Pretty sure they don't stack THAT way. You get low light vision to within 60ft of the character, and darkvision to within 60ft of the same character.
The two are independant. With darkvision you can see 60' in whatever. Lowlight vision doubles how far you can see in dim light, so a torch that provides 40' of dim light counts as 80 for a fetchling.
Now I want to know (as a GM) how this works.
Assume that there is a party of three enemy NPCs in a straight, dark corridor. A PC is standing 60 feet down the hall, holding a torch.
Of the NPCs, Alex has normal vision, so he can't see a thing nearby. Betty has low-light vision, and likewise can't see any thing nearby. Chuck, the third, has darkvision (60 feet) on top of normal vision, and can see perfectly well right up to the PC's feet.
What do each of them see of the PC?
I had always assumed that light would carry enough that all three would see the PC all-too-well (from the players' point-of-view). Down to the pc's choice of ascot. Indisputably, they'd see at least "brightness," right?
ETA: I should have put Chuck five feet behind his fellows, so 65 feet away from the hapless PC, for the question to work right.
I was asked to DM a game for a group of people and one of the races he chose was a Fetchling. Now it says its has darkvision and lowlight vision. But the player says it stacks Example: if a torch is 60ft at the end of a dark corridor than once his darkvision reaches its limit than his low light vision kicks in giving him im assuming (since its longer than human sight) another 60ft? or is it 30 im not certain how far humans can see with torches? I am setting up Dynamic lightin on roll20 so im just trying to make sure i adjust his sight right.
You simply treat them separately. Darkvision works only to it's stated range and no futher. Lowlight extends his normal non-Darkvision sight the normal way by doubling it. This generally makes no difference in dungeon corridors, but can make a world of difference in an open field at night.
Thanks i thought that was the case. But how far do humans see. I thought in darkness they only see 5 ft without at torch. And i believe a torch has a normal illumination of 20ft but then soft lightr extends another 20ft past that.
For outdoors, you use dim light conditions with distance modifiers. lowlight simply doubles the range of each lighting category.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Don't forget that with normal vision what you see is determined from where the light source is. Darkvision is always determined from you. Assuming normal vision - If I am 100' away in darkness from another guy holding a torch I can see him and normal light within 20' radius from him, while being unable to see my own feet.
(slashed numbers are normal/dim light)
So to answer Bitter Lily's question Alex can see the PC and 20'/40' from him so can't see either Betty or Chuck.
Betty can see the PC and 40'/80', so can see Alex and Chuck in dim light (20% concealment).
Chuck can see the PC and 20'/40' around him, and can also see Alex and Betty, but only in black and white.
If the OPs fetchling were standing behind Chuck, he can see the PC and out to 40'/80', so can see the three NPCs in dim light (20%concealment), and they also see the 3 PCs in black and white with no concealment.
Their is nothing to indicate vision is modal, both are active together
Thanks, dragonhunterq!
Yeah...having both is supposed to be good, but not that good.
It mostly means that you rely on darkvision, but you can also choose to use the advantages of low light when it would be better (moonlight is a prime example: it is basically daytime for you; great for when you hunt werewolves).
Here's a diagram I made a while back illustrating how LLV and Darkvision interact.
Light Level Diagram
{. . .}
And THAT'S why you don't want to trade out Low Light Vision if you can help it . . . Although I've heard a lot of GMs mess this up, making Low Light Vision less useful in practice than it should be by Rules As Written.
I came back, dissatisfied because I had remembered what I consider to be not at all clear wording RAW.
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 guess I had always naively assumed that dark vision just didn't kick in for areas with dim light, only for areas with literally no light source at all, and therefore that low-light was superior in a lot of situations. (Well, there are still some where it is, as lemeres points out!) Thanks to you all, now I'm looking at the last sentence and realizing what it means.
Especially: thanks, Kazaan, for that incredibly clear diagram. I've book-marked it.
I went hunting through the Core FAQ to see if it addressed this subject, and it points us to a Paizo blog. I hope this helps someone here!
PS: In the comment section on that blog, I also found the PFS take, although that definitely is focusing more on dueling banjos light & darkness spells.
^Back in D&D up through 2nd Edition (3rd Edition?), light did spoil Darkvision (this was Infravision back in AD&D 1st Edition). Pathfinder explicitly doesn't let light spoil Darkvision.