Spells for the Blind

[Catullus64]

In an upcoming short campaign (starting at Level 3), I'm going to be playing a blind Druid. And not your Toph Beifong/Daredevil, sorta-blind-but-can-really-see-just-as-well-if-not-better blind, just proper, always-on Blinded condition. The only fantasy cop-out to the blindness is that I can see fine while in Wild Shape.

I've cleared this with the DM and the other players, and nobody minds the loss of party effectiveness. So the question is now what spells and abilities I should pick. Race-wise, darkvision is pretty useless, so I'll probably go human; feat advice welcome.

My remaining considerations are spells and Circle. Dreams and Shepherd are out, since both of their 2nd-level features rely on points you can see. (Though, granted, neither of those are spells, and thus could be used in Wildshape.) Of course I'll be looking through spells on my own to find out which ones still work when you can't see, but if any spring to mind, let me know. Right now it's looking like Entangle and Cure Wounds are my best friends.

[MrStabby]

Is a feat to get find familiar to see through its eyes out of the question?

[Catullus64]

Is a feat to get find familiar to see through its eyes out of the question?

Not out of the question, but not something I particularly want to do either. I'd rather spend my feat on something that I can still do while blind, rather than on further mitigation/circumvention of the blindness.

[solidork]

Is a feat to get find familiar to see through its eyes out of the question?

Plus, this doesn't actually let you cast most spells or use most abilities that require sight.

Faerie Fire and Entangle don't technically require you to see the area you're targeting - but how are you going to know where to cast them? I'd personally go with Circle of the Moon and then just do buff/healing spells for your human form.

[Catullus64]

Faerie Fire and Entangle don't technically require you to see the area you're targeting - but how are you going to know where to cast them? I'd personally go with Circle of the Moon and then just do buff/healing spells for your human form.

I mean, I can still hear fine, so as long as enemies don't take the Hide action, I still know their positions.

[Valmark]

Shepered is out also because the spells it specializes in require sight, I imagine.

Honestly I'd go Moon- seems the easiest to do. But that doesn't mean Land doesn't work- Arctic for example only has spells that don't use Sight.

Pick wether you wanna melee or not, I guess.
If it helps, this (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Hk7zwD4Gxr) is a list of spells that DO require sight. Anything not on this, you can use it. The fact that my favorite druid spells need sight makes me want to advise against Land but really, pick whichever you want.

[Lavaeolus]

The Alert feat is a smart pick-up here. Strictly RAW, a blind character is always going to have disadvantage on their attack rolls, and is always going to give advantage to enemy's attack rolls against them. This feat eliminates the latter, which is nifty. The UA option you might be able to pick up, DM depending, is Blind Fighting (https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/UA-ClassFeatures.pdf), a Fighting Style that stops you from having automatic disadvantage on attack rolls against people you can't see, although only so long as they aren't hidden.

I don't know if picking up both is against your desire to have "proper, always-on Blinded condition". But you have spent a feat and a Fighting Style to basically remove some penalties no one else would have, and you're still going to fail any checks / be unable to cast any spells that require sight, so it is still a pretty obvious disadvantage. I'd consider at least grabbing Alert; as a Druid, relying on Wild Shape and attack-spells that require saves should get you by if UA's not on the table.

Moon Druid's an obvious choice, but I don't believe Land Druid has any features that require on things you can see. Some of the spell-lists you can pick from are less suited than others, but I think Swamp and Underdark work mostly sight-free. Others lose one or two spells, which you may be able to work around. Swamp'll get you the Darkness spell, which has synergy for a blind character but also can be a bit of a pain for all your teammates.

[Unoriginal]

Shepered is out also because the spells it specializes in require sight, I imagine.

Summoning spells don't require line-of-sight, IIRC. So Shepherd is fine.

[Valmark]

Summoning spells don't require line-of-sight, IIRC. So Shepherd is fine.

They do. At least, Conjure Animals/WB/ME/Elemental/Fey do. I don't think there are others the druid gets?

[Lavaeolus]

They do. At least, Conjure Animals/WB/ME/Elemental/Fey do. I don't think there are others the druid gets?

To my knowledge, yes, that's right for the most part. The Druid's summoning spells tend to have some variation of: "[the creatures] appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range."

Interestingly, this doesn't go for Conjure Elemental:

Choose an area of air, earth, fire, or water that fills a 10-foot cube within range. An elemental of challenge rating 5 or lower appropriate to the area you chose appears in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of it.

No sight required, per se. Of course, you'll be getting that at, what, 9th level? And it's not beast or fey. So Shepherd really isn't great here.

[Unoriginal]

They do. At least, Conjure Animals/WB/ME/Elemental/Fey do. I don't think there are others the druid gets?

Oh, you're right, I apologize.

You need to be able to see an empty space to summon the creature into.

[Valmark]

To my knowledge, yes, that's right for the most part. The Druid's summoning spells tend to have some variation of: "[the creatures] appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range."

Interestingly, this doesn't go for Conjure Elemental:


No sight required, per se. Of course, you'll be getting that at, what, 9th level? And it's not beast or fey. So Shepherd really isn't great here.

Oh, that's right. Though yeah, it doesn't do much for the Sheperd anyway (I wonder why elementals weren't included, but that's another subject).

[werescythe]

If I was the DM, I would probably have it that when casting a spell you need to make a perception check (using hearing of course) to make sure you cast it in the right spot, so I would say that Alert would be a really good feat option. Also Prodigy (a human racial feat from Xanathar's) would be good because you could use it to gain expertise on perception and thus increase your odds of putting Entangle on the enemies and not accidentally putting it on yourself or your allies.

The idea being that like how blind people tend to be better at hearing that non-blind people, your character is using hearing to interact with the world. If that makes sense.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

If I was the DM, I would probably have it that when casting a spell you need to make a perception check (using hearing of course) to make sure you cast it in the right spot, so I would say that Alert would be a really good feat option. Also Prodigy (a human racial feat from Xanathar's) would be good because you could use it to gain expertise on perception and thus increase your odds of putting Entangle on the enemies and not accidentally putting it on yourself or your allies.

The idea being that like how blind people tend to be better at hearing that non-blind people, your character is using hearing to interact with the world. If that makes sense.

Why the check?
When I read the PHB action it is really obvious to me that if someone isn't hidden his location is known.



Unseen Attackers and Targets

If you are hidden — both unseen and unheard — when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.


I do agree that Alert will be valuable because his enemies will not attack him with advantage for not being seen.

Blind fighting is also nice but will require the last UA feat that gives fighting style or a dip(paladin(2/5) if he get the fighting style will be nice for more uses of spell slots or fighter (1/2/5) for extra attack for shapes that don't have multiattck).

[Catullus64]

I'll have to ask my DM about Alert, since I'm not entirely certain that it will actually prevent attacks against me from having advantage.

The Blinded condition says that attacks against you have advantage, and I think that's separable from specifically being hidden from a creature. If you're blinded, a creature standing out in the open gets advantage, even if they are not "hidden." If the DM says Alert covers even normal, non-hiding attacks against me, I'm taking it hands down.

[Unoriginal]

I'll have to ask my DM about Alert, since I'm not entirely certain that it will actually prevent attacks against me from having advantage.

The Blinded condition says that attacks against you have advantage, and I think that's separable from specifically being hidden from a creature. If you're blinded, a creature standing out in the open gets advantage, even if they are not "hidden." If the DM says Alert covers even normal, non-hiding attacks against me, I'm taking it hands down.

Yes, blinded opponent and hidden attack are two different sources of advantages. If the latter doesn't apply the former still can.

[Lavaeolus]

The Blinded condition says that attacks against you have advantage, and I think that's separable from specifically being hidden from a creature. If you're blinded, a creature standing out in the open gets advantage, even if they are not "hidden."

You seem to be looking at an old version of the feat. Alert was errata'd a long time ago, and now reads:

Other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you.

A helpful change here!

[Tanarii]

I mean, I can still hear fine, so as long as enemies don't take the Hide action, I still know their positions.
If you haven't already done so, confirm that with your DM. Not being able to see a non-hiding creature may mean you need to guess their position. It may also mean past a certain distance or in noisy situations or both you need a perception check to even become aware of them.

Like, even if you know they're on board with automatically pin-pointing from previous campaigns with them, it's still worth asking (both yourself and the DM) "what happens if they're 200 ft away in a fog cloud, or we're fighting adjacent in melee in a foundry". Make sure you're on the same page for expectation.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Fun, You can actually create a solid controller/damage dealer with this.

Cantrips: Thunderclap, druidcraft, guidance
1st level: Absorb elements, Cure wounds, entangle, faerie fire, fog cloud, thunderwave,
2nd: Enhance ability, Flaming sphere, moonbeam, pass without trace, spike growth
3rd: dispel magic, plant growth, sleet storm,
4th: confusion, wall of fire
5th: conjure elemental, wall of stone, contagion
6th: investiture of flame, sunbeam, transport via plants, wall of thorns
7th: Fire storm, reverse gravity
8th: Tsunami
9th: Foresight, shapechange

For background I would grab one of the GGtR backgrounds to give more spells. Dissonant whispers, burning hands, heroism, sleep, alter self(might be able to give yourself sight sometimes depending on the dm) shatter, fear, arcane eye, animate objects.

Subclass I'd personally take Moon and then grab the mobile or tough feat (if your dm rules the hp increase applies to wildshapes.)