|
Linguistics serves as a merger of Decipher Script and Read/Write and Speak Languages. The way it is done, it seems imbalanced.
While people normally load ranks into a skill to improve their checks, Read and Speak Languages were different. There was no check - just the intent of learning a new language. Now, the deliberation of whether to invest a rank to learn a language is lost. Languages will come almost incidentally as a person improves on her ability to decipher. This does make sense to some degree, i.e., the more you study languages, the more you understand, but I argue that it doesn’t occur at the degree it plays out here.
To make it balanced, my recommendation would be, for every 2 ranks invested, someone acquires a new language. (The decipher script component remains unchanged.)
This would fit better with 3.5's 1 rank for Read/Write Language and 1 rank for Speak Language. It also sets up the distinction between being able to decipher a script and being fluent in a language.
|
|
I don't like the combined rules for Speak Language. Maybe Decipher Script needs something, but I think this is going too far.
Several spells make learning additional languages unnecessary, but even then I think that gaining 15 languages over the course of Rise of the Runelords is unbelievably crazy.
My Grandfather was very adept at learning languages (as in my mother). Living in Holland during WWII he had some interesting adventures and was exposed to numerous languages. He spoke Dutch, German, French, Spanish, English and Russian. That's pretty impressive to me.
Someone who speaks 20 languages fluently - that seems strange.
|
|
I don't like the combined rules for Speak Language. Maybe Decipher Script needs something, but I think this is going too far.
Several spells make learning additional languages unnecessary, but even then I think that gaining 15 languages over the course of Rise of the Runelords is unbelievably crazy.
My Grandfather was very adept at learning languages (as in my mother). Living in Holland during WWII he had some interesting adventures and was exposed to numerous languages. He spoke Dutch, German, French, Spanish, English and Russian. That's pretty impressive to me.
Someone who speaks 20 languages fluently - that seems strange.
I mean this in no way to belittle your grandfather's experiences, but do you equate him to a 15th level character? The fact he spoke six languages is impressive (especially to me) but the point of the higher level characters is that they are rather impressive, none run of the mill, people. Having someone invest 15 ranks over 15 level to learn 15 languages makes sense (to me) when a vast majority of Golarion's population may have 1-2 levels in NPC classes at most. Maybe you guys have a point about the 2 ranks = 1 language, but I don't see it as a big deal.
Also, ask yourself, how many languages are spoken in Golarion?
|
I'd like that speaking a language and writing it were different skills.
This way I could do the savage ranger that knows the language of his favored enemies but that he can't write anthing, or the mercenary barbarian from exotic lands in the border of the world that can speak the common language with a funny accent but don't knows how to write his own name and must put the X. Same thing for the tailor who becames an adventurer fighter from necessity when his natal village is destroyed by the villain or the urchin who spy foreign merchants to robbing them. Now, if they hasn't Int bonus, they must know how to decipher script (and forger documents or write), to speak another language.
A lot of characters should know other languages but isn't neccesary to them know how to write said languages, and it isn't possibly to do it.
Cheers!
Well but this only occurs because few groups pay attention to the time flow.
They just rush from power encounter to power encounter and level up that fast, that the whole skill learning stuff get's bonzo.
D&D was always as good for Power Gaming as for Story Gaming. And the problem of 15 langs in under a year is surely a PG thing.
Honestly, I really like the way it works now, except for forgery, and I have a player who really likes this for his bard. It would be a shame to see it go away, especially if the opposition is that its not "real world" enough.
Language before was all or nothing. By having a skill, and saying that a character studies languages, you add flavor and have a skill rank to base checks on for things that come up, like people speaking a strange dialect of a known language.
Really, this is more detailed than the skill was before, and I think it works really well. Could I deal with fiddling with how many ranks/new langauge? Yeah, I could, but I don't want to see it go back to 3.5's way of handling it.
The languages that you get for having a high intelligence, and any you might get from upping your intelligence, represent just learning a given language, but the skill should be more than that, representing someone that actually, actively studies languages and how they relate to one another in the world.
Of course, the bard's player is a linguistics major . . . And for the record he has said the skill oversimplifies how the study of language works, but its probably the best way to express it in useable game terms.
|
|
Some classes (like Bard) had speak language as a class skill and could spend 15 points to learn 15 languages.
I don't have a problem with that.
I do have a problem with learning a language being an 'automatic' benefit of picking up another skill.
Decipher Script is useful in Rise of the Runelords. There are several points where ancient texts and symbols are referenced. In the same time the PCs go from 1st to 15th level.
There are not 15 languages encountered. There can be no in-game justification for picking up 15 languages. Maybe Elven, Sylvan, Giant, Gnome, Common, and maybe 3 others, max. But not 15.
Having someone invest 15 ranks over 15 level to learn 15 languages makes sense (to me) when a vast majority of Golarion's population may have 1-2 levels in NPC classes at most.Well, really, it's less the learning 15 languages and more the learning 15 languages in less than a year that gets me.
That has been the case for the while in many games I played. The characters advanced so quickly in the game that they went from being able to only cast burning hands to being able to cast prismatic spray in less than a year.
It's not that unrealistic, given that the real world contains Polyglots and hyperpolyglots, who know upwards of 60 languages. The skill reflects the way they have a greater fluency with languages that they use often (those that they chose to learn), and a lesser fluency with those that they don't (making a skill check).
Forgery being added in there is odd, but it seems to be more an issue of a skill that's not used very often being folded into one that's somewhat similar, and used with slightly greater frequency.
|
|
Well, really, it's less the learning 15 languages and more the learning 15 languages in less than a year that gets me.
That's not an issue with just the Linguistics skill, that's an issue with the advancement rate/adevnture path timeline that happens to touch every single aspect of character advancement.
A poster above stated he didn't like a character going from casting burning hands to prismatics in less than a year. Does going from a rookie with a sword to a blademaster make anymore sense? Or how about acolyte to high priest? Amatuer thug to master thief? All in a year? That's because of the advancement rate, not the advancement itself.
I'm a fan of the slower advancement rate options Paizo has offered, and it sounds like that would solve some of the posters' issues with linguistics as you could learn the languages over a period of years instead of one.
|
|
I don't like the combined rules for Speak Language. Maybe Decipher Script needs something, but I think this is going too far.
Several spells make learning additional languages unnecessary, but even then I think that gaining 15 languages over the course of Rise of the Runelords is unbelievably crazy.
My Grandfather was very adept at learning languages (as in my mother). Living in Holland during WWII he had some interesting adventures and was exposed to numerous languages. He spoke Dutch, German, French, Spanish, English and Russian. That's pretty impressive to me.
Someone who speaks 20 languages fluently - that seems strange.
Typically, linguists have an easier time learning a new language once they've mastered around 7 languages.