Comprehend Question

[Fox]

In chat, we came upon a bit of a quandary with how Comprehend Language works. For ease of reference:

Languages: For one rank you can either speak or understand the language of any intelligent creature. You can speak only one language at a time, although you can understand several languages at once. For two ranks anyone able to hear you can understand what you’re saying, regardless of language (you can effectively “speak†multiple languages at once). For three ranks you can both speak and understand all languages at once. Being able to read any language requires one more rank. This effect does not enable you to communicate with creatures that don’t possess a language; see the other Comprehend effects for that.

As we figure it, the second and third rank are relatively straightforward - CL 2 lets any listener understand you, no matter what languages they speak, and no matter what language YOU speak. CL 3 lets any listener understand you, and lets you understand any speaker, to boot.

CL1 seems to be EITHER:

When you take one rank of this power, choose one of the following effects:

a) you can speak any language, one language at a time (you could speak French, then German, then English)

you can understand any spoken language, all languages at once (you could listen to advertisements in French, German, and English simultaneously, and understand them all at once, attention span allowing)

If you want both these effects, take the power twice.

OR

When you take one rank this power, you get both (a) and ( above.

This is only confused by most Kenson builds (KENSOOOOON!) which have omniglot-like abilities simply having Comprehend 3. Which means that either they took the third rank, above (anyone understands them, they understand anyone) but can't read/write (which would require an additional rank), or they took the first rank twice (speak any one at a time, understand all at once), and their third rank is read/write.

.....help?

[Dr Archeville]

You get A or B. Those Comprehend 3 polyglots can speak any language, but only one at a time (they don't ave a "Babel effect" where everyone hears them speak in their native tongue), and can understand all and can read/write all.

[Fox]

Excellent. Thanks, Dr. A!