Playing a blind character...

[Gaiden]

Also, anyone recommend feats, other then Blindfighting, that are meant for blind characters? I'm sure some of you have played blind characters before and may want to share some of your wisdom.

There is Blindsight 5' radius from S&F that requires Blindfight as a prereq.

I think there may also be something from Draconomicon.

I'd have to suggest playing a blind sorcerer over a blind wizard. The whole concept of the blind warrior just somehow feels more right with a sorcerer if you are adapting the concept to a magic user. Also, spell acquisition will first be easier, and second make a whole lot more sense. Even with brail, how many wizards do you know that translate their spells into brail?

In terms of suggestions for making the spellcaster viable - I would disagree that your spellcaster is automatically going to be less powerful than a sighted wizard. Certainly, he is at a disadvantage but he can use that disadvantage to his advantage.

Ground-zero glitterdust, darkness, obscuring mist, fog cloud will all hinder his opponents with no effect on his capabilities at all.

Follow the principle of the blind devil of kimon in Ninja Scroll - let other people's sight be their weakness. You will be immune to all gaze attacks and most illusions.

The key of course is your listen score (unless you are going for something more exotic like tremorsense with polymorph (and the right feats) or something along those lines). Skill focus listen might be a good idea. You already have alertness from your familiar. You might also want to choose to be an elf for the additional bonus to listen. The better your listen check the farther away you can hear people. You might also get some sort of arial familiar and train yourself to fire in the direction of wherever your arial familiar flies (training it to fly over foes). With a high enough listen score, you won't even have to do that. If you go for audio as your sense of choice, your weakness is of course silence. I'd highly recommend coming up with counters to that weakness (silent spell for silent dimensional door or something along those lines).

G/L

 

[BadMojo]

The key of course is your listen score (unless you are going for something more exotic like tremorsense with polymorph (and the right feats) or something along those lines). Skill focus listen might be a good idea. You already have alertness from your familiar. You might also want to choose to be an elf for the additional bonus to listen. The better your listen check the farther away you can hear people.

I think it sounds like an interesting way to play a spellcaster. I was going to mention Skill Focus: Listen. A level or two of a class that has Listen as a class skill would be good, unless there's a feat out there that would let you make it a class skill.

There's also a feat in Complete Adventurer called "Hear the Unseen" which, although it doesn't negate the 50% miss chance, with a Listen check it lets you identify the square where an opponent is standing as long as they're within 30'.

 

[IcyCool]

Yeah, I know, but the character concept requires a wizard (which is a bit hard to explain without going into a massive explanation of the campaign world and history). Again, I don't have an issue with the minuses. I'm just trying to see what minuses a blinded character would have, since the SRD mentions that some of the minuses can be overcome...

Well, a couple have been mentioned already. You'll only be able to aquire the 2 new spells per level. You will be unable to read scrolls or captured spellbooks. Everyone is invisible to you (this means certain targeting restrictions).

As to your question about how many spells a body can hold, check out Complete Arcane. It has rules for how many spellbook "pages" your body parts count as and how many spellbook "pages" a quarterstaff counts as.

 

[gamefiend]

well, one thought is a rogue/wizard or monk/wizard...a zatoichi type with touch spells instead of a sword. impair vision and/or movement, then sneak attack with a spell in the confusion.

an easy one is to make a blind summoner.

I would rule as a dm that claraudience/clairvoyance would allow you to see. YMMV.

 

[Stalker0]

See if your dm might be inclined to give you a little bang for your buck...maybe divinations are more powerful for you, etc. Also, he might make listen a class skill for you.

 

[Napftor]

Acquire a familiar and then at least by 5th level it can tell you where enemies are. Roleplaying the minuses until then should be fun at low level. Good luck!

 

[Darmanicus]

With regards to a spellbook I've always fancied the idea of using a LaMarchand configuration cube thingy from outta Hellraiser. The spells would be the different configurations you could twist and turn the thing into. It would obviously be a magical item and something that you could work towards making or go questing for.

With regards to new spells, don't worry, maybe there is a configuration you could twist the cube into that would allow you to place a scroll inside......a few more twists later and the cube has 'eaten' the scroll and given you a tactile feel for a new configuration, (spell).

Good luck anyways, I like the idea.

Another thing you might want to check out is the geomancer PrC from CA which could be taken to gain cool abilities like blind sense and tremor sense.

 

[ZeroGlobal2003]

I've had blind characters in my games before... one guy got on a "blind" kick and amde a couple of them. The Blind Archer was the worst, he missed like every shot he ever fired.

Really, its gonna be impossible to play a blind character. Its like saying "I want to be a paraplegic monk," its just not something you can do within the rules and be a valid adventurer.

Its also hell on your DM, they have to constantly be altering how they describe a room to remind you don't see any of the things in it. Things that should be summed up in a visual statement (you see 3 zombies) becomes a visual statement, a roll to see if you hear them, a Knowledge check to see if you identify that noise, and then the other players telling you what it is if you fail. Its a nightmare.

I like the unique aspect, but really just dont.

Zero

 

[Shadowdweller]

Ground-zero glitterdust, darkness, obscuring mist, fog cloud will all hinder his opponents with no effect on his capabilities at all.

You realize that's like saying a dead character is better off because he cannot be killed, right?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Why be so negative with the idea?

For one thing, it's not really original. Maybe it's original in your group, though, and that's fine. The big problem I have with it, though, is that you'll get the 150gp EASILY and VERY QUICKLY, that would cure your blindness. Even if you say you are blind because you lost your eyes, you'll be able to afford a regenerate in little time as well. Heck, you could probably sell your spellbook to pay for it, and then just recreate your spellbook over time. So, all your effort on developing nonmagical means to overcome blindness will be a huge waste of time after the first few sessions. You'll create headaches for everyone for no reason.

And, please, don't contemplate the idiocy of not getting cured because "it's fun to be blind."