Making a book hard to read

[Wasum]

Hello everyone - my players are going to find a book written in an ancient language and I dont want to make reading it too easy. I know the spell has its limits but it would still reveal more of the content than I'd like to let them know at this point.

Do you have some advice on how I could archieve some more interesting process of deciphering the texts?

[Zanos]

None of the language understanding spells grant anything other than literal meaning, so encrypted documents would still require a skill check to decipher. Just make it a scaling DC Decipher Script check for the amount of information it reveals.

I've also never seen Decipher Script actually used, so woo.

[exelsisxax]

Idioms, references, memes, and local peculiarities are often untranslatable in real life. Imagine being a Chinese speaker, and hearing "he had a huge chip on his shoulder". It doesn't work. Don't let spells be omnipotent and omniscient and you can make it hard.

[daremetoidareyo]

Hello everyone - my players are going to find a book written in an ancient language and I dont want to make reading it too easy. I know the spell has its limits but it would still reveal more of the content than I'd like to let them know at this point.

Do you have some advice on how I could archieve some more interesting process of deciphering the texts?

Give them a copy of magic of incarnum.

[Celestia]

Make it pale yellow text on white pages.

[Mike Miller]

Give them a copy of magic of incarnum.

You, sir, win this thread.

Also, I approve of the aforementioned decipher script for meaning. Feel free to have them make multiple decipher script checks for each topic within the book, or by chapter, or some other category within the book.

[Goaty14]

-Have it written backwards, thus it is only viewable when put in front of a mirror. Da Vinci did this IIRC
-Write it in a different language. I haven't seen a language used other than common in games. --Even better, write it in Drow Sign Language (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0862.html) as depicting hand gestures.

[Telonius]

Pad the file. The book is 3,000 pages long, but the bits that will tell them what they want to know are on page 2597. There is no index, table of contents, or numbers on the pages.

[Sam K]

Have it written by a PHD with a high opinion of himself, who is being paid by the word. Every page will force a will save to be able to keep reading!

[ShurikVch]

The book is somehow connected to extradimensional space(s); at unwary attempt to read it (at least - without proper precautions), book would either produce the guardian monster, or suck the reader in; and it isn't once per book, but - per page; probably, the pages are just an entrances, and the "real text" is all "on the other side"...

[Wasum]

Haha, actually the book does conjure extraplanetar creatures in deed!

Thank you for those suggestions so far - I do like the idea to need a mirror. I wanted the book to drive its reader insane, maybe forcing wiill saves or suffering from wisdom damage - on every page.

[DeTess]

I wanted the book to drive its reader insane, maybe forcing wiill saves or suffering from wisdom damage - on every page.

We've got a book like that in our possession in a campaign I'm currently playing in. The effect wears off after a long rest, but it hits pretty hard until it wears off, and no one has tried more than a single pace in a single reading yet. It works peetty well to make us very curious at the contents, and very unwilling to find out.

[Mutazoia]

Have it written by a PHD with a high opinion of himself, who is being paid by the word. Every page will force a will save to be able to keep reading!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o



A basic skip-code would work. Any book could be used at that point, but if you want to drive them mad, use any book on tax law.

[Caedes]

There is also the classic, "There is a page missing" trope. You can combine that with its planar connections, that after certain criteria are met the "missing" pages phase back into the book and are no longer missing.

It has been my experience with players that where there is a check they will find a way.

;)

[Knaight]

Have it written by a PHD with a high opinion of himself, who is being paid by the word. Every page will force a will save to be able to keep reading!

Alternately have it be written by a borderline illiterate writing in what clearly isn't their native language.

Other options are to have it be a code, where reading the new language just reveals the encrypted text as it was meant to be seen.

[Afgncaap5]

Theoretically, you could always make the runes themselves be magically resistant to translation, even from the Read Magic spell. If you like you could also include a device like The Codebreaker from the Grasp of the Emerald Claw adventure to translate.

[DrMotives]

If everything is written in idioms and references to old historical events, then without a knowledge history or knowledge religion a translation alone won't do much good. Also, book might contain a Scalamagadrion (Magic of the Faerun) or other creature that lives inside a book that has the knowledge needed.

[unseenmage]

In addition to the text each page contains a tiny sized mirror meticulously sewn into the vellum.

These mirrors are links to the Plane of Mirrors within which the actual info is scrawled on the hallway walls in blood and ichor.

Or just make the book haunted. Must be physically restrained or even excorcised to be read.

Make the book an Int Magic Item with an agenda and high ego score.

The books pages have been soaked in contact pouson. And theyre brittle so gloved hands would crumble them. A high Dex check is required to turn each page. Failure poisons the page turner and destroys the page.

The book has one simple compulsion enchantment. Anyone reading it who doesnt succeed at a Will save is compelled to skip to the end and read the last page.
Last page contains some Symbol of spell that's not damaging to the book.

[ericgrau]

Secret Page (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/secretPage.htm). I forgot what it's called in the PHB. I think it's Leomund's.

Use in combination with sepia snake sigil or explosive runes, plus all of the above.

[Mutazoia]

You could always take a page (no pun intended) out of Red Dwarfs playbook... When Lister was learning to "read" cat books. There were no words, just smells (so it was basically a scratch-and-sniff book with otherwise blank pages)...let's see comprehend languages translate THAT.

[Wasum]

Secret Page is great for what I need - thank you!

[Jarmen4u]

Based off of some of the responses in this thread, I suggest checking out the Star Trek TNG episode called "Darmok." The characters encounter a race who speaks entirely in allusions to parts of their culture, and therefore are unintelligible by the universal translator.

[noob]

Write a book the same way rudisplorker explain their builds.

[Snowbluff]

Write a book the same way rudisplorker explain their builds.

That’s a good idea. I’ve been writing mine in Qualith. I need to use 4 of my tentacles to write/read it, but most people don’t have that many.

[Oracle71]

I've been bouncing around some ideas similar to this topic for my wizard who is an expert linguist, both modern and ancient. One idea is to encrypt the text using a language that is wholly incapable of adequately expressing the message, because it contains ideas that are completely alien to that language, all while using a completely different alphabet. Like trying to hide the message in an epic love poem that is written in Infernal, but using the alphabet of the modrons.

[Malroth]

Every page has a Permanent Illusionary Script spell cast on it, the visible Illusion is a day to day diary of a tax accountant in which there is a Profession : Barrister check to notice decrepancies to find the necessary code , The magical suggestion which they mus pass every round is "This book is boring and I want to quit, The number needed to crack the code on this page is XXXXXXXX" and the actual written text is, "cheating using true seeing comprehend languages and mind blank are you... well sucks to be you".

True seeing foes automaticly just get the taunt.
Foes immune to mind affecting can get an encrypted cypher if they slog through the illusion but no way to crack it.

[Deadline]

Based off of some of the responses in this thread, I suggest checking out the Star Trek TNG episode called "Darmok." The characters encounter a race who speaks entirely in allusions to parts of their culture, and therefore are unintelligible by the universal translator.

"Shaka, when the walls fell."

[Hamilcar Barca]

A simple way is to rule that all magical methods of reading stuff work by detecting the intent of the writer. Then have the book PRINTED. The spells won't work on printed material. Once they figure it out they will either be looking for someone who can read it or researching a new spell.

Hamilcar Barca

[weckar]

Have the book feature an impossibly complex system of internal cross-referencing and glossarising (more on page 38, section III.a of appendix D)

[noob]

A simple way is to rule that all magical methods of reading stuff work by detecting the intent of the writer. Then have the book PRINTED. The spells won't work on printed material. Once they figure it out they will either be looking for someone who can read it or researching a new spell.

Hamilcar Barca

If printing exists and starts being used then it means that most books which have printed versions are printed multiple times(because it is not worth printing a book if you do not want to make multiple exemplars)
So old languages would be harder to lose and you would have an easier time finding someone who still knows the language.(unless you are having an hard time reading a modern book which would be weird)

[JyP]

to reuse some mechanisms : the book is an Item of Legacy - to unlock its powers / decipher it you need to do the right legacy ritual, which you can usually discover through appropriate Lore check. Legacy ritual usually uses some costly components, but you unlock additional powers over levels. Unlike other magic items, you don't pay powers with WBL... but you got some penalties to deal with.

[Sheogoroth]

It's an ancient book, so stuff it with metaphor, hear-say, slant, etc.

Look for inspiration here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/
I absolutely love this as a resource for writing an "ancient feeling" document. Something should FEEL old and onerous. It should be annoying and outdated and hard to make your way through.

[Braininthejar2]

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160212#.WleeCK7ibIU

[Velaryon]

-Have it written backwards, thus it is only viewable when put in front of a mirror. Da Vinci did this IIRC

I've seen differing claims on this. When I was younger we had a Da Vinci presenter come to my school once (dressed as him and everything), who claimed that Da Vinci wrote right-to-left not as an attempt at encryption, but simply because he was left-handed and didn't want to smudge what he wrote. But then I've also seen claims that he was not actually left-handed, so who knows what the real truth was?

Either way, it's still a valid option for making it harder to read. Comprehend languages specifically does not decipher codes or find hidden meanings in text. For that matter, with the characters in reverse order would the spell even recognize the words as a particular language to translate? That sounds like a DM ruling to me.

.llac ruoY ?etalsnart ot egaugnal a sa siht ezingocer neve segaugnal dneherpmoc dluoC

[Segev]

Have it written by a PHD with a high opinion of himself, who is being paid by the word. Every page will force a will save to be able to keep reading!

I was going to suggest something similar, but to use legal documents as a model for the format.

[Krobar]

You know, on the planet Marklar, all persons, places, and things are referred to as Marklar.


http://youtu.be/Bzq4YDt7V-o

[ross]

"Subtract the number of words in the fifth line of the second paragraph on page 397 from the number of vowels in the seventh word in the eighth line of the paragraph whose sequence number is found by multiplying the number of letters in the name of the constellation (not including spaces) mentioned on page 486 by the number of letters in the eighth word on this page, minus consonants. The sum of the digits of this number indicate the sequence position of the Mersenne prime whose natural logarithm, truncated to an integer and written in base nine, give the next page you should turn to, to continue reading."

Something like this appears on every page, each time completely different and written by someone with a totally different specialty (so one page might be geology-themed, another astronomical, another all based entirely on finding the Lorentz factor at various velocities). Length and complexity can vary: solutions could require math like the example above; solving incoherent, surrealist nonsense riddles written in multiple different languages that don't exist and which don't make sense even in those languages; obtaining a generalized linear-time solution for the traveling salesman problem; determining if P = NP; designing an artificial intelligence with perfect natural language processing and true consciousness; creating a new organic sapient species from scratch without magic; accurately predicting the weather; you get the idea.

Also, every page is behind a paywall, and you have to create an account, sign in, and pass a captcha to read. For every page. On every tenth page, a pop-up asks you to take a customer experience survey. Two thirds of the book are DLC. The book is early-access, and punctuation is in closed beta.