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OK, so I've scoured the Forums looking for information on the subject of creating a blind character for PF2e; however, every time I run a search, I keep getting sent to posts related to PF1.
I'm interested in creating a blind character mostly from an RP perspective; however, I don't feel, if played properly, the "flavor" would alter gameplay. In other words, I'm not looking for this to give the character advantages or disadvantages; as a blind person myself, being blind is a character trait (like being left or right handed) not a flaw. The problem I'm running into is that, while PF2e has some rules and things written into that would allow for Deaf/deaf characters to be written into play rather seamlessly (ex. sign language), aspects that would allow the same for a blind character seem to be absent or, to be more specific, the rules are designed to actively object to blindness or visual impairment.
This is a bit disconcerting, given Paizo's stance on inclusivity and acceptance and more than a bit confusing given how simple it would be to simply make some adaptive tech (i.e. reasonable accommodations) possible to a blind or visually impaired character. For example, a character who was blind could use their staff as a cane as their mobility aid (no need for "blind sense feat" people that's just silliness). One might be able to see if the writing on a wall was raised or indented enough for a blind player to read with the sense of touch (i.e. can you say adaptation of scribe lore)... For other things, one could, of course, use a familiar if one had the class for it if one so chose, the point is there are options ways of mitigating all kinds of things if you know how. However, some of the feats and/or skills specifically utilize the word "eyes" or "see" and, if you've a GM that's being a literal ass (every pun intended)... your blind character just became a liability to the party for no reason other than Paizo's apparent ableism....
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OK, is the military not accepting blind people into sharpshooter units ableism? If no, that's why neither are adventuring parties that are going to venture into darkest dungeons unless the blind person happens to be called Maa'tt Murr-dock.
A good way to accommodate a blind PC would be somebody who is Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury, needing a cane to get their groceries done but able to omnislash 5 orcs in one round because the rule of cool says it's cool. You don't need any rules for that, the PC is having all the usual misadventures of a blind person in a seeing society during downtime, but once they're in the dungeon they're normally functional. It takes a bit of suspension of disbelief, but it works.
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The section in the Core Rulebook is actually right before the section on playing a deaf character.
A blind character can’t detect anything using vision, critically fails Perception checks requiring sight, is immune to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or dazzled. You might give this character the Blind-Fight feat (page 149) for free.
A character with impaired vision might take a –2 to –4 penalty to vision-based Perception checks. Spectacles or other corrective devices might reduce or remove this.
And as always, the advice given is to work with your GM.
I'm with Gorbacz on that: Incorporating a blind character would need lots of rules addition. Nothing impossible, but clearly, if you play by RAW, it's not in there.
In my opinion, you should wait for the Oracle to be released. In PF1, there was a very nice curse granting blindness and adaptive traits to compensate so it was possible to play a blind character without being a liability.
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OK, so I've scoured the Forums looking for information on the subject of creating a blind character for PF2e; however, every time I run a search, I keep getting sent to posts related to PF1.
I'm interested in creating a blind character mostly from an RP perspective; however, I don't feel, if played properly, the "flavor" would alter gameplay. In other words, I'm not looking for this to give the character advantages or disadvantages; as a blind person myself, being blind is a character trait (like being left or right handed) not a flaw. The problem I'm running into is that, while PF2e has some rules and things written into that would allow for Deaf/deaf characters to be written into play rather seamlessly (ex. sign language), aspects that would allow the same for a blind character seem to be absent or, to be more specific, the rules are designed to actively object to blindness or visual impairment.
This is a bit disconcerting, given Paizo's stance on inclusivity and acceptance and more than a bit confusing given how simple it would be to simply make some adaptive tech (i.e. reasonable accommodations) possible to a blind or visually impaired character. For example, a character who was blind could use their staff as a cane as their mobility aid (no need for "blind sense feat" people that's just silliness). One might be able to see if the writing on a wall was raised or indented enough for a blind player to read with the sense of touch (i.e. can you say adaptation of scribe lore)... For other things, one could, of course, use a familiar if one had the class for it if one so chose, the point is there are options ways of mitigating all kinds of things if you know how. However, some of the feats and/or skills specifically utilize the word "eyes" or "see" and, if you've a GM that's being a literal ass (every pun intended)... your blind character just became a liability to the party for no reason other than Paizo's apparent ableism....
Hello. The CRB does give specific guidance on creating Blind characters.
CHARACTERS WITH DISABILITIES
A player might want to create a character with a disability,
or their character might end up with a disability over
the course of play. Work with the player to find ways to
respectfully represent the disability. Conditions such as
blinded and deafened aren’t a good fit for a character
who has been living with a disability long-term. Here are
suggestions for rules you might use for PCs with disabilities.Blindness or Impaired Vision
A blind character can’t detect anything using vision,
critically fails Perception checks requiring sight, is immune
to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or dazzled. You might
give this character the Blind-Fight feat (page 149) for free.
A character with impaired vision might take a –2 to –4
penalty to vision-based Perception checks. Spectacles or
other corrective devices might reduce or remove this.
Yes, critically failing sight based perception rolls is a drawback, but being immune to visual effects, blindness, dazzled, and getting to ignore hidden and concealment are pretty big benefits.
I'm with Gorbacz on that: Incorporating a blind character would need lots of rules addition. Nothing impossible, but clearly, if you play by RAW, it's not in there.
In my opinion, you should wait for the Oracle to be released. In PF1, there was a very nice curse granting blindness and adaptive traits to compensate so it was possible to play a blind character without being a liability.
In PF1, there was a curse that made you extremely near sighted but not completely blind. The main compensation was darkvision within the range you could see.
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OK, so I've scoured the Forums looking for information on the subject of creating a blind character for PF2e; however, every time I run a search, I keep getting sent to posts related to PF1.
I'm interested in creating a blind character mostly from an RP perspective; however, I don't feel, if played properly, the "flavor" would alter gameplay. In other words, I'm not looking for this to give the character advantages or disadvantages; as a blind person myself, being blind is a character trait (like being left or right handed) not a flaw. The problem I'm running into is that, while PF2e has some rules and things written into that would allow for Deaf/deaf characters to be written into play rather seamlessly (ex. sign language), aspects that would allow the same for a blind character seem to be absent or, to be more specific, the rules are designed to actively object to blindness or visual impairment.
This is a bit disconcerting, given Paizo's stance on inclusivity and acceptance and more than a bit confusing given how simple it would be to simply make some adaptive tech (i.e. reasonable accommodations) possible to a blind or visually impaired character. For example, a character who was blind could use their staff as a cane as their mobility aid (no need for "blind sense feat" people that's just silliness). One might be able to see if the writing on a wall was raised or indented enough for a blind player to read with the sense of touch (i.e. can you say adaptation of scribe lore)... For other things, one could, of course, use a familiar if one had the class for it if one so chose, the point is there are options ways of mitigating all kinds of things if you know how. However, some of the feats and/or skills specifically utilize the word "eyes" or "see" and, if you've a GM that's being a literal ass (every pun intended)... your blind character just became a liability to the party for no reason other than Paizo's apparent ableism....
First of all, you are right. All the sees stuff in the rulebook where it wasn't necessary (like for most spell targeting) should absolutely have been written around ability to perceive instead of see. I've brought that up in post before too, and my understanding is that it is something that they would like to try to make better into the future.
But to your question about the character:
Is this a character for a home table or for PFS?
At your home table, I would sincerely hope that the people you are going to play with in person are thoughtful enough to be able to make any accommodations necessary, and waive any rules silliness that would prevent you from playing the character that you want to play, especially since no one who is sighted is going to be able to tell you that you are playing your character wrong.
I have long argued on these forums that most of the mechanical rules for sensory loss should be built around the immediate experience of losing that sense with long term capabilities to learn how to adapt without it. Any character who has been blind since character creation is not going to be experiencing blindness in the same way as a character struck blind on the battlefield. I think the key is making sure the GM understands how there are fewer times where perception check exclusively means a visual perception check than a sighted person is going to realize, especially for a character accustomed to using their other senses to make perception checks.
Which is why the real issue isn't the rules, but the reality that most GMs and other players who are sighted are going to have to be willing to be creative in adventure design and play, and many of them are not willing to take the time to think about. Again, if these are your friends then I sincerely hope they are willing to take the time to be more creative in their play.
If you are making this character with the intention of being able to insert them seamlessly into an organized play situation or other stranger table situation, then I think it is reasonable to have this character ready and hope that the GM and other players see the situation for what it is, a new learning and play opportunity for them as well, but it might be a bit presumptuous to assume that every table is going to be ready. Having a back up character might also be a good idea in that instance, if the goal is just to make sure you are able to play, but long term that does feel like a terrible solution, especially if the group is a recurring group and just decides never to accommodate you. But I have a lot of love for this game and its general community of players and believe you will find a place with this character at a table, and that table will be happy to have you.
Overall, as a member of this community, I want you to know that any player is welcome at my table and that usually we create character concepts together in a session 0, and that concepts such as yours are perfectly welcome, especially in the generation phase of the campaign so that we can all talk through our expectations and concerns to make sure that we can all fun together.
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I think the word "see" in most spells is shorthand for "precisely locate". The only precise sense standard NPCs have is vision, so further clarity is not necessary the majority of the time. The Precise Senses rules back this up. If you make hearing a Precise Sense for a Blind Character, just replace "see" with "hear".
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The section in the Core Rulebook is actually right before the section on playing a deaf character.
And as always, the advice given is to work with your GM.
A blind character can’t detect anything using vision, critically fails Perception checks requiring sight, is immune to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or dazzled. You might give this character the Blind-Fight feat (page 149) for free.
A character with impaired vision might take a –2 to –4 penalty to vision-based Perception checks. Spectacles or other corrective devices might reduce or remove this.
Actually, what the CRB says is these are suggestions. The paragraph before this read:
"Work with the player to find ways to respectfully represent the disablity. Conditions such as blinded pr deafened aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long term. Here are suggestions for rules you might use for PCs with disabilities."
Now, note it says quite clearly that these are "suggestions for rules you might use." The argument I have and why I make the comment about ableism is the statement made about long term disability (specifically in relationship to blindness and deafness) because, like Unicore, I know (as anyone in the Disabled community will tell you) someone who has lived with a disability for a long time has learned adaptive skills and techniques that you, abs (sorry, that was disrespectful), that the sighted and hearing simply haven't become familiar with and/or managed to learn. It's not to say you aren't capable of learning; I'm sure you are... quite capable of learning, it's just that most of you don't possess that skill set.
Oh, and more than a few blind people are skilled marksman with both bows and high powered rifles (including myself); I also have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and until I busted my knee on the job competed around the midwest. But more to your rhetorical commentary about the military... while they do not recruit blind people as sharpshooters, they don't toss them out of that position if they happen to be blind either. And, before you say anything, the U.S. military is notorious for being lax with their medical checks upon entering the military and, once in, they can't force a soldier to leave simply due to disability. In other words, dear boy, someone can have terminal cancer and stay and serve until their death (I happen to know a few who passed their physical just to get through the door so they could get care, chemo and the like -- all pre-ACA) and, yes, I know a couple of blind people who made it through basics, got the sharpshooter badge (apparently it's not that difficult)... So, before you talk, I would suggest knowing of what you speak.
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First of all, you are right. All the sees stuff in the rulebook where it wasn't necessary (like for most spell targeting) should absolutely have been written around ability to perceive instead of see. I've brought that up in post before too, and my understanding is that it is something that they would like to try to make better into the future.
But to your question about the character:
Is this a character for a home table or for PFS?
At your home table, I would sincerely hope that the people you are going to play with in person are thoughtful enough to be able to make any accommodations necessary, and waive any rules silliness that would prevent you from playing the character that you want to play, especially since no one who is sighted is going to be able to tell you that you are playing your character wrong.
I have long argued on these forums that most of the mechanical rules for sensory loss should be built around the immediate experience of losing that sense with long term capabilities to learn how to adapt without it. Any character who has been blind since character creation is not going to be experiencing blindness in the same way as a character struck blind on the battlefield. I think the key is making sure the GM understands how there are fewer times where perception check exclusively means a visual perception check than a sighted person is going to realize, especially for a character accustomed to using their other senses to make perception checks.
Which is why the real issue isn't the rules, but the reality that most GMs and other players who are sighted are going to have to be willing to be creative in adventure design and play, and many of them are not willing to take the time to think about. Again, if these are your friends then I sincerely hope they are willing to take the time to be more creative in their play.
If you are making this character with the intention of being able to insert them seamlessly into an organized play situation or other stranger table situation, then I think it is reasonable to have this character ready and hope that the GM and other players see the situation for what it is, a new learning and play opportunity for them as well, but it might be a bit presumptuous to assume that every table is going to be ready. Having a back up character might also be a good idea in that instance, if the goal is just to make sure you are able to play, but long term that does feel like a terrible solution, especially if the group is a recurring group and just decides never to accommodate you. But I have a lot of love for this game and its general community of players and believe you will find a place with this character at a table, and that table will be happy to have you.
Overall, as a member of this community, I want you to know that any player is welcome at my table and that usually we create character concepts together in a session 0, and that concepts such as yours are perfectly welcome, especially in the generation phase of the campaign so that we can all talk through our expectations and concerns to make sure that we can all fun together.
To be honest, I play PbP/PbD in both non-society and society games. So, it's not a bunch of people that I know; these aren't friends from home or even from the area (hell, I can't find a local game -- not even a local PFS game)... So, I'm stuck moving from table to table with a bunch of strangers; so every time I'm usually dealing with a different GM and a different group of people and some idiot going, "Blind people can't do that!" Half the time I've got the group telling me I'm "courageous" for playing the f**ing game... (like it's hard). Since the system is set up in such a way that I can't do anything but table hop, I'm basically forced to reinforce ableism which goes against Paizo's creed of acceptance which seems contradictory to me. Now, I asked to discuss this privately with Paizo because i felt this was an internal matter but they said take it to the forums; so... here I am.
I think you should do an homebrew heritage or feat for that kind of things, with something like Blindsense, or very accurate hearing and tasting. Something that does not disturb combat at all in close range, even maybe better for scouting and the like, but that make the character useless after 30ft range.
Organized Play Developer
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Seriously, do you really want to continue this conversation with an academic?
He does, because he's a lawyer and internet arguments that start with people making false or uninformed assumptions about him are where all his satisfaction in life comes from.
Please disengage folks. This is a topic worthy of discussion and input, let's avoid personal attacks and "who has the better credentials" games. Blindness and it's portrayal in the game, especially as it relates to something reflective of a real life, permanent condition, is something the design team struggled immensely with portraying, while leaning heavily on recommendations from experts and impacted members of the community on how to portray it in a way that is as respectful as possible. Despite that, there is always room for improvement and expanding understanding. Finding avenues for improvement requires reasoned and respectful discourse. Be kind, be patient, don't make assumptions, and try to avoid intentionally riling each other up during a time when people are especially prone to being riled (I'm looking at you Gorbacz. Be cool.)
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So, for example, rather than saying that people who have been disabled long term are a problem
I feel it's important to note that the rules do not say this, and this is in no way reflective of what has been said. The specific reference is:
"A player might want to create a character with a disability, or their character might end up with a disability over the course of play. Work with the player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. Conditions such as blinded and deafened aren’t a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term."
While that seems like it's being interpreted by some as saying "It's not appropriate to have blind or deaf characters with long-term disabilities", that's not what that says. It's saying that the mechanical conditions known as blinded and deafened are not appropriate representations of someone with a long-term disability. Those mechanics are designed to convey the specific effects of removing a sense from someone who is acclimated to living with it. For a character who is permanently without sight or hearing, you should use other adjustments.
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@Laarafel:
Let me start by saying that I don't really know that much about the blind experience. I don't personally know any blind people, I really don't know very well what it's like. So I'm going to try to presume as little as possible and leave it up to you to use your superior expertise on what is plausible for a blind person to do.
I do know a lot about Pathfinder though, and I'd like to talk about how the game could accomodate you. I think it's set up for that a lot better than previous editions. It will involve some house rules, but the CRB gives us a good platform to build them on.
The CRB distinguishes senses into three tiers: precise, imprecise and vague. With a precise sense, you can perceive someone so directly, that you can target them. With an imprecise sense, you can still sense exactly what square they're in. With a vague sense, you just know there's someone in the area somewhere. For a typical human, sight is precise, hearing is imprecise, and scent is vague. But the sensate gnome heritage provides them with scent as an imprecise sense. This means that a sensate gnome knows exactly what square everyone is in, without having to spend actions or make checks.
I don't think a blind character should play exactly like one that isn't blind; then there wouldn't be much point. But it should not be at a crippling disadvantage, like not being able to target people with spells. Characters should be equivalent in power, but not equal in how it works. So for a character who happens to be blind, but isn't disabled by being blind, they would need to have some kind of other precise sense. Suppose you say that a blind character has such good hearing that it counts as a precise sense: this character can target spells at people they can hear. Meanwhile, their sense of smell might be imprecise instead of just vague, so even in a really noisy room where their hearing is obstructed, they can smell where enemies are.
Now, when we talk about hearing, we might think "yeah, but at what range can you hear stuff well enough to target it"? Sure, there will be some limits on that. Is a loud battle with lots of metal clanging going to make the precise-hearing character unable to function? Well, maybe. In a big battle there's a lot of stuff moving around, keeping track of that with your eyes is also hard. So maybe we shouldn't rule out hearing there immediately. You could use rules for concealment (DC 5 flat check to target/hit) if there's a lot of hindering noise, just like you might do that for sighted characters if they had to fight in dim light or smoke. But a really loud area could indeed deafen you (I keep almost writing "blind you"), for example when fighting next to a roaring waterfall. But humans who have to fight in the dark are also fighting blind. Hearing has a maximum range, but sighted people eventually need binoculars too to make out details at a distance.
So what I'm saying is, the framework of precise/imprecise/vague senses allows making a naturally blind character that's different but of the same power level as a sighted character. There will be cases where you're still at a disadvantage (the waterfall fight), but you'll also be at an advantage sometimes (the fight in a darkness spell).
It's too late now to rewrite the CRB to replace "see" with "precisely sense" everywhere. And currently, blind characters wouldn't work well in PFS, because there's no standard rule for it that would work at every table. That however could be changed in the future. If Paizo writes a balanced and clear set of rules (something to the effect of "every character gets one precise, one imprecise, and a bunch of vague senses") then it could be made widely available in PFS.
For a home game, that's what I would go with: every character gets one precise and one imprecise sense, and perhaps a few vague ones.
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And to push the envelope a bit: I might give precise hearing a shorter range than precise sight, but allow it to go around corners. Although line of effect for spells would still be straight lines, it would give a blind character with precise hearing some abilities that sighted companions don't have.
@ Laarafel
It would be awesome for PFS to take a lead on making sure that play at tables with changing casts took a lead on the rest of the industry in making sure that their adventures are written in such a way that people with different primary senses were expected players at the table. It is a place where new conventions could be established and then filtered into the rest of the game.
Right now is a difficult time to be thinking about things like hiring new people and expanding business plans, but a role playing game that deliberately accessible to people with different sensory experiences could be perfectly marketable, and not really a big stretch, since tables that want to play reliant on the sense of sight could still do so.
At the same time, this is something that could really benefit from making sure that a consultant or a full time person looked over new content in editing with an explicit focus on making sure that it is not excluding people because magic requires "line of sight" with no real in game need for it to work that way, because we can still have line of effect and ability to perceive as sensible qualifiers.
By doing so, it would change the burden from being on a player to the game itself, in making sure that PFS tables are ready for players with different abilities to join them.
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So, for example, rather than saying that people who have been disabled long term are a problemI feel it's important to note that the rules do not say this, and this is in no way reflective of what has been said. The specific reference is:
"A player might want to create a character with a disability, or their character might end up with a disability over the course of play. Work with the player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. Conditions such as blinded and deafened aren’t a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term."
While that seems like it's being interpreted by some as saying "It's not appropriate to have blind or deaf characters with long-term disabilities", that's not what that says. It's saying that the mechanical conditions known as blinded and deafened are not appropriate representations of someone with a long-term disability. Those mechanics are designed to convey the specific effects of removing a sense from someone who is acclimated to living with it. For a character who is permanently without sight or hearing, you should use other adjustments.
In the first place, I literally quoted the book;so, I'm not interpreting what it's saying that is actually what it says. It says: "Conditions such as blinded and defended aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability living with a disability long term." (CRB, 487) What that sentence, literally, says is that these two conditions aren't a "good fit" (whatever that is supposed to mean) for a character if that character has lived with that condition for a long time. That's literally what that sentence says and it makes no sense. However, I'm curious as to what your interpretation means because I can't make heads or tails of it. You state,
"Those mechanics are designed to convey the specific effects of removing a sense from someone who is acclimated to living with it. For a character who is permanently without sight or hearing, you should use other adjustments."
Use other "adjustments"? I'm sorry, but this is what I'm trying to establish: how one would be able to do this given the current state of affairs where there are no viable options in place to do so.... Let's put this another way, why don't you give me an example of what you mean since you seem to think that this statement says something it literally doesn't.
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I've played with a blind person a couple of times. It was easy for me to see their frustration when the GM didn't describe things adequately for them. As I was sitting next to the player in question, I helped out as much as I could, offering clearer descriptions of the battle, reading the players' dice rolls out loud, returning a stray die, and the like. Hopefully, it improved their play experience, though I'm not certain.
I've been trying to think of advice to help you, Laarafel, but I fear I'm coming up a little short. My initial thought is to talk to your GM, but you said you do a lot of table hopping, so the GM is going to keep changing.
I think treating another sense as a precise sense (as was recommended by Aratorin) while not strictly realistic, might be the easiest way to manage such a character without running into too many balance issues.
You might also play a ranged or spellcasting character (like your aforementioned blind marksman) that uses an animal companion to guide his aim. A hawk that flies over enemies and calls out, directing the shot or spell, perhaps?
If you find some Pathfinder Society games, you may want to reach out to the local Venture Captain directly, explain your situation, and have him give the presiding GMs a heads up about what you need to really enjoy the game. I think that would go a long ways towards your getting more consistent results with your character and play experience.
I'm just kind of spit balling. Hope it helps some.
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I think treating another sense as a precise sense (as was recommended by Aratorin) while not strictly realistic, might be the easiest way to manage such a character without running into too many balance issues.
You might also play a ranged or spellcasting character (like your aforementioned blind marksman) that uses an animal companion to guide his aim. A hawk that flies over enemies and calls out, directing the shot or spell, perhaps?
If you find some Pathfinder Society games, you may want to reach out to the local Venture Captain directly, explain your situation, and have him give the presiding GMs a heads up about what you need to really enjoy the game. I think that would go a long ways towards your getting more consistent results with your character and play experience.
I'm just kind of spit balling. Hope it helps some.
Yeah, Aratorin's idea seems to make the most sense; unfortunately, until I can find a local group (which doesn't seem likely since Cleveland has no active PFS or PF groups overall in my area). I did reach out the closest PFS captain(?) I could find (was the regional guy) and he contacted two people who were supposed to be in charge of the local play and.... I got no info from them about where they hold games or if they hold games so... So much for this idea...
And, oh, btw, I play almost exclusively healers and casters.
It is also problematic to assume that in the world of magic that is Golarion that a wheel chair would be the way that many cultures would respond to disabilities to leg mobility. Players should be welcome to make characters with a wide range of abilities and ways they enhance or develop those abilities into fantastical levels. This is a game where a person can get angry and grow a shark face after all.
The issue is when able bodied players play into stereotypes about disabled people with their characters or if the game creates mechanics that become too easily exploitable for how having differently-abled characters exist in the world.
Not everyone in the game world has to be thinking about these issues for a character to be fine in play. As Laarafel pointed out though, a lot of writing in dungeons is going to be carved in stone or otherwise written in a way that it is not any bigger a stretch of the imagination that a character could read them by touch than it is that no one's personal items get damaged when they get hit by a fireball.
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The simplest answer I could think of is to base your character, and how they tackle their blindness, on how you do in your own life. Your experience trumps anything I or any other person who doesn't have your perspective can possibly provide. The core rule book does provide a bit of guidance on possibilities, but it itself admits that they do not encompass every possible method for dealing with a disability that could or do exist.
Mechanically I tend to agree with Ascalaphus' home game solution: provide a character with an alternate "Precise" sense, or some ability to take advantage of another sense in the same way that you would a precise one. Blind fight is a good starting point for this, as it mitigates many of the "in combat" detriments to being denied a precise sense. Then you just have to adjust how the character responds to other scenarios that typically rely on sight. Using their perception to hear at greater distances than other characters are capable of, using their sense of touch more accurately to detect a creature through a door by their movements, that sort of thing.
I think it is important to remember that most people, myself included, play table top role playing games essentially for power fantasies. I enjoy creating a character that has abilities that I don't possess, or greater versions of abilities that I do. Like Magic or extreme martial arts abilities. Why should anyone be denied that same experience?
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In the first place, I literally quoted the book;so, I'm not interpreting what it's saying that is actually what it says. It says: "Conditions such as blinded and defended aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability living with a disability long term." (CRB, 487) What that sentence, literally, says is that these two conditions aren't a "good fit" (whatever that is supposed to mean) for a character if that character has lived with that condition for a long time. That's literally what that sentence says and it makes no sense.So, for example, rather than saying that people who have been disabled long term are a problemI feel it's important to note that the rules do not say this, and this is in no way reflective of what has been said. The specific reference is:
"A player might want to create a character with a disability, or their character might end up with a disability over the course of play. Work with the player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. Conditions such as blinded and deafened aren’t a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term."
While that seems like it's being interpreted by some as saying "It's not appropriate to have blind or deaf characters with long-term disabilities", that's not what that says. It's saying that the mechanical conditions known as blinded and deafened are not appropriate representations of someone with a long-term disability. Those mechanics are designed to convey the specific effects of removing a sense from someone who is acclimated to living with it. For a character who is permanently without sight or hearing, you should use other adjustments.
I think it does make sense. This is a game. In this game "blinded" and "deafened" are specific mechanical constructs, and they are written with the assumption that the condition is both short-term and easily removed. If you are playing a character who is permanently differently-abled, then you shouldn't use those conditions because they aren't tailored to that experience. That's all that sentence says "Conditions such as blinded and defended aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long term." If you are e.g. someone who is permanently without sight, while the real-world classification for that circumstance might be "blind", it's not what the blinded condition in the game was designed to convey. Those bonuses and penalties are not meant to be reflective of someone who has acclimated to functioning without the use of a particular sense, they are tailored to someone who is used to operating with that sense and has suddenly lost it.
There is not a "one-size-fits-all" suggestion for what you should do to represent a permanent disability, because being differently abled isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. I'm legally blind without corrective lenses and have mobility issues due to a devastating knee injury from my time in the service. How I interact with the world and perceive my own abilities is going to be different from your life experience, just as both our life experiences would still be unique from someone who had a similar background to either of us.
To use another in-game analogy, I always found the "Blind" oracle curse to be a little offensive because oracles with that curse could see significantly better than I can without corrective lenses. Being told that my everyday state of being was in every way worse than a curse that was supposed to be a terrible burden (according to all the surrounding lore), was upsetting. I've personally sat and had conversations with differently-abled individuals who have expressed their personal frustrations to me regarding the depiction of their experience re: lacking sight, mobility, or hearing. This doesn't give me any special insights into their condition beyond what they shared with me, but it does show me that their interpretation of their experience is often different than yours or mine.
If the company were to create a "one-size-fits-all" set of mechanics beyond those already laid out in the core rulebook and gamemastery guide that fit your interpretation, it might in turn offend someone else as an inaccurate or harmful presentation of their experience. So instead the guidance was left intentionally simple "Work with your player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. The blinded and deafened conditions aren't good representations of someone with a permanent or long-term sensory experience." It's telling you what not to do followed by suggestions on what might be more appropriate (note that the descriptions for Blindness or Impaired Vision and Deafness or Being Hard of Hearing in the sidebar are not the same as the descriptions for the blinded and deafened conditions, despite having significant overlap). These suggestions are what organized play has picked up as the "one-size-fits-all" approach, because for better or worse a direct goal and requirement of the organized play program is that it has to be one-size-fits-all. It can absolutely be frustrating to want to model your own experience through an RPG and feel that the game doesn't allow you to do so, or that its attempts to do so are insufficient or inaccurate.
The organized play team saw this thread, responded, and encouraged respectful discourse so that they can continue to evaluate their own guides and standards to see if there's more they can do to minimize frustrations like those you are experiencing in a way that doesn't then become offensive or frustrating for someone else who has a similar sensory experience to yours that they perceive differently. I don't know whether or not it will be possible for them to create a solution that is tailored specifically to your experience, but, assuming you play in organized play which seems to be the case, it may be that your local venture-officers can make some reasonable accomodations for you, or if that proves infeasible, they can use their international network of gamers, which includes many differently-abled individuals including those with vision impairments, to see if there is a more nuanced set of options they can propose to the organized play team. It may be at the end of the day that nothing changes. The end result might be that the light framework currently in place is the best solution currently available within the campaign's necessarily rigid framework. But if nothing else, reasonable discussions on the topic with detailed examples and specific requests are the first step toward achieving progress.
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I think it does make sense. This is a game. In this game "blinded" and "deafened" are specific mechanical constructs, and they are written with the assumption that the condition is both short-term and easily removed. If you are playing a character who is permanently differently-abled, then you shouldn't use those conditions because they aren't tailored to that experience. That's all that sentence says "Conditions such as blinded and defended aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long term." If you are e.g. someone who is permanently without sight, while the real-world classification for that circumstance might be "blind", it's not what the blinded condition in the game was designed to convey. Those bonuses and penalties are not meant to be reflective of someone who has acclimated to functioning without the use of a particular sense, they are tailored to someone who is used to operating with that sense and has suddenly lost it.
There is not a "one-size-fits-all" suggestion for what you should do to represent a permanent disability, because being differently abled isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. I'm legally blind without corrective lenses and have mobility issues due to a devastating knee injury from my time in the service. How I interact with the world and perceive my own abilities is going to be different from your life experience, just as both our life experiences would still be unique from someone who had a similar background to either of us.
To use another in-game analogy, I always found the "Blind" oracle curse to be a little offensive because oracles with that curse could see significantly better than I can without corrective lenses. Being told that my everyday state of being was in every way worse than a curse that was supposed to be a terrible burden (according to all the surrounding lore), was upsetting. I've personally sat and had conversations with differently-abled individuals who have expressed their personal frustrations to me regarding the depiction of their experience re: lacking sight, mobility, or hearing. This doesn't give me any special insights into their condition beyond what they shared with me, but it does show me that their interpretation of their experience is often different than yours or mine.
If the company were to create a "one-size-fits-all" set of mechanics beyond those already laid out in the core rulebook and gamemastery guide that fit your interpretation, it might in turn offend someone else as an inaccurate or harmful presentation of their experience. So instead the guidance was left intentionally simple "Work with your player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. The blinded and deafened conditions aren't good representations of someone with a permanent or long-term sensory experience." It's telling you what not to do followed by suggestions on what might be more appropriate (note that the descriptions for Blindness or Impaired Vision and Deafness or Being Hard of Hearing in the sidebar are not the same as the descriptions for the blinded and deafened conditions, despite having significant overlap). These suggestions are what organized play has picked up as the "one-size-fits-all" approach, because for better or worse a direct goal and requirement of the organized play program is that it has to be one-size-fits-all. It can absolutely be frustrating to want to model your own experience through an RPG and feel that the game doesn't allow you to do so, or that its attempts to do so are insufficient or inaccurate.
The organized play team saw this thread, responded, and encouraged respectful discourse so that they can continue to evaluate their own guides and standards to see if there's more they can do to minimize frustrations like those you are experiencing in a way that doesn't then become offensive or frustrating for someone else who has a similar sensory experience to yours that they perceive differently. I don't know whether or not it will be possible for them to create a solution that is tailored specifically to your experience, but, assuming you play in organized play which seems to be the case, it may be that your local venture-officers can make some reasonable accomodations for you, or if that proves infeasible, they can use their international network of gamers, which includes many differently-abled individuals including those with vision impairments, to see if there is a more nuanced set of options they can propose to the organized play team. It may be at the end of the day that nothing changes. The end result might be that the light framework currently in place is the best solution currently available within the campaign's necessarily rigid framework. But if nothing else, reasonable discussions on the topic with detailed examples and specific requests are the first step toward achieving progress.
This is a game where "blindness" and "deafness" are used as spells/weapons to use against people; however, they are also disabilities and, I think, we need to make a distinction between and among several things: 1. a physical impairment (i.e. blindness, deafness, a mobility impairment, etc.); 2. someone who has a medical condition defined as a disability; 3. someone who identifies as Disabled; 4. a spell or weaponized attack of some kind (aka a condition) that also goes by the same name as "blind," "deaf," "immobilized," etc. Within the field of Disability Studies, one would discuss this as modelling. Discussing all of these conditions as the same thing is what is known as the "medical model." To put it plainly, because I'm sure no one wishes this lecture (certainly not me), the medical model defines "disability" as always and already defective, inherently inferior and, if one cannot be cured, one should be killed. Which is how the language of "blind" and "deaf" become weaponized and long term disabled people become incompatible with the game's model....
Now, that would be fine IF Paizo hadn't set themselves up with a contradictory model of acceptance which is not overridden by, "well, if someone wants to play a character with a disability -- excluding a character with a long term disability, of course -- work it out with the GM (and the next GM, and the next GM, etc.) -- BECAUSE of the very problems within the language within the core rule book, not to mention the attitudes displayed in the short time since I posted here. After all, the very first post I received was one that said that blind characters have no business in the game by someone who clearly wanted to pick a fight. (And I'll freely admit I fight back.) I didn't set this tone; it was set by others who chose to come in here trying to prove there was no way to adapt to life with a disability in the "wilds" adventuring and survive, conquer, thrive... whatever. There is no nice way to say to someone screaming, "I can't find my car keys!" that their car keys are in their hand. No matter how you say it, they're going to end up feeling like an idiot. To put it another way, if people had been paying attention, they would have realized what I've been saying all along; Disabled people, who have lived their lives this way no how to adapt and anyone with any critical reading skills should have clued in by now that I know far more about the Disabled community than the "average bear" (as the colloquialism goes. And, at the same time, Unicore is correct, in the world of Galorion, there is no reason to presume that wheelchairs would be a thing. There is the "flight" spell, after all. Historically, people who couldn't walk thrived in nomadic horse tribes (some were even leaders of those nations) in this real world. So, there are all types of alternatives -- although given Gnomish technology, I'm sure some form of wheelchairish tech would exist in some form or fashion. However, it would, in all likelihood be adapted for the specific terrain of the area it came from (i.e. jungle, desert, forest, plain, etc.). But I digress.
My point was never to make a one-size-fits-all mode of blindness or deafness or the larger disability community but, rather to allow for it to exist where it really isn't allowed. And that sentence doesn't allow for a character to be created with a disability that they were born with (and, no, I'm not creating me in the game -- not that it's any of your business but I acquired mine from head trauma as a child between the ages of 8 & 14 thank you very much for playing). However, I know many schools use games like Pathfinder as a teaching tool for students to learn math, writing, team building skills, problem solving, etc. and allowing children to create a character that they COULD relate to is something that might be useful. It could also be a useful teaching tool for the children to learn how to learn skills they don't think about but use on a regular basis. I'm trying the project out first myself before I suggest it to teachers I know that use Pathfinder in their classrooms as a teaching tool. However, I can't in good conscious give them something that is a hard fail. Right now, as this reads, it's a hard fail BECAUSE it reads that people with long term disabilities are fails.
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This is a game where "blindness" and "deafness" are used as spells/weapons to use against people; however, they are also disabilities and, I think, we need to make a distinction between and among several things: 1. a physical impairment (i.e. blindness, deafness, a mobility impairment, etc.); 2. someone who has a medical condition defined as a disability; 3. someone who identifies as Disabled; 4. a spell or weaponized attack of some kind (aka a condition) that also goes by the same name as "blind," "deaf," "immobilized," etc.
BlindNESS, the spell, is not synonymous with blindED, the condition. CRB page 618 says "Conditions change your state of being in some way." Blindness the spell might inflict the blinded condition, but the blinded condition is what happens when a creature that is used to operating with vision suddenly loses it. CRB page 487 is reinforcing is that the blinded condition listed on pages 618 is meant for someone suddenly loses it, not for a character that hasn't had vision in the longterm.
Further reinforcing this is the fact that the mechanical adjustments listed for a blind character on 487 are not the same as the adjustments for the blinded condition on page 618. A blinded character treats all normal terrain as difficult terrain. A blind character doesn't, presumably because they have adapted the skills necessary to move about without tripping on things. Also, Page 487 says a blind character can't be blinded or dazzled. So the rulebook isn't saying the two are one and the same as you seem to be alluding to.
I'm having difficulty engaging with the rest of your post because it seems to be hinging on saying something that the book doesn't actually say, as far as I can tell. I'm worried I might be missing some other point.
Also, googling "Pathfinder Society Cleveland" led me to this page, and according to that there are 3 different gaming stores in Cleveland running PFS next week. Underhill Games, Great Lakes Game Emporium, and Critical Hit Games. I'm... somewhat skeptical that is actually happening given the global pandemic, but that might also be why the venture captains aren't currently responding to you.
Regardless of whether or not you're playing with local tables or PbP, talking to your specific GM is gonna be your best move here.
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(now I am even more confused.)
Blind = Having a long-term disability, as discussed on page 487 of the core rulebook.
Blinded = A sighted character suddenly losing their sight.
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Taking what Captain Morgan said and expanding on it a bit.
Blind = Having a long-term visual impairment, as discussed on page 487 of the core rulebook.
Blinded = A game mechanic designed to reflect the penalties associated with a sighted individual suddenly and temporarily losing their sight, expressed as a condition. Conditions are a specific type of game mechanic, listed alphabetically starting on page 618.
In the sidebar on page 487, the last two sentences of the first paragraph say "Conditions such as blinded and deafened aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term. Here are suggestions for rules you might use for PCs with disabilities."
This is telling you that for a character with a persistent long term sensory impairment, you should not use the blinded condition as described on page 618, but should instead use the adjustment from that same sidebar, listed under the header "Blindness or Impaired Vision". The game mechanics for playing a person who is permanently blind as described on page 487, are different than the mechanics for a character who can normally see but gains the blinded condition listed on page 618.
So if you break those two sentences down-
"Conditions such as blinded and deafened"
This refers to the mechanical conditions, as listed starting on page 618.
"aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term"
So if e.g. your character was born deaf and has been deaf for many years, you should not use the deafened condition from the conditions section that starts on page 618.
"Here are suggestions for rules you might use for PCs with disabilities."
Instead of using the deafened condition that was just identified as a bad fit for someone who has been without hearing for many years, use the mechanics listed below that paragraph, under the "Deafness or Being Hard of Hearing" header. These are a separate set of mechanics designed for a character that has been deaf for a long period of time and acclimated to the sensory impairment. They are not the same as the deafened condition on page 618, which has various penalties associated with it that are not present in the mechanics presented on page 487.
Hope that helps.
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Also, googling "Pathfinder Society Cleveland" led me to this page, and according to that there are 3 different gaming stores in Cleveland running PFS next week. Underhill Games, Great Lakes Game Emporium, and Critical Hit Games. I'm... somewhat skeptical that is actually happening given the global pandemic, but that might also be why the venture captains aren't currently responding to you.
Regardless of whether or not you're playing with local tables or PbP, talking to your specific GM is gonna be your best move here.
Actually, I sent those messages months ago... but neither here nor there. As for that website, Warhorn is not ADA compliant and, therefore, not screen reader friendly, which means I can't use it. So, any games posted there aren't accessible (i.e. games I can be aware of). So, if local area PFS captains don't respond to requests, I don't know about events because they aren't responding to emails and post on a non-ADA compliant venue....
Wow, that really sucks.
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This is a game where "blindness" and "deafness" are used as spells/weapons to use against people; however, they are also disabilities and, I think, we need to make a distinction between and among several things: 1. a physical impairment (i.e. blindness, deafness, a mobility impairment, etc.); 2. someone who has a medical condition defined as a disability; 3. someone who identifies as Disabled; 4. a spell or weaponized attack of some kind (aka a condition) that also goes by the same name as "blind," "deaf," "immobilized," etc.BlindNESS, the spell, is not synonymous with blindED, the condition. CRB page 618 says "Conditions change your state of being in some way." Blindness the spell might inflict the blinded condition, but the blinded condition is what happens when a creature that is used to operating with vision suddenly loses it. CRB page 487 is reinforcing is that the blinded condition listed on pages 618 is meant for someone suddenly loses it, not for a character that hasn't had vision in the longterm.
Further reinforcing this is the fact that the mechanical adjustments listed for a blind character on 487 are not the same as the adjustments for the blinded condition on page 618. A blinded character treats all normal terrain as difficult terrain. A blind character doesn't, presumably because they have adapted the skills necessary to move about without tripping on things. Also, Page 487 says a blind character can't be blinded or dazzled. So the rulebook isn't saying the two are one and the same as you seem to be alluding to.
I'm having difficulty engaging with the rest of your post because it seems to be hinging on saying something that the book doesn't actually say, as far as I can tell. I'm worried I might be missing some other point.
I would agree with you except that: 1. Paizo has not made a distinction between the mechanics of the spell "blindness" and the impairment/condition "blinded"; they've simply said x causes y which has led, it would appear, to this confusion for Ssalaren, for example, to believe that both conditions must always and already be short term mechanical devises within the game that are short-term and easily removed.... which lead him/her to the presumption that somehow(?) one create a character that is permanently blind or deaf but not permanently blind or deaf (because that goes against p. 487 quite clearly) by, as Ssalaren interpreted it:
"It's saying that the mechanical conditions known as blinded and deafened are not appropriate representations of someone with a long-term disability. Those mechanics are designed to convey the specific effects of removing a sense from someone who is acclimated to living with it. For a character who is permanently without sight or hearing, you should use other adjustments."
When asked how exactly that would look/work, Ssalaren couldn't come up with an idea; now, when someone comes up with that inventive an interpretation they usually have an example in mind.... Please, don't confuse my understanding of the rulebook with trying to get Ssalaren to explain his interpretation.
Don't get me wrong, Paizo did some things wrong when it created these linguistic gymnastics because they made little to no distinction between the mechanic and the condition, and none between impairment and the mechanic and then simply put an x = y to create a spell. So, "blind" is an impairment that someone can have; a mechanical condition (blinded is simply the past tense "blind" is present tense of that verb); "Blindness" can refer to both the spell or the impairment that someone possesses (ex. "color blindness"... do I need to make a sentence that a character might use in the game to describe someone who is blind?). Don't get me wrong, I understand the problems with what they were trying to do given the social constructs surrounding disability; however and at the same time, to suggest that these terms don't create a linguistic confusion all their own is problematic, at best....
At the same time, there are things that Ssalaren jumped to conclusions about that I asked for a reasonable explanation of that interpretation.... If you're going to throw out an interpretation that says, "Do x," then give an example of how X might be done. And Ssalaren's response was, "I think it does make sense. This is a game. In this game "blinded" and "deafened" are specific mechanical constructs, and they are written with the assumption that the condition is both short-term and easily removed. If you are playing a character who is permanently differently-abled, then you shouldn't use those conditions because they aren't tailored to that experience." Which is basically saying if you're playing a character with a long-term disability, they've adapted to their long-term disability so *poof* they no longer have their disability.... Seriously??? I know this world is magical but I'm sorry my CRB must have the page missing with the "Cure Pill" on it.... I'm looking for an explanation of the interpretation and what I got was, *throws hands up* "I don't know how to explain myself or my logic."
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A disabled character does not use the conditions for blinded or deafened as those conditions are for temporary afflictions. Nowhere was it said that disabled characters are no longer disabled. They just do not use the same rules as abled characters who are temporarily blinded or deafened.
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Again though... That isn't what the book says. At least it isn't if you read it as a rulebook for a game. You're running it through a lot of other filters, and it seems like the meaning should have been laid out in a clearer manner for folks who have those filters and are used to that language... But the actual thing the book is saying, both in plain English and as a technical manual of a game, is exactly what Sslarn says it is.
And I think it is hard to engage with you about the rest of it, ie, how to actually implement a blind character, because you're refusing to concede on this initial point.
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: 1. Paizo has not made a distinction between the mechanics of the spell "blindness" and the impairment/condition "blinded"
This appears to be the source of where much of the disconnect between you and other posters in this thread are coming from. As was broken down three posts up, the game does make a distinction between the sensory impairment of being permanently blind and the blinded condition. Conditions are a game term described starting on page 618, and condition has a specific mechanical definition within the framework of the game.
On page 487, it tells you not to use the adjustments from page 618 and instead presents an alternate set of adjustments where it creates mechanical distinctions between someone who has gained the blinded condition and someone who has been blind long-term and acclimated to the impairment (which, in the terms of the game, is not the same thing as having a mechanically-defined condition). This is accompanied by additional text further clarifying that those mechanics might not be the perfect fit or representation for everyone and encouraging GMs to work with their players to find a representation that is appropriate for them.
So there are three ways the game explicitly talks about blindness-
1) The blinded condition, as described on page 618. This is specifically noted as not being the correct set of adjustments for a person with a long-term visual impairment on page 487, where an alternate set of mechanics are included.
2) Long term blindness or visual impairment, as described on page 487. This describes a specific and separate set of mechanics for characters who are blind, rather than characters who have the blinded condition. The key differences are that the mechanics for blind characters (as opposed to characters with the blinded condition) don't include treating normal terrain as difficult terrain and don't impose the -4 status penalty on Perception checks.
3) Table adjudication. Before any mechanics for being blind or blinded are described, the sidebar on page 487 encourages GMs to work with players to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. This is what I was referring to earlier when I talked about tailoring the adjustments to an individual's personal experience.
So the game makes a distinction between being blind and having the blinded condition with two different sets of mechanics, and encourages the GM to work with the player toward achieving respectful representation.
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One way that could go a long way to helping GMs feel ready to run games with blind players and characters might be to have a free digital supplement to the GMG that talks about how to describe encounters and hazards with more than one sense, and to have some examples of both encounters and hazards that might be easier to navigate if characters are more used to relying on sense other than sight, including characters who might have improved scent or hearing or another sense due to some kind of power or ability.