My Truenamer Fix

[Segial]

After reading Patric Rothfuss "The Name of the Wind" (which I can only highly recommend) I was pondering how I would build Kvothe as a D&D character. Recently one of my players asked me for a new and interesting character concept and I stumbled on the Truenamer from "Tome of Magic". After reading about the class it became obvious that the class is not playable as it is. So I read up on the suggested fixes for the class on this board and others. Some of them are very extensive, but I want to try a fix that stays as close to the source material as possible and still make the class play- and enjoyable. What it boiled down to as to why the class sucks is: the DC calculation was flawed, the class lacked versatility and the law of resistance would increase the DCs so quickly that the class would run out of utterances fast. The core idea to fix this, as suggested by Story Time, is that the law of resistance does not apply to utterances when the truename of the subject is used in the utterance. Which pretty much means a truenamer can use his utterances on himself as much as he likes, and also on those allies, enemies or items whose truename he has researched.

Here is what I would change/add to the class:

Add Bluff, Diplomacy, Decipher Script, Listen, Speak Language and Perform to class skills.

Utterances:
Beginning at 3rd level and every subsequent odd level thereafter a truenamer can learn a new utterance in place of one he already knows. In effect, he gains access to a new utterance in exchange for one he already knows. The new utterance must be of the same lexicon and level as the one that is replaced.

Utterance Difficulty Check
15 + [Character Level or Challenge Rating or Item Level] + Utterance Level + Law of Resistance -2 [if a personal truename is used]

Law of Resistance:
If a truenamer uses a subject's personal truename along with their utterance, the Universe will not resist such impeccable grammar.


How well you think that fix will work? And on which tier would you rank such a truenamer?

[Kobold-Bard]

1. It's Truenamer, not Truemancer.

2. Have you seen Kyeudo's Truenaming Fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488)? It does exactly what you want, with just a slight difference in the Utterance DCs. I've used it and it was pretty sweet.

So given that it's so similar to Kyeudo's, which I like: yes, I approve of your fix.

I'm not sure if a working Truenamer is Tier 3 or 4, I think low T3 since it can usually do something in most situations, rather than being a one trick pony with some versatility on the side. But I'm not a big tier person so I could be misunderstanding them.

[Segial]

1. Oops, yes. I edited it.

2. Yes I read Kyeudo's fix, and I took the idea of the class skills from it. But I think Story Times fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227911) is actually better. Both tackle the DC problem, but only Story Time proposes a suitable fix for what to do with the law of resistance, while Kyeudo's fix instead added tons of interesting fluff without solving the underlying problem.

[Tavar]

The Law of Resistance isn't a problem, any more than the Wizard having a finite number of spell slots is. The issue is that, for a truenamer, their utterances don't give that much benefit, and you're likely to need to use one multiple times due to a shortage of good ones. Kyeudo's fix addresses the former issue, but I'm not sure that yours really addresses the latter one.

[sonofzeal]

Utterances need better range, duration, and an earlier method of affecting multiple targets. Honestly I'd be fine if the DC was just reduced by a flat 5, as long as the utterances were worth using.