THREE elven races, plus half-elves ... but they say gnomes have no niche?!

[Irda Ranger]

So the designers feel they can justify teensy little differences between elves and "feywild" elves, and even evil dark-skinned drow elves, just enough to toss them into the PHB as iconic classes -- with comments that half-elves will still be around, too -- but they can't come up with enough of a creative spark to maintain gnomes?! How the heck does that work?

You're coming at this the wrong way. The problem isn't that Gnomes "don't have a niche." The problem is that there isn't any single, clear conception of them. Are they mad inventors? Illusionists? Mini-Eladrin? Fuzzy Dwarves?

Until the 4E designers would say with confidence "This is a Gnome", there's no Gnome.

 

[Nyaricus]

Have they ever had an int bonus? They don't in 1e or 3.5. I agree they are mischevious but so are halflings.

Actually, this is what I miss about AD&D gnomes - they had, IIIRC, +2 Int, -2 Wis. This was because they were incredibly smart and good with magic, but tended to be short-sited, and overly curious, which go them into trouble

Damn! THAT'S what I want 4e Gnomes to be!

cheers,
--N

 

[Driddle]

Have they ever had an int bonus? They don't in 1e or 3.5. I agree they are mischevious but so are halflings.

Yes, halflings are somewhat "mischevious" ... BECAUSE THE DESIGNERS WROTE THEM THAT WAY. That's the point -- they could have tweaked any "niche" in almost any manner to justify anything as an iconic race. But for personal reasons they decided gnomes lacked personality, and then they made it so. Very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or circular logic.

"Well, looky here! This gnome description I just wrote on my computer screen? Sure looks boring to me. Must be true."

 

[Reaper Steve]

the smart, clever, and mischevious gnome archetype is fairly universal

Amongst gamers and D&D fiction fans, sure. But 4E is going for broader appeal. If you don't read D&D fiction, your gnome archetype involves the Travelocity spokes-gnome, lawn-gnomes, and short fairy tale creatures with pointy red hats.

 

[Rechan]

Amongst gamers and D&D fiction fans, sure. But 4E is going for broader appeal. If you don't read D&D fiction, your gnome archetype involves the Travelocity spokes-gnome, lawn-gnomes, and short fairy tale creatures with pointy red hats.

Unless of course you play WoW.

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Oh.
That's [sarcasm] so much clearer. I can understand why we needed at least two different elves now. [/sarcasm]

Look, it's fairly logical. One elf breed is fills the magic-adept race; the other fills the nature-phile race. Both of those traits are commonly associated with elves of some kind so it was logical to make them both elves rather than random race Q.

Half-elves again fill the niche of a race between worlds. They could have made it half-dwarf, half-halfling, half-dragonborn or whatever, but half-elf has the most history besides the half-orc (which they mentioned they didn't to include right away due to the implies, uh, violence behind their origin.) so they're the most logical choice. Plus elves and humans sound like the two races that would be most likely to have half-breed children.

None

So why are you complaining if you can't think of a niche for them?

-- that's the point. They were written out of the book so that we could have more elves. The designers seem to have run dry on ideas after their massive elfgasm.

No, they're not in the PHB because the writers couldn't find a niche they wanted to put them in. The biggest thing is being the short race and the Halflings already have that niche. They're going to be in the monster manual so you'll have playable rules for gnomes from the beginning if you must have them.

 

[Drowbane]

Just say Gno.

Dark Sun is the only official D&D setting to ever get the Gnome right. In my campaigns, from 2e through 3x, I've always strived to follow Dark Sun's standard in this regard. My 4e won't be any different.

All hail the Athasian Gnome!

Unless of course you play WoW.

btw, where does WoW get off adding gnomes to Warcraft?! They weren't in the... well... any of the games previously... were they?

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Dark Sun is the only official D&D setting to ever get the Gnome right. In my campaigns, from 2e through 3x, I've always strived to follow Dark Sun's standard in this regard. My 4e won't be any different.

All hail the Athasian Gnome!



btw, where does WoW get off adding gnomes to Warcraft?! They weren't in the... well... any of the games previously... were they?

Warcraft II had Gnomish Flying Machines and Gnomish Submarines.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Unless of course you play WoW.

True. Allow me to broaden my category to include all fans of all 'pop fantasy.' A person that is not a fan has a vastly different concept of a gnome than one that is. Of course, we could debate the odds of a non-pop fanatsy fan picking up a D&D book...

The R&C book states that the Dragonlance gnome was iconic to D&D, but it has since been stolen by WoW. Additionally, they didn't want to bring the technological aspect as many don't like science in their fantasy.

 

[Voss]

The R&C book states that the Dragonlance gnome was iconic to D&D, but it has since been stolen by WoW.

Did it? How sad. The Dragonlance gnome was a 50 page joke in a novel. It wasn't iconic to anything, except a poor sense of humor. It translated badly to the game and fell into the Eddings school of 'Racial Stereotypes are funny and useful, not insulting, because we all know all Murgos are evil, all Drasnians are spies, all kender are thieves, all gully dwarves are stupid and all gnomes are wacky madcap inventors.'