myself I would never allow anyone who has fire forci to take Aquan. No any lang they speak as it breaks the intent
The curse Tongues itself is sorely underpowered. I mean, so what if you can speak any language at 15? Its a flavor curse at best. Unless the DM creates a campaign world where languages are paramount I can't see how this is going to help. And the hindrance for a divine caster is that some of the most useful spells to know as a spontaneous caster are language dependent, such as hold person. Suggestion and dominate would be hindered too, though I can't remember if those are divine spells as well as arcane. And by the time you can speak enough languages through the bonus for it to matter, there are better, more powerful spells than the ones that have the language limitation.
I thing a fire oracle speaking Aquan is a special case of rules cheese that should go to the special Hell reserved for rules lawyers and min-max twinks. It makes utterly no sense except from a powergamer perspective.
Not to say that Champions is holy writ, but "A Disasadvantage that is not a Disadvantage is not a Disidvantage."
My personal thought is that "speaking in tongues" should be more like Enochian, the Martian language that Victorian spiritualist came up with, and so on: a logical sensible language that no one else on the planet can speak or understand without a Tongues spell or similar help.
Put it somewhere between Druidic and the old 1st ed alignment languages, making it "The Secret Language of the Oracles of X," where X is the power which is empowering that oracle. Oracles tuned to the same wavelength can speak in tongues to each other, but others cannot.
I thing a fire oracle speaking Aquan is a special case of rules cheese that should go to the special Hell reserved for rules lawyers and min-max twinks.
And people who talk during the film.
The rules might not tie foci and languages together, but that doesn't mean the GM won't.
In my game, an Oracle of Flame will speak Ignan. It's an Oracle of Flame. As a second language, I'd base it off alignment. For example, I created a LG Oracle of Flame with Tongues (a revision of a character of mine, which is a Paladin of Serenrae/Duelist). I picked Ignan and Celestial.
Sure, it's still easy to work around - everyone gets a rank of linguistics and speaks Ignan. I have no problem with that. In fact, it makes sense - you want to understand your party members, and you want them to understand you.
But the flavour's the thing.
If your party consists only of merfolk, then choosing aquan as your language will save them all exactly 1 skillpoint. That's a work-around, sure, but hardly what I would call "a special case of rules cheese that should go to the special Hell reserved for rules lawyers and min-max twinks".
And no, Hold Person isn't language-dependent. Command is, however, and it's also a pretty good spell.
It's still not a work-around. If you are an Aasimar who has Celestial tongues you actually lose out. You don't gain any NEW language, and in fact are restricted ONLY to a language your party probably won't know.
Wow! I doubt that the guy would survive even a single encounter. Not even against a bound and gagged kobold.
Either that or what we're talking about is no big deal. A lost language?
Command is, however, and it's also a pretty good spell.In its best form, it costs one creature one round of actions. That's not "pretty good".
Approach: Triggers attacks of opportunity.
Drop: Situational but I've seen it save encounters.Fall: -4 to hit and AC for a round.
Flee: Triggers AoO, and with some tactics costs the target two rounds.
Halt: Costs one round of actions.
It's the spell's versatility which makes it worth taking. Sure, cause fear makes them flee for significantly longer, but that's the only option.
Cause fear doesn't usually result in attacks of opportunity (they flee by the best means possible, which generally means the withdraw action and/or tumble skill). The flee option for command has them move away as fast as possible (which may even mean the run action), and specifically says that they provoke for it.
Also, command can force them to approach just as easily as it can force them to flee (also provoking AoOs).
Finally, command doesn't have an HD cap, though this isn't a huge benefit considering that most high-HD-low-willsave creatures don't speak a language. It becomes more important as you start to gain levels yourself and 1st-level spells become your second or third tier.
Cause fear is much better for taking a single target out of the fight (especially if you don't mind letting the target go completely, and hunting him down once his allies are taken care of. Or if its four-on-one against a foe with five or less hit dice and you don't mind casting just for the shaken condition). But I still say that command is a good spell. Action economy means that spending one of your actions to negate one of theirs is often a good move anyway, even without other penalties.
My take on it, as a DM, is that the language chosen needs to make sense AND not be a language already known to the character. Already know Igan? Then take Infernal, Abyssal, SOMETHING with the thought if Flames. NOT aquan, come on. Besides, if you try to use the rules to cheat away a SLIGHT curse, then you are too big a munchkin. This is GREAT roleplaying material here. If you always concentrate on how to abuse the rules, then you can have a really forgetful game session.
Just to bring this up, anyone playing in the Forgotten Realms setting is going to see tongues being a deal. Language there is so important that just traveling to the next country may mean that you can't communicate. Not being able to warn your party members of danger unless they have studied the language you speak when you are in danger could be the difference between life and death.
Just my 2cp