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View Full Version : [Shadowrun] Learning a 2nd language?



Zelc
2011-03-29, 11:47 PM
It seems like learning a 2nd language is almost impossible without the Bilingual quality. In order to master a language, you have to have 9-12 dice on the Language test. However, no stats are added to it, and with the cap on skills at 6, it's impossible to get enough dice to reliably understand detailed subjects. Is that right? How can people actually learn a second language?

Seerow
2011-03-29, 11:56 PM
Short of houseruling it's going to be a problem. Keep in mind you -can- buy qualities after character creation, at twice the bp cost in karma. So for 10 karma you can buy a new language. It's really steep, but it's RAW. [[edit: Actually come to think of it, 10 karma isn't too bad, considering with no outside help, getting a language from 1 to 6 costs 21 karma. Getting a language after char gen just sucks no matter how you look at it. If you get the learning nanites at least you can cut that cost down to 7 karma for a rating 6 language skill]]

This seems to be a problem for a lot of tests where there's no way to get many dice in on it, but the threshold chart is modeled similarly to skills where you can get a lot of dice. Another key example is fake SINs.

Easiest thing would be to say instead of rolling your language skill, have your language skill correspond with the hits you would need on the language skill table, though you may want to tweak the table such that you need the full 6 for technical knowledge. (ie instead of the table being 1/1/2/3/4, make it 1/2/4/5/6)

Other alternative is to throw more dice at it. Allow someone to add their logic or intuition, whichever is higher, to a language skill test as long as they possess at least one rank in that skill. Between that, language skill ranks, VR assistance, and mnemonic enhancer (god I love that bioware), you can potentially throw a lot of dice at a lot of languages without too much investment.

Slade
2011-04-10, 03:29 PM
Or, just buy lingasofts and call it a day. That's how my face was fluent in over 15 different languages.

Seerow
2011-04-11, 06:46 PM
Or, just buy lingasofts and call it a day. That's how my face was fluent in over 15 different languages.

Only gives you 6 ranks in language skill, still not guaranteed to be able to even speak casually, much less technical things, without house ruling. That's kind of the point. The language rules are pretty retarded. You get to roll 1-6 dice aiming for a TN of 1-4 depending on what you're trying to speak. It is entirely possible to have a rating 6 linguasoft and roll badly, and not be able to say hell (though for something that simple you could just buy the success)