Updated Truenamer Fix [PEACH]

[Kyeudo]

As everyone who has ever tried to use the Truenamer from the Tome of Magic knows, Truename Magic as written does not work. Unless you optimize your Truespeak check to the absolute maximum, including using such things as custom magic items and item familiars, you cannot have a reasonable chance of affect yourself or your allies with Truename magic, let alone a boss encounter several CRs above your level.
Further, the Truenamer lacks options. You are nearly straightjacketed into a single build to be effective, with only minor variations possible without shooting yourself in the foot. Few of the utterances that a Truenamer has access to are significantly different from what an equivalently leveled wizard or cleric could perform and are often much weaker.
To compound the problem, the presented prestige classes suck, with the possible exception of the Fiendbinder. They don't offer any interesting abilities and they more often than not lag behind their base class equivalents. None of them advance the Truenamer base class in any meaningful way, so only straight classed Truenamers get access to higher level utterances.

So, I decided to overhaul the entire Truename Magic system. Now, the presented fix is not too radically different from the existing system. Every utterance that previously existed still exists, the truenamer's utterance progression only had small tweaks made to it, and most of the feats are largely unchanged. The most severe changes are changes made to the levels and durations of many of the existing utterances, the addition of over a dozen utterances to the Lexicon of the Crafted Tool and the Lexicon of the Perfected Map, and the addition or redesign of several prestige classes.

If you have any suggestions, comments, insults, etc. please feel free to share. I can't make it better if no one tells me anything.

Special thanks to those who have helped with this fix
Zaq
Draz74
Quirken
Ankh
Psyren
Yue Ryong

Instead of taking up 16 or 20 posts with my fix like last time, my fix is now availible as a downloadable pdf, all 76 pages of it. Enjoy!

[Morph Bark]

Awesome! Thanks man. I love your Truenamer fix and advocate it whenever I can. Just couldn't post in the old thread since that woulda been necroing.

[Ashtagon]

File not found :(

[PersonMan]

File not found :(

Invalid or deleted on my end.

I can technically say that your fix is even more broken than the original-it just flat out does not work, no matter how much you optimize.

[IcarusWings]

Invalid or deleted on my end.

I can technically say that your fix is even more broken than the original-it just flat out does not work, no matter how much you optimize.

Ditto obligatory text

[Kyeudo]

File not found :(

Sorry, looks like when I uploaded the latest corrections I forgot to change the link before I deleted the old version. It should work now.

[Psyren]

Reposting from PM:

On the Forbidden Word, its long cast time is what balances its "There is no coming back from this one" nature. Interrupting it should be your priority if you are facing it. Making it too good would be bad.

It would, but it's still "Fort negates"; You don't get it until almost epic - at that level, boosting your fort save isn't much of a problem.

I was actually comparing it to NWN's implosion (SRD implosion doesn't apply a fort save penalty), but the principle is the same. This thing is supposed to be equivalent to a 10th-level spell but it comes up a bit short. Implosion, for comparison, can hit multiple targets, takes less time to cast and doesn't require a skill check first. Destruction is single-target, but is also a quick cast; it's a death effect, but is also two levels lower and fortitude partial. Both are easier to reverse than the Word but still difficult.

Should there be side-effects to a bereft using his abilities? I don't mean direct downsides to the bereft himself, but some sort of localized reality-warping that is the reason why the word is known as the Forbidden Word?

Some kind of cosmic backlash? I like the idea but the closest I can think of is some kind of ability damage, along the lines of Hellfire Blast.

No. Two Runes of Motion can't be active at the same time. Two sustained runes can be active at the same time, so a Runeblade that wants to "nova" can have quite a few potent buffs up at once.

Got any ideas on how to word it in a less confusing way?

"The LoS applies to runes with the same name" seems pretty clear.

RTA? Response to attack? Silence Disruption is already an immediate action, so I don't know how much more of a response you can make it.

RTA = Ranged Touch Attack
So the WoS can choose between pointing at you ("Quiet down kids!") which would be the RTA, or glaring at you ("Don't make me come over there.") which would be the gaze attack.

[Kyeudo]

It would, but it's still "Fort negates"; You don't get it until almost epic - at that level, boosting your fort save isn't much of a problem.

I was actually comparing it to NWN's implosion (SRD implosion doesn't apply a fort save penalty), but the principle is the same. This thing is supposed to be equivalent to a 10th-level spell but it comes up a bit short. Implosion, for comparison, can hit multiple targets, takes less time to cast and doesn't require a skill check first. Destruction is single-target, but is also a quick cast; it's a death effect, but is also two levels lower and fortitude partial. Both are easier to reverse than the Word but still difficult.

Well, I think I need to explicitly label it as not being a death effect. That will get around Death Ward and other immunities, which is more than most save or dies can claim. As for making it apply a penalty to saves against it, I don't think that is a good idea. Utterances already use a Save DC progression that gives them a slight edge on spells at that level - DC 20 + Int Mod at level 20 instead of DC 19 + Int Mod, and there is the syllable of destruction to debuff your target's saves if you have Quicken Utterance.

The Forbidden Word should be the ultimate kill spell, but it shouldn't make every encounter a foregone conclusion.

Some kind of cosmic backlash? I like the idea but the closest I can think of is some kind of ability damage, along the lines of Hellfire Blast.

I was meaning something more like some effect that warps the nearby area in some sort of negative manner, not something that harms the Bereft. Sort of how balefire from the Wheel of Time causes all sorts of causality issues when used.

"The LoS applies to runes with the same name" seems pretty clear.

That sounds appropriate.

RTA = Ranged Touch Attack
So the WoS can choose between pointing at you ("Quiet down kids!") which would be the RTA, or glaring at you ("Don't make me come over there.") which would be the gaze attack.

I don't really like the idea of it being a gaze attack. I think the Warden of Silence is going to be fine with just his ranged touch attack, especially since the number of enemies that are harmed by being silenced in any given encounter is probably going to be low.

[Psyren]

Well, I think I need to explicitly label it as not being a death effect. That will get around Death Ward and other immunities, which is more than most save or dies can claim. As for making it apply a penalty to saves against it, I don't think that is a good idea. Utterances already use a Save DC progression that gives them a slight edge on spells at that level - DC 20 + Int Mod at level 20 instead of DC 19 + Int Mod, and there is the syllable of destruction to debuff your target's saves if you have Quicken Utterance.

Actually, that reinforces my point - if you're saying the whole thing, shouldn't the syllable of destruction be part of it? Therefore, the debuff to saves should actually be included in the Word itself.

I'm reminded of the 7FV capstone, Kaleidoscopic Doom; you have a chance of pwning the target with every veil at once.

The Forbidden Word should be the ultimate kill spell, but it shouldn't make every encounter a foregone conclusion.

I don't really see it that way; Fort is still the highest save for most high-level monsters.

I was meaning something more like some effect that warps the nearby area in some sort of negative manner, not something that harms the Bereft. Sort of how balefire from the Wheel of Time causes all sorts of causality issues when used.

Ah. From a flavor standpoint I'm on board, but the more complicated you make this thing the less likely a DM will be to allow it. Nobody wants a PC that can unravel their campaign by speaking. (And there isn't even a Wish-esque clause in this that lets the DM screw with the players if they get too egregious.)

I don't really like the idea of it being a gaze attack. I think the Warden of Silence is going to be fine with just his ranged touch attack, especially since the number of enemies that are harmed by being silenced in any given encounter is probably going to be low.

Fair enough, it was just a suggestion. I'm still tickled by the image of the librarian who scowls menacingly at you if your cellphone beeps or whatever.

[Kyeudo]

Actually, that reinforces my point - if you're saying the whole thing, shouldn't the syllable of destruction be part of it? Therefore, the debuff to saves should actually be included in the Word itself.

I'm reminded of the 7FV capstone, Kaleidoscopic Doom; you have a chance of pwning the target with every veil at once.

If the additional debuff to Fort is included, nothing stops it from stacking with the debuffs already in place. That would be a -8 penalty on saves, plus whatever you can dig out of regular utterances, like a reversed Confounding Resistance. With that high of penalties, even a dragon's +30 to Fort saves doesn't look as good.

Besides which, IotSFV is one of the top tier prestige classes, considered broken powerful by many. I want this class to be one that won't get banned by most DMs.

Ah. From a flavor standpoint I'm on board, but the more complicated you make this thing the less likely a DM will be to allow it. Nobody wants a PC that can unravel their campaign by speaking. (And there isn't even a Wish-esque clause in this that lets the DM screw with the players if they get too egregious.)

And thus my conundrum. I'd like something small, possibly something that doesn't carry any mechanical ramifications, but would be a reason why using the Forbidden Word or its syllables could be construed as harmful to the universe.

Idea: perhaps connect damaging the fabric of reality with the Far Realm, such as by noting that extraplanar abberations appear more frequently where the Forbidden Word has been used. Thoughts?

[Psyren]

Sorry I'm a couple weeks late with the feedback, but I actually lost your PDF and now Mediafire is giving me trouble with downloads (not just yours, any mediafire link.) I had a question about the Epic Truenamer progression that I'm not sure your guide already answered. And do you also have Epic uses of Truespeak?

Can you e-mail me your file? e-mail address PM'ed

[Kyeudo]

I haven't bothered with any sort of epic progression for the Truenamer or the Truespeak skill. Epic is so imbalanced practically anything goes. Just replace Spellcraft with Truespeak in Epic Spellcasting and you have Epic Utterances.

[Psyren]

That's fair... but I still think Epic Uses of Truespeak could be fun to come up with. Say, for the odd Noble, Factotum, Human Paragon etc. that bones up on his linguistics.

You already have minor magical effects ascribed just to the skill itself (e.g. Whisper of Fire, Echo of Magic); what could a more experienced dabbler, or one who boosted his skill check to ridiculous levels (think Diplomancer) achieve?

[Kyeudo]

You already have minor magical effects ascribed just to the skill itself (e.g. Whisper of Fire, Echo of Magic); what could a more experienced dabbler, or one who boosted his skill check to ridiculous levels (think Diplomancer) achieve?

Those minor effects are meant to fill the space of Cantrips for Truenaming. Some minor magical effects are very useful to have, but not quite worth an Utterance slot by themselves (like Truenaming's version of Detect Magic).

Epic uses of skills just aren't usually useful except for very niche character builds. Most of them just duplicate what a 2nd or 3rd level spell can do. I'd rather spend my brain power on figuring out a new 2nd level utterance than figure out a good epic level use for Truenaming. If you really needed one, though, go with "Use an utterance without knowing the utterance" and peg the DC about 20 or 30 points higher than the utterance normally would be.

[Pechvarry]

Did anyone else get pounded by ad loops the moment they chose to download?

[Kyeudo]

Yeah I get it too. Its a problem with free file hosting. They have to pay for their servers somehow and I'm too cheap to get a paid account just to share homebrew with the internet.

[Pechvarry]

Yeah, just obnoxious when it's one of those things that keeps opening new windows when I close the old ones (not my computer so no adblock jazz).

Regardless, thank you for this. I'm going to DL and use this as a replacement for 1/3rd of my copy of Tome of Magic.

[Yue Ryong]

...Having just decided to play a Truenamer in a game I'm in, I cannot thank you enough for this. It might even be awesome enough for my DM to let me play it. ^_^

My only slight disappointment is that you named a monk-class ability 'Recitation of the North Star' and it's not a death effect. >_<

Edit: OK, I've finally had a chance to go over this with a fine tooth comb, and pick out the major 'ooh' moments, the stuff I consider broken, and the stuff that really irritates me.

Stuff that I consider Fun
* The ability to achieve a 60+ on an untrained Knowledge Check at level 20. Fear my all-conquering archives of knowledge.
* The ability to create my own demiplane... I know wizards, psions & clerics can do it several levels earlier, but I'm hard-coding a whole new reality. That's cool. I'm willing to wait for level 20 for that, even give up the crazy options of 'at-will Gate'.
* The ability to put out a minute of darkness across the whole of a city, if I learnt the proper true names. That's cool, even if it does mean that stabbing the guy doing the chanting on top of the giant tower becomes a priority. Even if the whole city stabs me for it, and it ends a minute later even if they don't... that's cool.
* The ability to convert a permanent wand charge into several more charges that will disappear soon. Also, the ability to burn your xp to create more charges for a wand

Horribly Broken
* Chant Utterance - The debuffs it allows aren't quite as bad as I first thought, but the infinite, super-cheap healing needs to go. Either stop it working with the healing form of Word of Nurturing (or both, even), or drop it all together. It brings in some cool effects, and makes you into a gigantic shiny target, but the infinite healing is just wrong.
* Heighten Utterance - Dangerous territory, even at the best of times, but certainly too cheap here. +1 Save DC per +2 DC on a skill check is way too fast a progression. +1/5, maybe, or even +1/8... definitely not as written.

[Dante & Vergil]

What is different between this Updated fix and the one you had before? It doesn't have to be a detailed list of everything, just some generallities throughout the document.

[Zeta Kai]

Good fix, nice update, & I'm glad that it's in a handy-dandy PDF for easy consumption. I filed it right next to Kellus's awesome (yet completely different) TN fix. You might wanna mention that there's a PDF in the thread title, so people know that there's a free download.

[Kyeudo]

Horribly Broken
* Chant Utterance - The debuffs it allows aren't quite as bad as I first thought, but the infinite, super-cheap healing needs to go. Either stop it working with the healing form of Word of Nurturing (or both, even), or drop it all together. It brings in some cool effects, and makes you into a gigantic shiny target, but the infinite healing is just wrong.

There are quite a few ways to get infinite and functionally infinite healing already in the game, so this is something I'm not worried about.

* Heighten Utterance - Dangerous territory, even at the best of times, but certainly too cheap here. +1 Save DC per +2 DC on a skill check is way too fast a progression. +1/5, maybe, or even +1/8... definitely not as written.

Perhaps you're right, but before I go changing anything too quickly, which utterances does it make too powerful? Most don't allow a saving throw, so there's only a handful of utterances that can exploit it.

What is different between this Updated fix and the one you had before? It doesn't have to be a detailed list of everything, just some generallities throughout the document.

A new base class, two or three utterances, an artifact, and two prestige classes, one of which is for pure Truenamers and the other can be entered by straight-classed Fighters.

[Pechvarry]

There are quite a few ways to get infinite and functionally infinite healing already in the game, so this is something I'm not worried about.

Thing with infinite healing is, it could effectively turn the truenamer into a healer. Chant Utterance becomes a required 3rd level feat, and the Word of Nurturing line becomes must-have lexicons known. Additionally, most infinite healing isn't on the magnitude of 10-25 fast healing. I don't really think DMM: Persist clerics are a good benchmark of balance.

I'd suggest either a maximum number of rounds concentration can be held (10 seems like a good place), or simply increase the prerequisites. If you can up the reqs, then you have to build for it, which means giving up other avenues for power. That would mean the TrueHealer would be a working Truenamer build instead of an expectation.

--

Notes on your PDF: It could use either a short index or bookmarks for the different sections. Also, your feats aren't in any sort of order (though I know that would be a pain to fix).

[Kyeudo]

Thing with infinite healing is, it could effectively turn the truenamer into a healer. Chant Utterance becomes a required 3rd level feat, and the Word of Nurturing line becomes must-have lexicons known. Additionally, most infinite healing isn't on the magnitude of 10-25 fast healing. I don't really think DMM: Persist clerics are a good benchmark of balance.

I'd suggest either a maximum number of rounds concentration can be held (10 seems like a good place), or simply increase the prerequisites. If you can up the reqs, then you have to build for it, which means giving up other avenues for power. That would mean the TrueHealer would be a working Truenamer build instead of an expectation.

Let's see - Combat lasts about 10 rounds on average. You could A) use two standard actions to speak a Word of Nurturing on someone and give them fast healing for those 10 rounds or B) give up all 10 rounds worth of standard actions to use only a single Word of Nurturing and give the same someone the same duration of fast healing. If we look at it this way, Chant Utterance doesn't make you a better in-combat healer than you were before.

Out of combat, there are many ways to heal up to at least half your hit points with little or no real resource cost - Buer Vestige, Touch of Healing feat, DMM Persisted Vigor, wand of Lesser Vigor, Wand of Cure Light Wounds, etc. It seems to be the consensus on the boards that such doesn't really break the math of the game in pieces.

Notes on your PDF: It could use either a short index or bookmarks for the different sections. Also, your feats aren't in any sort of order (though I know that would be a pain to fix).

Still trying to figure out how to do that properly. I don't use some features of OpenOffice very often.

[Pechvarry]

I'm currently in a campaign where I'm constantly running a vigor aura, giving everyone 1 hp/round up to half health. I can count on one finger the number of times it's been feasible to sit and wait for it to do its work. Fast Healing 1 is a nice trick. And it's not really making you invincible when you're entering every fight at half health. Fast healing 15 or so between every fight with no cap? Possibility of being able to use it on all allies at the same time if they're the same creature type? You just have to admit, it's more powerful than other options.

While I would still like to see the prereqs upped, you'd really need a good deal of playtesting to decide if it's too much. I say "a good deal" because the issue is still that it may end up a feat/utterance known tax. But this is homebrew. If it's broken, the DM has even more footing than normal for changing it.

So after all that, I suppose you should keep it the way you have it. But keep a close eye on any game play reports.

[Kyeudo]

That is one of my problems. I have no real way to playtest this fix. Every PbP game I join using it dies within a month, I haven't had a real life group for like four years, and, for all the general approval I've had of the fix, I haven't seen any play reports back.

[Yue Ryong]

There are quite a few ways to get infinite and functionally infinite healing already in the game, so this is something I'm not worried about.

Near as I can tell, all of which either cap out at half your normal maximum or are similarly considered incredibly broken.

Edit:

Let's see - Combat lasts about 10 rounds on average. You could A) use two standard actions to speak a Word of Nurturing on someone and give them fast healing for those 10 rounds or B) give up all 10 rounds worth of standard actions to use only a single Word of Nurturing and give the same someone the same duration of fast healing. If we look at it this way, Chant Utterance doesn't make you a better in-combat healer than you were before.

True. Their in-combat healing is at best moderate. That's fine.

Out of combat, there are many ways to heal up to at least half your hit points with little or no real resource cost

This is where the real problem lies. The ability to walk into functionally every fight in the game at full health is big advantage.

Buer Vestige

I admit, I've never seen anyone kick up an especially big stink about this one, but that doesn't mean it's not on similarly risky territory. Even given the extremely low amount of healing it grants, this is extremely potent, and frankly, I would slap the same limits as Touch of Healing on it.

Touch of Healing feat

Caps out at half, which the system seems to be able to handle.

DMM Persisted Vigor

Any time you're using Divine Metamagic Persistent Spell to defend something, you may be onto worrying territory. Divine Metamagic is extremely badly balanced and using it to defend anything is not good practice.

wand of Lesser Vigor

Not infinite, costs GP for each use.

Wand of Cure Light Wounds

As before.

It seems to be the consensus on the boards that such doesn't really break the math of the game in pieces.

The game is balanced on the assumption that a standard fight is intended to force the expenditure of a quarter of your resources, including your HP. If you have a way to eliminate the expenditure of those resources, the game loses a major risk element, and the game's assumptions do not allow for that. Ergo, not only does a Truenamer with this combination outrate 90+% of all other healers, it does eventually remove all challenge from the game and render playing almost pointless.

Perhaps you're right, but before I go changing anything too quickly, which utterances does it make too powerful? Most don't allow a saving throw, so there's only a handful of utterances that can exploit it.

From the Lexicon of the Evolving Mind alone - Breath of Cleansing, Breath of Recovery, Dreamless Slumber, Preternatural Clarity, Sensory Focus, Serpent's Tongue, Singular Mind, Temporal Spiral, Temporal Twist & Unname can all functionally end a fight on the spot on a failed save, while Eldritch Attraction, Pinnacle of Triumph, Silent Caster & Ward of Peace can all stack the deck substantially in your favour.
Dreamless Slumber & Silent Caster can easily be pushing save DCs of 30 or higher at level 10, with only moderate chance of failure - Regular save DC of 21; Truespeech bonus of +37 (13 ranks, +3 Skill focus, +6 Int, +10 Item, Universal Aptitude +5) v. difficulty 29 (15 + CR12 opponent + 2 Utterance). That gives a good 18 points of ramp-up to reach a save DC that only two of the CR12 monsters in the SRD can reach without a natural 20 for only a 50/50 shot of failure. Heck, most of the time, I can afford to drop it down by four to get a 70% chance of success with a DC 28, with only one more monster being able to do it without a natural 20. I'm not even burning any expendables for the attempt, apart from one turn's worth of Universal Aptitude & an action.
Dangerous territory like this is the reason why 3.5 left the vast bulk of Save DC boosters behind, for fear of effects that instantly end fights that no one can resist without a natural 20 or flat out immunity to the effect.

I adore the rest of your fix, so just these two issues need to be sorted out. Either cap the healing on the Words of Nurturing (my preferred suggestion - easy way would be to make it do lump-sum healing like most spells do, even if it does interfere with the thematic separation a bit) or drop Chant Utterance entirely, and Heightened Utterance needs to be either excised completely or at least brought to heel.

[Kyeudo]

Near as I can tell, all of which either cap out at half your normal maximum or are similarly considered incredibly broken.

I don't know. No one calls Buer broken and the DMM Persisted Lesser Vigor trick isn't considered that strong. It's the "DMM Persist" part of the trick that gets called broken, just because of all-day long short duration buffs. Plus, wands of Lesser Vigor or Cure Light Wounds are dirt cheap and heal for a ton, so it is very easy to get more healing than you actually can use in a normal day of adventuring.

Still, this is not costless healing. Sure, you can extend the duration on any of the Words of Nurturing as long as you want, giving you infinite healing from any of them, but there is a cost.

Each is only single target unless you have Speak Unto the Masses. That means to heal a party of four, you'll actually use three or four activations healing up the whole party, increasing the DC by6-8 for the next round of healing. This is the equivalent of burning three or four spell slots on healing the party.

From the Lexicon of the Evolving Mind alone - Breath of Cleansing, Breath of Recovery, Dreamless Slumber, Preternatural Clarity, Sensory Focus, Serpent's Tongue, Singular Mind, Temporal Spiral, Temporal Twist & Unname can all functionally end a fight on the spot on a failed save, while Eldritch Attraction, Pinnacle of Triumph, Silent Caster & Ward of Peace can all stack the deck substantially in your favour.
Dreamless Slumber & Silent Caster can easily be pushing save DCs of 30 or higher at level 10, with only moderate chance of failure - Regular save DC of 21; Truespeech bonus of +37 (13 ranks, +3 Skill focus, +6 Int, +10 Item, Universal Aptitude +5) v. difficulty 29 (15 + CR12 opponent + 2 Utterance). That gives a good 18 points of ramp-up to reach a save DC that only two of the CR12 monsters in the SRD can reach without a natural 20 for only a 50/50 shot of failure. Heck, most of the time, I can afford to drop it down by four to get a 70% chance of success with a DC 28, with only one more monster being able to do it without a natural 20. I'm not even burning any expendables for the attempt, apart from one turn's worth of Universal Aptitude & an action.
Dangerous territory like this is the reason why 3.5 left the vast bulk of Save DC boosters behind, for fear of effects that instantly end fights that no one can resist without a natural 20 or flat out immunity to the effect.

Your point is very well made. So, that makes the question: Do I weaken Heighten Utterance or take it out altogether? To borrow some of your math, currently, you can snag a +9 to the DC. If one additional level cost an increase of 4 to the DC, the DC increase would still be +4, which is rather high for a Save DC increase. If we made it 6 to 1, that would be +3 and 8 to 1 is +2. The final two seem the most reasonable at the moment, but as levels increase, your Truespeak bonus should be increasing relative to the difficulty of the DCs to speak your utterances, so you can get away with more.

If I keep it in, I can't make the DC adjustment too high or else the feat becomes worthless. If the most you can get out of it is only +1 or +2, most will just take Utterance Focus or Focused Lexicon instead.

Thoughts?

[Yue Ryong]

I don't know. No one calls Buer broken and the DMM Persisted Lesser Vigor trick isn't considered that strong. It's the "DMM Persist" part of the trick that gets called broken, just because of all-day long short duration buffs. Plus, wands of Lesser Vigor or Cure Light Wounds are dirt cheap and heal for a ton, so it is very easy to get more healing than you actually can use in a normal day of adventuring.

But they are still pumping you for gold each time. It's making it a choice between gold you can expend later on preventative effects in the form of defences or attacks you can bring to bear to end fights earlier. Free/too cheap healing abilities remove that choice altogether for all but the direst of circumstances.

Still, this is not costless healing. Sure, you can extend the duration on any of the Words of Nurturing as long as you want, giving you infinite healing from any of them, but there is a cost.

Each is only single target unless you have Speak Unto the Masses. That means to heal a party of four, you'll actually use three or four activations healing up the whole party, increasing the DC by6-8 for the next round of healing. This is the equivalent of burning three or four spell slots on healing the party.

This would hold up better, if the Law of Resistance applied to Utterances collectively (which would nerf them into the ground on every front), or if the Word of Nurturing line became substantially less valuable for these purposes later on in the progression. As-is, the use of Chant utterance makes the difference between the various grades of Word of Nurturing almost meaningless, allowing you to pull off very substantial healing for an almost derisory cost.

The math I used before showed how easy it was to pull off a low-level utterance on a target - a tradeoff normally paid for by substantially reduced potency. Chant Utterance means that the Words of Nurturing are almost identical for healing purposes once out of combat, so you can afford to use the weakest of them without worry.

This tactic leaves you able to bring individual allies or yourself into combat completely healed (again, using my previous maths) 4(-Utterance level) times per healing utterance available without any chance of failure at level 10, with no loss of any other form of resources. If we assume two seriously injured allies per fight (or, more to the point, two allies whose maximum HP is low enough that free healing up to half health from Touch of Healing or a Vigour Aura is insufficient), that equates to 3 fights of completely free healing, with no associated risk (if the character has taken the first 3 Words of Nurturing, so a lot of Utterances spent, admittedly). That's not too bad, if we're honest, the game can probably handle that without too much trouble, and you have sunk a lot of your character options into this...

Except that once you're out of combat, you lose nothing for a failed Utterance - which means that we're not talking about 4 - (Utterance Level); we're talking about 14 - (Utterance Level), per healing utterance known. Assuming our example has taken a 4th Word of Nurturing (another 10 free healings? sure!), that equates to 46 fully healed allies per day (or 23 fights worth). Or to put it another way: an almost fully charged Staff of Heal (3.0 version) every day. At level 10. For Free. Kind of puts that '4 fights a day' thing from the DMG behind us, doesn't it?

Sidenote: Someone does call Buer broken - Me. Fully healed party every fight is not territory we should be dealing in pre-Epic, if ever. And the fact that DMM Persist Lesser Vigour is small beer says far more about the other horrible stuff you can do with that than the relative balance of free healing - on one person, costing a sizeable chunk of your Turn Undead attempts for the day, non-transferrable... so still not anything like as cheap to pull off as this little trick

In short... Chant Utterance is a cool concept, but stop it connecting to healing or the game gets very silly.

Your point is very well made. So, that makes the question: Do I weaken Heighten Utterance or take it out altogether? To borrow some of your math, currently, you can snag a +9 to the DC. If one additional level cost an increase of 4 to the DC, the DC increase would still be +4, which is rather high for a Save DC increase. If we made it 6 to 1, that would be +3 and 8 to 1 is +2. The final two seem the most reasonable at the moment, but as levels increase, your Truespeak bonus should be increasing relative to the difficulty of the DCs to speak your utterances, so you can get away with more.

If I keep it in, I can't make the DC adjustment too high or else the feat becomes worthless. If the most you can get out of it is only +1 or +2, most will just take Utterance Focus or Focused Lexicon instead.

Thoughts?

I'd aim it at about +5:+1. In my example, that would mean we've got a +2 almost for free, or up to a +5 for greater risks (or a +6 if you can drag a +2 circumstance from somewhere & get a natural 20). That's a pretty good trade-off, but the risk is going to seriously make it an unattractive proposition unless you're having real trouble.

If we roll forward the clock to level 20... We're looking at something like +55 (23 ranks, +3 Skill focus, +12 Int, +10 Enhancement, +1 Competance, +1 Luck, +5 Universal Aptitude) vs DC 42 (15 + CR25 + 2 Utterance), which gives you a +3 almost free, with a scale up of to +6 with risk...
Oops. >_< Forgot Pinnacle of Triumph. Yeah, that gets you a flat 84, which you can reliably convert into a +8, on top of your 32 base, to get you a DC 40... High, but not unmanageable for a lot of high-end opponents. Furthermore, This is assuming we're using Dreamless Slumber, which almost every creature encountered will just ignore at level 20, and the efficiency goes down with more powerful utterances - but the more powerful ones have effects more likely to work, so... swings and roundabouts.

[Draz74]

I haven't had a real life group for like four years,

Might have something to do with living in a town in northern Utah with a population of 6000.

(Not trying to offend anyone here. I have friends from Tremonton, and was first introduced to making fun of how small and isolated it is by them.)

Yeah, I'd be very interested to see an actual play report of this class. Maybe ask Zaq, the local Truenamer expert?

[Kyeudo]

That sounds like a fair middle ground for Heighten Utterance.

As for Chant Utterance, you've established that this is a lot of healing. Now the question is: is a lot of healing a bad thing? I do understand that in playtesting they worked around the four encounter day mechanic, but 3.5 started to evolve away from that towards the end. They realized your adventuring day really only needed to end because the spellcasters ran out of spells. Look at the Warlock, Binder, anything Incarnum, and Tome of Battle. Those are based on a per-encounter model that usually assumes you go into every battle reasonably topped off on hit points and they worked out pretty well.