Tome of Magic balance issues...

[Blackdrop]

...Are their any? I was wondering because my players picked up Tome of Magic the other day and want to use it. I agreed, under the condition that I run the content against some quasi-experts on balance.

Okay quasi-experts, are there any balance issues with the book?

[SilverClawShift]

It's underpowered compared to the core Magic classes.

I'm sure there are exploits, but exploits exist with any material, and shouldn't be allowed even if they're legal in the first place.

[Swooper]

Balance issues? Sure: The truenamer sucks, the shadowcaster is pretty weak but the binder is ok. I've heard of some builds that use the Anima Mage prestige class, but I'm not sure I'd consider it overpowered.

[Icewalker]

I've heard these things as well, but I think they are alright. At least, Binders certainly are at lower levels, it just seems like there aren't too many high level vestiges. I haven't played much of the other two.

If you get a Binder character, and add vestiges being posted on Gitp (there seem to have been a lot lately) it'd probably be ok, especially if you try to keep the characters balanced through items or the like.

[Douglas]

Truenamer DCs scale too fast and require quite a bit of optimization just to be able to use their abilities at all against any significant opponents at high levels.

[alchemyprime]

Truenamers: Impossible to do anything more than once. I love the concept of the class, but they purposely made it dang hard to do unless you have a loaded d20.
Shadowcasters: Too darn weak. Their spell selection is lacking as is, and they only get to use spells 1/day to 3/day max? A little hard to swallow, IMO.
Binders: Wunderbar! You may want to go onto Wizards of the Coast's message boards over at forums.gleemax.com and find the thread "lets make some new vestiges". They have every vestige imaginable, including a few I made (Flaansburgh and Linnel), and some amazing ones like the Herald (Silver Surfer), Cthulhu and Banjo. It's a good thing.

[Wordmiser]

Balance issues? Sure: The truenamer sucks, the shadowcaster is pretty weak but the binder is ok. I've heard of some builds that use the Anima Mage prestige class, but I'm not sure I'd consider it overpowered.

You would think that Divine Metamagic and the Incantrix would have taught WotC what happens when you give free metamagic.

But that's still a problem with Wizards more than it is with Binders. I give Binders skills and Dark Lore like an Archivist, just to boost them a bit. The class seems to be about on scale with a Core Ranger.

Give Shadowcasters an Adaptive Style-type recovery method and they work well alongside most non-casters.

Truenamers can work, but it takes a lot of effort on the player's part.

[blue_fenix]

Shadowcaster is a class I've been wanting to play for a long time but never found a DM who would house-rule it up to playable levels. There's some good fixes listed elsewhere, but mainly it needs less MAD and a spells-per-day boost of some kind, and possibly a change to the mechanic of picking spells. I'd love to see a re-write of Shadowcaster that makes it a per-encounter caster ala ToB.

[Gralamin]

Lots of Homebrew Vestiges

[SadisticFishing]

Binders are relatively good, and very fun

The whole Shadow part of the book is rather underpowered, though they make good Bad Guys.

The Truenamer class is not very good, though cool, but all of the Truespeaking prestige classes are solid except the Bereft.

[Dhavaer]

I'm not so sure about Shadowcasters being all that underpowered. They can wear armour, get a pretty good skill list, and have several useful class abilities. Their mysteries are also quite powerful, particularly when combined with how metashadow feats work (Stilled Quickened Flicker and Maximised Extended Reach Umbral Touch. 30 damage per round and you're more or less immune to melee). Their problem is the effect they have on gameplay; they're a wizard with the 'narcolepsy' dial turned up to 11. All they can do is nova, and after that - well, at low levels they at least have longspear proficiency.

A shadowcaster fix would probably have to even out the power of mysteries in addition to increasing uses/day.