theWasp
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For my setting, in which some human societies heavily rely on working dogs, I have been making a few different homebrew dog animal companions, based on the various jobs working dogs have in the real world. I wanted to include a guide dog* animal companion. I am not visually impaired myself, however, so wanted to ask for some guidance on what abilities to give them.
I had been considering giving them the ability to negate the 'all terrain is difficult terrain' rule from the blinded condition, however, the rulebook's guidance for characters with blindness mentions that they will have adapted to living with the condition, and leaves out the difficult terrain rule, as well as the -4 penalty on perception checks that don't require vision.
Another possibility is to have it grant the player the Blind-Fight feat if it is near them, however, the guidance in the rulebooks suggests you should be granted the blind-fight feat anyway.
So a final option that I can think of is to have it's support action be to reduce the flat check to target hidden creatures by a further 5 on top of what blind-fight does, removing the need for a flat check.
That is basically just giving you the ability a sighted character has to target creatures without a flat check. But maybe that's ok beacause blind characters are differently abled - being immune to visual effects, dazzled and the full blinded condition? Should the guide dog have precise scent so it can help you target creatures that are invisible/hidden to other players?
And I'm not sure what a good advanced maneuver would be. Maybe just keep Takedown from the wolf companion?
It should probably be a rare animal companion, with access limited to characters with visual impairments due to the specilised training the dogs have been given. For other people who want a dog that can help them detect hidden or concealed creatures, I will probably make a scenthound companion.
*In my country, the association that trains them defines them as follows: "A Guide Dog is a Working Dog that is trained to assist you in independently navigating the world if you are a person with a visual impairment." I know other names are used for them in other countries.
