Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tugaran 05-20-07, 01:55 PM	hi one of my players wants to play a blind character (a Fighter). are there any rules for ? i know there are feats as Blind-Fight or Blindsense, but the penalties are a little bit to much ?! MG
Valgard 05-20-07, 02:22 PM	I've thought on this after I've read R.A. Salvatore's Homeland. 'Blind' would be a flaw (such as those from Unearthed Arcana) that permits you to get a bonus feat for each flaw, but considering the great penalties such a character would have, I think it would count as two flaws, the maximum concerning this rule. As a flaw gives you bonus feat, you have to be creative in how to make it. The feats Blind Fight and 5ft Blindsight (I don't remember if this last was updated from 3rd Edition) don't give a blind character sight again, so I would make the following: BLIND [FLAW] You cannot see. You may have this blindness from birth or due to an accident. Magic does not work when trying to remove it, so you have learned to live with this penalty. Prerequisite: Race with sight (you cannot be a grimlock, for example), you cannot have blindsight. Effect: Being blind avoids you to distinguish anything 5 ft. away. You automatically fail any Spot or Search check. You cannot heal this blindness by any means except with a wish, lesser wish, or miracle spell. Not all is negative, so you have learned to live with this penalty and you automatically gain the benefits of the Blind-Fight feat and you are immune to gaze attacks. Special: Unlike other flaws, this one lets you take two feats instead of only one, but you cannot take more flaws apart from this.
Tugaran 05-21-07, 09:06 AM	sounds good, but i think the penalties are too great. perhaps my player chooses a "normal" character :-) are there any other feats that increase the chance of hitting an opponent in battle without seeing ? blind-fight says: In melee, every time the Character misses because of CONCEALMENT, he can re-roll his miss chance percentile roll one time to see if he actually hit a blind(ed) character has total concealment and has a 50% miss chance. perhaps there is another feat that helps to decrease this 50% to 25-20% ? mg
Valgard 05-21-07, 09:22 AM	sounds good, but i think the penalties are too great. perhaps my player chooses a "normal" character :-) Don't look at the flaw I created above too minuciously, I've made it in less than ten minutes. That's only an example of how to make it. After all, remember that this character has to be BLIND... it's not so easy to run, after all. are there any other feats that increase the chance of hitting an opponent in battle without seeing ? blind-fight says: In melee, every time the Character misses because of CONCEALMENT, he can re-roll his miss chance percentile roll one time to see if he actually hit a blind(ed) character has total concealment and has a 50% miss chance. perhaps there is another feat that helps to decrease this 50% to 25-20% ? mg As far as I can remember, I know no more feats apart from the 5-ft. Blindsight.
Renvale999 05-24-07, 09:58 AM	You could do the whole daredevil thing, he can see with sound(make up a feat if you want)...his hearing would improve(+4 on Listen Checks). They drawback is that he takes double, maybe even triple damage from sonic attacks...I know it's cheesy but I had a player do this...he would play the whole blind card to get people to think he's defenseless then whip into action and kick the crap out of people. As well, he would have to make a listen check (DC 15) at the beginning of each combat round to concentrate and filter the sound so it doesn't become overwhelming. If he fails, he is considered "blind" for the duration of the round.
Dielzen 05-24-07, 12:49 PM	Blind-Fight on a sighted PC is hugely powerful, as it negates all the bonuses one gets for being invisible and attacking me. Personally, I don't think a melee-based character who's blind and has Blind-Fight would be at that big of a disadvantage. You'll miss 25% of swings due to concealment chance, but some of those may have been misses anyway, so it's not as big as you'd think. Having played a blind, blind-fighting rogue, I can tell you that the disadvantage is more than made up for w/surprise rounds/etc from roleplaying as an incompetant blind person til the fight starts.
Phoenix0124 05-24-07, 10:51 PM	Blind-Fight on a sighted PC is hugely powerful, as it negates all the bonuses one gets for being invisible and attacking me. Personally, I don't think a melee-based character who's blind and has Blind-Fight would be at that big of a disadvantage. You'll miss 25% of swings due to concealment chance, but some of those may have been misses anyway, so it's not as big as you'd think. Having played a blind, blind-fighting rogue, I can tell you that the disadvantage is more than made up for w/surprise rounds/etc from roleplaying as an incompetant blind person til the fight starts. I agree with Dielzen. It's not as big as a disadvantage as you think if you have the feats. I've play fighters before and once you get up too 13 level or so. All the standard enemies you come across in the modules. There Ac is up high enough were your probably only going to hit with your first or second attack being a fighter. You would be relying on your spellcasters more. The fighter (Paladin, Ranger, etc. ) is just a Hp cushion. I've lost over hundred points of damage in a round before. So I know it's true. High Lvls you be wanting to use your Cleric and Wizard more. For one thing, Cleric is your hp and protection spells. Your Wizard is your heavy attack spells and escape route when comes down to it. Hear the Unseen is in the Complete Adventurer. Probably be a useful feat for a blind person to have. Since it gives them a chance to sense people within 30 ft with a Listen check.
LordNobbs 06-05-07, 10:28 PM	I Used to play a Blind Earth Genasi Monk, he had some great drawbacks, like not seeing the huge orc horde coming to from the Mts, but then again, I had tremorsence 30ft, and Blind-Sight 30ft, and +4 bonus on listen checks. The tremorsence was a gift from My DM, so we decided that I could have tremosence equal to half my speed :D being a monk, wile the Blind-Sight, was thanks to some Feats from the Races of Stone. Go Grumsh King of al Orcs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another Gnome 06-06-07, 03:25 AM	A flaw that requires the enemy to take special measures for it to hinder you, is not a flaw.
Swiftblade 06-06-07, 10:44 AM	As a DM myself, if this player was in my group I would try to work with the player to make the character work. Just because it may seem like something not playable for you, you might be surprised, and down the road after this character has either retired or died at the end of the campaign and you are on to other characters, you might be recalling the acts of the blind fighter still, remembering funny or heroic deads preformed by him. Blindness does not have to be a a huge flaw if played right, just because you are missing a sense, make it like real-life if needed, many blind people can do much of what we can, just not drive, so he can't ride a horse. Other than that he has to compensate for all other things.
Muddman 06-06-07, 11:11 PM	I played a human monk/fighter that was blind. Here is what I did: First off, I didn't play him starting at first level, he was 8th when we started I believe (Monk4/Ftr4). I took a variety of feats to help out with this: Quick Reconoiter (Complete Adventurer I think): Allows for a character to make one listen or spot check as a free action every round (essential since listening is technically a move action). Hear the Air (Complete Adventurer or Complete Warrior): Allows a Listen check DC 20 to know the location of all things within 30 feet. Blind Fight (duh) Blind Sense 5' (Blood and Fist, 3rd ed) Now a couple of feats came out in the PHB II called combat focus feats and one of them (if you have enough combat focus feats) gives blind sight 5'. Mainly these feats saves the player the required Wis 19 for the blindsight 5' feat. Its tough but not aweful and pretty cool from a roleplaying standard. I would NOT recommend it too early in a career since you don't have the needed feats to make it work. I disagree with the thought that the 25% miss ratio isn't bad since you miss sometimes anyways, but what some are failing to realize is that they will be missing 25% of the time they hit the monster's AC since you don't roll a miss chance for shots that fail to roll high enough. So on average you're fighter is missing 1 out of every 4 HITS not SHOTS - doing 25% less damage. Thats like a mage wearing armor that gives him a 25% spell failure rate, I'm pretty sure that would get him kicked out of most groups since once every four rounds his spell fails to go off. With the the correct feat selection and a high listen skill, it can be done and be cool, but don't be surprised if it starts to get frustrating at higher levels when damn near everything flies and he can't do anything because he's... welll... BLIND! Happy hunting
Dielzen 06-07-07, 09:59 AM	Maybe I missed a rule somewhere, but I don't see anything that says I have to roll my d20 before my % roll or vice versa. It makes more sense to roll the % Die first on a fighter-type, as their d20 will miss less often. Doing it in this order speeds up the die rolling.
Encard 06-08-07, 07:29 PM	Does he want a blind character, or a blind-but-functions-like-everybody-else character? Those are rather different. If he wants the former, that's easy enough - his character can't see, and has to rely on Spot/Listen/magic/etc to get around. If he wants the latter, well... that makes things harder. It makes more sense to roll the % Die first on a fighter-type, as their d20 will miss less often. Doing it in this order speeds up the die rolling. Alternately, roll both at once.
The WarOverlord 06-17-07, 08:25 AM	hi one of my players wants to play a blind character (a Fighter). are there any rules for ? i know there are feats as Blind-Fight or Blindsense, but the penalties are a little bit to much ?! MG Well, the penaties apply to a seeing character panicking that lost it's sight because of last rounds actions (Blast of Glaring light, Acid burns) and wouldn't apply to a already Blind Character that that would have a hghtene sense of hearing, smell, touch, and maybe even empathy. remember that feeling rumbling under feet or vibrations in air, or even the swirling of the air as people and things move around or the sharpness of sounds and thinds get farther away v.s. the dullness of sound in areas blocks by things closer to you all is part of the heighten senses....something a Blind PC would have as an advantage in addition to Blind Sense and Blind fighting that offsets "panic penalties" of a just blinded character. As far as magic Items a Helm fitted with gems of seeing or a neclace that has a varient of Wizard's eyes can give a unique visual perspective to the blind character. If in a Psionic Campaign using "Audio Sight" could help as well.
Passivearmada 06-17-07, 10:43 PM	Does he want a blind character, or a blind-but-functions-like-everybody-else character? Those are rather different. well spoken :cheer::bow: i do admit that it would be cool to see a blind guy beat up some. . . vision. . .ful guys, but he has to face the facts- what are the odds that this guy would survive adventuring? i think a maxed NPC could afford being blind, but that's gotta be one badass and a main character in the campaign. i oncer read a series called The Lost Years Of Merlin, in which it showed how Merlin went blind, but was still able to sense everything about him, envisioning it better, and noticing things the normal eye would not. In the D&D universe, i think its almost impossible to have advantages to being blind (besides not feeling bad about having to kill the sexy succubus, cause you dont know how nice she looks lol :rofl::nonono:). talk this through with him and try to find out if this is about coolness or the simple yearning for a harder challenge. you may want to up the ECLs as a friendly warning that this guy wont last. i hope i could help :)
broodwarrior 06-21-07, 02:52 PM	As a player and GM in many games, it stinks when a GM tells you no or discourages a character because he's the one incapable of handling it. I think a blind player would be an enjoyable challenge for player and GM alike. There are pleanty of magic items to help him offset his disability, but they cost money, so he'll be suffering a bit for those feats.
Muddman 07-02-07, 12:52 AM	Maybe I missed a rule somewhere, but I don't see anything that says I have to roll my d20 before my % roll or vice versa. It makes more sense to roll the % Die first on a fighter-type, as their d20 will miss less often. Doing it in this order speeds up the die rolling. I may be wrong here, but I think you've got that backwards. I just checked the rule and miss chance due to concealment (which is what Blind fighting helps with) is made after your attack roll, not before. Even if that weren't true, my way still cuts down on rolling. Allow me to explain: Lets say my blind character has a +20 attack bonus and I have 4 attacks (+20/+15/+10/+5). I'm attacking a monster with an AC of 25. Taking the average, I roll over a 25 AC 2 times and miss twice. I then roll my miss chance up to 4 times (twice for each attack). This way I roll at most a total of 8 times in my round (4 for my attacks and at most 4 for my % miss chance) If I roll my miss chance before my attack, then I could possibly roll 8 times for my miss chance then 4 times for my attack rolls for a possible total of 12. Keep in mind that this is before you realize if your attack roll even hits. So rolling for concealment on attacks that will statistically miss makes for more dice, not less. I could have something wrong there but I think its right (I emphasize THINK, I suck at math) Rolling your miss chance and your attack roll in the same roll is possible, but thats alot of dice on each roll and at 2 am I'm usually too tired to keep things real straight with a sighted character :)
Zireael 07-06-07, 01:05 PM	Blindsight in Complete Adv. is also a good choice. Or scent domain, or Blind-Fight.
MerrikCale 07-08-07, 08:07 AM	hi one of my players wants to play a blind character (a Fighter). MG is he/she a fan of House of Flying Daggers?
Passivearmada 07-08-07, 07:00 PM	im a big fan of foreign films, or any kung fu, gun fu, or heroic bloodshed. i just saw Hero with Jet Li- it rocked! ive yet to see House of Flying Daggers. I love daggers, cause you can slash and throw!
MerrikCale 07-08-07, 11:16 PM	im a big fan of foreign films, or any kung fu, gun fu, or heroic bloodshed. i just saw Hero with Jet Li- it rocked! ive yet to see House of Flying Daggers. I love daggers, cause you can slash and throw! one of the characters is blind. and its quite good, the movie
Passivearmada 07-09-07, 01:40 PM	i really wanna create a monk guy, cause i want to be able to do all the awesome stuff with em, but im like our full-time DM cause im the most imaginative in our group. Another guy is trying a campaign in ehich im an elf rogue/assassin NE, and....it kinda THUMBS:thumbsdow DOWN! mainly cause its too restrictive. i think that the monk is arguably the best class in the game because of the awesome saves and special abilities. the AC is the prob. (though you do get nat. armor bonus as you progress through the levels), but if you have a good DM, magical items will be introduced, and if you're lucky, some magical armor bracers orrings, or necklaces. go monks. yeah, a blind monk would be cooler..... as to the original problem proposed with this thread (i hate when ppl get off task in my threads). i think that you should propose an opportunity to have him gain like 'The Power Within' from some monastery that would require him to find the connection between Mind, Body, and Soul by performing like 3 different tasks for each one. the 'Power Within (or whatever you wanna call it)' should be like no penalties to attack w/ blind ppl, and blindsense or hear the air, but easier DCs and farther distance. or anything similar- just give him a chance to take advantage of being blind so that he doesnt feel like he made a bad choice. but, hey- it's your campaign.