how *fun* is a truenamer *post-fix*

[CyberThread]

How fun is a truenamer, after it is sort of fixed and stuff.

[Chronos]

Impossible to answer, without saying how it's fixed. At its very foundation, it's just another way of saying "I do magic, and magical things happen as a result". As such, it can potentially be exactly as fun as any other magical class. The problem is just that it doesn't work very well.

[flare'90]

If you remove the Law of Resistance and the Law of Sequence you probably get a decent Tier 3-4 class (until 20th level, when you get Gate at-will).

How fun it is i don't know, depends on the player, his expectations of the class, the utterances chose, the campaign and other factors.

[Psyren]

As I suggested in this thread, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292352) Kyeudo's fix captures the flavor of the original but with functioning mechanics. The link is in my sig if you want to check it out. I pimp it every chance I get because he deserves it.

It also shows ways you can retool the Laws to keep their intent - a meaningful limitation - without harming the class as a whole.

[Blackhawk748]

i've used them as NPCs but i havent played one, I also recommend letting the Truenamer use this http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15063651#post15063651 as it makes them a substantially larger threat. It was funny because my players had no idea what was attacking them, and wasnt sure how to counter them. All in all they are a nice change to normal caster, obviously when fixed.

[eggynack]

If you remove the Law of Resistance and the Law of Sequence you probably get a decent Tier 3-4 class (until 20th level, when you get Gate at-will).

How fun it is i don't know, depends on the player, his expectations of the class, the utterances chose, the campaign and other factors.
I honestly doubt that it could hit tier three. Even after you get past those horrible rules, you're still looking at a generally sub par collection of abilities. There's just not enough there to make them more powerful than a warlock, though there might be enough to make them as powerful as a warlock.

[Blackhawk748]

remember, Truenamer utterances are not subject to SR, and thats freakin useful

[Psyren]

remember, Truenamer utterances are not subject to SR, and thats freakin useful

Actually they are - you can raise the Truespeak DC to make them not be, but that also makes them harder to use. And they're still subject to things like immunity or globe of invulnerability even if you do that.

[Darth Stabber]

On a purely conceptual level how can you not have fun with a character that realizes he's in a videogame and has learned C++ to hack the code to grant himself effects (that's roughly how the class work in my head).

[Chronos]

Of course, a "fixed truenamer" could also mean doing things like increasing their number of utterances known, or creating new utterances that they can learn, which could very easily turn them from being "about as good as a warlock" to something more like "about as good as a sorcerer".

[eggynack]

Of course, a "fixed truenamer" could also mean doing things like increasing their number of utterances known, or creating new utterances that they can learn, which could very easily turn them from being "about as good as a warlock" to something more like "about as good as a sorcerer".
This is very true. My comment was particularly referring to a truenamer who has the removal of laws as his only change. If utterances were basically just spells, then utterances would basically just be spells, and the truenamer would gain a higher tier as a result. I don't know where the particular boundaries are where the truenamer would gain sorcerer power, or even wizard power, but they certainly exist.

[Psyren]

On a purely conceptual level how can you not have fun with a character that realizes he's in a videogame and has learned C++ to hack the code to grant himself effects (that's roughly how the class work in my head).

Amen!


Of course, a "fixed truenamer" could also mean doing things like increasing their number of utterances known, or creating new utterances that they can learn, which could very easily turn them from being "about as good as a warlock" to something more like "about as good as a sorcerer".

Nah - Kyeudo's is good, but still T3 rather than T2. The Utterances are midway in power between invocations and spells, which is fitting since you get a lot of uses/day, but not infinite thanks to the LoR.

[Alienist]

A lot of the time the amount of fun is proportional to the number of options. Increase the number of options and you increase the fun.

So I recommend increasing the number of utterances they know at each level (doubling it would be a good start) and/or coming up with more utterances.

The Truenamer is the BEST healer in the game by a large margin. If you find the heal/support-bot role to be unfun, then starting with the Truenamer as a base and then trying to make it fun is like starting with a dog and trying to breed cats. Ain't nobody got time for that.

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To make the original Truenamer functional it is as simple as optimising a single skill check. For some reason the gitp forum is quite happy to do that for things like jumplomancers, artificers or diplomancers, but when Truenamer pops up suddenly everyone goes full retard. Go figure.

At higher levels you only need to be getting better than +2 to the skill each time you level up, and you already get +1 from skill ranks.* Every +2 better than that which you can do increases the amount of spells you can cast of all levels. Effectively a +2 to skill is like a bonus spell, but not just one bonus spell, or a bonus level 1 spell, or even a bonus spell for each different level of spells you have. It's a bonus spell, for each spell that you know!

Never has any class offered so much in return for so little effort and yet been so universally reviled.

*And here someone will moan that you are forced to invest those ranks in Truespeech. Mein Gott! A skill based character that invests skill points in the skill that their character is based around! How terrible! //sarcasm

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Skill based classes (e.g. classes with a skill as the central mechanic (see also Artificer)) suck in 3.5 The system just isn't built to handle them. Either you optimise the skill in question, which makes the mechanics trivial yet annoying (for the Artificer you end up with a huge amount of paperwork that boils down to "yes you make the item"), or you don't and you can't function according to the label on the tin (in the case of the artificer you don't get the item and all that time, gold and xp/crafting pool is wasted (thank you for playing - or you could just have been a regular spellcaster and blown one feat for guaranteed success. D'oh!!!)).

The biggest fix for Truenaming would be to have Truespeech go die in a fire somewhere. After you get rid of that boat anchor, suddenly the good ship SS Truenamer can actually go places.

What that would look like I don't know. For a fun exercise, you could consider making the Truenamer mechanics similar to the ones in the Tomb of Battle which everyone round here loves. E.g. you need to figure out a refresh mechanic ...

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An interesting alternative would be for the Truenamer to secretly play by a different system (they are anyway), so you could use the Legend rules and make a Runesong Scholar with the Words of Power feat.

[TuggyNE]

To make the original Truenamer functional it is as simple as optimising a single skill check. For some reason the gitp forum is quite happy to do that for things like jumplomancers, artificers or diplomancers, but when Truenamer pops up suddenly everyone goes full retard. Go figure.

Mostly, it's because diplomancy (in its various forms) requires strong cheese (by most people's standards); hardly anyone around here expects to actually play one, it's just fun to talk about in an abstract sense. The fact that the Truenamer requires, as far as I can tell, comparable levels of investment (or even more, depending), is actually where the problem is: requiring cheesy tricks just to get the thing up and running at baseline competence is most distressing! (And, as far as I can tell, Artificer skill checks are for considerably lower DCs. Or are there DC 75 [15 + CR20*2 + 20 quicken] checks being thrown around at the start of the day for Artificer 20s as they craft?)

The extent to which Truenamer competence requires cheese is of course subjective, but I believe that's the thought process involved for most of us.

[Chronos]

Quoth Alienist:

To make the original Truenamer functional it is as simple as optimising a single skill check. For some reason the gitp forum is quite happy to do that for things like jumplomancers, artificers or diplomancers, but when Truenamer pops up suddenly everyone goes full retard. Go figure.
Well, first of all, as tuggyne says, that level of optimization shouldn't be necessary for the class to just plain function. You should be able to run a Truenamer using nothing but the PHB and the Tome of Magic, but you really can't. I mean, when I'm giving a test to students, I generally give them one point just for getting their name right. But a level 20 human truenamer, using every skill booster available to him from PHB+ToM, can't even do that a third of the time.

Second, though, it's just not possible to optimize Truespeech to the same extent as most other skills. You want to boost your Jump checks? Easy, just cast the Jump spell. Want to boost Bluff checks? Easy, just cast Glibness. Want to boost Truespeech? Easy, just cast... Oh, wait... I guess there isn't anything like Jump or Glibness available for Truespeech. Nor are there synergy bonuses, nor the assorted odd little boosters like how movement speed increases Jump, nor is there even an item that gives more than +10. Even the meagre boosts you can get, you have to dig pretty deep for: When was the last time you saw anyone suggest using an Item Familiar for anything other than Truenamer? Even the Jumplomancer doesn't use one.

[Psyren]

To make the original Truenamer functional it is as simple as optimising a single skill check. For some reason the gitp forum is quite happy to do that for things like jumplomancers, artificers or diplomancers, but when Truenamer pops up suddenly everyone goes full retard. Go figure.

Could you have phrased that any more obnoxiously? :smallsigh:

You're forgetting that nobody (or at least, very few people) actually plays a Jumplo/diplomancer. It's TO. Item Familiars and +30 competence items being required just doesn't feel right to many people. And artificers aren't even relevant, because they don't require anything near that level of optimization to be good.

And what do you get out of all that? A Diplomancer with that level of optimization can attract the attention of a god and then make him a cohort. A jumplo can do the same, by backflipping instead of talking. An artificer can make anything in the game that isn't an artifact. And the truenamer... gets a hard to resist but mediocre DoT, the ability to fly for a little while, the ability to boost someone else's CL a bit etc. At least until he gets infini-Gate, but the DC for that is fixed so you didn't need much optimization there either.

Better to fix the system as a whole than pour all that cheese into something that barely yields dividends until 20 levels in.

[Alienist]

Could you have phrased that any more obnoxiously? :smallsigh:


That would have required effort.

NB: "Full retard" is a reference to Tropical Thunder. Nobody in that movie was actually retarded.

If you understand the reference it's not actually any more obnoxious than the usual order of business on the forums.



You're forgetting that nobody (or at least, very few people) actually plays a Jumplo/diplomancer. It's TO. Item Familiars and +30 competence items being required just doesn't feel right to many people. And artificers aren't even relevant, because they don't require anything near that level of optimization to be good.

And what do you get out of all that? A Diplomancer with that level of optimization can attract the attention of a god and then make him a cohort. A jumplo can do the same, by backflipping instead of talking. An artificer can make anything in the game that isn't an artifact. And the truenamer... gets a hard to resist but mediocre DoT, the ability to fly for a little while, the ability to boost someone else's CL a bit etc. At least until he gets infini-Gate, but the DC for that is fixed so you didn't need much optimization there either.


Artificers ARE relevant, because you need to make skill checks to use your class features.


Better to fix the system as a whole than pour all that cheese into something that barely yields dividends until 20 levels in.

I'm sorry, maybe I was being too subtle. Next time I'll emphasise that. Oh wait, I already did.



The biggest fix for Truenaming would be to have Truespeech go die in a fire somewhere. After you get rid of that boat anchor, suddenly the good ship SS Truenamer can actually go places.


What do I have to do, wrap it in blink tags?

You rushed right past my BOLD ITALIC UNDERLINED point, which was done with maximum emphasis, and ended your post by telling me that the proper fix is something that I already Ninja'ed you with in my original post, with maximum emphasis.

Which perfectly illustrates my point about the forum going 'full retard' over the Truenamer. Make sure you understand what I'm saying. You're a smart person. I'm not saying you are retarded. Absolutely not saying that. There's just something about the Truenamer and skills optimisation that flips a switch in people's brains and acts like a red flag to a bull.

[Psyren]

Artificers ARE relevant, because you need to make skill checks to use your class features.

Not all of them (no check required for Infusions) and anyway,the DCs for baseline effectiveness are much lower.



What do I have to do, wrap it in blink tags?

You rushed right past my BOLD ITALIC UNDERLINED point, which was done with maximum emphasis, and ended your post by telling me that the proper fix is something that I already Ninja'ed you with in my original post, with maximum emphasis.

You're the one overreacting here. Is this tone necessary?

Truespeech "dying in a fire" implies that skill-based casting can't work. It can, as Kellus and Kyeudo have proven.

[Alienist]

Not all of them (no check required for Infusions) and anyway,the DCs for baseline effectiveness are much lower.



You're the one overreacting here. Is this tone necessary?

Truespeech "dying in a fire" implies that skill-based casting can't work. It can, as Kellus and Kyeudo have proven.

You're attributing to me things that aren't there and that I'm not saying. Don't do that. I don't appreciate it, and it's against forum rules. You're better than that.

[Psyren]

You're attributing to me things that aren't there and that I'm not saying. Don't do that. I don't appreciate it, and it's against forum rules. You're better than that.

So is ascribing the word "retard" to groups of people, even if you're quoting a movie. You're better than that.

It seems to me you're intent on picking a fight, so I'll just leave the discussion there.

[Vauron]

To hit CR 20 at level 20, base skills ranks (+20) plus the greater amulet of the silver tongue (+20) cancels out the CR. From that point on, every additional +2 is a bonus spell for every spell you have.

The optimisation threshold where you flip over from "cannot hit the broad side of a barn" to "holy tongue twister batman!" is surprisingly low.

Skill points + 1 vanilla item.

Everything after that is cream.

This is incorrect in two ways. First, the number of ranks you would have at 20 would be 23. Second, there is no +20 truespeak item. Unless you are using custom items, all you will ever get is a +10 item.

As such, you aren't rolling to hit DC (15-INT-3) to do anything to your party members, you are trying to hit (22-INT-3).

[Alienist]

This is incorrect in two ways. First, the number of ranks you would have at 20 would be 23. Second, there is no +20 truespeak item. Unless you are using custom items, all you will ever get is a +10 item.

As such, you aren't rolling to hit DC (15-INT-3) to do anything to your party members, you are trying to hit (22-INT-3).

You're right. I was going to delete it because of the error, but you were too fast.

[Alienist]

So is ascribing the word "retard" to groups of people, even if you're quoting a movie. You're better than that.

It seems to me you're intent on picking a fight, so I'll just leave the discussion there.

Well no, I didn't call anyone a retard. You were a lot closer to flaming me with your 'obnoxious' than I ever was with the phrase "goes full retard". You can't strip the "goes full" from the "retard" without changing it's meaning, so again I point out that you're breaking the forum rules by doing so.

I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you, I was trying to point out that even though we both have some of the same fundamental ideas about the class, as soon as someone says that optimising truespeech isn't so bad everyone rushes past everything else they say and starts banging on that one particular point. Which you did. I wasn't trying to pick on you, you simply provided the perfect illustration of that principle.

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Is it hard to optimise true speech? Don't take my word for it, lets look at what Zaq has to say on the subject, since he is regarded as an authority:


"The Truenamer's viability depends 100% on your ability to pump your Truespeak check. If your check is too low, you'll waste most of your actions in combat, and you'll be a dead weight. However, once you go book diving, it's not THAT hard to get up to fairly reasonable checks. I'll be writing this from the perspective of having a 90% or better chance to use your utterances successfully, which isn't that hard to get."


also


"However, you wouldn't be playing a Truenamer without supercharging your Truespeak rolls, would you?"


(From the discussion about Quickening Utterances)

Also, to answer the OP original point another Zaq quote:

"This is huge. This is huger than huge. This is what makes the Truenamer worth playing"


More fodder for the OP to consider:

"I don't think a Truenamer can be played at every level. You learn Utterances very slowly, and since you can't retrain them, it's a huge help to not have to take the utterances that become obsolete. Likewise, affording the proper magic items and getting the proper affiliations with the Paragnostic Assembly is much easier at high level than at low level. I don't think you'd be very happy playing a level 1 Truenamer, with your one utterance known and nothing else.

Ideally, you'd start at level 9 at the earliest, since that's when you get Quicken Utterance (which is, as stated above, what makes Truenamers worth using). However, I think you could be viable as low as level 5 or 6, since by then you have enough utterances to have options in battle and enough wealth to have at least a +5 item if not a +10."

Regarding optimising the truespeech:

"At level 10, I have a total of +53 to Truespeak checks, from ranks (13), INT (+5), Illumian Sigils (+2), Skill Focus (+3), a Greater Amulet of the Silver Tongue (+10 enhancement), a ring of competence (+10 competence, see my comments on this below), and the bonus from membership in the Paragnostic Assembly (+10 unnamed, also see below)."

Regarding getting an extra +10 to truespeech:

"My ring of +10 competence to Truespeak is the one and only bonus I have that isn't explicitly laid out in a book somewhere. The DMG tables are pretty clear about how to make a skill-bonus item, so I really don't think there's anything esoteric or broken here, but it's still, by the strictest definition, a custom item. I was going to go without it, but it was my GM's idea. Given the opportunity, I felt I would be foolish not to take it... but honestly I don't think it's necessary. The Truenamer's power level jumps sharply with it, but I don't think it's truly unplayable without one, at least not around the level I've been playing. Quickening will be harder, but not impossible."


The truenamer's power level jumps sharply with it, but I don't think it's truly unplayable without it.

Interesting.



So far, I've found two major limitations: the Law of Sequence and the duration of utterances. I haven't had any problems making the necessary checks, especially with Universal Aptitude up.


I haven't had any difficulty making the necessary checks. Fascinating.



Extend Utterance is a lifesaver here, as the +5 really isn't difficult to do, and doubling the duration helps a lot.


The +5 is no major difficulty. Intriguing.

See: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114269 for details

There's more along those lines. Nothing in Zaq's dissertation fails to support my assertion that people blow the truespeech optimisation issue way out of proportion.

From memory his conclusion was that having played one Truenamer there was no need to play another. They have so few options for utterances that you would tend to cherry pick the best ones and thus the second Truenamer would be a carbon copy of the first one.

But because it requires optimising a skill, the guy who wrote the tier system won't put it on the tiers, and because he won't add it to the tier system everyone loses their minds.*

*Disclaimer: the phrase "everyone loses their minds" is another pop culture reference, to a movie you may have heard of called 'Batman', and should not be taken as indicating that I think the people on this forum are literally insane.

[Chronos]

But because it requires optimising a skill, the guy who wrote the tier system won't put it on the tiers,...
That's just it: It requires optimization. No other class does. A non-optimized wizard just slings Fireballs around. A non-optimized cleric is a healbot. A non-optimized fighter still sticks the pointy end of his sword in other people. A non-optimized Truenamer... does what, exactly? The tier system is designed to accommodate only moderate levels of optimization, because an optimized character can always outperform their tier. But there is no such thing as a moderately-optimized Truenamer, so it can't fit into the tier system.

[Blackhawk748]

well with the fixed truenamer class, is that the crazy amount of skill optimization is no longer necessary, (thank god). And i have recently played a fixed truenamer, it was my own, but it was similar to Kyeudo's, but i added Thu'ums (yes someone made them on here and i love them) to their learnable utterances, so i had a buff monkey with a decent AoE attack, and i was actually quite happy. Btw my name was DOCTOR!