DMBrendon
First Post
This may seem like a stupid question, but the rest of my group believes that you can see when you have the Blinded condition.
Last night our rogue was blinded, but according to his interpretation of the rules, and in agreement with the rest of the table, he had no visual impairment and could navigate the battlefield flawlessly and sneak attack. All because of in the rules for the blinded condition it says “A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight”, according to him, because if the lack of an oxford comma before the “and”, it is not a list and so the “automatically fails any ability check..” is the sum total of his impairment, as well as the next bullet point about his attacks having disadvantage. Pretty much everyone else agreed that he could see things.
I naively though that being blinded meant you couldn't see anything and would have trouble with simple stuff like walking around. I was kinda able to get the DM to go so far as making the character have blurred vision or double vision, but that's as far as he would go, the rest of the table looked at me like I was a trumped up rules lawyer who was arguing for something in the rules that wasn't actually there. I even got push back from a player who though it was ridiculous to not be able to see where you're walking because there are no rules in the book for that specific circumstance.
On a higher level, isn't it a bit of a strange way to play that game that kinda defeats the whole purpose of D&D? ie. only having things happen in the game if they are explicitly mentioned in the rules, and not paying too much attention to what is going on in the game world?
I'd like to get a reality check from the rest of you to see whether I'm an outlier or not. I know there are different play styles, but I was gobsmacked.
Last night our rogue was blinded, but according to his interpretation of the rules, and in agreement with the rest of the table, he had no visual impairment and could navigate the battlefield flawlessly and sneak attack. All because of in the rules for the blinded condition it says “A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight”, according to him, because if the lack of an oxford comma before the “and”, it is not a list and so the “automatically fails any ability check..” is the sum total of his impairment, as well as the next bullet point about his attacks having disadvantage. Pretty much everyone else agreed that he could see things.
I naively though that being blinded meant you couldn't see anything and would have trouble with simple stuff like walking around. I was kinda able to get the DM to go so far as making the character have blurred vision or double vision, but that's as far as he would go, the rest of the table looked at me like I was a trumped up rules lawyer who was arguing for something in the rules that wasn't actually there. I even got push back from a player who though it was ridiculous to not be able to see where you're walking because there are no rules in the book for that specific circumstance.
On a higher level, isn't it a bit of a strange way to play that game that kinda defeats the whole purpose of D&D? ie. only having things happen in the game if they are explicitly mentioned in the rules, and not paying too much attention to what is going on in the game world?
I'd like to get a reality check from the rest of you to see whether I'm an outlier or not. I know there are different play styles, but I was gobsmacked.