This is the Circus of Dr Lao...

[foolsjourney]

OK, first off, it's helpful if you've read Finney's Circus of Dr Lao, or seen George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr Lao, because in my sandbox game the circus is coming to town and this is it...

It's surprisingly easy to create most of the characters from the circus, such as Pan, Medusa and the Abominable Snowman, but I'm having some self doubt issues with Apollonious of Tianna.

The party is currently level 1, but I'm expecting them to be level 2 by the time the circus arrives on the outskirts of town. Now, this is an ancient circus, timeless, so most of the literary characters will be level 10 or above (there'll be plenty of add on characters to interact with), but I still would like the builds to be as legit as possible.

So, Apollonius. I've gone for a Samsaran Oracle (enlightened philosopher) as base build, with the Time mystery (though Ancestor may also work). He's particularly weak, with no armour and low constitution so even at level 10 will have a maximum Hit Points of around 50.

The curse is my query. Apollonius is blind, so clouded vision doesn't go far enough. He's due blindsense at 10 and blindsight at 15. How would you guys feel if I dropped his dark vision ability all together, but gave him both blindsense and blindsight at 10?

Also perception. I've given it as a class skill Perception (using the Samsaran Shards of the Past racial traits, but as I'm dropping the low light vision to handicap myself, where would you set his perception at? He can't see, but sees all things and all futures so clearly can't be set at the usual -20 for being blind.

I'm not intending this thing to be get into combat, it's just as flavour, but I'd rather that if the party do decide to kill it they'll not be one-shotting it?

Any advice would be appreciated, as I hope for the circus to be regular visitors to my games so I want to get them as close as possible to their literary counterparts without too many rules juggles.

Ta muchly.

Mike

[foolsjourney]

Sorry for bumping my own thread, my party will finally be encountering the circus in the next session, and this is the character I'm still not happy with, so any help will be much welcomed.

For clarity, Apollonius is an Oracle 10 who's completely blind in the normal sense of the word (not giving him the dark vision at all), though he does have Blind Sense.

How do you handle a character who's blind but with an all knowing and a perception bonus of 18 with all modifiers? At this point do you treat his blindness as irrelevant? Is there a legitimate way, by feat or magic item, to give him Blindsight (he gets it at level 15 so I could build it at 15 but was aiming to keep them all around 10.

Mike

[gamer-printer]

I've got a blind bard build called a Mosa (archetype) for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror. It's based on old Japanese ghost story called Mimi nashi Hoichi (Hoichi the Earless) who is a blind bard who travels the country serving temples with religious songs and biwa playing. All mosa are completely blind, and like the oracle have abilities that counter their 'curse' over increased levels.

It was published as part of Way of the Yakuza, but it's also posted on d20pfsrd.com if you want to take a look and maybe borrowing some ideas from it... Mosa.