Remember that even if the pc is blind, the player isn't.
If they want to play a blind character, make them really blind. Blindness is rather crippling, afterall. Not really a condition that an adventurer favours.
Not to curb this off topic, however this statement isn't quite true, the blind are only as crippled as they allow themselves to be. Remember perception is only 1/5th sight, the other 4/5ths are made up of sound, scent, touch and taste. Senses that are enhanced with the loss of vision. Some blind can still walk like you or I do. This is especially true of those who went blind after they were born and trained their other senses to help compensate for the lack of vision.
Adventurers who travel while blind, cannot perceive the world as others would, but they still have a way to perceive the world. The perception skill covers things other than Search and Spot, search itself can be used by touch as well. A blind character gains a form of blindsense, so yes they would still be able to sense that arrow, maybe a bit late maybe soon enough to dodge or deflect it. I wouldn't call it blindsense though, not with a Blind PC. I would though use it as an opportunity as a DM to say things such as "Your other senses, helping to compensate for your lack of sight, gave you assistance as you dodge the air vibrations caused by an arrow shot from the southwest of your position." As a flavor thing when describing the action, or results of an action. This tells the player that his blind character didn't get hit, but now knows that the ranged opponent is off in the southwest of his position, exactly how far you don't know yet. No penalties really need to apply, and no bonuses either. Effectively the opponent still gains combat advantage in melee, but only for so long, and only as long as said opponent is able to take a move action in order to shift 1 square.
Now if you do want to say that the Blind PC gets a penalty to sight, attacks and the like, then by all means you can. Be aware though that this would mean that you are purposely and effectively turning the PC into an NPC instead and that this may earn you some resentment from that player. Remember adventurers are those who rise above their present standing to do something beyond everyone else.
For RP purposes make skill checks related to sight have a huge negative and ones based off others have a slight positive. For example if he wants to spot a guard thats so far off any normal sound he makes would be nearly impossible to hear he can't see them however if he's listening through a door he gets a small +X bonus probably based on tiers.
Have him be blind but it doesn't change combat related things becuase other senses make up for it like normal vision would. If he has low light / dark vision you can argue that races with those abilities also have better hearing aswell so that explains the difference.
For RP purposes make skill checks related to sight have a huge negative and ones based off others have a slight positive. For example if he wants to spot a guard thats so far off any normal sound he makes would be nearly impossible to hear he can't see them however if he's listening through a door he gets a small +X bonus probably based on tiers.
This. House of Flying Daggers is a great source for that, although the main character only pretends to be blind.
Not to curb this off topic, however this statement isn't quite true, the blind are only as crippled as they allow themselves to be. Remember perception is only 1/5th sight, the other 4/5ths are made up of sound, scent, touch and taste. Senses that are enhanced with the loss of vision. Some blind can still walk like you or I do. This is especially true of those who went blind after they were born and trained their other senses to help compensate for the lack of vision.
Adventurers who travel while blind, cannot perceive the world as others would, but they still have a way to perceive the world. The perception skill covers things other than Search and Spot, search itself can be used by touch as well. A blind character gains a form of blindsense, so yes they would still be able to sense that arrow, maybe a bit late maybe soon enough to dodge or deflect it. I wouldn't call it blindsense though, not with a Blind PC. I would though use it as an opportunity as a DM to say things such as "Your other senses, helping to compensate for your lack of sight, gave you assistance as you dodge the air vibrations caused by an arrow shot from the southwest of your position." As a flavor thing when describing the action, or results of an action. This tells the player that his blind character didn't get hit, but now knows that the ranged opponent is off in the southwest of his position, exactly how far you don't know yet. No penalties really need to apply, and no bonuses either. Effectively the opponent still gains combat advantage in melee, but only for so long, and only as long as said opponent is able to take a move action in order to shift 1 square.
Now if you do want to say that the Blind PC gets a penalty to sight, attacks and the like, then by all means you can. Be aware though that this would mean that you are purposely and effectively turning the PC into an NPC instead and that this may earn you some resentment from that player. Remember adventurers are those who rise above their present standing to do something beyond everyone else.
Senses don't magically improve with the loss of sight. Humans are sight-reliant animals, and the loss of it makes us more reliant on our other senses (and that doesn't improve them anymore than a person with sight would be capable of if he trained his other senses). That said, we do in fact lose a large portion of our effectiveness in the loss of sight. While blind people can function quite well in society, try taking a blind man to the local recruiting office and see if you don't get laughed out of the building when you tell the recruiter he's joining. Hell, take him down to a local gym and put him in the boxing ring... either way, he won't have the eye-hand coordination to be able to function as well in a combat situation (and no, that's not a pun... vision is one of the most important aspects of fine motor skill).
The notion comes from wuxia films and other such fiction in which there's always some blind master who always seems to be capable of pwning faces despite his handicap. Whether it's the wise one from Kung Fu, or Marvel Comic's Daredevil, there's often fictional blind characters that almost make the handicap seem awesome. However, it is just fiction.
That said, I think the best way to handle blindness is through voluntary penalties. As someone said previously, be wary of him trying to get bonuses that are more advantageous that sight in the overall (if he even mentions blindsight, slap him).
I would perhaps do something like this.
Because of his heightened senses (due to his 'fantasy hero' status) the character functions normally with following exceptions:
-Character can't perform any tasks that clearly solely depend on sight. Like reading, using a spyglass, read hand signals, percieve insubstantial creatures, ect.
-Any effect affecting solely vision do not effect the character. Darkness, invisibility, blinding light, hypnotic gaze, ect.
Now up to here, this disability would clearly be an advantage game mechanics wise. But you could leave it here and demand some cost in stats feats or skills to balance it out. Or you could choose any of the following penalties to balance it out.
-She can't make any ranged attacks.
-Impose some movement speed penalty, like 1, 2 or 3 squares.
-Everyone has partial or total (harsh) concealment against her.
You could apply all and then offer removing or reducing them with expending feats. Thus having the character 'grow' to the 'blind master' status.
The notion comes from wuxia films and other such fiction in which there's always some blind master who always seems to be capable of pwning faces despite his handicap. Whether it's the wise one from Kung Fu, or Marvel Comic's Daredevil, there's often fictional blind characters that almost make the handicap seem awesome. However, it is just fiction.
I was beaten to this.
If the player isn't into getting 'superpowers' from this, then treat it as if he was sighted, except where gaze attacks and 'line of sight' are the issue. Aka burst effects and melee attacks work fine, but ranged attacks have total concealment. This may force the player into a defender role.
He was a 2E psionicist and had some clairevoyant-like abilities. I believe one of them was Danger Sense. I was blind, but I was the first one to realise something was going to happen. 2E psionics had some things that allowed me to see temporarily such as Hear Light. Yes, I can see with my ears. The power only lasted a short time, so I had to use it sparingly. Overall, it was a pretty interesting character and was a fun campaign.
There was a down side to it though. After the novelty finally wore off, being blind was just a pain. You were pretty much less effective in many situations. Taking penalties to attacks made you less effective in many combat situations. Having to use Hear Light just drains your psionic power points. It was a good thing that my character was psionic in that some of my powers do not require me to actually see the target. The ranged powers required me to target a mind which I can psionically look for. In hindsight, my character probably would have been just as interesting to play even if I had not been blind in the first place.
If you want to play a blind character, I would suggest you play someone who is only temporarily blind. If you plan to take something like Blind Fighting, you can justify it by having him be temporarily blinded for a time, so he had to learn this feat. Then after the novelty wears off, and it will, have him regain his sight. Now you experienced playing a blind character, have some role playing reason for picking Blind Fighting, recover from the blindness and continue as normal from there.
1) Take the 'Blinded' condition and reduce the Perception check penalty to -5 (representing your other senses doing their best to catch up). A realistically blind character should never be able to perceive their surroundings as well as a sighted one, but the -10 penalty to Perception checks is unplayable for a long-term or permanent condition since they will likely be using it every round in combat encounters.
2) Play a cleric. They've got enough area effect powers that damage your enemies and help your friends that, even if you can't pinpoint an enemy's location with your Perception check, you can still hit the general vicinity and not worry about hurting your friends.
It should also be pointed out that we rely on Sight most of all of our five senses. The exact amount varies, but it's generally believed that the average human uses Sight for about 40 - 50% of his knowledge of the world. Touch comes in close second, followed distantly by Hearing. Taste and Smell are rarely used and people can operate just fine without them except in highly specific circumstances.
But I say partially blind because then your character can still see shapes within a few squares but cannot see fine detail; outside of those squares all enemies gain either cover or concealment, I don't know which, and the player has a -10 penalty to perception checks that involve sight but his other senses are enhanced (not daredevil enhanced which I think most other people worry about when someone wants to make a blind PC) but other perception checks like listening out are enchanced +5 that way it gives you a slight advantage in some cases but also points out that your character does have a disadvantage in most cases.
Or you could go further, the character provides combat advantage to ranged attacks, but because of heightened senses when listening for enemies he gets +2 to initiative
The problem is the character can be blind easily enough, and it can even the balanced, but the player isn't. And no matter how awesome a roleplayer he is he'll metagame at least a little and thus reduce or even negate the whole point of being blind.
That is a good point.
But fortunately that has just given me a great idea that you could do.
Put on a blindfold! :D That way you can't actually see your enemies on the board or whatnot, no metagaming and you'll learn how to really play a blind person then.
It would work in a computer game, but it's not really going to work on a tabletop game.
It would also work if the entire party was blind.
I got it! Wizards needs to release a blind race that can be played. That way, everybody who wants to play the blind hero has a race just for that purpose, and can fit whatever class they so want to.
Not really the best idea, judging by the response to the official Miraluka stats for Star Wars SAGA...
Yeah, looks like everything you could do is with 3.5, not 4e... Blindsense out to 5ft maybe? Perhaps, as a race, a 1/encounter ability that let's them pinpoint a foe within x-distance? Nothing too unbalancing, but still good enough to where you can actualy play the character and not just sit there as dead weight.
I'm tossing around the idea of letting someone play a blind character in a campaign. I'm looking for pros and cons on the scenario. Obviously the character would have blindsight but I wonder how much range to allow for this. Any comments and concerns are welcome.
Oh? Would they? huh...
If one of my players asked to be a blind character I would tell them to stop making spot checks.
If they asked for benefits I might be a little confused, and explain that blindness doesn't give superpowers.
Then if they explained that they wanted to play a blind samurai style character, and explained how they wanted to roleplay it, I would let them be "Blind" as a roleplay tool, and grant no bonus or penalty for it. I would expect them as a player to not make spot based perception checks, and if they did this, I might let their character be immune to some gaze based attacks. (ones that seem to rely on eye contact over it seeing you). THe important part though, is that their character sheet would not have any + or - with the word blind written next to it to specify where a bonus comes from, nor would they grant the enemies any benefit at all. Perhapse their sense of hearing is so extreme it works as a form of eco location, or their sense of smell is amazing, or taste, what have you.
How about an ability like the blind dude from Basilisk? A bonus to listen che... Oh, wait, we're talking about 4e not 3.5e...
Page 187 of the 4e player's Handbook, Perception DC for Listen checks.
Examples include Battle, Whispers, and More than 10 Squares Away.
Spot/Search is separate, as well as Find Tacks.
Maybe a power like touchsig... Wait, that's 3.5 too.
No, touchsight never existed in 3.5, so that's a bait 'n' switch.
Yeah, looks like everything you could do is with 3.5, not 4e...
What, you can't play fighters in 4e?
Blindsense out to 5ft maybe?
Can still use in 4e.
Perhaps, as a race, a 1/encounter ability that let's them pinpoint a foe within x-distance? Nothing too unbalancing, but still good enough to where you can actually play the character and not just sit there as dead weight.
It really depends on what the purpose of playing a 'blind' character is. If it is to 'experience' how a blind person is, then you should mostly be dead weight. If it is to get 'cool powers' in exchange for a 'disadvantage', then it requires a lot more work.
I am happiest ruling a blind PC should take no penalties and no benefits, and do it purely as a flavour change. (Hrm, a decision independent of editions/systems)
No, touchsight never existed in 3.5, so that's a bait 'n' switch.
Realy? That's odd because I swear it's on page 138 of the XPH. But that just might be someone casting Major Image on me..
The second half of my post was independant from the first part. I know blindsense exists in 4e, I was offering a solution. I highly doubt anyone would want to play a blind character, you might as well put a 1 in STR and DEX and call yourself Steven Hawkings (no offense to the guy) because that's as much good as you'll do to the group.
If this is 3.5, I'd probably say, okay, you're blinded, with all the negatives that go with that, but I'll give you blindsense (not blindsight) out to 60'. I'd be willing to get rid of the Str and Dex penalties, and the AC Dex penalty in melee (but no other AC penalties). If the player's interested in RP and not creating some sort of "blind master" uber-character, then he ought to be fine with that. If not, again, I'd be very cautious about going down this road.
Realy? That's odd because I swear it's on page 138 of the XPH. But that just might be someone casting Major Image on me..
The second half of my post was independant from the first part. I know blindsense exists in 4e, I was offering a solution. I highly doubt anyone would want to play a blind character, you might as well put a 1 in STR and DEX and call yourself Steven Hawkings (no offense to the guy) because that's as much good as you'll do to the group.
Ahhh, a SPELL from an EXPANSION.
Yes, quite fair to compare expanded material v. core material between editions. You didn't say it was a spell, and based on it's location in the argument, I thought you meant it was an ability. I prefer Deathwatch (and eliminate the 'evil' keyword). It allows you to know where people are without knowing where things are.
I designed an artifact that had the ful spectrum of full disadvantage to no disadvantage RP only blindness.
So how about a Psychic Owl?
Concordance starts at 5.
Concordance.
Blind Ranger Gains a Level +1d8.
Blind Ranger involves the Psychic Owl in Role Play +1 / day
Blind Ranger involves the Psychic Owl in readying an action in combat +1 / day
Blind Ranger allows the Psychic Owl to come to harm -2 / day
Blind Ranger surprises the Psychic Owl with an sudden action -1 / day
Blind Ranger upsets the Psychic Owl for whatever reason -1 / day (More DM dependent this one)
16-20 Pleased: The Psychic Owl communicates all surroundings telepathically. No blindness penalty in presence of the Owl. Role play consideration only (RP seeing everything from 3rd person perspective).
12-15 Satisfied: You grant combat advantage to everyone.
You have -3 to perception checks.
5-11 Normal: You grant combat advantage to everyone.
All enemies have partial concealment to you.
You have -6 to perception checks.
You cannot perceive colour.
1-4 Disatisfied: You grant combat advantage to everyone.
All enemies have partial concealment to you.
You cannot flank.
You have -8 to perception checks.
You cannot perceive colour.
You cannot recognise faces.
0 Angered: You grant combat advantage to everyone.
All enemies have partial concealment to you.
You cannot flank.
You have -10 to perception checks.
For all role playing you are treated as blind with all real world disadvantages.
Ahhh, a SPELL from an EXPANSION.
Yes, quite fair to compare expanded material v. core material between editions. You didn't say it was a spell, and based on it's location in the argument, I thought you meant it was an ability. I prefer Deathwatch (and eliminate the 'evil' keyword). It allows you to know where people are without knowing where things are.
Not a spell, power. Say it with me pow-er. And it's in the srd so it's fair game. :P
A nice option really, though having an owl companion has benefits on top of the blindness: "Hey Hooty, could you go check out that room for us?" Which gives the dm a chance to eat the owl... I like this option best.
To take it a step furthur, How could be turned into a blindfold artifact for a blind Swordsman instead of a blind ranger? Perhaps an artifact that abhors senseless violence? Because you can't hurt a piece of clothe as easily as an owl.
Not a spell, power. Say it with me pow-er. And it's in the srd so it's fair game. :P
It's not a spell? It has a caster level (which is different from the level grouping of the spell itself), casting time, range, target, and duration, and it's not a spell?
Must be a goose. :P
Touchsight is a psionic power. It has a manifestor level, manifesting time, range, duration, and target. It's a power. It's as different as.... Damn, can't think of a non-racial comparison.
Arcane and Divine? Spells and Stances? Incarnum? Psionics are a sub-system of magic that work mostly the same as arcane spells do. Divine is a sub-system of magic that works mostly the same as arcane spells do. Looks like a duck, talks like a duck... Don't care if it's a goose.
Arcane and Divine? Spells and Stances? Incarnum? Psionics are a sub-system of magic that work mostly the same as arcane spells do. Divine is a sub-system of magic that works mostly the same as arcane spells do. Looks like a duck, talks like a duck... Don't care if it's a goose.
Does it float?
Arcane and Divine? Spells and Stances? Incarnum? Psionics are a sub-system of magic that work mostly the same as arcane spells do. Divine is a sub-system of magic that works mostly the same as arcane spells do. Looks like a duck, talks like a duck... Don't care if it's a goose.
Psionics and Magic used to be...rather different than they were in 3e/3.5. But they got simplified. To the max.
Does it float?
No, Float is a 1st level psionic power :P
No, Float is a 1st level psionic power :P
In which case it's not a duck, because ducks float. They're also heavier than witches.
Duh, a witch is a female wizard
Not true, Witches are made of wood, Wizards are not.
I'm tossing around the idea of letting someone play a blind character in a campaign. I'm looking for pros and cons on the scenario. Obviously the character would have blindsight but I wonder how much range to allow for this. Any comments and concerns are welcome.
Their are exactly TWO ways to do blind characters.
Example 1, You do nothing. The character gets to say he's blind, and act normally. Blinding attacks still "blind" him, darkness blinds him as normal. If you need a reason why, just say it's because he "hears light" and no light = no seeing.
Example 2, you apply blindness to the character as per the PHB.
BLINDED
✦ You grant combat advantage.
✦ You can’t see any target (your targets have total
concealment).
✦ You take a –10 penalty to Perception checks.
✦ You can’t flank an enemy.
But, you ALLOW him to have "line of sight" anyway. That means the character must over come all those handicaps, and the fact all attacks are -5.
That's it, have fun. Pick your poison wisely.
If he's a Drow then you don't need any mechanics changes to be blind thanks to Darkvision.
um.... thats not true, darkvision is not blindsense, its just a supercharged version of low light vision, but it is still something that requires sight and a blinded creature or player with darkvision is still blinded, unable to see any more than a blinded creature with normal vision. I find a lot of issues like this, people assume things are simply equivelent to 3.x stuff they're used to when in fact they are totally different once you actually read the core books.
um.... thats not true, darkvision is not blindsense, its just a supercharged version of low light vision, but it is still something that requires sight and a blinded creature or player with darkvision is still blinded, unable to see any more than a blinded creature with normal vision. I find a lot of issues like this, people assume things are simply equivelent to 3.x stuff they're used to when in fact they are totally different once you actually read the core books.
You don't need Blindsense to play a Blind character with 'super senses'. Darkvision works just fine, not being able to sense invisible creatures cloaked by magic isn't exactly unreasonable, but having light affect your special senses is somewhat nonsensical.
You don't need Blindsense to play a Blind character with 'super senses'. Darkvision works just fine, not being able to sense invisible creatures cloaked by magic isn't exactly unreasonable, but having light affect your special senses is somewhat nonsensical.
What??? The person I quoted said that a blind character with dark vision would function like they wern't blind at all (or well thats what they implied). I merely said that was wrong. Dark vision doesn't give you the ability to see anything unusual or exceptional it simply means you can see in the dark, it doesn't prevent blindness from effecting you or anything. A character with darkvision is effected by blindness normally just as a character with normal is all I am saying.
You don't need Blindsense to play a Blind character with 'super senses'. Darkvision works just fine, not being able to sense invisible creatures cloaked by magic isn't exactly unreasonable, but having light affect your special senses is somewhat nonsensical.
Looks like someone is under the effect of Chaotic Arguement.... Funny, I thought those spells were cast only in 'fighter sux' threads.
Your post is completly out of context with the rest of this thread.
Looks like someone is under the effect of Chaotic Arguement.... Funny, I thought those spells were cast only in 'fighter sux' threads.
Your post is completly out of context with the rest of this thread.
Really? How so?
I would advice against it, but if they really want to let them be blind.
You don't need Blindsense to play a Blind character with 'super senses'. Darkvision works just fine, not being able to sense invisible creatures cloaked by magic isn't exactly unreasonable, but having light affect your special senses is somewhat nonsensical.
We're talking about actual blindness here.... Not magical blindness. Not creatures using magic to make themselves invisible. Not being unable to see in the dark. Blindness, as in having no functional use of your eyes. Care to explain how having darkvision negates being blind? I'd love to hear the idea behind this...
We're talking about actual blindness here.... Not magical blindness. Not creatures using magic to make themselves invisible. Not being unable to see in the dark. Blindness, as in having no functional use of your eyes. Care to explain how having darkvision negates being blind? I'd love to hear the idea behind this...
Um, because we long since started offering potential possibilities to roleplay as a blind character while having no actual functional game changes.
Um, because we long since started offering potential possibilities to roleplay as a blind character while having no actual functional game changes.
And how does having darkvision mean that there is no actual functional game change? Thats what we all don't understand. Darkvision is nothing more than having eyes that let you see in the dark, if your blind those eyes don't work and you can't see. Darkvision doesn't let you see invisible things, it doesn't let you see while blinded, it doesn't do much but let you avoid penalties for fighting in total darkness (when you aren't blind that is), thats all.
That's the point; the guy who is 'blind' is only flavour-blind, not mechanically blind. To support the flavour idea, he suggests giving the character the mechanics of darkvision to accomplish the ability to see while blind. It's not supposed to be able to sense invisible, and his 'super senses' can still be blinded.
Um, because we long since started offering potential possibilities to roleplay as a blind character while having no actual functional game changes.
idiots
That's the point; the guy who is 'blind' is only flavour-blind, not mechanically blind. To support the flavour idea, he suggests giving the character the mechanics of darkvision to accomplish the ability to see while blind. It's not supposed to be able to sense invisible, and his 'super senses' can still be blinded.
But even a flavor blind character with dark vision would not be able to see, darkvision doesn't enable sight weather flavor blind or mechanically blind. Darkvision means that your optical sensors (your eyes) can see in the dark, if your blind (meaning your optical sensors do not function) you can't see with darkvision because darkvision requires your optical sensors to function to do anything. Darkvision is not magical in any way, nor is it supernatural, bloody normal owls have it, and if you poke the eyes out of an owl it can't see. You poke the eyes out of a drow (which have darkvision) it can't see any better than the owl. Why don't you people get this? Weather mechanical or flavor, a blind drow and a blind human both see the same (which happens to be nothing). Darkvision can not be substituted to function like blindsense, even a lesser form of it that doesn't pick up invisible things, its just fundamentaly different in every way.
Specifically... They were talking about the blindness being fluff. In other words the blindness is just a fluff note about a character.
The reference to darkvision was a reference to the characters "blindness" interacting strangelky with normal vision.
IE: If he has "normal vision" as "blind" vision it means his "blindsight" doesn't funtion in the dark. Which is non-sensical as fluff-wise he CAN'T SEE anyway. However if he has "darkvision blindsight" it loses the non-sensical light-dark interaction.
What it boils down to is that it's non-sensical for someone with Supervision because he's fluff-blinded to have that supervision blink on and off because of light.
Thus resulting in the talk of Darkvision making sense on said fluff-blind character.
Which the poster behind me seemed to be unable to grasp. Both previoaus connection and my own post made sense to ME. I suppose I'll chalk it up to me being unable to fully explain my thoughts.
But even a flavor blind character with dark vision would not be able to see, darkvision doesn't enable sight weather flavor blind or mechanically blind.
You don't understand what flavour blind is.
Go back and read the thread from the beginning again.
And while I am aware of the clicheness of blind monks, I tried to do it a little different: I actually played blind.
i sat down to the table, layed out my dice, and then put on my blindfold.
This led to a lot of fumbling around, and the ever present phrase "Okay, what did I roll?" but I got on okay.
The only reason I got on okay was because I was pursuing Book of Exalted Deeds, and was a pacifist. I was still combat incompetent, but that wasn't as big a deal.
Even with all that, I ended up semi-accidentaly drowning him in an underwater passage where he got turned around, because it was a very frustrating experience.
In 4th, I can't see palying a "truely" blind character, because it was a dificult enough thing as a pacifist, and if a character is no fun to play, then the player will find something else.
But a good "fluff-blind" solution that I would suggest is to trade their normal sight for blindsight, and then give everything further away than (Passive perception/5) squares away combat advantage.
To go along with this, I would lift some things from 3.5's darkvision, which was in black and white, and didn't use any of the light characteristics (so the characters can't see the difference between colors unless there would be a tactile difference).
There's my two cents, hope it helps.