Tome of Magic

[GQuail]

I'm very fond of Tome Of Magic. As otehrs have said, the fact that its' three independant rulesets you can plug into a campaign, and rulesets designed to be "minority" magic, mean that most people will be able to add at least one into their existing campaign with not too much effort.

Fluff and look wise, the book is very nice: the Binder section in paticular, with all it's pictures of sigils and whatnot, is very funky. The only thing I'm not so hot on is the monsters: some of them are cool, others feel really forced. "We can't have a magic system without monsters tied into it: give me a tooth monster, a truenaming angel and a shadow thing, stat!"

Mechanics wise, all three systems have their charms. Shadowcasters are perhaps the most mundane in game, behaving like the dedicated Illusionist class of years gone by. Pact Magic and its omni-present powers are quite cool, filling a similar niche to the Warlock in terms of "Weaker but enduring powers": and the way in which binders can be influenced by their vestiges is great RP material. Truenamers finally give us a skill-based magic system for D&D 3.X by WotC which fills a definite niche, but as others have said it's a bit contentious and a lot of people think it has usability issues: the Cleric doesn't have to roll higher numbers to buff his colleagues as he levels up.

It's agood book, and I'd reccomend it: probably one of the best books Wizards have done recently, IMHO.

 

[Cheiromancer]

No the only problem with the truenamer is that it requires you to have magic item x, y, and z or it is useless. And it also uses a meta mechanic that many times just isn't in the ball park anyway.

The biggest problem with CR is when a creature is under-CRed. It is in these cases that the truenamer has an advantage- a smaller number is being doubled! If a creature is over-CRed then the truenamer has a problem, but the rest of the party should be able to do well.

The biggest difficulty for the truenamer is with the boss monster at the end. Against low-CR cretures she can do alright, but in the end, when it counts, she's liable to be hosed.

Oh, and it's hard for her to buff her fellow PCs. There should be a way for folks to voluntarily "lower their CR" so truenamers can do their thing.

My memory of the issues is kind of faint, though. Does anyone have a link handy to the thread where Mouseferatu proposes some fixes?

 

[Kurotowa]

I think that is my biggest gripe with the Truenamer, it REQUIRES magic items at higher levels. I know that most (heck maybe ALL) characters have magic items at high levels that help their core abilities. But they don't seem to NEED them in the same way that a Truenamer does.

I'm not playing or GMing a Truenamer at the moment. But I think the DC levels need a serious rework...

The thing is, D&D is just full of skill boosting items, features, feats, and effects. So when you make a skill-based class you have two choices. You can balance the class with the assumption that the PC will be using most of those skill boosts, and people bitch about how it forces them to have lots of magical items. Or you can balance the class with the assumption that the PC won't be using most of those skill boosts, and people bitch about how the class is sooo broken because it's effortless to get your Truenamer skill insanely high.

Of the two of those, they did the former, and I think it's the right thing to do. The alternative is by far the worse choice.

 

[Jarrod]

Agreed. If you don't like the skill reliance, then remove the skill boost items from the game and set the DC to scale by a factor of 1 instead of 2.

Personally, that's what I'd do... but then I'm not a fan of skill boost items in general.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I like Tome of Magic. It's a great looking book, but the content is even better.

The shadow magic section is something I've always found interesting, even back in the original ToM. It puts me in mind of Roger Zelazny's "Jack of Shadows."

The section on binders is the part I like the best. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, which was an expansion on the "summon" spells. A magic system that tried to replicate the kind of stuff that is in Michael Moorcock's "Elric" stories is what I had hoped to see. What's actually in the book is quite a different concept. It's actually pretty interesting, and I'd like to get a chance to use it. The concept of the vestiges is compelling, and could make for a good campaign hook.

The truename section is one I need to look at more closely. I didn't like it as much as the other two sections. The concept is solid, and I'd hoped to see something along the lines of the magic in LeGuin's "Earthsea" books. True names are also an important plot element in Glen Cook's "Black Company" series, and Green Ronin's "Black Company" campaign setting, and their True Sorcery book, handle the concept in an interesting way. I just didn't warm up to the system in ToM. I can't put my finger on why, though, so I need to re-read it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The problem isn't that the DCs scale with CR. Other spellcasters have that too, except it's monster saves that sort of scale.

No, the problem is that DCs scale twice as fast as CR. That means that for every rank the truenamer puts into his Truespeech skill, the DC goes up by 2, but then you get the occasional skill boosting item to catch up.

A comparison: a level 1 truenamer has a bonus of +10 (4 ranks, +3 for stat 16, +3 skill focus) and is going against an average DC of 17. He needs a 7 or better to succeed. A 20th level pretty much maxed truenamer has a bonus of +44 (23 ranks, +8 for stat 27 (+5 level, +6 item), +3 skill focus, +10 item) and is going up against an average DC of 55. He needs an 11 or better.

Hmm. That wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be, but I still think the mechanic is flawed. I think it would have been better as a level check (plus half your non-truenamer levels) vs 10+CR. That would make it 50/50 against equal-level opponents.

In addition, the reason it scales doesnt make sense. Theres some poorly thought out fluff about how the universe notices when you impact an important individual. However, in implementation, its inconsistent. Importance is based on CR? So a significant political figure who is a 4th level noble is as important as a nameless, near mindless dire wolf? If thats the case, why is it just as easy to drop an earthquake in the middle of a major holy site as it is in a random field? To shatter a priceless work of art as a random beer bottle?

What they shoudl have done for ALL utterances is what they did for the perfected map lexicon. Ditch the stupid CR based system (like CR is balanced anyways) and just make each lexicon a static DC with an increase of x/level of the utterance. That would remove the inconsistencies, make low level utterances have some value (its as easy to lob a 9th level one as a 1st level one right now, which is stupid), and get rid of the feeling of getting worse at doing the same thing you've been doing since level 1 (ie, using a word on you or your buddy). Theres still some problems, but its at least an internally consistant system that doesnt rely on a badly thought out metagame mechanic.

Shadowcaster has been touched on.

The binder class just struck me as weak overall. Their much vaunted flexibility isnt all that impressive, since they cant easily re-bind on the fly. A cleric has more flexibility given their wide variety of spells known. The pact benefits need some scaling help, since some of them are downright useless (particularly skill boosters). Oh, great, I can use disable device untrained. Lets see, given my MAD, my intelligence bonus is a mighty +1 or so at best. So with my masterwork tools, uhh, thats a +3. Enough to get myself into trouble with, and not much else. Also, reducing the timer on their abilities from 5 rounds to d4 makes them more worthwhile rather than being a spell-less cleric in a chain shirt for the rest of the fight after they blow their wad. Overall very cool flavor, but weak execution. Also, as my last combat revealed, an NPC enemy binder is basically free exp and loot in comparison to another class.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The biggest problem with CR is when a creature is under-CRed. It is in these cases that the truenamer has an advantage- a smaller number is being doubled! If a creature is over-CRed then the truenamer has a problem, but the rest of the party should be able to do well.

The biggest difficulty for the truenamer is with the boss monster at the end. Against low-CR cretures she can do alright, but in the end, when it counts, she's liable to be hosed.

Oh, and it's hard for her to buff her fellow PCs. There should be a way for folks to voluntarily "lower their CR" so truenamers can do their thing.

My memory of the issues is kind of faint, though. Does anyone have a link handy to the thread where Mouseferatu proposes some fixes?

Class levels, nonassociated levels and templates throw it further out of whack. So do suggestions of changing the creature's CR based on other circumstances (wounded, diseased, extra gear, etc).

Which would you expect to be the easiest to debuff?

A 10th level Frost Giant cleric, who has 24 Hit dice
A 6th level frost giant barbarian, who has 20 hit dice
A 16th level human fighter, who has 16 hit dice

Yup, the guy with the most hit dice is the easiest (CR 14), despite having the best saves and very likely the most hit points.

CR is a *guideline* for designing adventures. It shouldnt factor into mechanics (utterances, knight's challenge, etc).

 

[Mouseferatu]

My memory of the issues is kind of faint, though. Does anyone have a link handy to the thread where Mouseferatu proposes some fixes?

Ask, and ye shall receive...

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2957649&postcount=76

 

[Thomas Percy]

I converted my shadowcaster wizard noctuamncer according to this new rules.
I find the class similiar in power to the sorcerer now, because his mysteries choice without need of path complete is versatile.

***

I have a question about mystery BOLSTER. It gives now (I'm CL10) 50 additional hp for 100 minutes. Every fellowship member beless my shadowcaster for this additional hp! they even gather gold to make a wands with this spell (or a scroll with extended version).
But question: When a PC is protected by Stoneskin, Protection from Energy or similiar wounds (hp) absorbing spell AND with the Bolster, which hp the PC looses first? How it works by the rules?

Thanks for help.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Ask, and ye shall receive...

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2957649&postcount=76

Thanks Ari!