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Zaeron
2009-09-01, 08:14 PM
Is there any effective way to make a low to mid level blind melee fighter? My dm might do some limited houseruling to make my life easier, and most splatbooks, ToB included, are open to me.

Fax Celestis
2009-09-01, 08:17 PM
Call him blind, but use the regular mechanics. Fluff does not necessarily equate crunch, or vice versa.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-01, 08:18 PM
The best you can do is get one of the dozen or so magic items that grant Blindsight from the MiC. The headband, IIRC, is the best one.

Hearing the Air stance, from the Bo9S, is the next best thing. But you still have to put up with a 50% miss chance.

T.G. Oskar
2009-09-01, 08:32 PM
Odd that no one mentioned Blind-Fight...

Mix that with Hearing the Air, and that's two chances of succeeding on the miss chance vs. concealment.

Though it can be two misses, as well.

Blindsight is awesome if you get it, as well as either tremorsense, mindsight or even good ol' blindsense.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-01, 08:36 PM
Odd that no one mentioned Blind-Fight...

Mix that with Hearing the Air, and that's two chances of succeeding on the miss chance vs. concealment.

Though it can be two misses, as well.

Blindsight is awesome if you get it, as well as either tremorsense, mindsight or even good ol' blindsense.

Blind Fight effectively reduces the miss chance to 25%, so he's still missing on a quarter of his attacks that would have hit. Combine this with the fact that iterative attacks usually don't matter once you've gotten to the third attack (assuming 20th level for this part), and he's effectively missing every other round and only getting in an average of 3 hits/2 rounds. In other words, a 20th level Fighter is suddenly doing the damage his 10th level counterpart and that counterpart's Rogue Cohort are doing, over the course of two rounds.

Blindsight is really the only option here for a non-caster. The good news is the items in the MIC are cheap, especially the Blindfold of True Darkness (IIRC, it's about 8K).

Eldariel
2009-09-01, 08:40 PM
You could treat it as a super flaw that grants you 2-3 bonus feats; that would allow you to afford Blind-Fight which is practically a must, and a bunch of other stuff to actually get something for it.

That said, yeah, as you can't see, you can't be making Spot-checks and more importantly, have to use Listen to locate opponents until you gain access to alternative senses. Things that cannot be heard, such as incorporeals, would be the bane of you. You could also ask for a sanction of a feat such as "Improved Blind-Fight" which allows you to effectively treat Listen-checks/Blindsense [Hearing the Air] as allowing you to see an opponent and thus negating the miss chance entirely.

I'd actually consider just going for a high Listen-type, using some of the bonus feats to gain bonuses to Listen (after all, it's a studied fact that other senses become sharper when you're deprived one). And yeah, Hearing the Air would be sorta ultimate in overcoming this weakness, though you'd still have to put up with a 50% miss chance in every attack (25% with Blind-Fight).

deuxhero
2009-09-01, 08:54 PM
Call him blind, but use the regular mechanics. Fluff does not necessarily equate crunch, or vice versa.

Except that something like pitch darkness or (oddly enough) the spell blindness would effect a pure fluff blindness.

Another_Poet
2009-09-01, 08:55 PM
Peruse this thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19906846/The_Blind_PCs_Association) for my Blind Character Starting Package, tips on how to succeed as a blind PC and how to approach your DM on the subject.

Note that if you somehow heal your blindness, you lose the benefits of the Blind Character Starting Package, so it is not a source of freebies.

ap

Doc Roc
2009-09-01, 08:59 PM
Touch sight. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Touchsight)

:: best clippy impression ::

It sounds like you're trying to avoid building a psychic warrior!

Alternatively, hilariously enough, this is yet another problem solved by the mask of visual insight.

Sophismata
2009-09-01, 10:26 PM
Didn't 3.0 have Blindsight as a feat?

Wis 13, Blind-Fight, Alertness

You gain Blindsight 30'.


I'm probably mixing things up... in any case, try implementing something like the above. Otherwise, magic or psionics will let you do it. Physchic Warrior, Warblade or Swordsage is probably the way to go, as a bonus they kinda follow the 'Blind Warrior' theme.

Psionics can do it from level 1 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/synesthete.htm), too. Pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-01, 10:30 PM
Didn't 3.0 have Blindsight as a feat?

Wis 13, Blind-Fight, Alertness

You gain Blindsight 30'.


I'm probably mixing things up... in any case, try implementing something like the above. Otherwise, magic or psionics will let you do it. Physchic Warrior, Warblade or Swordsage is probably the way to go, as a bonus they kinda follow the 'Blind Warrior' theme.

Psionics can do it from level 1, too.

You mean this?


Blindsight, 5-Ft. Radius [General]
Prerequisites
Base attack bonus +4, Blind-Fight, Wisdom 19.

Benefit
Using senses such as acute hearing and sensitivity to vibrations, you can detect the location of opponents who are no more than 5 feet away from you. Invisibility and darkness are irrelevant, though you cannot discern incorporeal beings. (Except for the decreased range, this feat is identical to the blindsight special ability.)

That's from Deities and Demigods. General feat, not Epic or Salient, so fair game seeing as it's been printed in the SRD.

Fax Celestis
2009-09-01, 10:33 PM
Except that something like pitch darkness or (oddly enough) the spell blindness would effect a pure fluff blindness.

It's magic. If a spell is intended to interfere with one's ability to locate objects or creatures, one would expect it to be more effective than merely blocking one's vision. A blindness/deafness spell would not blind a fluff-blind character in that he would not be able to not see any worse than he already could, but it would make him unable to perceive in the method he trained himself in to compensate.

ericgrau
2009-09-01, 10:35 PM
1. Play a grimlock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/grimlock.htm). LA +2 and 2 HD, but the stats alone make it worth it (don't forget natural armor, full BAB racial HD, etc.). Daredevil superpowers are an added bonus.

2. Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) / darkness / blindness isn't actually as big of a problem in D&D as people think. With a pumped listen modifier and the blind fight feat, you can still be a semi-effective combatant. And the upside is that you are well prepared against invisible foes, visual illusions, glitterdust, fog, darkness, etc.

Powerfamiliar
2009-09-01, 10:43 PM
It's magic...

Well darkness doesn't have to be magical.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-01, 10:46 PM
2. Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) / darkness / blindness isn't actually as big of a problem in D&D as people think. With a pumped listen modifier and the blind fight feat, you can still be a semi-effective combatant. And the upside is that you are well prepared against invisible foes, visual illusions, glitterdust, fog, darkness, etc.

Actually, it is a big deal for a melee or non-caster in general. Rogues in particular hate the thought, as Sneak Attack won't function if the opponent has any form of Concealment no matter your Listen modifier or Blind Fight feat. The 25% chance of missing on every single attack even with Blind Fight is enough to ensure the enemy lives another round, something the PCs should be trying to avoid as much as possible.

For every round the opponent survives, the odds of a PC needing a Rez increases. If the combat lasts more than 5 rounds, the PCs are risking their characters more than strictly necessary. I don't know about you lot, but I hate it when people have to reroll a character sheet or sink more than 1200gp into keeping their character (that's a Revivify+full HP). It means the players are that much weaker for the next encounter, and the odds of finishing a campaign diminish dramatically each time they have to bring in another character. I make exceptions for my little brother, but that's because offing his characters often proves the benefit the party and the players more than his rerolls tend to slow down the game.

Doc Roc
2009-09-01, 10:49 PM
Would you like a nice juicy build? What's your target level?

T.G. Oskar
2009-09-01, 11:36 PM
Actually, it is a big deal for a melee or non-caster in general. Rogues in particular hate the thought, as Sneak Attack won't function if the opponent has any form of Concealment no matter your Listen modifier or Blind Fight feat. The 25% chance of missing on every single attack even with Blind Fight is enough to ensure the enemy lives another round, something the PCs should be trying to avoid as much as possible.

It still has utilities. It's great at least at first level, since it has no requirements, and it covers where Listen doesn't. Later, it may not see that much use, but wherever there's concealment which you may not cover with tremorsense (because the character is flying), or perhaps even blindsense/blindsight (however bizarre that may be).

By the time Blind-Fight may no longer be needed, there's the chance of getting that Blindfold of True Darkness, and getting Hearing the Air, so there's almost no way to miss the individual, even if for some reason there's an AMF nearby or the Blindfold gets suppressed somehow. You might want to peg the Blindsight, 5 ft. feat just for kicks.

Making it just fluffy seems to miss the point. Perhaps it would be awesome if it were just a Bluff, but Blindness affecting the fluffy "blind" guy just doesn't cut it. Blindness is Blindness; perhaps if the fluffy Blind guy would be affected by Deafness and then lose his ability, then it would make sense. But that way...I dunno, simplicity says he'd get immunity to Blind if he were fluffy blind. Being truly blind makes getting stuff such as Blind Fight, Hearing the Air, Blindsight: 5 ft., and wearing a blindfold while beating people with a katana even fluffier with the added crunch (however bizarre that may be), since it implies you are taking the mechanics in consideration, and you slowly work to improve towards that, gaining superior tactics than creatures that could see cannot.

If anything, giving it levels in Spot is pointless (automatic failure on Spot checks), but you could get some benefit out of it (+1/2 character level bonus to Listen checks? Blind people have sometimes slightly heightened senses...)

Sophismata
2009-09-01, 11:57 PM
You mean this?
[...]
That's from Deities and Demigods. General feat, not Epic or Salient, so fair game seeing as it's been printed in the SRD.

That's the one, I had a feeling the Wisdom requirement was higher. The version I was remembering was adapted for a D20 Roguelike.

Thankyou.

CockroachTeaParty
2009-09-02, 12:16 AM
Don't forget there's also Hunter's Sense from ToB, a 1st level Tiger Claw stance, that grants the Scent special ability. It can help a blind character, most certainly.

This actually has me all riled up! I want to play a blind swordsage now!

T.G. Oskar
2009-09-02, 01:04 AM
Don't forget there's also Hunter's Sense from ToB, a 1st level Tiger Claw stance, that grants the Scent special ability. It can help a blind character, most certainly.

This actually has me all riled up! I want to play a blind swordsage now!

If you can get to Master of Nine and have two stances at a time, that would be awe-inspiring. Several techniques, blind, but capable of seeing through magic and maneuvers what's around it, and with Shadow Hand and Diamond Mind maneuvers to boot.

Only you? I also would like to play a blind swordsman too! Though...maybe TWF as well...just for the heck of it (not for optimization issues)

Zen Master
2009-09-02, 07:24 AM
Blind Fight effectively reduces the miss chance to 25%, so he's still missing on a quarter of his attacks that would have hit. Combine this with the fact that iterative attacks usually don't matter once you've gotten to the third attack (assuming 20th level for this part), and he's effectively missing every other round and only getting in an average of 3 hits/2 rounds. In other words, a 20th level Fighter is suddenly doing the damage his 10th level counterpart and that counterpart's Rogue Cohort are doing, over the course of two rounds.

Blindsight is really the only option here for a non-caster. The good news is the items in the MIC are cheap, especially the Blindfold of True Darkness (IIRC, it's about 8K).

Frankly I see extremely little point in making a blind character that isn't blind. Replacing normal sight with blindsight does not achieve the goal of a bliind fighter.

Personally I'd go with blind, blindfight, and ask my GM for a solid buff to damage.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-02, 09:33 AM
Frankly I see extremely little point in making a blind character that isn't blind. Replacing normal sight with blindsight does not achieve the goal of a bliind fighter.

Personally I'd go with blind, blindfight, and ask my GM for a solid buff to damage.

Most characters that are represented as blind in comics and such actually have some form of other sense that assists them. Daredevil, for example, has Echolocation. Dozens of them have such abilities, and are not hindered by their lack of vision as a result.

Actual blind characters would be poor combatants unless they focus on AoEs that require no attack rolls, thus ruling out Swordsmen. No amount of damage buffing can offset a string of missed attacks caused by your character's flavor. That 50% with reroll will come up more often than it should in practice, never mind creatures with a built-in miss chance.

In other words, you'd be turning your character into a major liability unless you invest in Blindsight. The extra rolls slow down combat and increase your odds of missing (an optimized fighter can hit 95% of the time on the first attack; the miss chance alters this to 70%, not counting the penalty to attack rolls caused by being blinded to begin with).

Kaiyanwang
2009-09-02, 09:39 AM
1. Play a grimlock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/grimlock.htm). LA +2 and 2 HD, but the stats alone make it worth it (don't forget natural armor, full BAB racial HD, etc.). Daredevil superpowers are an added bonus.


I'll second this. Is the most quick and RAW solution.

Failing this, take a look on the monsters qualities. Blindsense, Blindsight and maybe Tremorsense and Scent are good "Bonus Feats" for this "Super Flaw", as stated above.

Zen Monkey
2009-09-02, 09:39 AM
The character needs to find a darkness x/day item as part of the gimmick. Centered on himself, the effect would significantly hinder alot of his melee opponents and make him hard to snipe with arrows or spells. Opponents would need to get close and then be fighting in his preferred environment.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-02, 09:53 AM
The character needs to find a darkness x/day item as part of the gimmick. Centered on himself, the effect would significantly hinder alot of his melee opponents and make him hard to snipe with arrows or spells. Opponents would need to get close and then be fighting in his preferred environment.

You know? That's an excellent point. This idea screams for Shadowsun Ninja levels. Here's why:



The thing is, the healing ability is based off of the damage you deal, not the base unarmed damage for a creature of your size. If it intended to only be the base unarmed strike damage, it would have said to exclude your IUS damage entirely (thus it would be 1d3+Wis). Because it doesn't say this, it goes off of full unarmed damage. Dman has proven that this is easy to boost to the point where every attack deals a ton of damage.

The important part is that it's At Will. Get the party Wizard to use wands of Summon Undead 1 (or Animate Dead on a Frog), punch it once to inflict and then punch your buddy to heal them a ton of damage.

The Darkness trick works like this:

Round 1) Swift action, activate the Child of Shadow and Light and start with the Darkness sphere. Also, use the Darkness Within Light feature (and maybe a Scroll of True Strike or something that negates the 50% miss chance that round). Make a Hide check within the Darkness sphere. Hit the enemy once. Enemy is effectively blinded unless they have Blindsight (specifically). Darkvision doesn't see through this, though Baatezu probably can (won't matter next round). Effectively, this is imposing a 50% miss-chance on any enemy within the sphere, and your allies can just use a Blindfold of True Darkness or something to become immune (making sure the Wizard disables the enemy's magic items is a good idea for this trick, though it may not be needed unless the DM remembers to hand-pick their equipment).

Round 2) Invert Child of Shadow and Light, maintain Darkness within Light. Trigger Light Within Darkness. Every enemy within 60ft needs to save or be blinded for 1 round.

Round 3) Repeat from Round 1.



Effectively, you are forcing them to Save or Suck every other round, and forcing them to Be Prepared or Suck every other round. Mass Blindness is awesome to have at will, and the Darkness sphere is also effectively a Blindness ability. Your allies can be made immune using spells/magic items (so can the enemy, but that's why you have a Wizard).



Finally, Shadow Hand has some great maneuvers for mobility. You can easily use some of those boosts to sneak up on an enemy, then drop a sphere of darkness on their asses (or try Blinding them on round 1). The Dark Creature template (Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis) makes this PrC incredible. And Setting Sun has some of the best reactive maneuvers in the game, allowing you to play minor Battlefield Control if the enemy can't be blinded.

woodenbandman
2009-09-02, 10:07 AM
You should play a race that has either scent or blindsense in-class, then get the other one through Hearing the Air or Hunter's Sense. Savage species has 3 feats that improve your scent quality to let you actually detect location. Keen Eared Scout lets you pretty much actually see the people you hear. I suggest that you make use of your HUGE wisdom modifier you need to be effective at this by playing a Swordsage or a Monk. A Soulbow dip would be wonderful as well.

vampire2948
2009-09-02, 10:15 AM
Take the recently blind flaw for 3 bonus feats.

Then buy a headband of blindsight from MiC. Done.


Or go with the psionic thing, you can probably get a relevant item from somewhere.

Fax Celestis
2009-09-02, 10:23 AM
Well darkness doesn't have to be magical.

Right, like giving blindsight 60' out for free is broken.

Eorran
2009-09-02, 10:28 AM
I'd like to play this as either a Psychic Warrior, a dip into that class, or if you can persuade your DM, the Wild Talent feat. (If I remember Wild Talent right, it gives you a couple of power points and lets you have a low-level psionic power). Use Synthesete or a similar power.

The effect is your character can tap into his psionic powers to "see" for short periods of time (ie a couple of combats each day), but is functionally blind most of the time.

I like this option for striking a balance between a genuine drawback for the character without being game-crippling. Plus, "blind swordsman" always makes me think Asian-style Zen master, and I think this build suits that fluff.

OverdrivePrime
2009-09-02, 10:54 AM
Personally, I like the flavor of the Listening Lorecall (Spell Compendium, p 133) spell a little better than some of the other solutions. If your character has 5+ ranks of listen, he's got Blindsense 30, if he has 12+ ranks of listen he has Blindsight 15.

It's a spell with a medium-long duration, available to rangers at level 8, druids at level 3.
A blind swordsman ranger/TOB makes perfect sense, actually, and he gets a helpful guide dog animal companion. A blind swordsman druid makes only slightly less sense (Ranger 2/ Druid 4) would be great, or Druid 4/Warblade X)

His animal companion guide dog/face ripper would be enough to get him through day-to-day activities, and he'd swiftly be able to build up an absolutely absurd listen check. If he hears anything out of sorts, he can cast Listening Lorecall and be ready to pwn some noobs.

If you're not down with minor casting ability, see if you could work something into your backstory where you were raised by a kindly old yamabushi (Spirit Shaman/Sword Sage) who, before sending you out into the world, gave you a magic tattoo which grants you Listening Lorecall as a permanent effect. If dispelled, you can raise it again as a standard action.

ericgrau
2009-09-02, 11:34 AM
If you can't get an unlimited darkness item for a grimlock, then an eversmoking bottle works. Though the area is a bit large so your allies are also screwed.

CockroachTeaParty
2009-09-02, 12:13 PM
Dromites from the XPH are also an interesting blind character race, because they get Scent as an ability. Of course, playing a blind dromite sucks on many levels... perhaps you could persuade the DM to waive the +1 LA?

Wasn't there a variant rule somewhere where gnomes and half-orcs (and I assume orcs as well) could gain the Scent ability as a feat? That would also be a boon.

Ponce
2009-09-02, 12:22 PM
Using touchsight would be nifty, but it would be hard to get it consistently. Anyone know how that could be done? Using levels of Psion or whatever else you needed. You could get an item, obviously, but...

UserClone
2009-09-02, 12:37 PM
Any reason you haven't suggested this (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Disability_Feats), Fax?:smallconfused:

Fax Celestis
2009-09-02, 12:46 PM
Any reason you haven't suggested this (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Disability_Feats), Fax?:smallconfused:

Yeah, I realized some time after I made those that there's no real reason to have a mechanical implementation of something that is better represented as fluff.

Still:
Blind
Requirements: Level 1 or special

You are blind. You automatically fail vision-based Spot checks, vision-based Search checks, Decipher Script checks (except against braille), and Forgery checks. Any ranged attack you make is considered to be against total concealment beyond the range of your blindsense. However, your blindness has tuned your other senses, so you receive a +5 insight bonus to Listen checks and Concentration checks. Finally, you have blindsight to 15', blindsense to 30', and lose any natural vision modifiers you might have had (darkvision, low-light vision, and the like).

Due to your blindness, you are also not subject to gaze attacks, blinding attacks, displacement, invisibility, darkness (magical or otherwise), blur effects, and any spell (beneficial or otherwise) that affects your vision. You are also immune to illusions that have no auditory component.

Due to your increased aural perception, [Sonic] effects and deafening effects have their save DCs raised by 5 against you, and any [Sonic] effect that deals damage (like a sound burst spell) deals an additional point of damage per die.

If you cast prepared magic, your spellbook and scrolls you use must be embossed or in braille. Add 50g per spell level for this process. If you are literate, you know the braille versions of any languages you can speak (if braille versions exist). Your speed is never reduced due to poor vision conditions.

Omegonthesane
2009-09-02, 12:50 PM
Yeah, I realized some time after I made those that there's no real reason to have a mechanical implementation of something that is better represented as fluff.
Think less mechanical implementation of fluff, and more mechanical crutch so the fluff can be played without making the character unplayable... Sadly the only example I can think of is Book of Exalted Deeds' Vow of Poverty - no way would a character last five minutes with no items and not having that feat.

EDIT: Oh, and Vow of Nonviolence/Peace, too.

CockroachTeaParty
2009-09-02, 01:55 PM
The Earth Sense feat from Races of Stone gives you a crappy tremorsense with a 20 ft. range, but it takes a move action to use, and the targets must be touching the ground... I don't think that would be too terribly useful for a blind character.

If you can get telepathy, there's mindsight...

Wings of Peace
2009-09-02, 01:57 PM
The Earth Sense feat from Races of Stone gives you a crappy tremorsense with a 20 ft. range, but it takes a move action to use, and the targets must be touching the ground... I don't think that would be too terribly useful for a blind character.

If you can get telepathy, there's mindsight...

Maybe take some arcane spell granting feats or some caster dip and then grab Mind Bender? Personally I'd rather spend the class level to get casting and save my feats.

Cieyrin
2009-09-02, 02:15 PM
If you want to get racial specific about it, Killoren from Races of the Wild can use Killoren Hunter (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Killoren_Hunter,RW) to pinpoint all living creatures within 30' of you as a move action, which would actually be useful for a blind individual as opposed to kinda meh for a normal Killoren.

elliott20
2009-09-02, 09:03 PM
now I want to see someone stat up Zatoichi.

Doc Roc
2009-09-02, 09:34 PM
now I want to see someone stat up Zatoichi.

Are you sure you want that? :)

elliott20
2009-09-02, 10:45 PM
should I be worried? would doing so be like dividing by 0 or something?

OverdrivePrime
2009-09-02, 11:06 PM
Zatoichi's character sheet can only be created in braille made from dried blood scribed over a thousand broken swords.

It takes a little time.

elliott20
2009-09-02, 11:18 PM
Zatoichi's character sheet can only be created in braille made from dried blood scribed over a thousand broken swords.

It takes a little time.

so, the length of one film?

Emy
2009-09-02, 11:20 PM
Here's what I'd do:

Treat blindness as a super-flaw. 3 or 4 feats should be good.

Spend 1 of those feats on Blind-fight, just in case you ever fight with something other than your bow. Get Mindsight at some point.

Be an archer of some sort (archificer, perhaps). Use a +1 Seeking Splitting Bow of the Wintermoon or Energy Bow as your weapon.

Persist arrow mind, obscuring mist, and dragonsight. If there are obstacles in the way, use brilliant blade or brilliant energy arrow to shoot through walls.

:D

I think a blind archer has much more potential than a blind swordsman (because of the Seeking enhancement, specifically)

Zen Master
2009-09-03, 02:49 AM
Most characters that are represented as blind in comics and such actually have some form of other sense that assists them. Daredevil, for example, has Echolocation. Dozens of them have such abilities, and are not hindered by their lack of vision as a result.

Actual blind characters would be poor combatants unless they focus on AoEs that require no attack rolls, thus ruling out Swordsmen. No amount of damage buffing can offset a string of missed attacks caused by your character's flavor. That 50% with reroll will come up more often than it should in practice, never mind creatures with a built-in miss chance.

In other words, you'd be turning your character into a major liability unless you invest in Blindsight. The extra rolls slow down combat and increase your odds of missing (an optimized fighter can hit 95% of the time on the first attack; the miss chance alters this to 70%, not counting the penalty to attack rolls caused by being blinded to begin with).

SOME blind characters have abilities that act to negate their blindness, Daredevil being one. There are any number of blind sensei in japanese movies, and in comics too. For that matter, Drizzt Do'urden was trained by a blind ranger. Hell, I'm even willing to claim that there are more actually blind reference material than those with alternate ways of seeing.

What makes a blind swordsman cool is the very fact that it's difficult. The greater the challenge, the more heroic it is to overcome it - but not having the challenge in the first place is a distinct lack of heroics.

Also, it's extremely easy to off-set miss chance with increased damage. Of course a string of misses will be annoying, but that in itself will not affect your average damage output in the slightest. Also, against most creatures with a miss chance, blindness will actually be an advantage - or it will be compared to other who can see, and therefore don't have the feats and so on to fight well against invisible creatures for instance.

Calmar
2009-09-03, 06:25 AM
Blind Fight effectively reduces the miss chance to 25%, so he's still missing on a quarter of his attacks that would have hit. Combine this with the fact that iterative attacks usually don't matter once you've gotten to the third attack (assuming 20th level for this part), and he's effectively missing every other round and only getting in an average of 3 hits/2 rounds. In other words, a 20th level Fighter is suddenly doing the damage his 10th level counterpart and that counterpart's Rogue Cohort are doing, over the course of two rounds.

Nobody said being blind would be an advantage. :smallwink:

UserClone
2009-09-03, 10:58 AM
SOME blind characters have abilities that act to negate their blindness, Daredevil being one. There are any number of blind sensei in japanese movies, and in comics too. For that matter, Drizzt Do'urden was trained by a blind ranger. Hell, I'm even willing to claim that there are more actually blind reference material than those with alternate ways of seeing.

What makes a blind swordsman cool is the very fact that it's difficult. The greater the challenge, the more heroic it is to overcome it - but not having the challenge in the first place is a distinct lack of heroics.

Also, it's extremely easy to off-set miss chance with increased damage. Of course a string of misses will be annoying, but that in itself will not affect your average damage output in the slightest. Also, against most creatures with a miss chance, blindness will actually be an advantage - or it will be compared to other who can see, and therefore don't have the feats and so on to fight well against invisible creatures for instance.

Wow, you're missing the point entirely. The PLAYER's job is not to be heroic, nor to overcome his blindness. That's the CHARACTER's job. The PLAYER's part in heroically overcoming his character's shortcomings is to represent such mechanically through feats, magic, et al earned through the struggle of having leveled up blind in the first place.

Doc Roc
2009-09-03, 11:11 AM
Wow, you're missing the point entirely. The PLAYER's job is not to be heroic, nor to overcome his blindness. That's the CHARACTER's job. The PLAYER's part in heroically overcoming his character's shortcomings is to represent such mechanically through feats, magic, et al earned through the struggle of having leveled up blind in the first place.

Pppppssssssssh, stop your sense talkin' youngin, and have this here cookie. I agree with you wholeheartedly if that wasn't totally clear. In a bit I'll mock up Zato as a nice solid example of how to proper up run this gimmick.

UserClone
2009-09-03, 11:20 AM
Mmmm...cookie.

Korivan
2009-09-03, 02:36 PM
In PHII, one of the combat focus feats gave you tremor sense if you had blindsight, not a bad idea to check out.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-03, 02:43 PM
In PHII, one of the combat focus feats gave you tremor sense if you had blindsight, not a bad idea to check out.

No...

The feat your thinking of required Blindfight, and gave you the ability to tell adjacent enemy's current HP. If you had three or more Combat Form feats, you gained Blindsight out to 5ft while in Focus.

Zen Master
2009-09-04, 10:18 AM
Wow, you're missing the point entirely. The PLAYER's job is not to be heroic, nor to overcome his blindness. That's the CHARACTER's job. The PLAYER's part in heroically overcoming his character's shortcomings is to represent such mechanically through feats, magic, et al earned through the struggle of having leveled up blind in the first place.

Ooohhh .... I get it now. You, the player, just want the numbers to be as high as possible, the game as easy as possible, everything served to 'resemble' a challenge, without actually being so.

And it's the character that has to be 'challenged' - but that's really just fluff, because it's all numbers, and the player has already taken care of that part.

Seriously - this isn't going to go anywhere. Your view is for far from mine as to be non-sensical to me, and vice versa. Lets just drop it, right?

Doc Roc
2009-09-04, 10:20 AM
Ooohhh .... I get it now. You, the player, just want the numbers to be as high as possible, the game as easy as possible, everything served to 'resemble' a challenge, without actually being so.

And it's the character that has to be 'challenged' - but that's really just fluff, because it's all numbers, and the player has already taken care of that part.


This doesn't, to me, sound like you're dropping it. I suggest you follow your own advice and drop it.

elliott20
2009-09-04, 10:26 AM
HEY! knock it out already! Otherwise I'll NEVER get to see my zatoichi!

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-04, 10:33 AM
Ooohhh .... I get it now. You, the player, just want the numbers to be as high as possible, the game as easy as possible, everything served to 'resemble' a challenge, without actually being so.

And it's the character that has to be 'challenged' - but that's really just fluff, because it's all numbers, and the player has already taken care of that part.

Seriously - this isn't going to go anywhere. Your view is for far from mine as to be non-sensical to me, and vice versa. Lets just drop it, right?

I'm going to quote TV Tropes here:

"In a real life situation, such Min-Maxing is vital to survival."

Put yourself in your character's shoes. Wouldn't you find a way to overcome your blindness if an adventuring party scouted you out? You know, so you can effing survive and be a positive contributor to their efforts?

Or would you just live with it and die within three encounters, and have to either just die or get a Rez every time this happens (and it will happen if you aren't doing your part in combat).

The point of RPing an adventurer is to survive to the end of the campaign and thwart every baddie along the way. It shouldn't matter how much of a challenge it is if you accomplish this long-term goal. If the DM wants to challenge you, he can adapt to your optimization tactics and throw something at you that you aren't prepared for, or catch you completely off-guard and force you to fight a full encounter solo.

Think about it: Everything in the books is out to kill you for some reason or another (mostly because the DM said so). Would you settle for anything less than 100% survival rate if you were your character?

This is the backbone of the Stormwind Fallacy: Odds are your character himself wants to survive to see tomorrow, and being the best at what he does is the best way to ensure he does. As a player, if you prevent your character from being the best at his job, you are more or less trying to murder your own character. Min-Maxing is a good thing if done properly; for playing a Blind character, the most logical way to min-max him is to find something that completely negates your blindness and provides you with a powerful defense to cover for you.

UserClone
2009-09-04, 11:03 AM
Yes, or as close as is reasonably possible. Besides, if you look at blind fighter types, such as the ranger who taught drizzt, or the guy from Blind Fury, did it really look all that hard for them, like as hard as you would expect it be for a blind person to whip some ass? No, because they trained blind. Their training is best represented, as all training is in game, mechanically, through feats, et al.

ericgrau
2009-09-04, 12:55 PM
Actually, it is a big deal for a melee or non-caster in general. Rogues in particular hate the thought, as Sneak Attack won't function if the opponent has any form of Concealment no matter your Listen modifier or Blind Fight feat. The 25% chance of missing on every single attack even with Blind Fight is enough to ensure the enemy lives another round, something the PCs should be trying to avoid as much as possible.


Grab darkness / fog / etc. as suggested and it's a much bigger deal for his enemy, who has a 50% miss chance and perhaps not the greatest listen check. Or even if you don't carry your own, a recent favorite tactic of mine as a caster is to target my blindfighting ally and surrounding baddies with one of the many AoE "you're slow and can't see" effects.

And I still think blindness is deep within the realm of mechanical in a world like D&D which has so many rules for it. If you try to fluff it, then it'll quickly conflict with those rules and ruin rpg immersiveness as you sort it out.