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BigBadBugbear
2010-06-14, 02:19 AM
Requested: Truenamer build
Total table and list from 1st to 20th level. Must be playable from 1st level to 20th lvl, so no build that says: "You need to get this feat thats useless an 3th level but you need it at 10th."

Books: ToM (Duh!), SRD, and one of the following; one of the Complete series, MIC, SC, CoV, CoR, Bo9S.

Abilities: Point Buy 26
Wealth: Normal (At lvl 1 use average)
Organizations: Yes, No multiple use score enhancements.

Other:
I know that the truenamer isn't the boost balanced class, but I really want to see what people can get up with.
No infinite loops, no UMD depended character... But a few wands is nice..
The character needs to bee a JoaT...

erikun
2010-06-14, 02:29 AM
From what I've seen, the general idea behind an effective Truenamer is basically "buff your Truespeak score through every means feasable." Even then, you're still limited by the inability to use the same Utterance more than twice at the same time, so no buffing everyone in the party.

I know there's someone on the forum who has run a Truenamer, so if s/he's still around, you might get some insight on how the class runs in actual play. I don't think you'll be fairing that well at level 1, though.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-06-14, 03:11 AM
Unearthed Arcana is SRD, meaning you technically left in Item Familiars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm). Usually they're broken, but in the Truenamer's case I think two wrongs make a right.

InkEyes
2010-06-14, 08:19 AM
It's basically this:

"Buff your Truespeak score through every means feasable."

Plus, "Survive to until you get cost-free Gate utterance." Then you Gate things in to be effective for you. That's really all they can do.

Person_Man
2010-06-14, 08:32 AM
Second vote for Item Familiar. They're pretty much the only thing that makes Truenamer playable.

You should ask your DM if he'll allow a houserule to let you qualify for arcane prestige classes. Something like Binder 1/Truenamer 4/Anima Mage 10/Whatever 5 would go a long way towards making the Truenamer more playable.

Lans
2010-06-14, 01:01 PM
Paragnostic Disciple from Complete Champion
26 pb
human

Str 10
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 8
Chr 14
Level 1 Skill Focus Truenaming, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot Flaw Murkey Eyed
Third Knowledge Devotion
6 knowledge skills related to killing people at full ranks
Actively worships We Jas or other knowledge Deity
If the campaign lacks a magic mart pick up craft wondrous item at 6th
At 7th+400xp make an amulet of the silver tongue if you couldn't buy one
picks up Vision Sharpened at 8th or earlier
Member of The Paragnostic Assembly
Buy a Masterwork truenaming item, my suggestion is a Rosary

At level 1 Truename check is 4+3+2+2 for 11. You need a roll of 7 to affect a creature of your challenge rating, take Word of Nurturing for OOC healing. In Combat Rapid Shot

At 2 you get +6 to your skill so you will need to roll a 3 or better to use your ability. So take Inertia Surge, its pretty much an attack option requiring a fairly low roll on the first couple of attempts. Your odds of affect go down by 2 with every additional use so you got about 5 good uses of this a day. It also goes down by one every level until you get another skill boost, which for this build is levels 7 and 8. Though if you can buy an amulet of the silver tongue((AST) earlier do so!
At Level 3 take knowledge devotion to get better at shooting. You should have enough money for a LAST which you should buy if you can. Dropping the number required by your utterances by 5 so a -1 against equal level creatures at this level, and a 3 at level 7 where you will make the improved version.

5th and 6th are the hardest levels if you can't find a AST, you will need a 6 and 7 on your true name checks, so they are not good options in combat, but they are still options.

7th on is a cake walk you should have a true name score of about 32 at seventh and 38 at 8th DC for a seventh level monster is 15+14 so 29. 8 is 31, 10 from Paragnostic Assembly, 11 from ranks, 10 from AST, 2 from rosary, 3 from skill focus, 2 from intelligence, so your golden for eight more levels when you will need to roll a 1 to succeed. By then you will have the other types of truenaming to fall back on, as well as being 3 levels away from Gate spam.

Draz74
2010-06-14, 01:36 PM
For what it's worth, I'd say this is about the least terrible utterance selection you could make:

L1) Inertia Surge
L2) Universal Aptitude
L3) Lesser Word of Nurturing
L4) Silent Caster; Fortify Armor
L5) Hidden Truth
L6) Greater Speed of the Zephyr
L7) Seek the Sky; Analyze Item
L8) Moderate Word of Nurturing; Fog from the Void
L9) Energy Negation
L10) Magic Contraction
L11) Spell Rebirth; Rebuild Item
L12) Confounding Resistance; Speak Rock to Mud
L13) Caster Lens
L14) Essence of Lifespark
L15) Greater Seek the Sky; Suppress Item
L16) Sensory Focus; Thwart the Traveler
L17) Ward of Peace
L18) Ether Reforged
L19) Breath of Recovery; Metamagic Catalyst
L20) Greater Energy Negation; Conjunctive Gate (or Deny Passage, if you don't want to break the game. Although why you wouldn't want sweet game-breaking redemption after 19 levels of sucking is beyond me.)

Notably, many of the best utterances are just buffs for the real spellcasters in the party. :smallsigh:

Aharon
2010-06-14, 02:00 PM
Curious: Why the book restrictions? It is a weak class, and without access to several splat books, you won't get the most out of it.
(For example, one thing many people do is dip 1 level of Marshal to get +cha to Truespeak, with your book restrictions, this isn't possible.)

Edit: Also, I don't think there are any Truespeak-related infinite loops. Do any exist?

Beyond the advice already given, it should be noted that focusing on the lexicon of the perfected map is probably your best in-combat option besides Knowledge Devotion, as the DC rises slower than the others do.
There's also a slightly cheesy trick with potion tiles (which Zaq agrees would probably work), but given the book restriction, I wouldn't want to abstain from using knowledge devotion and paragnostic assembly.

Pluto
2010-06-14, 07:55 PM
If you pick SpC as your second splatbook, could you get somebody else to make you scrolls/wands/staffs from it?

If you don't pick SpC as your second splatbook and a real caster does, could they make you items of its spells?

Wings of Peace
2010-06-14, 08:13 PM
Here's a link to the Truenamer handbook. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8270.0) :smallsmile:

Zaq
2010-06-14, 08:26 PM
Must be playable from 1st level to 20th lvl, so no build that says: "You need to get this feat thats useless an 3th level but you need it at 10th."

This is going to be hard. One of the many problems facing the Truenamer is the fact that the Utterances you want at low levels are rarely the same as the Utterances you want at high levels, but the Truenamer has no in-class way to swap Utterances known. (Psychic Reformation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm) may or may not work... by the strictest RAW wording, it does not, because there is no default transparency between Utterances and powers, but I think that most GMs would allow it to work.) This makes a 1-to-20 build even more difficult than a standard build.

Just as an example, let's look at the level 1 Utterances. There are five: Defensive Edge, Inertia Surge, Knight's Puissance, Universal Aptitude, and Minor Word of Nurturing. Assuming that you learn the highest levels of Utterances possible (that is, you don't take any more of these once you have access to level 2 Utterances), you'll learn two of these. At high levels, the two of these that are the most applicable are Inertia Surge (Freedom of Movement never goes out of style, and immobilizing foes doesn't suck) and Universal Aptitude (a +5 untyped bonus makes Truespeak checks a lot easier... but just as importantly, it helps every single person who uses skills). However, at level 1, you probably wouldn't have too much fun with either of those. Universal Aptitude might make your resident skillmonkey very happy out of combat (or let you kind of pinch-hit in the skillmonkey role, for a while), but you won't even notice it in a fight. Inertia Surge (especially the reversed version) might be usable, but before you can Quicken or Extend it, you're basically trading your standard action for your foe's move action. Honestly, at level 1, you'd be happier with Minor WoN (1d6 damage isn't totally negligible at this point, and neither is FH 1) or Knight's Puissance (a +2 or –2 to hit might actually make a difference at level 1)... but at higher levels, you'll never use them, and you'll wish you had different ones.

If your GM allows the Paragnostic Assembly, I would take Complete Champion as your allowed book. The bonus gained from it is too great to ignore... and Knowledge Devotion can actually give you a little bit of punch in combat (especially once you can reliably use and/or quicken Universal Aptitude and Hidden Truth), between your INT-focus, all Knowledge skills as class skills, and Knowledge Focus class features.



The character needs to bee a JoaT...

...If you really care about this part, I would go so far as to say that the Truenamer isn't for you. Universal Aptitude only goes so far, and there aren't enough good Utterances in the book to be able to spread out your focus and still be competent. Each Utterance really has to matter on a Truenamer (kind of like spells on a sorcerer, only more so... a Sorc can sling around Glitterdust turn after turn, but due to the LoS, a Truenamer has to dig through his entire arsenal in nearly every encounter), so you can't take too many unfocused or situational ones.

What do you really want to be able to do? If your answer is "a little bit of everything," I don't think you'll end up having too much fun at the table with a Truenamer. What's important to you, really?

Tavar
2010-06-14, 08:32 PM
What does 'JoaT' refer to? And if the DM is open to homebrew, you might try this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488) fix.

Zaq
2010-06-14, 08:33 PM
What does 'JoaT' refer to? And if the DM is open to homebrew, you might try this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488) fix.

Jack of All Trades, I assume.

Tavar
2010-06-14, 08:35 PM
Well, when they get the gate utterance I guess they qualify, but that shouldn't be til rather late in their career.

Zaq
2010-06-15, 10:15 AM
Well, when they get the gate utterance I guess they qualify, but that shouldn't be til rather late in their career.

That's at level 20. Not one level before. No one seems to notice this, and I will never know why. It's not "late," it's at the absolute END.

Scorpions__
2010-06-15, 10:27 AM
If the DM is allowing custom (and there are rules for this in the DMG, they just didn't want to make a gigantic list of what bonuses would cost through 1 - 30) items that give you a comptence bonus to skills, you should definitely invest in this, it will make your truespeaking much more effective.

Do you have a wizard that could craft them in the party?

What is the rest of the party? A bard would be a good little cohort...





DM[F]R

Starbuck_II
2010-06-15, 10:31 AM
Remember a way around resistance:
A higher level doesn't count as a lower.
You can heighten a utterance by increasing DC by 4 per increase of level.

Thus, you never want to use an utterance of same level more than three times (then you increase DC by 4 so the total DC is -2 more).