I'm currently running ID:RotF, and I've been looking at Auril's forms for the eventual fight. Specifically, the Blizzard Veil ability of her third form caught my attention, as it creates a 30-ft radius sphere that is heavily obscured (which effectively subjects creatures within it to the Blinded condition). Blinded feels a little weak to me, since it just imposes disadvantage on attacks...and AOE abilities/spells are unaffected. I can't speak for everyone, but personally, when I can't see where I'm going, it's very easy for me to veer off course. And without realizing that I'm off course, it's very hard to course-correct and stay on target.
How do y'all deal with this? Do you just run it like normal? Or are there some homebrew rule sets that make heavily-obscured areas more (appropriately) difficult to navigate?
It seems a bit wierd but I think it have its fundamentals.
There is no need to mention how able actual blind people are to perceive its surroundings and hit a target properly, thats not a true matter here, but I have to say that expecifcly on roleplaying games we face in the maority of time a lack of ambience going beyond sight. Also, the use of table tops, figurines, etc make us to stuck on that visual of the scene.
Most of the way we narrate and perceive a combat situation on D&D is based on the actual sight of our characters, so its our natural expectation to have sight as a sense of major importance. Usually, the description of a combat scene don't includes "you hear a footsep on gravel to your left, while a wheigty foe rush twards you and hit you with its axe" or "you felt the cold metal of an arrow sinks trhough your flash while you hear the floater of a bowstring around 30 feet eight o'clock of you ". Reading those scenes in the way I making here, You can imagine more or less the positioning of your foe and maybe hit it, right?
Fighting blind isn't that hard if we have other senses to strick to. Of course the lack of sight justifies desadvantage to characters that where used to sight and I would say an actual blind character that have learned to overcome sight through its other senses would be very confortable to hit things easely. Of course it would be a particular situation when the foes are incorporeal, unsensable, etc. But while you can hear footsteps, smell direct scents, feel breases or perceive auras or presences (like a devine or a fay would emanate), sight is just a small part of the equasion.
So, I deal with it as it stands. Binded creatures have disadvantage and thats it, except for cases that foes can't be target by other senses, so I narrate that it can't be tracked easely and players must choose random directions to make attacks with disadvantage, or chose other actions (I also hide the tokens if its on vtt). About navigate, a standing rock on your path don't scream to warning so I may deal differently, but there is ways to overcome the lack of sight. I would say that moving trhough unknow areas while blind a char must spend extra movement to reconize the path using something (like a stick) as guide or be free to move its normal speed assuming the risk of finding an obstacle and than make a saving throw to avoid falling prone or bump against(probably I would randomize the chance of that obstacle exist there if there is any clearly set).
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I'm currently running ID:RotF, and I've been looking at Auril's forms for the eventual fight. Specifically, the Blizzard Veil ability of her third form caught my attention, as it creates a 30-ft radius sphere that is heavily obscured (which effectively subjects creatures within it to the Blinded condition). Blinded feels a little weak to me, since it just imposes disadvantage on attacks...and AOE abilities/spells are unaffected. I can't speak for everyone, but personally, when I can't see where I'm going, it's very easy for me to veer off course. And without realizing that I'm off course, it's very hard to course-correct and stay on target.
How do y'all deal with this? Do you just run it like normal? Or are there some homebrew rule sets that make heavily-obscured areas more (appropriately) difficult to navigate?
It seems a bit wierd but I think it have its fundamentals.
There is no need to mention how able actual blind people are to perceive its surroundings and hit a target properly, thats not a true matter here, but I have to say that expecifcly on roleplaying games we face in the maority of time a lack of ambience going beyond sight. Also, the use of table tops, figurines, etc make us to stuck on that visual of the scene.
Most of the way we narrate and perceive a combat situation on D&D is based on the actual sight of our characters, so its our natural expectation to have sight as a sense of major importance. Usually, the description of a combat scene don't includes "you hear a footsep on gravel to your left, while a wheigty foe rush twards you and hit you with its axe" or "you felt the cold metal of an arrow sinks trhough your flash while you hear the floater of a bowstring around 30 feet eight o'clock of you ". Reading those scenes in the way I making here, You can imagine more or less the positioning of your foe and maybe hit it, right?
Fighting blind isn't that hard if we have other senses to strick to. Of course the lack of sight justifies desadvantage to characters that where used to sight and I would say an actual blind character that have learned to overcome sight through its other senses would be very confortable to hit things easely. Of course it would be a particular situation when the foes are incorporeal, unsensable, etc. But while you can hear footsteps, smell direct scents, feel breases or perceive auras or presences (like a devine or a fay would emanate), sight is just a small part of the equasion.
So, I deal with it as it stands. Binded creatures have disadvantage and thats it, except for cases that foes can't be target by other senses, so I narrate that it can't be tracked easely and players must choose random directions to make attacks with disadvantage, or chose other actions (I also hide the tokens if its on vtt). About navigate, a standing rock on your path don't scream to warning so I may deal differently, but there is ways to overcome the lack of sight. I would say that moving trhough unknow areas while blind a char must spend extra movement to reconize the path using something (like a stick) as guide or be free to move its normal speed assuming the risk of finding an obstacle and than make a saving throw to avoid falling prone or bump against(probably I would randomize the chance of that obstacle exist there if there is any clearly set).