Weird question popped up after an encounter earlier this week. We were fighting deaf aliens.
I play an envoy who really enjoys Dispiriting Taunt, and intimidate checks in general. Now Starfinder has 3 forms of language, spoken, signed, and tactile, and Dispiriting Taunt is labeled with Language Dependent, Sense Dependent, and Mind Effecting (raw intimidate has no such caviats as far as I can tell for the demoralize action).
If you have the Universal Expression improvisation, you don't need to share a language with the target for your language dependent improvisations, though how does that presumably work? As it does not remove sense dependency, that would mean needing to taunt the target with a signed gesture, and presumably it understands. A blind target you just shout some obscenity? How would you tactile express to anything within 60ft?
I think I might be overthinking it, and the simplest answer is "the game says it works, so it works". Am I missing something though?
Weird question popped up after an encounter earlier this week. We were fighting deaf aliens.
I play an envoy who really enjoys Dispiriting Taunt, and intimidate checks in general. Now Starfinder has 3 forms of language, spoken, signed, and tactile, and Dispiriting Taunt is labeled with Language Dependent, Sense Dependent, and Mind Effecting (raw intimidate has no such caviats as far as I can tell for the demoralize action).
If you have the Universal Expression improvisation, you don't need to share a language with the target for your language dependent improvisations, though how does that presumably work? As it does not remove sense dependency, that would mean needing to taunt the target with a signed gesture, and presumably it understands. A blind target you just shout some obscenity? How would you tactile express to anything within 60ft?
I think I might be overthinking it, and the simplest answer is "the game says it works, so it works". Am I missing something though?
Yes, I believe you are over-thinking it, in this case... While the Universal Expression improvisation does make it so that you don't need to share a language, thus making the improvisation in question no longer language dependent, it is still sense dependent. It is implied that the sense in question is hearing, since the ability is normally both language dependent and sense dependent.
As an aside, I can fully understand that if a race communicates through their super-sense of smell, then it would make sense for a member of that race to use Dispiriting Taunt on another member of that same race (or another race that communicates through smell) wouldn't require the same "language" if they also had Dispiriting Taunt, but I would also rule that any other race whose primary communication is voice/hearing, then the "smell" speaking race can't taunt them with Dispiriting Taunt either.
At any rate, since you're implying that your Envoy in question is using voice/hearing as their method of communication, and since the targets are deaf, they cannot be affected by the Dispiriting Taunt, even with Universal Expression. FYI, Intimidate is likewise sense dependent (if you double-check, you'll see it in the middle of the text block), and thus also would require the target to be able to have the appropriate sense.
Does that help?