Nightvision and "absolute darkness."

[Tasha]

I'm pretty sure all the normal senses (including and especially sight) have discriminatory by default.  Otherwise you wouldn't be able to use them to tell things apart.  Discriminatory is all about being able to read details with your senses which allows you to tell the difference between individual objects.  Analyze goes deeper and allows you to determine somethings chemical makeup.

 

So Discriminatory vision allows you to tell Joe apart from Kevin.  otherwise vision would just tell you, there's an object there, vaguely human shaped, like a primitive radar.

I think that senses are "partially" Discriminatory. The full discriminatory gives more info than the default one.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I think that senses are "partially" Discriminatory. The full discriminatory gives more info than the default one.

The way it's defined is somewhat vague.

 

What are the thematic and mechanical differences between Discriminatory and Analyze?

 

I always thought that with Discriminatory, you get fine details which our senses of sight, hearing and taste give you for sure.  Touch and smell to a lesser degree.  Without discriminatory, the sense is crude...mainly only used for spacial information or basic information about the presence (or lack thereof) of something.  Radar and sonar are crude senses that generally lack discriminatory.  They can tell you where something is.  They can even give you a general size or shape, but that's it.  It can't tell you about the fine details of the object being sensed.  Technological advancements can eventually add discriminatory to radar or sonar.  The computer can read thousands of pings per second, and analyze the information from them to generate a detailed image of what is being sensed.  Now you can start seeing details with radar which should qualify it for discriminatory.

 

With analyze, the sense goes deeper.  Now you gain the ability to get information about the chemical, molecular or atomic makeup of the object being sensed.  With energy sources, it can give information on frequency, power/energy, amplitude, work/torque, etc.

 

are those not the definitions of discriminatory and analyze.  If not, I'm missing something huge here.

[Christopher]

The important part of the rule is what it says it does, not how it's "built". In fact, why don't you ask Steve if Darkvision works in Complete Darkness. I'll bet he will point out in the rules it says it DOES. It's still "Normal Vision" for the purposes of Flashes, and Darkness.

Normal Sight is a passive Sense.

Nightvision is a passive Sense.

If there is nothing Emitting or Reflecting something, passive Sense cannot work.

 

And Making Dwarves and other fantasy races spend 32points for this vision is just ludicrous.

Okay, how do you get even remotely to that cost? Spartial Awarenes in the Sight group would cost a ton less due to all the Sense Modifiers Provided by the Sight group. And it would not need Fully Penetrative (can Darkvision see through any barrier normal visoion can pass? Not in any setting I know off*)

 

I come out at a 5- or 10-point Detect (no Sense Modifiers) as Pricing for Darkvision in Sight Group, tops.

Note that that does not needs to actually cost 5-10 points for that Racial Package, if the GM does not wants too/finds that too expensive. The rule of "What not to spend (full) points on" applies to sense too, if thier effect would be marginal at best.

 

*Natural, total Darkness is not a barrier. It's the lack of something to be percieved. It's the one weakness of being passive. This weakness is in addition to "what normally blocks sight".

 

I guess I'm missing how Spatial Awareness is "better" than sight?

 

By default:  Spatial Awareness is ranged, and a sense, but not discriminatory nor does it have analyze; it is targeting, but not tracking.  Yes?  Now most people build spatial awareness as 360-degree, discriminatory, etc. but I don't think - or don't see how - it is inherently better than normal sight?

If you buy it into the Sight group it would not be much better - you could see in the dark what you could see in daylight. You would still walk into glassdoors. It would also not cost nearly as much (due to all the Sense Modifiers provieded by Sight Group) and would not need penetrative then.

But usually you buy it into the special group or one of the other Sense groups (hearing especially) wich means:

It is damn expensive (no to little free Sense Modifiers).

It is also very hard to fool. Not many people have Inivisibility to Smell ready among thier powers.

If it is not using Simulated Sense Group Rule, that means you need a Special Invisibility/Darkness/Shape Shift just for that one Sense. And it cost you as much as the Sight group - per Sense.

 

I'm prepared to be shot down here, but aren't we into the territory of special effect at this point? If your version of "night vision" is that you project your own wavelength that you can see bouncing off of things, you have different result than if your version is eyes as big as saucers.

I guess it was also a missunderstanding about what to buy instead (if Nightvision does not work in total Darkness).

Tasha got this wierd 32 point Pricing, when in fact a 5 point Detect could be all that is needed.

 

 

In summation, I come up with:

Nightvison: 4 Points, does not work in Total Darkness (it is a passive Sense).

Darkvison: 5 Point detect bought into Sight Group

[Tasha]

Hmmm I wonder where I get that Spacial Awareness is a 32point power... Could it be that I opened a rule book? Would you like page numbers so you can see that I didn't pull that number out of my ample tush?

Since we are talking about Magical Races. Perhaps what People with Darkvision see a certain kind of Magical emanation that everything gives off, Perhaps it just fracking works because it's "Magic". This is Fantasy and not Sci Fi not everything needs to have a scientific explanation as to WHY it works. Besides the rules for Passive vs Active are there more for whether there is something for a detect to perceive when the sight is working. Radar and active Sonar, vs Passive Solar and Passive IR vision.

[Greywind]

 

Nightvision

The character can see in total darkness (not

including the Power Darkness, but including some

forms of Change Environment that obscure vision)

as though it were normal daylight.

[Tasha]

 

 

Nightvision

The character can see in total darkness (not

including the Power Darkness, but including some

forms of Change Environment that obscure vision)

as though it were normal daylight.

 

Yeah, I posted that way up there on the first page. Somehow Total Darkness means less than total Darkness to some people.

[Greywind]

Must be too dark to see the difference.

[Tasha]

Must be too dark to see the difference.

 

LOL

[ghost-angel]

If you wanted to add some granularity to the situation, assuming the game warranted it...

 

Rename "Nightvision" to "Darkvision" - works as Advertised, see in Total Darkness.

 

Add another "Nightvision" which is costed as only +3 Vs Darkness Modifiers, this allows you to see at night, or areas with some ambient light, as if they were in daylight.

 

And a third "Low Light Vision" which is costed as only a +2 Vs Darkness Modifiers, this alows you to see in twilight, or non-optimal light conditions as if they were in daylight.

 

Beyond that, I'm a fan of Intent as much as Mechanics; if the power says "See In Total Darkness" then that's what it does.

[Kraven Kor]

Hmmm I wonder where I get that Spacial Awareness is a 32point power... Could it be that I opened a rule book? Would you like page numbers so you can see that I didn't pull that number out of my ample tush?

 

Since we are talking about Magical Races. Perhaps what People with Darkvision see a certain kind of Magical emanation that everything gives off, Perhaps it just fracking works because it's "Magic". This is Fantasy and not Sci Fi not everything needs to have a scientific explanation as to WHY it works. Besides the rules for Passive vs Active are there more for whether there is something for a detect to perceive when the sight is working. Radar and active Sonar, vs Passive Solar and Passive IR vision.

 

Well, sure, but again I'm running "SteamPunk Fantasy" and *do want* a bit of science-y stuff.

 

Also, determining *how* something works can inform one on *how to build it in HERO* and what strengths or weaknesses it might have.

 

I also question if "See in total darkness" was the intent, or a misstatement, given that we know that "Nightvision" is "Penalty Skill Levels vs. Darkness Penalties on Normal Sight."  I, at least, can see the reasoning behind both lines of thinking, and really don't think the book is as clear as we would like, even given Steve's response I linked earlier.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The way "Nightvision" works, it gathers low amounts of ambient light in the area to allow for some limited vision.  But there has to be some light for it to work. Classic Nightvision doesn't work in total darkness.  That's not to say you couldn't build a "Darkvision" sense that can see in absolute darkness.  It's just that Nightvision doesn't do that. (or rather to be more accurate..it "shouldn't" do that.  Maybe Hero configured it to be that way, in which case it shouldn't be called "Night" vision.  Oh well)

[Christopher]

Hmmm I wonder where I get that Spacial Awareness is a 32point power... Could it be that I opened a rule book?

Yes, Spartial Awareness is listed as costing 32 points in the book. If you put it into the Sight Group (wich nobody here ever doubted) you do not have to nearly pay 32 points.

"If a character buys a Sense with a Sense Modifier that the Sense Group he assigns the Sense to already provides, he may reduce the cost of the Sense appropriately. [spartial Awareness in hearing group example follows]"

Sight provides: Discriminatory, Range, Sense, Targeting (plus any Sense Modifiers bought on the "whole group" level)

 

Spatial Awareness is: (Detect physical objects [10 character points], Fully penetrative, targeting sense, sense; passive)

Targetting and Sense you get for free. -12 Points

Rest for now: 20 Points

 

Does "Fully Penetrative" make any sense for Darkvsion? Not in any interpretation I have ever seen, especially not the D&D one: -10 Points

Rest: 10 Points (you only pay for the Detect).

 

And I think a 10 point Detect is way overboard here any way. A 5 Point detect seems have a much better cost/effect ratio. And look, it is only 1 Point more expensive then Nightivision.

How is it defined? Detect "Anything D&D Darkvsion can detect"[5 points]. What is it's natural weakness for being passive? No idea, the specific GM had to decide.

 

 

After I proved that 32 Points is not a realistic price, let's go one step back and ask:

What's the big problem we have?

We are literally copying D&D here and it never got a clearly defined Special Effect or way of working there. I actually took out my Digital D&D Rulebooks here just to get thier rules texts.

"[Enter Species plural here] can see in the dark up to [enter species Darkvisions distance here] feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and [Enter Species plural here] can function just fine with no light at all".

We know it cannot see through Darkness (the Spell), wich is the HERO-Equivalent of "a Power built with Darkness to Sight". So no difference here.

All limitations apply to the Spell Version of Darkvision as well. Also something that HERO has in it's ground Rules.

It is affected by Blindness, even the "mundane" Status Effect Version (wich works a lot like HERO's "Flash to Sight").

It's also Affected by Invisibility and Illusions. Making the whole set of HERO's Sense affecting Powers complete.

 

The only thing where it does not nicely fits HERO's rules is that "any passive power must have a naturally occuring lack of something to prevent it from working/must have something that is being emited/reflected by targets for it to be detected". Darkvision as from D&D does not has this.

[Greywind]

Why get hung up on what it's called when the rulebook spells out what it does? "The character can see in total darkness..."

[NuSoardGraphite]

Why get hung up on what it's called when the rulebook spells out what it does? "The character can see in total darkness..."

It's kinda like writing up a wheeled vehicle yet calling it a "hovercraft".

[Greywind]

Only if you're using a modern day bias.

[AlHazred]

I'm going to have to weigh in here -- if you're not running Nightvision the way I'm running Nightvision, you're doing it wrong. My way is always the right way.

 

Just kidding. My kneejerk reaction is to believe what Tasha says, and reading her posts that guideline works here.To approach it from another direction, the Perception Modifiers table on page 12 of Volume 2 gives "Darkness and Shadow" penalties up to "Dark Night, -4" and goes no higher. So, to buy that off, you'd need four levels of Enhanced Perception, which is exactly what Nightvision gets you.

[Greywind]

In which case there is no reason to have it as an ability in the rule book separate from Enhanced Vision Perception.

[Kraven Kor]

Why get hung up on what it's called when the rulebook spells out what it does? "The character can see in total darkness..."

 

Because then it goes on to say it doesn't work in "Darkness" (the power) and that it is built / toolkitted as "+4 Penalty Skill Levels vs. Darkness Penalty on Normal Sight."

 

Again, this is already settled, for me, by Steve Powers saying typical fantasy "Darkvision" can be done just using "Nightvision."

 

I have already determined I will simply add a -1/4 limitation to Nightvision on my racial packages to reflect this confusion and my intent to have these species with "realistic nightvision" and not "fantasy darkvision."

[AlHazred]

In which case there is no reason to have it as an ability in the rule book separate from Enhanced Vision Perception.

Eh, it's a way for the GM to define what he wants available. If you make "Keen Vision: +2 to Sight PER Rolls" and "Keen Hearing: +2 to Hearing PER Rolls" available as Talents, and make "Nightvision: see in the dark" available as a racially-specified Talent. Some players need a menu of choices, others prefer their own LEGO. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

[Greywind]

Because then it goes on to say it doesn't work in "Darkness" (the power) and that it is built / toolkitted as "+4 Penalty Skill Levels vs. Darkness Penalty on Normal Sight."

 

Again, this is already settled, for me, by Steve Powers saying typical fantasy "Darkvision" can be done just using "Nightvision."

 

I have already determined I will simply add a -1/4 limitation to Nightvision on my racial packages to reflect this confusion and my intent to have these species with "realistic nightvision" and not "fantasy darkvision."

 

It goes on to say, because it isn't a counter to a power.

 

Eh, it's a way for the GM to define what he wants available. If you make "Keen Vision: +2 to Sight PER Rolls" and "Keen Hearing: +2 to Hearing PER Rolls" available as Talents, and make "Nightvision: see in the dark" available as a racially-specified Talent. Some players need a menu of choices, others prefer their own LEGO. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

 

No. What I am saying is that it would not be a separate power. It would have been listed simply as a "how to" example.

[Tasha]

Yes, Spartial Awareness is listed as costing 32 points in the book. If you put it into the Sight Group (wich nobody here ever doubted) you do not have to nearly pay 32 points.

"If a character buys a Sense with a Sense Modifier that the Sense Group he assigns the Sense to already provides, he may reduce the cost of the Sense appropriately. [Spartial Awareness in hearing group example follows]"

Sight provides: Discriminatory, Range, Sense, Targeting (plus any Sense Modifiers bought on the "whole group" level)

 

Spatial Awareness is: (Detect physical objects [10 character points], Fully penetrative, targeting sense, sense; passive)

Targetting and Sense you get for free. -12 Points

Rest for now: 20 Points

 

Does "Fully Penetrative" make any sense for Darkvsion? Not in any interpretation I have ever seen, especially not the D&D one: -10 Points

Rest: 10 Points (you only pay for the Detect).

 

And I think a 10 point Detect is way overboard here anyway. A 5 Point detect seems have a much better cost/effect ratio. And look, it is only 1 Point more expensive than Nightivision.

How is it defined? Detect "Anything D&D Darkvsion can detect"[5 points]. What is it's natural weakness for being passive? No idea, the specific GM had to decide.

 

 

After I proved that 32 Points is not a realistic price, let's go one step back and ask:

What's the big problem we have?

We are literally copying D&D here and it never got a clearly defined Special Effect or way of working there. I actually took out my Digital D&D Rulebooks here just to get their rules texts.

"[Enter Species plural here] can see in the dark up to [enter species Darkvisions distance here] feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and [Enter Species plural here] can function just fine with no light at all".

We know it cannot see through Darkness (the Spell), which is the HERO-Equivalent of "a Power built with Darkness to Sight". So no difference here.

All limitations apply to the Spell Version of Darkvision as well. Also something that HERO has in it's ground Rules.

It is affected by Blindness, even the "mundane" Status Effect Version (which works a lot like HERO's "Flash to Sight").

It's also Affected by Invisibility and Illusions. Making the whole set of HERO's Sense affecting Powers complete.

 

The only thing where it does not nicely fits HERO's rules is that "any passive power must have a naturally occurring lack of something to prevent it from working/must have something that is being emitted/reflected by targets for it to be detected". Darkvision as from D&D does not has this.

You are really overthinking this. IMHO you can either repurpose IR Vision Calling it Nightvision. It detects objects in front of the person. Since it's fantasy you can say that all objects emit some kind of semi magical field that can be seen by the Nightvision power. It is flashed and defeated by things that take out "Sight powers" KISS! 5pts and the PC is done, call it a game.

 

Reasoning from effect. Darkvision allows a person to see in the dark. There's a power listed called "Nightvision" that allows you to see in Total Darkness. The Designer said that what that means is open to GM interpretation. That when he designed the Races in FH who saw in subterranean spaces. He used that power Nightvision to simulate that ability. By that alone it seems to me that in Fantasy Hero it's implied that Nightvision allows to sight in Total Subterrainian Darkness. So IMHO for Fantasy Hero campaigns you just need Nightvision end of story.

 

Now in another Genre Nightvision may only work as light enchancement, needing another power to see in places where there is no ambient light sources of any description at all.

[Hyper-Man]

Per RAW there are very specific differences between Nightvision, Infrared Perception Ultraviolet Perception. 

• A character with Nightvision would get the Discriminatory effect provided by the Sight Group even on a Dark night.
• A character with Infrared Perception would not get this benefit but could still see heat patterns in otherwise absolute darkness (unless caused by a Darkness Power that affects Infrared).
• A character with Ultraviolet Perception would would get the Discriminatory effect provided by the Sight Group as long as there is an external source of UV light.  They would get no benefit underground in a cave.

Sources:

 

5 Nightvision
[Notes: The character can see in total darkness (not including the power Darkness) as though it were normal daylight.  
From 6e1 page 211:
+4 Enhanced Perception, with a -½ Limitation, Only To Counteract Darkness Modifiers.]

5 Nightvision example built as Limited Enhanced Perception: +4 PER with Sight Group (8 Active Points); Limited Power Only To Counteract Darkness Modifiers (-1/2)
[Notes: From 6e2 page 12:
SIGHT PERCEPTION MODIFIERS
Situation Modifier
Night -2
Dark night -4]

5 Infrared Perception (Sight Group)
[Notes: The character can perceive heat patterns and traces, but can only perceive the outline of people and objects. Cold objects are perceived as "dark" while hot objects may be blindingly "bright."
From 6e1 page 211:

Infrared Perception is not Discriminatory.]

10 Discriminatory with Sight Group
[Notes: A Sense with Discriminatory can identify, distinguish, and analyze an object if the character makes a PER Roll. For example, using Detect Metals, Discriminatory would tell a character that a nearby mass of metal is a iron/nickel composite about 65% Nickel and weighing 200kg.  
From 6e1 page 209:
The Discriminatory effect provided by the Sight Group is not the full Discriminatory obtained by buying that Sense Modifier, but rather an effect of somewhat cruder degree. For example, a character can tell two people apart based on their visual appearance, but cannot always determine a person’s ethnicity or religion through Sight. Characters can make Normal Sight (or the entire Sight Sense Group) fully Discriminatory by paying the usual cost.]

5 Ultraviolet Perception (Sight Group)
[Notes: The character can perceive ultraviolet light. He perceive as well at night as he can during the day, providing there is a source of UV light such as the moon or stars.
From 6e1 page 211:
In the absence of UV light (such as inside a cave), Ultraviolet Perception provides no benefit.]

[Hyper-Man]

....

We are literally copying D&D here and it never got a clearly defined Special Effect or way of working there. I actually took out my Digital D&D Rulebooks here just to get thier rules texts.

"[Enter Species plural here] can see in the dark up to [enter species Darkvisions distance here] feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and [Enter Species plural here] can function just fine with no light at all".

We know it cannot see through Darkness (the Spell), wich is the HERO-Equivalent of "a Power built with Darkness to Sight". So no difference here.

All limitations apply to the Spell Version of Darkvision as well. Also something that HERO has in it's ground Rules.

It is affected by Blindness, even the "mundane" Status Effect Version (wich works a lot like HERO's "Flash to Sight").

It's also Affected by Invisibility and Illusions. Making the whole set of HERO's Sense affecting Powers complete.

 

The only thing where it does not nicely fits HERO's rules is that "any passive power must have a naturally occuring lack of something to prevent it from working/must have something that is being emited/reflected by targets for it to be detected". Darkvision as from D&D does not has this.

 

What version of D&D are you getting that from?

 

I just pulled out my 1st edition AD&D Players Handbook and it states that the following races (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings and Half-Orcs) all have "infravision".

 

From 1st Ed AD&D page 15:

- are able to see radiation in the infra-red spectrum, so they can see up to 60' in the dark noting varying degrees of heat radiation.  This ability is known as "infravision".

 

[bigbywolfe]

What version of D&D are you getting that from?

 

I just pulled out my 1st edition AD&D Players Handbook and it states that the following races (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings and Half-Orcs) all have "infravision".

 

From 1st Ed AD&D page 15:

That was actually addressed up thread.  They changed it early on (2nd AD&D?) because people were wanting to do things with infravision that was not in keeping with how the authors had meant it to work.

 

EDIT: Found it!

 

AD&D Dwarves had IR vision originally. This caused problems as rules lawyers started to point out the things one could do with IR vision (ie following heat trails, Following heat foot prints etc) that made IRvision very powerful and more of a hassle than anyone wanted to deal with.

In later editions they switched to a new ability for Dwarves and Subterrainian folk Called Darkvision. It allows someone to see in total darkness up to 60' for Dwarves and up to 120' for Drow and other Deep dwellers. It is a Black and White vision type, though it must do greyscale to help distinguish faces.

[mhd]

Which also means that Drow no longer have to light candles to read magic scrolls. Which I kinda miss, I always thought that the new kind of Darkvision was a bit bland. So I'm more inclined to use infra-/ultravision in my campaigns, although I think that generally too many creatures have nightvision capabilities in D&D.