Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai View Post

@Tokek... a soulknife can't be said to have everything they need if they have to link up to a linguist. I don't see the difference between the linguist providing you with language help, and the linguist providing you with language help AND telepathy.
Teamwork makes the dream work

Honestly the idea that a lone character should be able to do everything by sheer force of what is in their class feature list is really boring to me. How do you even run a fun game as a DM that way? The characters are engaging with the environment, using features of the environment in interesting ways - that is the essence of good game-play to my mind

An NPC who knows the local language should be assumed to exist in nearly all situations where infiltration/espionage would ever be an option. An NPC who is a high level telepath and knows the local language should be vastly harder to find if not impossible. But as the rogue is the high level telepath they have that covered and only need to acquire the common thing which is a local commoner who speaks the local language.

If the DM deems that no such person exists then the DM rather has the whole thing on rails. I'm sure in their head they have one pre-planned way to solve the problem but we here on the internet have no clue where their railroaded scenario is supposed to go and I see little point caring.

As for the time duration part - yes and time pressure is a good thing for drama and tension.