Why? I want to play a Half Orc from Osirion. He has Int12. I can't pick Osirioni as a bonus language, instead it's got to be something like goblin or giant. To get Osirioni I need to waste a skill point on linguistics.
Likewise a Pahmet Dwarf, who should have Ancient Osirioni on his language list needs to waste a skill point.
Why limit RP by enforcing a limited language list? Why not say "common languages known by elves include..."?
Because 3rd edition was dumb and thought culture should be part of the racial stats, even though culture of a specific is highly dependant on setting and many settings have cultures that aren't mono-racial.
Or you could ask your GM if you can have that extra language for free?
Why? I want to play a Half Orc from Osirion. He has Int12. I can't pick Osirioni as a bonus language, instead it's got to be something like goblin or giant. To get Osirioni I need to waste a skill point on linguistics.
Likewise a Pahmet Dwarf, who should have Ancient Osirioni on his language list needs to waste a skill point.
Why limit RP by enforcing a limited language list? Why not say "common languages known by elves include..."?
Like Starglim mentioned, ask your GM if it would be okay to use a PFS ruling on this, which states that you gain whatever languages you start with (Typically Common, a racial language if you have one, and languages from high INT and Linguistics), plus a regional language (Unless you're from Taldor) to reflect growing up and living in that region. It wouldn't make much sense for you to have been born and have lived in a region and not know its native tongue.
Alternatively, if your GM allows it, you can learn a new language as per the "New Language" entry in the Retraining section in Ultimate Campaign (Despite the section that it's in, you are not retraining any languages, just adding a new one.) You could easily ask to do this before the game even begins and start with Osiriani.
|
Like Starglim mentioned, ask your GM if it would be okay to use a PFS ruling on this, which states that you gain whatever languages you start with (Typically Common, a racial language if you have one, and languages from high INT and Linguistics), plus a regional language (Unless you're from Taldor) to reflect growing up and living in that region.
I see there's a recent update that does some of what Ashram mentioned:
Half-Human: Half-human characters (aasimars, ganzi, half-elves, half-orcs, ifrits, oreads, sulis, sylphs,
tieflings, and undines) can choose a modern human language instead of the language of their nonhuman heritage.
I was thinking of the PFS ruling that allows just what the OP suggested (and hey, another new option in the last two words):
A character with a high Intelligence score can select bonus languages from the list of modern human languages
above, the bonus languages listed in the source for the character’s race, and Shadowtongue.
I wasn't aware of that rule for PFS. Thank you! My half-orc's skill points are saved. :)
Excellent! That is something that I will definitely point out to my GM. We have been looking for ways to handle half-human characters who do not know their non-human parents without simply having them pretend not to know one of their automatic languages.
For NPCs, note that Inner Sea Races already has a nicely realistic rule that lets non-humans replace Common with any other modern human language -- but that does not work so well for PCs, who are assumed to know Common.
When I made Casimir (human raised half-orc witch) my GM simply allowed me to pick languages associated with the regions in which he spent much of his life (Worldwound and Ustalav). It's the same problem with racial weapon proficiency, why would a human raised spell caster know how to use orc weaponry? The solution was to use the race point builder system to find something more appropriate of equivalent point value. Since Casimir had the herb witch and hedge witch archetypes I traded weapon proficiency for poison use, while not necessarily making sense as a racial ability it does make sense for the character as a whole which I feel is more important.