As it's been a while since Mongoose Publishing has completed its two-year march to devote at least one book to every single core race and class in 3e, I thought it might be useful to revisit one of the few that haven't had a review yet,
The Quintessential Gnome. With WotC's
Races of Stone just around the corner, it's as good a time as any to have a look at one of the few other gnome books on the market.
Released in June 2003,
The Quintessential Gnome is book #16 in the Collector Series line, and the last book of that line to be published before the jump from 3.0 to 3.5 was made. The author is Alejandro Melchor, a name that should be familiar to regular readers of Mongoose products;
Quintessential Elf was his previous race book in the line.
Some general observations first: proofreading is generally not bad, but a few errors were spotted here and there, like the non-word "exhuatsting" appearing on page 13. The High Illusionist's "Sudden Substance" class ability appears to have had its first line chopped at the top of p. 22. The most egregious error I found was on page 71 when the entry for the Petard suddenly gets cut in mid-description and switches to some text duplicated from two pages earlier. I'm guessing it was another error that the High Illusionist got a d10 hit die. The sidebar flavour text is pretty good in this book; instead of harrowing dungeon-delving combat accounts, they mostly concern gnomes and their contraptions getting into trouble without having to go far from home. There are some more little humourous bits to be found within the text itself.
I was curious about how gnomes would be handled in the artwork. One of the things I didn't like about
Quintessential Elf was the "hard" facial features of many of the elves. And in
Quintessential Dwarf, a number of the dwarves were depicted with legs that looked too long to really be legs of dwarves. In that regard, many denizens of
Quintessential Gnome have their own "aberrant" feature: long and pointy ears. The PHB and other WotC sources depict gnomes with broad ears, but not as finely pointed as many of the illustrations found here. There are two Marcio Fiorito illustrations near the front of the book that are terrific and instantly recognizable as gnomes; too bad there aren't more. Anyway, on to the specific content.
There are 13 gnome-flavoured Character Concepts, mostly devoted to curiosity, skills and labour. There's one (Nature Child) playing up the "friend to animals" aspect of the gnome race, but most of them go the way of Irrepressible (the very curious), Tinker (a master repairman) and Jack-Of-All-Trades (a broadly-skilled character).
The Prestige Gnome offers 12 prestige classes, 4 of which are the 10-level variety: High Illusionist, Priest of Laughter (sort of a holy bard), Tripper (a small martial artist) and Trouble-Shooter (an improvisational kind of tinkerer). Among the 5-level classes are Critter Master (another "animal buddy" class), Giant Killer, Mechanist and Prankster to cover those gnomish archetypes. Somewhat more unexpected was the Arcane Brewer, who combines the gnomish knack for alchemy and sorcery to create magical concoctions.
Tricks Of The Gnomes is a 20-page grab bag of new rules for various things gnomes are likely to want to do. The PHB notes that gnomes are known for writing treatises on technical things and other fields of knowledge. So this section kicks off with a system for writing collections of notes that allow other characters to read them and gain benefits. They work a bit like simple magical items in that they cost XP to create, citing the "commitment" required on the author's part; a reader can then gain skill points or feats ahead of level advancement by studying the notes and spending XP. It's an intriguing idea, but just about any mechanic that lets a character gain extra feats before they'd normally be allowed to is definitely something the DM should be very careful about allowing into the game. The market prices are quite expensive, but consider that if a party pooled gp to buy a note collection, anybody willing to spend the XP could then get the benefits, hmmm. The skill boosts and feats can also be gained for a limited duration after studying the notes.
A short section on Masterworking follows, providing rules for masterworking an already existing item (in 3.5 it's since been made clear that this isn't allowed) and "superior" masterworks (adding a second layer on top of an existing masterwork for an additional bonus - oh, brother). Fortunately this part is short and a neat section follows on Greater Jury-Rigging, or adding strange, fanciful enhancements to existing items. Samples include a spring-launched spear and a crossbow that collapses for easy concealment. It's an open-ended little system with malfunction chances built in, to allow for the full 'tinker' experience... this was one of the best parts of the book.
Some new uses for old skills follow, then the chapter wraps up with Gnomecraft: some one-paragraph descriptions of completely new types of Craft/Knowledge/Profession skills such as Clockworks, Steamworks, and Arcane Geometry. Some of them are pretty 'niche' but provide synergy bonuses on more commonly used skills.
The next chapter is a short one listing 23 Gnomish Feats. A few of them are for enhancing the gnome's ability to speak with animals, which I thought was nice to see since that ability doesn't get much use from what I've seen. A few more are devoted to illusions, but most of them concern boosting skill ranks and checks for artisan-related skills. The DM will have to keep on eye on the issue of stacking these with all the other skill-boosting feats out there in the d20 system, but I sure liked seeing a collection of feats that don't concentrate on combat.
Halfway through the book and the Tools of the Gnomes chapter is next. Most of the weapons are not terribly interesting (boomerang, throwing hammer), but we do get the classic Board With A Nail In It, and a squirting tube that delivers at range whatever liquid substance one might care to disperse. A few new suits of armour follow, and then a section on war machines introduces such things as the Clanking Siege Wagon and a few battering rams. Among the Gnomish Tools are the clockmaker's kit, mechanic's tools and a helmet of goggles. The chapter closes on a strong note with some new alchemical substances including boompowder, sneeze dust and vigilbrew, the latter being just right for those who couldn't bear the thought of a fantasy world where there was no coffee
Gnomish Technology is a big chapter on building fantastic machines. So yep, this is the big tinker gnome/steampunk chapter. It's fifteen pages long and looks fairly comprehensive, covering overall function, base materials, power sources, maintenance and ultimate cost. No magic is involved at all, but some spell effects could be replicated non-magically with creative use of certain energies. My biggest problem was: no full examples are provided! It would have been very helpful to look at something constructed beginning to end, step-by-step. There have been some d20 books completely devoted to the topic of steampunk that have come out since
Quintessential Gnome, so this isn't exactly the definitive treatment. Still, for those only looking for a
little bit of advanced technology in their world, this might work just fine.
A short chapter, He Who Laughs Last, looks at gnomish pranks. Encounter Levels are set for gnomes pulling off pranks to gain points of "Prankstige", a bonus which can be applied to certain situations. Some of the applications for Prankstige, like a bonus to Will saves against fear effects, seem a little weakly justified to me.
Gnomish Sub-Races provides detailed PHB-style write-ups on the following subraces: Rock Gnomes (the 'default' gnomes), Deep Gnomes (svirfneblin), Forest Gnomes (small reclusive gnomes mentioned in the MM), Steam Gnomes (steampunk gnomes complete with spiky coloured hair), Lake Gnomes (tall, playful aquatic gnomes), and the tiny, evil Garden Gnomes (heh).
In Gnomish Magic, there are no new spells; rather, ways to fine-tune illusions are provided, followed by a look at gnomish religion with seven generic archetypes of gnomish deities. It concludes with the clerical domains of Craft (identical to the one in another Mongoose product, the
Shaman's Handbook) and Laughter.
The final chapter, Burrows and Workshops, gives brief coverage to constructing burrows and defending them with both natural and magical concealments. Designer notes, an index and a gnome character sheet finish off the book.
In all I would say
Quintessential Gnome is an average entry in Mongoose's Quintessential line. This book has some good ideas mixed in with others I don't expect to use, and there are a few balance issues. It's an important point that it focuses heavily on the tinker archetype of the gnome. As the Elf and Druid books already had a lot of stuff for nature-loving characters, that outdoorsy aspect of gnomes probably didn't need a bunch of rehashed ideas here. But nevertheless the tinker image isn't popular with everyone. Those who do like that image, and would be interested in bringing in some steampunk elements to their campaign without wanting to jump into a whole steampunk setting, would probably get the most from this book.
