Linguist Class

I only know one linguist, but I don't think he's very qualified to fight monsters.

Would a rogue or wizard be better suited to a traveling scholar gathering first-hand experience and knowledge for his magnum opus on the inherent link between linguistics and magic?

An adept from Dark Heresy. I mean, that is actually a thing they do in game and is really useful. You could even learn forbidden languages that could drive you insane.

>You could even learn forbidden languages that could drive you insane.
I've never wanted anything more.

>could drive you insane.
yes please

Dunno about class, but they would be a Gnome named Chomsky.

Dark Heresy is a pretty cool game, although I haven't played second edition. Just had a quick look and FFG lost the 40k license? Guess Dark Heresy is never getting updated again. The old books are still good I guess.

Still, I had many a good time playing with my Adept character. In a squad of killer assassins, hive scum and fucking psykers, it was interesting to play the bureaucrat that tried to solve everything with paperwork. It was priceless when you needed to have filed, in triplicate, a ghf-54/g:blue form to request the diversion of waste management teams to hab block 754, 3 weeks in advance. If you hadn't then that sewer system you needed to escape through could have been inexplicably full of sewerage. Fun times with Imperial bureaucracy!

>a Gnome named Chomsky
Oh god, now he's influencing my tabletop games...

Real-life Chomsky is an AD&D style dual-class that went ex-Linguist into Bard with Perform (Agitation).

Bard

Some kind of Scrying-based class that focuses on gathering information

...

kek

These guys were one of my favorite jobs in FFT, they could equip guns and had Talk Skill, they could debuff enemies, buff allies and even get money from the enemies. One of their skills was mimicking one of the instructors in the military academy to put enemies to sleep with a boring lecture. It was a very clever job idea imo.

Couldn't a linguist be a Wizard?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which doesn't really lend itself well to performers.

I'd agree with this: they are academics, after all

Korlings are autistic as fuck.

If a Wizard enjoys studying foreign languages, sure.

say it again

Writing novels is different than entertaining the local nobility. And besides, Tolkien was primarily a scholar.

Smart hero

Tolkien was a fucking Wizard.

Depends on what sort of performer they are. If they're a singer, orator, or poet knowing how language works is somewhat important.

Smart Hero is the worst.

Wizard

True, but I think OP is referring to an archetypically bookish academic who doesn't really entertain anyone, devoting his time to research (which is why I chose Wizard).

Scholar.

Why? His image is of an interpreter, not an academic.

It is unfair to compare Tolkien to the efforts of lesser men.

>Smart hero is the worst
>In a game with "dedicated heroes" who get nothing of value

Look smart doesn't work in every campaign but when they work, they fucking work

I'm an English Teacher irl; though I am not proud, I have imagined myself a Space Marine Librarian more often than once.

I can relate

> have imagined myself a Space Marine Librarian more often than once.
But user, you are literally Grot Herder

Kek. Maybe I'll make Librarian once I begin teaching at the university level.

Fucking Grots

If you're a scholarly-minded linguist, choose either Wizard or Sage.

If you're some sort of lore-based entertainer, choose a bard.

Military linguist? Bard.

Civilian linguist? Expert.

Assuming D&D, otherwise you could just take languages as a skill and not ask these dumb questions.

>expert

Sounds like an Arcane Linguist is right up your alley.
dandwiki.com/wiki/Arcane_Linguist_(5e_Archetype)

>expert
Kek

>Arcane Linguist
Can someone explain this to me?

Librarian here: feels good.

Dark Heresy isn't getting updated, but the new 40k RPG is going to do a more broad coverage thing, where they have a bit of all the stuff you'd want in the core with additional supplement filling the spaces out. Bullet points include having inquisitorial squads, rogue traders, loyal and traitor marines, and Xenos playable in the core.

It's like a rune fencer

Courtesan.

They're the only character in the game allowed to pick multiple languages besides racial and 'common' or 'trade' at character creation. They get a bonus to all diplomatic actions, speech checks, and can forge documents and official commands.

Once they reach name level, they get to learn supernatural languages, like the songs of the canyons. Once they learn these, they can ask the cliffs and crags to show them the way to the city behind the sunrise, or if they learn the language of the tides they can ask the ocean to spit out their sinking ship on an island instead of dragging them all down to the bottom.

You know, just as a 'favor'.

Sage
The class, that is. With a bunch of languages as academic skills.

Can sages learn spells?

Bard

>that dude checking out the girls tits

Depend on the system.
But in general, no. They just know stuff. In some systems/settings, knowledge alone enables you to affect the physical world with your mind (i.e. spells), meaning that they become more like wizards, so in those systems and settings, yes.
But in general they are just academics.

Bards are singers/storytellers. Linguists aren't.

Bards were the original linguists

I think linguists were the original linguists (or at least philologists).
wikipedia.org/wiki/Philology

OP question was about professional linguists, not professionals who has to do linguistics on the side.

A professional linguist would not be an adventurer, an adventuring linguist would be an adventurer and a linguist on the side. Ergo, a Bard.

Checkmate athiests

>enemy contact
>some asshat with a big pink hat comes at me
>"Be a wingman for safe masturbation..."
>Zzzzz

Linguistics would be a part-time pursuit for a lore bard, not a full-time vocation. I'd say Sage or Wizard because not many pure linguists exist outside of academia.

>would not be an adventurer
Irrelevant. OP asked about an RPG class representing a professional linguist, not an adventurer class. NPCs can have classes too, you know.

...or an adventuring academic studying other languages in foreign lands. It depends on how you would want to play it. I personally hate bards so I'd prefer a sage.

Keeper, of course. Why? Because, any who would dabble would be a Man of Reason.

You guys know that academic linguists perform research outside of the classroom, right? Some travel abroad and document dying languages as a purely scholastic pursuit. I can easily envision a pure linguist PC.

where is that from?

>Courtesan
gaaaaay

You'll be a Wizard once day, English Teacher, once you begin studying Old English texts and publishing in journals.

fantasycraft