Sabine Addendum: Sabine Blindness

Some patrons who read the material in advanced asked about playing Blind characters.  I included Blindness for flavor more than anything else, and felt that if a player really really wanted it, a GM could work out some way to make that happen.  I even had thoughts on how best to do it.

"If you already have an idea of how to do it, why not write it in there?"

Good point!  Here it is:


Disadvantages: Replace any of your template disadvantages with the following disadvantages (If you have Bloodline Purity 2 or higher, you may choose an additional -5 points worth of the following disadvantages, increasing your disadvantage limit by -5 points!): Bad Sight (Mitigator, Lenses -60%) [-10], Blindness [-50]†, Blindness (Sabine) [-10]†, Distinctive Feature (White hair), Low Pain Threshold [-10], Mental Instability [Varies], Odious Personal Habit (Finnicky) [-5], Selfless [-5*], Shyness (Mild or Severe) [-5 or -10].

† Blindness is disallowed in GURPS Action, and for good reason, as it can be cripplingly difficult to be an Action hero if you cannot see. Even characters like Zatoichi or Blind Fury’s Nick Parker or Daredevil either explicitly have alternate means to see, or are explicitly skilled in overcoming their blindness. In Psi-Wars, characters like Mystics might get by while being blind, but I would ask your GM for permission. Moreover, blindness is -50 points, and thus completely fills up your disadvantage point limit. Consider, instead, the following package:

Blindness (Sabine) -10 points

Prerequisite: Sabine Bloodline
Blindness runs in the Sabine Bloodline, and sometimes children are born with eyes as white as their hair. Some such children display unusual talent with ESP and gain a psionic awareness of their environment very similar to Sabine Blindsight. Such Sabines often veil their eyes to hide the fact that they can see without sight.

Awareness 10 allows the character to “see” up to a mile in a 120° arc before him (like sight); with effort, he can see up to 240° up to a mile, or 360° up to 20 yards. He needn’t concentrate to activate it, but he must roll his skill to notice any details (like a normal person rolls Perception); and at least once per minute of active use; in the same circumstances that a normal character could simply see something, a Blind Sabine should roll Awareness at least once to see if he’s picking up any details at all. Failure means the Sabine loses precision of her sense and may have a difficult time navigating or be surprised, etc Characters with Awareness skill 16+ may take No Nuisance Rolls (Awareness) [1], in which case they never need to roll for Awareness except in the same conditions someone would need to roll for Perception. This is a psionic ability, and is subject to the same benefits (extra effort) and drawbacks (anti-psi characters might be invisible to the character, characters with psi-sense can detect the character, and psionic restraint collars will shut down the Awareness, etc).

Advantages: Awareness 11 [29]

Disadvantages: Blindness [-50]

Skills: Awareness (H) Per+0 [4]

Techniques: Extended Arc (H) Awareness-2 [7]