Blindness clarification

[kingius]

In Labyrinth Lord the light spell is one of a few causes of blindness. Blind characters take a -4 to hit penalty on attacks, but do not seem to take a hit to their AC. However, in the monster description for the giant shrew, when it is deafened (and therefore blinded), its AC drops from 4 to 8.

My question is to determine if the AC penalty really is supposed to be restricted to a single monster in this way or if there should be a -4 penalty to AC for being blind applied across the board? The second option seems to be the more realistic because it is harder to dodge something you cannot see.

[bighara]

For simplicity, the –4 signifies the difficulty in targeting. You could make the argument that the blind person/thing is still armored and moving about, trying their best to avoid getting smacked. If you wanted to make it more detailed, maybe disallow any DEX bonus to AC?

[kingius]

That could work as a house rule but I'm interested in clarifying the rulebook position a bit.

[kipper]

The way I read it is: by-the-book, there is no AC penalty for blindness. The Giant Shrew is therefore a special case for that monster only. In B/X blindness means no attacks are allowed at all (and still no mention of an AC penalty).

[kingius]

Thanks Kipper.