D&D General Why Do People Hate Gnomes?

[Faolyn]

If I remember properly, dire elephants had a high enough climb modifier to reliably hang upside down from horizontal surfaces.

And you thought drop bears were scary...

 

[Faolyn]

Sure, some. They could certainly be abused, but if you played with players who abided by the social contract, that didn't happen. Power levels could also dip, but the DM could easily adjust the encounter difficulty if something rare and extreme happened.

Or it happened anyway, no matter player intentions, because a lot of the feats were just badly done.

But anyway, if rule relies on everyone being on their best behavior and doesn't take powergamers, newbies who don't know the rules, and people who don't bother to do the math into consideration, then it's a rule that needs a lot of revamping.

 

[Maxperson]

Or it happened anyway, no matter player intentions, because a lot of the feats were just badly done.

No. The abusive combinations didn't happen by accident.

But anyway, if rule relies on everyone being on their best behavior and doesn't take powergamers, newbies who don't know the rules, and people who don't bother to do the math into consideration, then it's a rule that needs a lot of revamping.

So you've got some errors here.

First, powergamers aren't engaging in bad behavior. They are just another type of player and need to find a game that meets their needs. Powergamers generally don't fit into games where everyone else isn't one. That's not an issue with the game or feats, it's a social one. Second, new players and those who don't know the math didn't accidentally wander into the abuse combinations.

Perhaps you're talking about the weaker feats and not the broken combinations, in which case new players those who don't bother with math don't need to worry about it. The DM will know their capabilities and give them appropriately challenging encounters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And then there's Natural Spell.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's where they have gone with it, but that's mire of a D&D-ism than folkloric. Smart move, though.

Technically, sure, but it’s hardly a D&D invention to associate gnomes with very small forest spirits. David the Gnome didn’t come from nothing, nor from D&D .

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This isn't true.

In the Mystara setting, the gnomes built the flying city of Serraine, the aircraft used to defend it, and if I remember correctly make up at least the bulk of their pilots (and possibly all of them).

In the Hollow World, a sub-setting of Mystara, two different groups of gnomes were able to build flying islands that crashed into each other to form a single flying island, Oostdok, with each group blaming the other for the disaster. The gnomes of Oostdok also have a fleet of dirigibles.

In the Forgotten Realms, in addition to the normal groups of gnomes that are scattered across the world, there is a large concentration of them on the island nation of Lantan. Although Lantan has never gotten its own supplement, it's not infrequently mentioned as the source of wondrous inventions in other Forgotten Realms materials. (For example, the submarine in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was crafted in Lantana and it has a crew of Lantanese gnomes.)

I'm not extremely familiar with Spelljammer, but I do have the initial boxed set. I remember that gnomes were one of the relatively few races to have at least one unique craft of their own, and I'd be surprised if they weren't well represented within the setting.

Gnomes are relegated to the background in Greyhawk, but that's more or less true of all the demi-human races in that setting, since Gary Gygax made no secret over the years of wanting human beings to be central in the setting. Even so, svirfneblin feature significantly in the D portion of the epic GDQ series as potential allies.

None of these represent essential components of their settings, but they're not exactly insignificant either.

As @Faolyn noted, Gnomes have a pretty major role in Spelljammer, having the steampunk/clockwork ships powered by Giant Space Hamsters.

On Exandria, there's a town mostly populated by Rock Gnomes (they're 76% of the population) named Hupperdook, which is one of the most industrial cities on Wildemount. They mine metals and gems, tinker to make clockwork inventions, and even have developed Fireworks that they set off during celebrations/parties. One of the four starting adventures in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount takes place there, which has suicide-bombing kobolds, clockwork robots and grenades, and an old man in a mech suit.

So, yeah, they have pretty big niches in quite a few of settings (Eberron, Exandria, Spelljammer, Lantan, and Mystara). Their role is usually not as big as Elves or Dwarves (which is true for most races), but quite often bigger than Halflings and some other races that have been around for just as long.

 

[Mind of tempest]

As @Faolyn noted, Gnomes have a pretty major role in Spelljammer, having the steampunk/clockwork ships powered by Giant Space Hamsters.

On Exandria, there's a town mostly populated by Rock Gnomes (they're 76% of the population) named Hupperdook, which is one of the most industrial cities on Wildemount. They mine metals and gems, tinker to make clockwork inventions, and even have developed Fireworks that they set off during celebrations/parties. One of the four starting adventures in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount takes place there, which has suicide-bombing kobolds, clockwork robots and grenades, and an old man in a mech suit.

So, yeah, they have pretty big niches in quite a few of settings (Eberron, Exandria, Spelljammer, Lantan, and Mystara). Their role is usually not as big as Elves or Dwarves (which is true for most races), but quite often bigger than Halflings and some other races that have been around for just as long.

but how do we make them more than bit parts and what is the essence of gnomeiness?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have moved towards making humans the most well known for Aasimar, tieflings and Genasi. Basically, humans are mutable, and very easily are born affected by outer planar magic. Since I've removed about a metric ton of elves, and left them at three, this works for my games.

Quite reasonable. I've waffled back and forth on whether I want aasimar, tieflings, genasi, and kalashtar to be humans of the Dual-Bloodline lineage (that is, part-human, part-planar), or a distinct ancestry group all their own which I call planeborn or "pithfolk" (as they are, in part, made of the "pith," the material or "stuff," of a different plane.) At present I lean more toward making them distinct, but I've changed my mind at least four times on that score.

I suppose the middle-of-the-road option is that the Dual-Bloodline lineage for humans is a "regular" tiefling/aasimar/etc., and pithfolk are the equivalent of playing an eladrin that isn't a lord or lady of the fey, e.g. "minor" celestials and fiends and genies, fully native to those planes rather than having mixed heritage. This would also work nicely to explain stuff like vryloka, half-vampires, who would be Dual-Bloodline Humans while outright Vampires would be classified as a specific lineage among the undead/"soulfolk" lineage options (them, revenants, skeletons, and ghosts.)

 

[Synthil]

I guess to me they just feel kinda redundant. It doesn't help that garden gnomes are known as Gartenzwerge -garden dwarves- in German. Muddying their unique identity even further.

But since they combine a lot of dwarfish and elvish tropes, I usually use them as the mixed offspring of those two. They conveniently already have corresponding subraces to the common elven subraces. So Dwarf+Wood Elf= Forest Gnome; Dwarf+Drow=Deep Gnome and Dwarf+High Elf= Rock Gnome.

 

[Chaosmancer]

but how do we make them more than bit parts and what is the essence of gnomeiness?

Well, the essence seems to be that they are industrious and mechanical. They build fantastical and crazy things. They build clockwork, they build weapons, they build flying aircraft, they build spaceships run by giant hamsters.

This really is a niche that no other race fills. Elves might build a floating island or be a source for magical items, but they will be focused on beauty and "simple" magic. An elven flying city will just fly via gravity magic, maybe with crystals. Dwarves build things, but they are hyper-traditionalists, they aren't going to build anything new, just something old on a grand scale. A gnomes flying city uses helicarrier logic and may be powered by all sorts of exoctic things. It is something anyone can do, if they just figured it out, unlike elven magic which requires being an elf.

Additiionally, elves make a flying city so they can sit in the clouds and look down at people. Gnomes build a flying city, then make sure they have aircraft to take you to it, so you can enjoy it too.

As for making them less of bit players... that's just by using them more. Nothing else for it.