Blind Character

[Alleine]

For an upcoming campaign, I decided to make a blind character, partly for flavor and part for fun. He's going to be a psion, which is nice because they have several powers to make blindness suck less, but I realized that I won't be able to go ahead with my plan to remove the blindness for several levels.

My problem is not so much being blind, but how I will manage to survive as a blind man for roughly five levels? Most combat problems are solved with a sense link or synsthete, but I know it will still be VERY difficult.

Suggestions?

[A Gray Phantom]

Take the blind fight feat, and put plenty of ranks in diplomacy, listen, and (oddly enough) handle animal.

Being blind means you will fail ALL of your spot checks, but you should get a compensation to your listen checks (+4 to +10).

Handle animal will help you train a seeing eye dog.

Diplomacy will allow you to negotiate with people that will aid you.

[de-trick]

take earth sense from RoS, and try to let your DM allow you to have scent and get improved scent

[Alleine]

The problem with blind fight is that I am not going to be a melee character, I am also going to assume that my allies won't try to let me die by letting me wander blindly into some dragon's lair. Maybe I'm putting too much faith in them, but they players are usually good about that sort of thing. I do plan on getting a listen bonus, but I need to know things that would help a psion survive for several levels until the problem can be fixed.

[The_Snark]

An invisible attacker gets no advantages related to hitting you in melee. That is, you don’t lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, and the attacker doesn’t get the usual +2 bonus for being invisible. The invisible attacker’s bonuses do still apply for ranged attacks, however.

You take only half the usual penalty to speed for being unable to see. Darkness and poor visibility in general reduces your speed to three-quarters normal, instead of one-half.

These are the portions of Blind-Fight that'll really help you. Synesthete and Sense Link are good, and once you can get it Touchsight is a power that will help you locate enemies (and will remain useful after you've been cured, too).

[kemmotar]

well...once you get some money you can get blindfold of true darkness for 9k.Blocks out any other kind of sight but gives you 30ft blindsense. Its a quite small price considering the benefit. Ofc you'll be lacking some other gear but it lets you keep the flavor, pretty much...Well that's a cure for blindness and a benefit altogether but it will give you an edge.

As for low level cures for blindness you can get a dorje for a higher level spell such as touchsight. You can also use as a first level spell the synthete spell to hear sight(read spell description for info)...Later get an item for continuous synthete or touchsight and you're set...Just make sure you get a lot of listen and initiative so you can start with a spell that will help you "see".

Edit:damn someone beat me to the solution spells while i was writing the post..lol

[Chronos]

What happens when the party cleric hits third level, and just casts Cure Blindness or Deafness on you? There goes the character concept. Or would you refuse to receive such a spell?

[Quietus]

What happens when the party cleric hits third level, and just casts Cure Blindness or Deafness on you? There goes the character concept. Or would you refuse to receive such a spell?

From a scroll? He could do that at first level.

Clerics don't get Remove Blindness/Deafness until level 5, I believe.

[Alleine]

What happens when the party cleric hits third level, and just casts Cure Blindness or Deafness on you? There goes the character concept. Or would you refuse to receive such a spell?

I suppose my entire lack of actual eyes might be a problem for the spell, but maybe not, I'm not very familiar with most spells.

My solution was buying one of those Quori embedded shards from Eberron that acts as an eye, without most of the usual penalties for having sight. I probably wouldn't be using it all the time, but it is definitely going to add to the flavor of my character, having a fully-functional crystal eye.

Looking at blind-fight again makes it look a little more appealing...

[TimeWizard]

I beleive that Sandstorm has a feat for tremor-sense, I think, maybe. Or not. Blind fight is indispensible.
I wanted to run a blind character once, but the idea is pretty much defeated when you get high level cleric magic. I went so far as to make my character an Anophthalmiac to prolong his blindness... but at the time I couldn't think of a good excuse to keep him blind. Now I have one- he's lived his whole life blind and he's so accustomed to it he doesn't want to change- but the oppertunity passed.

[slexlollar89]

ask your DM if, in exchange for total blindess, you can have blindsense out 5ft/4lvls. also you would probably get (unless recently blinded) +4 to listen, auto-fail sense motive (sight based) spot, search, -2 diplomacy (unless peole know you can't see and you wear glasses) and +2 bluff (no eyes to read).

carry a quarterstaff, just to poke your way around and pretnd to be a blind beggar .

[Alleine]

ask your DM if, in exchange for total blindess, you can have blindsense out 5ft/4lvls. also you would probably get (unless recently blinded) +4 to listen, auto-fail sense motive (sight based) spot, search, -2 diplomacy (unless peole know you can't see and you wear glasses) and +2 bluff (no eyes to read).

carry a quarterstaff, just to poke your way around and pretnd to be a blind beggar .

The idea behind the character is that his eyes were ripped out of his head, and he'll have been blind for awhile when the campaign starts so I know my DM will let me have bonuses, but some of those penalties seem a little much. Snese-motive doesn't have to be sight based, you can tell by the inflections of their voice if they lie(if you can sense that sort of thing, which a blind person probably will be able to do). Why would you get a -2 diplomacy for being blind?

Besides, a lot of these things will be negated when I use my powers. I'm looking for ways to help me just get around and not killed by normal things sighted people would have trouble with.

[Jasdoif]

Remove blindness/deafness won't work if your eyes are missing. You'd need something along the lines of regenerate.

[Renrik]

What's the point of playing a blind character if all you're going to do is negate his blindness with psionic powers and then get it cured at a certain level? He might as well just not be blind. The fun in playing a blind character is to adapt to the blindness without negating its penalties. Like, say, playing a blind gnoll ranger with the archery combat style. The DM might allow you to have scent, and you take blindfight and max out listen, but you still have a miss percentage, which makes it more challenging. Or, if you want the character to be balanced as opposed to making the game challenging for yourself, work out blindness as a major flaw worth one or more bonus feats to balance it.

[psychoticbarber]

I'm intensely reminded of Daredevil.

"I'm blind! My superpower, you ask? It lets me see."

[Alleine]

What's the point of playing a blind character if all you're going to do is negate his blindness with psionic powers and then get it cured at a certain level? He might as well just not be blind. The fun in playing a blind character is to adapt to the blindness without negating its penalties. Like, say, playing a blind gnoll ranger with the archery combat style. The DM might allow you to have scent, and you take blindfight and max out listen, but you still have a miss percentage, which makes it more challenging. Or, if you want the character to be balanced as opposed to making the game challenging for yourself, work out blindness as a major flaw worth one or more bonus feats to balance it.

The powers only work for a limited amount of time per day, and almost every offensive power/spell requires line of sight, which a blind person can't have. Kind of a problem, however not all of my powers will require sight, so I'll still be completely blind most of the time, just when it is necessary to the extreme.

When it does get fixed, it will only be partial. I thought it wold be totally awesome if I bought only one crystal eye, probably around 8th level or later, and used it only in certain circumstances like the use of true seeing. It would be almost purely for the cool factor though.

Just imagine the guy who everyone knows is blind slowly making his way into a room of enemies who all realize they're about to get an easy kill. Then he lifts the bandage over one eye, they all see a glowing crystal eye, and all hell breaks loose. He then makes his way out of the room, clumsily tripping over the charred remains of his enemies with the bandage back in place. I think it'd be cool.

[PlatinumJester]

You could be a human and take the Willing Deformity Feat (BoVD) and Deformity Tongue Feat (HoH).

Or you could ask your DM to make a character whose eyes were altered magically to be pale white but still functional. That way you could just pretend to be blind.

Taking a level of Warblade is a good idea as well since there is a stance that gives you scent.

[Serpentine]

I see nothing wrong with compensating for a fault that'll still be plenty disadvantageous anyway. Next thing you'll have a go at me for working out alternative means of communication for my mute rogue For example, he still won't be able to tell where that sniper is - not without a major, possibly epic, listen check - or aim at a distance without specific guidance, or fly (if you ever got the chance), or move quickly, or read scolls or anything else for that matter, or any other number of things. In the world of D&D, one can be disadvantaged without being crippled.
Basically, I think you can just go through the other senses that'll be compensating for the lack of sight and figure out appropriate feats to boost them (most of which have already been mentioned, of course): Hearing (not sure, maybe blindsense?), smell (Scent), touch (Tremorsense), taste (no idea, but it could be interesting). It could be interesting if you can get other sensing mechanisms, eg. heatsensing and echolocation (which I think could conceivably be covered by a serious listen check, not appropriate for lower levels though). I think it'd be quite reasonable to start with bonuses to Listen, or even Search (or some other skill that can be performed by touch), and/or one of those feats.