This is a feat chain for blind characters. Although the character will never completely overcome his blindness, with experience he learns to focus his other senses in useful ways. Please read and review.
All four of these count as Combat feats.
Sightless Focus
Benefit: Once per round, as a move action, you can attempt to perfectly locate one invisible and/or concealed target. Make a Perception check with a DC equal to 10 + target's Stealth modifier (with all usual modifiers for Perception and Blinded, except for the usual bonus for Invisibility). If you succeed, you treat the target as if the target were visible and not concealed; also, you neither lose your dexterity bonus nor take a -2 to AC against the target. This benefit lasts until the end of your next turn. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Prerequisite: You must take this feat at character creation or have spent at least the previous level blinded. You do not need to be physically blind; you may just keep yourself blindfolded. If your blindness is ever cured, or blindfold removed, you immediately lose the benefits of this feat, and any feats which depend on it. You can regain the benefits of this feat if you again meet the prerequisite.
Dark Equilibrium
Your experience moving in darkness has improved your balance. You no longer need to make an Acrobatics check to keep your balance when moving at full speed because of being Blinded. Furthermore, you can reroll any check or save to keep your balance, and take the better result. Furthermore, you no longer take the penalty to strength- and dexterity-based skill checks. You do not lose this benefit if you are deafened. Finally, you can perfectly locate up to two targets, as a swift action.
Prerequisites: Level 5, Sightless Focus
Reading the Noise
Your ability to read the incoming attacks of the foes you study becomes uncanny. By listening for the swing of a sword, the flight of an arrow, or the roar of a fireball, you can predict and avoid the attack. As an immediate action, you can force an opponent you have perfectly located to reroll an attack roll they made against you and take the worse result or reroll a Reflex save against them and take the better result. Furthermore, you can perfectly locate up to three targets, as a free action. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Prerequisites: Level 11, Dark Equilibrium
The Faintest Sound
You gain Blindsense, with a distance equal to (your ranks in Perception x5) feet. You automatically perfectly locate everybody in range of your Blindsense. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Prerequisites: Level 15, Reading the Noise
Design Notes
My goal is to create a feat chain that enables a blind character to function, even excel in special ways, without completely removing the drawbacks of being blind. A blind character who could function normally and gain benefits would be more powerful than first glance suggests; blind characters don't care one way or another about darkness effects, gaze attacks, blinding attacks, most illusions, and some other effects. It takes all four feats to overcome most of the problems.
The first feat is plenty powerful in its effect, but leaves the character vulnerable to other enemies unless he is careful. The later feats improve on the core concept, partly because combat itself becomes more dangerous and partly because characters with a medium-to-good BAB may want to attack more than one opponent.
The second feat turns the primary effect into a swift action and extends it to two targets. The swift action effect is almost powerful enough in itself, but several classes (Magus and Monk, for example) use their swift actions for important actions. I added the balance feature, which is useful, if circumstantial. Nifty if a spellcaster uses an effect that knocks you prone (Sirocco, anybody?) and it also encourages these characters to make some risky acrobatics checks. When you can roll twice, why not go sliding down the ropes on a rocking pirate ship in stormy water?
The third feat is a touch disappointing. I like the effect; it's powerful, it's thematic. But I hate having that "or" in there. I thought about limiting this just to attack rolls, but I was inspired by the rogue's evasion ability to add something in there that could apply to magical attacks as well. I think that makes this very tempting, especially when I'm of the mind that people are usually more concerned with offense than defense. A defensive feat needs to be good. But still... also, I'm not entirely married to the name. Finally, the core feature improves again here, and it's about as good an improvement as the second step: because the check is now a free action, it doesn't take anything away from the other actions and extending it to three people is sometimes useful. I considered making this feat say "you can ignore somebody's dexterity bonus and treat them as flat-footed as an immediate action", but a person's ability to dodge is as much about their ability to move as it is about your ability to predict their movements.
The fourth feat is powerful, but I felt it was balanced for a point when spellcasters can regularly fly, teleport people to other dimensions, give themselves blindsight 40, stop time, or destroy a three mile radius with a tornado. I originally called it blindsight, but I felt that was excessive, especially given the potential range. By the way, note that the greatest range is equal to the first range increment of a longbow. Nice that it works out that way, I think.
Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sold on "Sightless Focus" for the first feat's name. Sounds a touch pretentious, but not sure what I want to change it to. "Blind Warrior" sounds a bit too simple and suggests a melee character; in my original concept, this was a feat chain for archers, inspired by the idea of a zen archer who blindfolds himself. Also considered "Way of the Blind", but again, pretentious?
A note to Blind-Fighting: Blind-Fighting isn't as powerful as this, but it also does not come with a debilitating and permanent condition like this. In a room with five enemies, where four are visible, and one is invisible, the blind character is in more trouble. Also, the blind character still needs to succeed at a perception check; against some opponents, and in some circumstances, this is difficult. You also need greater investment in this chain to complete it.
I made the perception check a flat check, but one without the invisibility modifiers, because I wanted the check to be possible, even at level one. I'm also assuming the character is using some special training, or unusually focused sense, to make the check, to explain why the invisibility modifier or an actual stealth check does not factor in. I set it at 10+ because, well, if it works for Caster Level, why not Perception? (Heh, except Perception can get a higher bonus; but then again, so can stealth modifier).
I've considered adding in something to account for bards. As it stands, sometimes a blind character won't be able to get any benefit from a bard song, because some require the target to see the bard to get the effect. And, on the other hand, blind bards have a 50% chance of failure to perform a bardic song with a visual component. Maybe add something to feat one, or change feat three.
Maybe start with looking at the blind-fight chain, or at least consider the blind-fight feat as a prerequiste
Maybe start with looking at the blind-fight chain, or at least consider the blind-fight feat as a prerequiste
Like I said above, I did look at the blind-fight chain. I could change some of the phrasing to be more similar to Blind-Fight, or make the effect more powerful (either removing the need for a roll or just adding in the paragraph about "an invisible attacker gets no advantages related to hitting you in melee"). But I wouldn't want the effect to be the same as Blind-Fight because it would be too weak (being always blind, you'd miss too often to be viable and you would be very vulnerable to ranged attacks) and too narrow (no range benefit would mean excluding the idea of the blindfolded archer).
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I did some thinking about the suggestion and revised the wording and balancing a bit to better compare and contrast it with the Blind-Fight chain. Not a complete change. In fact, I've thought about going a bit further, but I'm still very concerned about making it closely parallel Blind-Fight. If I did that, then it would still be crippling, at least for low level blind characters. I have to think about people who might take this feat at level 1 (which is when, I assume, most characters would take it).
I also changed the "perfect locating" to be more in line with the pinpointing rules. I've thought about eliminating the perfect locating improvement that comes at level 5 and weakening the one that comes at level 11.
I improved Dark Equilibrium by turning the strength and dexterity penalties into bonuses at that level. Too much?
I'm still not sure what I want to do to change "Reading the Noise"'s benefit. I want it to feel like a very impressive extension of the mundane; something tied to the invisibility and concealment and blinded rules.
Sightless Focus
You have learned to compensate for your blinded condition by hyper-focusing your sense of hearing.
Benefit: Once per round, when you pinpoint a creature, you can use an immediate action to perfectly locate the creature.
A perfectly located creature gets no advantages from its invisibility or concealment related to hitting you or avoiding your attacks. This benefit lasts until the end of your next turn. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Furthermore, you do not need to make Acrobatics skill checks to move at full speed, but you still cannot run or charge.
Prerequisite: You must take this feat at character creation or have spent at least the previous level blinded. You do not need to be physically blind; you may just keep yourself blindfolded. If your blindness is ever cured, or blindfold removed, you immediately lose the benefits of this feat, and any feats which depend on it. You can regain the benefits of this feat if you again meet the prerequisite.
Dark Equilibrium
Your experience moving in darkness has improved your balance.
Benefit: You can reroll any check or save to keep your balance, and take the better result. You can run and charge now.
Furthermore, your penalty to strength- and dexterity-based skill checks become equivalent bonuses. You do not lose this or the above benefit if you are deafened.
Finally, you can perfectly locate a second creature with the same immediate action, but you take a -5 penalty in the attempt.
Prerequisites: Level 5, Sightless Focus
Reading the Noise
Your ability to read the incoming attacks of the foes you study becomes uncanny. By listening for the swing of a sword, the flight of an arrow, or the roar of a fireball, you can predict and avoid the attack.
Benefit: As an immediate action, you can force an opponent you have perfectly located to reroll an attack roll they made against you and take the worse result or reroll a Reflex save against them and take the better result. Furthermore, you can perfectly locate up to three targets with one free action, but you take a -5 cumulative penalty for each creature after the first. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Prerequisites: Level 11, Dark Equilibrium
The Faintest Sound
Your sense of sound has become truly superhuman. Even the slightest heartbeat is a dead giveaway to a person's location.
Benefit: You gain Blindsense with a distance equal to (your ranks in Perception x5) feet. You automatically perfectly locate everybody in range of your Blindsense. If you are deafened, you lose this benefit.
Prerequisites: Level 15, Reading the Noise
Hm, still not sold on the name I chose. I think I'll put together a list of alternate names later.
I am also thinking about just removing the third feat. I'm still not happy with it, but I don't yet know what I would want to replace it with. Of course, if I took that out, I would need to do something with the fourth feat - and I would not want to make that accessible earlier.
I should probably lower the bonus to skills, at second feat, to +2, or drop it altogether, or replace it with something else. Otherwise, I think it replaces too many other feats, like Stealthy and Skill Focus, which do something similar.
One thing to think about, if the person with said fears can hear so well and to such a heightened degree, do sonic attacks to more damage or have additional effects on them?