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skeeter_dan
2008-07-23, 02:05 PM
I am currently DMing the Red Hand of Doom campaign with my current group. One of the people who used to game with us went away for the summer but will be returning in September. She has expressed her desire to play a blind character after working with blind kids at a summer camp. In addition, she wants to play a druid.

So, couple questions: she's apparently intending to play a variant that loses wildshape for a stronger animal companion, but she may change her mind. If a blind character wildshapes or uses polymorph and thus gains the "gross physical qualities" of another creature, does this potentially include sight? Some animals (such as owls) gain racial boosts to Spot, so this seems to be a valid question.

Secondly, she clearly wants this to be a permanent part of her character: how should I deal with the "Remove Blindness/Deafness" spell?

Tempest Fennac
2008-07-23, 02:21 PM
You could have it as a flaw so that magic can't remove it. I'd assume that the blindness would apply to all of the other forms as well.

Chronos
2008-07-23, 06:28 PM
Wildshape grants movement modes and extraordinary special attacks, but does not grant most other extraordinary special qualities, which include senses. In the same way that a druid wildshaped into a wolf does not gain scent, a blind druid wildshaped into something non-blind doesn't gain sight.

For a warrior-type character, you could let the player play a grimlock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/grimlock.htm), which is naturally blind (and therefore not curable), but has Blindsight (and is therefore not crippled). But the ability score modifiers and LA/RHD would make it a very poor choice for a druid.

seedjar
2008-07-23, 07:01 PM
I'd give sight (if the player even wants it,) as there are second or third level druid spells that grant senses anyways. It all depends on if the player is a druid for the theme or a druid for the sake of being druidzilla; I had pretty much zero nerfing on the part of my DM while playing a druid, because I was conscientious of keeping the gameplay balanced and only pushed the envelope when it made things better for everyone.
I know there are a lot of people who thing that Polymorph and co. are inherently broken, and there's a great argument for it, but I think that it's the same as Vow of Poverty; not broken, just not appropriate for some players or groups. In a by-the-numbers, hack-n-slash game, sure, Polymorph or VoP are kind of spoilers. But before I had books memorized or did research on the internet and was just playing the game as it came to me, I never had occasion or cause to make them into exploits.
If you want a "balanced" version of shapeshifting you can go with any of the various fixes people have conceived, but it just doesn't have the same feeling as plain old turning into stuff, stats and all. Polymorphing is a really spectacularly powerful ability, whether you're talking D&D or anything else; if you're playing for points, of course it will screw things up. So just don't play for points.
~Joe

skeeter_dan
2008-07-24, 12:03 PM
You could have it as a flaw so that magic can't remove it.
This seems like the most reasonable way to go about it, but I was wondering if there were specific rules for it or if I would need to houserule something about Remove Blindness/Deafness not working on characters blind since birth or something.

Wildshape grants movement modes and extraordinary special attacks, but does not grant most other extraordinary special qualities, which include senses. In the same way that a druid wildshaped into a wolf does not gain scent, a blind druid wildshaped into something non-blind doesn't gain sight.
Ah, the wolf example is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!