My dm thinks that a character with darkvision can see a reflection in an area with no light. His ruling is fine but I am looking for some other opinions. The DMG or any other book that I have looked at does not expand on this topic. What do you guys think? Thanks.
The only difference between darkvision and normal vision is that darkvision is black and white. Otherwise, you can see everything you could in the light.
The core rules don't cover reflections. Your DM's call sounds fine to me.
TK
This question has been around since 3e replaced Infravision (which presented all kinds of questions itself) with darkvision. The esy, and only core-rule supported, ruling is it allows characters to see whatever they could normally, but in black-and-white. Getting into more details on darkvision--can you see a reflection, can you read, what does Darkvision 60' look like at 61'--leads into extrapolations from the (very sparse) rule. If the group all get together and work out other mechanics of darkvision, that's fine, but it must be applied consistently to player, NPC, and monster alike.
Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. Darkvision is black and white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise—invisible objects are still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally. The presence of light does not spoil darkvision.
This question has been around since 3e replaced Infravision (which presented all kinds of questions itself) with darkvision. The esy, and only core-rule supported, ruling is it allows characters to see whatever they could normally, but in black-and-white. Getting into more details on darkvision--can you see a reflection, can you read, what does Darkvision 60' look like at 61'--leads into extrapolations from the (very sparse) rule. If the group all get together and work out other mechanics of darkvision, that's fine, but it must be applied consistently to player, NPC, and monster alike.
Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. Darkvision is black and white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise—invisible objects are still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally. The presence of light does not spoil darkvision.
I'd say you could see a reflection and read as I have seen black and white movies and reflections and writing where discernible. My feeling is that with Darkvision 60' everything beyond 60' just looks well - dark. I mean presuming your using the ability because it happens to be dark where ever your at.