Goggles of Night Gear Guide 5e: Who Needs More Darkvision?

Last Updated on January 22, 2023

Welcome to the Night Goggles Gear guide for 5th edition.

This guide will break down and explain everything about the Goggles of Night that you need to know, including cost, what they do, what classes or races pair well with them, and if they’re worth getting or not.

Without further ado, let’s get into it. 

What Do the Goggles of Night Do?

While wearing the goggles, if you don’t have darkvision, you gain darkvision up to 60 feet. If you already have darkvision, no matter what range, you gain an additional 60 feet of darkvision.

So essentially, for those who already gain darkvision from their race or class (Ex. Warlock or Shadow Sorcerer), upon wearing these or acquiring these goggles, you gain extra darkvision range.

Essentially you can see in the dark just as well as you could probably see in normal light, which is awesome.

These goggles count as an uncommon item, which means that they aren’t super rare and are fairly affordable for most mid-leveled characters. 

The Good Stuff

Here are the stats for the Goggles of Night as per 5e rules. 

These goggles pair well with a lot of races and classes in DnD 5e. In addition to that, they only cost about 2000 gold in 5e as per the magic-item table since they’re an uncommon magical item.

This makes them fairly easily obtainable by mid-level characters as I’ve stated above.

These are one of those magic items that are good on nearly any character who manages to purchase or obtain them.

Even for races that don’t have darkvision, these grant you a base darkvision of 60 feet, which is enough for you to make some ranged attacks in the dark without disadvantage.

This also enables you to see up to a decent range, which is the most beneficial part.

For the many races that have darkvision, this is just a massive boost to your already existing ability to see in the dark.

Just remember that these goggles don’t allow you to see through magical darkness, only natural darkness. They also DON’T double your existing darkvision, as many people seem to think they do. 

Most races have around 60 feet of darkvision.

Now with these, you’ll have that boosted up to 120 feet, which is almost the size of your average battle map, meaning you’ll be able to cast range spells and make ranged attacks normally for the most part, but we’ll get into that a bit later. 

What Characters Should Get Goggles of Night?

There are many characters and races that can use this item effectively. Like I said above, it’s a very popular and well-known magic item for the simple fact that this item has absolutely no drawbacks.

I suppose its cost could be one if you don’t happen to have 2,000 gold or whatever its price is in your world/campaign, but other than that, I can’t think of a single negative about this item.

Its ability to amplify a character who already has darkvision is the big draw for most players. 

A Human Warlock who happens to have the devil’s sight invocation and this item can have darkvision up to 180 feet, meaning that they can essentially see the entire battle map, which allows them to throw nearly any ranged spell without disadvantage.

Drows have superior darkvision (120 ft.), meaning that if they happened to get their hands on this item, they could have a base darkvision of up to 180 feet.

Same thing applies to deep gnomes and shadow sorcerers – the amount of darkvision these races and classes can obtain is insane.

Gloom stalker rangers can also achieve a very high base darkvision if they acquire these Goggles.

As a DM myself, it’s really entertaining when you have an encounter at night and all of the players scream and brag about how much darkvision they have. 

I myself have managed to acquire these goggles in a recent campaign setting that took place on the moon of a nearby planet similar to earth. The enhanced darkvision was really effective as most of our encounters took place at night. 

There is one thing I have implemented in my campaigns when these goggles have been acquired by players.

I have made it known that certain artificers or magic-item specialists can upgrade these goggles so that they can see through magical darkness in addition to their already strong benefits.

Of course, this will cost plenty of gold to do so, but it’s an option my players have enjoyed, just to give these items a bit of a boost.

You could also make them immune to the blind effect too if you wished, or have that as a possible upgrade if you wanted to implement such a thing. 

Are Goggles of Night Worth It?

In my opinion, these goggles are well worth the 2,000 gold (which can vary) that they are listed for. I would recommend any character should get these goggles if given the chance.

It can’t possibly hurt for your character to acquire darkvision or enhance your already existing darkvision.

I’d suggest that if you’re a Drow, or Deep Gnome, or any race or class that has superior darkvision already (120 ft.), you may find 180 feet of darkvision quite excessive, but this is just merely my opinion.

I would say that any character who doesn’t have darkvision should definitely acquire this item.

Odds are that you will have an encounter at night at some point, and without any darkvision, you’ll likely be missing a lot of attacks and struggle throughout the encounter; then again, this is just my recommendation.

You should consider your campaign setting and DM first before pursuing these goggles. If your campaign takes place on a planet that’s constantly in daylight, then you definitely shouldn’t get them of course.

At the end of the day it’s up to you to decide.

I’d advise you to visit the goggles of night item page here and our darkvision page just to clarify and answer any questions that you feel didn’t get answered here.

Be sure to always do your research before seeking out any magic items in 5e. Happy Adventuring!