Gno more gnomes?

[Falling Icicle]

Hopefully, it will be the Half Orcs that don't appear in 4th edition (at least not in the PHB). Gnomes have been a part of D&D for decades, wheras the Half Orc was introduced in 3rd edition, and to be frank, it sucked. I will be very displeased if they keep the Half Orc and remove Gnomes. VERY displeased.

And Tieflings as a core race? Hmm. I have serious reservations about that. For one thing, this would most likely mean they are eliminating the level adjustment, and of course this would require them to reduce their racial abilities to maintain balance. Another thing I don't like is that Tieflings being a race means that they are based on humans. I prefer to play Tieflings as a template instead. Fiends don't interbreed with humans only.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hopefully, it will be the Half Orcs that don't appear in 4th edition (at least not in the PHB). Gnomes have been a part of D&D for decades, wheras the Half Orc was introduced in 3rd edition, and to be frank, it sucked. I will be very displeased if they keep the Half Orc and remove Gnomes. VERY displeased.

Half-orcs existed in 1E. They're hardly new.

And Tieflings as a core race? Hmm. I have serious reservations about that. For one thing, this would most likely mean they are eliminating the level adjustment, and of course this would require them to reduce their racial abilities to maintain balance.

Considering that they've said that not just class, but also race, gives characters abilities to choose from, I think it more likely that the other races were raised to the tiefling's level, rather than the reverse. Or, more accurately, all the races were redesigned on a level playing field. It's a mistake to think of them in 3E terms at all.

 

[sjmiller]

You know, I just can't imagine D&D without gnomes as a player race. My campaign world, which I plan on using for years to come, has gnomes as a central race. I can't just replace them with dwarves, because the dwarves are the big, bad, nasty bad guy race. My players love the gnomes, and really hated how they've been marginalized, altered heavily, and general made so unappealing. I've been ignoring a lot of the stuff that has come out about gnomes in recent material, if they are mentioned at all. That material just shows that the folks working on the game have no idea how to use gnomes.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

-- Okay, I don't really hate them. But they (and half-elves) were the tap water of the dnd races to me... I want to see something cool, something that does not skip in glades or tinker with clocks, bake cookies or merely fill a stat niche.

It seems that your perception of gnomes is wrong. You consider them harmless little people. They want you to think that way. They've already won.

Forget about clocks. They tinker with firearms, and produce something that puts the best elven bows to shame. They tinker with clockwork armour, and produce an armour that puts them ahead of half-orcs strength-wise. They tinker with mechanisms, and produce traps infinitely more refined than the kobolds' primitive booby traps. They tinker with golems, and produce constructs that will crush their opposition.

Their proficiency in illusions will make those inventions seem harmless, right until you feel the truth. Then they will sing merry songs about your demise, and bake cookies and give them away to poeple - and the cookies will make dwarves' beards fall out and colour elves' skin black and their hair white.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

As opposed to dwarves. No one cares if they're around, hardly anyone plays them, but "they've always been there".

I saw lots of dwarves.

Of those, about 15% were great characters. The rest were played because the racial traits and treatment in various stories are a good excuse to act like a rude, antisocial racist, or because the stats, especially in 3.5e, are overpowered.

This tells me two things: 1. Dwarves need to be reworked and 2. I played with too many crappy roleplayers.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In almost 24 years of playing D&D I'm pretty sure I've never seen anyone playing a gnome.

I've seen more than a few. Several of these are among the greatest characters I've seen in D&D.

 

[KingCrab]

Here's what I think will happen: They'll drop the gnome from the PHB. Gnome fans will have to wait until August, because that's when the FRCS comes out, and it will have gnomes (can't do the Realms without gnomes).

That would force players who hate the realms but want gnomes in their game to buy a book they wouldn't otherwise have bought. I can see some people being upset. Since I like the realms, but don't care about gnomes wither way, it doesn't matter much to me.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

That would force players who hate the realms but want gnomes in their game to buy a book they wouldn't otherwise have bought. I can see some people being upset. Since I like the realms, but don't care about gnomes wither way, it doesn't matter much to me.

Maybe they'll put them into Dragon Online or something.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't run the Realms -- although like many people, I think the 3E FRCS is among the best setting books ever. I'd get the 4E FRCS if that was the only place gnomes were initially available -- they'd be better off in PHB2, IMO -- and try and find a use for the rest of the material in the book.

 

[variant]

They need to keep the gnome and get rid of the damn half-races. No tieflings either. :/