Reconciling INT and Racial Start Languages

[tmjva]

1st Ed AD&D or HackMaster v4.0


I never reconciled the rule the limits your languages based on Intelligence and additional racial languages known at start.

So a HackMaster Drow at start is supposed to know Common, Drow, Elf, Undercommon-Trade, Kuo-Toa, Orcish, Bugbear, Dwarf, Gnome, and Drow Sign language.

But you need an Intelligence of 21 to know ten languages!

So do I therefore cut the number of languages down to INT level and let the Player chose which ones?

Or do I aggregate the racial benefit (above of ten) and treat as one the Common language any character knows at start?

If there is a caveat on this I missed it.

[Kersus]

I've seen it done many different ways, but yeah, I'd cut the number down based on INT allowing the players to choose. If you're using the Building Points system, there is some argument that it can overwrite the initial bonus language rule (table 1D).

So, everyone knows a native language except a 1 INT and INT tells you their bonus languages. These are not automatic in HM4e but must be added via building points or learned in the course of adventure. As the wording in some parts of the book is vague and/or contradictory, the GM has a wide latitude to adjudicate this.

The rulebook does repeat that "you can never know more languages than your Intelligence allows," albeit in different words. The errata for 4e adds to the race listings "The number of languages a can learn is limited by his Intelligence or by the Building Points/training he devotes to languages."

I would go with whatever suits you adventure. Not having a 'common' language between the masses makes things difficult.

One example - All get Common free, but must use building points to gain others while non-Humans are restricted to the languages in the racial descriptions at character creation. All are bound by the bonus languages in table 1D barring extraordinary circumstances.

Another example why I wish they would have done a nice edit and reprint of HM4e before running off to some foreign system.

[Lunamancer]

The answer to your question is made 100% explicit in 1st Ed.

The languages listed for each race are languages known by ALL members of the race. No matter how low your INT score is, you have at least those, and all of them.

The potential for languages beyond that are as follows:
Dwarves, Gnomes, and Half-Orcs may learn up to 2 additional languages (+1 lang @ 8-9 INT, +2 lang @ 10+ INT)
Elves may learn 1 addition language for each point of INT above 15 (so up to 3 additional at 18, +2 at 17, and +1 at 16)
Half-Elfs and Halflings learn 1 additional language for each point of INT above 16 (so up to 2 additional at 18, +1 at 17)


So elves and half-elves may know as many as 10 languages above and beyond common and alignment language (12 in total).

Unearthed Arcana outlines the Drow languages a bit differently. Drow speak Undercommon, Elvish, Gnomish, and their special sign language, plus any other language allowable by Intelligence--so up to 7 additional at 18 intelligence--for a total of 11 languages above and beyond common and alignment language (13 in total).

So if hackmaster is doing things a little differently, that's fine. They're starting the drow with 9 mandatory languages above and beyond Common and alignment language. Therefore I'd rule them similar to half-elves or halflings--they gain one additional chosen language for each point of INT above 16 (so +2 languages at INT 18, for a total maximum of 11 above and beyond common and alignment, or 13 total).

[tmjva]

I may have read into it wrong, I'll have to check it out.

On the other side of the coin, there are people so "mentally challenged" they can not speak their own language and must be trained to sign, otherwise grunt, or point at a picture book to indictate wants or needs. 

Maybe I'm overthinking it and should be looking at issues regarding INT = 2 or INT = 1 for disability issues.  Because INT = 3 on three 6-sided dice would be too large of a slice of the bell curve of a normal population distribution.

[Lunamancer]

I may have read into it wrong, I'll have to check it out.

On the other side of the coin, there are people so "mentally challenged" they can not speak their own language and must be trained to sign, otherwise grunt, or point at a picture book to indictate wants or needs. 

Maybe I'm overthinking it and should be looking at issues regarding INT = 2 or INT = 1 for disability issues.  Because INT = 3 on three 6-sided dice would be too large of a slice of the bell curve of a normal population distribution.

I would say that it's not important to throw every factor imaginable in one great, big stew. If you consider INT < 3 to indicate mental disabilities, what would you make of something like an idiot-savant, whom for most activities, an INT score of 2 might be appropriate, but in a few areas might actually perform as if INT was 20. A "mute" disadvantage coupled with just about any INT score pretty much nails the full range of possibilities. Hackmaster includes advantages & disadvantages, does it not?

We can also revisit the monk with the leg injury. Point of DEX lost, walks with a limp. I would rule the limp reduces movement rate by 25% (above and beyond the effects that having below-class-minimum DEX has on any class abilities). Over time, the DEX can be restored to its original level, but you can still be stuck with the limp (until cured by a cleric's Regeneration or a mage's Wish). I would imagine such a thing as the monk having adapted a new style of fighting around the limp.

Mixing in disabilities can really enhance the feel of the game. There was one encounter I ran where a group of little goblin-creatures were trying to capture the party. One of them whacked the fighter with a club in the knee-cap (successful hit against the odds on a called shot). It did very little in terms of hp damage (half normal damage due to striking a non-vital area), but I ruled until the damage was healed, either naturally or by magic, the character suffered 1/2 point of damage every time force was applied to the knee. As the goblins attempted to die the party up with nets and lassos, this character, being bigger and far stronger than the goblins, was able to just power out of it, but it was almost as if the player himself felt his character's pain as he had to lose the half hp every strenuous move he made trying to power out. The players felt that the knee-capping was also especially brutal, despite being a relatively weak creature that did it and how many things exist in the D&D world that do far, far, far more damage.