D&D General Short folk appreciation thread – what do you play?

[Misanthrope Prime]

okay but can that be used in a less living comic relief way?

those feel like desperate things to me, what would the distilled version be, the prime gnome-coded being the ur gnome if none presently exists? What would it logically be like?

Absolutely. I run some halloween themed Ravenloft games and one of my favorite homebrew Darklords is a gnome based on Jigsaw from Saw and the Riddler from Batman; he creates gruesome, overcomplicated deathtraps for the PCs but he's so whimsical he can't help but include some kind of riddle or puzzle that allows a clever player to survive.

 

[plecostomus]

My first character ever was a grung, which I picked because I thought they were cute. I made her the smallest she could be (2 ft tall?) because I didn't really like the idea of a BIG frog.

Her contribution to the human BBEG fight at the end of our first campaign was shoving her arm in the BBEG's mouth. He got this treatment for trying to give this super long speech while simultaneously threatening a bunch of dwarf prisoners. My grung shouted something like, "You talk too much!" and it was all very cool at the time.

I asked if she could poison his tongue so it would swell up and the DM said sure. The BBEG failed his save and I guess had no Legendary Resistances? (At the time I didn't know LR was a thing, and apparently neither did my DM?)

A bit later it was the DM's turn and we all hear these note shuffling noises and him going uhhhmm hmmm. The BBEG tried to bite my grung's arm off, but she rolled well, so she just stayed perched on him with her whole arm in his mouth. The rest of the party whomped him.

After the fight, the DM revealed he had written all the BBEG's abilities with a verbal component, so since he couldn't talk anymore he couldn't use any of them.

I played my grung as a serious but naive character. The other party members did not take her seriously sometimes, not because of her size but because grung become adults at 2 years old, so she was a 2-year-old adult. I should have just made her 26 or something, but I didn't know much about making characters then. See also: I wasn't sure if I was required to include the canon grung lore, which is pretty horrible, so I just said her dad killed all the "bad" grung and became the grung emperor, but she ran away because she disagreed with his methods.

I think over time the party's view of her went from wacky little character to "danger frog".

I suppose this is its own brand of comedy, but the party spent a lot of time trying to keep NPCs from underestimating her.

She was disintegrated by a beholder at Level 9ish. RIP.

The 2 gnomes in that party are still here, six years later!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

those feel like desperate things to me, what would the distilled version be, the prime gnome-coded being the ur gnome if none presently exists? What would it logically be like?

No more than wood and high elves.

Check out the 4e gnome, i guess. I see no need to distill gnome archetypes into one thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If the guy your grung shoved her arm into was low level, they probably wouldn't have had legendary resistance, RAW. The same trick probably wouldn't have worked at level 9, though.

Still, causing a tongue to swell up so they can't talk is super-thematic and fun.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Mr. Emmerybird is my halfling Blink Wizard who tele-hops around the battlefield summoning giant toads and saying, "Boo!" Her is obsessed with frogs and strives to summon the Froghemoth one day.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

The Thing is, D&D made an original niche for Gnomes.
That of the Gnome Mad Scientist.

They created this archetype, and it's solid.

The bad news is that it was in Dragonlance where the Hickmans and Margaret Weis salted the earth of this concept at the same time.

There is a reason Warcraft dusted off this concept, reduced the silliness (though not much), and then they became darlings.

 

[GreyLord]

If I chose one from the OP's list, it would probably be a Gnome. Gnome Illusionists, or Fighter/Illusionists were pretty decent characters for a PC.

Halflings are popular with some, and I've tried them, but it just never really seemed to click with me. Maybe I should try one again sometime soon.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Thing is, D&D made an original niche for Gnomes.

As all of the folks who are mad that gnomes aren't earth elementals will tell you, D&D actually made two niches for gnomes, with the first being the magical cousins of dwarves.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Halflings are popular with some, and I've tried them, but it just never really seemed to click with me. Maybe I should try one again sometime soon.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

As all of the folks who are mad that gnomes aren't earth elementals will tell you, D&D actually made two niches for gnomes, with the first being the magical cousins of dwarves.

and both are awesome.

Gnomes should have had the same access to being a magic user as elves did, not just illusionists.

(Oddly enough, I did gnomes as elementals for my own fantasy heartbreaker: The Elderberry Tales)

havester sounds like ufo lore greys

See for yourself
Also including one of the various psychic plant monsters (known as Treannials) because dag nab it, it was a blast to make. This is a Monkeyflower Maurader.