So if a oracle is deaf they rely on reading lips. What would the rules be for this? Are they in the book already?
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So if a oracle is deaf they rely on reading lips. What would the rules be for this? Are they in the book already?
I thought I saw that somewhere in one of the skill descriptions... Maybe I am going crazy though. I'll try to check. Perception or Sense Motive would be good house rule skills though.
EDIT: Quick check didn't discover it. However, I'd be tempted to have it be an automatic success as long as the conditions were favorable. I.e. The person speaking enunciates clearly and there is ample light. Then make perception checks based on lighting conditions or aberrations in speech patterns caused by strong accents or whatever.
If I remeber right lip reading used to be covered under innuendo in 3.0, which was absorbed into Bluff in 3.5. Again if my brain is remembering right it used to be an innuendo check to send and recieve such messages.
I would actually suggest the Linguatics skill, which can be used to cover both lip reading and hand signs. It would acutally be a good place to at a new use for that skill in the Advanced Players Guide.
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If I remeber right lip reading used to be covered under innuendo in 3.0, which was absorbed into Bluff in 3.5. Again if my brain is remembering right it used to be an innuendo check to send and recieve such messages.
I would actually suggest the Linguatics skill, which can be used to cover both lip reading and hand signs. It would acutally be a good place to at a new use for that skill in the Advanced Players Guide.
Bluff covers innuendo now, but it is verbally based. No rules are suggested for lip reading. It is more saying one thing while meaning another.
Couldn't read lips be somewhat adequately covered by a point in Linquistics(read lips).
I mean, I know it isn't quite a language in and of itself..
but it would provide a mechanical way to cover it.
-S
Couldn't read lips be somewhat adequately covered by a point in Linquistics(read lips).
I mean, I know it isn't quite a language in and of itself..
but it would provide a mechanical way to cover it.-S
You would need Linguistics (Read Lips: Common), Linguistics (Read Lips: Draconic), etc etc. Not really very viable. Also consider that reading lips isn't just an automatic thing; if someone talks with a heavy accent, their lip movements are distorted. If someone isn't facing you directly, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone isn't in good lighting, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone has an alternate facial structure (bird-people, cat-people, dragons, etc etc), it's almost impossible.
And yet accents and variations do to different facial structure aren't take into account with normal lingustics use, and there are some very strong accents out there.
The only other option would be a special use of perception then. And again something that could be added to the Advanced Players Guide as a general new skill use rule. There are other cases where PCs may want to just mouth instructions at each other.
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You would need Linguistics (Read Lips: Common), Linguistics (Read Lips: Draconic), etc etc. Not really very viable. Also consider that reading lips isn't just an automatic thing; if someone talks with a heavy accent, their lip movements are distorted. If someone isn't facing you directly, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone isn't in good lighting, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone has an alternate facial structure (bird-people, cat-people, dragons, etc etc), it's almost impossible.Couldn't read lips be somewhat adequately covered by a point in Linquistics(read lips).
I mean, I know it isn't quite a language in and of itself..
but it would provide a mechanical way to cover it.-S
No you would need read lips, and then seperately you would need to know common or draconic to communicate with someone speaking that language. If you know how to read lips you know how to read lips. You can read the lips of anyone speaking a language you know.
And yet accents and variations do to different facial structure aren't take into account with normal lingustics use, and there are some very strong accents out there.
The only other option would be a special use of perception then. And again something that could be added to the Advanced Players Guide as a general new skill use rule. There are other cases where PCs may want to just mouth instructions at each other.
You would need Linguistics (Read Lips: Common), Linguistics (Read Lips: Draconic), etc etc. Not really very viable. Also consider that reading lips isn't just an automatic thing; if someone talks with a heavy accent, their lip movements are distorted. If someone isn't facing you directly, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone isn't in good lighting, it's much harder to read their lips. If someone has an alternate facial structure (bird-people, cat-people, dragons, etc etc), it's almost impossible.Couldn't read lips be somewhat adequately covered by a point in Linquistics(read lips).
I mean, I know it isn't quite a language in and of itself..
but it would provide a mechanical way to cover it.-S
Well, I could see taking Linguistics(Read Lips) and it allowing a person to be able to understand any languages they know. But remember, an Oracle has always been deaf (more likely than not) so really, they wouldn't have learned how to hear the languages anyway. Really, it is more of a roleplaying change than anything. A DM would have to be selective in telling the player of an oracle what they can understand.
Plenty of deaf people can understand speech through reading lips, if suddenly endowed with the ability to hear, most of them wouldn't be able to understand what people are saying that way. For linguistics, I would say it is a matter of learning one thing instead of something else.
If you really wanted to put it down to a skill check of some sort, I would say Sense Motive, the ability to understand and catch the subtle hints behind what someone is saying. Sense Motive would help a person combine the visual cues of a person's lips as well as the body language and facial expressions to understand what the person is saying.
At the same time, Sense Motive would probably be needed to understand what the Oracle is saying back. I mean no offense to those that are deaf, but they are fairly hard to understand. They can't hear what they are saying and are basing their vocalization on the vibrations of their vocal chords and the shape and positioning of their mouth.
Like I said, it may be easier to just RP the possible misunderstandings that both parties are likely to have. And in case you couldn't guess, I have a bit of background in this area, my sister is a speech pathologist, she originally wanted to teach deaf children how to vocalize.
I was going to solve this problem by saying everyone has to learn sign language who wants to communicate with the deaf player, but I didn't think about lip reading, haha. With regards to lip reading, I understand the desire to make the deaf curse actually an annoying punishment, but I'd definitely lump lip reading under Perception. I'm all for general skills. I'd go with DC 15 Perception or something. Penalties to distance apply normally, visual only, etc.
Sense Motive is about body language and what is spoken, so I think that's not as keyed into actually being able to keep up with someone's lips, but I definitely wouldn't go as far as making someone take an entirely different skill or language to lip read, even though there's that temptation to have it represented closer to the difficulty of lip reading in the real world.
It's sort of like... So, the PCs hijack a steam car and are using it to terrorize the countryside goblins; do I want to make a separate skill for driving a steam-car? No, not really: it'll fit under Ride, so I'd rather invent a new skill use than start inventing new skills. So, even though riding a horse and a car are different, I'd rather not end up with a skill list 200 skills long.