Regarding the Jotun Blessing change

[I will never sleep]

So this change was announced that I would like to bring some discussion to:

- The Jotun's Blessing boon requires you to actually be fluent in the language to gain its effects. EDIT: Boons in general are being looked at, following player feedback! While the change above will remain in effect, more updates may be arriving in this space.

So you will no longer receive the boon if you speak more or less giant gibberish. Great! That makes sense to me. I am more than open to restricting this boon to require some sort of conscious rp decision rather than the free-for-all buff it was before.

My concern, however, is this: people learning languages for mechanical benefit. When people have spare language slots, they're going to choose the one that more or less enables them to get soft stats, and I don't think that is good. In my opinion, it doesn't do anything to promote jotun-specific rp, it just more or less enables powergaming "correct" language choices. Some people like languages specifically because they give no mechanical benefits, and are a tool to further roleplay.

I also know Bat said it was unintended for the boon to function as it was, this is thread is more to clear the air- or what future changes to expect and if languages should be a part of them.

Thoughts?

[Skane]

I liked learning Jotun because of it's obscurity; more people taking it will take away that.

[Glowing Mushroom]

This is a good point.

It may inadvertently end up encouraging many people to fluently speak Jotun for apparently no reason, other than an obscure blessing that's buried deep within the insanely dangerous confines of a Titan fortress in the Lowerdark. Jotun is a cool and fascinating language, and this is bolstered because of its rarity. Suddenly hearing it more and more everywhere would diminish this.

If you know 0% Jotun and you opt to speak gibberish, there categorically should be no difference with this compared to speaking gibberish in Elven if you know 0% Elven. Therefore the boon would be granted in any language.

I 100% agree that speaking gibberish should not grant boons, and that it should be restricted to fluent-speaking capabilities.

But perhaps Jotun specifically is not the best choice for such a boon.

[AstralUniverse]

It may inadvertently end up encouraging many people to fluently speak Jotun for apparently no reason

Why apparently no reason? They learned it specifically to be more powerful and it's their character's decision.

It also makes perfect sense to me that it is this language, because it's a boon that is also very thematic to 'giants' without saying too much foig stuff. Like.. it would be a lot worse if it was a common race like elf or dwarf.

[LichBait]

I'm not sure how widely known it is, but if you are partied up and are in a certain proximity to that shrine, everyone in a certain radius is buffed/booned by one speaker. Likely all it needs is 1 person to be jotun fluent.

[Skibbles]

Honestly I think learning languages for mechanical benefit is... pretty realistic in the confines of the game's lore.

Characters already learn the planar tongues and Elven to enchant runes of magic items. All of these languages are very powerful, obscene, or wondrous. To even speak them evokes ancient histories and forbidden evils - sometimes even magic itself or the attention of Gods.

Every wizard knows draconic because it too is largely a script of magic.

So then speaking Giant, and using it to gain giant-strength? Seems a bit fitting to me.

[Glowing Mushroom]

It may inadvertently end up encouraging many people to fluently speak Jotun for apparently no reason

Why apparently no reason? They learned it specifically to be more powerful and it's their character's decision.

It also makes perfect sense to me that it is this language, because it's a boon that is also very thematic to 'giants' without saying too much foig stuff. Like.. it would be a lot worse if it was a common race like elf or dwarf.

One obscure FOIG reason that creates a vast influx of characters suddenly obtaining a fluent understanding of what would otherwise be a rare language to hear does not, in my opinion, correlate to a healthy RP secret.

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun to gain this buff.

Versus,

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun due to an extensive RP plot that has come to involve the Jotuns and their ancient culture.

The former of these two compared situations is a much weaker plot device. Attaching a rare language to obtain a well-known mechanical buff does not create RP, it lessens the value of a rare RP language when it will inevitably inflate in its commonality because of this attachment.

[I will never sleep]

I'm not sure how widely known it is, but if you are partied up and are in a certain proximity to that shrine, everyone in a certain radius is buffed/booned by one speaker. Likely all it needs is 1 person to be jotun fluent.

If you are already buffed for that ig year, it won't bless you again (I've tried. Though the shrine may be even buggier than I think it is)- which would make such trips hard to organize at best. Though seeing this mercantilized is also not very ideal in my opinion.

Honestly I think learning languages for mechanical benefit is... pretty realistic in the confines of the game's lore.

Characters already learn the planar tongues and Elven to enchant runes of magic items. All of these languages are very powerful, obscene, or wondrous. To even speak them evokes ancient histories and forbidden evils - sometimes even magic itself or the attention of Gods.

Every wizard knows draconic because it too is largely a script of magic.

So then speaking Giant, and using it to gain giant-strength? Seems a bit fitting to me.

Should PCs have to learn Celestial to summon devas and whatnot then? I am fine with this if that is the developer intention but all those things are different from a foig buff that gives you soft stats independent from gear, in my opinion. Runes for example, you can still see the full benefit from without knowing the language- it's really just someone pushing a button on a basin and then it is permanently yours.

To elaborate, the problem with this I'm seeing is people taking languages for stats *independent* of everything else. I.e. learn giant for that +1 str/con, learn elven for that dex/wis/whatever, learn x for y stats. Then languages just become another aspect of character building rather than something that is an entirely in character consideration.

[AstralUniverse]

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun to gain this buff.

Versus,

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun due to an extensive RP plot that has come to involve the Jotuns and their ancient culture.

Well, this is precisely something that can be qualified for ancient culture and secrets tho? It's not really this versus that because *this* can lead to *that* and vice versa.

[Glowing Mushroom]

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun to gain this buff.

Versus,

There are a bunch of people learning Jotun due to an extensive RP plot that has come to involve the Jotuns and their ancient culture.

Well, this is precisely something that can be qualified for ancient culture and secrets tho? It's not really this versus that because *this* can lead to *that* and vice versa.

Yeah, it can be. But my apprehension is that, all of the sudden, there are a dozen Drow in Andunor speaking Jotun because they all know about this exciting secret in the Lowerdark.

Or a bunch of humans in Cordor suddenly speaking Jotun because they all went to get this cool buff in the Lowerdark.

It would be like of Skyrim were an MMO - Everyone is the Dragonborn, which means no one is special anymore.

I love the idea of boons like this, and language restricted ones. But we need to find how to balance it all out so rare languages don't become common!

[Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia]

Hi.

I've made this simpler for all of you and reduced both the disruption to the build and language metas by disabling the Jotun boon entirely.

Other devs are looking at adjusting them, so if/when it turns it will not provide the same mechanical benefit.

Cheers for the feedback.

[Skibbles]

Should PCs have to learn Celestial to summon devas and whatnot then? I am fine with this if that is the developer intention but all those things are different from a foig buff that gives you soft stats independent from gear, in my opinion. Runes for example, you can still see the full benefit from without knowing the language- it's really just someone pushing a button on a basin and then it is permanently yours.

That's a good question!

I'm not sure if it's clearly defined in the actual D&D lore, but my understanding is probably not since the act of summoning is done through either arcane or divine magic. In the case of arcane the caster is likely using draconic words or sorcery, and in the case of divine they may already speak celestial (or if they're evil I can see it easily being RP'd as it being a particularly unwilling Deva leant to the Priest by their mega-evil overlord).

However in Arelith it still requires that a character locate and 'read' a stream guide to unlock the stream. It's perfectly feasible that stream book teach the reader which words to say, and the caster doesn't technically need to understand them. Only that they speak them correctly.

It seems like this is already the case now that I've thought it out.

Somewhat tangential it reminds me of the old tower in Baator where you had to say a passphrase in Xanalress (forgive me I may get it wrong, it's been years) to open a door: "Chaos is Lloth's will, magic her gift." Which roughly translated to "Vhid zhah ilta something, faer something belbol."

The great part was that, if you didn't know even a lick of xanalress, you could still say the exact xanalress part to get the door open. The character had no idea what they were saying, but it still opened the door. Awesome.

In any case if someone wants to go through the insanely painful process of leaning a language so they can squeeze a soft STR point... I just don't see why I need to fuss over it.