Spellcasting blind...

[Rerednaw]

PRD wrote:

If a character tries to attack an invisible creature whose location he has not pinpointed, have the player choose the space where the character will direct the attack. If the invisible creature is there, conduct the attack normally. If the enemy's not there, roll the miss chance as if it were there and tell him that the character has missed, regardless of the result. That way the player doesn't know whether the attack missed because the enemy's not there or because you successfully rolled the miss chance.

I've always interpreted this as even if you are completely blind, you can still randomly choose a square to center say a fireball. Or a target square and assume a target is there for say Scorching Ray. A spell such as Magic Missile however would fail.

Well last weekend we had a rules debate where the players insisted this wasn't the case and that spells that were "area" could not be cast.

Is this explicitly stated in the rules?

[VRMH]

Rerednaw wrote:

Is this explicitly stated in the rules?

Not that I'm aware of, although Line-of-Effect explicitly doesn't require Line-of-Sight. So there's that.

[Snow_Tiger]

you cast it on the area, and therefore all objects and creatures in the area, generally not on creatures within the area.

The classic fireball and other area spells should work, though you don't know where hey are.

[Snowleopard]

Off course can a caster cast an area spell at a square, wether or not, there is an adversary available there.
Only spells that specifically target a specific target(s) (like magic missile) will not function, unless they are able to target areas as well (like dispel magic, both targetted and area possible).
The only problem is, that the caster will not know for sure there is a target there, so the spell will be cast, but will the target be there????

I do believe however and I am not sure here, that a blind caster has a fail chance to cast at all. That still leaves the targetting problem for a blind caster. I am just not sure where I read that casting failure of being blind??? Maybe in the spell description of 'cause blindness' and maybe as a general rule in the magic section or perhaps in 3.5???? I really don't know anymore.

[Claxon]

I would like to see some better rules for casting without sight. It seems like choosing more than a general direction should be nearly impossible without sight. I mean, think about trying to throw a ball 30 ft. Or 40ft. With you eyes closed. Can you do it? Reliably?

I would say a blind caster should get to choose a direction to cast in. Then they announce how far exactly they would like to attempt to cast (don't let them look at the board) and then we would need some sort of system to determine how far off the spell was. Possibly +/- 5ft for every 15 ft. 1d3 determines whether it is short, far, or just right. 1 is short, 2 is just right, 3 is too far.