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I've heard they may be coming out for phb2, but I have need of a gnome PC race in a campaign starting very soon. The rules can change a little in play but I'd like to set something up now. I liked 3e gnomes a lot, so here is what I have so far. Much is, of course, taken from the MM NPC race.
Average height: 3'4-3'8"
Average weight: 50-75 lbs
Ability scores: +2 Int, +2 Cha
Size: Small
Speed: 5 squares
Vision: Low-light
Languages: Common, Elven
Skill bonuses: +2 Arcana, +2 Engineering*
Reactive Stealth: as MM277.
Fade Away: as MM277.
Fey Origin: as Eladrin and Elves..
Gnomish Illusions: You may use the Fairy Lights and Gnomish Chicanery powers as at-will abilities.
Fairy Lights
Tiny flickering lights of all colours, each about the brightness of a candleflame, dart and twirl around you.
At-will * Illusion, Arcane
Free action, Personal
Effect: The combined light fills your square and an area 3 squares around you. Extinguishing the lights is a free action. While the lights are active, you cannot use your reactive stealth ability, and you suffer a -2 penalty to stealth.
Tiny flickering lights of all colours, each about the brightness of a candleflame, dart and twirl around you.
At-will * Illusion, Arcane
Free action, Personal
Effect: The combined light fills your square and an area 3 squares around you. Extinguishing the lights is a free action. While the lights are active, you cannot use your reactive stealth ability, and you suffer a -2 penalty to stealth.
As much as I like the old gnomes back in 2nd edition, they've suffered drastic changes since then. I personally think the Gnomish Illusions should be feat powers, not granted at lvl 1, they are at will for one and have a good ammount of use. Faire Lights needs to be changed from free to minor and it needs a duration and probably a sustain of minor, to it to make it better or you could just let them have a feat that gives them the wizard's light cantrip power (gnolls already have a feat that gives them the wizards ghost sound cantrip so why not?). Also the Engineering skill needs some definition before you start giving out bonuses for it. Double Vision looks a little iffy too but at this point I realize its a rough idea.
Thanks for the reply!
The gnomish illusions are actually in many ways watered-down versions of the wizard cantrips already: the wizard Light spell, for example, is quite a bit more useful than Fairie Lights (much brighter and can be cast a distance away). That is on purpose: it keeps the gnome from stepping on the wizard's toes, but is still (I think) rather handy. However, the gnome has the advantage of being able to summon and banish his lights instantaneously with a thought. I see that as being balanced: it means a gnomish wizard still gets use out of his racial feature.
Engineering has a definition: Read the footnote after Fairie Lights and Gnomish Chicanery.
Yeah, I'm not sold on double vision either. I like the idea but I can't think of an easy way to mechanic it out yet.
This is a repost from the Races forum, where critique is at an amazing low. I'd love someone to help me pick this apart. And, coming from experience in the previous thread, let me add: please don't bother telling me you don't like gnomes, and I am aware (in fact, relying on) that there are monster manual stats for them. Thanks!
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I've heard they may be coming out for phb2, but I have need of a gnome PC race in a campaign starting very soon. The rules can change a little in play but I'd like to set something up now. I liked 3e gnomes a lot, so here is what I have so far. Much is, of course, taken from the MM NPC race.
Average height: 3'4-3'8"
Average weight: 50-75 lbs
Ability scores: +2 Int, +2 Cha
Size: Small
Speed: 5 squares
Vision: Low-light
Languages: Common, Elven
Skill bonuses: +2 Arcana, +2 Engineering*
Reactive Stealth: as MM277.
Fade Away: as MM277.
Fey Origin: as Eladrin and Elves..
Gnomish Illusions: You may use the Fairy Lights and Gnomish Chicanery powers as at-will abilities.Fairy Lights
Tiny flickering lights of all colours, each about the brightness of a candleflame, dart and twirl around you.
At-will * Illusion, Arcane
Free action, Personal
Effect: The combined light fills your square and an area 3 squares around you. Extinguishing the lights is a free action. While the lights are active, you cannot use your reactive stealth ability, and you suffer a -2 penalty to stealth.
You might mention that Fairy Touch adds the Illusion keyword and that Vicious Façade adds both Illusion and Psychic. I kind of like the flavour of the latter, but i'm not sure if there's any precedent within 4e illusions. Is there one you could point me to that does actual damage through belief?
I believe that Dragon had some damaging illusions, but I could be wrong... I am not too concerned about it, as it is a mechanic I want in my game world.
I am in agreement with Verbrantsson. I think the racial powers should have more significant action costs, at the very least, Fairy Lights should be a minor action with a durration. I'm not sure what action it takes to light a torch, probably a minor, but i'd think that would be a good guideline.Perhaps Gnomish Chicanery should be an encounter power. It probably won't see a lot of use in combat, but rather than seeing a gnome throwing illusions right-and-left during non-combat situations, a rough once per 5 minutes would seem reasonable to me. Besides, most racial powers, if i recall correctly, are encounter powers.
Hmm. I am still not keen on pushing fairy lights that way, but I will give it more serious thought since both of you have mentioned it. You do realize that the lights in question are about half as bright as a torch, right? I still feel that making them a free action gives them a utility to characters who would otherwise find them useless, and I honestly can't think of an exploit related to turning on and off a small area light very quickly. I'd rather shrink the radius further than make it a minor action.
Making the illusion a per-encounter is an interesting idea, though I am not really clear again on how it could be exploited, being an almost entirely RP ability. This one I am not as strong feeling about: it is entirely pushed out by prestidigitation for gnome wizards, and I am not going to try to make it have a utility prestidigitation lacks (unlike fairy lights, which should remain a little useful even to a wizard with Light).
Oh, speaking of actions: since both Fairy Lights and Gnomish Chicanery are used by one of your feats, i was wondering if the feat actually requres the use of the power of just the principles of it's application. Meaning, would a gnome need to expend both a standard and a minior action for Vicious Façade? Also, if you do end up making that an encounter power, you might have the use of the feat expend the power for that encounter.
If I made Chicanery 1/enc, I'd make Vicious Facade use that useage. I'm not sure if Vicious Facade requires a minor action, but that would make sense. A lot actually... I will probably go with that.
Thanks! Good feedback.
Fairy Lights
Tiny flickering lights of all colours, each about the brightness of a candleflame, dart and twirl around you.
At-will * Illusion, Arcane
Free action, Personal
Effect: The combined light fills your square and an area 3 squares around you. Extinguishing the lights is a free action. While the lights are active, you cannot use your reactive stealth ability, and you suffer a -2 penalty to stealth.
This at least needs to be a minor action.
You say it's a watered-down version of a wizard's light cantrip- but is it different enough to even be noticeable?
Fairy Lights- 3 square radius, range 0
Light- 4 square radius, range 5
Keep it simple. Give gnomes a racial feat (Fairy Lights) that lets them use the wizard's light spell at will, and then grant them some other small bonus (like gnolls got with ghost sound.)
Gnomish Chicanery
You crack open the bag, showing how full it is with “gold”. With any luck he won't open it himself until you've got a bit of momentum in the other direction.
At-will * Illusion, Arcane
Minor action, Ranged 1
Effect: You can create a purely visual illusion no bigger than about 5 liters in volume. As long as you maintain focus on it (sustain minor) you may animate the illusion and give the impression of response to interaction, but it appeals to no sense beyond site. The instant you stop sustaining it, or the illuson leaves your range, it ceases to exist. You must make a bluff check to convince anyone the illusion is real; if they touch it, it counts as an automatic fail.
This should be an encounter power. Gnomes don't need to be making illusions every six seconds- once every five minutes should be often enough.
Gnomish Feats
Fond of Illusions – On effects which have the Illusion keyword, add a +1 racial bonus to attack and damage rolls.
Bonuses to hit are rare in 4e, but this seems fair. Gnomes are known (gnown?) for being expert illusionists.
Fairy Touch – once per encounter, when you make an attack against a creature you can mark it with fairy lights. Whether your attack hits or misses, the opponent loses concealment and cover (superior cover and superior concealment are “downgraded” to regular cover or concealment) until the end of your next turn. You may only mark one creature per encounter, even if you use an Area of Effect ability.
This feat is a bit verbose for what it does, but I don't see any problems with it.
Vicious Facade – You use chicanery to make a weapon or attack appear far more serious than it is; doing so requires utmost confidence that your illusion has not been penetrated. Any creature hit by your attack takes your Cha modifier as psychic damage. You grant combat advantage until the beginning of your next turn to any creatures missed by the attack.
Not sure about this one... for a ranged-type characters, granting combat advantage is a pretty small penalty for that bonus. You shouldn't give gnomes too many different encounter powers, but something that was a little more effective but usable less often would probably work better here.
Double Vision (Paragon) – If you use your Fade Away ability in response to an attack that had combat advantage over you, the invisibility granted becomes Sustain Minor. Additionally, enemies see a visual illusion of you (standing still, clutching the wound you just received, unresponsive) in the square you occupied when the ability took effect. This illusion is incapable of acting and is completely intangible; an enemy wishing to attack it makes a saving throw (vs. charm effects) before the attack. If they save, they realise in time that it's just an illusion; even if they fail, the illusion is broken from that point.
This is really powerful, and a bit odd mechanically. Sounds more like what a class power should grant (maybe from a gnome-only paragon path?) than a feat.