Elsewhere people have torn into whether it can read druidic or thieves cant, but that's not what this is about.
My question is this - if Eyes of the Runekeeper lets you read all writing, how is this done? It's safe to assume from the Jeremy Crawford tweet that the intent is that you can indeed comprehend what is written in a literal sense, but do you look at a series of symbols and see them for what they are and know that these symbols = this word in a language you know, or does your brain only perceive them in a language you know?
For example, if you were to go to a government building and see a sign with "please wait here for service" written in 10 different languages, would you see "please wait here for service" in common ten times, or would you be able to see the different alphabets for what they are and simply know that "お召し上がりいただけるまで、こちらでお待ちください" means "please wait here for service" but still be able to see the script for what it is?
My DM wants to say it's like the former, where I would just see "please wait here for service" 10 times, but the issue here is this means you can never fully learn a new language if it uses an alphabet your character isn't already familiar with because your eyes would convert all new symbols into ones you know to let you read them.
Is there an official call on this somewhere? All I've been able to find is people arguing about cyphers, thieves cant, and Druidic.
Eyes of the rune keeper simply says "you can read all writing". It doesn't say "you see all writing as a language you know" or anything of the sort, so it is up to you and the DM how it works.
You can still learn a new language (including how to read and write it) regardless. The alphabets of different languages don't always one to one with each other, so it can be learned individually and then learned to spell no problem. Only writing with meaning could be translated.
Most importantly, the rules for the invocation and for learning a new language don't mention this being a problem.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but if you have this ability, why would you ever need to learn to read a new language? You can already read all of them.
Certainly, it doesn't help you with speaking or understanding a spoken language, but that doesn't have to be based on reading it. People listen to audio tapes to learn languages without learning to read them. And many people can speak a language without knowing how to read it.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but if you have this ability, why would you ever need to learn to read a new language? You can already read all of them.
Because writing back to someone who speaks/reads the other language would be impossible at that point. Also my character is a huge nerd and just likes learning things.
That's not the point though. I want to know if there's an official call on whether a sign that says "トイレ" will look like "トイレ" but I'll magically know it says "toilet", or if when I look at the sign I don't see "トイレ" at all because the symbols have been replaced entirely by a magical mental babelfish that makes it say "toilet" in common.
This could be an issue if the DM decides to make some sort of code where I'd need to align 3 sets of symbols, but all of them are just "fish" in different languages. If I can see symbols I don't know, then looking at "魚", "ψάρι", and "Риба", I would know that all three of them say "fish" but if I needed to put them in a certain order, I'd be able to differentiate between them. If the invocation just translates them automatically, then all I see is "fish" three times and wouldn't even be able to brute force the puzzle by guessing since the pieces would be identical and impossible to keep track of if I couldn't mark them in some way.
This situation is up to you and your DM to resolve. However, they try to make it clear that the rules only do what they say they do. In this case, eyes of the runekeeper says
"Eyes of the Rune Keeper: You can read all writing."
It does not say anything about affecting your vision. It doesn't say anything about interfering with you learning new languages. It says nothing about seeing characters differently or anything else. You would have no trouble seeing and remembering the characters. The ability might make it much easier to learn a written language if you work on memorizing what the symbols mean (however, that is a DM call and goes beyond what the text says).
All of these comments about not seeing the characters or just getting a translation that looks the same in 10 languages is leaving out the fact that different languages don't use the same words or expressions for the same thing.
In this case you can "read all writing". The suggestion by JC is that the interpretation is literal.
Here is an example:
English: "bathroom", "potato"
French: "salle de bain" - room of bath or bathing, "pomme de terre" - apple of the earth or ground (?) - still means potato
Edit: fixed up the literal of salle de bain ... since bain is bath.
They don't give the same literal translation. Eyes of the Runekeeper lets you see the characters in different languages but you understand what they are saying. It would be up to the DM whether he would give you the word "potato" for "pomme de terre" or "ground apple" and leave it to you to figure out what the language really means. It depends on how literal the translation gets.
However, the invocation just says that you can read all writing - it doesn't say that you necessarily understand it (as in written thieves cant) - so it would be up to the DM and you to decide how you want to run it.
It terms of the sign over the washroom in 10 different languages - they would not all be the same since different words and expressions might be used in each language.
e.g. In different languages the sign could say
toilet
washroom
room of washing
room of evacuation
pooping room
location of bodily necessities related to waste
unspoken room (for societies with a real hang up about bodily processes)
waste room
If I was DMing, I'd let you know the gist of what the text says and allow you to usually understand what the different expressions were trying to get at but there might be times when it would be interesting to provide the literal translation and let the player deal with the consequences :)
It does not hinder your learning a new language but neither does it help. Its magic and its effects are forgotten when the spell ends.
It's not a spell. It's a warlock invocation. Once taken it never ends.
Nothing in the invocation says it's on 24/7. You still have to choose to use it
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Its literal reading to me, so if you read "トイレ" as the ''clean toilet'' but in thieve's cant it refers to untraceable stolen good, you would not also understand this submeaning unless you also know thieve's cant.
Its literal reading to me, so if you read "トイレ" as the ''clean toilet'' but in thieve's cant it refers to untraceable stolen good, you would not also understand this submeaning unless you also know thieve's cant.
This is how I would run it in my games, literal translation, does not decode coded statements.
I would probably make meaning clear in a situation where it's a translation oddity like potatoes vs ground apples (unless it was really funny) but I'm lenient like that.
Nothing in the invocation says it's on 24/7. You still have to choose to use it
Yeah, I realized while taking a mtg deck apart that the wording is *can* not *must*, so it's assumed I could toggle it at will. I brought that up to my DM and so far he hasn't argued against it. :)
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Elsewhere people have torn into whether it can read druidic or thieves cant, but that's not what this is about.
My question is this - if Eyes of the Runekeeper lets you read all writing, how is this done? It's safe to assume from the Jeremy Crawford tweet that the intent is that you can indeed comprehend what is written in a literal sense, but do you look at a series of symbols and see them for what they are and know that these symbols = this word in a language you know, or does your brain only perceive them in a language you know?
For example, if you were to go to a government building and see a sign with "please wait here for service" written in 10 different languages, would you see "please wait here for service" in common ten times, or would you be able to see the different alphabets for what they are and simply know that "お召し上がりいただけるまで、こちらでお待ちください" means "please wait here for service" but still be able to see the script for what it is?
My DM wants to say it's like the former, where I would just see "please wait here for service" 10 times, but the issue here is this means you can never fully learn a new language if it uses an alphabet your character isn't already familiar with because your eyes would convert all new symbols into ones you know to let you read them.
Is there an official call on this somewhere? All I've been able to find is people arguing about cyphers, thieves cant, and Druidic.
Being able to read all writings to me means you read it as it is and understand it as if it was a language you know, akin to mental translation.
Eyes of the rune keeper simply says "you can read all writing". It doesn't say "you see all writing as a language you know" or anything of the sort, so it is up to you and the DM how it works.
You can still learn a new language (including how to read and write it) regardless. The alphabets of different languages don't always one to one with each other, so it can be learned individually and then learned to spell no problem. Only writing with meaning could be translated.
Most importantly, the rules for the invocation and for learning a new language don't mention this being a problem.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but if you have this ability, why would you ever need to learn to read a new language? You can already read all of them.
Certainly, it doesn't help you with speaking or understanding a spoken language, but that doesn't have to be based on reading it. People listen to audio tapes to learn languages without learning to read them. And many people can speak a language without knowing how to read it.
It does not hinder your learning a new language but neither does it help. Its magic and its effects are forgotten when the spell ends.
It's not a spell. It's a warlock invocation. Once taken it never ends.
Because writing back to someone who speaks/reads the other language would be impossible at that point. Also my character is a huge nerd and just likes learning things.
That's not the point though. I want to know if there's an official call on whether a sign that says "トイレ" will look like "トイレ" but I'll magically know it says "toilet", or if when I look at the sign I don't see "トイレ" at all because the symbols have been replaced entirely by a magical mental babelfish that makes it say "toilet" in common.
This could be an issue if the DM decides to make some sort of code where I'd need to align 3 sets of symbols, but all of them are just "fish" in different languages. If I can see symbols I don't know, then looking at "魚", "ψάρι", and "Риба", I would know that all three of them say "fish" but if I needed to put them in a certain order, I'd be able to differentiate between them. If the invocation just translates them automatically, then all I see is "fish" three times and wouldn't even be able to brute force the puzzle by guessing since the pieces would be identical and impossible to keep track of if I couldn't mark them in some way.
You can see and read "トイレ" for which you understand it means toilet.
This situation is up to you and your DM to resolve. However, they try to make it clear that the rules only do what they say they do. In this case, eyes of the runekeeper says
"Eyes of the Rune Keeper: You can read all writing."
It does not say anything about affecting your vision. It doesn't say anything about interfering with you learning new languages. It says nothing about seeing characters differently or anything else. You would have no trouble seeing and remembering the characters. The ability might make it much easier to learn a written language if you work on memorizing what the symbols mean (however, that is a DM call and goes beyond what the text says).
All of these comments about not seeing the characters or just getting a translation that looks the same in 10 languages is leaving out the fact that different languages don't use the same words or expressions for the same thing.
In this case you can "read all writing". The suggestion by JC is that the interpretation is literal.
Here is an example:
English: "bathroom", "potato"
French: "salle de bain" - room of bath or bathing, "pomme de terre" - apple of the earth or ground (?) - still means potato
Edit: fixed up the literal of salle de bain ... since bain is bath.
They don't give the same literal translation. Eyes of the Runekeeper lets you see the characters in different languages but you understand what they are saying. It would be up to the DM whether he would give you the word "potato" for "pomme de terre" or "ground apple" and leave it to you to figure out what the language really means. It depends on how literal the translation gets.
However, the invocation just says that you can read all writing - it doesn't say that you necessarily understand it (as in written thieves cant) - so it would be up to the DM and you to decide how you want to run it.
It terms of the sign over the washroom in 10 different languages - they would not all be the same since different words and expressions might be used in each language.
e.g. In different languages the sign could say
toilet
washroom
room of washing
room of evacuation
pooping room
location of bodily necessities related to waste
unspoken room (for societies with a real hang up about bodily processes)
waste room
If I was DMing, I'd let you know the gist of what the text says and allow you to usually understand what the different expressions were trying to get at but there might be times when it would be interesting to provide the literal translation and let the player deal with the consequences :)
Nothing in the invocation says it's on 24/7. You still have to choose to use it
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Its literal reading to me, so if you read "トイレ" as the ''clean toilet'' but in thieve's cant it refers to untraceable stolen good, you would not also understand this submeaning unless you also know thieve's cant.
This is how I would run it in my games, literal translation, does not decode coded statements.
I would probably make meaning clear in a situation where it's a translation oddity like potatoes vs ground apples (unless it was really funny) but I'm lenient like that.
Good point. If not what Anton's reply points out, this is the argument I'd bring to my DM.
Yeah, I realized while taking a mtg deck apart that the wording is *can* not *must*, so it's assumed I could toggle it at will. I brought that up to my DM and so far he hasn't argued against it. :)