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I propose to make deep gnomes, drow and half-drow have the same penalty and conditions concerning their darkivision and the daylight adaptation feat.

Deep gnomes: at present deep gnomes have 120 feet darkvision but they are not required to train daylight adaptation and they cannot train it even if they want to because it is not in their feat list. Hence they have the best darkvision without any malus on the surface and in practice also an extra feat in comparison to drow. In tabletop however if they want to go to the surface without being blinded they have to take that feat, which is consistent since they mostly live only in the Underdark and rarely, if ever, go to the surface. I believe they should have the penalty also on FK, unless they get daylight adaptation, and they should actually be able to train it. I have mostly the feeling this is a kind of bug or an oversight rather than something really intended to be this way. I also realize this could be a problem for old deep gnomes who have no more feat points to spend, but I believe a solution could be found since it was definitely not the fault of deep gnomes player. Hopefully if ECL is reviewed as in the proposal I have done a few minutes ago every deep gnome would be able to get the level 48 feat point and train daylight adaptation with that. This is why I have made the two proposals together.

Half-drow: here we have the opposite situation of the deep gnomes. In tabletop half-drow do not need to train daylight adaptation and have 60 feet darkvision. They can get however 120 feet darkvision by getting the feat "drow eyes" presented in Races of Faerun. In FK however half-drow get a very lame treatment, that in light of the svirfneblin issue above is even lamer: they are forced, lest they risk a strike, to train daylight adaptation since there is no real viable game for them in the Underdark, but they still get 60 feet darkvision like in tabletop, with no way of getting 120 feet darkvision. I propose then to give them the same vision and penalties of the drow. In this way an FK half-drow will be equivalent to a tabletop half-drow with daylight adaptation. And on top of that they will have both the possibility to avoid spending the feat for that but facing the penalties and as well be more at home in the Underdark.

Drow: well, they are the only ones who are working as intended right now. I would leave them as they are.

Orcs: they are as well as in tabletop requirement of daylight adaptation but 60 feet darkvision. Other than wondering why they have got ECL +2 when they seem to have only maluses I would still leave them as they are.

I have been reading 5th edition malterial and I want to present also an alternative option:
-daylight adaptation is removed as a feat and whoever trained it gets back the feat point
-Orcs, deep gnomes and drow get some minor penalties they can live with if exposed to daylight (like in tabletop). This way their rp will be influenced by the choice of setting. For example they will wait till night before coming out or attacking. This would also limit their presence on the surface. Orcs perhaps could have even lesser or no penalty at all since they are actually surface dwellers.
-Drow eyes is implemented as a racial feat for halfdrow and allows them to get 120 feet darkvision (optional but nice).

Reason for this: as it is now daylight adaptation is a compulsory feat, there is no way to skip it as far as I know, because regardless of your race you will need to get to the surface for training. And anyway there might be some rp of your race which involve going to the surface where you would like to join. On the other hand once the feat is trained I noticed that people do not tend to roleplay the stress of being exposed to sunlight. By having permanent, even if minor, penalties one would be encouraged to roleplay better this discomfort.

Vaemar wrote:Deep gnomes: [...]In tabletop however if they want to go to the surface without being blinded they have to take that feat, which is consistent since they mostly live only in the Underdark and rarely, if ever, go to the surface.

And it seems I was wrong, I checked both the FR campaign setting and nwn2 and deep gnomes do not need daylight adaptation. Only orcs, duergar and drow need it.

It still remains the inconsistency with halfdrow, though.