House Ruling Blindess (suggestions welcome)

Blindess seems to be something really trivial in 4e.
Besides the very complicated tactic of making the player point out his actions on a clear board, what else can be done to stop them from moving as normal and even charging!?

I am considering adding effects to blindness, following the spirit of the eariler rulesets.

Blindess: You are slowed, you can't charge or shift, most minor actions such as opening a door become standard actions.

what else do you guys think would be appropriate?

I consider blinding effects to only be partially blinding. Your vision is pretty messed up, but you can still make out vague shapes and such, enough to be able to move without penalty. IMO, blindness is a good condition as is.

Yeah, i guess that could do it.

If you want blindness to be severe, add Slow to whatever power inflicts it. Right now, blindness is a pretty easy disability to inflict - rogues have a daily close blast power at level 1 that does it, and sorcerers an at will.

Blindness is a can of worms. Not only is it a condition which can be inflicted on characters in combat, it is also at the same time a natural consequence of environmental factors. In the combat sense it could in theory do anything you want it to do and you can rationalize it as "you can't see very well" etc. All of which is fine.

However the problem is environmental blindness. When there is no light there really is no rationalizing much of anything. You can't see. Whatever you call that condition any realistic handling of it is going to be more severe or as severe as whatever the worst that a power can inflict. Beyond that it is pretty much going to be affecting the entire party and they won't have any way of ending it (if they did then it wouldn't be an issue). If you place really severe penalties on it then basically you have just placed a burden on the DM to make sure it never happens. A tool is taken from the DM tool box.

Consider the OP's suggested handling. A party operating under these restrictions is ineffective. For a single PC in a situation where it will end on a save or after a turn it isn't all that bad, no worse than dazed really, so I'd have no problem with that, but against the whole party? Not really a viable situation.

Its a conundrum. As it stands blindness is certainly unrealistically mild. Making it harsher just doesn't seem to me to be a better choice.

Then of course there are all the ugly meta-game implications, which the rules aren't really designed to address at all. Blank battlemats, nobody knowing where on the field their allies or enemies are, etc. It really is a whole can of worms and I've never seen any system handle it in a realistic fashion. Most just avoid mentioning it at all and hope it never comes up.

IMO, complete darkness is such an unusual occurrence in D&D that it may as well be modeled as a unique terrain type, or perhaps even better, as a skill challenge. I can't think of much beyond the blind swordsman concept that ought to be able to be effective without light.

Outdoors stars or the moon can provide plenty of light to see general shapes and terrain by. Beyond that PCs have numerous light producing resources such as everburning torches, powers, and rituals.

Even if stripped of all equipment and dropped into a cavern in the underdark completely bereft of light, wizards have the Light cantrip. Lacking a wizard, non-martial characters could repeatedly cast light producing spells (such as any of the laser cleric's prayers) to at least get a lay of the land.

All in all, I think total darkness wouldn't make for a very fun combat (either your enemies are dark adapted and therefore have a huge advantage or everyone is completely blind and no one can distinguish friend from foe). A skill challenge on the other hand... properly done, I think that could be pretty interesting.