Question: Do Epic Intelligence successes add to the number of languages a character is capable of knowing? Otherwise gods such as Thoth are limited to only knowing 20 languages at most, which seems a bit off.
Well, no, Thoth knows all languages that have ever existed, because he has both Language Mastery and Instant Translation. Our default assumption is that any god with an Ultimate also has all knacks in that Ultimate, and at any rate Thoth sort of invented writing and language as a concept. Asking how many languages Thoth would know if he weren't Thoth seems sort of fruitless.
But Thoth aside, things are pretty simple for the average Scion, too. We treat languages like we treat other things that don't really need codification at character creation; if you say you know them, you do. If your Scion is a French national who works in Australia, it makes sense for her to know both English and French, so she does. If she's a linguistics scholar specializing in Romance languages, she might speak Spanish, French and Italian, and as long as her stats don't say she's dumb as a rock, that's fine by us. Just as we let all characters decide where they came from, what their financial situation is and what kind of training they've had in the past, so we let them decide what languages they speak, as long as they're being reasonable and realistic about it.
When it comes to learning new languages on the fly over the course of play, we don't sweat that too much, either. If the character has a little Epic Intelligence and spends some in-character time studying that language, we allow that he's learned it as long as he makes a demonstrable investment of time and effort (studying for several hours of in-game time despite other things happening, buying a dot of Academics, etc). He could do the same thing by being immersed in a culture that speaks the language for a long time as long as he's reasonably trying to communicate with them (though that happens less often, since Scions tend to move around a lot). Once they've maxed out their Academics, gods can probably learn any language they spend sufficient time studying in a single game session, provided, of course, that they have some Epic Intelligence. As a Storyteller, don't worry about the details too much; if it makes sense, give it to him, and if it doesn't or the player's obviously trying to grasp for a convenience and not a real character detail, don't.
Of course, if Scions are really serious about learning a lot of languages and having that be part of their divine image, they should probably just pick up Language Mastery. And you're right that those who don't will have a limited number of languages they can learn, bounded by the amount of time they're willing to spend on studying instead of doing other epic deeds; Legend 12 gods, even if very intelligent, might end up only speaking ten or fewer languages. But that's not really a flaw; if gods were easily learning all languages on the fly, there'd be no point to Language Mastery and Instant Translation existing, after all. Those who don't pick them up are naturally familiar with fewer languages, because they've chosen to manifest their supernatural intelligence in different areas (i.e., whatever other knacks they got instead).
For the Question-Asker, I do use the rule where Epic Int adds its successes to the number of languages you know... but Anne's also 100% right. Any of my players that have gotten NEAR that limit have already purchased Language Mastery.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gozer had his I-Phone, I had him download all of the world's known languages and listen to them with Language Mastery. It was a good solution to the problem of "Wadya say?"
ReplyDeleteIt's like, the "Epic Int increases your number of languages" rule is nice, but I've never really run into a situation where it's been crucial. It seems like the sort of thing that EInt should increase the way EStr increases lifting whether you take knacks for it or not, and it'd be weird to, say, pick up EInt and Perfect Memory or Fast Learner and not have your linguistic abilities improve at all, even though those knacks seem to be describing the kinds of things that would make you better at learning new languages.
ReplyDeleteThe real benefit of Language Mastery is never being left out of a conversation again due to common language issues.
Question-asker here! First off, thanks for answering :)
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't know that Language Mastery and/or Instant Translation weren't restricted by the "language cap". If they're not, then things suddenly make a whole lot more sense.
I'm asking in particular because one of my players has a character who is a mythology professor, who now that he has found out who and what he is, has taken it upon himself to pick up the ancient languages of the various pantheons. Added to this, he has the knacks Speed Reader and Perfect Memory (though he does not yet have any of the Language knacks). It's difficult to argue with why he shouldn't just know all languages that have a translated dictionary ever written after spending only a day at the library.
I'm not sure whether it's broken, or awesome, and I consistently have a difficult time rewarding this player for his clever mental shenanigans.
Even with speed reader...libraries are huge and reading takes time. And I dont just mean the actual reading. You have to look up books, take out books, and return your giant stacks of books. Not that it would take him, MUCH longer then a day, but it shouldnt happen quite that fast. Also does he have intellect? We often have pcs who love to read get stuck in libraries and have to be drug out kicking and screaming.
DeleteAlso, memorizing all the words and the ways to use a language is much different then successfully speaking the language. In addition memorization helps almost zero with listening to a language and doesnt help at all with speaking languages that arent romanicized(however you spell that). If hes in the library trying to read chinese...hes probably just failing.
So there are some reasons that it wouldnt quite work, but yes, if he set his mind to it he could probably pretty easily memorize reading a lot of languages.
At Legend 3, he has Intelligence 5 and 2 Epic Intelligence. He's also a Pesedjet who has opted to swap Conviction for Intellect (4), so I really like your idea of him quickly becoming addicted to consuming knowledge and indexing it in his brain.
DeleteHis basic argument on the language front is something like: If I want to speak the language and have the dictionary memorized, I can haphazardly put together words. He's also probably got several educational materials memorized (language textbooks, etc.) Would you say then, that his method might get him by when reading or writing the language - but not while speaking or listening? That seems like a fair reward for his cleverness, while still making the language knacks relevant to cover the other two spheres of language learning.
Yes, theres no way he can understand the languages. And his translation is still probably slow. Hes acting like an archaeologist translating egyptian. Hes much faster then an archaeologist cause he doesnt have to go back and check the books, but he still has to do each word one at a time, and then will have problems when things come up like that societies version of sarcasm. Or strange use of words. Or words that arent in books. Trying to read the writings of an american teenager would be impossible if all you had was a dictionary.
DeleteIt's funny you mention that because he is, in fact, a mythology professor who is also an archaeologist! Or was, before his world was turned upside down.
DeleteThanks for your help clarifying this for me. I'll be sure to pass it along in my game.