I imagine it's been suggested a million times but I'd like to be able to learn other racial languages. It seems like it should be something we could endeavor to do with the right amount of skill and/or stats. Being that there are 11 races, I think your character should be able to learn at least 1 if not all of the other languages given the right skill. I don't think it should be easy by any means, but you could say make it so you can learn 1 additional language for ever 10 ranks of wisdom and perhaps every 200 ranks of scholarship. Or maybe with just certain scholarship requirements alone, this would at least give someone who gets the theoretical limit of 2000 ranks of scholarship pretty much the ability to speak every language in the realms, not very useful but still a nice bragging right.

I agree... I RP my Elf character as having been raised in Muspar'i around (and partially by) S'kra, so I'd gladly even trade Ilithic for S'kra Mur tongue. Someday, perhaps?


~E

*Continues braiding his vines*

Sooo...rezzing a thread here, but I never noticed it before and I see no good reason not to. The discussion seemed pretty interesting, so I figured I'd chime in even though I'm late.

First, I think each race should have a chart of language similarity kind of like the racial breeding chart. Tier the difficulty of each language for each race.

At 100 ranks of scholarship, regardless of skillset placement, any person can attempt to learn a language in the easiest tier for their race. There would be a TDP cost of, say, 50 TDPs for a first tier language. What exactly this process involves is kind of hard to come up with an idea for... It'd be kind of neat if it was like joining Necros (not really gonna say more due to spoilers, but I think you get the idea), and would take place in a little village, town, household, or whatever, of the person teaching you the language. Kind of like you learn it through immersion.

The amount of time this takes can be reduced by wisdom, discipline, intelligence and ranks in perception. Even with really good stats, though, it should be lengthy enough that you really have to want it to bother with the quest.

Upon completion, you've learned the language. Your vocal ranks could then come into play. When you speak the language, depending on your vocals ranks, you could opt to speak with varying degrees of proficiency which unlock over time as your vocals go up. With less than 50 vocals, you might stutter as you speak slowly. 100, you can keep stuttering if you want, or you could just speak slowly. 150, you can speak the language without any kind of descriptor. 200, you can speak it fluently.

Perhaps you'd need more vocals for each level of proficiency depending on the tier of language difficulty for your race.

Aaaanyway, there's Haakish, Ilithic, Olvi, Toggish, Gerenshuge, S'Kra Mur, Gamgweth, Gorbesh, Prydaen, and Rakash (I think that's all of them, sorry if I left one out!) So, 9 languages for each person to learn.

Lore Primes: 1st Tier available at 100 ranks, 2nd at 250, 3rd at 400. Able to learn a new language every 75 ranks after 100.

Others: 1st Tier available at 100 ranks, 2nd at 300, 3rd at 500. Able to learn a new language every 100 ranks.

As for TDP costs, maybe 50, 100, and 150 depending on the tier?

Yeah, it'll never happen, but sometimes I like to just slap stuff together and see what people think.


-=Issus=-

I think letting Lore Prime get the bulk of the skill req reduction would be a great idea; more languages could be an excellent RP tool and very sensible for traders and bards, and as well as Empaths if you use the go where help is wanted angle and learn "Ow!" or explicitives in all kinds of language from all kinds of people you work on :D

If you were going to go through the effort of doing this, I'd want non-racial languages added in.

---

Magic's Death Caraamon Makdasi,
Gor'Tog Barbarian
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Blunts for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares

Or how to speak goblin, rock troll, or dragon priest?


Nikpack

The gods are jerks. No, really.
-Armifer

I don't think we ever take the training wheels off as players or gamemasters.
-Inauri

<<Or how to speak goblin, rock troll, or dragon priest?>>

dragon priests speak s'kra.

saar'ati Dzree tanu sarr'hhs oloh.

---

the world is broken

I rarely see people using the racial languages, it doesn't seem worth putting a HUGE amount of effort into learning more of them.

I would definitely never spend TDPs on it unless we were given new/more/better ways to earn TDPs.

I'd be more willing to invest something like, say, an RPA, however.

~ Kougen

Moon Mages: Ripping reality a new one since 586 BL

I disagree. Languages should be accessible, but require an actual investment of time and effort to learn.

I don't really want everyone running around speaking every language because they can. Allowing people to pick up a single new language for every 200 ranks of scholarship they have at the cost of TDPs or something would be nice.

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Rev. Reene

Kssarh says, "She has many talents."
>
Kssarh says, "Some of which can be discussed in public."

Why not have a dual approach? Make it require Scholarship and TDPs, but make the learning process more natural for those of us who would get a kick out of it.

So, say, you can learn the language three ways:

1) By exposure. You have to use a verb to do this, like "PAY ATTENTION TO NIIETH," in order to start watching her like a hawk and trying to learn what she's saying. There is a Scholarship requirement and you drain TDPs at a regular rate (say 1 per hour).

2) By reading some books. Same deal only you learn a little faster and lose TDPs a little faster.

3) By being taught. Same deal only you learn much faster, lose TDPs much faster, and the Scholarship requirement is lower.

Over time you'd see more and more of the words revealed, until eventually you'd be fluent. We could make the process work along an exponential curve (i.e. taking much less time and Scholarship to go from beginner to conversational than to go from highly conversational to totally fluent). That way we'd end up with a system where you'd really have to be an uber-Scholar and burn some TDPs to be superfluent, but with a small investment you could plunk by.

Lore primes should of course get some kind of bonus, such as a faster learning rate and/or lower Scholarship reqs.

I think it'd be fun anyway.

-- Player of Niieth

>> I am against the TDPs, because I think it will be more of a push for people to be TDP farming.

I doubt anyone inclined to farm for TDPs will be inclined to spend those TDPs on something as mechanically pointless as learning another language.

What it does is force people to actually make a serious investment into learning a language, so everyone in the game isn't running around speaking every other language just because.

Very high scholarship requirements could also be another barrier for that, while also giving scholarship a use.

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Rev. Reene

Kssarh says, "She has many talents."
>
Kssarh says, "Some of which can be discussed in public."

I wouldn't want to see empaths get anything less than the other two lore prime guilds. They've had to put up with the suck that is Lore for just as long and having them benefit less from a lore release is just not needed.

I agree with Caelumia's reasoning behind TDPs. If it's just something that is easy to do and there's no real sacrifice to doing it, everyone will be running around knowing a bunch of languages and it'll kind of be pointless.

As for the learning method, I wouldn't really care how it's done. The reason I proposed what I did is that I think it's probably easier mechanically than something like the "Every time you hear someone speak it you learn a little more." Also, I wouldn't want to have to rely on other people babbling in their racial languages incessantly to get myself a new ability.

-=Issus=-

I really like the general idea, and some of the ways to go about doing it. In my opinion lore primary people should have a boost, and it should be a little bit of a hassle to learn.

Not a fan of the TDP thing though.

100 plat means you could afford all the languages with a few days hunting. That's not a plat sink.

TDP cost is the only way to actually make it at all exclusive.

<<TDP cost is the only way to actually make it at all exclusive.

plus right now there is not really much uses for TDP's at all. this is one way to help expand it.

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I'm on a Motor-boat!!

>As a player I hate spending TDPs on anything but stats because I always feel like I'm hobbling my character. It bugs me so much that I might be reluctant to learn another language even though I feel like my character might want to know it.

This is exactly why this is a good idea. It'll limit language learning to people that really care about it.

When you hit 40-all stats the existing alternative TDP sinks e.g. scrolls are so negligible that they are barely worth half a stat point difference. You are hardly gimping your char.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think spending TDPs to get a language is a good way to limit how many people choose to go that route. I don't really see TDPs as being as precious as some of you do though, I guess.

I;m not against the idea of RPA points being usable instead, though. It fits pretty well.

Enots, I'm afraid that "hunt for item X" quests are about the worst thing ever. Ask any bard who has done the booze quest for voice throws how fun it is to have to camp a rotating stock store that's only open during the night on Ratha in a maze, only to have the quest giver change his mind when you finally get it. Also, there's issues with items that read the same to us but are different behind the scenes so that glass of pale ale you have might not be the right pale ale. It's just hugely irritating.



-=Issus=-

>> This is exactly why this is a good idea. It'll limit language learning to people that really care about it.

This, pretty much.

RPAs would also be acceptable. I was just talking the other day with someone about how RPAs should really have more benefits that would be conducive to RP and encourage it - stuff like learning languages, custom titles, custom verbs etc. would all do that and make sense.

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Rev. Reene

Kssarh says, "She has many talents."
>
Kssarh says, "Some of which can be discussed in public."

>I live in an odd time zone... 90% of events take place at 2:00 am for me.

So, you live on the US east coast too? Yeah, it's pretty rough sometimes. I miss a lot when I manage to get on a normal sleeping schedule.

I still say a cost in blood is unnecessary for purely limiting reasons though.

Have it so you can learn one new language every 300 ranks of scholarship.

Lore Primary - Cap at 5 new languages (at 1500 ranks)
Lore Secondary - Cap at 3 new languages (at 900 ranks)
Lore Tert - Cap at 1 new language (at 300 ranks)

If you STILL need to restrict people, make it cost 30 RP points. That's not an impossible task, but it's a Level 4 RPA so it still makes people pick and choose between RP development and a significant skill boost.

~ Kougen

Moon Mages: Ripping reality a new one since 586 BL