"Learn a Language: Whenever you put a rank into this skill, you learn to speak and read a new language."
Seriously?
So, if you put one skill point in this skill at every level until level 20, you're gonna be able to speak and read 20 language + your base languages?This seems a little excessive...
Anyone has made some house rules about this skills?
I'm thinking maybe giving a new language for every 5 ranks or something like that.
The player would also needs to study this language for a long while as well.
This is no different than any 3.5 class with 'Speak Language' as a class skill, except for the fact that in 3.5 there was no limit to how many pts you could put in. So, you could have a Wizard or Rogue who knew 20 languages at level 1.
It's in no way overpowered, as in most games people speak common almost exclusively in game.
One per five ranks would, quite honestly, be unplayable and nobody would waste ranks on the skill at that point.
For starters, there are only 20 languages in the base book (not including Druidic), a character with a 10 int and only common for a starting language will be able to speak every language at level 19. I don't think this is excessive, if you wish to play a master linguist you should be able to (the average tour guide in Napal can speak 6-8 languages). if you wish to limit it, I would suggest down to only 1 language every even rank, or else very few people will pick up new languages.
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Just want to mention that PCs aren't normal, average people and the world they live in isn't like the "real world".
Doesn't "feel right" to learn languages in 2 months? Well it doesn't feel right, to me, to be able to cast magic.
Point being, you can't use real-world logic and benchmarks for things in the game world. Maybe, in Golarion, people can teach others to speak a language as easy as they can teach them to ride a horse (Ride), or jump over a hole (Acrobatics), or to talk to someone peacefully (Diplomacy).
It's balanced. It's RAW. It should be left alone.
I house ruled it to 1 per even rank, and require my PCs to give at least token justification for learning a language. That said, I allowed two of them to learn Boggart in three days spent staying with one, so I'm not very strict; I don't want languages to get in the way of gameplay.
I do let Loremasters (and any class that had speak language as a class skill in 3.5) learn a language every skill point as a class feature, though.
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Oh, realism in D&D. What happens RAW when you cast a lightning bolt underwater ? Surely if we want to learn languages realistically, then water conductivity must be factored in as well ! And why RAW a character with 100 HP can just dead fall from 500m and likely the worst that will happen is a bruise ?
There, end of realism debate.
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Actually leveling up kinda assumes that the character has been practicing the skills and feat and such... for example the two spells a wizard scribes into his spellbook aren't actually assumed to have just popped into his head... The system actually says that wizards do spell research inbetween adventures (pg 219) and considering that it's possible for wizards to level in the middle of adventures and there is no waiting on the spell gain, probably every night they do a tiny bit of research and the research culminates into the two spells they gained from the level up. The same could honestly be said for linguistics or any other skill for the matter when it seems unlikely the character would of really had opportunity to practice during the course of play.
Oh, realism in D&D. What happens RAW when you cast a lightning bolt underwater ? Surely if we want to learn languages realistically, then water conductivity must be factored in as well ! And why RAW a character with 100 HP can just dead fall from 500m and likely the worst that will happen is a bruise ?
There, end of realism debate.
I love this one. Made me reason out the math: a character with 100 hp can swan-dive down 160 feet onto his head, onto stone, take maximum damage, and walk away with 4 hp.
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We like to add a touch more realism to our campaign settings so we run linguistics differently:
Lingusitics
You can spend up to three ranks in one language
The first rank allows you to:
- speak at a basic level.
- read/write high frequency words (words that are used often by natives).
Examples
Speaking
I am your friend!
Where is the nearest food?
I would like to buy a sword
Who are you?
My name is...
Reading/Writing
- Can read/write high frequency words, i.e mother, father, tavern, stop, danger, hot, cheap, home, friend.
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The second rank allows you to speak the language fluently with a trace of your native tongue/foriegn accent. You can read/write at a basic level.
Examples
Speaking
Hello I'm Dave and these are my so good buddies!
We are looking for a cheap tavern that has beautiful dancing girls.
My father found this sword under the blue mountain 300 miles from here.
Reading/Writing
- Can read simple texts (texts that employ high frequency sentence structures i.e letters written to one's family, cooking instructions, childrens books)
- Can employ basic sentence structure (i.e ''The weather is very hot '' versus ''Very hot the weather!''
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A third and final rank can be spent to speak the language as a native speaker, with no trace of a 'foriegn' accent. Your speech can also reflect regional dialects and employ colloqial expressions and sayings.
You can read/write at a fluent level.
just to throw in a movie reference, the movie 13th worrier had Antonio Bandarez's character learn the vikings language in a short span of time.
now if you watch the movie it makes it feel like it was over the course of one night but actually it was more like a few weeks of listening to their language being spoken with no help or assistance to learn their language.
just thought it would be nice to throw an example of a character learning a language in a short time.
I'm confused; what's not realistic about the Linguistics skill? There are people out there that are fluent in a dozen different languages, and I'm of the camp that no real world person is higher than maybe 6th level.
Also...
I disagree, the skill isn't only useful for language like it was in 3.0/3.5.
It now includes decipher script and forgery.
And you know why the skill includes decipher script and forgery? Because no one ever took any of those three skills. They're right up there with Use Rope; unless you had a very unique character concept or you needed them for a feat or prestige class, they were never, ever used.
At least now people might consider putting points in it. It's still hardly a "good" skill.
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Also, Lingustics gives you a chance to keep up with the guys who can cast comprehend languages and tongues. In a world where a 3rd-level Bard can speak any language in a pinch, you better pick up fast if you want the "I made a character that is versed in many dialects" idea to be in any way relevant.
If I were to rewrite the Linguistics skill, I'd do something like this:
No cap on languages known. It's not a factor of your skill in Linguistics.
Rather, Linguistics is how well you speak, your loquaciousness, etc. Learning a language takes Linguistic checks, similar to the "complex skill checks" variant in Unearthed Arcana.
After making a series of successful checks over time, you can eventually be considered "fluent" in that language (and no longer need to make checks).
Linguistic checks could also be used for:
- Understanding despite dialects or accents.
- Learning or making non-verbal speech (sign language, etc).
- Reading incomplete text, gaining the meaning or gist of text that's been damaged, etc.
- Used as a form of pidgin, so even when neither party has a common language, you can still try to get across simpler communication.
- Creating your own cryptic languages, using languages you know (think of paranoid wizards here, etc).
I could see a group learning at least a little sign language so stealthy communication (similar to military forces, such as navy seals) can have actual in-game applications.
Imagine having what amounted to the telepathic bond spell, with just the caveat of needing to see each other.
In any game that isn't just "kick in the door" style (such as pulp Eberron games, or cthulu-style investigatory games) it would give a wider scope of applying the skill.
Aside from the 20 or so mentioned in the Core Rulebook, there are at least (I may have missed a few) 9 more monster languages in the Bestiary:
Aboleth
Boggard
Cyclops
Dark Folk
Ettin (Giant/Goblin/Orc) Pidgin
Sphinx
Tengu
Treant
Vegepygmy
And this is assuming there are NO human ethnic/regional languages other than "common". So yeah - I've NEVER been in a situation where my players haven't had a language to learn.
EDIT: I also agree that in a world with spells like "Comprehend Languages" and "Tongues", Linguistics kinda has to be sped up to a degree, to make it relevant.
You want to nerf linguistics?! HEHE Now I've heard everything.
I like that, Kaisoku. I think Im going to use something similar in my games, thanks! It reflects your skill with language in general and allows for fun things like you see in movies with different language elements (The Mummy comes to mind).
As far as the argument that this spell or that can do it, who cares. I always thought it was cooler when Batman just started speaking in Latin or Japanese than when Green Lantern just turned on his ring.
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And this is assuming there are NO human ethnic/regional languages other than "common". So yeah - I've NEVER been in a situation where my players haven't had a language to learn.
ya if you bust out golarion you hit a whirlwind already. Just doing Rise of the Runelords there are what? like 3-5 Languages just for ancient civs and regional humans.
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- Understanding despite dialects or accents.
- Learning or making non-verbal speech (sign language, etc).
- Reading incomplete text, gaining the meaning or gist of text that's been damaged, etc.
- Used as a form of pidgin, so even when neither party has a common language, you can still try to get across simpler communication.
- Creating your own cryptic languages, using languages you know (think of paranoid wizards here, etc).
Love these, ESPECIALLY the last one!!
I like that, Kaisoku. I think Im going to use something similar in my games, thanks! It reflects your skill with language in general and allows for fun things like you see in movies with different language elements (The Mummy comes to mind).
Thanks!
If you like this idea, I was also thinking of applying it to the Perform skill as well.
Basically, learning a language or instrument/style simply takes time and training (successful checks), but there's otherwise no limits.
The actual ranks are for how well you do things with that skill. So, how fluent you are, or how technical or artistic you are with your performance, etc.
Varying degrees of skill in languages or instruments/styles can be denoted as not fully being fluent or trained with those things yet. Partial training (while you are making those checks) gives you a hard limit on the checks you can make with them, or a gradually lowered penalty if you prefer, etc.
It's definitely more complicated, of course. But that's what complex skill checks are for. It makes the gameplay more about the skills side of the game, rather than the combat (AC, Attack, HP, etc) or spellcasting.
Love these, ESPECIALLY the last one!!- Understanding despite dialects or accents.
- Learning or making non-verbal speech (sign language, etc).
- Reading incomplete text, gaining the meaning or gist of text that's been damaged, etc.
- Used as a form of pidgin, so even when neither party has a common language, you can still try to get across simpler communication.
- Creating your own cryptic languages, using languages you know (think of paranoid wizards here, etc).
Yeah! I was thinking of those "mad scientists" notes, that people find and go "This man was a genius, and wrote all his inventions in code only he understood!".
I wonder if there will be hard rules for Linguistics used for Lip Reading and Pantomime when they have the Oracle officially out. With hearing loss and tongues curses, this would make the linguistics skill see more use from at least this class.
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Toying around with languages can be a deadly trap. Let me tell you a story ...
The game is Vampire: Masquerade, the setting is modern-day NYC. Our bunch of vampires happens upon some ancient clay tablets with some grim vampiric prophecy etched on. The GM, erm, sorry, Storyteller was quite ambitious and presented us with a handout written in some obscure language.
Bad mistake.
What happened next is my character, with 4 dots in Lingustics and 4 dots in Computer hit the Google Translator in order to decipher the message. A few moments later our group was pondering on what exactly does the passge "and the cooling fans of horses shall rise their whales to the sky" mean.
Turns out, the GM took his prophecy and google translated it into Urdu. And having a text go thru google translator TWICE yields some really funky results...
"and the cooling fans of horses shall rise their whales to the sky"
So long, and thanks for all the fish?
Heh, I've done that before. Especially when getting email that looks like it was translated with a translator, and I know the language it's coming from. Putting it back the other way or in another language (like French) obviously doesn't always help...
Maybe, but that's all they do (the tour guides)
Bah. They must be horrid tour guides. My tour guides better be able to do more than speak English and the native language. They should have have good ranks of diplomacy and bluff at the very least as well. And I imagine a fair amount knowledge local, and at least rudimenty amount knowledge history, streetwise, and sense motive as well.
You forgot Mountain Climbing.
And seriously, Linguistics is fine as it is. It's not like we're often overburdened with skill points to begin with, so if a character wants to spend his to become a master linguist I see no reason to stop him.
I think linguistics is perfect as is. It's a chance for not-very-bright people to be bilingual, and it's a must to be good at many languages.
One thing I DON'T think is fine is that it's completely invalidated by a 2nd level spell, tongues. It's worse than how stealth is compromised by invisibility.
Because of this, in my campaign, tongues and comprehend language are both language-specific - so you have Tongues (Draconic) and Tongues (Elven), for example.
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Because of this, in my campaign, tongues and comprehend language are both language-specific - so you have Tongues (Draconic) and Tongues (Elven), for example.
Could you elaborate on this please? I'm not sure I get it.
Also, here's how I made Linguistics more useful: Linguistics.
Because of this, in my campaign, tongues and comprehend language are both language-specific - so you have Tongues (Draconic) and Tongues (Elven), for example.Could you elaborate on this please? I'm not sure I get it.
Also, here's how I made Linguistics more useful: Linguistics.
Normally, tongues essentially grants all languages to the creature under it's effect. In my game, there's simply one tongues spell for every language, so a wizard who knows he will encounter elves can still prepare tongues (elven), but it isn't a fool-proof solution to any language issue.
Instead of tongues being of about equal worth as 10 points in linguistics, it's worth about the same as one point. Of course, a wizard could learn most tongues spells quite easily, but that takes time and money - and a spontanteous caster is even more limited. The same thing goes for Comprehend Languages.I really like your solution for linguistics, it makes it far more useful, especially for people with high intelligence. The thing I don't like with linguistics as is is mostly that skill level doesn't matter as much as hard ranks.
I think linguistics is perfect as is. It's a chance for not-very-bright people to be bilingual, and it's a must to be good at many languages.
One thing I DON'T think is fine is that it's completely invalidated by a 2nd level spell, tongues. It's worse than how stealth is compromised by invisibility.
Because of this, in my campaign, tongues and comprehend language are both language-specific - so you have Tongues (Draconic) and Tongues (Elven), for example.
Let's see...Party is surrounded by mooks and wants to negotiate, but no one speaks the needed language. Party mage starts casting Tongues and is pincushioned by arrows....
Nope, ranks in Linguistics still wins.
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I understand the perspective that languages are harder to learn than how they are represented here.
I also understand that, in most campaigns, requiring more than one skill point means no one would bother.
How about allowing linguistics checks to also work as the equivalent of knowledge (culture) checks for speakers of the language in question? A successful check might give you a bonus to diplomacy, sense motive, disguise, or bluff checks.
Or, we could just keep it simple (not realistic) and leave things as they are.
Stealth is not trumped by Invisibility.
Being invisible means squat when you making enough noise to raise the (un)dead.
Linguistics is a useful skill, every bard should take it, every rogue should take it, most fighters will want to take it, and most especially every wizard should take it.
I think linguistics is perfect as is. It's a chance for not-very-bright people to be bilingual, and it's a must to be good at many languages.
One thing I DON'T think is fine is that it's completely invalidated by a 2nd level spell, tongues. It's worse than how stealth is compromised by invisibility.
Because of this, in my campaign, tongues and comprehend language are both language-specific - so you have Tongues (Draconic) and Tongues (Elven), for example.
Stealth is not trumped by Invisibility.
Being invisible means squat when you making enough noise to raise the (un)dead.
You're right in a way, stealth might be better if you aren't trying to sneak up on someone. If you're trying to get close to someone, you can't really do that with stealth unless you also use invisibility or another form of concealment, but you can manage to do it without using stealth with only invisibility. Stealth is also worthless in combat, which invisibility isn't.
It was a bad example from me, a better example would be how spells like spider climb, fly and levitation makes the climb skill redundant. Yes, in a few rare cases like climbing for hours or climbing in a hurricane the skill might be better, but generally, the spell is simply better, and cheaper in the way of character investment. That is the same case as linguistics.
Normally, tongues essentially grants all languages to the creature under it's effect. In my game, there's simply one tongues spell for every language, so a wizard who knows he will encounter elves can still prepare tongues (elven), but it isn't a fool-proof solution to any language issue.
Instead of tongues being of about equal worth as 10 points in linguistics, it's worth about the same as one point. Of course, a wizard could learn most tongues spells quite easily, but that takes time and money - and a spontanteous caster is even more limited. The same thing goes for Comprehend Languages.
That is a pretty big nerf for the Tongues spell. I mean one of the main reasonsTongues is worthwhile is if you come up on another party or intelligent monster and you don’t know their language. You do automatically with the Tongues spell.
With your nerfed version, you could try to ‘guess’ their language and use Tongues for that, but it’s very possible you may not even have their language if you do figure out what it is.
Too big of a nerf in my opinion.
Normally, tongues essentially grants all languages to the creature under it's effect. In my game, there's simply one tongues spell for every language, so a wizard who knows he will encounter elves can still prepare tongues (elven), but it isn't a fool-proof solution to any language issue.
Instead of tongues being of about equal worth as 10 points in linguistics, it's worth about the same as one point. Of course, a wizard could learn most tongues spells quite easily, but that takes time and money - and a spontanteous caster is even more limited. The same thing goes for Comprehend Languages.
That is a pretty big nerf for the Tongues spell. I mean one of the main reasonsTongues is worthwhile is if you come up on another party or intelligent monster and you don’t know their language. You do automatically with the Tongues spell.
That's what Knowledges are there fore ;)
Yeah, I guess it's a matter of taste, but our campaigns are usually more RP intense than most, and has more "mystery" style over it... Lots of puzzles and such. Tongues is simply too easy a solution, and really, who'd spend five points in linguistics when you can just let the caster use a single spell and be done with it?
This makes linguistics worthwhile, and makes tongues more circumstantial, like I like it. Before, it was probably the single best out of combat spell, now it's more in line with most other 2nd level spells.
That's what Knowledges are there fore ;)
Yeah, I guess it's a matter of taste, but our campaigns are usually more RP intense than most, and has more "mystery" style over it... Lots of puzzles and such. Tongues is simply too easy a solution, and really, who'd spend five points in linguistics when you can just let the caster use a single spell and be done with it?
This makes linguistics worthwhile, and makes tongues more circumstantial, like I like it. Before, it was probably the single best out of combat spell, now it's more in line with most other 2nd level spells.
Yes, true, that is what a Knowledge check is for. But a few things to keep in mind:
-Most parties do not have a Bard, at least in my experience. Only one of our campaigns (since 3rd edition was released) we’ve had a Bard. And he wasn’t even focused on it. Maybe we are the oddball group and most do have Bards, but I am guessing not.
-Since most parties are pretty common with Wizards or Sorcerors (at least Wizards), Tongues will usually then fall to them. And for them, it is 3rd level. And let us get it out of the way, I would not anticipate a Sorceror taking Tongues as one of his known spells, even in its RAW version, due to his limited known spell list. With Wizards, before I could maybe see them maybe memorizing Tongues once when higher level and they have more spell slots available. But with your version, it would be scroll or wand only, now.
-Tongues has a duration, unlike Linguisitics. Where I agree, one casting of Tongues would do the job most times. However, if you are actually working with another intelligent race over a longer period of time, where you don’t understand their language, Linguistics would be pretty much a must.
So for a ‘3rd level spell’, which is mostly what I feel would be cast at, I feel Tongues RAW is not overpowered. But, the important thing is you are happy with the change, and the players are ok with it, that is all that really matters.
Oh, one last thing, I know Clerics can cast Tongues at 4th level, but I cannot see a priest ever using a 4th level spell slot for it, so I didn’t even bring that up.
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The Taladas setting of 2nd edition Dragonlance had a "language tree", wherein a set # of steps separated each language (many languages have some similarities). So, as a made-up example, a person who speaks hill dwarf might be able to understand 20% of the goblin language.
However, that was a lot more paperwork than I'm willing to handle. Can't fathom how knowing more languages becomes overpowered. If anything, it gives my bad guys more chances to taunt the party.
Here's where it got sticky for me...
I'm playing a svirfneblin wizard who begins play speaking Common, Gnome, and Undercommon. Being a high-intelligence wizard, I also speak Dwarven, Draconic, Elven, and Orc. Then I go and make a Headband of Vast Intelligence +4. Since I don't really have an attached skill I want, I put one of them in Linguistics so I can be good with books and stuff. Well, since I'm currently 11th level, I had to choose 11 more languages to speak. At this point it's just a little silly that I speak like 18 languages when all I wanted was to be a book worm.
I'm of the opinion that maybe being good with books and documents maybe shouldn't be inseparably connected to the languages you speak. But of course this isn't going to be rewritten so...whatev. I'll homebrew it when I GM.
Here's where it got sticky for me...
I'm playing a svirfneblin wizard who begins play speaking Common, Gnome, and Undercommon. Being a high-intelligence wizard, I also speak Dwarven, Draconic, Elven, and Orc. Then I go and make a Headband of Vast Intelligence +4. Since I don't really have an attached skill I want, I put one of them in Linguistics so I can be good with books and stuff. Well, since I'm currently 11th level, I had to choose 11 more languages to speak. At this point it's just a little silly that I speak like 18 languages when all I wanted was to be a book worm.
I'm of the opinion that maybe being good with books and documents maybe shouldn't be inseparably connected to the languages you speak. But of course this isn't going to be rewritten so...whatev. I'll homebrew it when I GM.
Just think of it as the item was imbued with the capacity to understand and speak these languages when it was crafted. Since you made it, you get to pick what languages as if you had spent the skill points. If the DM makes the item and decides to have Linguistics be one of the skills it confers, then it would be pretty cool if he decided the languages that the skill points unlocked as well. That's the only tweak I would make.
Also, being able to speak a crapton of languages as an adventurer where your survival may depend on it at any given time...seems like people who wanted to learn these languages and had a knack for them would learn as many as possible. Same with research or bookwormy characters...heck...even English doctoral programs have a foreign language requirement, as part of being a literature scholar is being able to get the gist of material in other languages aside from English.
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I think linguistics is perfect as is. It's a chance for not-very-bright people to be bilingual, and it's a must to be good at many languages.
One of my characters deeply regretted not speaking any languages other than Common. Had he lived to see second level, he would have taken a rank in Linguistics for that reason. Some would praise this as proper role playing. Others, less charitable, would dismiss it as "fluff".
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The Pathfinder world is a very pluralistic world. Even more so than the heart of Europe where people regularly speak 3 or 4 languages. I'll admit, here in the states I've had very little need or interest in learning another language, but if I grew up with more people speaking a variety of languages, I could have picked one or two up.
If you grew up learning a couple of languages, and were thrust into a world where knowing another language could mean the difference between life and death, poverty and wealth, I bet you would be motivated to try really hard... and if you had a knack for it developed in childhood, I bet you could.
I seriously don't think that one skill point is excessive, especially considering that to be emulative, a lot of level one peasants with only half a dozen skill points half to be able to speak three or four languages. A skill point represents a HUGE investment in time.
I went to high school in Mexico, at an international school populated mainly by kids of diplomats and foreign corporate transferees.
I had several friends who had traveled so much growing up that they already know six or more languages, and picking up Spanish to the point of being able to converse took a matter of a few weeks for them.
When you know French, Italian, and Portuguese, another language with similar roots isn't that big of a deal. (And the speaker of Swedish, Norwegian, English, German and a couple others also picked it up just about as quickly.)
Of course, I've met my fair share of native English speakers whom I wouldn't consider proficient in the language. On both sides of the Atlantic.
I went to high school in Mexico, at an international school populated mainly by kids of diplomats and foreign corporate transferees.I had several friends who had traveled so much growing up that they already know six or more languages, and picking up Spanish to the point of being able to converse took a matter of a few weeks for them.
When you know French, Italian, and Portuguese, another language with similar roots isn't that big of a deal. (And the speaker of Swedish, Norwegian, English, German and a couple others also picked it up just about as quickly.)
Of course, I've met my fair share of native English speakers whom I wouldn't consider proficient in the language. On both sides of the Atlantic.
+ 1 billion.
My mom grew up in Germany on an Airforce base. She speaks 6 languages fluently. She can understand ~8. In the real world learning languages is merely a matter of being exposed to the them at an early age.
In the Pathfinder world what is to say that the language centers of our characters brains stop developing at about age 5. These new languages should be worked into game play either by saying my character is attempting to learn elvish or perhaps it is taught to him by an elf but there is no need to nerf the linguistics trait because it does not seem realistic to you. Having an elf shoot fire from their fingertips seems off to me but I wouldn't disallow elves or magic. I just accept that things work differently in the world of make believe.
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In my few years of playing 3.5, I have never seen anyone spend points to learn a new language. Having to spend 5 points to learn one would ensure that I NEVER see anyone put points to learning a language.
In Pathfinder, when I move the campaign to a new area, I have the locals talk in their language by default. When my party went to the Mwangi Expanse, a couple characters grabbed the local languages because no locals spoke common.
I usually treat common as 'Trade Tongue'. It's common for PCs to know trade tongue, which widely used by adventurers and travellers, but most farmers and ranchers only speak the local dialects.