New dirty trick: Truespeech SLAs

[Chronos]

So, everyone knows that the Truespeaker itself is poorly-designed, and can't actually do much even if you can make the Truespeech DCs. But there are also some interesting spells from that portion of Tome of Magic. For instance, consider Truename Dispelling, an 8th-level spell for wizards, clerics, or druids (6th for bards), on page 260. It's like Dispel Magic targeted on a creature, except that you can learn all of the spell effects on the target, and pick and choose which ones you want to dispel, and you don't need to make a dispel check to do it (nor is there a save or spell resistance). That's pretty much the ultimate high-level debuff, there.

There's a catch, of course: The spell has a truename component, which requires you to correctly speak the personal truename of your target. So not only do you have to make a relatively difficult skill check that a 15th-level spellcaster probably isn't optimized to make, but you also have to find out your target's personal truename in the first place, which is generally a lot of hassle, and will be useless once you finish killing him.

Except... There are a number of ways to convert spells to spell-like abilities, and spell-like abilities don't have any components (thus, no truename component). Now, most methods of converting spells to SLAs explicitly say that you can't use them on spells that have XP costs, or expensive material components, but none of them says a thing about truename components.

Now, this particular spell is too high-level to use with a Factotum's arcane dilettante ability (though there are several lower-level truename spells that can), but it's still eligible for the Archmage's SLA ability, and if you're epic and have an epic familiar, you could also use it with Familiar Spell (which epic familiars get for free, anyway).

Presto, now you can start off any encounter by removing all of your enemy's active buffs, with no roll of any sort required, and as an extra bonus, you learn a lot about your opponent's capabilities.

[thethird]

This isn't particularly new...

First time I saw it used hierophant to get access to Unname as a spell like ability though.

[Chronos]

Hm, OK, I should have realized that someone beat me to it. Got a link?

I think that Truename Dispel is still a more potent spell to use it with than Unname, though. Unname still allows a Fort save and spell resistance, and really isn't all that much more devastating than a simple Finger of Death-- Yeah, it's harder to raise someone from it, but you can take steps to stop raising easily enough, once your target is dead.

[Evolved Shrimp]

Getting rid of the truename component of a spell by converting it to an SLA does not appear to work, according to the rules: Going by the Rules Compendium, SLAs specifically do not require material components (emphasis mine) - not simply "components".

Since, apart from specific noted differences, "an SLA works just like the spell of the same name", it follows that the conversion from spell to SLA alone does not get rid of the requirement of a truename component.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Getting rid of the truename component of a spell by converting it to an SLA does not appear to work, according to the rules: Going by the Rules Compendium, SLAs specifically do not require material components (emphasis mine) - not simply "components".

Since, apart from specific noted differences, "an SLA works just like the spell of the same name", it follows that the conversion from spell to SLA alone does not get rid of the requirement of a truename component.Archmage's ability supercedes this:
Spell-Like Ability
An archmage who selects this type of high arcana can use one of her arcane spell slots (other than a slot expended to learn this or any other type of high arcana) to permanently prepare one of her arcane spells as a spell-like ability that can be used twice per day. The archmage does not use any components when casting the spell, although a spell that costs XP to cast still does so and a spell with a costly material component instead costs her 10 times that amount in XP.Emphasis mine. Other methods would require that text, though.

[thethird]

I saw it here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240008). Although since it is a repost and it is not given a lot of importance, it is probably older.

[Chronos]

As I understand it, the Rules Compendium can clarify an unclear rule from a primary source, but it isn't itself actually a primary source. So the SRD's rules for spell-like abilities would be the governing ones.

That said, though, it looks like the SRD doesn't actually say that SLAs don't use components. What it actually says is that they don't use verbal, somatic, material, focus, or XP components. While this is a complete list of all of the types of components found in core spells, it doesn't actually say anything about other types of components added by later books. So it looks like, in general, a truespeech spell converted to an SLA does still require a truename component :(. Ah, well.

GoodbyeSoberDay, that's a good find that the Archmage's ability does still work, but I was really hoping to get it to work other ways, too.

[Anthrowhale]

Supernatural Spell from Dweomerkeeper removes all components. Furthermore, the choice of spell is made on the fly rather than committed to as a class ability which makes it more viable as a strategy for a general purpose build.