Collect all Truenamer Fixes and "not total redesign" CLass Mods

[GrayDeath]

As the title says.

I might be able to play in a short campaign where we can only take tier 4 and lower lcasses, but all gain some amount of Alchemical Skill for potions (dont know the details yet), so I thought I`d give the truenamer my second go...ever.


Yeah yeah, I should not need you all, but sadlky the search seems less clear cut than it was (or I`m too tired today^^), so:

Please post the links, or if you have ones yourself, post the whole stuff.


Thank you!

[mabriss lethe]

Some quick and dirty ideas for patching Truenamer

These don't have to be used together, and honestly, they're just patches I brainstormed to help bring the class into fighting trim. If nothing else, it helps highlight the class's flaws so that you can make the adjustments you need.

- Adjusting Truename DC: The Lexicon of the Evolving Mind DCs scale twice as fast as your skill ranks, (15 + 2X HD) which makes it harder and harder to affect level appropriate encounters without heavily investing in every possibly skill booster. Reducing the formula to 15+HD will keep you from having to do more than basic skill investments to stay relevant.

- Law of Resistance: It's just bad and makes the character's life hard for no reason. If you can't get the DM to remove it from play, see if they'll go with having it reset every encounter. That still gives you some risk vs reward, but makes it a lot more manageable. Alternately or additionally, work with your DM to develop a refresh mechanic similar to a ToB class, but in this case, performing some action to reset the resistance

-Speak Unto the Masses: It's too little, too late. You really should be able to use your utterances on more than one target at a time at a much earlier point than level 17. Integrate multitargeting into the basic formula of the Lexicon of the Evolving Mind from the start and figure out something nice to stick into the dead level it creates. as a starting point, let's keep the basic premise. When calculating your DC it's 15+HD of highest level target+5 per additional target. Subsequently, you could replace SutM with an ability that grants a bonus to Truename checks when targeting multiple opponents Reducing the multitarget increase to +2 instead of 5.

-Recitations: They're rather bad mechanics. Honestly a quick fix would be to treat them something like ToB Stances. Once activated it stays active until dismissed or another is activated in its place, so that you can gain some passive benefits with a more streamlined action economy. (switching them to swift action activation isn't a bad idea either, but you can get by without it.)

Whatever fixes you wind up using, work with your DM to adjust things during play if they aren't functioning well.

[JoshuaZ]

Quirken's Fix is liked by some people: https://www.scribd.com/document/2061...namer-Homebrew .

[Troacctid]

My quick fix is to add a new lexicon that includes all bard spells, and allow truenamers to learn additional utterances from it at the same rate as the Lexicon of the Evolving Mind, with a parallel progression. I don't think Truespeak checks are as problematic as people say they are, but if you do, then I would add the ability to use each utterance once per day without a check. Or, once regular, once reversed, so, twice, I guess.

[Darg]

My quick fixes are:

Your intelligence modifier dictates your utterance DCs.

Utterances with upgrades can be augmented to the next tier by adding +2 to the skill check for every level it goes up.

As mentioned prior, Speak unto the Masses needs to be baked into the class by at least 5th level and your.

Law of Resistance should apply on a per target basis for lexicon of the evolving mind.

Lexicon of the crafted should get your first at 3 and you get one every odd level after, going up in level at 7,11,15, 19.

Gain access to Lexicon of the perfected map at level 6 and gain one new utterance every even level after. Gain access to new levels at 10, 14, 18.

[Unavenger]

If you're only allowed to play tier 4 or lower classes, then my recommendation for how to fix the truenamer is simple: do not fix the truenamer. I consider it a challenging but reasonable T4 - it's absolutely capable in multiple areas, and for me, the question of whether it excels well enough in any of them to count as T3 is actually more compelling than the question of whether it sucks enough at every single one of them to be T5 (it doesn't). A lot of attempts to fix the truenamer will turn it into an easy T3 - or in one case I've seen, T2.

[lylsyly]

Q1: When do you want to play a truenamer?

A1: When the only allowed classes are Tiers 5 or 6!!!!

:-)

[ExLibrisMortis]

For me, the main problem with the truenamer chapter is that it's so... I don't know the right word. It's bland, it's trying to hard, it's getting way ahead of itself, it's one-dimensional, it's derivative, it doesn't make sense, nothing ties in with any existing mechanics, truenaming's got absolutely nothing to do with language or linguistics, and I don't even like the artwork. Yeah. It's just a failure.

• Truenaming is reskinned spellcasting. However, all aspects of spellcasting are reduced to Truespeak. The truenaming equivalents of Spellcraft checks to identify spells being cast, caster level checks to beat SR (the +5 DC to auto-beat SR, anyway), caster level checks to dispel or counterspell, Concentration checks to cast defensively, spell slots per day, and spell slot level requirements for metamagic feats (including the entire Heighten Spell feat) are all reduced to that single, one-dimensional skill check. Only caster level is not included in Truespeak, but since it's based on Truenamer level, you are effectively locked into a single class to along with your single skill. (Feats such as Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind are technically useless, but even if they work, they don't scale at all.) Optimizing a straight truenamer is boring, and tying truenamer in with anything is a chore.
• The whole truenaming chapter has a massively high opinion of itself. It announces early on that truenaming is THE MOST AWESOME thing, that power words are "lesser" truename magic, and that you're about to obtain truly earth-shaking power. Throughout the chapter, this theme continues, with suggestions like "Keep the object saving throw rules handy, you're going to need them", because clearly truenaming is special and regular spells don't ever work on objects, right? Then you get to the Lexicon of the Crafted Tool, and guess what? It's a tiny selection (two utterances per level over five levels, for a total of ten) of mostly sub-par effects, with a few broken-good options thrown in, and none of them allow saving throws. Gee, I'm glad you warned me about the saving throw rules!
• Recitations are universally insultingly bad, awful in every way. The most egregious example is on page 231, which features an illustration of a truenamer supposedly "ignoring" three mummies' fear auras with Recitation of Meditative State, which doesn't actually work. Recitation of Meditative State only works against fear effects that do not take away your actions, and it only clears existing conditions--it does not inhibit future fear effects in any way. Effectively, RoMS works against the shaken condition, nothing else, and this is in fact mentioned in the text. Now, mummies don't use the normal shaken-frightened-panicked stages of fear. They go straight to paralyzed, which definitely prevents you from acting. So the image is (a) completely incompatible with the mechanics, (b) tactically incompetent even if the condition was shaken ("I'm a lightly-armoured spellcaster without buff spells and I'm getting surrounded by mummies, so I guess I'll use my full-round action to clear bloody shaken instead of running") (also, shaken apparently didn't escalate, so I guess he made 2/3 saves?), and (c) looks stupid, with that stupid big mace and ugly goatee.
• The Law of Sequence. This rule is just... completely out of touch with how all other subsystems handle ongoing durations, and not aware of it in the slightest. It doesn't seem like effects were balanced with this in mind, either, and no ability anywhere lets you play with this law a bit. Even the stupid CPsi nerf to astral construct--itself completely oblivious of the nearest balance points--was at least accompanied by a PrC that lets you bypass the limit (badly).
• Researching a personal truename is literally as difficult as developing a power word of killing just one person, but requires much greater skill investment, both in breadth (each Knowledge skill only lets you discover truenames of creatures you could identify with that skill) and depth (DCs are much higher). It's the equivalent of crafting a quiver full of +1 holy axiomatic evil outsider bane chaotic outsider bane cold iron arrows of evil outsider slaying for the next hezrou you meet, except that in truenaming, you can't re-use your investment for subsequent demons.

The list goes on. I mean, damn. It's an awful chapter.

[Psyren]

Kyeudo gave me permission to rehost his excellent fix - you can obtain it here. I can personally vouch for its fun at the table.

[GrayDeath]

First, let me thank you!

A lot of suggestions, and very different ones to boot, which is always good!


Well, after looking through the presented fixes and redesigns, we kind of decided that too much redesign wouldnt be good, as we are likely not going to paly that group longer than 2 to 4 levels (starting at 6 ot 7), and too litle change (only switch the SKill check, or say kick the law of Sequence) too little to make it actually fun to play.

So, as a short/quick and dirty fix, how does this sound:

1.: truespeek: We dont want to HAVE to optimize for it to work, so making that easier seems the simplest fix. Also reduce the base calculation DC to 10+X+Y.
Checks modified as follows: all "*2/*3" etc stuff removed, so for example standard Evolving Mind check would be 10+Utterances Level + Target CR or HD; whichever is LOWER.

1B: Law of Resistance: Only applies within the same 30-CHaracter Level Minutes. After thats over, it resets. Maybe our Universe has memory trouble^^

Spoiler: Optional

Show

We also thought about this:

2.: Grant them a varying "pool" of Utterances we call "Utterances of the Self" that only work on themselves, must be researched one at a time, and require you to choose from the pool you "remember perfectly".
That sounded more complicated than I thought, ehm...

Lets just say they can use a few Invocations, but different (learning X but only being able to use X/2-1 outside their research centre).

Spoiler: Full Stuff explanation

Show

Researching them works as other Truespeak research, but since its about YOU, easier.

This allows a Truenamer to have a variable pool of "Invocations" stolen from the warlock. There is a maximum number of Invocations researched equal to your HD or Int Mod, whichever is lower, and you ahve to decide which ones you "attune your inner Utterer" (yeah, I dfiund my friends expression jsut as funny^^), which is capped at half the ones learned-1, down to 1.

So say you are a Level 6 truenamer with Int 18. You can learn 4 Uttervocations, and go adventuring with 1 of them.

Attuning takes 1 day and requires you to be in your main Study/Library/etc.

In short, we wanted to give a reason for the actual naming research to, you know, happen at all outside of "we need the demons True name or the world ends"^^)

How does that sound?

Balanced enough for lowest T3 to High T4? Or too much?

[Gnaeus]

If you made every truenaming check autosucceed class winds up a decent tier 3.

[GrayDeath]

But thats not what we are doing.

Easier checks, sure. Auto succeed only if I would optimize for checks as one has to with the class as is.

If I did that there qwould be no reason at all to change it though ^^

[Darg]

Truenamer honestly should baseline auto succeed. LoR does enough to keep you from spamming. And baseline it's not as if you get anything broken that would be unbalanced if it were autosucceed. If you wanted to, true speech bonuses could be added on after any penalties. So if you quicken an utterance you get a -20 but your 20 int and skill focus (truespeak) gives you +8 for a total of -12. It's not as if you don't need to succeed on saving throws too.

[ExLibrisMortis]

When thinking about the truenamer's design--looking to improve it, of course--I always find it difficult to make a single skill check responsible for anything interesting that isn't also massively powerful/over-important in character design. You either take the one-dimensional skill check and use it to determine everything (i.e. the current version), or you introduce more conventional mechanics, like Concentration and Spellcraft checks, dispel checks, standard usage limits (maybe at will, like invocations), standard CL calculations, standard metamagic (e.g. the Sudden feats, or the SLA feats), and the check is nothing but a "May I use my class feature?" roll. There's a sweet spot somewhere between, but none of the standard mechanics of spellcasting translate to Truespeak very well (other than Spellcraft, which, rather contrary to the core Truespeak concept, is not actually involved in spellcasting).

[mabriss lethe]

A casting overhaul for Truenamer I've considered, but never had the time to properly work on, is to modify it to be something like the Use the Force skill in Star Wars Saga Edition. In this case, each utterance has a minimal baseline effect that auto-succeeds. From there, rolling a Truespeech check (or eliminating the skill entirely and rolling its functions into class specific spellcraft applications) gives you access to more powerful results. Metamagic-like effects could be applied as penalties to the roll.

But, of course, making it work requires rewriting several pages worth of utterances.

[GrayDeath]

A casting overhaul for Truenamer I've considered, but never had the time to properly work on, is to modify it to be something like the Use the Force skill in Star Wars Saga Edition. In this case, each utterance has a minimal baseline effect that auto-succeeds. From there, rolling a Truespeech check (or eliminating the skill entirely and rolling its functions into class specific spellcraft applications) gives you access to more powerful results. Metamagic-like effects could be applied as penalties to the roll.

But, of course, making it work requires rewriting several pages worth of utterances.

That does hoiweer sound REALLY good.

If you evr do that, ping me with the playtest version?

I`ll provide feedback and all! :)

[Jodah]

If you evr do that, ping me with the playtest version?

I`ll provide feedback and all! :)

Same here - truenamer is one of the classes shaping the metaphysics in my homebrew world, and I would love an option like this. As is, I am likely going with the quick and dirty patch of 10+Utterance Level+HD for DC, +5 for each additional target. I am also adding a boatload of skill synergies (+2/language up to 5 (for a total of +10) and +1/Knowledge with 5 ranks (another +10 total)) which replaces a lot of the need for all the special items. Obviously adding Language as a class skill.

Gotta say, Thank you OP for the extremely timely thread as I am just beginning to work on adding it to my splat book (to be posted, probably).

[Hish]

I always wanted to see the force system from the original star wars d20 adapted. It's like Saga editon, except each category of force use is a different skill. It wouldn't necessarily have to use skill points, just points that are allocated to different types of magic.

[NigelWalmsley]

Skill based magic doesn't really work in a level based system. Skills either correlate directly with level (in which case your "skill based" magic is just a fig leaf over a level-based system), or they don't (in which case your skill based magic is broken in one direction or the other). The easiest fix for the Truenamer a Sorcerer who can't take any spell with expensive material or focus components, has to take a Power Word spell as their first spell at each spell level, and gets to ignore non-verbal components. That gets you a guy who does Word Magic and is not absolutely garbage at every level of play.