Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 goliath89 Jan 31, 2011 16:44:32	In my current campaign, I decided to give my Drow Assassin a blind sister.  At first, she was just something I threw into my character's back story to give him some kind of motivation for doing what he does.  However, recently, our DM threw her into the story, and since then, I've decided that if my current character dies, instead of just rolling a completely new character, I'd simply have her come in as my new character, and have her motivation be that she was taking revenge for her brother's death.  The one major problem with this is the whole blindness thing.  Now, originally, my DM had said that I'd have to take Blind Fighting as a feat, but the problem is, none of our characters are anywhere NEAR the level where we'd be able to take that feat.  We've decided to do a houserule for it, but the DM isn't really sure how to handle it, so we're kind of researching houserules that other people have thought up for this very scenario. Some background info on the character, if it'll at all help:  She's a 19 year old Drow that's been blind for as long as she can remember. Her and her 21 year old brother were orphans who lived in the slums of a predominantly human Castle town. Yes, I know that these are outrageously young ages for Drow, but I have my reasons for it, and as I understand it, Drow age at a normal pace until they reach around 20-ish anyways, at which point they age very slowly.  As far as personality goes, when I first thought her up, she was based on a certain blind character of the day from a Cowboy Bebop episode, but ever since she was broght into the game, she's essentially become a much cruder version of Toph Bei Fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
#2 UsagiYojimbo Feb 01, 2011 0:21:00	The primary advantage I see here is that you would be able to detect things despite lack of light. That is, you would have a sort of darkvision.    The Cindersoul Genasi have a feat that allows them to get Darkvision, meaning that Darkvision is the sort of thing that a feat can get you. So write down Radar Sense in your feat section and be done with that.    For now this means you still can't detect invisible creatures. That's fine, being able to detect invisible creatures is a power reserved for higher levels. Either get your DM to leave invisibility out of the campaign or find some justification for why your "sight" doesn't pierce invisibility, some suggestions:     *Your character's radar sense is based on the Plane of Shadow, and though you can't see light, you can detect it's absense, that is, detect shadows. You still wouldn't be able to see invisible creatures that way, and you'd get to have a cool piece of flavor when the DM describes things to you.     *Your sight is based on a psychic link to your brother. While he was alive, you could see as he sees, now that he has passed on, you see remnants of the world, not quite here, and not quite the next world.     *You don't see at all, but becuase of your attunement to a certain energy flow you can predict certain things around you. The energy is disrupted by certain kinds of obscuring magic.     *If you really want to be just like Toph, and you make it to level 11, you could be an Earthbender with the Seismic Adept Paragon Path, which gives you Tremorsense.          If something about that doesn't strike you as fun, adequate or reasonable, your best bet is a feat progression. I don't think you should try to just make blindness balanced with sightedness, it's still going to give you certain wierd upredictable advantages. Just make it a superpower, and if you think having the Equivalent of Darkvision isn't cool enough, drop another feat on it, maybe something that gives you a Perception bonus on hearing things.     I hope that's helpful. -Usagi
#3 pluisjen Feb 01, 2011 1:09:03	Drow have Darkvision by default... but I do agree that you really don't want to go the advantages/disadvantages route, because that's really annoying and often downright impossible to do properly. Just make it roleplaying flavor instead, but allow your character to work properly in combat, or give it some kind of supernatural flavor. Truly blind characters in a combat situation end up dead, and any kind of houserule for a "realistic" blind person is going to get this character killed as well, or you'll just be far behind the curve.
#4 Damon_Tor Feb 01, 2011 2:14:09	I created a system for character "weakness" feats, including phobias, blindness, and being crippled.  They are themselves quite harsh, but they unlock several very powerful feats, the concept being something like the blind swordfighter, who fights better than a sighted man because the rest of his senses have become so advanced, and he hasn't put so much trust in his eyes.  When you initially select a Weakness Feat, you get one of the "benefits" for free. These are the Blindess Feats I've come up with: Blind Tier: Heroic You have Blindsight 1, and you are blind. (This is the blind keyword, not the blinded condition) You can choose one Blindness feat you qualify for. Improved Blindsight [Blindness] Tier: Heroic Prerequisite: Blind Double the range of the blindsight granted by Blind. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Thundersense [Blindness] Tier: Heroic Prerequisite: Blind When a creature takes thunder damage, treat them as if they are in range of your blindsight until the end of your next turn. You have a +2 feat bonus to damage with thunder powers. This bonus increase to +3 at 11th level and +4 at 21st level Guiding Companion [Blindness] Tier: Heroic Prerequisite: Beast Mastery Class Feature, Blind While adjacent to your Beast Companion you share its senses. Guiding Familiar [Blindness] Tier: Heroic Prerequisite: Arcane Familiar, Blind While your familiar is in passive mode you share its senses. Sensory Precision [Blindness] Tier: Paragon Prerequisite: Blind, 11th Level You can score a critical hit with a roll of 19-20 against creatures in range of your blindsight. Echosense [Blindness] Tier: Paragon Prerequisite: Blind, 11th Level You gain a +2 feat bonus to AC and Reflex against enemies in range of your Blindsight. This bonus improves to +3 at 21st level.
#5 slobo777a Feb 01, 2011 4:26:53	One very simple thing you could do: Play a melee-based character. Then pretty everything else can be fluff or choices you make during RP. The character's Darkvision perceiving things at a distance can easily be re-fluffed to hearing, feeling or otherwise sensing things. About the only handicap you might still have that is not mechanically modelled is not being able to read or notice colour - you can just RP that, or even if you have a power source that could justify say that it's a minor non-mechanic prayer or disclipline. A Harrying Battlemind comes to mind (one of my players is running one current campaign). The Battlemind's mark is only effective when adjacent, and a blind version could easily be psionically "feeling" their way to move or teleport next to their foes. A combination of this adjacent move class requirement and the drow's close darkness power could be highly effective.
#6 Krusk Feb 01, 2011 9:19:37	This comes up on the boards every 4 months or so. There are 3 camps. Camp A- You are blind. Roleplay being blind. Take no mechanical penalties or benefits for being so. (Ala Dardevil, Zatoichi, or those blind archer mice in samurai jack). Camp B- Add a bunch of mechanics and disadvantages, but balance them with random benefits. "You can't use ranged weapons, but you get +3 to social situations because you know words" or some crap like that. Camp C- Add a bunch of penalties, and then your character dies in round 1 of the first combat. Keep in mind, there are typically all sorts of magical healing in DND, and so being blind is probably cureable. If it isn't magically cureable its a curse. There are typically ways to remove curses too. I fall into Camp A, and thing Camp B is the worst of these ideas.
#7 goliath89 Feb 01, 2011 22:11:11	Thanks for all the advice, guys.   I think my DM will really like Dmon_Tor's system.
#8 greatfrito Feb 03, 2011 2:22:20	If I'm not mistaken, the second Essentials book has two "Blind Fighting" feats. One (Blindfighting Sentinel or something?) makes it so you don't grant CombatAdvantage to enemies invisible to you, and you don't take the normal penalty to Perception while blind, and you get some bonus to Perception checks in general. The other (Blindfighting Soldier or something?) makes it so that your melee attacks ignore the penalties for partial or total concealment. I'd give a "blind swordsman" type a shot with those feats.  Crank Perception though the roof, go for melee combat, and just be a few feats behind your sighted allies.
#9 Crimson_Concerto Feb 03, 2011 18:40:17	I'm in the camp that says that if you want to play a blind character then you should actually play a blind character and figure out how to deal with it. As a blind character, you take the following penalties all of the time (PHB 277, I believe): - You take a -10 penalty to Perception checks. - You grant combat advantage. - You can't see anything (everything has total concealment from your). - In addition, you can't be blinded because you already are, I guess. Believe it or not, there are totally ways to get around these penalties and still make a reasonably viable character. For example, I would suggest that the character be... A) A Shaman. Conjurations and summons do not take penalties to attacks for conditions affecting their creator, I don't think, so your Spirit should be able to attack for you with no penalty at all. It could be like your "seeing eye dog", only it's a spirit. You can even go with the earlier suggestion that this spirit be the spirit of the dead brother, which can not only exist in this world through his connection to his sister. B) Any other caster that can take close and area attacks exclusively. Remember that close and area attacks do not check for concealment, so you would be completely bypassing the attack roll penalties here. C) A lazy character, by which I mean a characters whose powers never actually roll to attack. Warlords are great for this. They have quite a number of powers that do not require any attack rolls at all. You'll just have to suck up the Perception penalty, but this can be offeset to a degree by training in perception, having a good WIS, and maybe even taking skill focus. Hey, it takes effort not to be so badly inconvenianced by being blinded, and that effort should definitely show mechanically. I'm not sure what to do about the combat advantage thing, but it's fairly easy to just suck it up. If you're already bypassing your other disadvantages in the above ways, then simply granting combat advantage should be a small price to pay for something that should normally be so much more detrimental to you.
#10 alitain Feb 04, 2011 18:11:52	The other thing to do is simply say she's blind, but play her statistically as if she isn't.  Alright not exactly nice and neat, and I'm more for hashing out benefits/minuses but it's easier just to leave it as a kind of...fluff thing.  So basically your character is blind but she's developed extraordinary senses, or compensated with her other senses, to see.  So she "sees" things around her.  Now this isn't completely clean but then it's just a matter of roleplaying the blindness.  So she can "see" the enemies around her, but she can't tell what color they are or anything specifics unless they're told to her.  At most I'd go with the -10, or maybe just a -5.  The only other thing is that you would probably have to limit the range of her "sight".  But if I were to play a blind character that's how I'd do it.  Nothing real advantageous to argue about.
#11 Igfig Feb 06, 2011 16:18:50	I agree with Crimson_Concerto.  If you want to be blind, then accept your disadvantages and learn to deal with them through classes and feats. In the past, I would have suggested a reduced penalty, for game balance and to represent how a permanently blind person can get around better than a recently blinded one: the blind character treats all squares as heavily obscured, and that's it.  Anybody adjacent to her has concealment, and anybody further than that has full concealment and can make Stealth checks. However, with the advent of Essentials and the Blindfighting Sentinel feat, full blindness is actually a reasonable option.  With Blindfighting Sentinel, you get all of the flavour of blindness with few of the miscellaneous penalties. So just go with the regular blinded condition.  It'll work.