D&D 5E The Kenku's Mimicry ability.

[Wednesday Boy]

If I play a kenku the litmus test for how much my character can speak will be whether or not a cartoon parrot could say it. I would veer it away from the campiness of an actual cartoon parrot (No Kenku wants a crackers.) but I think that's the intended level of mimicry.

A player in my game is getting ready to run SKT for another group, and one of his players is making a kenku. He's going to make a list of about 100 phrases that he's learned, and whenever he goes to say something, he's going to find the closest thing on his list. I think it's really cool, like always speaking in riddles or quoting sacred texts. It's probably going to be a major pain after a while for the player, but I'm sure it'll be fun for a while.

I recommend your player not go for so many phrases. 100 phrases is a lot and I think it will quickly become tedious waiting for the player to scan the phrases and pick which to use.

At least he will be able to add to his list over time, like if someone in his party screams "GIANT!!!".

That's what I would do--write down memorable quotes said during the sessions for use later on in the campaign.

 

[orderofthings]

I just imagined it as working the same way as the car in the transformers movie that could only talk using his radio. Let the player (I assume we're not talking about an NPC) use a mosaic of repeated phrases to get a point across. The Kenku's lack of creativity gives the player a chance to be creative.

The Kenku turned to face Galvan. It cocked it's head to the side quizzically, as if trying to find the right words.
"I have a mission for you..." the bird stated, in the gruff voice of their Harper contact in Luskan. It's timbre then went soft and feminine. "We need food, darling". It was Selatia, Galvan's lover.
"I told you not to use her voice." Galvan said, with a shudder.
"Yea yea" the bird said, this time drawing upon Galvan's own words from the night before.

 

[TwoSix]

kenku can

Mimic someone's voice and just speak normally

Caw!

 

[Dorian_Grey]

I read that and felt that the Kenku would be like the Tamarians from Star Trek: all allegories that they've heard. So they pick up on idioms and allegories that express a lot of different things, rather then mimicking any old person talking. Of course, they have some of the basics: Yes, No, Please, Thank You, Want, Need, What, Name - very basic verbal concepts that are fairly consistent across multiple languages.

For more complicated expressions they try to focus on what could be considered "Shared experiences." Think of a Kenku sitting in a tavern listening to a harper. They can try to memorize the 100 different responses the harper is evoking OR they can focus on what the harper is singing/saying.

As a result, the songs, allegories, and phrases that are so typical to a bard become the preferred method of communicating. What would be easier for a Kenku:

1. Trying to properly identify a threat with a word it might not have that is up ahead OR
2. Say "The beast at Tanagra" indicated a challenge to overcome - specifically a creature of some kind.

Although still difficult, it would make for a more unified communication approach and would make more sense for a kenku dealing with a language that is difficult to understand. It is still incumbent upon the party to make the connections and nuance what the kenku is saying. Plus, EVERYONE loves that episode of Star Trek

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Verbal components to spells and device activation words must be a little challenging.

 

[Dausuul]

Verbal components to spells and device activation words must be a little challenging.

Just means that minor illusion is a must-have for kenku wizards. It's the only way you can learn spells from a book.

 

[Yunru]

but "don't trust the Duke, he's conspiring with your enemy's mistress!" not so much.

Sure they can, but that's also what they say when the King's a traitor to his country, the bar tender is planning on swindling you and the Duke's conspiring with your enemy's mistress too

 

[bedir than]

So what happens if they observe humans talking for months or even years? Could they then just mimic the words they hear and arrange them into sentences?

This is how I understand it and would play it. They understand language, they just can't assemble words. So I'd have them quoting people they've heard maybe a word or two or three from one person, and then another phrase from a new person and a third person completes it.

 

[GreenTengu]

You know-- it is worth noting that language is not simply "words". That a ton of what people say is carried in the tone and the stress on words tends to be different depending on where the word is being used in a sentence and the intention it is conveying. Even the most basic sentence.

The cat caught the mouse. - There is only one cat!
The cat caught the mouse. - It was the cat that did it, not the dog!
The cat caught the mouse. - The mouse has been caught, stop worrying.
The cat caught the mouse. - There was only one mouse, no more.
The cat caught the mouse. - It was a mouse that the cat caught, not a bird.

Probably not the best example, but pretty much the same is true of all sentences. And then you have to deal with when words are contracted in sentences and when the are not.

"There's no book on the room."
"Yes, there is. There's a red book on the shelf."

You could forgo contractions all together if you are trying to avoid them, but if you are mimicking what people say exactly then it isn't you who is choosing.

And then there are words that blend all together. Instead of saying "Would you" as clear separate words, often you will hear "Woo'ja"

Again, I am using examples off the top of my head here, so there are likely far better examples. But it is certainly not a case where if you heard someone say something that would be expressed as individual words if written out, you could necessarily rearrange those words into new sentences that would sound convincingly like that person was speaking.

I am sure we have all heard cases where someone recorded someone speaking for a while and then tried to rearrange those words into something completely different. The volume, tone and tempo of the rearranged sentences tends to be way off.

Similarly, there are many text-to-voice programs out there where forget just words, they have broken all words down into their composite parts (after all, if one is just memorizing the sounds that others make in order to convey an idea, 'words' are not the most fundamental segments you can use) and you will always find that if you try plugging whole sentences into them, they come out sounding outright bizarre. And the longer the piece you have it recite is, the more and more odd and wrong it will sound. And that is what happens if you have the absolutely ideal situation where you sat someone down and tried your absolute best to record enough of them so that you would have the ideal set of sounds to work with.


The hurdle one would need to overcome in this case is considerably larger than I think anyone realizes.


Although, it should be understood that this could only ever be a hurdle regarding what the Kenku should be able to say in another creature's voice. A good part of the issue in regards to parrots or computers mimicing human voice is not just the limited set of sounds it has to work with to arrange into something sensible, but that neither truly comprehends what is being conveyed by these sounds in the first place. If the creature has perfect comprehension of the language and has the ability to mimic all the sounds necessary to construct the sentence it knows is used to convey what it wishes to communicate in the tone it recognizes as the correct tone and cadence to express it in, then there is no reason at all it should not be able to utilize human language in its own 'voice' (even if we were to allow that its voice is the compiled sounds of hundreds of encountered individuals over the course of its life since the method it uses to make the sound is going to have to be considerably different than the method a human uses to make the sound as the shape and composition of its mouth is considerably different from that of a human-- though it is far from the only humanoid facing that issue and this has never been brought up as an issue in any other case) as fully and comprehensively as any other intelligent, communicative individual.

 

[gyor]

Verbal components to spells and device activation words must be a little challenging.

That's just it, it makes it almost impossible to use Kenku wizards as how do they casts spells if they can't just say the words of the spell? I mean if they hear the words first, cool they can mimic it, but if the transcribed it from a scroll their out of luck.

Sorcerors often just copy other magic users to cast a spell or improvise, Warlocks Kenku can hear their Patrons speak the spells to them when they gain access to new spells, Divine Casters could hear their Gods whisper the words into their minds when praying for spells (actually that could be cool a Kenku cleric who casts spells by mimicing the literal voice of their Gods), but Wizards don't just get spells handed to them, so outside of being tutored by a Master for life, Kenku make poor wizards, worse then Orcs.

Wealest race done in the VGTM, most races are awesome in the book, I can even get over the -2 Intelligence and -2 Strength for Kobolds (its still possible to get a Kobold with 20 Strength and an Orc with 20 intelligence so their just disablities you can over come by high level), but the Kenku fluff, especially the lack of creativity and inablity to speak outside of mimicry, and the lack of any kind of combat enhancing abilities, aside from +2 Dex and +1 Wisdom.

A dual weilding Kobold Ranger with a Mastiff companion is in a position where both Ranger and Beast Companion benifit from Pack Tactics and is kind of awesome, heck the Kobold can ride the Mastiff! Heck Pack Tactics even makes a Paladin Kobold who can cast Find Steed for a Mastiff Steed kind of Awesome, even if uses Strength attacks!

And an Orc if your careful can make a wicked Gish Wizard.

So yeah even the Kobold and Orc are better then the Kenku.