The abilities can vary a lot. For example: 1 RP can get you a +2 against disease and ingested poison, a +2 Acrobatics on narrow ledges... or the option to learn any languages when creating your character.
On the up side, it means even if you want a normal human as a character, you could grab some minor abilities that someone 'could' train.

Courynna Talaudrym:

How does racial points differ from 3.5 Level Adjustment? I am playing a human with no additional racial points... compare my no additional racial point human to one with 18... we are both 8th level characters?  Is this a fair and equal comparison? Doesn't sound like it... perhaps there should be an LA comparison made and either reduce their starting level appropriately or allow those not suping up their characters with RP an extra level or two so the playing field is fair.

A) this isn't 3.5, it is pathfinder....:)  However racial templates cost level adjustment still

League Historian:

I'm down to make those extra race points available to players who choose "cheaper" races.

B) The gm kinda covered that.

C) by your reasoning if I were to choose to play an ifrit (5 RP) I could stop everyone from playing any race with more points than that.

In reply to Celice (msg # 64):

Welp, time to become full Omniglot then! Come here Gifted Linguist.

Were we doing the background skills? I mean, I use it in another game I'm in and it's a pretty good system.

Yes, we are.

Awesome!
This message was last edited by the player at 17:00, Fri 06 July 2018.

So how are traits working?  I assume that campaign traits are not available (since we aren't doing any specific campaign), what about the regional traits.

Well, I had intended to only go with character traits but after thinking about it regional traits work as well. You guys are open to have some input into the world as I haven't established or come up with anything yet.

On the RP question, is it "Everyone can build up to 18RP" or is it something else?

Everyone can build up to 18rp, if you don't want to you certainly don't have to.

So... languages.  Are there just racial languages, or are there other important ones floating around?

Also, what are the languages most associated with technology and magic?

Well, traditionally Draconic is often associated with arcane magic.

Just the racial languages, though common was originally dropped I'm changing it up a bit.

Common can be used to communicate in a rudimentary form, however, it cannot be used to persuade, intimidate, or make any other kind of social roll because of its "rudimentary" nature.

Technology wise, Draconic can work? Though I was thinking of having it be race related.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:50, Sat 07 July 2018.

Wouldn’t that make it really difficult to be a Face, as you’d be required to speak the native language of your target, and you could never use any Face skills with humans? Am I misunderstanding something? I thought Common was the human language in addition to being spoken by every PC race.

In reply to Aikio Ebonfeather (msg # 76):

I think he means that 'humans' have their own language, and that 'common' is now a trade language, like pidgins.

Makes that Linguistics skill look more attractive, don't it?

In reply to Kass (msg # 78):

It sure was for me! :)

It makes Linguistics the #1 most vital skill to anyone who wants to negotiate. You’ll need max ranks every level just to be able to use your skills, and even then half the time you probably won’t be able to use them. I mean, there are a LOT of languages.

There is always magic. Voluminous Vocabulary, Tongues, etc.

In reply to Tora (msg # 81):

And if you want something more exotic, the feat Xenoglossy can let you speak with any one person for a minute with a dc 25 Linguistic check. Not always easy, but if you succeed, repeated use are at +2, and the requirement are just 3 ranks of Linguistic and Int 13.

While there are indeed a lot of languages, you have to assume that most individuals with whom you would even want to negotiate would be fluent in some of the more basic ones like elven, dwarven, human, or whatnot. I think it is a non-issue. Besides, the tongues spells exist for a reason. Also, it would make it more interesting if you couldn't negotiate with someone due to language. You would have to come at such situations more tactfully. For example, the Dennis Quaid movie Enemy Mine comes to mind as a ringing example. I also believe there is an Enterprise episode, Season 2 Episode 13, Dawn, that mimics the same movie.

Oh, I will have Tongues prepared daily for that reason. :D

I was under the impression that humans were going to get to speak Human and Common wouldn't exist.

I like the idea of Common as a trade language conceptually, but I would like to point something out from real life; the modern 'Common' is English, not Esperanto.  It's not even the second most commonly spoken native language globally, and yet 20% of the world speaks it.  The degree of the language at that point depends on who is speaking - someone who grew up speaking English will likely have a much more elaborate command of the language than someone who learned tourist phrases.  Going back in History, there were a few other linguae francae based on empire; Roman, for example, had anyone who was anyone speaking Latin and/or Greek.

To carry that over, the main 'trade' language should be the language of whoever is most influential.  The general assumption in fantasy games is that humans are the single strongest driving force, as well as probably the most influential.  On the other hand, Elves are the France of fantasy, and how many people think of French as the modern language of culture and sophistication?

As a foreigner what are these Elves you speak of?

Good Discussion, here is what I'm looking for..

So common is great, but my issue with it is EVERYONE speaks it, so in my experience it negates the need to really ever use another language. And we have that cool language feature on here that scrambles speech if you don't speak it. I love that, and think it would enhance the game greatly.

I understand the issues it causes face characters, but here are some of my thoughts-

1) What everyone else has said about magic, feats, etc
2) Common languages like Elven, Dwarfish, etc are commonly spoken, and most people speak more than one language.
3) Common works to communicate with people, it's just rudimentary and I would rather people not use it for persuasive actions and all, it's like trying to use basic sign language in real life to persuade someone to vote for you, it's not really going to work. But, if you speak their language it's different.
4) Humans would get the "Human" language, we would just add it.
5) Everyone in your general area of operations probably speaks the same couple of languages. I don't really plan on you guys running into every single race and every single different language consistently, to the point that you guys can never communicate with anyone unless you take every possible language you could. But, if you're a "Face" character, than yes you're characters buildshould be entirely focused on communication.

Now I recognize this might take away more than it would add, so we can keep things the way they are i just personally want to see languages really be an important thing in the game.

I also plan on making every character apply to different quests. You're a healer? Okay cool, there will be plenty of healer focused quests for you take. This game isn't going to be your typical DnD adventuring game where you face all sorts of challenges and need a "balanced" build. In real life soldiers aren't consistently having to perform surgery, businessmen don't enter combat ever, and doctors rarely negotiate business trade deals. Everyone has a career and a niche, and they perform work that requires those skills.