I'm playing a physical adept more bent towards mental enhancement and would like to create an expansion to the Linguistics power that would let it work on written materials. So far my thoughts are that it requires the Linguistics power. It also requires a Logic + Linguistics (the skill not power) check with a number of hits determined by the complexity of the language.

Initial cost with these requirements would be .5 is that fair?

Why do you think Linguistics doesn't work on written materials already? SR4 doesn't really make a distinction between writing and speaking in the existing power. You just get the language at 1.

Mostly because my GM said so when I asked him about this. Bear in mind this was in 3rd edition when they were separate. He hasn't gotten back to me on the subject yet.

Half of a power point, and requiring a specialized skill, is pretty steep, considering that Joe Sammie can just have his hacker buddy nab him a bunch of pirated linguisofts to have whatever language skill he happens to need.

0.50 power points is where you start getting things like eidetic sense memory and multi-tasking, powers that are broader and more useful than simply picking up written languages quickly.

If your GM does not allow Linguistic to works for the written form of the language, I'd suggest giving the power two ratings (Linguistics 1-2, 0.25 per rating) where Linguistics 1 is the "basic", and Linguistics II upgrade it to also work for the written forms using the same exposure time and rolls but with a fluent speaker willing to read you texts.

With our conversion to 4th, I haven't really put it back on the front burner. My initial thought was to do just that Dahrken. But SR4 does not separate Reading/Writing that I can find. Even though the 4A book mentions that actual literacy is low, what with heavy iconography based learning and programs and all.(which is normal), but no mechanics to mention, no Threshold increase, nothing.

Just a note, she is playing a character that is an archanoarcheologist, and since I run a very heavy 4th world influence...(among others far more....convoluted) I just thought that having a character that was a walking Rosetta Stone while dealing with languages that may not have been spoken fir thousands of years, not to mention cryptography applications (basic alphabet cyphers, anyway) , was a bit out of scope of the original power. Especially since in SR3 lang of 1= no R/W (1/2 skill RDown)

Was thinking on adding a chart like the one for Psychometry, but not sure.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I second that. a linguistic adept is great fun but less use.

My take on the chart

Hits Description
5 Dead Language with no living descendants, Complex military Ciphers
4 Dead Language with living descendants, Obsolete Military Ciphers, Isolated modern languages.
3 Modern Language with related languages.
-1 For every related language the character knows. (To a minimum of 1)
-1 For every 100 pages of written samples. (To a minimum of 1)

Oh, I'm sorry. I assumed SR4. Well, anyway, it *should* work on both for the original cost.