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I've been trying to homebrew an Eldritch Invocation that grants the Warlock blindsight, but I'm not sure how far this blindsight should extend. I initially thought to compare it to the pre-existing invocation Devil's Sight, which grants 120 feet of darkvision through magical and non-magical darkness, but blindsight is (obviously) far superior to darkvision, so I deserted that comparison.

Here is the current form of this Eldritch Invocation:

Eyes of the Ooze

No Prerequisites

You gain blindsight that reaches up to 15 feet.

Is this Eldritch Invocation balanced?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Note: Devil's Sight doesn't grant darkvision. It lets the Warlock completely ignore darkness, which is better than darkvision... but RAI it doesn't let the Warlock ignore Dim Light, which is worse than darkvision. \$\endgroup\$
    – Cubic
    Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 10:55

1 Answer 1

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Possibly not

As is, this invocation can be troublesome, especially at early levels. Blindsight grants a way to deal with invisible creatures/objects/traps in close range, something low-level characters can only do through the see invisibility spell, a 2nd-level spell. Once you get the invocation, you have an unlimited resource for that kind of situation.

Rogues gains a feature similar to blindsight only at 14th level (!), Blindsense:

Starting at 14th level, if you are able to hear, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of you.

I would recommend a level prerequisite of 15 for this invocation (as it is better than the 14th level feature a rogue gets). The warlock invocation Witch Sight – that grants a sense similar to truesight (excluding the ability to see in magical darkness and the Ethereal Plane), has a 15th level prerequisite.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ If I added the level 15 prerequisite as you suggested, would it be reasonable to increase the range of the blindsight to 30 feet like Witch Sight, or should I keep it at the original 15 feet? \$\endgroup\$
    – aletteroradigit
    Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 19:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @aletteroradigit I would use the same wording of the Rogue feature. Witch Sight is not really truesight, just like the Rogue feature isn't blindsight. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kuerten
    Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 20:33

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