Acute Hearing

[Steve Jackson]

It has been pointed out that the movement-in-total-darkness ability granted by Acute Hearing is little better than that granted elsewhere to anyone who can make a DX/3 roll.

I am inclined to tweak this to say that Acute Hearing lets you move at full speed in total darkness (still with no chance of seeing traps &c, of course). Yes, this is cinematic. I don't know HOW cinematic it is. I have no blind friends to ask. Can anyone enlighten me? So to speak.

A compromise might be to make the movement speed "MA -2."

[hcobb]

ITL p.37 "fight in the dark at -4 DX instead of -8."

Does this apply against all visual adjustments? Blur, Dazzle, etc?

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

It has been pointed out that the movement-in-total-darkness ability granted by Acute Hearing is little better than that granted elsewhere to anyone who can make a DX/3 roll.

I am inclined to tweak this to say that Acute Hearing lets you move at full speed in total darkness (still with no chance of seeing traps &c, of course). Yes, this is cinematic. I don't know HOW cinematic it is. I have no blind friends to ask. Can anyone enlighten me? So to speak.

A compromise might be to make the movement speed "MA -2."

I'm not an expert but I have heard from blind people (and even people who are very far-sighted and not wearing glasses) that it makes a huge difference how familiar the place is and what the environment is. But I don't know about relative maximum speed.

Originally Posted by hcobb

ITL p.37 "fight in the dark at -4 DX instead of -8."

Does this apply against all visual adjustments? Blur, Dazzle, etc?

Separate issue. There does seem to be an inconsistently-applied change (in the rule copied from Advanced Melee into the new ITL section on Darkness, but not to Acute Hearing) that I mentioned in the errata thread. In old TFT, invisibility and Darkness spells gave -6 DX, but being in full natural darkness was -8 DX. We used to say this was due to not only not being able to see the target, but not being able to see anything at all. That still makes sense to me in that I think I could attack someone invisible, or in a pillar or darkness especially, noticeably easier than I could attack anything deliberately if there were no light at all. On the other hand, being inside one or more magic darkness hexes would seem like it would also be like that, though it is an imaginary magic thing so who knows but the rules on that?

[Tenex]

Blind people can't move around better because their hearing is better. They navigate while blind because they rely more on their sense of touch. As was mentioned above, their familiarity with an area is relevant. I'm not blind, but I can navigate my own house at normal speed in the dark (I've lived in this house for 4 years).

Humans aren't going to benefit from Acute Hearing for blind/dark movement because they aren't bats. To benefit from Acute Hearing you would have to be using it as a form of echolocation and it doesn't seem the Acute Hearing talent is at a bat-like level.

Humans don't emit noise that bounces off things thus making their presence and location known. Absent that, how in the world would good hearing allow you to hear a stationary object or a hole in the ground?!?!?!?

[Skarg]

Oh FWIW the darkness rules and -8 penalty are also mentioned on new ITL page 70.

[Tenex]

I think moving in darkness and fighting in darkness are two different things. Your opponent in melee combat is going to make noise moving, swinging, reacting to injury, etc. A stationary chair isn't going to make any noise as you move down a hallway.