How do other DMs handle lighting, darkness, and darkvision?

[Solo4114]

This hasn't been as much of an issue before, but I'm grappling with how to approach using darkness and lighting in a map from a conceptual standpoint, and I'm wondering if maybe I'm just missing something mechanical that may be a solution. Here's the situation.

My players are headed to the docks district of a city to try to get some information about a particular warehouse and possibly destroy it.

When they approach, it will be the dead of night. The warehouse is lit from inside of it and I've set up windows so that the light can spill out on to the surrounding street. One or two NPC guards around the warehouse have torches or light cantrips on them (i.e., token light set to "torch").

The party will start probably about 150 feet from the warehouse on the map. Some of the party members have darkvision (one out to 120 feet), and several do not. If they're going to remain stealthy, they'll likely want to douse all lights, which is fine.

What I'm grappling with, though, is how to balance the vision issues from the actual tabletop functions.

If I set the ambient light to something like "Moonlight," it casts a cool, light blue dim light on everything, which means the entire map is visible, but some areas are better lit than others. BUT, I think that this will kind of defeat that whole "You can't see in the dark, and these guys can" aspect of the game. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the only alternative is to actually kill ALL ambient light, at which point the players are mostly blind with the exception of the light sources they can see in the distance. They can't see 2" in front of them.

Is there some kind of setting where you can make it so that PCs without darkvision can still kind of make out what's near them, but not what's farther away in the dark, without just giving them darkvision? How do folks tend to handle this?

[Marquis_de_Taigeis]

in the new fantasy grounds lighting this is already built in and assuming the characters have the right wording in the vision part of the character sheet should be automatically applied,

wait i should've finished reading your post, the folks without darkvision could try relying on the folks with darkvision describing what is being seen, and if you hide torches behind walls of other buildings with windows, they will get glimpses of what is ahead where some light spills onto the map

[LordEntrails]

Give the players Truesight 5'? (or blindsight or darkvision)

i.e. how much moonlight is there and what do you want the mechanics of it to be? i.e. using ambient moonlight is great, if it's a near full moon and folks can see everything, just not in detail. But how dark is it to you? Can they see building outlines? Can they only see 5 or 10 feet?

What is it you want the players to see? And then what do you want to the characters to see?
For example, you could set moonlight so the players can see, but tell them the characters can only see per the RAW.

[Solo4114]

Yeah, basically, I want it to be dark enough that they can see like...people can normally see at night.

As in, you can basically see what's near you (once your eyes adjust) and can kind of make out what larger objects are around within a 5-10' range, but you can't make out details, and you might still trip over something in the dark.

It sounds like there isn't a global lighting setting that lets you see X number of feet in front of you. Maybe I'll try adding a dark blue light that functions like a torch to simulate it, and then switch to actual light if they activate a light source.

[TVDinner]

Is there some kind of setting where you can make it so that PCs without darkvision can still kind of make out what's near them, but not what's farther away in the dark, without just giving them darkvision? How do folks tend to handle this?

Make a LIGHT: effect in the effects window and plop it on the blind PCs. You can turn it on and off in the tracker.

Try and adjust as needed:
Lightvision PC; LIGHT: 5/40 0f0f0f

[Zacchaeus]

You can give the players without darkvision the effect VISMAX: x where x is a number. This will limit their vision to whatever number you decide. This way you can have ambient lighting but still limit how far the players without darkvision can see. Alternatively if you don't use ambient lighting you could create your own light using the Token Lights option in options. Set the bright light to zero and the dim light to something (maybe 20 or so) and set the falloff to 100. Don't bother with animation. Then use that light in an effect (LIGHT: nameoflight) in the players action tab. Again the non darkvision characters will see something other than complete darkness.

There's always a compromise with these kinds of situations. In reality on a moonlit and starlit night you can see for miles. Even if there's no moon or starlight you can still see a fair distance in a built up area just from ambient lighting, light spilling out of windows, street lamps etc. Only in a cave, completely cut off from any light will things be truly pitch black.

You can also ad an Fx layer to the map - use the time of day one. Play around with that to darken or lighten the map to your satisfaction.

[Solo4114]

You can give the players without darkvision the effect VISMAX: x where x is a number. This will limit their vision to whatever number you decide. This way you can have ambient lighting but still limit how far the players without darkvision can see. Alternatively if you don't use ambient lighting you could create your own light using the Token Lights option in options. Set the bright light to zero and the dim light to something (maybe 20 or so) and set the falloff to 100. Don't bother with animation. Then use that light in an effect (LIGHT: nameoflight) in the players action tab. Again the non darkvision characters will see something other than complete darkness.

There's always a compromise with these kinds of situations. In reality on a moonlit and starlit night you can see for miles. Even if there's no moon or starlight you can still see a fair distance in a built up area just from ambient lighting, light spilling out of windows, street lamps etc. Only in a cave, completely cut off from any light will things be truly pitch black.

You can also ad an Fx layer to the map - use the time of day one. Play around with that to darken or lighten the map to your satisfaction.

Yeah, I've been camping where I've literally read a book by moonlight, so I know how bright it can get if you don't have other sources of light pollution.

Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I'll give a few of these a try and see which one I like best.

[Solo4114]

Make a LIGHT: effect in the effects window and plop it on the blind PCs. You can turn it on and off in the tracker.

Try and adjust as needed:
Lightvision PC; LIGHT: 5/40 0f0f0f

Wound up doing this, and it's doing the trick quite nicely, although I dropped it to 20 feet at the max. Gives players a vague preview of what's around them so they aren't 100% blind, but without providing the entirety of the map.