I agree with the expert analyzing this clip here that the "spoiled-by-torchlight" effect wouldn't really happen, which is why I don't use it in my games:
2017-08-10
Infravision per Westworld
On the Facebook AD&D group, Gygax Jr. asserts that infravision was intended much as the vision of Yul Brenner's character from Westworld (1973):
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I think I read in one of the books that Infravision was alike low-quality Infrared vision much like the vision of snakes.
ReplyDeleteI started in 3e (where it is called Darkvision) and remember that since this edition it is described more like cat vision (B&W, brighter, less sharp).
But when I gone to older edition I saw it called Infravision and for it was a bit of contradiction as the two aren't biologically equivalent.
If you search "infrared camera" in Youtube there is lots of videos that describe nice tricks of infrared (like glass blocking infrered but thin opaque plastic not blocking it)...
Just for completeness... Darkvision is achieved with "tapetum lucidum" a mirror that enhance light but lessen sharpness. And Infrared is not sensed in eyes but in different organs near the nose of snakes and bats (I don't remember other animals). This infrared doesn't work like vision. I have no time to explain know but can talk more about it latter...
DeleteI don't recall any of the early books comparing that vision to animals. I'd have to see a citation.
DeleteThe Infravision spell in Expert refers to page 22 of Basic Dungeon Master Rulebook (Mentzer version).
DeleteThere is three paragraphs explaining that Infravision to see heat/infrared in darkness and how it works.
There is also some explanation of Infravision in the Elf, Dwarf and Halflings classes.
I think it is implied that the creature use the eyes to see Infrared as it is said that the normal light interferes with the infravision (something that doesn't occur in real life nature).
But you are right, there is no comparison in the books...
DeleteThat's what I always envisioned Infravision was, probably because I was a huge fan of the movie before I even found D&D. :-)
ReplyDeleteThat's hot!
DeleteWas there any other way to think about infravision? Infrared vision, i.e. heat vision. I believe the normal light interferes with infravision comes from the light source. We think electricity but in D&D it is usually the sun or a flame, both will interfere with heat based vision.
ReplyDeleteI think some of the fiction of the time gave differing accounts of what Infravision "Elfsight" looked like. For us it was always "predator" vision
DeleteThere's a pretty big school of thought that runs "infravision is totally beyond conception and can only be hand-waved as inexplicable magic" (e.g., 3E), that this was in response to.
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