[4e] Blinded = Deafened?

[Psychic Robot]

I just noticed that being blinded gives you a -10 penalty on Perception checks. Does that apply to sound-based Perception checks, too?

[Harlune]

I could see it going either way... I mean suddenly being blinded would probably be such a huge distraction that you'd have trouble focusing on any of your other senses too for a little while

[Psychic Robot]

What if being blinded lasts more than a minute, though?

That's just sloppy writing, methinks.

[MartinHarper]

The "not being able to see" is the line "You can't see any target (your targets have total concealment). This means you need to beat a Stealth check to know the target is present at all, and you need to beat it by 10 to know which square the target it is in, and you still get -5 to hit even then.

The additional -10 to perception is weird. Maybe they're trying to compensate for "total concealment" including things like invisibility, where you might still pick up visual cues from disturbed dust and suchlike. Except then it breaks where "total concealment" means "other side of a brick wall".

[JonSetanta]

I don't see why Blindness wouldn't outright make one automatically fail all sight-based Perception checks.

When one is blind, they can't see. Granted there are varied degrees of sight impairment, but being outright blind means there is no sight.

[MartinHarper]

I don't see why Blindness wouldn't outright make one automatically fail all sight-based Perception checks.

And indeed it does.