Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 JohnLynch Feb 14, 2015 23:54:38	Given that drow are detailed in the Player's Handbook, I was surprised to find that Deep Gnomes are a good aligned race (as much as any surface gnome is) and weren't detailed in the Player's Handbook. To me it makes more sense to detail a good aligned subrace then a largely evil aligned subrace. I guess that's the power of Drizzt.   So I wanted to stat up Deep Gnomes (svirfneblin) as a player option. The spellcasting abilities of the Monster Manual version are rather powerful, however there's no reason to say that all deep gnomes must have all of these abilities, so here's my attempt at a PC version.   Deep Gnome Racial Traits Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1. Stone Camouflage. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) scores to hide in rocky terrain. Magical Steath. You can cast nondetection on yourself. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it. Once you use this ability you cannot use it again until after you finish a long rest.   ----- So stone camouflage is very useful and depending on whether you rule a dungeon to be rocky terrain it could come up quite often. Magical Stealth seems very situationally useful, although when it does come up it could be quite useful for the party.   Both of these abilities are good for a dexterity build deep gnome, however deep gnomes don't get a bonus to dexterity. So my thinking is, given the lack of synergy, +2 strength would be warranted. For a dex build it's not the most useful ability booster (you get to carry more and have a slightly better chance at making strength checks). For a strength build heavy armour is normally worn, making stone camouflage a nice to have rather than extremely powerful.   But I've left it at +1 strength to see what other people thought.
#2 masterfat78 Feb 15, 2015 3:25:01	I do remember that 2nd dition deep gnomes where way strong. 3rd edition also had huge stat bonuses but also had a bad level adjustment. I could see the deep gnome getting a plus two to strength as long as his other stuff isnt to OP. Maybe drop the nondetection at first and give it as a progression, a few levels later.