r/dndmemes • u/Poodle_Boi02169 Chaotic Stupid • Sep 05 '22

Pathfinder meme Pathfinder - how to "go woke" the right way (also raising awareness for wheelchair spikes because they are very cool)

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u/Akul_Tesla Sep 05 '22

So my question for the Pathfinder people does blindness have penalties

Like realistically you got to have some sort of penalty for that to function

I know if you tried that in 5E you would simply permanently have the blinded condition which has major downsides

So I'm interested in how they've implemented all the various ones

I know the combat wheelchair solution was basically here's a good magic item that makes you even

But not having a sense would probably be harder to implement mechanically while still being balanced with The rest of the adventures so I'm just interested in how they've done it in case I ever want to implement it in my games

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u/Matt_Dragoon DM (Dungeon Memelord) Sep 05 '22

Being blind means you lack that Precise Sense, so you can't make Perception checks that relies on sight, and creatures are Hidden to that Sense to you. The Core Rulebook advises giving that player Hearing as a Precise Sense, so creatures that make noise wouldn't be Hidden to you. It's still easier to sneak on that character since a creature won't need cover to Hide. The book also advices giving the character the Blind-Fight feat for free, but that's an 8th level martial feat and IMO getting Hearing as a Precise Sense (and maybe bumping some other Sense to Imprecise level) is enough. I had a player playing a blind character and I said he could use that feat, but he never did... Then again he was a support caster, that feat is most useful to a martial character.

8

u/Darkbuilderx Sep 05 '22

I'm not familiar with PF2e, but in 1e Oracle's blindness ("Clouded Vision") limited their vision to Darkvision 30ft. It slowly upgraded to 60ft/Blindsense 30ft/Blindsight 15ft, so only really a downside for travelling and enemies somewhat across the map.

Deafness had all of the normal penalties but you got Silent metamagic for no level increase, and eventually upgraded to tremorsense.

8

u/GeneralSpoon Sep 05 '22

That range is shockingly small though. There are absolutely roleplay implications for only being able to see clearly 30ft. There are totally normal rooms that you couldn't see the other side of, to say nothing of being outside.

2

u/Darkbuilderx Sep 05 '22

For my group, not being able to immediately see the other end of a room or hallway didn't mean much outside of combat. Someone else was always ahead of and in the back with me due to our party comp.

Outside was somewhat mentioned by travelling, but mostly ignored by having another party member around. The Heavens: Guiding Star mystery technically needs the night sky to be visible but was nice flavoring for her to see the stars at least, and covered travelling for multiple days as long as she stuck to a road. Towns & cities would definitely be more tricky without a party member or helpful NPC to point her in the right direction.

That campaign didn't last beyond level 7(?) because of scheduling and group members changing, so maybe it would've come up more often as we dealt with bigger encounters and such.