D&D 5E Moving while blind

[Li Shenron]

At present I am thinking of ruling that - "Each 1’ moved while blind costs an additional foot of movement unless you have a guide you can reach and hear." Does that seem good?

I like this house rule because it's simple but effective, like difficult terrain (but you can also make it kind of "stack" with it, if you want).

If you hit a wall at full speed, take 1d6 "falling" damage and fall prone.

I also like this addition, although I don't think it would come up very often... it's not very reasonable for someone who cannot see to decide to move carelessly, as hitting or tripping over something is pretty much always going to happen except in extremely favorable locations.

However, I personally like 5e because it's simple, so I'd rather not add additional rules on top of it just for the sake of realism. Hard enough for me to worry about light and cover already.

I love simplicity but I hate stupidity. That's why I (like you) would rather not add complicated rules to attempt a level of "simulation", but at the same time I also would not handwave the situation. I would probably instead ad-hoc the situation with a flat chance of tripping/hitting, or even just say that if you move at normal speed you 100% bump into something.

Blind does not mean you see nothing, bit only very little. Enough to have a general feeling of your surrounding. Starlight for examle is treated as total darkness RAW.

Well, there is dark and there is dark... Without going underground, it's very unlikely to experience true darkness. I have been visiting caves and mines, and once (during a training session) we were asked to turn off the lights to experience what dark really means, and believe me when I tell you that's not the same as just turning off the lights * When we talk about "getting your eyes used to the dark", we mostly have in mind from experience being in a room and turning the lights off or being ourdoor at night, but there is always some ambient light in those cases, and our eyes after a while are able to see something at least. That does not happen at all underground, in which case "getting used" can mean something else e.g. learning to navigate by touch (including prodding with hands and feet, or feeling possible gusts of air) or even by sound (using echoes to estimate distance from walls). These are possible, but not something that activates in minutes, and it doesn't make you as proficient in moving around as sight does... That's why I would definitely use the speed penalty house rule as a minimum, but normally I would expect the characters to proceed even a lot slower than that, trying to check every step they take, and I would describe the situation accordingly.

* It was very disorienting and unsettling. The trainer was an old retired miner, and explained to us that in the past, for a miner to run out of light sources meant almost certain death. Even those who spent a lifetime in the mines couldn't find the way out without a source of light. There was not amount of experience, even in the same mine, that would guarantee to save yourself.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Well, there is dark and there is dark... Without going underground, it's very unlikely to experience true darkness. I have been visiting caves and mines, and once (during a training session) we were asked to turn off the lights to experience what dark really means, and believe me when I tell you that's not the same as just turning off the lights When we talk about "getting your eyes used to the dark", we mostly have in mind from experience being in a room and turning the lights off or being ourdoor at night, but there is always some ambient light in those cases, and our eyes after a while are able to see something at least. That does not happen at all underground, in which case "getting used" can mean something else e.g. learning to navigate by touch (including prodding with hands and feet, or feeling possible gusts of air) or even by sound (using echoes to estimate distance from walls). These are possible, but not something that activates in minutes, and it doesn't make you as proficient in moving around as sight does... That's why I would definitely use the speed penalty house rule as a minimum, but normally I would expect the characters to proceed even a lot slower than that, trying to check every step they take, and I would describe the situation accordingly.

And that is exactly what I mean. You should handle it on a case by case basis.
Magical darkness and underground darkness and maybe even sudden turning out the light will at least cause the risk of falling or hurting yourself if not careful.
If you have time to adapt and are familiar with the surrounding you may be more or less ok. Especially if you have some distant light to guide you.

Sent from my GT-I9506 using EN World mobile app

 

[clearstream]

And that is exactly what I mean. You should handle it on a case by case basis.
Magical darkness and underground darkness and maybe even sudden turning out the light will at least cause the risk of falling or hurting yourself if not careful.
If you have time to adapt and are familiar with the surrounding you may be more or less ok. Especially if you have some distant light to guide you.

I feel like one advantage of rules is that they relieve burden on the DM and improve consistency in play by providing robust, playtested solutions to common situations. Through the game designer's expertise and playtesting, they ensure that their rules interact well with other rules and deal with cases that a DM might not anticipate. Case-by-case adjudication can be good where something happens only rarely or is tremendously variable in nature, so it is not worth the burden of learning more rules to deal with it.

In OOTA, fighting under magical darkness is common because of the drow central enemy, and because dark areas are common in the Underdark. The situations do vary, but not tremendously because the cases are essentially tunnels or open, clear or difficult. Therefore I believe this is a perfect case where creating a simple, consistent rule is called for.

I currently like two options. The first is as my OP - movement costs 1' more per 1' moved. The second is as suggested by others that there is a chance to stumble. These two options don't interact well because if you stumble and are prone, you can crawl and when you crawl your movement costs 1' more per 1' moved. The problem being the question of whether blind crawling feels right slower than normal crawling, seeing as you are on all fours and can feel the ground. Also, what if you Dash and invoke a situation where you should stumble again?! You can't be more prone than prone.

Summarising options

1) While you aren't prone, every foot of movement costs 1 extra foot of speed. Contact with a guide allows you to move normally.

or

2) If you would move more than 15’, make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) DC 12 check to avoid becoming prone in a square along your path. Contact with a guide prevents you falling prone this way.

or

3) While you aren’t prone, every foot of movement costs 1 extra foot of speed and if you would move more than 15’ make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) DC 12 check to avoid becoming prone in a square along your path. Contact with a guide allows you to move normally and prevents you becoming prone this way.

Players could respond to this by crawling, which feels reasonable. Right? They feel their way along the ground.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I feel like one advantage of rules is that they relieve burden on the DM and improve consistency in play by providing robust, playtested solutions to common situations. Through the game designer's expertise and playtesting, they ensure that their rules interact well with other rules and deal with cases that a DM might not anticipate. Case-by-case adjudication can be good where something happens only rarely or is tremendously variable in nature, so it is not worth the burden of learning more rules to deal with it.

You have good rules that make sense.
Relieving players of any penalties may be the exception in your adventure.

Sent from my GT-I9506 using EN World mobile app

 

[Mortilupo]

I'm with crowd that keeps it simple for something like this. I would leave it to the player to ensure they can role-play if their character is aware of the terrain. If you feel the player is role-playing In a way that is breaking your dis-belief, then ask the player about why they feel their character is aware of the terrain. The players answer may help you to better understand their point of view. Once you understand that point of view you can then logically use the same point of view for NPCs.

One additional thing to consider is creature passive stealth. The PH indicates a character needs to take an action to hide; however there is one creature that is troublesome to deal with in this way, the poltergeist. The poltergeist is invisible and has a flying speed. My best guess of perceiving this creature when the PCs enter the room is to compare the passive perception of the PCs to the passive stealth of the poltergeist. In the same way, when you have a blind character you may want to compare the passive perception of the blind to the passive stealth of the surrounding creatures. If the blind cannot perceive the breathing, swish of clothing, clearing of throat, step of shoes, or other things creatures do when moving then the blind would not be aware of the creatures.

For the initial round, it normal terrain because there's no obticals there. As they move, I'd roll a d6 and based on the roll, they may get off-target. Next round's movement will get worst.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using EN World mobile app