I'm being called out by a player for ruling that a rogue suffers large penalties to hide checks against creatures with infravision/darkvision/whatever, akin to penalties suffered from hiding in broad daylight. This has come up a lot since there's a lot of dungeon crawling, and a lot of creatures that see in the dark one way or the other.
Since the darkness is not a factor to these enemies, it should be a lot harder to hide from them, considering that it's harder to hide from creatures with regular vision in broad daylight than it is to hide from them with bad lighting. Logically, if something sees you by body heat, it's not going to do a whole lot of good to hide in a dark corner.
The player however is calling me out and saying that I'm just bullying him and punishing him (for... something), and I can't reason with him. Other players are ambivalent and don't give a shit either way, and are mostly annoyed that this is slowing down the game. What do I do about this?
>>46426499
>for... something
Tell us nigga
>>46426534
Literally no idea. I'm apparently punishing him for something, and I have no idea what that would be. It honestly seems like he's just feeling victimized because he's the one "getting shafted" by this. Mostly because nobody else is playing a stealthy character.
So, I guess he thinks he's being punished for playing a rogue.
>>46426499
eh, just fluff it so as the rogue becomes better at hiding and higher in experience, he starts unconsciously channeling the plane of shadow or whatever to cloak himself. The darkness spells block infravision and all, don't they? I remember the spell cast by drow brooches blocked it.
You're taking away one of the main points of being a rogue, and the class is already vulnerable to having its class abilities nullified ie sneak attack and crits not affecting a wide variety of enemies. If your players are getting annoyed, then knock it off for the sake of the game.
>>46426499
Well, you see, you're both wrong.
If you are in the darkness, and you try and hide from someone with Darkvision/etc, it doesn't work, because you don't have a form of concealment to hide with - you're in plain sight.
If they have, say, a cardboard box that they attempt to hide under or behind, they're groovy - so long as they have some form of remaining hidden that isn't lighting, darkvision means nothing.
It's not a matter of maluses or bonuses.
>>46426499
He gains no bonus for darkness. That's it. He only get's hid bonuses for hiding behind shit.
If he complains ask him to explain why that shouldn't be the case in the context of the game world, not that "it's bad for me :C". You're the dm tell him to fuck off.
>>46426499
Well you're technically correct but I'm just not sure that makes for afungame. Give the character awet blanketor something.
The main issue is being able to hide is really one of the primary utilities a rogue brings to the table and it's frustrating for players to be in an environment where their character's skills end up being constantly useless without some clear path to becoming useful. I'd suggest talking with the player and letting them know that it's possible they could use various techniques to defeat darkvision/infravision provided proper preparation and available materials. For instance, the aforementionedwet blankethas a chance (for some limited timeframe X) to mitigate the effectiveness of infravision.
tl;dr talk with the player and work with them to help let them know that there are things they can do to adapt to the circumstances.
>>46426610
>>46426645
Well, the thing is that the player is pretty damn quick to call out for any modifiers (to anything, really) that would help him, and tries to heckle for bonuses even when there's really no logical reason for them (he's tried shit like claiming that the shadow of a larger creature should totally help him hide in battle), so I don't feel particularly terrible about taking this kind of stuff into account when he handily "forgets" that there are also negative modifiers to things.
It's not that I mind someone paying close attention to the modifiers. I'm not punishing him for it. But if modifiers are made out to be very important, then that should work both ways, not just as a free headpat for vocal players.
I guess I'll try to throw out some suggestions about things that might mitigate infravision and the like, see if that makes him feel less wronged. Hell, the most famous movie about a monster with infravision already has the main character utilizing something like this to also counter it. You know which one.
>>46426499
You did it wrong; darkvision means that darkness gives no bonus to sneaking, not that he can't hide.
"Hiding" isn't simply "standing in that shadowy corner." It's more psychological than that- hiding is the art of making yourself unnoticeable, not JUST not visible.
Ever see a movie or a cartoon or something where a ninja 'hides' by clinging to the ceiling above the door someone just came into the room through? That works because people rarely look at ceilings unless something draws their attention to it. Ever played a video game where something is technically in plain sight, but you keep overlooking it because you simply don't know what to look for? Again, that's the sort of thing that 'hiding' in PnP RPGs entails.
>>46427052
Read again. I never said that he couldn't try to hide. I said that he would receive similar penalties as if he were trying to hide in full daylight, I.E without any darkness at all. Since, you know, for the creature there's functionally none.
Any other cover that would help him hide would still be fine. He just feels that I'm nitpicking at him for bringing this up (he claims it hasn't been a problem in some other DM's game).
>>46427115
Addendum because I forgot to directly address your question it in my post so I'm a dumbass: Yes, I think you're being unnecessarily harsh on the player.
If you need more examples of what "hiding" really entails, look through this page http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HiddenInPlainSight
>>46427115
So, in your opinion, there shouldn't be penalties for trying to hide in a brightly lit hallway when guards approach? Even when such a feat would be clearly harder than trying to do it in better circumstances?
>>46427267
Wow, way to put words in my mouth. I never said anything like that.
Yeah, there are some situations where it SHOULD be incredibly difficult if not just straight impossible (barring magic or similar) to hide. The point I was making is that the rogue doesn't necessarily HAVE to hide from motherfuckers with darkvision etc. by going somewhere dark, he can instead use some other method of making himself unnoticeable or easily overlooked.
>>46427183
Never, ever try to use tvtropes to argue game rules. Most game systems won't give you bonuses for using some obscure feat of fiction, or even common sense.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/hide.htm
Instead, here is the 3.5 rules for hiding, which since OP didn't specify a system, we assume it to be 3.x/PF until proven otherwise. In those rules it says, regardless of all other factors, you need cover or concealment first, which can be hard to get in a dungeon crawl.If the rogue built around being purely able to be the sneaky guy, in a situation where the rules don't promote him being the sneaky guy, that is the root of the problem. He either needs GM support for easy stealth (magic concealment item), more chances to show off(large vaults full of statues and other blocking terrain they can hide behind), or just a rework to more skill monkey or making the other guy flatfooted for more stabbing build.
>>46427267
If this hallway is a uniformly brightly lit hallway of two long, featureless, very flat walls, a featureless flat floor, and a flat featureless ceiling, the guards alert and actively searching for an intruder, then no.
If there's an alcove, window, curtain, doorway, area of unlit shadow, large piece of furniture, or the guard's been hittin' the bottle again, there's a possibility. Tally up the modifiers and let the dice fly.
>>46426970
I wonder if he could play it smarter, then. If he had some flares he could actually cause monsters temporary blindness. It takes time for eyes to adjust from shadow to bright light to shadow again.
Players would need eyepatches to counter its effects, though, keep one eye in darkness so only one eye is affected, and when the flare burns out you can flip that patch up and have you dark-adjusted eye take over right after without skipping some adjustment time. It's why pirates wore them, so they could get below decks when boarding and not suddenly be caught in darkness.
>>46427392
OP's original point was that the bonus that darkness gives shouldn't apply vs those certain creatures and should be treated as hiding and sneaking in broad daylight in that particular circumstance, since, from the creatures' perspective it isn't even dark.
I think you should meet your player half way. Darkvision only see things in black and white, and if you were to take a coloured picture, change it to grey scale in photoshop and then compare the file sizes you can clearly see that coloured vision provides much more visual information than black and white vision.
So although a normal vision creature will be completely blinded in total darkness, darkvision creatures can indeed still spot you in the dark, but a rogue trying to hide should still get some bonus.
Doesn't Darkvision also usually come with a range? Therefore, if he's in range, he's in broad daylight. Otherwise, not.
Plus that black and white stuff
Dark vision doesn't see through pillars or let someone see outside their cone of vision
Why is the Rogue trying to hide when he's being observed anyway?
