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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matthias" data-source="post: 6286582" data-attributes="member: 3625">A nice idea. It's not much different from "forbidden" languages such as druidic, except that sources of information on the language are just about as hard to find and everyone who could tell you anything about it are either dead or are almost as much in the dark as you are.I would, however, think that the right Divination magics cast should shed light on individual words, phrases, or manuscripts. Here's what you could do: Whatever magic you use (IDHTBIFOM), the spell will return a summary understanding of whatever was written in the dead language. You could cast it on a whole page and understand roughly what the text is about, without getting any clues on the meaning of specific words. Or you could break down the page into paragraphs, Divinate for each, and get a little better idea of certain repeated words probably stand for. Or you Divinate on a single sentence or even a single word, and your knowledge precision increases even more.The problem you're running into is inherent in the system: either a character is fluent in a language or they aren't. There's no skill ranks in a language to rate fluency (though there probably should be, but in most cases partial fluency and "barely able to get by" in terms of ability does not come up enough in most games to be worth the increased granularity/complexity).I don't see a problem with simply requiring a Linguistics skill check with a certain DC based on the amount of text available and (perhaps) the original author's writing ability.Length of manuscript:Single word or short phrase = DC 25Short sentence = DC 23Long sentence = DC 21Short paragraph = DC 20Long paragraph = DC 17Passage of several paragraphs = DC 15Per whole page = DC 12Author's writing ability:Commoner, peasant, literate manual laborer = -2 DCMerchant, warrior, or intuitive adventurer= +0 DCAristocrat, adept, or self-taught adventurer = +2 DCExpert or trained adventurer = +5 DC(represents superior vocabulary and poetic skill)Subject matter:Graffiti, road signs, other very simple writing: -2 DCMundane, everyday subject: +0 DCSlightly more technical subject (religion, engineering, history & local politics, etc.): +2 DCModerately technical subject (legal code, earth sciences, arcana, planes): +5 DC</blockquote>

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