Blindness

[Calver]

A friend of mine was asking about the blind fighter cliche and asked if I could think up any rules or feats for being blind. The best I could come up with were the Blindsense, 5-foot radius feat from S+F and the Hear the Unseen feat from the Complete Adventurer.
If any of you know of more feats or rules and what books they're in, or can offer some homebrew suggestions, it'd be much appreciated.
What we brainstormed so far was a +4 to Listen checks, add Listen to all the character's class skill lists, and we are considering giving the character Blind-Fight as a bonus feat. These are all based off of the assumption that the character has been blind since birth; a character that was made blind during the course of a campaign would obviously not gain these benefits.

[Blue_C.]

What you have is a good start. There was a third party supplement a while back called "The Blind Path" by Highmoon media, that does something similar to what you are trying to do. You might want to check it out, and mine it for ideas.

[Jarchh]

Hehe, playing a blind character is one of those concepts I've always wanted to try out but never really wanted all the penalties. Some nice ideas here gj.

[Calver]

Thanks for the support and that supplement. Will probably download it as it's ridiculously inexpensive.
If anyone else has any other supplements or suggestions, I'm still interested in hearing them.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I made a Blind Swordsman Prc years ago. All my old Prcs used to have completely random special attack capstones like this one does. I think it may even have been 3.0...

The Blind Swordsman
The career of a fighter is generally a dangerous one and those who cannot afford the pricey cost of a cleric’s regeneration spell may find that their career is caught tragically short by a debilitating injury. On occasion a swordsman will train with his eyes blindfolded in order to further his skills. A character may never advance past 5th level in this prestige class without being actually permanently blinded.
Hit Die: d8

Requirements
To qualify to become a Blind Swordsman, a character must fulfil all the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +5
Skills: Concentration 4 ranks, Listen 4 ranks
Feats: Blind-fight, Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus (any sword)
Special: Must have been completely blind in all eyes (no matter how many he may have) for a period of at least six months and not cease any training during that time.

The Blind Swordsman
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|
+1|
+0|
+2|
+0|Blindsight 20 ft., Intuitive Defence

2nd|
+2|
+0|
+3|
+0|Improved Blind-fight, Uncanny Dodge

3rd|
+3|
+1|
+3|
+1|Whispers of the Wind

4th|
+4|
+1|
+4|
+1|Blindsight 30 ft., Improved Uncanny Dodge

5th|
+5|
+1|
+4|
+1|Class Move like the breeze, strike like a gale 1/day

6th|
+6|
+2|
+5|
+2|Bonus Feat

7th|
+7|
+2|
+5|
+2| Blindsight 40 ft. Move like the breeze, strike like a gale 2/day
[/table]

Class Skills
The Blind Swordsman’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Iaijutsu Focus (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex) and Swim (Str).
Skill points at each level: 2+ Int modifier

Class Features
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: A Blind Swordsman gains no additional weapon or armour proficiencies.
Blindsight (Ex): At first level the Blind Swordsman gains the ability to use his increased other senses such as smell and hearing to detect their enemies. At first level he gains Blindsight 20 ft., At 4th and 7th level this ability extends by 10 ft. A Blind Swordsman may not use Blindsight whilst Deafened and incorporeal creatures are effectively invisible to this ability.
Intuitive Defence (Ex): At 1st level the Blind Swordsman gain the ability to add their Wisdom bonus to AC as well as their defence bonus. They lose this bonus whenever they would lose their dexterity bonus to AC (which is almost never with the Uncanny Dodge ability) or when they are wearing armour or a carrying a shield heavier than light.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 2nd level, the Blind Swordsman gains the Uncanny Dodge ability of a rogue. She retains her Dexterity to bonus to AC even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilised.
If the Blind Swordsman already has the Uncanny Dodge ability from a different class (such as a Blind Swordsman that started out as a rogue or barbarian) she gains improved uncanny dodge instead.
Whispers of the Wind (Ex): As a full round action that requires full concentration and no distraction, a Blind Swordsman of 3rd level or higher may listen to the wind to gain knowledge of his surrounding. He learns the size, speed and location of every object or creatures within three times his blindsight range of above small size. The Blind Swordsman cannot deduce race but can tell an quadruped from a biped humanoid or a tree from a rock.
Improved Blind-fight: At 2nd level a Blind Swordsman gains an improved version of the Blind-fight feat. The Blind Swordsman takes none of the usual penalty to see for being un-able to see (even though his Blindsight will normally cover this). The Blind Swordsman completely ignores concealment except for cover.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 4th level a Blind Swordsman can no longer be flanked and cannot be sneak attacked by flanking unless the attacking character has at least 4 more rogue levels than the Blind Swordsman’s class level. If the Blind Swordsman has Uncanny Dodge from another class then those levels stack to determine the level a rogue must be to sneak attack the Blind Swordsman.
Move like the breeze, strike like a gale (Ex): At 5th level, the Blind Swordsman gains the ability to make a single strike of great speed as a full round action once per day. He may make a full move action and make a single attack with an insight bonus to attack rolls equal to his wisdom bonus and add 5d6 points of sonic damage. The move action he may take whilst using this ability does not provoke any attacks of opportunity. At 7th level he gains an additional use of this ability per day and the damage bonus increases by a further d6.
Bonus Feat: At 6th level, the Blind Swordsman may choose a feat from the fighter’s list of bonus feats, but may not take fighter specific feats unless he has the requisite fighter levels.

[Fax Celestis]

Here's the Blind trait I came up with:

Born Blind (Birth)

Requirement: Level 1 (Only)

You were born blind. You automatically fail all spot checks related to vision, and all your ranged attacks have a maximum range equal to the distance of your blindsense (or their normal range, if its shorter). However, your blindness has tuned your senses, so you receive a +10 inherent bonus to all listen checks. You also receive blindsense out to 15'. If you are a wizard, your spellbook is in braille, and you receive Common Braille as a language.

[DracoDei]

FWIW:

I once did a spellbook for a blind mage (to be found as treasure). It allowed access to the spells telepathically. Being blind helped you actually have a chance of accessing them (even closing your eyes while you tried helped). It was wizard-locked shut. Actually looking at the pages would grant a save to look away before the impossible geometry of the symbols swirling on the pages drove blinded you. If one wanted to use this then insanity chance for looking at the pages would also make sense.

[melchizedek]

I think that a blind fighter based around the Earth Sense feats in Races of Stone could be pretty cool. It might not fit with exactly what you're looking for, but they give you the ability to sense characters close to you so long as you both are on the ground, and later feats give you other nifty abilities against such creatures.