Blind Characters

[Ogrork the Mighty]

... having a blind character really is not possible for long.

That's simply not true. I've had a player who had his character's eyes burned out due to a curse. No amount of remove blindness, remove curse, or regeneration spells would fix him. He had to complete a special quest.

As a result, we gave him blindsense to (IIRC) 60 ft. Giving up all sight beyond 60 feet is a huge disadvantage, especially for characters that rely on ranged attacks/spells. Not to mention the problems with not being able to read, see colours, recognize people, etc. For a melee-oriented character, I would have considered a level adjustment for the blindsense.

But to say it isn't doable just plain isn't true. It all depends on why the person wants to do it, how they want to do it, and your ability to come up with a creative solution. If your DM's not willing to come up with a creative solution, then you've probably got bigger problems than wanting to play a blind character.

Playing a blind character is very doable in D&D. I know b/c I've been there, done that.

 

[Klaus]

The latest Dragon Magazine has new character traits (as in Unearthed Arcana's Traits), and one of those is Midnight Eyes: you have 60ft. darkvision, but you *only* see in darkvision (and your eyes are pitch black).

 

[Destil]

Remember that it's specified that someone who is blind can overcome the penalties with time. If they were born blind you could argue that regeneration and remove blindness/deafness don't work, as these restore sight and you can't restore someone the person never had in the first place.

For specifics I'd go with:
Require Blind Fight feat at 1st level.
Listen always a class skill, automatically fails all spot checks.
Grant blindsense 5' radius + 5' per point of Wis bonus. Blindsense 30' radius + 10' per point of Wis bonus. Both dependent on listening, so being deafened would blind these senses.
Speed normal, reduced 2/3rds if deafened.

 

[RichGreen]

Great thread! I've had a player email me, saying he wants to create an elderly, blind fighter with a talking guide dog as his PC in Red Hand of Doom. I can't see him lasting long!


Richard

 

[Vrecknidj]

...a talking guide dog...

Oh man, the jokes that could come up are endless. I hope someone plays a bard in this group and that the old man character lasts for at least a little while.

Dave

 

[Infiniti2000]

That's simply not true. I've had a player who had his character's eyes burned out due to a curse. No amount of remove blindness, remove curse, or regeneration spells would fix him. He had to complete a special quest.

Why? That doesn't make sense to me. What you are saying here is something that we probably something we disagree very strongly about. I'm not saying that you didn't have fun doing whatever it was you did, but disallowing all normal methods of curing the blindness smacks of railroading to me and I don't think you can prove it otherwise from my perspective. "You'll follow my plot no matter what!" I really, really dislike games like that.

 

[RichGreen]

Oh man, the jokes that could come up are endless. I hope someone plays a bard in this group and that the old man character lasts for at least a little while.

Dave

I know! That's why I thought I'd allow the character.


Richard