ovarf
Active Member
Posts: 197
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Post by ovarf on Jan 21, 2009 15:37:47 GMT -5
how about a free language for every 5 ranks in lore in addition to your int ones?
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Post by Forumlord of Talos on Jan 21, 2009 15:44:01 GMT -5
I think the Lore check is a great idea for language translation
I also like Luna's suggestion of having a several words in a sentence blocked out if the scripting allows that.
I myself speak English yet from study of Latin for 4 years I can get a rough idea of what a word or phrase means in French Spanish and Italian because Latin is the root language of all 4
I can not however translate an entire conversation between people in a foreign tongue. The same should be implied in game with higher lore checks required based on its relation to languages known.
Languages such as thieves cant would be near impossible to translate and druidic would be only vaguely understood by someone who could speak Sylvan for example
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Post by DM Sir Carnifex on Jan 21, 2009 15:51:18 GMT -5
how about a free language for every 5 ranks in lore in addition to your int ones? I think that would end up being too many. We would have almost everyone speaking lots of languages. Perhaps one for every ten ranks. But overall, I wouldn't count lore as the ability to speak and understand a language, but rather to just identify it and pick out words. . . which brings me to the next quote: I myself speak English yet from study of Latin for 4 years I can get a rough idea of what a word or phrase means in French Spanish and Italian because Latin is the root language of all 4 I can not however translate an entire conversation between people in a foreign tongue. The same should be implied in game with higher lore checks required based on its relation to languages known. I too studied Latin somewhat and, yes, I can pick out words, even make out the rough meaning of a sentence in a foreign language, but still, that requires actual study of the language. Were you to be just an intelligent person without having had those four years, you would be clueless (as would I). As it is, I can only pick up things if people speak slowly or if I am reading. Although, knowing a word or two here and there isn't a bad idea. Ask DM Sen. He can tell you I was speaking to him in German. ;D
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Post by DM haunted on Jan 21, 2009 16:03:06 GMT -5
I can agree with what you are saying far as RL goes, I understand a little German,but I cant really speak it,but I can only understand some of it due to my exposure to it.What I am talking about ,is if your lore is like 20,you can understand every language IG,including drow,which how would you learn that?
In RL one can determine anothers language due to their worldly knowledge...You see someone from China,so you assume they speak Chinese.Or maybe you recognize a Scandinavian accent when they speak english,so you would assume they are from either Norway or Sweden..etc.But for people that havent been exposed to heavily accented Scandinavians it would be hard to determine where they are from,but obviously from the region of Europe.Then there are different dialects as well....This should somewhat apply to the vast amount of languages in Faerun IG.
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Post by Forumlord of Talos on Jan 21, 2009 16:25:04 GMT -5
What I was getting at Haunted is this type of layout
Lets say i have an elf. he speaks Sylvan Elven and common
His lore is say 10 You give each language a base Lore check based on its rarity
Example
Dwarven Elven Halfling gnome and Pig (err I mean orc) would have a base DC of 20 Goblin kobold lizard man and other humanoid monster languages would have a DC of 25 Druidic thieves cant would be even higher at say DC 35 Demonic languages as well as Draconian would be in the DC 50 range
Anytime some one spoke you would make the typical DC check versus that language success would translate X number of words in that sentence based on how far over your roll was ( IE you succeed by 1-5 you understand any word of 3 letters or less)
Certain knowledge in other languages could give a modifier
example sylvan gives a +5 roll to understand druidic
One could even say Spell craft gives someone a better understanding of Draconian or Abyssal as all arcane spells are Draconian in origin and warlocks cast with abyssal ties
Elf hears someone speak Druidic translation check base 10 + 5(for Sylvan knowledge) +d20 versus DC 35
In the above example my elf could understand a druid speaking but only gather words of three letters or less now and then
Granted the numbers I tossed out are just a theoretical example and the scripters could find a suitable balance
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thegnomeherder
Senior Member
Bhaal, the Lord of Gettin' sum
Posts: 356
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Post by thegnomeherder on Jan 21, 2009 16:27:54 GMT -5
I assumed Druidic was a language that allowed Druids to not only talk amongst themselves but speak to animals as well.
How would your Wizard know this language without spending a prolonged amount of time in the Druidic Society?
Sure Lore should tell you what language they are speaking but not give you the entire language.
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Post by Forumlord of Talos on Jan 21, 2009 16:29:47 GMT -5
animal is its own seperate language
well technically it is several languages but NWN had to be simplified
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Post by DM haunted on Jan 21, 2009 16:34:46 GMT -5
I like the idea layout crush...Something like that would be cool.
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Post by DM cort on Jan 21, 2009 16:41:19 GMT -5
Actually if you read my post you will see that we did not pretend to understand the druidic language. In no way did we react once you started speaking it. As for the whisper comment, you know that others can understand the language whether or not they are metagamers, therefore why not whisper your private conversations?
I only stated that mages should have a good understanding of most languages due to their intelligence. Do they not spend their lives in study? Would they not want to be able to access as much knowledge as possible?
At any rate my post was not intended to be an argument, and this will be my last post on this topic.
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Post by luna on Jan 21, 2009 16:53:30 GMT -5
how about a free language for every 5 ranks in lore in addition to your int ones? LOL, EPIC Bards would have like 10 languages if they stacked their lore score and added in their +1 lore per level, and languages from INT. You would probably have high INT wizards speaking 10 languages to if they had high lore and high INT.
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Post by adzling on Jan 21, 2009 17:08:09 GMT -5
typically you just go by skill ranks for such prerequisites ignoring stat bonuses and such.
so max lore would be 33 regardless of int or class.
aren't their guidelines on languages that each race gets? with a bonus of selectable languages based on int?
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Post by whenwizardswar on Jan 21, 2009 18:25:48 GMT -5
I think drow sign and cant shouldnt have lore checks at all.
Drow sign is kept pretty much exclusivly among drow, as well as its meanings and teachings, and it would be easy for those who have seen it, to understand it or translate it wrong.
Thieves cant, i also believe that the cant shouldnt have a lore check at all. Yes, there are certain common gestures among thieves sure, but any smart thief or group of thieves have their own cants.
At the most, maybe someone can understand unique gestures after enough exposure. The flaming fist for example would recognise certain gestures as a common signal for ravenscars gang because they have extensive experience with each other.
My main qualm is low levels who have a high lore skill, yet have never met my thieves (who use very unique cant skills).
For now an easy way around this, at least what I do is emote my gestures
*crooks his elbow and curls his fingers* and the one he is signing too i would send a tell with a translation.
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Post by caveman282 on Jan 21, 2009 19:02:19 GMT -5
The idea behind this topic wasn't to start any arguments. It was to get the community as a whole to share their common thoughts on how to make languages more usable and maybe give suggestions so the devs could help enrich our RP and the server as a whole.
So far the ideas are great !
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mrdeadman
Senior Member
I'll thank you to keep your reality out of my fantasy.
Posts: 308
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Post by mrdeadman on Jan 21, 2009 23:38:48 GMT -5
As I see it, as with many other problems with this game, it boils down to Lore being a blanket skill to cover all knowledge skills. This is fine for a storyline game, but for a PW it is just the key to abuse. I have been on other PW that started to bring in Knowledge skills to replace this and it seemed to work just fine. The problem comes in with the number of knowledge skills there are. Players would be turned off because they would not have the skill points available to become "masters" of even a single school of knowledge.
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Post by hnefi on Jan 22, 2009 6:18:07 GMT -5
What is the language "Can't" anyway? It looks an awful lot like a bug (maybe the first word in an error message such as "Can't find language"?), but one of my language choices was forced to "Can't". It's also pretty strange that I can (and was forced to, due to high Int) speak Sylvan, Auran and other weird languages but didn't get Undercommon as an option when I made my Tiefling Anyway, I agree with caveman. Remove the lore check to understand languages. ^^ Cant is a rogue language that only rogues can speak. It uses hand signals vrs words. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves'_cant D'oh. I'm an idiot. Thanks for the explanation.
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