What is the deal with MotW Feat Blindsight?

[green slime]

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/ma_feats.htm#blindsight

Heh.

Hmmm. I've seen your feats before. (You've been pimping them quite actively )

One question, would you mind clarifying the difference between "Soul Sight" and "Blindsight"?

I think Blindsight allows you to sense all within 30 feet (provided you can hear) whereas Soul Sight lets you detect living sentient beings within 60 feet. Why the difference in range, given that Soul Sight is a prerequisite for blind sight? Blind and deafened, the Blindsight endowed would still lose any idea of where the walls were, correct?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's an interesting world you're in, if the horizon is 30 feet away.

horizon? What`s that. I never had such a strange thing in my room, and I don`t play flight simulators often enough (and even if, it is only a simulated range and in fact the horizion is only a few inches away... )

But, okay, that might be a weakness. But incidently, 30 feet is exactly the "I will never want any unnoticed creatures here". (Okay, you never want any unnoticed creatures anywhere, but this it a real dangerous range - sneak attack, charge range, point blank shot, any kind of melee action will take place within this range...)
I dislike any abilities you don`t have a chance to work against. (Like: no save, no attack roll, no skill check)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[hong]

Hmmm. I've seen your feats before. (You've been pimping them quite actively )

One question, would you mind clarifying the difference between "Soul Sight" and "Blindsight"?

I think Blindsight allows you to sense all within 30 feet (provided you can hear) whereas Soul Sight lets you detect living sentient beings within 60 feet. Why the difference in range, given that Soul Sight is a prerequisite for blind sight?

Because blindsight is more powerful than blindsense. It's a balance thing, basically. You can handwave this in any number of ways.

Blind and deafened, the Blindsight endowed would still lose any idea of where the walls were, correct?

I hadn't really thought about that, but it would be a reasonable ruling.

 

[cptg1481]

My Fix

Had a PC with a Prc that gave blind sight and it was just tooooo overpowered as written, so...'

I gave him a few options for balance reasons.

1 Was you could use the ability as written except that because it is a conglomerate of all one's senses, low light, hearing, tremor sense and even ESP it was taxing to use therefore limited to 1x a day for every two levels in the class for 10 minutes. So, the plus (like the original), its almost impossible for monsters/baddies to overcome, the down side, the limited uses. The only way around it lies in etheralness.

2. Was tied to hearing a sort of echolocation and hightened awareness and therefore active all the time. Continual use is the plus, however, it is circumventable with a silence effect or move silently. The tradeoff was that there is a way around it (other than etheralness) unlike the original.

3. Was a sort of tremor sense, which was also always on, but the tradeoff was that flying creatures and those not on the same surface could get through.


I left scent out sense there was a feat for that.

I felt that it should work either tied to only one method or another either limited in its scope of opperation allowing some types of creatures/enemies a chance to get through, or limited in its durations/use.

Now there was a little more to it in my game so if you want the rest I'll either fax or e-mail it to ya. I lost the file but still have the paper and am too lazy to re-type it.

Worked out way better....than wow you automatically notice the invisible, creature who got 30 on his move silent roll again.....what do you do.

 

[kpdezend]

I wish I had more time to write, but I have to run to work. Seems to me, that if a PC had blindsight, and another creature was trying to sneak up on him, all he would have to do is make a good "Move Silently" roll... since blindsight is based on sound. I just cast the silence spell... which is Invisibility for blindsight.

More tonight.

- Kent -

Blindsight as a general ability and as a feat is overpowered - according to my reading/DMG , it makes Spot checks completely irrelevant. You always see the creatures. I don`t like this ability, and why do dragons bother with taking spot then? It seems, most designers did forget how this ablity actually works. (with the new distinctin blindsense/blindsight it makes sense).
It might be better if Blindsight/Blindsense/Tremorsense just allowed for changing the skill used for spot (and ignoring any visiblity based penalties like the spell invisiblity) - maybe listen for sonicbased, survival for scent- and tremorsense-based and, if dragons are really that special, still use spot for it...

For Scent:
Currently, there is no skill for this ability. It is usually a wisdom check, and it sometimes helps survival checks. Two possible options come to my mind:
a)
Make scent a skill. Disadvantage: even if it is cross class for all player classes, it sounds unusual that humans can try their senses in such a strong way. But you could take the Scent feat(similar to Track) and make it a prerequisite to make scent checks against DCs above 10.

b)
The Scent feat (can only be taken by certain races and creatures - maybe gnomes and half-orcs) allows to make survival checks to smell, identify and locate odors.

 

[Pielorinho]

An interesting discussion! My thoughts:

1) The fact that "scent" is a feat that 3.0 druids got at 5th level for free is not entirely relevant. Druids also gain the ability to fly for free at 5th level, even though that's too powerful for any feat.
2) People complain about the loss of scent and blindsense more than, say, a cheetah's sprint because most people play in a Western-Europe-themed game, in which wolves and bats are far more common than cheetahs.
3) "Scent" isn't an overpowered ability, imho: although you can pinpoint the square a creature is in (under specific conditions), you still have a 50% concealment miss chance if you attack them.
4) Blindsight, as written, is way too powerful. If it comes up in my game again, I'll rule that it functions a little bit like true seeing: creatures with blindsight are unaffected by visual illusions or concealment due to darkness, but must still make spot checks as normal, and gain no special ability to see behind cover. That would make it much more fair.
5) I hate the idea of wildshaped druids using equipment. It's bogus, IMO.
6) Although I love the "natural spell" feat for my own druid character, I'm reluctantly starting to think it's overpowered, by virtue of the fact that every single druid who reaches 6th level takes it. I'll probably change it in my next campaign to a metamagic feat with a +1 level cost.

Daniel