07-15-2010, 09:43 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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And I have played in games where it didn't make much difference, because there weren't many fight scenes, and even fewer of them were in the dark, but I'll admit those are a minority. Parenthetically, I think that for many (dis)advantages allowing +/- 1 increments, which is how we ended up with 1/level costs on Night Vision, is a mistake. I rather like the 4e version of Resistant, which limit you to buy +3 (enough to be reliably noticeable) +8 (not quite perfect) and immune, and wish that thinking had been applied more broadly. Though I might have gone with 2,5,9,infinity instead of 3,8,infinity. There's a group that would scream, but actual concepts are closer to a little, some, a lot, a whole lot than they are to exactly 7.4%, so most of their protests about how they can't design *exactly* the character they want are nonsense. What they really mean is it's harder to munchkinize to exactly the breakpoint numbers.
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07-15-2010, 10:27 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: GMT-5
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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Interesting point about "increments." 'Something to think about. What exactly is your objection to making a NV level 10 for 30 points give the benefits of Dark Vision (presumably with the Color enhancement which already costs 30 points by RAW)? There's some precedent for that sort of thing elsewhere (Obscure and the reduced oxygen benefit of Metabolism Control off the top of my head). It seems to me the reason to have a Dark Vision advantage is because it's so useful, it obviously isn't only worth 10 points (i.e. NV 10 if NV is 1/lv). But if NV is 3/lv, why not say level 10 gives the benefits of DV? |
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07-15-2010, 10:39 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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You might as well be saying that you don't think game should allow buying attributes by steps, instead of +1 you just want people to have ST 10, ST 14, ST 18, etc. As for GMs who allow normal human PCs to have more than +1/+2 levels of Nightvision, they may as well be allowing the PCs to buy DR, Sonar, Invisibility or any other Supernatural powers, since that's what Nightvision at the 3+ level is for humans. |
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07-16-2010, 02:06 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Torino, Italy
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
Defending NV cost would be a challenge even for Kromm :)
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07-16-2010, 11:03 AM | #25 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
It's still as much a sliding scale as it was, the units are just further apart. You do realize +/-1 increments are not continua either right? I can't buy ST 11.65 either.
And yeah, I think a game that rated positive attributes in only 4 levels would be perfectly workable, though most games are probably closer to 6.
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07-16-2010, 11:23 AM | #26 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
I don't in general, but there's certainly nonlinear benefits to NV, because the frequency of the situation affected is variable. Increasing NV from 0 to 1 is +1 to DX/Vision in any situation with a darkness penalty of -1 or greater (fairly common). Increasing NV from 8 to 9 is +1 to DX/Vision in any situation with a darkness penalty of exactly -9 (rather rare), so there isn't a strong reason for the two costs to be the same.
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07-16-2010, 03:00 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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Japanese lookouts in world war two were picked for their ability to see at night. So we know night vision exists.
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07-16-2010, 03:08 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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It is worth pointing out just how much difference a single level of darkness actually is. If you want to fit the normal scale of darkness (ranging from the point at which indoor sports have problems, at below a few hundred lux, which is a plausible -1, to an overcast moonless night sky at around 0.0001 lux) you're getting a total -8 penalty over a brightness range of about a million, which is a factor of 5.6 per level, or -1.25 per x0.1 illumination. I actually prefer a factor of -1.5 per x0.1 illumination, because it works more conveniently with the range/speed chart, but either way a single level of night vision allows operating with about 1/5 as much light. Last edited by Anthony; 07-16-2010 at 03:27 PM. |
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07-16-2010, 03:15 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
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If the penalties at at the +/- 1 level, then it makes perfect sense to be able to modify them by +/- 1.
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Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. -RAH |
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07-16-2010, 03:19 PM | #30 |
Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: How realistic is Night Vision?
Which is no as dark as a cave (total darkness) but very low light
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