Zaq
2018-03-11, 05:14 PM
I'm just making a few minor tweaks to my old Truenamer guide, and I've noticed that there's enough utterances with a duration of Concentration that it kind of makes sense to try to find a way to get around the fact that durations of Concentration are not usually very good, especially when one of the Truenamer's few defining advantages is that after a certain level, it can and should be using a swift action to attempt to use another utterance more rounds than not, which by my reading of the rules is not possible while maintaining concentration on an existing utterance. Diagram that sentence. I dare you.
I do know that there are a few ways to maintain concentration on an effect while not actually devoting your character's full set of actions to it. The Swift Concentration skill trick [CSc] and Extraordinary Concentration feat [CAdv] let you change which action you're using to maintain concentration, but they don't get around the "you can't cast [or utter] while you're already maintaining concentration on another effect" rule, even if you've got the actions free, so we'd need to find something else.
I'm familiar with three or four main ways to fake concentrating while still freeing yourself to lay more magic on the field, and I'm curious if anyone knows of any other useful ways, especially since all of the methods I'm aware of are semi-expensive in terms of build resources.
At 10th level, a Spirit Shaman [CDiv] can hand off concentration on a spell or a SLA (since utterances are SLAs, the fact that this explicitly calls out SLAs is kind of nice) to their spirit guide. I can think of no good reasons why you'd have 10 levels in Spirit Shaman and also have enough utterances that you care about them (outside of maybe a really weird gestalt build), so we'll leave that one alone. A shame, because it has the fewest rules-based pitfalls of any of the methods I'm listing here—it just has far and away the highest cost.
The 3rd level Psion power Solicit Psicrystal [XPH] lets you hand concentration on a power (you might make an argument that a spell would fall under transparency, but since utterances are SLAs, that's a little dicier) to your psicrystal. It's, shall we say, a nontrivial investment for someone who is primarily a Truenamer to have a psicrystal, and you'd need 5 levels in Psion to gain access to the power without shenanigans. Fewer levels than Spirit Shaman, at least, but still a nasty investment. (A GM who accepts that Solicit Psicrystal works on utterances might also accept that UMD works on dorjes, but I'm not convinced that either of those things are actually RAW.)
The 4th level Telepath power Schism [XPH] might work, but I feel like it's not as ironclad an interpretation of the rules as we might like (can the second mind concentrate on an effect that didn't originate with it? It almost certainly cannot utter on its own), and it's going to be likely to be even harder to get access to than Solicit Psicrystal.
The most promising effect I can find is the spell Sonorous Hum [SpC], which is a 2nd level Bard spell and a 3rd level Cleric or Sor/Wiz spell. Unlike the Psion powers, you can unambiguously UMD a wand of this one without taking levels in something other than Truenamer. The main downside is that it affects "the next spell you cast" and doesn't say anything about SLAs, so you need a bit of a favorable GM ruling to make it work with utterances. The other big downside is that it explicitly only works on a single spell per casting. This might be halfway usable on Reversed Ward of Peace or Reversed Singular Mind, but it's a huge waste of effort to try to make it work on something like a Reversed Word of Nurturing, since those can only last 1 extra round anyway. We'd need a way to either get multiple consecutive Sonorous Hums without much in the way of action expenditure or a way around the "next spell" limitation. (I feel like you could make an argument that it'd be an acceptable strategy to spend the actions and the gold to UMD a casting of this spell at the start of combat if it would let you get off several instances of RWoN, but at 1:1, you might as well just concentrate normally.)
As you can see, these all have issues, and I don't feel like any of them have a cost/benefit ratio that comes out in the Truenamer's favor if you're just trying to get extra duration on Reversed Word of Nurturing or whatever. Is there anything else out there that takes over your concentration and that ideally has a lower barrier to entry? Even if it won't specifically work with a Truenamer, it'd be interesting to see what else can be found. Since my guide doesn't really deal with anything from Dragon, I'd prefer to stick to non-Dragon stuff if possible.
I do know that there are a few ways to maintain concentration on an effect while not actually devoting your character's full set of actions to it. The Swift Concentration skill trick [CSc] and Extraordinary Concentration feat [CAdv] let you change which action you're using to maintain concentration, but they don't get around the "you can't cast [or utter] while you're already maintaining concentration on another effect" rule, even if you've got the actions free, so we'd need to find something else.
I'm familiar with three or four main ways to fake concentrating while still freeing yourself to lay more magic on the field, and I'm curious if anyone knows of any other useful ways, especially since all of the methods I'm aware of are semi-expensive in terms of build resources.
At 10th level, a Spirit Shaman [CDiv] can hand off concentration on a spell or a SLA (since utterances are SLAs, the fact that this explicitly calls out SLAs is kind of nice) to their spirit guide. I can think of no good reasons why you'd have 10 levels in Spirit Shaman and also have enough utterances that you care about them (outside of maybe a really weird gestalt build), so we'll leave that one alone. A shame, because it has the fewest rules-based pitfalls of any of the methods I'm listing here—it just has far and away the highest cost.
The 3rd level Psion power Solicit Psicrystal [XPH] lets you hand concentration on a power (you might make an argument that a spell would fall under transparency, but since utterances are SLAs, that's a little dicier) to your psicrystal. It's, shall we say, a nontrivial investment for someone who is primarily a Truenamer to have a psicrystal, and you'd need 5 levels in Psion to gain access to the power without shenanigans. Fewer levels than Spirit Shaman, at least, but still a nasty investment. (A GM who accepts that Solicit Psicrystal works on utterances might also accept that UMD works on dorjes, but I'm not convinced that either of those things are actually RAW.)
The 4th level Telepath power Schism [XPH] might work, but I feel like it's not as ironclad an interpretation of the rules as we might like (can the second mind concentrate on an effect that didn't originate with it? It almost certainly cannot utter on its own), and it's going to be likely to be even harder to get access to than Solicit Psicrystal.
The most promising effect I can find is the spell Sonorous Hum [SpC], which is a 2nd level Bard spell and a 3rd level Cleric or Sor/Wiz spell. Unlike the Psion powers, you can unambiguously UMD a wand of this one without taking levels in something other than Truenamer. The main downside is that it affects "the next spell you cast" and doesn't say anything about SLAs, so you need a bit of a favorable GM ruling to make it work with utterances. The other big downside is that it explicitly only works on a single spell per casting. This might be halfway usable on Reversed Ward of Peace or Reversed Singular Mind, but it's a huge waste of effort to try to make it work on something like a Reversed Word of Nurturing, since those can only last 1 extra round anyway. We'd need a way to either get multiple consecutive Sonorous Hums without much in the way of action expenditure or a way around the "next spell" limitation. (I feel like you could make an argument that it'd be an acceptable strategy to spend the actions and the gold to UMD a casting of this spell at the start of combat if it would let you get off several instances of RWoN, but at 1:1, you might as well just concentrate normally.)
As you can see, these all have issues, and I don't feel like any of them have a cost/benefit ratio that comes out in the Truenamer's favor if you're just trying to get extra duration on Reversed Word of Nurturing or whatever. Is there anything else out there that takes over your concentration and that ideally has a lower barrier to entry? Even if it won't specifically work with a Truenamer, it'd be interesting to see what else can be found. Since my guide doesn't really deal with anything from Dragon, I'd prefer to stick to non-Dragon stuff if possible.