Critter speak has the potential be be hugely beneficial, but the issues I have with it are it works best with spells like Conjure Animals (because they become much more effective scouts if you can talk to them at will). However, that gnome's stats don't line up well with a druid. I wish they had a bonus to Wisdom instead of Dex or Int.
I mean it works fine with just having good persuasion, as well. And makes falconer rangers interesting. (As long as your DM is nice about your pet or uses the revised ranger or otherwise helps you keep it alive)
but conceptually i agree that forest gnomes should be better druids than they are. As a DM I’d consider allowing a wisdom boost rather than wisdom, or since I don’t view druids as divine in my worlds/games, using Int for casting. But, honestly, I don’t think 5e needs you to match race to class all that much.
Then again, I also think that Druidic should allow you to speak with animals and without a spell, and maybe trees, too. Even if it had to be a tier 2 ability, I’d be okay with that.
In my current campaign, a rock gnome's clockwork toys will be more useful than speaking with small animals because it's an urban campaign.
I agree that what is useful is going to be campaign dependent, but what works for one campaign won't work for yours. At the same time, I don't think that all races need to be balanced as long as they have their own unique flavor.
I’m fine with races not being perfectly balanced, but a tool and a ribbon isn’t much for a subrace, and the reason I brought up that shortage is simply that it means there is plenty of room in the rock gnome to also be able to speak with critters.
As to the urban campaign...rats, birds, racoons, cats, and insects, are all small or smaller beasts. Speaking with them is incredible in an urban campaign.
Really, the thing with rock gnomes is that the 5e forrest gnome pretty much has the abilities of previous-edition rock gnomes, and 5e rock gnomes have inherited the tinker qualities of the Dragonlance gnomes to a minor extant (that didn't exist in the AD&D gnomes apart from that setting).
I've only seen a handful of gnomes in games that I've played or DM in (I've never played a gnome), but they've always been played seriously. I've got to say, that I fell in love with the depiction of gnomes in Paizo's Golarion setting, and have pretty much adopted that depiction (for the most part) for the settings that I run.
Im not familiar with the Golarion depiction, can you give a tl:dr of why you love them so much? I’d also love to hear about your favorite non-silly Gnome PCs!
First, I don’t think Gnome Cunning takes up that much design space. It’s conditional advantage on one good save and two bad ones. IMO, that’s worth the same as a cantrip. It’s just that Gnome is the lightest base-race in the PHB. Most of the value is in the subraces.
Second, I think the clockwork toy is meant to have combat applicability, given that it specifies movement “on each of your turns”. This should at least distract any opponent with which it interacts, giving you or an ally advantage on attacks. Of course, the game leaves it up to the DM, but I’d say that in any game where the DM doesn’t rule that a rock gnome can reliably use its clockwork toy in combat, you’re better off playing a forest gnome.
Ive never seen anyone try to do that. Interesting.