The Truenamer: Good Concept - Bad Mechanics

[Crazy_Uncle_Doug]

So, I'm looking in the Tome of Magic again. I never got around to looking at True Name Magic until recently. At first, the presentation and the concepts looked great and creative. Even better, the author presents ways to help enhance the RP of the group with this form of magic. The problem I see is the necessary DC to use this magic: 15 + ( 2 * CR or HD).

At low levels, this isn't too much a problem. A standard orc would have Truename DC of 17 ( 15 + CR 1 *2 ) A maxed out skill starts you with 4 ranks at level 1. If your intelligence is 16, you're getting +3. With a +7 to your roll, it's already 50/50 success rate. Add the appropriate Skill Focus and you're at +10 to start. Easy stuff, right?

The numbers go out of control at high levels, though. A typical Fire Giant, for example, is CR 10, giving a Truename DC of 35. If you're of equivalent level (let's say Level 10 Truenamer) and maxxed out, and if you've been raising your intelligence each level, you'll have 13 ranks of skill, at least Intelligence of 18 giving a +4, and keep that Skill Focus for +3. That's a total of +20. Already, your command of the class is going downhill. Fighters have an easier time of hitting. Wizards and Socerers will be seeing their spell DCs go up. Everyone is getting more effective but you.

By level 20, things are ridiculous. A CR 20 critter has a Truename DC of 55! Maxxed out, that skill is only 23. There's no way to succeed on a simple roll. Even if you've been upping your intelligence, your Int can only rise +5 more points through level gain, so if you started with 16, you'd be at 21, which gives you +5. Keeping that skill focus for another +3 won't help. That's a total of 31, requiring you to roll 24 to succeed. Impossible without magical help.

Thus, the character is required to get the only normal magic item in the Truename section, the Greater Amulet of Silver Tongues, granting a gracious +10 to your skill check. This brings the necessary roll down to 14. Get a Headband of Intellect +6, and you get +3 more, giving you a needed roll of ... 11. Even decked out with these magic items, your success rate against critters your level is worse than when you started. We just have to hope your DM will make said magic items available, or the class is unplayable.

Worse, you can't aid your party, as truenaming them takes a similar roll. I haven't even touched into the fact that after you manage to use the skill, the critters can get a Save DC, which as it's based on your Charisma, could easily be low because we've been raising your Intelligence and using Intelligence-boosting magic just to be able to even use your powers.

We won't even go into Epic Levels, as the mathematical issues will just get worse.

I'd like to try out the concepts presented, but the mechanics are just completely unplayable at high levels. Has anyone played this class, or tried to use it practically? Has anyone worked around the obvious mathematical problems?

[Jasdoif]

The problem I see is the necessary DC to use this magic: 15 + ( 2 * CR or HD).

As I've never actually seen the text, I have a question.

Does this mean the lower/higher of 15 + (2*CR) and 15 + (2*HD)? Or the lower/higher of 15 + (2*CR) and 15 + HD?

[DraPrime]

I am so glad I never got that book, or played that class. That is terribly wrong, but since I don't own Tome of Magic I can't confirm it.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

Don't bash Tome of Magic just because of one crappy class- the Binder is great, one of my favorite classes ever. Truenamer, I have to admit, is not very well done. The concept is great, but the execution is just terrible.

[Solo]

A few things I'd like to say.

1. Its assumed that you use magic items to boost your truenaming check, or use truenaming to boost your check. There's an utterance that gives you a +5 bonus to any skill check.

2. A one level dip in Marshal gives you double your into bonus to any into check, like, truenaming.

3. A one level dip in Exemplar gives you the ability to take 10 on truenaming checks and a +4 bonus on it.

[dyslexicfaser]

I'm of the school of thought that any class that requires dipping into other classes to be able to use the original classes skills is a bad class.

[Solo]

Not everyone can be a Wizard.

Heck, of the two dips I mentioned earlier, Exemplar is a Prestige Class, and you don't even have to be a Marshal to get the skill bonus, just have one around to inspire you.

I am sure that you don't think classes that depend on PrCs for abilities and allies buffing you are bad classes?

[OzymandiasVolt]

Don't bash Tome of Magic just because of one crappy class- the Binder is great, one of my favorite classes ever. Truenamer, I have to admit, is not very well done. The concept is great, but the execution is just terrible.

Also, Deadly Dancers make great effigy creatures. Especially when you fit them with porcelain masks and heavy but easily-shed cloaks.

[jjpickar]

I too feel the pain of seeing a good concept ill written. Alas for all Earthsea fans.

[dyslexicfaser]

Not everyone can be a Wizard.

Heck, of the two dips I mentioned earlier, Exemplar is a Prestige Class, and you don't even have to be a Marshal to get the skill bonus, just have one around to inspire you.

I am sure that you don't think classes that depend on PrCs for abilities and allies buffing you are bad classes?

My bad, then - even so, you have to admit the idea of a PC who can't use his own abilities without outside assistance sounds pretty bad on paper.

[Gralamin]

I'm currently Trying to figure out a way to fix truenaming magic (Possibly through rebuilding from the ground up.) If anyone knows of any links to fixes, that would be great.

[Solo]

My bad, then - even so, you have to admit the idea of a PC who can't use his own abilities without outside assistance sounds pretty bad on paper.

Well, so far, the Truenamer is dependent on

1) A PrC.
Fairly standard for all characters. Everyone gets into a PrC eventually, after all.

2) Magic Items.
Again, everyone depends on magic items. Some more than others, but still, everyone depends on magic items.

3) Buffing - in my suggestion, I used a Marshal as an example.
As with the other two, everyone needs buffing, often from an outside source.


Fighters, Barbarians, Rogues, Sorcerers... well, pretty much everyone except CODzilla and the Wizard need share the weaknesses that, according to you, make them a bad class on paper.

I'm inclined to think that your definition of a "bad class" is at fault.

[Jasdoif]

I'm of the school of thought that any class that requires dipping into other classes to be able to use the original classes skills is a bad class.

Sure; but if the class needs a bandaid, knowing what those bandaids are is a good thing. Preferable to the class becoming unusable, at the very least.

[Lord Tataraus]

Well, so far, the Truenamer is dependent on

1) A PrC.
Fairly standard for all characters. Everyone gets into a PrC eventually, after all.

2) Magic Items.
Again, everyone depends on magic items. Some more than others, but still, everyone depends on magic items.

3) Buffing - in my suggestion, I used a Marshal as an example.
As with the other two, everyone needs buffing, often from an outside source.


Fighters, Barbarians, Rogues, Sorcerers... well, pretty much everyone except CODzilla and the Wizard need share the weaknesses that, according to you, make them a bad class on paper.

I'm inclined to think that your definition of a "bad class" is at fault.

I would disagree with most of this, I have had many characters that did not require a PrC or Buffing to be awesome. In fact, many of my builds worked better without PrCs and I never bring buffing into the calculation so my characters never depend on it, so buffing just lets me hit harder. As for the magic item, other classes depend on magic items yes, but they have a variety and work fine with multiple types of items, whereas the truenamer requires a specific item to function.

[Solo]

I would disagree with most of this, I have had many characters that did not require a PrC or Buffing to be awesome. In fact, many of my builds worked better without PrCs and I never bring buffing into the calculation so my characters never depend on it, so buffing just lets me hit harder.

You are aware that anecdotal evidence isn't really good evidence?

Anecdotal evidence is most like a single case study. Your experience is but one event, and cannot be generalized to all such cases. Why not? Because you, your characters, your strategies, your campaign setting, and your DM are going to be different from those of other people. Your experiences may not reflect the normal experience of DnD gamers.

To draw general conclusions based on a case study, you need a systematic case studies, so you can search for a thread of consistency.

You are a sample size of one, which is not large enough to draw a general conclusion from.


ps. I realize that my number 1) statement about people going into PrCs doesn't hold up to this standard, and it should probably be refined to read something like "It is a common practice for characters to go into Prestige Classes in order to become more powerful."

[UserClone]

The fact is, when a fighter can swing a sword and automatically have a 20% chance to hit the tarrasque. A Truenamer, on the other hand, has a less than zero chance of using its main ability; the class is poo. Stinky, creamy poo. Don't use a fallacious argument like "Well, all classes need magic items." They need them to compete. The Truenamer needs them to function at even a minimum level.

[Solo]

The fact is, when a fighter can swing a sword and automatically have a 20% chance to hit the tarrasque. A Truenamer, on the other hand, has a less than zero chance of using its main ability; the class is poo. Stinky, creamy poo. Don't use a fallacious argument like "Well, all classes need magic items." They need them to compete. The Truenamer needs them to function at even a minimum level.

You eloquent argument, full of facts and well phrased arguments, has persuaded me as to the error of my ways.

I found it amusing that the Turenamer is "poo" (such a sophisticated argument, comparing the class to bodily excrement!) in your opinion.

By the way, is it true that a Truenamer has no chance at all as to affecting a Tarrasque?

And since when was effectiveness against a Tarrasque the benchmark for measuring how good a class is?

[Lord Tataraus]

You are aware that anecdotal evidence isn't really good evidence?

Anecdotal evidence is most like a single case study. Your experience is but one event, and cannot be generalized to all such cases. Why not? Because you, your characters, your strategies, your campaign setting, and your DM are going to be different from those of other people. Your experiences may not reflect the normal experience of DnD gamers.

To draw general conclusions based on a case study, you need a systematic case studies, so you can search for a thread of consistency.

You are a sample size of one, which is not large enough to draw a general conclusion from.


ps. I realize that my number 1) statement about people going into PrCs doesn't hold up to this standard, and it should probably be refined to read something like "It is a common practice for characters to go into Prestige Classes in order to become more powerful."

Your statement about PrCs, said

1) A PrC.
Fairly standard for all characters. Everyone gets into a PrC eventually, after all.

Emphasis mine.
So I gave an example of not using PrCs hardly at all. Your revised statement is much better. Your statement on magic items was not so defining, but I still presented my argument that a truenamer is dependant on a single magic item as opposed to the option of multiple magic items. For example, a fighter can be just as effective with a +1 flaming greatsword or a +1 shocking greatsword, or a +1 acidic heavy flail, or .... you get my point.

PS sorry if I sound like a nitpick.

[Zincorium]

You eloquent argument, full of facts and well phrased arguments, has persuaded me as to the error of my ways.

I found it amusing that the Turenamer is "poo" (such a sophisticated argument, comparing the class to bodily excrement!) in your opinion.

By the way, is it true that a Truenamer has no chance at all as to affecting a Tarrasque?

And since when was effectiveness against a Tarrasque the benchmark for measuring how good a class is?

When in the end game, a fighter is infinitely better than you are, it's time to revise what exactly your goal is.

The tarrasque isn't a benchmark. It's an encounter, that can and maybe will happen.

And the truenamer has zero functionality if that occurs. Their class abilities don't work, due to purely metagame reasons.


Seriously, give a counter example. Point out a single high CR creature that the truenamer is effective against.

[Solo]

PS sorry if I sound like a nitpick.

No need to apologize. As you can tell from my post, I took AP Statistics and Anal Retentive Behavior 201.

[Thinker]

When in the end game, a fighter is infinitely better than you are, it's time to revise what exactly your goal is.

The tarrasque isn't a benchmark. It's an encounter, that can and maybe will happen.

And the truenamer has zero functionality if that occurs. Their class abilities don't work, due to purely metagame reasons.


Seriously, give a counter example. Point out a single high CR creature that the truenamer is effective against.

That's really not true. The OP simply skewed things away from how the class would be. Assuming a 25 point buy to begin with the Truenamer's stats would look something like this at level 20:
Str 8
Dex 10
Con 10
Int 32 (+5 stat boosts, +5 manual, +6 stat boosting item)
Wis 9
Cha 22 (+6 stat boosting item)

Truename skill is +47 (+11 Int + 23 ranks + 10 item + 3 skill focus).

Now he only needs an 8 on his roll with little optimization. I'm not going to claim that the Truenamer is a strong class, but it can still easily affect the Tarrasque or any other CR 20 creature.

[Zincorium]

Hm. Didn't factor in the item or exactly how high intelligence you could have. So I was wrong.

[Solo]

I found a gem.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=614007


By the way, a Truenamer can kill a Tarresque.

First, use a truename to dig a really, really big hole in the ground. (The precise calculations will be left to someone who has enough time to do so. Research a Truename for digging if you have to.)

Then, fill it with water via a Decanter of Endless Water. (Or use soem sort of Truenaming, if possible?)

Now lure the Tarresque in, after disguising the hole somehow. (Truenamers get UMD, so use a scroll of Hallucinatory Terrain and cover the hole. Or use truenaming to cover it somehow?)

The Tarresque, being heavier than water and really, really heavy, will probably sink, and have to swim upwards.

This is where the Truenamer take out many, many scrolls of either Wall of Force or Wall of Iron (or something), and spams the top of the hole with it.

Tarresque is now in a tank of water.

Someone proposed this method of killing a Tarresque solo at level 13-14 ish, and he did a lot of calculations which made it seem like a good way to do the job - though you'd still need to use a scroll/spell of Miracle or Wish to finish the job completely.

Spoiler

Show

Here's the original method, which is far suerior to the shallow mockery I have created.

Method 2: An Exercise in Logistics

The illusion idea from Method 1 was a good one, but the Simulacrum idea
wasn't entirely faithful to it; the creatures we created with Simulacrum
were real, not fakes. That technique also cost a bunch of experience to
prepare: 1000xp per Simulacrum created. There's another, more common way
to use illusions that can serve us well in this method: the illusionary
floor.

The idea is this. Dig a big hole. Put an illusion over the top so
Tarrasque falls in. Fill the hole with water. Tarrasque falls in.
Tarrasque drowns. We'll work on this one step at a time.

* Step 1: Dig a big hole.

How big a hole do we need? Tarrasque is 70 feet long and 50 feet wide, so
he's about 90 feet along the diagonal. He has a reach of 25 feet beyond
that. We'll make the hole 140 feet in diameter for reasons described
below. A 140-foot-diameter hole is 15393 square feet in area, and if the
hole is 200 feet deep then we need to remove about 3.1 million cubic feet
of earth.

We'll want to dig the hole in solid stone so that Tarrasque can't dig his
way out of it. There's a fifth-level spell called Transmute Rock To Mud
that transmutes two 10-foot cubes of rock per level into mud. We can use
a sixth-level spell, Move Earth, to remove the earth from the pit. Our
13th-level wizard can cast five Transmutes and one Move per day if he uses
his higher-level spell slots as well; that's just enough to deepen the
hole by ten feet. He should be able to finish the hole in about three
weeks.

We'll see later that the hole doesn't need to be quite so deep: Tarrasque
isn't going to be in any condition to climb out of it, so all that matters
is that the water be over his head. Our wizard can get away with one
week's work instead of three if he's in a hurry. The principle is the
same, though.

* Step 2: Put an illusion over the hole.

This part is easy: the fourth-level spell Hallucinatory Terrain targets
one thirty-foot cube per level. We can cover the whole thing with two
castings. They last two hours per level, which at 13th-level works out to
one day.

* Step 3: Fill the hole with water.

This could be a bit of a problem, actually. Probably your best bet is to
divert a river into the hole - not too difficult a task compared to
creating the hole in the first place. Four Transmute spells and two Move
spells can create a 10ft x 10ft channel 1000 feet long in solid rock; if
you can find a suitable river five miles away, you can finish digging the
channel in three weeks.

If you can't find an area of rock that's near a river, but the season is
summer, you can use the sixth-level spell Control Weather to change the
weather to "torrential rain". The duration is 4d12 hours, and you can
cast the spell three times per day, so you can keep the rain up as long as
you like. It's not clear from the rules how long it will take until you
have 200 feet of water in the hole, but it shouldn't take too long.

If neither of the above conditions applies, you may have to settle for
digging a hole in standard dirt near a river. Or you could use Move Earth
on a lake that's already there, making the sides much steeper and the
bottom deeper.

* Step 4: Tarrasque falls in.

This step is really easy. Shoot an arrow at Tarrasque; keep shooting
until you have his attention. Run away, very fast, using a Fly spell.
(Your base move with Fly is 90 feet; you'll have no problem evading
Tarrasque. If you're worried about his Rush ability, you can polymorph
someone into a Pegasus and add Horseshoes of Speed, granting a base fly
speed of 240.) Eventually Tarrasque tries to run over the empty air, and
falls in.

...Wait a second here. Isn't there some sort of Reflex save associated
with falling into a pit? Well, ordinarily there would be. However, if a
character is "running or moving recklessly" on encountering a covered pit,
the save is negated.

* Step 5: Tarrasque drowns.

This step is much harder. Here, for your reference, is the drowning rule:

Any creature can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to twice
its Constitution score. After that, it has to make Constitution checks;
the DC starts at 10 and increases by 1 per round. When it fails a save,
it dies in three rounds.

Now, Tarrasque's Constitution score is 35, so Tarrasque can last between
9.5 and 11.5 minutes underwater. During this time it can do any of
several things. It can try to dig at the sides of the hole. It can try
to swim to the surface. It can also try to climb the side of the hole.
We need to make sure that none of these things will get it out of the
water within, say, 15 minutes.

The easiest variable to control is Tarrasque digging at the sides of the
hole. The walls are made of stone, which has a hardness of 8 and has 15HP
per inch of thickness. (Presumably these numbers are for one five-foot
square of rock, but the table doesn't explicitly state this, so we won't
assume it.) If Tarrasque can deal 100 damage per round to the rock (after
subtracting 8 hardness for each of five attacks), that's 6 inches of rock
per round, so Tarrasque can tunnel through 60 feet of rock in 12 minutes.
The pit is 200 feet deep, and Tarrasque is only 70 feet long, so no matter
what he does he's still underwater.

The other possibilities, swimming and climbing, are harder to control.
The Monster Manual doesn't give us any indication of how well Tarrasque
can swim or climb. Both of these abilities are based on Strength, though,
and Tarrasque has a Strength of about 45. How can we make sure that
Tarrasque won't be able to get out of the pit?

* Never Swim on a Full Stomach

Tarrasque has a strange habit: he likes to swallow whole anything that
attacks him. Usually this doesn't hurt him, as he has a Fortitude save of
+38, making him immune to all types of poison. In certain cases, though,
this can work against him.

Suppose that we craft an iron statue and place it in Tarrasque's path as
it approaches our trap. Perhaps we create an illusion so that it seems to
be shooting arrows at Tarrasque. Tarrasque eats it, of course, and
continues chasing us. How does this affect Tarrasque's ability to swim?

Tarrasque can swallow one Huge creature at a time, so let's make our
statue Huge. A Huge creature is twice as large in every dimension as a
Large creature, which is twice as large as a Medium creature - so our Huge
statue has a volume 64 times the volume of an equivalent Medium-sized
statue.

Actually, we can do better than this - we cast Reduce on the statue before
Tarrasque sees it. Reduce will decrease all of its dimensions by 50%, so
if the statue is Huge when Tarrasque swallows it, it will grow to be
Colossal after the spell wears off, with a volume of 512 times that of a
medium-sized creature.

Now, a medium-sized human can weigh 200 pounds or more - we assume our
statue is somewhat portly. If our statue was a Colossal human, it would
weigh a little more than 100000 pounds, or 50 tons. It's not human,
though; it's iron. A human's density is approximately 1, the same as the
density of water; iron has a density of 7.874. Our statue weighs 800,000
pounds when the Reduce spell has worn off!

...Wait, now. How would we buy such a statue? We don't need to pay for a
great work of art - actually, we'd prefer a cube or a sphere, and our
illusion spell can make it look like a creature just the same. But where
are we going to find 400 tons of iron? How are we going to transport it?

Well, it turns out there's a fifth-level spell called Wall of Iron which
can create a wall with area one five-foot square per level. The thickness
of the wall is three inches at caster level 13, so one casting will
produce up to 80 cubic feet (or about 20 tons) of iron. We'll want to use
Shrink Item on the iron as we produce it, decreasing its mass and volume
by a factor of 1727; we can then use use the fifth-level spell Fabricate
to mold it into any form we please.

(This might actually be an abuse: Fabricate doesn't work on magic items,
and it's a bit unclear whether magically shrunken iron counts as a "magic
item". The alternative is to melt down the shrunken iron in a forge and
re-cast it - not too impractical, actually, provided you can be certain
the spell won't dispel itself partway through.)

We have no lack of spells, so let's be extravagant: we'll use 43 castings
of Wall of Iron to create 3375 cubic feet of iron. (This is enough to
make a 15-foot cube of iron.) This will take a little more than a week.
We'll cut the walls into manageable 26-cubic-foot sections (four five-foot
squares of iron three inches thick) using whichever method is simplest
(perhaps some Fabricate spells targeting the small amounts of iron between
the sections we want). We can then cast Shrink Item on each individual
section. Our 13th-level caster can cast Shrink Item 16 times per day
(assuming an 18 INT), so this will take nine days, at the end of which all
the iron will be less than two cubic feet in size. We'll only need one
more Fabricate spell to collect it into a nice 18-inch cube, and we'll
then have three days until the Shrink Item spells wear off. (The spells
would wear off over a period of nine days, and they're all mixed together
in that little iron block. The process would be interesting to watch.)

We should cover the block to a thickness of another six inches or so with
some of the leftover unshrunken iron. Shrink Item spells are a little
finicky - they sometimes dispel themselves when they suffer an impact, and
we don't want that to happen too soon. We should probably also put the
block inside a cow or something so Tarrasque won't get confused when
eating it.

How can we make sure the block will expand just after Tarrasque eats it?
Shrink Item can be deactivated with a command word. Once Tarrasque falls
in the pit a simple Shout spell should be audible inside his stomach,
which will expand the block quite nicely. We'll use the same command word
for all the spells.

* Tarrasque drowns.

Okay, so Tarrasque is stuck at the bottom of a pit with an 844-ton iron
block in his gullet. Anything in Tarrasque's stomach takes 2d8+8 acid
damage and 2d8+10 crushing damage per round; we need to make sure that he
can't digest the block before he drowns.

The Tarrasque has a strength of 45, and he's a Colossal sized creature, so
his maximum load is roughly 200000, or 100 tons. If he tries to carry
more than that, he "can only stagger around with it", meaning he can't
move more than 5 feet per round. Our cube will weigh 100 tons when its
diameter is 5.85 feet; we want to show that it won't get smaller than that
before Tarrasque drowns.

Iron has a hardness of 10 and 30 hp per inch of thickness. It also takes
half damage from acid attacks. We'll ignore the acid damage as
negligible, but the block is taking 9 crushing damage, destroying about a
third of an inch of iron on each side, per round. After 15 minutes
(150 rounds) the block will have lost 50 inches, or a little more than
4 feet, from each side, leaving it with a diameter that's a little less
than 7 feet. It'll be close.

(Well, actually, if you think about it, crushing damage shouldn't _really_
be able to harm a block of iron, should it? The DMG says the DM can rule
that certain items are immune to certain types of damage. But a true
munchkin does not rely on his DM for favorable rulings; accordingly, we
have performed the calculation as though crushing dealt full damage.)

(Actually, there's one more thing we might worry about. Tarrasque is
known for rampaging across the landscape, eating entire towns when it
encounters them. Who's to say it can't just drink all the water? Sure,
the volume of the water is much greater than that of the Tarrasque - but
so are all those towns it eats. Also, when water encounters a strong acid
(such as exists in Tarrasque's stomach) it produces a great deal of heat.
Can Tarrasque's stomach acid boil the water in fifteen minutes' time? One
would hope not.)

After Tarrasque has been at the bottom of the hole for fifteen minutes, he
will be thoroughly drowned, which automatically reduces him to -10 hit
points. (There's some question here about his regeneration. The
regeneration effect gives him +40HP at the start of each of his moves, and
it's not clear when the drowning effect drops him back to -10. Is
Tarrasque jerked back to consciousness every six seconds? One would hope
not.) All that remains is to go down there and put him out of your
misery. You need to drop him to -30 hit points in order to kill him; if
you have a +2 STR mod, you can do this with coup-de-grace with a +5 heavy
pick. Immediately after you hit him, you use a Haste partial action to
finish him with Wish. (There are some details here about spellcasting
underwater. Make a diving bell or something.)

...Actually, why bother with the Wish finisher at all? Tarrasque is
stuck, unconscious, at the bottom of a deep pit. He's not going anywhere.
Why not leave him there?

Well, eventually he's going to digest that iron block you fed him.
Presumably his stomach action slows down after he drowns, but you
shouldn't bet on it stopping. Once the iron block is gone, he might float
to the surface and start breathing again, and you really don't want that
to happen.

If you go down there and attach some kind of shackles to him, though, he
won't float to the surface no matter what happens. If you cast Wall of
Iron some more, you can probably bury him under enough iron that he won't
come to the surface for quite some time. (And the water will turn a
pretty red color from all the rust. Years from now, Tarrasque Pool will
be a tourist attraction...) You'll also need to make some provision for
keeping the water level above his head: there's a 9000gp item called a
"Decanter of Endless Water" that can produce 30 gallons of water every
round, but you're probably better off diverting a river. You might also
want to worry about theft of the Decanter or sabotage of the Shackles by
various evil types; we will leave precautions against such occurrences as
an exercise for the reader.

Summary.

Cost: 2500gp if you have the spells already. A+.

Time:
21 days - dig a deep hole
?? days - fill hole with water
7 days, 2500gp for spell components - create 840 tons iron
? days - break iron into chunks
9 days - cast Shrink Item on the iron
1 day - fabricate, illusion spells
15 minutes - showtime
This would require much planning. D.

Level: We never actually use any spell above sixth level, but we need a
13th-level caster to cast all the Shrink Item spells before they start
expiring. A specialist (or someone with Extend Spell) might be able to do
this in less. A.

Experience: You get the full 46800, no need to share. A+.

Sensibility: Is Tarrasque vulnerable to drowning? Uncertain. B.

Legality: Can you use Fabricate on Shrunken iron like that? Can your
Shout spell be heard inside Tarrasque's stomach? C.

...But if you've got time to burn, and your DM is okay with the legality,
this is a fine method.

This probably will not satisfy anyone who dislikes Truenamers.

[Mojo_Rat]

This is going to sound strange *cough* but the DC checks for True namers are not high within the Paradigm it was created in.

This appears to be that a) every truenamer has Skill Focus True name and b) that once the true namer hits a certain level that they have an Item that raises truename by 5 or more.

Once this Paradigm is understood the DC's are not terribly high. The Sample Character they present in the book has both skill focus true name speak and the +5 item and i think could succeed against something his own cr on a 9 (I am going by memory here) so has a 50/50 chance.

Following this Paradigm a character trying to affect the Tarasque in one of the previous examples would have a Skill of around 23 ranks (say a 22 int so +6?) and a +10-15 item for around 39-43 skill vs the Tarasque's dc of 55.

Now I think Designing the class withing this constraint was a bad design flaw but I honestly have no idea how to fix it. The class concept is otherwise rather interesting and sound.

[Username]

I would like to point out that aside from a few buffs/debuffs ( the one that empowers any spells cast by someone comes to mind, that's nice.), truenamers have absolutely nothing unique to offer. The power of their abilities do not justify the difficulty in using them, regardless of what you may be able to achieve via ridiculous Int scores, magic equipment, etc. The whole thing breaks if you really cheese it anyways as you can apply the truenaming meta-magic all over the place a ton of times.

[Jasdoif]

Hmm. What happens when you're up against the BBEG, whose CR is noticeably higher then that of the other things you've been fighting?

[Lord Tataraus]

Hmm. What happens when you're up against the BBEG, whose CR is noticeably higher then that of the other things you've been fighting?

Exactly, my group normally fights enemies up to 3 CRs greater than we "should". The truenamer mechanics assume you are following the CR system completely, wavering just a bit screws it up.

[jameswilliamogle]

http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archi...x.php/t-605786
Shows how you can get auto-success up to 4 CR higher than your own relatively easily, but even w/o custom items you can hit 70-80% success on buffing your allies and yourself (the sweet spot for this is L8-L10, where its easy to hit 90% success rates). The main problem is that the class requires the player to invest in skill-boosting magic items, but this isn't really that much different than any other class in 3.5.

[Dausuul]

The problem with the truenamer is that it puts a skill at the core of its class mechanic, and the D&D skill system was never intended to be used that way. It's far too easy to jack up your skill modifier. Compare to attack bonus (the core of the fighter's class mechanic) or save DC (the core of the wizard's class mechanic), both of which are intentionally difficult to improve.

[Golthur]

The problem with the truenamer is that it puts a skill at the core of its class mechanic, and the D&D skill system was never intended to be used that way. It's far too easy to jack up your skill modifier. Compare to attack bonus (the core of the fighter's class mechanic) or save DC (the core of the wizard's class mechanic), both of which are intentionally difficult to improve.

Yes, when you switch to a skill-based magic system (I've got a campaign going now with one), you've got to limit the ability of magic items, feats, etc. to boost your core magic skills. Otherwise, your optimizers will abuse 'em.