Building a blind character - what can I expect?

[meto30]

Hello Playground, I'm a DM in a long-running 3.5e FR campaign and is currently building a blind major henchman for my PCs to fight. The only thing that is certain is that this character will be human and completely blind.

What kind of quirks and specifics, mechanics-wise, should I expect from his blindness? I guess he would be prohibited from making any spot checks and every opponent would have total cover from him for being invisible. What other weakness should I take into consideration?

Also, what methods are out there to overcome these weaknesses? Blind-fight comes straight to mind. The henchman works for a major evil church and thus should have access to some high level gear; the intended CR is 15, give or take one or two. I'm welcome to some minor homebrewing as long as they don't break the verisimilitude (especially if they come in the form of feats).


Edit: Tome of Battle, however, is banned. Please do not defend the book here - I've read enough defenses already in more appropriate threads.

[Karnith]

Blindness actually has defined, in-game effects, which you can read up about here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#blinded), though it's up to you to decide what weaknesses of that condition the blind character has overcome. The movement speed penalty and constant flat-footedness, would probably be good choices to get rid of, if you want the character to actually threaten your players. Some way of overcoming the miss chance would also be good.

[Waker]

There are several ways to overcome being blind while still suffering from the effects in other ways. The simplest being a stance from Tome of Battle called Hearing the Air, gives you Blindsense.

[Humble Master]

Hmm, maby you would get a +2 bonus to listen checks because you have grown up having to use your ears instead of your eyes.
For combat Blind-Fight and Hearing the Air sound like good options. Hearing the Air would require two other Diamond Mind maneuvers and a initiator level of 9 or 10. At minimum I think you would need 1 level of Warblade. for a CR 17 Character, 2 levels for a CR 16. And 3 levels for a CR 15.

[meto30]

Uhh, oops, looks like I forgot to mention this on the OP. I'll edit the OP right away.

Tome of Battle is banned in our campaign.



Any way not of ToB of gaining blindsight (or at least blindsense) would be welcome.

[Karnith]

Any way not of ToB of gaining blindsight (or at least blindsense) would be welcome.
I believe that the Blindfold of True Darkness, from the Magic Item Compendium, grants blindsight out to 30 feet, and only costs 9,000 gold. You can't use your vision when you have it on, but that shouldn't be much of a problem for a blind character.

[Divide by Zero]

If you can get him telepathy somehow, the Mindsight feat from Lords of Madness is an interesting alternative.

[Matticussama]

The most pertinent section that I would consider is this:


Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.

Although it would be DM fiat, I could easily see Blindsight or Tremorsense being acceptable abilities for the NPC to obtain. Maybe give them to him as feats, with the Prereq of Blind-Fight to show how the NPC got to that point from years of training. It fits in perfectly with the Blind Swordsman trope.

[meto30]

I believe that the Blindfold of True Darkness, from the Magic Item Compendium, grants blindsight out to 30 feet.

That seems very appropriate in more than one ways, as the evil church I mentioned is the Church of Night, dedicated to Shar. I'd have to boost the caster level on the particular blindfold our henchman will be wearing to prevent the PCs from simply dispelling it constantly. Or build the henchman stealthy enough that he'd not be targeted too easily.



If you can get him telepathy somehow, the Mindsight feat from Lords of Madness is an interesting alternative.

I could make him a psychic class, as I'm not set on the build yet. May I ask where in the book the feat is? I can't seem to find it.


Although it would be DM fiat, I could easily see Blindsight or Tremorsense being acceptable abilities for the NPC to obtain. Maybe give them to him as feats, with the Prereq of Blind-Fight to show how the NPC got to that point from years of training. It fits in perfectly with the Blind Swordsman trope.

Blindsense I already handled above. Tremorsense might be achieved through magic, or DM fiat, I don't know, but it seems like a nice thing to have (and since it's easily countered it'd be appropriate for the intended challenge level).



Any templates I should be aware of for potentially adding to this guy? Something that can be gained through magic would be preferable.

[limejuicepowder]

Have you made this guy already; i.e., are his levels chosen?

There are some 3.0 feats that give blindsight. Masters of the Wild has a feat that gives echolocation, granting blindsight out to 120 ft. Prereq is ability to wildshape in to a dire bat.

There's also a blindsight feat in sword and fist, requiring blind-fight and 19 wisdom. It's only out to 5 ft though.

The blindsight spell from player's guide to faerun appears on the druid, sorc/wiz, and cleric list (level 2 for the first 2, level 3 for clerics). It grants 30 ft blindsight for min/level.

The mindsight feat effectively gives blindsense to the range of the base telepathy. Requires telepathy. Most popular way to get this is 1 level of mindbender.

Here the Unseen (feat) lets the character as a move action make a DC 25 listen check; success pinpoints the location of all creatures within 30 ft.

------

To make this an effective and memorable encounter, I think you should perhaps go at this from another direction: how can you hide this guy from the PC's? Even if the only form of overcoming blindness is blind-fight and a good listen check, that still gives him a pretty large advantage if the fight takes place in complete darkness. Why should he struggle to fight like a sighted person when he can just make everyone blind? Then, the PC's are the ones with the handicap.

[meto30]

Have you made this guy already; i.e., are his levels chosen?

There are some 3.0 feats that give blindsight. Masters of the Wild has a feat that gives echolocation, granting blindsight out to 120 ft. Prereq is ability to wildshape in to a dire bat.

There's also a blindsight feat in sword and fist, requiring blind-fight and 19 wisdom. It's only out to 5 ft though.

The blindsight spell from player's guide to faerun appears on the druid, sorc/wiz, and cleric list (level 2 for the first 2, level 3 for clerics). It grants 30 ft blindsight for min/level.

The mindsight feat effectively gives blindsense to the range of the base telepathy. Requires telepathy. Most popular way to get this is 1 level of mindbender.

Here the Unseen (feat) lets the character as a move action make a DC 25 listen check; success pinpoints the location of all creatures within 30 ft.

------

To make this an effective and memorable encounter, I think you should perhaps go at this from another direction: how can you hide this guy from the PC's? Even if the only form of overcoming blindness is blind-fight and a good listen check, that still gives him a pretty large advantage if the fight takes place in complete darkness. Why should he struggle to fight like a sighted person when he can just make everyone blind? Then, the PC's are the ones with the handicap.


His levels are undecided, but as the PCs are on average at ECL 13 he'd need to be pretty strong to take on the party on his own. 1 level of mindbender seems very nice indeed, and Hear the Unseen sounds cool too. I'm considering giving him tremorsense as well, but I'd rather not give it through an item because that would become loot for the PCs. The blindsight item is cool and would be a fitting prize for the party's ninja.

As fitting for a hitman employed by the Church of Night, he'll employ multiple methods to keep the entire combat entirely in darkness. The party has already found to their horror that the church has access to hundreds of spell-gems of deeper darkness that Sharrans can just throw on the ground to activate; we're using the PF version of darkness and so the party Drow can handle it a bit, though.

I'm also considering giving the henchman a pair of Slippers of Shadowstepping.

[Karnith]

I could make him a psychic class, as I'm not set on the build yet. May I ask where in the book the feat is? I can't seem to find it.
Mindsight is on page 126, in a side-bar in the section on Tsochars.

[meto30]

Mindsight is on page 126, in a side-bar in the section on Tsochars.

Ah, thank you, you are too kind :smallbiggrin:

I do wish they'd made a better, clearer table of contents for the Lords of Madness. It's always a mess to navigate.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3090.0

[avr]

Psion/wilders & psychic warriors get several powers which can bypass blindness. The simplest is synesthete (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/synesthete.htm) (1st level!), detect hostile intent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm)kicks in a level later, touchsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/touchsight.htm) a level after that for psion/wilders only.

[Gnome Alone]

I do wish they'd made a better, clearer table of contents for the Lords of Madness. It's always a mess to navigate.
I'd just be happy it's not buried in a field under a pile of screaming teeth.

[TuggyNE]

I do wish they'd made a better, clearer table of contents for the Lords of Madness. It's always a mess to navigate.

Somehow, that makes me think it might have been intentional, and thematic. :smalltongue:

[TypoNinja]

Geomancer from Complete Divine is also an option.

The Stage 5 Drifts offer several alternate sensory abilities.

[Mnemnosyne]

Personally, I would go with an item that grants touchsight, either continuous or as an at-will cast. Or perhaps better as a charged item, so the players don't wind up with a permanent item of that, if you'd prefer them not to have an incredibly difficult to bypass method of completely negating darkness/blindness in the future.

Beyond that, for the purposes of cloaking the fight in darkness to stick with the theme and disadvantage the players, my best suggestion would be to give him an item with a permanent blacklight spell. It should be heightened to 9th level, widened so it's 40 ft. radius, and the caster level should be as high as you can reasonably think to make it. The character need not have created this item himself - while the caster can normally see in blacklight and no one else can, this character is blind anyway and wouldn't have benefited from seeing in it, so an NPC specifically built to optimize caster level could have been the one to cast the spell. Blacklight is far more powerful than darkness since it creates total darkness, none of this shadowy illumination nonsense. This means that to counter it, they need blindsight, touchsight, etc. Their other options are true seeing and a daylight spell heightened to 9th level.

[killem2]

Seeing eye spider!

:)

Anthropamorphic Bat character, they get blindsense right? Granted they look like a freak.

Could be part of the story, he had his eyes burnt out because a local church found him rummaging through garbage as a child.

[meto30]

Personally, I would go with an item that grants touchsight, either continuous or as an at-will cast. Or perhaps better as a charged item, so the players don't wind up with a permanent item of that, if you'd prefer them not to have an incredibly difficult to bypass method of completely negating darkness/blindness in the future.

Beyond that, for the purposes of cloaking the fight in darkness to stick with the theme and disadvantage the players, my best suggestion would be to give him an item with a permanent blacklight spell. It should be heightened to 9th level, widened so it's 40 ft. radius, and the caster level should be as high as you can reasonably think to make it. The character need not have created this item himself - while the caster can normally see in blacklight and no one else can, this character is blind anyway and wouldn't have benefited from seeing in it, so an NPC specifically built to optimize caster level could have been the one to cast the spell. Blacklight is far more powerful than darkness since it creates total darkness, none of this shadowy illumination nonsense. This means that to counter it, they need blindsight, touchsight, etc. Their other options are true seeing and a daylight spell heightened to 9th level.

Thank you so much for the Blacklight info. Although we are using the PF version of darkness (and thus, for the sake of ability scaling, blacklight in our campaign should be defeated by shadevision) it is nevertheless a far better option for the blind henchman to take. I'd want the blind guy to be defeated without too much hassle, as he's not a boss encounter, so I'll be opting for short range blindsight coupled with long range tremorsense.


Seeing eye spider!

:)

Anthropamorphic Bat character, they get blindsense right? Granted they look like a freak.

Could be part of the story, he had his eyes burnt out because a local church found him rummaging through garbage as a child.

Unfortunately, race is already set. Human... thank you for your kind advice though, Killem! Session is just six hours away, I'll make my last preparations now.

[Hyde]

My friend tells me that there's a character like this in Dune, which I haven't read, so if this sounds familiar, that's probably why.

I have a blind druid in my game that "sees" by looking into every possible future a few seconds. Basically, if you swing at her, she knows that if she stands still, she'll get hit, if she dodges left, she'll get hit, but if she ducks, she'll be okay.

It's a little better than spider sense, since it's not merely the presence of danger, but how to get out of it. Of course, it's limited by the actual physical limitations of her body, so it's not a complete god ability.

The in game mechanics are essentially:
+Imp Uncanny Dodge, Imp Evasion
+Wisdom modifier as an insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.
+WIS to initiative.
+4 to resist most maneuvers, including trip, disarm, bull rush, overrun, and grapple.

It wouldn't be inappropriate to say "Add Wis to Dex stuff". If it benefits from knowing about it early, this "sight" covers it.