What would balance this flaw?

[tedcahill2]

Flaw: Born blind

Who doesn't love the 'blind warrior that can still somehow fight' archetype? If you were to approach your DM with this concept in mind, and want to be viable out the gate at level 1, how would you balance it?

Things like using listen to identify targets locations or having blind sense 5 ft.

Remember, this is about character concept not character power. What would it take to make being blind not hugely negative?

[Bakkan]

Anything short of blindsight will impose significant miss chances on the character, making attacks unreliable to the point that the flavor (warrior that can fight) is completely unsupported mechanically, in my opinion. Therefore, at the very least the character should get blindsight out to 15 or 20 feet.

Whether more is required depends on the following: do you mean this to be a flaw in the Unearthed Arcana sense, i.e. granting a feat when taken? If so, then blindsight 10 ft + 5 ft/level is probably sufficient. If not, and this is intended to be a complete package, then I would probably have it grant blindsight 20 ft + 10 ft/level and tremorsense out to double that range, and even so that might not be sufficient (not being able to read, tell colors apart, or spot approaching monsters before they're in range to engage is very punishing).

[tedcahill2]

Anything short of blindsight will impose significant miss chances on the character, making attacks unreliable to the point that the flavor (warrior that can fight) is completely unsupported mechanically, in my opinion. Therefore, at the very least the character should get blindsight out to 15 or 20 feet.

Whether more is required depends on the following: do you mean this to be a flaw in the Unearthed Arcana sense, i.e. granting a feat when taken? If so, then blindsight 10 ft + 5 ft/level is probably sufficient. If not, and this is intended to be a complete package, then I would probably have it grant blindsight 20 ft + 10 ft/level and tremorsense out to double that range, and even so that might not be sufficient (not being able to read, tell colors apart, or spot approaching monsters before they're in range to engage is very punishing).

No I'm not looking to get a feat out of it. It's really about character concept. The loss of sight should be replaced by something like tremorsense and/or blindsense, but blindsight seems too much. I don't want to say I'm blind then have blightsight so I have no drawbacks to being blind. But I want my senses heightened enough so that I'm not useless.

[Nifft]

Blindness + Blindsight (30 ft. or 60 ft.) in combo is still a drawback, because Blindsight has a fixed range and you're helpless to attacks from beyond that range.

You can't read which significantly limits scroll access and bars you from being a Wizard, you can't identify critters based on some visual cues like the color of their banner or the icon on their shields, you are flat-footed against archers outside your range, you can't target enemies outside your range, and so on.

You're also immune to some unusual special attacks (gaze attacks and illusions, for example), which is a non-trivial perk, but on the whole trading sight for blindsight is not a plus.

[Malimar]

I gave "blind" as a flaw to an NPC, figuring it's balanced-ish on its own, taking into account the "Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them" line and thereby reducing or negating some of the penalties. Helps that the NPC in question is a mind flayer Seer psion (though he also has "vow of never using his telepathy" as another flaw). Which leads to the real point: a player who wants to take Blind as a flaw already has some way in mind to negate or offset the penalties, so you don't need to build a solution into the feat.

Now, if you wanted to make it a trait, yes, it would be a decent trait if you throw in something along the lines of blindsense.

[ATHATH]

Wear a Blindfold of True Darkness?

[Elder_Basilisk]

Play a Pathfinder battle oracle with the blind curse. Blindness (of a sort) and the mitigation built in.

[Esprit15]

A friend of mine has used Keen Eared Scout from PHBII to great effect with blind characters. For such a feat, I’d be willing to allow the DC for pinpointing of location to be sufficient to negate miss chance as well. Later on, the aforementioned blindfold would be useful to not even have to roll for nearby.

[Crake]

You can't read which significantly limits scroll access and bars you from being a Wizard, you can't identify critters based on some visual cues like the color of their banner or the icon on their shields, you are flat-footed against archers outside your range, you can't target enemies outside your range, and so on.

Wrong on 2 counts. Firstly, you can read... by casting a scrying spell and using the scrying sensor to see. Clairaudience/clairvoyance is available as early as level 5 for this, though it only lasts a few minutes, so it's only good for short term reading. Additionally, there are touch based alternate spellbooks in complete arcane, my favourite of which is quarterstaves with the magical writing as carvings along their length. Finally, if you're a wizard, you can use your familiar to help you prepare visual based spells as per complete arcane's tattoo spellbooks, since your familiar can read the writing on your back, which allows you to prepare the spells without you actually being able to see the writing yourself.

As for being flat footed against enemies outside of the range of your blindsight, well, a single feat allows you to overcome that: Shape Soulmeld (Impulse boots) gives you uncanny dodge, preventing you from being denied dexterity against unseen enemies. Or you can just dip the variety of classes that get uncanny dodge super early, like barbarian or warblade.

As for doing this from level 1, well, the unseelie fey template has a chance to have no eyes and blindsight 30ft without LA. If you can convince your DM to instead make it that you have nonfunctional eyes (which, being nonfunctional by your anatomy, wouldn't be fixable with the regenerate spell or the like), and omit the random roll to try and get that particular perk, then you can have that right from the get-go.