Okay I understand that it can be misunderstood to mean that the character's blindness is due to the Blinded condition and not the other way around.
EDIT: I just updated my post above. I ended up simply writing it as it is written on a naturally blind creature's statblocks. It was too complicated difficult to spell out as a naturally blind creature also has disadvantage on attacks and other creatures have advantage against the blind character. It would be a pain to explain how that disadvantage was nullified by Blindsight. I hope this works. If not, please tell me.
EDIT 2: I just read the Blindsight ability once again and apparently, if the natural blindness is denoted as I stated above, it indicates the maximum range of its perception (i.e. not just sight).
I played a human variant monk with the fighting initiate feat (blind fighting) and never took a monastic tradition. Instead the dm allowed me to at levels 3 6 and 11 increase the blindsense range by 10 ft every time I’d normally gain a monastic tradition feature. (pretty weak in the grand scheme of things but was fun) everything ranged was disadvantage for me or the enemy had advantage. Everything within half my blindsight range was advantage for my character with regards to melee attacks within reach and saves and such. Anything involving sight was auto fail. But, I was given advantage on my choice of two other senses involving perception, insight and investigation. I went with touch and hearing. I was only able to read Braille (yes the dm incorporated Braille into our world though was rarely come upon) and I was able to read textured scripts in known languages like engravings and such. My speed was reduced by 5ft and any movement speed gained by feats and class features was reduced by half. There was more but I can’t remember now
this was all homebrew of course and hashed out with my dm in our session zero. I was probably the least usefull in the party in a fight save for a few times we faced something where the party was hindered by not seeing the invisible baddy or we were in darkness or fog. But I managed to prove usefull outside of that in social engagements. Catching liars and cheaters and more (ty insight checks) and made my monk geared toward cha for social interactions. ****** my con to do so. I’m sure if I look I can find everything relating to that pc and the homebrew and such. Looking back though I don’t see why a passive feat itself wouldn’t work. A feature you can take at creation regardless of race that balances out imposing disadvantages for being born blind while providing a means to adventure with your party. Something like what my dm did for that character but more functional. what we did worked for our table and was fun but I know its not for everyone/every table.
I think people overthink this too much. Here's my though for playing a blinded character.
First of all, someone who tries to add flavor to his character shouldn't be penalized for it.
Secondly, everything can be reworked, as long it's stay balanced, and a long the DM and party agree to it.
Now, here's the way to reworked "your character rule" for being blinded ( and also have better senses, execpt sight of course, than other ppl ).
You remove the " disavantage on your attack and avantage on enemies attack " from the blinded status. Instead, you had it on the deafned status. Then, only for your character, magic darkness makes you deaf, which brings back the penalty and doesn't allow you to go into a broken build. At the end, you might sometimes be kinda immune to blinded status from spells or other things, since you already have it, but some others time, your will be deaf and it will affect you more than other ppl. If the DM start feeling that blinding effect happens more often and your character has a real avantage over the rest group, he can balance that by you being hit so hard you become deaf until the end of your next turn or being too close from a thunder spell that you become deaf until the end of your next turn. Your character doesn't has blindsight or anything like that. So you will not "see" an invisible enemy. Unless he does too much noise... ;) But an arrow shoot at you or a spell cast at you will not have avantage just because you are permanently blind. However, if an enemy is out of sight, you can consider you will not hear him attacking you, which will bring back the avantage if he would normally gets it from being out of sight. Other effects that gives avantage will work as usual.
To justify doing this, you must get perception with your class/race/history. You will have disavantage on any roll for sight perception roll since your a permanently blind, but you should have avantage on perception roll that involve your hearing. As for the passive perception, you get -5 on passive sight, being cap at 10, which is pretty low. Some might not agree and say it's to high for someone whose permanently blind, but we all get the feeling we are being watch sometimes, the DM can play around that if an enemy comes to fail a discretion against your passive. You can also just cap it at 5. As for noise perception passive, you should have +5. Again, being deaf will greatly impact your character, since your reply a LOT on it.
Then, how you move around, it will rely on you, your imagination and RP. I would just let your character being able to judge distance from anything he hears, to lower the burden of playing blinded, and make it easier to follow the group. But I would surely made you trip once in a while if something's in the way and no one warns you. Unless you use something to tap around, but then you would have disavantage on discretion roll while doing this. Also, beware of crowded places. You would have more chance to lose your group there. Maybe tight a rope from an ally to you. Maybe someone in your group will have a great time treating you like his puppet for a while. xD
And finally, in my opinion, this doesn't count as a feat or trait. It's just a fair trade for adding flavors if everyone in your group agrees to it.
Please, let me know what you all think about this. :)
Honestly, if someone's that determined to have a blind character and the DM's okay with it, you should probably just not waste time trying to create a "balanced" set of conditions and just leave it as flavor. Of course, then the character isn't actually blind in most meaningful senses, but the 5e system is really not set up to support built in disabilities like that in a character, and there's very little way to give a player an alternative sense that isn't basically just free Blindsight.
Far too often, "I want to make a blind character" really means "I want to make Daredevil" or "I want to make Zatoichi".
I actually played in a campaign with a blind character. Even with the DM generously giving them 30' of Blindsight, it made things complicated for everyone(and no, he didn't check with the group beforehand). Granted, it didn't help that the player's concept for the character was a bit of a mess.
There is a very simple way to play a blind character that can still "see."
Just say "my character is blind, but they are able to perceive the world around them with other senses."
That's it. No mechanics. No blinded condition. No super-powered blindsense. Just flavor.
If you want to roleplay being blind, then roleplay it. All of these solutions are trying to take away sight and then replace it with something equivalent, but that's doing a lot of work to get back to where you started.
This is as balanced as you can get, requires no homebrew, and allows you to describe the way you perceive the world any way you want to.
There is a very simple way to play a blind character that can still "see."
Just say "my character is blind, but they are able to perceive the world around them with other senses."
That's it. No mechanics. No blinded condition. No super-powered blindsense. Just flavor.
If you want to roleplay being blind, then roleplay it. All of these solutions are trying to take away sight and then replace it with something equivalent, but that's doing a lot of work to get back to where you started.
This is as balanced as you can get, requires no homebrew, and allows you to describe the way you perceive the world any way you want to.
Except that it DOES require homebrew, since things like attacking, targeting with spells, etc explicitly rely on being able to "see", not just "perceive". Either you deal with the limitations the game has for characters who can't see, or you homebrew rule changes to get around them(begging the question of why bother), there isn't a third option.
A good compromise might be to homebrew a magic item that allows Tremorsense to the character attuned to it, so they would perceive the world and interact with it like Toph.
Sadly, 5e doesn't have a specific sense condition that allows for things like aural perception.
A good compromise might be to homebrew a magic item that allows Tremorsense to the character attuned to it, so they would perceive the world and interact with it like Toph.
Sadly, 5e doesn't have a specific sense condition that allows for things like aural perception.
Which returns to the issue that the player is functionally getting an upgraded sense in most instances.
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Okay I understand that it can be misunderstood to mean that the character's blindness is due to the Blinded condition and not the other way around.
EDIT: I just updated my post above. I ended up simply writing it as it is written on a naturally blind creature's statblocks. It was too complicated difficult to spell out as a naturally blind creature also has disadvantage on attacks and other creatures have advantage against the blind character. It would be a pain to explain how that disadvantage was nullified by Blindsight. I hope this works. If not, please tell me.
EDIT 2: I just read the Blindsight ability once again and apparently, if the natural blindness is denoted as I stated above, it indicates the maximum range of its perception (i.e. not just sight).
I played a human variant monk with the fighting initiate feat (blind fighting) and never took a monastic tradition. Instead the dm allowed me to at levels 3 6 and 11 increase the blindsense range by 10 ft every time I’d normally gain a monastic tradition feature. (pretty weak in the grand scheme of things but was fun) everything ranged was disadvantage for me or the enemy had advantage. Everything within half my blindsight range was advantage for my character with regards to melee attacks within reach and saves and such. Anything involving sight was auto fail. But, I was given advantage on my choice of two other senses involving perception, insight and investigation. I went with touch and hearing. I was only able to read Braille (yes the dm incorporated Braille into our world though was rarely come upon) and I was able to read textured scripts in known languages like engravings and such. My speed was reduced by 5ft and any movement speed gained by feats and class features was reduced by half. There was more but I can’t remember now
this was all homebrew of course and hashed out with my dm in our session zero. I was probably the least usefull in the party in a fight save for a few times we faced something where the party was hindered by not seeing the invisible baddy or we were in darkness or fog. But I managed to prove usefull outside of that in social engagements. Catching liars and cheaters and more (ty insight checks) and made my monk geared toward cha for social interactions. ****** my con to do so. I’m sure if I look I can find everything relating to that pc and the homebrew and such. Looking back though I don’t see why a passive feat itself wouldn’t work. A feature you can take at creation regardless of race that balances out imposing disadvantages for being born blind while providing a means to adventure with your party. Something like what my dm did for that character but more functional. what we did worked for our table and was fun but I know its not for everyone/every table.
I think people overthink this too much. Here's my though for playing a blinded character.
First of all, someone who tries to add flavor to his character shouldn't be penalized for it.
Secondly, everything can be reworked, as long it's stay balanced, and a long the DM and party agree to it.
Now, here's the way to reworked "your character rule" for being blinded ( and also have better senses, execpt sight of course, than other ppl ).
You remove the " disavantage on your attack and avantage on enemies attack " from the blinded status. Instead, you had it on the deafned status. Then, only for your character, magic darkness makes you deaf, which brings back the penalty and doesn't allow you to go into a broken build. At the end, you might sometimes be kinda immune to blinded status from spells or other things, since you already have it, but some others time, your will be deaf and it will affect you more than other ppl. If the DM start feeling that blinding effect happens more often and your character has a real avantage over the rest group, he can balance that by you being hit so hard you become deaf until the end of your next turn or being too close from a thunder spell that you become deaf until the end of your next turn. Your character doesn't has blindsight or anything like that. So you will not "see" an invisible enemy. Unless he does too much noise... ;) But an arrow shoot at you or a spell cast at you will not have avantage just because you are permanently blind. However, if an enemy is out of sight, you can consider you will not hear him attacking you, which will bring back the avantage if he would normally gets it from being out of sight. Other effects that gives avantage will work as usual.
To justify doing this, you must get perception with your class/race/history. You will have disavantage on any roll for sight perception roll since your a permanently blind, but you should have avantage on perception roll that involve your hearing. As for the passive perception, you get -5 on passive sight, being cap at 10, which is pretty low. Some might not agree and say it's to high for someone whose permanently blind, but we all get the feeling we are being watch sometimes, the DM can play around that if an enemy comes to fail a discretion against your passive. You can also just cap it at 5. As for noise perception passive, you should have +5. Again, being deaf will greatly impact your character, since your reply a LOT on it.
Then, how you move around, it will rely on you, your imagination and RP. I would just let your character being able to judge distance from anything he hears, to lower the burden of playing blinded, and make it easier to follow the group. But I would surely made you trip once in a while if something's in the way and no one warns you. Unless you use something to tap around, but then you would have disavantage on discretion roll while doing this. Also, beware of crowded places. You would have more chance to lose your group there. Maybe tight a rope from an ally to you. Maybe someone in your group will have a great time treating you like his puppet for a while. xD
And finally, in my opinion, this doesn't count as a feat or trait. It's just a fair trade for adding flavors if everyone in your group agrees to it.
Please, let me know what you all think about this. :)
Honestly, if someone's that determined to have a blind character and the DM's okay with it, you should probably just not waste time trying to create a "balanced" set of conditions and just leave it as flavor. Of course, then the character isn't actually blind in most meaningful senses, but the 5e system is really not set up to support built in disabilities like that in a character, and there's very little way to give a player an alternative sense that isn't basically just free Blindsight.
Far too often, "I want to make a blind character" really means "I want to make Daredevil" or "I want to make Zatoichi".
I actually played in a campaign with a blind character. Even with the DM generously giving them 30' of Blindsight, it made things complicated for everyone(and no, he didn't check with the group beforehand). Granted, it didn't help that the player's concept for the character was a bit of a mess.
There is a very simple way to play a blind character that can still "see."
Just say "my character is blind, but they are able to perceive the world around them with other senses."
That's it. No mechanics. No blinded condition. No super-powered blindsense. Just flavor.
If you want to roleplay being blind, then roleplay it. All of these solutions are trying to take away sight and then replace it with something equivalent, but that's doing a lot of work to get back to where you started.
This is as balanced as you can get, requires no homebrew, and allows you to describe the way you perceive the world any way you want to.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Except that it DOES require homebrew, since things like attacking, targeting with spells, etc explicitly rely on being able to "see", not just "perceive". Either you deal with the limitations the game has for characters who can't see, or you homebrew rule changes to get around them(begging the question of why bother), there isn't a third option.
A good compromise might be to homebrew a magic item that allows Tremorsense to the character attuned to it, so they would perceive the world and interact with it like Toph.
Sadly, 5e doesn't have a specific sense condition that allows for things like aural perception.
Which returns to the issue that the player is functionally getting an upgraded sense in most instances.