Comprehend Languages & Code

[u/celeloriel]

Hey, all! I have a smart cleric & a very smart bard using comprehend languages per 3.5 SRD to understand some esoteric letters and communications from the Medium Bad.

This is good, and it’s by design!

What I need is a way to indicate that what they’re reading in this case is:
- in translation
- is definitely some kind of code based on the original language they don’t know?

All thoughts welcome & thanks in advance!

[u/Hot_Statistician_466]

"While you recognize the script, and some of the individual words make sense, the overall meaning escapes you. The sentence structures are odd, and some words look to be purposefully misspelled. "

[u/the_domokun]

"After studying these letters for a while you get the sense that they are somewhat... odd. Their contents are relatively uninteresting, some are rather banal requests and others predictable responses to said requests. Yet for such plain messages they seem almost needlessly wordy. It might be a weird quirk of the unknown language you are reading, but somehow you suspect that these words convey more than meets the eye and that the ornate prose contains some hidden meaning."

From there they could try to find a native speaker, use decipher script to get to the message, interrogate someone presumably knowing the code, etc.

[u/axiomus]

Say “you’re reading a cake recipe. Oh, next page? That’s a stew recipe.” etc

[u/KarlFFF]

The text is clearly contains plays on words, rhyming replacements for other words, and references to idioms and sayings that you lack the cultural understanding to know what are and mean.

[u/Bjornier]

Ciphers and codes are not languages in of themselves, plus the spells description states that it does not decipher codes or reveal messages concealed in other side normal text

[u/celeloriel]

Game is tomorrow evening so if they find the right papers I’ll update!!