If Truenamers weren't broken, would they still be broken?

[heavyfuel]

The main problem of a Truenamer is passing Truespeak checks, which have incredibly high DC. But what if Truenamers didn't have this particular problem, and were able to ALWAYS beat the DC? In what Tier would you place the class?

Let's ignore multiclassing for this exercise. Let's focus on a single Truenamer that's going to adventure from lv 1 to lv 19 before retiring.

Is the class now Tier 0, able to absolutely decimate encounters? Probably not. But they're likely not a low Tier 5 anymore.

So, what say you?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Realistically little changes. True name devs really did think that nailing a bonus of 20 over the DC was something a Truenamer could readily (Quicken Utterance). The class has severe editing issues (see Zaq's guide's "Naughter Words" section) which is a major factor in how broken it is. As long as you know how to generate those insane bonuses on true speech and the DM let's you at all the tools you need to do so it is probably a tier 4 class, Gate abuse excepted.

[Telonius]

If you ignored Truespeak checks entirely, the results would be really swingy. With no Law of Resistance to worry about, Truenamer would play much more like a Warlock, and their power would depend on which Utterances they know. Obviously getting something like Gate at will (once a minute anyway) is crazy broken, for all the same reasons that Gate is broken for everybody else. When you get that, it jumps up from ... well, whatever Tier it is ... to high Tier 1.

[heavyfuel]

Gate abuse comes online only at Lv 20.

How does the class fare in the other 19 levels? Is it still broken?

[Morty]

Truenamers' powers aren't exactly earth-shaking even if you can cast them consistently.

[heavyfuel]

Truenamers' powers aren't exactly earth-shaking even if you can cast them consistently.

That's more like the answer I was looking for.

Would you put them as a solid Tier 3 like the Bard?

[The Viscount]

As mentioned, Gate is the weird part when it kicks in at level 20. I agree that levels 1-19 land you somewhere in the T4 range, probably bordering T3. Few utterances have a particularly impressive effects. Truenamer is capable of dealing respectable damage (word of nurturing is on-par with eldritch blast) though with no attack roll or save, this becomes automatic damage with the check removed (unless you prevent them from increasing the DC to overcome SR). This would make it something of a unique feature. Their best utterances are still those that buff, especially casters. Truenamers would do well at this task with the limits removed, but it's rather a thankless job.

I wouldn't put them at T3 like the bard. Their options are very limited, and essentially every utterance is instantaneous for damage or has a very short duration. Of course, if you removed the checks from truenaming, you'd need to change how all the feats that alter utterances work.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Bard has a lot of useful spells and well supported class features. Truenamer is probably around T4 at full tilt. Too much niche weirdness to be solid all around. An essentially rogue chassis and a solid user of Knowledge Devotion means early on they can be decent melee combatants (generally as second stringers) but as time goes on unless their Con is enormous they end up just be awkward casters.

Note that with an NI check the Laws of Sequence and Resistance are both meaningingless and with Quicken Utterance they will be SPAMMING their awkward psuedo-spells, so it will be entertaining at least.

[heavyfuel]

Of course, if you removed the checks from truenaming, you'd need to change how all the feats that alter utterances work.

Say we don't.

Pick up Quicken Utterance at lv 9? Go nuts with 2 utterances per round.

Still Tier 4?

[ZamielVanWeber]

A maximized quickened stacking word of nurturing's damage will start to stack up to painful degrees but 120 a round still takes time.

I would vote still tier 4 but probably high up upon further reflection but your problem solving power is just too zany for me to really feel co confident for a nice tier 3. Again this is excepting any naughty tricks. Spamming potion tiles or spell skulls and using a swift to remake them would easily push you into tier 3 territory.

[Telonius]

A maximized quickened stacking word of nurturing's damage will start to stack up to painful degrees but 120 a round still takes time.

I would vote still tier 4 but probably high up upon further reflection but your problem solving power is just too zany for me to really feel co confident for a nice tier 3. Again this is excepting any naughty tricks. Spamming potion tiles or spell skulls and using a swift to remake them would easily push you into tier 3 territory.

Yeah, that's about where I'd put it as well. There are a couple of weird and interesting abilities that interact well with other characters. A Truenamer with Magic Contraction means one of your casters' spells are Empowered forever, for free. Metamagic Catalyst (while it comes on pretty late as well) lets you apply a Maximize to any scroll or potion.

[pabelfly]

Yeah, Tier 4 is a fair assessment. Strong Tier 2 specifically for Truenamer at level 20.

Good:
- Truenamer has some fun utterances with effects that are difficult/impossible to find elsewhere.
- Once you get the feats you can now Quicken, Extend, Empower, etc. your utterances all for free, since now you don't have to worry about meeting the skill check.
- You also get a few spare feats that you would have spent to help you make your skill check.
- You have a lot more money than before that you would have spent on guild fees and your truespeech check-boosting gear
- Since you pump INT, have 4 + INT skills and don't have to invest in your Knowledge skills now, you can be a pretty decent skill monkey
- Free gate once per min at Truenamer 20.
- Some of the utterances you can learn are slightly more powerful effects than their equivalent spell - not requiring saves, for example.

Bad:
- You start with one utterance per level, and end up with 29 known by level 20 (without spending feats to get more). Compare to a Sorcerer, for example, who starts with 6 spells known, and who would know 43 spells at level 20.
- You can't retrain your utterance selection
- A lot of utterances come online later than the equivalent spells do for other classes
- There aren't that many good utterances to choose from in each tier.
- There are nearly no PrCs that advance Truenamer spell-like selection
- You can't use the same utterance while its effects are in use elsewhere. You can't have a normal and reverse form of an utterance going at the same time either.
- You don't have any extended or all-day buffs like Wizard/Sorcerer, your buffs last 5 rounds (10 rounds with Extend Utterance)
- Really poor skills known list

I've probably missed a few things, but you can see that Truenamer has a lot going against it even if you auto-succeeded on your utterances for the entire day.

[Dimers]

Tier 5: "can kinda handle one role but will easily be outclassed (literally)"
Tier 4: "can do one thing pretty well" or "can do lots of things kinda okayish"
Tier 3: "can do lots of things pretty well"

Truenamer is certainly better than 5. I don't think it rises to 3. A well-optimized and well-played Truenamer would be comfortable in many Tier 3 parties. But without considering optimization level, I'd call the class Tier 4.

[Zancloufer]

I would argue Truenamer for Tier 3 if their skill check DCs where a non-issue. Remember: Two utterances per turn at higher levels is pretty powerful and there are some nice abilities in there.

They end up being slightly more powerful than a 2/3rds caster or Warlock in pure magic without firing off 2 Utterances/round for free so I wouldn't underestimate them.

[Sutr]

Tier 3 for the above plus adding to the check to ignore SR and to cast defensively. A lot of its effects don't have saves as well.

[Gnaeus]

I’d add that they get some fairly decent stuff for helping other casters. Free +2 cl or empower at will is decent if you have a buddy who can make use of it. At will dispel magic is handy too.

I think T3 is actually pretty defensible given all checks made.

At will hp healing, condition removal (including ability damage and neg levels) at high level
+10 on knowledge or bluff, coupled with innate knowledge bonuses
See invisibility and blindsight
Flight short duration but at will
Etherealness
Cl boosts for allies
Control weather
Some battlefield control
Dispel magic
Scrying and analyze item
Free Metamagic on scrolls (and potions, ok)


I’d say it has as much punch as Totemist, Swordsage, Psi Rogue or Duskblade for sure.

[Psyren]

I believe Zaq put them at 4 even if you could make every check. His handbook probably has rationale.

One thing that makes this analysis difficult is that you have to decide whether they make every check because you've sunk a bunch of build resources like WBL and feats into it, or you're simply letting them autosucceed for free, which frees them up to buy/take a bunch of other things instead.

Kyeudo's fix I would put at 3 as the new utterances and feats boost the class considerably. The Academic is also 3 but a bit higher because it can change utterances every day.

[Gnaeus]

I believe Zaq put them at 4 even if you could make every check. His handbook probably has rationale.

One thing that makes this analysis difficult is that you have to decide whether they make every check because you've sunk a bunch of build resources like WBL and feats into it, or you're simply letting them autosucceed for free, which frees them up to buy/take a bunch of other things instead

I would assume that autosucceed every check doesn’t mean that you are having to spend all your feats and gold on it, or it would say so. Also because even spending all your feats/gold doesn’t let you autosucceed every check.

Otherwise, with all respect to Zaq’s awesome guide, I just don’t see it. I like my swordsage, but I can’t see what he can pull out that matches all those effects as (quickened) at wills. Quickened no save slow followed by solid fog at will? Quickened no cl dispel magic on enemy bosses highest effect? That change turns “usable a handful of times a day, requiring checks or you fail” into at wills. Fast healing on your fighter before every door? Why not?

[pabelfly]

The Law of Sequence is going to be the issue here. Yeah, you can have some cool stuff going, but only on one person at a time (until Truenamer 17) and you can't have the reverse version going at the same time. Oh, and your buffs will only last up to ten rounds at best so you can't prep in advance.

The lack of straight up damage is a problem too. The Word of Nurturing line is pretty weak, straight damage is much better than over several rounds.

[Blackhawk748]

I'd say they average to a high T4 with the ability to go to T3 with a bit of work. So more like T3.5

The biggest benefit would be them suddenly becoming fun to play

[heavyfuel]

I think Gnaeus' points make it near Tier 2, rather then near Tier 3. Especially stuff like no save spell effects seem particularly broken

[Psyren]

I would assume that autosucceed every check doesn’t mean that you are having to spend all your feats and gold on it, or it would say so. Also because even spending all your feats/gold doesn’t let you autosucceed every check.

Otherwise, with all respect to Zaq’s awesome guide, I just don’t see it. I like my swordsage, but I can’t see what he can pull out that matches all those effects as (quickened) at wills. Quickened no save slow followed by solid fog at will? Quickened no cl dispel magic on enemy bosses highest effect? That change turns “usable a handful of times a day, requiring checks or you fail” into at wills. Fast healing on your fighter before every door? Why not?

In addition to the Law of Sequence mentioned, there is also the short durations of their utterances. So a Truenamer can fly over a gap, but has a much harder time with aerial exploration or scouting. The direct damage is not only slow, it's also either weak or ties up your standard action due to concentration. Lastly, you're usually only buffing or debuffing one target at a time until 17th level, and even then you have to hope that the party (and/or your enemies) largely share a creature type.

With all that said, autosuccess does mean you're not blowing your swift on Quickened Universal Aptitude against high-CR targets, letting you truly do two things per turn.

[Gnaeus]

The Law of Sequence is going to be the issue here. Yeah, you can have some cool stuff going, but only on one person at a time (until Truenamer 17) and you can't have the reverse version going at the same time. Oh, and your buffs will only last up to ten rounds at best so you can't prep in advance.

The lack of straight up damage is a problem too. The Word of Nurturing line is pretty weak, straight damage is much better than over several rounds.

It is the problem, but it isn’t as huge as that. Flight for 10 rounds, castable every minute, is permanent flight. Which isn’t a thing that many T3s and very few T4s can do.

Let’s look at level 9.

Out of combat: Universal aptitude: +5 typeless to all skills (and remember that some of the classes we are competing against, like swordsage and Psi Rogue) are basically skillmonkies)
Universal Truth (+10 on knowledge or bluff checks)
Lesser Word of Nurturing (fast heal 3)
Seek the Sky extended (permanent flight)
vision sharpened (extended) at will invisibility or see invisibility)
Analyze item

Pre door: keen weapon
Quickened universal Truth (for your knowledge devotion)

In combat:
Extended inertial surge (freedom of movement or foe can’t move 2 rounds)
Extended Temporal Twist (Daze)
Temporal Spiral
Greater speed of the zephyr (probably reversed for no save single target slow)
Lesser word of nurturing (damage)
Fog from the void (Solid fog)

So basically you have 1 (junk) damage power, 5 battlefield control powers, and 2 good situational buffs (FoM and see invisible, both handy when needed). You are probably going to start every fight with a quickened no save slow against biggest enemy bruiser followed by a Temporal spiral daze against the biggest threat or move your tank into position. Enemy bruisers can be completely shut down by inertial surge but assuming that isn’t viable and your buffs aren’t needed, and you don’t need to lock down a mob, you will probably use your DoT word and Temporal Spiral (if they made their save or you moved an ally) or extended temporal twist (if they failed their save).

So by round 2 of every fight, you should have a bad guy slowed, 2 targets dazed and maybe a DoT if their saving throws are bad. You can now be a substandard warrior with knowledge devotion while you drop a quickened DoT or Daze or reversed inertial surge every round as the durations expire.

And what makes Swordsage better than THAT? I throw out a 2-3 round save or dazed quickened each round. He gets a 5th level maneuver requiring an attack roll and a save which prevents attacks for 1 round. I get see invisible as an at will for myself or teammate, he gets blindsense (not sight) 30. I can be invisible for a minute. He can be invisible for a round. I have buffs and heals. He doesn’t.

[ZamielVanWeber]

The Law of Sequence is going to be the issue here. Yeah, you can have some cool stuff going, but only on one person at a time (until Truenamer 17)...

You can bypass the Law of Seauence by adding scaling +4 to the check for each concurrent instance of the utterance (ex: 2 is +4, 3 is +8, 4 is +12 etc). It is a (likely unintended) consequence of the ability to heighten an utterance by increasing the check DC.

[Sutr]

Zaq also has the dirty trick with heighten to get around law of sequence in his guide didn't he?

[heavyfuel]

Zaq also has the dirty trick with heighten to get around law of sequence in his guide didn't he?

He does, although he admits it's very likely not RAI

[Psyren]

Okay sure - if you ignore the Laws, ignore DCs and DC scaling, ignore the impact of skill-boosting items on WBL and use shoddy readings for the rest of it, then I guess you could say Truenamer gets better. Go nuts!

[Unavenger]

It's relatively trivial to pass a decent number of checks at most levels anyway, and they tend to play at low tier 3 (ridiculously good at anything that can be accomplished with a skill check, hit point healing, and a few other things, and with a bevy of other utterances which grant things that you'd expect from a higher-tier class like flight and dispelling). They're not perfect, but played well they can be pretty good. There's a reason JaronK initially refused to give them a tier; they depend a lot on optimisation.

With good utterance, feat and recitation selections, they can be a force to be reckoned with. If you choose poorly (and there are a lot of trap options), they're a lot worse.

[Gnaeus]

Okay sure - if you ignore the Laws, ignore DCs and DC scaling, ignore the impact of skill-boosting items on WBL and use shoddy readings for the rest of it, then I guess you could say Truenamer gets better. Go nuts!

Not quite sure why this offends you so much. It’s a thought exercise about what happens when you pull the training wheels completely off a terrible class and the conclusion we draw is that it would at that point not suck. I think it would be pretty playable, and if spamming daze effects every round is kinda dull it isn’t like my ToB/PoW characters are really doing that many different things either (on a given character).

(I think Unavenger is a little optimistic in the other direction. I would put normal truenamer top T5 bottom T4. Mostly for the reasons Psyren gives.)

[Unavenger]

(I think Unavenger is a little optimistic in the other direction. I would put normal truenamer top T5 bottom T4. Mostly for the reasons Psyren gives.)

To be fair, I might be a little skewed because I've seen truenamers in the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing - I have a friend who often plays them and isn't afraid to pull out the big guns - the last one I saw was throwing around just shy of +20s to a bunch of cross-class skills (and around +30s to knowledge skills), putting some kind of curse on enemies that lasted 10 rounds and did a silly amount of damage (I think it was about 20/round) of a type of their choice, breaking whatever spells were annoying us without having to roll, and healing everyone up after every combat... at level 10. She could fly, and a couple of other things too, and the number of times you heard the phrase "I pass without needing to roll" on the truespeak checks... yeah, that character was outdoing most of the rest of the party a lot of the time.

[The Viscount]

I think Psyren does make a good point. Though truenamer was not well designed in the sense that the DCs are not realistic.
That being said, truenamer is still a designed class. Many utterances do not have saves (particularly the damaging ones) because instead the chance of failure is intended to come from rolling the skill check. If you removed this check, some things become more powerful than the normal curve, because generally speaking the designers do not include damage without some roll or another.
Removing truespeak checks entirely represents a redesign of the class, not just a quick fix.

[Psyren]

Not quite sure why this offends you so much.

I'm not offended, I was being facetious. Should I have painted the text blue? :smalltongue:



Removing truespeak checks entirely represents a redesign of the class, not just a quick fix.

I think it's a fair expectation that your first utterance in a day should succeed. But the LoR is there precisely so that they are not an at-will class, and if you monkey with that, the utterances themselves need to be adjusted too.

[Gnaeus]

To be fair, I might be a little skewed because I've seen truenamers in the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing - I have a friend who often plays them and isn't afraid to pull out the big guns - the last one I saw was throwing around just shy of +20s to a bunch of cross-class skills (and around +30s to knowledge skills), putting some kind of curse on enemies that lasted 10 rounds and did a silly amount of damage (I think it was about 20/round) of a type of their choice, breaking whatever spells were annoying us without having to roll, and healing everyone up after every combat... at level 10. She could fly, and a couple of other things too, and the number of times you heard the phrase "I pass without needing to roll" on the truespeak checks... yeah, that character was outdoing most of the rest of the party a lot of the time.

I believe that. But I can make a tier 5 ubercharger or fear lockdown build too. The problem is that out of combat healing is marginally better than a cheap wand, and really good at skill checks is a pretty T4 trick. 20 dpr isn’t amazing at level 10 either.



I think it's a fair expectation that your first utterance in a day should succeed. But the LoR is there precisely so that they are not an at-will class, and if you monkey with that, the utterances themselves need to be adjusted too.


If you removed this check, some things become more powerful than the normal curve,

Do they really though? I mean look at it. Probably it’s strongest ability at 9 is no-save single target slow. Which is cool I’ll admit, but broken off the power curve? Is it even clearly better for most purposes than just the slow spell, which has a save but hits multiple targets? I don’t feel bad comparing it with a swordsage, but I’m not mentioning an optimized bard. I don’t think it clearly beats at most levels a decent warlock or a MoMF ranger or a summoning binder. The things it can now do at Will are well in T3 range. Honestly most of its powers remind me of Riven Hourglass maneuvers, including the no save slow, and RH is good but it doesn’t outdo casters. A vizier of this level (and I know this is 3.5 but I know Psyren knows his PF and DSP) can have a stare of the Ghaele which is basically the worst part of slow on every enemy within 30’ keep saving each round until you fail, and vizier maybe, maybe breaks low T2.

At will healing is something that terrified devs but we understand is no huge thing. Good at skill checks is fancy but I can do just as well with a cleric. No save just suck is not rare for optimized casters, commonly on much worse effects than slow. I don’t see anything it gets that would even make me suggest T2. (Pre gate of course)

[Unavenger]

I believe that. But I can make a tier 5 ubercharger or fear lockdown build too. The problem is that out of combat healing is marginally better than a cheap wand, and really good at skill checks is a pretty T4 trick. 20 dpr isn’t amazing at level 10 either.

Really good at skill checks would be T4 if it were the only thing the truenamer did, sure. But saving you some money on wands of lesser vigour, and dispelling stuff, and doing 20 dpr at a single action cost and then proceeding to do more stuff with your other actions (including no-selling enemy spells and grapples) is at least in the "Relatively impressive" box (if you're really out of stuff to do with your action, "Let the fighter hit something again" isn't the worst use of a swift action in the world, either). The utility both in and out of combat (a minute of flight is still flight, after all) is easily able to outdo the optimised paladin or relatively mid-OP rogue who are the standard-issue T4s.

T3, after all, is basically excelling in at least one area and being at least decent in the rest. I'm prepared to say that truenamers can make excellent know-it-all types and pretty damn good skillmonkeys in general, while also having a passable grasp at healing, damage, BFC, and exploration.

Again, this is with my experience of relatively high-OP truenamers, so YMMV, of course.

[Gnaeus]

Really good at skill checks would be T4 if it were the only thing the truenamer did, sure. But saving you some money on wands of lesser vigour, and dispelling stuff, and doing 20 dpr at a single action cost and then proceeding to do more stuff with your other actions (including no-selling enemy spells and grapples) is at least in the "Relatively impressive" box (if you're really out of stuff to do with your action, "Let the fighter hit something again" isn't the worst use of a swift action in the world, either). The utility both in and out of combat (a minute of flight is still flight, after all) is easily able to outdo the optimised paladin or relatively mid-OP rogue who are the standard-issue T4s.

T3, after all, is basically excelling in at least one area and being at least decent in the rest. I'm prepared to say that truenamers can make excellent know-it-all types and pretty damn good skillmonkeys in general, while also having a passable grasp at healing, damage, BFC, and exploration.

Again, this is with my experience of relatively high-OP truenamers, so YMMV, of course.

It depends what you mean by “reasonably optimized” of course. I would expect a reasonably optimized (by which I mean using an opti-fu level equivalent to a truenamer is routinely auto-succeeding) paladin to be charging on a flying mount, and easily clearing 150 damage/round. Our martial adept 9 does about 65 damage per hit, swinging 3-4 times per round. A decently optimized blaster shouldn’t have difficulty doing 90 damage with rider effects to multiple targets several times per day. I would expect a decent rogue 10 to be making 3-4 attacks (invisibly, likely hasted, maybe at touch AC) for more than 20 per hit. 20 dpr single target doesn’t hit my group’s threshold for combat competency at level 10.

Now, I don’t know exactly what route he is using to be autosucceeding. I suspect he is playing a truenamer so he can optimize without breaking the game. I suspect that the problem is unequivalent optimization. Coupled maybe with rules issues and/or lenient GM calls. Which can easily cause a 1-2 tier virtual shift. I suspect he would be the MVP with a divine mind or a monk, and if he were a barbarian your DM would be crying.

[Unavenger]

It depends what you mean by “reasonably optimized” of course. I would expect a reasonably optimized (by which I mean using an opti-fu level equivalent to a truenamer is routinely auto-succeeding) paladin to be charging on a flying mount, and easily clearing 150 damage/round. Our martial adept 9 does about 65 damage per hit, swinging 3-4 times per round. A decently optimized blaster shouldn’t have difficulty doing 90 damage with rider effects to multiple targets several times per day. I would expect a decent rogue 10 to be making 3-4 attacks (invisibly, likely hasted, maybe at touch AC) for more than 20 per hit. 20 dpr single target doesn’t hit my group’s threshold for combat competency at level 10.

Now, I don’t know exactly what route he is using to be autosucceeding. I suspect he is playing a truenamer so he can optimize without breaking the game. I suspect that the problem is unequivalent optimization. Coupled maybe with rules issues and/or lenient GM calls. Which can easily cause a 1-2 tier virtual shift. I suspect he would be the MVP with a divine mind or a monk, and if he were a barbarian your DM would be crying.

Roughly, the auto-success is something like +6 intelligence, +13 ranks, +10 item, +2 tool, +3 race and a feat that boosts the race, +3 skill focus, which gets it 3 auto-successes without much investment (the race is also giving +3 to a bunch of other skills and initiative, so it's not like it's just the +3 to truespeak). I think there's a couple more bonuses I'm missing, and one of the types of utterance doesn't have the same super-high DCs anyway. The other feats are mortalbane and some of the meta-utterance feats. But I don't see that boosting intelligence, taking truespeak ranks and skill focus, and taking a race that boosts your int or skills is really high-optimisation.

For comparison, our paladin was doing some crazy thing where they cast quickened wizard spells out of their paladin slots(???) before crashing into something for a decent amount of damage on a lance spirited dive for the sweet 4* damage. It was impressive damage-wise, but even with an ACF boosting their spells/day they still didn't have as much versatility as the truenamer most of the time.

[Psyren]

Regardless of whether at-will healing is objectively "overpowered" or not, that's something both 3.5 and PF devs don't want, at least not without restrictions like the Dragon Shaman's "no more than half" stipulation. I see no compelling reason to overturn that judgement.

The other major thing the Laws do is restrict multi-target utterances, which is intended to be a high-level ability. I think 17 is overkill (Kyeudo reduces it to 13) but the premise is still sound.

[Elves]

I think Psyren does make a good point. Though truenamer was not well designed in the sense that the DCs are not realistic.
That being said, truenamer is still a designed class. Many utterances do not have saves (particularly the damaging ones) because instead the chance of failure is intended to come from rolling the skill check. If you removed this check, some things become more powerful than the normal curve, because generally speaking the designers do not include damage without some roll or another.
Removing truespeak checks entirely represents a redesign of the class, not just a quick fix.

Its problems aren't simply the numerical tuning of the truespeak checks. It's misdesigned at a deeper level. The idea of a skill based class is interesting, but a single skill that everything is based off that you have to pump at all costs is the worst way of executing on that concept. A class with swingy, random results could also be entertaining, but if that's the case then you should understand the curves you want and make them essentially hard-baked, with potential reductions through interactions but no flat boosts. And when you combine bad development decisions on both of those things, the result is awful and somewhat dishonest.

[Gnaeus]

Regardless of whether at-will healing is objectively "overpowered" or not, that's something both 3.5 and PF devs don't want, at least not without restrictions like the Dragon Shaman's "no more than half" stipulation. I see no compelling reason to overturn that judgement.

I don’t see any of the devs at my table, and they apparently wanted truenamer to be a mess in the first place, or at least didn’t care enough to write a class that didn’t make you lose the ability to taste ice cream. And it isn’t like there aren’t other ways to get infinite downtime healing pretty easily. I mean (DMM) persist mass lesser vigor is a thing. Dread Necro is a thing. I can’t see why I should take their bad design preferences into account when homebrewing fixes for their bad design practices. That wand of Lesser Vigor is less that 2% of that 9th level character’s WBL. You could give the truenamer feather fall and it would make more of a difference.

[Psyren]

I don’t see any of the devs at my table, and they apparently wanted truenamer to be a mess in the first place, or at least didn’t care enough to write a class that didn’t make you lose the ability to taste ice cream. And it isn’t like there aren’t other ways to get infinite downtime healing pretty easily. I mean (DMM) persist mass lesser vigor is a thing. Dread Necro is a thing. I can’t see why I should take their bad design preferences into account when homebrewing fixes for their bad design practices. That wand of Lesser Vigor is less that 2% of that 9th level character’s WBL. You could give the truenamer feather fall and it would make more of a difference.

Uh, nobody's stopping you from homebrewing anything :smalltongue: none of us are at each other's tables indeed.

[The Viscount]

Regardless of whether at-will healing is objectively "overpowered" or not, that's something both 3.5 and PF devs don't want, at least not without restrictions like the Dragon Shaman's "no more than half" stipulation. I see no compelling reason to overturn that judgement.

We do have at-will healing in Binders who bind Buer, though it represents a rather opportunity cost in not binding other vestiges.

[Psyren]

We do have at-will healing in Binders who bind Buer, though it represents a rather opportunity cost in not binding other vestiges.

Point - but at 1HP per round or 1d8+10 every 5 with a range of touch, it poses much less of an issue than a Resistance-free Truenamer would.

[Gnaeus]

Point - but at 1HP per round or 1d8+10 every 5 with a range of touch, it poses much less of an issue than a Resistance-free Truenamer would.

Why? What’s the issue? You haven’t said. All you pointed to was “devs would find it frightening”.

Generally downtime healing isn’t going to matter much if it is 1hp/round or 20. You are still going to be full every fight. If you are expecting another fight in the next few rounds a real healer-type still blows you out of the water, and if you aren’t 1hp/round is fine. The one I showed is 3 HP/R at level 9, and is unlikely to get any better before at least 12.

[Sutr]

On the healing tangent I seem to think that dnd was tested with healing to half between encounters. Most of my games give max hitpoints with an assumption that people take a heal to half and melee seems to make more sense.

[Gnaeus]

On the healing tangent I seem to think that dnd was tested with healing to half between encounters. Most of my games give max hitpoints with an assumption that people take a heal to half and melee seems to make more sense.

Leaving aside that I think “tested” is a pretty optimistic description of what the devs did, all of my games heal to within a few HP of maximum between fights. Like usually to within 1-3 HP when someone says “don’t blow another wand charge I’m only 2 down.” And the cost savings from dumping the CLW/LV wand are probably (almost certainly) less than the cost savings from being able to Identify without a 100gp pearl for every item. I mean you probably won’t burn a clw wand in a single dungeon but you will probably identify more than 8 items.

Our group with the Dread Necro was always full. Our group with the persist mass lesser vigor was always full. Then we switched to PF, where the Oradin kept us at full. Then my psionic Vitalist kept us at full. Now, admittedly, the Oradin and Vitalist could’t have kept us at full over 25 fights say (well technically the vitalist could, because gestalt cheese, but anyway). Although we use DSP so it isn’t terribly difficult to get fast healing and life link on the same character. But the bigger issue is that we never have enough fights/day to matter. It’s like saying that ToB or warlock are broken because they can go forever. As long as wizard or cleric can do better for more encounters/day than you are ever likely to see, that warlock/truenamer (who makes all checks)/crusader advantage in fights 8-25 is really less meaningful than their disadvantage in fights 1-7. And even if they do hit enough encounters that they have an advantage, that hardly means they broke the system. It means that they made choices which proved to be beneficial in their particular play environment. It’s about as broken as a Ravenloft Ranger with favored enemy undead.

[Psyren]

Why? What’s the issue? You haven’t said. All you pointed to was “devs would find it frightening”.

Gnaeus, you've made it abundantly clear nothing will convince you that infinite healing is bad, so why should I waste time debating it? Just agree to disagree.

[Gnaeus]

Gnaeus, you've made it abundantly clear nothing will convince you that infinite healing is bad, so why should I waste time debating it? Just agree to disagree.

You’ve given no argument besides “devs wouldn’t like it”. And haven’t even defended that as far as the question “why should we care?” You have done nothing to suggest why it is more broken than a 750 gp wand that pretty much the entire forum accepts as the standard for every adventuring party. Nothing to suggest a reason why infinite blasting is ok and downtime healing is not. Nothing to dispute that higher tier characters have both other methods of infinite healing and enough cheap access to finite healing that it may as well be infinite. I have a position. You have a point of faith. If it is bad, why? And why is it bad on a truenamer but not a cleric?

[Psyren]

You’ve given no argument besides “devs wouldn’t like it”.

That's the only argument there is for a basic design decision like this. You should be asking them, not me.

And yes, I know DMM persist is a thing; it wouldn't surprise me much if they regretted printing it in its current form.

[Gnaeus]

And yes, I know DMM persist is a thing; it wouldn't surprise me much if they regretted printing it in its current form.

That’s probably true. And the likelihood that they would probably be more concerned with stuff like DMM mass lesser vigor, which has a near 0 impact on play, rather than many of the actually imbalanced things you can do with metamagic reducers, is a big part of why I don’t find their likely opinions to be particularly persuasive. A bad design goal, poorly executed.

[Psyren]

That’s probably true. And the likelihood that they would probably be more concerned with stuff like DMM mass lesser vigor, which has a near 0 impact on play, rather than many of the actually imbalanced things you can do with metamagic reducers, is a big part of why I don’t find their likely opinions to be particularly persuasive. A bad design goal, poorly executed.

Exactly, it comes down to a matter of opinion on their design choices. - either you agree or you don't.

[Lans]

Instead of assuming infinite uses, what if we changed the formula to be 10-15+CR?

[Psyren]

Instead of assuming infinite uses, what if we changed the formula to be 10-15+CR?

Kyeudo's fix does this, sort of - it alters the formulae to be:

Lexicon of the Evolving Mind DC: 15+CR+(Utterance level x2)
Lexicon of the Crafted Tool DC: 15+Caster Level of Target*+(Utterance Level x2)
Lexicon of the Perfected Map: 25**+(Utterance Level x5).

This stops monster CR from scaling totally out of range of the skill check, while still letting your first couple each day be more or less auto-success unless you're building suboptimally. But the Law of Resistance will eventually keep you from spamming the same utterance successfully.

Kyeudo also gives the class SF: Truespeak for free, since everyone is going to take it anyway.

*Kyeudo adds additional LCT utterances that can affect spells as well as magic items, as well as rules for learning the truename of a spell.

**LPM DCs get an additional +5 if you're trying to utter at/in a magical location.