Level
1st
Casting Time
1 Action
Ritual
Range/Area
Self
Components
V, S, M *
Duration
1 Hour
School
Divination
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Social
For the duration, you understand the literal meaning of any spoken language that you hear. You also understand any written language that you see, but you must be touching the surface on which the words are written. It takes about 1 minute to read one page of text.
This spell doesn't decode secret messages in a text or a glyph, such as an arcane sigil, that isn't part of a written language.
* - (a pinch of soot and salt)
It is annoying that artificers can't get this. Since if they could then I could do the Hitchhiker's Guide "put a fish in your ear"
Does this spell give you the ability decipher Druidic?
Does “understanding” it allow you to speak the language, or is it just a one-way thing?
Way late, but here. ;) It's just a one way thing. "Comprehending" only. To speak, you'll want the spell Tongues, which is higher level.
Would this spell generally work for a language only a single person knew? Basically I am writing a book for my campaign about primordials and the paranoid npc it was written by used a language of their own design to prevent others from reading it. But it's not a code so much as language that no one else uses.
Would this trump thieve's cant?
Probably not. Comprehend Languages allows you to understand the "literal meaning". Thieves' Cant uses a combination of alternate meanings of words and phrases, and innuendo. It would be up to the DM whether you understand the alternate meanings of the words. It would not grant you the ability to understand the implied message from the phrasing and innuendo. You'd have to figure that out on your own.
Does this work for messy handwriting, or is that considered more of a cypher?
Can comprehend languages work on Morse Code?
Pretty sure it is not "spoken language".
it is labellled is it shown as as the letter R in a book next to the casting time.
I know my comment is a little nit-picky and I don't want the rules to change but I think that the fact that this spell can't decode secret messages a little funny, because in real life, coded secret messages are easier to decode then figuring out a foreign language.
I kind of know this because of the Code Talkers used WWII who were native Americans and used their native language to help encode messages and the code was never broken.
i’m trying to say stuff with my AutoCorrect because I’m lazy and it keeps messing it up or north of a timer for like a potato you see
Nerd
Nerd
What about druids i’m too lazy to look at this, but can you talk to animals?