GMing a Blind PC, balancing player choices and power levels


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


One of my players is bringing in a new character to my steampunk campaign, as his last character was a dead-end and no fun to play. I don't play RAW, so I'm tweaking some of the rules to favor him (such as Scent and Familiar Bond). His decision is an eastern-themed Human Ninja, who was born blind. The character is coming in at level 5. I've helped him get a big list of feats, traits, and abilities to supplement his choice to be blind, which include:

Trait: Scent - Can locate creatures within 30' by smell (maybe redundant with Familiar Bond...)
Trait: House of the Green Mother's Pupil - grants access to Familiar Bond
Feat: Familiar Bond - He chose a Bat, and I'm granting him his familair's Blindsense ability. Can locate creatures within 30' by sonar (maybe redundant with Scent...)
Feat: Blind-Sight - Can reroll miss chances, can move at full speed in combat
Feat: Blinded-Blade Style - No STR or DEX skill penalties, +4 pinpointing within 10 feet, improves his Scent ability (which may be redundant with the Familiar...), allows for the low level IBF below
Feat: Improved Blind-Fight - Ignore partial cover entirely

At higher levels, he plans to take Blind Competence, Great Blind-Fight, and Blind Master, but I thought it kinda feels like a waste to spend every feat you have to negate a story choice. Effectively he's ditching all his feats until eleventh level just to try and catch up to other players.

I'm seeing some of this is a bit redundant, but I'm not done yet! Because he's choosing to take such a big flaw for merely a storyline reason, I want to reward his choice at later levels. Therefore, I decided to give him a Scaling Magic Weapon at no cost (he doesn't know about this, and won't until he levels up the first time). The first two abilities he bought (+1 and thundering), the rest will be a surprise. The weapon is a Kasarigama. Here are my thoughts for the weapon:

Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku
(Quick and Blind)

2nd: Jinsoku becomes a +1 Weapon
4th: Jinsoku gains the Thundering ability
6th: Blindsense, 30' - If Earo has Improved Blight-Fight (prerequisite), he may locate creatures within 60' of any sense other than sight
8th: +2, Mirror Image 3/day - Jinsoku becomes a +2 Weapon. Three times per day, as a standard action, Earo may invoke Mirror Image from the chain of Jinsoku by snapping the chain in his hands
10th: Blindsight, 30' - If Earo has Greater Blind-Fight (prerequisite), he may ignore Total Concealment and all associated percentile rolls.
12th: +3 - Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku becomes a +3 Weapon
14th: Darkness, 3/day - Three times per day, as a standard action, Earo may initiate the Darkness spell, emanating from the blade of Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku by swinging it in a wide arc.
16th: Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku becomes a +4 Weapon
18th: Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku becomes a +5 Weapon
20th: Jinsoku katsu Mōmoku loses the Thundering trait and gains the Vorpal trait.

Jinsoku means “Quick.” When held by a handicapped individual of tenth level or higher, it gains a new name based on the ailment. In the hands of the blind Earo, it becomes Jinsoku katsu Momoku

I'm trying to figure out how much is too much, if giving him this weapon will make his traits/feats feel wasted, if I should alter the weapon's abilities, etc. I know he would rather have the Bat Familiar seeing for him as story flavor rather than having the Scent ability, so if you think I should drop one, Scent would go first. Any and all help is appreciated, thank you so much.

-Jhaosmire

Dark Archive

Just have them take the trait blind zeal and call it a day

link


With Scent and the Blindfighting Feat, he's mostly functional.

To turn adaptation into advantage, he should carry around an Eversmoking Bottle. It makes everyone Blind, friend and foe alike.

He could take 3 levels in Flame Dancer Bard, then his Bardic Performance would let him and his allies see though Fire and Smoke.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

There's no need to get too fancy. There are blind people in the real world who are self-taught echolocators. Just give them Blindsense to 20' or 30' and call it a day.


Why not just give the clouded vision curse from oracles?


Jhaosmire wrote:
One of my players is bringing in a new character to my steampunk campaign, as his last character was a dead-end and no fun to play.
Was it a gimp? (Just curious if there's a common theme involving this player's characters.)
Quote:
I don't play RAW, so I'm tweaking some of the rules to favor him (such as Scent and Familiar Bond). His decision is an eastern-themed Human Ninja, who was born blind.

In other words, he's enamored of "Zatoichi", which is severely impractical in RPGs such as this one, build attempts of which are basically pure gimps (the Blind Zeal trait notwithstanding) requiring considerable coddling and consideration by the GM (that being what you're going through now, and what brought you here).

(The perfectly viable Clouded Vision oracle, which others have suggested, isn't actually blind at all, so I'm discounting them for the moment.)

Quote:

.(and The character is coming in at level 5. I've helped him get a big list of feats, traits, and abilities to supplement his choice to be blind, which include:

Trait: Scent - Can locate creatures within 30' by smell (maybe redundant with Familiar Bond...)
Trait: House of the Green Mother's Pupil - grants access to Familiar Bond
Feat: Familiar Bond - He chose a Bat, and I'm granting him his familair's Blindsense ability. Can locate creatures within 30' by sonar (maybe redundant with Scent...)
Feat: Blind-Sight - Can reroll miss chances, can move at full speed in combat

Blind Fight doesn't let you move at full-speed (not that doing such means that you won't fall in the hole that you can't see, or smack your groin right into that fireplug), and Blindsight is a a way-too-good monster ability that no 1st-level character should have. (Not only will they effectively not be "blind" anymore, but you're giving them the ability to see invisible and ignore up-to-total concealment, as well as ignore magical darkness.)
Quote:

Feat: Blinded-Blade Style - No STR or DEX skill penalties, +4 pinpointing within 10 feet, improves his Scent ability (which may be redundant with the Familiar...), allows for the low level IBF below

Feat: Improved Blind-Fight - Ignore partial cover entirely

In other words, since he has no penalties at all anymore, his blindness has almost no game effect at all -- unless inability to read becomes an obstacle at some point.

Idea: instead of going through all this jazz to help the "blind" character be basically not only not blind but better than every other player's character who can actually see, consider my response to "Does anyone have any suggestions?" at the end of the "Zatoichi" URL-link near the top of this post. Unless bling is raining on everyone's character at your table, you're giving him way too much as it is.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Have you checked out the Astomoi race? Among their racial abilities is the following:

"Telepathic Senses: Astomoi can’t speak or see, but can mentally sense the area within 60 feet, as per darkvision, and can speak telepathically. An astomoi can’t see anything beyond 60 feet. An astomoi must provide thought components for spells that normally require verbal components. It can use language-dependent abilities with its telepathy, but not abilities that depend on audible components."


Thanks all, I definitely overcooked these eggs.

Name Violation wrote:
Just have them take the trait blind zeal and call it a day

Yep, this will be the main thing we do.

Scott Wilhelm wrote:
He could take 3 levels in Flame Dancer Bard

He wants to stay a single class, and is set on Ninja, so nay to the Bard.

John Mechalas wrote:
There's no need to get too fancy. There are blind people in the real world who are self-taught echolocators. Just give them Blindsense to 20' or 30' and call it a day.

I'm leaning towards this concept with his Bat Familiar. He'll take the HotGMP trait and Familiar Bond, along with the Blind Zeal Trait,and Blind-Fight. That'll be more than enough, I think.

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:
Why not just give the clouded vision curse from oracles?

I considered this, but it's not true blindness, and he said nay to it. I may do an altered version where he's fully blind, but slowly can get both DarkVision and a Detect Magic vision at higher levels.

Slim Jim wrote:
(I'll take these one at a time, because I'm a lazy quoter)

His previous character was a low intelligence Druid, which was just bad rolls for stats. He just got bored with the character's personailty.

He's never seen Zatoichi, but yes and yes, entirely, he wants to be Zatoichi.

Blind-Fighting feat does let you move at full speed without making checks, and I misspelled, he won't be getting Blind-Sight until he hits a higher level, as a reward of his weapon.

David knott 242 wrote:
Have you checked out the Astomoi race?

No, for the specific reason that he wants to be human.

Thanks again all for the advice, I think I'll present him with two options, and let him go his own direction otherwise. He'll keep the trait HotGMP and the feat Familiar Bond, and I'll give him Blindsense 30' from those. The two options will be:

1) Blind Zeal trait and Blind-Fight feat, then he goes his own way, or
2) Altered Clouded Vision Curse, where he is fully blind, but will gain Darkvision and Detect Magic sight someday.

I'll let you all know what he says. Not sure what I'll do with his weapon, but I think I'll give it in some form to him still, I'll just make him pay for it as per the standard rules.

-Jhaosmire


It is only a myth as far as I know, but the common belief is that you can vastly improve your hearing, compared to the normal person, if you are blind. Just do this. Have them have Blindsight.

Before someone says this is broken, one: the condition of blindness specifically says that characters who are blind for a long time will learn to counteract some of the disabilities. This is exactly how that would happen in fantasy. And two: it is only to a range (that is determined by the GM). I’d say 30 ft. at most.

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