Gnomes: Masters of Illusion

[Messageboard Golem]

Unlike those little lawn gnomes that always end up in the wrong spot... Gnomes: Masters of Illusion, the second product in the City Guide Cultures series is yours to take home now!

Unlike the stature of the race in question, this is not a small product. Following in our line started with Moon Elves, this product provides 3 cultures to explore the Gnomes, with wonderous bits of magic and mundane details.


Imperial Gnomes - Korean/Chinese flavored gnomes. (No soy sauce jokes here). Fit for intergration in any Asian campaign, or dropped fully into your normal campaign world.
Mountain Gnomes - tinkering gnomes (although not to the point of some well known tinkers.)
Hill Gnomes - these gnomes are more in line with the classic gaming image of illusionist/prankster gnomes.

Numerous Subrace combinations, and rules to design your own.
Dozens of Illusion (Glamer) spells.
Magical Pipes
Hordes of new mundane equipment, including many alchemical creations.
9 Prestige Classes
Over 50 spells
diseases
A full pantheon of sample gnome deities to use, abuse, or disapprove.
No pointy red hats here!

 

[Capellan]

A large part of my day-job involves documentation: writing it, reading it, analysing it and comparing it to business and system models. I have a fair appreciation of the difficulties of finding errors, omissions and contradictions. In the past, I've generally been impressed with the editing on E.N. Publishing products. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of this product, which contains a regrettably large number of mistakes, both in terms of typographical errors and rules gaffes. If E.N. later do a revised version, keep in mind that the rating here does not reflect any corrections in that version.

The book itself can pretty much be broken into two sections. The first section, comprising chapters 1-4, covers the society and nature of the three types of gnomes detailed in the book. It is presented as much in an 'almanac' style as possible, without any game terms or mechanics to interrupt the text. It is perhaps telling that this is the strongest section of the book, for that very reason.

The three types of gnomes covered by the book are the Hill Gnomes (pretty much the PH type), Mountain Gnomes (more insular, and clan/caste based than the Hill Gnomes) and the Imperial Gnomes (modelled on imperial Chinese culture). Each culture is covered in considerable detail, with information on everything from festivals and clothing to government and the military. They are also all sufficiently different from each other as to feel distinctive and interesting. The social frictions between egalitarian Hill and caste conscious Mountain Gnomes, for instance, could be fun to play in a campaign.

Unfortunately, it is the Imperial Gnomes who get the most coverage in this section. This is unfortunate not because they are uninteresting, but because they receive very little coverage in the mechanical sections of the book. Given that they are the furthest from the classical D&D model, they are the race that really should have got the most support.

After describing the three races, the book moves into its second section (chapters 5-8), which deal with new rules and mechanics-related information.

Pretty much immediately, we run into trouble.

First up are a collection of new Feats, and there are some obvious - and serious - problems to be seen. Consider Arcane Eye, with has pre-requisites that mean you must be at least 7th level to get it. With this feat, you can determine the properties of a magical item, with each attempt costing you materials worth "5 x the DC". 5 of what, it doesn't say. XP? GP? CP? If we assume GP, which seems most likely, we learn that this feat allows you to identify a potion at a cost of 100 gold. Or, you know, you could get 1 rank in Alchemy and take 20 on the skill check, to do it for one fifth the cost.

There's more: if you have INT 11+, you can get the Bookworm feat, which offers +2 to *all* Knowledge skills. Yes, I said all of them. Or there's Fey Friend, which requires you to have CHR 12+ (it's one of no less than eight feats to have an even ability value as a pre-requisite), and grants +2 Diplomacy with Feys only. That's right: it's Skill Focus (Diplomacy), but not as good. I doubt anyone will be stampeding to take it, somehow.

I could go on and on, but I'll cite just two more examples, which are amongst the worst offenders for their lack of definition and clarity. The Flee feat allows you to 'double the standard movement rate when fleeing from combat'. It lists no duration and no definition of 'fleeing'. How long can the doubled speed be maintained? When are you no longer fleeing and just travelling again? Do you have to run directly away from the enemy or can you choose your path? What if there is a combat in the direction you want to head? This feat is likely to bring play screeching to a halt every time it is used, while people argue about whether it applies or not.

Equally dubious is Improvised Weapon, which specified that in your hands, a "Cobbled weapon has the same effect as a equivalent well made weapon." There's no definition of what a 'cobbled' weapon is (perhaps it was cut from the book?) nor even a 'well made' one: does that mean normal, or possibly masterwork? Say I have a character with proficiency in simple weapons, but not martial. If I pick up a battleaxe and use the flat of it to hit people, can I claim this is an 'improvised heavy mace'? The answer, of course, should be 'no', but this feat gives absolutely no guidance on such matters.

Quite apart from the mechanical issues, I was also disappointed that such a large proportion of the feats had little 'gnomishness' about them (unless running away is a racial trait of which was not aware ...) and there are *no* feats that stem from the Imperial Gnome culture.

Next up is a sample Gnome Pantheon. I'm not sure why the Gods were put here: chapter 5 seems to be a mishmash of elements that didn't fit anywhere else. Once again, the Imperial Gnomes may as well not exist, as there is nothing on their religion, but this is otherwise not a bad set of deities for those who want to establish or expand the Gnome pantheon in their campaign.

We're then treated to three pages on the Gnomish view of the classes, which informs us, amongst other things, that commoners are quite helpless when danger arises. Who would have thought?

Immediately after this comes an all too short section on sub-races. The Frightlocks (necromantic gnomes) and Toedirts (slum dwellers) are particularly intriguing. It would have been nice to see a lot more material on them both.

After a short section on Gnomish diseases, we move into chapter 6: New Equipment. At least the Imperial Gnomes get some coverage here, though the equipment listed is largely just 'cultural items' such as soy sauce and tofu. Fireworks and kites both get mentioned and have costs provided, but the opportunity to include interesting game effects has been completely ignored. Where are the rules for using fireworks to blind or confuse an enemy, to startle horses, or as impromptu artillery? Where is the listing for an observation kite, large enough to support a gnome in the air?

There are also mundane items for the other gnome races, which again are good for flavour, but - as before - obvious opportunities have been missed to include game effects: what does an inventor's shop do for the owner, for instance? For that matter, given all the alchemical compounds in the equipment lists, where are the creation DCs for making your own? Few players could resist the chance to make their own fireworks, I am sure!

Chapter 7 covers new spells & magic items. There are lots of new illusions - which is appropriate, given the subject of this work. Unfortunately, like the Feats, there are a lot of dubious mechanics: Alter Feature is a 0 level spell that can grant up a +25 bonus to Disguise (far better than either Change Self or Alter Self). Death Dream can be cast on any living creature, with unlimited range: they must save or die, and even if they save, they still can't prepare arcane spells for 24 hours, due to stress. This is a 6th level Clerical spell. Every wizard in the world is a dead man (Sorcerers, on the other hand, are apparently fine).

This kind of stuff continues: Gurgle Gargles is a 2nd level spell that lasts a day per level, and forces a DC 25 Will check (where'd that DC come from?) or the target must flee from any liquid, due to fear of the reflection they see within it.

Also, I notice two spells with a listed level for a "Hatalyst" class. The class is not in the book. Is it a PrC that got omitted?

The magical items are generally better developed (though often no more balanced) than the spells. The Sonic Staff is a particularly nifty idea, from a 'character motif' point of view. However, there are some obvious errors with the item statistics, at times: for instance there is a magical Buckle of Mirror Image. This can apparently be activated at will (there is no mention of not being able to). If this is correct, the listed cost is wrong (it is half what it should be). It's also *very* powerful for an item that can be created by any 3rd level caster with Mirror Image and Craft Wondrous Item.

The last chapter is the Prestige Classes. They're almost all of dubious game balance, and some are much more than 'dubious'. It doesn't help that there are unclear or non-standard rules being used for some classes.

Here are some high (or low)-lights:

Burrow Savage: this is an interesting idea, being a character that has turned against magic and thought, but it has badly flawed mechanics. I can see the argument for its good saving throws (same as a Monk), due to the rejection of all forms of magic, but why does this fighter type class have a wizard's BAB? Surely it would make more sense to lower one of the saves and give at least Cleric BAB? For that matter, why is there no rule against them being magic-using characters themselves? Also, what's the idea of giving them an 8 foot base move bonus at 6th level, when movement is measured in 5' blocks? Finally, I note that their principal class ability is to inflict extra damage on critical hits. This extra damage is listed as being 'per dice' (sic). What about sneak attack damage? Or additional energy damage on enchanted weapons? What about weapons that use multiple dice for their base damage, eg 2d4?

Gnome Guardian: this class appears badly broken. It has d10 hp, two good saves, and fighter BAB, as well as special ability or power *every* level. This includes one ability that grants DR 3/-, +8 STR, and a net +3 AC. The balancing item? The character suffers big penalties if moving more than 50 miles from their "binding site". In other words, they can't really remain adventurers.

The problems continue: the Illusioneer and Master of Gnomonics both have non-standard save progressions listed in their class table, and are both substantially more powerful than the base arcane casting classes. The Stump Knight is a grossly overpowered Paladin PrC (fighter BAB and HP, Monk saves, additional bonuses to hit and damage on all Medium or larger creatures) while the Tiger Monk is not only the only PrC that can be linked to the Imperial Gnomes in any significant way, but has class abilities that are clearly out of scale with those of the core Monk class, while lacking any balancing drawbacks.

Finally, so many great PrC possibilities (particularly for the Imperial Gnomes) have been overlooked: where is the high-flying Kite Warrior, or the fireworks-laden Barking Dog? Where are PrCs that tie in with the intriguing sub-races from chapter 5? What about something that takes advantage of the Gnomish affinity for burrowing animals? None of these aspects have been given any attention at all.

Gnomes: Masters of Illusion gets a 2 because there *are* some useful ideas and concepts to be mined out of this product. Unfortunately, it cannot get any more because of its sloppy editing, negligible attention to game balance and failure to build on those ideas.

 

[blade]

Cover Art: Almost an amusing image due to the subject covered. It appears to be a bunch of dungeon delving gnomes? Although I think I would have assumed one of them was a dwarf if I didn't know the topic of the product. I do like the image though.

Interior Art: Man on man, this book is chock full of art. I am surprised to see so much art in a PDF product. I liked it a lot. I am extremely glad they took the time to do the art, although I would have liked to see a bit more of the magic items and possibly spells done up instead of images of more gnomes.

Content: I am very much into flavor type products, and the chapters describing the cultures are well done and well described. There are four chapters covering strictly flavor material within the book, and they cover 3 cultures. Each of the cultures describes a language and includes various terms from within the cultures. [There is a glossary in the product]

I like that they took the time to detail out an Asian feeling version of the race. I am wondering if I can introduce that into my own campaign... in the European style setting I have, without forcing a totally Oriental Adventures type of campaign. It would make my Gnomes a distinct race, as opposed to a silly little impish dwarf with a short beard.

Unfortunately where the front half of the book is well thought out cultures, the rest of product seems lack the detail that I enjoy. For instance the equipment section is well presented, but seems to cover only one of the cultures well. I wish there was more to the section to cover the other cultures, although I assume it is implying that we should be using normal equipment.

The book does not come out and say it, but I believe the cultures are intended to be used for any Gnomish race... The book fails to explain why it presents several subraces in a later chapter.

The Prestige Classes within the product are a mismash of ideas, and power levels. I don't happen to use too many prestige classes in my own campaign, so this doesn't bother me. The chapter is thankfully short in comparison to the areas I use heavily.

Based on the levels of detail through the chapters I would hazard a guess that most of the second half of the product was done through their open call. Sadly I neglected to send material in.... based on the material that was used, I would guess I would have had a chance to get my material in.

Layout: There is a lot of text in this product. I would say 10-20% more text on a page then a lot of other products, with art somehow fit in there as well. It seems that it did with smaller margins on the top and bottom to fit into 96 pages.

Price: $6.95 for a 96 page product that is crammed in is a good deal.

Overall I liked this product. It just could have used more polishing!!!
I would still recommend it highly for those that are interested in Gnomes. The cultures section alone is worth it.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing up the Target
Gnomes: Masters of Illusion is a 96 page d20 race supplement designed by Dark Quest Games and published by EN Publishing. The PDF version is available as a $7.95 download; a print-on-demand version is also available for a limited time.

First Blood
Gnomes: Masters of Illusion provides an in-depth treatment of everyone’s favorite race of practical jokers: gnomes! This supplement develops three different gnome cultures and provides a number of feats, equipment, magic, and prestige classes appropriate to gnome characters.

Each of the three cultures in Gnomes gets the same full sociological treatment. We’re treated to a complete description of the gnome life cycle, from birth to death, a discussion of family relations, society, class roles, humor, recreation, arts, education, food preferences, clothing, basic religious beliefs, style of government, laws, and military organization. In short: everything needed to portray a complete gnome society. One item I felt lacking, however, was a good linkage of the game mechanics to the background – none of the three cultural descriptions really addresses the gnome affinity for illusion adequately, for example, nor is there an explanation of gnome ties to small burrowing animals.

The three cultures developed in Gnomes are hill gnomes, mountain gnomes, and Daewan. Hill gnomes are your stereotypical, Core Rulebook I gnomes: pranksters, tinkers, and engineers who live in a classless republican society. Mountain gnomes are a variant much closer to dwarves: clannish miners with an aristocratic class structure, though they maintain the prankster outlook – not a dramatic shift from the base archetype. The Daewan are quite different (albeit with the same statistics): urban, bureaucratic, with an affinity for poetry and painting, living in a hierarchical class structure of imperial nobility. “Chinese Gnomes” expresses the Daewan stereotype most succinctly.

A chapter on “Developing Gnomes” provides a number of game-related mechanics for character development. There are 23 gnome feats, focused on illusion (Ghostly Musician, Master of Illusions), alchemy, books, and combat specialties for small creatures. A few of them have some odd mechanics: Combat Feint provides a +4 bonus to Feinting – perhaps the Bluff skill was meant; Trick Big Folk is useless when Skill Focus: Bluff provides the same benefit applicable against a wider range of targets. There’s a sample gnome pantheon of 10 deities, complete with portfolios, domains, and favored weapons; a treatment of gnome diseases provides some neat ideas specific to the race – an outbreak of “Goblin scabs” could make for some interesting game sessions. We’re provided with a gnomes-eye view of each of the core classes and their roles in gnome society (including the NPC classes, a group often overlooked). Most interesting are some additional gnome subraces: the Frightlocks, evil necromancer gnomes; Oakcaps, wild druidic gnomes; and Toedirts, filthy scavenger gnomes.

A section of gnome equipment provides some additional options for gnome characters. There are a few peculiar weapons like the Bola Staff, and a few useful cut-down weapons like a gnome trident. Of greater interest are a number of flavor items: food, drink, spices, general adventuring equipment, and the like that can give gnomes some personality. Daewan gnome characters can even purchase Tofu and duck sauce.

The chapter on spells and magic items is my favorite section of this work. The magic items and spells are broken into two sections, common and prestigious, and perfectly capture the archetypal gnome preference for illusion and practical jokes. There are 42 common spells – mostly illusions like Box of Dots, but including some great “Little Folk” and “Big Folk” focused spells, and a few individual standouts. Rice to Maggots, and its counterpart, Maggots to Rice, has some great potential for in-game practical joking, as does Mouth of Great Disfavor – which causes the recipient to perpetually put his foot in his mouth (figuratively speaking, of course). Detect Hat Aura and Hat Speak are from the Hatalyst specialty of spells – but I must have missed that specialty elsewhere in the work. There are some common magic items for gnome use, but more interesting is the prestigious magic: the collected spell works of such gnome notables as Bandycock “the Clean” and Doodlebig “the Voice”.

Eight prestige classes and a gnomish glossary close out Gnomes. There are a couple of great prestige classes here: the Stump Knight, with his ability to “Smite Big Folk” is quite gnomish and amusing, and the Illusioneer fits right in with the gnome archetype. A few of the mechanics are downright odd, though, either from a flavor or mechanical perspective. The Tiger Monk has a “lizard focus” ability (why gnomes and tigers, and why lizards and tigers?) but is otherwise a solid class, for example, but the Burrow Savage has a base movement increase of +8 feet, and an attack bonus against creatures with greater than 11 intelligence, both of which I’d consider unworkable mechanics. There are balance issues as well: the Earthbound Lord is extremely weak, while the Gnome Guardian has earth-based powers that are absolutely huge (+8 to strength and +4 to armor class when bound to a specific location) – both would likely be fine for NPCs, but not recommended for PCs.

Two versions of the PDF file (black-and-white and color) are included in the download version, though all of the artwork is black-and-white sketches; the difference between the two files is the heading colors and the paper background.

Critical Hits
Gnomes: Masters of Illusion does a great job of playing to the established gnome archetype. If you like practical joking, engineer-wannabe, illusionist gnomes, this supplement is right up your alley. The practical joke magic is superb – by far the best part of this work – but the Big Folk/Small Folk feats and spells have a lot of good gnomish flavor as well. The effort to detail gnome culture is worthwhile, and can provide both player and GM with some solid character background and a functional campaign culture.

Critical Misses
I would have like to see Gnomes depart a bit more from the established stereotypes. The Daewan gnomes were a good step in that direction, but the hill and mountain gnomes are too similar. While a treatment of the “baseline” hill gnome is essential, Dark Quest could have forged new ground by developing one of their other gnome subraces – evil gnomes are a rarity and would have been unique, and even a discussion of deep gnome culture would have broadened the flavor a bit (though at least they resisted the urge to go whole-hog into tinker gnomes). As it stands two of their three cultural profiles are a bit overly familiar.

There are some mechanical gaffes, too, as mentioned above. I suspect many of these could have been fixed with a little more deliberate editing effort. The current file has a few too many minor rules consistency problems and odd mechanics.

Coup de Grace
Gnomes: Masters of Illusion is a 100% open content product that treats the gnome stereotype in a stereotypical manner. There are a few mechanical faults, but by and large both player and GM gnome-philes will find something useful for their game inside.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to Fast Tracks at www.d20zines.com.

 

[GameWyrd]

Gnomes – Masters of Illusion is a Dark Quest produced product for EN Publishing. What this means is that we’re looking at a d20 product and one that’s going to be soaked in well written flavour. Some people really don’t go for the flavour; in fact some people use term as a synonym for filler. I think they’re wrong. I think flavour, the inspirational stuff, makes the supplement worth buying. You can faff crunch. You can’t faff flavour. And what of crunch? Masters of Illusion isn’t short on crunch either. There are more new school of Illusion spells in this supplement than there are in some paperback Illusion Spells Only products. Gnomes – Masters of Illusion manages to provide plenty of both by being a 96-paged PDF. If you liked Moon Elves or Death: Guardian at the Gate then you’ll like Gnomes – Masters of Illusion. Except; I think those first two are better.

So what’s actually in Masters of Illusion? There are three types of gnomes and they’re not to be confused with the gnome sub-races described later. These three broad gnomish views are entirely based on the d20 canon gnome and even though there are slight physical differences between the three, they all use the same stat base. Since there are three types of gnomes: hill gnomes (the Quarden), mountain gnomes (the Tirisden) and imperial gnomes (Daewan), there are four initial chapters. The first chapter talks about generic gnome traits and the following three chapters studies each of the three main gnome races. The following chapter, "Developing a Gnome", is where you’ll find feats, sub-races and a short section on gnomish diseases. There’s a chapter on equipment and then one on spells and magic items. There are lots of spells and magic items. The supplement comes to a close with a collection of prestige classes and a glossary of gnomish terms.

Chapter One begins by describing the physical traits of the gnome – their appearance, size and, of course, nose. Big noses always equate to excellent olfactory senses in fantasy worlds and in this case it helps reconcile the cheerful temperament of most gnomes with their sense of cleanliness. Face it; human neat-freaks are rarely happy-go-lucky charisma bombs. With typical Dark Quest style its noted that the gnomes have term for the "small noses" humans. By accident or design as the supplement describes how a gnome community bands together to look after the young, the old and each other and how this leads to certain alignments being more common than others it provides a nice escape to wonder of the pitfalls of high fantasy supplements. Why are all gnomes so similar? For that matter, why are orcs so similar, elves so similar, dwarves, bugbears and halflings so similar? Why is humanity the only diverse race? Okay. This high fantasy tradition probably comes from Tolkien and Masters of Illusion doesn’t actually ask these questions (thus my speculation over accident or design). What Gnomes – Masters of Illusion does is provide as much information on gnome nurture as it does on gnome nature, merges the boundaries of the two (gnomes are physically weak and so benefit by being communal) and presents the GM with this intelligent and /plausible/ culture.

Having fully described the ‘average gnome’ the next three chapters look at the three main gnome races. We’re not surprised to discover that evil Imperial Gnomes are slightly less rare than the other two because we also discover that they don’t quite have the same tightly bound community. What’s in a community? Running down the nicely indexed bookmarks from v5 of the PDF it’s easy to summarise. We’re told about the life cycle of the gnomes, death, the family, the clan, marriages, society, class structure, guilds, social etiquette, recreation, the arts, education, food, drink, clothes, fashion, religion, myth, government, the military and law. Phew. That’s quite some list. Gnomes – Masters of Illusion does more than simply list these topics, it discusses them fully and it does so three times over. If you couldn’t care less about gnomes then you may well be thoroughly fed up with them at this point. You’ll also only be at about page 38 and have 60 more pages to go – so there’s clearly more than just this "flavour text" in the supplement even though it might not seem like it.

There are over two pages of tightly packed feats. In addition to the Master of Illusion feat you’ll find the Master of Clockwork feat as well. You don’t necessarily need to be interested in the magic side of the gnomish race to be interested in this product. The amusingly named "Little Dancer" offers the gnome +8 dodge against Giants. Hmm. Impressive... but I’m still not going to take the quote "Dont be silly. No ogre is fast enough to hit a gnome!" from the Famous Last Words list. There is more than just feats in the chapter though. There’s a sample pantheon of gods and a long look at gnomish views on classes. The race on classes section is another example of how the product looks at gnome culture rather than the "genetic gnome" for its observations and insights. A gnome barbarian is a rare thing except among the poor of the Imperial Gnomes. Rather than giving us a poorly thought out half-mechanic (another +1 dodge, say) for these commoner barbarians the supplement gives us possible cultural advantages and disadvantages; you’re some sort of uneducated accident if you’re a Hill or Mountain Gnome barbarian but if you’re an Imperial Gnome barbarian then your commoner cousins will treat you like a saviour hero.

Frightlocks, Oakcaps and Toedirts are the sub-races that get the crunch treatment. These three are presented in a character race format. You’ve got the racial traits in a bullet point list so you can apply them to character generation, you’ve favourite classes and automatic languages, etc.

Gnomish equipment should be small and inventive. There’s a fair few good ideas in here; bola staffs (fancy maces), fan staffs (fancy pole arms) as well as things like smoking herbs, sauces, spools of silk threads and entire inventor workplaces. I think the latter example is a bit on the cheeky side but it does provide a summary cost of how much the whole shebang would cost.

There’s no single list of spells. It would be a long list if there where. Gnomes – Masters of Illusion begins with a list of common spells. I didn’t quite catch (or note the importance of) the ‘common’ the first time I read through the supplement and given that I’d already been impressed by its thoroughness, I was twice as impressed when I released there was a lot more spells to come. The common spells are just that; spells common to the gnomes. As you’d expect there are lots of illusions. And the un-common spells? These are the branded spells, those associated to individual gnomes and which carry their creator’s name. You know what I mean; Bigby’s Grasping Hand is an example of a branded spell. It’s worth noting that Wizards removed the names from the SRD – meaning that third party publishers can’t talk about Bigby’s Grasping Hand any more, just the Grasping Hand spell. Why? We’re curious about Bigby and so there’s money to be had there. Bigby adds a little extra to the spell. Re-inventing the branded spells for a gnome supplement is a good idea; they’re just the fantasy race I’d expect to use this tradition. In Gnomes – Masters of Illusion we’ve magic items and spells by Bandycook, Dooblebip and Emerithop. I don’t like the names. I refuse to be impressed by anything prefixed by "Dooblebip". Samples of Dooblebip’s work include Dooblebip’s Muter, Dooblebip’s Smooth Voice and Dooblebip’s Tone-Deafness. Notice the common theme? That works for me. It makes sense that gnomes like Dooblebip would have an area of interest and excellence. It makes sense this school of spells are linked together by name by those gnomes who go on to use them. Dooblebip’s magic items are similarly themed. If you had to spot the forged item from name alone would you pick the "Sonic Staff" or the "Illusionary Box" from the trader alleging to have some Dooblebip wares?

And prestige classes. Of course prestige classes. Always prestige classes. Mind you, there’s not quite the same plethora of gnome prestige classes as there are of Fighter based ones. We’ve got the Burrow Savage, the Earthbound Lord, the Gnome Guardian, Gnome Naturist, Illusioneer, Master of Gnomonics, Stump Knight and Tiger Monk. All these classes are 10 level and they all have enough special abilities (rather than just plus numbers) to keep them interesting. Many of these prestige classes have a special ability award at every level. Are they balanced? Balance is entirely dependant on your game. Taking one at random for a more detailed inspection we discover that the Master of Gnomonics is someone who’s taken the art of memorisation to a phenomenal level. This is a spell casting prestige class and spells per day advance in the style of +1 level of existing class. The Quick Preparation ability gained at first level allows the Master of Gnomonics to prepare his spells in half the usual time and then the Studious Insight bonus appears at 3rd level, increasing at 6th and 9th is there to prove that Rangers aren’t the only one able to learn the fighting styles or habits of common opponents.

The PDF finishes with a glossary of gnome terms. This a page of made up but gnomish sounding words but it’s the sort of thing that I like to find in the trailing pages of a supplement (alongside a good index – which we have here too). This is a niche product. You’d need to be interested in gnomes and whereas there are plenty of new game mechanics to adopt from the supplement I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone allergic to flavour. If you’re the sort of gamer that Gnomes – MoI is pitched at then it should go a long way to pleasing you. It’s professional, intelligent and thorough. The obvious downside, if I can call it that, is that there’s no wow factor. There’s nothing that made me sit up and wish I’d thought of that. I’m one of those gamers who likes to find engaging flavour as well as efficient game mechanics and I liked Gnomes – Masters of Illusions.

* This Gnomes - Masters of Illusion review was first published at GameWyrd.