Sorry, I was just making sure we closed one line of discussion before starting new ones! It's very confusing why 5E thought that being Heavily Obscured causes other creatures to be pseudo-Blinded rather than you being pseudo-Invisible, or why they felt that was a helpful shortcut for Obscurement but not Cover and not being Unseen in general or Hiding, or why other conditions like Unconscious are happy to use Prone for shorthand for falling down, but then don't use Blinded and Deafened as shorthand for "unaware of its surroundings" (or, some other additional condition that is defined as "unware of its surroundings").
Just plenty of confusing and contradictory systems jumbled up, so that mistake is one I've made myself more than once!
Caught some time in the airport....the whole system has issues. my favorite (as in the ones that leave me SMH) anachronisms are two blinded creatures attacking each other without disadvantage due to the wording of the condition, and likewise with non-darkvision creatures in the dark. The RAW creates a number of confusing and downright ridiculous situations. If there was ever a 5.5e, this would be easily one of the first fixes I would want implemented.
My personal rulings are that Blindsight counters blinded in it's entirety, but only in the radius of the blindsight. Blindsight provides a means for creatures to "see" that fulfills the requirements of abilities based on sight, and logic (akin to real world) prevails when the RAW creates weird situations like the two I noted above (in both cases, all creatures would have straight disadvantage). I think the RAI is intact with these, but honestly I don't care, its what makes sense to me, and what keeps me sane when I'm DM'ing.
I got through a bunch of these replies and one thing I noticed was that someone kept saying outside of the blindsight range a creature would have advantage on attacking you, which makes sense in regards to the way things like sneak attack work. If the target can't perceive you then granting advantage outside of their perceivable range would make the most sense. In regards to things like a creature in a fog cloud, I don't think any form of disadvantage should be imposed if they are within the blindsight range. If a creature with blindsight like the slime does not have disadvantage when making attacks then imposing disadvantage on anyone else for it would not be a fair ruling IMO. But in the long run, if one of your players wanted to make a daredevil style character that utilized their other senses instead of sight and somehow got blindsight, posing too many hardships on them would not make for a fun collaborative storytelling. RAW are important but in some contexts there may be reasons to adjust accordingly. For example, PCs find a blind NPC and want to bestow some sort of sight on them to allow them to return to a sense of normalcy for a period, if the PCs gave him some sort of magical item or something along those lines that granted blindsight i don't think it would turn into a "well blindsight isn't actually seeing so it doesn't really help in this situation." There are some things that may need to be bent or adjusted for the fun and creativity of campaigns. If we are too locked into the RAW then we may be limited when it comes to the creative solutions or acts PCs can make and interesting stories DMs come up with.
People are getting caught on text. This is a case of a specific text in Tasha's overwritting the generic.
Blinded and vision are two polar opposites. As we know with vision it has a range. Within the range you can see and outside you can't. You are (blinded) to any creatures outside your sight range. It'd be better to consider blinded as a relative term than a flat condition on a creature. Between two creatures is creature A blinded or not.
Blind sight grants 10 foot vision. It explicitly states that even if you are blinded (a condition that would effectively set your vision radius to 0) you can still see within this 10 feet. This is a case of a specific rule overwriting a generic. Normally with blindness you couldn't see at all. But with blind sight you have limited vision.
It is effectively the same as normal vision within that 10 feet.
If you can see them in that radius you can cast spells and target them. Spells say you must be able to see them, it doesn't specify HOW you have to be able to see them. Sight is sight. However sight is different from sense. Tremorsense as an example only grants knowledge of their location. It is not sight, therefore you could not cast at a target perceived through tremorsense.
Creatures CANNOT hide from you in that radius.
Invisible creatures cannot sneak up on you inside that radius. You could technically hide outside that radius but the instant you walk inside you are detected.
Attacks from within that radius do not get the benefits of you being blinded. Even if your affected by blindness/deafness or darkness...the specifics of the effect specify that within the radius you are not considered blind.
Outside the 10 foot radius:
You are blind to anything outside of that if your currently available vision doesn't extend your vision range (ie. your not blinded, obscured etc.)
Creatures can hide from you if they are concealed.
Invisible or hidden creatures can attack you.
Attacks outside that radius get advantage since you are blind TO THEM!
Sorry, I was just making sure we closed one line of discussion before starting new ones! It's very confusing why 5E thought that being Heavily Obscured causes other creatures to be pseudo-Blinded rather than you being pseudo-Invisible, or why they felt that was a helpful shortcut for Obscurement but not Cover and not being Unseen in general or Hiding, or why other conditions like Unconscious are happy to use Prone for shorthand for falling down, but then don't use Blinded and Deafened as shorthand for "unaware of its surroundings" (or, some other additional condition that is defined as "unware of its surroundings").
Just plenty of confusing and contradictory systems jumbled up, so that mistake is one I've made myself more than once!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Caught some time in the airport....the whole system has issues. my favorite (as in the ones that leave me SMH) anachronisms are two blinded creatures attacking each other without disadvantage due to the wording of the condition, and likewise with non-darkvision creatures in the dark. The RAW creates a number of confusing and downright ridiculous situations. If there was ever a 5.5e, this would be easily one of the first fixes I would want implemented.
My personal rulings are that Blindsight counters blinded in it's entirety, but only in the radius of the blindsight. Blindsight provides a means for creatures to "see" that fulfills the requirements of abilities based on sight, and logic (akin to real world) prevails when the RAW creates weird situations like the two I noted above (in both cases, all creatures would have straight disadvantage). I think the RAI is intact with these, but honestly I don't care, its what makes sense to me, and what keeps me sane when I'm DM'ing.
I got through a bunch of these replies and one thing I noticed was that someone kept saying outside of the blindsight range a creature would have advantage on attacking you, which makes sense in regards to the way things like sneak attack work. If the target can't perceive you then granting advantage outside of their perceivable range would make the most sense. In regards to things like a creature in a fog cloud, I don't think any form of disadvantage should be imposed if they are within the blindsight range. If a creature with blindsight like the slime does not have disadvantage when making attacks then imposing disadvantage on anyone else for it would not be a fair ruling IMO. But in the long run, if one of your players wanted to make a daredevil style character that utilized their other senses instead of sight and somehow got blindsight, posing too many hardships on them would not make for a fun collaborative storytelling. RAW are important but in some contexts there may be reasons to adjust accordingly. For example, PCs find a blind NPC and want to bestow some sort of sight on them to allow them to return to a sense of normalcy for a period, if the PCs gave him some sort of magical item or something along those lines that granted blindsight i don't think it would turn into a "well blindsight isn't actually seeing so it doesn't really help in this situation." There are some things that may need to be bent or adjusted for the fun and creativity of campaigns. If we are too locked into the RAW then we may be limited when it comes to the creative solutions or acts PCs can make and interesting stories DMs come up with.
People are getting caught on text. This is a case of a specific text in Tasha's overwritting the generic.
Blinded and vision are two polar opposites. As we know with vision it has a range. Within the range you can see and outside you can't. You are (blinded) to any creatures outside your sight range. It'd be better to consider blinded as a relative term than a flat condition on a creature. Between two creatures is creature A blinded or not.
Blind sight grants 10 foot vision. It explicitly states that even if you are blinded (a condition that would effectively set your vision radius to 0) you can still see within this 10 feet.
This is a case of a specific rule overwriting a generic. Normally with blindness you couldn't see at all. But with blind sight you have limited vision.
It is effectively the same as normal vision within that 10 feet.
Outside the 10 foot radius: