[3.5] In what way is the Truenamer broken?

[Myou]

I've read a lot about how bad and/or broken the Truenamer is, but having looked at the class I don't see what's wrong with it, so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can satisfy my curiosity? :3

[Tempest Fennac]

From what I can gather, the DCs for using their abilities don't scale well, leading to t being impossible to hit them after a while (I can't remember how high the DC is, but I know it involves the target's HD total).

[Sstoopidtallkid]

15+2xCR. That's the DC you need to hit. Doing so with any regularity requires 2 feats, an Item Familiar, custom magic items, and a huge list of other stuff that is banned in most games. It just scales way too poorly.

[Myou]

Good grief, DC 55 just to use their abilities at level 20? o.o

How did I not notice that when I read the text? That's crazy!

How did that get published?

[Eldariel]

That's not all: If you want to use the abilities more than once, the check DC increases by 2 every time. So there, have fun.

[JackMage666]

From my understanding, it's the same ability on the same target, not just the same ability.

I've never heard anything saying they're broken, just very difficult to pull off.

[monty]

Also, even if you do pull them off, they just really aren't that good. It's more work than it's worth for mediocre results.

[Myou]

And no-one at WotC ever thought to release some errata or anything?

[Zaq]

Also, the save DCs for their Utterances completely suck. They're based off of Charisma, but you have to focus all your resources on Intelligence (the key ability for Truespeak) if you want any chance of the Utterances actually going off. Even then, the save DC is 10 + utterance level + CHA, but they don't have a 9-level utterance scale, they have a 6-level one. It gets even worse for the Lexicons of the Crafted Tool and the Perfected Map, which are on a 4-level scale.

Also, you know how Eldariel mentioned that every time you use an utterance, the Truespeak check you have to hit goes up by 2? That happens even if your foe makes their save, or if it fails to get past their SR (yes, utterances are affected by SR. Why? Who knows?). So you can waste an action, not actually DO anything, and STILL make things harder on yourself as a result.

Oh, and the fact that there's no incentive at all to use lower-level utterances (they're equally hard to use) is wacky.

Finally, no PrC advances utterances. The ones in Tome of Magic have Truespeak as a class skill, sure, and even give new uses for it on occasion, but none of them actually give you more utterances as if you had advanced as a truenamer. Talk about icing on the slap in the face.

[Draz74]

Psshhh. Errata? For a source as obscure as Tome of Magic? When they haven't released any 3e errata in years now?


Also, the save DCs for their Utterances completely suck. They're based off of Charisma, but you have to focus all your resources on Intelligence (the key ability for Truespeak) if you want any chance of the Utterances actually going off. Even then, the save DC is 10 + utterance level + CHA, but they don't have a 9-level utterance scale, they have a 6-level one. It gets even worse for the Lexicons of the Crafted Tool and the Perfected Map, which are on a 4-level scale.

Well, the Charisma thing's actually not so important, because a whopping 11 of the book's 63 Utterances allow a save, and you can easily avoid those 11 (or just use their normal versions; generally only the "reverse" versions offer a save). Besides, you got the formula wrong. Utterance Save DCs are like Supernatural ability save DCs: based on 1/2 your Truenamer level, not on the level of the Utterance.

The other complaints you posted, though, Zaq, are IMHO worse than the basic problem of DCs scaling twice as fast as the Truenamer levels.

[Zaq]

There is an official errata for ToM, but it mentions nothing about the Truenamer. It just fixes a couple tables in the Binder entry, fixes a typographical error in the mysteries-per-day table for Shadowcasters, and clears up some language about one prestige class (I think it's Disciple of the Word, but I don't have the book open) stacking with Monk for flurry progression.

[RTGoodman]

I've never heard anything saying they're broken, just very difficult to pull off.

I'll say it. Without crunching the numbers, I'm not sure how it'd be possible to actually even legitimately play one at high levels without access to obscure or rare/barely-used items.

If you use just Core/ToM, what's the highest Truespeak check you can get. No Item Familiar, no +30 Truespeak item, just normal stuff.

Can you hit DC 55 with that? Probably not (or not easily, at least). If you can't play something out of the box, I say it's broken (as in, it does not work).

[Person_Man]

A simple fix is to make it a level check. 1d20 + Truenamer level + 1/2 your levels in every other class. DC = Enemy's HD + 1 for each additional use that day. That way, you would only fail if the HD of the enemy is above your Truenamer level, and the failure rate would only be 5%ish per level difference, and if you spammed the same Utterance, it would be more difficult.

[Draz74]

If you use just Core/ToM, what's the highest Truespeak check you can get. No Item Familiar, no +30 Truespeak item, just normal stuff.

Hmmm.

Intelligence 18
+2 (gray elf)
+5 (levels)
+5 (tome)
+6 (item)
= 36, modifier +13

Truespeak skill:
+23 (ranks)
+13 (intelligence)
+3 (skill focus)
+10 (greater amulet of the silver tongue)

= +49

So even with this low level of optimization, yes, you'll be able to hit DC 55 just fine ... a few times per day. You can also hit yourself with the Universal Aptitude utterance a few times per day to give yourself +5 Truespeak for 5 rounds thereafter.

Even a -5 penalty (to Utter Defensively, bypass Spell Resistance, or Extend an Utterance) isn't too ridiculous -- as long as you only need one of those effects at a time. Good luck ever successfully Quickening an utterance, though (DC +20). :smallyuk:

[Swooper]

A simple fix is to make it a level check. 1d20 + Truenamer level + 1/2 your levels in every other class. DC = Enemy's HD + 1 for each additional use that day. That way, you would only fail if the HD of the enemy is above your Truenamer level, and the failure rate would only be 5%ish per level difference, and if you spammed the same Utterance, it would be more difficult.
Even then, it'd scale unfavourably because of the way monster HD and CR works - after a few levels, most monsters will have HD = twice their CR or so. The tarrasque, to take a well known CR20 monster, has 48 HD, meaning the poor level 20 truenamer has to roll a 28 on a d20 to affect it... Perhaps you meant "DC = Enemy's CR + 1 for each additional use that day"?

If I were to use Truenaming in a game, I'd use this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961) fix.

[Myou]

I would never actually want to use trunames, they're silly, but it's pretty astounding that they're so unusable. xD

[Fax Celestis]

If I were to use Truenaming in a game, I'd use this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961) fix.

If you really feel like using skill-based magic, you could also try taking a page from my Cartomancer.

[Chronos]

There is an official errata for ToM, but it mentions nothing about the Truenamer.It does add Truename DCs for the Perfected Map utterances, which were omitted in the book. The DCs they give make more sense than all of the other Truename DCs, but they don't fit any sort of pattern with the rest of the DCs in the book (Perfected Map DCs, alone among everything in the book, depends on the utterance level).

[Darth Stabber]

Truenammer - Awesome in Thought, abysmal in execution

[Sinfire Titan]

There's also the problem that you can optimize it to the point where meeting the DC to use the Gate utterance is absurdly easy, thus giving you Gate at will as an SLA.


But that's it. Remove that from the class, and even the most optimized Truenamer looks like a really good Warlock fix.

As for the save DCs of their utterances not scaling, you neglect to mention that only a handful of the utterances actually offer a save.

[ericgrau]

Hmmm.

Intelligence 18
+2 (gray elf)
+5 (levels)
+5 (tome)
+6 (item)
= 36, modifier +13

Truespeak skill:
+23 (ranks)
+13 (intelligence)
+3 (skill focus)
+10 (greater amulet of the silver tongue)

= +49

So even with this low level of optimization, yes, you'll be able to hit DC 55 just fine ... a few times per day. You can also hit yourself with the Universal Aptitude utterance a few times per day to give yourself +5 Truespeak for 5 rounds thereafter.

Even a -5 penalty (to Utter Defensively, bypass Spell Resistance, or Extend an Utterance) isn't too ridiculous -- as long as you only need one of those effects at a time. Good luck ever successfully Quickening an utterance, though (DC +20). :smallyuk:

Don't forget heroism for +2 (morale) and a luckstone for +1 (luck). That brings it to +52. Technically greater heroism could give +4, but it's short duration; heroism can be cast in the morning. And I assume that amulet is a competence bonus? But getting that high of a mod with just 1 item besides stats makes the point better.

[GoC]

+2 from age as well.

[Draz74]

Don't forget heroism for +2 (morale) and a luckstone for +1 (luck). That brings it to +52. Technically greater heroism could give +4, but it's short duration; heroism can be cast in the morning. And I assume that amulet is a competence bonus? But getting that high of a mod with just 1 item besides stats makes the point better.

Good points. Technically the Amulet is an enhancement bonus, though it's widely thought that this was an editing error and that competence was the intent. So a Pale Green Ioun Stone could get you an additional +1 by RAW (or is there a better Core competence boost available?).

[AirTony7]

Hmmm.

Intelligence 18
+2 (gray elf)
+5 (levels)
+5 (tome)
+6 (item)
= 36, modifier +13

Truespeak skill:
+23 (ranks)
+13 (intelligence)
+3 (skill focus)
+10 (greater amulet of the silver tongue)

= +49Don't forget heroism for +2 (morale) and a luckstone for +1 (luck). That brings it to +52. Technically greater heroism could give +4, but it's short duration; heroism can be cast in the morning. And I assume that amulet is a competence bonus? But getting that high of a mod with just 1 item besides stats makes the point better.

You both also forgot a +2 circumstance bonus from using a masterwork truespeech item, so that now brings us to +54. This does not negate the fact that most utterances just are not good (except for the gate one) so it's really a moot point.

[MeklorIlavator]

Remember that you could very well be facing enemies with CR's up to 4 greater than your ECL, so the maximum check would be 63 at 20th level.

@JackMage666: the rule specifically says that each time you use an utterance, the dc increases by 2.

Oh, and can you do a similar calculation at levels 5, 10, and 15? After all, you have so much money by that point that items aren't a big deal, but I doubt you could afford those at a lower level.

Oh, and I'd be careful about using ageing rules or masterwork tools, as the former is poorly looked upon and often accused of powergaming, while the latter is contradictory and relies on DM Fait.

[AirTony7]

Remember that you could very well be facing enemies with CR's up to 4 greater than your ECL, so the maximum check would be 63 at 20th level.

@JackMage666: the rule specifically says that each time you use an utterance, the dc increases by 2.

Oh, and can you do a similar calculation at levels 5, 10, and 15? After all, you have so much money by that point that items aren't a big deal, but I doubt you could afford those at a lower level.

Oh, and I'd be careful about using ageing rules or masterwork tools, as the former is poorly looked upon and often accused of powergaming, while the latter is contradictory and relies on DM Fait.

Since I just happen to be awake for some strange reason I guess I can start us off with a level 5 truenamer (9,000 gp according to WBL)

Intelligence 18
+2 (gray elf)
+2 Headband of intellect (4,000gp)
= +6 INT modifier

+9 ranks
+3 skill focus
+5 Lesser Amulet of Silver Tounge (2,500 gp)
+6 INT modifier
= +23 to truespeak

Hopefully I'm not forgetting something

[MeklorIlavator]

The price cap for items is generally 1/4 of WBL, so that knocks out the +2 stat booster. You also gave him 1 more rank than he deserves, which would give us +21. Assuming you don't fight anything with a CR 4 above your level, you're looking at needing a maximum of 33, so you get it on a 12 or above on your first time. Of course, if you want to use it again, the DC goes up by 2, so the next time you need a 14, 16, 18, and finally a 20. That works out to 24 spells per day, assuming that you can roll what you need to.

[tyckspoon]

Level 1:
18 base Int, +2 Racial: +5 mod
4 Ranks: +4
Skill Focus: +3

No items are yet affordable except a Masterwork tool if you can get your DM to accept that one. +12 check against expected DC 17.

Level 5:
23 Int (21 base, +2 Int item): +6 mod
8 Ranks: +8
Skill Focus: +3
Amulet of the Silver Tongue: +5
+22 check against expected DC 25. This is probably about as good as your chances will ever be, primarily driven by the addition of the Amulet. More than half your expected wealth is invested in your Truespeak checks at this point, however, so they'd dang well better be good.

Level 10:
26 Int (22 base, +4 Int item): +8 mod
13 ranks: +13
Skill Focus: +3
Greater Amulet: +10
+34 check against expected DC 35. Ok, I was wrong, *this* is as good as it gets. You can work against equal-CR things pretty well, do very well against lower CR, and can manage higher-CR bosses with just a little luck and/or buffing. It just gets worse from here out, primarily because you can no longer get more cheap large boosts by upgrading your Amulet of Not Sucking At Truespeech. If custom items of +truespeak are allowed, you can actually keep up and exceed the Truespeak checks pretty easily.

Level 15:
30 Int (22 base, +6 item, +1 Inherent): +10 mod
18 ranks: +18
Skill Focus: +3
Greater Amulet: +10
+41 check against expected DC 45. You start falling behind again here because all the cheap ways to boost your Truespeech checks have been used; from 15-20 you have to seek other buffs or rely on direct improvements to your Int, which is a very expensive way to go about it. Luckily for you WBL also starts skyrocketing about here.

[Kasky]

Sorry for breaking up the brainstorming/theoryhammer real quick, but maybe I'm just reading something wrong or maybe some people are reading a different Tome of Magic than I am.

Specifically:

@JackMage666: the rule specifically says that each time you use an utterance, the dc increases by 2.

I just cracked open a tome of magic and the "Law of Resistance" thing says:
The first time you speak a particular utterance, you calculate the DC as described under Speaking a Truename on page ###. However, fluff fluffy fluffiness, so each time you successfully speak the same utterance in a day, the DC of your Truespeak check for that utterance increases by 2.

Wouldn't this rule just be restricting you spamming the single utterance all day and making you use more than one spell? Cause from the sound of it everyones saying all utterance DCs go up each and every time you make a truespeech check, while this paragraph just says when using the same utterance that day.

Cause theres a big difference between "I just spammed a first level utterance and now I can't do anything for the day" and "I just spammed a first level utterance and now I can't use that one utterance for the day."

[MeklorIlavator]

You misunderstand what I was saying. JackMage666 said that the Law only applied to using the same utterance on the same target, while I'm agreeing with you, in that it applies to each successful use of an individual utterance. Sorry for not being clearer.

[Human Paragon 3]

Wow, all this time and nobody posted a link to Kellus's brilliant and extensive truenaming fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961)? This homebrew fixes all of the above mentioned critiques of the ToM truenamer to create something truly awesome. Everything you need to know is in the first 3 posts.

[MeklorIlavator]

Well, Swooper did, though it's easy enough to miss.

[Draz74]

This does not negate the fact that most utterances just are not good (except for the gate one) so it's really a moot point.

There is a lot of suck in Utterances and you have to pick them carefully (which leads to groups of Truenamers ending up rather bland and monotonous), but I think you're writing off some other Utterances too easily.


Eldritch Attraction is pretty good forced movement for 3e.
Hidden Truth is a pretty good noncombat ability.
Inertia Surge is widely considered the best Level 1 option. Definitely a powerful effect at low levels.
Reversed (Greater) Seek the Sky is awesome. Arcane magic has spells that do this, but they allow a save. This is about the best anti-flight ability in the game.
Silent Caster is pretty awesome, mostly for making your whole party automatically succeed at Move Silently checks.
(Greater) Speed of the Zephyr is pretty decent. Not as good as Haste, of course.
Universal Aptitude is, of course, a crucial self-buff.
Fortify Armor is good, once you are high-enough level to give your team 100% Fortification. There's still that darn duration though.
Metamagic Catalyst is great outside of combat to aid scroll-users (read: yourself; Truenamers get UMD).
Deny Passage is fabulous battlefield control, and the only reason it's not super-attractive is that it's competing for the same Utterance Known as Gate.


The Truenamer is obviously intended for a campaign that plans on nerfing casters hard. But I think it's significantly better than, say, the Monk.

[streakster]

But I think it's significantly better than, say, the Monk.

Now that's damning with faint praise.

[Chronos]

I think what happened with the Truenamer is that someone at Wizards saw the theoretical optimization board, and saw what people were doing with things like the Jumplomancer, and figured that based on that, a moderate level of optimization would surely give you about +2 to a skill per level. The problem with that is, most skills have had a lot more support than True Speech: You could go to level 20 using every single one of your feat slots on something that gives +2 or more to Diplomacy, for instance. But those feats (and spells, and class features, and whatever all else) just don't exist for True Speech, so the level of optimization the authors were planning on players using just isn't possible.

Quoth Draz74:
Good points. Technically the Amulet is an enhancement bonus, though it's widely thought that this was an editing error and that competence was the intent.While rare, there are a handful of other cases of something giving an enhancement bonus to a skill: There's a psionic power (and an item based on it) that gives an enhancement bonus to Hide, for instance. So it's at least possible that that was intentional. It could even be that they were trying to throw the class a bone at the last minute, by leaving open the possibility of grabbing a competence bonus in addition to the Amulet.