Fun with Feats 11: Blinded Blade Style
Back when we talked about the blind-fight feat, we brought up briefly the classic idea of the blind swordsman, the warrior who’s incredible skill and honed senses more than make up for their lack of sight. This trope has both it’s problems and it’s positive aspects, but it’s pretty iconic overall.
However, while the Blind-Fight chain of feats is fairly essential to applying the trope to Pathfinder, it is also something plenty of warriors pick up anyway, tapping into the tropes of warriors that learn to not rely on their eyes to improve their skills.
Admittedly, today’s subject can also be taken by sighted characters, but it really helps drive home the blind swordsman and “trust your other senses and instincts” tropes quite well.
The Blinded Blade style is all about using breathing techniques to calm the mind, allowing the user to focus and heighten their senses when unable to see, helping to negate the normal disadvantages of being blind in a way that complements the Blind-Fight chain of feats. Indeed, once they have pinpointed their foes, they can react and strike at them with surprising speed with their weapons or unarmed attacks whenever they pass within reach, and often take advantage of the assumption that many foes have about a blind foe’s reaction speed.
The basic Blinded Blade Style gives the user more surety in their movements while blinded, and enhances their hearing and sense of smell to better detect foes. Additionally, learning this puts them on the fast track to learning improved blind-fighting techniques.
With training also comes Blinded Competence, allowing them to sense the location of foes within the reach of their attacks with no risk of failure. Like the basic level, this also makes it easier to learn greater blind-fighting.
Finally, true Blinded Masters are able to pinpoint foes from much further away, and their focus on reading the bodies of their foes rather than what they can see of them means they are extremely resistant to being feinted.
The bonuses of this style complement the defensive and offensive benefits of Blind-Fight, and also speeds up the rate that you can take the main feats in the Blind-Fight chain. Together, they make a warrior that many forms of illusion and deception have no effect against. It’s not quiet the same as hitting foes like a garbage truck, but it can make a character reliable even against invisible foes or those relying on the party’s inability to see. Definitely worth considering if you are a melee combat character and are considering blind-fight.
That about does it for today, but we’re only halfway done with this special, see you tomorrow!