Many of us recall Truemagic from the D&D 3.5 days. It was a tremendous burst of creativity, an entirely new magic system using a power acquisition and management system that had no parallel elsewhere in the d20 universe. That said, for various reasons, it didn't work.
The Libram of the First Language's truenamer seeks to be the spiritual successor of the classic truenamer base class. Unlike the original, it is a skill-based magic system that is based on the level of the caster rather than the level of the target, making it so certain enemies, like creatures with 2 HD per CR, do not totally shut down a party member before the game gets started. Further, truenaming checks are made like concentration checks rather than like skill checks. Hermetically sealed from powergaming in this fashion, a simple magic item can no longer unhinge a campaign. By keeping a lid on the power level of the class in a simple and elegant fashion and ensuring that the amount of fuel the character has remaining is in the player's hands, not the GM's, this class is made fun and self-contained, thus allowing the GM to get on it with and not have to worry about breaking one of his players every encounter.
Let's talk about the content itself!
Truenamers believe that the language they have discovered is the language that created the universe itself. Granted, this makes many religions upset, as the dwarven All-Father is said to have hammered the earth out of half-molten metal or the Mother of Dragons simply laid the material plane one day. Normally, established religions would simply ignore such claims, but the fact that truenamers can shift the universe around simply by speaking makes it very difficult to do so. Despite such opposition, truenamers continue to hone their craft, for once the language is mastered in its entirety, the universe is their plaything.
The truenamer recites recitations from four codices: the Codex of Heart and Mind, the Codex of Artifice, the Codex of Far-Flung Spheres, and the Codex of the Realized Vision. Of these, the first two continue the tradition of one of the most excellent mechanics ever to be introduced into magic systems: reversible spells. All recitations learned from the Codex of Heart and Mind and the Codex of Artifice can be recited in reverse, eliciting a totally different effect. Using this mechanic, it is possible to sneak strange and obscure abilities into a spontaneous caster's spellbook without penalizing him for thinking in a situational fashion. By making the class's first two codices act in this fashion, the end result is something resembling a spontaneous caster that can play more like a Gandalf-style wizard without taking anything away from the class.
Players enjoy options, so how many recitations are present in this splatbook?
Codex of Heart and Mind - 57 recitations, reversible for 113 distinct effects
Codex of Artifice - 27 recitations, reversible for 54 distinct effects
Codex of Far-Flung Spheres - 24 recitations
Codex of the Realized Vision - 19 recitations
Total - 210 distinct recitation effects
In addition to the base class and its fairly bulky codex system, the Libram of the First Language offers three archetypes and three prestige classes.
Archetypes
Orator - Politicians tend to be good liars, but there is no need to lie when you can link with the minds of those around you and make their reality what you see fit.
Truescribe - Masters of written notation, truescribes are the world's only source of truemagic scrolls.
Verminspeaker - As truenamers are able to influence sentient creatures through a sympathetic bond, so are verminspeakers capable of doing this with vermin. As they study their craft, they draw vermin companions to their banner.
Prestige Classes
Speaker of the Word - Speakers of the word typically began as religious scholars sent to find ways to debunk the claims of the truenaming community, particularly claims of the nature of the creation of the universe. Now shunned by their churches for embracing the views of the truenamers, speakers of the word are a constant source of discomfort for established religions, particularly since it appears as though the speakers' deities approve of their new way of thinking.
Willshackler - To know a creature's true name is to own that creature. Willshacklers do the next best thing: they study language patterns to find sounds that are often used in the names of various races and species. Using this knowledge, they can gain temporary control over bodily processes, or even eliminate creatures entirely.
Wordsworn Defenders - These martial specialists are experts with the tower shield. Their training in truemagic invariably leads them to transform the back of their favored shield into a pronunciation cheat sheet.
The Libram of the First Language will be made available on 2/24 at the price of $11.99. Those who are leery about putting that much bread down at once are invited to download The Primer of the First Language, a free sample that contains everything needed to play the truenamer up through level 3.
-Interjection Games, Gnomish Mad Scientist Publisher
It just so happens that I am in need of true name class.
However, the 3.5 one was overly complex and clunky.
How does this class eliminate that, or at least lessen it?
I'm not looking for super simple, but I want something that I can easily play without all the crazy numbers and math the 3.5 class had.
Been helping a little with proofreading and giving some feedback. I wouldn't say it eliminates it, but it definitely offers a much more refined and well thought out class than the original.
Instead of relying on a skill check for instance, it uses an effect very similar to a concentration check. This helps by making the DCs you have to meet a bit more static and the fact you can't just pump concentration checks through the roof like you could skills in the 3.5 version. The DCs are static for a given level of recitation, but the more times you use it in a day the harder it is (+2 to the DC each time). This is a bit clunky and will require some book keeping for a player, but is pretty easy overall. I'd just place a dot or check next to a given recitation to remember how many times it's been used a given day.
Also made the class a lot more fun and flavor-ful to play. All the powers, just like before, can be reversed for the Codex of Heart and Mind which makes for a lot of versatility. Some are quite situational, but generally at least one use in a given power will come up fairly often. Some favourites include causing a creature to bristle with porcupline spines or turning enemies into a delayed bomb (and they know it).
I can say happily it will be a first day purchase for me. The fact there is a sample though should let you make up your own mind whether this is what you are looking for.
Thanks, Aleron!
Monkeygod, I've fought fairly hard to keep the flavor and mechanics of the truenamer intact wherever it actually worked and introduce new stuff wherever it would make the class more fun. Here are some of the major points, some of which will be reiterations.
1 - Casting requires a truenaming check (concentration by another name) equal to 7 + the recitation level. Unlike classic truenaming, whose DC for any spell was 15 + the target's HD (Ick.) this means the player always knows the DC to cast and doesn't have to ask the GM. Due to this important rule change, the GM can insert whatever the heck he wants into his games without fear of rendering one of his players useless by definition.
2 - Each time you cast a spell, the DC of that spell goes up by +2 until you "apologize to the universe" the next morning (Yes, that's the in-book wording). As Aleron said, dots are awesome for tracking this.
3 - As truenaming is a concentration-like check, it can't be broken with +skill items and the myriad skill feats that exist out there. In this way, my truenamer is "railroaded" in terms of power level to ensure that nobody breaks what should never be broken.
4 - Let's face it. Metamagic in classic truenaming was terrible. +20 to your DC to Quicken? That's a DC 75 check to cast a quickened spell on a level 20 caster, by the by. It almost never came up unless it targeted a minion, effectively making all truenaming metamagic a "win more" button rather than a legitimate choice to make.
Beyond simply cleaning out the clunk, my primary contribution to truenaming is the "inflections" system. Inflections are the metamagic of truenaming and there are 19 options last time I checked. When using an inflection, your casting time increases to a full-round action and the DC to cast increases by a modest amount. More importantly for balance's sake, if that recitation goes off successfully, your casting DC goes up by an amount in addition to the +2 that you normally get for casting a spell. This gives the player important choices to make in combat. Is it worth quickening this spell to effectively "lose" two daily castings of it by increasing the spell DC by +4? Gandalf and nova players alike will really get into this system, which is precisely why a high level truenamer can apply two metamagics at once. Since recitations do not scale with level, this makes 1st level spell spam a totally valid tactic at 12th level, and who doesn't love to see their abilities not become obsolete?
5 - Classic truenaming was effectively everyone running around with arcane spell failure of a random percentage (since it depended on the target, not you). This wasn't fun, so all recitations below your top level known can have a "10" taken on truenaming checks. This reduces the random and puts it where it belongs: your nova spells and where you have been pushing the universe.
These responses, which I greatly appreciate by the way, have convinced me to look into this class. Alas, I could not find the free PDF.
However, I did stumble across several other PDFs that I will likely pick up, so I got that going for me, which is nice.
They'll both be released Monday.
To be perfectly honest, I'm still rewiring one of the prestige classes at this point in the game. The previous 60 pages are all laid out and ready to go, though.
Quick update, chaps. The document is ostensibly finished. Bookmarks and links work. There's an issue with one specific image that, given its use framing tables, makes it so the issue is present about 20 times in the document. Fixing it will push me past my release window here on Paizo today, so I'm pushing this back to tomorrow on all sites.