How would you represent, in rules, derivative languages?

[Tsyr]

Frex, language B is derived from Language A centuries ago, but is now fairly different... Yet similar enough the roots are still evident, and a person who speaks either language could probably make themselves understood to a person who spoke the other, if not well.

How would you represent that?

I'm thinking, for starters, a penalty on diplomacy, innuendo, etc rolls... How much?

 

[Nifft]

Language Trees and Degrees of Linguistics.

Make each Language a skill (that only goes up to 5 ranks):
Rank 1 => Slightly better than pantomime.
Rank 2 => "Where please is to the bathroom?"
Rank 3 => Able to trade.
Rank 4 => Native speaker.
Rank 5 => Well educated native speaker.

(Hiding your accent is a Perform check.)

Now, make a tree of languages -- what came from what, etc.

Grant a +1 Circumstance Bonus to any language that's one "hop" away, and allow untrained checks in neighboring languages.

You might want to create a "Linguist" Feat that makes all Languages into class skills, allows untrained checks, and grants a +1 bonus to all checks. You also might want to work out a non-d20 mechanic for these Language checks -- 5 ranks is nothing vs. a d20, but is ruinous for a PC's skill points. I suggest a d6.

-- N

 

[Nifft]

Ooo, or do the language skill check like this:

Int bonus + (4 * Language rank) + d20

-- N

 

[rootbeergnome]

a long time ago, in a 2ed campaign far away.....
We used to use this weird system for doing languages, it was fun and involved a lot of roleplaying.

Lets say you know a language, but are not a native speaker, until you get a lot of proficiency (i.e. skill ranks) you can only use certain words with certain vowels.

For example, lets say i have orcish at rank 1, we would have you get to use only words with the vowels "A and I" or something like that. If it contained any other vowels, you could not understand it or say it. So you replace those words with made up words (if you are the DM) and it sounds really cool, to understand bits and pieces of the conversation, and try to piece it together, its a lot of fun and makes great roleplaying if you get it right.

An example orcish threat to a person who has a limited understanding of orcish:


The threat is "You soft skins will die now!!"

vowels "A" and "I" only @ Rank 1 sounds like "KRoog Dugla skins will Dertoosh kurg!"

then it could progress to more vowels every 2 ranks or so, so you could understand words with the vowel "O" in them, so the phrase then sounds like :

"Kroog soft skins will dertoosh now!"

and so on and so forth, adding vowels until you get it all, trust me, its fun if you can get used to it. I hope that wasnt too confusing

 

[willpax]

I use a system similar to Nifft's, but simplified:

Languages are divided into families. Learning a languge in the same family as a languge you already know takes one rank. Learning a language in a different family requires two ranks.

I also ration starting languages based on region and background--your starting languages have to make sense for the area (narrow if you're from an isolated area, diverse if you're in a cosmopolitan border city).

 

[the Jester]

rootbeergnome, that sounds like a really fun system! I think it might make it too hard to learn a language in 3e, though, with most classes needing 2 skill points per rank, but maybe a two-step or three-step process...? I like the idea, for sure!

 

[Crothian]

I'd use the language rules as presented in the Kalamar Players Guide. Basically, instead of either knowing or not knowing a language, they are treated as skills.

 

[DanMcS]

In the old Taladas boxed set, there was a chart showing how languages were related to each other. It was a line graph, with each language as a vertex, and lines connecting them.

In between each language, there were variable numbers of dots, indicating distance of derivation. Each dot represented a 10% loss of comprehension; also, the languages themselves counted as dots.

So you might see:

Spanish----0-----Portugese.

Indicating that a Spanish speaker understands 80% of what someone speaking Portugese says (I don't really know how close they are, just an example).

So in a fantasy setting, you might see

Elvish--0--0--0--Common--0--0--0--0--0--0--Orcish--0--Goblin

A common speaker gets 30% of what an orc says, and 10% of what a Goblins says, but 60% of elvish. Or whatever. You can do multiple lines, but that's hard to draw in text; but elvish might have a line to Orcish worth 50% or so.

In 3e, I'd mechanically represent this as each 10% loss becomes a -2 penalty to checks involving communication, like diplomacy, bluff, or whatever.

 

[DrZombie]

rootbeergnome, that sounds like a really fun system! I think it might make it too hard to learn a language in 3e, though, with most classes needing 2 skill points per rank, but maybe a two-step or three-step process...? I like the idea, for sure!

The more ranks, the better. I use six ranks for languages (being a shadowrun player, like the rank above but rank 6 allows you to speak dialect), and for non- native languages you need ranks in the skill "read/write language". So, yes, it does take a few levels to be able to speak a language perfectly, but it takes a lot of effort to learn how to write a language perfectly, but if you think it unfair i dare you to try and learn how to write german or latin perfectly. It'll take you a few years, never mind japanese or chinese.
You get half your ranks in a related language (like german-dutch) for free, and related languages to a native language or a langauge in wich you have 5 ranks are considered class skills.

It is always quite a laugh to have leave players stranded in an area where noone understands a word they say. (evil grin)