*evil glare*

[Bryantiza]

After a chat with (Synpox-Alesiter) I discovered that RPing a deaf or blind person would give a character a loss in their concentration skills (i still can't work out how the hell the creators came up with that idea but i'm not going to start an arguement over it). Anyways, I was wondering, other than having an excellent character to Rp, is there an upside to playing a blind or deaf person. For example, would someone who's been deaf all their life start with better eyesight, or a blind person have a better listen skill?
Although i'd take the deductions in concentration just because i have to there has got to be an upside to playing a deaf or blind character, if we had more, Layonara would be alot more fun to roleplay in as there would be more Rping situations.
My next character will be deaf, so you'll have atleast one around, but his bio is still in the works so...

(note* i'm not complaining about Layonara creators, but the creators of D&D, and no I don't want a huge arguement over why the rule is in place, I just feel a little disappointed in the how they think, since my mum has been deaf all of her life and I don't see how a deaf person would recieve a concentration reduction. maybe a listen check deduction or something.....Bah!)

[Synpox]

I remembered wrong. Heres the penalties for blindness and deafness according to the phb.

Blind characters suffer a 50% miss chance in combat, lose dex bonus to ac, grants a +2 bonus to attackers attack rolls, moves at half speed and suffers a -4 penalty to most strength and dex based skills.

Deaf characters, in addition to the obvious penalties, suffer a -4 initiative and a 20% chance to miscast and lose any spell with a verbal component. Thats what I got confused with concentration.

-Pox

[Thunder Pants]

yea also, for the deaf penelties, those are more for those her are stricken deaf due to the disorienting fact that all sound has suddenly vanished, and as such a person who was deaf from birth or has been deaf for a while would be used to it

[Bryantiza]

hmm...ok.

[KageKeeper]

My wemic, Tai'Shar, is pratically blind. (Nasty accident as a kid)

I pump his listen skill up and he also has some rogue levels to help with that, even though he's not a true rogue. *shrugs* He's a difficult character to play though. Fun, but challenging.

[miltonyorkcastle]

yes, it seems to me that the biggest 'upside' to playing a blind or deaf person is the RP factor.  A caster that is deaf or blind would definately need metamagic feats to aid his casting, because magic does truly require the full body and senses to get it to work correctly.  Also, I think playing a deaf person in this game would be far easier than playing a blind person.  With NWN, you can simply turn off the sound to give yourself the effect of being deaf.

[lonnarin]

What about all those spells with line of sight targeting?  Likely a blind wizard would be limited to personal, touch and area of effect spells, but single target ones would be hard to pull off.

Then, unless brail has been invented yet, he's pretty screwed when it comes to scroll reading.

[ZeroVega]

  My wizard was blind for several weeks due to a quest. *glares at sakura*
    Basicly what I did was, walk... a lot. Unless someone tied a rope to him, then he'd "have" to run to keep up. I cast spells on myself and occasionally on someone else but I'd RP finding them first. *Reaches out and grabs Xiao's arm... works his way up to his shoulder to his face and feels around sticking his fingers in his mouth and nose and poking him in his eye* After that was done I'd cast.
    As for Target spells I didn't really use them. I did use AoE spells Mass Haste ect... but it'd misfire quite a bit (on purpose) to give the right effect. It's just common sense however if you have a blind wizard, how would he/she learn spells?
  (Also I agree that more Deaf/Blind/Pure elven characters would be interesting. I play a sea elf, and have been for a week or so, he's learned I think a dozen words in common (all from dwarves) Chop, Goblin, Poke, Dead, Kill, Waater, Dorf, Gold)

[NEXUS7]

I have a one eyed one legged begger PC who
"Dont do any of that advencher lark cuz o me gammy leg like
what use would i be out der with all them heros running fit as
a fidel"
So he stays in town never gos out fishes and begs

But there is also

"That deff dum and Blind boy shour plays a mean pinball"