With all this talk of psions and psionics, I was reminded of the alternate supernatural features I did like: those poor saps called truenamers.
I always liked Truenaming. The flavor of it held together all the ideas of D&D magic and supernatural forces for me. It made a whole lot of sense and could be easily explained. Truenaming and truespeech ties well into the verbal and somatic properties of wizard spells, the mysteries of bardic magic, and the origins of sorcerers and it could be expanded to other magics. The idea that you could speak an utterance backwards for the opposite effect was cool. And having truenamers contend with reality itself instead of the target directly and having reality resist it was interesting.
Unfortunately its mechanics didn't work well in the edition it debuted and truenaming just fell apart. 3rd edition just didn't have the mechanical focus and infrastructure which matched the foci of truenaming (basically there was no universal measurement for power except CR so the formula for DCs just didn't work.) And even though the Law of Resistance and Law of Sequence were cool as an idea they were both pains in the neck.
5th edition is a new edition. And it fixes a bunch of the problems with truenaming. 5th has a standard measurement for power for PCs and NPCs which works for skills and DCs (proficiency). And for items and places, DCs already have an organization for standard difficulties. 5th edition also has a method to handle bonuses (advantage) and penalties (disadvantage) as well as recharging magic (short/long rests). The mechanics of 5th edition would allow for an easier time for that crazy truenamer increasing or decreasing an ally's statistics. The biggest change would be handling 5th edition's hatred of stacking buffs or debuffs. The Law of Sequence would end up being a form of concentration or the class/feats/variant would have to shift to heavily instantaneous effects or short durations.
One of the interesting discussions of 5th edition is the different amounts of importance it puts on each mechanic and flavor bit compared to the past. So looking back at something many liked but could not play and seeing if the new world can fit it is an obvious step afterwards.
So what are your thoughts on the subject? Do you like truenamers? Do you want them to return in 5th edition eventually? How would you do them?
I always liked Truenaming. The flavor of it held together all the ideas of D&D magic and supernatural forces for me. It made a whole lot of sense and could be easily explained. Truenaming and truespeech ties well into the verbal and somatic properties of wizard spells, the mysteries of bardic magic, and the origins of sorcerers and it could be expanded to other magics. The idea that you could speak an utterance backwards for the opposite effect was cool. And having truenamers contend with reality itself instead of the target directly and having reality resist it was interesting.
Unfortunately its mechanics didn't work well in the edition it debuted and truenaming just fell apart. 3rd edition just didn't have the mechanical focus and infrastructure which matched the foci of truenaming (basically there was no universal measurement for power except CR so the formula for DCs just didn't work.) And even though the Law of Resistance and Law of Sequence were cool as an idea they were both pains in the neck.
5th edition is a new edition. And it fixes a bunch of the problems with truenaming. 5th has a standard measurement for power for PCs and NPCs which works for skills and DCs (proficiency). And for items and places, DCs already have an organization for standard difficulties. 5th edition also has a method to handle bonuses (advantage) and penalties (disadvantage) as well as recharging magic (short/long rests). The mechanics of 5th edition would allow for an easier time for that crazy truenamer increasing or decreasing an ally's statistics. The biggest change would be handling 5th edition's hatred of stacking buffs or debuffs. The Law of Sequence would end up being a form of concentration or the class/feats/variant would have to shift to heavily instantaneous effects or short durations.
One of the interesting discussions of 5th edition is the different amounts of importance it puts on each mechanic and flavor bit compared to the past. So looking back at something many liked but could not play and seeing if the new world can fit it is an obvious step afterwards.
So what are your thoughts on the subject? Do you like truenamers? Do you want them to return in 5th edition eventually? How would you do them?
