D&D General Why Do People Hate Gnomes?

[CleverNickName]

I had honestly forgotten 5e had rules for darkvision you were supposed to pretend to care about instead of just 'you can see in the dark'.

And all of them seem like they were written purely to pick a fight.

Like, not being able to see in color with darkvision. That means you can't read by it, since ink is technically just a pigment on paper...so enjoy that 30-minute argument with your player about their elf wizard "getting hosed."

Or that darkvision lets you see in darkness as if it were dim light...which means 'lightly obscured.' So I hope you enjoy arguing with your players about the elf rogue "suddenly" becoming "useless," because you're going to have that argument every time they use Perception. And they will use it constantly.

 

[dragoner]

Yeah, I think that played a big role both Silent Generation member Gary Gygax thinking they were a good option, and Gen X kids picking up the game thinking they were a bad option.

He also did another, Trolls I think.

Edit: Nope, though I could swear I saw something like that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In any case, it seems we have found the actual thing that differentiates gnomes from halflings: gnomes have darkvision.

 

[Maxperson]

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. As I said, Tolkien is light pleasure reading for me.

This. I've seen almost as many, "I just can't take Tolkien's style" as I have "I love Tolkien's style." It's different for sure, but I personally enjoy it.

 

[CleverNickName]

Neither here nor there, but the Heritage of Shannara novels had spider gnomes, and they were terrifying goblin-like monsters.

 

[Maxperson]

Except that this is something you'd expect in a point-buy system (and even those usually have templates), not in a game like D&D. Tasha's system kind of falls flat by removing a lot of what makes a nonhuman race different. It has everyone be a variant human who can choose darkvision instead of a skill.

It's one that 5e doesn't do well, not D&D. 3.5 did it very well. Between feats, classes, skills and prestige classes, I could come up with near perfect support for just about any concept I could imagine.

 

[Maxperson]

Ugh. I hate darkvision so much.

I've found that if you just enforce the darkvision rules, even the races that have it will pull out torches and lanterns. Disadvantage with vision related perception checks sucks.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Or that darkvision lets you see in darkness as if it were dim light...so I hope you enjoy arguing with your players about the elf rogue "suddenly" becoming "useless," because you're going to have that argument every round of every battle.

I personally give 1/2 cover bonus to creature standing in dim light attacked by creatures outside of melee range. It reduce the effectivity of ranged attacks and makes more sense to me than being at disadvantage on perception but completely functional while snipping with their bow.

 

[Faolyn]

It's one that 5e doesn't do well, not D&D. 3.5 did it very well. Between feats, classes, skills and prestige classes, I could come up with near perfect support for just about any concept I could imagine.

All those feats had plenty of problems on their own.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And all of them seem like they were written purely to pick a fight.

I feel like that's like half the point of all D&D's exploration rules. Like, everything that isn't direct combat has to be a pain.

Not explodicating something into giblets? How dare you. As punishment, count these beans, take these penalties, then get into this meaningless fight. Have you learned your lesson yet? No? Count more beans.