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Octopus Jack
2010-06-04, 03:59 PM
I've been looking through Tome of Magic, and have been wanting to play Truenamer so much it's not healthy. Instead of having to homebrew something myself to make it work can anyone tell me a good fix for them?


thanks in advance :smallbiggrin:

Aharon
2010-06-04, 04:04 PM
Depending on wether you agree with my interpretation or not, they may not need a fix:

the law of sequence is not as hard as it seems at first: you can use the option to increase the effective spell level of utterances by raising the Truespeak check by 4 (ToM p. 233). The paragraph about the law of Sequence (p.233/234) says that

„It's also okay to use a higher-level version of an utterance while a lower-level version is active, or vice versa, because these constitute different utterances.“
It was obviously intended for the different versions of the Words of Nurturing, but, RAW, applies to utterances whose effective spell level has been raised in the way detailed above. This means that the law of sequence (los) applies seperately for those utterances, and thereby changes the progression from 0,2,4,6... to 0,2,4,4,6,6,8,8,8...(0 – standard use. 0+2 – standard use, +2 due to los, +4 – standard use, +4 due to los, +4 – heightened, +6 – standard use, +6 due to los, +6 – heigtened use +4, +2 due to los, +8 – standard use, +8 due to los, +8 – heightened use +4, +4 due to los, +8 – heightened two levels +8). This raises the number of Rebuild Item utterances you can use per day considerably.
It also makes many utterance boni stack, as they provide unnamed boni that are specifically from different aptitudes.
It also allows a very effective use of a feat from Book of Vile Darkness, Mortalbane - it allows you to add 2d6 damage to each of your spell-likes 5 times per day. As your heightened spell-likes are specifically different from the base utterances, your damage can be increased either moderately lots of times, or by up to 10d6 each.
Perhaps most importantly, it defeats the law of sequence - you can use the same utterance however often you want, as long as you heighten it.

There is a variant from Complete Arcane, magic ceramic tiles instead of potions. Those have to be broken to be activated. The 3rd level Lexicon of the Crafted Tool Utterance Rebuild Item lets you restore an item destroyed in the last round to perfect functionality, including magic properties. Complete Arcane states about tiles that

While it’s possible to introduce new item creation feats into a game, so long as new forms of existing magic items follow all the rules for use as their original forms, new rules shouldn’t be required. A potion in the shape of a tile you snap to activate is mechanically identical to a potion you drink—you need no special magical training to use it, its magic is used up by the activation, and using it is a moderately distracting physical task that provokes attacks of opportunity from any nearby foes. The tile might be slightly more useful in some situations (underwater, for instance, or in the hands of a creature that has no way to ingest the contents of a potion vial), but the difference is too minor to justify the existence of a Craft Magic Tile feat. Tiles and potions both fill the same game niche.

so I assume this is possible. Obviously, for the Truenamer the ability to rebuild it is one of the situations where the tile is not only slightly, but far more useful than the potion).

If you have a DM who allows magic marts, you can even buy tiles containing infusions: they can be bought from an Alchemist Savant who uses Brew Universal Potion to create Tiles instead of Potions.

Also note that
You can also store utterances in wands and scepters (only short section on this). This is especially useful for the many good truenamer buffs: this way, you can persist them via a tile of Metamagic Item (Persistent Spell), which you rebuild immediately afterwards, of course. A little discourse on why this is allowed, in my opinion:

In Complete Arcane, it is stated that sudden metamagic feats work on spell-like abilities. The relevant quotes are in Complete Arcane, page 71.
Sudden Metamagic Feats: These metamagic feats don’t require modified spell slots, and so they work as well with spell-like abilities or invocations as they do with spells (though because spell-like abilities don’t have verbal or somatic components, Sudden Silent Spell doesn’t apply and Sudden Still Spell applies only to invocations). Creatures with spell-like abilities at a high enough level will find sudden metamagic feats less useful than the dedicated feats Empower Spell-Like Ability and Quicken Spell-Like Ability (see page 303 of the Monster Manual), as well as the Maximize Spell-Like Ability feat introduced in
this chapter. Other Metamagic Feats: Except as noted above, metamagic feats can’t generally be used to modify spell-like
abilities or invocations.
Using Metamagic Item on a Wand doesn't require a modified spell slot, the same way as sudden metamagic feats don't require a modified spell slot, so I figured utterances stored in items are eligible targets - it's a specific case that meets the same requirement (the spell slot isn't modified) as sudden metamagic feats, but they obviously couldn't mention it, as it hadn't been printed yet. As specific beats general, I thought it should be ok.

Potions - and thus tiles - of 9th level spells can be created by master alchemists (Magic of Faerun).

Here's a link to a character I made using the above assumptions, without relying on tiles of higher than 3rd level, but using infusion-tiles:
It's (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=158919) for the test of spite, but it hasn't been checked yet, and I doubt it will soon.

Adumbration
2010-06-04, 04:07 PM
There are two comprehensive overhauls for Truenaming.

The Way Words Work by Kellus. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961)

And Kyedo's Truenamer Fix. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488)

I haven't looked into them enough to tell which one is better.

Kyeudo
2010-06-04, 04:07 PM
Well, I think the two most extensive fixes are mine (see my sig for a link) and the one by Kellus. Mine is backwards compatible, while Kellus's is not.

Person_Man
2010-06-04, 04:32 PM
While the fluff is nice, there is nothing unique that a Truenamer can do that other full casters can't do, but better. So there's really no reason to fix it, unless you want to use the fluff as a shell for your homebrew ideas (which is what Kyeudo and Kellus did).

Pluto
2010-06-04, 04:55 PM
Kellus's rewrite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961) is amazing - it's mechanically inventive, it runs smoothly, it gives the truenamer some support via feats and PrCs (unlike the ToM, which gives other classes support via truenaming PrCs), and it's a pleasure to read.

My only complaint is that it involves quite a bit of paperwork - introducing separate ability lists, different augments for the various abilities and new stats to track (namely "absolute limit," which makes building a >lvl 1 character a bit of a headache, separate DCs for every recitation, incantation and utterance).

It's also a fix in the way that the OA Samurai might be to the CW Samurai - it makes the concept stronger (playable, even), but it doesn't throw it into tiers 1 or 2. It's more comparable to a more versatile, but less reliable Warlock.

Optimystik
2010-06-04, 05:38 PM
It's also a fix in the way that the OA Samurai might be to the CW Samurai - it makes the concept stronger (playable, even), but it doesn't throw it into tiers 1 or 2. It's more comparable to a more versatile, but less reliable Warlock.

Nitpick - OA came out first (it's a 3.0 book, while CW is 3.5.) So it's perhaps more accurate to say that CW nerfed the OA Samurai even more. :smalltongue:

Pluto
2010-06-04, 05:43 PM
Nitpick - OA came out first (it's a 3.0 book, while CW is 3.5.) So it's perhaps more accurate to say that CW nerfed the OA Samurai even more. :smalltongue:
Drat. I didn't think anyone would call me out on that.

Alternate analogy: It's like when one really bad class was fixed, and then it was still pretty weak, but at least had a reason for existing. :smalltongue:

Octopus Jack
2010-06-05, 07:48 AM
Thanks for the help I think I'll use Kellus's rewrite, it looks really great and I look forward to playing a Truenamer now. :smallbiggrin:

Draz74
2010-06-05, 12:48 PM
There are two comprehensive overhauls for Truenaming.

The Way Words Work by Kellus. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90961)

And Kyedo's Truenamer Fix. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488)

I haven't looked into them enough to tell which one is better.

They've both stuck around for quite a while now, in a way that rival homebrews rarely achieve. (Usually, the superior homebrew becomes obvious quickly, and the other fades into obscurity.) Which kind of makes me want to use them both. In the same party. Heh. Then, of course at some point in the campaign they would have to duel each other to prove supremacy. :smallamused:

Zaq
2010-06-05, 02:07 PM
They've both stuck around for quite a while now, in a way that rival homebrews rarely achieve. (Usually, the superior homebrew becomes obvious quickly, and the other fades into obscurity.) Which kind of makes me want to use them both. In the same party. Heh. Then, of course at some point in the campaign they would have to duel each other to prove supremacy. :smallamused:

"Truespeak, mother****er! Do you speak it?!"

Eldan
2010-06-05, 02:10 PM
And now we need an application of Truespeak called
"Gratuitous Use of Truespoken Profanity".

It makes the enemy so surprised, they can only speak the word "what".

Octopus Jack
2010-06-05, 02:14 PM
"Truespeak, mother****er! Do you speak it?!"

:smallbiggrin: I now have a great saying for my truenamer, just need somemore as I can't repeat that line over and over again...