[3.5 Revision Spotlight] The Gnome

[Ashrem Bayle]

Personally, I think the bard is a perfect fit.

 

[Enceladus]

I can see an interesting illusionistbard combo...

 

[Carnifex]

It's different, but I like it.

Bards make excellent tricksters [spells + rogue-type skills], and they have Knowledge as a class skill, which is consistant with the idea that gnomes value education.

Besides, gnome = gnosis = knowledge = bardic lore.

Gnomes are the keepers of the lost knowledge. This works.

I don't think the word gnome has anything to do with gnosis. It comes from gnoma, which was basically an earth spirit/fey style of creature (can't remember if it was greek or roman in origin). The other ones were sylpha for air (slyphs), undines for water, and salambes for flame (salamanders).

 

[Umbran]

Replacing illusionist was a bad step. The whole gnomish race is *geared* towards illusion.

And maybe the new Bard is also heavy in illusion?

We cannot tell whether this is "profane" until we see the whole package - gnome and bard and illusionist.

 

[Felon]

I'm not really sure it fits in with the whole gnomish racial archetype. They do not have a necessarily arts-orientated culture- indeed, their cultural description tends to have them very much going for the practical skills and sciences, with those gnomes with a steady profession tending to be engineers, scientists, scholars and the like; not dancers, prancers and balladeers

Yep, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Right-brained vs. left-brained.

That picture of Gimble, the three-foot-tall dashing little rake, sure doesn't sel the package. It's almost like a parody that mocks of the revision.

 

[Enceladus]

Thinking about it, having all of that illusionist ability (+2 racial bonus on saving throws against illusions: Gnomes are innately familiar with illusions of all kinds. Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against illusion spells cast by gnomes.), anyway and then making illusionist a favored class on top of it all does seem like quite a waste (overkill?) so perhaps another favored class would make more sense?

 

[Flyspeck23]

Thinking about it, having all of that illusionist ability (...) anyway and then making illusionist a favored class on top of it all does seem like quite a waste (overkill?) so perhaps another favored class would make more sense?

That’s like saying it’s overkill for the half-orc to have favorite class: barbarian

Anyway...
I think it’s quite a decent choice to make bards the favorite class for gnomes. Makes sense, and should be fun. And for any XP penalties - I wouldn’t use them retrospective.

 

[Enceladus]

That’s like saying it’s overkill for the half-orc to have favorite class: barbarian

Maybe they'll change that too?

 

[CCamfield]

I think it's pretty cool. Perhaps as Enceladus suggested, someone thought that gnomes were overly specialized as illusionists. ("I'm not going to play an illusionist, so why would I take a gnome?")

 

[Enceladus]

I think it's pretty cool. Perhaps as Enceladus suggested, someone thought that gnomes were overly specialized as illusionists. ("I'm not going to play an illusionist, so why would I take a gnome?")

Thanks CCamfield for recognizing genius when he sees it!