Blindness Compensation

Blindness compensation [minor] by Iczer

"Probably the worst bit is everyone thinks I'm Daredevil. Man I hate Affleck"

The character loses his sight completely. Instead of crippling the character, his other senses become more focused and acute.

1) Heightened senses: The character's sense of smell hearing touch and taste heighten to uncanny levels, with the character acquiring the animal powers of the same names.

2) Zen-like circle: The character has an awareness around him to about 5 feet in which he has uncanny and unerring senses. for many this is hand to hand fighting range, so the character is unimpeded in that department. attacks originating from outside this circle are defended against (typically dodged) at -5. Charge attacks or collisions that originate from outside this range are penalized by only a -2 to dodge. This awareness circle increases by 5 feet every level. The character cannot distinguish color or shade (He is blind after all) but otherwise notices any activity in this range.

3) Combat notes: When fighting with opponents inside his zen-like circle, he possesses uncanny combat prescience. He possesses an auto dodge of +2 and enjoys an extra attack as well as +4 to initiative.

4) Sensory powers: Apart from the limited sensory enhancements offered by this power, any other sensory power possessed by this character (even esoteric senses) enjoy an increase of 50% range and a +15% chance of success (when compared to the special abilities possessed by heightened sense of smell, and hearing).

5) The out: The character can choose each level whether to remain blind, or whether to 'miraculously' regain his sight. When sighted abilities 1&4 disappear, and the zen-like circle drops to 1/4 normal range. He may regain normal use of his powers the next time he gains a level (At the cost of his sight of course). If blinded, he automatically regains the above powers if artificially blinded for more than 6 hours.

Not really strong enough to qualify for a major power really. While it does give a lot of sensory abilities, the character is bereft of actual vision, and the compensating heightened senses are of the mutant animal variety (and as such not too crash hot). The power is more useful when attached to another sensory power, but is not strong enough to qualify on it's own for a major.

Breaking the power down:

• It offers 4 enhanced senses but only to the extent of the mutant animal power equivalents.
• The zen-like circle is cool, but has a range of 5 feet per level. It's like Radar's retarded little brother (and how is sonar nowadays anyway?).
• The sense boost is pretty lame. It's only good if attached to another set of powers, otherwise it's non helpful.
• The out provided simply allows the power to be switched off periodically (though the 1/4 range reduction for the zen-like circle is pretty harsh. at 5th level he has a range of only 6 feet.)
• To top it all off, the character has to be blind to use the power.