Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Dark Vision is OP or Normal vision is to Gimp

I love the dark vision feature in this game and how it is implemented and how it works, however,

All races should be on par with each other. There are many dark places in this game where the races without "Dark vision" are gimped with a significantly lesser chance to hit. This will be a major factor in picking races, people will not play races that they would normally would want to play because they don't want their hit chance to be so reduced.

Suggestion:

Make necklaces and items that produce "Dancing lights" "light" more common and on vendors. Make them more efficient, and MOST important, Make using them cost only a bonus action as well and not a full action.

Also,

If certain races don't see that well in the dark, then they see better in lighted areas right? Using the same logic that is what they are used too were raised born in, They should receive a bonus to hit, in Day light. (I would rather see that then a penalty to dark vision races in day light)


Now you have your awesome lighting feature and races are more in par with each other.

Really, Dark Vision is your complaint and not the immunity to charm and sleep, +2DEX (AC is huge in this casino RNG game), and extra movement speed that elves have?

Hi Tabuk,

I agree with your statement.
It's very difficult for characters without darkvision to be efficient in dark places.

The only thing they can do is drop a torch for free, light it for free, grab them back, move, drop them... This is boring and immersion breaking.

First of all, dancing light should be properly implemented. If we were able to move the lights, this spell would be way more usefull and dealing with darkness would be way easier.

Light "management" is something that could be boring in a D&D video game adaptation and once again, that's something Solasta's devs have understood.
They added a house rule to balance this a bit in a recent update.
A spell that allow you to light 2 "sources of light" (i.e torches hanged on walls, don't know how to say it in EN).

It's not OP, it's not useless... It's perfectly well balanced.

Solution* that addresses both your issue and the prevalence of advantage in 5e via backstab & high ground: Full Darkness should grant disadvantage to all creatures (unless they have superior darkvision or Devil's Sight), but Dim Light only grants disadvantage to creatures without darkvision.
-->There is still a difference between races with and without darkvision, but it is lessened (only relevant in Dim Light)
-->It is super easy to get advantage (via backstab & height), which will cancel out with the disadvantage from Full Darkness to normal attack rolls!

Finally, Larian adjusts** it so that advantages don't totally cancel out: X Advantages + Y Disadvantages result in Advantage if X>Y, Disadvantage if X<Y, and normal if X=Y.
-->This will encourage players to use (dis)Advantage-granting spells like True Strike, Blur, Faerie Fire, and actions like Shove Prone (if implemented) in addition to high ground & backstabbing.

*I don't think BG3 has dim light(?), so Larian would have to implement a better lighting system for this. But, given that they already can distinguish between lit and "obscured by shadows", this should be a relatively simple fix? Just adjust what "distance from light source" results in fully lit, dimly lit, or obscured by shadows.

**I feel like this may already be true in BG3; does anyone know? I would check but I've uninstalled the game...

I liked when Dancing lights was bonus action ...
I know it should not, but i liked it ...

Anyway, it seem to me like it have halved duration ... maybe even less. :-/
I dunno if that was only bug, or not ... but when i casted dancing lights, it was gone it two or three turns. :-/ Yet if im not wrong, it should work forewer, resp. as long as you keep concentration.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Dancing%20Lights#content

Actions and things you can do to counter not having dark vision, also apply to the races with dark vision so, so that argument does not speak to the point. Dark vision races still have a BIG advantage.

Humans get Plus 1 to all stats so one extra Dex to me is not BIG. Moving faster or being immune to a spell or 2 (in a game where there are 100's of spells) is not huge. Changing my too hit stat from 75% to 55% cause its dark, is HUGE because that effects EVERY turn, not just once in a while. (50% ish of the time fights are in poor light?? )

A significant disadvantage to hit in dark places, (in a combat game) is BIG and effects the outcome of a fight.

If you are going to disadvantage my human for fighting in the dark, Fine, but that should be he gets an advantage in the light areas. That's only fair, also, I would argue light spells should be a bonus action not a full action to also help offset this disadvantage.

Its not hard to offset non magical darkness with a cantrip or fire like a torch.
And magical darkness is offset by breaking caster concentration OR the one warlock seeing because warlocks are one of very few PCs that can see in Magical Darkness.

If done properly, only complete darkness should have any impact on combat at all, which functionally means that the ONLY place that darkvision characters should have any advantage over non-darkvision characters in combat situations is when using melee attacks (or ranged attacks inside their darkvision radius), when in total darkness. If you're only in dim light, no-one suffers any combat penalties, and if you're shooting at something outside your darkvision range, your darkvision character is no better off than a non-darkvision character. (Edit for clarity; a torch's light radius should be, if implemented as per rules, be the same range as darkvision - so if you're talking about shooting at something outside your torch light radius, then having darkvision would NOT help you in that case either.)

If you play a character that does not have darkvision, and you're going somewhere where there's likely to be total darkness, and also a likelihood of you needing to fight, then just bring a light; you don't need to waste combat actions lighting up, because you should already have a light source out while you're exploring. If you don't want to carry a torch, have someone cast light on your shield/weapon.

That said, I'm not convinced that BG3 does light properly, at all, and it's very screwy in general, so I could understand frustrations abounding as a result of that mess... but that's mostly going to be as a result of poor implementation more than rules.

Sadly it is hard. If your target is at Range you holding a torch does not help, also you cant use a Two handed weapon holding a torch, also, Cantrips cost one action and the light is stationary where you enemy is not. So when your getting shot by arrows your trying to light them up and follow them with light and not shooting back.

I find this VERY significant and using a non dark vision class, in my mind will GIMP you. The good news is Gale has a dark vision spell,,,but again that takes up a spell slot....

I am not sure you guys are noticing the "hindered by shadows" reduction to hit EVEN IF THERE ARE TORCHES. The fighter (non dark vision was like 27 percent hit) my Drow had like 67 percent chance to hit.. The DROW got a bonus "hit from the shadow" GUYS that is a HUGE DIFFERENCE

Sounds like , from these responses, people have not really been paying attention to this or noticed it.

Would the Sunwalker's Gift ring help?

Like I said, Tabuk, that's as a result of poor and faulty implementation, not the rules themselves.

When your drow character gets advantage from 'striking from shadows', that's the game deciding that you are unseen by your target; if you're attacking another character with darkision, such as pretty much anything in the underdark, you should never get that bonus, because if they are inside your darkvision range, then you are inside theirs, and if they're outside your darkvision radius, you'll have that benefit cancelled out by disadvantage for the darkness anyway - the same as any other character. The imbalance in game stems from a faulty implementation of the rules, definitely at a mechanical level, but probably at an interpretive level as well.

I play mostly halflings, and I never struggled particularly with being hindered by a lack of darkvision; I virtually never had to attack hindered by darkness if I didn't wish to, and it didn't gimp my characters (Warlock (no darkness invocation), ranger, fighter and rogue play throughs)

Oh I've definitely noticed it. I personally have played around a lot with the light system in this game, using torches in off hand, dropping candles, using light cast on weapons, light cast on stationary targets, fighting in fire, fighting with fire dipped weapons.

Its a huge issue, but the fault lies in the implementation of the light system, not in darkvision as a character feature. I have had combat where, if the light was working as it was supposed to, the character with darkvision should have had no extra advantage at all, but they still were, not because that feature is broken, but because the party and enemies were still incorrectly being labelled as being in shadows, despite the area being lit up, because the light system does not work properly.

No, there are plenty of options to chose from to counter not having darkvision.

Torch
light cantrip: Cleric picking spell or light domain, Wizard, High Elf, Half-High Elf
Faerie Fire lvl1 Spell: Light domain Cleric, Drow 3rd level?, Druid, Drow 3rd level? Rogue-Arcane Trickster subclass
Produce Flame Cantrip: Druid
Dancing light Cantrip: Wizard, High Elf, Half-High Elf, Half Drow, Drow, Rogue-Arcane Trickster subclass
Darkvision lvl2 Spell: Druid
Flame Blade level2 Spell: Druid

Darkvision is broken down like this
Normal vision: Human, Gith, Halfling
Darkvision 12m: High Elf, Wood Elf, Tiefling, Dwarf, all three half-elves
Superior Darkvision 24m: Drow

Clear Area: if seen no roll you get kicked from stealth
Lightly Obscured: if seen roll stealth
Fully Obscured: no roll as long as your not next to someone

attacking from shadows, even not in stealth, gives bonus to attack.

3.5 used to have low-light vision instead of 12m darkvision i don't know off the top of my head if it worked differently. Also Drow used to have a negative when attacking in the light, being light sensitive. Presuming both got axed to dumb the system down and be less complicated.

BTW Drow in character creation is missing Dancing light in race menu but still gets it once you start the game
An mentioning it again, there is no mention about vision race features in game outside of character creation

Edit* I'm probably missing stuff but I don't have a save on hand with anything else.

FYI I have come across a magic item in the under dark that will address this issue for ONE character. Not going to be a spoiler here, but it does exist in the game. And as for Githyanki.... in the old books they did have 60' darkvision. Did something change in 5e where they no longer do?

The lighting system is very easy to understand for TTRPG and how different races cope/handle it. Of course it would be way to long to put those rules here so better to just either read up on D&D (be it 2nd ed, 3 ed, 3.5 ed, 4th ed, 5th ed or even Pathfinder 1e and 2e books). Now I understand that putting 5e TT into a PC game is virtually impossible but still how light works/races see/magic help seing etc is something that really should be simple to implement (Roll20 does a very good job at how light/seeing works).

The penalties for not seeing in the dark are FAR to severe.

I would be complaining alot more about the lack of option to pick varient human as a race over darkvision for the few races that do not have it you can also use spells to off set this by casting things like light on your items ect to counter balance it. Its not disbalanced enough to matter. Its something that should factor in as to why you chose a race of a class. There are pleanty of fights out in the open above ground that are not hindered by this but if your in a cave underground ect it should be a factor in as to why you chose a race or class. I generally pick races with dark vision because i dont like carrying torches however if they had varient human it is not enough of a reason for me to not chose the race as an option if it was present. However there is also the lack of feat options currently that are not the most impressive as more half feats would make this far more enticing for the varient human as an option. When I am choosing a race in actual 5E I dark vision is one of the things I take into consideration when choosing the race. As it is there for a reason.

How does that work? If all races are on par then there is no dark vision to begin with.

Torches, Wizards, Clerics...many things provide light. Some of them seem to not work however so maybe they should start by fixing the light sources to actually negate the darkness penalties.

two questions:
- I often see the message "target is obscured by shadows" as reason for disadvantage, even for characters with darkvision (like Astarion in the underdark).
Just to be sure: The target of my attack must have light if I want to avoid a penalty.
It is not a problem if the attacker is in darkness and the target is in the light, right?
So in case of Astarion it simply means his crossbow range is bigger than his darkvision range and the target is in darkness, right?

- I remember that Solasta used a light/darkness system but they changed it later. Too bad I do not remember details. What did they do?

anyway, if there was no difference between darkvision or not, the whole light/darkness system would be pointless. Plus there are many sources of light in the game.
The game has many problems, but I do not think that darkvision is the biggest one.
I am not sure if it is related to darkness that enemies just stand there and do nothing when you shoot and hide all the time.
This is a problem that makes half of the fights pathetically easy.

This is it. If the Light spell or carried torches generated light then there'd be plenty of solutions with a decent balance between them. But the only solutions now are Dancing Lights and dropped torches which is a mess.