Gremlins combine the sly and cunning nature of their goblinoid ancestorswith a body and mind deeply infused of energy from the Elemental Chaos.
RACIAL TRAITS
Average Height: 3' 4'' - 4' 2''
Average Weight: 30-60 lb.
Ability Scores: +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence or Strength
Size: Small
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common, choice of Abyssal, Goblinoid or Primordial
Skill Bonuses: +2 Bluff, +2 Thievery
Elemental Origin: Your race had acquired elemental traits through contact with the Elemental Chaos in some unknown way in forgotten times. You are considered of Elemental origin for the purpose of effects that relate to creature origin.
Little Demon: You have Variable Resistance equal to the highest of your Charisma, Strength or Dexterity modifier. At 11th level you can use it 2/encounter. At 21st level you can use it 3/encounter.
Erratic Behaviour: You can Gain Combat Advantage with a Bluff check two times per encounter instead of one. At 11th level you can do so three times per encounter. At 21st level you can do so five times per encounter.
Revel in Energy: When you are hit by an attack that deals damage of the same type you have set for your variable resistance, you immediately fly a number of squares equal to the highest of your Charisma, Strength or Dexterity modifier without provoking attacks of opportunity. If you don't land on a solid surface you fall.
Elemental Buoyancy: You ignore the first 10 feet of a fall for the purpose of calculating damage. At 11th level you ignore the first 20 feet and at 21st level you ignore the first 40 feet. You can also add or subtract 2 squares to any forced movement under water or other liquid fluids.
Gremlins are surely goblinoids and they clearly also have powers typical of elemental creatures, but the origin of this combination is completely unknown, and because of the deeply chaotic and individualistic nature typical of gremlins, few of them ever cared about recording their racial history, not even create and share legends about it. Most of them simply don't care about their origins, and instead enjoy their nature and seemingly demoniacally-hasted minds in a compulsive and psyched way. They are innately playful individuals, and even the most tranquil and studious individual probably plays in one way or another, especially if the studies involve alchemy or magic. Their ability to resist to different elements may or may not be derived from some demonic heritage, but it is well-known that gremlins can be found mingling with demons with the same ease as with their fellow goblinoids or pretty much any creature, as long as their often monomaniacal playfulness is satisfied. Truly, their (individually-speaking) monomaniacal mind-sets make them as prone to become geniuses in their fields, as to create strong bonds with just about any type of being, object, place, or even emotion or behavior. Probably for the same reasons they could find themselves having equivalent and equally inexplicable phobias for different things. The love for tinkering with fizzing alchemical things and volatile arcane and elemental energies seems to be the only trait in common to all gremlins, but one can never be sure, a gremlin could as easily grow a phobia for the things his or her kin seem to love so much, and even reach the conclusion that he or she should live by the highest moral, ethical, religious or intellectual standards, maybe even mimicking another race in doing so. Such is the unpredictability of gremlins. Play a gremlin if you want
- To be a small, strange-looking, impish being with traits of both geniality and madness.
- To revel in blasts of energy, channeling their energy to fly around, (generally) unharmed.
- To be erratic, unpredictable and resistant to many a dangerous element.
- To be a member of a race who favors the Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard classes.
PHYSICAL QUALITIES
Gremlins are the most physically diverse of the common sentient races, having a surprising variability of skin, hair, eyes, and scales-patches colors, a considerable range of different heights, weights and combinations of these, and, more than anything, a lot of completely random and sometimes asymmetric features. The common pattern is that, especially speaking of colors, their elemental origin is clearly apparent. They can have hair of bright red and orange hues like fire, mottled blue skin resembling water, and eyes of the sick green of the most vitriolic acid oozes, or just about any combination. It's rare to find a gremlin of dull, dark, or more generally sober appearance, but exceptions are the rule when speaking of gremlins, and so completely monochromatic, even black or white gremlins have been recorded. Gremlins also have very diverse life-spans. It is not unheard of that a gremlin may simply explode in a burst of sparks, slime and multicolored flames, without any warning, at very young age. Normally though, these strange deaths occur only to gremlins who have not yet reached their sexually mature age, which is approximately always reached at around 10 years. After that, a gremlin may live till the remarkable age of 300 and more years, although changing a lot its appearance, but its much more probable that he or she may well before die in some violent way, possibly due to mishaps in their dangerous arcane or chemical experiments/amusements.
PLAYING A GREMLIN
Gremlins have a mix of racial resources that makes them versatile and flexible, adaptable to many situations, but what really makes them different and fun is their unpredictability and their reaction to elemental energy. So even if some classes may suit them best, gremlins can be dangerous and survivable whatever their class is. They're also seemingly culture-less, in the sense that every individual seems to live inside a culture of his or her own. A gremlin-only community is an intrinsically short-lived thing, with reproduction probably being its only reason of existence. When such meetings happen, entire acres of city or wilderness succumb to chaos and gremlin babies rapidly start to invade the place due to the incredibly fast laying and hatching process of their eggs. Parental cares are random, and while some gremlins may leave dozens of babies to their own, others may have only one (they can in some way decide how many babies they will have each time) and take care of him or her during long years. However, they are surprisingly auto-sufficient since they're born. Other races view gremlins with mixed feelings. The few who have witnessed the damage they can cause when they swarm in large groups regard them as a plague and in some cases in which they were personally affected, they may even develop a hate so blind that they will try to kill gremlins on sight. This may occur to individuals or communities of just about any race, although gnomes, genasi, goblins, and to a lesser extent tieflings and all outcasts seem to tolerate even the gremlins's most dangerous behaviors. Individual gremlins are instead generally well-liked and even very different being such as eladrin, dwarves, deva, and drow may develop strong bonds with gremlin friends and adventuring companions. This is also because when a gremlin becomes attached to someone, they do so in a complete way, sometimes regarding the person as their master, inspiration, platonic love, or even becoming a sort of arcane familiar to them.
Gremlin characteristics: unpredictable, impish, deceiving, crazy, erratic, joyful, monomaniacal, obsessive-compulsive, selfless, tinkerer, peculiar, ingenuous.
Male names:
Female names:
GREMLIN BACKGROUNDS
A gremlin character has access to the these background elements
Elemental Anomaly: You entered the world through an Elemental Chaos rift, maybe in a completely abrupt way, and you don't have memory of past events, your memory seems to have popped into existence in the same moment as your body and soul entered the world. Although you may not be aware of other gremlins or of the elemental chaos, you are fully aware of your powers.
Associated Skills: Arcana, Bluff
Citizen of an Abyssal City: Before migrating, escaping or simply taking the wrong portal, You lived in the utterly unhealthy metropolitan buzzing of a demonic city, perhaps in a gremlin ghetto, as a survivalist loner, or as part of a respected gremlin family. You are familiar with demons and one of the most brutal forms of society, and you know that in such an environment there's no space left for morality, you just have to know better and steal better than your neighbor or your life will be made short work of. Associated Skills: Streetwise, Thievery
Worldly Gremlin: You are part of a small community of Gremlins in the natural world or more probably you left such a community following your race natural tendency. You may have been adopted by a goblinoid community as a guru of alchemy and arcane magic, or you may have wandered through the wildest places of the world and mingled with fey creatures, perhaps turning into a sort of fey yourself. Associated Skills: Nature, Endurance
HEROIC TIER FEATS
IGNITE BODY
Prerequisite: Gremlin
Benefit: You can use the wizard cantrip Light as an at-will power but you can only target yourself as the source object. When you are using the power, you gain a +1 power bonus to your Fortitude and Reflex defenses.
ATTUNED TO ALCHEMY
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Int 13
Benefit: You gain an alchemical recipe of your level for each of your levels and you can craft alchemicals of your level + your Cha or Int modifier.
GREMLIN TRICK
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Dex 15
Benefit: You can spend a usage of Gain Combat Advantage as an immediate reaction when hit by an attack to reduce damage by half but be pushed by the enemy 2 squares per size category of the enemy beyond small (minimum 2).
ENERGIZED SHIV
Prerequisite:Gremlin, Rogue
Benefit: When your Revel in Energy racial feature triggers, Sneak Attack damage you deal in melee before the end of your next turn deals an additional 1d6 damage of the same damage type that triggered your racial feature.
DARTING ATTACK
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Rogue
Benefit: If your Revel in energy racial feature is triggered during your turn, you can expend a Bluff usage to make a melee weapon attack at any point during the movement. You still must use the action type required by the attack to do so.
INFURIATING GOAD
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Paladin, training in Bluff.
Benefit: You can spend a Gain Combat Advantage usage as a minor action to force an enemy to attack you on his next
LIVING BULLET
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Paladin, training in Bluff.
Benefit: When your Revel in Energy racial feature triggers and you are wearing plate armor, you can knock down and apply Divine Sanction on an enemy you land adjacent to.
CONFOUNDING CRITTER
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Bard, training in Bluff.
Benefit: You can spend a Gain Combat Advantage usage as a minor action to force an enemy to attack a willing ally of your choice on his next turn.
ENERGY SHOW
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Bard.
Benefit: When your Revel in Energy racial features triggers, all allies within 5 squares of you gain concealment until the end of your net turn.
MONOMANIACAL INTEREST
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Bard, Bardic Knowledge feat.
Benefit: Choose one of the skills you gain a bonus to thanks to the Bardic Knowledge feat. Gain a skill power associated to that skill as a bonus feat power. You can retrain this feat to choose a different skill and thus a different skill power.
GIFT OF THE GREMLIN
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Cleric
Benefit: Allies you heal also gain the resistance granted by your Little Demon racial feature until the start of your next turn.
CONSUME DARKNESS
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Cleric
Benefit: When your Revel in Energy triggers on Necrotic damage, each enemy adjacent to your landing square takes Radiant damage equal to your Cha modifier.
FORCED SORCERY
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Sorcerer
Benefit: You use your Strength modifier instead of your Dexterity modifier for each Sorcerer class feature and power that relies on your Dexterity modifier. You also use your Strength modifier instead of your Dexterity modifier to calculate your AC when wearing light armor.
UNCANNY TINKERER
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Artificer
Benefit: You use your Charisma modifier instead of your Wisdom modifier for every power or class feature that relies on Wisdom.
EXPLODING CONSTRUCTS
Prerequisite: Gremlin, Artificer
Benefit: You can blow up a construct summoned by one of your Artificer powers as a standard action, dealing fire damage equal to 1d10 for each 5 levels of the power rounded up in a close burst 2.
Notes: The tinkerer aspect is represented via feats, and the feats also change/improve their reaction to elemental damage, and give them a few more tricks. The fact that they have more uses per encounter of the Bluff skill in combat can also be a source of interesting racial feats that could allow something by expending one use of Bluff. I'm pretty satisfied by the race as it is now, what do you think? Criticize with no remorse! 
Alchemical Tinker: You gain the Alchemist feat and an alchemical recipe for a 1st level item. You gain a new recipe for an alchemical item of your level or lower at each odd level. You don't need to be trained in the required skill to craft items of which you gained the recipe in this way.
I have a problem with this in that it sounds more like something you should be getting via a class than something you should be given via a race. How is this explained exactly? Because I feel like this would be similar to giving a race Sneak Attack or Divine Challenge...
Little Demon: You have Variable Resistance equal to the highest of your Charisma or Dexterity modifier. At 11th level you can use it 2/encounter. At 21st level you can use it 3/encounter.
It should probably be specified that this is 1/encounter at 1st level. Also, why is this based on DEX or CHA? Isn't this an INT and CHA race? I might also consider adding more options than that, Maybe CON or INT or CHA...
About alchemy, we're just giving the player the bonus feat and a way to use it without having to be an arcanist or having to find the recipes. But in the end nothing more than taking the feat yourself in terms of results. The power is based on alchemy in its base form, but can be expanded via feats. I know it seems pigeon-holing the race, focusing the power on alchemical items usage, but that's why they get a way to craft these items easily. They're fascinated by them. Just like eladrin use swords even as wizard implements or sneak attack weapons, gremlins put alchemy all around. And it's a lot less limiting, since alchemy includes MANY weapons.
Another way to do this rendering the race less monomaniacal (which however was a trait that I thought appealed to the race psychologically speaking) in mechanical terms, would be basing the power on elemental damage things (making it usable with both alchemicals and powers) and give them ways to specialize more via feats.
In this case though, the power would be toned down quite a bit for not being situational.
Just like eladrin use swords even as wizard implements or sneak attack weapons
Yeah, but they use feats to do that. They're not forced to conform to their racial stereotype by default.
Try to think of it this way... could the race as you've described create an individual culture that has members that fill all the basic rules? If not, then you've based this race too much on being a single-class race and you need to go back and rethink this.
I also updated fluff, I consider it an important part.
Here are some explanations for the choices I made!
- The variable stat bonuses are not my invention, Changelings in Eberron are like this.
- I have extended this variability to language choice, do you think it's ok? I also considered giving them 3 languages like Devas, but it simply doesn't seem correct for the flavor. The idea is that they are spread over the Elemental Chaos, Abyss and Natural World, mingling with elementals, demons or goblinoids respectively. It's a way to differentiate them and define some kind of background at low level, since they're such a variable race.
- The general idea is that they really enjoy darting around the battlefield when blasts of energy abound. Note that once they choose their resistance for the encounter, it remains that type until the end (at least at heroic level), so they can exploit their limited fly (more of a jump) ability only that much. The synergy with alchemical items is there: blasting an area damaging alchemical (to which they are resistant) in an adjacent square would trigger the big jump.
Their "slow-fall" type ability is meant to make the short distance fly useful. - The other considerable ability is that of using Bluff more times per encounter. It's obviously very helpful for rogues, but through racial feats it could extend to many different things and thus many different classes/roles.
- Some of the tinkerer aspect is still there with the +2 Thievery bonus. I think a special trap-disarming feat is mandatory, just as a special alchemist feat that will grant them free recipes, representing the fact that they research their own recipes.
A "wild-alchemy" feat would also be nice, adding randomness to the effects of their alchemicals, representing the fact that they are custom made, and they not always work as they are meant to. - There could be some confusion with the stats involved in their abilities and the racial bonuses. It's all meant to be like this: racial powers nearly always rely on 3 different stats, those being the 3 physical stats or the 3 mental stats. I made an exception that is meant to mean something: Charisma is their only "always good" stat, so it is always there, but due to the fact that their special abilities rely on the strangeness of their bodies, Strength and Dexterity are the two other choices. Dexterity is not a stat they have a bonus to, but since they make good Rogues (and Monks for that matter...), and they will generally be nimble but squishy, I thought it was better to encourage a good dexterity score rather than a good Constitution score. I'm not against high-Con small races, but Gremlins are just not that. They're something of a glass-cannon race.
Strength might seem like an odd choice, but if you think about it, there's nothing more "Gremlinesque" than a small critter packing an incredible strength in an arcane-powered little body. Plus, it makes them optimal Sorcerers. I know Dexterity could have been a more logical choice, but in that case, I would have put it in place of Intelligence, and that would have crippled their other big attraction: that of being improbable geniuses. They're just too cute in wizard-robes, not to mention that Intelligence is the key-stat for Artificers too. So it's really mandatory. So they basically come in two varieties: the psyched intellectual and the psyched brute.
Speaking of brutes, they even make fine Paladins. It may be ridiculous but also offer fun RP hooks, especially if combined with the monomaniacal mind-set they can develop. They could discover that a particular deity appeals to them completely and champion it in a completely devoted, sometimes crazy way! Same thing for Clerics, that would also come out nicely from Str/Cha Gremlins... Power-Source wise, it appears Primal classes are the ones in which Gremlins shine less, and I think it's pretty ok. Just as I find it ok that the exception to this is represented by Thaneborn Barbarians..! :D Crazy... Of course there's always the limitation of not being able to wield two-handed weapons... I don't know if two-handedly wielded Versatile weapons count. There's a halfling barbarian illustration, so I guess they count after all!
Perhaps for their resistance you could apply a wild magic sorcerer thing, where each day they are a different element, and that would apply to their abilities?
It's an epic path but and Adamantine Soldier Gremlin would fly around every time they got hit.
Perhaps for their resistance you could apply a wild magic sorcerer thing, where each day they are a different element, and that would apply to their abilities?
Interesting... It would remove the demonic feeling, but replace it with the equally Elemental-Chaos-like Wild magic feel. I don't know, the other route would be limiting the effect to when they are hit by something they have RACIAL resistance to. And/or maybe I could limit the damage type to the strictly elemental ones, since Necrotic, Radiant, Psychic, and Poison would be a bit out of theme. I have to think about it.
Apart from the "formal" issue, what do you think about the mechanics and the race feel?
Corrections and limitations to racial features and added up Racial Backgrounds and Feats!!
Check it out and comment! (And/Or suggest better names for the feats :D )
UPDATE: Formatted with the new editor, changed one feat to use Skill Powers :-)
Please give feedback!