Truenamer Class Fix 3.5

[artimus261]

The Truenamer from Tome of Magic is a stunning attempt at an interesting and new form of casting. Despite its many intriguing mechanics the class falls short on so many levels it is hard to even attempt to defend. In the end the DCs for their truenamer’s own Truespeak checks are just too large even with the appropriate Skill Focus feat and a high intelligence. All the more insulting is that the DCs of his effects are Charisma based requiring him to have a high Intelligence and Charisma if he even hopes to pass his OWN check and for the enemy to fail their OWN save.

All in all this is fundamentally flawed, forcing a class that is already less powerfully magically than say a wizard or even a cleric to succeed on a check and hope the effects work as a normal caster. Below I am going to posit a general fix to the class structure and a few different methods that could truly allow them to stand out in their own right. Anyone finding these is more than welcome to use them and would love to hear feedback to see if any of these truly helped them.

Changes:
Poor Base Attack Bonus; The first subject is the classes role. They receive an average base attack bonus. Why is this? If this class is truly studying and learning for three-fifths of his non-adventuring days why is he as capable as even a rogue or cleric? By lowering this to poor some of the other changes will be made more acceptable as many alter the fundamental way utterances function as opposed to offering more and more to the class. However that said if someone wanted to keep the minor combat ability they possess in the class I would simply suggest you ignore the Spell Resistance/Saving Throw section and Medium Range section.

Add Listen, Sense Motive, and Speak Language to Skill List; This might just be flair in the end but to me it feels like a class that studies so much on the true names of things and the exactness of syllables and tones would in fact be trained in his ability to hear sounds and the ways of honesty and lies therein. Afterall what use is a truenamer if he can’t freaking hear things properly? As for Speak Language it feels appropriate that a class that spends so much time enunciating bizarre and alien syllables and phrases would be able to learn an actual language if he spent the time to do it.


Truespeak Synergy: It felt a little off that there wasn’t a single skill that offered a simple +2 synergy bonus to the skill that craves it so much. I would honestly suggest either picking something like Decipher Script, Knowledge(arcana), Knowledge(history), Knowledge(the planes), or even Use Magic Device as the skill to grant this. All could be argued to assist in the truenamer’s ability to speak this tongue properly. It could also be Speak Language, weirdly enough, after the truenamer has learned 5 languages. Bizarre but would definitely apply.


Utterance Changes: For the most part utterances are quite interesting and many of the facets make sense. For instance the shortness of their durations. This in essence make sense in that the truespeaker alters reality in the moment he speaks but the flow of reality steers the change back on course swiftly.

Medium Range Utterances; However what does not make sense is the pathetic range these abilities have. For the truespeaker to lose all of his ability past 60ft just doesn’t make sense. His ability relies on him to be able to see his targets. So why then is he unable to alter the fate of the sharakhim warlock just outside of his reach in full view of him? This is why I feel that the ranges of all utterances should be raised to Medium Range; 100ft + 10ft/level. This allows him to perform as a much more useful caster, able to stand in the back along with the Wizard twisting reality to his whim. Anyone who feels this is too far could still increase the distance to at least 90ft or 120ft and still address a lot of the issues this short range forces onto the truenamer.

Ignores Spell Resistance OR Saving Throws: This might seem like an overpowering trait but considering the limited range of effects and durations of these effects it feels fair. The truespeaker already has double the amount of hoops he has to jump through compared with other casters, it seems fair that there’s at least one hoop he can ignore entirely.
Alternatively a DM might decide to allow Utterances to not allow saving throws. This feels quite powerful so it was not what I ended up doing but in many ways it feels accurate. Why would it matter how strong someone’s mind, body, or reflexes are when your magic is affecting their cosmic identity? In this instance if a DM decided this I would definitely suggest keeping Spell Resistance applicable to them and would definitely suggest Poor Base Attack Bonus and even a d4 HD.

Int-Based DCs: The extreme need of Intelligence for the truespeak checks this class is built around made it feel very cruel that they also required Charisma for their DCs to be any good, especially considering that they only receive up to 6th level abilities to begin with. It is because of this I felt that keeping their DCs to Int was better for them.

Recitation Feats can Affect Others: The recitation feats offer minor interesting abilities to the truenamer to swiftly affect the world without drawing from his actual utterances. It seems unfair then, that upon learning an allies personal truename that they could not then provide them with these effects. It is already more difficult to use them with the application of a personal truename and since it is not the truenamer’s own he does not gain the +4 competence bonus. It may have been to avoid the truenamer being able to remove all poisons and diseases from party members without any resource cost but honestly that would be a very strong thing for them. And they need some strong pros with all of the cons they deal with.

This leaves the last two tidbits that I think really help the class sparkle without absolutely requiring someone to minmax to make them playable at later levels. It’s two feats that I made with this in mind. One actually assists everyone who wants it and the other is specifically for truespeaking. Anyway here they are.

Greater Skill Focus
Prerequisites: [Skill to be chosen] 12 Ranks, Skill Focus[Skill to be chosen]
Benefit: The maximum number of ranks a character can have in the selected skill increases by 4. This effectively raises the number of maximum ranks for the selected skill to Class Level + 7. This feat can be chosen for cross class skills in which case it raises the number of maximum ranks in the skill to ½ the number of ranks for a class skill + 4.

Talented Tongue
Prerequisites: Truespeak 15 Ranks, Int 18+, Skill Focus(truespeak)
Benefit: The DC for truespeak checks to perform utterances are now calculated as follows. Pronouncing the truename of a creature is now DC 15 + (1-½ X the creature’s CR). Pronouncing the truename of a creature that doesn’t have a challenge rating the DC is 15 + (1-½ X the creature’s HD).

If anyone feels any of this is too much or too little I'd love to discuss it and see if I can't better assist the class to function properly without the need of extreme effort on minmaxing. Please keep any banter constructive and friendly, I won't be responding to anything unhelpful, derogatory, or insulting.

[Venger]

truenamer is already one of the worst classes in the game. it doesn't need to be further nerfed by harming its ba.

your other changes are largely straight, albeit extremely minor buffs, so are fine, but you seem to miss the main reason truenamer doesn't work. its central mechanic does not function correctly. even if you are able to contrive a way to eliminate failure of a truename check (in which case, just eliminate it, it's stupid, make it at will) but even if you do, the other problem with the class is that your utterances are just lackluster and don't accomplish things anyone cares about at the time you get them. though I'm sure he'll be showing up soon, I recommend reading Zaq's handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?214115-In-the-Beginning-Was-the-Word-and-the-Word-Was-Suck-A-Guide-to-Truenamers) to fully understand the failure of the class and get ideas if you wanted to take a stab at fixing it.

[Jormengand]

Poor Base Attack Bonus; The first subject is the classes role. They receive an average base attack bonus. Why is this? If this class is truly studying and learning for three-fifths of his non-adventuring days why is he as capable as even a rogue or cleric? By lowering this to poor some of the other changes will be made more acceptable as many alter the fundamental way utterances function as opposed to offering more and more to the class. However that said if someone wanted to keep the minor combat ability they possess in the class I would simply suggest you ignore the Spell Resistance/Saving Throw section and Medium Range section.

Nerfing the truenamer straight up. Nice. More to the point, medium BAB tells you almost nothing about how much combat training someone has had (compare bard, cleric, druid to monk). There's no particular reason for the truenamer to lose mid BAB, especially since everyone's my favourite truenamer from fantasy literature was very good with a sword as much as anything else. If you were reconstructing the truenamer into a real spellcaster, fine, but right now he relies on that medium BAB.


Add Listen, Sense Motive, and Speak Language to Skill List; This might just be flair in the end but to me it feels like a class that studies so much on the true names of things and the exactness of syllables and tones would in fact be trained in his ability to hear sounds and the ways of honesty and lies therein. Afterall what use is a truenamer if he can’t freaking hear things properly? As for Speak Language it feels appropriate that a class that spends so much time enunciating bizarre and alien syllables and phrases would be able to learn an actual language if he spent the time to do it.

Fine, but boring.


Truespeak Synergy: It felt a little off that there wasn’t a single skill that offered a simple +2 synergy bonus to the skill that craves it so much. I would honestly suggest either picking something like Decipher Script, Knowledge(arcana), Knowledge(history), Knowledge(the planes), or even Use Magic Device as the skill to grant this. All could be argued to assist in the truenamer’s ability to speak this tongue properly. It could also be Speak Language, weirdly enough, after the truenamer has learned 5 languages. Bizarre but would definitely apply.

Bad. You should fix truespeak in a way which doesn't say "You must take exactly these skills to pass."


Utterance Changes: For the most part utterances are quite interesting and many of the facets make sense. For instance the shortness of their durations. This in essence make sense in that the truespeaker alters reality in the moment he speaks but the flow of reality steers the change back on course swiftly.

Medium Range Utterances; However what does not make sense is the pathetic range these abilities have. For the truespeaker to lose all of his ability past 60ft just doesn’t make sense. His ability relies on him to be able to see his targets. So why then is he unable to alter the fate of the sharakhim warlock just outside of his reach in full view of him? This is why I feel that the ranges of all utterances should be raised to Medium Range; 100ft + 10ft/level. This allows him to perform as a much more useful caster, able to stand in the back along with the Wizard twisting reality to his whim. Anyone who feels this is too far could still increase the distance to at least 90ft or 120ft and still address a lot of the issues this short range forces onto the truenamer.

Short range is never the truenamer's problem.


Ignores Spell Resistance OR Saving Throws: This might seem like an overpowering trait but considering the limited range of effects and durations of these effects it feels fair. The truespeaker already has double the amount of hoops he has to jump through compared with other casters, it seems fair that there’s at least one hoop he can ignore entirely.
Alternatively a DM might decide to allow Utterances to not allow saving throws. This feels quite powerful so it was not what I ended up doing but in many ways it feels accurate. Why would it matter how strong someone’s mind, body, or reflexes are when your magic is affecting their cosmic identity? In this instance if a DM decided this I would definitely suggest keeping Spell Resistance applicable to them and would definitely suggest Poor Base Attack Bonus and even a d4 HD.

Utterances ignore SR (at +5 truespeak DC) and don't tend to allow saves anyway. Pass.


Int-Based DCs: The extreme need of Intelligence for the truespeak checks this class is built around made it feel very cruel that they also required Charisma for their DCs to be any good, especially considering that they only receive up to 6th level abilities to begin with. It is because of this I felt that keeping their DCs to Int was better for them.

Fine, but not necessary.


Recitation Feats can Affect Others: The recitation feats offer minor interesting abilities to the truenamer to swiftly affect the world without drawing from his actual utterances. It seems unfair then, that upon learning an allies personal truename that they could not then provide them with these effects. It is already more difficult to use them with the application of a personal truename and since it is not the truenamer’s own he does not gain the +4 competence bonus. It may have been to avoid the truenamer being able to remove all poisons and diseases from party members without any resource cost but honestly that would be a very strong thing for them. And they need some strong pros with all of the cons they deal with.

This just turns the truenamer into more of a buffbot than he already was, which is fine if you're okay with that.


Greater Skill Focus
Prerequisites: [Skill to be chosen] 12 Ranks, Skill Focus[Skill to be chosen]
Benefit: The maximum number of ranks a character can have in the selected skill increases by 4. This effectively raises the number of maximum ranks for the selected skill to Class Level + 7. This feat can be chosen for cross class skills in which case it raises the number of maximum ranks in the skill to ½ the number of ranks for a class skill + 4.

Just give the +4 bonus directly and make it stack with normal skill focus; it's easier and doesn't end up with wonky skills.


Talented Tongue
Prerequisites: Truespeak 15 Ranks, Int 18+, Skill Focus(truespeak)
Benefit: The DC for truespeak checks to perform utterances are now calculated as follows. Pronouncing the truename of a creature is now DC 15 + (1-½ X the creature’s CR). Pronouncing the truename of a creature that doesn’t have a challenge rating the DC is 15 + (1-½ X the creature’s HD).

Feat tax. Helps, but silly that you're practically always going to take it.



You've addressed some of the problems, but there are already fixes which handle this kind of thing a lot better.




your utterances are just lackluster and don't accomplish things anyone cares about at the time you get them.

This is wrong and people need to stop saying it. You get healing on time, flight on time, haste on time, freedom of movement early, and an automatic dispel before anyone else has greater dispel magic. Universal Aptitude is so good I'm convinced it's a mistake. This is closer to true for the high-level utterances, but Mystic Rampart is far from lacklustre. Conjunctive Gate is of course the poster-kid for broken high-level utterances, but you're also getting Ether Reforged's stupid permanent no-save-just-remove and Singular Mind for dominate which never goes out of fashion. Greater Seek the Sky isn't exactly bad and Sensory Focus is True Seeing and blindsight with no range limit which is dumb. At medium levels you get the ability to hand out free metamagic to your party's wizard. If you can't do something clever with that you're not trying hard enough.

[Psyren]

OP - try the Truenamer fix in my sig. The changes go far deeper (fixing the math, reworking its class features, adding new utterances/feats/items, and even adding a second truenaming class that can swap its utterances daily using a Phrasebook.) I'm playing the revamped Truenamer right now in a level 13 campaign and I've been able to get my party out of some tight scrapes.

[artimus261]

Nerfing the truenamer straight up. Nice. More to the point, medium BAB tells you almost nothing about how much combat training someone has had (compare bard, cleric, druid to monk). There's no particular reason for the truenamer to lose mid BAB, especially since everyone's my favourite truenamer from fantasy literature was very good with a sword as much as anything else. If you were reconstructing the truenamer into a real spellcaster, fine, but right now he relies on that medium BAB.



Fine, but boring.



Bad. You should fix truespeak in a way which doesn't say "You must take exactly these skills to pass."



Short range is never the truenamer's problem.



Utterances ignore SR (at +5 truespeak DC) and don't tend to allow saves anyway. Pass.



Fine, but not necessary.



This just turns the truenamer into more of a buffbot than he already was, which is fine if you're okay with that.



Just give the +4 bonus directly and make it stack with normal skill focus; it's easier and doesn't end up with wonky skills.



Feat tax. Helps, but silly that you're practically always going to take it.



You've addressed some of the problems, but there are already fixes which handle this kind of thing a lot better.

Well the Poor BAB was really only if someone was using the no saving throw variant, probably should have made that a little clearer in the whole thing but yeah, my intention was not to nerf them outright because as anyone knows, that's the last thing they need. I'll admit I haven't seen truenamer's in a lot of the fiction i've read or watched so didn't really have the view in mind when reading them.

The synergy was more a small suggestion as opposed to way to actually fix them to help take off some of the burden.

The range increase was also something I don't see as being unsatisfying. The range may not be an outright issue but is having more of it an issue?

As to the ignoring of SR yes I know about the +5 DC method but again, is increasing their DCs something they really want to worry about? My suggestion is honestly more to do with the magic itself rather than a fix. It doesn't quite make sense to me that some magical construct can block an effect that targets the creatures cosmic identity. But with the meta-utterance feats and 'Law of Resistance' I don't see why giving them a freebie way of working around the SR is a bad thing either.

Lastly the two feats. Yes I could have given the skill focus +4 bonus outright but I felt that was honestly too good considering. Although maybe not since a character already has to get skill focus to get it. Two feats for a +7... not that great, but not that bad. I'll think about that.

Talented Tongue was almost a feature i gave them as a class but just wasn't sure about it! Thoughts? Almost just gave it to them at 12th level.

[artimus261]

OP - try the Truenamer fix in my sig. The changes go far deeper (fixing the math, reworking its class features, adding new utterances/feats/items, and even adding a second truenaming class that can swap its utterances daily using a Phrasebook.) I'm playing the revamped Truenamer right now in a level 13 campaign and I've been able to get my party out of some tight scrapes.

WOW..... THANK YOU... that made my fix just look pathetic xD Guess I should start looking for fixes to things before I post them! Gonna use the crap out of this PDF!!!

[Jormengand]

I think there are two main problems with the truenamer.

1: Chance of absolute failure is a terrible design goal because no-one likes wasting their action. Also, the truespeak check is framed as a drawback mechanic rather than a benefit mechanic. No-one likes drawback mechanics unless the drawback is fun and flashy - wasting your action is neither.

2: The Truenamer doesn't even accomplish that design goal because realistically any truenamer will be able to make their truespeak check anyway. People act like it's difficult, but even skill focus and maximum ranks and 18 INT will give you a +11 at level 1 without even having to think "Oh yeah, masterwork tool" or "Oh yeah, illumian or +INT race" or anything like that. Because 3.5 has so many ways to buff skills and, unlike 5e, doesn't have bounded accuracy (and can't realistically be made to) you can be passing on a 1 very easily.

This "Fix" - along with most truenamer "Fixes" - doesn't address the two core issues, instead focussing on buffing truespeak to the effect that the truenamer can pass on a 1 without having to try and then making the utterances even better than the spells (which cost spell slots where utterances cost piddly truespeak penalties which will never be relevant) that you get at the same level.

In order to fix the truenamer properly, you would need to have utterances do something normally, then something stronger if you spoke the general true name properly, and then something even stronger still if you spoke the personal true name properly, for example. You'd also need to tie it to something that isn't a skill, but have some way of buffing it somehow by optimisation or by taking actual actions in-game. Finally, you need a truename research system which doesn't suck.

[artimus261]

The DC for a CR 20 creature at Level 20 is 55. Sure, 23 Ranks in Truespeak, sure Skill Focus for +3, Sure, let's say 24 Int with items for a +7 bonus, you're still looking at a +33 against a 55... can you roll a 22? Can you? And yes I know there's other ways to get that higher but the problem is the way it's written in the book is that you pretty much HAVE to just to have a chance of making them even work. Never mind even using the meta-utterance feats or trying to ignore the SR or raising the effective level of it. Early game that math looks fine. Late game is a different story without a lot of effort. And those efforts are assuming you have a DM that actually hands you what you want as opposed to what your characters happen to find. Not ever DM just hands the players all of their hearts desires.

[Jormengand]

The DC for a CR 20 creature at Level 20 is 55. Sure, 23 Ranks in Truespeak, sure Skill Focus for +3, Sure, let's say 24 Int with items for a +7 bonus, you're still looking at a +33 against a 55... can you roll a 22? Can you? And yes I know there's other ways to get that higher but the problem is the way it's written in the book is that you pretty much HAVE to just to have a chance of making them even work. Never mind even using the meta-utterance feats or trying to ignore the SR or raising the effective level of it. Early game that math looks fine. Late game is a different story without a lot of effort. And those efforts are assuming you have a DM that actually hands you what you want as opposed to what your characters happen to find. Not ever DM just hands the players all of their hearts desires.

If you haven't managed to find a greater amulet of the silver tongue then your DM is being a jerk not using the settlement rules. And if you haven't done relatively trivial things like buying a masterwork tool (or a tool of legend for that nice nonmagical +10 bonus, but that's less likely) then I don't know how to help you. For example. And either way, it's not the point - the truenamer should have some way of making sure that the player keeps in the range where they can utter successfully some of the time rather than fluctuate in and out of it, and something interesting should still happen even if they can't.

[The Viscount]

I like the direction this is going, but the first thing that needs to be fixed about the Truenamer is bring Truespeak DC's down so they only increase by 1 per CR or HD.

Jormengand, since you have so much experience with Truenamer, I'd like to ask you 2 questions.

1. Your seem to be of two minds about truenamer. You denied Venger's statement that utterance effects are not satisfactory, but then said that utterances should do something on failure and then be more powerful on a success. Should utterances then be nerfed, and only be fully powerful on the success which is apparently easy?

2. You have said here and in other threads that achieving truespeak DCs is trivial provided you stack up the right bonuses and optimize correctly. Are you saying that because the DCs can be hit with sufficient optimization, that they aren't a problem?

[Venger]

This is wrong and people need to stop saying it. You get healing on time, flight on time, haste on time, freedom of movement early, and an automatic dispel before anyone else has greater dispel magic. Universal Aptitude is so good I'm convinced it's a mistake. This is closer to true for the high-level utterances, but Mystic Rampart is far from lacklustre. Conjunctive Gate is of course the poster-kid for broken high-level utterances, but you're also getting Ether Reforged's stupid permanent no-save-just-remove and Singular Mind for dominate which never goes out of fashion. Greater Seek the Sky isn't exactly bad and Sensory Focus is True Seeing and blindsight with no range limit which is dumb. At medium levels you get the ability to hand out free metamagic to your party's wizard. If you can't do something clever with that you're not trying hard enough.
Every time truenamer comes up, you say something like this. Why do you think truenamer is powerful? It really isn't.

Gate is definitely a strong effect, but how are you supposed to survive up until you get it?

The utterances you mention are okay, but the laws of resistance and sequence hold you back by a lot, and aside from the casting system being based on a skill check, these are some of the things holding truenamer back the most, and in a fix should be the first to be axed.


If you haven't managed to find a greater amulet of the silver tongue then your DM is being a jerk not using the settlement rules. And if you haven't done relatively trivial things like buying a masterwork tool (or a tool of legend for that nice nonmagical +10 bonus, but that's less likely) then I don't know how to help you. For example. And either way, it's not the point - the truenamer should have some way of making sure that the player keeps in the range where they can utter successfully some of the time rather than fluctuate in and out of it, and something interesting should still happen even if they can't.

You seem to agree that the system being based on a skill check is bad, since it means you waste your action some of the time.

This is what puts the truenamer below normal classes. The closest analogue is arcane spell failure, and no one actually risks that because as you said, wasting your action is a bad idea.

If you wanted to keep the skill system as is rather than replace it with something, what about changing the formula to something more reasonable, and then having that be what you use to add additional effects (such as ignoring sr, boosting the save, etc) with the vanilla use on a failed check being the utterance as per normal?


I like the direction this is going, but the first thing that needs to be fixed about the Truenamer is bring Truespeak DC's down so they only increase by 1 per CR or HD.

Jormengand, since you have so much experience with Truenamer, I'd like to ask you 2 questions.

1. Your seem to be of two minds about truenamer. You denied Venger's statement that utterance effects are not satisfactory, but then said that utterances should do something on failure and then be more powerful on a success. Should utterances then be nerfed, and only be fully powerful on the success which is apparently easy?

2. You have said here and in other threads that achieving truespeak DCs is trivial provided you stack up the right bonuses and optimize correctly. Are you saying that because the DCs can be hit with sufficient optimization, that they aren't a problem?

As Zaq outlines in his guide, even achieving baseline competence in truespeech requires heavy investment of character resources that's very different from any other class. in any sort of fix, this is something that should be taken out of the equation.

[Jormengand]

I like the direction this is going, but the first thing that needs to be fixed about the Truenamer is bring Truespeak DC's down so they only increase by 1 per CR or HD.

Jormengand, since you have so much experience with Truenamer, I'd like to ask you 2 questions.

1. Your seem to be of two minds about truenamer. You denied Venger's statement that utterance effects are not satisfactory, but then said that utterances should do something on failure and then be more powerful on a success. Should utterances then be nerfed, and only be fully powerful on the success which is apparently easy?

2. You have said here and in other threads that achieving truespeak DCs is trivial provided you stack up the right bonuses and optimize correctly. Are you saying that because the DCs can be hit with sufficient optimization, that they aren't a problem?

1: This depends on what your balance point is. Truenamer doesn't suck as much as a fighter, monk or even barbarian does. It does suck more than the wizard does because, well, wizard. HOWEVER, either way, universal aptitude is too strong, and either way, suppress item is too weak. There is no first-level wizard spell which gives a +5 on all skills, and for good reason, and also truenamers can utter for longer than wizards can cast (even an incompetent truenamer gets 4-5 uses of each utterance per day). Nor would even a monk spend his time turning off an energy quality of a weapon, an ability that the truenamer gets the option to take at the same level as the monstrously powerful rebuild item. Hells, a commoner has better things to do than trade his actions with a sword (and yes, I count "Make use of that morningstar proficiency commoners can have" as better). This means that universal aptitude needs a nerf (much though I love it) and suppress item needs a buff. Some utterances, such as ether reforged, just need rewriting.

The reason I say that they should do something on a failure and something better on a success is that wasting your turn sucks. It's the same reason I hate negates/disbelief, the same reason I hate binary attack rolls, and the same reason I hate, hate, hate 5e's bounded accuracy ("Let's make sure you always have a chance to fail at your day job!"). Not autofailing on a 1 is the best thing to happen to 3.5's skill system because it means you will eventually get to the point where you're good enough at what you do that you don't arbitrarily fail routine tasks.

2: No. If the DCs can be hit trivially, then they're basically skill/feat/whatever taxes. It's a bit like natural spell - the problem is less that natural spell is overpowered, and definitely not that the druid needs it to function, but that it's so useful that every druid is basically missing the chance to do something interesting with their level 6 feat because you're taking natural spell. Similarly, the question isn't whether certain things are OP, like skill focus (it isn't) or Illumian (it is), but the fact that forcing truenamers to take these things removes variety from truenamers.


Every time truenamer comes up, you say something like this. Why do you think truenamer is powerful?

Because I've actually played one ever.


It really isn't.

If your comparison point is "Wizard", then sure.


Gate is definitely a strong effect, but how are you supposed to survive up until you get it?
With your other 27 utterances you'll have by 19th level, most of which are effective and level-appropriate if you're facing off against paladins, rangers and the odd bard.


The utterances you mention are okay, but the laws of resistance and sequence hold you back by a lot, and aside from the casting system being based on a skill check, these are some of the things holding truenamer back the most, and in a fix should be the first to be axed.

Law of resistance is fine because it's the only thing that ever actually forces you to take truespeak checks. Law of Sequence can die in a hole (and there's a fairly easy way to make it do so) but isn't actually that horrible even when you're not cheating your way past it.


You seem to agree that the system being based on a skill check is bad, since it means you waste your action some of the time.

Nominally. But no truenamer actually does beyond a low level.


This is what puts the truenamer below normal classes. The closest analogue is arcane spell failure, and no one actually risks that because as you said, wasting your action is a bad idea.

No, see, this is wrong. Suppose I cast Slay Living on a creature. That creature gets a saving throw to negate the death and take a tiny bit of damage instead. If I utter mortalbane empowered extended reversed Energy Negation (sonic) on someone, they don't get a save against the same amount of damage they'd take dropping from the stratosphere three times. All they get is my chance to fail the truespeak check, because the majority of utterances don't allow saves.

The closest analogy, really, is an attack roll. But if I grab a CR 1 animal of some kind - I remember that baboons are CR 1, for example - a human fighter with weapon focus and STR 18 needs to hit AC 13 with a +6 and a human truenamer with skill focus and INT 18 needs to hit DC 17 with a +11. It looks even worse for the fighter if I grab typical low-level encounters like goblins (AC 15 DC 15) or kobolds (AC 15 DC 15) orcs (AC 13 DC 16).

If you consider the fighter, barbarian, and anyone else who needs to make an attack roll, as well as wizards, clerics, and anyone else whose abilities tend to allow saves, to be "Abnormally weak" then that's your prerogative I guess.


If you wanted to keep the skill system as is rather than replace it with something, what about changing the formula to something more reasonable, and then having that be what you use to add additional effects (such as ignoring sr, boosting the save, etc) with the vanilla use on a failed check being the utterance as per normal.

The trouble is that if you change the DCs to something "More reasonable" then truenamers who do unreasonable things like putting maximum ranks in truespeak or taking the magic item which is literally designed for truenamers to boost their truespeak checks will always pass their truespeak checks, and you end up with them stacking stupid numbers of effects on (I wouldn't like to see at-will reversed Temporal Spiral with an unpassably-high save, say).


As Zaq outlines in his guide, even achieving baseline competence in truespeech requires heavy investment of character resources that's very different from any other class. in any sort of fix, this is something that should be taken out of the equation.

I'm reminded of Troacctid's low-OP truenamer by someone who's never played a truenamer, 16 INT and all, which somehow still managed to hit all the DCs regularly. Achieving baseline competence in truespeak requires putting ranks into it, taking the stat it's based on, and taking the magic item, and preferably a useful race and feats and so forth, the same as with attack rolls only with more skill ranks being spent, and you're int-based so you have a bunch of them anyway.

[Cosi]

"Word Magic" is already a thing. It's called the power word spells, and if you wanted to fix the Truenamer you should just make it a PrC that buffs those, and maybe gets some bonuses to language magic, buff spells, planar binding, or sonic magic. The class is a garbage fire, and saving it requires that you replace all its powers and its casting mechanic, at which point you have to ask how attached you are to the name "Truenamer".

You can get a big bonus on checks (though not nearly as big as Jorm thinks at reasonable levels of optimization), but even if you do you're left with the question "why am I using this giant bonus to cast crappy spells instead of UMDing staves to win every fight with CL "I Win" holy word". Also, several utterances just flat don't work, like archer's eye removing the "penalties" of a condition that does not impose penalties.


Poor Base Attack Bonus

I guess? This is not an unreasonable thing for the Truenamer to have, but it is a little weird to start a fix off with a nerf.


Add Listen, Sense Motive, and Speak Language to Skill List

Also probably Diplomacy. It's a class that is about "language", it should probably get the skill that makes you good at talking to people. Also, this makes it so when Truenamers cheese their skill checks into the stratosphere, they get an ability that is actually good, instead of ones that are terrible. Also, they should probably just speak all languages. That would at least be a niche for low level Truenamers that didn't require them to be actual garbage in combat.


Truespeak Synergy:

You will never make skill check magic work, stop trying. Fundamentally, there are two possible behaviors the progression of a skill check can have in a leveled system. One, it can track to level at some fixed ratio. Two, it can not do that. In the first case, the skill check is pointless and you should use a level check. In the second case, the class is by definition broken before you bother writing any actual numbers for anything.


Medium Range Utterances;

Sure. Not going to do a whole lot, but it does help.


Ignores Spell Resistance OR Saving Throws:

This absolutely has to happen if you want the Truenamer of having any chance of being good.


Int-Based DCs:

Sure, but if you're letting people make saves against the Truenamer they already suck because they come with unavoidable ASF baked into the chassis.


Recitation Feats can Affect Others:

I guess? You spend a pile of feats to become a modestly proficient status remover. That's not nothing, but it's hardly saving you from the fact that your class just fundamentally doesn't do anything good.


Greater Skill Focus
Prerequisites: [Skill to be chosen] 12 Ranks, Skill Focus[Skill to be chosen]
Benefit: The maximum number of ranks a character can have in the selected skill increases by 4. This effectively raises the number of maximum ranks for the selected skill to Class Level + 7. This feat can be chosen for cross class skills in which case it raises the number of maximum ranks in the skill to ½ the number of ranks for a class skill + 4.

Why does a feat named "Greater Skill Focus" give a different advantage than regular skill focus? Call it "Skill Perfection" or whatever. Also, like everything that could make Truenamers good, it makes characters that pump useful skills even better.


You get healing on time

You don't get enough of it though.


flight on time

You get 5 rounds of fly at 6th level. That's a worse rate than fly is (by a literal order of magnitude), and unlike fly the duration doesn't scale.


haste on time,

You get single target haste, which lasts 3 rounds. Feel the speed!


freedom of movement early

You get one round of freedom of movement, which is actual garbage.


Universal Aptitude is so good I'm convinced it's a mistake

Oh god, another random bonus to add to my skill checks! Now I can ... uh, I guess Diplomacy people marginally better? All I had to do was invest resources that could have gone towards Diplomacy in Truespeak and play a terrible class.


Mystic Rampart is far from lacklustre

I mean, I suppose it is in the same way that something which is complete trash is "far" from being pretty bad.


Conjunctive Gate is of course the poster-kid for broken high-level utterances

I any game where you get to abuse gate, people with better classes have been abusing planar binding for nine levels by now.


but you're also getting Ether Reforged's stupid permanent no-save-just-remove

I'm pretty sure what actually happens is that the people who edited Tome of Magic are idiots and made a thing with instantaneous duration emulate a spell with non-instantaneous duration so the target disappears and then comes back immediately.


Singular Mind for dominate which never goes out of fashion

I think you forgot that dominate monster has a duration that is over thirty thousand times longer than that piece of garbage, and also doesn't come with spell failure, and also allows you more than one minion.


Greater Seek the Sky isn't exactly bad

Yes it is. It's a 5 round duration fly speed. If I cared about how fast I was flying, it would just cast phantom steed which is a third level spell.


and Sensory Focus is True Seeing and blindsight with no range limit which is dumb.

You forgot the thing where the duration on that is 1 round so you have to know you're being tricked at which point you can just make the freaking save.

TL;DR -- Jormengand is dramatically overstating the effectiveness of the Truenamer, at is flat lying about how at least one utterance works.

[Jormengand]

TL;DR -- Jormengand is dramatically overstating the effectiveness of the Truenamer,

I mean if you think that wizard is the only real class (which you do) then yeah, I guess. But truenamer is perfectly effective compared to, like, most classes. I'm aware that you think that even bards are unutterably crap, so of course you won't have anything good to say about the truenamer. It's also telling that you, like others, compare the truenamer's truespeak checks to ASF, not attack rolls, because you don't think that barbarian is a real class. I have met you before. Yes, truenamer is godawful when you compare it to a wizard. Almost everything is godawful when you compare it to a wizard, like, no duh.


is flat lying about how at least one utterance works.

I guess that true creation causes the items to appear and then suddenly disappear immediately, right? The description of instantaneous even says that the effect can last beyond that instant, like items or damage or etherealness or being able to punch incorporeal people in the face.

[Cosi]

I mean if you think that wizard is the only real class (which you do) then yeah, I guess. But truenamer is perfectly effective compared to, like, most classes. I'm aware that you think that even bards are unutterably crap, so of course you won't have anything good to say about the truenamer. It's also telling that you, like others, compare the truenamer's truespeak checks to ASF, not attack rolls, because you don't think that barbarian is a real class. I have met you before. Yes, truenamer is godawful when you compare it to a wizard. Almost everything is godawful when you compare it to a wizard, like, no duh.

You don't have to adopt nearly as radical a position as "things that deal with encounters the rules say are appropriate at rates the rules say are appropriate" to say the Truenamer sucks. It's the worst class in Tome of Magic. It's not just worse than the Wizard, it's worse than every class in the PHB except the Monk and maybe the Fighter. It's better than literal nothing, but so is a Commoner. Can you have fun with a Truenamer? Sure. But that's different from it being good.


I guess that true creation causes the items to appear and then suddenly disappear immediately, right? The description of instantaneous even says that the effect can last beyond that instant, like items or damage or etherealness or being able to punch incorporeal people in the face.

You could try reading the rules and seeing what things say. I find that's often an effective tool for finding out what the rules are. Let's try:


You become ethereal, along with your equipment. For the duration of the spell, you are in a place called the Ethereal Plane, which overlaps the normal, physical, Material Plane. When the spell expires, you return to material existence.

The "effect" is that you go to another plane for as long as the spell lasts, which is "0 rounds" because the utterance has an instantaneous duration. The reason stuff you make with true creation lasts is because the spell says it "makes stuff" not that it "makes stuff that goes away".

It's interesting that out of an entire paragraph of you being wrong, this is the only place you are even willing to defend your position a little.

[Malimar]

"Word Magic" is already a thing. It's called the power word spells, and if you wanted to fix the Truenamer you should just make it a PrC that buffs those, and maybe gets some bonuses to language magic, buff spells, planar binding, or sonic magic.
Dracolexi (Races of the Dragon) approaches this, but is underwhelming.

[Cosi]

Dracolexi (Races of the Dragon) approaches this, but is underwhelming.

True on both counts. It also locks you into a "Dragons" shtick that is not necessarily appropriate for every word mage.

[Jormengand]

You don't have to adopt nearly as radical a position as "things that deal with encounters the rules say are appropriate at rates the rules say are appropriate" to say the Truenamer sucks. It's the worst class in Tome of Magic. It's not just worse than the Wizard, it's worse than every class in the PHB except the Monk and maybe the Fighter. It's better than literal nothing, but so is a Commoner. Can you have fun with a Truenamer? Sure. But that's different from it being good.



You could try reading the rules and seeing what things say. I find that's often an effective tool for finding out what the rules are. Let's try:



The "effect" is that you go to another plane for as long as the spell lasts, which is "0 rounds" because the utterance has an instantaneous duration. The reason stuff you make with true creation lasts is because the spell says it "makes stuff" not that it "makes stuff that goes away".

It's interesting that out of an entire paragraph of you being wrong, this is the only place you are even willing to defend your position a little.

You're wrong, instantaneous explicitly doesn't work that way, and I can't be bothered to explain in detail why at-will short-duration X is on-par with limited-use long-duration X every time you mention it. That about covers everything.

[Cosi]

You're wrong, instantaneous explicitly doesn't work that way, and I can't be bothered to explain in detail why at-will short-duration X is on-par with limited-use long-duration X every time you mention it. That about covers everything.

You're going to have to explain where it says changing a duration to instantaneous causes things that explicitly say they end to not end. Because if you look at the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm), it doesn't say that. What it says is:


The spell energy comes and goes the instant the spell is cast, though the consequences might be long-lasting.

Note the use of the word "might" rather than "are". For example, when you cast fireball, the ball of fire is instant but the damage is permanent.

And yes, at-will abilities are good. Unfortunately, the Truenamer doesn't have those, because it is not good.

[tokyooo23]

Truenamer buff (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17f0Y-7rIL6KiuBygmde448MWuVZrMKjHD-zSHB-l3nE/edit?usp=sharing)

[Psyren]

WOW..... THANK YOU... that made my fix just look pathetic xD Guess I should start looking for fixes to things before I post them! Gonna use the crap out of this PDF!!!

Yeah it's been a lot of fun. I've had people in the party clamor to let me research their truenames so I can give them better buffs, after seeing the power I can gain by manipulating mine. You also get a use for your swift action earlier than many other classes do.

Getting auto-success for your first several utterances is quite easy, with failure really only coming into play when you (a) start running into the Law of Resistance a few combats into the day, and/or (b) start adding multiple Inflections (meta-utterances in the new system) to your truespeaking. I haven't needed any of the usual ridiculousness like an item familiar or a custom competence item.

[Cosi]

Truenamer buff (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17f0Y-7rIL6KiuBygmde448MWuVZrMKjHD-zSHB-l3nE/edit?usp=sharing)

What exactly has gotten buffed here? The only change that stands out are new laws, which is just making the Truenamer worse -- now the check gets harder every time you use your abilities, which is even worse than what it is now. Is there a page I'm not seeing with Utterance changes?

[Lans]

What exactly has gotten buffed here? The only change that stands out are new laws, which is just making the Truenamer worse -- now the check gets harder every time you use your abilities, which is even worse than what it is now. Is there a page I'm not seeing with Utterance changes?

It dropped the x2 in the True speaks formula

[Cosi]

It dropped the x2 in the True speaks formula

Oh, okay. I don't see why he need to post the whole thing in that case, especially since the change is hidden inside the text of the Truenamer's class abilities. Just post the updated formula, particularly because I'm like 70% sure what he actually posted breaks copyright.

[Grod_The_Giant]

In any Truenamer fix, I'd strongly suggest changing Truespeak from a skill to a purely level-based check. (Or at least mostly level-based; throwing Int in there makes sense). That way you don't have to guess at what a level X Truenamer's check result will be-- you know that an X level Truenamer will have a bonus of +Y, will be able to get off his first utterance against an equal-level foe with a Z% chance, and will be able to use it N times before the check gets too hard to be worth it.

The second suggestion would be to throw away the Law of Sequence altogether. Truenamers already suffer when facing multiple foes; there's no need to make things even harder for them.

You throw in minor quality-of-life fixes, like changing DCs to be Int-based, tweaking the skill list and bonus feats, increasing range and all that. But... the Laws are only one of two major problems with the Truenamer. The other is the Utterances themselves, and there's really no good easy fix there. There are a handful of gems (such as Universal Aptitude) that were correctly written, and which can be kept unchanged. There are a lot of stinkers (such as Agitate Metal) that were correctly written, but which are way too weak for the levels you get them. And there are Jormengand's favorite talking points, the things like Ether Reforged that are good less because they're meant to be strong than because they're just flat-out badly written. Cosmetic patches are all well and good, but you kind of need a ground-up rewrite to really fix things.

(Also, I guess you might as well let Truenamers know all available Utterances of the levels they can cast. There are so few good options that they'll already have functionally identical lists anyway, and having more options open makes the Laws a little less onerous)

[Lans]

Moving there ability to affect multiple targets to a much earlier level, like 7, is a good place to start