This game has many different types of senses, based on or that enhance Sight. The same goes for Hearing and Scent.
Low Light vision doubles the effectiveness of light while in darkness.
Darkvision allows a creature to straight up see in the dark for the designated radius, as if it were normal vision.
Blindsense allows someone to see someone or something clearly regardless of sight impairment.
Tremorsense allows someone to feel vibrations through solid material or even the air itself.
Truesense allows someone to see, hear, and perceive where someone is, regardless of magic or even thin, dimensional barriers.
All creatures can perceive their world in various ways. Sight and Hearing are the most common, but other exists, due to magic or adaption. This page will just go over the various ways they work.
Basic Senses (Vision, Hearing, Scent, etc)
All creatures that aren't naturally
Blinded or
Deafened start with basic Vision and Hearing. This requires no moniker and is assumed to be the default.
Some creatures may be impaired naturally, such as being born blind or hard of hearing, or have developed an impairment due to an injury. These are not the same as being Blinded and Deafened due to combat conditions, and are easily mitigated via commonly found aids that help other senses compensate that are older than people realize and found in our real world (sound-based walking sticks or shoes, hearing cones, etc) and require no special rules for adaptation. That being said, there will be an Optional Rule for players who wish to play a romanticized character with those characteristics (such as a person who is Blinded having Blindsight or Improved Hearing).
Vision
Normal vision is pretty self-explanatory. A creature can see as far as the horizon in normal lighting conditions, or often about as far as needed for most Adventurers (pre-written and not).
Darkness and similar (such as...well, night time) completely negates this normal vision, whereas effects that provide
Brightness mitigate the darkness, up to a range around a creature.
If one wanted to be a stickler for something this open-ended, one can say the max range of one's sight is 10 miles, and in a dungeon map, it's 500 ft or a larger range.
Vision is relied on for
Visual⚙️ displays, as well as the
Stages of the Obscured Condition. All of this is affected by the
Obscured condition, though it only applies to creatures who aren't quite seen (thus the name).
Hearing
A creature with ears or capable of feeling vibrations in bones can understand audio cues. There is no limit to hearing itself, but noise-based emanations do provide a basis.
Noise levels vary, but consider this as a rule of thumb:
- Quiet Noises emanates a radius of 3d4 ft. Quite Noises are unhushed voices, non-stealthy footsteps, and the pitter patter of rain. This is easily mitigated by at least 1 ft of wall.
- Loud Noises emanate in a radius of 3d4 x 10 ft. Loud Noises are creatures yelling or roaring, something heavy falling or crashing, or an instrument played at the early hours of the morning.
- Extremely Noises emanates a radius of 3d4 x 100 ft. Extremely loud noises are the sound of explosions, huge creatures roaring, Thunder from rain clouds, and anger you can feel.
Hearing is relied on for
Auditory⚙️ displays.
Scent
A sort of special sense for certain creatures. As this is subjective, it really doesn't come up unless stated, often on needing certain body parts to be perceived.
There is no special display for smell. At least, nothing mechanically. For a more concise version of such, see Directional Sense.
Vision that is not hindered by lower light, often a result of adapting to the reduced brightness. It allows the creature who has it to see fine in what is considered dim light.
During periods of
Darkness, effects that give off light (often having the
Brightness trait) will give an emanation of light in a radius, often Bright Light and then Dim Light. Low-Light Vision doubles Dim Light for the creature.
To that end, if a torch were to give 10 ft of bright light and 10 ft of dim light, the creature with Low-Light Vision would see 30 ft in the darkness.
Darkvision is a special vision type that allows a creature to see in total darkness in a radius around them. This special vision starts at the end of their Bright Light light-based range, if any. Dim Light would begin after this Darkvision range.
As an example, a creature with Darkvision of 60 ft that is also holding a 15 ft bright and 15 ft dim torch would see 15 ft of bright light, anything in 60 ft beyond that, and then 15 ft of dim light. This brings their total sight range in darkness to 90 ft. If they had
Low-Light Vision (as they often do), this adds 15 ft of Dim light, bringing the total to 30 ft of Dim Light, or 105 ft of sight.
Darkvision often concerns
Rule: Brightness and Darkness and
Darkness effects.
Directional Sense
A directional sense is an imprecise sense, but a leading sense involving one of the user's base senses (such as sight, smell, touch, etc).
With a directional sense, you bypass your other visual senses, knowing which direction a specific thing is from you, regardless of how Obscured it is, or if it is behind cover. Sometimes, when an object or enemy lingers (such as with magical Magic Auras or scents), what is perceived lingers, allowing for someone to be tracked or found more easily without the Seek Action | ◈.
As an example, many Beasts have a directional sense based on their hearing and/or sense. Additionally, a creature may have a directional sense concerning navigation, such as always knowing which way is North, or where an object or location is.
Blindsight is a special kind of sight that allows one to see even if they are incapable of sight otherwise. Something akin to Improved Darkvision that also negates the Concealed, Invisible, and Obscured conditions outright (no save or check needed).
It does not stack with other forms of sight, often restricted to a Radius-like aura.
The ability to 'hear' through walls and solid objects. Using the same rules for noise above, this allows sound to be percieved through solid objects, such as stone or the very earth itself.
A perfect, nearly magical way of perceiving things. Provides perfect vision even if one is incapable of seeing, like Blindsight, while extended this special vision Hearing. A creature with Truesense automatically succeeds on checks or saving throws made to deceive the user with magic based effects (such as illusions, ethereal guises, or shapeshifting), allows the user to 'see' a creature's actual form, and understand what a creature means if speaking in another language or using a coding device to obscue their speech or text.
Truesense can also only affect one aspect of a creature's perception. 'Truesight' is a popular form that only affects sight based effects, and Truehearing affects vocal or auditory cues. This can be further focused, too.
Truesense is often associated with True Naming⚙️.
