Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Spell gestures and sign

Hey folks, this is one I'm hoping a Larian rep can see and maybe give some more info on!

From the update announcement:


Which sign language, if I may ask? If you used BIM (Malay official sign language; the post mentioned consulting with a signer from their Malaysian office), that's similar in many ways to ASL, but they aren't mutually intelligible; they're different languages. ASL is mutually intelligible to, say Canadian sign language (mostly), but it isn't communicative with BSL, Auslan or New Zealand sign languages, which are a somewhat intelligible with each other, but which are completely different languages from ASL. These are just examples, in a whole world of different and independent hand languages

As someone who speaks with her hands, I'm curious about what language you went with here.

That's the first question I had, and I'm glad it was asked. Thank you. My mom, auditory, with a graduate level ASL teaching situation, learned spoken Norwegian before studying Bokmål NSL, to interpret for a Deaf-Blind friend returning to Norway for the first time after 50 years. Thank you for the note to the powers that be to be clear about the specifis.

Ah. Excellent question. I don't know a heap about sign language, but I know that American Sign Language is the name of what's signed in the US. That implies that it's not a universal language. So, I was also curious what language a signer from Kuala Lumpur would use, and whether signers from North America and Europe would really be able to understand it.

You might be surprised how many people don't immediately make that connection ^.^

There is an unfortunately broad spectrum of people the world over (and not really through any fault of their own - it's not something that the vast majority of people who don't have regular contact with signers every really have cause to think about) don't quite realise that saying "sign language" and talking about it as thought any hand-signer around the world might understand it is more or less the same as saying "vocal language" and assuming that every auditory human around the world might understand it. ^.^

In the same way that someone with a solid grounding in Latin can pick up the gist of what's being said by a number of different people speaking a number of different European languages, even without understanding them directly, there are "families" of sign languages that either share a common root or have similar influences, and they can be, to a certain extent, cross-communicable (like the groups mentioned above)... but out side of those family similarities, they really are just different languages, just like mandarin and spanish are different languages. I'm in Australia, which uses Auslan, for example - I could get by well enough speaking to someone from New Zealand, and I could *probably* get by well enough speaking to someone from the UK... but I couldn't really use my hands to talk to a signer from China at all - that would be gibberish to me (we'd get by, but the language itself wouldn't be there to back up the more basic non-verbal communication).

I'm confused, then, what sort of gestures do Sorcerers and Clerics get?

This would be a great thread for a Larian person to post a comment. I suspect they might have a "no-post" company policy, but I hope at least a few of them are lurking here.

There I was at the Rochester Institute of Technology (New York, USA), walking down a dimly lit basement corridor and just about to turn a corner, when suddenly a group of five or six girls rounded the same corner from the opposite direction. They were talking in sign language, and when we nearly collided, they signed even more excitedly and with their hands held high over their heads. We all laughed and went on our way. I later learned that raising hands high is the sign-language equivalent of "shouting". I wonder if that is common worldwide?

Does this mean you have to enter crouch mode to whisper in ASL?

Ha, yeah, keep it on the down-low.

"All of the dark elves also have a silent language composed of hand movements, and
this means of communication is highly sophisticated."

Does that mean we can cast spells even when "silenced"?

One thing I learned when learning the “basics” of ASL (was a Sunday school teacher back then) is that if you stare at someone signing, it’s considered rude like listening in on a private conversation. I experienced this first hand (BADA bing) when signing with my wife and so happened to spot one of my deaf friends glance over. She blushed and quickly turned away lol. I haven’t had a chance to play the wizard yet to see if I can recognize anything. It’s been years since I had to use it, so I am rusty. I have an int of 8 so I will forget a skill if I don’t use it regularly 😂 My wife is still pretty good at it, so maybe she can see.

I suspect it isn’t ASL because this isn’t an American company…

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

― Mark Twain


I don't think sign language will get you out of the requirement for a verbalization spell component, since the somatic movements are their own thing already. But I do recall the original Illusionist in AD&D was the only class which had a few spells for which there were no verbal components at all, such as Hypnotic Pattern, Shadow Door, Wraithform, Rainbow Pattern, Mislead, and possibly Dream (since you have to be asleep). I always thought that was kind of interesting.

Sign language was just the inspiration for the spell-casting animations for one of the casting classes (I don't remember which now). It doesn't infer the components of the spell.

Hello! I asked around and have an answer - the sign language actor that we hired uses Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia (BIM) - I hope this helps!

Thanks for the answer! I appreciate you taking the time to check.