[SoA2064] Linguistics power, broken rules... Options

[audun]

I should have discovered this in proofreading, but I didn't so sorry guys.

Though, the rules for the Linguistics power strike me as odd. Namely the Linguistics table. The target number is based on some presumption about what languages are obscure, which IMHO doesn't make any sense.

Wouldn't the likeness to languages already known be a much better way to determine the target number. Latin isn't obscure if you already know Italian, Ukraian isn't uncommon if you already know Russian (there are 40 million Ukraianans). SR2 had a language tree, but I don't think that needs to be repeated.

So I suggest the following table instead:

Language is:
Close (within the same group of languages as an already known language. Ex: Germanic languages for English, Roman languages for Spanish) TN 4

Related (within same the same broader group. Ex: Indo-European languages) TN 6

Unrelated (other group of languages, or special languages like Sperethiel, Or'zet or Basque with no known relations to any other language) TN 8

One could rule that cultural commonalities also should count so that someone who knows Spanish or Catalan may learn Basque as a related language (rather than unrelated), and a similarily with a Swede and Finnish.

If one can't decide the relations, either consult an encyclopedia or let the GM rule.