Comprehend Languages and codes

[virgil]

The way the spell is written, is there a way for a non-caster to write a piece of text to send a message to a specific person without Comprehend Languages overcoming it? While it may translate any language, does it break ciphers, or even codes ("the elephant has lost its way")?

[Caedrus]

The way the spell is written, is there a way for a non-caster to write a piece of text to send a message to a specific person without Comprehend Languages overcoming it? While it may translate any language, does it break ciphers, or even codes ("the elephant has lost its way")?

That's really up to you, now, isn't it? Do whatever works best for your game.

[Roy]

I think Comprehend Language would give you the language, but not decrypt it. So you'd probably either think the spell was foiled somehow, or realize you're dealing with a coded message in language x but be unable to break it with just that info.

Of course, then again it can, straight up break languages like Druidic unless ruled otherwise... which makes the whole believability of that part of the world fall apart. You can't keep secrets if any peon mage or noble with a trinket can break them after all.

So at this point you either rule Druidic isn't really a secret language, or secret languages are immune (and keep those very rare... maybe 2-3 total, counting Druidic).

Sounds like another spell where I don't know what it does and you don't know either.

[Amra]

You can understand the spoken words of creatures or read otherwise incomprehensible written messages. In either case, you must touch the creature or the writing. The ability to read does not necessarily impart insight into the material, merely its literal meaning.

So... for my money, if you're writing in a cipher that's essentially a language a very small group of people can understand, the spell will translate because you get the literal meaning of that group of characters. If I write in a simple letter-substitution cipher - MJLF UIJT - then comprehend languages will help you read it.

However, if I am writing in a code where the literal meanings of words are subverted, the spell is powerless. "The donkey will sleep under the bridge until the raven crows" will only be translated literally without providing "insight into the material".

Think of it this way: if you've got a highly technical biochemistry text in front of you, crammed with acronyms and jargon, the acronyms would be translated into phrases (ATP would become "adenosine triphosphate" for instance) because they're essentially a form of cipher, but the significance of those phrases would still elude you if you had no insight into what those phrases meant.

I'm aware that this approach is perforce somewhat fluid but it's a place to start.

On a related note, I've often wondered: how does a comprehend language spell deal with idiom? I've always assumed you get literal translations, and have exploited that to its fullest extent when providing handouts for players, but maybe I've been wrong all along.

What, I wonder, does someone translating into a language with no comparable idioms get when they use comprehend languages on a sentence like: "It was raining cats and dogs when I left the house this morning, which was a right pain in the arse"? And what about the likes of Cockney rhyming slang?

"Last week comin' out the battle cruiser I tripped over me own plates and fell straight down the apples onto me loaf. And would you adam it - me uncle's ripped, the bees has all fallen out me pockets, me barnet's a right mess and there's splinters stuck in me kyhber pass - and along comes this totty with the best bacons I ever clapped me minces on! O' course, while I has a butcher's at her thrupenny bits, she gypsies herself having a steffie at me then goes for a burton, leavin' me on me jack jones feelin' like a right hampton. Turns out she's china plates with me trouble and strife and I've been gettin' it in the gregory peck ever since!"

As rhyming slang (anecdotally at least) is supposed to have originated as a means of communication between members of London's underclass, the intent being that the meaning of the phrases would have been incomprehensible to an outsider, I guess I'm asking the same question. The way I've always handled it is that you get the nearest equivalent word or phrase in your language... but as rhyming slang has a clear and consistent one-to-one mapping of phrases, then perhaps you ought to get the literal meaning of the phrase intended to be communicated to the reader, rather than gibberish. In the case of the donkey under the bridge, there's no consistent one-to-one mapping of that phrase that most readers would understand...

Ah hell, I'm not even sure any more; I think I may be in danger of my whole argument disappearing up its own khyber pass

[Caedrus]

You can understand the spoken words of creatures or read otherwise incomprehensible written messages. In either case, you must touch the creature or the writing. The ability to read does not necessarily impart insight into the material, merely its literal meaning.

So... for my money, if you're writing in a cipher that's essentially a language a very small group of people can understand, the spell will translate because you get the literal meaning of that group of characters. If I write in a simple letter-substitution cipher - MJLF UIJT - then comprehend languages will help you read it.

However, if I am writing in a code where the literal meanings of words are subverted, the spell is powerless. "The donkey will sleep under the bridge until the raven crows" will only be translated literally without providing "insight into the material".

Think of it this way: if you've got a highly technical biochemistry text in front of you, crammed with acronyms and jargon, the acronyms would be translated into phrases (ATP would become "adenosine triphosphate" for instance) because they're essentially a form of cipher, but the significance of those phrases would still elude you if you had no insight into what those phrases meant.

I'm aware that this approach is perforce somewhat fluid but it's a place to start.

On a related note, I've often wondered: how does a comprehend language spell deal with idiom? I've always assumed you get literal translations, and have exploited that to its fullest extent when providing handouts for players, but maybe I've been wrong all along.

What, I wonder, does someone translating into a language with no comparable idioms get when they use comprehend languages on a sentence like: "It was raining cats and dogs when I left the house this morning, which was a right pain in the arse"? And what about the likes of Cockney rhyming slang?

"Last week comin' out the battle cruiser I tripped over me own plates and fell straight down the apples onto me loaf. And would you adam it - me uncle's ripped, the bees has all fallen out me pockets, me barnet's a right mess and there's splinters stuck in me kyhber pass - and along comes this totty with the best bacons I ever clapped me minces on! O' course, while I has a butcher's at her thrupenny bits, she gypsies herself having a steffie at me then goes for a burton, leavin' me on me jack jones feelin' like a right hampton. Turns out she's china plates with me trouble and strife and I've been gettin' it in the gregory peck ever since!"

As rhyming slang (anecdotally at least) is supposed to have originated as a means of communication between members of London's underclass, the intent being that the meaning of the phrases would have been incomprehensible to an outsider, I guess I'm asking the same question. The way I've always handled it is that you get the nearest equivalent word or phrase in your language... but as rhyming slang has a clear and consistent one-to-one mapping of phrases, then perhaps you ought to get the literal meaning of the phrase intended to be communicated to the reader, rather than gibberish. In the case of the donkey under the bridge, there's no consistent one-to-one mapping of that phrase that most readers would understand...

Ah hell, I'm not even sure any more; I think I may be in danger of my whole argument disappearing up its own khyber pass

On the one hand you could have it make you understand everything from Sanskrit to ciphers to scientific jargon (though the spell doesn't work that way by the normal rules), while on the other you could have Decipher Script and Speak Language not be made entirely obsolete by the spell by simply making it still sound bloody weird without a deeper understanding of the cultural particulars and so forth to give the translation proper framing and context. Or something in between.

Seriously, just make it work however would work best for your particular game and game world.

[Prak]

well, as far as idioms go, a lot of them are cultural, so it'd make sense, to me, for comprehend languages to just give you "It's raining cats and dogs out there" and have you be on your own to figure out what the idiom itself means (and gods help you if a comedian wrote it and tacked on 'and I just stepped in a poodle'). Not only that, but Cockney, while yes it does have a clear one-to-one meaning, it's also very cultural. I have a passing familiarity with it, and could get "head", "money", "eyes" and "look" from the cockney passage, but the rest I had to look up. If I were running it, I'd have the spell return the exact words, and leave the player to figure the rest out, though I'd give 'em an out with a Decipher Script or Int check or the like.

What I've been wondering is about Tongues and the two or three languages that use pheromones as part of the meaning in D&D.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Wow. This is starting to look like an ENWorld discussion.

Written material can be read at the rate of one page (250 words) per minute. Magical writing cannot be read, though the spell reveals that it is magical. This spell can be foiled by certain warding magic (such as the secret page and illusory script spells). It does not decipher codes or reveal messages concealed in otherwise normal text.

[virgil]

Thank you, Absentminded (I feel silly that I missed that sentence). I was trying to make sure I understood the rules of the spell before running off into 'whatever'-land.