|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I love languages. Almost all of my PF1 characters spend points in Linguistics to pick them up. Sure, they were too easy to pick up in PF1, but I think the pendulum might have swung too far the other way.
I'm not sure how to find a balance between the two, but I'd love to make it at least a little easier to become a polyglot.
It's... pretty easy. Everyone starts with 2, can get a 3rd, and multilingual is just a skill feat requiring trained in Society, and grants two more each time you take it (they can even be uncommon).
A character can easily have 4 languages at level 2, 5 if they've got a 14 intelligence. 6 if they're a half-elf.
A fifth level rogue can have... 13.
It's actually possible to run out of languages to take! [Though obviously the list in the book isn't complete- I spy a lack of certain ancient languages]
I almost conpletely agree. While I thibk the rules are sufficient for early languages one learns, I think there should be some ramp up or specialization to represent your character just getting better and better at learning languages, because it is a skill you get better at as you work at it.
As it stands, obe of my favorite pathfinder characters I've ever played was an odd little woman who was a wizard and ahyperpolyglot, but this was because of her job working at a unuversity as a professor of linguistic anthropology. I feel the old skill system had a much greater ability to diversify a chararacter's skills to represent backgrounds like this
I do agree on languages, and yet they're also - mechanically - a hard sell when a spellcaster can solve all language issues with a spell. Despite that, my first and only wizard character had a large number of skill due to investment in Linguistics due to non-language perks it offered.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think that part of the problem is that the ability to pick up new languages is hidden in the Society Skill, and needs a feat. Making harder for those who want to play linguistic characters to realize their potential.
Part of me believes that the intent is that Society be the Social Studies default, and new culture knowledge equals new languages. The problem I have with it is that not everyone who learns about a new culture learns the language, and not everyone who learns a new language learns about the culture (putting a kind of cap on how good someone can really be at each).
How I would deal with this:
Each level of Society (Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary) allows the ability to add 2 new languages (because everything else is based on 2s where this stuff is involved) and feats can increase these numbers. I might also make it so that Multilingual adds 2 to each of the level ups. This would allow the linguistically inclined to feel like they are getting something out of a skill they might otherwise not take.