Blind Character by Design

[ArwensDaughter]

My daughter wants to build a blind earth genasi fighter. We're trying to sort out the mechanics. (I'm the DM) We are leaning toward giving her blindsight to about 60' and limited blindsight a bit further out, but her blindsight would only work when she is standing on earth or stone. We are also thinking of giving her some sort of "seeing eye" animal. (Right now a prairie dog is the favored idea).For those of you who have seen Avatar:The Last Airbender, she is wanting to create a character kind of like Toph.Suggestions/ideas for mechanics? Things we should think about?

 

[Illithidbix]

Well, I'm currently playing a Iroh inspired Monk alongside a Zuko inspired Monk so....

Do you want Blindsight or Tremorsense?

A monster with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the monster and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance. Tremorsense can’t be used to detect flying or incorporeal creatures. Many burrowing creatures, such as ankhegs and umber hulks, have this special sense.

'Cus Toph most definitely has Tremorsense! (Actually she has far more than that at times)

I don't know of any player method of getting Tremorsense, it's mostly in the hands of monsters. but 2nd level warlocks can pickup the Devil's Sight Invocation ("You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical to a distance of 120 feet")
Which is considered a powerful ability when combined with magical darkness, but one that already exists by the core rules.
So I wouldn't worry too much about putting such things in players hands... since something similar with far fewer drawbacks can already can be put into their hands.

There will be a handful of occasions where Tremorsense will be superuseful... esp if you rule that it lets her see though walls!
And lots of times only being able to "see" a few hundred feet will be a issue.
Also colour and reading and similar become very problematic.

Does very much depend upon what stuff actually happens in your games, in mine we very rarely actually go into dungeons or similar.

At the end of a day, RPG's aren't really balanced, it's either an aspiration or outright lie we occasionally like to use. I'd give her Tremorsense and let her have fun!

 

[jodyjohnson]

Blindsight 10' (enhanced hearing) That should cover melee when creatures are close enough to strike.

Tremorsense 120' (only when barefoot and on ground or stone). Allowing ranged attacks at disadvantage and not negating advantage from attackers at range. Using Darkness as an equalizer would compensate with the enemy also suffering from blindness and cancelling the adv/dis.

It is a variation of the Devil's Sight/Darkness Warlock combo. But most of the time relying on having Blindsight in melee would allow scenarios to play out as normal.

 

[Woglin]

My daughter wants to build a blind earth genasi fighter. We're trying to sort out the mechanics. (I'm the DM) We are leaning toward giving her blindsight to about 60' and limited blindsight a bit further out, but her blindsight would only work when she is standing on earth or stone. We are also thinking of giving her some sort of "seeing eye" animal. (Right now a prairie dog is the favored idea).For those of you who have seen Avatar:The Last Airbender, she is wanting to create a character kind of like Toph.Suggestions/ideas for mechanics? Things we should think about?

Does she just want Toph's bindsight/temorsense, or some earth bending powers as well? If the latter, the Mold Earth cantrip could be fun. Maybe make a variant on the 4-Elements monk, swapping in spells like Erupting Earth and Earth Tremor for the usual Elemental Disciplines in the PHB?

 

[Curmudjinn]

There is a 3rd edition blindfold that grants sight-like abilities to blind characters. You'll have to Google it, but dropping most of the powers except the most necessary and just giving her one is a good idea. Fun = Success.

 

[MechaPilot]

In general, I have found that if you want to make a blind character who can fight you simply take a normal character and explain vision with other senses. For example, instead of spotting that orc sneaking up on you you might smell his stench as he approaches. That has the least narrative and mechanical problems and retains parity with other characters.

 

[Wallraven]

In general, I have found that if you want to make a blind character who can fight you simply take a normal character and explain vision with other senses. For example, instead of spotting that orc sneaking up on you you might smell his stench as he approaches. That has the least narrative and mechanical problems and retains parity with other characters.

Does that mean that if you're human, you can only "smell" in bright light, if you're an elf you can "smell" in dim light, and if you're a dwarf you can "smell" in the dark?
Otherwise you are changing mechanics already, and would be better off explicitly defining it.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Add the Blinded condition. Give tremorsense to make up for that, but there are many things she obviously won't see.

We have Blind (and a lesser degree of poor eyesite) as one of our Flaws. So we make up for it with feats or bonus proficiencies, but tremorsense is about the equivalent of a feat and given it counteracts the actual flaw, I'd say that would work fine.

 

[Illithidbix]

Add the Blinded condition. Give tremorsense to make up for that, but there are many things she obviously won't see.

One trouble with that is Blinded grants advantage on all attacks againsted them

A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage.

This can be very punishing, and entirely out of character with Toph.
So I'd argue that grounded enemies within the Tremorsense or Blindsense of the character do not have advantage to attack or impose disadvantage to attack.

 

[Umbran]

Add the Blinded condition. Give tremorsense to make up for that...

There is a weirdness here that is best exemplified by the marvel superhero Daredevil - the character is blind, and their superpower is... that they can see.

For a kid, playing with their own parents, there's not a whole lot of problem with this. I saw a case, however, where a player brought such a character to a table that had a real blind person at it, and that person was... well, put off a bit. Her statement on it was, "If you want to have most of the benefits of sight, maybe you shouldn't take a blind character." My takeaway was that, one might sometimes need to be careful playing with disabilities, especially if the mode of play is to claim that disability, but to try to then minimize it for game purposes.