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Would a character, blind from birth, be able to regain sight once shiften into an animal form, eg. wolf?

I'm not quite sure how shifting works but I always pictured it as the shifter imagining the new form, wouldn't it be impossible for them to imagine how to see, if they've never seen in the first place? But I don't know and what I said is just speculation.

A blind shifter is... I don't even know right now. I would have to think about that one for a while. Shifters rely on their sight so much to take forms.

Gunz wrote:

A blind shifter is... I don't even know right now. I would have to think about that one for a while. Shifters rely on their sight so much to take forms.

see with shifters its a hard question, its also why I'm happy I'm not a DM so I dont have to make the decision on the subject.

one side you say how can you turn into a form you have never seen, but then seeing it would just be cosmetics for alot of it, we have all seen a house but you cant build one from the ground up... you have support beams, headers,roof trusses,studs...all the plumbing,electrical and air ducts, its alot more complex then a box with a triangle on top

so seeing a dragon would not mean you have a real understanding of its anatomy to make it be able to fly, use its breath attacks...ect (but IC/IG we can)

I have never talked to a person who was blind from birth and asked them, they have to have a crude imagination for visualization of the world I assume or they would not be able to do anything,colours you I dont belive you could describe without them being able to see it.
so maybe books described in detail monsters for them to take the form but they would see it all as black/white/gray (would be kind of neat a shifter whos forms were all covered with shadowshield effect)

In a fantasy setting, where cuts, scrapes, bruises, and even death can be healed, how exactly can one remain blind indefinitely? If the damaged sight is due to mental trauma, then the brain conceivably would not accept signals traveling the optic nerve in any form.

Bravo21 wrote:

In a fantasy setting, where cuts, scrapes, bruises, and even death can be healed, how exactly can one remain blind indefinitely? If the damaged sight is due to mental trauma, then the brain conceivably would not accept signals traveling the optic nerve in any form.

Kinda have to agree with the above. As much as handicapped characters can bring news things to RP...every Jesus-wannabe would just hit ya with http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/remove ... afness.htm

States pretty specifically mundane blindness is fixed.

No restorative magic would work on a character who was born blind, however. Nor would it work on any kind of birth deformity or genetic condition that surfaces later in life.

Yossarin has a post on "pattern" that relates to this, but I'm not sure where it is at the moment.

Addendum: Here it is!

Perfect. I guess the only remaining question is how that applies to a shifter. Shifting seems to imply a change at the most basic of levels. So, conceivably could a shifter born without an arm, shift into a creature with all of its limbs intact, or always have to maintain the deformity throughout all its shapes?

Since shifters gain access to things with multiple extra appendages fairly early on (even wyrmling form requires the shifter to grow wings), a shifter sans an arm should be able to shift fine. I could see the same applying for eyesight, in that you grow all the necessary parts to have a functional eye despite lacking the working hardware (the same applies to wings, facetentacles, basilisk legs). Not to mention all those other fancy powers shifters get. Think of it this way: just like every shifted wyrmling gets this awesome breath weapon, every form comes with FREE EYESIGHT.

As to how it could be done: it would be incredibly difficult to become a shifter without being able to see, but still doable. You would have to work by touch, and dissect a lot of dead things.

Ooo, an opportunity to overthink something! I love these questions.

I think it might be more interesting to think about this question by framing “blindness” not as a binary state – that is, a creature either can see or cannot see, yes or no, 100% or zero %, but rather as a spectrum of level of visual acuities. Not, “can a creature see,” but rather, “What can it see, and how much of what it can see can also be seen by this other creature?”

To elaborate.

A (normal) human eye has three kinds of color receptors: red, green, and blue. Our experience of color is defined by the different degrees to which light reflected into our eyes stimulates these various receptors: light waves moving at relatively low frequencies are registered by our eyes as intensely red; increasingly higher frequencies stimulate the red sensors less and the green sensors more, then still higher frequencies stimulate the green sensors less and the blue ones more. The interplay between these three perceptions are what we see as colors: increasingly higher frequencies are registered as red, orange, yellow, etc, up the rainbow.

But! Many animals have more than three kinds of color receptors. A sparrow has four, and butterflies have five. If they were looking at a beam of sunlight refracted by prism into a rainbow, they’d see way, way more colors than we do. They’d see a whole range of colors extending upward from the violet end, and downward from the red end. Humans call these areas of the spectrum “ultraviolet” and “infrared,” but there’s nothing inherently violet or red about them; humans just call them that because we don’t have words for colors that we can’t see. What precisely those animals are seeing is a total mystery to us, because obviously, they can’t tell us. But it’s clear that they have a much broader experience of “sight” than we do. A butterfly, if it had any notion of human visual acuity at all, would consider us to be mostly blind.

So if a human were to wild shape into a butterfly or sparrow, would she have access to this broader range of vision? Conversely, a dog only has blue and green receptors, not red. Does a gnoll have doglike eyes? And if so, would a gnoll shifter who assumed human form suddenly gain the ability to see red things as red, instead of just gray?

It’s clearly true that we can’t imagine seeing into those ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, just as a blind person can’t imagine seeing into the ranges that most humans consider “normal,” nor would a gnoll be able to imagine seeing “redness.” But if we’re operating under the assumption that wild shape allows a shifter to become a “normal” example of the animal she’s shifting to, then I’d have to say yes, the new shape would have a “normal” range of visual acuity for its species.

So the logical crux there is that transforming from human to sparrow, or from gnoll to human, inherently involves the generation of new fully functional sensory receptors which had no direct equivalent in the original form. In other words, all wild shape already involves the ability to gain sensory abilities that weren’t present in the original shape. Once you’re at that point, it’s not much of a leap to say that assuming a new shape would generate fully functional whole eyes, regardless of the relative functionality of the creatures “old” eyes.

All this is completely leaving aside the complications posed by the existence of magical senses. Magical effects of the divination school don’t have any effect on a creature’s physical senses at all; they operate entirely within the mind of the affected creature. A creature with a True Seeing spell isn’t actually physically “seeing” anything more than the same creature without one, but rather its mind has become attuned to be able to glean additional information from identical visual input. The brain of a True Sighted person is retroactively interpreting this data as visual, retroactively mapping it as an overlay onto her mundane vision, but it’s really not optical information at all. In theory, a blind person with a True Seeing spell might very well be able to “see” at least something, and possibly even as much as a normally-sighted person would see while under the effects of a True Seeing. So in a magical world like the FR, blindness wouldn’t have to pose as much of a barrier to a shifter’s ability to be able to imagine a creature to the degree necessary for shifting.

Furthermore, druids of high enough level are able to shift into forms that have no physical eyes at all (elementals), but they’re still able to “see” in every relevant sense of the word. Even if the shifter’s original form had nonfunctional eyes, that wouldn’t necessarily have to have any bearing on the range of visual abilities she’d have while assuming a shape that doesn’t depend on eyes to be able to see.

And lastly: if it had to be possible for a creature to have direct experience of a type of sensory input in order to be able to possess it in wild shape, then a human shifting into an umber hulk wouldn’t have tremorsense, a human shifting into a dwarf wouldn’t have darkvision, a human shifting into a dragon wouldn’t have blindsense, and so on. Humans don’t have any direct equivalent of those senses.

TL,DR wrote:

Given that all wild shape inherently involves the ability to gain sensory abilities that weren’t present in the original shape, it’s therefore conceivable that a blind person shifting to a form that typically has normal vision would be granted access to normal vision.

Despite me being the one who asked the question I'm going to throw in my 2 cents of understanding on the topic.

Primarily, "seeing" when blind is replaced by "touching", which would mean to understand the visual anatomy of the animal the shifter wants to change into he or she doesn't have to be able to see although I can understand that some shifting -options- can be excluded as many animals either dislike being touched or are too harmful to be approached closely.

As far as my understanding on the shifting abilities of the druids I remember reading somewhere that their ability to shift is granted by their deity's which would mean that "seeing" would not be as necessary as it may seem, eg. Skinwalkers of Rillifane Ralalthil acquire an animal totem at lvl... 8 if I'm not mistaken and upon performing some ritual involving that totem of choice the skinwalker gains the ability to shift into that creature, be it an ostrich-legged butterfly or a purple grizzly bear.

As for the permanent blindness in-game, it CAN be cured, nothing is impossible with a bit of magic and a pint of pixie-dust, but a player has the free decision to choose wether he/she would like to keep his/her character impaired in that fashion if it's beneficial for the PC's roleplay.

Eilith Vonath'ti wrote:

As for the permanent blindness in-game, it CAN be cured, nothing is impossible with a bit of magic and a pint of pixie-dust, but a player has the free decision to choose wether he/she would like to keep his/her character impaired in that fashion if it's a gimmick for the PC's roleplay.

Fixed that, but your right, in theory. In practice, when actually taking to the mind and motives of the blind individual, there really isn't something compelling enough for them to strive to continue being blind. Remaining blind for the sake of overcoming adversity and demonstrating the disability isn't crippling is a very modern way to justify it and something that definitely would not come up in a setting where danger lurks around every corner.

Bini wrote:

Eilith Vonath'ti wrote:

As for the permanent blindness in-game, it CAN be cured, nothing is impossible with a bit of magic and a pint of pixie-dust, but a player has the free decision to choose wether he/she would like to keep his/her character impaired in that fashion if it's a gimmick for the PC's roleplay.

Fixed that, but your right, in theory. In practice, when actually taking to the mind and motives of the blind individual, there really isn't something compelling enough for them to strive to continue being blind. Remaining blind for the sake of overcoming adversity and demonstrating the disability isn't crippling is a very modern way to justify it and something that definitely would not come up in a setting where danger lurks around every corner.

You can't change Pattern. You stay blind.

Bini wrote:

Fixed that, but your right, in theory. In practice, when actually taking to the mind and motives of the blind individual, there really isn't something compelling enough for them to strive to continue being blind. Remaining blind for the sake of overcoming adversity and demonstrating the disability isn't crippling is a very modern way to justify it and something that definitely would not come up in a setting where danger lurks around every corner.

While we're talking theory, I disagree with this notion. I am not even partially blind, but someone who is born blind or has been blind for a long time develops their brain differently from a sighted person; other parts of their brain essentially cross-wire with the occipital lobe - this part is fact as far as science knows it. The theory part is that I imagine people who are used to being without sight, while at a visual disadvantage, probably don't feel as if they are missing out. They have other senses that have since webbed together, creating a sensory experience unlike what a sighted person would have.

In D&D terms, I think this would give blind characters in edge with certain things. Think of a blind mage, whose entire world "looks" different to a sighted mage's - they are probably much more prone to utilizing (and being more adept at) spells that alter the senses, since theirs already are. This is all in the real of DM discretion, naturally, but if I were running a campaign that had a blind character, they would probably have circumstance bonuses to certain things. The true handicap for a blind PC is that they are not a race that naturally has Blindsense, Tremorsense, or something else to give them that edge in the mechanics of the game - I would hazard it would be easier for them to develop a means to do so, though, as they are more sensitive to non-visual means of processing their environment, whether they do this through spells or through assuming other forms.

There also a sort of metaphysical component to consider about Toril. Forgotten Realms is wonderful because it (unlike Greyhawk, et al.) has the Weave, and the Weave spans the known world. It touches all things that live in the Prime Material, even if they can't discern or manipulate it. Magic absolutely suffuses all of existence, in Forgotten Realms - it's a High-Magic setting, and that means more than there are simply high-level mages running around, it means the world itself is saturated with magic. Even though a blind Shifter wouldn't be able to visually see a new shape, I imagine they could draw from the Weave, subconsciously, to assume it after they have explored it with their other senses. The patterns of life in the tapestry of the world would essentially fill in the rest.

This might be interesting for people looking for some medical evidence of the effects of blindness on the brain. I've been in contact with someone who is going blind for several years, and she has been legally blind for... I'll say six years. Just recently, her vision has gone away completely and she has been diagnosed with Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

Pretty much now that she doesn't have her sight anymore, her brain is still so used to seeing things that it's compensating for the loss of her sight by giving her cartoonish, complex, or really vivid visual hallucinations. She'll see tiny people, animals, buildings, plants, complex patterns; oddly enough, the people and animals aren't of specific ones she's seen before. What's awesome though is that Wikipedia says that the visual hallucinations often "fit into people's surroundings."

People who are blind from birth don't experience this, though. It's something exclusive to people who have had sight and have lost it, apparently most commonly from old age or eye/optical pathway, and macular degeneration with glaucoma. It usually lasts for a year or up to eighteen months, but it varies. Some people get it for a few days, some people get it for several years. It depends on how the individual adapts to not being able to see anymore and the brain sort of comes to terms with it.

Take it as you will, but it seemed relevant!

Thanks for that, sweetie - very interesting!

Found something interesting on the topic:

Yossarin wrote:

...I again reference the notion of the Pattern: an individual's metaphysical signature that represents body, mind, soul, and carries resonance from the kind of magic they use (usually based on their paradigm). In a way you could consider it your magical DNA.

Let's say your Life pattern when you were born looked like this: W

And then later in life you get your right arm chopped off, and it looks like this: N

The Regeneration spell seeks to restore your life Pattern to the way it is supposed to be. So someone casts regeneration and it will restore your Life pattern to: W

Unless, of course, you have accepted in your head the fact that you have no arm anymore (mental), made peace with the phantom feeling of it being gone (spiritual - I often suggest that the whole feeling of a phantom limb people experience is a sign of the Pattern, you feeling what it wants to be but isn't), or possibly intentionally flayed your arm (magical paradigm - Palemaster), and then your natural pattern becomes: N

Regeneration will always restore it to N, rather than W.

Let's say you are BORN without a limb. That means when you're born, your pattern is N. I have always rationalized that people born with physical defects can never have them healed. Clerics can rationalize that this is because that is the way the gods willed them to be. Arcanists can use the Pattern example.

Either way, what this interpretation does is justifies the fact that the individual player can rule whether or not his or her scars and wounds and maimings are affected by healing or regeneration or restoration magics. If the player rules that his character has wholly accepted whatever he or she has lost (or in creepier instances, gained), then the player can legitimately say those spells won't work and really stick it to those assholes who non-chalantly tell you you can go get a fixer-upper with a cleric (I despise it when people do that, and I have seen it a lot in Amia).

And to cut off a question about babies: I envision that a baby forming in a mother's womb does have its own Pattern forming in an overlay. It remains separate from the mother's and this is why you can't cast regenerate on a mother to affect a baby inside of her. And why mothers can die while babies still live in their wombs for a short time. Unfortunately, conservatives would appreciate my interpretation here.

I won't say it's impossible to shift if you're blind, but it would be highly unlikely that you could execute shapes properly without sight. There are ways for the blind -- especially those who have had sight before or who aren't totally blind -- to have an idea or know what something looks like, but without being able to double check your work, how can your really know if it's right?

But Cory does make a point in that the visuals aren't everything. There's a lot more to it in regards to how things function and where certain things are located anatomically in a creature. There is no solid answer for how shifters learn this part of shifting, but it's far too complex to make a big deal out of in a game such as this. I would never dream of making people learn the anatomy of a creature in order to shift into it. That's going too far, imo. Simply saying and maybe going in to slight detail about how they did learn these complexities is totally fine.

As well, I think there might very well be a magical/supernatural way for a shifters to "know" this as they learn the creature with less effort than someone actually studying the anatomy the hard way. Using this train of thought, it -could- be possible for a blind shifter to have a similar experience when it concerns the appearance of the given creature. This is in no way something I'm saying is true though. I'm thinking in text with you all here.

On shifting and blindness.

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