Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Right now warriors and rogues cannot train these three planar languages. I believe this to be wrong.

These languages are mostly useful for rp purposes as far as I know, some roles really would benefit from having them, but not really so much mechanically. Examples:
-any drow would be more inclined to learn Abyssal instead of most other languages, say halfling or gith as examples
-any aasimar or tiefling would be more inclined to learn them than say auran or terran (why genasi are not limited?)
-any religious character who follows a very good or evil deity

If the languages want to be limited not to have brute warriors speak into celestial behind every corner, an alternative could be providing the right races with an option to get the language through a quest. I.e. a quest for aasimar to learn celestial, even if they are fighters. I would prefer to have them trainable normally, but it would still be better than impossibility.

For some vague reason I believe languages in 3.5 are limited by race.

I'd support everyone being able to learn anything with the exception of planetouched learning their polar opposite. I.e., Aasimar learning infernal+abyssal, Tieflings learning Celestial, genasi learning the language of their opposing element.

I believe its detailed in a novel or two that speaking some of these more foreign tongues, like abyssal has percievable effects as is describe din Reaver where the main protagonist kindly details the clenching of his stomach whenever his red wizard companion casts a spell in it. It would be nice to represent something like that here and firm up the lore a bit.

Languages are not limited by anything in 3.5E D&D, class or otherwise, except for barbarians and INT-enforced illiteracy/knowledge caps. Some races get bonus languages that do not count against their total number allowed through their INT (i.e., almost all races get common + their racial language).

Oh right. Good to know.

I'd still restrict polar opposites since there are some wide gaps and discrepencies betweenauthors in the FR universe this would be a good start to making our own, straight forward and firm bases for the nature of our abyssal plains, our hell, our olympus etc and the thigns that are native to them, like the language.

I don't think it makes sense to restrict aasimars from learning fiendish tongues, nor tieflings from learning celestial. It's a roleplay choice.
Personally, I often like an adventuring/crusading elf or a dwarf to know orcish, in order to better know his enemies, or a drow to know dwarvish and elvish, etc.

Whether I played a real goody-goody aasimar bent on destroying evil, or a vile tiefling whose only objective was the total corruption of all that is sacred, I would want them to know how to communicate with, or at least understand the directions of their greatest foes.

I was hoping to inspire the concept of celestial, infernal, abyssal and primordial languages being more than simple languages and holding something of the plains they came from but thats generally how I like to flavor things. For me It would add to the mystique and power of outsiders so they come off as more than the fantasy equivalent of aliens with some neat native tricks.

To put it plainly, it would be more exciting to delve into the concept that these beings hold some small archetypal importance to the balance of the universe. Whether its the low maine to the apex of Tannari domination in Demigorgan but eh. I may be in the minority here.

To be clear: aasimars and tieflings can already learn those languages. If they are clerics or wizards.

The basic proposal is in fact to let rogues and warriors learn them too.

Alternatively I proposed quests for some races to learn those languages, but I personally would prefer to have them available for everybody and let them decide whether their rp involves knowing the language or not. Being a rogue or a warrior does not mean that a character must be dumb and illiterate. For example a ranger whose racial enemy is demon should be able to learn abyssal, to name just one possibility, but the list of plausible situations rogues and warriors who would learn these languages could be really very long.

However both solutions do not exclude each others. We could have the three planar tongues unrestricted for everybody and also quests to get them to a high-level for the right alignments/races.

A little bump in order to ask this: does getting one of these three languages on a rogue or warrior fall in the application to spend 50 glory to get a skill or spell outside of one's guild?

If it does it is still lame because it is a very steep price, and hence a penalty, to let some characters simply play their role.

If it doesn't, then what's the alternative for them to get those languages, especially if they need them for rp purposes?

As stated earlier anyway, I don't understand why my chaotic evil tiefling thief can't learn abyssal normally when an earth genasi can learn terran as any other language. I still do not to see any logical reason for this limit to exist.

Vaemar wrote:A little bump in order to ask this: does getting one of these three languages on a rogue or warrior fall in the application to spend 50 glory to get a skill or spell outside of one's guild?

Is that a thing? Do you have a source for that?

EDIT**
http://www.forgottenkingdoms.org/help.p ... earch=true
Disregard last. Found it.

http://www.forgottenkingdoms.org/help.p ... earch=true

Obtaining a spell or skill outside of your characters guild

It is possible to get a spell or skill outside of your characters guild by
spending 50 glory points.

In general we will not be offering high level skills with this system. For
the most part skills and spells higher than level 10 will be rejected.

* It must be in character for your character to have said skill or spell. For
instance we will not approve the hitall skill for a wizard character without
extremely good reason.

If you wish to purchase a skill or spell for your character then post an
application to do so to the Applications forum, detailing your character's
history and why they would get the skill or spell in character. Applications
are placed in a queue and dealt with in order and on a case by case basis.
Some applications that are very out of the ordinary may be put before ALL of
the deities for a vote.

From the helpfiles...

I heard from another player that this option was removed, but "hearing from another player" is not exactly something I would call sound evidence. Helpfiles on the other hand are a proof that at some time this option was at least contemplated. I wonder if it still is. Personally I am not particularly fond of the idea in general, with very marginal exceptions. One of these is languages, but even in that case I still think the limit is still too restrictive and frankly illogical.

Can't you just fake it?

I think the answer to that is yes and no.

Yes = if this were a MUSH where everything is essentially faked and not coded.

No = This is a MUD, where there is already an established system and code to back it up. Excluding the mention on the rules aspect of it. There are benefits to having these Languages such as language specific shop keepers for example etc that affect the character and the playing experience.

Upon creation in the tabletop there is a bonus language list specific to each char by race not by class. but there is no restrictions on what languages can be learned via linguistics on pf or speak language in 3.5

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I think that was worth mentioning. Unless languages were going to be used in the past as some kind of restrictive measure to something else in game I don't see any reason to restrict them other than the limit on how many you can learn ratio to intelligence score. That part makes more sense than PF's one skill rank = 1 fluent language.

Gwain wrote:Can't you just fake it?

No, simply because the language is implemented.

If it were not implemented, like drow sign language or any of the human tongues, "faking" it would be possible. Faking a coded language would in my opinion first be a code abuse and second require an undesirable and frankly avoidable amount of ooc interaction, such as an exaggerated use of otell and osay.

Yemin wrote:No = This is a MUD, where there is already an established system and code to back it up. Excluding the mention on the rules aspect of it. There are benefits to having these Languages such as language specific shop keepers for example etc that affect the character and the playing experience.

Precisely.

Unless languages were going to be used in the past as some kind of restrictive measure to something else in game I don't see any reason to restrict them other than the limit on how many you can learn ratio to intelligence score.

I personally think that intelligence is already a good limit to the languages, and that class limits should be left to languages that represent extraordinary abilities, such as animal for druid and rangers or magical for wizards. Definitely not for these three.

Another bump to this too, which is simply a matter of reason. There is no credible justification for rogues and warriors to be unable to study abyssal, infernal and celestial. On top of that this makes some races penalized, as it is the case for aasimars, tieflings and drow, for which one of these languages is very important in their culture or personal history, and much more than the likes of gith and insectoid.

I just wanna say I support this idea as a whole, but I really like the flavor that was suggested in that Genasi cannot learn their opposing element's tongue (Except with a great deal of effort since it is so alien to them) and Aasimar/Tiefling are barred wholly from Infernal/Celestial respectively.

It would be interesting if there was a tiny chance of echoes of some sort when you hear Infernal or Celestial in accordance with your alliance or race if you are Tiefling or Aasimar, but not necessary by any means.