Quick Links
Dungeons & Dragonshas limited mechanics for representing characters with disabilities.
Even books that specifically mention them, such as Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, are somewhat shallow.
Blind characters are especially difficult to homebrew mechanics for.
Perhaps they don’t even have eyeballs.
Corrective lenses might improve their sight enough to have relatively low impact on daily life.
A character with partial blindness might havedisadvantage on perception checksbut suffer no penalty in combat.
Thaumaturge’s Familiar by Andrea Radeck
Characters Born Blind
A character who is born without sight is going to be adept at working without it.
You might start them with astrong penalty that lessens as they adapt and learn new techniques.
Disadvantage when attacking is typical of a recently blinded character.
Giving blind characters Find Familiar as a free spell is not going to damage the balance of your game.
How extensively this interaction is roleplayed is up to the players.
This doesn’t grant any new abilities to the characters, so it shouldn’t impact balance.
Thaumaturge’s Familiar by Andrea Radeck
Blindsight
The blind-fighting style gives blindsight to a range of ten feet.
Giving the fighting style for freewon’t break your game.
You could allow a feat to be invested into this starting blindsight to upgrade it to about 30ft.
Bulette via Wizards of the Coast
Check where your table stands on the topic before building a character who relies on blindsight.
How To Roleplay A Blind Characters
Roleplaying a character without sight can be complicated.
The DM might allow you to roll a mucheasier investigation check to see through disguises.
At the same time, other situations would be much harder to navigate.
In D&D, even royalty knows how to roll for initiative.