The changes to gnomes in 3.5e

[Darren]

With Races of Stone, Wizards went and addressed the balance. The gnomish race and culture was changed to make it distinctive (not just an inferior type of dwarf) and no longer an object of fun.

[rant]
I'm sorry Merric, but there will be no true gnome love until the term "gnomish" is banished forever from D&D lexicon. Fortunately at least it is not found in the SRD. It's just a throwback to the misshapen dwarves of folklore. I'm tempted to play a disgruntled gnome who makes frequent use of the term "humanish" just for spite, though I suspect this may just be self defeating in the long term...
[/rant]

 

[Mouseferatu]

[rant]
I'm sorry Merric, but there will be no true gnome love until the term "gnomish" is banished forever from D&D lexicon. Fortunately at least it is not found in the SRD. It's just a throwback to the misshapen dwarves of folklore. I'm tempted to play a disgruntled gnome who makes frequent use of the term "humanish" just for spite, though I suspect this may just be self defeating in the long term...
[/rant]

So you'd prefer a different gnomenclature, then?

 

[Darren]

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hey, what do you expect? You're talking to the guy who, just last month, was actually able, entirely in-character during a game, to utter the phrase, "Please don't squeeze the shaman."

 

[Vocenoctum]

Compared to 3e, Gnomes are now far better illusionists. Why? They get a +1 DC to all their illusion spells. This makes them the most effective illusionists in the game.

But is independent of their Favored Class. If they'd added that and left them FC: Illusionist, it'd be the same.

What they lost was the ability to effectively multiclass as an illusionist.

However, it should be said that the old 1e illusionist was nothing like the illusionist of today. The old illusionist was a dedicated class with its own spell list. Something like today's... bard.

How many unique illusion spells does the bard have? now remove those spells that basically ARE all about music.

Yes, the 3.5e bard owes a lot to the 1e illusionist. Although it has a bunch of abilities that the old illusionist doesn't have, there's a lot in common as well. (And, after all, isn't an illusionist a performer of some sort?)

They used illusions for defense and such as well, so it's not automatically "performer".

And let's not forget that in 3e, gnomes couldn't effectively multiclass in illusionist... because multiclassing a spellcaster was something that was a quick way to inconsequence.

A bard's spellcasting has the same limitation though, nay?

Don't forget that "bard" doesn't imply a singer or minstrel - my PHB lists "Oratory", "Act", "Dance", and "Buffoonery" as disciplines of the Perform skill - that last fits the old Gnomish prankster very well!

I actually prefer the bard more as a wandering type with a mishmash of skills and abilities cribbed from other classes. A true Performer would (IMO) be an Expert.

So I think Wizards ended up strengthening the gnome's illusionist traits more than weakening them.

Compare the rate at which bards gain new spells to the rate that illusionists gain new spells. A random sampling said they're the same spell levels, but bards get them slower.
The skills might fit somewhat sure, but the Songs? Does that fit the illusionist archetype? What abilities besides illusion spells (which I believe the Illusionist does better) marks the bard as a better illusionist than the Illusionist?

However, why was it necessary to change the gnome? I think, when you come down to it, you need to keep in mind one very salient point:

Gnomes were an unpopular race - I'd say the most unpopular core race.

They'd been that for a long time. Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Half-Orcs have all carved out their niches over time (although the Half-Elf took a huge hit in 3e), but the Gnome? An object of fun.

People ridicule both short races. But people have always played them in my experience. I'd say the halforc got the least respect in 2e, given that it was removed entirely, but yeah, Gnomes in 2e existed as a running joke in a lot of authors minds. That doesn't mean you change them into something they never were.

But, really I think part of the problem is that races only have 1 favored class. Or a favored class at all really.
The racial sub levels from Races of Stone were a nice touch.

 

[Turjan]

There's more than a little truth in that. Actually, they're the best "Hobbit" elves we have... "Lord of the Rings" elves are different.

Gnomes have always had a problem with not being sourced from LotR, and thus ill-defined in most people's eyes.

I think that the situation is not much better now. I'm not a big fan of subraces (let culture be culture), and this means that also the "races" themselves should be distinctive by more than a few cultural traits (like tinkering, mining or similar normal human occupations). By giving halflings and gnomes their rogue and bard professions in 3.5e, they were neatly shoved into separate niches, which worked well for the gnome but definitely less well for the halfling (bye bye hobbits). Unfortunately, the gnome now looks like a halfling (bad move) and took a big chunk out of the role of the (half-)elf (even worse move). On the other hand, the distinction from dwarves now works well - there's not much left of the similarities, besides their love for gems, so I don't really understand comments that compare them with dwarves.

As I said, this move went wonderfully for the gnome - it's a great racial concept now. Unfortunately, the designers destroyed with one hand what they built up with the other. Maybe, there simply is not enough space for so many distinctive humanoid base races, who knows. I won't mention details about half-elves (let's simply forget those). When looking at elves, I found that their flavor text actually does not match their game characteristics any more (why the heck do they want to be wizards?). The solution IMC: someone had to go; the elves got gnome statistics, nearly AD&D size and kept their name. The name "gnome" went for good. Okay, these are "Hobbit" elves; but my need for long-lived humans with pointy ears and a no magical abilites was limited, anyway . YMMV, of course .

And yes, the 3.5e gnome is a great concept !

 

[Richards]

I don't really care what the gnomes' "official" preferred class is - that I can change at will in my own campaigns.

But it is more difficult to ignore the WotC gnome artwork. I am definitely in the "gnomes should have big noses" camp.

Johnathan

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I like Iron Kingdoms gnomes the best, myself.

Re the 3.5 gnomes, I rather like them. I don't use favored classes in my games, so it's all good.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I don't really care what the gnomes' "official" preferred class is - that I can change at will in my own campaigns.

But it is more difficult to ignore the WotC gnome artwork. I am definitely in the "gnomes should have big noses" camp.

Johnathan

I always disliked the "gnomes have big noses" thing, it just served no purpose except to continue gnomes as a running joke. I can understand them having large noses for their SIZE, but most of the artwork had noses that were large for an ogre.
I guess it's the difference between a sense of humor and just pure mockery.

I do like gnomes in Eberron, but the role could be filled as easily by Illusionists as by Bards.

 

[Sargon the Kassadian]

Another gnome fan. I loved them in 2E and in 3E but not in 3.5. The most difficult change for me was the bonus going from Int to Con in 3.0! It made them more interesting to play, but less cool as a race. I think of gnomes as many things: tinkerers, shy forest creatures, and stalwart hill-dwellers. IMCW I have changed gnomes back to +2 Int, -2 Str and have added forest gnomes (with +2 Dex/Wis? not sure, -2 Str). I disagree with bard as a favored class. I agree with the idea, but not the implementation. I think the bard as a class has problems, mainly with the music being their core ability. If they became a more wanderer, jack-of-all-trades, roguish class I would welcome them as gnomes' favored class.