Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kuhTHOOloo 09-02-05, 11:16 PM	I was planning on playing a TN drow wizard, and thought it would be cool to play a blind seer who through a background I'm still designing had to flee his brethren. Only I got to thinking..how would a blind wizard read his spellbook? Would I simply do it in braille? If so, how would he add in new spells? Any ideas?
REvil74 09-03-05, 12:39 AM	A blind Wizard? How would you accurately target spells? Anyway, braille is a good idea. I'm sure there would be a magical way to create spell entries, but I'm sure that it would cost at least double the normal cost of entering spells into the book.
kuhTHOOloo 09-03-05, 12:42 AM	Well, he's a diviner with evocation as his ignored school, so targeting isn't that much of a problem. I'm thinking of getting a quill enchanted to take dictations to write spells..Any other ideas?
insomnambulist 09-03-05, 12:50 AM	This might be a tough one to play, unless your party's rogue doesn't mind relying on his reflexes to run over to the enemy, and shout "Fireball over here!" Since you're planning on playing a drow, you could say that he's not truly blind but more sensitive to light than other drow. Whenever there is even a hint of visible light, his eyes must be bound to keep him from searing his eyes and actually causing blindness. At night, in a sealed tent (or other makeshift darkroom) where there is no light at all, he could read his spellbook or anything else that requires sight.
BadCatMan 09-03-05, 01:40 AM	Would you still have darkvision? Maybe you could use a permanent faerie fire or dancing lights to write flaming letters in your spellbook. With the old-style infravision, you could see the heat of the letters.
Mandarbgrim 09-04-05, 12:15 PM	Good charater concept, I've thought of it before..not the drow part...but my thoughts would be... He can still "See" magic, he can see the world through the eyes of his familiar. Change the spellbook to a different medium... gems with the essense of a spell trapped within...or perhaps carvings on wands of Octallanious the wood of the oracle trees of Deep Valenous... Curiform tablets? hmmm..probably would get a bit heavy. Knots in cords, burns or carvings on his body, Blocks of wood with carvings in them..going along with spells as essenses or energies.... decorated vials with the spell essense trapped within the liguid inside, Oracle stones or runestones, ruins or symbols on bone...if he is a diviner you may want to make him a more divine character. Or perhaps your dm may simply go for allowing you to play him without a spellbook like a sorceror. Have your DM work with you..there is no reason not to have a character concept work out purely because of game mechanics, and lack of realism...<Slight sarcasm, but I am serious.> Being blind is a major flaw that should recieve some compensation for.
Shaken, not Stunned 09-04-05, 12:33 PM	I count it as a flaw in my games. Most people take blind-fight as their freebie feat.
BeyondFated 09-04-05, 02:26 PM	Would you still have darkvision? Maybe you could use a permanent faerie fire or dancing lights to write flaming letters in your spellbook. With the old-style infravision, you could see the heat of the letters. Actually, Faerie Fire doesn't give off heat, so that would make your suggestion moot. Good thinking though! Anyway, kuhTHOOloo, ask your DM if your wizard could research a spell that would give him magical 'sight'. Perhaps even giving him 360 degree vision!
^Graff_EpsilonIX 09-04-05, 02:57 PM	you could always go for the mirakula look from the POtJ soucebook.
Jherid 09-04-05, 03:19 PM	I guess you could always get Permanent Improved Blindsight down the road but that wouldn't be till around level 13.
Mock26 09-04-05, 07:13 PM	Way back in the day of 1st/2nd edition D&D there was actually an article in Dragon Magazine, one of the "Pages from the Mages" articles, and it detailed a very successful mage who was blind. I don't remember the issue #, but it was a good article. If anyone has the Dragon Magazine CD Archive they should search for it. Take care and have a great day.... ciao, john.
kuhTHOOloo 09-04-05, 11:14 PM	Thanks for all the ideas! I'm also thinking of making him a cleric without a patron deity, using the Oracle and Knowledge domains. He'd focus on the divination spells over everything else. What do you guys think would fit him better?
ticattack 09-05-05, 01:33 AM	I think focusing on Divination suits it perfectly. Also, I like what someone else said about seeing through your familiar's eyes. A few possibilities: You see through the eyes of your familiar. It can sit on your shoulder, allowing you to read your spellbook. However, due to the slight differences, anything that needs accurate vision more than 20 ft. away (Aiming a spell, bow, etc, but not a Spot check) gets -1 for every 20 ft. So, you could aim that arrow, but if the orc's 60 ft. away, you'll get -2 to hit. Also, you could allow your hawk familiar to fly up, scouting for you, but you couldn't communicate with it. So, if you tell it to fly around for five minutes, and then you get attacked by a bunch of gnolls, then you fight blind. A spell that allows you to see through the eyes of the nearest living creature to you. Whether that's your familiar, the party rogue, or the goblins in the bushes. You could see with the same vision as them (Darkvision, Low-light, True Seeing, etc., but it would be very difficult to use to navigate or combat. On the plus side, if the scout gets killed, the recon info's not completely lost. Actually, this is pretty nice, too. I'd imagine it'd be a divination spell, and if the creature wasn't willing, it'd get a Will save to resist. Voyeuristic wizards unite!
Phist 09-05-05, 02:12 AM	You have to consider the fact that when one loses an sense, the others grow stronger to compensate. This amounts to a VERY significant improvment if the sight is the lost sense. An adventurer(who is automatically a very strong person mentally almost by definition. They don't give up easily) could train their other senses even more until they almost equal the lost sight. I once had a little chart for abilities a blind character got as they progressed, somewhat like VoP but much simpler, but I've since lost it(I DMed for a blind character once, quite a while ago). It was relative to either their level or the amount of time since they were blinded. Basicly, after a certain amount of time blind, the character got an ability but only if they met the level requirment for it, which was higher for each ability as the you progressed. This is so that high level characters who are blinded and people who are born blind don't automatically get them all. I don't remember the exact amounts of time required for each, but the list went something like this: Blind-Fight Imp. Blind-Fight Blindsense(Which isn't as good as people make it out to be) Tremorsense Blindsight Consider it as food for thought. However, even with the big final of Blindsight, you still wouldn't be able to read a spellbook, so I'm going to agree with Mandarbgrim and say find an alternate medium for spells. Suggestions: Scars and cuts like a Bloodmage(If you're going for that kind of creepy) Complex Braids and ties in his hair. Series of knotted bracelets. Pins in his clothes.(Would be read by feeling along line after line, like a laser reads the binary on a CD)
He Who Lurks 09-05-05, 02:47 AM	I've heard (though I have no experience on the matter), that senses do not actually become stronger to compensate for a lost sense, just that people pay more attention to their remaining senses, thus giving the illusion that they have become stronger. On to the topic at hand, however. First, the wizard would either have a non-visual spellbook or a perfect means of reading a visual one. By "perfect", I mean that they would be completely self-reliant reading their spellbook. No wizard worth their salt would base their entire spellcasting repetoire on something as fragile as a familiar, no matter how much they trust or protect it. Instead, a blind wizard will use Spell Mastery to commit to memory a spell that will allow them to read their spellbook, if it is visual (this would be a custom spell, perhaps a cantrip limited to spellbooks and scrolls only). However, I think it would be more likely that the wizard would just write their spellbook in braille or something like it, or have a gemstone or whatever. Second, this wizard would be practically useless in direct combat. A blind wizard in combat is like a blind archer. Would you want to go into battle with a blind archer on your side? I mean, a blind archer is arguably worse than no archer at all. At least having no archer means you won't be shot full of holes when he's trying to hit your enemy. Sure, a wizard has magic that can make him as useful as a sighted character in combat, but that's unreliable or just plain out of reach until relatively high levels. Luckily, a wizard has other talents besides just flashy combat spells, especially a diviner. As a diviner, obviously divinations are your friends. Try to learn as much in advance as possible. Are you going to face peril the next day? What is the nature of that peril? Which path leads to the goal? Which is more profitable? Does that innkeeper's daughter have any communicable diseases you should know about? Hopefully your DM will play to your strengths every now and then (your foretellings allow you an easy victory when the fight should have been a crushing defeat or TPK), and hopefully your fellow adventurers appreciate and come to rely upon your insights into the future (not too heavily, unless you want that, of course). I know that wizards aren't exactly the kings of buffing-magic, but consider concentrating on this as well. As I've stated before, there isn't going to be a whole lot else you can do in combat. Knowing which buffs to memorize and cast can mean the difference between victory and defeat, and you might even want to develop some custom combat buffs to increase your effectiveness. Eventually, once you have the magical might to do so, you could start researching spells to replace your lost sense. Blindsight or even magically-provided sight can make you more like a typical wizard in combat. Your wizard may strive for this, if their sight was taken from them, or even if they long to be like everyone else. Or, they might realize that they've grown so accustomed to blindness that they don't even want or need sight anymore. Well, that's all I have for now. I wish you luck!