D&D Spell Focus: Blindness/Deafness
- James Finger
- Jun 8
- 5 min read
"Oh Hi enemy caster. Nice looking spell list you have there … it would be a shame if… you couldn’t target anyone with them…"
This week I wanted to take a peek at an often overlooked Level 2 spell, Blindness/Deafness. This spell has seen some improvements made to it in the 2024 rules but also I feel is one that has a lot more in-game utility than it is given credit for.
There are just two little changes to the 2014 version of the Blindness/Deafness spell in the 2024 PHB, but the second one, I think, takes this from a rarely used utility option to a combat-capable defensive staple. Firstly, the spell has moved from the school of Necromancy to the school of Transmutation. So I suppose instead of wilting your opponents optical nerve or bursting an eardrum, you are now… I don’t know, make their ear hair grow and block the canal?! I think it was fine as a necro spell, but then other vision-affecting spells, like Darkvision, are Transmutation, and True Seeing is… Divination… bah to the hells with your consistency!
More important than the gross magical effect it has on your target however is that it now does so from MUCH further away, 4x in fact! I think one of the reasons the 2014 spell was often skipped over was the miserly 30 foot range. If you, as a spellcaster, find yourself THAT close to an enemy, you had many better options, or concerns, to think about than disabling an opponent. Now, B/D can wrap your foe in darkness or silence from 120 feet… and that is a game changer. Oh, did I mention this spell does NOT require concentration, so it is a great, potentially minute-long debuff for setting up combos!
The spell gives you a choice each time it is cast between imposing the Blinded or Deafened condition on the target (or targets when upcast) who fails a CON save. Now, obviously perhaps, enforcing the Blinded condition on a foe is usually more advantageous than the Deafened condition. I know I’d rather be deaf than blind. So let’s look at the eye-poking version first.
RAW and pretty much identical in 2014 and 2024 PHBs state “A Blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.” This is already pretty nasty for any target, but by choosing the right target we can optimise the usage of the spell. Now, I am not here to enter the hotly debated Reddit topic of whether Disadvantage is a harsh enough penalty for ranged attacks when we play a fantasy game in which magic and dragons exist. Let’s just consider the RAW scenario as the least powerful baseline B/D can do. No, for me the real threat of the spell comes in removing options from the arsenal of enemy spellcasters, many of whom do not exactly have the beefiest constitutions by the way…. Just saying.
A huge number of ranged spells in the game have these lovely words early in their text box regarding target selection… “That You Can See”. Bane, Banishment, Befuddlement, Blight, ironically B/D, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning, Charm Spells, Hold Spells, Command, CONJURE ANIMALS, yes, that bonkers broken spell from last week and a favourite of enemy shamans cannot be cast if the creature has the Blinded condition. Add to this that even ranged spell attacks like Firebolt or Eldritch Blast that do not state the target must be seen still have disadvantage on attack rolls, and you have seriously disabled a high DPS enemy spellcaster hiding in the back lines of combat from a safe distance, and that’s pretty cool. Fingers crossed they fail their saves at the end of each turn, and keeping in mind your party now has Advantage to hit them and they will auto-fail fireball and other Dex saves, and your Level 2 spell slot could effectively turn the tide of an entire encounter.
All that and we haven’t even touched on the utility value of the spell outside of combat. Need to eliminate a witness without “eliminating” the witness, Blindness! Sneaking past guards (how passe…but Blindness!) REALLY need to win a card game… Blindness! Don’t want the judge to hear the testimony that incriminates your Rogue who accidently found the local moneylenders' ledger in their backpack… again. Deafness!
To be honest, it really is almost one-way traffic when choosing the condition with this spell. In most combat and utility applications, having a blind opponent is better than a deaf one 95% of the time. So I got thinking, what if I trawl the D&D Beyond spell lists and monster stat blocks looking for those more elusive words “That can HEAR you”… my logic being instead of deafening an enemy, what if you could use it to PROTECT an ally?!
In the 2024 rules, players can now willingly choose to fail any saving throw, and I, like a lot of DMs, would likely allow this in 2014 anyway if it made sense with a save. So I was trying to find examples of where NOT being able to hear offers you a tactical advantage. Sadly, I only had limited joy. What set me down this line of pondering was the Gibbering Mouther. I remembered its wickedly dangerous “Gibbering” ability that can disable a player each turn, relying on the target being able to HEAR it…. Which was true! In 2014. In 2024, the D&D game designers removed this particular target requirement. So then I turned to the Harpy and their "Luring Song" ability, and yes! The song must be heard to affec… only in the 2014 rules. Again, the hearing requirement has been removed. What gives!?
I am all for simplification to speed up combat, but in these circumstances that obviously rely on hearing have purposely been shunted to save a few words in the stats blocks... I can’t say I agree it was the best idea. At my table, I’d reward the clever use of the B/D spell to avert these creature abilities, but RAW, deafness has been almost completely nerfed as a defensive tactic… except for a few spells!
Being Deaf would protect you from “Speech-based spells” like Compulsion, Dissonant Whispers, Enthral, Suggestion and Mass Suggestion… in 2014. AGAIN, the hearing line was removed to simplify the spells in 2024 on ALL of them… except Suggestion… and I am beginning to think that was a typo, as this was obviously a conscious and deliberate choice to downplay the role hearing plays in the core rules. Ironically perhaps, the one-word spell “Command” doesn’t require the target to hear you, but DOES require the caster to see you sooooo… BLINDNESS, all day, every day and this spell will help protect your party from the worst your foes can throw at you.
Now as always, if you are after some Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer or Wizard class-based spell cards for your Sight Robbing / Sound dampening needs that come with a selection of suitable condition marker tokens for your gaming table, click here to visit the ZG Store.
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