Truenamer help.

[Vin Robinson]

Okay, here's the Wigwam.

I was in a campaign where for several reasons, I was over-optimizing to grief the DM. (Revenge, illustrating some mechanical philosophies I had that he dissagreed with, him randomly banning Iajutsu Focus for a player who doesn't optimize at all and needed it to contribute to the fight, etc.)

As punishment, I agreed I'd either play an NPC class, a CW Samurai, or a Truenamer. I'm going with Truenamer.

He has some house rules. All LA up to and including +2 is treated as +0, but he has changed it for my character so I have to actually take the LA in a race, and can't use any templates.

Stats were straight 4D6, and these were the numbers he gave me:
7, 12, 14, 16, 19, 24.

We are at level 7.

I can take either zero flaws, or five. No in between. I would rather keep it to zero, but I'm flexible.

I don't really know anything at all about optimizing a truename check, or what Race to pick.

I would like to go with something that's going to be bruiser-y, because it seems like Truenamers actually make decent Gishes.

The rest of the party is kind of wonky.
There's a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Rogue who refuses to do anything in combat.
An Armand with one level of Monk. He usually uses his first move action to Spring attack, then his second move action to activate his racial defensive stance. No one has the heart to tell him that's not how Spring Attack works.
There's a Gnome Factotum that uses confound the bigfolk + Iajutsu Focus for epic win.
And then a ridiculously optimized Dragonborn Were-Fleshraker Dinosaur Binder that got away with a Major Bloodline and I believe he has three different prestige classes now.

Any advice is going to be greatly appreciated, as well as full builds. Thank you all very much in advance.

[Prodan]

There is no help for you.

[Demons_eye]

Poke

Sounds like your DM hates you.

And then a ridiculously optimized Dragonborn Were-Fleshraker Dinosaur Binder that got away with a Major Bloodline and I believe he has three different prestige classes now.

Edit: How the freak did he get in?

[Adumbration]

Disclaimer: the following post was written solely for the purpose of intellectual exercise.

If LA is a must, and you will actually suffer for it, Tiefling isn't a bad choice for this: bonus to intelligence and dexterity, as well as the benefits of an outsider type.

Abilities: 24 to Intelligence, obviously, 19 to Strength, 16 to Constitution, 14 to Dexterity, 12 to Wisdom and 7 to Charisma.

Feats: Item familiar made out of Riverine (UA and It's Wet Outside, respectively). Skill focus (Truespeech) might not be a bad idea. Improved Toughness for... well, improved toughness.

Take buffing utterances, and go for the gish. You will not be powerful, but you'll be a melee with a tad of magic.

Alternatively, ditch Truenaming completely, put 24 to Strength, 19 to Constitution and 16 to Dexterity - just go for melee.

[aivanther]

You chose suck between suck and blow, and you want help?

Okay, lvl 1 Truenamer/lvl 19 anything else. :p

[Emperor Ing]

Try looking at some of the Truenamer fixes floating around the internet (these boards included) and choose your favorite version. Technically, you are playing a truenamer like the GM wanted....just gives your buck a little bit more bang behind it.

[Demons_eye]

Disclaimer: the following post was written solely for the purpose of intellectual exercise.

If LA is a must, and you will actually suffer for it, Tiefling isn't a bad choice for this: bonus to intelligence and dexterity, as well as the benefits of an outsider type.

Abilities: 24 to Intelligence, obviously, 19 to Strength, 16 to Constitution, 14 to Dexterity, 12 to Wisdom and 7 to Charisma.

Feats: Item familiar made out of Riverine (UA and It's Wet Outside, respectively). Skill focus (Truespeech) might not be a bad idea. Improved Toughness for... well, improved toughness.

Take buffing utterances, and go for the gish. You will not be powerful, but you'll be a melee with a tad of magic.

This but grab Knowledge Devotion.

[Vin Robinson]

Another thing my DM said to me, though I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this...

"Your Truenaming can qualify you for prestige classes like you were casting the equivalent spells."

This seemed kind of pointless to me, but especially for a gishnamer...

would a Swiftblade working with Speed of the Zephyr be any good?

I don't know.. Just something to think about.

I know this character isn't going to be astounding, but I think I can find myself a nice niche with the right choices.

[Thelas]

I'd recommend a CW Samurai/Truenamer gish build, with heavy use of UMD.
Some others like Truenamer/Monk/Disciple of the Word.
And then there's the ever-popular Truenamer 1 / Illusionist X / Shadowcraft Mage Y.



Seriously, though:
Truenamer guide: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...p?topic=8489.0
Can't help much other than that.

[Dr_Emperor]

Actually using a truenamer can be fun but diffulcult, and you'll need a level of marshal(motivate intellegence) as this will add your charisma mod to the roll, you have better stats than most of the comparison have been done at that 24 is huge. With a marshal dip it should go into charisma.

Illiterate trait gives 1 and is a straight bonus since everyone else can read for you.
Illumian from races of destiny adds 2 to all intellegence checks, so add a template to that.
Knowledge devotion stacks with upping your intellegence checks to work with your gishness
If someone has an animal companion that creature can get the buffs a lot easier, so http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a get one yourself

The five flaws work best as you can grab both whatever combat feats and truename feats you want, or you could use them to try to build a character around five feats

this is the old guide http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...mization_Guide
good luck, or if you can get item familiar you don't really need luck.

[The Shadowmind]

I can take either zero flaws, or five. No in between. I would rather keep it to zero, but I'm flexible.

Rule 37.3B of Min/Maxing, you take all the flaws you are allowed to. Flaws are unbalanced in the player's favor.

[mucat]

Sounds like the problems here go a lot deeper than Truenamer being a botched class.

I was in a campaign where for several reasons, I was over-optimizing to grief the DM.

The reasons don't matter.

No one at the table should be "griefing" anyone else there. If you've got a dispute with the DM, talk to him about it, and decide whether you want to play in his campaign. But staying in the campaign and then trying to get revenge on him will wreck the campaign for the other players too, not just for the DM who you're aiming at.

As punishment...

Again, the rest of the sentence doesn't matter. The DM doesn't "punish" the players, ever; it's not part of his job. If he tries, there are only two outcomes, neither of them satisfactory: either the punished player has less fun -- and why the hell would you want someone in your game who's not having fun -- or he keeps having fun, possibly because he enjoys the extra attention and the ego boost of being the one with the "guts" to piss off the DM -- in which case the DM's intended strategy has failed utterly.

If the DM ever thinks it's necessary to punish someone, then they need to talk out of game instead. If they can't resolve the problem to everyone's satisfaction, one of them (presumably the player) has to go.

Any advice is going to be greatly appreciated, as well as full builds. Thank you all very much in advance.

If you sort things out with the DM and no one is acting childish anymore, and you still want to play a Truenamer just because you like the flavor or the challenge, then ask the DM to approve one of the Truenamer fixes that exist on the boards. This is a good one, I tbink.

Right now, of course, he wouldn't approve the fix because he wants the class to be a punishment...but again, you shouldn't be playing the game at all under those circumstances.

[PId6]

Books allowed? Dragon? If Dragon's allowed, there are a lot of flaws you can take from there that will have hardly any effects on you at all.

How much multiclassing is allowed? If you can multiclass, some kind of theurge build might work out.

If Speed of the Zephyr is allowed to work for Swiftblade, definitely go with that. I'm guessing only Greater version would work though.

Truenamer 6/Swiftblade 9/Abjurant Champion 5

Swiftblade 9 is because I'm assuming Innervated Speed doesn't work with truenamer. If it is allowed to, definitely take the capstone. Abjurant Champion assumes that Defensive Edge counts as an abjuration spell and gains the benefit of the extra AC, free Extend, and free Quicken. If not, then obviously don't take it.