Blindness

[Amy1419]

I was looking at amputee and saw the effects that happen when missing a leg, arm, hand, etc.. But what about a blind character or rather a character that has lost 1 eye in combat?
What happens then? Do you still incur the same penalities as someone with the major amputee of the leg? Suffering the 1/2 penalty to combat pools, etc?

Thanks!

[Brian Leybourne]

I say a blind man in mortal combat is dead. None of this D&D "penalty to his attack" nonsense.

A person with one eye has no depth perception, and the disadvantage that his opponent can keep circling to the side where he has no vision (forcing him to continually correct).

I say 1/2 CP sounds reasonable. That's not an official answer, just my gut feeling.

Brian.

[Shadeling]

I say a blind man in mortal combat is dead. None of this D&D "penalty to his attack" nonsense.

A person with one eye has no depth perception, and the disadvantage that his opponent can keep circling to the side where he has no vision (forcing him to continually correct).

I say 1/2 CP sounds reasonable. That's not an official answer, just my gut feeling.

Brian.

So you think a person blinded in combat should be dead. Man, I guess all those war vets who were blinded couldn't have been vets since they should all have died. Fact is, people, scratch that, many people live after being blinded in combat. Not trying to be smart-a%# here.

[Brian Leybourne]

So you think a person blinded in combat should be dead. Man, I guess all those war vets who were blinded couldn't have been vets since they should all have died. Fact is, people, scratch that, many people live after being blinded in combat. Not trying to be smart-a%# here.

You are being a smart ass. We're not talking about war vets.

There's a difference between being blinded in a "modern" war where your buddies can drag you out and help you to safety, and standing face to face with a man where you both have big swords, but you're blind and he's not.

Use your head. The blind guy is dead, dead, dead.

Brian.

[Amy1419]

Being partially blind isn't that big of a deal to me, obviously Jake made rules for people with 1 leg in combat. How is this any different? 2 guys with big swords, one has two legs can manuever well and have his full move and combat pool, the other has a peg leg and half his stuff. This doesn't make him dead.
I'm not saying that my girl is that well off now but she isn't useless.
Plus there is that lovely regrowth spell that can fix her later on, which she is well on her way to knowing before the accident.

I wanted to know if people thought just her percetion and reflex/aim scores should be effected or just her combat pool in general.
I didn't want discussion on how the character now sucks, is worthless and should just give it up since she has a major flaw and therefore can only die.

[Caz]

There are plenty of accounts of martial artists and soldiers having lost an eye or some vision in war, training, or play.  I'm sure many of them didn't just quit.  Back before fencing masks, you know.
    I have little doubt that there were many soldiers that lost both eyes in combat hundreds of years ago and lived, though through the nature of war and mainly the weapons involved, not as many as now.  I'd put money down that most of them decided to retire after that though hehe
    Just make some damn rules for it :)

[Raymond Caleatry]

There are only three things that a fencer of any weapon needs, Calmness, Vigor, and judgment.  When a person looses one eye, only one of these three things is changed, the Judgment.  

If a person is blinded in one eye, then it is true that they will have not depth perception, but this will not necessarily affect close combat.  They will never be able to fire a bow with any accuracy again, but the life time of skill they have obtained will not be affected.  

When in a dueling situation, the disability may not affect the duelist at all, as any good fencer will keep their opponent away from their blind side.  However when in a battle line, it will be a horrible disadvantage.

Of course when a person is first blinded in this way they will need to learn to adjust to the new situation, and for this period they will have penalties.  But if they survive this process, then it would be fair for them to duel normally, but they may have to make perception checks in large battle, so that they can become aware of potential attacks from their blind side.  But as to their combat pool, I think it would stay the same, as they wouldn’t have actually lost any of the skill they have learnt.

Raymond Caleatry

[Lxndr]

I think Brian is using "blind" in the sense of "you don't have any eyes left at all."  Rather than "only one isn't working."

[Raymond Caleatry]

Ok, my bad... a person with no eyes would get skewered.

[Valamir]

If you REALLY wanted to make rules for, of the nature "this is important to my character concept and so I want to really model it and not just wing it on those rare occasions where it comes up"...

...I would look to the ranged combat rules for inspiration.  The blind man hasn't lost his Combat Pool.  He still has all of the skills and experience that he ever has.  What he's lost is the ability to APPLY that combat pool because he can't see his opponent.

Well, there are other ways to sense ones opponent than through vision, and if one wanted to forgo a little realism in favor of the "Blind Samurai" type of situation one could capitalize on this.

In the ranged combat rules you have a missile pool, but you don't have access to that pool, that pool just represents potential.  You have to essentially "charge up" your useable pool over time, action by action adding dice at a certain rate (equal to Wit IIRC).

This seems to be an ideal model for a Blind Samurai character.  Your Combat Pool is just potential.  You have to "charge up" your useable pool with dice representing the process of using other senses and training to compensate for the lack of vision.   With full unhindered vision this rate equals 100% of the CP and so does not need to be tracked...you can throw 100% of your CP at any time.  If this rate is less than 50% of your CP than you will never be able to apply your full potential, because you can't add dice fast enough to ever hit your CP max.  

With some rate between 50% and 100% you essentially will have access every combat round to your full CP, you won't however be able to use your full CP on the first exchange of a round, you can only use up to your rate limit.  By the second exchange, the rate from the first exchange, plus the rate from the second will exceed your CP anyway, so for the second exchange you will have access to the rest of your pool.

Essentially what this breaks down to is "I have a CP of 12 but can use no more than 7 in the first exchange of any round".  A serious disadvantage, but the character is at least playable.

To establish what the character's "rate" should be...I would submit that it would start at 1 die per exchange, and then increase over time, to a maximum set by some combination of attributes and "blind fighting" technique.

[Mike Holmes]

I'd just add 10 to all the TNs.

Less for partial blindness, or less than total darkness. Makes darkness a real equalizer.

And then if you want to do the cinematic, Rutger Hauer thing, you just have some skill or gift that allows you to reduce the penalty, reasoning that hearing or some other sense substitutes.

Mike

[Pvt Kastro]

And then if you want to do the cinematic, Rutger Hauer thing, you just have some skill or gift that allows you to reduce the penalty, reasoning that hearing or some other sense substitutes.

Rutger Hauer rules ! What´s with his eyes, though ? In "Blood of Heroes/Salute of the Jugger" he lost one eye and still fought like a maniac (not much of a loss to his CP) and in "Blind Fury" he was totally blind but had tremendous fighting capabilities due to other senses being so perfected.

Anyways, enough of me being a silly little fan boy, which I am. I agree - the +10 TN sounds good to me. It basically gives you the "possibility" to still do things and doesn´t completely disregard all your talent and training in combat. Still, it would be pretty nearly impossible to survive when blinded. You could probably train fighting blinded, a little bit, although it shouldn´t give you any major bonus. In a cinematic campaign, though - a whole different matter. Say, a jedi knight doesn´t have to rely on his external senses as he can sense the Force "that binds the living things together". So, to "blind" a jedi, you´d have to "blind" all of his senses, including his ability to sense the Force (which I believe some animals in one of Timothy Zahn´s books were able to do).

I hope I didn´t go too much off the track there.

Pvt Kastro

[Swordmagnet]

If you're Daredevil it's nuthin'. For the rest of us it depends. I have a friend who has one eye and is an avid shooter. If he know's the range to the target he hits it. If he has time to pre-measure he hits it. If he dosen't know the range and it's within 15 yards he aims at center of mass and hits it. At longer ranges he guesses and usually hits it. Depth perception only affects elevation, not windage, so the longer the range the higher you aim.

In melee having one eye would only really come into play when parrying a thrust or thrusting yourself. Or in Brian's example of knowing your opponent has one eye and keeping in his blind spot. CP 2/3?

If the chap is completely blind he's dog food.