rules for learning languages...

[LeStew]

Hi all~

I am playing a dragonborn. And Tharin'Di is very interested in other cultures and races. He picked up an Elven basic language primer (think "My first ABCs!") and will be looking at it as the party rests or sits around the camp fire or whatever. My question is, Is there a rule for how long this might last until Tharin'Di the Dragonborn Monk begins to understand the elven being spoken around him.

To be clear, our group aren't such rules lawyers that Tharin'Di doesn't know what is going on around him. I just would like to have a gauge.

An initial search through the Rules Compendium didn't turn anything up. Am I missing something in some hidden book at the bottom of my bookshelf?

Thanks all! can't wait to hear what you guys come up with!

 

[Unwise]

As far as I know you can only learn languages by spending a feat. Linguist gives you three languages of your choice. I am not aware of any way of getting languages for free or through RPing.

 

[SensoryThought]

As someone who uses the character builder, the incapacity to add new languages is frustrating as is the lack of rules on how you do this.

As previously mentioned, The linguist feat gives you 3 extra languages. Note also that the scholar theme gives you extra languages as you level up. If you are in Eberron you can take the mark of Sivis feat too for extra languages.

Personally, I'd let him write it on his character sheet if he wants to learn it and had someone to teach him.

 

[Magus of the Lotus]

I had a similar situation in my party, our Rogue learned Goblin from the Goblin in the group. I felt it was kind of ridiculous to not have rules for learning languages, so I just made it a simple skill check for the two: The Goblin rolled INT vs. the Rogue's Will, to represent him teaching, and the Rogue rolled against a Moderate DC using intelligence to see if the lesson stuck. I figured it doesn't make sense for a person to learn a language in one night so I had them do it once whenever they took an extended rest. I don't exactly remember, but I think I made it so that after the first five lessons the Rogue could speak Goblin but not read it, and then after five more she could read, write and speak Goblin. This was roughly two weeks in-game time.

Also, on a side note, first post!