How many languages does a fiendish raven familiar speak?

[Sword of Spirit]

1. Any creature with an Intelligence of 3 or higher understands at least one language.
2. Familiars gain a minimum Intelligence of 6 by becoming a familiar.
3. Fiendish creatures have a minimum Intelligence of 3, prior to being bound as familiars.

Q1. Should a fiendish familiar understand 1 or 2 languages?

Q2. How do we determine which languages these are?

4. A raven familiar speaks a language of its master's choice (presumably the same one it understands--meaning that, in the case of a raven familar, the master chooses which one it understands).

Q3. If a fiendish raven familiar understands 2 languages, should it be able to speak both of them?

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[Tovec]

SRD is broken for me right now (not sure why) and I don't have access to my books so everything I'm telling you is based on my best memory. With that said..

If the Raven has INT 6, then it should have 1 language - that language chosen by the master (according to you). Unless the raven has some other method to gain extra languages, they wouldn't get any bonus ones unless they have an INT of over 10.

The "fiendish" part might give them infernal or abyssal, but otherwise I would think they only get 1 language (chosen by their master).

 

[Celebrim]

A1: 1.

A2: The raven speaks a language of its master's choice. So far as I can tell, the fiendish template does not add any additional language ability to the creature. A DM could of course house rule that fiendish creatures without prior language ability speak or at least understand Infernal as part of gaining 3 intelligence, and that would be a quite reasonable ruling, but strictly speaking, the rules don't provide for that. Even if you have that rule, there is no requirement that a fiendish creature gains an additional language ability above what it would already possess.

A3: Since a raven doesn't have sufficient intelligence to gain a bonus language, even if fiendish and a familiar, I see no reason it should be able to speak or understand 2 languages. Arguably, the familiar of a high level caster ought to be able to learn to understand multiple languages because its intelligence rises sufficiently high. However, since familiars gain no skill points (per se) even this is a bit of a stretch. Personally, I would limit that knowledge to languages that the master already knows and limit it to one additional language understood at 17th level or higher (since it already speaks 1 language of its master's choosing and the language 'of its own kind'). Now that I think about it, I make the assumption for the purpose of playability that all familiars can understand (but not speak) one language (usually common). In the case of a Raven, I would allow it to speak any language it knows.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think I'm going to agree that the most likely reading is that a fiendish raven doesn't learn a new language when it becomes a familiar.

A couple of points of interest though:

From the SRD under Intelligence: "Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise)"

From the SRD under Fiendish template: "Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3."

This tells me that an animal with the fiendish template has the ability to understand one language. (Technically it would be Common, since it isn't otherwise noted, but Infernal, Abyssal, or another appropriate fiendish language makes more sense.)

I'm not seeing how this is a house rule. It seems to me that fiendish creatures understanding at least one language is dictated by the rules. Am I making an unwarranted assumption somewhere?

 

[Celebrim]

From the SRD under Intelligence: "Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise)"

From the SRD under Fiendish template: "Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3."

This tells me that an animal with the fiendish template has the ability to understand one language. (Technically it would be Common, since it isn't otherwise noted, but Infernal, Abyssal, or another appropriate fiendish language makes more sense.)

I'm not seeing how this is a house rule. It seems to me that fiendish creatures understanding at least one language is dictated by the rules. Am I making an unwarranted assumption somewhere?

A raven familiar already speaks and understands at least 1 language. If the fiendish template is applied to it, it still already meets the requirements of speaking and understanding at least 1 language. The fiendish template doesn't say, "Creatures with the fiendish template gain understanding of an additional spoken language." It only implies indirectly that if the base creature didn't already know how to speak a language, it would gain the capability now to understand (but not necessarily speak) one language, presumably common, since nothing else is noted.

However, I'm not sure that that outcome - though irrelevant to the raven familiar - is actually intended. I'm not sure that I read "Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3" as clearly indicating it gains any unstated abilities, even those that normally come with having an intelligence increase - such as language ability or increased skill points. "Same as the base creature..." could be read as an exemption to the normal rules that enforces that only the intelligence increases and all secondary abilities (skills for example) remain the same.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

A raven familiar already speaks and understands at least 1 language. If the fiendish template is applied to it, it still already meets the requirements of speaking and understanding at least 1 language. The fiendish template doesn't say, "Creatures with the fiendish template gain understanding of an additional spoken language." It only implies indirectly that if the base creature didn't already know how to speak a language, it would gain the capability now to understand (but not necessarily speak) one language, presumably common, since nothing else is noted.

I think it's actually better to start with a fiendish raven and then make it a familiar, rather than stat with a familiar and make it fiendish, since according to 3e metaphysics a familiar is an already existing creature rather than a created or summoned being. That said, I think you are probably right that the text doesn't indicate it would gain a new language. It kind of bugs me though, since the fiendish template is a rather underwhelming addition to a familiar, and giving it an extra language would at least be something.

However, I'm not sure that that outcome - though irrelevant to the raven familiar - is actually intended. I'm not sure that I read "Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3" as clearly indicating it gains any unstated abilities, even those that normally come with having an intelligence increase - such as language ability or increased skill points. "Same as the base creature..." could be read as an exemption to the normal rules that enforces that only the intelligence increases and all secondary abilities (skills for example) remain the same.

From what I can tell under the general template rules, since a fiendish creature is a magical beast a fiendish creature that began as an animal gains the traits of magical beasts, but keeps the features of an animal. Animals have a trait that specifies they have an Intelligence of only 1 or 2, while magical beasts (like most creatures) have no such trait. So it seems like magical beast is the standard to be working from, and if that is so, a understanding of at least one language is assumed for a magical beast with an Intelligence of 3+.

Since magical beasts do not, however, have a minimum Intelligence of 3, I think the note that a fiendish creature has a minimum Int is intended to support that attribution of (im)morality to the fiendish creature--ie, to allow an evil alignment in the same way a fiend would have one.

Thanks for your thoughts. I was hoping someone would find some sort of rule I missed that would say, "yes, a fiendish raven familiar speaks 2 languages!", but I guess I'll just have to talk with my friend and see if he will allow the familiar to have both Abyssal and Common for story reasons.

 

[Tovec]

Just remembered to come back, but it seems like I didn't have to double check the SRD.

For what it is worth, adding a single language to a raven familiar is going to break basically nothing about the game. I would allow and probably encourage this kind of thinking from my players - I would certainly run it past your DM. More of a "could be, should be" kind of situation that technically isn't supported by RAW, but who cares.

since the fiendish template is a rather underwhelming addition to a familiar, and giving it an extra language would at least be something.

You aren't wrong. But to do so is certainly a houserule.