Translate
Typically used with: Insight.
In short: read, write, and speak. For all you cunning linguists out there, the Translate skill brings you what you enjoy most: figuring out all them funny words! Translate can be used to get the gist of writing or speech that you otherwise don't understand. It is also used to communicate with beings who don't speak or understand your language. Just as Discern is used to determine intent through behavior, Translate is used to determine intent through communication.
Your character starts the game knowing the "Common" language as well as a single language from their homeland. When you buy a rank in Translate, your character gets the added bonus of learning to speak, read, and write in a new language. Once you have learned a language, there is no need to roll a Translate check when reading or speaking that language. Talk to your GM about which languages might be available for your character to learn.
If you fail a Translate check, you don't know the interpretation. If you roll a Critical Failure, you come up with an incorrect answer that you believe wholeheartedly. You can't retry failed Translate checks, nor can you Take the Best on Translate checks.
Deciphering Text
You can make a Translate check to decipher the meaning of a passage of text. This could be an old engraving, an ancient moldy scroll, or the sign over a tavern in a distant land. Characters should include ranks from an Occupation which is relevant to the translation (e.g. a scribe perusing an old tome, a diplomat validating treaties, a chemist reading the label on that weird vial of goo you brought back from an adventure). The higher the result, the more accurate your interpretation.
| Example | Result |
|---|---|
| You're not even close | 5 |
| You understand a tiny part of it | 10 |
| You get a general impression | 15 |
| You understand most of it, save for some details | 20 |
| You understand its correct literal translation, but idioms are lost on you | 25 |
| You've got it exactly down to the cultural references and word inflection | 30 |
If the text is illegible to any degree, or the writing is vastly different from anything you've ever seen before, your GM should give you a penalty on the Translate check. The amount of time it takes to perform the translation certainly depends on the amount of text there is to translate. It takes about 1 minute to translate a page of text verbally and 5–10 minutes to neatly transcribe one.
Communicating
A Translate check comes in handy when you want to convey or interpret a spoken message in a language you don't speak. This involves analyzing or leveraging the tone of voice, body language, pantomime, and even drawings in the dirt. The higher the result, the more accurate your interpretation. The above table lists suitable examples and results for this usage of Translate as well.
Using Translate to communicate verbally could take as much time as needed to get the message across. Combat is not the place to conduct linguistics studies, but simple and important directives can be communicated just as easily as regular speech, and can be done without using AP. Anything complicated or detailed that requires your full attention would require you to spend 4 AP per attempt.
Determining Origin
By analyzing the precise details of a person's speech patterns and vocabulary, you can roll a Translate check to determine the speaker's linguistic origins. You can also perceive socioeconomic status and infer someone's occupation, nationality, affluence, or proficiency (e.g. the soft vowels indicate they come from money, spent years sailing, and hail from the northeast). The higher the result of your Translate check, the more accurate your pinpointing. A roll of 5 means you're not close at all, a roll of 15 means you're close but not specific, a roll of 30 means you've got it exactly down to the street address of their birthplace.
Using Translate to glean origin details takes no time at all; you either get it or you don't. However, you need to be able to hear your target clearly, so the GM may ask for a Perception check in case the sound is too far away. Characters with the deafened condition or who fail the Perception check automatically fail the Translate check.
Lipreading
Through careful observation of someone's mouth as they speak, you can attempt to interpret the words you cannot hear. Make a Translate check. The higher your roll, the more accurate your interpretation. However, if you don't already speak the language, you won't know the meaning and can't attempt to guess without the sound.
Using Translate to eavesdrop on distant conversations takes as much time as the conversation itself does. You must pay complete attention, so your GM should ask for a Perception check in case there are obstacles or distance between you and the speaker.
