Race Idea


Homebrew and House Rules


I had an idea for a subrace of elf. Feedback is welcome.

Blind Elf
+2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -2 Constitution
While Blind elves are physically similar to elves, they are more geared towards survival as opposed to intellectualism.

Defense Traits:
Blindness: Blind Elves have lived deep underground in total darkness, and have become blind due to simply not needing sight, they are immune to gaze attacks but take a -2 penalty to sight-based perception checks.

Feats and Skill Traits:
Survival Instinct: Blind Elves gain a +2 racial bonus on survival checks.

Magical Racial Traits:
Deep Magic: Any Blind Elf sorcerer with the Deep Earth bloodline treats their Charisma as +2 higher for all spells and sorcerer abilities. Blind Elf druids or clerics with the earth domain treat their caster level as +1 higher for domain spells.

Senses Racial Traits:
Deep Sense: Deep Sense functions as tremorsense but with no concealment if a creature with it cannot see.


Hold on- you take a -2 to seeing, even though you're blind? That seems a bit... wrong?

For blindness, depending on how complete the extent of your blindness is, it's at least a -4, likely also includes limited vision range, or should probably just be an automatic fail at sight-based checks. Look at the Oracle Clouded Vision curse and the Deaf curse for reference.

How far is Deep Sense? 15 feet? 30 feet? 60 feet? 120 feet?

Do you get any other elven goodies? Elven Immunities or weapon proficiencies, perhaps? Spell resistance, or +X to beating spell resistance?

Perhaps a sort of hearing-based Blindsense or Blindsight? Bats have Blindsense 20.

As for racial adjustments, -2 CON seems weird if they're survivors, but it's completely in line with other elves. +2 DEX and +2 WIS, I have nothing against.

What's the flavor behind these guys? Are they elves who delved deeper than the Drow? Were they cursed with not being able to come to the surface world? Were they a lost underground colony? Were they blinded by some awful monster from the abyss? Please do tell us.


They would have 30 foot Deep Sense and the auto-fail for sight checks would work better. As for the stat distribution, they survive by just hiding in highly defended underground conclaves. About the other Elven traits, they have been underground for a really long time, and have become their own culture and don't have elven traditions. Their backstory is that in my homebrew game, which I'm going to use them in, they were a large expeditionary force who got lost in the depths of the earth and eventually went blind.


I feel like these are not a race that would survive long, deep sense or no. Blindness is a rather crippling ability when in a hostile environment (hell, it's hard enough for people IRL, where we've at least got some accommodations for it, and no one (hopefully) is trying to kill and/or eat you). Blindsense is probably better, since then they can probably detect enemies above them (there are bats, ropers, cave fishers, and a lot more nasty things that hang out in the top of caverns). Remember that tremorsense travels through the ground, so it would only detect things on the ceiling if the entire perimeter of the tunnel were 60 feet or less (so, about 15 ft wide, and 15 ft high). Of course, unless it's blindsight (which, to some degree, entirely negates being blind within a given range), they are still going to treat everything as if it has concealment (they know the location of the creature, nothing else), and are denied their dex to AC against everything.

'CRB Blind Says wrote:


Blinded: The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks and on opposed Perception skill checks. All checks and activities that rely on vision (such as reading and Perception checks based on sight) automatically fail. All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) against the blinded character.
Blind creatures must make a DC 10 Acrobatics skill check to move faster than half speed. Creatures that fail this check fall prone. Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.

I'm fairly certain that the only part of this condition that can be reasonably overcome with time is the need for Acrobatics to move. Maybe the penalties to AC and strength or dex based skills.

If you're wanting to make a 'degenerated underground race,' I'd say start with the Morlocks (Bestiary 1, pg 209). The descriptive text does say degenerate humans, but if you want elven degeneration to be distinct, maybe some stat shuffling or an alternate ability is appropriate.

If you're really set on something blind, and don't want to give them full blindsight, consider giving them an 'active' version that works like echolocation. Basically, they can 'see' out to whatever range as a free action on their turn (note that they can see even invisible things, though stealth is still a factor), but are still totally blind when not using the ability.


Don't fantasy races that live underground just gain darkvision?

Also, this race seems kinda wimpy, they basically have +2 to survival and the blindness that is in theory equaled out by the deep-sight.

I think the easiest way to make a "blind" elf race is to take regular elves and have them trade elvish magic (because they are less intellectual) for the oracle blind curse that progresses at your character level.

Scarab Sages

Simeon wrote:

I had an idea for a subrace of elf. Feedback is welcome.

Blind Elf
+2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -2 Constitution
While Blind elves are physically similar to elves, they are more geared towards survival as opposed to intellectualism.
...

So, basically...you want to create Mexican Cave Elves?


It does seem like Blindsight would be more fitting than Deep Sense. I'll probably go with Blindsight.

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