How good is darkvision in 2nd edition?

[YuriP]

lemeres wrote:

Color can be useful for a large number of signals, such as uniform color to indicate allies or enemies, signs, and flags.

Heck, I could easily see elves using color coded signs on a moonlit night in order to take advantage of an orc invasion.

But this more of an RP and exploration issue rather than an issue that would come up in the core combat mechanics.

Elves usually have only low-light and can see colors during low-light dark so this make sense.

For other races thats has dark-vision as an advantage, thinking like this as an evolutionary aspect they probably are so well adapted to colorless vision that they probably use shapes and other patterns instead of color to help their communication, strategies and survival.

So I don't expect that darkness creature make such high importance to colors.

[thenobledrake]

YuriP wrote:

For other races thats has dark-vision as an advantage, thinking like this as an evolutionary aspect they probably are so well adapted to colorless vision that they probably use shapes and other patterns instead of color to help their communication, strategies and survival.

So I don't expect that darkness creature make such high importance to colors.

You've kind of missed the point... it's not that the darkvision-having folks would be better off using light so they can use color-coded signals rather than shape-coded signals; it's that they can't tell the difference between the army with the green uniforms that are their enemies and the army in the brown uniforms that are their allies on sight so they have to either check in some way that potentially spoils the advantage their vision would otherwise allow them, or risk friendly-fire incidents as a result of not seeing color.

And other basic things like how fruit can have a significantly different taste because of its level of ripeness but not have much discernible difference before sticking it in your mouth other than what color it happens to be.

It is just easy to overlook how important color is because we don't stop to think about how we use color, and GM's don't regularly make up descriptions of things which provide only the information that not seeing color would provide and then secretly provide color-related info to the players of characters that can see color, they just go with whatever description there is in the adventure or they made up thinking in terms of "normal" descriptions which adding some info about color to is often a quick way to provide a clearer image to players (i.e. "she wears a flowing emerald gown trimmed in gold" or "there are some limes in the barrel" rather than "she wears a flowing gown with some kind of trimming on it" or "there are some oblong citrus of some kind in the barrel") so players with characters that can't see color often still know what color things are and can't un-know it so there's no separating it from what they think about the situation.

[Gisher]

YuriP wrote:

lemeres wrote:

Color can be useful for a large number of signals, such as uniform color to indicate allies or enemies, signs, and flags.

Heck, I could easily see elves using color coded signs on a moonlit night in order to take advantage of an orc invasion.

But this more of an RP and exploration issue rather than an issue that would come up in the core combat mechanics.

Elves usually have only low-light and can see colors during low-light dark so this make sense.

For other races thats has dark-vision as an advantage, thinking like this as an evolutionary aspect they probably are so well adapted to colorless vision that they probably use shapes and other patterns instead of color to help their communication, strategies and survival.

So I don't expect that darkness creature make such high importance to colors.

"A dragon! Resist Energy will help us survive its breath weapon! Now which energy type do grey dragons use?"

;)

[YuriP]

thenobledrake wrote:

You've kind of missed the point... it's not that the darkvision-having folks would be better off using light so they can use color-coded signals rather than shape-coded signals; it's that they can't tell the difference between the army with the green uniforms that are their enemies and the army in the brown uniforms that are their allies on sight so they have to either check in some way that potentially spoils the advantage their vision would otherwise allow them, or risk friendly-fire incidents as a result of not seeing color.

I don't think would be a problem. For creatures that are familiarize to dark-vision they will probably have other identification methods than colors. But I agree that creatures who receives a magical dark-vision may have some problems in these situation but I also believe they will rapidly find a way to circumvent this limitation.

So in first instance 2 orc's army for example probably won't use colors has their main identification because they are too well adapted to darkness to know the colors limitations.

But for 2 humans armies in a cave buffed with dark-vision that usually trust in the colors of their uniforms this will probably be a problem initially but even they don't notice this limitation before after the first chaotic battle they will adapt their strategies to avoid such problems.

So I don't think that color blindness are a big problem.

thenobledrake wrote:

And other basic things like how fruit can have a significantly different taste because of its level of ripeness but not have much discernible difference before sticking it in your mouth other than what color it happens to be.

You are thinking has human.

Underground creatures don't trust in colors since the beginning. If we compare with our own reality the abyss creatures and undergroun fungus are usually don't have colorful patterns, most of them are blind and use other senses to live. So for a fictional sentient creatures that are adapted to this they don't even care about colors because this is not relevant to their environment at all. In the end, in mostly darkness underground we don't have fruits at all to need notice a color variation, instead to know if a food is good or not to be eat the darkness creatures will trust in their shapes and smell instead.

So color blindness still not a real problem in underground/abyss like situation at all.

[YuriP]

YuriP wrote:

thenobledrake wrote:

You've kind of missed the point... it's not that the darkvision-having folks would be better off using light so they can use color-coded signals rather than shape-coded signals; it's that they can't tell the difference between the army with the green uniforms that are their enemies and the army in the brown uniforms that are their allies on sight so they have to either check in some way that potentially spoils the advantage their vision would otherwise allow them, or risk friendly-fire incidents as a result of not seeing color.

I don't think would be a problem. For creatures that are familiarize to dark-vision they will probably have other identification methods than colors. But I agree that creatures who receives a magical dark-vision may have some problems in these situation but I also believe they will rapidly find a way to circumvent this limitation.

So in first instance 2 orc's army for example probably won't use colors has their main identification because they are too well adapted to darkness to know the colors limitations.

But for 2 humans armies in a cave buffed with dark-vision that usually trust in the colors of their uniforms this will probably be a problem initially but even they don't notice this limitation before after the first chaotic battle they will adapt their strategies to avoid such problems.

So I don't think that color blindness are a big problem.

thenobledrake wrote:

And other basic things like how fruit can have a significantly different taste because of its level of ripeness but not have much discernible difference before sticking it in your mouth other than what color it happens to be.

You are thinking has human.

Underground creatures don't trust in colors since the beginning. If we compare with our own reality the abyss creatures and undergroun fungus are usually don't have colorful patterns, most of them are blind and use other senses to live. So for a fictional sentient creatures that are adapted to this they don't even...

Gisher wrote:

"A dragon! Resist Energy will help us survive its breath weapon! Now which energy type do grey dragons use?"

Dragons are not a christmas' light. The different kind dragons have different have many different shapes, smells, sizes and behaviors. Don't see their colors probably will be annoying maybe gives a -2 in a recall knowledge only.

[lemeres]

Some of the strategies an army might adopt is "someone cast dancing lights and put it over those guys". Once a fight started, stealth is less of an option, so you might as well go for comfort.