Introduction: Truenaming oozes with some of the coolest flavor I've seen in D&D next to psionics. However, getting the class to work reliably at the table is somewhat of a difficult manner. This guide will assume that the user is in a non-setting specific campaign and that custom magical items-- save spell-trigger devices-- are not allowed.
The Truenamer Vital Statistics:
D6 hit dice
1 good save (will)
3/4 BAB (as Cleric)
4+int skills, with a very limited, yet useful list.
Abilities: Intelligence modifies the truespeak skill check, which drives this entire class, thus intelligence is the primary ability that one should focus on. Charisma determines save DC save of your utterances. Constitution never hurts either.
Class Abilities: Aside from utterances there area few notable abilities:
Knowledge focus: you get a +3 bonus on a single knowledge skill. This is gained multiple times throughout the class (4 times in fact.)
Bonus Recitation Feats (covered later on)
Speak unto the Masses: You can affect a group of creatures of the same type with a single utterance. This is gained at 17th level.
Say my name and I am there: You can give a "true-nickname" to your friends. They speak the word and you are callled to their location. This is gained at 20th level.
Special thanks to Ignatius Metamorphic for this commentary!
Role: I see the Truenamer functioning more like a bard than a wizard/sorcerer. Why? Look at all the basic class statistics: 2/3 BAB, D6 HD, simple weapon proficiency, light armour proficiency, spontaneous "casting", 4 skill points per level, bluff and UMD as class skills. That sounds a lot like a bard to me.
Having said that, I can see a couple of Truenamer archetypes. The Gish(which you've already mentioned), the blaster, the buffer, the face-man, the Jack-of-all-trades, and the know-it-all.
Abilities: Intelligence also increases your skill points. A typical Truenamer will have from 7 to 9 skill points per level. A Truenamer can't possibly have too high an intelligence.
Charisma drives saving throws, which aren't that big a deal since you can avoid saving throws by picking the right utterences. More importantly charisma drive bluff and use magic device, both of which are class skills.
Skills Another area where the Truenamer shines. They get 4 skill points per level and a decent selection of class skills.
Bluff: With a good charisma, maximum ranks, and the right utterences, the Truenamer is second only to the bard in this skill.
Knowledge Skills: All are class skills. You have more skill points than the wizard (and probably the bard) so you can play the role of the party know-it-all. You are going to want to identify creatures so you can estimate your truespeak DCs and make effective tactical decisions. You'll want ranks in arcana, dungeoneering, local, nature, religion, and planes.
Use Magical Device: You'll want to max out this skill. Buy, craft, or steal wands of all those skill boosting spells and pretty soon people will be muttering about how 'broken' you are. Plus, with the right selection of magic items, you can fill a number of different party roles.
Feats Most of the meta spell-like ability feats are useful. Anything that lets you improve your utterences without boosting you truespeak check is great.
Utterences There are two utterences that can boost your truespeak check (I don't have my book with me, so I'll look them up tonight). Speak both of them for a +10 to your check whenever you need it. If you take quicken spell-like ability you can get that bonus in one round.
Spell Resistance and Saving Throws In general, the power of the Truenamer comes from their ability to avoid spell resistance and saving throws. In general, when selecting offensive utterences, try to pick ones that don't require a saving throw. This will dramatically increase your effectiveness.
Also, where appropriate, you will increase you Truespeak check by 5 to avoid spell resistance. This is another reason to take ranks in knowledge skills, so you can identify creatures with spell resistance.
Truenaming Feats::
True Name Training: Truespeak is always a class skill.
Utterance of the XXX: Gain a 1st level utterance from one of the three paths.
Meta-utterance feats: Just like metamagic feats, except they only increase the DC of the check. These are great because you can metamagic your utterances for a while and then as the DC gets too high you can drop the metamagic effects. Your first utterances should always be metamagicized, if you can handle the DC.
Recitations: I deem these feats to 70% worthless... anyone have something to say in the contrary?
Quicken Utterance: While this is just another meta-utterance it bears special consideration. The DC increase for this utterance is 20. That's absolutely insane. Unless your build is capable of success rates (see below) higher than 100% (which rather difficult to do) this feat is almost completely worthless, as you will never ever make the DC check.
Metamagic XXX Spell-Like Ability: Kind of silly, but apparently truespeak is a spell-like ability and therefore you can apply these metamagic feats to them. Maximized reversed word of nurture anyone? Tasty.
Utterances The utterances are broken into 3 progressive paths. You gain access to theses "lexicons" at graduated levels. Each path progresses to 20th level and has their own special flavor. You are able to pick one new utterance each level.
Lexicon of the Evolving Mind: Similar to what I would call "normal magic." You can harm people, hinder people, buff people, or heal people with this lexicon. Nothing too fancy, but useful stuff. Each utterance has a reversed version, so learning one of these utterances can serve as both offense and defense in many cases.
Lexicon of the Crafted Tool: Affects and augments magical items or mundane items. Think of this set as "artificer lite." A lot of very useful stuff in here, as the reader will soon see.
Lexicon of the Perfected Map: Area effect utterances. I must say most of these are rather disappointing.
The Truespeak Check This is what it all boils down to, and this is what makes optimizing this class so difficult. Just so everyone fully understands the difficulty I will provide the DC check:
15 + 2x(target creature's CR)
Think about that for a second, let it sink in and fill your heart with despair. Now it gets even worse, every time you use a specific utterance the DC check to use that specific utterance goes up by 2. This quickly puts your ability to speak an utterance more than a few times a day out of range. I will define reliable to be to be able to make a DC that corresponds to a CR which is our level +3 at least twice a day with a good chance of doing so (at least 75%).
That said, let us now go through a list of ways to increase your truespeak check: CATEGORICAL BONUSESShow
Feats:
Feat [Skill Focus (Truespeak)]: +3 unnamed; PHB
Racial Feat [Enhance Power Sigils]: Bonus from power sigils increases by +1.; Race of Destiny
Feat [Keen Intellect]: +1 unnamed to intelligence based checks; OA.
Feat [Flexible Mind]: +1 unnamed to two skills and these skills are always treated as class skills for you; Dragon 326
Feat [Shape Soulmeld (Lucky Dice)]: +1 luck to any skill check; Magic of Incarnum
Feat [Item Familiar]: You can invest your "item familiar" with skill ranks to gain an unnamed bonus equal to the number of ranks invested diviedec by 3 to any skill. Effectively one may gain a maximum of +23 "ranks" to any skill.; Unearthed Arcana
Feat [Bloodline (Fire, Gold Dragon, Titan): +1 to intelligence at 15th level.
Exalted Feat [Favored of the Champions/Knight of the Stars/Servant of the Heavens] Grants a +1 luck bonus 1 time per day; Book of Exalted Deeds
Class Abilities:
Class Ability [Exemplar (Skill Artistry)]: +4 competance bonus; Complete Adventurer
Class Ability [Marshal (Motivate Intelligence)]: Cha mod to Int checks; Miniature's Handbook
Class Ability [Fatemaker] Grant himself up to +10 morale bonus to any skill check once per day. He can grant up to a +2 morale bonus to someone else.; Planar Handbook
Class Ability [Nobility Domain]: Can grant a +2 morale bonus on skill checks; SOURCE???
Class Ability [The Emissary of Barachiel] Grant a +2 bonus on skill checks for 10 minutes; Book of Exalted Deeds
Class Ability [Risen Martyr] Gain a +1 bonus on skill checks. This increases by +1 every 3rd level (level 10 would be a +4 bonus); Book of Exalted Deeds
Class Ability [The Troubador of Stars] Grant a +2 or +4 morale bonus to skill checks; Book of Exalted Deeds.
Class Ability [Ollam]: Grant allies a variable competance bonus on skill checks. For dwarven allies it caps out at +6, for non-dwarves +4.
Class Ability [Bard]: Inspire competance gives a +2 competance bonus by expending a bardic music use.
Class Ability [Fiend of Blasphemy (Transfer Spell-like Ability)]: At 2nd level, a fiend of blasphemy can use a power similar to the cleric spell imbue with spell ability to grant its cult members access to its spell-like abilities. You are limited to how many times you can do this per day; FF 201
Class Ability [Fiend of Corruption (Fiend's Favor)]: 1st level: Once per day, a fiend of corruption can grant a touched creature a +3 bonus to one of the creature's ability scores. It stacks with all other bonuses and lasts one day. When it expires, the creature takes a -3 penalty for the next day. Another application not only negates the penalty, but restores a full bonus.; FF 203
Class Ability [Fiend of Possession (Ally or Enemy)]: At 5th level, a fiend of possession can reward or punish a creature it is possessing. If the possessed creature is aware of the fiend's presence and willing to host the fiend, the fiend can bestow a +4 profane bonus on any of the creature's ability scores. This lasts as long as the fiend wills it to; FF 206
Spells/Powers/Utterances:
Spell [Divine Insight]: 2nd level cleric spell 5 + CL (max +15) insight on next skill check.; Complete Adventurer
Spell [Moment of Precience]: Insight bonus to any skill check = to your CL; PHB
Utterance [Universal Aptitude]: +5 unnamed bonus to any skill check; Tome of Magic.
Spell [Guidance]: 0th level cleric orison grants a +1 competance to any skill check; PHB
Spell [Heroism]: 3rd level sor/wiz spell grants +2 morale bonus to any skill check for the duration; PHB
Spell [Greater Heroism]: Bard 5 or Sor/wiz 6, +4 morale to any skill check; PHB.
Spell [Prayer]: Cleric 3, +1 luck bonus to any skill check; PHB
Spell [Good Hope]: Bard 3, +2 morale bonus to any skill check; PHB
Power [Precognition]: Seer 1, +2 insight to any skill check; XPH
Spell [Improvisation]: Bard 1st, luck bonus equal to up to half your caster level. The amount applied may be variable with a total bonus applied over the duration equal to 2*CL; Complete Adventurer, Spell Compendium. Note the SC version is 1st level and takes precedence over the CAdv version which cites it as a 5th level spell.
Spell [Ray of Hope] grants a +2 morale bonus on skill checks; Book of Exalted Deeds
Spell [Masochism]: grants +1 luck bonus to skill checks for every 10 points the caster takes. Take your infinite damage loop ideas onto the challenge board.; Book of Vile Darkness
Spell [Sadism]: grants +1 luck bonus to skill checks for every 10 points the caster deals. Not as broken as masochism, but could be.; Book of Vile Darkness
Spell [Power Leech]: You steal intelligence from a target and add it to your own. Amount stolen based on CL; Book of Vile Darkness.
Spell [Share talent]: gives a +2 (unnamed!) bonus for 10 minutes/level.
Spell [Insight of Good Fortune]: lets you roll a skill check twice (have to choose it beforehand, though).
Spell [Master's Touch]: gives a +4 insight bonus to a skill check.
Racial & Miscellaneous:
Racial Ability [Illumian Sigil (Naen)]: +1 to intelligence skill checks; Races of Destiny
Racial Ability [Logokron Devil]: +10 racial bonus to truespeak
Special Attack [Aid Another]: +2 unnamed bonus when another helps you. This is questionable; PHB
Racial Ability [Racial Paragon Class]: Many racial paragon classes offer a boost to intelligence, which of course will increase the truespeak check; Unearthed Arcana
Racial Ability [Elf Varients]: Grey Elf, Fire Elf, and other varients offer a modest +2 int bonus; Monster Manual, Faerun Campaign Setting, Unearthed Arcana
Template [Phrenic]: Gives bonuses to int and charisma, when mixed with marshall this may provide a total +3 bonus among other nice psionic abilities; XPH.
Items:
Item [Amulet of the Silver Tongue]: +5 or +10 (depending on magnitude of the item) enhancement bonus; Tome of Magic
Item [Pale Green Ioun Stone]: +1 competance to any skill check; DMG
Item [Luck Stone]: +1 luck to all skill checks; DMG
Item [Candle of Invocation]: +2 morale bonus on all skill checks, while it burns (which lasts 4 hours); DMG
Drug [Lihux]: grants a +2 alchemical bonus to all ability scores for up to 2 hours; Book of Vile Darkness
Drug [Mushroom Powder]: grants a +2 alchemical bonus to Intelligence and Charisma for 1 hour; Book of Vile Darkness
Highlighted Utterances LEM = Lexicon of the Evolving Mind LCT = Lexicon of the Crafted Tool LPM = Lexicon of the Perfected Map CATEGORICAL UTTERANCESShow
Offensive
Strike of Might: +10 damage on next melee attack--2nd LEM
Knight's Puissance: +2 to attacks for 5 rounds--1st LEM
Temporal Twist: Gain an extra attack--2nd LEM
Accelerated Attack: Cast while moving or grant spring attack feat to ally--3rd LEM
Energy Negation: Gain 10 energy resistance or deal 2d6 energy damage to enemy. Both last 5 rounds.--3rd LEM
Words of Nuturing (Minor, Moderate, Potent, Critical, and Greater): Deal damage over 2 rounds or heal over two rounds. These are pretty staple utterances -- XXX LEM
Ether Reforged: Become ethereal or affect ethereal foes normally--6th LEM
Eldrich Attraction: Move Creature 40 ft
Silent Caster: As silence--2nd LEM
Greater Knight's Puissance: +5 to attacks and damage for 5 rounds--6th LEM.
Transmute Weapon: Change the special material of a weapon--4th LCT
Metamagic Catalyst: Add a metamagic effect to a portion or scroll--5th LCT
Seize Item: Make a disarm attempt with TL + INT as your modifier, must be less than 50 lbs.
Conjunctive Gate: as Gate--6th LPM
Deny Passage: Stop a creature from entering an area--4th LPM
Miscellaneous
Universal Aptitude: +5 to any skill check for 5 rounds--1st LEM
Caster Lens: Increase caster or manifester level by 2 for 3 rounds, or decrease CL/ML for 3 rounds.--4th LEM
Spell Rebirth: Restore a dispelled or dismissed spell, or dispel a spell.--4th LEM
Silent Caster: Grant ability to apply Silent Spell to any spell w/o increase to level.--2nd LEM
Rebuild item: Restore an item that was destroyed last round to full functionality.--3rd LCT
Defensive
Confounding Resistance: Give ally mettle-like ability or remove evasion from an enemy.
Energy Negation: Gain 10 energy resistance or deal 2d6 energy damage to enemy. Both last 5 rounds.--3rd LEM
Words of Nuturing (Minor, Moderate, Potent, Critical, and Greater): Deal damage over 2 rounds or heal over two rounds. These are pretty staple utterances -- XXX LEM
Greater Energy Negation: Grant energy immunity or wreath ally in energy that damages those who attack the ally --5th LEM
Ward of Peace: Enemies cannot directly attack you and neither can you attack them directly. Lasts 5 rounds.--5th LEM
Fortify Armor: negate critical hits and sneak attacks to those wearing the fortified armor, the level of fortification is steeply based on the DC.--1st LCT
Where to go with the Truenamer?! After writing this guide the choice is ever so clear in my mind: gish. The truenamer is the weakest excuse for a caster replacement I have ever seen. The buffs that a truenamer has, however, aren't too shabby. The fact that Use Magic Device is a class skill opens up the possibility to use a wand of divine power and others to turn this guy into a decent gish. Mixing this class with any other class is, however, a touchy subject. No prestige classes advance utterances! Not a single one. So if there's a good high level utterance you want, you better stick with truespeaker. Utterances do not advance much with your level, so low-level utterances spoken by a low level character are generally just as good as one spoken by a high level character (with exception of those that require saves). So long as you advance your truespeaking ranks (which is easy thanks to the truename training feat), you're free to multiclass without fear of losing potency.
:n. a character who is able to augment his combat skills with magical ability, typically in reference to the combination of arcane magic and melee skill.
How to build your truenaming gish: First we need to look hard at what utterances really help a gish out. Here's my short list of gish-worthy utterances that I found: GISH UTTERANCESShow
Now if I had to pick a good cut-off line, I would say that after 3rd level LEM you don't need to continue taking truenamer. You'll notice that no LPM utterances are on this short list. This is because I deem this path to be utterly worthless to a gish. Heck, I might be so bold as to say the path is utterly worthless to any player. You simply don't get any LPM utterances of significance until 17th level, and few campaigns run that far.
After you reach 9th level of truenamer, I'd say that a gish should cut loose and join the Acolyte of the Ego prestige class. With some semi decent utterances of its own right and fighter base attack, you should find a nice home with this PrC.
Complete Builds Tleilaxu_Ghola: The Solo Truenamer: Core + Miniature's Handbook + Races of Destiny + Tome of Magic Spoiler:Show
Race: Illumian Abilities: Assume 16 int and 16 charisma to start Build: Marshall 1/Truenamer 19 Feats: Skill Focus (truespeak), Enhanced Power Sigils, Shape Soulmeld (Lucky Dice), (Recitation of the Meditative State), Extend Utterance, Empower Utterance, Quicken Utterance, Utterance of the Evolving Mind (Speed of the Zephyr). Skill bonus by level [list=1]
N/A
(5 ranks + 3 focus + 3 cha +3 int + 1 sigil) = 15
(6 ranks + 3 focus + 3 cha + 3 int + 3 sigil) = 18
(7 ranks + 3 focus + 3 cha + 3 int + 3 sigil) = 19
(8 ranks + 3 focus + 3 cha + 3 int + 3 sigil + 5 enhancement) = 25*
*represent a purchased item has been added 5. Lesser amulet of the silver tongue (2500) 8. Greater amulet of the silver tongue (10,000) 10. +2 cloak of cha and +2 headband of int (8,000) 15. +4 cloak of cha and +4 headband of int (32,000) 17. +6 headband of int (36,000) 18. +4 tome of int (110,000) 20. +6 cloak of cha (36,000)
Need_A_Life: The UBER Truenamer: Makes use of varient rules and OA. Spoiler:Show
Cohort: ??? Marshall1/Artificer15 [1 level dropped for the crafting of items for his master] Cha: 34
TOTAL ITEMS: 1x ioun stone +1 competence 1x cloak of charisma +6 1x headband of intelligence +6 1x tome of intelligence +5 1x tome of charisma +4 1x wand of Improvisation (by bard 20).
These two characters *could* function at point buy 16 (they need that 18 in a skill... in my humble opinnion).
Note: This takes 1 round of buffing, a reasonable time I would say. Also, if you begin using followers to buff you (cheesy, but hey! This is the Char OP boards) it gets a lot higher.
Note2: I haven't actually done the math on the prices of the equipment, but if it is not enough, I'll make my followers elans and give them Craft skills!
Analysis is based off the "Solo Truenamer" build shown above. While not the most uber build in existance, it represents what I would call a reasonably well optimized build. With more conditional modifers one may easily do better.
Worst Case Senario: Opponent = your level + 3 CR [list=1]
DC = [15 + (1+3)x2] = 23 -> N/A
DC = [15 + (2+3)x2] = 25 -> 55%
DC = [15 + (3+3)x2] = 27 -> 60%
DC = [15 + (4+3)x2] = 29 -> 55%
DC = [15 + (5+3)x2] = 31 -> 75%
DC = [15 + (6+3)x2] = 33 -> 75%
DC = [15 + (7+3)x2] = 35 -> 70%
DC = [15 + (8+3)x2] = 37 -> 95%
DC = [15 + (9+3)x2] = 39 -> 90%
DC = [15 + (10+3)x2] = 41 ->95%
DC = [15 + (11+3)x2] = 43 ->90%
DC = [15 + (12+3)x2] = 45 ->85%
DC = [15 + (13+3)x2] = 47 ->80%
DC = [15 + (14+3)x2] = 49 ->75%
DC = [15 + (15+3)x2] = 51 ->80%
DC = [15 + (16+3)x2] = 53 ->80%
DC = [15 + (17+3)x2] = 55 ->80%
DC = [15 + (18+3)x2] = 57 ->85%
DC = [15 + (19+3)x2] = 59 ->80%
DC = [15 + (20+3)x2] = 61 ->80%
Remember now, that's assuming this is the first time you uttered that utterance. Each time you utter the same utterance the % of success decreases by 10%.
Now for a gish, one really only cares about buffing themselves or their party members. This means that the above list of DCs will decrease by 6 for each one (causing an increase of 30% probability in the success rate). However, one typically would like to be able to survive say 3 encounters a day, so we would like each utterance useable a reasonable 3/day. The DC for that third utterance will be six higher than the first time it was uttered. So we see that the above list of success rates is applicable even for party buffing. When it comes to self-buffing, however, the above list is good for 5/day, because you automatically get a net +2 to your personal truename check. So to buff yourself simply add 40% to the success rate of the above list, to buff your party add 30%. Basically, at 20th level you'll always have 70% chance of success to buff youself with a given utterance 5/day.
Survey says: it's not that bad folks, but it ain't easy.
There are a few things that might ameliorate the above list of success rates:
A masterwork tool, which grants a +2 circumstance bonus. This has been suggested to be a manual of vocal excersizes, or a device which amplifies sound to the ear, or perhaps a crypt sheet with mnemonic devices on it.
Pale green ioun stone (+1 competance)
shapechanged into a lokogrim devil (for a +10 racial bonus). This would be possible with a wand of polymorph, given that the person somehow acquired the outsider type.
+5 unnamed from universal aptitude utterance.
Each increase in the skill bonus increases the probability of success by 5%. Each time you utter a specific utterance the probability of success goes down by 10%. Universal aptitude is great and buys you a 25% increased probability for all your utterances for five rounds. It's a first level utterance LEM too, so I suggest that you take it as your second utterance.
Another great method, if you're really starting to hurt for skill bonuses towards the end of the day is to use potions of divine insight. A 10 CL potion will give +15 insight bonus, which amounts to a 75% increase in success rate for one utterance. Not too shabby.
I would like to repeat some things from this excellent guide.
Truenaming oozes with some of the coolest flavor I've seen in D&D
I totally agree with this. I liked the warlock for the same reason, but this beats it with miles.
Say my name and I am there: You can give a "true-nickname" to your friends. They speak the word and you are callled to their location. This is gained at 20th level.
So fun. Battlefield control. This is the only reason I wouldn't multiclass, my DM has banned the Teleport Spell but allows travel in this sort of way.
Your first utterances should always be metamagicized, if you can handle the DC.
I would like to point out that Extend Utterance is powerful, given that your utterances have such a short duration compared to other classes and repeated 'castings' increases the DCs needed to 'cast'.
Deny Passage: Stop a creature from entering an area
No, it's better. You say whether people can enter or exit the area... attacks through the 'bars' with things like spears doesn't work either. Perfect fall-back point.
Rebuild item: Restore an item that was destroyed last round to full functionality.--3rd LCT
This is sooo nice. The truenamer is fairly dependant on magic items to boost his skill check, just don't use Rebuild item more than you can always use another of them without your magic items. Mordekainens Disjunction, eat your heart out, because unlike Make Whole this restores magical abilities too. Anything but artifacts are restored to full functionality. Just need to get there in time.
A core + ToM truenamer 20 build that actually works
Without Marshall, this class becomes a lot less effective. I'd like to see it done too... just hoping that someone finds a way to let it qualify you for Mystic Theruge. I'd love being the guy mastering all untraditional magic...
Oh, and luckstones give +1 luck on skill checks... hope I didn't miss it on your list.
Keep up the good work. 
