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You might want to check out the Blind Zeal trait, from the recently released Divine Anthology. While it's a Religion trait for a specific empyreal lord, your group may be willing to let you refluff it. And, hey - maybe Vildeis is the right deity for your character. ^_^
At the very least, it might help you find an appropriate balance point.
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Is this for a player character or a NPC/monster?
NPC/Monster: do whatever you want, it's your game.
Player: You wanna get blindsight because a character starts off blind? For a character such a powerful ability should be paid for mechanically. See Kalindlara's suggestion of Blind Zeal trait. Also check out Blinded Blade Style line of feats from Blood of Shadows book. No one is saying such a thing should be impossible for a blind-PC; but shouldn't be granted for free without an actual feat or class investment by the character.
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As Protoman says - it would be very OP to get for no investment. It makes you immune to a LOT of stuff. Bob Bob Bob didn't even mention the immunity to visual illusions (Silent Image/Mirror Image/Displacement etc.), being blinded (since you already are - and it's a horrible effect to have without blind-sight), and several niche spells which require targets to see them.
Not to mention (in terms of application) that it can be used offensively by dropping Deeper Darkness on a room when you have Sap Master to crush your foes with huge SA dice.
One thing I have noticed though not to sound like a smartass is most of the things it "Negates" are not even negated by Blindsight, but through being blind itself. the only things I have found that blindsight itself negates is miss chance.
The only things being simply blind would negate are gaze attacks and anything that targets sight.
Bob Bob Bob's list of things blindsight negates (most miss chance, smoke, fog, darkness, it works underwater) are things that screw over folks with vision also.
Other things that blindsight negates that would have messed up with-sight party members: pinpointing and hitting and getting AoOs against invisible monsters, and displacement/blur effects.
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One thing I have noticed though not to sound like a smartass is most of the things it "Negates" are not even negated by Blindsight, but through being blind itself. the only things I have found that blindsight itself negates is miss chance.
Yes - that pretty much makes you sound like a smartass.
Without Blindsight, being blinded is horrible with bunches of massive penalties to deal with. Do you want us to list those instead?
The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –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.
You also left out: characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.
Considering the character has been blind since he was really young not all of that would be 100% accurate
And protoman I had forgotten about the invisible enemy portion, though at low levels you don't see very many invisible enemies
Invisibility is a level 2 spell, one can start encountering it at level 3. Earlier with even low CR monsters or lesser versions of the spell, like vanish.
Being accustomed to being blinded doesn't mean one gets blindsight. They might pick up Blind-Fight feat and reduce some of the skill penalties. Or a GM can hand-wave away bunch of the blinded issues because one becomes accustomed to SOME of them: –2 penalty to Armor Class, loss of Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks and on opposed Perception skill checks.
However all opponents are still gonna be considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) against the blinded character; that's what Blind-Fight and other related feats are for, and those feats even takes away lots of the earlier penalties you're hoping to simply be taken away because "one grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them." Heck, it could be argued that growing accustomed to them is BECAUSE of actual character investment into those options to negate penalties and not "Oh you've been blind for several years? Have all these free stuff on account of you taking a penalty on yourself that nobody asked you to and not actually have to worry about a lot of the issues of this negative character trait that you've taken upon yourself to 'suffer' through." That's like asking to play a really old character in order to get better mental stats to play a spellcaster. Cheese.
As for blindsight, without actual character investment, there's no way a regular player character should simply get blindsight just because one explains it away in a backstory. Just like one shouldn't simply get a +1 to using longswords by saying one has a crazy detailed backstory of someone being from a long line of a family of swordmaster duelists. Pick up Weapon Focus (longsword). Want blindsight and or similar effects, pick up Blind-Fight feats and Blinded Blade Style feats. Unless your GM decides to simply go for such a house-rule, then such a benefit should be given to all the players.
tl;dr
Your fellow players thinks it's too strong to simply be granted away. Folks on the internet thinks it's too strong to simply be given to a PC.
If you VMC with oracle you can take the blind curse at level 1. Eventually that gets you blindsense and blindsight.
There's also a series of style feats that could help you but blindsight is going to require investment.
At 5th level the level I start at I have to give up my feat available to take blindsense then again at I believe 15th level, to gain blindsight.
Not sure what you're talking about. Can you be more specific of what feat you're giving up to take blindsense? And at 15th level for blindsight? And why level 15?
So my question comes up do I have to spend my first and 3rd level feats when I "start" or can I save them and use them at my 5th level to take both Blind blade style and improved blind fighting? or would they have to be on things I qualify for at 1st and 3rd levels?
By the rules, one can't save feats for later in order to use those feat slots to pick up feats with prerequisites you didn't have when you first obtained the feat slot available. If GM is cool with it, can use the optional Ultimate Campaign Retraining rules to replace those lower level feat slots with new feats you now qualify for. Just gotta spend in-game time and money.
Ah I see. Then yea, pick feats you qualify for at levels 1 and 3. No saving up feats for later unless GM says otherwise as houserule.
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I believe you can get everything you want (a blind character with blindsight) in a completely legal manner by third level, in one of two ways:
3rd level Human Fighter (Unarmed Fighter)
Religion: Vildeis
Traits: Blind Zeal (Vildeis), +[whatever]
Feats:
1. Blind Fight (from Blind Zeal), Blinded Blade Style (unarmed fighter: free style feat), Improved Blind Fight (1st level choice), Blinded Competence (free human feat)
3. Greater Blind Fight (fighter: free combat feat), Blinded Master (3rd level choice)
or
3rd level Human Monk (Master of Many Styles)
Religion: Vildeis
Traits: Blind Zeal (Vildeis), +[whatever]
Feats:
1. Blind Fight (from Blind Zeal), Blinded Blade Style (master of many styles: free style feat), Improved Blind Fight (1st level choice), Blinded Competence (free human feat)
2. [whatever (master of many styles: free style feat)]
3. Greater Blinded Competence (3rd level choice), retrain 2nd level feat into Blinded Master
At the end you have 30' blindsight, together with an eclectic slew of other situational benefits. So, yeah, this definitely seems doable. No houserules needed.
(Don't want to be human? Since you're starting at level 5, you can use the extra feat you get at 5th level to take up the slack. Don't want to primarily be an unarmed fighter or master of many styles monk? Well, you can start with a 3-level dip, and then multiclass into whatever class you want to focus on.)
P.s.: To give credit where credit is due, this build was proposed and discussed here.
P.s.: To give credit where credit is due, this build was proposed and discussed here.
Yay! My thread was useful!
The cool thing is that it's not too much investment in order to make it "viable". After the first level or three of fighter and you can branch off into whatever is desired.
Looking Up Vildeis's faith that would actually fit the character, though he also has no qualms about taking out Good that feels its above the law. a 3 level dip might not be bad, though I'm not to familiar with Unarmed fighter. I was thinking of doing either a fighter, Inquisitor or Swashbuckler, until qualifying for Hell Knight then picking up HellKnight as the "Primary"
Hrmm. The Hell Knight Commander prestige class has heavy armor proficiency as a prerequisite, and neither the Unarmed Fighter nor the Master of Many Styles get that. Inquisitor and Swashbuckler don't get heavy armor proficiency either.
So it looks like you'll either need to spend your 5th level feat on heavy armor proficiency, or take two levels in a class that provides heavy armor proficiency. (Cavalier seems like a natural choice.)
P.s.: To give credit where credit is due, this build was proposed and discussed here.Yay! My thread was useful!
Yeah, definitely! A very cool build.
The cool thing is that it's not too much investment in order to make it "viable". After the first level or three of fighter and you can branch off into whatever is desired.
That's a good point. If you're (i) Human, (ii) willing to devote your 3rd and 5th level feats to getting Greater Blind Fight and Blinded Master, and (iii) take at least 1 level in a class that gives you heavy armor proficiency (like Cavalier, Samurai or Paladin), you only need to dip 1 level into Unarmed Fighter or Master of Many Styles to get all of these goodies, and qualify to take the Hell Knight Commander prestige class at level 6. (So you could go Unarmed Fighter 1, Cavalier 4, or whatever.)
The distance of blindsight is pretty important here. If it's only 30 feet, it's "ok". If it's a couple hundred feet, then it'd be crazy.
Honestly, while it's a powerful counter to some nasty effects, those effects are not overly common in gameplay, so it's not exactly like he's going to dominate all encounters, all the time with this.
Also, there's a general interactiveness with the game world that will be impacted by being blind, even with blindsense. It's not just "can't read".
If you can only "see" for 30 feet (or even 60 feet) out, you can't:
- Be on watch.
- Scout.
- Notice the guy we are tailing, even if he's just across the street.
- Notice that army coming over the hill.
- See that it's going to rain soon. Or that it's day or night (think of looking out of an underground area after being in there for a few days).
- Seeing where the exit is in any large area (big hall, underground cavern, etc).
- Knowing which way the dragon flew off, or that it picked up someone/something in the process.
- etc, etc.
I've run a game with a player who played a clouded vision Oracle. Not even totally blind, but basically only had limited vision field.
He was drastically hampered by this, even though he could still see out to 60 feet, normally.
If the character is blind, but has some level of "perfect" vision up to about 60 feet, I can see it working (pun intended ;).
If it's blindsight everywhere, well yeah... that's downright ridiculous.
Edit: Because a lot of this is Combat feats do they still apply outside of combat, (Have not used really any classes that use styles) like moving through a crowded city street or running through the woods, stuff like that?
This is a bit of a headache. So here's what the text on style feats says:
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.
1. Some have taken this to mean that once you enter a stance, it persists until you change your stance, regardless of whether you remain in combat or not.
2. Some have taken this to mean that once you enter a stance, it persists until either (i) you change your stance, or (ii) you enter combat again (at which point you have to use another swift action to maintain the stance).
3. Some have taken this to mean that you can only be in a stance in combat, and that once you enter a stance, that stance persists until you adopt another stance or combat ends.
As far as I know, there hasn't been a FAQ that clarifies this, so the right way of understanding this passage is still up for grabs. But even on the least favorable reading (the third), it's hard to see why you couldn't just choose to be "in combat mode" all the time, and retain the benefits of the style.
TLDR: It seems to me that on any reasonable reading you should be able to use your blindsight whenever you need to (assuming you aren't trying to adopt some other stance at the same time). But to be 100% sure you should ask your DM.
Oath Against Grotesquery wait your blind........meaning you can't tell the pretty people from the evil ugly people. but then if only you could walk around with detect evil on constantly.
Actually that could work really well. Going the whole beautiful/ugly soul route. It would also fit the near immunity to illusions.
"I can't see the mask you are showing the world. All I see is what you truly look like."