Simple "fix" for shadowcaster and truenamer

[Flickerdart]

The idea of truenamers is pretty cool, but the execution is downright miserable. The idea of shadowcasters is slightly less cool, but you can at least play that one. Both classes are functionally spellcasters, which means that the coolness lies mostly in their spells.

So what if we did a spell transplant? Replace the shadowcaster's casting and spell learning mechanic with the sorcerer's, and the truenamer's casting and spell learning mechanic with the warlock's. Replace the crummy metamagic alternatives they have with normal metamagic and SLA metamagic, respectively. Every time someone says "but gate," kick them in the shins. Let them keep their underwhelming but relatively flavourful class features.

Does anything terrible happen?

[Cosi]

This fix has two problems.

First, the only reason anyone cares about the Truenamer (and to a lesser extent, Shadowcaster) is the weird mechanics those classes have. If you turn the Truenamer into a Warlock variant, that doesn't break anything, but it also doesn't do anything because the utterances the Truenamer gets are mostly things you don't care about.

Second, even if you got all their powers at will, those powers suck. The Shadowcasters is walking in with, roughly, Wizard stats. But it doesn't have anything like color spray or sleep. You could give both classes everything they have at will, and they would still not be something people cared about.

[peacenlove]

Shadowcaster needs a good spell list. With the author fixes and standard WBL you can have a mostly SAD caster (with only a 13 in int), while shooting spell likes and supernaturals while being a level ahead of the sorcerer.
Ari Marmell, in his enworld thread where shadowcasters were discussed, practically said "any 3 thematically appropriate spells can be a Path" (thats why the Shadowcaster's spell list has druid exclusives, the Cleric's command and shadow evocation). I need to dig the quote though.


I was mistaken somewhat.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?164005-Tome-of-Magic-Shadowcaster&p=2863167&viewfull=1#post2863167
Here Ari talks about the Illusion school being dropped and why. There he permits the creation of an Illusion themed Path
Here

[Psyren]

Kyeudo's Truenamer Fix keeps the feel of the class intact while making the math/Laws work and even adding fun new utterances. I'd recommend just using that; you can find a link to it in my sig.

[Jormengand]

I made a fix for it too!

But the main problem with your proposed fix is that metautterance feats become mildly silly - empowering, extending and quickening all utterances would probably make them TOO powerful in many areas while still hopeless in others.

[Segev]

I think the Truenamer's biggest problem is that it tries to introduce a new skill, then use a class to gate pretty much all of that skill's real uses.

If I were to try to fix the Truenamer and Truenaming in general, the base structural changes would start by gating Truenaming, the skill, behind a feat. Truenamers get this feat as a bonus feat at first level. You cannot gain ranks in Truenaming without it.

As a first-pass effort, then, I would have simply having the skill allow you to roll using the normal Truenamer rules-as-written to utilize any Utterance. Perhaps gate some of the more powerful ones that are usually gated by class level of Truenamer instead by ranks in the skill. Anybody with the skill can use ANY Utterance, however, if they have the ranks and can make the DC.

The Truenamer class would replace exclusive access to Truenaming with, instead, being able to add their class level to all Truenaming rolls made on Utterances they know (as per the "Utterances Known" table provided for the class). So, like anybody with ranks of Truenaming, Truenamers can use any Utterance for which they have the requisite skill ranks. They no longer simply can't use ones they don't know. The ones they "know" are instead now ones they've "practiced extensively" or something like that; they get to add their Truenamer level to the rolls to use those Utterances, making them more easily, more often, and against more powerful things.


Truenaming thus becomes something that has the hooks in it that Binders and Incarnum and a few other weird systems have, so any PC can start picking it up, and Truenamers become much more powerful (and a ton easier to use without obeying strictly-designed Truenaming Skill Maximization protocols). Though it may be subject to overpoweredness, given that you can (just barely) make Truenamer not-terrible now, and following the same procedures would bring it to "insane."

[Grim Reader]

Refluff the Truenamer a little, to use the "shadows of true names" and shadows and echoes of the worlds of creation. Then gestalt them.

[Florian]

I´ve played a Shadowcaster for some time and actually enjoyed the experience. The way you gain you powers in "chains" isn´t that bad actually and reminds me of how domains work. The transition to SLA and later SU is not so bad either.

What´s lacking and certainly needs a fix is the missing bonus for high ability scores on all three counts, mysteries, SLA, SU, followed by interaction with Meta Magic on account of SLA and SU.