Looking over my player's sheets, and I noticed that the Ranger of the party had picked Elementals as a FE type, but then picked Goblin as the language.
This choice was made a while back, and I can't remember exactly why. It doesn't really make sense for flavor reasons, for her backstory, or for the campaign going forward. I tried to look up the RAW regarding it, and the rule seems to say that you can only learn a language spoken by the type, but it still lets you choose from the entire list after you've made your selection, so I'm wondering if you can just pick any language or if it HAS to be Primordial for Elementals to remain RAW.
it really doesn't break the game to allow any language with any favoured enemy. you can always ask them to speak to their choices, should you need those choices to make sense. it is perfectly reasonable to say that goblin sorcerers are known for summoning elementals in the desert wastes the ranger haunts. leading one to believe; interrogating goblins is the best way to cull the element population. and interrogation of this type should be done in goblin. personally I am fairly lenient on this subject and would not demand they adhere to a rule that does not give or take power.
The rules could certainly be interpreted as requiring the ranger to select the language spoken by their Favoured Enemy, however it doesn't seem to be explicit in this and, as Gigaflop mentions, there can be all sorts of campaign scenarios where it would make sense to choose a language that would be nonsense in another campaign.
For those reasons, D&D Beyond doesn't restrict the language selection - as with many things in 5th edition D&D, it's up to the group to decide how they want that rule to work in their game world.
Thanks for the help! I'll talk it over with her. I think she would benefit more from speaking Primordial, but it's not my prerogative to tell her how to play her character haha.
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Looking over my player's sheets, and I noticed that the Ranger of the party had picked Elementals as a FE type, but then picked Goblin as the language.
This choice was made a while back, and I can't remember exactly why. It doesn't really make sense for flavor reasons, for her backstory, or for the campaign going forward. I tried to look up the RAW regarding it, and the rule seems to say that you can only learn a language spoken by the type, but it still lets you choose from the entire list after you've made your selection, so I'm wondering if you can just pick any language or if it HAS to be Primordial for Elementals to remain RAW.
it really doesn't break the game to allow any language with any favoured enemy. you can always ask them to speak to their choices, should you need those choices to make sense. it is perfectly reasonable to say that goblin sorcerers are known for summoning elementals in the desert wastes the ranger haunts. leading one to believe; interrogating goblins is the best way to cull the element population. and interrogation of this type should be done in goblin. personally I am fairly lenient on this subject and would not demand they adhere to a rule that does not give or take power.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
The rules could certainly be interpreted as requiring the ranger to select the language spoken by their Favoured Enemy, however it doesn't seem to be explicit in this and, as Gigaflop mentions, there can be all sorts of campaign scenarios where it would make sense to choose a language that would be nonsense in another campaign.
For those reasons, D&D Beyond doesn't restrict the language selection - as with many things in 5th edition D&D, it's up to the group to decide how they want that rule to work in their game world.
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Thanks for the help! I'll talk it over with her. I think she would benefit more from speaking Primordial, but it's not my prerogative to tell her how to play her character haha.