my HUGE problem with the truenamer class

[Sargon]

okay we all know about the book tomb of magic, it is home to many reall cool ideas, such as the shadow caster and the binder.

the binder can fit in jsut about anywhere, and its pretty on the level as everything else is.

the shadow caster despite being pathetically weak at low levels isnt that bad when it come to higher levels when they get into some of there cool powers.

the truenamer class however is a very intresting class, i personally like true name magic, but i belive that they made a huge mistake in the class that makes it unplayable.

okay here is how it works for that lot of you that dont know.
you can cast your spells (called utterances) infinate times a day, but you have to make a DC truespeak (new skill) to affect anything you wanna hit with them.

so you can say them, and if you want them to hit someone you need to rool a truespeak cheak. here is the equation

15 + (2x target creatures CR) or in the case of a PC or something with a PC class 15+ (2x hit dice)

so you have to make that cheak to affect them with your utterances.

at level 1 a true named with a 18 int would have a true name cheak of +11. 4 ranks in truespeak, +4 int mod and +3 skill focus.

so to affect something that is a CR 1 ( the dc would be 17) the true namer would have to rool a 6.

now if a true namer at level 12, wanted to affect the half-drow illisten ( who has 13 hd) he would have to overcome a truespeak DC of 41. 15 + (2x 13) = 41

now lets say that truenamer has a truespeak cheak of +23.
15 ranks in it, a +5 int mod, and +3 skill focus.
he would have to rool at least a 18, to affect illisten.

that is d**n hard, at that is at level 12.

how lets say the a 20th level truenamed wants to effect a CR 20 Creature. the DC for that truespeak cheak would be 55.

the truenamed would have a truename cheak of +31.
23 ranks in truespeak, +5 int mod, +3 skill focus.

it would be impossible for that truenamer to effect that creature with this utterances.

after that is just gets more impossible.

that is my problem with the true namer class, its to hard to effect things at higher levels with your utterances. and by too hard, i mean impossible.

[Lord Kain]

Yeah thats a big load of problems, which is why I didn't bother adding any true namer powers to Braxis

[Sargon]

well (After doing yet more research) i found a few things about truename magic that might help its a little more and make it at least equally powerful.

the first is an item called the amulet of the silver tongue that give you eather a +5 bounes (lesser) or a +10 bonus to truespeak cheaks.

my natural inclination was to argue that it is to powerful an item, but the class needs it. so that makes it a little more possible to affect things with the utterances.

and another thing that must be considered with truename magic is that its powerful

here are some examples of its power.

the word or nurturing utterances
which is basically a ton of damage (2d6 at lowest, 10d6 at highest) with no save allowed.

or the mystic rampart utterances
ally gains dr 5/- and +5 nameless bonus on saves.

or knights puissance
ally gains +5 on attack and dmg rolls.

thats decently powerful stuff, but its very very hard to do.

[Lord Kain]

Hey Sargon go comment on the new movie I posted a few days ago.

[landamus]

This system reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's novels in Earthsea. Not saying she was the first to use it, but very familiar.

That's really stupid making things impossible and thereby the class useless.

[Sargon]

earthsea i have heard of that...

did they make a crappy scifi mini series about it? and if so are the books worth reading?

[landamus]

It's been a really long time since I read those books. The first few, trilogy I think, were alright but the last one was really crappy. Yeah, they made a miniseries of it but what scifi miniseries isn't crap?

[Sargon]

thats a good point, all of them.

they even slughtered dune!! oh the blashpmey of that miniseries shall never be forgotten...

and on the subject of the truenamer, i have looked over the class in detail and i have come to this judgement.

the truenamer utterances are acctaully rather powerful, like really powerful, and the +2 everytime you suceed makes it jsut about palanced with high level spells. the high DC of the truespeak cheaks is still a little bit difficult to make but at higher levels if there are things open to the pcs to increase there stats ( like a tomb of int raising, or a headband of intelect) that combined with the item (amulet of the silvertoung) make the truenamer decentally balanced.

it would not be the easyest class to pull off, but it could be made to work with the right understanding.