Photos of the new Gnome (PHB2)

Uh... they look just like the halflings...

who pretty much look just like humans...

Yeah, but just ask any Ogre and they'll tell you that "it's what's on the inside that counts".

(Mmmmmm, roast Gnome. Compared to humans, it's what Veal is to Beef. Quite good with fava beans and a nice chianti.);)


Anyways,:o Gnomes in my imagination will always be like the Nelwyn of Willow.
 
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I honestly don't see the mini-elves thing.

Gnomes come across as secretive, deceptive, stealthy things that hide in shadows and win with guile and trickery over brute force.

Eladrin come across as arrogant high mages that glitter with silver in the moonlight in near-perfect beauty.

High elves are all about being seen. Gnomes are all about not being seen.

It takes more than pointy ears to make an elf.

The art is fine. I think the art direction probably went something like: "Make them badass and cool, not goofy and flamboyant." The picture radiates some badass quotient. Not always what I want to see in a gnome, but understandable and suitable nonetheless.
 

The PHB2 art looks just like the MM art, except the MM's gnome looks like he has paper hair. I'm especially fond of the black eyes. Shady fey vibe 10/10!

Also, gnomes are going to make sweet bards. Crazy, I know.
 

Sorry my friends but Oz, like Middle Earth, Wonderland, Lanhkmar, Narnia and Melnibone', has been around alot longer then D&D. ...

... Now I have nothing to read 'cause everyone's the same.

This was my whole point. The things you've mentioned have been around longer than D&D and they've been done and done. So, why not make something new and still be fun. No reason you can't have both.
 


I'm playing a 3.x Gnome this weekend in my friend's new homebrew campaign. He looks like this...


GnomeofAanheim.jpg



He originally wanted to be a 4E character but then he wiped off the blood, started putting on weight, decided he didn't look good in leather...;)

How quickly we forget! That's not nearly enough straps, spikes, or weapons to be a 3e gnome.

re_Gimble72.jpg
 



I've noticed a lot of lack of love for the smaller races in D&D, in fact, I've been guilty of it myself. But I think a large part of it seems to stem from the identity crisis they all have.
It really surprises me that it seems Wizards never really sat down with their art team and went "Ok, so this is what we're going to make our Gnomes/Halflings/Kobolds/Hamsters look like". A
Forget the looks: WotC seems to have a hard time understanding the different roles of the two races in question. Halflings strongly come off as "we're supposed to have a race called this in the PHB," and they have zero connection, besides their height, to the origin of the species. Other than someone devoted to playing a short rogue-friendly race, there's no real hook for them in the way that every other PHB1 race has. (And that's notably not true for the other "classic" PHB1 races: Lovers of high elven mages get their itch scratched quite nicely with the eladrin, dwarves work the way they've always worked and elves cover the Legolas crowd's needs very well.)

I still think merging gnomes and halflings -- and going with the name most people around the world know -- would have been the better solution to begin with. Give one race all the fluff from both races, and it would have been better off, even with the substandard shorty race fluff WotC has come up with.
 
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