If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

I’m the light of reimagining HP as a source of inner strength, I’m considering reimagining vision. Consider darkness as an aggressor:

If travelling in darkness, when your journey ends or is interrupted by an encounter, spend 1d4 damage per turn you have travelled underground or watch you have travelled at outdoors at night. There is no saving throw to avoid this cost.

Vision now becomes a means of not losing heart. I don’t have to mechanise movement, combat and spell casting anymore, because it’s folded into the HP cost.

• Light sources (torch, lamp, spells) are used to provide vision.
• Fuel (oil or torches) is bulky to carry, and hence take up 1 inventory slot per hour in the dungeon or watch in the wilderness.
• Light spells take up 1 spell slot per hour and space in a spell book.
• Holding a light source causes disadvantage on attacks, saving throws, and surprise.

Do I need distances and vision rules? Probably not in the original detail.

• There are three types of vision: As daylight, as twilight, or as darkness.
• Sight as daylight can see.
• Sight as twilight extends only a stone’s throw away.
• Sight as darkness cannot see.
• All light sources allow you to see as twilight.

Now I’m relying on a player having an intuitive understanding of what vision in daylight is, to simplify further. This keeps my goal of normal rooms being illuminated easily, vast chambers being creepy, and chasms bottomless. Ultravision and Infravision are similar:

• You have vision, infravision or ultravision, you do not have more than one (even temporarily).
• Infravision sees heat
  • See darkness as daylight.
  • See daylight as darkness.
  • In cold temperatures, see heat-trails and warm air currents and see as twilight in daylight if wearing sunglasses.
  • Blinded for a turn by a sudden lit torch or a glance at the sun.
• Ultravision sees magic
  • See in starlight and in indirect sunlight as daylight.
  • See direct sunlight and darkness underground as darkness.
  • Magic items and spells are visible to you at a stone’s throw.
  • Your eyes glow, and under your gaze white items glow as well.
  • Blinded for a turn by a glance at the sun.

This keeps the neat world building , which I like. Invisibility and mirrors are unchanged. I think that Surprise warrants a rewrite as well, because a page of rules to determine an extra attack is less neat than “if you’re surprised, lose heart” and then move on to the combat.

With this, HP becomes a kind of universal resource that we can attack and being cautious or careful is rewarded by not having direct hits to HP.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on darkness, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

23rd April 2022