Blind
Your ability to use your senses clearly enough to target creatures in combat has been compromised or inhibited.
Effects
- Typically, an effect which inflicts blindness only applies it to one sensory group. In rare cases, a blindness effect may target all of your senses at once. Senses fall into the following categories:
Primary Targeting Sense: A primary targeting sense is a sense that provides you accurate targeting with no increased miss chance in combat (for example, normal vision, tremorsense, echolocation, perfect scent, etc.), and that sense is the ONLY sense the creature possesses that provides accurate targeting. That is, a creature with normal senses (normal vision, normal hearing, normal smell, normal touch) who becomes blind to visual senses must rely on their remaining senses, and none of those senses provide accurate targeting in combat (they all treat targets as having Partial Concealment or Total Concealment), even if you can successfully identify which space an enemy creature is in).
If the sense that is blinded is your primary sense for targeting creatures in combat, or if all of your senses have been blinded:
- You treat all creatures as having Total Concealment.
- Even though target creatures don't truly have total concealment (they aren't actually hidden, you just can't perceive them), you cannot make attacks of opportunity against them.
- Your perception checks are made with a -4 penalty.
- You can still identify the squares in which creatures are present, assuming they are not using invisibility and/or stealth.
- You can still tell friend from foe. As a result, you can still provide flanks for your allies, assuming you are wielding a weapon that threatens.
- You are immune to any new non-damaging effects (after the effect that caused the blindness is completely resolved) which require that sense to affect you (e.g. visual illusions cannot affect a creature which is blind to sight).
- Unless a damaging effect specifically states that the target must possess a particular sense in order to affect the target, damage is generally applied, regardless of blindness to one or more senses.
- Secondary Sense: If the sense that is blinded is a sense you normally possess, but you possess at least one other non-blinded sense that provides accurate targeting with no increased miss chance:
- You treat all creatures as having Partial Concealment.
- Even though target creatures don't truly have partial concealment (they aren't actually obscured, you are just having trouble perceiving them), you cannot make attacks of opportunity against them.
- Enemies get a +1 bonus to-hit when attacking you from a flank, above and beyond the normal +2 for having a flank. In most cases, this results in a +3 to-hit bonus granted to flanking opponents.
- Your perception checks are made with a -2 penalty.
- You can still tell friend from foe.
- You are immune to any new non-damaging effects (after the effect that caused the blindness is completely resolved) which require that sense to affect you (e.g. visual illusions cannot affect a creature that is blind to sight).
- Unless a damaging effect specifically states that the target must possess a particular sense in order to affect the target, damage is generally applied, regardless of blindness to one or more senses.
- Naturally Blind: If you are blind to a sense because your species does not naturally possess that sense:
- You suffer no ill effects for its lack, unless you have no other senses which can be used to target accurately in combat.
- For example, an ooze might be blind to sight, smell, and sound, but have Tremorsense. In such a case, the ooze's targets are not automatically treated as having concealment against the ooze's attacks, nor does the ooze suffer a penalty to its perception checks.
- You are immune to non-damaging effects which require that sense to affect you (e.g. visual illusions cannot affect a creature which is blind to sight).
- Unless a damaging effect specifically states that the target must possess a particular sense in order to affect the target, damage is generally applied, regardless of blindness to one or more senses.
Ended By
If the ability, trap, or effect description includes specific directions for how the condition is ended, then that is the primary means of ending this condition. In many cases, it is the only way to end the condition. If nothing is specifically listed for ending the condition, then the following methods can be used to end it, instead:
- You may make a new saving throw to attempt to end the Blind condition at the end of each of your turns. The DC for this saving throw is the same DC as the original effect.
- You can spend a move action to attempt an Escape Artist check against the Maneuver Defense of the creature who inflicted this status. If there is no creature involved, the target is a challenging DC based on the CR (challenge rating) of the effect. If you succeed on this check, you shake off the condition. You may only attempt this once – if you fail the Escape Artist check, you may not try again, and must recover some other way.
- If not cleared by the end of the encounter, you only make new saving throws to attempt to end the Blind condition once per day after a full-night's rest. The blind condition lasts until you succeed on a saving throw.