Whither the gnome?

[Estlor]

I think we'll see both, and I think we'll see both in the PHB(1) by the time that's ready. My expectations are that once they feel they've nailed down the Big 4 races, the Little 3 (gnome, half-elf, half-orc) will show up in the next round.

Certain aspects of the gnome will be distilled and shared by both - resistant to illusion, skilled with picks, small - and certain aspects will be unique so that you'll have a 1e/2e subrace (lives in burrows, likes gold, talks to animals) and a 3e/4e subrace (fatalist-trickster-artisan-information mongers). One will probably be +Con or +Int, the other +Cha.

 

[steeldragons]

They should be this...what sort of gnomes are these?

 

[Underman]

They should be this...what sort of gnomes are these?

Those look like bearded halflings or skinny dwarves.

In the monster design, they went through great lengths to differentiate orcs from goblins from hobgoblins from gnolls.

Whatever form gnomes take, I suspect WoTC will be asking the same pointed questions about differentiating the shorter races from each other.

 

[tlantl]

I guess there is an appetite for the traditional rock gnome as well, which surprises me. I figured that since dwarves can now be wizards and bards and what not (and racial restrictions will not come back in), that the "like dwarves but magical" would have pretty much been made redundant.

If you can already have a dwarf illusionist, what is purpose of dwarf-like gnomes?

Being as I designed my game world in the eighties when no dwarf in the known universe could even dream of using arcane magic, no dwarf in my setting uses magic. I'd make an exception for any player wanting to do such a thing but he or she would be a very unique individual.

I like gnomes and have several prominent family lines floating around.

 

[Remathilis]

Subraces people!

May rock gnomes the AD&D illusion-loving miners, and make forest gnomes the wild-hair "Ima monster" style oddities...

 

[Yora]

I like my gnomes to be dwarves that go outside more often and without the drunken viking-scott stuff.

 

[Underman]

From the land of faerie, there were 4 little brothers. One liked to hide and play with forest animals and annoy the elves, one liked to hide in caves and annoy the dwarves, one was a nerd fascinated with windmills and spectacles and magnets and stole tools and tinkered with them incessantly, and the last brother drowned in a river. The 1st brother became the forest gnomes, the 2nd became the rock gnomes, the 3rd became the elusive sky gnomes who live in a floating cloud burg, and the 4th became water gnomes that are drowned and neither dead or alive.

In another world, every gnome is born at random to be one of the four types.

 

[Starbuck_II]

I could live without the Gnomes.

As far as Races go, I'd like to see the core races being strictly Tolkien (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Human). Maybe include a playable Orc.

The fellowship had a Dwarf, an elf, halfings, and a 1/2 Elf no humans existed. Boromir was there brieflly but he got offed.
Aragorn wasn't human.

 

[ComradeGnull]

The fellowship had a Dwarf, an elf, halfings, and a 1/2 Elf no humans existed. Boromir was there brieflly but he got offed.
Aragorn wasn't human.

A bit OT, but Aragorn was certainly human. He was the last of the line of the Numenorian kings, the Men of the West. They were the 'best' or highest men, but still human.

 

[Starbuck_II]

A bit OT, but Aragorn was certainly human. He was the last of the line of the Numenorian kings, the Men of the West. They were the 'best' or highest men, but still human.

Go way back in Aragorn's linage and you will see that he is a distant relitive of Elrond. Elrond's brother chose to be mortal but his life was long, as was that of his decendencts (sp). SO he does have some elven blood in him I beleve.

A 1/2 Elf is a human with elf blood in them in D&D.

Then Aragorn wondered, for she had seemed of no greater age than he, who had lived yet no more than a score of years in Middle-earth. But Arwen looked in his eyes and said:"Do not wonder! For the children of Elrond have the life of the Eldar."

So, it could probably be assumed that Elrond's sons were immortal.

At the end of the Second Age, the Valar basically didn't know what to do with the 'part-elven' men (or part-human elves), so they gave each of these the choice of which race to belong to. Elrond, Elros, and the children of Elrond were given this choice. Elrond decided to become Elvish, while Elros decided to become Human. From this time on, the choice was final and complete. If you checked their DNA, it would be identical, but in every way Elros was human and Elrond was elvish. Elros and his descendents were given a longer life span than other men, but this was due to a gift from the Valar for their valour against Sauron, and not because of their elvish ancestors. Aragorn can trace his lineage back to Elros, and therefore also has a longer life (he is 76 when LotR starts, I think, and he lives to be about 200).

No human lives to 200 or is not old when 76 (Aragorn was stil young).