Tongues: The Babel Fish
Usable By: Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: 3
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour
Components: V, M (a small clay model of a ziggurat)
This spell grants the creature you touch the ability to understand any spoken language it hears. Moreover, when the target speaks, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear the target understands what it says.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Language is a fickle thing in role playing games, especially among groups where most everyone is monolingual. On one hand, it's an easy tool to highlight different cultures, conceal information, and develop interesting, easy on ramps to relationships. On the other, it can be a pain to keep up with and track. At its worst, language barriers can feel like arbitrary gates to knowledge needed to progress, a way to reduce anticipation in a climactic battle. Tongues enters then as a solution (kind of) to this problem, a tool to help understand and communicate with anyone who speaks any language.
To me, while I’m on the record not loving spells that solve entire problems, I’m pretty okay with Tongues. It turns you into a universal translator of sorts. 3rd level is a very steep price to pay for this effect, and for some reason this isn’t a ritual spell, but sometimes you need a translator you can trust. Tongues gives you that. This lets all the perks of varying languages stay, while giving the players a tool to navigate any circumstance where unknown languages pop up.
It works two-ways, allowing you to communicate to any being that can communicate, making it a diplomacy tool that’s nice to have in your back pocket on the party’s face. Bards and sorcerers, while they struggle with limited known spells, may find this valuable enough to take if the bulk of the game takes place in exotic, unknown settings full of diverse, multicultural places full of varied languages and understanding. It becomes a default tool needed to interact with anyone they want to, not just creatures that share a language. You can circumnavigate this in a lot of ways with multilingual hirelings or just having a robust language list in the party, making it an optional way to maintain control over social encounters, which is neat. Again, it probably shouldn’t cost you a 3rd level slot, but at least it's an option.
Most games aren’t coming anywhere near that kind of playstyle, as it takes a lot of DM prep and world building to bring it to life in a way that feels engaging, but if you’re at that specific table, Tongues might be the perfect fit for you. A lot of tables will find very few uses for the spell, and won’t ever consider it. Talk to your DM in advance before taking this one; it’ll vary in usability wildly group to group.
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