Drow Debating

[ZeroVega]

HooD!uM - 5/2/2005 11:28 PM Would the sun still effect a drow born on the surface??? -
    EdTheKet - Nope it wouldn't. You wouldn't have spent decades/centuries in the darkness but just grown up on the surface not bieng affected by the sun at all.
  But since you cannot take the feat when creating your character (it's custom to Layo, so it will only show up after creation when you level and can take feats), you'd probably have to take it as soon as you can to fit your character's history of never having lived below ground.
  That help? -
   Thought this was interesting because I disagree with it. Anyone who's ever taken Biology or some type of life science will know about dominant genes. Every person has two chromosomes for every trait of their body (skin color, eye color, hair color, we'll use eyes as an example).
   My mother has green eyes (a recesive trait) that means she got a gene for green eyes from both parents. My father however has blue eyes (a dominant gene) that means he recieved at least one blue eye gene from one of his parents. (two different dominant or recesive genes will combine to make something new) When I was born I recieved a recesive gene from my mother (green eye gene) and a dominant from my father (blue eyes) blue beats green so my eyes are blue.
    Blue eyes are more sensitive to light than brown or green eyes are, that is a part of genetics and evolution. Since people with blue eyes came from further north of the equator, they recieved less light during the course of the year. That made for lighter skin, hair, and eyes that didn't rely on light as much.
    Drow have lived in the Underdark (a near lightless habitat) for thousands of years, developing a darkvision like no other, as well as light sensitivity. To me, that means no matter where you grew up, you eyes will always be, at least to some extent, light sensitive. Am I right here, or is there something I've overlooked? (Note: I'm bored and wanted something to do, so I wrote up this.)

[Lalaith Va'lash]

It all makes sense ZV.
    But, that brings you to the daylight adaptaion feat.  Those that take that feat are basically saying that they have been on the surface long enough, that they are used to the light, and are not as sensitive any more.  (is that right?) 
  If thats the case, living on the surface their whole life as this character did they would be adapted to the light by this point, even if they were not when younger due to genes (or so I would think).
  That is why it would be important for this drow to take that feat.
  LV

[nabokov9]

"  But, that brings you into the daylight adaptaion feat.  Those that take that feat are basically saying that they have been on the surface long enough that they got used to the light, and are not as sensitive any more.  (is that right?)  "

conceivably though, you could say that the feat isn't actually indicating a physical change to the drow character, but rather indicates some kind of adjustment in clothing, helmets, perhaps even protective eyewear/lenses.    

therefore, those drow without the feat are unable to craft or just properly wear such things so as to gain protection from daylight;  in other words, gaining the feat shows that the character has studied proper protection techniques or even been shown techniques from other experienced drow....

just an idea to make explaining the feat easier, i dunno.....

[FlameStrike]

That leaves me wondering, if a new feature for light sensivity could be implemented, like being blinded whenever you are within the blast radius of a fireball, or other AoE spell with an intensive light exposure effect. This feature would even prevail over the Daylight Adaptation feat, since like ZV pointed out, drow possess innate darkvision from their relatives, and no matter how long you would be on the surface, this burst of intense light would still blind you.

[steverimmer]

You know thats something thats always amused me about the drow...creatures that have evolved to live in dark places without light are nearly always albino's so why are the dark elves dark coloured?...Trust the elves to be arkward

[ZeroVega]

  Pretty sure I tossed out a new drow subrace thing into the Development Related Topics section of the forum. Has some harsher penalties for daylight, and the fireball thing that Flame brought up.

[HooD!uM]

aye kurumba!...ive nbeen up for 24 hours now waiting for my submisson to be accepted...my eyes are so sore, now i know what a drow would feel :/ But at First i though the same as ZV, it would be in their gene, but i guess living a century on the surface, maybe the pain isint so bad after awhile? Yes! i like being difficult!



My Eyes! Tha Goggles, They do nothing!

[ZeroVega]

  Well I'd say yes and no. You may get used to he pain of the light, and even get used to the glare and blinding of it, but no you wouldn't be able to adapt (as far as I'm concearned) by a century of living above ground. It takes many generations of a creature to live in a certain environment before it will adapt. The more complex the organism, the more time it will take.
    I have blue eyes, and I may live healthy for a hundred years and have problems with them, however whether I'm fifteen, or fifty, I'm always going to squint in the bright sunlight or try to watch a clear blue sky only to have my eyes water. Genetics... and the drow got jipped.

[regnus]

I can attest to the blue eye sensativity thing.  Man I hate those bright sunny days!  I look like I am crying all the time.  The sun....my mortal enemy!

As for the drow thing, I think even if you live forever as a drow on the surface you would still have some effect from bright light.  I think it would get incredibly complicated though with the feat because even with adaptation, say around noon the sun is at its brightest and I dont care how adapted you are you are going to be blinded.  I live on the surface (well most of the time anyway) and I get blinded when the sun is beaten down.  So the penalties against the drow would be dependant upon the time of day as well.  I dont know if this is entirely possible with NWN as I have an allergy to scripting.  In all reality, I hope it doesnt happen.  It never fails that I am going through a transition and BLAM! I get blinded and something comes up and nails me.    

Regnus

[ZeroVega]

  Oh, it's possible alright. Currently they have a scripty thingie that basicly says. If you're above ground and you hit hour number X you either get blinded or with the daylight adaptation, you don't. So I assume they could pop in a couple more to increase the penalties of being blinded. Say from hour number 11 to hour number 14 the penalties are doubled from the original -2 to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws, to -4. With an aditional round of blindness. Oooo... don't you justl love drow and the plethora of options you can impliment to make life hard? I mean even if you can't controll the hatred towards drow that the PC population will put out, you can controll just about everything else!

[regnus]

But cant we all just get along?

[FlameStrike]

regnus - 5/3/2005  1:38 AM

But cant we all just get along?

 I suppose that the thing is... we all do get along, in a kinda unrealistic and easy way: the drow keep attacking the surfacers over and over again, always plotting and what not, yet people just see one and get along too easily, that's just the way it is...

[regnus]

I can agree with that somewhat but Lo'Kiar has been harrassed repeatedly since the GM meeting.  It's a good thing I think although it can be a real pain sometimes.  I have been run out of town several times.  The captain of the guard has literally done the old count to 5 before I whoop on you.  I am not disputing it.  I am just trying to show that it isnt all unrealistic.  

Regnus

[ZeroVega]

Fl/\\m3Str!k3 - 5/2/2005 8:43 PM

regnus - 5/3/2005 1:38 AM But cant we all just get along?

I suppose that the thing is... we all do get along, in a kinda unrealistic and easy way: the drow keep attacking the surfacers over and over again, always plotting and what not, yet people just see one and get along too easily, that's just the way it is...

    On the other hand, if you're talking in a more general way... no we can't all just get along. People have different ideals and philosophies, however hard they try and debate them, and however civil they try to remain. There will always be those who get angered that they cannot convert others to see things their way.
    That leads to fights, first verbal, then mental, and physical. Eventually it reaches a point where the ideals that the first generation of all sides held dear, gets passed on to the tenth, twentieth, and hundredth generations. Anger boils into hatred even though the sides may not have done anything to directly harm that specific generation. But it reaches a point where the two sides hate each other with such blind furry that they can no longer justify why they fight, or care to. Besides where would the fun be in not fighting?

[GhostWhoWalks]

All I can reccomend is reading the crappy dark elf books Salvatore wrote, not the icewind dale, but the Dark Elf series, Sojourn and all that.

It fairly well describes Drizzt's adaption over a long time to sunlight.

I'm not sure of the drow history, but in FR for example, while the drow have been underground for a few thousand years, a few thousand years is not long enough to really genetically alter a race's structure given that elves live for a thousand years or so, that's the equlivent of just a few generations. Even at 10000 years, you're only looking at 15 generations or so.

The drow of FR are dark skinned because the whole being cursed thing. They were once surface elves after all. The second gen on grew up and lived in the darkness. They have gifts from their gods that grant them superior eyesight in no light, etc.

So for the most part, it is really just adapting the eyes and body to take the sun. A lot of drow at first have to wear bands of cloth around their eyes to hide them. Their skin will burn at first, their eyes will feel like fire. But in time the body's natural tendencies will take over and it will adjust. Your skin can only burn a few times until the body starts to toughen against the sun. As a fair skinned person when I go out into the sun I burn. If I keep going out I will eventually tan. Drow are no different, they just burn worse and it takes longer for them to adjust, decades instead of weeks.


Anyway... the daylight adaption feat assumes that you have spent time, a long time usually, slowly moving your body towards full light adaption. You would have been burned, scorched, blinded and slowly over time got over it. The sun would probably still give you a light burn if you let it, which is why many drow wear a lot of clothing, and the sun will always probably give you a headache... but that's the price one pays for leaving the underdark.

[EdTheKet]

ZeroVega - 5/2/2005 11:59 PM
HooD!uM - 5/2/2005 11:28 PM
    Drow have lived in the Underdark (a near lightless habitat) for thousands of years, developing a darkvision like no other, as well as light sensitivity. To me, that means no matter where you grew up, you eyes will always be, at least to some extent, light sensitive. Am I right here, or is there something I've overlooked? (Note: I'm bored and wanted something to do, so I wrote up this.)
 

  -2311 The first documented war between races breaks out and rages for years. The Elves divide into the factions of today; Dark, Wood, High, and Aquatic
  That's more or less 2700 years ago, which is even shorter than that the drow of Faerun have been underground (as Ghost said), so not too long ago from either an evolutionary point of view. So, evolutionary, they're not too far away from regular elves. That's why after a time they'll be able to stand the sunlight again.
    As for the darkvision and a new feat that would overrule darkvision, dwarves also have darkvision, so it's not really uncommon a thing.

[Zen]

OK ok my 1/2 drow elf Zen Polar has long eyelashes and squints alot! Being raised in the northern barbarian snow country where the snow and ice reflect the sunlight at least for the 6months that there is light. so I guess I could have been called "Squints" but I didn't think of it till now hehe. The only outher thing I can think of is to where a veil or a leather mask with very small holes cut into to limit the light that gets to my/his eyes.

I hope that made sence.
Zen

[lonnarin]

My optomitrist found that my eyes have great vision in low light but horrible in bright light.  (flunked the wallchart but aced the darkroom version)  When he dropped those painful dilation drops in my eyes and shot the laser into them with that weird chinstrapped torture device of his, he couldn't get a reading as the laser kept getting "lost" in my eyes and not bouncing back to the machine.  Strange, because low light visioned animals like cats have very reflective eyes...  I dunno, think I'm a mole man with severe astigmatism.

Oh, and with red hair and greenish blue eyes, outside just doesn't work for me.  I at least suffer -2 to all my skill checks and attack rolls in real life, so I can totally feel their pain.

(with -4 to cha checks if awoken prior to noon)

[Dorganath]

OK first, I don't think this is a matter of genetics.  As someone has said, it's not an issue of evolutionary adaptation, because it hasn't really been that long, especially given the life-span of elves, since the Drow descended into the Underdark.  By the very nature of their life spans, elves do not evolve very quickly.  It would take elves approximately 10 times as long as humans to evolve, and on this world, humans have not changed significantly in the last 4000 years.

The drow did not "adapt" to the dark so much as they were adapted.  When gods and magic are involved, the genetic structure of the Drow is of far less importance, and it throws normal scientific reasoning right out the window.

Eyes that are adapted to see in near or complete darkness generally don't work well in the light because of sensory overload.  Skin that has not seen the sun for hundreds of years would be overly sensitive to its effects, and so forth.  Things like this would obviously put such underground creatures at a disadvantage on the surface.  Even moonlight or starlight can be overwhelming to someone from a pitch black environment.

The daylight adaptation feat, to me, suggests that the surface drow in question has spent some time growing accustomed to the sunlight of the surface.  This is not an evolutionary thing, but rather an instance whereby an individual becomes used to a new environment.  One example would be someone who lives at sea level and then moves to a higher altitude (1 mile or more above sea level) and attempts to do the same physical activity.  For about a week, that person is going to get winded climbing stairs, will get tired more easily, etc.  Until the person's body adapts to the higher altitude, such effects will linger.  But eventually, that person will be able to resume normal activity.

[Talan Va'lash]

acctually it takes 6 months to acctually produce the amount of additonal red blood cells necessary to adapt to a new higher elevation.

But the point is, it does adapt.  The body adaps to new circumstances, rather quickly in the sceme of things and it has nothing to do with evolutionary changes.

Lifting weights doesn't have to happen over 20 generations to make you stronger.