Really, No PC Gnomes! Stop Asking!

[Vorpal Sword]

I think they should have embraced the most common, beloved character generation system of 4e.

Amazing... it's like you're at my game table!

As for the OP, how is "go invisible once per encounter" a flavorless and mechanically useless power? Gnomes have a good racial benefit, as well as stat bonuses that will make them attractive to players. How does that make them unplayable as PCs?

Also, a fighter with Str 3 has been unplayable in any edition. If I actually wanted to be a pitiful weakling with no useful skills, I'd pay more attention to my real life.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Yeah, but it's very, very strongly discouraged.


**Note to mods: I'm copying this short section of the PHB for the purpose of comment and criticism which clearly falls under my Fair Use rights in the US. See http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html**

Ummm - did you buy that pdf you are cut & pasting from? I didn't think so. Not 'fair use' I'm afraid...

 

[Raduin711]

I think they should have embraced the most common, beloved character generation system of 4e.

Roll 4d6, drop the lowest. Repeat 6 times. Then do it a seventh time, and drop the lowest of the 7. If your DM catches you, claim that's how the rules say to do it, and your last DM always let you do it that way. If he shows you the PHB, express shock that you are wrong. Review your results. Are your first 6 rolls awesome even without the 7th? If so, apologize and remove the 7th, and keep the remaining rolls. If not, apologize and reroll from scratch. Review THOSE results. Are they awesome? If so, keep them. If not, make puppy dog eyes at the DM and ask if you can reroll because your stats "don't fit your concept." If he lets you, do so. If not, grumble about how your character is unplayable. Act sarcastic and depressed, and make it clear that you will not take one moment of pleasure in this campaign if you are forced to play this character. If the DM does not relent, have your character do stupid things in game. When your character dies, proclaim that he would have survived if he wasn't gimped. Reroll a new character.

That is frighteningly accurate.

 

[silentounce]

Gnomes are fully playable. Racial feats will come later in some other book, and with retraining you can pick one up. Heck, I'd imagine most DMs would let you retrain for those for free because you didn't have access to them (like PHB races do) when you would have originally qualified for them.

PS - Gnome Warlord for the win!!!!

I cannot wait.

 

[Remathilis]

I just played a Human Fighter in an original D&D adventure with the original, straight-rolled, 3d6 base stats of 3/13/7/11/7/6. His flaws (a fighter with a Str 3?!) and general mediocrity made for some fantastic role playing, though WotC would likely have deemed this character "unplayable". D&D 4E is still a role playing game, right?

Interesting. I hope you get some serious story awards, because if your playing OD&D (74) through BECMI/Cyclopedia, you have a -20% XP penalty for having a 3 str (in addition to a -3 to hit and damage). If you were playing AD&D 1e or 2e, you couldn't be a fighter (min strength 9) and actually, by 1e's table, a character with a str of 3 or lower MUST be a magic user! In FACT, the only edition you could have a str 3 fighter and NOT be penalized beyond the normal penalized beyond what a str 3 normally gives you IS third!

But since your adept at houseruling, you should have no problem getting some gnome feats together by the time you BUY THE CORE BOOKS.

 

[Grazzt]

If you are the DM, you can decide which races to have as PCs...

There you go.

Unacceptable answer it seems in a lot of places around these boards.

But I do agree with ya, and the poster above who mentioned it. You're the DM, make the gnome however ya want. The fact that there aren't any gnomey feats in the PHB isnt game breaking. Whip up a few based off the other racial feats. There ya go...all done. Or don't. Im sure not every elf, dwarf, eladrin, whatever will take all the racial feats for their race. Hell, Im fairly certain some won't take any at all. Doesn't make them less of an elf, dwarf or whatever. Same with gnomes.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Oh, sorry. My bad.

With all the hype about how race mattered now, I was confused.

Turns out, it still doesn't much matter what your race is, especially now that we aren't rolling for ability scores.

Wow, you are really uninformed, aren't you?

4d6 drop the lowest roll (do this for each ability score) is STILL an option (one of 3 options actually) that you can pick from when generating ability scores.

Try to do some more research before making uninformed comments.

 

[RigaMortus2]

If you roll well, you can come out way ahead, but
if you roll poorly, you might generate a character who’s
virtually unplayable. Use this method with caution." PHB 4e p18

The thing you have to realize about this is that for new players (people who never picked up a D&D book before), they will not be familiar with something like this. They might try the rolling method and wonder why their stats are better or worse than the standard array. I think this passage was mainly to inform new players.

 

[Blackeagle]

Ummm - did you buy that pdf you are cut & pasting from? I didn't think so. Not 'fair use' I'm afraid...

The four prongs of the fair use test are:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I don't see "bought the product I'm copying the copyrighted material from" in there anywhere.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Roll 4d6, drop the lowest. Repeat 6 times. Then do it a seventh time, and drop the lowest of the 7. If your DM catches you, claim that's how the rules say to do it, and your last DM always let you do it that way. If he shows you the PHB, express shock that you are wrong. Review your results. Are your first 6 rolls awesome even without the 7th? If so, apologize and remove the 7th, and keep the remaining rolls. If not, apologize and reroll from scratch. Review THOSE results. Are they awesome? If so, keep them. If not, make puppy dog eyes at the DM and ask if you can reroll because your stats "don't fit your concept." If he lets you, do so. If not, grumble about how your character is unplayable. Act sarcastic and depressed, and make it clear that you will not take one moment of pleasure in this campaign if you are forced to play this character. If the DM does not relent, have your character do stupid things in game. When your character dies, proclaim that he would have survived if he wasn't gimped. Reroll a new character.

Thank you! you have succintly described the reason why I always do point buy in my games nowadays... I'm even happier about the "new and improved" pointbuy in 4e

Besides, I'm really obsessive compulsive when it comes to game balance, so having all characters in the party with the same point buy method is good for me.

The starting array is ok for newbie players or for a quick, guest-starring DM-PC, I guess.