Liber Sodalitas: The Blind Path

[HalWhitewyrm]

Highmoon Media Productions presents Liber Sodalitas: The Blind Path.

Though called by some a monastic order, the Blind Path is really a simple-yet-deep philosophy teaching its followers to see beyond the visible, beyond the obvious, in order to experience a new and transcendental reality. Developed by a woman who, through the machinations of fate, found herself in need of a new "vision" in life, the Blind Path hides within its ideals secrets that allow the blind to go beyond their physical limitations and become one of the Unsighted.

Liber Sodalitas: The Blind Path is a 6-page PDF (5 pages of content plus OGL) detailing a drop-in organization for your d20 Fantasy game, complete with history, tenets, ways of joining, iconic and generic NPCs. It also includes a new prestige class, the Unsighted, which allows blind characters a chance to discover a whole new range of abilities, as well as a new feat. Written by Daniel M. Perez, artwork by Marcio Fiorito.

Liber Sodalitas (The Book of Societies) presents generic drop-in organizations for your d20 Fantasy game complete with new rules and ways of introducing them into your campaign.

Look for further releases in the Liber Sodalitas line from HMP.

 

[Crothian]

Blind Path

The prestige class is a common component of many books. There has been a great deal of talk though on them. People find they can be hard to use and hard to incorporate in their world. Prestige classes can represent special training, insight, organizations, or just a specialization. They are versatile and that seems to cause problems with people that want them to only be one thing. This book is not about prestige classes, it is about a single prestige class. But it presents it in a way that is easier to use then most others. Its advantage is that while most classes take up a page or so this one class is five pages.

Blind Path is the first in what seems to be a series of PDFs called Liber Sodalitas. It is the first product by Highmoon Media Productions. It is a small PDF coming in at only six pages one of which is the OGL. The art is good but there is only a single picture. Layout is good and basic. There are no borders or other fancy items that will cause this to eat a lot of ink when printed. There are no book marks but in a book of this size they are rarely needed.

The Blind Path is a prestige class for blind people. The class has a specific history of how it came to be and how the teachers spread the world of the teachings. The creator of the Blind Path is a woman known as Mang-Ren. She was a woman who tried to manipulate and get to a place higher then her birth would indicate and was eventually punished for it. The book gives a nice description and history of it all. The punishment included being blinded and goes into how she learned to live with it. While the class itself does make up for being blind one thing not covered is that blindness is really easy to cure in the typical D&D game being a third level cleric spell. A cleric will have access to curing the blindness before the character can qualify for this class. It would have been nice to have some alternative blindness rules that made blindness a little harder to fix.

The class itself is simple and nicely focused. It helps the blind person being able to see without sight. It offers a decent amount of skills, okay base attack bonus, and two good saves. The character gains blind sight and awareness like abilities making him hard to flank and eventually even able to detect ethereal creatures. I like that the abilities all focus on seeing without sight and not incorporating anything martial art like or magical. The class might be considered a little on the weak side as the abilities are all passive in nature, but in a lower powered game this could be a great character concept to explore.

The class and history and easy to use and should fit nicely in most campaigns. I like that the teachings come from a single person originally and have that NPC stated out and ready to be used. This is a good fully developed and described class.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Just a quick addendum: The version Crothian received for review was later updated. The new version, currently on sale and with the cover seen on the image above, does come with bookmarks.

 

[Khur]

The Blind Path is a release of the Liber Sodalitas (Book of Societies) line from Highmoon Media Productions. The PDF was written by Daniel M. Perez and illustrated (one drawing) by Marcio Fiorito. It retails for $2.00.

One notes first how extensively and excellently this PDF is indexed for use in electronic format. Atop that, the graphic design is an attractive blend of green and black with a good layout. On the first page, Fiorito ably drafted a depiction of The Blind Path's mistress, Mang-Ren. It's a nice addition to such a tiny publication.

Inside The Blind Path we find a story behind the formation of this enigmatic group, as well as its belief structure, organization, and rules for joining. The history reads much like a bodhisattva story. Mang-Ren falls from the heights of power and decadence to a fight for mere survival and a change of mind and spirit. She also loses her sight. All of The Blind Path's other ideals are built on the foundation of how material sight is untrustworthy. Transcendental awareness must be developed.

So, with great originality, the Blind Path focuses on those who are blind, with some leaning toward the lawful. In fact, despite what the text in part of the PDF reads, a sighted person gains no measurable benefit by adhering the Blind Path. Further, the reader is given no useful information on how a sighted character might utilize the teachings of the Blind Path. Too little material is given for these would-be adherents, even though the text suggests they exist, revealing a failing of the tenets of the path (and the document detailing it).

That creed does fit the mechanical core of the PDF, which is the unsighted prestige class. A would-be unsighted must, first of all, be totally blind. She must also possess an array of skills indicating her sensitivity to her environment and a couple feats to back this up. A monk, with the ability to acquire all the prerequisites by 5th level, makes the best unsighted character. This is borne out by the statistics for Mang-Ren and the average Blind Path initiate. Many unsighted are not monks, however, and that's good for them--see Critical Fumble.

A few minor issues exist with the unsighted class, as well. Most of this has to do with whether or not an unsighted is considered flanked. The awareness ability states clearly that a 5th-level unsighted cannot be flanked. Improved Uncanny Dodge grants less than this (can be flanked by a rogue four or more levels higher), but is not gained until 7th level. It seems that Improved Uncanny Dodge is the right choice here, but probably at a lower level, eliminating the statement in awareness.

Critical Hit
The Blind Path is quite original in that it approaches the idea of blindness as the key to a path of character development. Blind martial artists are a well-known stereotype, so it's good to see this concept brought to the gaming table. And the feel behind allowing the unsighted to eventually see ethereal creatures is right on.

Critical Fumble
The unsighted prestige class is too weak considering its requirements, notably the one necessitating a character be and stay blind. A monk who takes this class loses too much, for which the blindsight aspects of the unsighted class do not compensate. If the class had given some stacking bonuses with the monk class, this would have almost alleviated the problem. Finally, despite the focus of its back-story, little would have been lost to open the class to sighted characters. Blind characters could have garnered extra bonuses.

The abilities granted by unsighted, further, just don't stack up against real sight. While invisibility and darkness are irrelevant to the unsighted at a low range, that fails to make up for being totally unaware of anything beyond about 40 feet. Awareness, an extraordinary ability allowing the character to substitute Sense Motive checks for Listen/Spot checks--for those times the character doesn't have a line of effect on a target--doesn't help this fact. Its range is too short. This not only takes the class down another notch, but it also serves to make Mang-Ren's philosophy ring hollow.

Coup de Grace
The Blind Path takes a wonderful and novel concept and presents an intriguing organization. Unfortunately, the philosophical part of the society needs more meat to make it more useful to both players and DMs. Further, the mechanical aspects of the book don't live up to the problem of making blind characters viable in a sighted world. The presentation is good, but the price is actually not worth it. Just like it's not worth staying blind in a magical fantasy world--despite the availability of the Blind Path.

Final Grade: 3.45 :\

Available at RPG Now.

This review originally appeared at d20 Magazine Rack.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The Blind Path is the third release in the Liber Sodalitas (Book of Societies) series from HighMoon Media (http://highmoonmedia.com/highmoon). Each of the Liber Sodalitas covers a small organization that hopefully has enough flavor to be interesting while being generic enough to fit in most any fantasy d20 campaign.

The Blind path is the shortest of the Sodalitas and it's also the cheapest at $2. The review version I received is only 5 pages of content (+1 page OGL) but the 10 page version currently available for sale includes support for Ronin Art's Campaign Planner. Since I have neither Campaign Planner nor the full version of the PDF I can't comment as to its utility.

The writing is better than average even if it has a tendency to use overly long sentences. E.G: "Devoid of all the comforts she had become accustomed to, Mang-Ren fell back on the only thing that had ever given her inner peace, meditation; in the middle of the forest, living on the bare essentials, the blind woman found a whole new perspective on life." There were a few typographical errors of the most common sort, using "loose" for "lose" several times.

The only piece of art is a competent, if uninspiring, illustration of an Asian woman in a martial arts stance. You won't seek out the artist nor will you gouge your eyes out. I am glad that she's in a practical outfit that fits the story and not in themed lingerie like so many other d20 supplements.

Blind Path is the story of Mang-Ren, a courtesan whose reach exceeded her grasp and received torture, blindness, and a trip to the wilderness for her ambition. Mang-Ren managed to survive and even thrive as she developed her senses and a philosophy. The philosophy boils down to "you look but do not see; you see but do not question."

The followers of the Blind Path seek to share their learning, help others, and generally be good people. The sighted followers of the Blind Path, adherents, are drawn to the notion of examining the world with all senses and not accepting things without due consideration. The blind have the added incentive of becoming an Unsighted.

The Unsighted prestige Class is fairly well balanced with little to quibble over. Through 10 levels the Unsighted gains blindsight (not surprisingly), some sensory and defensive abilities. From the illustration I was expecting something a bit more..... combative.

I think the prerequisite 8 ranks of Sense Motive are too high but I guess it helps balance out the "See Ethereal" ability at 10th. The Unsighted PrC seems better suited to NPCs than players since few adventurers of 5th level or greater wouldn't spring for a Remove Blindness/Heal. If I had to sum up the class in one sentence it would be that Unsighted is to Monk the same as Warrior is to Fighter.

Stats are provided for Mang-Ren. I am a little disappointed that a courtesan was a Monk 2/Rogue 4. If you were emperor would you want your harem to be filled with dangerous combatants that do not need armor or weapons, can knock foes senseless and are difficult to surprise? I'd lean towards Bard or Expert myself.

Blind Path is a competently done product that's only real flaw is that the subject is a bit too generic. Blind monks were a staple character long before David Carradine brought them to the small screen on Kung Fu. If you want them in your campaign and don't feel like working up the mechanics yourself the $2 is well spent. Otherwise pass on Blind Path and consider one of the other Liber Solidatas for less than $3.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Hello, Kigmatzomat. Just wanted to say thanks for doing the review.
Also, just to clarify a small point: Blind Path is actually the first in the Liber Sodalitas line, not the third.
Once again, thanks.