The Tielfling and The Gnome: On the Set of 4th edition

[Lurks-no-More]

About the look of tieflings, I direct people to the Tiefling Cleric miniature in Desert of Desolation set: its horns and tail are both of very manageable proportions.

And although the tiefling woman in these preview pics has horns and a tail, I don't think they are especially unwieldy.

 

[Ahglock]

About the look of tieflings, I direct people to the Tiefling Cleric miniature in Desert of Desolation set: its horns and tail are both of very manageable proportions.

And although the tiefling woman in these preview pics has horns and a tail, I don't think they are especially unwieldy.

The horns on the miniature aren't to bad, but otherwise they all look pretty Ginormous.

 

[Scarbonac]

I kinda like the "gnome's" breathless giddy joy at being a monster, with all that entails ("I have a lair!"), but the "gnome" look...not so much. I'm more of a Miracle Max or Engywook fan.

The tiefling - sexy enough but that personality - ugh, just...ugh.

 

[I'm A Banana]

About the look of tieflings, I direct people to the Tiefling Cleric miniature in Desert of Desolation set: its horns and tail are both of very manageable proportions.

And although the tiefling woman in these preview pics has horns and a tail, I don't think they are especially unwieldy.

The mini ain't bad at all, and the tiefling woman from the previews isn't as large an offender as the tieflings presented in R&C (which, I believe, post-dates the concept art previews and the minis release by quite a bit), though they're still pretty huge.

The pessimist in me wants to say that the reason the tieflings have giant tails and giant horns is because some of the tiefling feats allow them to use such appendages as weapons. Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, it's just a bit jarring to me, because I'm so familiar with the 2e's tieflings subtlety that the giant weapons growing from the body seem a bit too...well...BLATANT for my tastes.

Still, the pictures I had in mind were like the Tiefling Fighter from R&C. I believe R&C also has a picture of a tiefling woman crouching with her tail stretching out behind her and, for the life of me, I can't think of how she could crouch like that without breaking the tail...

BIG HONKIN' APPENDAGES.

And, true, it might not be all of them. And it would make a lot of sense for a fighter to maximize his natural weaponry.

Still, the size on those looks pretty absurd to me.

 

[pawsplay]

Since they're jettisoning a lot of legacy stuff, I don't know why they didn't just call tieflings "sexy minotaurs."

 

[Ahglock]

Since they're jettisoning a lot of legacy stuff, I don't know why they didn't just call tieflings "sexy minotaurs."

Cow tails aren't sexy, so a different tail a different name.

 

[Rechan]

Cow tails aren't sexy, so a different tail a different name.

It's worth noting that even in the furry community, very few people like cows.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

I like the Claudio Pozas redesign of the 4e gnome look.

Yet, my favorite gnomes remain Ravenloft-style, as I pointed out here.

I prefer the crafty-information-broker style gnomes, the literate-thug gnomes, the no-words-for-lie-but-four-thousand-words-for-truth gnomes. Suddenly, their blue eyes, large noses, goatees, small stature, and whimsical nature look considerably more like this:

upping the coolness factor considerably.

And the large-head, large-eyed, small-stocky-body look usually results in an odd-looking woman when female gnomes are depicted. Yet, once again, I think the artists have just missed their mark. I think the female gnome looks more like this:

So, if gnomes looked more like this, would you be interested in playing them?

(Incidentally, Arthaus also thought so for the Ravenloft line)

 

[pawsplay]

Gnomes as played by Jeremy Iron and Christina Ricci, hmm.

 

[Klaus]

Gnomes as played by Jeremy Iron and Christina Ricci, hmm.

Dude,

That's Malcolm McDowell.