Your idea is interesting, but cumbersome. You want languages to be a special and hard fought for thing in a game that most supports a focus on combat. My preferences are toward communication/diplomacy, but I still don't think your approach makes it funner.
I have a simpler approach. Certain languages are more nuanced than others. Often subtle inflections or tonal changes, (or anything you want as a GM) change meanings. Three examples of highly nuanced languages would be Varisian, Elvish, and Tien. Having ranks in linguistics helps you recognize or use double meanings, etc. Not having enough linguistics skill to recognize Nuanced speech can put you at penalties to Sense Motive. This helps explain why Varisians and Elves have reputations for, shall we say (rudely) a certain degree of slipperiness in their dealings.
Taldane and Dwarvish are not nuanced. A dwarf will never negotiate in Elvish, a Chelaxian will not negotiate in Varisian.
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I'll agree with everyone else and say that I don't think your idea enhances the fun of the gun.
If I were a player in your game and worried about communication I would simply invest in having access to tongues and tell you to miff off in a round about way with your significantly harder way of doing things.
I don't think I've ever had a character who invested in Linguistics before (unless I was a int based character and I just had so many skill points I didn't know where to spend them), and your suggestion on a rule change would certainly not cause me to change my mind.
If you want to change Linguistics you should be looking for ways to make it good enough that you would rather put skill points into it rather than cast a spell for it. Making it take forever to learn another language isn't the way to reward a player for a skill point investment.
If you want to roleplay improvement and learning of languages how about you come up with a system that allows a player to learn a language without spending skill points? Perhaps by studying with another player character who speaks a different language. That would be something interesting and cool.
Perhaps you can tell your players that if they plan on learning another language you would like them to role play that out during the campaign at points, even by saying they are reading a book that teaches another language or practicing Elven with the dwarf. Perhaps you can add a "cultural bonus" to those proficient in a language (other than common) when it's someone's native language with they idea that they are "impressed" by your language use and cultural understanding (learning a language often involves lots of cultural context).
You should make the skill better for player's investment, not worse.
By making it worse with your way, as a player I would simply use magic to get around not knowing and if you take away the magic I would end up not communicating with creatures I didn't share a language with. Which would probably end up with a lot of hostile interactions.
Apparently, some people are just not into role play. My house rule has been in play for a dozen years and created numerous RP situations. By deleting language problems, you severely crimp the whole skill structure. Why bother with Sense Motive, just say yea or nay! Give the Murderhobo and the Bard the same chance to spot a lie or wrangle a better price on a meal. Why bother with Knowledge: arcane when everyone has memorized the book? Chuck the identify spell completely.
Why should I cobble together an alien system for languages? The current language rules are cumbersome and violate the entire skills system. For me, the confusion with backwards compatibility is an issue as several players have balked at the dichotomy of the blatant cheat.
I see skills, feats, etc as being learned over time (in the real world) and see the leveling system as a poor mechanic we are stuck with for lack of a better one. {Hit points are another can of worms.} I prefer as much role play in the mix as possible, like having the Elf teach the other party members Elven, the skill point mechanically signifying a level of competence. I have tussled with players who want penalties for Elves learning Dwarf (more points), but try to be open to most ideas. Cross language dictionaries are staples in the world I run and have been. Indeed, Dwarvish has dozens of dialects spoken hither and yon with well worked out translation protocols. Goblin mutates to fast and tribes may not be able to even talk to each other. Humans think Elvish is a 'dead' language like Latin since their short lifetimes don't allow them to notice changes.
The very fact that 3.0 punted on languages is no reason to slavishly slog through a inferior system. Every rule was implemented to enhance role play, often at player insistence or innovation. They were designed to flow with the normal skill system and add languages past the normal skill system, yet function the same.
Your last point seems to posit that magic can solve all problems, but people still look for races with Darkvision, innate resistances and wings to save precious spells. Currently running a Wizard, I loath counterspells and nasties like Dispel Magic. I'm just happy the GM hasn't read up on anti-magic! Well, too much, as both dragons we've tangled with laired in low magic zones (In his game, no-magic places cripple casters and dragons know it). At level 9, I still carry a crossbow!
Going to try to avoid getting too into the philosophy/focus/bias. I didn't care for the OP's implementation, the idea I was good with.
I do want to weigh in on the magic angle. The following is my house rule:
Tongues is inferior to actually speaking the language.
. Using tongues gives you -2 penalty on diplomacy/bluff checks,
. and -1 penalty on intimidate checks.
. It also gives you a -2 penalty on sense motive checks
(It is always tactically sound to have the other guy use the magic translator)
(The other guy often knows this too.)
True-speech abilities I currently assign no penalties for, though I am thinking I want to penalize bluff, and enhance sense motive.
I understand that this is putting emphasis on a part of the game some people are not interested in.
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Apparently, some people are just not into role play. My house rule has been in play for a dozen years and created numerous RP situations. By deleting language problems, you severely crimp the whole skill structure. Why bother with Sense Motive, just say yea or nay! Give the Murderhobo and the Bard the same chance to spot a lie or wrangle a better price on a meal. Why bother with Knowledge: arcane when everyone has memorized the book? Chuck the identify spell completely.
Why should I cobble together an alien system for languages? The current language rules are cumbersome and violate the entire skills system. For me, the confusion with backwards compatibility is an issue as several players have balked at the dichotomy of the blatant cheat.
I see skills, feats, etc as being learned over time (in the real world) and see the leveling system as a poor mechanic we are stuck with for lack of a better one. {Hit points are another can of worms.} I prefer as much role play in the mix as possible, like having the Elf teach the other party members Elven, the skill point mechanically signifying a level of competence. I have tussled with players who want penalties for Elves learning Dwarf (more points), but try to be open to most ideas. Cross language dictionaries are staples in the world I run and have been. Indeed, Dwarvish has dozens of dialects spoken hither and yon with well worked out translation protocols. Goblin mutates to fast and tribes may not be able to even talk to each other. Humans think Elvish is a 'dead' language like Latin since their short lifetimes don't allow them to notice changes.
The very fact that 3.0 punted on languages is no reason to slavishly slog through a inferior system. Every rule was implemented to enhance role play, often at player insistence or innovation. They were designed to flow with the normal skill system and add languages past the normal skill system, yet function the same.
Your last point seems to posit that magic can solve all problems, but people still look for...
Spending more skill points doesn't mean roleplay. It just make the system more difficult and cumbersome mechanically, when a lot of classes already suffer from a lack skill points to support such a change as the OP suggests.
I think too many people are conflating the idea that making the system more difficult somehow promotes roleplay.
If the OP wanted to suggest that a player needs to spend time and represent his learning a new language by picking up a book or conversing with someone conversant in the language then that is good roleplay, and at level up the character is allowed to place a rank in linguistics to represent his mastery of a new language. Making you spend 5 skill points to become fully proficient in a language isn't roleplay. It's just creating a punitive system that punishes virtually everyone.
@Bwang
I have found in the duration that this suggestion has been put up that it seems that people either dislike roleplay or they're to involved in the mechanics side of things, or atleast that's how I see it.
@Daw
That's a great idea to make magic both a negative and a positive, at least for languages, I also do understand that people sometimes don't like to make certain parts of a game more realistic for a reason, the implementation of my idea could be altered to make it more accommodating, but I felt that my idea makes enough sense to understand easily, and my players seem to have become used to the system.
@Claxon
I feel that with classes that don't get much skill points, such as Paladins and Fighters, won't want to put skill points (or time and effort) into learning a new language, both from a character and player point of view, I feel that people are thinking that all the PCs need to now all of these languages, but instead, my system allows diversity with languages, and allows people who would otherwise stay out of a situation that was quickly escalating to attempt to step in, assuming that this is all to do with simple miscommunication.
In my own attempts at altering the way languages work in the game (since original 3.0 edition of D&D), I've found that it kind of boils down to the following: the nuance is lost unless the rest of the system reinforces it.
That's why encumbrance is kind of a hit or miss mechanic, and a few other things. Corner case rules tend to fall by the wayside for a lot of tables. Most only pay lip service, and then use magic to legitimately bypass dealing with the nuanced rules (bags of holding, tongues spell, etc).
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On the flip side, I've had an idea broiling about that you may find interesting.
I'd been looking at "solving the problems of the game" (anything not-magic is kind of stunted to mid-low levels in power), and looked at re-tooling the game mechanics for them.
One such retooling was the skill system.
What I was considering doing was breaking the skills into three categories: Action, Technique and Knowledge skills.
Action skills would work similar to most current skills do now, except that there'd be a little more consolidation. Essentially, an action skill would need to be something that was wide in scope, such that it either had several functions (like Acrobatics doing Balance and Tumble, or Diplomacy making allies or gathering info, etc), or it had an over-arching purpose (like Swim/Fly skills being primary skill for a mode of movement, or Perception/Stealth skills for observation or avoidance).
They work the typical way: place ranks, up to your level. Class bonus +3, etc.
Technique skills are more specialised in nature. They are the skills to denote your ability at performing a particular thing, stuff like crafting, handling animals, survival, etc. They can have multiple functions, but it's typically more limited.
Also, they are only one-half your ability at performing the action: you can only place 1 rank, plus one per two levels in a technique skill.
The other half of your bonus to checks comes from an associated Knowledge skill.
Knowledge skills are used to denote how well you perform at a particular technique task, or to indicate your knowledge on a subject. Knowledge skills break down into a number of categories (such as crafts, bestiary, performances, or geography), but gaining ranks in a Knowledge is always towards a specific sub-skill of said category, so you'd have a rank in Bestiary (horses) or Geography (underground).
Knowledge ranks are different from the other skills: you can only have up to 4 ranks in a single knowledge skill (5 levels of competency, 0 = Unskilled up to 4 = Master), this is not tied to level (can have mastery in knowledges at level 1), and you gain ranks through several means (putting a rank in a technique skill grants one rank to an associated knowledge, downtime rules will grant ranks in knowledge skills over time, roleplaying decisions in-game may grant ranks, etc).
Each rank grants a +3 bonus to the technique skill check that uses that knowledge.
There's the math: 1 + 10 from levels, +12 from knowledge = +23 bonus. This does mean though, that a level 1 master craftsman can have a +13 bonus to his check in crafting. I see this as a plus, honestly, as now NPCs can have great checks in tasks, and lots of knowledge, without being super-fighters compared to their NPC contemporaries.
It also means "knowing is half the battle", haha!
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How this ties in with Languages:
Linguistics would thus become a Technique skill, in how eloquent you speak or how well you may read. It also would be used in any cryptography checks, to encrypt or decrypt a message, or when attempting something like writing fiction, or making jokes, or even forging a letter/signature written by someone else.
The knowledge skill Language would then have 5 levels of fluency for every language (from unknown to master fluency), allowing different levels of understanding and vocabulary. Since it's not tied to level or even limited by ranks per level, you can learn languages over time (during downtime while resting, or between "acts"), from magical effects imparting knowledge (such as items, or events in play), or as part of your background (racial or otherwise: such as growing up in a melting pot city in the world setting, etc).
Spells could then by limited in power by granting temporary effects that grant or boost levels of fluency.
Sure, you can use the Tongues spell to get the basics of your point across, when in the field. But to convince a noble to aid your cause, or debate the worthiness of mortal to a tribune of Inevitables, it would behoove you to have the most articulate speaker.
If the rest of the game already presupposes a skill system that allows this kind of interaction with the rules, then it won't feel tacked on, and the nuance will play out in all its glorious manner.
Caveat: this kind of skill system would likely require the players being on board with it, similar to the "Complex Skill Checks" from Unearthed Arcana optional rules.
Some people play for kick-in-the-door combat-focused gaming, and such a skill system would be off-putting.
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@Claxon
I feel that with classes that don't get much skill points, such as Paladins and Fighters, won't want to put skill points (or time and effort) into learning a new language, both from a character and player point of view, I feel that people are thinking that all the PCs need to now all of these languages, but instead, my system allows diversity with languages, and allows people who would otherwise stay out of a situation that was quickly escalating to attempt to step in, assuming that this is all to do with simple miscommunication.
It's true fighters and paladins were already unlikely to take linguistics to learn another language, but these suggestion makes it virtually worthless to them. They don't have enough skill points to even remotely bother investing 5 of them into being competent in a language.
But explain to me how the system allows for a diversity of languages when it's much harder to actually learn a language, you end up with less diversity of language. I also don't know how you think it would promote people to be involved in a situation where they normally wouldn't.
People normally don't get involved because they don't have bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, sense motive. Usually those skills are often limited to a one or two characters in the party, and those characters are the ones who would normally invest in some way to communicate (whether linguistics or spells to communicate).
So all that does is reduce the chances of communicating and allowing the party to interact socially with others.
This is just generally (not always) how groups work because of limited resources (skill points).
Spending more skill points doesn't mean roleplay. It just make the system more difficult and cumbersome mechanically, when a lot of classes already suffer from a lack skill points to support such a change as the OP suggests.
I think too many people are conflating the idea that making the system more difficult somehow promotes roleplay.
If the OP wanted to suggest that a player needs to spend time and represent his learning a new language by picking up a book or conversing with someone conversant in the language then that is good roleplay, and at level up the character is allowed to place a rank in linguistics to represent his mastery of a new language. Making you spend 5 skill points to become fully proficient in a language isn't roleplay. It's just creating a punitive system that punishes virtually everyone.
Obviously you are not reading my posts.
Each Class grants at least one language point and that is all that is required to communicate. Additional points provide fluency, casting, etc. As for 'difficult and cumbersome', it is based on the game's core skill system and not a radical departure from it.
I guess by you complaint about the punitive nature of buying ranks that you disapprove of the way skills are handled as well? And few of my languages require more than a point for most folks' purposes. A single point is my equivalent in both French and German, if not more. Most of my languages do not have magic vocabularies, nor power words or phrases. Goblin is but 1, as is each lizardman and Orc. No magical tongue is less than 3, such as ancient Akero, which grants a +1 DC to Necro spells, but with disadvantages (why it is no longer used).
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Several people IMMEDIATELY start their arguments with something along the lines of "well, some of you must not like roleplaying."
Stop doing that. I will start flagging posts that continue to do it. It's insulting.
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Honest question:
How is investing 3 ranks instead of 1 any more role-playing? It takes longer and costs more resources... But it doesn't change anything about roleplay.
In fact, I think it has quite the opposite effect. It's just another reason for players to stick to the usual skills and never break the mold. I often invest in Linguistics because it's a fun skill... If my GM used your rules, I surely wouldn't even consider doing it.
If you want to add variety and role-play to your game, then reward it. Making it more costly and less effective will achieve the exact opposite result.
@Claxon
I do get your point, mainly, the characters would just start with their natural languages, a soldier shouldn't want to learn another language, it does make the skill considerably worthless to those classes, though I feel like it would have been in the first place.
As for the diversity of languages, I personally meant it allowed a party to 'diversify' the languages they learn, in an attempt to make up for the loss of language proficiency within the party. I believe that if the entire party knew Ignan, it would not promote everyone to be involved, but if only 1 or 2 people knew it, it would force those characters to involve themselves in that situation, and if people dont want to invest skill points, do downtime, i've already said that it is a more than reasonable way to do this system, and to some, the only way.
@jeremiah dodson 812
Downtime is another solution, one that is most likely the only way to do this system to most people, I prefer a blend of the two, I would explain the skill point allocation or downtime by them studying books and getting tutors to help them.
@Irontruth
From what I've observed, people seem to prefer mechanics over roleplay, though this may be me confusing this with people preferring the mechanics being balanced.
I honestly feel that most of the system can be changed quite easily, many people bring up the mechanics side of things when I have clearly stated that they are free to remove the requirement of skill points and make it completely downtime based.
@Lemmy
Well, I've explained my point in many of my previous comments, but essentially, promotes roleplay by allowing people to specialize in other languages, thus allowing characters who may not have the highest Charisma score to try their best to diffuse a situation, or perhaps a Paladin, who (on the off chance) knows some Auran, attempt to calm some natives down. I use these examples a lot, another point to make is how I wanted more Realism than anything, I believe I've succeeded in that regard.
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And what's the difference between not rolling Diplomacy because you don't have 1 rank and not rolling Diplomacy because you don't have 3 ranks?
Either way, you're not rolling because you don't have an arbitrary number of ranks assigned to Linguistics. Again: There's no more (or less) role-playing involved... All you managd to do was discourage character variety.
But, hey... If your goal is for everyone to have ranks in thr exact same skills, you're on the right track!
And if you want to sacrifice player fun and character variety for realism... Well done!
And what's the difference between not rolling to hit because you don't have a 1 base attack bonus and not rolling to hit because you don't have a 3 base attack bonus?
And if you want to sacrifice player fun and character variety for realism... Well done!
Bazinga!
Bazinga!And what's the difference between not rolling to hit because you don't have a 1 base attack bonus and not rolling to hit because you don't have a 3 base attack bonus?
Bazinga? You're actually supporting my point: From a role-play perspective, there's no difference from getting an additional attack at BAB +6 or +3 or +X. Mechanically, it's quite different... But getting more of fewer iterative attacks does nothing to encourage role-play.
But if the OP thinks this idea will make the game more enjoyable for him and his friends... Well. So be it. More power to him, I guess.
Please re-read my post. Iterative attacks do not enter the equation. I obviously forgot /sarc
Sorry, my bad. Still, it still supports my argument.
Just because you need a higher bonus to succeed on whatever task, it doesn't mean that task suddenly involves more roleplay. All it changes is your chance of being successful.
But, well... I said my opinion. The OP is free to do as he pleases, anyway.
@Lemmy
The implementation isn't that obnoxious, it's been a small bother to none of my players, who are a mix of new and old players of pathfinder, the players that want to get languages are doing so out of there own downtime and skill points, those who dont want to bother, dont. I honestly dont think that it sacrifices fun in anyway, in some circumstances, it lets new players with an exclusive language do something in the game, or perhaps have two players have secret conversations, but thats just roleplay, from a realism standpoint (as I have stated many times), it doesn't allow the Orc Barbarian at Level 20 to have the linguistic knowledge of the Wizard or Rogue. There are problems with that example, but it makes a good point, I feel that, if I was attempting to create a much more apparent language block in Pathfinder, then I have succeeded, I don't think that it sacrifices fun in any shape or form, it has little effect if any effect on my party as of now.
It's nice that it works for your group, but having played an Orc Barbarian whose quirk was being a polyglot and obsessed with languages, I personally would have been f&**ing LIVID if my GM placed arbitrary limitations on my ability to be as good at it as someone else.
It was already basically a waste of skill points because it only came up once or twice in-game, but at least I was as good as I should have been sinking 16 skill ranks into it.
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I understand the OP's sentiment, but messing with mechanics is irrelevant to roleplay and sabotages mechanics and fun.
If you want "realistic" language learning, you can require X amount of time "in game universe" to explain that.
You still just need put the 1 rank into Linguistics that the mechanical rules require, since as said, more ranks =/= roleplaying,
Only difference is that "full proficiency" isn't gained "immediately" on level up/rank investment, but can/will happen eventually.
(e.g. you need to roleplay out how you are learning the language in a progressive manner, which may be partly "off-screen")
And honestly, there is little difference for Languages vs. putting ranks in a new Trained-only skill that you haven't used before,
that likewise could plausibly be roleplayed out in progressive manner, so why uniquely penalize languges?
Merely requiring more ranks doesn't further realism AT ALL, since you can gain 20 levels in < 1 month fighting elementals, demons, etc,
without ever once interacting with the culture whose language you will put a rank into. No realism gained, just breaking game dynamics.
If one wants to play amateur game designer by changing rules, ignoring broader game dynamics immediately disqualifies you.
Now, if 1 rank is still just as useful for learning a language "mundanely", because ranks don't need to be weakened there,
I would be amenable to language magic being somewhat less effective over-all (being "tiered" in proficiency),
but simply because currently it is so much better than "mundane" language learning...
If it were weakened then those investments of 1 rank would actually become more significant in-game,
whereas now, despite the "superfluous ease" of a 1 rank investment, few characters do invest those ranks at all,
because doing so detracts from other skills which they could max out/ seriously invest in, and where DCs actually matter...
(That the OP glosses over this reality of skill rank allocation dynamics reveals their failure to grasp game design)
But really this is part of over-all magic vs. mundane issue where magic is overpowered (especially later game levels),
and such a modificiation only makes sense when one is motivated to address that magic/mundane imbalance,
and isn't particularly constrained to language issues, so if one is so motivated, other areas should logically be addressed as well.
@Quandary
I don't believe it sabotages fun at all. As I have said too many times already, people who (quite unlikely looking at it now) use this can always remove the mechanics side or any part they dislike and change it to their liking. I'm under the current assumption that most of the players here have played extensive games of Pathfinder, and all have their varying opinions of the mechanics and roleplaying sides of it, so I'm ALSO assuming that most are used to being able to know most of the languages available at the late levels, or that they use magic/magical items to solve most of their linguistic issues, my intended purpose was to initially make the language progression slower, more akin to real life, though I could have made it the way I have now, or even more realistic, which would've resulted in ALL languages having different required ranks, each of them requiring different downtime periods, etc.
From a roleplay stand point, I think it's pretty good, I'm curious as to see how it doesn't support roleplay? I would like an example to be honest... I also do understand the issues when it comes to magic, but with simple tweaks I can balance it quite easily, and I'm sure most of the people here could as well, Comprehend Languages allows for Rank 1 of a language to be understood, tongues allows Level 2 or 3 depending on what you want, I feel that it doesnt really debuff the magic all that much.
And from the skill rank allocation that I apparently gloss over, I will address it. With the players that I have seen, they typically go for a select amount of skills, both from a player and a character stand point, I have a player in my party who wants to get the most languages, so much so that he's competing with another player as well, whilst most of the other players have their languages and they deal with it, if they want to do a bit of downtime, they they can! The skill rank allocation is open for those who want Linguistics and those languages, I personally don't care if they don't want to, they don't have to! And typically because those who don't rank into Linguistics are combat-heavy characters, and that those who do are more RP based (these are cliches, so Sundakan's Orc Barbarian Savant is one of many exceptions to this cliche), so it gives those who arent shining in combat to shine in other ways, it allows those who roleplay as a shy character or are a shy player to actually add a lot more tension between conversations.
To sum this up, I understand people's issue with the magic vs mundane issue, and that can be tweaked with some changes.
I understand people's issues with the skill point allocation, well those who want to, sure, allow the other players to encourage roleplaying as well.
I didn't like the prospect that the Orc with an Intelligence Score of 8 could know like 20 languages at level 20.
For those saying that "You only can become fully proficient in X amount of languages by Level X", Well then give up on going to Rank 5 then, you can save yourself 2 ranks by just going to the 3rd rank.