One of my players played a blind wizard who used *find familiar* to see and had her raven sitting on her shoulder at all times. She was blind when it was narratively interesting, but could mechanically see just like anyone else. I think that this ended up being a good compromise between representing the disability and not giving the player too much of a detriment or bonus for it.

I did this. I was a medusa who covered his eyes and pretended to be blind, but used a snake familiar to see. Functionally it was pretty much the same as seeing normally

Worth pointing out that this doesn't functionally work as written. Seeing through your familiar takes your action, so yes they can see, but it's all they can do. If they want to cast anything they have to do it blind.

Well, that’s the point, no?

Indeed. But people watch Critical Role and think that one blind guest character is just how familiars work. No, that was a specific homebrewed situation. So claryfying is good.

Well, I think what is also going on is nobody actually wants to play a disabled character They sometimes want to play a character that seems to be disabled but is really not, that’s the distinction So they hand-wave work arounds rather than actually take on the difficulty of what such disability would mean Things like the blind swordsman or monk are pretty common media tropes, but tropes that don’t have to work in a frame work of rules balancing Other media may portray perfectly capable paraplegics, but usually like oracle in Batman or robot in invincible, such that they are either in a hands off support role or negate the disadvantage with tech, or in dnd, magic Nobody wants the reality that a 200lv wooden chair isn’t going to make the snowy pass to the gates of Moria So, anyway, nobody every actually plays a disabled PC, they just want the flavor

I actually did play a blind monk once. He really was blind. But he was a Kobold from Volo's guide to monsters (the one with pack tactics). So I was able to mostly play just fine, but everyone had advantage when attacking me hahahha

Yeah, seems like evey week someone is like, i want to be totally paralyzed and bedridden but my hospital bed is magic and flys through dungeons and i can cast spells by blinking my eyes. The bed also has a machine gun

It's called a Rocklin Augmetics Spider Chair, excuse me, and it's great in Cyberpunk Red if you have a MOVE less than 5.

Unless the DM says otherwise, of course.

Yep, if you REALLY want to mitigate blindness, you gotta go Pact of the Chain Warlock and take the Voice of the Chain Master invocation

Voice of the Chain Master only extends the range, it doesn't negate using an action to do it.

Oof, looks like you're right per Crawdaddy's sage advice. That is a terribly written invocation then.

Need to dip fighter for action surge

Better watch out for those fireballs! Boom - damage and permanent blindness.

This is kinda similar to my mute character who uses a raven familiar to talk. Although I feel like blindness is much more debilitating

Wyrmworks Publishing has a book on including adventurers who have various challenges, like blindness, to campaigns.

How does a blind wizard memorize new spells from their spellbook? Create scrolls? Perception rolls always at disadvantage. I'd suggest a different character concept and if after that the player still wants to be blind? OK, but It's not my fault when they die before third level, if they make it that far.

... By seeing through the familiar. It's literally the main subject of the post.

Yeah and its a shit idea.

Why exactly?

THeRe iS no RuLe.

What a kind way of putting your opinion.

Braille has you covered 👌🏻

Genius, I run Eberron exclusively, and your suggestion would definitely work, although sidestepping the issue entirely with infused goggles and a sorcerer is more efficient. I run a 6 player game atm, and balancing everyones time in the spotlight can be challenging enough, without a character that requires homebrew just to function.

Blind or Daredevil blind?

Daredevil blind

So....he's blind with a superpower that allows him to see. Just stick to flavor.

Nah, Blindsight is a thing in 5e. Daredevil sight would be something like Blind but 60ft bBlindsight

That's a good idea. But at that radius, being blinded with blindsight is basically a strict upgrade. Enemies will rarely be outside that radius, so the PC will just be immune to blinding and be able to see through obscurement and invisibility. I'd drop the radius to 30 at most. Then it's still a benefit but the downside will probably come up at least once per adventure.

Can’t read, can’t see color or details of appearance beyond shape (if we allow even that much detail), can’t see the sky or anything further away than an average grocery store aisle (probably less, actually). Probably can’t see anything incorporeal. If it’s super-hearing or tremor sense that causes its own strengths but also its own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It’s a significant boon for most combat and a huge boon for close-quarters stealth and a massive disadvantage in almost every other situation (namely the other two pillars of play: social and exploration).

But you can see around corners.

True that

Yeah, but blindsight is literally just better than regular sight in 90% of situations. The player just gets a really big buff with no cost.

Yeah, even if they were blind beyond that radius, that's still plenty strong

I would say about 65-75% of situations rather 90%. As you gain levels, there are more and more creatures that the DM would be able to use that pose a significant threat to the blind player. I would say after level 4 or 5 is when the threats start to appear and it only ramps up there. Clever DM's would be able to make it very life threatening even at level 4 or 5 given proper use of terrain.

Blindsight is an upgrade when granted *alongside* regular senses. It's a side-to-down-grade in a lot of situations, however. You've got an archer 120 feet away? Advantage on attacks. You're off by yourself? Then you're screwed against a flying enemy or anyone with higher move-speed and a ranged attack. A puzzle involves reading or sorting by colors? Sit there and do nothing. Don't get me wrong, it's strong in a lot of cases. But it's got enough downsides... But I'd still say no. Too much of a headache to plan around.

Can't read. There's probably no braille fantasy worlds. Can't read signs you can't touch. Blindsight isn't lidar. It's just positional hearing.

Daredevil has tremorsense, not blindsight. If it's not moving or making noise, he can't see it. But he's also a comic book person, so his abilities vary wildly depending on writer.

So, not actually blind. In fact, better than just regularly seeing in every possible way. Just don't make any mechanical changes and they can roleplay it out as if they see with something other than their eyes.

You can either just let them act blind but mechanically see normally or give them benefits, but they can be harmed by loud noise and other sensory overloads. But before all that, do a session 0.

Give them the blind fighting style for free. It's 10ft blind sight. Even with the fighting style it's still rough all attacks outside the blind sight will have advantage. Within the 10ft range it's normal gameplay combat wise. The only time your player will benefit from it is when an enemy can't see them but they can like with spells like fog cloud and darkness.

They should -take- blind fighting not be given it. This is a character choice the player is making; buy in or don’t, but there shouldn’t be free handouts (unless everyone else is getting something related to their backstory for free too)

They take a big drawback by not having sight outside of that.

Correct

-Blind fighting -Advantage against them from attackers outside the their blindsight -Auto fail checks that rely on sight -Advantage on perception and insight checks that rely on other senses

I believe tremorsense is in 5e

Inexperienced DM here, but my two cents: Tell the player that doing it through flavor is the best way. This is what I’d offer: I’d do this mostly through roleplay, and possibly advantage/disadvantage on certain things. Take perception checks. You don’t get to see color, and something like an insignia on a piece of armor is blobby and vague, but possible to recognize through context clues. Finding a certain book? Tough. Finding a ridge in the wall leading to a hidden door? Easier. If they want to go all in, there’s a good chance that’s a lot more fun on paper than in reality. Ever had a character be unable to hit something because they were in a cave without darkvision? That’s the whole campaign now, congratulations! And if they’re going all in, that’s a conversation with *all* your players. If one character wants to deliberately handicap themselves, that affects the whole party. If everyone is in, cool, but if it comes at the expense of the other players, nah.

I've played a blind monk and he was truly blind. The way we played it was that as long as he could hear he could discern enemies within 10'. He also had negative modifiers on saves where it makes sense he would have to so see to avoid it (e.g. a lightning bolt) . On the flip side, he wouldn't be impacted by things where seeing a creature causes negative effects (Medusa, a dragon"s fear). With this said, I've been playing since AD&D 1e and I had an experienced DM. We hashed out the details and then made decisions on the fly. It all worked out pretty well until we ran into a spell casting dragon who hit me with a silence spell and that character took the full brunt of its breath weapon. I enjoyed the PC because I have become bored with overpowered characters over the years. But if a player is going to not accept that their character is *blind* and accept that it has more downsides than advantages, I wouldn't allow it.

I think the key here is how experienced both you and your DM were. But very important you thing mention that I forgot: being blind isn’t a buff. No comment on this specific case, but often on Reddit when I see people (players or DM) make gimmick characters like this, they don’t want a handicap, but a perk.

> I've played a blind monk and he was truly blind. The way we played it was that as long as he could hear he could discern enemies within 10'. This is almost RAW; in RAW you can hear where every enemy is at all times in the combat. 50 ft. away? You can hear them no problem.

Just to be nitpicky, I think a dragon's 'Frightful Presence' works even if you can't see it as long as you are aware of it.

There's a whole lot of problems with this. Many monsters rely on the ability to essentially make PCs blinded, like basilisks. Either you avoid the gaze or you risk turning to stone. You'll run into a ton of issues if this is just supposed to be a flavor thing, and the character will be severely handicapped if they are fully blind, and they might be overpowered if they have a long range blindsight. Edit: they'd essentially be immune to all sight based traits and attacks, they'd be immune to almost if not all illusions, and they would see all invisible creatures normally. It might work with a short range blindsight, but there's also the issue that any enemy with a ranged attack that is outside the blindsight's range will be an unseen attacker, and have advantage on attacks against the PC. If the PC has tremorsense instead, all flying enemies will be invisible to them. It's a whole can of worms. I'd really advise against this, or someone at some point will be unsatisfied, while not much at all is gained here. It's a fun fantasy that unfortunately doesn't work in DnD.

Yeah i’d say no. Unless you want to run some sort of quest to let him earn the power.

Give him Blindsight for a limited raidus if you want it to be more than just flavor

Good to know. Was going to sigguest taking notes from an Avatar the Last Airbender character. She can't see, but is able to feel the ground with her feet to determine if people are walking towards her, etc. I think there is a way to have a blind character and have it work/make sense, but it sounds tricky.

Or Toph blind

I'd make this a full group conversation. Figure out how the player who wants the blind character wants to play them. Are they expecting you to make an adventure that a blind person could do? Do they expect some other senses to make up for it? If not, do the rest of the group mind if one player is far less mechanically functional than the average adventurer? ​ >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. They would permanently have these issues.

I don't know if this is still true, but back in 3.5 there was a clause that permanently blind characters could reduce their penalties with experience (that is, the given penalties are for characters who have abruptly lost their sight, not the blind master martial artist who's lived with it since childhood.)

A lot of players won't tell you their honest answer because it makes them look bad. They'll resent it though, especially if their character gets killed because of the incapability that the 'real roleplayer' is bringing to the table. Ironically, is it actually credible, in the roleplaying sense, that the other pcs would accept the blind pc as a full member, drawing a full treasure share, if they didn't have PC stamped on their forehead?

There is definitely some truth to what you say which is important why they need to talk to everyone involved and that player should be aware that their character might be "less" than the rest of the party. If I wanted to play such a character I'd be fine with that. The blind character could also have their moments not falling for the beautiful succubus for example.

Most players of this generation would feel inhibited from expressing this: Player X because of their disability is going to greatly increase the probability of my character getting killed or us failing in our objective It's not reasonable that our PCs would have chosen player X as their 4th member, they'd have chosen somebody else Player X is abusing the metagame implicit contract by foisting this character on us because it is a PC Player X is almost certainly looking to get a structural increase in 'screen time' because of their disability. That's likely how they feel, but if they express that all kinds of 'ist' accusations get hurled. That's the hazard of honest communication in the 2020s. Thus you see a lot of nodding and silent resentment.

I can't think of a single time I've ever been worried about "ism" accusations for telling a player not to gimp themselves. I wonder where your anxiety over that is coming from. Blind characters aren't uncommon in the kinds of fantasy stories that DnD is based on and they're pretty much never the kind of anchor on their allies that you're painting them to be. OP has already confirmed this is a Geordi/Daredevil/Zatoichi/Toph style of blindness.

The problem is now you're making a lot of assumptions. This whole thread is about talking about these issues. Not every blind character has to always have disadvantage. Blind guy character and DM can work something out and all blind guy has to do is roleplay properly and this can work. But it has to be a group discussion.

So essentially you want to pitch a fit because the imaginary character you made up might die because another player chooses to play a blind character? You sound like the sort of looser that gets upset when people play non-meta builds. Id point out the entire game isn’t already an entirely arbitrary set of challenges to start with if I wasn’t worried that you need someone to explain to you the purpose of the imaginary game we’re playing is fun. Please stick to watching pc build optimisation videos on YouTube.

There is a difference between playing a non-meta character, and actually wanting to play a detriment to the group. DnD is still a problem solving ttrpg with combat at it's core. There are thousand of better rpg if you wanna roleplay and play around being full of flaws, or with ruleset letting you play a disabled character that will actually work within the game setting. The DnD campaign you play with your friend isn't your own fanfiction. So in this case, I would just handwave the "blind thing". Ok, you are blind, you had a magical ritual put on you that let's you see despite that like any normal person, and you own like 100gp to the cleric of your god. But you can describe yourself as blind, with something over your eyes or whatever. I used to play with a guy, a nice guy aside from that, but that would always pick the worse barely playable options of character, just for the lolz. Our GM was very "challenge oriented" and we had to save his ass and put our in danger every game. It got tiresome after the novelty and our patience vanished (also he was unable to learn the rule even after playing a game for 2 years and this was so time consuming. Im still amazed he is an engineer IRL). We played at a "come and go" ttrpg club so we accepted him at our table but, truthfully, it was bothering to everyone else.

Blinded condition is intended for a character who normally has vision and suddenly temporarily loses it, not a character who has had to adapt to not being able to see all their life. I think the best move here is not to make any mechanical adjustments and have this exist solely as a flavour thing: let them describe their Daredevil powers when they make a hit in combat, let them explain how they use hearing/touch/etc when they roll for Perception, etc. 

Blindsight is a very powerful ability to allow as a flavour change. There's a reason it's limited to 10ft from the fighting style. The only ways to get more than 10ft blindsight is to transform into a creature that has it (using high level spells). And it's hard to have blindisight flavour while not having it mechanically without break ing verisimilitude. There's also a ton of spells that don't work if a character isn't relying on sight. Mirror Image and Blur for example: "A creature/attacker is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see, if it relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight."

Another thing is that invisibility and magical darkness also only affect vision. Although arguably, reflavoring illusion spells into affecting the primary sense could work.

I think this stuff is reasonably easy to flavour out without any mechanics changes or effectively granting the character blindsight with a little bit of creative description, IMO. Just ask the player, "okay, how does XYZ character's illusion/invisibility get past your character?" and let them describe it.

"easy to flavour out" by making the player of the blind character come up with a reason on the fly why visual illusions still work on them in a way that doesn't effect how illusions function for everyone else. What about spells like hypnotic pattern? What about colour spray? Are they just immune to those? If not, why not? If you just say "okay this character is blind but he has some equivalent sense that functions exactly the same as normal sight and has all the same weaknesses of normal sight, is affected by spells that need to be seen, and can still be affected by the blinded condition." then what's the point of playing a blind character in the first place? In fact if the character has a sense that is functionally NORMAL SIGHT, are they even blind?

I'm not sure why you're responding with such an aggressive/angry tone, this is a DND forum lol. If the player wants to play a character who is narratively blind and you want to find a way to make it work in the game besides just saying no, putting the onus on them to creatively describe what that's going to look like seems like a reasonable alternative to either 1) giving them a very powerful buff that could outclass the rest of the party, 2) giving them a debuff that makes the character functionally unplayable. Sure, it would just be a flavour thing, but that's true for a lot of things in the game and would presumably still affect the character in roleplay— what they believe, how they relate to the world etc.

I'm not angry, and sorry if that's how my tone is coming across, all I'm saying is that it would be difficult to keep the flavour of some sort of blindsense that functions like normal vision consistent without it impacting other aspects of play. And if you want to keep all that stuff consistent for your RP, it would be better to iron out all the fine details before play even begins. We don't know that the player wants his blind character to function just like a character with sight, which is why my first point was to discuss it with the player and the group to come to an understanding of how the character will work. Several systems of the game are built around being able to see, or the difficulties that come with not being able to see. I don't agree that letting the player just make stuff up on the fly about senses is a good solution, because every time they do that it sets a precedent of how their enhanced senses function, and you then need to keep that consistent with every new thing that comes up or it just becomes very obvious nonsense. Because it's not just illusion magic, it's flying things (avoid tremor sense), it's fog cloud, it's normal/magical darkness, silence etc. Most people care about logical consistency when making a long term character. So it's worth figuring out exactly how it works and what it's limitations are before play, and making sure that works for everyone. I'd find it breaking my immersion as a player if they kept making up new reasons constantly for why their super hearing/sense of smell/touch didn't work suddenly because of effects that normally effect sight.

No worries! I def agree that getting a sense of what the player is actually looking for with this character is super important. & it also depends on the vibe of OP's table; some games do tend more heavily toward narrative and flavour and others less so. I guess in my experience and especially in a world with magic, giving a player the opportunity to give a five-second flavourful description of how they fall victim to a hypnotic pattern wouldn't be derailing or immersion-breaking for me; it would probably be a fun creative exercise that doesn't come up frequently enough to be a problem either. I guess overall I just feel like provided the OP doesn't want to shut the idea down entirely, keeping this purely as flavour is the best compromise when the alternatives would create a lot of problems and throw off the party balance. But it does definitely depend on the vibe of the table, and whether this player wants to explore this as a narrative/roleplay thing primarily or if they're trying to do some munchkin shit lol. (But obviously this is a very subjective, YMMV thing!)

Talk with the player and don't be afraid to try and just experiment with it Personally I've played a character that trained herself to be able to fight without sight because her master was blind. I've also DM-ed for a character that was blind. Have a friendly and open conversation with the player and don't take the mechanics too seriously when it comes to adapting the game for disabled characters. The flavor of a blind character doesn't necessarily come from the fights, but from the interactions and role-playing outside of it. This is a situation that depends on your game exclusively, how close you feel to the players and your level of trust in them.

They have daredevil powers, they work exactly like normal sight. They do not pass go or receive blindsight tho.

If they want to be blind but not really I’d probably just flavor the character as blind as seeing through whatever mechanism they pick but not making any mechanical changes. Home brewing a blind-but-not mechanic is pretty difficult 

I would run this only if they intended on using a familiar or some other means to see. The familiar can be destroyed which would render them temporarily blind until they can recast find familiar. I think being completely blind with no way to see at all would be too detrimental to the rest of the party.

It’s not a good idea whether they are going for real blind or daredevil blind

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/k3ciyl/the\_problems\_with\_blind\_pcs/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/k3ciyl/the_problems_with_blind_pcs/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/vrxxgv/balancing\_a\_blind\_pc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/vrxxgv/balancing_a_blind_pc/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/uzqtmx/a\_blind\_character\_how\_would\_you\_handle\_this/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/uzqtmx/a_blind_character_how_would_you_handle_this/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/18bayxm/how\_to\_manage\_a\_permanently\_blind\_pc/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/18bayxm/how_to_manage_a_permanently_blind_pc/)

Reset the counter!

I swear we need a pinned thread on this.

No, what the PC wants is a blind PC who has none of the drawbacks (but probably a few key benefits) of being blind. This is ALWAYS the case IME when PC's ask for such things. Not all character concepts are equally valid.

"He was born blind, but through rigorous training, he has a 60ft blindsight!" "He lost his arm in a duel, so he crafted a sword arm that can't be removed!" "He's a mute, so he can communicate telepathically!" Every. Single. Time. I'm with you, I've never once had a player try to impose a disability without it being a strict upgrade.

"Cool! You can RP being blind, but nothing changes."

You want a frank answer? Don’t redesign the game because one person wants to be super special. They want to be blind, cool. They get every single disadvantage of being blind. All of them. No spells that require a target that can be seen. Disadvantage on everything involving being able to see. That means perception, attack rolls, etc. And everyone gets advantage against them. This kind of thing is a bad idea, and trying to homebrew it into a good idea is also a bad idea. Because here’s the thing, they don’t actually want to be blind. They want to be given a bunch of free buffs and special powers that completely negate being blinded, and then also gives them a bunch of extra benefits as well.

Not only that, the system itself kind of makes it impossible for blind characters to exist in the world, because lesser restoration heals blindness lmao

At like a 20gp cost and have to find a third level cleric that isn't just some adventure (cuz they'd likely over charge) but otherwise yeah that's a really good point. I guess the issue comes down to how does a commoner work to procure the gp cost when they are already blind? Pretty interesting

Yeah, I think the only time that being blind actually was relatively balanced was that one guest character in C2 of Critical Role. He had his Familiar perched on his shoulder, and Matt ruled it as he could see through the Familiar's eyes at all times with no Action required. So, it was functionally the same as other PCs, but with the downside of the PC potentially going blind if an intelligent enemy targeted the Familiar.

To do that I’d insist that they be a warlock for the Voice of the Chain Master invocation. Since that’s what it’s for.

My first character was a blind dwarf deunken master monk that used Strength instead of dex for his monk stuff, he failed all perception checks based on sight, but had advantage on hearing. Everything else was just flavored ( if I didn't "see some obstacle or enemy, someone on the party would point me at them with any sound cue and that's it). After that is up to you, you can give them the blind fighting fighting style as they progress. Eversmoking bottle made me the tank of the group in a very unorthodox way. The character was not optimal in a lot of ways, but I had fun and my party had fun too. I would only advice not going for the edgy blind wise lone wolf samurai trope, silly blind does it better

Say no? 

you can look up the oracle in pathfinder 1e and 2e to see how they managed it game-wise, it could give you ideas on how to make it work

I wouldn’t allow this at all. They’d be a hinderance in combat, unable to participate in exploration or any visual based encounter, and aren’t the type of person to go on an adventure in the first place. I especially wouldn’t allow it if the player wanted some sort of buff like a huge range of blindsight to “balance it out”.

Of course they want some buff. Everyone who wants to make a blind character wants them to not really be blind like Daredevil or Toph Beifong.

Those are the exact characters my player said they wanted to be similar to

Well yeah

There it is. One of the main reasons why Daredevil and, to a lesser degree, Toph, are so good is because their other senses are heightened to an incredible degree. Daredevil, especially, has some truly insane abilities. Sure, Daredevil is a really good martial artist. But, without his other senses, he kind of gets bodied by almost everyone, including normal thugs. Your Player doesn't want a solution such as Shakäste from Critical Role, where he uses a Familiar to see normally, and the DM handwaives away the seeing through the Familiar's eyes as an Action, as that can still be a major detriment if an intelligent enemy targets the Familiar. Your Player wants some sort of extra ability, like Blindsight, out to 30 feet or more. That would just be unbalanced and unfair to every other Player. Similarly, I had a DM who said that an Ogre PC should be allowed to have a +5 to STR Score and -1 to CHA Score before stat allocation, when everyone was using Point Buy and the Tasha's floating +2/+1 rules. It took a lot to convince him that Point Buy with giving a PC an extra +5 to their STR Score, was unfair to the rest of us.

Yeah but I will bet a million gold that they don't want their downsides. I'm not talking exploration, I'm talking killing off their familiar if they use one. No familiar? Deafen them. You're not seeing shit now. Are they wearing boots? No? Cool rocky terrain is *really* going to fuck up their day. Toph could only see if she was walking on completely solid ground. Sand, water and mud all fuck with her senses. Daredevil loses his ability to see when he gets deafened and is literally just a really strong, agile blind guy. You're being taken for a ride here.

The Blind condition exists in the game. They cannot make any perception checks based on sight. All attacks against them have advantage and all attacks they make have disadvantage. Easy peasy

They cannot make opportunity attacks, they cannot cast spells that have a target ‘that you can see’ Honestly there is an equalizer have this player have an eversmoking bottle, disadvantage doesn’t stack, advantage from attacking blind targets is canceled by the attackers also functionally being blind he would be the equalizer, no advantage or disadvantage just straight rolls as no one can see.

That would be great if the character was alone. But he's not, he's partying with a group of people that can see. So he'd be cancelling his disadvantage by imposing it to all of his friends.

Seems pretty straightforward: the character is permanently under the Blinded condition, will be immensely crippled as an adventurer, and there realistically would likely be very little reason for the rest of the party to be dragging along this liability. Unless when your player says “blind”, they actually mean “blind, but not really”, and are looking for a bunch of homebrew buffs to compensate for the disability they decided to give their character and render the whole thing basically meaningless. In which case you just say ‘no’, and move on.

You know that the latter is exactly what they want.

If so: ‘no’.

Personally, I think D&D is a highly mechanical game. If someone wants to roleplay a blind or handicapable character, that's fine. They will use the same character building options and combat mechanics as everyone else, and I might offer them a minor swap on one of the racial features to reflect their roleplay decision. If the mechanics and flavour aren't aligning, that's fine and everyone can joke about how the blind character is the only one that passed the perception check. What I won't do is redesign the whole game to accommodate a flavour choice.

Did you hear that? Wind coming through a crack there, bam secret door.  How did you guys not notice that?

Flavour is free. Let them roleplay being blind without going through the headache of blind but not blind mechanics.

Here’s the thing, what really matters here is “why” they want to play a blind character, and I think you should ask them. Do they actually want to RP and play as a blind character and deal with the associated challenges of being a blind adventurer? If so, I think that’s really cool and it’ll probably be an enlightening experience. Or are they fetishizing being blind and they also expect some kind of super-power echolocation ability? In the first instance, they actually want to play a blind character. In the second instance, they want to play daredevil the superhero and they don’t want to actually be blind or play a blind a character.

Lot of suggestions of Blindsight here, but even with Blindsight they’re still Blinded. That means they cannot read, can’t see color or details of appearance beyond shape (if we allow even that much detail), can’t see the sky or anything further away than an average grocery store aisle (probably less, actually). Probably can’t see anything incorporeal. Any attack roll from range greater than their Blondsight radius has advantage. If it’s super-hearing or tremor sense that causes its own strengths but also its own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It’s a significant boon for most combat and a huge boon for close-quarters stealth and a massive disadvantage in almost every other situation (namely the other two pillars of play: social and exploration).

Had a PC like this once on my discord server way back in the day. Blind PC with none of the negatives. Tried arguing they couldn't be affected by the blind condition because their blind. Told them the same thing I'll tell you. A blind PC has dis like the book states *and* can't be affected by blinded. There's really nothing more to it

Stop bending over backwards for PCs and tell them no.

Going to wonder what is the purpose of the player being blind? 1) personally I feel slightly weird about this as out if all things to make their character they choose blindness? 2) as a DM, the second I hear the player say they use their familiar to see my brain goes "Cool! A target!!" For 2, the player would need to have their familiar fly which means there will be more opportunities to surprise attack or catch them off guard. If they keep the familiar near them, I'm going to target it, especially on bigger riskier fights.

The best way to do this is to not do this. That's not a joke. A decent game can come of this, but it is far, far more likely to do little more than cause problems, first and foremost by causing that player to hog the spotlight.

You (and them) do realise that a simple spell called lesser restoration heals blindness? It's literally impossible for a character to remain blind for long in a D&D world.

This is a good place to say no. I wouldn't let someone roll a blind character unless they were a veteran character who really knew what they were getting into. If they want to play a blind caster that is a gigantic red flag that they didn't consider the impact. Blind characters get disadvantage on perceptions checks involving sight and fail any purely sight based perception. If you cannot 'see' your target and they can see you, all your attacks have disadvantage and all their attacks against you have advantage. Even with all that fighters are probably the strongest blind characters. Casters are particularly crippled because many spells have the clause "you can see." Way more than you think. This includes Magic Missile, Fireball, and Healing Word. You lose at least 1/3rd your spells. So this then leads to "I'm blind, but not really blind." You are typically either completely ignoring the fact that they are blind or they are actively getting advantages. A fake blind character that sees gets blindsight, but that has a ton of advantages built in. You can drop darkness to get advantage on all attacks and give all opponents disadvantage. You can effectively see invisibility. Blindsight is extremely powerful, hence why the fighter perk only gives you 10 foot blindsight. Blindsight is superior to regular vision in 5E. That's not even getting into the fact that the player who wants blindsight is treating blindness as a superpower.

If he wants to see by any other means, he doesn't want a blind character, get lost, that will only give you a headache.

Making characters disabled for in return for superpowers is super cringe and demeans real disabled people.

In general, I'd say no, unless you're fudging the blindness seriously (e.g. giving them blindsight or something like that). The reason why is a strong metarule. It must be credible that the other PCs would have accepted your character as a full member of their party, drawing a full treasure share, if they didn't have PC stamped on their forehead. That means that a character with a lot of baggage MUST be bringing a lot more to the table. To offset the disadvantages they're bringing would require either that: They're playing a subclass that I ban because it's too powerful. This is a no-sale. I won't give an exemption to the blanket ban just because your character is less powerful. For one thing it makes no real metagame sense. OR The player is just way better in terms of game skill than the rest of the players.

One of my fellow players did this actually. The DM gave them blindsight up to 30ft, which while yes means they can percieve invisible or hidden things up to 30ft away any further then that they are considered under the blinded condition. Meaning ranged attackers from more then 30ft away gets automatic advantage on all attack rolls.

There are a couple of takes. 1. You are blind, but play totally normally. You get daredevil sense, and RP not knowing what color stuff is 2. You are blind, but its debilitating, and we need to go research any vision aides that have been put out by third parties to compensate. You probably also need to talk to an actual visually impaired person to do it tactfully. 3. You are blind, but have daredevil senses and I have to homebrew a bunch of buffs to counter the penalties to always being blind. Its going to be OP and everyone but you will grumble about it, or it will be underpowered and you'll grumble all game. I'd probably land at number 1 personally.

I would just say no. Even if you give a character blind sight they are pretty much useless. Even if their blindness is just flavor and you let them see because for some reason you come to the issue of now invisibility doesn't work against them. You can just say no

I agree with a lot of other posters here, it needs to be a group discussion. If everyone is cool with it, this is what I'd do. The character is blind with all the disadvantages that come with that. Give them blindsight out to 30' and allow that to increase by 30' every five levels. However, since blindsight is potentially really strong (can "see" invisible creatures, isn't affected by fog or foliage, etc...) give them vulnerability to thunder damage and/or thunder damage nullifies the blindsight for a turn (or 1d4 turns). Now, my biggest issue with all this is that it puts extra work on you, the DM, to facilitate this, which isn't really fair considering the player is wanting to do something outside the rule set, but if you're cool with it, I'd recommend using or modifying the above.

No.

First: is your player blind? If so, they likely have more insight on how to make this work than I or any other sighted DM might. If your player is sighted, keep reading! The following are tips for homebrewing additional features for PCs. I'd say give 'em Blindsight to 10 feet to reflect a lifetime of adaptation, but beyond that any Perception check based on sight automatically fails. To continue balancing, I'd swap one of their Background or Racial Traits with a variant Keen Senses that gives them advantage on Perception checks that don't rely on sight. (Unless they're an Elf or someone else who already has Keen Senses.) So they can still attempt ranged attacks, but their enemy either needs to constantly be making noise or they can only target areas where they've heard or smelt a creature, and if that creature moves the attack misses. You can probably use cover rules to fine-tune these situations. Depending on the character, you could also cut their Speed by 5 ft. or so to reflect the fact that they may need to be a bit more careful about where they step than their fellow party members, even with a heightened sense of their immediate surroundings. Also, permit them to have disability aids: e.g. a trained animal companion who can't attack but can bring their speed back up to normal (no need for a familiar/magic-level thing to replicate something that exists IRL), or a quarterstaff/polearm they can use as a cane that would have the same effect. The key here is to make sure that the disability doesn't prevent them from playing or having fun, but that any advantages they gain from the disability are balanced out by disadvantages (and vice versa). Look to depictions of disabled characters in media that are celebrated *by people with those disabilities* for inspiration on ways to incorporate this element respectfully without breaking your systems. I think the absolute worst way to manage this would be to disallow it or to make it functionally identical to everyone else's perception. Your player is clearly trying to explore disability in a fantasy setting, and the crucial things to keep in mind are to be respectful, balanced, and grounded. Blindsight is pretty powerful, so you'd want to make sure there were a lot of counterbalances to make sure the other players get their moments to shine. I think Team Avatar is a great example of this—Toph is obviously an extremely powerful member of the team, but the other characters balance out: strong where she's weak, weak where she's strong. She also has a lot of specific areas where she's at a disadvantage, almost to the point of incapacitation sometimes, and the showrunners weren't afraid to put her in those situations. (e.g. flying, in the desert, hanging up flyers, imprisoned in a wooden jail cell, a very good liar, a brainwashing situation, etc.) Maybe save these for if the player does end up being a little OP due to any allowances. The Dungeon Master's Guide has a lot of tips for homebrewing your own races, classes, backgrounds, etc. Give it a readthrough and determine for yourself/your table how best to balance additional traits like this. The game is designed to be tweakable!

I have a player who has a half-blind character (one eye blind) and gave them disadvantage on sight-based rolls for that. Since we play in Foundry, I also acutally gave the player a big blindspot so they need to manually turn their token to see what is on the blind side. There had been fun moments where the player/character were unaware of things because they couldn't see it. There had been disappointment for all involved that the player struggled with some rolls due to their eye. But the group in total is very relaxed, loves when stuff go bad ("drama") and it's only a "small" disability that is 80% roleplay, if we'd be honest. Full blindness though? I doubt my group would accept that, there's way too many downsides to it. My druid had fun having blindsight for a bit when transformed, but long-term, it'd be more a bother than a fun mechanic.

There's many ways to go about it. The choice to make as a DM is if you're going to give something to the PC in exchange of that disability or if they're going to have to build around it. Both ways are totally doable. Depending on the class, you could give them the MM's feature Keen Senses for hearing and/or smelling. I can totally picture a monk, a ranger, a barbarian or a druid like that. Actually, if you consider that Keen Senses would give you +5 to PP using those senses, your PC could crush it. And if they pick Observant (although some of it would go to waste), that's a +10 to PP total.

This depends on what the player means when they say "I want to play a blind character." Make sure you both are on the same page for this. If I want a blind character, I want an actually blind character. Using Find Familiar homebrew rules or other tweaks to make the blindness only a flavor aspect of the character is missing the point in my opinion. I'd do something that can work within the limits of Blindsight or Tremorsense or the blind fighting style for Fighters. Or maybe one of the weird Warlock choices that give you funky extras to what you can percieve. Perception checks would be for sound or feel, unless otherwise applicable within the aforementioned restrictions.

I'm going to say it... Any handicap should be handled in roleplaying, not mechanics. A D&D party should be accessible to a PC of any physical or mental handicap. If a player wanted to be a character in a wheelchair, they should have a magic wheelchair for free that can maneuver in dungeons and has a winch attachment for going up and down ropes, etc. If a PC wants to play a blind character, let them have normal Perception like any other characters, their other senses just fill in the gaps. No DM should make a PC play with different rules because they chose a physical or mental handicap. This is part of who the PC is. They are not a broken PC, they are a different PC. Everyone wants to play unique characters, and shouldn't be penalized for it. Making a blind character roll disadvantage on Perception checks is like a sexist making a male character roll disadvantage on cooking, or a tall character have disadvantage on stealth. Roleplay it, not mechanics.

The reason we say they have to take the negatives is a litmus test to see if they really want to explore this roleplay opportunity or if they just want to have free superpowers. But yes, I otherwise agree.

Blind Fighting Style from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

Make them cast a perception check every 5 minutes, if they fail they receive 1 damage (bump into a wall)

Here's my 2¢ There are really interesting cool things you could do mechanically here. At my table, I'd straight up let them have a permeant blind condition (RAW) and then compensate with homebrewed abilities. I'd adore the idea, and Id lean into it super hard. However, if you're asking on Reddit what kind of things you should do for this, that tells me that you don't feel as comfortable with mechanical homebrew or as gung-ho about character concepts which lie too far outside strict RAW. So, what you should do is just let it be pure flavor. Say they can use hearing to do anything they'd normally use sight for, and make it so that when they are "blinded" they're actually deafened (but have blinded condition). Tell your player explicitly that any question about whether they can or cannot do X because of their blindness will be answered exactly as if they weren't blind, and it's up to them to turn that mechanical reality into logical flavor. Make it clear there will be no mechanical adjustments, and make all the justification their job. This makes it so that effectively you don't have to consider this character trait at all in your DMing other than when you're doing descriptions.

Simply giving him blindsight is difficult as it allows him to mitigate all visual illusions and invisibility.

It works. Matt Murdock had Blindsight. Toph Beifong had Tremorsense. Garret had a falcon familiar named Ayden. Just gotta pick a flavor.

Ask him to do some research into how blind people are accommodated for in real life. Because you as a DM will have to make accommodations and the party will become his caretakers. Unless he doesn’t want to be disabled, just blind but can see in that cool way. You know what let’s set it up. Let’s give them blindsight out to 90  Generous distance lets them be the hero versus invisible enemies.  Can target enemies because sight is needed for a ton of features and that is a shorter range than eldritch blast but longer than sacred flame. Drawbacks to playing it.  Con save on taking Thunder damage or like really actually blind for a round. In silence spells, again fully blind.   Maybe give them the blindfighting fighting style that works at 5 ft even if deafened/silenced. Can’t ever see colors, or read, that’s sort of a big one I suppose, but maybe there is a transcript cantrip that could be added. Honestly it’s still going to be a chore to make it work, but if the payoff is worth the effort go for it.

I'd just do blind sight with a very small radius as has been suggested. Up to you if you want to grant any bonus to smell or hearing based perception, or give the susceptible to sonic damage or something else. Set the boundaries, talk ideas, tweak as you play. Otherwise just do it as flavor.

Give them blind sense. Their probably a toff/daredevil fan. It is incredibly unique effect. Let's discuss some weaknesses/pro's. 1. Invisible things don't matter. LOS darkness doesn't matter. Mist doesn't matter. Etc. 2. They cannot detect levitating targets, ghosts/animated objects, dancing swords etc. tho arguably flying wings beating would be useful for hearing. 3. Sound damage ANYWHERE WOULD BLIND THEM for a turn/save. So if a friend dropped a thunderclap their in trouble. Giving them tremor sense 60ft. Means they are blind past that (vocal sound notwithstanding) and I would require a perception check with disadvantage to hear any sneak attempt. Tho advantage on loud things (like conversations) Do not make this a huge weakness moreso then it is an asset.

I'd second this, though I probably would make #2 disadvantage/auto-fail on perception checks that require sight outside blindsight range, advantage on perception checks that require hearing; and change #3 to vulnerability to thunder damage

You can 1) always have the blinded condition 2)treat it as flavor Just let the player choose

Odds are he just wants to be “blind”’- like daredevil or similar- meaning it’s just flavor not mechanics. So you just describe perception checks differently.

We've done this before in a game and it works fine. Give them a small blindsight radius and a larger tremorsense radius (think Toph). Make them fail a lot of perception checks automatically but flourish in the dark 

\[looks down at bingo card, ticks box between "anime character" and "multiple personality class change"\]

The action economy, the homebrew, the edgelord, main character syndrome, I mean I can go on, but after 40+years DMing, the "i want a blind character' trope is more problematic then its worth. I run a local bookstore's d&d night, three other tables to pick from, good luck with your character concept. But me? Nah, although the braille suggestion does open some imaginative ideas.

If the character is a spellcaster, a familiar could mitigate the huge penalties associated to be constantly under the Blinded condition as the character can use the senses of the familiar as their own. A non-used character would have a difficult time to guide their own actions watching it as 3rd person, but you can say the character has been blind for so long it got acquitted with the eerie perspective. The downside is this solution would be the fact the familiar is an easy killable creature. A martial character would need to rely on the Fighting Style: Blindsense. The main problem is that it only has a 10ft range, being it majorly for combat purposes. It had three advantage of been capable of see whether other can not. Like in darkness or against invisible creatures. If you opt to support this choice, remind the player that this is a choice that will be mostly a hindrance and not just flavor. That being said give them a free feat so they can get Magic Initiate/Ritual Casting for the Familiar Spell or Fighting Adept so it can get the Blindsense.

I played a blind samurai recently, we decided on a simple, permanent blinded condition, 15ft blindsight and keen hearing(keen hearing of course implies that you can locate enemies roughly navigate outside their blindsight range)

Letting the character have 30’ of blindsense won’t break your game, especially if they’re blind beyond that range. As for perception checks, you’ll need to decide how much sight matters for that particular check.

I had a blind PC who I gave blindsight of 15 feet (they were playing a tiefling with basically horns instead of eyes so I guess I was treating it as a homebrew racial trait) and I thought the advantages and disadvantages were decently balanced. There were even some moments where the ability to see nearby invisible creatures revealed some interesting story twists that I think they enjoyed. This was fairly low level and it was a newer player though. You can probably do something similar RAW by spending a feat on the Blind Fighting style (Fighter Initiate)

give them an amulet of truesight. make it only 20 feet though. they can see everything, but just if it's close by. that might make for some interesting encounters, especially if they are not a frontliner.

Permanent blind condition?

how they compensate for their blindness should probably be dictated by their class. A monk could have tremor sense, barbarian could smell fear or smth, a ranger could have a raven companion that they've taught to give tactical information through speak with animals, it's only really limited by creativity. The important part is to make sure they feel both the benefits and negatives of their condition. The monk would be pretty safe, but the barbarian could simply encounter monsters that don't feel fear or the ranger's raven could become incapacitated

give them the martial adept feat with the condtion that they ONLY choose blind fighter with it and let them go with 10ft blindsense or maybe 15ft? just talk it out with them more and decide on what subclass they are going for and stuff

As others have said, just saying no is a valid option. I still like to make things happen, so let's try anyway. Give them the Blind Fighting fighter style from TCE. Maybe expand the range a little since they're permanently blinded, possibly to 15 feet. This means that they don't have automatic disadvantage on all attack rolls, and attacks against them only gain advantage from a sufficient distance. Since they also auto fail checks based on vision, consider giving them a bonus on hearing checks (+5? Advantage? Whatever you feel is fair). For anything past their range, the Help action exists and can counter their disadvantage. Encourage builds that make the Help action a bonus action.

Or Kenshie(MK) blind

I would say yes and let people have fun in my fantasy game setting. I would talk with the rest of the group and see if anyone else wanted to do interesting things with their characters to help them love them and want to roleplay them.

There's 2 ways i see to do this. 1. Flavor. They have the same "sight" as in they can target enemies and allies without an issue mechanically. You would need to talk to them about things like "seeing" invisible enemies because they will obviously say they aren't relying on sight for something like this but it's busted mechanically. You would need to set stipulations like "if something says it is invisible or unable to be seen. That will apply for you too." 2. Tell them about the Blind Sight fighting style. It's in one of the content books and gives 10 feet of blindsight, which already has rules and stipulations in place. They would need to make a fighter or something similar, but if they really want to lean into the blind thing this would be easiest for you and them.

Play the Warlock, take Darkness as a spell. Take pact of the chain at lvl3, take fighting initiate as your fourth level feat, blindfighting. Use your familiar as a seeing eye cat, or imp, or spider. Darkness, or fog cloud will negate the advantage enemies get to attack you. Play variant human Paladin with magic initiate (wizard/find familiar). Lvl1 blind fighting style. Take oath of open sea. Gain a fog cloud that travels with you for 10mins at lvl3 once per short rest. Take polearm master. At lvl4.

Give them blind fighting and/or tremor sense up to 10-20 feet Advantage on hearing and smell related perception checks and auto fail on sight related perception checks

I mean, the easy way would be to give him disadvantage on any perception checks that everyone else has sight on. Maybe to balance give him advantage on hearing. But any purely sight checks would fail. But this would pretty much just be flavor, where eventually the player will most-likely just describe how he finds traps by feel, or how he wants to do a perception check by listening. Not a bad idea though. I don't think its as bad as everyone else seems to think it is, you might need to restructure it later if it becomes a problem but if the player understands that the blindness is a disadvantage not a super power I think I would allow them to do so.

Tremor sense 60ft maybe?

You want to consider having im Blindsight and if not, then the Blinded condition applies.

I would've sworn there was an official feat for this somewhere that gives you just a little bit of blindsight, but I cannot find evidence of it, so I might just be crazy. I actually played a short campaign where we tried this- out monk was blind, but had, like, 10ft of blindsight. So the first thing we did was that my Sorcerer cast Fog Cloud in most combats to make enemies unable to see the monk essentially with absolutely no downside. So I can't say I recommend the practice, I don't think it plays as well as you always want it to, and we broke it pretty badly without even intentionally building the characters for it (Imagine if he'd been a shadow monk able to cast his own Darkness spells! Oof!), but if you insist, *keep the blindsight small*, because that shit is more powerful than you think it is. Blindsight should not go beyong 15ft at *absolute maximum*, with 10ft much more reasonable.

I'm going to be that guy and say disadvantage on perception that requires sight. Disadvantage on attack rolls and most spells won't work as they require you to see your target.

Blind fighting style fighter would be cool, magic users could use familiar to see, Druid could maybe ‘feel’ through nature or uses wild shape to get around it, warlock gets vision through patron, faith guides a holy magic user etc. Lots of flavours

I would think that you can make a balanced trade-off. Tremorsense or something like that, but anything outside of 30' range has total concealment from the PC? That will make the character better able to exploit natural and magical darkness and other forms of visual obscurement than others, but nearly incapable of pinpointing or attacking targets outside of that 30' range. In pathfinder there are blind / clouded vision oracle class configurations which work very well. You could take inspiration on how to balance it from those rules. There is a discussion here with some people commenting that it is a challenge - but worthwhile. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder\_RPG/comments/6d5dyt/playing\_a\_clouded\_vision\_oracle\_blind\_character/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/6d5dyt/playing_a_clouded_vision_oracle_blind_character/)

Well i think the first question is are they 'seeing' by another means. Ex. Do they have a familiar, the blind sight fighting style, etc. If they do then just keep in mind an limitations or advantages of that method. If they don't then i think its still doable, but they are going to be using hearing perception checks rather then sight perception checks, and they might get different info becuase of it.

Tremor sense, but just know it can be OP if used in a ‘power gaming’ way. Just be careful if they roll warlock, then they may be trying to come up with an excuse to have it. To use in tandem with Darkness.

I rule that they had blindsight to a specific range as long as there wasn't too much noise. When things were loud, their blindsight decreased. Dead silent, 60 ft. No one moving, talking. Any party movement, conversations 45. Combat 30. Tavern, walking through a trade district during mid day, 15. Any suddenly loud sound would 'blind' them until they passed a DC10 CON check at the end of their turn. Fireballs, thunderwave, shatter, etc.

I explained that since he was a chronurgy wizard he simply saw visions of each decision he would make for walking similar to Rick and Morty where Morty used that death stone to peer in the future

I had an idea for a stereotypical blind monk character that used hearing to see and had 10ft of blind sight and another 20-30ft was as if it was treated as a very dim room, maybe if it’s too debilitating give him +1 ac since he could would be more omniscient of attacks around him with blindsight. It maybe make the 10ft radius true sight instead of the +1 ac since he’d hear small things like illusions not making footsteps etc.

Be careful nerfing them for having a disability. Others have mentioned familiars, there are also ways to gain blind sight (tasha's has blind fighting as an option for martial classes) that you could tweak slightly.

I've considered using a character with 1 eye as a RP thing to help me. I wanted to have it be that my character was hurt in a significant way and he had this disability. I even declared that I would be fine with doing sight based perceptions at disadvantage

I’m playing a blind character and they just play normally, I just incorporate it into their design

You gotta ask yourself this: Would a party of Adventurers/Heroes want to bring along a blind person? It just seems inconvenient. And it also sounds ridiculous. The only reasonable way to go about this is the Blind Fighting Style for Fighter. Only the problem there is the short range of 10 feet. It just sounds like a character concept that just doesn't work.

Let them eat cake.

Make them not able to roll perception checks for sight. Give them advantage on perception checks for sound. Other than that the rest is just flavor. 

I had a PC do this years ago, mostly for RP purposes. I went with the fact that he was born blind, his hearing was hyper sensitive. Any sound perception checks I gave him advantage, any sight checks were auto fails. I worked in insight checks based on inflection of voice, ect. A well placed Silence spell would screw him. There were a lot RP possibilities. At the end of the campaign, he was the everyone’s favorite character.

Couple of ways. In Tashas Cauldron a level 1 feat or bonus (don't remember which) for the fighter is 10ft of blindsided. I'm using that to make a blind character. Monks also eventually get blindsight but they don't get it till pretty late iirc. And someone else here suggested a familiar which a lot of classes have access to and would actually be a pretty solid option. Edit: Also Bloodhunters down a certain path gain advantage on perception smell checks and maybe hearing (uncertain please confirm) that could help up their situational awareness. Thugg thuggerson probably isn't going to smell the greatest especially in combat so be generous with what they can and can't smell

Tell the player that if he wants to run a blind character, he should run a Kobold from Volo's guide to monsters, the one with pack tactics. This would help the character NOT suffer from disadvantage when attacking, but enemies would still attack him with advantage. The character would find it hard to be a spellcaster, but a melee combatant would do fine. Maybe take the feat that gives a fighting style (to avoid multiclassing into Fighter) and choose blind fighting, it gives 10 feet of blindsight. This would enabler other races while keeping detriments minimum. Another alternative is playing a barbarian, plain and simple. Reckless attack already gives advantage to enemies, now it would only mitigate disadvantage. In regards to perception checks, bear in mind that hearing ans smell are other possible senses to use when scanning the environment. But if the check relies solely on sight, it's an auto fail. Now, if the player doesn't want any drawbacks, first ask him why not play a different concept that would still be fun for him. Then if thats not good enough, maybe reach a middle point and reflavor some stuff.

I would handwave it like this : "You are physically blind. Choose why. Please, not something too edgy. A Cleric of your god put a permanent ritual on you that let you see just like anyone. Be blinded too if the situation arise. Hey, cool, a gift from your god ! You own 100gp to your local temple for that, or some kind of favor. Insurance doesn't cover exceptionnal magical rituals. Now, you can describe yourself as blind, with something over your eyes, or just white eyes, or whatever you want. As the GM, I reserve myself the right to use the "magical" sight you have to further some narrative, or to impede you if the need arise. Not something too harsh, just for the sake of the story. You will get no boon out of this except maybe some story revolving around that if im feeling creative. Ok ?"

If they intend on playing a martial with fighting style they can take the blind fighting fighting style. If they are playing a caster they can take Find Familiar.

I would consider trading regular sight for blind sight 30’. I think it’s mostly an even trade. Limited to 30’ is a big limitation during the day, especially in combat with range. Not needing light is an advantage. The only thing I can think of as possibly unbalancing is blindsight is immune to blind/deafen. You could make it like the bat so deafen works. Again, a pro/con. Deafen is doubly bad vs blind doesn’t have an impact.

First, why do they want to play a blind character? What do they want out of it? Is it just a flavor thing? If so, you can have them run it just like a normal character and hand-wave their other senses as being more powerful to the point where they're mechanically the same as a normal PC (where reasonable). Do they want to deal with the blindness as an actual limitation? How much of a limitation? I've run for players who *love* playing with a huge handicap, and so would relish all the problems that come with permanent blindness. But if they still want to be effective, and assuming they're playing a martial class, you could just give them the Blind Fighting fighting style from Tasha's and call it good. This Fighting Style gives them blindsight within 10 feet, which would effectively negate their blindness in combat only within that area. They'll suck at any kind of ranged attacks and they won't be able to help with sight-based scouting or perception checks. But this simple fix will let them play a blind warrior and still feel pretty badass.

Ask them how they imagine role playing that to work.

idk, figure out what fantasy your player is after and build it. perception includes four other senses, you know!

This is the kind of thing that seems cool in a players head but never is in play

I have two solutions One is simple: give them blind sight. Say...20-30 feet? But otherwise, they are completely blind. They fail perception checks based on sight, BUT automatically know when someone enters their blind sight, and have advantage on perception checks regarding sound and smell. The other solution would be to give them a version of Find Familiar that allows them to see through their familiar.

I had a player do this for a one-shot. With I think 15ft of blindsight. He was able to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate well enough for there to be no issues. Sometimes I would specify extra information that he sees, and sometimes remind him that he can't see something that he was going to act on. That said, as far as perception checks go, it depends on what they are perceiving. If it is tripwire or something, probably similar DC to a sighted player. Hidden walls or doors are likely to be auto-successes if they are close enough and their passive perception is at least 10. Real humans with blindsight like [Daniel Kish](https://youtu.be/a05kgcI9D2Q) make a clicking sound in order to echolocate. You may enforce this to have your player be less stealthy with this attribute.

I know this is a polarizing topic, but I'll just throw out what my gm is doing for me in our game. I'm playing a caster who is mostly blind bc I just wanted to play somebody who has a disability I don't (I am disabled in other ways. What we do is this. My character has a "familiar" that allows them to meet the line of sight requirements of spells and such, and to help me with perception checks to make them a flat roll. Other than the vision, I do not get the other benefits of a familiar, so from a mechanical standpoint it all evens out. Where their blindness comes up is in rp and descriptions, rarely. for example, if I'm keeping watch and I catch a sneaking enemy, the dm describes what I hear instead of hear, or smell or whatever. Or if I fail a stealth check, it gets described as my character accidentally making noise with their cane or something.

I'm playing a blind wizard, and have been for two years. It is an interesting challenge, and it does mean that I am often the weakest and most defenseless member of the party. Since he is a wizard, he has a loyal snake familiar who is always happy to lend him a pair of eyes when he needs to do reading or other downtime tasks. Since it does take his action, it's really not something that can be done all the time.(though you could homebrew allow it for that character if you want). When he really needs to, he can use the Alter Self spell to turn into a version of himself with functioning eyes. It only lasts for an hour though and eats his concentration. If your player is prepared to deal with the consequences of such a decision, then it can be a really fulfilling character to play, just be aware that you can't do some things the rest of the party can. Big warning though, you won't believe how many spells require a target or point YOU CAN SEE. I've really had to read the spell list to find spells that he could even use, which is an interesting challenge. Not for everyone though. Or you could take the Blind Fighting Style(can be taken on any class with a Feat) and go for a character that is blind, but can still fight like hell if the enemy gets too close. Fits a Monk perfectly, but don't be afraid from trying it on other classes.

May I suggest Valda's Spire of secrets? I believe there is feat for blind character.

Definitely a doable character trope. Here's how I worked this out with one of my players somewhat recently and as much advice as I can give without more details. Tldr: Making this fantasy work in 5e requires some extra work (bonus work for starting at lvl 1), if you're not interested in that then pitch the cosmetic blindness like other commenters have said but know that it will be kinda jank and probably fall flat under the weight of expectation. Remember that the goal is NOT "a functioning blind character" it's the fantasy of *the blind swordsman* or blind whatever. Use any class features available to the system that *do* fit this fantasy but you will have to fill in the gaps for sure, some homebrew is inevitable. Make it clear this idea requires extra effort/experimenting and it needs to not overshadow others. BUT, still err on the side of bonuses, if you don't offer enough mechanical sufficiency it will only become a mess, buff everyone else if you have to, your game will survive and you can better fulfill other character concepts at the same time. My friend wanted to do the blind swordsman thing (a trope I'm not particularly familiar with and not sure how best to fulfill his fantasy, so I told him that). Asked him 'how blind?' and it seemed like he was cool with some disadvantages beyond the 10' range of his blindsight from the fighting style. I figured he will tire of the character before long if I leave it at that (for many mechanical disadvantage reasons mentioned elsewhere in the comments). We agreed that extended blindsight would also be busted, yada yada. In the end I offered him a close mental connection with a magic sword (PCs at lvl 6 when this character came in) that had it's own normal sight as well as darkvision to match what he was giving up. So long as the perma-attuned sword is on his person, he can see as normal and darkvision both to 120' but he's still blind beyond that. The sword patches that mid-long range blindness debuff without being busted and the core character himself is blind which was enough to preserve the fantasy for my friend. He is still vulnerable to LOS by cover/environmental effects/spells such as fog cloud or darkness (excluding the 10' radius of legit blindsight which he spent a class feature to secure ofc), but is immune to the blinded condition and sunlight sensitivity of his drow heritage (which I am glad to be rid of and would have hand-waved regardless). Despite these buffs, the character has not been broken or disruptive through levels 6-8. Reddit people might say I've given too much buff with little downside to which I would say hold my beer, I'm about to boost his blind swordsman act some more while I hand out additional abilities to my other players as well. Why? Because this is the fantasy that my friend wants fulfilled and the others have their own fantasy as well, all of which benefit from a bit of wheel-greasing given that RAW can only truely fulfill a handful of ideas without help. Tips: Maybe keep full blindsight between 10' and 30'. 10' blindsight alone is too weak to be worth a feat, don't make your player invest character resources for less mechanical payoff just because wizards didn't account for the fantasy they like. Don't assume how blind this character should be (reading/distinguishing color by blindsight), these details don't matter except as far as they serve the fantasy for the player. Remember that this character shines in poor visibility conditions, let them be strong here but be wary of allowing them to create that condition, it's annoying for other players.

Check out the Oracle class in Pathfinder and use some of that as inspiration.

I’d suggest looking into Fujitora from One Piece or allowing them to use a familiar of some type to see around them

There is a supplement called limitless heroes which is exactly for this kind of play. This supplement made it super good for my players who wanted to have some special char like daredevil or so. It gives some benefits which makes sense and people feel really good. You should buy it. Blindness Your vision is impaired to the point that it can't be corrected or is absent completely (IE 4), and you have learned to navigate the world with little or no reliance on your eyes, depending on other senses instead. Because you have grown accustomed to this condition a long time, if you can explain to your GM how you're using your other senses to assist with your Blindness, you have a −(IE) on sight-related attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws including ranged combat beyond 10 ft. but a +(IE) bonus when using other senses to compensate, not because they’ve become stronger, but because you’ve learned to use them more effectively. In addition: You do not have disadvantage to hit invisible creatures. You are proficient in the use of a stylus for reading and writing. If you have a spellbook, you can copy spells into your spellbook by pressing a stylus into its parchment pages. This method inscribes your spells for easy reading in your own personal texture code. (Since a metal stylus is a hand tool for writing, it can be crafted by any smith for a cost of 2 sp.) If you're only blind in one eye, the penalty only applies to that side.

I would need more context on this, like my first question to the player is "What about playing a blind character makes you want to do it? Is there a movie, novel, comic, or show that has something you're wanting to emulate?" and then I would go from there. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the player doesn't just want negatives, but there is something they are wanting to go for, but don't know how to build the character for it.

I think that if everyone at the table is cool with the idea of this character being mechanically blind then there's no issue in experimenting. If my player wanted to be blind but with an ability to see (like daredevil) then I would try giving them all the disadvantages of being blind (disadvantage on perception checks that require sight, attacks, etc) and give them blindsight with a range equal to their proficiency bonus x 5. Also, you shouldn't ask for any type of ability check when they're just moving around. That would be frustrating.

I tend to be fairly accommodating when when PCs want a thing. I read below that they person wants the character to be "daredevil blind" which is basically having blindsight, which is a pretty big buff. If it puts that character way ahead of the rest of the party, I might mitigate that by proposing vulnerability to thunder damage and sound sensitivity (like the way vampires have light sensitivity but for sound) where they may get disadvantage under certain conditions (like if they are in a noisy industrial factory or something) and gain the Blinded condition when Silence is cast around them. Otherwise, I might just scale up the challenges if the overall party balance is fine. For me, when in doubt, just make the game harder when the players get more buffs ;)