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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6939856" data-attributes="member: 6777454">Oh, I'm sorry. Is your goal to play your character with a -1 penalty to 75-90% of the rolls you make during the game in exchange for absolutely nothing? Well, I apologize then for not realizing there is someone who actually has that as their specific goal. Gnomes have a few racial traits that might possibly give them the ability to function as something other than a Wizard and still bring something to the table. The advantage on saving throws for half the attributes against magic (which is kind of the only way those attributes are going to be targeted anyway) is a pretty big boon. Otherwise you get a choice between an Illusion cantrip and the ability to talk to some animals or... the tinker subsystem unique to it.So in the case of the Gnome... even though you are likely at a -1 to all your rolls for any class other than Wizard and compared to what we were talking about here you'd be down 1 hit point per level too, its not you come out of it effectively empty-handed. Still, as much as Minor Illusion cantrip and the unique use of the tinker system might be a nice little creative outlet, its difficult to imagine the trade-off being made.That being said though, I barely ever see Gnomes played and they are virtually always Wizards... and, really, I have seen a fairly large portion of the D&D community outright hostile to anyone playing Gnomes at all... probably further contributing to their rarity.But the Hobgoblin stat block here isn't offering some sort of creative subsystem, no cantrip they can spam and thus ignore their class abilities.... no, its just... once per a short rest maybe you can turn around a single roll presuming you were at least close to the right result and your allies all happen to be in line-of-sight.... and this in exchange for getting a -1 to every other roll you take.No, Intelligence isn't simply recollection or the skills attached to it wouldn't make the least bit of sense. Why exactly could I only "recall" things I have heard about Religion or could only "recall" things I heard about history? Is that how your mind works, you can only recall things you have heard about one particularly narrowly defined subject and everything else is a total blank for you the next day?I imagine not. So Intelligence ALSO indicates the amount of knowledge one has chosen to seek out and has successfully gathered in the first place as well as the ability to recall it when necessary.See... thing is, I am not proficient with the history skill nor is my Intelligence maxed out, but I could name for you about two or three dozen of the major rulers of provinces during that era and certain facts about them. It would be entirely possible for someone in my position with a higher intelligence and specialization in History to answer your question correctly.Your example utterly fails at being an impossible feat as much as you attempt to exaggerate to present a much more difficult question than any of the ones I suggested.So what happens when you are the DM and I ask that question and I roll my history check and reach DC25-- easily high enough to indicate success in this situation?If you demand the PC ask you the right questions about your setting that you don't bother to offer up, then you also have to accept that in trying to uncover your secret relevant information, they are going to ask you irrelevant questions that you aren't prepared for and don't have the answers to.In trying to be sneaky and keep important information in your back pocket that can only be discovered through asking you the right question and making a roll, you have set yourself into a trap to be asked a dozen of the wrong questions that you can hardly prepare for as the PCs stumble around. And you can be pretty sure they are going to stumble around unless they know you very well because you have intentionally withheld information from them that they need to guess at and are very likely to have withheld too much.</blockquote>

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