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candidgamera
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Old March 4th, 2014, 05:03 AM
Hello, to the forumites here at Lone Wolf. I had a question, so I figured I'd sign up and ask.

I am working on a Ravenloft campaign that I plan to start in a couple of months, and I am loading up a custom .user file (and trying to teach myself how this stuff works along the way). I'm starting with simple things, like languages and deities from the Ravenloft setting.

I noticed an oddity, though, while tinkering with the house rules. My default character in my initial portfolio is a Human Expert 1. I have turned off the Inner Sea World Guide in the rules options so it doesn't force me to choose an ethnicity for him. I have also turned on the No Common Language rule to emulate the Domains of Dread. The problem is, my 1st level human peasant with an intelligence of 10 has no languages at all now!

I have reported this as a bug to the development guys - the No Common Language house rule should allow one to pick an alternate, but I have to figure that someone ran into this before - what are good workarounds?

I know I can add a permanent adjustment to every PC and NPC to give them an extra language. I may also be able to use templates or subtypes to create fake ethnicities (e.g., 'Barovian'), to bestow appropriate languages. But both of those seem like a headache. Any thoughts?
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candidgamera
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Old March 4th, 2014, 07:29 AM
Okay, this is weird - reloading the portfolio seems to give me the correct blank language slot. So the bug isn't that the 'no common language' option works improperly, it's that the character doesn't seem to update correctly. Indeed, when I reloaded and saw '1 starting language' to select, then selected that one language, the interface then told me I was one over my allotment!
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Portilis
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Old March 4th, 2014, 09:00 AM
My understanding of the "No Common Language" option was more that it just removed the language, rather than giving you a slot back, as there are times when characters knowing Common isn't appropriate - for example in at least one AP that spends time in more far-flung nations the populace doesn't get it automatically, and only get their racial language available.

If you have a different language you'd like to replace it with as the "generic" language, it's quite easy to auto-replace it through the editor. If you want to leave it so that it only does it for that campaign (if you use HL for other campaigns), it's not terribly difficult to set it up to only replace for that game.
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Mathias
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Old March 4th, 2014, 09:19 AM
Portillis is correct - the "No Common Language" option is not supposed to give you a slot back.

I would go the Ethnicities route. That way, you can use the normal Human race, and then assign the Barovian ethnicity in order to add the correct language.
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candidgamera
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Old March 4th, 2014, 10:12 AM
It seems to be in an odd state - sometimes it recognizes that the character has a single language slot, and sometimes it doesn't. But every intelligent creature in Pathfinder speaks its native language (and usually Common, if available) for free. Even ignoring the rules, common sense tells us that an Intelligence 10 Human in any kind of society is going to speak a language, if only to communicate with his or her neighbors.

Removing the Common Language should automatically trip something in the code for Humans to have an option to define their native language, otherwise the 'No Common Language' rule makes all humans mute until they hit Int 12 or put ranks in Linguistics. That simply doesn't make sense. (Edit to Add : Can you find one GM anywhere who runs his or her game like that? With no common language, and humans unable to communicate with each other unless they have 12+ Intelligence or Linguistics skill?)

Honestly, my preferred implementation would be an arrangement that lets the GM assign multiple free languages to a character as their 'starting' or native languages. Sort of like the Mutants and Masterminds Hero Lab implementation, where it's an open-form text field and you can put in several languages, separated by commas, at no additional charge to the character, if appropriate.

Portillis : To address the generic language point specifically, I have no idea how to do that, yet, as I'm just fumbling with the editor now. That said, Ravenloft has no generic language.

Mathias : Until the bug is fixed, then, how would you recommend modelling ethnicities - as a subtype, a template, or something I've missed in the editor?

Last edited by candidgamera; March 4th, 2014 at 10:13 AM. Reason: Added clarification.
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Mathias
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Old March 4th, 2014, 10:25 AM
The purpose of "no common language" is so that when you're creating your own world, and it's a world that doesn't use a common language, you don't need to create replacement races for every single race in order to remove common from all of them - the only races you need to modify are those that gain a new language in this world. By using "No Common Language", you automatically remove Common from the Elves, Dwarves, etc., which drasticly cuts down on the number of races you need to modify.

You'll find the existing ethnicities on the Racial Cust Specials tab.
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candidgamera
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Old March 4th, 2014, 10:29 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathias View Post
The purpose of "no common language" is so that when you're creating your own world, and it's a world that doesn't use a common language, you don't need to create replacement races for every single race in order to remove common from all of them - the only races you need to modify are those that gain a new language in this world. By using "No Common Language", you automatically remove Common from the Elves, Dwarves, etc., which drasticly cuts down on the number of races you need to modify.

You'll find the existing ethnicities on the Racial Cust Specials tab.
I understand your point of view, but as convenient as it is for the non-human races, the humans get hosed. If Hero Lab's purpose is to implement the house rule the way people actually use it, then it should replace Common, for humans, with another language slot. Otherwise, assuming they have humans in the campaign, it takes more work to use it than to just ignore the 'Common' appearing on people's character sheets.
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AndrewD2
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Old March 4th, 2014, 11:02 AM
You could always just add the starting language adjustment, no editor needed. Takes 10 seconds.
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ShadowChemosh
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Old March 4th, 2014, 11:06 AM
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Originally Posted by AndrewD2 View Post
You could always just add the starting language adjustment, no editor needed. Takes 10 seconds.
Or with the editor create a Mechanic that is attached to your House Rules source. And have it run the same script as the adjustment for when a Human is selected for the hero.

Just mentioning another way that is more automatic.

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3.5 D&D (d20) - Community Server Setup
5E D&D - Community Server Setup
Hero Lab Help - Hero Lab FAQ, Editor Tutorials and Videos, Editor & Scripting Resources.
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candidgamera
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Old March 4th, 2014, 11:26 AM
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Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh View Post
Or with the editor create a Mechanic that is attached to your House Rules source. And have it run the same script as the adjustment for when a Human is selected for the hero.

Just mentioning another way that is more automatic.
That's a great suggestion, but I don't know how to do that yet. I will file it away, though! I'm sure there's a good tutorial for this stuff out there somewhere, but right now I'm just hacking away at the simple things.

AndrewD2 : The starting language adjustment does take about ten or fifteen seconds, per character - I could have hundreds of NPCs that are affected.
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