Tongue of the Sun and Moon

[Logoth]

How exactly does the 17th monk ability of "Tongue of the Sun and Moon" work?

Does the monk use a common language that is understood by all beings? Does he automatically "tune in" to whatever language the subject speaks and use it, effectively letting him speak all languages?

If a fish and a troll are side-by-side (assuming the troll can keep himself from swallowing the fish for long enough), and the monk speaks, can both understand him, or can he only talk to one of them at a time?

I apologize ahead of time if this has been asked before and I missed it.

 

[Crothian]

Good question.

I say that the Monk just knows all languages and can switch from one language to another. It's not like he's speaking in tongues and everyone magically understand him. That's the way we do it anyway.

 

[AuraSeer]

For that ability, I take the word "tongue" to mean "language". That is, the monk learns the "language of the sun and moon," which is understood by all creatures. All languages are a subset of this tongue, so the monk can understand them without difficulty.

So IMC a high-level monk can speak the language that everyone understands, or he can speak normally in Common or Elvish whatever regular languages he understands. The latter would be useful, for instance, to share information with companions in a language that nearby enemies don't understand.

 

[Artoomis]

How it works exactly I am not sure, but:

Tongue of the Sun and Moon: A monk of 17th level or above can speak with any living creature.

Seems to me to mean he can communicate with any living creature - I don't think they can all understand him at once , though.

I'd use the "Tongues" spell as the model for figuring out how this works.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

The ability description does leave something to be desired.

Read literally, you can talk to an earthworm, but not an elf ghost (unless you spoke elf anyway).