitive creatures) and it forces you to build parties with this in mind. Does it give Darkvision races an edge in certain roles like a stealthy archer or assassin? Yes and no.. unlit means disadvantage for everyone in Solasta so its a pretty strong qualifier that you fight with some sort of light source in play or at least consider it.
Considering you can cast the light cantrip on any object in the inventory I don't see any issue in addition to the wall lights that can be ignited and the torches and the candles. There are so many options. I don't see how anyone could have a problem.
In a room full of Dim Light, non-darkvision races must create solutions to hit normally. Darkvision races do not need to do this. Therefore Darkvision party is stronger and they have nothing else in their kit (stats or features) that balance this out. Igniting torches etc takes a turn. I don't see where the confusion is.
Please add:
- Lanterns with their 30 bright + 30 dim range
- Goggles of Night (they are SRD)
- Throw an item to a location (cast light on a coin and throw it)
- Remove "Fake" light. It is very confusing to be in a room with no light, but the room looks lit.
I would like to be able to drop a torch or toss one into an area for light. I hate swapping to my shield only to be in the dark.
The effect should be toned down. Elves and such have darkvision, humans and others don't, there's an end to it. One might make a party of all humans, then it's more difficult, or a party of all elves, and that makes it easier.
Maybe scale down the penalties a bit; at any rate it's too strong and fun-killing at the moment.
I don't like it when developers try to add their own gameplay to the D&D concepts (Larian, I'm looking at you). The ruleset is already gameplay, all it needs is adaptation and adjustments for the digital medium, not wholesale function-changing.
I played with my main damage dealer (a warrior with 2H weapons) being human (so no darkvision) and I never had an issue. I simply casted the light cantrip on his sword at all time and she never suffered from low vision penalty
My secondary damage dealer was a ranged elven ranger and when he needed to shot target that where too much in the dark, I could simply use my wizard to cast dancing light
Ok, that's really good for you and I'm genuinely happy for you. But I have had issues and I'm not the only one. I never want to be in a position in this game where I'm not having fun and I found a situation where I wasn't, so I wanted to leave that feedback.
Ok, that's really good for you and I'm genuinely happy for you. But I have had issues and I'm not the only one. I never want to be in a position in this game where I'm not having fun and I found a situation where I wasn't, so I wanted to leave that feedback.
Ragnarok, I hear what you are saying, but I think the issue here is not necessarily with the lighting implementation (which I don't mind, and very likely won't be abandoned by the dev's at this point). I think the issue is that non-darkvision races (it's just humans, right?) are at a distinct disadvantage throughout the game. Without the extra first level feat (which I am guessing is not there because of the SRD?), playing a human is auto-gimping yourself. Many of us play characters with inherent weaknesses in pen and paper for roleplay purposes, but in CRPG's there just isn't that same dynamic. Besides, it's not really fair to have an entire race selection gimped, especially since the humans offer diversity of appearance options that are not available to other races.
I think humans need something more to offset the lack of darkvision. If I were performing any activity where my life was at stake, I would never willingly choose to bring along someone that required extra planning/resources/care etc. Adding a human to the party the way it is right now is a handicap, and for most folks, handicaps are not fun.
I mean. Humans need something more to offset their lack of having any good abilities, not just darkvision. The +1 movement for sylvan elves and the +1 cantrip for high elves, and the immunity to sleep and... etc are just as important, or more, as the darkvision.
With a RAW darkvision and vision implementation darkvision isn't a terrible thing to not have.
For one, its easy to acquire. Goggles of the night do not require attunement and the darkvision spell is a 2nd level spell with an 8 hour duration and no concentration. So having one or two characters without darkvision isn't a long term impairment. And holding a torch is only costing you +2 AC or +2 damage. Which is decent early but not terribly huge in the grand scheme of things.
For two darkvision by default only goes 60 feet, which is 12 squares. 12 Squares isn't a lot. A torch or the light spell, by default goes 8 of 12 squares in dim light. Outside of 12 squares darkvision characters and non-darkvision characters should be on even ground. And so the darkvision advantage is really only limited to about 20 feet of vision in 5e RAW, provided any one character has a torch or light. Or dancing lights (which extends vision for everyone)
Additionally I think that the darkvision changes make humans worse. In dim light humans used to not need light and now they do. This effectively limits the range of non-darkvision characters even more because what used to be 40 feet of effective vision from the light spell is now only 20 feet. This reduces by four the area that a light spell lights up for them! It also means that when you do use the light spell on yourself or hold a torch in an unlit area that you make darkvision characters go from "disadvantage" to "normal" if they're at range. You've actually made it easier for them to kill you! By RAW there are two situations, none of which are as bad marginally. If the darkvision enemy was within 60 feet but outside of 40 feet then the situation is unchanged, they have advantage to attack you. If they were within 40 feet then they would go from advantage to normal attack!
As a result in RAW its never a bad idea to have light if you don't have darkvision. But right now it is a bad idea to have light if you don't have darkvision. You're making it easier for the enemy with darkvision to kill you! By RAW characters with darkvision still want light to be able to throw forward of the party, since they only have 60 feet of darkvision as it is. Dancing Lights and light cast on an arrow or a lit torch in the distance still gives them significantly more vision range.
I would like to be able to drop a torch or toss one into an area for light. I hate swapping to my shield only to be in the dark.
You can drop torches
My take is that unless you are willing to accept disadvantage due to unlit, you are going to always be fighting around or with a light source. The dim/bright disparity is tough to appreciate in game visually (why is this target dim but the one next to it bright?) I got used to just following the icons but even then there are moments where it was unclear why something wasn't lit up.
Giving Humans Advantage in Bright Light would be thematic but really strong, maybe strong enough to buff Dark Vision back to RAW? Dim Light happens a lot, not everything is in a dark cave or dungeon, lots of campfire lit and outdoor sequences, so I see that the developers have made a niche for it but maybe exaggeration creates a playstyle (humans=fight in bright, darkvision=just go ham)
>holding a torch is only costing you +2 AC or +2 damage
Holding a torch is making myself a target. Why in the world would I want to remove the enemy's penalty to attack me?
>holding a torch is only costing you +2 AC or +2 damage
Holding a torch is making myself a target. Why in the world would I want to remove the enemy's penalty to attack me?
I wasn't clear. I was meaning in the RAW interpretation when i said "with proper implementation". Holding a torch doesn't generally modify an opponents attack if they have darkvision. Since they were attacking without penalty anyway. Hence the margin for RAW is pretty minor.
I agree, right now its super bad to be holding a torch when fighting darkvision enemies that have ranged attacks. It removes their penalty to attack and so makes them more deadly.