The Unname spell

[CIDE]

Hey all,

Thematically I love the Unname spell (Tome of Magic) but there's not a lot of ways to ever integrate it into an actual game. Whether it's the feat tax to even use it, It's a 9th level spell and most games don't get to high enough level to get those, or any other assortment of issues. So, I wanted to see if there was a way to package it up into a much nicer and neater setup and my first thoughts landed on a custom magic item.

Let's say our theoretical character is a level 20 Artificer of any sort of build following RAW. Is there a way to put together a point-and-shoot style item that could make the spell usable, meet the insane DC checks, and maybe even bypass the stupidly long research time requirements? Could another class do it if not an Artificer?

[Malphegor]

artificer can do it by level 6 thanks to the joy that is ‘artificers can emulate classes for the purposes of making magic items, based on caster level +3’ ‘sublime chord exists and has a caster level equal to its level but starts later on with sorcerer wizard casting’.

Emulating a sublime chord should get you sor/wiz 9ths by level 6 on an artificer.

Slightly cheesy but it’s cool.

[Anthrowhale]

Cleric is the best class for stupid high skill checks via Guidance of the Avatar (+20), Divine Insight (+15), and Surge of Fortune (roll 20). An alternative approach to high skill checks is via Item Familiar. Either way, it looks like DC 55 (=15+2*CR) is the desired check which seems not-to-hard.

Clerics can access Unname via the Divine Magician ACF.

The research check looks rough--a personal truename requires a minimum time of HD/8 weeks and minimum cost of HD/4 * 1000 gp.

[Max Caysey]

Casting this through Supernatural spell as a dweomerkeeper looks fun!

[Feantar]

I...uh... I just realised that this spell, by RAW, allows you to destroy artifacts. Items worn, held, or carried by the creature are likewise obliterated with no save allowed.

[Zanos]

I...uh... I just realised that this spell, by RAW, allows you to destroy artifacts. Items worn, held, or carried by the creature are likewise obliterated with no save allowed.
Destroying artifacts is within the power allowed by 9th level spells. Disjunction does it.

Although this is likely an unintended consequence rather than an intentional function of the spell in this case.

[CIDE]

artificer can do it by level 6 thanks to the joy that is ‘artificers can emulate classes for the purposes of making magic items, based on caster level +3’ ‘sublime chord exists and has a caster level equal to its level but starts later on with sorcerer wizard casting’.

Emulating a sublime chord should get you sor/wiz 9ths by level 6 on an artificer.

Slightly cheesy but it’s cool.

Sounds gouda to me.


Cleric is the best class for stupid high skill checks via Guidance of the Avatar (+20), Divine Insight (+15), and Surge of Fortune (roll 20). An alternative approach to high skill checks is via Item Familiar. Either way, it looks like DC 55 (=15+2*CR) is the desired check which seems not-to-hard.

Clerics can access Unname via the Divine Magician ACF.

The research check looks rough--a personal truename requires a minimum time of HD/8 weeks and minimum cost of HD/4 * 1000 gp.

The DC check feels like the easy part to match, even for the Artificer. Cleric too as you already pointed out. I don't remember the exact combo but following the table for truenamer research and a few bonus spells you mentioned above I figured out an automatic success for even higher. The issue to overcome with the spell is the time required for the research. It easily puts a hard limit on the spell as anything other than an attempted shot at a BBEG that you had weeks/months to prepare for. Assuming the time was even available for research.




Casting this through Supernatural spell as a dweomerkeeper looks fun!

Sounds like a pretty solid approach but does that help deal with either the DC or the Personal Truename requirements?


I...uh... I just realised that this spell, by RAW, allows you to destroy artifacts. Items worn, held, or carried by the creature are likewise obliterated with no save allowed.

Get rid of the BBEG AND the evil MacGuffin all in one shot.

[Zanos]

Sounds like a pretty solid approach but does that help deal with either the DC or the Personal Truename requirements?
Dweomerkeeper removes all components, the Truename stuff is a component.

[Max Caysey]

Sounds like a pretty solid approach but does that help deal with either the DC or the Personal Truename requirements?


Dweomerkeeper removes all components, the Truename stuff is a component.

Indeed... There is still a fortitude save, tho, so there is that, but casting it through supernatural spell also removes the SR: Yes part...

[Anthrowhale]

Maybe a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5/DK 6 using circle magic to heighten to level 20 and supernatural spell to strip SR and components? Fort DC 43 (easily, could go higher) and SR:No penetrates most vanilla spell defenses.

It's to bad it doesn't work on undead as unname the lich would be hilarious.