I'm going to be playing my first game of DnD soon so I'm building my character. I want to make the character like myself so I'd like to make them blind, like me!
Any tips on this approach? I'm reading a lot of people saying it's a liability (haven't heard that before irl 😒🙄) but I feel like I could add something cool. Like maybe a druid who when switching to animal form has more senses that I could use or a sorcerer that can cast a spell to help?
Well there are two approaches to start: Your Druid method, though that only helps while in animal form, and that is pretty limited in amount of time. It does create a pretty neat twist of the "harmless old man" trope. The other would be any spellcaster with a Find Familiar, Warlock with Pact of the Chain might be something to give a good look over. One can "use" the senses of the familiar at the cost of one's own. Depending on the DM, this could mean if the familiar is not within "earshot" you trade off being blind locally for being blind and deaf locally.
Remember though, in a world of magic, it does not take long for Blindness to simply be a minor bump, with Lesser Restoration being able to remove it entirely, though I'm sure any DM would work with a player to have it an irreversible condition.
There is also Blindsight to consider. This is much like the echolocation which bats use or tremorsense which snakes use, but can be defined much more specifically.
Fighters get blind fighting, so that could be an option, especially with making them seem helplessness. Druid and warlock both work as already said. If you went for fighter, you could take monk later, as well as battle master fighter. Things like goading attack and trip attack would work well.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
First and foremost, you’re going to love this game. The aforementioned advice about familiars work, but another approach you may want to try is choosing a class first and then determining how the mechanics would work afterwards. Every class could have some kind of aspect where a character being blind would add something cool and nuanced from the dice rolling to the role playing aspects.
Plenty of classes can use magic to utilize animals in some ways- Bards, Clerics, Druids, etc, etc.. Barbarian has the Totem Warrior path, and Ranger has the Beast Master conclave as well as spells. Fighter has Eldritch Knight with another familiar option.
However, you could just forego that and have other players provide the lay of the land through verbal or their magical means.
For combat, you could choose a race or class that has the darkness spell where your character now has the advantage.
Definitely talk to your DM. They may have some ideas, but the best resource they have here is you.
First of all, welcome to the hobby! I hope you find it as fun as I have. The only “liability” I see is that you might get so attached to playing a character based so closely on yourself that if something bad happens to them it might upset you more than if you don’t personally identify with them quite as much. But to be honest, that’s common for most players’ 1st character, so it’s actually completely normal. Otherwise, it’s just another sort of challenge for the character to overcome. That’s what makes D&D fun though, overcoming challenges. Tension—>Resolution.
Welcome to D&D, it’s a great game. Do you want your character to find ways to see magically, or be blind and keep fighting?
Technically being blind means anyone attacking you has advantage and you have disadvantage attacking them. I think a way around this would be to be a wizard. You are generally farther away from combat, so people attack you less often, at least ideally. And many spells involve you not making an attack roll, but forcing enemies to make a saving throw, so your disadvantage won’t come into play. Some of them say, target you can see, but i think any DM would be willing to work with you. As a bonus, you can have a familiar, which allows you to use its senses to see sometimes.
Maybe one of the other players would be willing to work you on a background where you trained together and he acts as a spotter, calling out targets for you to blast. An alternative could be cleric, again, offensively there are a number of spells where you force enemies to make saves. And many of your heals and buffs are things like, in a 30’ radius; they don’t specify that you need to see them.
Khary Peyton's character, Shakäste is blind and sees the world through his familiar, a hummingbird. There are several options that have been listed above as well.
As Pedroig said, warlocks are a good choice. While he focused on the ability to perceive through your familiar, I will point out that even beyond that, Warlocks get some really nice enhancements to perception that don't require traditional sight. A perception-focused warlock is a powerful being indeed.
Devil's Sight and Darkness is a strong combination. Suddenly not only can you see magically, but others cannot
Eldritch Sight lets you cast Detect Magic, which requires the target be visible, so it won't stand alone, but it can enhance other forms of perception
Eyes of the Rune Keeper lets you read all writing, so I would allow this for anything inscribed or carved
Gaze of Two Minds lets you look through someone else's eyes
I'm going to be playing my first game of DnD soon so I'm building my character. I want to make the character like myself so I'd like to make them blind, like me!
Any tips on this approach? I'm reading a lot of people saying it's a liability (haven't heard that before irl 😒🙄) but I feel like I could add something cool. Like maybe a druid who when switching to animal form has more senses that I could use or a sorcerer that can cast a spell to help?
Monk. Sailor background. Pirate for alternate sailor. Coordinate with DM to have a parrot like “Mr cotton” from pirates of the Caribbean have the parrot be your eyes and perception checks and talk to you
as you level up and can deflect mistakes you can catch arrows like Blinkin. From Robin Hood Men in Tights.
There are also magic items that would enable you to see such as the robe of eyes. The robe of eyes would actually make your visionmuch better than most peoples (e.g. you can see in the dark for 120 feet, you can see in all directions) so you would need to discuss this with the DM, maybe everytone would get a magic item, or maybe he nerfs the robe of eyes into something less powerful.
Another approach is there is a spell called darkness that casts an area of magical darkness that (almost) nobody can see through. If you are in darkness anyone attacking you can not see you either so you are back to a level playing field. Normally it would use up too many of your spells to keep darkness up whenever you are in combat but your DM might be willing to let you cast an area of darkness large enough to just cover you at will (i.e. as often as you like)
As Pedroig said, warlocks are a good choice. While he focused on the ability to perceive through your familiar, I will point out that even beyond that, Warlocks get some really nice enhancements to perception that don't require traditional sight. A perception-focused warlock is a powerful being indeed.
Devil's Sight and Darkness is a strong combination. Suddenly not only can you see magically, but others cannot
Eldritch Sight lets you cast Detect Magic, which requires the target be visible, so it won't stand alone, but it can enhance other forms of perception
Eyes of the Rune Keeper lets you read all writing, so I would allow this for anything inscribed or carved
Gaze of Two Minds lets you look through someone else's eyes
Everyone's suggested lots of great ways to fix the blindness in the rules, but I think part of what makes the character cool is that they're blind and they don't need a fix to be a hero. So maybe try talking to your DM about playing a character like Chirrut from Star Wars, who's blind but can still move and fight via his connection to the Force? As long as the DM doesn't plan on using blinding spells against you a lot, it shouldn't be a problem.
Before I saw all this, let me just say that you could jsut play blind and take disadvantages on all attacks. This is story writting, it's okay to have a weaker character. Or, I have a weird take on this.
So I'm thinking of my favourite character ever: Toph. She's blind, but is aware of her surrounding by other means. If that's something that's interesting to you, it seems like it's feasible through a "reskinning" of your perception.
Mechanically, it seems that one way about would be to make your character immune to blindness, because as someone who's already blind, it would make no sense that you get disadvantage in magical darkness for instance. The warlock's Devil's sight seems like the easiest way to achieve that. Then you just roleplay it as you want: "I'm blind but I sense your presence through my feet" might not be your favourite approach, so come up with whatever flavour you like. :-)
If you want to take it one step further, make a list of pros and cons and run them by your DM. This is not necessary and might be too complicated for a new player already playing a magic user! Right off the bat, I would say that you shouldn't be able to use scrolls, unless they're written in braille. (You could use the language mechanic for it. Pick a language that no one else in your party knows, and then swap that to braille.)
the list could include:
pro: no disadvantage in heavily obscured area (fog cloud could be your best friend), advantages on certain checks (Toph has advantage on telling if someone is lying for instance)
con: can't read and thus can't use scroll, automatically fails certain checks (example: spotting the red button), can't perceive in certain situations (like Toph when flying on Appa)
Definitely talk to your DM. They may have some ideas, but the best resource they have here is you.
I 100% agree, talk to your DM! There is a wealth of fantastic advice on all sorts of characters you can play in this thread, either leaning into being blind, ignoring it because it's a magic world and you can adapt, or using it to your advantage. But what makes you excited about the character is totally up to you, and I highly recommend chatting with your DM so that you are both on the same page when it comes to how your character works.
I have DMed for blind players as well as players playing blind PCs, and everyone wanted something different out of their character. One wanted to play a character who used their blindness to their advantage, so we came up with ways they were comfortable playing that, offering different advantages and disadvantages. My cleric player wanted to play as a normal character who had adapted to do all the normal things any PC could do but without sight, so we talked ahead of time about how we would deal with anything that would normally rely on sight, like spell and attacks.
I am sure your DM will be MORE than happy to work with you on what you want, so this character can be fun, balanced, interesting, and exactly what you want!
I'm going to be playing my first game of DnD soon so I'm building my character. I want to make the character like myself so I'd like to make them blind, like me!
Any tips on this approach? I'm reading a lot of people saying it's a liability (haven't heard that before irl 😒🙄) but I feel like I could add something cool. Like maybe a druid who when switching to animal form has more senses that I could use or a sorcerer that can cast a spell to help?
Well there are two approaches to start: Your Druid method, though that only helps while in animal form, and that is pretty limited in amount of time. It does create a pretty neat twist of the "harmless old man" trope. The other would be any spellcaster with a Find Familiar, Warlock with Pact of the Chain might be something to give a good look over. One can "use" the senses of the familiar at the cost of one's own. Depending on the DM, this could mean if the familiar is not within "earshot" you trade off being blind locally for being blind and deaf locally.
Remember though, in a world of magic, it does not take long for Blindness to simply be a minor bump, with Lesser Restoration being able to remove it entirely, though I'm sure any DM would work with a player to have it an irreversible condition.
There is also Blindsight to consider. This is much like the echolocation which bats use or tremorsense which snakes use, but can be defined much more specifically.
Fighters get blind fighting, so that could be an option, especially with making them seem helplessness. Druid and warlock both work as already said. If you went for fighter, you could take monk later, as well as battle master fighter. Things like goading attack and trip attack would work well.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
First and foremost, you’re going to love this game. The aforementioned advice about familiars work, but another approach you may want to try is choosing a class first and then determining how the mechanics would work afterwards. Every class could have some kind of aspect where a character being blind would add something cool and nuanced from the dice rolling to the role playing aspects.
Plenty of classes can use magic to utilize animals in some ways- Bards, Clerics, Druids, etc, etc.. Barbarian has the Totem Warrior path, and Ranger has the Beast Master conclave as well as spells. Fighter has Eldritch Knight with another familiar option.
However, you could just forego that and have other players provide the lay of the land through verbal or their magical means.
For combat, you could choose a race or class that has the darkness spell where your character now has the advantage.
Definitely talk to your DM. They may have some ideas, but the best resource they have here is you.
First of all, welcome to the hobby! I hope you find it as fun as I have. The only “liability” I see is that you might get so attached to playing a character based so closely on yourself that if something bad happens to them it might upset you more than if you don’t personally identify with them quite as much. But to be honest, that’s common for most players’ 1st character, so it’s actually completely normal. Otherwise, it’s just another sort of challenge for the character to overcome. That’s what makes D&D fun though, overcoming challenges. Tension—>Resolution.
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Welcome to D&D, it’s a great game.
Do you want your character to find ways to see magically, or be blind and keep fighting?
Technically being blind means anyone attacking you has advantage and you have disadvantage attacking them. I think a way around this would be to be a wizard. You are generally farther away from combat, so people attack you less often, at least ideally. And many spells involve you not making an attack roll, but forcing enemies to make a saving throw, so your disadvantage won’t come into play. Some of them say, target you can see, but i think any DM would be willing to work with you. As a bonus, you can have a familiar, which allows you to use its senses to see sometimes.
Maybe one of the other players would be willing to work you on a background where you trained together and he acts as a spotter, calling out targets for you to blast.
An alternative could be cleric, again, offensively there are a number of spells where you force enemies to make saves. And many of your heals and buffs are things like, in a 30’ radius; they don’t specify that you need to see them.
Welcome to D&D!
Khary Peyton's character, Shakäste is blind and sees the world through his familiar, a hummingbird. There are several options that have been listed above as well.
As Pedroig said, warlocks are a good choice. While he focused on the ability to perceive through your familiar, I will point out that even beyond that, Warlocks get some really nice enhancements to perception that don't require traditional sight. A perception-focused warlock is a powerful being indeed.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Monk. Sailor background. Pirate for alternate sailor. Coordinate with DM to have a parrot like “Mr cotton” from pirates of the Caribbean have the parrot be your eyes and perception checks and talk to you
as you level up and can deflect mistakes you can catch arrows like Blinkin. From Robin Hood Men in Tights.
Watch me on twitch
There are also magic items that would enable you to see such as the robe of eyes. The robe of eyes would actually make your visionmuch better than most peoples (e.g. you can see in the dark for 120 feet, you can see in all directions) so you would need to discuss this with the DM, maybe everytone would get a magic item, or maybe he nerfs the robe of eyes into something less powerful.
Another approach is there is a spell called darkness that casts an area of magical darkness that (almost) nobody can see through. If you are in darkness anyone attacking you can not see you either so you are back to a level playing field. Normally it would use up too many of your spells to keep darkness up whenever you are in combat but your DM might be willing to let you cast an area of darkness large enough to just cover you at will (i.e. as often as you like)
Yes, Devil’s Sight and Darkness are awesome. Yes, this warlock sounds so cool! I want to play one meow.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Content Troubleshooting
Everyone's suggested lots of great ways to fix the blindness in the rules, but I think part of what makes the character cool is that they're blind and they don't need a fix to be a hero. So maybe try talking to your DM about playing a character like Chirrut from Star Wars, who's blind but can still move and fight via his connection to the Force? As long as the DM doesn't plan on using blinding spells against you a lot, it shouldn't be a problem.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
This is actually incredible!
Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I was thinking of being a druid but now I think I've changed my mind. This sounds amazing
Before I saw all this, let me just say that you could jsut play blind and take disadvantages on all attacks. This is story writting, it's okay to have a weaker character. Or, I have a weird take on this.
So I'm thinking of my favourite character ever: Toph. She's blind, but is aware of her surrounding by other means. If that's something that's interesting to you, it seems like it's feasible through a "reskinning" of your perception.
Mechanically, it seems that one way about would be to make your character immune to blindness, because as someone who's already blind, it would make no sense that you get disadvantage in magical darkness for instance. The warlock's Devil's sight seems like the easiest way to achieve that. Then you just roleplay it as you want: "I'm blind but I sense your presence through my feet" might not be your favourite approach, so come up with whatever flavour you like. :-)
If you want to take it one step further, make a list of pros and cons and run them by your DM. This is not necessary and might be too complicated for a new player already playing a magic user! Right off the bat, I would say that you shouldn't be able to use scrolls, unless they're written in braille. (You could use the language mechanic for it. Pick a language that no one else in your party knows, and then swap that to braille.)
the list could include:
pro: no disadvantage in heavily obscured area (fog cloud could be your best friend), advantages on certain checks (Toph has advantage on telling if someone is lying for instance)
con: can't read and thus can't use scroll, automatically fails certain checks (example: spotting the red button), can't perceive in certain situations (like Toph when flying on Appa)
Anyway, good luck and let us know how it goes.
I love toph! If you wanted to play her, I would say be druid with mostly rock based stuff.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
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InsiderI 100% agree, talk to your DM! There is a wealth of fantastic advice on all sorts of characters you can play in this thread, either leaning into being blind, ignoring it because it's a magic world and you can adapt, or using it to your advantage. But what makes you excited about the character is totally up to you, and I highly recommend chatting with your DM so that you are both on the same page when it comes to how your character works.
I have DMed for blind players as well as players playing blind PCs, and everyone wanted something different out of their character. One wanted to play a character who used their blindness to their advantage, so we came up with ways they were comfortable playing that, offering different advantages and disadvantages. My cleric player wanted to play as a normal character who had adapted to do all the normal things any PC could do but without sight, so we talked ahead of time about how we would deal with anything that would normally rely on sight, like spell and attacks.
I am sure your DM will be MORE than happy to work with you on what you want, so this character can be fun, balanced, interesting, and exactly what you want!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren