My Experiences as a Truenamer

[Eldariel]

Ah, but the Exemplar says you can take 10, and is more specific than the general skill rule. Though if it says "take 10 in stressful situations" instead of "take 10 whenever you want", then we're boinked.

Exemplar gives you Skill Mastery identical to the Rogue-ability, which does not work ("When making a check with one of these skills, she can take 10 even if stress or distraction would normally prevent her from doing so"). It only removes some restrictions from taking 10, doesn't give the ability where it didn't exist before. That's the very reason I said what I said.

[Zaq]

Regardless of whether you can or not, my GM already ruled that Exemplar officially Does Not Work That Way. I disagree, but it's not worth arguing.

[Arkaim]

Sir, you have inspired me to create a Truenamer. He shall be unstoppable!

[Zaq]

Let's just dust this thread off a bit, shall we?

I've added a good bit to the second post (mostly in a new spoiler at the bottom). Tell me what you think.

I repeat, I'd like to hear what you folks would like me to talk about. I know that there aren't a lot of sources of information about what it's like to be a truenamer out there, and I feel it's my duty to share what I know with the community. (Interestingly, my character would feel that way too, but that's not the point.)

Well much so. Thank you. That will help alot with my homebrewing attempts to badger the Truenamer into line with a Rogue or Psiwarrior in power level.

Cool, I'm glad I could help. I'd love to know what you come up with!

[Kyeudo]

Well, so far I'm working on finding a workable formula so that you don't need tons of items just to stand a chance of making your DCs at higher levels. I think I've got one, but I'm still debating eactly how low it should really be.

See, I'm of the opinion that the Amulet of the Silver Tongue should be a Ring of Wizardry for Truenamers, not a booster to allow for continued functioning of the class. The Law of Resistance will eventually make it so you you can't get off another use of a particular Utterance, but when should that be?

The other idea I've got kicking around is making personal truenames worth something. As is, it's a +2 DC to get a +2 bonus on getting through spell resistance (which you can just ignore by taking a +5 DC on your Truespeak check) and then you can also see and talk to that person using two class features. Not much for a couple thousand gp.

But I thought: What if an Utterance spoken using a personal truename has a much greater effect? Like instead of getting the Celestial template temporarily when someone used the Incarnation of Angels Utterance on you, you instead gain bonuses more akin to being Half-Celestial? So far, though, it isn't coming as well as I'd like. Some Utterances just don't suggest good boosting effects.

[Keld Denar]

One minor nit-pick I found on the first page. You are making Solid Fog a bit too powerful. It reduces a trapped foes movement speed to 5' (as in, 1 move action gets you 5'). It doesn't take a full round action to go 5'. So, a typical trapped character can take a double move action to go 10'. A Fogged creature that is also Slowed can only take 1 standard or move action to go 5', which sucks. In no way would a Solid Fog ever completely immobilize someone though, since the PHB does have rules for starting and finishing full round actions on seperate turns in the event that you are denied taking a full round action.

So, if you were Slowed (1/2 action per turn), Entangled (1/2 movement), and Solid Fogged (movement 5'), then to move 5' would take 2 turns, and to move 10' (as a creatuer who was just Fogged) would take 4 turns.

Multiple sources of 1/2 movement (such as difficult terrain, entangled, blinded, etc) shouldn't stack, IIRC, but the above would all stack.

[Zaq]

Good to know, Keld. I'll fix that straightaway.

Kyeudo, one thing to remember about boosting utterances for personal truenames is that you always know your own personal truename. Any boosted effects that you give to this will automatically affect the Truenamer himself (/herself). If that's what you want, go for it, but it's something to keep in mind.

[only1doug]

Seek the Sky: This is one of those utterances that will eventually become obsolete, since Greater Seek the Sky (5th level) is better in every way, but oh well. Basically, this mimics the Fly spell (60' fly speed, good maneuverability) for 5 rounds, or renders a target incapable of flight for 5 rounds (though they fall gently and take no damage). The duration is something of a kick in the nuts, especially since you absolutely cannot cast it again until the first one runs out (so no chaining them in midair to keep yourself aloft), but still, flight is a great defensive option, and the speed boost is handy. I'm looking forward to using the reversed version, but we haven't faced any flying enemies yet. I almost always Extend this, just so I have more than 3 rounds of action (figure 1 round gaining the appropriate altitude and 1 round getting near enough to the ground that I don't die when it runs out, and that leaves 3 practical rounds to work with).

Don't regret the obsolesence of this Utterance, when you get the greater version you finally have chained flight when you need it (Greater seek the sky down to 1 round left? time for normal seek the sky)

also: get a featherfall item ASAP so as to not have to worry about it expiring while you are in flight.

[Kyeudo]

Good to know, Keld. I'll fix that straightaway.

Kyeudo, one thing to remember about boosting utterances for personal truenames is that you always know your own personal truename. Any boosted effects that you give to this will automatically affect the Truenamer himself (/herself). If that's what you want, go for it, but it's something to keep in mind.

I wasn't talking about anything major, just enough that you'll want to research all your allies' Truenames and the Truenames of all your major enemies. It should be useful to know a person's Truename, not game breaking.

[Olo Demonsbane]

Kyeudo: Seconded.

I got my DM to destroy the Law of Sequence. In fact, he had no idea that it existed in the first place

I made my third level Archivist//Truenamer. He is the divine caster and focuses on healing, buffing, and debuffing.

Truespeak +25: +6 Ranks, +6 unnamed (Item familiar), +5 enchancement (Lesser Silver Tounge amulet), +3 unnamed (Skill Focus), +5 Intellegence

[Kyeudo]

Personally, I don't understand exactly why the Law of Sequence exists. It isn't to ensure proper stacking of effects and Utterances have rather weak effects so it can't be to limit the power of Utterances.


Question: About how many times per day do you usually use your main Utterances, Zaq?

[Chronos]

1 level dip in Exemplar would suffice. +4 to Truespeak checks, and choose it as your Skill Mastery, and you can now take 10 on it.

The Skill Mastery point has already been covered, but the Skill Artistry bonus also won't work. It's a competence bonus, and hence won't stack with the OP's custom ring. Nor, for that matter, with the +4 a Truenamer gets for speaking his own personal name.

My biggest beef with the class is that a class really should be viable with the basic resources available to it. You ought to be able to make a decent Truenamer with human as your race, the elite array of ability scores, and no books other than PHB and ToM. Within those constraints, at level 1, you'll have a Truespeak check of +10 or +12 (+3 Int, +3 Skill Focus, +4 ranks; another +2 for targeting yourself) versus a DC of 17, and at level 20, you'll have a check of +48 or +50 (+11 Int, +3 Skill Focus, +10 amulet, +23 ranks, +1 Luckstone; another +2 for yourself) versus a DC of 55.

I'm a teacher. When I'm grading a test, if a student bombs absolutely everything else, I'll still give him a point or two for getting his name right. An out-of-the-box Truenamer can't even manage that, 20% of the time. That's pathetic.

[Zaq]

Personally, I don't understand exactly why the Law of Sequence exists. It isn't to ensure proper stacking of effects and Utterances have rather weak effects so it can't be to limit the power of Utterances.


Question: About how many times per day do you usually use your main Utterances, Zaq?

It's pretty random, actually. This reflects more on my GM than on the utterances or the class, though. Three is a safe minimum, but sometimes it can go much higher. Sometimes it's much lower, even in combat. Like I said, this is more of a GM thing than anything else.

As to the LoS... I really don't know. Even fluffwise it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'd really like to have a chat with whoever was the primary brains behind the Truenamer... or at least read an interview.

I'd also really like to see just what went down when WotC playtested the Truenamer. Frankly I'm not 100% certain that they did. I mean, we throw comments like this around all the time, but I really mean it for the Truenamer. I can't think of any other class that gets so little respect even in its own book, and so many of the mechanics make no sense at all that I truly wonder why they exist.

[Kyeudo]

Another question: Would changing the saving throw of Utterances to 10 + Utterance Level + Int modifier make Utterances with saves better or worse than the current 10 + 1/2 Truenamer level + Cha modifier?

[Zaq]

Another question: Would changing the saving throw of Utterances to 10 + Utterance Level + Int modifier make Utterances with saves better or worse than the current 10 + 1/2 Truenamer level + Cha modifier?

Basically, that helps by making them more SAD, but gives the save a weaker mechanic overall. Since you get Utterances more slowly than traditional casters (who do indeed increase at a rate of roughly 1/2 level), and since you have a lower maximum level (6 vs. 9), you'll lose out overall unless you're seriously pumping your INT. Even then, your low-level utterances will fade in usefulness much more so than they do as it stands. This goes even more so for LCT and LPM (I don't think that there are any LCT that allow saves, but LPM is hurt by this).

Now, if you combine this with the easily-missed rule that states that you can raise the effective spell level of an utterance by increasing the DC by 4 per desired level increase, that could be interesting, but possibly abused.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Zaq has a bit more to add on this, so I've approved reviving this thread.

[Starbuck_II]

Now, if you combine this with the easily-missed rule that states that you can raise the effective spell level of an utterance by increasing the DC by 4 per desired level increase, that could be interesting, but possibly abused.

Wait, which page is that?

[Kylarra]

Wait, which page is that?

p233 under "Effective Spell Level"

[Kallisti]

Wow. I've always loved the idea behind the truenamer and hated Wizards of the Coast for doing such a crappy job, but I never played one, so I never really realized how much it's...non-viable. It's like Belkar said to the monk in On the Origin of PC's (Warning: Paraphrasing Ahead): "So, basically, your class lets you, with years and years of intensive training, make up for the fact that you fight unarmed. Why not just fight armed? Years and years of monastic study, just to keep up with some schmuck with an axe and chain mail..."

"So, basically, your entire class lets you, for significant expenditure of feats and, above all, money, makes up for the fact that you're like a watered-down warlock. Why not just be a warlock? Years and years of memorizing obscure truenames, just to keep up with some schmuck who bought Magic Steroids (TM) from a shady demon dealer..."

I'm currently reading through both Kyeudo's and Kellus' Truenamer fixes. Still not sure which I prefer. Kyeudo's is simpler and roughly backwards-compatible, but kellus' is so thorough it makes up for not being backwards compatible and provides a lot more new options...but at least they both include PrC's that advance the truenaming ability. When I realized that Wizards of the Coast had made exactly 0 of those, I realized in that moment, "They really don't care, at all, whether or not the Truenaming mechanics work, do they?"

[Godskook]

Have you looked at Able Learner for a way to ease the multi-class issues?

[Kyeudo]

I'm glad I subscribed this thread if Zaq has more to add.

Shameless Plug: If anyone cares to see my fix of the Truenaming system that was inspired by this thread, the link is in my sig.

[Gan The Grey]

I recently played a Truenamer from level 8 to level 13, where I retired the character into my GM's very capable hands.

Why? Not because I didn't enjoy playing the class. On the contrary, my truenamer "Gan the Grey" is probably one of my favorite characters ever.

Our games are very roleplay heavy, with the occasional fight being a serious deal, not your walk-in-the-park random encounter. Our campaign is centered around one specific town, and I decided, with the help of my DM, to be that guy that knows everything about everything, always randomly having an answer to nearly any question, and a solution to nearly every problem.

For the Truenamer, this style of play works perfectly. And in a game where the other players don't munchkinize their characters, a Truenamer is actually kinda fun to play. I retired him because everyone in the party wanted to follow him, and with his abilities, he could easily turn into the man-behind-the-party, directing their actions to further his and the party's goals.

Right now, the DM has him heading down the ascension to Godhood line, and the rest of us are working on building him a nice temple. Unbeknownst to them, he is actually a unwitting minion of Tharizdun, and wants to destroy the gods in order to recollect the universe's divine energy into what he believes is the primal god, a being whose essence was shattered into myriad pieces that now make up the cosmos in entirety. Yeah. Something like that.

Oh, and there is a cool feat in the Ebberon setting that lets you make someone whose Truename you know do ANYTHING you ask, once in their lifetime. I used it on an armorer to get like, 20K GP worth of mithral for 1 gold. His wife murdered him when she found out.

EDIT Modifying feats

If you look at every metamagic feat that shares a meta...truespeak feat, they each have something in common. Extend metamagic increases spell level by 1, extend meta...truespeak increase check by 5. Quicken spell increases level by 4, quicken truespeak increases check by 20. You could go on then to create a metatruespeak Maximize, increasing a check by 15 since the Maximaze Spell Metamagic feat increase spell level by 3. There might be alot of metamagic feats that this would work on, some that might help to *slightly* nullify the effects of Law of Sequence i.e. Split Ray, Twin Spell...

Oh, and Book of Exalted Deeds has extra stuff you can to do someone if you know their truename. Look under the 'Words of Creation' feat section.

[Gan The Grey]

OH GODS. Sorry for double post here, but this thread straight up UNLEASHED my floodgates on the subject.

1. Hitting your truespeak DCs are not hard past about 5th level. Even upwards to the 20th level mark, hitting those DCs for the first of the day should be almost 100%, if not above.

Just as an example. Using point buy, get yourself a 16 intelligence. Up that 18 by level 8. If you are playing a race that gets a +2 to intelligence (I would), that puts it at a 20. Get at LEAST a +2 to intelligence item. That puts you at a 22 intelligence.

Assume now you are level 10. This would put you at 13 ranks in Truespeak. Get a Greater Amulet of the Silver Tongue for a +10 bonus. Take skill focus for a +3. Add in your +6 from intelligence and you have a +32. The DC to cast anything on a level equivalent party member is 35. That's a 3 or better. On yourself, a 1 is still a success. Granted, it gets harder the more times you cast it during one day, but you have so many to choose from, it's doubtful you'll run that Law of Resistance up high enough to be annoying.

Even at level 20, the DC for an equivalent character is only 55. At that point, you could theoretically have an intelligence of 34 with stat increases, +6 headband, and books/wishes, giving you a bonus of +12, Truespeak rank 23, Amulet +10, Skill focus +3 for a bonus of +48. And that's just off the top of my head. I saw even higher bonuses than that a few posts ago, and this doesn't take into account item familiar, DM fiat allowing you to increase the Silver Tongue amulet... Getting another 7 or more +'s shouldn't be that hard.

2. The only utterances that get harder as you level up are the first tier utterances that you cast on people. The second tier get harder in that you should be encountering more magic items, but the third tier pretty much stay at DC 25 the whole time. Quicken one of those every round, cast a normal utterance as your standard.

EDIT I just read the part about the errata here, though I don't know the specific rules. We always just treated an area as a nonmagical item i.e. DC 25 to cast. True...it gets a little cheesy at the more powerful area utterances (how many Earthquakes can one cast in a day??!?!?!), but hey, I'm the player. Easy DC's don't hurt my feelings.

3. Those last tier utterance become pretty cool if you metatruespeak homebrew the other metamagic feats in. I personally like an empowered and maximazed energy vortex with a solid fog plopped on top for good measure. That's a decent amount of pain to a few people before they can escape. Especially if you allow the 'Acid Fog' houserule I made. DC 25 is a fog cloud, DC 35 is solid fog, DC 45 is Acid Fog.

4. Also, a Truenamer will be able to cast more spells in one day than a wizard and a sorcerer combined. They aren't the most powerful spells in the world, but used properly, they can really throw your DM off balance and turn a battle greatly in your favor. Can't hit that high CR monster with a Truespeak check? Throw a Strike of Might on your heavy hitter, give him a random extra attack in the middle of your turn, haste him, or hell, just Fast Healing the crap outta your party. You're like a bard, but less spoony.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I've got to wonder if Gestalting with Artificer would work well. You use Artificer for providing gear and such to the party, snag yourself a couple +10 items, and use the infusion to change their bonus type. Now you can hit DCs far better than you would most of the time, and never have to use an expendable magic item.

[Zaq]

Hey folks, I finally got around to updating this a bit (my character got sidelined for a while, but he's back in the game now, so I'm taking in new information and new experiences). The update so far has come in the second post (I labeled it), but I expect there to be more over the next week or two as I have more gaming sessions.

Now, to answer a few questions...

Sstoopidtallkid: I wouldn't gestalt a Truenamer (since they're so high maintenance), but Artificer would be one of the best choices for it mostly for the reasons you mentioned. (The other natural choices would be Factotum or Archivist. A Trunamer//Totemist with really gishy utterances would be... interesting, if not exactly good. The big problem is a lack of swift actions to reallocate essentia, but I'm disgressing.) You can also use Universal Aptitude to great effect with your all-important UMD checks, and I can't help but think that there's something fun you can do with Rebuild Item.

Regarding Kyuedo's homebrew, I have to say that I like a lot of what he's done so far and I do recommend you check it out if homebrew interests you. (In the interest of full disclosure, he did ask for my assistance on a lot of it, so I'm not entirely unbiased.) It's at least had more thought put into it than the WotC version. (Yes, I know that saying that the class wasn't checked or edited is a grave remark to make. Game design is serious business, and a lot of work goes into it. However, I really do feel alright saying that a lot of work did NOT go into the Truenamer. There are just too many absurdities, inconsistencies, and omissions.)

One thing I noticed a little while ago while flipping through the monster section of the Truespeak chapter is that all of the monsters (except the Gibberer, who doesn't need to roll) have huge racial bonuses to Truespeak. So, evidently, someone at WotC playtested these monsters, noticed that they couldn't affect the PCs with their Truespeak abilities, and added the bonuses in to give the monsters a fighting chance... but didn't think "hey, maybe the fact that even monsters can't use these abilities effectively is indicative of a flaw in the system." (Well, to be fair, maybe they did think that, but if so they didn't communicate this to whoever was in charge of the rest of the chapter.)

Now, does anyone have any questions, suggestions for topics you'd like me to consider, or anything of that sort? I'll keep posting my experiences and my observations, but I'd be happy to talk about other things as well. Bear in mind once again that I'm most comfortable discussing what I've actually played in-game, but I think I've got enough firsthand experience to engage in a little theory-talk as well.

[Kyeudo]

Have you found any unusual gems amoung the newest utterances you've gained access to, or are they playing pretty much as expected?

[Zaq]

Well, unfortunately my Truenamer didn't get to do a whole lot at last week's session, but rather than simply let another week go by without commenting, I thought I'd turn my thoughts to a little theorycraft. Specifically, Truespeak-based prestige classes. I repeat, this is not based on empirical experience.

(Here's a question for the masses: Should the material presented here be in the main three posts?)

Truenamer prestige classes are... weird, to say the least. As I've mentioned, none of them actually advance Utterances, which is kind of lame and stupid. Still, I know that it's fairly easy to run out of good Utterances to take, so let's take a look at the other options your high-level 'Namer can have.

Acolyte of the Ego

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Entry: Easy. You'll probably speak four languages just from your starting INT, if you're a Truenamer.

The Acolyte of the Ego is a good example of WotC just not having any idea what they wanted to do. The skeleton is weird (full BAB and good Fort why, exactly?) and you lose UMD, but it has a few interesting things. The meat and potatoes here are the Morphic Cadences, which are basically Utterances that you get every other level. (Yeah, already a step down.) Sadly, they're not called Utterances, so you can't Quicken them. Still, they do have a few options that normal Truenamers don't get. I think it's pretty clear that the Acolyte was intended to be a gish, with all of the self-buffing Cadences and the full BAB, but the self-buffing Cadences tend to be pretty lackluster, or easily replicated with low-level Utterances. (The one that grants Fast Healing is empirically inferior to your vanilla Word of Nurturing, for example). The interesting Cadences are the one that mimics Dimension Door (self only, but hey, the Truenamer could use a little mobility) and the one that grants a luck bonus on saves (just because that's relatively rare). You do eventually get the ability to use multiple Cadences at once, but there just aren't enough good Cadences to make it worthwhile. I say, if you want this class, dip two levels for Dim Door and move on.

Bereft

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Entry: Medium. You don't have to go out of your way for the skills, but it still takes a whopping 13 ranks. Finding someone willing and able to cast the Ritual of Renaming might be hard, since what arcanist uses the Truespeak spells? Most people don't even realize they exist.

The Bereft has the closest thing to Utterances that you get in a prestige class. It's a short class, five levels, but at least you get something new at every level. You lose UMD, but you get Listen, Sense Motive, and Intimidate. You learn a new "Syllable of Unmaking" at every level, which is just a pre-chosen Utterance that can't be quickened. Most of them are pretty decent. The first one, which gives penalties to most checks, is my favorite, because it's just pretty generally useful. The second one, which removes a sense, is cool, but useless because it involves a save at a terrible DC (10 + class level + CHA. Remember that this is a 5 level class). The third one, a gimped Maze spell, is pretty lame, since they a) are only Mazed for one round and b) can try to get out as a swift action, rather than a full-round. The fourth one does straight up damage. Given that you're a minimum of 14th level by now, 8d6 isn't that impressive, but it could be worse I guess. The final one, which gives two negative levels, is very nice. Enervation is still better (and has been around for eight levels at this point), but I don't think anyone's going to say that negative levels are a waste of time. The capstone is cool fluff-wise, but I can hardly ever see it coming up.

Brimstone Speaker

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Entry: Hard. You have to be able to cast a 4th level Cleric (or 3rd level Paladin) spell to get in. You pretty much can't be a normal 'Namer to qualify... which means that you had to be a Cleric and burn a feat (Truename Training) and ten skill points to get in here, as well as having a small deity restriction.

This class kind of sucks. As I said, it's pretty clearly a Cleric class, but you lose four caster levels in it. What do you get in return? Well, you get a lame breath weapon that requires a Truespeak check and has a mediocre save. You also get the ability to make Truespeak checks to summon a bralani eladrin, a word archon, or an astral deva a certain number of times per day. And... well, that's about it. Word archons are pretty sweet, but really, rather than losing four caster levels, wouldn't you rather just cast Planar Ally?

Disciple of the Word

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Entry: Easy, I guess? Just take some Truespeak ranks as a Monk and you're in... but it's not like monks can really afford to lose too many skills.

Oh boy, a Monk class based off of Truespeak! I see absolutely no downside to making the Monk need YET ANOTHER ability score (in this case, INT, one of their two semi-dump stats) to function normally! Anyway, the Disciple gets a lot of abilities that key off of "spend a use of Stunning Fist as a swift action and make a Truespeak check to do X." They can replace certain rolls with Truespeak rolls (replacing another skill? Meh to lame. Replacing a STR check to avoid a bull rush? Situational but useful. Replacing a Reflex save? Not a bad choice. Replace your AC? Pretty decent, except that it doesn't stop spells making touch attacks.) Some of the abilities are passable (I do like that they can ignore DR/epic with a DC 45 skill check, and the capstone is awesome), but it seems like you'll run out of Stunning Fist uses really quickly, particularly if you actually want to, you know, stun people. The ability to dispel a target you hit is nice, but since you have to hit them first, it won't exactly stop a Contingency or even a Mirror Image. Still, you're way better off as this class than you are as a straight Monk, and they do get a couple unique abilities. I'd just recommend investing in Extra Stunning if you plan on heavily using these abilities. Oh, and I hope you have really, really generous point-buy.

Fiendbinder

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Entry: Hard, for the same reasons as the Brimstone Speaker. You have to have at least seven levels in a real casting class, as well as ten ranks in Truespeak (which means the Truespeak Training feat at least).

The most interesting Truespeak class, of course, doesn't involve being a Truenamer. (Of course, very few of the Truespeak-based prestige classes are best entered as a Truenamer, but that's hardly the point.) Three lost caster levels is really hard to swallow... that means no ninth level spells, after all. What do you get in exchange, though? Well, you get fiends. A lot of fiends. If you save your gold, you can get a small army of hellspawn (okay, okay, and abyssspawn) at your beck and call. A Wizard is probably the best entry class for this PrC due to the INT synergy... though it would be really interesting (both fluffwise and crunchwise) to see an Archivist enter this class. Until you get Double Command at level 9, you're best off giving all of your fiends the "Defend Me" command, because that gives you the best action economy (assuming you have multiple fiends).

As for the fiends themselves, I really don't have the desire to go through one by one and point out their strengths and weaknesses (after all, this is theorycraft, and the farther away I get from empirical experience, the less comfortable I am presenting my thoughts to you), but none of them seem particularly underpowered. Having minions is always a powerful strategy in D&D just for the action economy, even if you can't really command them as smoothly as a Druid or a Malconvoker.

The third level ability Call Forth Fiend seems particularly useful, because (by my reading) you don't have to order the fiend around as a standard action. Yes, it's once per day, but it's interesting at least. Bind Tormented Soul doesn't seem extraordinarily useful, but at the same time, it's basically free. Gift of the Archfiend is thematically interesting, but lackluster at the level you get it. Double Command gives you better action economy, which is good. Archfiend's Favor would be good if it could make Planar Binding checks easier, but the way it's worded, it's more or less useless. Summon Fiends is interesting, and may even be worth investing in Maximize Spell-Like Ability for if you plan on using it heavily. I find it odd that this ability doesn't require a Truespeak check, but go figure.

[Draz74]

I actually don't think any of the Truespeak PrCs (except maybe Bereft) were intended to be entered by anyone with Truenamer levels.

Re-read Acolyte of the Ego, for example, thinking of it as a Fighter PrC. Fighters have lots of feats to spare; it's not that hard for them to spend one on Truespeak Training. And the class features are much more tempting for a Fighter than for a Truenamer. (Ultimately, it still comes off rather weak, along with everything in the Truespeak section of the book.)

[Zaq]

I actually don't think any of the Truespeak PrCs (except maybe Bereft) were intended to be entered by anyone with Truenamer levels.

Re-read Acolyte of the Ego, for example, thinking of it as a Fighter PrC. Fighters have lots of feats to spare; it's not that hard for them to spend one on Truespeak Training. And the class features are much more tempting for a Fighter than for a Truenamer. (Ultimately, it still comes off rather weak, along with everything in the Truespeak section of the book.)

Ironically, the Bereft sample character has ten levels of Fighter. No joke. Why, I have no idea.

[Zeta Kai]

Yet more evidence that the Truespeech section of ToM was written by drug-addled monkeys who thought that class balance was a poo-flinging technique.