D&D (2024) Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth? - Languages in 2024

[Demetrios1453]

I have a feeling your DMG guess is probably right, along with a lot of other similar issues of this ilk.

 

[Bacon Bits]

So am I missing something or have languages been utterly nerfed in 2024? The rules, as I understand them:

1. You get three languages to start: Common, and two of your choice.
2. The languages need to be off the Standard Languages list, which are most of the common PC and monster races (Common, Draconic, Elvish, Orc, Goblin, etc). You cannot start with Rare languages (Abyssal, Primordial, Deep Speech, etc).
3. You can gain extra languages if "your class or other features give you other languages."

So in 2014, #1 didn't exist. It's been imported from races, effectively, although they were pretty universally Common + 1.

But the rare language rules are from 2014. In Chapter 4 of the PHB.14 or Basic:

"Choose your languages from the Standard Languages table, or choose one that is common in your campaign. With your DM’s permission, you can instead choose a language from the Exotic Languages table or a secret language, such as thieves’ cant or the tongue of druids."

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/basic-rules-2014/personality-and-background#Languages

But there is the problem: I am not aware of any way to get said features!

1. The only two classes which give you a language are Rogue (Thief cant plus any one language) and Druid (Druidic). I don't see any other class features (in classes or subclasses) that were previewed that give languages. EDIT: Rangers too via Deft Explorer, As Mellored pointed out).
2. The Linguist feat is gone. It is neither an Origin nor a regular feat. I think it might be the only missing feat from 2014.
3. The rules for downtime training in a tool/language don't seem to be in the PHB. Perhaps the DMG has them alongside all the other non-crafting downtime activities.
4. Backgrounds do not give languages, nor do species.

The downtime rules might not be present in the PHB.24, but I can plainly state that the rules in PHB.14 effectively rule it out of actual play. It takes 250 days to learn a language. (And even then it might not work.)

That's unreasonably fast to learn a language compared to reality. However, I can say with complete certainty that I have never had 250 days of downtime in 5e, 4e, 3e, 1e, or B/X, and the only reason I'm not sure about 2e is because we had a campaign that relied on natural healing and long sailing voyages. I'm not even sure I have had 250 days of total in-game downtime across every campaign we've ever had for the past 25 years. Certainly not in 4e or 5e combined.

Heck, 70 days is long enough in 5e to multiclass to a spellcasting class, gain 5 levels, and learn both Comprehend Languages and Tongues. It's easier to summon a creature with telepathy or the above spells, quest for an item that grants telepathy, or something similar.

So the only change that I see is that the Lingust feat is gone (but nobody ever takes it), and the non-rule about downtime learning is gone, too.

But there's no way to know what is going on with the DMG. Presumably there are downtime rules somewhere.

So I don't really see this being a huge change. Like I don't think it actually comes up. I don't think the rare language rules exist to prevent the PCs from knowing languages that they should. But I also don't think there's any lore about languages anymore, either. I agree with others that they're almost entirely fluff. It's an intensely underdesigned aspect of the game, but that's nothing new, either.

 

[Rabbitbait]

That's unreasonably fast to learn a language compared to reality.

Depends on how fluent you want to be. I was able to learn enough greek in two weeks to be able to have basic communication and get around Greece without too much hassle. I would not have been able to have a proper conversation, but I could communicate.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Depends on how fluent you want to be. I was able to learn enough greek in two weeks to be able to have basic communication and get around Greece without too much hassle. I would not have been able to have a proper conversation, but I could communicate.

Sure, but D&D doesn't do that, right? It's either complete tower of babel or effectively fluent with no in between. Like there's never a proficiency check with language. That's going to take more than a school year.

 

[Horwath]

It is really weird that linguist wasn’t included as an origin feat.

linguist+skilled could have been one feat.

or make it:
1 skill = 3 tools = 6 languages or something similar.

 

[Li Shenron]

WotC has no idea what to do with languages, they're kind of like spell components in that they're in the game because they've always been in the game, but they don't really serve any functional purpose or add anything interesting except in rare situations.

Languages could be made to offer interesting RP situations, but there are too many spells that completely negate any reason to care about training language proficiencies. Comprehend Languages at level 1 lets you translate anything but not communicate back. Tongues at level 3 gives you proficiency in all languages. Then there are ways to telepathically communicate even if you don't know the same languages. There's very little reason to care about what languages your character speaks and that's unfortunate

I agree on all these.

Languages are one of those niche areas of any RPG which a gaming group could choose anything between totally ignore the topic and make it a strategic resource. Similar cases can be said for encumbrance, spell components, rations/water/survival and more.

On a very high level, I think D&D designers always lacked a more ambitious vision for the game to be a giant toolbox that each gaming group can setup according to their playstyle preferences, instead they always choose a lukewarm middle-ground default: languages are in the game but not too much, encumbrance is in the game but not too much, and so on... just not to alienate players who hate one extreme or the other, but then the DM still has to do some work to decide how much to handle the topic without any support from the books. So there is a default set by the books, but the default is lousy and not sufficient for the DM to count on it without additional work. Why not providing at least guidance for the DM on how to dial?

Negating spells are always part of the problem. They exist exactly to make an entire (potentially interesting) topic irrelevant, if it annoys someone. Managing light sources such as torches/lamps as limited resources, keeping track of their ranges and duration, is potentially a very interesting strategic element of a RPG for those who want it, but at the same time it can be totally a dealbreaker for another gaming group who has zero interest in this strategic element. So what do game desigers do? They put it in the game, but then they also put "switch off" abilities (low-level light spells) that entitle players to remove the strategic element entirely. Perhaps the crux of the matter is that they put this into the players' hands instead of the DM, which means that according to the rules, a single player who doesn't like the strategic element can remove it from the game for everyone, unless the DM intervenes but then becomes adversarial to that single player.

If they haven't learned a better way in 50 years, I have little faith they ever will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They don't matter though because low level spells completely negate their purpose. It's like saying that tracking rations matters when Goodberry exists.

Honestly 5.5 might have been better off removing these bits of fiction altogether and just hand-waving it. It looks to me like they want to make it not matter anyway. Just rip the band-aid off and focus their mechanics attention where they want it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Does the draconic sorcerer not grant draconic as language any more?

Anyway, I can barely be arsed to care about languages in 5e. The only time they matter is when they’re bringing the game to a halt because no one in the party has a language they need to communicate with an important NPC or read an important written clue or something. I blame the binary nature of languages in D&D. Languages might actually be interesting if there were degrees of fluency that could result in bonuses and penalties to social rolls, but as it stands it’s you can either communicate completely unimpeded or not at all, and not at all doesn’t make for good gameplay.

I’ve thought about ruling that you get to pick one language as your first language. If you and an NPC speak the same first language, you get advantage on social checks with them. If you speak their first language but it isn’t your first (or vice-versa), you make social checks normally with them. If you share a language and it’s neither of your first language, your social checks have disadvantage with them. And naturally if you don’t share any languages you can’t communicate verbally with each other. Haven’t tried implementing it, but seems like a simple enough system to make language matter without being a huge pain.

There's a great article that just came out in Level Up's Gate Pass Gazette that explicitly makes languages more interesting, including introducing levels of fluency.

But 5.5 and A5e are swiftly diverging games in philosophy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's also weird because you can know the language of a creature, but know nothing else about them at all -- which is nearly impossible to do while learning a living language.

Level Up introduced a Culture skill to address this issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, I don't expect a whole lot of realism in my fantasy linguistics. The fact that elves take a century to master elvish and a ranger can learn it in an afternoon has always been weird, but I accept it.

Where does it say Elves take a century to learn Elvish?