Not noises. Movement. The character with Blindsight can still "see" your movements.No, they can still 'hear' your movements. Feinting isn't about moving your sword toward the left shoulder. If it were, you would then have to move it all the way down to the knee you're actually attacking.
He can "see" with his Blindsight. That's what Blindsight does, it's like the Daredevil's radar sense. he can't distinguish color or details, but he can see your overall shape. That includes your limbs and weapon. Or do character with Blindsight simply perceive an amorphous mass occupying a 5x5ft square?
And I already proposed a way to make it not immune to Feint and Intimidate.
I still think someone who has grown to overcome many of the disadvantages of being blind is simply a character who took blind-fight (or a similar feat) at 1st-level.
I don't understand your beef with this, RD. It's a balanced character. It has major drawbacks for great advantages. Being blind all the time and having the Blind Fight feat makes it all but unplayable.
The character is not supposed to be a real blind person. She's a fantasy blind swordsman. Is it realistic? No. But it's playable and balanced (not to mention a classic fantasy archetype). So what's the problem?
He can "see" with his Blindsight. That's what Blindsight does, it's like the Daredevil's radar sense. he can't distinguish color or details, but he can see your overall shape. That includes your limbs and weapon. Or do character with Blindsight simply perceive an amorphous mass occupying a 5x5ft square?Not noises. Movement. The character with Blindsight can still "see" your movements.No, they can still 'hear' your movements. Feinting isn't about moving your sword toward the left shoulder. If it were, you would then have to move it all the way down to the knee you're actually attacking.
Yes, that's pretty much it. If you wanted a good example in sighted, a mud elemental would be a good example. You see a pillar of mud that move. No discernable anatomy or face, no muscles to tense. You don't know what it is going to do until it grows an psuedopod and swings it at you. Because you are blind. Blindsense does not give you details, it just gives you 'amorphous blob is here and attacks you'.
Your 'see'ing with blindsense is frankly kind of dumb. The way you want it to work, I should be able to sneak attack while blind, because I can 'see' the person well enough to make out where they are looking, how their muscles are tensed, their specific stance, so I should be able to pick out a vital spot.
No, it's much more like fighting a giant blob. It may grow a pseudopod and attack me with it, but until it does I don't know if it's going to do it or attack the guy on the other side, because it has no face, no nothing for me to discern.
Frankly, your way seems to be saying 'Hey, you can have all the disadvantages of being blind, but no advantages from it' and all for the cost of a feat for blind sense! What a deal! Two for a nickle or three for a dime!
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I'm still curious if you can sneak attack while blind, with the right feats.
Improved Blindfight (PRD): Your melee attacks ignore the miss chance for less than total concealment. You may still reroll your miss chance percentile roll for total concealment.
Since you're ignoring the miss chance, does the target still count as totally concealed for purposes of the sneak attack thing?
Sneak attack does read: "The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment."
Assuming that we somehow overcame the 'see the target' part of it, or turned it into 'detect the target,' would improved blindsight overcome the concealment portion?
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Yes, that's pretty much it. If you wanted a good example in sighted, a mud elemental would be a good example. You see a pillar of mud that move. No discernable anatomy or face, no muscles to tense. You don't know what it is going to do until it grows an psuedopod and swings it at you. Because you are blind. Blindsense does not give you details, it just gives you 'amorphous blob is here and attacks you'.
Your 'see'ing with blindsense is frankly kind of dumb. The way you want it to work, I should be able to sneak attack while blind, because I can 'see' the person well enough to make out where they are looking, how their muscles are tensed, their specific stance, so I should be able to pick out a vital spot.
No, it's much more like fighting a giant blob. It may grow a pseudopod and attack me with it, but until it does I don't know if it's going to do it or attack the guy on the other side, because it has no face, no nothing for me to discern.
So... All those blind characters in fiction are dumb characters because they can discern shape? To me, the notion that someone with blindsight can only discern a vague shapeless mass is much dumber.
The character should be able to discern your stance and position, but not fine detail. She won't be able to see your expression, she won't know your skin color or detec any tattoos, but she's still capable of seeing your overall shape.
Frankly, your way seems to be saying 'Hey, you can have all the disadvantages of being blind, but no advantages from it' and all for the cost of a feat for blind sense! What a deal! Two for a nickle or three for a dime!
Yeah... No disadvantages at all... Except all of those that I mentioned twice now!
She is still incapable of perceiving anything further than 30ft away from her, can't read or distinguish colors, pictures or 2D images. Can't really make ranged attacks, while being extremely vulnerable to them, can't use scrolls, has the range of all of her spells reduced to 30ft.
The simple fact that you can't see anything beyond 30ft is a huge disadvantage. Sure, invisible enemies have no advantage against her in close combat, but everyone can get all the benefits of invisibility against the character by simply walking further than 30ft. away from her. They don't even need a Stealth check.
Not being able to read or use ranged weapons is also really bad. How many flying creatures are in the game? How many of them stay inside a 30ft (or even 60ft) radius around you? A character with good Fly speed and Flyby attack can even melee this character with no problem.
Nope. No disadvantage at all. Who needs reading and ranged weapons, right? It's not like anything exists beyond that 30ft bubble, after all. And I can't possibly think of any situation where being unable to read would be a problem. Especially in a world with scrolls, spellbooks and magic runes. Not one situation, indeed... And who needs weapons and spells with a range higher than 30ft anyway? All ranged opponents and spellcasters are always willing to stand 30ft away from you.
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Not noises. Movement. The character with Blindsight can still "see" your movements.No, they can still 'hear' your movements. Feinting isn't about moving your sword toward the left shoulder. If it were, you would then have to move it all the way down to the knee you're actually attacking.
Feinting is about positioning your gaze, putting the point of your weapon where it can stab in two difference places, and then letting your body language 'telegraph' that you intend to attack the shoulder. These are all visual clues, and most are minute differences in where you are looking, your grip on the weapon, the tip of the weapon, and so forth. All of which the blind guy can't see. And people are not trained to use noise and sound and movements that would obviously be fake to anyone who can see them because they are trained to deal with the 99.9% of people who are sighted, not blind. Feinting is about lying (thus the Bluff thing) with your body language, and blind people are notoriously bad at sign language.
It may be RAW, but it's dumb, as dumb as saying you can feint while invisible. RAW you can feint while invisible, but it's just as stupid, because nobody can see your feint to be fooled by it. And sighted people aren't fooled by sound because they really tune it out.
It doesn't *have* to be visual. You can feint with (for example) the rhythm of your footwork, making it sound like you're advancing when you aren't. You're using all of your senses in combat, so part of feinting can just be sending mixed signals between visual and audible, and hoping they react to the wrong one. If you *know* your opponent is only relying on audible cues, it becomes particularly easy to do.
I've also used Ghost Sound as part of a feint before.
I think we also need to realize that this character isn't existing in a vacuum. He or she has a party, most of which can read and probably describe traps and puzzles to them, so that "disadvantage" will rarely come up. The OP is about the blind swordsman, so not being able to read magical scrolls is moot. Ranged combat? Why not? Nothing says if you're blind you can't fire a bow, you just have to deal with the concealment issue. In fact, there's not even a penalty to shoot other than the 50% miss chance, so the whole "they're stuck at being really good at melee and nothing else" is kind of a bunk argument.
Again, I also point out that the examples from literature and film that we're using are hardly 1st level characters. I have no problem with someone playing the 10-15th level Blind Samurai. At that point, sure, let him take some kind of blindsense feat and make it only available to blind creatures. But you can't expect me to think that the 1st level character just so happens to be able to sense the world around him on par with the blind or tremor sense ability.
If we assume a human, you're looking at someone who's less than 30 years old, and probably only around 16-20. That person is not the crazy awesome blind swordsman from film and literature. He's the guy you read about in the flash backs, struggling to overcome his blindness, and learning the hard way. I.E. working towards picking up the blind-fighting feat.
Honestly, why not just make this a mythic game and have it be part of the mythic origin? Then giving some kind of mythic tier blindsense power would be 100% ok.
I think we also need to realize that this character isn't existing in a vacuum. He or she has a party, most of which can read and probably describe traps and puzzles to them, so that "disadvantage" will rarely come up.
This is like saying Rogues are fine because someone else can just do combat for them.
Ranged combat? Why not? Nothing says if you're blind you can't fire a bow, you just have to deal with the concealment issue. In fact, there's not even a penalty to shoot other than the 50% miss chance, so the whole "they're stuck at being really good at melee and nothing else" is kind of a bunk argument.
Think for about a quarter of a second about how he's going to find a guy outside his blindsense bubble.
I think we also need to realize that this character isn't existing in a vacuum. He or she has a party, most of which can read and probably describe traps and puzzles to them, so that "disadvantage" will rarely come up.This is like saying Rogues are fine because someone else can just do combat for them.
Ranged combat? Why not? Nothing says if you're blind you can't fire a bow, you just have to deal with the concealment issue. In fact, there's not even a penalty to shoot other than the 50% miss chance, so the whole "they're stuck at being really good at melee and nothing else" is kind of a bunk argument.Think for about a quarter of a second about how he's going to find a guy outside his blindsense bubble.
Yeah, that's why there are "Warrior" types, because in a straight up fight Rogues are going to have a problem. I wouldn't expect the wizard to hold his own in melee combat (unless he was trying to build some kind of melee wizard build), and I wouldn't expect a cleric to be the best archer in the group. That's why we're playing a game with classes, because some people are better at some things than others.
And how about his crazy high perception? How would he not know "oh by the way there's a guy about 40 feet away from me, 10 feet to the left, I'll take a shot" I mean seriously guy, you're ok with giving him wacky mystical senses, but the thought that his hearing let's him aim with a 50% miss chance is too much for you?
Yeah, that's why there are "Warrior" types, because in a straight up fight Rogues are going to have a problem. I wouldn't expect the wizard to hold his own in melee combat (unless he was trying to build some kind of melee wizard build), and I wouldn't expect a cleric to be the best archer in the group. That's why we're playing a game with classes, because some people are better at some things than others.
Ah, that would explain your viewpoint. You don't give a damn about inter-class balance or whether everyone can contribute.
And how about his crazy high perception? How would he not know "oh by the way there's a guy about 40 feet away from me, 10 feet to the left, I'll take a shot" I mean seriously guy, you're ok with giving him wacky mystical senses, but the thought that his hearing let's him aim with a 50% miss chance is too much for you?
So the DC to hear a bow being drawn is DC 25. That sounds about like the right sound to hear someone moving if we're being generous as well as assuming that hearing the guy move outside the range or your supernatural senses will let you pinpoint his exact location in a 5 foot square.
Bowman is 60 feet away, DC is 31. Have fun making that on a regular basis unless you pump a good amount of investment into pumping Perception (level 10, 14 Wis, with it as a class skill is a +15 bonus. You've got less than a 50/50 shot of making it then), at which point the investment SHOULD mitigate the downside. Especially factoring in the miss chance.
Ah, that would explain your viewpoint. You don't give a damn about inter-class balance or whether everyone can contribute.
Don't be a dick. Just because I don't believe that every class should be able to do everything equally as well doesn't mean I don't believe in class balance or the ability of everyone to contribute. Your statement infers that if someone isn't as good as the fighter in combat that they aren't contributing, which is blatantly false as anyone who's avoided a trap or been healed can attest to.
And how about his crazy high perception? How would he not know "oh by the way there's a guy about 40 feet away from me, 10 feet to the left, I'll take a shot" I mean seriously guy, you're ok with giving him wacky mystical senses, but the thought that his hearing let's him aim with a 50% miss chance is too much for you?
So the DC to hear a bow being drawn is DC 25. That sounds about like the right sound to hear someone moving if we're being generous as well as assuming that hearing the guy move outside the range or your supernatural senses will let you pinpoint his exact location in a 5 foot square.
Bowman is 60 feet away, DC is 31. Have fun making that on a regular basis unless you pump a good amount of investment into pumping Perception (level 10, 14 Wis, with it as a class skill is a +15 bonus. You've got less than a 50/50 shot of making it then), at which point the investment SHOULD mitigate the downside. Especially factoring in the miss chance.
And that is the same DC that a sighted character would have to make, and it's in reference to someone trying to snipe you. If we're in a combat situation, as someone else pointed out earlier, your party can shout out positions, and the DC to hear the barbarian bellowing 40 feet away is probably a lot less than 31, whether your party is helping you or not.
If someone wants to play a character with a severe handicap, then they should have a severe handicap. By granting them all sorts of "free powers" to mitigate it, you're effectively downplaying the role that handicap has in your game world. If you want to do that fine, it's your game. The point of the OP was to get differing opinions so they could make a judgment for how they wanted to run it in their game.
My opinion, is that if you're going to be blind, be blind. The condition states that with time they can over come some of the penalties. To me, that would be the -4 to Str and Dex checks and maybe the move penalty. The rest would need the feat, since that's what the feat specifically addresses. The other handicaps, well that's what you wanted to play, so be prepared.
Of the course the party compensates for some weaknesses of the character. That the point of being in a party! That's the same for every character in the freaking party. By that logic, Blindsight is not really an advantage to the character, but to the whole party, because he can easily point where the invisible creatures are and detect visual illusion for his friends. So it's still balanced.
That argument makes no sense. That's like saying every class is balanced because his friends compensate for its weaknesses.
It doesn't make the character any more powerful, just forces it to rely on his friends even more.
Stop saying the player should simply accept a handicap without getting any benefit for it.
The player does not want to play a handicapped character. He doesn't want to be far less effective than his friends just because that is what would be most realistic. He does not want to be punished for a role play choice!
He wants to play a character with unique abilities and drawbacks. One that is still viable.
The character can't really perceive anything beyond her 30ft bubble. Even if she manages to listen to the guy drawing a bow 60ft away from her, the guy still has total cover. And I have never seen a GM force players to make a Perception check to decide if they can see a creature 60ft away from them in broad day light with no cover or concealment of any kind. But this character would have to.
Not sure how to respond to the last couple of posts. The idea that someone can dance to throw someone off about what they are doing is ludicrous. And even if they could, they'd need training to do it right? So what idiot is going to train to dance to confuse blind people rather than mislead sighted people via body ques?
Anyway, not worth arguing about. If you want to make it so you can feint while invisible, or feint while hidden in the bushes with total concealment, you go right ahead. You do have RAW on your side, it's stupid and I houserule stuff like that (which everyone I've ever gamed with did), but go for it.
Not sure how to respond to the last couple of posts. The idea that someone can dance to throw someone off about what they are doing is ludicrous. And even if they could, they'd need training to do it right? So what idiot is going to train to dance to confuse blind people rather than mislead sighted people via body ques?
Blindsight is described a being very precise (it even works underwater) so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to feint a character with Blindsight by pretending to move one way then moving the other way.
Anyway, not worth arguing about. If you want to make it so you can feint while invisible, or feint while hidden in the bushes with total concealment, you go right ahead. You do have RAW on your side, it's stupid and I houserule stuff like that (which everyone I've ever gamed with did), but go for it.
Who said anything about feinting from far away?
Honestly , after this thread the good old "No." seems quite right for this situation.
But if the player "wont take a no for an answer" my final offer would be to take a feat equivalent to the oracle curse lvl 1 , i would base it on HD so it wont be a problem to multi class and the player wont need to get oracle lvls (well might give it for free but class linked like the oracle curse , you since birth trained to be a warrior , lvling in rogue wont help the same your blind power to go up).
But that is a final offer. I think that if you are disabled you are disabled, plenty of magic ways to fix that, the "im disabled but i wanna be daredevil" wont stick with me, even more because you would still not be unique , i would have to add the same rules to all blind since birth NPCs (or PCs).
But to each GM their on table :D.
Honestly , after this thread the good old "No." seems quite right for this situation.
But if the player "wont take a no for an answer" my final offer would be to take a feat equivalent to the oracle curse lvl 1 , i would base it on HD so it wont be a problem to multi class and the player wont need to get oracle lvls (well might give it for free but class linked like the oracle curse , you since birth trained to be a warrior , lvling in rogue wont help the same your blind power to go up).
But that is a final offer. I think that if you are disabled you are disabled, plenty of magic ways to fix that, the "im disabled but i wanna be daredevil" wont stick with me, even more because you would still not be unique , i would have to add the same rules to all blind since birth NPCs (or PCs).
But to each GM their on table :D.
really? all this over a guy who gave up the ability to target anything past their 30 foot bubble for a 30 foot blindsight bubble
i think we are definitely overestimating the power of blindsight and underestimating the handicaps of blindness
i'd allow the Daredevil PC, but that would be a special care for specific blind PCs or specific blind NPCs
incurable blindness without the intervention of a deity, gain hearing based blindsight out to 30 feet. it can still be feinted by shuffling, dancing and the like, which are an important part of feinting. invisibility has no benefit, but everything more than 30 feet away is effectively invisible.
i think we are definitely overestimating the power of blindsight and underestimating the handicaps of blindness
i'd allow the Daredevil PC, but that would be a special care for specific blind PCs or specific blind NPCs
incurable blindness without the intervention of a deity, gain hearing based blindsight out to 30 feet. it can still be feinted by shuffling, dancing and the like, which are an important part of feinting. invisibility has no benefit, but everything more than 30 feet away is effectively invisible.
Honestly , in a good group that believes in the GM and dont complain or make issues with you going light or heavy deppending on what you think that needs to be adjusted , you can give him either my solution or your and then make it work, pretty much what makes the player happy and gives less work after is what i prefer.
One way or the other , it is the GM job to "adapt" the world and situation so the player can have fun also.
If someone tested this before (i have not , hell not even played with a clouded vision oracle before) then maybe they can say what they think from their experience and play test with this.
But for now , i for one dont know if im UPing or OPing the blind problems over the blindsight, i never tested.
i played a clouded vision oracle before
i hated being unable to target past 60 feet
i liked being immune to rogues at 15th level though
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One of the players in a game that I'm starting came to me with the above as a character concept. Feeling unusually charitable, I agreed to think about it. I was considering giving the character Blindsight, perhaps at the cost of a feat.
That or maybe Blindsense or Blind Fight.I'm trying to get them something that won't walk into doors all the time, but won't be massively overpowered either. I was wondering what you guys would suggest.
Oracle is an obvious option. You could also discuss with him starting out as not blind then taking a level of oracle later.
Awesome.
Thanks now that song is running through my head...
If you can show me someone trained to feint by making noises then I might grant you a feint.
However, feints are trained based on slight of hand, body language, and by expressions on your face. None of which can be seen by the blind guy. So no, a feint should not work on a blind man anymore than an illusion of a wall should. They can't perceive it, it shouldn't affect them. If the illusion was more than sight, then maybe, but again, that requires a higher spell. Just like feinting a blind man requires training that 99.99% of the fighters don't have (because why would you try to feint a sighted opponent by grunting and jingling your blade when he can just see you're not actually attacking).
My take on it is this. If they while blind can perceive you well enough to take you on in battle, then whatever they are doing to gain that ability is subject to feinting. Realistically if you can't see you probably can't defend. We're running with the rule of cool that says your blind character is actually able to enter combat and interact with enemies. Well how is the blind guy ducking that sword swing he can't see? He is observing it through other means of perception. And I'd think that feinting can throw those means off as much as they can throw off somebody using sight.
The bluff skill makes no distinction as to how it works. It isn't "visual" per se' Obviously it probably is conceived as visual in most games with sighted characters, but against a blind swordsman, it works against his means of perception to put him at the same disadvantage as anybody else.
Quick question, how would you do a blind spell caster, say a sorceror? Wizard would be impossible because of the spellbook thing.
What spells should they cast? I want them to make constructs so they can see through the constructs eyes.
Wouldn't a wizard just use the fantasy equivalent of braille?
A blind sorcerer would either use magic to gain alternate means of sensing his foes, or limit himself to touching targeted foes. He may utilize spells that even the playing field such as lunar veil.
I kinda like the idea that Read Magic would give them the ability to see magical writings in glowy letters. But fantasy braille is a more mundane option.
In short, it requires too much work to accommodate the player on this one. Being not only sub-optimal, but also sub-standard is a poor player choice. Giving one player loads of freebies "for flavor" while not doing the same for the other players is a poor DM choice.But they're not freebies. By only giving them Blindsight 5ft, and Blindsense 30ft at Lvl 1 and nothing else, they are still fairly hampered by being blind, just not so much that it becomes a huge pain in the rear.
It simply a matter of trade-offs: take a disadvantage, gain an advantage. This helps to balance things so that they are neither overpowered nor unplayable.
Well, the immunity to Gaze attacks, Pattern based illusions (and probably Feint, though some think otherwise) is a benefit, as is the increased effectiveness against Stealth and Invisibility. You are also immune to dazzle effects, and you are far better equipped to deal with magical darkness, blind effects don't matter to you, mirror image doesn't work. Per RAW you are immune to a Demoralize attempt from an enemy.
Lots of advantages for being blind. The goal, then, is to mitigate the negative effects. There are benefits to blindness, so there should be some drawbacks as well. Personally, I would give racial bonuses to some other sense (+4-6 on hearing based perception sounds good), and I would give blindfight as a free feat. Then I would remove any level dependent prerequisites for the other feats in that tree. So a level 1 fighter with this deal could take Improved and Greater blind-fight. There are still penalties... but not big ones.
Well I have been reading this thread for a while and I am finally inspired. I was considering making an oracle to represent my blind swordsman, but is it like ravingdork said, if you are gonna be blind then be blind.
So, in the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous game I am making a blind ranger. She has the exposed to awfulness trait.
When Tabea was young she caught a glimpse of a bodak who had recently turned and was rampaging through the town creating more bodaks. A local paladin managed to kill the bodak, but it was too late for Tabea. The bodak's gaze should have killed her but she seemed to be fighting it. The paladin decided to remove the child's eys, as he figured the transformation into a bodak is linked to the eyes. The paladin's gamble paid off. The transformation immediately ended and Tabea felt much better only a week after the ordeal. Unfortunately, all attempts to restore Tabea's vision have failed. Such is the corrupting and destructive power of the abyss that some of the harm it causes can never be healed...
I will be stating Tabea as a ranger with the skirmisher archetype. She is a half-orc, so she will be eligible to pick up scent on top of getting the blind-fight feats. Eventually she will have a seeing eye dog....er..wolf that is : ) The first 4 levels will be tough but I think this will be a rewarding character to play.
Again great thread!