Gnome haters? It's Lockwood's fault!

[CF]

I know I'm kind of late but I want to thank Mr. Lockwood for giving a really cool visual aid for the gnomes. And Pozas for his brilliant defense on gnome's behalf. (The EIRPG is near, yey!)

Like many in here, I do like the tinker archetype and feel sorry for the lack of robust rules to support this kind of character. I feel that the best portrait of the gnome would be something between the nutty scientist and the creepy spy - pretty broad niche, huh?

On the other hand, I think that they may be great tricksters, like many said. They're usually pretty smart, curious and willing to teach others using jokes. Qualities I find really useful for any teacher. And IMO a trickster is one kind of teacher. A teacher who makes you learn presenting obstacles, but a teacher nonetheless.

And finally, gnomes are also a great choice for wizards. They're small, nimble and magical!

 

[Mad Mac]

All right, here's what I don't get. If all the R&D guys found Gnomes totally uninspiring as "Little guys with Illusions and banana peels" and loved lockwoods engineer gnomes but didn't have time to to the technologist gnome justice before 3.0 was released...why in blazes haven't we seen any attempts in that direction?

I mean, really, you'd think someone would have at least put together a gnome-tech sourcebook by now, if only to see how well it was received.

 

[Schmoe]

I think gnomes work very well as the reclusive fey-like creatures of the earth and soil. Deeply ingrained traditions of storytelling (Perform) pass down the lore of hidden secrets (Bardic Knowledge) from one generation to the next. They have close ties to the natural world and live in hidden caverns and secluded grottoes. If you want to learn about things the world has forgotten, seek out the gnomes.

Personally, I despise the "tinkerer" archetype, and I'm uninspired by the "trickster" archetype, at least for an entire PC race.

 

[CF]

All right, here's what I don't get. If all the R&D guys found Gnomes totally uninspiring as "Little guys with Illusions and banana peels" and loved lockwoods engineer gnomes but didn't have time to to the technologist gnome justice before 3.0 was released...why in blazes haven't we seen any attempts in that direction?

Besides the FR's artificer PrC, the Complete Arcane's maester and Eberron's artificer, you mean?

I mean, really, you'd think someone would have at least put together a gnome-tech sourcebook by now, if only to see how well it was received.

I think they didn't have enought to fill a whole sourcebook and also don't have a setting with core tinker gnomes anymore. So they keep releasing those "magi-tech" gadgeteering gnomes.

I would much prefer a tinker that doesn't dabbles in magic. But sometimes I think I'm the only one. :\

 

[Mad Mac]

Yeah, magic tinkering isn't quite the same thing. Good call on the FR artificer though, I'd forgotten about it entirely.

The Eberron Artificer, as much as I like it, isn't really a technologist. It's more of an alternate magic user whose power is based on crafting mighty rings, staves, swords and what not. A cool fantasy archtype, but not one strongly related to the tinker.

 

[Cam Banks]

We created some tinkery stuff for gnomes in Dragonlance. One of them is the gnomish tinker, a prestige class I wrote for the War of the Lance sourcebook. It has abilities like "patent pending" and "macguffin."

Cheers,
Cam

 

[prosfilaes]

They should also be as rare as hen's teeth,

Depending on the setting, they could be a lot more common than half-elves. Unless elvish males make a habit of philandering among human women, I don't see a whole lot of elvish-human mating going on. Whereas if the orcs regularly raided human settlements, and indulged in a bit of rape along with their plundering, their children and their children's children could make up a good 10% of the population. There'd be a lot of Cinderalla stories out there with farmers getting every bit of value out of that +2 to Str their half-orc stepsons had.

and they patently aren't because every PC party who wants someone with +2 strength has one.

I don't see PC parties as reflecting the general population. Few places reflect the racial diversity of PC parties. I'd also see half-orcs as being dispropotionatly represented among adventurers.

Tell that to a dwarf who hasn't bought into 3E political correctness.

And elves are people to dwarves?

 

[radferth]

I like gnomes. In 2nd ed, they made the best magic-users (if you didn't mind the illusionist spell restriction) with +1 to int and a con-based bonus to saves vs. magic. One party I DM has a dual-wielding gnome fighter/thief who dishes out the damage with even using sneak attack much. It does seem that the 3rd ed authors really didn't know what to do with them. Too bad.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Dragonlance started it.

Mystara and the Realms picked it up and ran with it, then it sort of became the mainstream version of gnomes. Odd, that.

That's pretty true. (G)notably, Mystara (when it was just the Basic set) didn't even have gnomes as a PC race- only dwarves, elves, and halflings. Gnomes didn't get much information at all- even to the point of a (g)nown gnomish settlement in Karameikos having its description dropped from the revised Expert set.

It wasn't until the advent of the Dragonlance tinker gnome that gnomes gradually found their (g)niche in the world of Mystara, largely following the "tinker" concept (although they also had more standard "earth" gnomes).

I don't recall their genesis on Toril quite as clearly, but the tinker gnome ideology was definitely played up over time.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

[EDIT] Double post. Dang gnomes... or was it gremlins? (They're (g)never far behind the gnomes)