Alternate Languages Between Variant Races.

[Andrew the Warwitch]

I was looking at Nethys and saw in the Race entry for Elves is says that it is possible to take Tongue of the Sea to replace the standard languages of the elf. I am wondering if anyone knows if that can be applied to languages for an aquatic elf as per the entry for aquatic elves, as the languages listed don't make sense for an aquatic elf.

I realize that was a bit awkward way to phrase the question but if you have questions, make a message and I will try to clarify.

[BigNorseWolf]

If you mean

[PFS Legal] Aquatic Elves
Source Heroes from the Fringe pg. 10
Aquatic elves are the oceanic cousins of landborn elves. These elves have developed gills and webbed fingers and toes that allow them to survive and navigate the waters of Golarion, and often have blue, coral, or seaweed-black skin to blend into their environment.

These aquatic elves yes you can do that. The species types there are possible results from the build an option down below, kind of like taking a build a bear off the shelf instead of bulding the bear yourself. Since nothing replaces the hat on the bear you could just add it

[Andrew the Warwitch]

Well, there is the specific languages for and elf plus the certain other ones if the character has high INT. If an elf trades their languages in the stat block for Tongue of the Sea, they get a different series. There is a specific block of languages for the Aquatic Elf, but those languages include Orc and Gnoll and such. It would make more sense to me if the Aquatic Elf can make that same trade to get Tongue of the Sea, as they are both elves.

[Tomppa]

Pathfinder Adventure Path #124: City in the Deep wrote:

Alternate Racial Traits: The alternate racial traits in this book are legal for play except tongue of the sea.

Nope, can't take tongue of the sea for aquatic elves because it's not legal at all, not even for normal elves.

[Andrew the Warwitch]

Thanks for pointing that out. Although it is stupid, IMO, that aquatic elves end up with languages like draconic, orc and gnoll when they are no where near those races. I actually wouldn't have a problem that for aquatic elves Common would not be a starting language for them.

[David knott 242]

There are dragons in the sea.

But you are definitely right about orcs and gnolls.

[Andrew the Warwitch]

Would it really be making a naturally aquatic race (ie aquatic elf, undine, etc) over-powered or give them an unfair advantage if they were either started with the Tongue of the Sea language block, or give it as an alternate race option to those races?

[Tomppa]

Probably not. Don't really see why it was banned in the first place, unless maybe for the Aboleth language, since that's not a legal language for PC's. The AR could have just as well said that Tongue of the Sea is Legal, but PC's can't choose aboleth as a language.

Probably not a huge problem anyway, you can pick up the rest of the languages with a few points in linguistics. Unless you're a int-based spellcaster, you won't be choosing more than one or two extra languages anyway.

[Starglim]

Tongue of the Sea doesn't give the character the Common language. This has generally been treated as overly annoying at the table.

I also suspect granting free access to Azlanti for what it gives up is a bit strong.