Greetings all,

In the middle of making an Adept with some unarmed savvy, I came across the ability called "Blind Fighting" in Street Magic.

This Blind Fighting adept ability costs 0.5 magic point, and reduces the penalties for full darkness to -4 instead of -6. Note that this

Hmm.... For 0.25 magic point cost, you can get Thermographic vision which is superior across the board. Get Low Light vision for another 0.25 and you seem to be way ahead of the game, with 0 to -3 penalties being the worst possible scenario.

Or, for 0.5 Magic point cost, you can get Motion Sense that will reduce any penalty for visibility or blind fire by -2 (over the short range of Magic rating in meters anyway). And that would even apply to something spectacular and fun like 'feeling' a target behind a wall and punching through it to hit them (something I would love to orchestrate in an upcoming run, hehe).

So, do any of the SR4 authors or other board members have any suggestions for a balanced way to use Blind Fighting? Or is it just going to be mothballed?

Part of me says that it would work well as a more expensive ability that had levels - perhaps costing 0.5 magic points per level (2 levels max perhaps?)- and each level will reduce visibility mods (perhaps even including cover) by just 1 point. So if someone had Thermographic vision (0.25 magic point), and 2 levels of Blind Fighting (1 magic point)- they could fight in complete darkness at only a -1 die pool penalty.

Add the Motion Sense ability from above and you really get the "ninja that can fight in the dark" feel to the character.

Seems like a good fit - since it's combat-based, it's 0.5 point per level like increased ability

Well, that was a lot of writing for a little blind fighting.... Thumbs up or down?

Even with Thermo or Low-light, blind fighting modifiers can still apply. Blind fighting modifiers apply whenever you can not see your target. Some examples include: target completely behind opaque cover, and target invisible. Also if you fail a perception test to see your target, but succeed with another sense (such as locating them with your spatial recognizer audio enhancer) blindfire may apply. It should also be noted that when blindfire applies your firearms pool changes from agility + skill to intuition + skill - 6. Thus Blindfighting has uses not covered by Enhanced senses. Furthermore, motion sense won't always work (not enough successes on the test, or the target is further away.). So sure Blindfighting isn't the most useful adept power, but it is useful.

Blind Fighting is better than thermo vision in every situation where you can´t use your eyes. Classic situations include "enemy has thrown dirt" and "MA master is fighting with blind-fold", but theres also "hot smoke".

The enhanced senses have better general utility, but I second the notion of "it has its uses".

Basically, fighting blind is fighting blind. If a special sense lets you see the target, it's not blind fighting.