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Agreed with Cori. Races having different languages is not a PnP feat but essential to the concept of races, or even regions.

Saying that by using them, you submit yourself to all kinds of PnP tinkering with is in my opinion an easy way out. Languages are an ugly matter in that they get metagamed all the time, so it's just one less thing to worry about.

Well said Cori.

I wondered why I felt so gipped by the declaration, but couldn't for the life of me think why. Common sense vs Extra Knowledge. Possiably because I myself have most of the 3.0 and 3.5 books and know the extra PnP stuff, I didn't see it completely from someone elses view, but knew something seemed off.

The way I look at it is more simple:

We cannot control the languages you pretend to speak. We cannot control the languages you pretend to understand. You write something on the Talk channel in English, whether you pretend it's an imaginary language or not. Other players will understand this. We have no enforcable rules for knowing languages, and we cannot magically make you not understand English when it's plain in front of your eyes.

Nothing keeps Player A from reacting to what Player B said in plain English, even if there's [Chondathan], [Elvish] or [Gibberish] infront of it. It doesn't matter whether Player A casts Tongues or has purchased a hundred skills with skill points, he will still understand what Player B says if he's so inclined. It's much better to at least pretend casting Tongue, is it not? He is not gaining any advantage he normally wouldn't have, that is, the ability to understand what you say. If you dont like it, you can pretend your character doesn't understand him. That's what I've done.

Is Player A an arse? Yes, probably. Is he the kind of person you'd play with again? Probably not. Is he ever going to get DCs or requests approved? It's not likely. Can you make him not act like that? I doubt it.

The ban against PnP powers is not absolute. I'm not sure what the actual phrasing is, but the practice has always been that PnP abilities which can be emulated with NWN and grant no additional benefit are OK to RP. That is to say, I can pretend Kalliniel's rapier is actually an elven thinblade, he is not a bard/fighter but a bladesinger, the Bag of Holding Nilbrix has is actually a belt of many pouches for spell components, and he can hover his spellbook in the air with a levitation cantrip if it grants nothing but flavour, that is, if he could just as well hold it in his hand. Common sense applies here, too.

I guess the gist of it, and the answer to the valid concern Cori, Xordae and Selvec expressed about D&D knowledge granting an edge is this: there is nothing preventing you from just understanding what others write in English. Using Tongues does not give you any additional benefit, it merely gives you a half-arsed excuse which is better than nothing. It is not a case of PnP knowledge granting an edge over vanilla NWN players.

You could say there should be rules for what languages your character knows, but it is utopistic. I doubt there's a single DM who's willing to take a good look at every character's justification for knowing language X, and make sure no other languages are used in the future.

Languages are still not PnP abilities. If the DMs don't want anything to do with tending to language affairs and metagaming complaints, then make it a rule not to react to them. But don't put languages on the same page as PnP only spells or anything that usually requires consent from all parties involved. The headache is for the players to have, but it's still better than legitimizing everyone understanding every language. Languages won't magically disappear just because they are out of the reach of DMs to handle. It just seems like players aren't given the dignity to at least handle it themselves.

It's not saying that everyone knows every language, but that because we use languages, the spells for knowing them would exsist, are often used, and it's unfair to claim to know any language other than common without also acknowledging that there is a CHANCE the wizard nearby knows the rather common spell of Tongues.

I believe the ruling has been made in favor of monks knowing thier Tongue of Sun and Moon ability at a certain level. It's a bit more limited in scope, but serves the same purpose.

There have been DC items that make use of Tongues permanently bound to them or to players. You can't ignore something they paid DC's for really.

I thought that's exactly what I am doing: I'm telling to handle it as you will. Pretend not accepting their attempts at speaking with you, walk away, don't role-play with them. If a wizard casts Tongues, react as if you were suddenly hearing a terrible buzz in your ears as the spell goes awry, and you can't hear him speak any longer. Or do whatever.

Languages are a PvP concept in technicality, but they do not require permission. That much is obvious from practice. But the comparison has a point: Tongues is a PvP concept just as well, and similarly it should be understandable that you don't need permission for it. It's flavour, it doesn't give anyone an edge over anyone else. Not unless you're willing to give the caster that edge, at least.

IronAngel wrote:

I thought that's exactly what I am doing: I'm telling to handle it as you will. Pretend not accepting their attempts at speaking with you, walk away, don't role-play with them. If a wizard casts Tongues, react as if you were suddenly hearing a terrible buzz in your ears as the spell goes awry, and you can't hear him speak any longer. Or do whatever.

Languages are a PvP concept in technicality, but they do not require permission. That much is obvious from practice. But the comparison has a point: Tongues is a PvP concept just as well, and similarly it should be understandable that you don't need permission for it. It's flavour, it doesn't give anyone an edge over anyone else. Not unless you're willing to give the caster that edge, at least.

May simply be that it's obvious when someone is speaking another language, it's not obvious when someone casts the tongue spell to understand it.

The bottom line is:
You say: [Drow] Let's take over Cordor!
I say: Hey, they're taking over Cordor!
You say: You shouldn't understand that!
I say: What're you doing to do about it?

Whether that event includes casting Tongues, pretending to have learned Drow with the appropriate skill points or Intelligence modifier, or simply the fact that you're speaking English and I can see what you say, the end result is exactly the same. We can say it's bollocks and bad RP, and it may very well be true. We can discourage it, and maybe we should. But at the end of the day, we can't make them not understand English and react to it, not even if we had the DM resources to monitor it 24/7.

What if I spoke in japanese and but {Kara Turan}?

I'd call you lame and go away.

Speaking real languages is sort of banned on Amia, since we're an English server. It doesn't apply to imaginary languages, I suppose. It's more of a matter of common sense: Japanese is a real language, spoken by real people who play Amia. I know my immersion would be ruined if a Rashemi barbarian spoke Finnish in Cordor square.

Mind that what I've said about Tongues is my call as a DM. We have not discussed it on the DM forums, just like we don't discuss most things individual DMs are capable of making rulings on. The other posts in this topic suggest it's a view shared by others, at least in part, but don't hold other DMs to what I've said.

I'd still like to incorporate a simple little language system. But yeah, I agree with IA for the most part.

Halen_Van wrote:

Again, DnD in social context fails. Even moreso with NWN.

If the person is a mage and they cast tongues, they cast tongues. My character knows they cast a spell because they chatted mumbo-jumbo before. At that point he stops saying anything relevant or becomes down-right insulting.

All of my characters have thier reasons for knowing languages. None use Tongues, but in the event it is used, I'm cool with it. Talk in whispers if it's actually a secret. If you don't want someone to know what you are talking about, it's best not to say it out loud in the middle of the street just because you know a well known language, or even a relatively minor language.

Could you argue that their casting Tongues is grounds to smack them down?
Personally I don't like PvP, but if my low-spellcraft character sees the mage near her, in the middle of the wild, with fairly hostile RP start casting, she isn't going to wait around to see if the spell is harmless.

IronAngel wrote:

The bottom line is:
You say: [Drow] Let's take over Cordor!
I say: Hey, they're taking over Cordor!
You say: You shouldn't understand that!
I say: What're you doing to do about it?

Whether that event includes casting Tongues, pretending to have learned Drow with the appropriate skill points or Intelligence modifier, or simply the fact that you're speaking English and I can see what you say, the end result is exactly the same. We can say it's bollocks and bad RP, and it may very well be true. We can discourage it, and maybe we should. But at the end of the day, we can't make them not understand English and react to it, not even if we had the DM resources to monitor it 24/7.

If you're interpreting the English without being able to understand the language (ether through skills, int modifier, tongues or whatever), isn't that metagaming? I thought that was frowned upon.

Cori is my hero. Thank you. Its not a feat that's in the game, so don't allow it. Because someone has OOC knowledge of some other game that is closely related to NWN shouldn't make them superior.

Cori, you just broke the No. 1 rule, "Be Nice".

Keep character assassination of other players and DMs in PMs to each other please. Keep your dirty laundry to yourselves.

In PnP, there's always a DM to hand to oversee the use of such spells and determine cause and effect. The DMs word is final in these situations. On a server that is player to player agreement and no DM around, I'd hold off using PnP spells without consent, until a DM is around.

If I were to make the rules, the above paragraph would be it for PnP roleplay abilities.

To be fair, I break it down a little differently than IronAngel.

Person A : [Drow] Ramblerambleramble
Person B : *Casts Tongues*
Person A : // You can't cast tongues. I don't consent to the use of PnP rules.
Person B : // Okay. I don't consent to the use of PnP Rules either, then. Such as those governing what languages I can know.
Person B : [Drow] Ramblerambleramble.

As mean as it is, it's still legit, and pretty fair. Languages are, no matter how you split it, not an NWN Dynamic. They need to be manually implemented by either the server (not done on Amia) or the DMs (not done on Amia) to be anything else.
NWN doesn't include languages or mediums for it, and it's assumed all creatures speak English (Or Spanish if you're playing on the Spanish form of the game, or Finnish if you're playing on the Finnish form of the game).

Therefore, it becomes a purely player-based/managed mechanic, wherein any individual is going to use their own judgement within the rules. Someone can prefix their text with '[Drow]', and they're doing one of two things;

They're using a PnP Mechanic to say their language is different. In which case, they're legally opening themselves up to any counters. They can simply RP Casting a PnP spell and they're done with it.
They're not using a PnP Mechanic to say their language is different. In which case they're voiding the rule-bound protections (Such as the other person only being able to know so many languages). They can simply RP knowing the language, which gets you the same effect.

WonWon wrote:

To be fair, I break it down a little differently than IronAngel.

Person A : [Drow] Ramblerambleramble
Person B : *Casts Tongues*
Person A : // You can't cast tongues. I don't consent to the use of PnP rules.
Person B : // Okay. I don't consent to the use of PnP Rules either, then. Such as those governing what languages I can know.
Person B : [Drow] Ramblerambleramble.

I think that's perfectly reasonable myself.

Last edited by Cori on Thu, Feb 05 2009, 7:29 AM, edited 1 time in total.

I don't.

Language use being related to pnp is no different than saying that playing a dwarf is pnp, and so anything from pnp is acceptable as a result of your choice to play a dwarf.

Different races speak different languages. This is a logic, common sense thing. I don't have to even ever have HEARD of pnp D&D, to understand that a Drow can speak Drow, an Elf Elven, a Dwarf...whatever they speak? Dwarvish?

I DO have to know about pnp D&D in order to know if someone is using a spell like "Tongues" properly, or to have any idea what it actually does.

No "new rule" needs made to deal with this situation - it's already in the sidebar that use of pnp spells requires consent from those involved or affected. Whereas "official" posts, including sidebar info, specifically state that different races/subraces can speak their own languages.

If the DM Team thinks that everyone who is capable of using the spell "Tongues" whould be able to freely use it, then make a widget to represent that, which automatically uses up a pre-selected spell of the appropriate level, if it's available, and set it to auto-distribute via the entry mirors to those whom should have it via pnp rules. Or, alternatively, make it a spell that can be taught, similar to shadow jump or flight, and have the widget be DM given, and make a sidebar entry stating that those classes at those levels that should know the spell, can get said widget.

I'd almost be willing to go with WonWon's reasoning, except that it has been stated in the past, by DM's - by Nekh I'm pretty sure, who last I checked is the Head DM, that bonus languages could only be known by those with the appropriate INT modifier, and only if RP dictated that it was reasonable for them to know the language. This topic has come up before, in regards to knowledge of Drow seemingly by everyone on the surface.

COMMON SENSE!!!!! How damned hard is it? Common sense says that I can't make up rp reasons to twink myself gold, or items, or to metagame information. Rules also say that, yes. Well, I maintain that randomly deciding hat you know, and have memorised, a pnp spell like Tongues, IS metagaming. Common sense says it's not okay, as do the rules.

Just like how scrying, a pnp thing, is only okay if the affected parties agree to it. Well, gee...I could easily say that by kidnapping someone in the first place, which there is no nwn mechanic for, you are automatically agreeing to the use of pnp "counters", such as scrying. Is that the case? If it is, I'm going to ensure that someone I am friendly with in game can scry me out in the event I die while out "hunting", so they can come and ress me.

Gods. This isn't a difficult thing to understand. It's been this way forever, and there's no reason to change it. I personally REFUSE to accept what's been said here, until the HEAD DM confirms that the "unwritten" (even though it really is written) rules have changed, and that use of Tongues is now freely available to everyone. Or, of course, any DM whom can confirm that the rule change was brought about by a majority DM Team vote. Easy enough to confirm if that's the case.

I'm sorry, Ron. I have a tonne of respect for you as a DM, you should know that from the time we spent on the dm team together. But I cannot agree with you on this, and I'm honestly shocked you'd think this way. Iron....no surprise there. I won't say I'm sorry for what I posted earlier, though I will acknowledge that I was very much in the wrong for posting it publically.

Well technically you're not even using a PnP rule when you speak drow... You're using a non-official homebrew rule as in PnP drow speak Elven...

Just something to remember.

Cori wrote:

I don't.

Language use being related to pnp is no different than saying that playing a dwarf is pnp, and so anything from pnp is acceptable as a result of your choice to play a dwarf.

No, because a dwarf is built mechanically into the game.

Guxx wrote:

Well technically you're not even using a PnP rule when you speak drow... You're using a non-official homebrew rule as in PnP drow speak Elven...

Just something to remember.

Drow is simply a Dialect of Elven to be correct.

Both wrong.

Drow speak Common, Elven, and Undercommon. Additionally, if they have high INT, they may also learn Drow Hand Sign. Undercommon is the primary.

There is no Drow language in Forgotten Realms 3.0e

soundofastream wrote:

Guxx wrote:

Well technically you're not even using a PnP rule when you speak drow... You're using a non-official homebrew rule as in PnP drow speak Elven...

Just something to remember.

Drow is simply a Dialect of Elven to be correct.

Drow speak Elven - the only different language is Drow Hand Sign.

Taken form Races of Faerun 3e

Edit: They can learn ot languages, but there is no Drow language

"Drow" is a bastardized dialect of Elven. People in Ireland speak English, but they don't sound anything like a midwestern American. The two can likely communicate, but not without taking it slow.

WonWon wrote:

Both wrong.

Drow speak Common, Elven, and Undercommon. Additionally, if they have high INT, they may also learn Drow Hand Sign. Undercommon is the primary.

There is no Drow language in Forgotten Realms 3.0e

Wrong?

As far as I know are the standard languages for Drow: Drow, Drow handsign [General] and Drow Handsign [House].

Wrong, as far as PnP are concerned.

Automatic Languages for Drow are : Common, Elven, and Undercommon.

Drow Hand Sign is actually a 'bonus' language that they can select from their list of Bonus Languages a character gets from having a high intelligence. Yes, that does mean that by all rights, a 10INT drow does not know Drow Hand Sign.

HellScourge wrote:

WonWon wrote:

Both wrong.

Drow speak Common, Elven, and Undercommon. Additionally, if they have high INT, they may also learn Drow Hand Sign. Undercommon is the primary.

There is no Drow language in Forgotten Realms 3.0e

Wrong?

As far as I know are the standard languages for Drow: Drow, Drow handsign [General] and Drow Handsign [House].

It says in Races of Faerun 3e what WonWon says.

It doesn't really matter what language you speak as far as I see. It's just plain stupid and bloody annoying to let people know what you say while putting some lame "you cannot read this" tag in front of it.

You can point at your Int mod, your race, 5373 DnD books, 56328 homebrew rules, or whatever excuse you can find, it's still bad sports and just shows either your own disregard of other people, your limited imagination, and/or a breathtaking misunderstanding of the most basic aspects of human psychology.

Be sensible, don't do it. I can't say I have a better option than making sure nobody overhears you if you don't want people to hear what you say, though.

We actually have a language widget, but development ended in some test/fix/waitontest/nofix purgatory and I currently can't even remember how it works. It did let you choose languages based on some average of Lore and Int mod which you can compare to see if you make a language match.

In 2nd editon, drow spoke drow and not elven, for some reason though in 3rd edition they remade it so that drow spoke elven. I personally go with the 2nd edition lore, this though is a house rule thing though the game mechanics are the same PnP as if you were to use any other language.

Also as far as I know, amia is a mixture of 2nd edition, and both editions of the 3rd edition, 3.0 and 3.5. If we were not and purely 3.0, can I kindly ask that we modify the planar areas? for in 3rd edtion, there is no celestial, none of that, but instead deity planes. Avandor, bright water, green fields, golden hills, house of knowldge, demonweb pits, the supreme throne, fury's heart and so on and so on. But as far as I know we have throne that out.

Well, the Head DM's take on this is simple: if you make the choice to invite others to metagame your comments, then you carry the responsibility.

Note the "making a choice" part. Speaking in a foreign language and still allowing others to see what you say in English is a choice each player makes. It's not forced upon anyone by the mechanics, like the player list at the login screen is.

If that bothers you, simply do not allow others to read comments you'd rather not have them know. Don't discuss secrets in the public. It's very, very simple to make the choice of not allowing others to metagame your comments.

Question: Is it acceptable to go *says something to XXX in dwarven* and take the conversation in tells?

That's perfectly reasonable (to the last couple of DM comments on this). The situation I saw on the other side, looking at the comment WonWon dug up from Iron, wasn't so nice though:

A: *uses a translator or emotes speaking another language, to B*
C: (sends tell to A) I used Tongues, tell me what you two are talking about.
A: (tell to C) Sorry, if it's not in NWN then we're not RPing along with it.
C: (tell back) But you already did use a language, therefore if I insist to know, you HAVE to tell me.

You know where I'm getting at. That the privacy of those who DO use a translator or who DO go the extra way and not write their language up in plain english is still protected. What I read out of the decree from the first page here is that "You use language, you are fair game to be PnPed" which is, by itself, not true.

Also it suggested that everyone can go around and assume he knows whatever is being said with (drow), (elven), etc. prefix. just because metagaming in this case can ultimately not be worked against. While that is true, admitting defeat and opening the floodgates.. "you just go ahead and do whatever you want concerning languages".. is in my opinion the wrong thing to do. Simply reminding people that this is not okay and that languages still have to be learned, known, etc.. would be enough. No matter that DMs can't enforce it.

About Drow:

In 2e, Drow speak Drow, use High Drow in rituals, and supposedly also know Undercommon.

In 3.0, the Drow language is mechanically replaced with the Elven language proficiency, but it obviously does not mean the language has ICly become different.

In 3.5, Drow is a language of its own again, thankfully.

On Amia, Drow has always been a seperate language, and whether you call it a dialect or not, it's not understandable to those who know Elvish. There's no House-specific handsign.

As for Xordae's situation, you don't have to tell other people anything. You can ask them not to go OOC again, and carry on speaking gibberish.

I think everyone reading these forums understands what's acceptable from the perspective of common sense, courtesy and good RP. There's no need for me to remind you about the PnP rules and RP that should preceed knowledge of a foreign language. You and me, Cori and Bob the Builder all know it's bollocks to say "My character knows every language your character chooses to say in English."

The simple fact is: we have no special rules regarding language use. We might, but as it is, we don't. And no matter how many times you try to claim different, the rules for learning a language are a PnP thing. Or do you mean to say things such as Intelligence Modifier, Racial Language, Automatic Language, Class-Related Language, Character Region or the Speak Language skill are all concepts a new player could deduce with common sense?

I'm inclined to say nothing whatsoever keeps you from emoting your speech in the Talk channel and then translating it to others in Tells/Party chat, if you really must. But I agree with Disco in that it's pretty stupid to speak openly in any language, if you don't want others to understand. I use Elven on Kalliniel as a way to portray his character and the things he'd elitistically or discreetly want to keep from non-Elven ears, but I as a player know that it'll be "understood" by an unintended PC every time.

Terra_777 wrote:

I'll fix voice throwing to the summons though!

Cool, I didn't know that was possible.

i think this topic has served its purpose, albiet the complete opposite of what the OP intended.

If I recall correct, there are various placeables in the module that require you to make a lore check to read it. Why so, if languages are an alien concept in NWN?

It's an alien concept only as long as it's not custom scripted in. There's that little catch, though: it has to be scripted for it to be foolproof.

you ~SHOULD~ make some language rules, because whether you agree with them or not, tons of people use them. To just throw out languages for anyone would doesn't know all your PnP D&D knowledge is screwing over a lot of people.

you are pretty much saying go ahead and metagame. Its like saying there is no reason to stop people from stealing other people's boss loot because there is no mechanical system in place that stops people from taking the loot of people not in the party of the killer.

if you have the rule set in stone, people can use screenshots to enforce it. people would get the message and not make the mistake more than once.

Well my problem is that the languages thing has been apart of Amia forever. Since back in the hay days of the server people have used languages to better express there characters culture and race. It gave it a much more in depth feeling, and more immersive. But from what I'm hearing, those languages now suddenly have no importance at all, completely a waste of time and not even worth having since IC it's no longer considered metagaming for someone to suddenly know a language.

So to clarify things, languages are no longer part of amia? Correct? Every conversation my Drow has ever had with the "[Drow]" tag in front of it no longer matters, and I've basically been playing a stunted, dark skinned, pointy eared human, and the culture can go fly out a window? Sounds pretty shitty.

Honestly, Amia went through a big change a while back, that change took a lot of things I personally liked about Amia, including a feeling of freindliness, culture and relaxed play. It then added proper lore and other shite, which made sense, but didn't seem as fun anymore. Before the changes I never ever looked at a DnD book in my life. Now I have the entire 3.0 and 3.5 collection, including some 2.0 and even one 1.0 book, simply because I feel I must check them to make one creative move in amia, least I suffer the "It doesn't go with lore" reply.

As such, I feel that you have to toss you're PnP thing aside. Languages are not a spell, they are part of a races culture, something that as always been part of Amia and has always been taken consideration. Spells like tongues have not always been part of amia, and have only started being acceptable since this big focus on making Amia more PnP friendly came about. As Cori said, Common sense dictates that an elf will speak elven. Common sense doesn't dictate that a mage will know a spell called tongues that works like blah blah blah. You have to go out of your way and specfically get a dnd book to know this.

What I see this coming down to now is "Common Sense VS Specfic Knowledge". Languages are easy, and common sense, part of culture. Everyone assumes a race has a language thats part of there culture. Spells like Tongues, they are not, they are specfic knowledge, gained by specfically looking for a counter in a specfic DnD book. Extra specfic knowledge, not governed by common sense, and not easy to find.

What's next? A food system that requires us to eat?

Proper lore, and other poop? Wow.

I'm going to try and point out what is meant, but in a slightly different manner.

* You should only use languages for fun and character flavor.

* You shouldn't complain about how other characters use languages or how they regard your use of languages.

Languages aren't scripted, and I would have minimal expectation of privacy or discretion from others when and where using them.

There was a topic a bit back about how "thought bubbles" were viewed negatively because they put out text that no one could know ICly, but were used in an insulting manner without IC repercussions. In all honesty, I view using languages as potentially abusable in that way. You shouldn't use languages with the demand that no one be able to know in-character what you just said, but rather as a way of defining what your character does.

If we want to argue that thought bubbles are entirely separate because of common sense? Languages aren't common sense, especially when it comes to telling how many languages your character can understand. By most standards, a character which has 8 INT shouldn't even be able to speak common properly. Is it metagaming for them to type out logical well-formed sentences? If we put PnP aside, and just go with common sense; Why shouldn't a character with 40 INT be able to speak whatever language that was you just used anyway, magic or not?

Here's a thought: Just don't use them at all.

Languages haven't been a part of the player or mechanical rules of Amia, ever, even if they've had common use. As well, It's never been the case that it's been absolutely necessary for me to start using them unless someone RPs that they don't speak common.

I'm not trying to say that you can't use languages at all in your roleplay, but that you can't go about complaining about how others use them or see fit to use them. Use them for fun, or character flavor, like with my above example of not speaking common. Don't use them with an expectation of privacy or mandating that someone can't understand you by accusing them of metagaming.

You speak as if something's changed, but nothing has. Nobody's just analyzed what the rules actually state about the matter until now, I suppose.

I'm not even going to respond to your provocative claims that have no basis in what's been said above, such as "languages are no longer part of amia?" If that's the honest conclusion you made, based on the DM posts here, then I suggest you read them again. If you just wanted to spark a reaction, it's not very helpful to helping people understand.

I sometimes use "common sense" in my arguments, but it's really a slippery slope. There is no common sense, as this topic has proven. There are people with wildly different opinions, and they all think theirs is just common sense. So I think we can throw that one out of the window by now. We are individuals, not a hive mind.

Languages are a bit more complicated than "An elf can speak Elven." I'm Finnish, and I can speak Finnish, Swedish, English, German and Latin, though the latter two aren't something to brag about. So in my mind, if I were a new player to Amia, common sense would dictate my character would know at least five languages, no? I doubt anyone's "common sense" says that a character should know their racial language and that's it. I think most people in the West know several languages.

There are actual PnP rules for learning language. They include concepts such as Intelligence Modifier (which only applies at character creation), Character Region (which are detailed in expensive books and not featured on Amia apart from human subraces), Automatic Language, Bonus Language, Racial Language, Class-Related Language, Speak Language skill, buying ranks in Speak Language (which is not possible in Amia) etc. They are very specific PnP knowledge. And no, you cannot expect people to know about them. From the perspective of permission to us PnP features, there is no difference between Player A telling Player B to use the proper rules for knowing languages, and Player B telling Player A that he is using Tongues.

Like Disco said, there is a language system designed. It wasn't perfect yet, and was sort of forgotten. Until/unless Amia features such a system, we cannot expect people to know the PnP rules of learning languages.

We've worked just fine by now, there's no reason to pretend things will somehow change because of one theoretical debate. Everybody still knows it's lame to know all languages or run around all day with Tongues cast. You don't need a rule to tell you that, the social stigma of everyone, including DMs, avoiding you like the plague is quite enough. Nobody's changed the rules, nobody's going to treat arsehattery with any more gentleness.

the first and last game of PnP D&D I played was during spirit day at school. Whole day to do whatever we want. people playing music, setting up drum sets all over the place, people bringing in tvs and playing halo in the hallways...

I played 6 hours of D&D, in which we countered two groups of enemies. 6 freakin hours to kill 13 guys. Why? tons of random obscure rules that were being argued over. It was truly pointless. NWN is great because I don't have to put up with that. I know the mechanics of NWN fairly well, and I don't have to deal with arguing over spells and languages in game.

Languages are not a PnP specific thing. They are even in the real world! :O

they add realistic depth to the game which is ruined the instant a bunch of random obscure spells and rules pop out of the lore monkeys. Tongues ruins the whole idea of languages. Nothing is culturally specific any more because anyone with 4 levels of wizard can understand everything.

5. IT's a level 3 spell.

Or 1, or UMD if scrolls.

blackvswhite wrote:

Languages are not a PnP specific thing. They are even in the real world! :O

Like I've stated twice now, the rules for knowing languages are. This isn't so much about languages, as a subject, but languages as the object of a character's knowledge.

I will show you how you abuse the sytem with languages just like you claim that people abuse it with Tongues:
Player A: [Elven] Ah, sweet water and light laughter, brothers! We shall meet in more savory circumstances next time, without all these humans.
Player B: Hey, you're just rude! *Pout*
Player A: //Uh, your char is a human farmer, he shouldn't know Elven. Player's Handbook, page 9 says so: it is not your racial or regional language, so you can't pick it up at character creation with Intelligence modifiers and therefore you will have to buy it with skill points, which you haven't done as we don't have the Speak Language skill.
Player B: //Uhh..

I didn't really get much of a response when I asked this last time -can we leave unspent skill points/pick a CC skill to represent ranks in Speak Language?

IronAngel wrote:

blackvswhite wrote:

Languages are not a PnP specific thing. They are even in the real world! :O

Like I've stated twice now, the rules for knowing languages are. This isn't so much about languages, as a subject, but languages as the object of a character's knowledge.

I will show you how you abuse the sytem with languages just like you claim that people abuse it with Tongues:
Player A: [Elven] Ah, sweet water and light laughter, brothers! We shall meet in more savory circumstances next time, without all these humans.
Player B: Hey, you're just rude! *Pout*
Player A: //Uh, your char is a human farmer, he shouldn't know Elven. Player's Handbook, page 9 says so: it is not your racial or regional language, so you can't pick it up at character creation with Intelligence modifiers and therefore you will have to buy it with skill points, which you haven't done as we don't have the Speak Language skill.
Player B: //Uhh..

So post it on our forums, then it's am Amia rule, end of story.

Yurell wrote:

I didn't really get much of a response when I asked this last time -can we leave unspent skill points/pick a CC skill to represent ranks in Speak Language?

No Amian rules state you need to have the skill points to learn languages. So yes, you can. It will probably net you respect from some DMs and players alike (from me, at least), but not any mechanical benefit.

If/when the language system is ever put in place, though, it'll utilize Lore as a substitute for the skill. But of course, nothing keeps you from spending those unused skillpoints on Lore if that ever becomes relevant.

Just a question then isn't speak language CC class for everyone but bard? So would bard get an advantage o this (such as the normal Bardic Knowledge)?

can you explain what this skill does? People who have never heard of these things because they don't play PnP probably won't like it. Just about everyone knows about languages, but not special skills and spells involving them.

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