Recently one of my DMs decided to make a medieval/fantasy Japanese themed campaign. In an effort to create a character with an interesting roleplaying twist, I decided on making (or attempting to make) a blind Samurai with the Sword Saint archetype.
As we've seen versions of this type of character in various films (Ichi and Ninja Scroll for example), the DM has already expressed approval and has asked me to look into the feasibility, including any homebrew rules we'd need to come up with to make it possible.
Blindness has severe penalties associated with it, as follows:
* –2 penalty to Armor Class
* Loss of Dexterity bonus to AC
* –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.
It also states the following: "Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them." - however it does not go into detail about what precisely happens.
Additionally, there is a 3rd level spell that cures blindness completely, whether natural or caused by a spell or effect - which quickly invalidates the character's theme. It would be like Geordi La Forge getting his true vision back in the first season of Next Generation.
Now, as my DM pointed out, people that have been blind their entire lives could plausibly have improved hearing.
I've looked into the Blind Fighting feats, and they do make sense to take for this character, and the DM is prepared to give me bonus feats to offset the blindness a bit.
Anyhow, I wanted to get some community feedback and suggestions on this, see where things go!
I'd ask if I could my character could be blind, as per the oracle's "Clouded Vision" curse. If not, I'd reluctantly have to abandon the idea (which I agree is a very cool one). The blindness penalties are just too steep.
Improved hearing in Pathfinder is all in the skill modifiers anyway, whether that comes from paying more attention or turning into a dog. I'd argue it'd make sense to give a perception bonus to a blind character, if only because they're spreading the same amount of skill training between fewer senses.
At the very least I'd reduce all the usual penalties for blindness a bit, because the character is used to coping with them.
To fit the character archetype properly, you might want to ask for the entire blind-fight chain as bonus feats at 1st level. It may not be entirely realistic, but it essentially amounts to fighting as well as a sighted person even though you can't see.
See Blindsight. Ask your DM if you can get Blindsight out to a short distance and scale it up as you level up. For example, you may start out with only Blindsight 10' and Blindsense 30'. You could increase the distance on Blindsight by 1' each level gained and Blindsense by 2', so by level 10 you would have Blindsight 20' and Blindsense 50'.
Just a thought.
Additionally, there is a 3rd level spell that cures blindness completely, whether natural or caused by a spell or effect - which quickly invalidates the character's theme. It would be like Geordi La Forge getting his true vision back in the first season of Next Generation.
Regarding this, make the character immune to spells that cure Blindness. You could make it either a deity-level "curse" or simply say that your character's body has grown so accustomed to being blind that it would reject being cured.