Sooo, I bought the 4th ed. player’s handbook and, at the moment, I’ve just been reading it and making some characters based on characters from one of the books I’m writing (adapted to the D&D environment, of course) since I don’t have anyone to play with in real life
But, I have some silly questions. If these things are addressed in the book and I didn’t see them, I’m really sorry and beg you not to slay the newb.
Is it possible to have a blind character in D&D? Besides, obviously, being really lousy at perception checks to detect visual things, what sort of adjustments would have to be made to the stats? And, if it is possible to make such a character, would said character be a serious detriment to the party and make all the other characters hate me and throw little goblin figurines at my head? Basically, I want to adapt a character from my book who is blind, but has very good hearing, swift reflexes and very high intelligence and strong will. She would probably be a wizard in the D&D realm.
If you have a cleric and a paladin in your party, do they have to belong to the same religion (i.e., worship the same god or goddess)? I don’t want to induce a holy war situation…
I’ver only played editions 1 thru 3, but I don’t expect there will be much difference…
A blind character could certainly be interesting, but you should agree it with the rest of your party. The adventures would tend to centre on coping with your needs, which can be either fun or annoying.
(Note that I found the blind comic character Daredevil to be infuriating, since his ‘enhanced’ senses simply mean he can ‘see’ everything.)
If it were my D&D campaign, I would allow it, but the blindness would be a real handicap.
I would happily give you compensations (like higher numbers in Int and Wis), but you would need a permanant guide.
Here are some possible ways to cope:
have a familiar whose eyes you can ‘see’ through
use the spell ‘Clairvoyance’
have a guide dog
Paladins are always Lawful Good. if your Cleric was too - no problem!
A Neutral or Chaotic Cleric would cause some friction. There wouldn’t be a war, but the Paladin would insist on the party always living up to the standards of Law and Goodness.
Blindness is crippling. A blind character will always give combat advantage to his opponents, his opponents always count as having full concealment (-5 to hit), and he gets a -10 to perception checks. A blind character will be a millstone around the neck of the party at least as the rules are written.
You could probably work something out with the DM if he or she is so inclined as it is a fantasy game and all. However Wizards do need to be able to read spell books for rituals and what not.
Nope. D&D has always had a strange sort of polytheism where there are many gods but they aren’t all worshiped by the entire population. They don’t typically have holy wars except in the case of evil churches against good churches.
Keep in mind that rules for blindness generally assume that the person has just suddenly become blind. Someone blind from birth would have learned to compensate much better. If I were running the game, I would say a permanently blind character would suffer only half the penalties of normal blindness (Maybe tweaked depending on whether the character is a martial class or not. Your archetypal blind swordsman probably shouldn’t be giving combat advantage at all times.) and would of course be immune to any blinding or other sight based effects. I would think that a blind character would be particularly good at not being tricked by illusions, since those typical focus on the visual element at the expense of sound or smell. That would actually be a pretty good bonus in earlier editions where illusions were common and gaze attacks were something to be afraid of, but probably not so much in 4E.
There’s no reason that a blind wizard couldn’t have a braille spellbook. If I were running the game, I would say a trained wizard could even use prestidigitation to write in braille just as well as a normal wizard could write by hand.
4th Ed threw out a few sacred cows. This is one of them.
There are no restrictions on alignment for Paladins in 4e.
In general, Paladins and Clerics in the same adventuring party should worship compatible gods, otherwise there is (or should be) a very real risk of conflict between them.
There is always a possibility of interfaith conflict because two religions can never be 100% congruent (or they’d be the same faith) but the closer the two faiths are in doctrine, the easier it is for them to coexist.
This is sort of what I was thinking. She has been blind since she was born and so she’s adapted to it, so while it’s a disability, I think she has a lot to offer with her smarts and, also, the disarming factor of being a beautiful, petite blind woman with long hair, who no one thinks could hurt a fly…but she’s actually really tough.
I am sad that it all seems to depend on the DM, though. I don’t have one. I don’t even know anyone in real life who plays D&D.
Ask round work, or visit a local gaming store. You’d probably be surprised how many co workers have played/might want to play D&D (specially in the It department! ).
Blindness in 4th edition is no picnic when it comes to combat. You can pretty much forget about ranged combat unless you keep beating an opponent’s stealth check.
We don’t have a gaming store anymore. And people at work laugh at me because I bought the D&D book. We don’t have an IT department (it’s a small newspaper…I and a few other editors are the IT department, pretty much, since we’re the ones who has to upload the stories…:))
It’s possible to do, it’s just that without some heavy DM intervention it’s just not optimal. You can make a character who is just as smart and beautiful who isn’t blind. Even if they’ve been blind all their lives, a character that can see is just going to be better.
D&D doesn’t really have an Advantage/Disadvantage system. There’s a few things in Unearthed Arcana, but they’re minor. Blindness is a major disadvantage, and by the rules there are no compensations. You would have to work it out with the DM.
Even then, you’re still going to run into a bunch of problems. How do you target your spells? A lot of spells need line of sight or a definite target, and it’s going to be difficult at best to pick a target by hearing alone in the middle of a fight. Your spellbook will be another one. Most places aren’t going to have spells available in braille, and that means you’ll be restricted to just your base spells. A cleric or sorcerer would get around this.
This is fine for a story, but it doesn’t fit readily in to the game mechanics.
Oh sod. I’ve never even played the game, but I’ve read a lot about the alignment system. It was interesting, damnit. Lawful Evil was interesting. Chaotic Good was interesting. But no, I guess it just wasn’t black-white enough. Out it goes.
This isn’t the real world where forms of macular degenerative diseases are incurable. or where poking your eyes out will necessarily result in permanent blindness.
Remember, clerics in these worlds can grow back limbs, can cure blindness and diseases, and it is also a world where magic can allow even blind character to “see” in numerous ways.
Personally as a DM I would allow such a character, but almost certainly will (sooner, rather than later), have you go on some quest to gain the aid of a powerful cleric, or the magical goggles of Orcus, etc. and make the handicap go away entirely.
In this case, I would have to just play another character instead. She wouldn’t agree to do a quest like that, because she’s always been blind and isn’t really interested in seeing. She likes her way better.
In this case, I would have to just play another character instead. She wouldn’t agree to do a quest like that, because she’s always been blind and isn’t really interested in seeing. She likes her way better.
How exactly would a “lawful evil” character (which, I assume, would be some sort of Machievellian guy who uses the rule of law to hurt people and get what he wants) fit into a game where you have to work in a group and get along with other people? Wouldn’t a person like that be completely untrustworthy?
((eta: I dunno how the partial double post thing happened. :())
This isn’t a DM-free question. However if you’re developing the character to pitch to a DM, and you want her to stay blind, there are a couple of ideas that you could spin. One is that because she has been blind for so long, and compensating for it for so long, while learning magic, that her use of magic is inextricably linked with the blindness, such that she would have to start over and relearn all her magic if she were to regain her sight. That’s something that she would want to avoid.
Another idea is that at some point in her background, she had the opportunity to regain her sight and made a choice to trade it for greater mystic knowledge. So the possibility of regaining her sight has been traded away.
You can trust a LE character to stick to his word. If such a creature were to give a promise, it would not break it readily. The problem is making sure that the creature has not left itself a loophole to weasel out of the promise.
Most evil characters, even Chaotic Evil ones, aren’t also stupid. They go for their self-interest. If that’s doing what they promise, then that’s what they do.
The alignment discussion reminds me of one time we had a party consisting of two Chaotic Neutrals, two Lawful Neutrals, and a True Neutral.
Good times, good times.
Our characters argued the whole time, got into actual interparty combat on several occasions, and even out-and-out tried to kill each other. (Long story.)
It was still the most fun I ever had–it helped that this was the longest running campaign I ended up being in, and our group dynamic still managed to be pretty damn awesome despite the philosophical differences between our characters. (There were lots of jokes about us murdering each other in our sleep, though. :D)
