Claw their eyes out - Balancing a Martial Maneuver

[ChudoJogurt]

I want to make a martial maneuver.
It's a Tiger School maneuver, that would permanently blind the target -- not destroy their eyes, but something that could be cured by Remove Blindness/Deafness.
In that sense it's comparable to Blindness/Deafness spell, except it can only blind the enemy.

I feel that it should be a second level maneuver, and since it would require attack roll, it should not allow for a saving throw.
But that seems to be rather at odds with the design of the rest of strikes in the books.
So I'm requesting a sense-check. Is that overpowered? Will it break something? Are the strikes in the book just overpowered?

[Thunder999]

Definitely OP.

Not being able to deafen isn't really relevant, I've basically never seen anyone actually choose Deafness, Blinding casters works almost as well as doing it to martials after all, they lose the ability to use single target spells since they can't target them at all, and still won't necessarily know where to aim AoEs safely.

Blindness is Fort Negates, which means you need some seriously impressive DCs to land it reliably on most enemies

Looking at existing maneuvers you'll see that not having a save is worth +2 to a maneuvers level, and most effects only last a single round.

I'd say a save negates 1 round version is 3rd level, no save 1 round is 5th.
Not sure for permanent duration though, it's significantly better than 1 round in that it lets you follow up yourself, but permanent is functionally no better than 1 minute for this sort of offensive effect (because they'll die within a minute).
I'd say maybe 2 levels higher, but I'm not really sure, there's just not much to compare to.

It's worth remembering that you can be tossing this out every other round with a warblade.

[JNAProductions]

Compared to Blindness… it’s a lot more powerful.

Mostly because a 2nd level slot refreshes daily.
A 2nd level maneuver refreshes every encounter.

[tyckspoon]

As a short duration rider on a normal attack with either automatic success or a secondary check that would be easy to achieve (like the Jump checks some other Tiger Claw maneuvers use) I think it'd be appropriate as 2nd level - very straightforward, make attack roll, if you succeed do normal damage + target is Blinded for 1 round. There's a bunch of other factors you could toss in for higher level versions; bonus damage/more bonus damage, can do it to every enemy within reach, effect lasts long enough to effectively cover the whole encounter (between 5 to 10 rounds should do, and if you manage to have longer fights than that you'll have opportunities to just reapply it because you probably want to recover maneuvers somewhere in an extended encounter like that) and so on.

[ChudoJogurt]

Definitely need it to be permanent -- it's going to be a plot point.
So fort save (10+maneuver level + str seems to be de rigueur for Tiger Maneuvers), and an additional requirements (attack as full-round action at -2)? Would that balance it out?
Or is it far too much to get before level 5 maneuvers under any condition?

[JNAProductions]

What do you mean by “plot point”?

[ChudoJogurt]

Well, in a story I'm planning, an NPC is going to use it in a training match against party-affiliated NPC, severely damaging their eyes, and leaving a nasty scar.
Since in the campaign there is almost no divine magic to fix it, this is sort of plot-C hook for the PCs -- are they going to demand restitutions? Are they going to swear vengeance? Are they going to complain to their patron? Etc.
Plus it signifies that said NPC has their own super-secret maneuvers, so they might want to learn what he knows and how he came to learn it, or to counter them.

But for at least the first part to work, I need the damage to be permanent, and since I imagine the party may, one way or the other, learn the maneuver eventually, I want it to be reasonably balanced.

[pabelfly]

Attack rolls are easy to boost, so you're basically creating a Blindnesss - Yes manoeuvre that you can use each encounter. Id say it's a bit too powerful for level 3 characters to use.

I'd require a Reflex or Fort save or boost the level of the manoeuvre.

[Doctor Despair]

You are well within your rights to just say that the NPC did it to the other NPC. It's a plotpoint the characters would have to deal with.

If you want a RAW justification, have the bad NPC knock the other NPC unconscious and then use Snatch Trophy to take the friendly NPC's eyes as a free action. The feat doesn't actually say you can only take one trophy, so you could argue (as the DM) you can do it more than once if the NPC is willing to drop the first eye on the ground to keep a free hand.

[DrMartin]

that could be just a called shot or a combat stunt. not everything has to be hard coded.

but if you want to "make it official" and keep it at 2nd level and make it balanced, have it be target's choice: before rolling damage they have to chose to either take damage (possibly with a 2d6 extra damage?) OR be blinded. So they'd probably go for the blind only if they are already low on HP, making it a "finishing move" of sort.

[ChudoJogurt]

What about "Deal damage +1d6. If that would send them to below -10 hp, you may instead choose to permanently blind them. If you do, their hp goes to -1 and they are stabilised."

Though that feels like a useless vanity maneuver.

[pabelfly]

What about "Deal damage +1d6. If that would send them to below -10 hp, you may instead choose to permanently blind them. If you do, their hp goes to -1 and they are stabilised."

Though that feels like a useless vanity maneuver.
That's good if you need to capture someone alive and not kill them though.

[Thunder999]

Not a fan of the ones that offer a permanent blind as a death alternative, that's really only useful for the particular setpiece in mind, and would be super disappointing to actually get as a PC.

Something with a save that you can just say the NPC failed works better.

[Arkain]

Maybe not quite what you envisioned, but you could just use a spell storing weapon with Blindness, narrate the triggering accordingly and simply have the other NPC fail the save. If it is discovered how the blindness actually came about, you might have another thing going there, cheating in a match, maybe somebody swapped weapons and the NPC didn't know it was a weapon that would blind their opponent, or whatever else you want.

[ChudoJogurt]

Definitely doesn't work for me, for multiple reasons, but the main one - I want to start introducing more maneuvers, both in-universe (as obscure/specialized/new schools) and out (because ToB doesn't have a lot of maneuvers, and a lot of them are either useless or redundant)

[Boci]

What if it blinds for one round (with a save), which become permanent if the attack reduces them to negative hitpoints?

[ChudoJogurt]

Maybe...

What if its permanent partial blindness? E.g. giving everyone 20% miss chance?

[Boci]

Anything permanent beyond -2 to spot checks is going to be frustrating for players. 20% miss chance is arguable worse, in that it now effect martial classes worse than casters, at least blind cripples all characters.