Pact Magic is the most flexible, on a strategic (day-to-day) basis, and not too shabby on a tactical (round-by-round) basis. It's about as strong as a Warlock, but with some ability to go into melee as a secondary tank.
The Pact Augmentations mean you can further customize your daily role.
It's powerful, but not overpowered -- certainly not compared to a Druid or Cleric. The rules on influence are especially cool -- there's a mechanic to let me change my PC's personality on a day-to-day basis. That's cool (if you like it) and optional (if you don't).
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Shadow Magic, as written (not as Ari has re-written), reminds me of 1e Magic Users. At 1st level, you can do one VERY limited thing ONCE per day. The other things you can do as you level up are kinda cool, but again, VERY limited in application, and ZERO flexibililty in strategic role or tactical choices. You just learned a spell? Great, you get exactly that spell, exactly once per day. The worst parts of a Sorcerer (fixed "known" list) and a Wizard (fixed "prepared" list).
The re-write adds some power and tactical flexibility, and I haven't looked into it enough to comment more than that.
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Truename Magic is growing on me. After trying out some builds at various levels, it looks like you should be able to hit a critter of your CR about 10 times per Utterance -- which seems fair, since each Utterance is about half the power of an equivalent spell.
Using the Truename skill requires that you pay attention to skill-enhancers, from Skill Focus (Truespeak) to an Amulet of the Silvered Tongue, and that you invest in a Luckstone, Ioun Stone of similar bent, and maybe get a Bard or other Arcanist to cast
heroism on you for super-tough encounters. Also, you should be putting your gold into Intelligence enhancers (headbands and Tomes), just like any Int-based spellcaster would.
The thing that may break / ruin Truenamers is the campaign. If you like to throw critters above-CR at the party, the Truenamer will be screwed. If you like to throw lots of low-CR minions at the party, the Truenamer will shine and look super-powerful. This may be true of spellcasters in general -- SR is a level check -- but it applies to the Truenamer in
all encounters, not just those with SR.
Anyway. It's a great book, full of inspiration. I hope Tome of Battle is this good.
-- N