Truenamer

[drakoonity]

So I was reading like a forum or something somewhere and I remember that they said that the Truenamer build is one of the most powerful ones. I have the book of exalted deeds so I know a little of true name and all that but can someone explain to me if or even how they are so powerful apparently.

[Arcanist]

Is this a serious thread?

[Waker]

Someone told you Truenamer was one of the most powerful builds? Do you remember if the text was blue, as this indicates sarcasm. Generally speaking, Truenamers are viewed as something of an odd class. With a great deal of focus on boosting Truenaming checks (feats, item familiars, MW tools) it can be workable, though hardly comparable to a wizard or cleric who expended the same amount of effort.
I suggest you search for posts by Zaq. I would link you, but I'm currently posting from a tablet.

[Arcanist]

I suggest you search for posts by Zaq.

I did it for you... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115)

[Azernak0]

I dare say that someone was pulling your leg, good sir.

[ArcturusV]

Note that the "Words of Creation" in the Book of Exalted Deeds doesn't actually have anything to do with Truenaming. Other than Truenamers use a bastardized form of The Words of Creation to use their Truenaming Utterances and such. It's merely a fluff connection, not a mechanical one.

I don't even think Truenamers get any benefit out of having the Words of Creation feat, even though with some logic, they should.

[drakoonity]

I thought it was false but I can never be too sure with the builds some people can come up with, thanks anyways for the help.

[Aharon]

They can break WBL via Potion-Tiles - they get extremely superior effects out of potions because they can make them basically daily buffs. So the class goes "very mediocre" from 1-10, to "equivalent in power to DMM persist cleric, but far less flexible" from 11 up.

This build (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=158919) is about 30% over WBL because I read the "spent your own xp on bought items" wrongly, but you can just cut out several redundant effects and still remain in the same ballpark power-wise.

And because it is very badly worded and edited, there is lots of cheese beside that:

Aharon's slightly cheesy exploits.
Rebuild Item on steroids
Eberron has Alchemist Savants, who can put infusions into potions, and thus, into tiles.
Metamagic Item (Persistent Power) can be put into such a tile.
Required source: Tome of Magic, Complete Arcane, Eberron Campaign Setting and Magic of Eberron
Rebuild Item on Crack
Faerun has the Master Alchemist, who can put higher level spells into potions. If you can't persist your spells, you have at least access to higher-level spells than the rest of your group.
Required sources: Tome of Magic, Complete Arcane, Magic of Faerun
Persist your Utterances
The Effect of many utterances is useful enough for their level, but their short duration makes them crappy. Fortunately, metamagic can be applied to spell-like abilities, like utterances, if it doesn't require a spell-slot adjustment. This normally only includes the sudden metamagic feats. But alas! Utterances can be put into wands. And wands can be affected by the infusion Metamagic Item – which allows adding the metamagic without a spell-slot adjustment. Thus, utterances can be persisted. Which makes them good. Especially if you buy wands from a higher-level Truenamer, for getting access to higher-level utterances earlier (Caveat: only works cost-efficiently if you can lower the caster level of your spell-likes, which I'm not entirely sure of)
Polymorph into a Garbler
Profit. You can totally make a truenamer who focuses his feats on meta-utterances, and his money on whatever he pleases– you don't need to divert any resources to your Truespeak-check after a certain level. You can get out defensively uttered quickened and non-quickened empowered enlarged extended (maybe mortalbaned) utterances every round, both no SR. The check would be 50+2*CR, but you don't care at all. And Draconic Polymorph can be persisted...
If you have a bard in your group, it works from level 9th level onward, otherwise, you'll have to wait till 11th level.
Cue Bracers of the Entangling Blast (MIC, p.80). With them, 3/day a spell-like entangles and deals 1 damage per level of the spell-like ability. You always succeed on your check, so... Heightened*10^10 utterances are possible

[prufock]

IF the comment was legit, it was probably a 20th-level truenamer with a seriously optimized truespeak check abusing XP-free Gates all day long.

[Chronos]

You could probably argue that a Truenamer with the Words of Creation feat could use the Words of Creation mechanic to research a personal truename instead of the mechanic in Tome of Magic. It's still a time-consuming process either way, but it's probably easier with WoC.

But since the OP doesn't know anything about Truenamers, a brief summary is in order. The Truenamer gets access to a new skill, Truespeech. He then has a bunch of spell-like abilities which are limited not by spell slots or uses per day, but by skill checks: Whenever you use one of your utterances, you have to roll a skill check to see if it works, and every time you use an utterance, the DC for using that utterance goes up by 2 for the rest of the day (so eventually, the checks will get too hard to make, thus limiting how often you can use them).

The problem with this is twofold. First, the DC for the skill check is 15 plus twice your target's CR. This means that every time you level up, your typical opponents get two points harder to affect, which means that, to keep up, you need to increase your skill check by at least two points per level. One point is easy: You put ranks in the skill. Getting that second point, though, requires some pretty serious optimization, and if you don't put in that optimization, you'll actually get worse at what you do as you level up.

The second problem is that, even if you do manage to get your abilities to work consistently, most of them are pretty underwhelming. None of them lasts for longer than five rounds per "casting", most of them affect only one target at a time, and none of them can incapacitate an enemy. They do have a few abilities that are completely unlike anything any other class gets, and some utterances lack saves and SR, so a great optimizer can still get some use out of the class, but it's still pretty tough, and you could get a lot more out of that level of optimization from almost any other class.

[thethird]

Well they can use gate more or less at will. Isn't that OP?

[Psyren]

Well they can use gate more or less at will. Isn't that OP?

At level 20 balance is out the window anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

[Arcanist]

At level 20 balance is out the window anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

At 20th level, what tier is the Truenamer anyway?

[cerin616]

Level 20 the wizard can pretty much do the same.

Truenamers are sad because in my opinion its the coolest mechanic in the game. I learn a spell and i can either cast it forward or backward to boost/penalize something.

Its sad that its so weak, because its the best flavor.

[Psyren]

At 20th level, what tier is the Truenamer anyway?

T2 or T1 depending on how favorably you view gate abuse. The truly powerful stuff to Gate in is in the ELH and DaD, but 3.0 material requires DM approval by default.


Level 20 the wizard can pretty much do the same.

Truenamers are sad because in my opinion its the coolest mechanic in the game. I learn a spell and i can either cast it forward or backward to boost/penalize something.

Its sad that its so weak, because its the best flavor.

I suggest you take a look at Kyeudo's Truenamer fix in my sig. He did a great job of preserving the flavor and uniqueness of the mechanics, while simultaneously making them useful at all levels.

[Bonzai]

I've played a Truenamer from 3rd to 15th level. I was pretty optimized, and I can say that they can do ok, but it's not till the last few levels that they get the high powered stuff. Gate at will, the ability to consistently break mods by interrogating the dungeon, giving people permanent ghost touch, etc...

The last couple levels give you some nice power, but until then you are waaay behind the curve, getting things much later than a normal caster would.

[Zaq]

I've apparently taught folks well, since most of what I was going to say has been said already. That said, if you have any other questions, lemme know.

[Chronos]

A 20th level truenamer certainly isn't tier 1: Yes, they get access to one of the game-breaking tricks, and an especially good version of it at that, but they only get access to one trick. Like a sorcerer who can take a broken spell as a spell known, they get access to some power, but not to all of it.

[Piggy Knowles]

I don't know, I feel like the tier 1/tier 2 difference breaks down once spells like Shapechange or Gate (assuming you can deal with/bypass the XP issue) come online. At that point a tier 2 character meets pretty much every definition I've seen of a tier 1.

Other tier 1 classes might do it better, but if you get Gate more or less at will, the difference becomes more academic than anything else.

[Mithril Leaf]

I don't know, I feel like the tier 1/tier 2 difference breaks down once spells like Shapechange or Gate (assuming you can deal with/bypass the XP issue) come online. At that point a tier 2 character meets pretty much every definition I've seen of a tier 1.

Other tier 1 classes might do it better, but if you get Gate more or less at will, the difference becomes more academic than anything else.

Literally at will once you polymorph into a Garbler.

[Zombulian]

A 20th level truenamer certainly isn't tier 1: Yes, they get access to one of the game-breaking tricks, and an especially good version of it at that, but they only get access to one trick. Like a sorcerer who can take a broken spell as a spell known, they get access to some power, but not to all of it.

The issue here is you are ignoring that there are more than just the 1 trick. Like abusing Rebuild Item.

[Axinian]

I remember Solo did a "guide" to Truenamers once, claiming they were one of the most overpowered classes. He invented "the Riddler Truenamer" to counter "the Batman Wizard". Really it was just a treatise on why UMD is overpowered in disguise. Was pretty funny. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8270)

[Trunamer]

So I was reading like a forum or something somewhere and I remember that they said that the Truenamer build is one of the most powerful ones. I have the book of exalted deeds so I know a little of true name and all that but can someone explain to me if or even how they are so powerful apparently.
It's true! Truenamers are the greatest overpowered fun class in 3.x. :smallsmile:

I take no responsibility for disappointments that result from this statement.

[Aharon]

I remember Solo did a "guide" to Truenamers once, claiming they were one of the most overpowered classes. He invented "the Riddler Truenamer" to counter "the Batman Wizard". Really it was just a treatise on why UMD is overpowered in disguise. Was pretty funny. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8270)

Actually, it was compared to the "Joker Monk", a build that can be found at this very board. Here's a link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80704) to it.