Hi all,
I'm putting together a character for a new campaign. He's a human with an 8 Intelligence (I'm using voluntary flaws for backstory reasons). I've never played such a low INT character so I'm not sure if he starts with 2 languages or just 1 language. Here's my reasoning for each possibility. What do you all think is the correct interpretation of the rules.
2 Languages - under the Human ancestry entry it states Humans start with Common and "Additional languages equal to 1 + your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive)" Since my mod isn't positive, I don't add the -1 modifier from my 8 INT and thus I get the "Additional language equal to 1"
1 language - The "+ your Intelligence modifier" takes precedent over the parenthetical which means my -1 modifier does negate the additional 1 language
As I think about it more, I believe the 2 languages reading is correct because otherwise I'd have to completely ignore the modifying phrase "if it's positive". But my GM can have strange reasonings at times and I want more than my word and a reading that benefits me to back me up.
What is the wisdom of the boards?
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Yep, agree with Cordell.
As a sidenote: the first printing of the CRB wrote this in an awkward way, then PFS came up with a fix, then the second printing improved things, then PFS had to synchronize with that. So if you go digging for old forum wisdom, expect to run into a lot of different answers that might have been correct at the time.
Nowadays, PFS grants every ancestry an extra regional language (not just humans). So a PFS human would have 3 languages, more if Intelligence is high; one of which is Common, and one of which is a regional language.
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You only add your Intelligence modifier if it's positive. Since it's not positive (it's at -1), it's not factored into the Additional Languages phrasing, meaning an Intelligence penalty doesn't affect your starting languages.
That being said, if you decide to improve upon it later with the ability boosts, you wouldn't gain a new language until your Intelligence modifier is positive.
Maybe mathmuse will correct me. But I don't think that 0 is technically positive either.
But in any case, the parenthetical '(if it is positive)' is meant to be applied to just your INT bonus. Not the entire expression.
The word Modifier as opposed to the word Bonus is supposed to represent a term than can be applied if it is positive or negative. But the rule says Having a positive Intelligence modifier grants a number of additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier so not in this case.
Its a really annoying thing to do with a convention.
Maybe mathmuse will correct me. But I don't think that 0 is technically positive either.
But in any case, the parenthetical '(if it is positive)' is meant to be applied to just your INT bonus. Not the entire expression.
Correct, 0 is "non-negative" but it's not "positive". That being said, it doesn't really matter in this scenario, as "additional languages equal to 0" has no effect regardless of if it applies or not.
Correct, 0 is "non-negative" but it's not "positive". That being said, it doesn't really matter in this scenario, as "additional languages equal to 0" has no effect regardless of if it applies or not.Maybe mathmuse will correct me. But I don't think that 0 is technically positive either.
But in any case, the parenthetical '(if it is positive)' is meant to be applied to just your INT bonus. Not the entire expression.
There isn't a universal way to answer the question "What is the sign of zero?" The answer depends on the context in which it is being asked.
In some contexts zero is considered to be neither positive nor negative. In other contexts it is considered to be both positive and negative.
It often surprises people that math, like other languages, is contextual, but it is. Consider the different definitions of "increasing interval" or how the equals symbol means different things in different situations.