Steverooo said:
WulvO, I have to wonder if you even READ my post... If so, you need to put some more skill points into reading comprehension!
Okay, let's try this again...
Piratecat beat me to this, so moving on.
Steverooo said:
We are not going to agree. You want more ignorant PCs, I want more generally well-educated, capable ones. Your system won't work for me, no matter what you do. Two men can't walk together unless they agree upon a destination, and we're going in opposite directions...
Well, that’s altogether possible. And if it turns out that you’re just hell-bent against it come what may, then I can hardly arm-bar you into it, nor would I want to. For me though, this thread is serving a very valuable purpose by pointing things out. I actually created a thread and blatantly asked for such feedback when it was released, so I’m pretty happy this thread is giving it. Because I can’t hope to fix the skill if no one tells me what’s wrong with it.
Steverooo said:
Now to the stuff you didn't address, that needs to be. I asked about Common. You said it's treated like any other language. Let me stretch this out, and make my point...
Two Humans, an Elf, a Dwarf, a Halfling, and a Half-Orc get together, and form a party. The Humans speak Common, the Elf speaks Elven, the Dwarf speaks Dwarven, the Halfling speaks Halfling, and the Half-Orc speaks...? Add a Half-Elf, and what does she speak? We don't know! The GM & Players are going to have to figure this out for themselves. Anyway!...
(bold mine) Since when is it a bad thing when the GM & players have to figure something out for themselves? Anyway…
This is one scenario, sure. Not one I would use, but it’s not completely unreasonable. It could also be that the Humans speak (and for simplicity I’ll stick to the languages from the RAW) Common, the Elf speaks Elven, the Dwarf speaks Dwarven, the Halfling speaks Common, and the Half-Orc speaks Common. This leaves the Elf and the Dwarf who’s
native language isn’t the same as the others, as opposed to nearly everyone speaking different languages. Because I don’t see why every race must, by definition, have it’s own language when they tend to live so closely to each other. It’s not even impossible for the Elf and Dwarf to speak the Common tongue of humans as their native language, if they live in human lands. But this is all supposition to begin with. It’s your example, let’s go with it.
Steverooo said:
Most PCs will have an INT Bonus of +2 or so (especially if Point Buy). Any Wizard character is going to want to have their writing skill maxed out, to take advantage of the Scribe Scroll Feat. Let's assume that the Elf is the Wizard, and puts three MORE ranks into Elven. The other PCs increase their native language no more, and take two ranks of Common, except for the Half-Orc Barbarian, who has no INT Bonus, but a penalty, and speaks Orcish haltingly.
Okay, but looking in the RAW, I don’t see Scribe Scroll mentioning anything about language. One could presume you’re thinking of Draconic (which is mentioned somewhere as the language Arcane magic is written in, I believe). Then again, I don’t see anywhere in the RAW that mentions how big the words are in any given spell. I suppose I could have defined that, too. But again… 2 pages to work with.
Why are we assuming the Elf puts 3 more ranks in Elvan? Does this Elf know he plans to leave Elvan lands and adventure? If so I’d say the Elf is the one who planned poorly in not learning at least Common. A character’s choice of language has always been an area where he could bone himself. I knew players in 1E who managed to have their character unable to speak to every other party member.
Even in your example, why does the half-orc speak orcish instead of common? I mean I suppose this should depend on whether or not the half-orc was raised by his orcish parentage or his human parentage, no? We’re drifting into player choice and planning here.
Steverooo said:
Now we have Two Humans with Common-5, an Elf with Elven-6 (who had to "buy" a rank with skill points), a Halfling with Halfling-3 and Common-2, and a Half-Orc with Orcish-2. They meet in a tavern, and... discover that they can't communicate! Two of them speak no Common. Is that what you intended? (This is the point I was trying to get at, in my first post, where I pointed out that you didn't address Common!)
Okay, we have two human characters whose players should maybe have spent 2 points to learn elvan, or dwarven, or orcish, or any number of things other than pumping their Common up to rank 5, an Elf who decided it was better to speak with a mastery of his own language that would make his fellow elves feel inferior in conversation with him instead of speaking a little common, we’ve lost the dwarf somewhere in the mix, the halfling speaks common fairly well, and the half-orc apparently was raised in orcish lands (since he speaks orcish natively, in which case, yeah I see no problem with him being unable to speak with the others. It was the player’s choice). So in this case, the Elf and the Half-Orc can’t speak with the others (I’d add the dwarf, but like I said, we apparently lost him in the mix). That gives us 2 characters out of a 6 character party who can’t communicate, and one of them boned himself with poor planning.
Is that what I intended? Yeah it kind of was. All of them had the option to speak common at one point in the process, two chose not to. We’ve established this doesn’t jive with your preferences (although doubling the starting number as I mentioned before, and you brushed off as failing to comprehend, would give them more points to start with and thus more chances for everyone but the half-orc who could have just as easily spoke common to begin with), and that’s okay too. There are 3rd party rules I don’t like too. No one’s gonna crucify you for it or anything.
Steverooo said:
Now, let's look at the Elven Wizard... How much did he have to pay for that extra rank? Hmmm! Again, you didn't address this, so what do the RAW say? Only Bards get languages as a class skill... everyone else pays two skill points! So, it costs our Elven Wizard two skill points to become fully literate in Elven. If he wants to speak Common, as well, it will cost him at least two more. It would cost him 12 skill points to become fully literate in Common, and he would be totally illiterate for the first four or five!
OUCH! That's pretty harsh!
Well, this depends on what you mean by ‘fully literate’. Does that mean he can read and understand most things? Does that mean he can read and understand complex things? Does that mean he can read and understand
anything?
There are a number of things that I, in an effort to make sure I didn’t exceed the 2 page limit of the PnM format as well as translating the skill through a few different rules systems (I wrote the first draft of the skill before 2E was released), missed. The effect of Int bonus to language, the continued cost of extra language ranks, class vs. cross-class skills (I’d make language a class skill for everyone, personally), inter-skill relations. This doesn’t mean I want to leave it that way, of course.
I’d actually like to get around to revising the skill (which would take more than 2 pages to do right, but that just means I couldn’t make the revision a PnM) with the feedback I’m getting now.
Steverooo said:
So, explain to me why having the PCs being unable to speak/read multiple languages is a good thing, to you, please? Why did you design this system to accomplish this goal? To give more "Oomph!" to the Bard (the only class with Languages as a Class Skill)?
Ahh now this one’s easy, and comes down to preference, really. How you want to think of your game.
Take anyone who’s never attended High School. I could say anyone who’s never attended Jr. High School too, but I’ll stick with HS. Now this person who’s never been educated to HS level, how many languages do you suppose he knows? How eloquently do you suppose he speaks? How fluently is he likely to read/write? Maybe you don't know many uneducated people, I can't say. I can say I've known a lot of people who thought "Indubitably" was some word I pulled out of some obscure part of one of the extra-special thick dictionaries just to make them feel stupid when I though it was fairly self-evident given a moment of pondering its etomology.
Now unless you’re presuming that characters in your game are routinely educated (“Stop ploughing them fields Bobby, it’s time for school”) then one has to assume that they do not all read and write at an academic level even in their own language, and that the majority speak only their own language.
This is why I think it’s a good thing. Because it makes logical sense. Like I said, it’s a preference thing, subjective.
Steverooo said:
Of course, I guess it only takes two skill points (one rank) of any language to understand what NPCs are saying, but the descriptions make it sound like you need three ranks (six skill points) to get most of what native speakers are saying...
I’d say with 2 ranks in a language, you’re doing about as well as the average stereotypical NY cabbie or Quik-E-Mart cashier. Yeah you can communicate and understand, but mistakes are made, sometimes people don’t quite get what you mean, and you sound like an idiot to people who assume if you don’t speak at native level you’re stupid (instead of realizing that you’re working in a second language, which is better than Joe Average American who thinks Apu is a moron). Your arguments seem to revolve around the fact that not every character is graced with polylinguistic skills by nature of having a player.
Steverooo said:
So, again, NO THANKS! We can't walk together! Even if I doubled the INT Bonus, and made Languages a Class Skill for Rangers, I don't need a Sense Motive roll to smell mutiny brewing! PC parties that can't communicate, Wizards who mess up their scroll-scribing, Clerics who have to pay extra to increase their literacy in some language so that they can take the Feat... even if another Pick'n'Mix added the note about doubling INT Bonuses (or penalties for the poor Half-Orc Barbarian!), and made languages a Class Skill for all classes...
No, thanks!
Okay, but I’m not sure why you’re so vehemently putting it forth. I’m not standing on your doorstep at 5am with a bible and a copy of the Watchtower or anything, you’re free to dislike it in a blanket sense.
