Dungeons & Dragons 5e Element 133 Class Feature: Interpreter

With this feature, the hero becomes a master linguist. Whenever the hero encounters a new language, either spoken or written, that he or she does not know the hero can make an Intelligence check to determine if he or she can understand it. The check is made with a bonus equal to the hero's tier x 2. For a written language, the bonus applies to a Intelligence (Investigation) check instead.

The DC for the check depends on the situation: DC 15 if the language is in the same group as a language the hero has proficiency in; DC 20 if the language is unrelated to any other languages the hero knows; and DC 25 if the language is ancient or unique. With this special ability, a hero can glean enough meaning from a conversation or document to ascertain the basic message, but this ability in no way simulates actually being able to converse or fluently read and write in a given language.

A single check covers roughly one minute of a spoken language or one page of a written language.