[Enhanced Senses] Illumination Levels (p. 13)

[PK]

I have pruned this discussion off of the general GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses thread. It really starts at post #2, but I'd like to prepend a couple of important points:

1. The concerns raised in this thread are reasonable ones, and are worth addressing. Please see post #65 in which I do so. (Chronologically, I'm going to write that post right after I finish this one.) Be sure to read that post and then give your thoughts, thanks.

2. Most of this conversation has been civil, but some people seem to be overly upset, to the point of being snarky and rude. That isn't cool. Consider this a blanket warning to keep it polite; there won't be another.

Having said that, the thread begins below . . .

[Anthony]

Illumination Levels
Um, no. While overcast can give penalties due to lack of shadows, this has nothing to do with brightness. Light levels won't directly affect human vision at all until you get down below a few thousand lux, and won't do so in a way that corresponds to a DX penalty until you get below a few hundred.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Illumination Levels
Um, no. While overcast can give penalties due to lack of shadows, this has nothing to do with brightness. Light levels won't directly affect human vision at all until you get down below a few thousand lux, and won't do so in a way that corresponds to a DX penalty until you get below a few hundred.

Some of the penalty levels do look off. But I'm not sure how possible it is to calibrate lux'es in such a way that the penalty range spans from -0 to -9. (Doing otherwise is grounds for a major system overhaul.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Some of the penalty levels do look off. But I'm not sure how possible it is to calibrate lux'es in such a way that the penalty range spans from -0 to -9.

Just have the -0 level be much wider than the rest of them.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Just have the -0 level be much wider than the rest of them.

Hmm. I wonder how that interacts with the hypersensitive, free Night Vision (i.e. those that change the light level that is considered unpenalised, but provides penalties both above and below that level).

[Yako]

I also think light levels are VERY problematic,especially as someone often being out at night under various levels of illumination, it seems extremely off to me.

It is not only the ranges for the modifiers, it is also the fact that it does jot differentiate about what is the task at question.
Recognizing shapes, movement and such, makimg out colours, fine details etc....
It would be helpful to at least have different scales listed and not just one ranging from 0 to -10.

It also would be nice to get it recognized that sufficiently bad sight should also affect melee combat.



What the book also brought to light was however that, really, the hearing table is even more flawed.
It was already bad in basic, but what use is it, aside from MAYBE for relative levels of penalties, when it gives you probabilities of not hearing things that are very grossly unrealistic.
I could perhaps see it work if every hearing roll got a bonus of maybe +10 for detecting sounds in any normal situation (and likely still +6 if distracted), but just the way it is written is not very useful.
I have not ever used it in years of playing and thus I cannot say if at least the steps and noise levels are descent, but it really ranks very poorly on its own.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Illumination Levels
Um, no. While overcast can give penalties due to lack of shadows, this has nothing to do with brightness. Light levels won't directly affect human vision at all until you get down below a few thousand lux, and won't do so in a way that corresponds to a DX penalty until you get below a few hundred.

Actually, my experience is contrary to that. If I'm outdoors, and wearing my outdoor/distance vision glasses, I can just make out normal type on a printed page. But if I come inside, under direct indoor illumination, I can't do so; the letters are just marginally beyond my limit of resolution, and I have to change to reading glasses. (That's a big change; I can read the type on the GURPS Basic Set under rather dim light right now. But the point is that my vision with distance lenses crosses a threshold when I change from outdoor sunlight to indoor electric light.)

It's not apparent to me that the penalties for low light, the ones that Night Vision buys off, are ever applied to DX. That seems to be a red herring. Or is there something in the published rules that you're basing it on?

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Anthony

=Illumination Levels
Um, no. While overcast can give penalties due to lack of shadows, this has nothing to do with brightness. Light levels won't directly affect human vision at all until you get down below a few thousand lux, and won't do so in a way that corresponds to a DX penalty until you get below a few hundred.

I will mostly ignore the illumination levels in this supplement, as they are too harsh. I prefer them where Tactical Shooting put the Illumination levels, which was like this:

An overcast day is no penalty to -1, twilight
is -2 to -3, a full moon is -3 to -4, an overcast night with a moon
is -5 to -6, and a clear night with no moon is -7 to -8, while an
overcast night with no moon is -9. Indoors, treat warehouse
lighting, emergency stairway lighting, and poorly lit interior
spaces as -1 to -2. An area lit by street lamps is also -2.

Also, Tactical Shooting gives Night Vision 2 as the highest realistic level for humans. Enhanced Senses tells us that level 3 is for nocturnal animals; we don't get any guidance that I can find for humans. That's problematic. There's more sense benchmarks on Mysteries 47-48, too. I haven't examined how the acoustic modifiers between the supplements compare.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by safisher

There's more sense benchmarks on Mysteries 47-48, too. I haven't examined how the acoustic modifiers between the supplements compare.

Basically, it reads like there's an implicit set of rule changes or houserules about how hearing works under Mysteries, but I don't remember finding them explicitly mentioned. (IIRC Anthony said they're broken in a different way than Basic/High-Tech ones, but I'm not sure - I might be misremembering.)

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by safisher

Also, Tactical Shooting gives Night Vision 2 as the highest realistic level for humans. Enhanced Senses tells us that level 3 is for nocturnal animals;

3 levels for typical nocturnal animals, up to 6 levels for some nocturnal animals:

Originally Posted by Enhanced Senses

The 3-point version (typical of nocturnal animals) cancels three levels of darkness penalties, while the 6-point version (found in deep sea creatures and some nocturnal predators) cancels six levels of darkness penalties.