If gnomes had the eladrin's powers would that make them more appealing?

[Steely Dan]

Am I right in assuming that fey will be?

Small Fey Humanoid

 

[Keenath]

Legend of Mana may have borrowed it from where ever, but RuneQuest has been calling them that since 1978 - Never heard of Paracelsus though, thanks guys!

Hehehe.

Yeah, Paracelsus is a LITTLE further back than Runequest.

Actually he borrowed the names too -- salamander as the fire-lizard comes from as far back as Babylonian times (sam-anderun, ancient Persian for "fire within"), at least 500 BC and probably many centuries before THAT.

Gnomes originate in germanic stories, their name from the greco-latin word "genomos" for "earth-dweller".

Undine was the name Paracelsus gave for water-spirits, and he probably invented them in their entirety, borrowing the name from a germanic legend about a particular water-nymph named Ondine who put a curse on her cheating husband.

Sylphs, the air-fairies, were also invented by Paracelsus. He might have borrowed and corrupted the name from a Hindi word for a spirit (which in turn comes from Sanskrit), or he may have invented the term himself.

 

[Moochava]

Though it seems unfair that the eladrins basically gobbled up the gnomes' "shtick"...I'm kinda glad they did. I know that if my players are given the choice between two magical fey races, and one is tall and stylish like Elric or Elrond, and one is three feet tall like Yoda or that guy in the Masters of the Universe movie, I know which one they're going to go for. WotC is just trying to maximize the appeal of each PHB race, and...I say this as someone who's played more gnome wizards than is entirely healthy...gnomes just aren't appealing to most people. At least not when compared to a race of elven magicians.

 

[Fenes]

I've never liked gnomes, so no matter what's under the clothing, if it still looks like a gnome, and it's still called a gnome, I'm not interested.

I cannot say I never liked gnomes, but a few campaigns with really, really bad gnomes (tinker gnomes, kender-like gnomes, etc.) burned a dislike of gnomes into me.

 

[Valdrax]

The part that makes me sad is that MM races won't have the support, feats, etc that the PHB races get. So they will have fewer options and will probably end up weaker as a result.

Playing a minotaur will make you no weaker than playing a Dwarf if you take no dwarven racial feats.

I cannot say I never liked gnomes, but a few campaigns with really, really bad gnomes (tinker gnomes, kender-like gnomes, etc.) burned a dislike of gnomes into me.

Yech. That'll happen if you encounter a player like that. Gnomes are a lot cooler than that in a good player's hands, but if you play up the practical jokes angle (or, in the case of Tinker Gnomes, the dangerously mad inventor angle) to the point of stupidity, you lose all the real flavor of the race.

Try reading up on Eberron's Gnomes of Zilargo, and I think you'll come away with a much greater appreciation of the race.

 

[lutecius]

Okay... so Eladrin aren't another Elf race but they're the new Gray Elves?

Yes, Eladrin are another Elf race. They look identical to Elves. They are distant cousins in their lore. They are different mostly in their culture and preferences. They are simply a subtype of Elf. There's really no reason they couldn't have kept Elves like they were in 3e, where they loved both nature and magic.

Eladrin are not new in the sense that they’re the elf wizard race (Mialee in 3e), even though their flavour has changed a little.
I think they wanted a “favored race” for every class and the two elf archetypes would just come apart quite easily. The actual 4e addition to PHB is the ranger elf now called “elf” (wood & wild elves were not in 3e phb)

…who cares about tradition or variety when you can play a sexy, pointy-eared Elf (who are now taller, to increase their allure). :\

Precisely . I think that is exactly the question the designers had in mind. And the answer probably was “not that many”.
There just weren’t enough people "into" small races to justify two of them.
Like I said, I‘d rather have the halfling chopped off than the gnome (especially now I‘ve seen what they’ve done with halfling) but maybe they thought halfling was sexier because of the recent LotR movies.

...and left room for my beloved Gnomes, who have been a core race in D&D for decades

I have several reasons to dislike 4e, tradition is not one of them (but I do understand how the changes could tick off some people.) I don't mind several elf subraces as long as they are mechanically and thematically different.

As for the gnome gypping the eladrin, besides being less appealing, they surely have that magic vibe but were never particularly “feyish” to me, not more than goblins or kobolds for example.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Playing a minotaur will make you no weaker than playing a Dwarf if you take no dwarven racial feats.

What a strange justification.

Race 1: Here's tons of cool options and a lengthy write-up about your awesomeness, supported by fluff throughout the core books.

Race 2: You get a chart.

 

[Keenath]

What a strange justification.

Race 1: Here's tons of cool options and a lengthy write-up about your awesomeness, supported by fluff throughout the core books.

Race 2: You get a chart.

It won't be a chart. From what Noonan has said, it sounds like monster races will be just like PC races -- you get a list of up-front abilities and a list of feat or power options that become available as you level up. They won't necessarily get as much writeup, but they will probably get a paragraph or two each, if not a half-page column.


I think it's just not quite right to say "you don't get as much support" and equate that to "weaker".

First, I imagine a minotaur will have as many options as a core dwarf or elf -- it sounds like each race will have three or four optional racial abilities, and it won't be hard to include that many in the MM.

Second, what future support does or doesn't do will not necessarily make core races 'stronger' than monstrous races -- it may just mean fewer options that are added later.

Third, on the other hand, why would a bunch of new dwarf racial abilities come out anyway? They're trying NOT to do thing like the Dwarven Defender or Arcane Archer that have racial requirements. Seems to me that it's more likely for later supplements to add more races, each of which has its own suite of three or four optional racial powers.

Fourth, if the monster race is important to a particular setting, that setting will have lots of information about them. I expect the MM Warforged-PC writeup to be pretty short, but I equally expect a decent several pages in the Eberron CS next year, and possibly more options for warforged characters. Likewise minotaurs -- what was it, Dragonlance where they were important? -- will get extra love in a CS that features them. They also mentioned doing a Savage Species style book in a few years that caters specifically to monster-race PCs, so that might well have the extra attention you're looking for, for races that AREN'T especially interesting to one setting or another.

Lastly -- Even if your most pessimistic situation happens and dwarves get lots of future support and minotaurs don't -- so what? It's a monster race. It's not a core race. It's meant to be a fringe sort of thing. Future MMs will have additional monster races, rather than further options for the existing ones.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Lastly -- Even if your most pessimistic situation happens and dwarves get lots of future support and minotaurs don't -- so what? It's a monster race. It's not a core race. It's meant to be a fringe sort of thing.

*cough*

This is a thread about gnomes.

Look at my avatar. Look at my title. Guess what I play.

Gnomes getting as much love as minotaur PCs is not a "so what" or fringe situation to me.

 

[TwinBahamut]

It is. Legend of Mana just borrowed Paracelsus' names for the four elemental creatures.

No, Legend of Mana got it from Secret of Mana, the one true Seiken Densetsu game. Beyond that, Paraceisus is certainly the true origin. Earth Gnomes are also seen in a lot of other videogames, like the Tales of ... series, Drakengard 2, and probably a few more.

I was rather surprised to see someone accuse me of making a RuneQuest reference... I don't know a thing about RuneQuest. Is it some other Tabletop RPG?

Anyways, I think salamanders, sylphs, and undines would all make great Elemental PC races, and that set would not be complete without gnomes. Traditional D&D gnomes have never been interesting to me, and I despise the tinker gnomes that seem to be the main alternative.