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

[cougent]

Hey it is after all the 4E edition:

Elves
Eladrin
dark Elves
half-Elves

 

[Doug McCrae]

Have you read the posts? Most of the people upset are people who play gnomes and want to continue playing a fully fleshed out player race, instead of "in lieu of a long player write-up, here's info about your lair and your minions."

Just use the stats for a halfling.

 

[Derren]

Well, Drow will apparently not be in the PHB but in the FRCS as playable race.

 

[The_Gneech]

No and no. Nor are druids, it looks like.

The half-orc barbarian druid lobby has been strangely silent. (Of course, as barbarians, they can't read, so that might explain it.)

They let their axes do the talking. However, their code of honor prevents them from actually DOING anything until the wrong is actually done (rather than being talked about). So if WotC changes their mind and puts them back in before publication, we could all breathe a little easier.

-The Gneech

 

[Urbannen]

It's like they're going back to Classic D&D. Gnomes were random encounters in dungeons: nice beings who traded gems and then said goodbye. Later in Creature Crucibles you could play one.

4E is shaping up nicely. Hopefully the designers will realize that gnomes should be like the elves as in Santa's helpers or "The Elves and the Shoemaker". Reclusive, small beings who live above ground, use magic, and craft items.

 

[mxyzplk]

First of all, Drow are not in the PHB; they're going to be in the Monster Manual, along with *gasp* gnomes. Secondly, the Eladrin and Elves DO fill two very seperate niches. The Eladrin are the high and mighty, magicial kingdom kind of elves and the Elves are the tree hugging, back to the nature kind of elves.

Yeah, because no race could have two different kinds of people within it. In fact, I look forward to the Mountain Humans, the Swamp Humans, the City Humans, etc. which will of course all have different writeups and stat modifiers.

 

[The Little Raven]

Yeah, because no race could have two different kinds of people within it. In fact, I look forward to the Mountain Humans, the Swamp Humans, the City Humans, etc. which will of course all have different writeups and stat modifiers.

Reductio ad absurdum seems to be pretty popular these days.

 

[Xethreau]

The architypical Gnome in 3e reminded me either of Hobbits or of Santa's elves. Both funny, both annoying, neither totally unique.

The 4e gnome from the flash reminds me of Skull Kids from The Legend of Zelda on some level. If gnomes become short-forest-trickster-fey, and become more suitable as a monster than a core race, I would be ok with that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, I've liked gnomes for some time, and played quite a few. I dislike their excision from the PHB, but I welcome the Mohj...er...Dragonborn.

Some comments of my own:

1) Tinker Gnomes = "Steampunk" is a false statement. Its not even close to true.

Even the humans of a given world with typical fantasy tech are working with cogs & such- quite a bit more clever than most people give them credit for. Remember the temple of Ammon at Thebes (from http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/history/AHistoryofScienceVolumeI/chap39.html):

We may add that the principle of the whistle was a favorite one of Hero. By the aid of a similar mechanism he brought about the blowing of trumpets when the temple doors were opened, a phenomenon which must greatly have enhanced the mystification. It is possible that this principle was utilized also in connection with statues to produce seemingly supernatural effects. This may be the explanation of the tradition of the speaking statue in the temple of Ammon at Thebes.

DEVICE FOR CAUSING THE DOORS OF THE TEMPLE TO OPEN WHEN THE FIRE ON THE ALTAR IS LIGHTED (Air heated in the altar F drives water from the closed receptacle H through the tube KL into the bucket M, which descends through gravity, thus opening the doors. When the altar cools, the air contracts, the water is sucked from the bucket, and the weight and pulley close the doors.)}

Automatic doors and trumpets, thousands of years before the tech level of your typical RPG setting, done by humans.

Why not gnomes?

2) "Elves" as a term has just as much confusion as "Gnomes." Elves are the baby-snatching masters of Underhill, represented by Titania and Oberon. Wait- they're the guys who make toys at the North Pole. No, they're the über charismatic dying race of JRRT's novels...

The original game's designers took the term "Elf" and gave it a game-specific meaning, drawing from all kinds of sources. This definition was basically followed by subseqent design teams. There is no reason that "Gnome" couldn't have gotten similar treatment than lack of desire on the designer's parts- clearly, there is a vocal group of players who like playing gnomes.

3) Why not make gnomes the tree-huggers, leaving the elves to be the top arcanists? Elves could have retained their preturnatural silence and well honed archery & sword skills without being a race of Park Rangers.

Like other D&D races, the nature-lovin' gnomes could have been a pastiche from a variety of sources. A little bit of "redcaps," a little Neibelungen, a little fey, etc.

Heck, they could have been a forest-dwelling subrace of Dwarves for that matter.

Or a toned-down version of Stargate SG-1's Nox.

The long & the short of it: by not giving the gnomes a clearly defined role designers let them wither on the vine. Its no wonder that gnomes lost popularity in 3.XEd- especially with the illusionist/bard switcheroo- and got excised from the 4Ed PHB.

 

[The Little Raven]

Most of the people upset are people who play gnomes and want to continue playing a fully fleshed out player race, instead of "in lieu of a long player write-up, here's info about your lair and your minions."

Well, that's because they've been playing a round of Jump to Conclusions. We know that the gnome will receive a write-up in the Monsters as Races appendix in the MM, which is supposed to make them playable just as the elf, eladrin, and human will be.

Anyone claiming that those writeups will be larger/smaller than the PHB racial writeups is merely producing those "facts" wholesale from his posterior. For all we know, the gnome writeup could be just as big and detailed as the elf writeup, and all those tears wasted on them getting less space will be... well... wasted. So, what's the point in getting all worked up over it?