Why is True Naming Broken?

[NineThePuma]

Self explanatory.

[Veyr]

One: It's broken in the sense that it's nigh-unusable, not that it's overpowered. At level 20, you can get Gate that in theory you can use at-will so long as you can hit the DC, but until then the Truenamer is useless.

Two: The DCs scale at an absurd rate, so you cannot actually hit them without extensive skillcheck-optimizing.

Three: Once you do, the Law of Resistance means it'll be harder to hit them the next time.

Three: The Law of Sequence greatly limits your ability to use Utterances.

Four: Perhaps most importantly, none of the effects of Utterances are all that impressive. In fact, most are downright underwhelming, weaker even than Invocations of the same level. There's a few exceptions (most notably that Gate one), but very few.


Bonus: They also forgot entirely to include the DC formula for one of the three Lexicons. I think they added it back in the Errata, but seriously now.

[TroubleBrewing]

Lots of reasons. Chief among them is the way it works: the DC to use one of your utterances on a creature is equal to 15 + 2xCR of the creature in question. It actually gets harder to use the better you are at it.

[Zaq]

One: It's broken in the sense that it's nigh-unusable, not that it's overpowered. At level 20, you can get Gate that in theory you can use at-will so long as you can hit the DC, but until then the Truenamer is useless.

Two: The DCs scale at an absurd rate, so you cannot actually hit them without extensive skillcheck-optimizing.

Three: Once you do, the Law of Resistance means it'll be harder to hit them the next time.

Three: The Law of Sequence greatly limits your ability to use Utterances.

Four: Perhaps most importantly, none of the effects of Utterances are all that impressive. In fact, most are downright underwhelming, weaker even than Invocations of the same level. There's a few exceptions (most notably that Gate one), but very few.


Bonus: They also forgot entirely to include the DC formula for one of the three Lexicons. I think they added it back in the Errata, but seriously now.

Someone . . . someone understands!

No, no, don't mind those splotches. Those are just tears of joy that I don't have to sigh and explain that no, the Truenamer's problems only start at the ridiculous DCs, and by no means do they end there.

It's . . . refreshing. Thank you.

Anyway, here you go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114269). I did it so you don't have to. Learn from my experience.

[Veyr]

Someone . . . someone understands!
Only thanks to you, actually; I have read about your experiences. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have been able to put up with it for as long as you did.

[Zaq]

Still, it's nice to see my work recognized.

And yeah, I just had to give up eventually. There's a reason I switched to a DFA when I just couldn't take any more Truenaming. I enjoy optimizing, but after the Truenamer I just needed a class that optimizes itself.

[JaronK]

Basically, the class was an idea that was never properly tested at all. Until level 20 it's underwhelming entirely, and then at level 20 it's overpowered... but only with its one singular trick (how boring is that?). The skill DCs thing is messed up... either you optimize it till the DCs don't matter, or you don't hit them at all (in practice). That's terrible design. And then once you do hit them who cares?

It's just a really badly made class. There's a good reason I refer to Tome of Magic as "Tome of Binders, some neat magic items, and the Dark template."

JaronK

[Lans]

Hey now, the DCs are easy to hit as long as the target is an Animal Companion or a Familiar

Plus there is room between never getting high enough and always succeding

Some of the effects are nice, rebuild item, metamagic catalyst, good chunk of the perfected map. These ones have easily doable DCs.


One: It's broken in the sense that it's nigh-unusable, not that it's overpowered. At level 20, you can get Gate that in theory you can use at-will so long as you can hit the DC, but until then the Truenamer is useless.
Solid Fog at eighth


Two: The DCs scale at an absurd rate, so you cannot actually hit them without extensive skillcheck-optimizing.
2 of the lexicons have much easier DCs


Three: Once you do, the Law of Resistance means it'll be harder to hit them the next time. The fact that you can try to do it again is a bonus of sorts

[RaggedAngel]

I'm currently playing a Red Hand of Doom (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183398) game as a level 6 Truenamer using nothing but RAW. I'm doing pretty well for myself.

I'm nothing spectacular, mind, and I had to put a lot of work into Aria, but she's at least as good as an average Bard. Knowledge Devotion fills in a lot of mechanical holes, and judicious use of roleplaying does the rest. There's a big fight in the first few pages; however, I will note that the game is a published one, so reading into it will give spoilers.

[Mojo_Rat]

basically without skill focus trena,ing (which you likely already have) and a +skill item which you may not you will eventually be unable to succeed. it's been a long time though.

I thought the idea was neat though.

[Ravens_cry]

Oh my god, the idea, is fantastic. If I thought psionics, once you strip out the silly pseudo scientific naming conventions, had a nice primal "Will to Power" feel, this, this is what I think of when I think of magic that is magical.
"In the Beginning Was the Word" indeed.
The execution was murder however.

[Lans]

basically without skill focus trena,ing (which you likely already have) and a +skill item which you may not you will eventually be unable to succeed. it's been a long time though.

I thought the idea was neat though.

Against equal CR opponents the point where you cant succeed is 8. Skill focus ups this to 11, ever point of intelligence modifier ups this by 1, masterwork tool ups this by 2.

[Doc Roc]

Still, it's nice to see my work recognized.

And yeah, I just had to give up eventually. There's a reason I switched to a DFA when I just couldn't take any more Truenaming. I enjoy optimizing, but after the Truenamer I just needed a class that optimizes itself. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/4/)

I remain tremendously grateful for your efforts, Zaq. If you are ever in Nevada, Virginia, California, or certain parts of Alaska, I will insure you receive a beer.

Gentlefolk, learn from Zaq's example, and his suffering. Remember, seven out of eleven players who use truenamer lose their ability to taste ice cream.

[Cartigan]

I hear it is alternately terribly awesome and awesomely terrible depending on the character level.

[gbprime]

I hear it is alternately terribly awesome and awesomely terrible depending on the character level.

Depending on the character level, yes. That's the key. The lackluster nature of the abilities are a secondary concern, as even lackluster stuff has a niche where it could be useful.

No, the problem in plain english is as follows...

You have to make a skill check to do anything. Every level your skill goes up by 1, but the DC you need to succeed goes up by 2.

So you need to optimize and get "bonus to roll" gear just to survive, or else be doomed to picking only on the cannon fodder. And even that fails to keep up with it after a while.

By 6th level, if you optimize and take every bonus you can get your hands on, you have roughly a 30% chance of failing and wasting your action. And every level after that, your chance of failure goes up by 5% unless you upgrade your equipment to compensate.

Sad, because the concept is nice.

[JaronK]

Well, the DC issue can be fixed by taking an Item Familiar (which effectively gives you two ranks in that skill per level instead of one). And if you're going for that much optimization, a +10 item is just logical. It's not long till you basically auto succeed. But that's when you realize the abilities you're now automatically getting to use really aren't better than the abilities a Warlock or Binder automatically gets to use anyway... and you don't have nearly the flexibility of the latter class. And then you realize you should have been playing a Binder or Warlock the whole time.

JaronK

[Lans]

Immobilization at 1, Solid Fog at eighth and Gate at 20 are its abilities that are the best at level.


The rest are meh. Though if you get turned into a garbler you can oneshot any thing with arbitrarily high DC effects. I think, I might be wrong on this one.

[Zaq]

Immobilization at 1, Solid Fog at eighth and Gate at 20 are its abilities that are the best at level.


The rest are meh. Though if you get turned into a garbler you can oneshot any thing with arbitrarily high DC effects. I think, I might be wrong on this one.

You are wrong. The save DC of Utterances has nothing to do with the DC of the Truespeak check. That said, there are enough Utterances that don't allow saves that we can mostly ignore the Truenamer's weak save mechanic.

[RaggedAngel]

You are wrong. The save DC of Utterances has nothing to do with the DC of the Truespeak check. That said, there are enough Utterances that don't allow saves that we can mostly ignore the Truenamer's weak save mechanic.

Why, dear lord, why did they have Cha be the save stat? I understand that they were trying to distance it from wizards, but the Shadowcaster does the exact same thing.

*sigh.* Who wrote the Tome of Magic? I want to send them a letter. This kind of letter. (http://xkcd.com/325/)

[Laniius]

Why, dear lord, why did they have Cha be the save stat? I understand that they were trying to distance it from wizards, but the Shadowcaster does the exact same thing.

*sigh.* Who wrote the Tome of Magic? I want to send them a letter. This kind of letter. (http://xkcd.com/325/)

...I like the binder

[Lans]

You are wrong. The save DC of Utterances has nothing to do with the DC of the Truespeak check. That said, there are enough Utterances that don't allow saves that we can mostly ignore the Truenamer's weak save mechanic.
Your right. I thought it was based on the level of the Utterance, which could be increased.

[JaronK]

Hey, no beating on the guys who made the Binder! That's an awesome, fun, original class that's actually balanced nicely. Also, the Dark template is pretty darn solid, and there's some great magic items in the Shadow Magic Items section.

Shadowcasters aren't made properly, of course, and True Namers should never have existed (or should have been completely reworked).

JaronK

[Lans]

Shadowcasters can be fixed by giving it more slots. Its abilities are pretty decent, but it doesn't have enough versatility or spam-ability on them.