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Old 06-10-2017, 03:03 PM   #11
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
malloyd: where did the 60 points come in? Supers has Omnilingual at 40 points and Xeno-Omnilingual at 80. Did Discworld or some other book revise it to be 60?
I don't know actually, we've used 60 for a while though. It may have been a compromise between the two versions.
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Old 06-10-2017, 07:05 PM   #12
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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I was asking if Discworld changed the base price of Omnilingual.
It didn't. malloyd posted his house rules, which apparently include a change in the base cost :)
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Old 06-11-2017, 03:18 AM   #13
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

In my Stargate campaign I used Aspected Serendipity that let them happen to have already known a language if they had points to spend. So we did keep track of the ones that they hadn't known so they still didn't know them later unless they learned they in the meantime.
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Old 06-11-2017, 12:09 PM   #14
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

What does this board think the best way to set up a cinematic PC who knows vast numbers of languages, but only those they could reasonably know.

Example: A Cliffhangers scholar who studied at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and Heidelburg, and knows every language recorded at those Universities by 1925. But, if Vulcans exist in this universe, being unknown to Western scholarship in 1925, he doesn't know their language. Similarly isolated Amazonian tribes, inhabitants of "lost worlds," newly awakened Atlanteans, all speak languages he doesn't know....yet.
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Old 06-11-2017, 12:18 PM   #15
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
What does this board think the best way to set up a cinematic PC who knows vast numbers of languages, but only those they could reasonably know.

Example: A Cliffhangers scholar who studied at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and Heidelburg, and knows every language recorded at those Universities by 1925. But, if Vulcans exist in this universe, being unknown to Western scholarship in 1925, he doesn't know their language. Similarly isolated Amazonian tribes, inhabitants of "lost worlds," newly awakened Atlanteans, all speak languages he doesn't know....yet.
All of this is exactly covered by Omnilingual. It covers all "common" languages on your homeworld, but specifically excludes languages that haven't ever been studied or deciphered. So all your examples of uncontacted tribes, lost worlds, and newly-returned people from the distant past, would be things the GM could say "sorry, you don't know this one".
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Old 06-11-2017, 03:26 PM   #16
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
All of this is exactly covered by Omnilingual. It covers all "common" languages on your homeworld, but specifically excludes languages that haven't ever been studied or deciphered. So all your examples of uncontacted tribes, lost worlds, and newly-returned people from the distant past, would be things the GM could say "sorry, you don't know this one".
It's even reasonable to say something like "They're speaking some sort of pidgin of Mongol* and Russian* with some Mandarin* loan words and a few you don't recognize, your comprehension is at Broken for at least a week till you get the swing of it, then Accented for a month, then Native**."


* Or whatever. You got the drift.
** If they also have Language Talent.
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Old 06-16-2017, 07:57 AM   #17
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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It's even reasonable to say something like "They're speaking some sort of pidgin of Mongol* and Russian* with some Mandarin* loan words and a few you don't recognize, your comprehension is at Broken for at least a week till you get the swing of it, then Accented for a month, then Native**."


* Or whatever. You got the drift.
** If they also have Language Talent.
That does sound like the kind of thing I'm after. Though I might require the Linguistics skill at a fairly good level to get the results you describe.
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Old 06-16-2017, 10:16 AM   #18
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
That does sound like the kind of thing I'm after. Though I might require the Linguistics skill at a fairly good level to get the results you describe.
I think putting Requires IQ Roll, -20% on Omnilingual and specifying that it's actually a Linguistics roll seems perfectly reasonable.
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Old 06-16-2017, 10:46 AM   #19
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
I think putting Requires IQ Roll, -20% on Omnilingual and specifying that it's actually a Linguistics roll seems perfectly reasonable.
Nah, that would be "skills for everyone" and is a feature.
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Old 06-16-2017, 11:09 AM   #20
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Default Re: Discworld Language Talents

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Nah, that would be "skills for everyone" and is a feature.
"Skills for everyone" is what lets you replace a roll against an attribute with a roll against a skill as a feature. However, Omnilingual by default requires no rolls at all. Making it require a roll in the first place is a limitation, which is the Requires IQ Roll limitation. Switching that roll to use Linguistics instead is the feature.

See numerous examples in Psionic Powers, which uses "Skills for Everyone" as part of its default power assumptions, and still uses the Based on (Attribute) Roll limitation extensively, to add rolls to advantages that wouldn't normally require them at all.
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