Blindness and life oracle lifesense

[Diego Rossi]

I would like an opinion about the effect of being blinded by a supernatural effect for a life oracle with the lifesense ability.

Situation:
a life oracle with the haunted curse was permanently blinded by the Blinding Light ability of a Shining Child.

What are the limitations to movement and combat for him?

Relevant abilities:

Lifesense (Su) Lifesense (Su): You notice and locate living creatures within 30 feet, just as if you possessed the blindsight ability. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation.

Blindsight (Ex) This ability is similar to blindsense, but is far more discerning. Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature. Invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object to discern that creature or object. The ability's range is specified in the creature's descriptive text. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks to notice creatures within range of its blindsight ability. Unless noted otherwise, blindsight is continuous, and the creature need do nothing to use it. Some forms of blindsight, however, must be triggered as a free action. If so, this is noted in the creature's description. If a creature must trigger its blindsight ability, the creature gains the benefits of blindsight only during its turn.

To me the "You notice and locate living creatures" seem to mean that you don't overcome the blindness drawbacks to movement, not being flat footed against character using ranged attacks, even if they are within the 30' radius of your ability.
The oracle think he can move as easily as a sighted creature following another person around a dungeon and that molds and lichens on the walls will help him when needed.
He think he will defeat any attempt to disguise as he see the real aspect of every living creature (unless phlymorphed).
another player think he should see the equipment worn by living creatures as it si within the "living aura2 of the creature.

[Kazaan]

"Notice and locate living creatures... just as if you possessed the blindsight ability." So, according to the Lifesense ability, "Notice and Locate" equals "Blindsight" with the functional limitation that it only applies to living creatures. So any and every benefit that Blindsight gives, Lifesense gives in regards to the appropriate creatures. Since Blindsight lets you disregard invisibility, darkness, concealment, etc. Lifesense allows you to do this as well so you are not flat-footed against targets you can sense, though creatures outside the range still gain the benefit of you not detecting them.

Regarding the ability to navigate via plants, in Pathfinder, mundane plants are considered objects and not alive for all mechanical purposes. If you want to fluff this out, this life isn't vibrant, dynamic, or strong enough to sense or at least, if you can sense it, it gets lost in the background because you're also going to be sensing every bacterium in the air, water, and on the ground, every fungus spore, every protist, every crawling ant and roach (normal kinds), etc and it needs to be "more alive" to stand out against that background static for you to notice it for any practical effect. He could follow a person, but he has no perception of the imperfections of the surface he treads on so he still has to walk carefully to avoid stumbling.

Regarding defeating disguise, only if they are disguised as a non-living object. A sniper in camouflage would be plainly visible within the range as would a living creature trying to disguise themselves as a construct or undead. But you wouldn't be able to tell that a Human is disguised as some other race or even some other specific human. Lifesense, while based on an Ex ability based on actual senses (hearing, smell, etc), is itself a supernatural ability so it uses a "sixth sense" to detect life; it's not as if you're seeing through infrared filters or "hearing" their heartbeats or anything like that. It's some other "feeling" of life being present that we mundane humans really have no analogue to compare to. The closest thing would be if a person, blind from birth, were to have heat-sensing equipment hooked up to their brain's hitherto unused optic center and suddenly started "experiencing" the heat radiating from objects in a manner that they've never experienced before.

[Bizbag]

You wouldn't know what the real form was in the first place. Blind sense allows you to act as if you could see them, but you can't see them.

Humans have more than the traditional six senses, though. Sense of temperature, sense of time are two simple ones.

Try this. Close your eyes. Now clap your hands. Did you miss? No; your body has a sense of where it is in relation to itself.

Technically, life is everywhere, but not in the same places. I could see a life-sensing Oracle being aware of where a rock wall was because the life signs abruptly ended (or changed, anyway).

So my thinking is, let them walk around as if they were sighted, within the range limit of their ability, except that they cannot actually *see* something if it's important, like a sign saying "DANGER".

[Diego Rossi]

Any other opinion?

And thank Kazaan for "mundane plants are considered objects and not alive for all mechanical purposes", I hadn't considered that.

Blindsight has a limitation that I am not sure the writer of lifesense has remembered: it require line of effect.
If the oracle can sense the "background life" he would notice the wall as a area of no life. He would be capable to avoid big obstacles. It is lesser things like fences or barbed wire that will be a problem.

[MC Templar]

I'd go for simplicity sake, treat the oracle as if he had Blindsight (including the "a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature") and just make all undead and constructs effectively invisible to him.

Don't over complicate.

No ability to pierce disguise
No xray vision
Can't see naked versions of everyone

Just (within x feet you can "see" everyone except ____)

[DeathlessOne]

How I try to wrap my head around lifesense (especially with a character that is normally blind) is this: Everything is a feature-less fog where everything is obscured (think being extremely nearsighted). When you 'see' someone with lifesense, that person/living thing suddenly becomes visible and the immediate area around them comes into focus. Mechanically, I would say that you see that person/living thing and the immediate area it inhabits (ie, its 'space') with near crystal clarity. No color, simply black and white (and gray).

When imagining it that way, figuring out how the character gets around isn't so difficult. That person is also living (... most of the time) and has the little bubble of clarity that their life radiates. Now, imagine living in a bustling city where there are few areas that aren't frequented by living creatures. This person would have little trouble getting around during the daylight hours.

[Bizbag]

While creative , your description would allow the oracle to see things like color, clothing, and nonverbal cues that he cannot.

Which reminds me; blinded characters should take a penalty to Sense Motive to avoid being Bluffed. They don't, but they should.