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PF2 has made fascinating leaps and bounds forward in moving the idea of "perception" beyond what a character can see, and has attempted to codify a lot of things about the senses in interesting ways with a lot of potential.
It also has also attempted to simplify the complexity of darkness, in comparison to PF1 and I'd argue it has mostly achieved this very well.
However, it has made darkvision, and low light vision so ubiquitous across its creatures and setting, that, in reality, lighting is only ever really an issue for PCs, and in entirely urban/human centered settings. My question is why?
I know that invisibility is a very low level thing that many PCs and other creatures have access to, but so much of the fun elements of environment and setting are very one-sided in how they can be interacted with in adventures when the sense of darkvision (especially), and to a lesser extent lowlight vision, is handed out like candy to every creature in the bestiary.
I feel like this is probably more of a hold over from 3.0 creatures, but there are so many cool senses and ways to construct interesting encounters around those senses and perception that often get trampled when darkness is only ever going to be a problem for the party.
Maybe it is too late for 2E, but for the future of gaming, it would be a lot cooler if the sense of darkvision was tied to a more challenging limitation than just "limited to black and white." Even something as simple as being blinded for a round when transitioning from darkvision to standard light-based vision would have made for more interesting environmental options and experiences than handing out darkvision like it is candy.
Now I understand that a big part of this is that taking away creatures ability to sense their surroundings is a very serious game changer, that affects the difficulty of encounters immensely, but that is just as true for players as it is for monsters, and I for one would be interested in discussing generally whether or not there might still be a way to make lighting and senses a more interesting aspect of my favorite gaming system.
I guess the idea of giving darkvision a restriction, like being blinded for one round when exposed to bright light, would fit into the house rules category, but perhaps it is not too late to request that darkvision not be given out so liberally to future monsters in future Bestiaries, unless existing in a space of 0 light is common environment for the creature? Instead I'd much rather see more creatures that make use of more interesting and relevant senses as precise senses, which I think has the potential to make future Bestiary releases a thing to look forward to, because they will allow for even more interesting encounter settings to be explored.
I'm not really sure I understand why darkvision prevents you from making interesting encounters with different senses. Darkvision doesn't change the equation that much-- if anyone needs a light source, your party is going to get spotted regardless of whether the enemy has darkvision. Outside of that, you still have to take other senses into account regardless of darkvision as well. The trick with sneaking by goblin dogs, for example, isn't fooling their darkvision, it is fooling their scent.
All that aside, monsters are usually going to be adapted to their natural environment, which is usually where they are encountered. Occasionally they won't be-- Hellknight Hill intentionally has a creature without darkvision left to guard a dark room, which makes the creature pretty helpless to an all darkvision party.
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I'm not really sure I understand why darkvision prevents you from making interesting encounters with different senses.
I mean, at a most basic level any sort of strategy or motif that revolves heavily around the use of darkness stops working in an environment where enemies have darkvision. that's pretty self evident.
By making darkvision cheap and ubiquitous, those sorts of scenarios just don't exist anymore and it makes the importance of managing light and vision stop mattering at all. You can go out of your way to use enemies that don't have darkvision, but that seems like a needlessly narrow list.
It also kinda cheapens darkvision itself by turning it from a unique and powerful ability to just something you assume most things are gonna have.
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My issue with the ubiquitousness of darkvision, especially on creatures than live in forests, or anywhere above ground where they wouldn't really need it, is that it makes all darkness conditions only punitive to the PCs, for the only reason of preventing the PCs from possibly having too easy an encounter, not because it makes logical sense for the creature to have that sense.
The party is almost never better off extinguishing their fire, or trying to duck into a shadow for cover, because those things will almost never work against what they are trying to hide from.
I love the idea of having scenarios where there are creatures who have scent as their precise sense and vision as an imprecise sense and the party, able to learn this about the creatures is able to sneak by covering there scent is some dramatic fashion. But almost every creature that has scent also has darkvision, or low-light vision, which means that the way you sneak by them is by getting the spell or special ability that blocks both senses, not by carefully coming up with a plan to bypass the creatures strongest sense.
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I for one have a certain fondness for the older forms of vision coming from the games history. Infravision and Ultravision, which I beleive was AD&D. Infravision was basically able to see living creaures because it was basically infra-red vision. In theory, it might have meant cold blooded creatures might have been hard to see, but I don't recall that being defined specifically. Ultravision was basically night vision that let people see, even at night, as long as you were above ground and not burred under significant coverage or earth or stone. It didn't help you with underground vision, unless some form of ultraviolet light was present underground.
I don't know which versions, but I believe more than one of them went further than saying darkvision was just black and white, but that it indicated you could see objects, but not color. This meant you couldn't generally see any writing. The exception that came to mind would be engraved writing in surfaces, which explained with quite a lot of clarity why dwarves might have most of their writing engraved in stone and metal. [because even that is visible outside the glow of the forges]
I also liked the idea of normal vision being limited by light levels. (meaning firelight 100' from you would light the 30' radius around the fire, despite the items being 70-130' from the viewer.
With Darkvision, I viewed the vision being almost like an active visual sonar, that was limited to the given tier of darkvision. You wouldn't normally have darkvision lights that would make areas outside your personal vision bubble become visible.
So I'd be great with something coming back to a darkvision, low-light vision stretching the distance of normal lighting, and potentially starvision where even simple starlight that is indiscernible by normal vision is enough to see by when above ground and not under several feet of rock or even more of living materials.
You could give starvision (a replacement for ultravision) to things like Unicorns or fae creatures that should be comfortable being in a seemingly dark moonless night where it might even seem less than even your typical dim. But then you wouldn't need to let it affect distance vision in caverns at all, unless they bring a 'moon-rod or star-rod' which might light starvision senses for 60' or more, but only be a dim normal light for 10'
And yes, having some consequence for transitioning from normal vision to darkvision might also be a reason/use for having low-light vision as a separate/extra ability which might mitigate the transition penalty.
The flip side, with how I'll DM and roll, is that while a group may be immediately noticed carrying torches and light spells, the dark vision and low light vision of the enemies, is ruined by the presence of light in the same manner you or I am when walking from a dark room into the light.
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The flip side, with how I'll DM and roll, is that while a group may be immediately noticed carrying torches and light spells, the dark vision and low light vision of the enemies, is ruined by the presence of light in the same manner you or I am when walking from a dark room into the light.
That's something really obvious that should've been baked into the rules of the game. If we, humans that don't have darkvision, can be almost blinded by strong bursts of light, imagine a creature that has been operating in complete darkness and having their eyes adapted to it, that would definitely be a problem.
Two good examples of this can be seen in The Witcher games where you can use a cat potion and see in the dark, but when you exit the cave you're in you can't see anything. Or how in Goblin Slayer one of the main tactics consist of casting Holy Light (basically the Light cantrip) against the enemies with darkvision while the attackers are with their backs turned against the burst.Goblin Slayer is an even better example because the author is heavily inspired by old school D&D (I think he played mostly AD&D).
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Why do unicorns have darkvision?
"Because they can't flick the switch on flashlights!"
"Because the torches kept burning their mouths!"
"Because all the ones with glow-in-the-dark horns keep getting eaten by Voldemort!"
...
I think it's actually primarily because most fey have low-light vision and most beasts have darkvision, so the unicorn in particular sits at a crux where it's kind of weird if it doesn't have darkvision since that makes it an outlier in the context of its traits. They also used to be magical beasts in PF1, and all magical beasts had darkvision. Since PF2 is intended to be able to tell all of the stories that could be told in PF1, taking away a creature's senses between editions would make it harder to tell any prior story that might have included a unicorn encountered at night.
Unicorns are also frequently depicted as creatures that are hunted and tend to be active or appear at twilight or in the evening, and it would be very odd to have a nocturnal creature that can't actually function at night.
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Who is a Machine Learning specialist here?
If you would please, given a creature has: {"Darkvision", "Low-light Vision"}
build a decision tree to classify the monsters in each group. Why?
I'm curious what the first two or three nodes in the tree will be.
Edit: Nevermind I'll do it myself. Just remembered I can snag monster
stats from www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary.
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I’d rather have unicorns have low light vision and the ability to detect alignment as far as flavor goes, and see more use of other senses than vision. I just think having sight, low light vision and dark vision, not to mention see the invisible and true sight be such a universal focus of monsters is unfortunate. There are some interesting exceptions, but they tend to be so rare that you encounter 1 every 5 to 10 levels or so, when they could play a much larger role in encounter diversity.
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I catalogued the creatures in the PF2 Bestiary about their low-light vision and darkvision.
Low-Light: Gorilla, Megaprimatus, Arboreak Warden, Awakened Tree, Arboreak Regent, Vampire Bat Swarm, Giant Bat, Grizzly Bear, Cave Bear, Flash Beetle, Boar, Daeodon, Leopard, Lion, Tiger, Smilodon, Catfolk Pouncer, Crocodile, Deinosuchus, Cyclops, Great Cyclops, Dezullon, Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Guard Dog, Riding Dog, Eagle, Giant Eagle, Electric Eel, Giant Moray Eel, Elephant, Mammoth, Ettin, Hill Giant, Frost Giant, Fire Giant, Cloud Giant, Storm Giant, Rune Giant, Gimmerling, Goblin Dog, Riding Pony, Riding Horse, War Pony, War Horse, Hydra, Hyena, Hyaenodon, Krooth, Leaf Leshy, Gourd Leshy, Giant Gecko, Giant Monitor Lizard, Giant Frilled Lizard, Merfolk Warrior, Merfolk Wavecaller, Mu Spore, Naiad, Dryad, Naiad Queen, Dryad Queen, Giant Octopus, Owlbear, Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Giant Rat, Rat Swarm, Redcap, Roc, Satyr, Viper, Ball Python, Giant Viper, Giant Anaconda, Sprite, Grig, Pixie, Tengu Sneak, Wererat, Werewolf, Werebear, Wolf, Dire Wolf
The creatures with low-light vision appear to be mostly non-humanoid mammals and reptiles, giants, walking plants, and sea creatures. This makes sense. For example the deer hunting article, What We Know About Deer Eyesight, says that deer do see well in low light.
Darkvision: Arbiter, Axiomite, Kolyarut, Pleroma, Skum (Ulat-Kini), Faceless Stalker, Alghollthu Master (Aboleth), Veiled Master (Vidileth), Cassisian (Archive Angel), Choral (Choir Angel), Balisse (Confessor Angel), Astral Deva, Animated Broom, Animated Armor, Animated Statue, Giant Animated Statue, Ankhrav, Hive Mother, Lantern Archon, Horned Archon, Legion Archon, Shield Archon, Lyrakien (Wanderer Azata), Gancanagh (Passion Azata), Lillend (Muse Azata), Ghaele (Crusader Azata), Banshee, Baomal, Barghest, Greater Barghest, Basilisk, Giant Stag Beetle, Bloodseeker, Boggard Scout, Boggard Warrior, Boggard Swampseer, Brain Collector, Bugbear Thug, Bugbear Tormentor, Bulette, Bunyip, Caligni Dancer, Caligni Creeper, Caligni Stalker, Purple Worm, Azure Worm, Crimson Worm, Centaur, Giant Centipede, Centipede Swarm, Changeling Exile, Chimera, Chimera, Cloaker, Cockatrice, Cacodaemon, Ceustodaemon, Leukodaemon, Astradaemon, Deep Gnome Scout, Deep Gnome Warrior, Deep Gnome Rockwarden, Quasit, Succubus, Vrock, Glabrezu, Shemhazian, Marilith, Balor, Dero Stalker, Dero Strangler, Dero Magister, Lemure, Imp, Barbazu (Bearded Devil), Erinys (Fury Devil), Phistophilus (Contract Devil), Gelugon (Ice Devil), Pit Fiend, Dhampir Wizard, Doppelganger, Young Black Dragon, Adult Black Dragon, Ancient Black Dragon, same for Blue Dragons, Green Dragons, Red Dragons, White Dragons, Brass Dragons, Bronze Dragons, Copper Dragons, Gold Dragons, and Silver Dragons, Dragon Turtle, Drakauthix, River Drake, Flame Drake, Jungle Drake, Wyvern, Frost Drake, Desert Drake, Drow Fighter, Drow Rogue, Drow Priestess, Duergar Sharpshooter, Duergar Bombardier, Duergar Taskmaster, Elananx, Zephyr Hawk, Living Whirlwind, Invisible Stalker, Storm Lord, Elemental Hurricane, Sod Hound, Living Landslide, Xorn, Stone Mauler, Elemental Avalanche, Cinder Rat, Living Wildfire, Salamander, Firewyrm, Elemental Inferno, Air Mephit, Earth Mephit, Fire Mephit, Water Mephit, Brine Shark, Living Waterfall, Quatoid, Tidal Master, Elemental Tsunami, Ether Spider, Faerie Dragon, Grothlut, Drider, Kapoacinth (Gargoyle), Janni, Djinni, Shaitan, Efreeti, Marid, Ghost Commoner, Ghost Mage, Ghoul, Ghast, Stone Giant, Gibbering Mouther, Gnoll Hunter, Gnoll Cultist, Gnoll Sergeant, Goblin Warrior, Goblin Commando, Goblin Pyro, Goblin War Chanter, Gogiteth, Flesh Golem, Alchemical Golem, Clay Golem, Stone Golem, Iron Golem, Adamantine Golem, Graveknight, Mitflit, Pugwampi, Jinkin, Griffon, Grikkitog, Grim Reaper, Lesser Death, Gug, Guthallath, Sea Hag, Green Hag, Annis Hag, Night Hag, Harpy, Hell Hound, Nessian Warhound, Hobgoblin Soldier, Hobgoblin Archer, Hobgoblin General, Homunculus, Kobold Warrior, Kobold Scout, Kobold Dragon Mage, Kraken, Lamia, Lamia Matriarch, Fungus Leshy, Lich, Demilich, Crag Linnorm, Ice Linnorm, Tarn Linnorm, Tor Linnorm, Manticore, Giant Mantis, Deadly Mantis, Medusa, Mimic, Minotaur, Mukradi, Mummy Guardian, Mummy Pharaoh, Dark Naga, Guardian Naga, Nightmare, Greater Nightmare, Nilith, Ofalth, Ogre Warrior, Ogre Glutton, Ogre Boss, Orc Brute, Orc Warrior, Orc Warchief, Otyugh, Pegasus, Phoenix, Tiefling Adept, Duskwalker Ghost Hunter, Aasimar Redeemer, Poltergeist, Poracha, Voidworm, Naunet, Keketar, Nosoi, Morrigna, Dandasuka, Raja Rakshasa, Ratfolk Grenadier, Reefclaw, Remorhaz, Roper, Rust Monster, Giant Scorpion, Scorpion Swarm, Sea Devil Scout, Sea Devil Brute, Sea Devil Baron, Sea Serpent, Shadow, Greater Shadow, Shambler, Shining Child, Shoggoth, Simurgh, Sinspawn, Skeleton Guard, Skeletal Champion, Skeletal Horse, Skeletal Giant, Skeletal Hulk, Skulltaker, Slurk, Soulbound Doll, Sphinx, Spider Swarm, Hunting Spider, Giant Tarantula, Goliath Spider, Terotricus, Treerazer, Troll, Troll King, Unicorn, Uthul, Vampire Spawn Rogue, Vampire Count, Vampire Mastermind, Warg, Winter Wolf, Warsworn, Giant Wasp, Wasp Swarm, Web Lurker, Wemmuth, Wendigo, Wight, Will-o’-Wisp, Wraith, Xulgath (Troglodyte), Xulgath Warrior, Xulgath Skulker, Xulgath Leader, Yeti, Zaramuun, Zombie Shambler, Plague Zombie, Zombie Brute, Zombie Hulk,
Most creatures with darkvision fall into categories associated with adventuring at 8th level or above: outsiders such as aeons, angels, azata, daemons, demons, devils, elementals, genies, and proteans; Darkland dwellers such as Caligni (dark folk), cave worms, deep gnomes, dero, drow, and duergar; deep sea dwellers such as Aboleths; dragon-like creatures like dragons, drakes, and linnorms; constructs such as animated objects, golems, and homunculi; and some aberrations and beasts. Three low-level categories are insects and arachnids, undead, and near-surface cavern dwellers or dark sea dwellers such as gremlins, kobolds, sea devils, and xulgaths.
I guess unicorns, like other darkvision beasts, have darkvision to show that they are so magical that darkness does not impair them.
Several species of low-level tribal humanoid creatures have darkvision for little apparent reason: Boggards, Dwarves, Gnolls, Goblinoids (bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins), Hags, Harpies, Ogres, Orcs, Ratfolk, Trolls, and Yeti. For dwarves and orcs we have lore that they are former Darkland species, and ratfolk are based on mythic rats. but the others make little sense. Why would a swamp-dwelling boggard or a plains-dwelling gnoll need darkvision?
And what are the most plausible low-level encounters with hostile tribesfolk when traveling across a forest, mountain, swamp, river, or plain? Goblins in the forest, kobolds in the mountains, boggards in the swamp, lizardfolk in the river, and gnolls in the plains. Only the lizardfolk lacks darkvision. To give any kind of hiding-in-the-twilight advantage to the elf, gnome, and halfling party members, those hostile tribesfolk had better be human or lizardfolk.
P.S. I just saw Tensor's request for a machine learning specialist to perform this cataloging. I am familiar with machine learning algorithms, but I had software engineers to program them for me. The data mungling to be able to read the Bestiary PDF file would take me days. I performed a simple keyword search in Adobe Acrobat and catalogued by hand.
...
P.S. I just saw Tensor's request for a machine learning specialist to perform this cataloging. I am familiar with machine learning algorithms, but I had software engineers to program them for me. The data mungling to be able to read the Bestiary PDF file would take me days. I performed a simple keyword search in Adobe Acrobat and catalogued by hand.
This is fantastic! Thanks for help with the first-cut, I'm going to use your list to help me wrestle my data.
I actually like data mungling, and for fun, I'm parsing my html with curl, awk, and sed. (Yes, really.)
...
P.S. I just saw Tensor's request for a machine learning specialist to perform this cataloging. I am familiar with machine learning algorithms, but I had software engineers to program them for me. The data mungling to be able to read the Bestiary PDF file would take me days. I performed a simple keyword search in Adobe Acrobat and catalogued by hand.This is fantastic! Thanks for help with the first-cut, I'm going to use your list to help me wrestle my data.
I actually like data mungling, and for fun, I'm parsing my html with curl, awk, and sed. (Yes, really.)
I heard of curl, awk, and sed because I worked in a Bash shell on a Unix system a dozen years ago, but I never used shell commands more complicated than grep and make myself. And I had to ask for help with make.
Several species of low-level tribal humanoid creatures have darkvision for little apparent reason: Boggards, Dwarves, Gnolls, Goblinoids (bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins), Hags, Harpies, Ogres, Orcs, Ratfolk, Trolls, and Yeti. For dwarves and orcs we have lore that they are former Darkland species, and ratfolk are based on mythic rats. but the others make little sense. Why would a swamp-dwelling boggard or a plains-dwelling gnoll need darkvision?
A lot of these creatures are cave-dwellers. Others would want to be able to hunt at night.
If darkvision is possible, why doesn't everything have it? It seems like a major evolutionary advantage.
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If darkvision is possible, why doesn't everything have it? It seems like a major evolutionary advantage.
This is the root of my question. Why bother having really complicated an detailed rules for light and the senses and dark vision, for them to only really serve arbitrarily as a limit for PCs who choose to play the most humanoid of ancestries?
I think at this point the answer is mostly tradition. If you want to import adventures from past systems, it is going to get weird if none of the creatures can see in the cave they were living in. I concede that point, but that is why I am focusing my request forward, for more new monsters to avoid the trope of “everything sees in the dark except the players” and take advantage of newer and more interesting senses, like life sense, for the future.
And thank you mathmuse for the list. I agree strongly about wishing more forest and plains creatures that are capable of making fire, like goblins, gnolls and orcs would have grown to depend upon it.
How many creatures have more unusual senses, such as scent, tremorsense, or life sense?
If you're going to go through all the trouble of cataloguing, you might as well be thorough.
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How many creatures have more unusual senses, such as scent, tremorsense, or life sense?
If you're going to go through all the trouble of cataloguing, you might as well be thorough.
I could check for common senses such as tremorsense. But many other senses are obscure. The Bestiary glossary lists All-Around Vision, Darkvision, Lifesense, Low-Light Vision, Scent, Tremorsense, and Wavesense, but that is not all. For example, Glimmerlings have hungersense (imprecise): "Hungersense allows the gimmerling to sense creatures that require food to live." Only Glimmerlings have that sense. Vampire Bat Swarm, Giant Bat, Quasit in bat form, and Vampire in bat form have echolocation. I noticed an Astradaemon and two linnorms have true seeing and Silver Dragons have fog vision and Flame Drake has smoke vision and Sod Hound has crystal sense and Rust Monster has metal scent, but have not searched for other cases.
All-Around Vision: Gibbering Mouther, Gogiteth, Grikkitog, Hydra, Tarn Linnorm, Medusa, Mukradi, Shoggoth, Xorn
Lifesense: Pleroma, Astradaemon, Dullahan, Nosoi, Morrigna, Wraith
Scent: Cassisian in dog form, Gorilla, Megaprimatus, Baomal, Barghest, Greater Barghest, Grizzly Bear, Cave Bear, Bloodseeker, Boar, Daeodon, Bugbear Thug, Bugbear Tormentor, Bulette, Bunyip (also blood scent), Leopard, Lion, Tiger, Smilodon, Chimera, Quasit in toad or wolf form, Shemhazian, Imp in boar, rat, or raven form, Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Guard Dog, Riding Dog, Young Black Dragon and all other dragons, River Drake and all other drakes, Wyvern, Giant Moray Eel, Elephant, Mammoth, Cloud Giant, Goblin Dog, Mitflit, Griffon, Hell Hound, Nessian Warhound, Riding Pony, Riding Horse, War Pony, War Horse, Hydra, Hyena, Hyaenodon, Krooth, Crag Linnorm and all other linnorms, Giant Monitor Lizard, Giant Frilled Lizard, Manticore, Otyugh, Owlbear, Pegasus, Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Giant Rat, Rat Swarm, Great White Shark (also blood scent), Megalodon (also blood scent), Shoggoth, Shuln, Viper, Ball Python, Giant Viper, Giant Anaconda, Unicorn, Warg, Winter Wolf, Wererat, Werewolf, Werebear, Wolf, Dire Wolf, Yeti,
Tremorsense: Ankhrav, Hive Mother, Purple Worm, Azure Worm, Crimson Worm, Centipede Swarm, Chuul, Young Brass Dragon, Adult Brass Dragon, Ancient Brass Dragon, Living Landslide, Xorn, Stone Mauler, Elemental Avalanche, Earth Mephit, Snapping Flytrap, Giant Flytrap, Shaitan, Grikkitog, Mukradi, Poracha, Quelaunt, Remorhaz, Giant Scorpion, Shoggoth, Shuln, Spider Swarm (web only), Terotricus, Web Lurker (web only), Wemmuth, Zaramuun
Wavesense: Marid, Sea Devil Scout, Sea Devil Brute, Sea Devil Baron
In conclusion, don't try sneaking up on a Tarn Linnorm.
Good stuff. Thanks!
My issue is that if something has an interesting sense AND darkvision, then the odds of making an interesting encounter around that other sense quickly dwindle and we end up with a situation kind of like what happened in PF1 with resistances, where you might have this interesting creature that the party needs to use silver or magic or cold iron to defeat...just kidding, you just need to make sure you are high enough level to have a +x sword and all those resistances are pretty much just a waste of creative space.
Hmm, this makes me wonder: what in the PF2 bestiary has neither low-light nor darkvision? Or what has no special sense whatsoever? Just boring regular humans?
I'd be very interesting to see that list. Honestly, I've always been annoyed about how common darkvision (or even low-light vision) are in the system. Particularly with PC races, considering I've only ever seen Human PCs have issues with darkness while everyone else in the party tended to have racial darkvision.
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As a GM I do houserule out some creature's darkvision. When I was running Legacy of Fire and my players asked "Why do gnolls have darkvision?" my answer was "because hyena's have darkvision". Oh wait, no, hyenas only have low-light vision.
Why do creatures who are conceptually a mix of hyena and human have better senses than either of their parent species?
And I've been houseruling out unnecessary darkvision ever since that revelation.
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I bet Unicorns evolved darkvision just so they could admire their reflections at night. Narcissists.
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Hmm, this makes me wonder: what in the PF2 bestiary has neither low-light nor darkvision? Or what has no special sense whatsoever? Just boring regular humans?
It was harder to search for those, since I could not use a keyword search. I had to look through every entry. Here are all the creatures in the PF2 Bestiary with neither low-light vision nor darkvision.
No Special Senses: Lizardfolk Defender, Lizardfolk Scout, Lizardfolk Stargazer
Blood scent, scent (imprecise) 100 feet: Bunyip, Great White Shark, Megalodon
Motion sense 60 feet, no vision: Sewer Ooze, Gelatinous Cube, Ochre Jelly, Black Pudding
Scent 30 feet, tremorsense (imprecise) 60 feet: Shuln
Tremorsense (imprecise) 30 feet: Snapping Flytrap, Giant Flytrap
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When considering why things have darkvision, you have to remember where they came from (in a meta sense, not an in-universe sense).
Orcs, Goblinoids & Trolls originate from Tolkien (in the form that is familiar to us, goblins and trolls predate Tolkien, but what they where before Tolkien has little resemblance to what we have now).
In Tolkien's fiction, all three mostly lived in caves, and had an aversion to the sun, in some cases being weakened by the sun, or in the case of trolls, turned to stone by it.
When they where adapted to D&D, they kept a lot of those traits, and since most adventures took place exclusively in caves and dungeons, it made sense that the commonly encountered creatures where physiologically adapted to those environments.
I can see an argument for Orcs losing darkvision in Pathfinder (as they aren't strictly cave dwellers in Golarion), but Trolls live in caves and are unlikely to use fire to enhance their vision, and goblins are cave and forest dwellers who are very sneaky and probably get up to most of their mischief at night to avoid the mostly diurnal longshanks - they love fire, but they also love the cover of darkness.
Similar logic can be applied to most creatures in the bestiary
Angels, Devils, Genies, Fey etc: Supernatural entities being hindered by something as mundane as natural darkness doesn't make sense, and seeing in the dark is generally the least of their abilities.
Sea-dwelling creatures & ancestries: When you dwell deep underwater, you neither have the advantage of fire or the light of the sun to help you see. Bio-luminescence can help you out a little bit, but it is rarely bright enough to get you better than low-light conditions and generally doesn't go far enough to let you see a shark that is 100 feet away.
Dragons: Cave dwellers who are known in most literature for having exceptional senses.
Undead: They are a lot scarier in the dark and traditionally are masters of the night.
Predatory beasts/animals: Most predators and scavengers have some kind of capacity to see or perceive things effectively in the dark, even ones that are reasonably active during the day (such as lions and bears).
If you list the main categories of real world animals that have night vision equal to or inferior to human night vision (and no enhanced sense to compensate), it is also a pretty short list;
Herd animals
Most other herbivorous mammals, (excluding monkeys, rodents & marsupials)
Diurnal non-predatory birds (so excluding raptors & owls)
Most seabirds
Tropical fish & fish that dwell close to the surface
Apes (I think? but not monkeys)
When it comes to monsters based on animals and beasts, most creatures that you will fight as an adventurer come from the "sees in the dark" category, probably because herd animals and herbivores and seabirds aren't as scary as predators and things that stalk you at night.
I think what I miss from other editions is darkvision having range limitations - I think each creature with darkvision or low light vision having a range increment would make the dark a bit more interesting - such as 30, 60, 90, 120 feet increments. That way your darkvision is roughly equivalent to carrying a torch, in that it pushes back the darkness a little bit, but it is still there hiding things that are 60 or 100 feet away.
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Without doing to much reading. (sorry) I could see not giving unicorns dark vision and instead giving them like a light aura from their horns. Why have dark vision with I have light at will right? I think that would be a more interesting way of doing it anyways.
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Being active at night really should give creatures low light vision, although if they have spent a long time using fire and light sources, even that feels questionable to me. Bring back the Pathfinder metaphysics, why would the gods choose to give out darkvision to only select peoples? Especially if it is a sense with no counter balancing limitation.
Even something like having basic darkvision mean that creatures could only ever see in black and white would be more narratively interesting than having it mean that the creature can see perfectly normally in bright sun light and then perfectly normally in darkness 6 seconds later.
What we need is something that penalizes creatures with darkvision but not normal vision. Maybe a spell, or an alchemical grenade, that dazzles those with darkvision?
If you list the main categories of real world animals that have night vision equal to or inferior to human night vision
I mean, if you want to go that route, might as well list the main categories of real world animals that can see perfectly with no light too.
Ultimately I think people are overstating physiological adaptations and 'what makes sense.' The choice to make darkvision super prevalent is an arbitrary one and I doubt, in a world where PF2 dragons and orcs and gnolls couldn't all see perfectly in the dark, there'd be much of an argument that the characters are missing some critical ability.
Remember that Darkvision is a game abstraction of our human perception of what sort of creatures can see in the dark.
That is to say there are LOTS of creatures in nature that can see very well in what seems to be blackness to us humans. (my can for instance can happily navigate the house at full speed and chase rodents in what to me seems like pitch black conditions). I don't find it unrealistic that some races/species didn't evolve to develop "darkvision" as it didn't happen on earth either.
The CRB also gives advice on allowing the GM to dazzle creatures being introduced to bright light from dark. Which is another option for more verisimilitude in the mechanics.
Personally I would have preferred darkvision had been limited in the humanoid races, but it is what it is. I have zero issue with the vast majority of non humanoid creatures it has been implemented on.
While it is not as bad as 5e where either it had darkvision of normal vision. It is frustrating for so many creatures immune to sneaking in the dark.
Not sure if I will just convert some creatures to low-light vision, or change how darkvision works.
My main idea is to assume the spot the creature is in to be the base level light. and Allow then to see perfectly into the adjacent lighting band, and the band beyond is considered to act like Dim light (grants concealment).
Like this
Bright -> Dim -> Dark
If you are in Bright then you can see perfectly into Dim and consider Dark Dim for detection rules.
Of if you are in Dark, you can see into Dim perfectly and bright areas are considered Dim.
If you are in a Dim area you can see perfectly in all bands. This makes creatures with Darkvision prefer dim light. I think it works well thematically.
If you list the main categories of real world animals that have night vision equal to or inferior to human night visionI mean, if you want to go that route, might as well list the main categories of real world animals that can see perfectly with no light too.
Ultimately I think people are overstating physiological adaptations and 'what makes sense.' The choice to make darkvision super prevalent is an arbitrary one and I doubt, in a world where PF2 dragons and orcs and gnolls couldn't all see perfectly in the dark, there'd be much of an argument that the characters are missing some critical ability.
Browsing the Internet about animal and insect eyesight reminded me that cats and owls are known for their night vision, eagles are known for their long-distance sight, and bees and dragonflies can see ultraviolet light.
Vertebrate eyes uses rods and cones. Rods are good at low-light vision and cones are good at color vision. Apes and humans have lots of cones, presumably to be able to spot colored fruit and other foods, at the cost of having fewer rods. Thus, our night vision is poor. Yet the PF2 Bestiary gave gorillas low-light vision.
I also checked up on centipedes because two weeks ago my players encountered a centipede swarm with darkvision and tremorsense in a collapsed farmhouse in the dark of night. The halfling animal-whisperer rogue's trained dog scented the centipedes to warn the party, and the umbral gnome rogue could see them, but the rest of the party had to throw a torch at them. Before the torch was thrown, the centipedes detected the halfling rogue climbing up the opposite side of a chimney without line of sight via their tremorsense. This shows how senses can matter in an encounter. Real-life centipedes do have tremorsense, but their eyesight is terrible.
I like Tender Tendrils' observation that undead are known as creatures of the night, and darkvision fits that theme. Likewise, creatures of the deep caverns, such as the Darklands, would have no light in many areas they traverse, so some sense that works in darkness would be necessary, and darkvision best fits the deep gnomes, dero, drow, duergar, dwarves, and orcs that are too similar to humans to have unusual senses. Darkvision also fits caligni, cave worms, dragons, and xulgath.
A beast is defined as an animal-like creature with an Intelligence modifier of –3 or higher. All beasts--basilisk, cauthooj, crimson worm, centaur, chimera, cockatrice, giant eagle, ether spider, gargoyle, hell hound, nessian warhound, hydra, kraken, lamia, manticore, mukradi, nightmare, greater nightmare, pegasus, phoenix, poracha, remorhaz, shuln, simurgh, sphinx, unicorn, warg, winter wolf, wendigo--except the werecreatures have darkvision. That is justifiable for the crimson worm because it is a cave worm or for a chimera with its dragon head or a warg which is a more magical wolf, but most beasts neither live nor hunt in darkness. Some beasts such as the hell hound and phoenix are on fire, making the darkvision almost useless.
Likewise, why do fire elementals have darkvision when they provide their own light? I guess because all elementals and other outsiders have darkvision. If Paizo had given outsiders some other kind of magical vision that can see despite darkness, the list of darkvision creatures would be cut in half.
As for modeling the vision of real-world creatures with special senses, most of that is not necessary. The long-distance vision of eagles could be modeled as a reduced distance penalty on vision rather than a special sense. The color vision of apes would be a perception bonus rather than a special sense. The binocular vision that gives good depth perception would be best modeled as a Dexterity bonus for knowing exactly where an object is. Perception bonuses and Deterity bonuses are just numbers, not special senses.
What we need is something that penalizes creatures with darkvision but not normal vision. Maybe a spell, or an alchemical grenade, that dazzles those with darkvision?
The rules on darkvision and greater darkvision on page 465 of the Core Rulebook give no disadvantage for darkvision, except to say that it sees in black-and-white. Though telling a black substance from a white substance without light makes no sense. Seeing in black and white has no mechanical disadvantage beyond inability to identify colors.
In real life, color vision enhances perception, being able to see objects more clearly due to a distinct color and finding objects with a distinctive color more easily. A house rule that a creature forced to see only in black-and-white would take a -1 penalty to visual Perception checks would be plausible.
Why do unicorns have darkvision? So they can peep on young maidens changing clothes in the dark while pretending they can't see.
This is a serious scene you can set up with the unicorn's statblock. They have light as a cantrip, despite the fact that they have darkvision. Unless the spell is just a general side effect of being magical, I'd assume they learn the spell in order to help out others. So it is actually pretty easy for them to pretend to use light to see, and then later hand waive it as 'oh, I always used the light for you'.
...on a more serious note, you can still have set ups that mess with vision. Unless it varies from source to source, darkvision has been explicitly spelled out to be black and white vision only. So you could potentially set up a dungeon that discourages light, but has secret color coded puzzles/traps.
...also, you could homebrew a Zebra race that gets advantages to stealth when faced with dark vision.
It would even be cool to do something like have illusion magic harder to save against in darkvision.
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It would even be cool to do something like have illusion magic harder to save against in darkvision.
I kind of like the idea of an order of Shelyn that wears rainbow colored uniforms that are secretly designed to mess with dark vision. It could be an anti-Zon Kuthon faction designed to combat shadow focused tactics.
The better to stab you with.