Dancing in the Dark

Shining a Light on Light and Vision Rules

Out of all the rules in Dungeons & Dragons 5E, Vision might be the one I need to review the most. I am constantly looking back on them to confirm that I understand how they work, and that I am using them properly. So I took an in-depth look at the rules, and how they are built, in order to better understand them. I could better form my opinion about the rules as written (RAW), and what I dislike about them.

This is the start of a series I am going to call RAW Review. In this, I will look at rules-as-written in the 5E system, and give my thoughts on them. I want to look at the challenges they provide as well as point out the benefits and give suggestions on adjustments and house rules you can use.

Image by David Tomaseti

Rules as Written

Now, in order to understand the rules as written rules regarding vision, we need to start off with some definitions. While I primarily wanted to confirm the rules around different light levels, and how they interact, determining visibility takes multiple factors into consideration. So we will start off by looking at obscurity levels.

Vision and Obscurity

Currently written, vision all relates to the level of obscurity caused by the environment. How much the world around you hinders your ability to perceive. While this can come from light, most commonly, other elements can affect it. You have three different levels of obscurity. 

At the base, we have No Obscurity. While technically not a level according to the rules, I like to think of this as a base level, or Obscurity Level 0. This represents areas with no elements of the terrain hindering sight and clear conditions with Bright Light. All creatures make all checks normally at this level, without penalty. 

Next up we have the Lightly Obscured condition. This represents a slight hindrance to visual perception. Dim Light can cause this condition, as can an environmental condition such as light fog, rain, or a moderate amount of brush. In Lightly Obscured terrain, creatures have a disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Finally, we have Heavily Obscured. Areas that are considered as Heavily Obscured include complete darkness, heavy fog, or extremely dense foliage. This specifies anything that blocks a creature’s vision entirely. Creatures trying to perceive something in that area are considered Blinded, with all the penalties attached to that condition applying. Attempting to perceive something using sight, through a Wisdom (Perception) check, will always fail. This applies to creatures outside of the area looking in, such as a party looking into a pitch black room of a dungeon, and creatures inside looking at the area, such as the impatient rogue who has run into the aforementioned pitch black room without a light source.

Light Levels

Now that we have discussed different levels of obscurity and how they affect being able to see by sight, we can talk about how light plays into this condition. As we mentioned prior, light levels can create different levels of obscurity, but they do not inherently impart a condition on their own. When considering light levels, we have three potential options: Bright Light, Dim Light, and Darkness (or No Light).

Bright Light is the most common for adventuring environments. Most days will provide bright light unless specified otherwise. Many light sources listed in the official material will emit Bright Light out to a certain radius. This includes torches, lanterns, fires, and light emitting spells (such as the Light Cantrip). As mentioned above, Bright Light on its own creates No Obscurity, and thus keeps the vision the same.

Reducing in brightness a step, we have Dim Light. Often found when exploring poorly lit areas, Dim Light often exists as the barrier between Bright Light and No Light (Darkness). A lit torch will provide 20 feet of Bright Light, and then an additional 20 feet of Dim Light. Some spells can also create Dim Light, often as a side effect. The Player’s Handbook also notes that other environmental effects can create Dim Light, such as twilight, dawn, and light under the Full Moon. As mentioned prior, this Dim Light creates Lightly Obscured areas.

Finally, we have Darkness, or what I like to think of as No Light. Confined unlit areas, such as a cavern or dungeon with no lit torches, will create this. Most nights, except for abnormally bright full moons, will also produce darkness. Darkness creates Heavily Obscured areas, making perception through sight impossible. 

Implications

With the above definitions, we can confirm a few things. First thing to remember from this is that light (or the absence of light) does not inherently give penalties, but creates obscurities. Obscurity is what will give penalties to creatures or characters, and specifically when relying on checks involving sight. This especially helps when looking at some of the different vision traits available. 

Darkvision (something that players will always remind their DMs about possessing) often changes up the effects of vision and obscurity. Having Darkvision means a creature will consider areas with Dim Light as having Bright Light, and areas with Darkness as having Dim Light for them. Effectively, your light perception goes up a level. While other characters will be hindered or totally rendered blind when the lights go out, these characters will have a better chance to move around, though the rules note that in Darkness a creature with Darkvision cannot perceive colors, which we will touch on later.

Truesight, something that only powerful monsters and high-level characters can access, will completely bypass any of the limits of light. Dim Light and Darkness are considered Bright Light for any perceptions in sight, and will create no penalties or situations at all. 

Since light is just one factor when determining Obscurity Levels, that means that the environment can inhibit vision in ways besides light levels. These effects can cause penalties similar, but Darkvision will not come into play at all. Your party might move into a dimly lit area of woods, the trees blocking out the sun just enough to make things hard to see. By itself, this would only affect anyone without Darkvision. However, this area could also contain some overgrown brush, the moderate amount of foliage obscuring the area as well. When adventuring in a dark crypt, your players might see just enough to continue. But that dense fog that starts rolling out when they get deep enough in will make it almost impossible to see and requires the party to be extra cautious.

Challenges with Vision and Obscurity

Looking at these rules, I have a few challenges. One of my first issues is that there seems to be a sudden jump in penalties for Obscurity Levels and therefore Light Levels. When Lightly Obscured happens, it only affects Ability Checks that are Wisdom (Perception) involving sight. Going from Lightly Obscured to Heavily Obscured, you become effectively Blinded. Mechanically, this makes sense. One of the fundamental goals when creating Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition was to create a version of the game with simpler rules that would be easier to learn and remember for all. Ignoring Bright Light and No Obscurity, you have one of two potential changes to light that can cause one of two levels of obscurity. Dim Light, which should most often occur when dungeon delving, only effects Perception checks, which are arguably one of the more important ones. Failing to see a hidden trap or monster waiting in ambush can lead to consequences for a party and reward them for utilizing some sort of light. However, I find the limited range of conditions. You effectively have three positions, and it goes from inconsequential to limiting quickly. I would prefer if there were a way to either provide more penalties to the Dim Light condition, or at least provide some options between the two.

One potential option for combating this is to look at the rules for Cover. Cover has three ranges, going from Half Cover up to Total Cover, with the first level of Cover providing a flat +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity Saving throws, to represent the lack of vision. Instead of the current rules, we can instead use something similar to this. Now Lightly Obscured Areas provide a -2 penalty to Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight and attacks get a -2 penalty (more easily represented as a +2 to AC and Dexterity saving throws against those affected by the Lightly Obscured condition). This change reduces the penalty for perception but makes up for it in penalties for any Attack Rolls or Saving Throws. The downside of this option is that Dim Light will affect a party in more situations than before. Combat in Dim Light means creatures will be slightly harder to hit, and the difficulty will change a bit. You will also have to be constantly aware of the light levels on the battlefield, which can be extra book-keeping on top of what you are doing already. 

Another option would be to create an additional level of Light and Obscurity to create more of a range, and assign a penalty to this new level. Now instead of Dim Light, you have Lesser and Greater Dim Light. Or they rename Light Levels 1, 2, and 3. The most and least obscured levels will remain the same, but you have a new level to assign penalties. This middle condition can provide the penalties mentioned above. You can also look at Cover rules again, making this new light level similar to Three-Quarters Cover with a higher static bonus. We could also take a page out of the new [UA Exhaustion] rules, and create a scaling penalty depending on the darkness, each level adding another point penalty. While this choice creates more points to represent, it will be another rule to remember and something to pack onto the core system. Alone it will not bog the system itself down, but you risk [Kitchen Sinking] and bogging your game down. It will be up to you to determine where this new level of darkness comes up. Originally, Dim Light was the barrier between Bright and No Light, but now you have a range. Whatever you determine might strengthen or hinder the strength of Darkness. Creatures with Darkvision will also need to be adjusted, and you will have to determine what this new level does to them. 

An odd interaction in rules that comes about because of how obscurity and vision works comes into play in combat. When fighting in total darkness, characters receive the Blinded condition. This condition makes attack rolls against a creature to have advantage, and attacks made by the creature have disadvantage. But attacking a creature in darkness comes out as a straight roll as long as both creatures cannot perceive one another. This is due to how Advantage and Disadvantage interact with one another in 5E. To prevent cases of double-advantage or disadvantage, if you have a case of both affecting a roll, it cancels out. Additional instances of advantage and disadvantage do not change that. So a creature that cannot see creates advantage on attacks against it, but the creature attacking also gets a disadvantage on the attack. To me, this feels like a necessary simplification, but feels odd when looked at. A fighter grappling with a foe in the shadows might be on even footing, but an Archer (or mage) firing ranged attacks into a darkened area could also have the same chances. The rules for finding an unseen foe, which can apply in these situations, feel underdeveloped. If you do not know where a creature is in an area of darkness, you are just supposed to guess and attack. The DM then tells you if you miss or not. This feels a bit too random for me. With unseen fighters in melee range, I will usually have the character roll a d8 to simulate the confusion of trying to identify a foe in the dark. With ranged characters, however, it does not always make sense.

Obscurity and Light Levels also do not have any sort of correspondence for Visibility Outdoors, at least in the case of light obscurity. The Dungeon Master’s Guide notes that normally a character can see about 2 miles, assuming the day is clear. The only things that can reduce visibility are rain, which reduces it to 1 mile, and fog, which has a reduced range of 100 to 300 feet. As I mentioned in my review of the UA, one area that D&D needs to improve most is building a core set of rules that are then referenced as the game builds itself out, and this is a great example. We have defined Obscurity, Light Levels, and how one can interact with each other regarding sight. These visibility rules, however, use neither term once. So while we know that rain will cut visibility in half, and fog down to hundreds of feet, we do not know if a moonlit night or normal darkness would affect a character’s perception. We can look at how these rules are referenced in other areas and make some assumptions. 

Referencing the rules on Weather , specifically Heavy Precipitation, we see that heavy rain and snowfall create lightly obscured areas, just like Dim Light Levels. Fog, however, is not mentioned in the Weather Section, while Obscurity talks about two levels of Fog. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, however, provides suggestions on simulating natural hazards using spells. In this table, they match fog to the spell Fog Cloud, which creates Heavily Obscured Terrain. Looking back at our rules on Heavily Obscured Areas and Darkness, we see it is supposed to give the Blinded Condition, which causes sight-based Ability Checks. My understanding would be that this would also mean your visibility outdoors reduces to 0 as well, since you fail all checks. So that means that Fog sits somewhere between Lightly Obscured and Heavily Obscured in our assumptions. While not perfect, this allows us a rough guideline on how to factor light levels into outdoor visibility. A brightly lit night, still considered dim light most of the time, means that characters will only be able to see half their normal distance.

The example above brings up another question regarding how different obscurity-causing elements interact with each other. If your party is traveling through a dimly lit corridor, the Dim Light creates Lightly Obscured Areas. But what if there is a patchy fog, heavy rain, or foliage adding to the condition as well? Rules as written, nothing is explicitly written, but I think of it as following the Advantage/Disadvantage, where no two obscuring elements create “double-lightly obscured” terrain. This makes the rules easier to follow, but can become odd in certain cases. A foggy jungle, covered in vines, will be as difficult to see in as walking through poorly lit buildings, or traveling during a particularly brightly lit night. But that same jungle, with the same light, will not change at all. Ultimately, I feel like this is just the blessing-curse of the 5e system coming up. In cases that require a range, it struggles to do fine adjustments with the rules as written definition.

My Solutions

All of that being said, you might wonder what I do to overcome these problems and better simulate darkness in my games at my table. While at one point I would have eagerly brought in adjustments to the Light System, currently I run what is written. I do this because while I would prefer a better representation of light levels, I very often try to adhere to the K.I.S.S principle, and avoid [Kitchen Sinking].

If you have not heard the acronym, it stands for “Keep it Simple, Silly”, and matches the design of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. I use this mentality whenever I look to make any additions to the base systems in the game. I try to ask myself, “What will these changes improve in the game?” as well as “What will these changes make more difficult or needlessly complicated in return?”. Once I have both listed, I compare the two and determine if the benefits outweigh the hindrances. I also try to keep in mind any other House Rules I have added to the game. If changes to Vision, Light, or Obscurity would interact I want to make sure I have not accidentally created a situation in the game that would be unfair for either the players or the monsters attacking them. At the very least, I want to ask myself if having a more realistic representation of Vision and Light on top of anything else I am doing is worth the bookkeeping. Everything added to this game is one more thing for both you and your players to keep in mind. This mental bookkeeping will slow down game play as it builds. For me currently, customizing the Light Rules feels like too much.

That being said, keeping these rules in mind can still make the Obscurity Levels mean something in your games. When we first looked at these rules, we noted that Light Levels were one of multiple sources that can affect the Obscurity Levels, and that we are not limited to just light. Sure, the party might feel confident moving through a dimly lit crypt in search of their enemies. But thick cob-webs from the massive spiders that make their homes in the deepest levels can quickly reduce down visibility. The Ancient White Dragon’s cave might have some decent natural light but Heavy Fog, a result of the magical nature of the creature, will inhibit your players’ abilities to see, possibly blinding them entirely. As a bonus, spiders and dragons both have access to Blindsight of varying levels, allowing them to bypass the obscurity entirely by not relying on sight. We can also remember that Darkvision seeing in darkness does not allow a creature to discern specific colors, and has this play in as well. The party can creep through a dark dungeon with only a small hindrance thanks to Darkvision, but that color-matching puzzle to disarm the trap that they sprung requires light. Or if the party is looking for a specific colored flower in the woods at night, it might be a gamble to do so without a torch. Both will require the players to choose between light and no light.

I do, however, find the very minor change to the Lightly Obscured condition, the one that adds a lower penalty across more rolls, very tempting. To me it feels like a small, balanced way to give more effects to functioning in Dim Light, and one that would not be difficult to use. If I implement a change that would probably be the rule.

Final Note

I had a lot of criticisms for how Vision works in this current version of Dungeons and Dragons, but I want to acknowledge that how this works is because of some of the design choices in 5E. As I had mentioned above, 5th Edition D&D wanted to approach the D20 system, maintaining the core spirit of the game while simplifying where they can in order to make a game that is more accessible for more people. One consequence of the way they went about doing this is that you end up with a system where certain things do not entirely make sense all the time, and do not feel simulationist in their approach. Other systems that are built to better handle this aspect of the game will do this much better than 5E, but they will not excel in the same places as 5E.

Conclusion

In this RAW Review, we looked at how Vision is determined. Vision comes about from determining Obscurity Levels, which come from a few variables, light being just one of them. With three levels of light and three levels of obscurity, 5th Edition has a simple and concise system for determining the effects on vision. This simplicity, however, has a few drawbacks in simulating light. Lightly Obscured, which can be caused by Dim Light, has very few penalties to it. Heavily Obscured makes characters effectively Blinded. This leaves the system with little room for fine tuning. We can adjust this through more penalties or more levels of Obscurity and Light, but it might clutter up the system. The system translates to outdoor visibility easily, and looking at how that is determined can create more confusion. Translating that is not very difficult. We have the problem of stacking sources of obscurity, not rules as written translating, creating some potential weird situations.

That all being said, I still use the Rules as Written system, and for good reason. While I would love to have a much more precise system for both Light and Obscurity, I recognize the creators did not build the core 5E system in such a way. You can easily change or add to the core system to get something that works, but it can create complexity and bloat. These changes can cause the system to not function as expected, so I try to keep my games mechanically simple with minimal, intentional additions in order to avoid Kitchen Sinking. That being said, I would like to try out some potential changes down the line.

How do you feel about Light, Obscurity, and Vision in your games? Do you have a memorable situation where they worked well, or where they made little sense? I would love to hear in the comments below.

My newsletter, Bjarke’s Dissonant Whispers, is now live! Find out what I am up to, what is coming up, and other miscellaneous things. If you are interested in signing up, check here. My most recent issue gave a sneak peek on Nocturnes & Nightmares, and can be found here

Have a question I have not covered and want my thoughts? Want to collaborate on some work in the future? Reach out to me on Twitter or here and let me know! I love getting new ideas and collaborating with other creators. Either way, I hope to hear from you!

Nocturnes & Nightmares is out now! Currently Electrum Best Seller on DMsGuild, this book has everything you need to run horror in 5e. Buy now here.