Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

So me and Truthiness have been discussing Druidic and the spell tongues. I was under the impression that the spell allowed me to speak any language and understand it as a tool of communication. He argues that the spell only does regional dialects and druidic is unspeakable and cannot be understood by the tongues spell. It is not that I dont believe this is true, I am just not aware of any particular reason why this spoken language is exempt. Is there anyway we could get a DM ruling on this? I'm fine either way, I am just curious now to the true extent of the spell, and have I been using it wrong?

does it use hand movement, or anything like that like the thief kant stuff, if it doesn't it should not be exempt.

just my opinion. If it uses special gestures then i dont think that spell should work at all.

Druidic is a special language in that no race can take it as a Bonus Language (even those who can choose any language specifically say except Druidic) and cannot be learned with Speak Language. Druids are forbidden from teaching it to a non-druid, on penalty of losing all spellcasting and supernatural abilities.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Druidic_language

The subject of tongues could only speak one language at a time but could understand other languages, therefore the subject could act as an interpreter but could not address a diverse crowd and be understood by all. This spell only allowed communication with intelligent creatures with the ability to speak; it did not otherwise bias creatures with respect to the subject
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Tongues

While there is nothing That I have seen about this topic before as for myself I once found a post about something like this and I feel that the reason they gave to why the answer is 'No you can not learn Druid from Tongues spell" is because of this.

No, I wouldn't allow it unless that orc grew up speaking goblin rather than orc. The point of the spell is to allow communication with any creature that has a language, regardless of what language they use. Take it from a linguist - given the huge number of language-using creatures in D&D, this is an awesome spell. I doubt that it was ever intended to circumvent the limits on druidic, and I feel most comfortable, from a game-rationale pov, ruling that tongues allows the subject to speak the (or a) first language of the target creature. I believe that that is the intent of the spell and that anything more is broken (for my campagin).

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... z3UQt929fp

Basically Druid is a Bonus language that is not Common to any Race. I personally feel The spell lets you speak and understand that Races Native language, so For an Orc Druid you would learn to speak Orc, not Druid.

You cant learn languages with tongues, only speak them. You can speak and they understand, and you in turn understand them but by no means can you learn the language and its entirety through tongues. This is rather the ability to communicate the language, not learn it.

Not and official ruling, but this is the description of tongues from PHB, so people can see what this debate is about:

Tongues
Divination
Level: Brd 2, Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, M/DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 10 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: No
This spell grants the creature touched the
ability to speak and understand the language
of any intelligent creature, whether
it is a racial tongue or a regional dialect.
The subject can speak only one language at
a time, although it may be able to
understand several languages. Tongues does
not enable the subject to speak with
creatures who don’t speak. The subject can
make itself understood as far as its voice
carries. This spell does not predispose any
creature addressed toward the subject in
any way.
Tongues can be made permanent with a
permanency spell.

Matter of wording is all, by Learn I mean understand, It still holds to what I said but again this is a I feel personally that the spell only lets to speak and understand the Native tongue of the creature.

My second Idea behind the spell is simply this. The spell itself is like having a third person there to translate for you.
While you Understand the creature, and the Creature understands you. You are not Speaking their language but instead you speak Common but the Creature hears Druid, or what ever is most common for it and Vice versa.

Druids are forbidden from teaching it to a non-druid, on penalty of losing all spellcasting and supernatural abilities.

wouldn't even speaking it in front of non-druids be considered a druid no-no, if someone speaks it enough around other people can pick up on the language, perhaps druids should be puished for speaking it openly without regard to who is listening.

I think the reasoning behind the special rule is druids are prolly only suppose to use it during druid gathering stuff.

Not so bob can't understand what your saying, while your talking about the color of your shirt.

Druids are forbidden from teaching it to a non-druid, on penalty of losing all spellcasting and supernatural abilities.

If any level 2 bard with the ability to cast Tongues could speak any language including Druidic... It wouldn't be very secret would it?? Forbidding other druids from teaching non-druids on penalty of losing all of their abilities would be pointless. No doubt some snippets exist out of the druidic order... but it would be very rare and a simple Tongues spell wouldn't do it.

Plus the Tongues spell speaks of being able to speak racial tongues or regional dialects, not secret or hidden languages, or even long-dead dialects. I think it's fair to assume it's just for the common tongues currently in use in the realms/planes.

druidic is the only restricted language to one group from speak language

given that spells are developed by casters who would have done the research for said spell in order for it to work and given the heavy restriction on druidic, i think it would be fair to say that the knowledge needed to translate druidic for the spell would not have been there

but yea this is one that will need a DM official ruling for the interpretation

on that note it would also mean the spell comprehend language would not work for druidic also

on a side note I do wonder why grey orcs cannot learn elven, dwarven, slyan it seems kinda raciest that the normal races can learn orc.

but its prolly cause the list hasn't been updated and there are not that many grey orc wizards lol, unless there is some dm ruling against it.

I see no reason for druid to be excluded. Perhaps a person was raised by druids thus their first language was druid if you really want to add a rule about that. To be fair drowsign and cant both require hand motions. Draconic and Arcane both require magic for non dragons to speak. Arcane is really less a language and more energy in word form.

But I am no erudite when it comes to FR lore and may be mixing worlds up. It's 4am after all

Tongues in the spirit of the language (no pun pun intended) written, implies if it is a spoken language, then it could be heard and even spoken by someone under the influence of the spells.

Languages like Drow Sign and Thieves Cant would be excluded, since it is not entirely spoken, hell, even illithid (nasty tentacles).

Could someone "learn" Druidic from the spell? I dont think he could by himself, but if a third party were involved, taking notes, possibly. The reason the guy can't learn it under the spell himself, is because it all sounds normal to him and speaking it would be reflex. No different than being able to dodge an arrow thanks to the Cat's Grace spell. Once the magic is gone, so is the ability to do what you did.

The moral of the story is... don't speak your secret language in front of others....

You would probably get faster DM response posting in the 'ask the DM's forum'... I think when you're asking for an 'official ruling' that would be the appropriate place, regardless.

chad878262 wrote:You would probably get faster DM response posting in the 'ask the DM's forum'... I think when you're asking for an 'official ruling' that would be the appropriate place, regardless.

Posting it on the forums lets others know what players and DMs think about this. Even pun-ppun left it open so players can debate this based on what they think or understand of lore. There is no real answer to this because while a DM from one world may say no, another may say yes.

World as in my table top campain compared to bgtscc.

This spell grants the creature touched the
ability to speak and understand the language
of any intelligent creature, whether
it is a racial tongue or a regional dialect.

According to the spell's description it's either a racial language or a regional dialect. I don't think druid falls into either racial or regional.