Blind but Capable Homebrew 5e or 5.5e

Blind but Capable (Homebrew)

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I'm not trying to get a mechanical advantage from being blind. I want blindness to fundamentally change how the character perceives and interacts with the world, while still letting me play a viable melee character. My character is someone who has spent his life learning the world through different senses.

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Overall Description

• You cannot see, but know where people are because the world bends around them. Yours is a world of textures, temperatures, air displacement, smells, sounds and intuition. Thus, you can still end up with the Blinded condition because it isn’t about your eyes, it’s about losing the ability to perceive your world effectively.
• You are most effective at close combat. Recommended class: Monk, Way of the Open Hand.

Summary: You’re still awesome.

Perception

• All sight-based Perception checks always automatically fail.
• Your Perception vs Stealth checks are re-flavoured to be hearing and awareness-based as are most all other Perception checks.
• You cannot recognize faces or perceive details that require sight. You may attempt to use touch to identify things, at DM discretion.

Summary: Skills aren’t about sight.

0-10ft Heightened Awareness

• You have a 10ft awareness of your immediate surroundings. Important! This awareness does not grant sight. You are still blind. You can target creatures you are aware of normally in combat. You can interact with them normally as well, but you do not see their appearance, colours, expressions, written text, visual details, or the visual part of magical illusions.
• You can detect the location of creatures within 10 feet that are not behind Total Cover, provided they are not successfully masking their presence through stealth.
• Invisibility alone cannot hide a creature from you within range, unless they successfully manage to Hide and mask their presence.
• Ignores the sight penalties caused by Magical Darkness.

Summary: Attack as normal. (Note: the 10ft awareness and detection of any creature not behind Total Cover is exactly what you get from Blind Fighting Style or Blindsight. In fact, your 10ft awareness is weaker because creatures can attempt to stealth past you and/or hide by moving silently and/or holding their breath. It’s not unfair. I have checked rules as written, but yes, you still cannot see so keep that in mind).

10-60ft Aura Sense

• You can distinguish friend from foe and perceive approximate locations well enough defend yourself, but attacks you make have disadvantage unless you move to be within Heightened Awareness range.
• Ineffective against Invisibility.
• If you are affected by the Blinded condition, it applies as normal.

Summary: Attack with disadvantage.

60+ft Empty Void

• You have no accurate awareness. You cannot target creatures until you somehow learn their location — e.g. with help from your allies — and move within range to attack.
• Attacks against you by creatures whose location you cannot perceive have advantage.
• If you are affected by the Blinded condition, it applies as normal.

Summary: Unable to attack.

Spellcasting (If Applicable)

• Cannot use sight-targeting spells.
• Spell attacks within Heightened Awareness range are normal.
• Spell attacks within Aura Sense range are rolled at disadvantage.
• Spell attacks sent into the Empty Void are left to DM discretion.
• Area of Effect spells can target any known location, but precise placement outside of Heightened Awareness range may suffer a slight 5-10ft margin of error.

Summary: Spellcasting is doable, but definitely not recommended.

Magical Silence (Hard Counter)

• Heightened Awareness and Aura Sense abilities are both disabled.
• For this homebrew, while affected by Magical Silence, you are treated as Blinded because your primary nonvisual senses have been completely disrupted.
• Perception checks relying on hearing automatically fail.
• Smell and touch alone are not enough for normal combat. You have disadvantage on attack rolls, and attacks made against you have advantage in combat.
• The first time you are touched or attacked by a creature while affected by Magical Silence, you must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you panic and must use your reaction to shove, strike, or grapple that creature at disadvantage. (Note: make it the frightened condition for ease of gameplay perhaps? DC could be a 10 or half the damage taken (minimum 10), similar to a concentration check, or matching the spellcaster's Save DC).

Summary: Panic. Your world is gone.

At DM Discretion

• Re-flavouring any sight-targeting spells, long ranged attacks or class-based abilities to work with the Blind but Capable homebrew.
• Visual Illusion Immunity. You are still susceptible to illusions that create temperature, sound, or smell (and spells like Phantasmal Force, which affect the mind). For example: a Major Image of a dragon that roars, smells, generates apparent heat, etc.? Things definitely got interesting.
• Reading raised, engraved, carved, or textured surfaces via touch.
• Disadvantage on hearing-based Perception (or other applicable skill checks) in noisy taverns, heavy rain, busy crowds, etcetera because of sensory overload.
• Basically, certain conditions should shrink the Heightened Awareness to 5ft and Aura Sense to 30ft. As well as cause disadvantage to perception checks. Perhaps being underwater? In areas of extreme ambient noise or chaos — a roaring waterfall, a heavy thunderstorm, a screaming crowd, or a chaotic tavern brawl — your senses are overwhelmed. Save it for situations where the sensory environment is overwhelming. Use it sparingly enough that it’s fun instead of frustrating.
• Allies can communicate the approximate location of creatures outside Heightened Awareness range, allowing you to target them, but the information does not eliminate your normal Aura Sense disadvantage unless the DM allows it. Points for creativity.

Summary: What the DM says goes.

Flavour Notes

• Heightened Awareness is a re-flavoured Blindsight. Aura Sense is a re-flavoured Darkvision.
• Footsteps. Breathing. Armour shifting. Voices. Air movement and pressure changes. Spatial awareness. Subtle vibrations. Heat differences. Etcetera.
• Tactile Sign Language is a thing.

Summary: Have fun with it.

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TL;DR: The closer something is, the more precise nonvisual perception becomes. The farther away it is, the more dependent you become on environmental cues and allies.

may I posse two simple solutions? Tremor sense and Blindsight  

The sensory-based mechanics make the blind character concept feel genuinely playable 2jbet Download is worth checking out too.