Can you point to the PHB page that talks about the d8 to determine sound direction? I want to read up on it.
Actually the Rules you may want to read lie in the DMG, specifically Chapter 8: Running the Game pg.252 section on Optional Rule: Facing.
As a simplified version of such is to use the eight squares around a character as coordinal directions, front is 1 DM choice on numbering clock or counter-clock wise.( grid style play most common, hex grids use appropriate judgement.)
DMG has a lot to say on certain rules in the PHB, it’s nice when a player reminds you it exists.
Can you point to the PHB page that talks about the d8 to determine sound direction? I want to read up on it.
Actually the Rules you may want to read lie in the DMG, specifically Chapter 8: Running the Game pg.252 section on Optional Rule: Facing.
That rule is (a) optional, (b) completely unrelated to blindness (other than causing the character to be effectively blind in their rear arc), and (c) never mentions rolling dice.
Can you point to the PHB page that talks about the d8 to determine sound direction? I want to read up on it.
Actually the Rules you may want to read lie in the DMG, specifically Chapter 8: Running the Game pg.252 section on Optional Rule: Facing.
That rule is (a) optional, (b) completely unrelated to blindness (other than causing the character to be effectively blind in their rear arc), and (c) never mentions rolling dice.
When blind arcs for sound remains, arcs for vision become temporary unavailable.
What? What is a blind arc for sound? What are arcs for vision? What indicates when they are temporarily unavailable?
I read that optional rule and got nothing about such a thing. Nor anything about a d8 for determining direction. Nor, even anything that indicated that a creature didn't know the positions of creatures in any particular arcs.
I also didn't get the sense that a creature who was blinded all of the sudden changed the direction they were facing in any way.
What? What is a blind arc for sound? What are arcs for vision? What indicates when they are temporarily unavailable?
I read that optional rule and got nothing about such a thing. Nor anything about a d8 for determining direction. Nor, even anything that indicated that a creature didn't know the positions of creatures in any particular arcs.
I also didn't get the sense that a creature who was blinded all of the sudden changed the direction they were facing in any way.
You actually read that, and still have no concept of facing arcs, and how they affect the rules?
Can you point to the PHB page that talks about the d8 to determine sound direction? I want to read up on it.
Actually the Rules you may want to read lie in the DMG, specifically Chapter 8: Running the Game pg.252 section on Optional Rule: Facing.
That rule is (a) optional, (b) completely unrelated to blindness (other than causing the character to be effectively blind in their rear arc), and (c) never mentions rolling dice.
When blind arcs for sound remains, arcs for vision become temporary unavailable.
So your vision arcs are temporarily unavailable (blinded) your sound arcs still remain (you can hear 360 degrees unless your ears work differently and the facing rules do not cover hearing anyway). So the wizard still can hear the target (unless hidden) and can still sling their Lightning Bolt with zero impact of being blinded, per RAW.
Edit: Now I may agree with you that it doesn’t quite make sense and maybe there should be some effect and I would be fine if my DM decided to rule differently (they did when we were in a sphere of Darkness, he had us roll to see what direction we exited the darkness but that isn’t RAW, it was homebrew, which I was fine with. But Rules as Written, and in response to the OP, the LB wouldn’t be affected.
Remember, you’re at least 5th level caster using LB so you are already at the top 1-2% of your species (and other playable species) unless your world has a much bigger percentage of adventurers as part of the population.
What? What is a blind arc for sound? What are arcs for vision? What indicates when they are temporarily unavailable?
I read that optional rule and got nothing about such a thing. Nor anything about a d8 for determining direction. Nor, even anything that indicated that a creature didn't know the positions of creatures in any particular arcs.
I also didn't get the sense that a creature who was blinded all of the sudden changed the direction they were facing in any way.
You actually read that, and still have no concept of facing arcs, and how they affect the rules?
With all due respect,
“ Rule as you wish, it’s just a game.”
No, I read it, i just didn't see anything like the words that you used to describe it. Again, that section makes no mention of "blind arcs for sound", "arcs for vision" or anything about when they might "become temporary unavailable". There's also nothing mentioning anything actually relevant to the d8 you keep bringing up or perception checks for creatures you know the position of, or anything else that goes along with casting a spell while blinded.
I'm just confused why you'd point to rules that have no bearing on the rules discussion or your suggestion.
With all due respect,
"Rule as you wish" means don't expect anyone else to rule the same.
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Being blinded doesn't make other creatures automatically hidden to you. But I would certainly allow creatures to hide from a blinded character by the same token an invisible creature is able to hide. The casting of Blindness still requires the action and requires a second action to hide. (Or a bonus action to hide for races/classes with that feature.)
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Being blinded does just that. Blinds you. It doesn't confuse you. The better comparison is close your eyes in a room with a ticking clock. Did you forget where the clock is? But on the other hand, even real-life comparisons aren't the greatest. We're playing a game where having 1hp is the same as having full hp. A game where Centaur Thief Rogues can climb up 120ft on a ladder in 6 seconds. Etc.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
RAW is RAW. It's okay if you run a homebrew variation at your tables. But that doesn't negate that it's homebrew, not RAW.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
It's actually not a random chance RAW when firing a longbow. Just disadvantage. You still, unless the target is hidden, know where it is.
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
It's also worth noting that for the most part, discussions in this forum are analyses of the written rules in the plainest terms possible. Because of this, a lot of times we discuss things that are not optimal, the most fun, or even how we would run them in our own games necessarily.
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
What does any of this have to do with the rules of 5e? Your discussion goes into how you view blindness in REALITY ... not as treated by the game rules. Everyone has their own opinion of how debilitating lack of sight would be in REALITY to characters who are trained adventurers who can expect such effects to happen without warning. (Not average person standing in a room and spinning around with their eyes closed).
Every one of the comments you make are completely irrelevant to the RULES of how blindness is handled in 5e. Those rules are summarize in the blinded condition:
"Blinded
A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage."
In 5e, those are ALL the effects of being blinded. Anything else is a DM ruling devised based on the DMs opinion, just like your comments above. Your opinions on being blinded have no impact on how other DMs choose to play it and have no effect on what the rules state about blindness. Clearly, you think the rules as written are inadequate and choose to supplement with your own homebrew (eg d8 for random directions etc) which is perfectly ok for your game but it is not found anywhere in the rules. It is a house rule. Perfectly ok, but please don't try and tell anyone else that this is what the 5e rules state because they don't.
Anyway, as you suggest, it isn't worth discussing further, folks have shared the rules of 5e, you've expressed your opinion on how you would run blindness in your game, readers can choose which if any approach to use or they can come up with their own.
P.S. One last comment since there is no text in Lightning Bolt that needs to be superceded or contradicted.
"Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?"
Where does it say that they don't have trained senses and a good memory? The description of lightning bolt says nothing about choosing the direction randomly if a character is blinded. Lightning bolt just says choose a direction, any direction, not even one you can see - LB just says " blasts out from you in a direction you choose." ... where do you read anywhere in that sentence that blindness affects the choice of direction? (Hint: it isn't there). However, as DM, you are welcome to house rule for your game that it does.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Sure enough. That is why several users have reiterated that what you are in fact doing is ignoring those rules with these long winded explanations that rely on real world thought experiments and feelings about what should happen instead of rules text.
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
What does any of this have to do with the rules of 5e? Your discussion goes into how you view blindness in REALITY ... not as treated by the game rules. Everyone has their own opinion of how debilitating lack of sight would be in REALITY to characters who are trained adventurers who can expect such effects to happen without warning. (Not average person standing in a room and spinning around with their eyes closed).
Every one of the comments you make are completely irrelevant to the RULES of how blindness is handled in 5e. Those rules are summarize in the blinded condition:
"Blinded
A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage."
In 5e, those are ALL the effects of being blinded. Anything else is a DM ruling devised based on the DMs opinion, just like your comments above. Your opinions on being blinded have no impact on how other DMs choose to play it and have no effect on what the rules state about blindness. Clearly, you think the rules as written are inadequate and choose to supplement with your own homebrew (eg d8 for random directions etc) which is perfectly ok for your game but it is not found anywhere in the rules. It is a house rule. Perfectly ok, but please don't try and tell anyone else that this is what the 5e rules state because they don't.
Anyway, as you suggest, it isn't worth discussing further, folks have shared the rules of 5e, you've expressed your opinion on how you would run blindness in your game, readers can choose which if any approach to use or they can come up with their own.
P.S. One last comment since there is no text in Lightning Bolt that needs to be superceded or contradicted.
"Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?"
Where does it say that they don't have trained senses and a good memory? The description of lightning bolt says nothing about choosing the direction randomly if a character is blinded. Lightning bolt just says choose a direction, any direction, not even one you can see - LB just says " blasts out from you in a direction you choose." ... where do you read anywhere in that sentence that blindness affects the choice of direction? (Hint: it isn't there). However, as DM, you are welcome to house rule for your game that it does.
I don’t think they did, in fact it seems they understands that an unseen creature’s location is known unless it is hidden: both unseen and unheard. It says it right in the section that you linked. You know the location of creatures you can hear.
I don’t think they did, in fact it seems they understands that an unseen creature’s location is known unless it is hidden: both unseen and unheard. It says it right in the section that you linked. You know the location of creatures you can hear.
No you don’t know the location, unless a DM says your passive or active perception check can beat the passive stealth check of a creature that to a blind creature is heavily obscured, almost invisible one might say.
I don’t think they did, in fact it seems they understands that an unseen creature’s location is known unless it is hidden: both unseen and unheard. It says it right in the section that you linked. You know the location of creatures you can hear.
No you don’t know the location, unless a DM says your passive or active perception check can beat the passive stealth check of a creature that to a blind creature is heavily obscured, almost invisible one might say.
What rule are you basing that on? Just wondering, since it isn't the one you linked in the previous post that clearly states that the location of an unseen target that is heard is known.
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
What does any of this have to do with the rules of 5e? Your discussion goes into how you view blindness in REALITY ... not as treated by the game rules. Everyone has their own opinion of how debilitating lack of sight would be in REALITY to characters who are trained adventurers who can expect such effects to happen without warning. (Not average person standing in a room and spinning around with their eyes closed).
Every one of the comments you make are completely irrelevant to the RULES of how blindness is handled in 5e. Those rules are summarize in the blinded condition:
"Blinded
A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage."
In 5e, those are ALL the effects of being blinded. Anything else is a DM ruling devised based on the DMs opinion, just like your comments above. Your opinions on being blinded have no impact on how other DMs choose to play it and have no effect on what the rules state about blindness. Clearly, you think the rules as written are inadequate and choose to supplement with your own homebrew (eg d8 for random directions etc) which is perfectly ok for your game but it is not found anywhere in the rules. It is a house rule. Perfectly ok, but please don't try and tell anyone else that this is what the 5e rules state because they don't.
Anyway, as you suggest, it isn't worth discussing further, folks have shared the rules of 5e, you've expressed your opinion on how you would run blindness in your game, readers can choose which if any approach to use or they can come up with their own.
P.S. One last comment since there is no text in Lightning Bolt that needs to be superceded or contradicted.
"Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?"
Where does it say that they don't have trained senses and a good memory? The description of lightning bolt says nothing about choosing the direction randomly if a character is blinded. Lightning bolt just says choose a direction, any direction, not even one you can see - LB just says " blasts out from you in a direction you choose." ... where do you read anywhere in that sentence that blindness affects the choice of direction? (Hint: it isn't there). However, as DM, you are welcome to house rule for your game that it does.
blindness affects these rules as well, so more RAW to digest.
When you attack a target that you can't see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. This is true whether you're guessing the target's location or you're targeting a creature you can hear but not see. If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
yes, please digest the bolded. You CAN target a creature you can hear but not see. If your attack involves an attack roll you have disadvantage. If there is no attack roll then no disadvantage. The part about guessing the targets location would be if they were both hidden and not seen.
Can you point to the PHB page that talks about the d8 to determine sound direction? I want to read up on it.
Actually the Rules you may want to read lie in the DMG, specifically Chapter 8: Running the Game pg.252 section on Optional Rule: Facing.
As a simplified version of such is to use the eight squares around a character as coordinal directions, front is 1 DM choice on numbering clock or counter-clock wise.( grid style play most common, hex grids use appropriate judgement.)
DMG has a lot to say on certain rules in the PHB, it’s nice when a player reminds you it exists.
That rule is (a) optional, (b) completely unrelated to blindness (other than causing the character to be effectively blind in their rear arc), and (c) never mentions rolling dice.
When blind arcs for sound remains, arcs for vision become temporary unavailable.
What? What is a blind arc for sound? What are arcs for vision? What indicates when they are temporarily unavailable?
I read that optional rule and got nothing about such a thing. Nor anything about a d8 for determining direction. Nor, even anything that indicated that a creature didn't know the positions of creatures in any particular arcs.
I also didn't get the sense that a creature who was blinded all of the sudden changed the direction they were facing in any way.
You actually read that, and still have no concept of facing arcs, and how they affect the rules?
With all due respect,
“ Rule as you wish, it’s just a game.”
Not at all in any way relevant to this discussion?
So your vision arcs are temporarily unavailable (blinded) your sound arcs still remain (you can hear 360 degrees unless your ears work differently and the facing rules do not cover hearing anyway). So the wizard still can hear the target (unless hidden) and can still sling their Lightning Bolt with zero impact of being blinded, per RAW.
Edit: Now I may agree with you that it doesn’t quite make sense and maybe there should be some effect and I would be fine if my DM decided to rule differently (they did when we were in a sphere of Darkness, he had us roll to see what direction we exited the darkness but that isn’t RAW, it was homebrew, which I was fine with. But Rules as Written, and in response to the OP, the LB wouldn’t be affected.
Remember, you’re at least 5th level caster using LB so you are already at the top 1-2% of your species (and other playable species) unless your world has a much bigger percentage of adventurers as part of the population.
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No, I read it, i just didn't see anything like the words that you used to describe it. Again, that section makes no mention of "blind arcs for sound", "arcs for vision" or anything about when they might "become temporary unavailable". There's also nothing mentioning anything actually relevant to the d8 you keep bringing up or perception checks for creatures you know the position of, or anything else that goes along with casting a spell while blinded.
I'm just confused why you'd point to rules that have no bearing on the rules discussion or your suggestion.
With all due respect,
"Rule as you wish" means don't expect anyone else to rule the same.
Getting blinded, hides the world from your view, for that action is the same as tying to hide.
Ignoring the rules for blindness is 1000% homebrew.
Experiment: place yourself in a quiet room with just a loud ticking wall clock, sitting in the middle of the room in a chair that spins around 360, looking at the clock blindfold yourself completely and spin around stoping when the chair naturally stops.
Now, without moving the chair or your head or removing the blindfold, guess where that clock is in relation to where you are, in front or behind? Left, or right? Don’t move, just guess.
Once you guessed, remove blindfold and find clock, were you close?
Now try it again but this time toss a dart in the direction you guess so you have a visual of your guess, were you close? Far off?
you were blinded, attacked, spun around, and now have to guess, based solely on sound, where to attack. Did you guess correctly?
point of all this, it demonstrates how the RAW can not be used to ignore the massive disadvantage of that condition, anything that states simply pick a direction and hope you guessed correctly even if blinded, and it takes effort to get that guess correct.
Those who play purely by RAW and don’t understand that they are so massively broad, the ability to effectively handle every situation is based on the RAW as it is in total, not piecemeal when it is convenient.
Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?
( Note: I can imagine the response to this, and quite frankly don’t care, I’m done trying to explain myself to those who don’t care to listen.)
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It's also worth noting that for the most part, discussions in this forum are analyses of the written rules in the plainest terms possible. Because of this, a lot of times we discuss things that are not optimal, the most fun, or even how we would run them in our own games necessarily.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What does any of this have to do with the rules of 5e? Your discussion goes into how you view blindness in REALITY ... not as treated by the game rules. Everyone has their own opinion of how debilitating lack of sight would be in REALITY to characters who are trained adventurers who can expect such effects to happen without warning. (Not average person standing in a room and spinning around with their eyes closed).
Every one of the comments you make are completely irrelevant to the RULES of how blindness is handled in 5e. Those rules are summarize in the blinded condition:
"Blinded
In 5e, those are ALL the effects of being blinded. Anything else is a DM ruling devised based on the DMs opinion, just like your comments above. Your opinions on being blinded have no impact on how other DMs choose to play it and have no effect on what the rules state about blindness. Clearly, you think the rules as written are inadequate and choose to supplement with your own homebrew (eg d8 for random directions etc) which is perfectly ok for your game but it is not found anywhere in the rules. It is a house rule. Perfectly ok, but please don't try and tell anyone else that this is what the 5e rules state because they don't.
Anyway, as you suggest, it isn't worth discussing further, folks have shared the rules of 5e, you've expressed your opinion on how you would run blindness in your game, readers can choose which if any approach to use or they can come up with their own.
P.S. One last comment since there is no text in Lightning Bolt that needs to be superceded or contradicted.
"Blind firing LB by RAW is a crapshoot, being blind forces a reevaluation of one’s senses, and given the totality of the situation, where exactly in the rules does it say a creature gains supernatural hearing that can specifically supersedes the description of a Lighting Bolt?"
Where does it say that they don't have trained senses and a good memory? The description of lightning bolt says nothing about choosing the direction randomly if a character is blinded. Lightning bolt just says choose a direction, any direction, not even one you can see - LB just says " blasts out from you in a direction you choose." ... where do you read anywhere in that sentence that blindness affects the choice of direction? (Hint: it isn't there). However, as DM, you are welcome to house rule for your game that it does.
Sure enough. That is why several users have reiterated that what you are in fact doing is ignoring those rules with these long winded explanations that rely on real world thought experiments and feelings about what should happen instead of rules text.
Did you forget the rules for this:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets
blindness affects these rules as well, so more RAW to digest.
You mean the rule that has been pointed at multiple times in this thread which says the exact opposite of what you're arguing for?
I don’t think they did, in fact it seems they understands that an unseen creature’s location is known unless it is hidden: both unseen and unheard. It says it right in the section that you linked. You know the location of creatures you can hear.
No you don’t know the location, unless a DM says your passive or active perception check can beat the passive stealth check of a creature that to a blind creature is heavily obscured, almost invisible one might say.
What rule are you basing that on? Just wondering, since it isn't the one you linked in the previous post that clearly states that the location of an unseen target that is heard is known.
yes, please digest the bolded. You CAN target a creature you can hear but not see. If your attack involves an attack roll you have disadvantage. If there is no attack roll then no disadvantage. The part about guessing the targets location would be if they were both hidden and not seen.
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