Fox and Tree known languages wording issue

[Ammutseba]

Hi, so, I've been working on a martial discipline that uses Speak Language as a key skill (despite that you can't actually have ranks in it), and I've got an issue. There are a few feats and effects that cause characters to understand, speak or know literally every language ever.

Now, this discipline's maneuvers gain additional benefits if their initiator knows and can speak a mantra from certain languages while performing them. This functionality breaks down if a character uses some kind of trick to just know all languages, so I'm saying that those effects do not allow an initiator to empower their Fox and Tree maneuvers. Picking up feats that grant additional languages is acceptable, though.

First, what do you think the best way to word this limitation would be? And second, what are the feats and effects that would cause this problem?

[Flickerdart]

Tongues (a level 2 spell for Bards) allows the target to speak all languages of intelligent creatures (but only one at a time). There's also an epic feat called Polyglot which imparts knowledge of all languages.

[Glimbur]

There's also the high level monk ability Tongue of Sun and Moon.

You're probably safe in stating that "only languages acquired through intelligence bonus, skill points, or feats count for Fox and Tree maneuvers." That leaves in Polyglot, but... epic.

[BowStreetRunner]

There's also the high level monk ability Tongue of Sun and Moon.

You're probably safe in stating that "only languages acquired through intelligence bonus, skill points, or feats count for Fox and Tree maneuvers." That leaves in Polyglot, but... epic.

Actually, the above wording leaves out your starting languages. :smallredface:

How about this?

"Only a character's automatic starting languages, bonus languages for high intelligence score, languages acquired through the Speak Language skill, and languages acquired through class features, extraordinary abilities or feats count for purposes of initiating Tree and Fox maneuvers. Understanding and use of a language granted by spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities are never counted when determining the effects of a Tree or Fox maneuver."

EDIT: I included class abilities due to a number of prestige classes that grant bonus languages (ex. Loremaster Prestige Class in DMG).

[Hand_of_Vecna]

You might want to just cap the bonus at character level +something reasonable, because I don't think the number of languages you can learn through the speak language skill is limited by anything other than how many skill points you have. That way you can allow interactions like those mentioned above to be good, but not game breaking.

[Kuulvheysoon]

There's a (Changeling racial) feat in Races of Eberron called Master Linguist that lets you learn a new language for free every level (including the level that you take the feat).

[rgrekejin]

There's a (Changeling racial) feat in Races of Eberron called Master Linguist that lets you learn a new language for free every level (including the level that you take the feat).

That's not a racial feat, it's a general feat, unless it's been errata'd somewhere I'm not aware of.

[Ammutseba]

Actually, the above wording leaves out your starting languages. :smallredface:

How about this?

"Only a character's automatic starting languages, bonus languages for high intelligence score, languages acquired through the Speak Language skill, and languages acquired through class features, extraordinary abilities or feats count for purposes of initiating Tree and Fox maneuvers. Understanding and use of a language granted by spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities are never counted when determining the effects of a Tree or Fox maneuver."

EDIT: I included class abilities due to a number of prestige classes that grant bonus languages (ex. Loremaster Prestige Class in DMG).

Brilliant. Thank you so much!


You might want to just cap the bonus at character level +something reasonable, because I don't think the number of languages you can learn through the speak language skill is limited by anything other than how many skill points you have. That way you can allow interactions like those mentioned above to be good, but not game breaking.

That won't be necessary, actually. Knowing that there are myriad ways to get a whole bunch of languages, even without the ways of getting all of them at once, I just made the discipline simultaneously more demanding and more rewarding.


...it occurs to me now that this probably should have gone in the homebrew section. Oops. :/

[Kuulvheysoon]

That's not a racial feat, it's a general feat, unless it's been errata'd somewhere I'm not aware of.

Well I'll be damned - you're right.

Huh. I just keep assuming that it is because it's on the list of bonus feats for the Cabinet Trickster.

[rgrekejin]

Well I'll be damned - you're right.

Huh. I just keep assuming that it is because it's on the list of bonus feats for the Cabinet Trickster.

Yeah... I had this feat with a high-int human fighter I played once. He was a professional negotiator with a mercenary company, and needed to be able speak lots of languages non-magically. I was pretty sure that there had been no house-ruling involved.