Heya. I'm gonna talk about my actual play experience as a by-the-book Truenamer here. This isn't really a "handbook" in the Gleemax sense, though I will be talking about what I've learned (and more importantly, am learning) works and doesn't work. The first post will be used to discuss generalities of the Truenamer, viewed through the lens of my actual experience. The second post will be used for specific discussions of what I've actually done in-game, giving real examples of what a Truenamer can and cannot do. I haven't decided what the third post will be for, but it'll come in handy some day, I'm sure.
So, let's start. The Truenamer, from Tome of Magic, is infamous for being, well, unusable. For those of you who don't know, it's a skill-based casting class, in that the success or failure of its spells (called "utterances") hinges on a skill roll. The problem is that the DC of affecting any creature with an utterance is 15 + (2xCR). See how it goes up by two per level? And remember how you can only put one more rank in a skill every level? Yeah. So it actually gets harder to use your abilities as you get stronger. Add in a few more stupid design decisions (the fact that using an utterance gets harder, adding 2 to the DC every time you use it per day, for instance, or the fact that the utterances tend to be nothing special in power) and you have a class that is almost universally regarded as a grade-A stinker. There are a few top-notch homebrew fixes for it (some, indeed, on this very forum), but the as-written class is underwhelming at best.
Generally speaking, I agree with this. I've spoken out against it quite loudly in the past, and I don't recant what I've said now. That said, recently I got a wild hair up my ass and decided I was going to try to play the class pretty much as written. The campaign is tenth level (higher than I've ever played before, in fact) and is still young and in progress, so I'll be updating my experiences as I go.
To make things easier, I'll be using and abusing spoiler tags. I hope you don't mind too much.
Vocabulary:
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Utterance: Essentially, a Truenamer's "spells." There are three kinds (or "lexicons") of these, listed below.
Lexicon of the Evolving Mind (LEM): These are your "normal" utterances. They affect creatures (or rather, a creature), and they come in "normal" and "reversed" flavors. In other words, each LEM utterance is really two-in-one, and you can choose which version to use when you speak it. They have 6 levels. A level 20 Truenamer gets 20 of these.
Lexicon of the Crafted Tool (LCT): These utterances affect items, and are generally pretty much crap. They come in 5 levels, and there's only two per level (yes, two!). A level 20 Truenamer gets 5 of these. (Please feel free to add a sarcastic "Wooooooo." as necessary.)
Lexicon of the Perfected Map (LPM): These utterances, like LCT, kind of suck, and affect areas. You get a whopping 4 of these at level 20.
Truespeak: A trained-only, INT-based skill that is the basis of the Truenamer class. Every utterance requires a successful Truespeak check to work.
Chaining: This is my term; that is, you won't find it in Tome of Magic. When I say I "chain" an utterance, it just means using it again as soon as it runs out. No relation to the Chain Spell metamagic feat.
Law of Sequence (LoS): One of two major pain-in-the-ass rules that afflict Truenamers, the Law of Sequence says you can only have one copy of an utterance working at once. In other words, if you cast Lesser Word of Nurturing, you can't cast it again until it runs out. You can use other utterances while you wait, but you can't use the same utterance twice before it runs out.
Law of Resistance (LoR): The other pain-in-the-ass rule, this makes the DC of your Truespeak check for each individual utterance go up by two for every time you've used that specific utterance that day.
Basics of the Truenamer:
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Over 20 levels, the Truenamer gets 20 LEM utterances, 5 LCT utterances, and 4 LPM utterances. They have other class features as well, so let's go through and look at them, shall we?
Known Personal Truename: This is about 50% fluff and 50% crunch. Knowing your own truename is useful for some specific things, but generally speaking it means you have a net +2 to affect yourself with utterances.
Knowledge Focus: You get four of these, each one giving you an unnamed +3 to a specific knowledge skill, chosen when you get it. It specifically states that it stacks with itself, which is handy. These are a nice perk, especially with Knowledge Devotion.
Truename Research: Whee! A useless bonus feat!
Recitation Feats: Whee! More useless bonus feats!
See the named: If you're willing to spend a lot of time and money researching someone's truename, you can scry on them once per day. Yay, I guess? Weird that it appears on the table as "1/day" but never gets any better.
Sending: If you're willing to spend a lot of time and money researching someone's truename, you can cast Sending to them thrice per day. Kind of thematically cool, but I really can't see this being useful.
Speak Unto the Masses: This ability is great, but comes way, way too late. At level 17, other classes are getting 9th level spells. You, on the other hand, are getting the ability to use LEM utterances on multiple creatures at once. With limitations. And a not-insignificant boost to the DC. Yeah, this comes way too freakin' late. Still, it's useful.
Say my Name and I am There: This is one of the coolest capstones ever. You get to give your friends a little magic word that lets them summon you whenever they want. They don't have to make checks, they can use it at will, and you can give the "true nickname" to as many people as you trust. I mean, at 20th level, you'd damn well better get something cool, but this really is cool.
The Truenamer and Complete Champion:
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Complete Champion brought the Truenamer two major boons, and I'm not sure how playable it would be without them. The first is the Paragnostic Assembly, one of many organizations in the book which provides benefits to its members depending on how dedicated they are. One of these benefits is, at the second-highest levels of affiliation, an unnamed +10 bonus to a chosen skill from a specific list. Oddly, but thankfully, the list includes Truespeak. I say this is odd because it's the ONE place I've seen ANY new Truespeak-related material from WotC.
So, if you're a Truenamer, it helps immensely to beg your GM to include the Assembly in your world, and to bend over backwards to get as high an affiliation score as you can. Some of the affiliation boosters are purely mechanical... +2 for each Knowledge skill you have with 10 or more ranks, for example. Some, however, are more roleplaying-based... bonuses for going on dangerous missions for the Assembly, for bringing them new information, and so on. Work with your GM to see what you can do to become affiliated with the assembly. Since my character was created at tenth level, most of the work I did for the Assembly would be in the past, so I ended up giving my GM about 5 pages of backstory and sacrificing a portion of my starting wealth to the Assembly. Lower levels of affiliation can give up to a +5 bonus, so it's still worth looking into even at lower levels.
The second boon Complete Champion offers is the well-loved feat Knowledge Devotion. The Truenamer has a truly lousy skill list. They get all Knowledge skills as class skills, Truespeak, and UMD, and that's nearly it. They don't even get Spellcraft... and some thematically appropriate skills, like Listen, Speak Language, and Decipher Script, are also missing. The point is, as an INT-based character, you'll likely end up with a lot of Knowledge skills. Since the Paragnostic Assembly rewards you for having lots of Knowledge skills, this isn't really a bad thing, but Knowledge Devotion makes it even better. Between your ranks, the Truenamer "Knowledge focus" bonuses, your INT, and a few choice Utterances, it's very easy to max out the bonus you get from Knowledge Devotion, thus giving you something to do in combat when you don't want to risk or waste utterances. It's also possible to make a gish-focused truenamer. I chose to play more of a party supporter than a self-buffing gish, but Knowledge Devotion works beautifully on a Truenamer gish.
Weaknesses of the Truenamer compared to other casters:
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The utterances a Truenamer gets aren't generally anything special, and a standard sorcerer pretty much outshines a Truenamer even when the utterances work. There are two or three effects a Truenamer can do that, say, a Wizard can't... for example, Spell Rebirth (which you can get at level 10, if you were smarter than me and didn't lose any caster levels) lets you "un-dispel" a spell, renewing a dispelled or dismissed spell effect. Pretty cool. Mostly, though, the utterances are pretty much on par with or weaker than what a sorcerer of equal level can do.
Also, utterances have two more big problems. First, they're all single-target except for the "Lexicon of the Perfected Map" ones (which are generally weak, and of which you only learn FOUR as a Truenamer 20). Since you can't have two of the same utterance going at once, this is a huge limitation. You can cast what amounts to Haste, or Fly, or Freedom of Movement on someone, sure, but only on one person at a time, which sucks. Second, utterances are REALLY SHORT. The LONGEST one lasts for one minute, and that's a real anomaly. Generally they work for either one, three, or five rounds. This severely limits their out-of-combat utility, and even in combat, three rounds may or may not be enough if you don't have true blitzkrieg encounters.
Strengths of the Truenamer compared to other casters:
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The Truenamer's viability depends 100% on your ability to pump your Truespeak check. If your check is too low, you'll waste most of your actions in combat, and you'll be a dead weight. However, once you go book diving, it's not THAT hard to get up to fairly reasonable checks. I'll be writing this from the perspective of having a 90% or better chance to use your utterances successfully, which isn't that hard to get.
First, very few utterances allow saving throws. The few that do should probably be avoided, since the saving throw mechanic is weak (it's based on Charisma... which is the ONLY THING the Truenamer uses Charisma for. Lame.), but a surprising number of them don't even bother. Inertia Surge, for instance, immobilizes an enemy for one turn, and they don't get to do a thing about it. Greater Speed of the Zephyr can mimic the effects of Slow, but the opponent doesn't get a save to resist. If you pick your utterances carefully, you'll end up rolling all the dice, and your opponent won't get a say in the matter.
Second, while utterances that aren't based on spells are rare, they do exist, and it's nice to be able to do some things that the party wizard can't replicate. As a few examples, Inertia Surge gives Freedom of Movement at level 1 (only for one round, sure, but that's enough to get out of a grapple); Spell Rebirth can either "un-dispel" something or, just as interestingly, can dispel without having to make a caster level check; Universal Aptitude gives a +5 unnamed bonus on ALL SKILLS for five rounds; and Caster Lens can increase a friend's caster level or, more importantly, manifester level by 2.
Another thing is that the Truenamer can get past spell resistance. Utterances are spell-like abilities, but if you voluntarily increase the DC of your Truespeak check by 5, you can automatically bypass spell resistance. Every point you bump up the DC counts, of course, but this is handy nonetheless.
There's one more strength, though, but it's so important I'm going to set it aside separately.
Quickening Utterances: (If you read only one spoiler in this post, read this one.)
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The Truenamer, like most other casters, has some equivalent of metamagic. Only two of them are really effective (Extend Utterance and Quicken Utterance), but oh, how effective they are. "Metautterances" (they don't actually get this name) effectively increase the DC of your Truespeak check by a certain amount and apply a metamagic effect to the utterance. Extend is an easy +5, and Quicken is a ridiculous +20. Yes, go ahead and think about that for a second. You have to have a greater than 100% chance of making your Truespeak check before you can even think about using Quicken. On its face, this seems patently absurd... and really, it is. It's an absurd limitation. However, you wouldn't be playing a Truenamer without supercharging your Truespeak rolls, would you? Once you gain the ability to use Quicken, well, it immediately becomes the strongest weapon in your arsenal, bar none.
See, here's the thing about Quicken. The Truespeak DC for any given utterance is static with regards to the utterance itself; that is, using Knight's Puissance (a first level utterance) on your Rogue buddy is exactly as hard as using Breath of Recovery (a sixth level utterance) on the same Rogue. All that matters is the target, not the utterance. Do you see where I'm going here?
Quickening your strongest utterances is exactly as difficult, or as easy, as quickening your weakest ones.
When your Wizard friend got Quicken Spell, he immediately started loading up on Quickened True Strikes, Quickened True Castings, Quickened Greases, all those fun spells. He couldn't Quicken Haste, though, or Solid Fog.
You? Can.
The Truenamer is just about the only casting class, barring insanity like the Incantatrix, that can Quicken every spell they have as soon as they get it. (The Shadowcaster can also do this, but not as frequently.) This is huge. This is huger than huge. This is what makes the Truenamer worth playing. As soon as you hit 9th level (the earliest you're allowed to take Quicken Utterance), you can quicken ANYTHING YOU WANT for the rest of your career.
Also, Quickening essentially costs you nothing but your swift action, and this is the only in-class option Truenamers get for swift actions. Even if you don't have a 100% chance of successfully casting a quickened utterance, try it anyway. You lose nothing if you fail. The DC doesn't go up (the Law of Resistance kicks in only on a successful utterance), and you still have your standard action left to cast normally. There's almost no reason NOT to try quickening something every round.
Protecting your investments:
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Truenamers rely ridiculously heavily on magic items. Every Truenamer NEEDS a (Greater) Amulet of the Silver Tongue (found in Tome of Magic, +5 enhancement to Truespeak, +10 for Greater). Many GMs will also allow a simple competence-bonus item, using the rules in the DMG. A competence item isn't strictly necessary, but it helps a lot, so if your GM lets you, pounce on the opportunity. However, when so much of your usefulness comes from these items, losing them is an enormous blow. Adventurers get robbed, they fall into oozes, they get hit with shatter, whatever. Nasty things happen. At least a fallen Paladin can become a Blackguard. A Truenamer with no way of replacing his Truespeak items is little better than an Expert. So, you should do everything you can to make sure nothing happens to your items.
The first step is to make them out of riverine, from Stormwrack. Riverine is expensive, but it's essentially made out of miniature walls of force. You heard me. Walls of force. Items made from it are nearly invincible. Disintegrate and Disjunction will destroy them, but Disintegrate and Disjunction will destroy damn near any items you have no matter what you do, so that really isn't much of a strike against it. Best of all, for non-armor items, it's priced by the pound, so it's not prohibitively expensive (I won't pretend it's cheap, but it's definitely not as bad as it could be) to buy, say, an amulet and a ring made out of it.
The next step is to prevent them from being stolen while you sleep. What follows is perhaps not the only solution, but it's the one that I ended up using. If you don't have access to the books needed (Complete Arcane or Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, and Dungeonscape), I guess you should try to find something else. Anyway, what I did was to buy a light shield made of darkwood (not proficient with it, but there's no ACP, so big deal) that contained a hidden space, using the oil bladder rules from Dungeonscape. Then, since UMD is on the Truenamer skill list, I purchased two Eternal Wands (from MIC)... normal wands will work just as well, but I like Eternal Wands. The first one is a wand of Greater Alarm. It's just what it sounds like... not quite on the Rope Trick or MMM level of protection, but it's cheaper and very handy. The second, however, is the really important one: a CL 8 wand of Absorb Weapon.
Absorb Weapon is an Assassin-only spell, so it's more likely that you'll get a Warlock, a Chameleon, or an Artificer to make it for you... talk to your GM. The upshot of it, though, is that it lets you absorb a light weapon into your body for one hour per CL (hence why we wanted it CL 8). It's more or less impossible to detect while absorbed, and you're the only one who can bring it back out (unless it gets dispelled or something, which is what the Greater Alarm is for).
Remember the light shield I mentioned? Well, since you can make a shield bash with it, it counts as a light weapon. So, every night, you put your amulet (and your ring, if applicable) inside your hidden compartment on your shield, and then absorb it into your body while you sleep. Not foolproof, perhaps, but pretty close to it.
If you have another way of protecting your items, feel free to post it.
What options does a Truenamer have?
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This is one of the saddest parts of this post. I'm really forced to believe that to play a Truenamer well, you really don't get that many options. You more or less have to be a member of the Paragnostic Assembly (that unnamed +10 is way too good to pass up, and frankly necessary at higher levels), you really can't prestige class out (the classes that give Truespeak as a class skill don't actually give you new utterances known, and if your GM rules that classes that advance "+1 level of existing casting class" works for Truenamers the way it works for Shadowcasters, Warlocks, or Artificers, well, you have to burn additional skill points since Truespeak isn't a class skill for them, and they rarely offer anything to the Truenamer anyway), and worst of all, there just aren't that many utterances to choose from. Let's take a look at what utterances you can take. I'm going to assume that the Truenamer is a straight-classed Truenamer 20, and takes nothing but the highest-level utterances available (for instance, not learning a 2nd level LEM after level 6, when you get level 3 LEM).
LEM 1: 5 available, 2 known
LEM 2: 8 available, 3 known
LEM 3: 8 available, 4 known
LEM 4: 8 available, 4 known
LEM 5: 8 available, 4 known
LEM 6: 6 available, 3 known
The LCT and LPM are even worse. You learn 1 of each level available (so 5 LCT, and 4 LPM), and there are even fewer options (2 for each level of LCT, 3 for LPM).
So, what does this mean? Well, most Truenamers are going to look awfully similar. There simply aren't enough options to allow for any real diversity, especially when you consider that a good handful of utterances outright suck. There are NO utterances printed in ANY supplemental material, including web enhancements (a lot of alternate power sources get the same treatment, but at least there are a COUPLE additional vestiges, mysteries, and soulmelds), so what you see is what you get.
Feats are another issue. At least three feats are accounted for (Skill Focus, Extend Utterance, and Quicken Utterance), which is a sizable chunk of the few you get. There simply isn't a lot of diversity possible here.
The Truenamer skill list, as I've said, is pretty lousy. The only skills worth mentioning are Knowledge, Truespeak, and UMD. While Knowledge and UMD will get you pretty far, the point is that the skill section of most Truenamers' character sheets will look pretty similar overall.
So, Truenamers will mostly be purchasing the same magic items, taking the same class, taking more or less the same feats, taking very similar utterances, taking very similar skills, joining the same organization... even certain races are far more common than others (Illumians, with their Naen sigil giving a +2 on all INT-based skill checks, are far and away the most commonly played Truenamers).
As a self-avowed option whore (I have a hard time making a character that uses few than 3 books, NOT COUNTING the PHB/DMG), I'm forced to admit that most Truenamers will look damn near identical. The class just isn't flexible enough to allow for anything else.
Some Truenamers will take dips here and there (I've heard of Marshal and Exemplar dips being very common, for the +CHA to INT skills and +4 on any skill, respectively), but that hardly counts as diversity.
It pains me to say it, but Truenamers have more or less one viable build, with a couple small options. I hate to declare anything "THE ONE AND ONLY PATH," but frankly, if you deviate too far from what I'm talking about, you'll either be incapable of pulling your weight or stop really being a Truenamer.
This makes me sad. If anyone wishes to provide a counterpoint, please let me know. It sucks that a class should be shoehorned into such a cookie-cutter build just to be capable (not even talking about godly), but that's what we have in the Truenamer.
So, when is a Truenamer viable?
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I don't think a Truenamer can be played at every level. You learn Utterances very slowly, and since you can't retrain them, it's a huge help to not have to take the utterances that become obsolete. Likewise, affording the proper magic items and getting the proper affiliations with the Paragnostic Assembly is much easier at high level than at low level. I don't think you'd be very happy playing a level 1 Truenamer, with your one utterance known and nothing else.
Ideally, you'd start at level 9 at the earliest, since that's when you get Quicken Utterance (which is, as stated above, what makes Truenamers worth using). However, I think you could be viable as low as level 5 or 6, since by then you have enough utterances to have options in battle and enough wealth to have at least a +5 item if not a +10.
I can't comment on high-level Truenamers. Like I said, the game I'm in is currently level 10, and I'm trying to base as much of this as possible on my experience, rather than just on theory. The DCs of your truespeak checks will be higher and higher, and we've already discussed more or less all of the low-hanging fruit available for increasing truespeak checks, so playing at higher levels will definitely be harder. Nevertheless, without play experience, I'm not going to be comfortable declaring anything as a cutoff point for the Truenamer's sweet spot.
Overall, though, while I'd rather be a level 1 Truenamer than a level 1 Shadowcaster, I'd really rather not be either. If you're playing a low-level game, the Truenamer might not be for you.
What books do you need to make a good Truenamer?
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This is a tricky question. Besides the obvious Tome of Magic, what do you really need to play a viable Truenamer? Well, as I said above, Complete Champion offers more to the Truenamer than nearly anything else. I feel you could play a Truenamer with just Tome of Magic and Complete Champion.
Since other books don't really directly add to Truenamers, Truenamers benefit less from additional books than other classes tend to. However, remembering that UMD is a class skill for Truenamers, the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium help a lot. You can get some wands of spells that boost skill checks (there aren't as many as you might think, but there are a few), or get access to spells that do what you can't.
There's a school of thought that says the luck rerolls from Complete Scoundrel are also worth using... I haven't tried this myself, but if you can't get your Truespeak check to quite the level you want it, being able to reroll a crucial utterance check could be really handy.
The Item Familiar Question:
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The
Item Familiar, from Unearthed Arcana, is an option that gets brought up a lot whenever the Truenamer is discussed. Go ahead and read it before you come back and read this. The attractive part of it for Truenamers is that it lets you get a very large bonus on a chosen skill (in this case, obviously, Truespeak), more or less doubling the ranks you have in that skill.
Personally, I hate item familiars. Variant rules are fine and dandy, but I hate it when a character
needs a variant rule in order to function. (The only exception in my book is the fractional BAB/save stacking, but that's really neither here nor there.) I've tried to play my Truenamer as close to by-the-book as possible (the only major exception is my +10 competence item, which I discuss later), and I feel that Item Familiars are a bad idea all around.
The big problem with them is that they put the GM in a real bind. See, Item Familiars can be really, really powerful. Hell, for the investment of a feat, you can choose to
get free XP. Nothing else in the game lets you do that. Even though a feat is a large opportunity cost, item familiars generally give you their benefits with almost no drawbacks, except one. Do you know what that one drawback is? The drawback is that you can lose it. All of the benefits are contingent upon having continuous access to the item familiar. This is supposed to be the "balance" to the free XP, free spell slots, free skill points, and eventual intelligent item ally.
So, to summarize, the character takes a feat that gives him what generally amounts to a much greater benefit than most other feats can give, with the caveat that these benefits aren't really that big of a deal, because the player can lose them.
So, does the GM let the player essentially ignore this so-called drawback, leaving the item familiar in place unless the player is almost unimaginably stupid? Or does the GM invoke this drawback, in so doing really harshly punishing the player for taking this feat and possibly crippling the character? There's no middle ground. The concept is nominally balanced against this drawback, but invoking the drawback seems almost unduly harsh. But is a drawback that is never used really a drawback? These are the questions that a GM whose player takes an item familiar is forced to contemplate. Your GM has enough to worry about without throwing this little quandary at him.
I would be remiss to fail to acknowledge that the bonus to Truespeak possible with an item familiar is quite substantial and can help out a character quite a bit. That said, I still don't think it's a good idea.
Furthermore, the loss of the item familiar punishes the Truenamer, with their reliance upon the all-important Truespeak skill, more than it punishes other characters. This, of course, is a two-edged sword, and really just magnifies the existing problem. The Truenamer gains more from boosting a single skill than basically any other class, with the possible exceptions of the Artificer's UMD, the Incantatrix's Spellcraft, and any diplomancer's Diplomacy. (Note that I said diplomancer, not diplomat. There's a difference.) The already considerable bonuses granted by the familiar are even more important to the Truenamer. However, that just makes it more of a target... more in
need of its "downside." Does your GM give you this huge boon almost for free, or does he use the one downside, the one you theoretically accepted when you took the feat, and leave your character nearly useless until you can recover it? Neither option really seems fair.
There's an argument that a Truenamer "needs" an item familiar, but I really hope that's not the case. We all know that the Truenamer is a flawed class, but it's more than a "flaw" to admit that the class literally needs variant rules to be viable.
Overall, the item familiar mess is just that: a mess. I recommend just forgetting the whole thing if at all possible.
I would welcome a well-reasoned counterpoint, if anyone chooses to write one.
So, what CAN a Truenamer do?
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The Truenamer has a very clear intended role of buffer/debuffer/battlefield control. Once they get quicken, they can actually do this relatively well. Allow me to repeat that. Once they get quicken, they can actually do this relatively well. See, there are two things standing in the way of the Truenamer fulfilling its true potential as a buffer/debuffer/BC specialist.
First is the fact that they get next to nothing targeting more than one creature until very high levels. Solid Fog, especially Quickened like that, is a fantastic ability, but it gets old really fast, and you don't want to overuse it, lest you find it used on yourself. (Granted, you can just use Inertia Surge on yourself and get free, but you don't want to HAVE to). Other than that? Nope, you get your single-target abilities and you like 'em. Speak Unto the Masses doesn't come until the primary casters are tossing around 9th level spells, the LPM utterances are almost universally not worth it (again, with the notable exception of Solid Fog), and other than that you're stuck with one target per turn. Now, this isn't necessarily horrible. You can still buff one ally quite well, or slow down one enemy. If you want to have more than one target, though, you need to quicken. Quickening, as I've said, is one of the best things a Truenamer gets, and frankly does push them up from "unusable" to "a big challenge." Still, combine the short, short durations of utterances with the single-target-only rules, and your actions get spread pretty thin.
The second rule, of course, is the goddamn Law of Sequence. The LoS takes the "one character at a time" focus and makes it even worse. Even if you have enough time to do so, you can't buff your entire party, or befuddle all of your enemies, at least not with the same tricks... you have to pick and choose. This gets painful.
That said, I still say that the Truenamer is best suited to a support role, buffing and debuffing as necessary. This does mean that it's not a bad idea (not automatically a good idea, but not necessarily bad either) to pick up "redundant" utterances (like the two versions of Seek the Sky), so that you can apply more or less the same effect to two characters at once. The Truenamer, especially at mid levels, does indeed have some nice buffs, and the no-save nature of some (though certainly not all) of their debuffs can be fun. You just can't think like a traditional party buffer. You're more of a specialist... one problem at a time.
It occurs to me that a Truenamer could take this property and run with it, becoming a reasonably capable gish. Rather than trying to spread buffs across the entire party, you could simply apply them to yourself, then wade in swinging. You'd be very nontraditional, of course, and would be somewhat lacking in defense compared to a more traditional gish, but I do believe that a Truenamer could nicely buff himself (particularly with Knowledge Devotion for that extra, nearly free oomph) and dish out some melee pain.
Interestingly, while I don't think for a second that this would be the most productive use of a Truenamer's abilities, I've noticed while cataloging them that they have quite a few damage-over-time abilities, so people who wish to recreate some of their favorite MMO archetypes (or at least one of them) might find a friend in the Truenamer. All of the Word of Nurturing utterances, Energy Negation, and Energy Vortex all do damage over an extended period of time, as does Agitate Metal. It would be interesting (not at all effective, but interesting) to see a Truenamer use their in-class UMD to cast Sonorous Hum, then Extend some Words of Nurturing (using the Hum to concentrate on one, Swift Concentration to concentrate on another, perhaps actually concentrating on a third...) for a nice damage-over-time effect. Granted, DoT is even less effective in D&D than straight up blasting is, but if that's the archetype you want, the truenamer is technically capable of it.
Really, though, you're best off assuming the role of a buffer/debuffer or a gish. Either way, you'll be essentially buffing someone; it's just a matter of whom.
What roles should the Truenamer not try to take?
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I'm going to be dealing here, of course, with roles that even look attractive to a Truenamer in the first place, not simply saying "and they shouldn't be a trapspringer, or a doorbreaker, or..."
The Truenamer does not make a good utility caster. While they are capable of sort of faking it, and do have a few utterances that will help with a utility role (Universal Aptitude on the Rogue when he's picking an especially tricky lock... Caster Lens on the cleric when she's casting the party's all-day spells in the morning... that sort of thing), they really can't substitute for a wizard or even a bard as an all-purpose utility caster. They can fire off a Seek the Sky now and again, but they'll have a hell of a time actually providing the party with useful flight for more than the briefest of obstacles, especially if you have more than just a couple people in your party. They can become invisible for a minute with an extended Vision Sharpened, but they won't be able to scout or help the party scout (because how many reconnaissance missions take a minute or less? And how many times, when you're being stealthy, can you afford to cast a noisy utterance?) effectively. Even if one of their short, short utterances comes in handy, Boccob forbid that more than one character need the same benefit simultaneously. None of their utterances last long enough to be genuinely effective out of combat.
The Truenamer should not seek to replace a proper divine caster for medical purposes. While the Word of Nurturing line provides fantastic HP healing, and indeed a truenamer can take on the role of HP refiller, their utterances which can remove negative statuses come far, far too late. A Truenamer will keep your HP in top shape, but don't come to him when you've got ability damage, or paralysis, or negative levels, or anything of the sort until he's at least 10th level, and even then only if he took the right Utterances.