Natural Linguist

Okay, I've been looking for something so that I can properly adapt a character from back in the old FASA Trek days. The character in question is a Vulcan linguist with an astonishing (even for a Vulcan) knack for languages. Sort of like Hoshi with pointy ears. Okay, maybe not quite that good, but gifted nonetheless.

I'm looking through the Traits trying to find one for her that gives her some sort of edge with languages, and I'm failing entirely. Am I just missing it, or is it not there? If it's not there now, is it going to appear in the Enterprise book that's coming with the Limited Edition? Or am I just going to have to roll my own? If I'm missing it, I'd really appreciate it if someone could point it out to my feeble little mind so I can get T'Kyri generated properly and show her off to you good folks.

Thanks.

I guess the answer depends on what sort of "edge with languages" you are looking for, but there are several Traits in the PG that could be helpfull, but AFAIR nothing that grants a bonus to languages only.
(As I don't have the book at hand right now, please excuse any inaccuracies.:))

1. There are several edges that grant a bonus to academic tests (which include languages), at least Thinker and Eidetic Memory and maybe some others I don't remember at the moment.

2. Take a professional ability and adapt it to be used with languages. The Science Officer's Journeyman comes to mind, as it allows the untrained use of science skills.
Making an ability like this for languages would be easy, but keep in mind that there is only a finite number of sciences, but a near limitless number of languages in the universe. Restricting such an ability to 4 or 5 languages you have to select when taking this ability would be fair IMO. You could end up with something like:

Knack for languages
(Tier 1 professional ability of Diplomats, Merchants, Scientists, Science Officers or maybe Counselors - pick one that best fits your game, I myself am not 100% sure where best to fit it in. Others can always use Inovativ to get it.)
Effect: Choose 5 languages you can use untrained.

Or if you like this better:
Effect: When making a language skill test you roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 and keep the highest 2.

3. For a linguist just use the Scientist or Science Officer profession and tweak the professional abilities to better represent what you have in mind. Or you could build a new profession for Communications Officers/Linguists.
Favored Attribute: Choose Intellect or Presence. Favored Reaction: Savy.
Professional Skills: Systems Operation, Social Sciences, Persuade, Negotiate, Languages.
Professional Ability: see above, pluse a mix of abilities taken from the Diplomat, Merchant and Counselor professions. (Or maybe some other professions - I should really start bringing my PG to work with me. :D).

This all is, as I said, rather top-of-my-head, but maybe it gives you at least some food for thought. :)

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Originally posted by Lancer
I guess the answer depends on what sort of "edge with languages" you are looking for, but there are several Traits in the PG that could be helpfull, but AFAIR nothing that grants a bonus to languages only.
(As I don't have the book at hand right now, please excuse any inaccuracies.:))

{snip}

2. Take a professional ability and adapt it to be used with languages. The Science Officer's Journeyman comes to mind, as it allows the untrained use of science skills.
Making an ability like this for languages would be easy, but keep in mind that there is only a finite number of sciences, but a near limitless number of languages in the universe. Restricting such an ability to 4 or 5 languages you have to select when taking this ability would be fair IMO. You could end up with something like:

Knack for languages
(Tier 1 professional ability of Diplomats, Merchants, Scientists, Science Officers or maybe Counselors - pick one that best fits your game, I myself am not 100% sure where best to fit it in. Others can always use Inovativ to get it.)
Effect: Choose 5 languages you can use untrained.

Or if you like this better:
Effect: When making a language skill test you roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 and keep the highest 2.

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This is fairly close to what T'Kyri was like; I'll probably go this route, depending on what some of the material in the Enterprise book turns out. I'm really curious as to how they handle someone like Hoshi Sato, who speaks something like 40 languages (per "Two Days and Two Nights," which Don said had nothing to offer... :)).

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Originally posted by PGoodman13
... I'm really curious as to how they handle someone like Hoshi Sato, who speaks something like 40 languages (per "Two Days and Two Nights," which Don said had nothing to offer... :)).

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Hmmm, if they only say about her that she speaks 40 languages, does that make it canon information, or do we only judge by how many languages she actually speaks on screen??? ;)
(Only half serious here - I sure don't want to start a debate on what's canon or not.)

But I don't think the game needs a new rule to simulate someone like that. With languages as a professional skill you can put any number of points into different languages during personal and professional background development alone.
As a human, use your "Skilled" ability on 2 languages at +1 and make your own background package with one lanuage at +2 and another 3 at +1. Together with your native language (from species skills) that will be 7 languages you can speak. If your character's background includes a multi-ethnic childhood you should have no trouble convincing the Narrator to allow you learning several languages with the species skills and you could get up to 8 or 9 easy. And that is all before even considering professional development and advancements.

So I would agree that 2D&2N has not much new to offer in this regard - it's all in the game already. ;)

Okay, you'll end up with a lot of languages at level 1 only and there will be not much else your character can do (which IMHO is quite realistic for someone who speaks so many languages), but level 1 is sufficient to at least know the language and start communicating with people.

You could also take "Skill Focus" (polyglot: +1 on any two languages).

If the GM is feeling generous, he might give you +2 each since languages are (technically) less useful skills in the age of the universal translator, and since they don't really have specialties. (In fact, they do -- dialects -- but that's probably too much skill detail for this game's feel.)

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Originally posted by PGoodman13
I'm looking through the Traits trying to find one for her that gives her some sort of edge with languages, and I'm failing entirely. Am I just missing it, or is it not there? If it's not there now, is it going to appear in the Enterprise book that's coming with the Limited Edition?

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It's in the ENT book but will probably find it's way in other products down the line. It has two upgrade options and, interestingly enough, I think I did name the edge "Natural Linguist." :)

With that said, you can easily put together your own if you don't want to wait/get the LE.

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Originally posted by Don Mappin
It's in the ENT book but will probably find it's way in other products down the line. It has two upgrade options and, interestingly enough, I think I did name the edge "Natural Linguist." :)

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Groovy. Great minds occupy the same gutter...or something like that.

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With that said, you can easily put together your own if you don't want to wait/get the LE.

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I'd planned to get the LE anyway, but it's nice to know it's in there.

As it turns out, it's not as important for this character as I'd first thought it might be. As I look back through the fog of years, she was always more fascinated with languages than necessarily a gifted linguist a la Hoshi Sato...which fit in with her player, who could order a beer and find the ladies' room in 24 different languages (and it might have been more; I didn't get to talk to Carmen much the last couple of years of her life, so it's possible she learned those phrases in a few more languages before her death). Since she passed away, I've always tried to include T'Kyri in everything I've done involving Star Trek. Keeps me sharp, and keeps me in touch with a dear friend.

Wasn't there an edge from LUG like "Natural Linguist"? I know they had "Mathematical Ability" or something like that. You could just make it up as you go...until of course you see the official version.

-Darth Sarcastic

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Originally posted by Darth Sarcastic
Wasn't there an edge from LUG like "Natural Linguist"? I know they had "Mathematical Ability" or something like that.

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I don't have any LUG books around but I think it was "Language Ability" or something. It was lame. :)

"Natural Linguist" is cool. You can pull a Hoshi and learn 30 languages, if you want--even learn languages on the fly. :D

::smacks Darth in the head::

I'll probably do just that, though as I said, it's not turning out to be necessary for this particular character. Since I never really played the LUG version of Trek (they never did much with TOS or the films, so I wasn't terribly interested), so it's entirely possible that something like this does exist over there. I guess I could always go look....