I was looking through the 4e Monster Manual for the Gnome entry. I didn’t see any thing about playing them as PCs. Are they now 100% monsters or did I miss part of the entry?
The info you want is in the back of the book. Starting at page 276, there is a section on running monsters as PCs. The Gnome is in that section.
I want to know why they made the kobold so damned tall. 3'6? 4ft tall? What'd they do, give them growth hormones?!? I want my 2'4 kobold back!
Apparently the game designers feel that people wont want to play as monsters and shoved them in the back of the book.
All kidding aside, I'm guessing they wanted to put all the "monster player character races" in one section, rather than trying to spread it out over individual monster blocks through the monster manual. So rather than put info about gnome player characters under the gnome monster entry, and gnoll player character info under gnoll, they made one appendix for all the races so it would be in one place in case a DM wanted to see possible other character races to try in his campaign.
Whereas, in the back, you're just using it for reference. You can copy out the relevant bits and never need to access it again, so they're all squished together.
Sadly, it's not impossible.
Aw, gnomes are fun. They're just the right size to tie to the end of a rope to lower down a pit with a torch to see if there's anything down there. :D
In general, these traits and powers are provided
to help Dungeon Masters create nonplayer characters
(NPCs). This information can also be used as guidelines for
creating player character (PC) versions of these creatures,
within reason. Note that these traits and powers are more in
line with monster powers than with player character powers.
It says in plain english, these races are not balanced for use as PCs and yet everyone seems to think the Half-Orc and Gnome have been saved. It's utterly ridiculous; Gnomes and Half-Orcs are axed, gone, and relegated to the place where unbalanced and unplaytested splatbook races go to die.
Those races are clearly not balanced for play as PCs (Doppelganger? Are you f'ing serious?) Any attempt to claim any of those races is core PC races amounts to the age-old idiot's justification, "I can rule 0 it, so it isn't broken."
No need to go hostile there, amigo. The world won't end just because somebody has a different opinion than you.
That being said, you may look at the gnome entry and judge it for yourself. I don't see anything terribly unbalancing. Once per encounter hiding for a turn, low-light vision, being particularly sneaky, decent bonuses...
If you're ok with the Eladrin's teleportation or any of the other cool once-per-encounter racial abilities, I don't think the gnome will cause your world to implode. Unless you're Bluff_Im_a_Horse, apparently.
No need to go hostile there, amigo. The world won't end just because somebody has a different opinion than you.
That being said, you may look at the gnome entry and judge it for yourself. I don't see anything terribly unbalancing. Once per encounter hiding for a turn, low-light vision, being particularly sneaky, decent bonuses...
If you're ok with the Eladrin's teleportation or any of the other cool once-per-encounter racial abilities, I don't think the gnome will cause your world to implode. Unless you're Bluff_Im_a_Horse, apparently.
I think he means its stupid to put gnomes in the place where unbalanced races are, they're supposed to be a core race, and not unbalanced, is what he's saying.
I think he means its stupid to put gnomes in the place where unbalanced races are, they're supposed to be a core race, and not unbalanced, is what he's saying.
Exactly. They're not stated as being balanced for core races, so any interpretation that they are is a rule 0. It was a dumb move, since gnomes have much better fluff than either of their replacements. They look a good bit weaker, to be honest, since the trigger for the invisibility is so awful.
I love how everything needs to exist at the extremes. Why does that notice at the start of the appendix mean "so F******* broken you'd be seven kinds of stupid to allow them as PCs!" and not "make sure you're comfortable with these before allowing your Players to have them as PCs. Some are weaker and others are stronger than the PHB races." Whatever happened to moderation?
My personal take is that most of them are pretty close to PHB races, if not slightly weaker. Shadar-Kai, and Drow are the only ones that strike me as being any significant bit more powerful than the PHB races, and even then not much. Dopplegangers are only really RP powerful. The ability to mimic any individual Humanoid doesn't equal automatic success at everything given that many things aren't on anyone's side, and there's still the rest of the party that needs to get through any challenge. Very, very far from an "I-win" button, and frequently useless in a group.
Edit: and Gnomes are right in the mix with the rest of the PHB classes. They are, at the least, more powerful than Halflings before Racial Feats are brought in, and flat-out-better if you allow Gnomes to use Halfling feats like Under Foot. Good ability score bonuses, low light vision, good skill bonuses, reactive stealth, and Fade Away which is a lot better than you're making it sound.
It says in plain english, these races are not balanced for use as PCs and yet everyone seems to think the Half-Orc and Gnome have been saved. It's utterly ridiculous; Gnomes and Half-Orcs are axed, gone, and relegated to the place where unbalanced and unplaytested splatbook races go to die.
If you actually compare the abilities of the MM character races and the PHB character races, you'll see that they're more than comparable enough to work in all but the most min-maxed games. A huge number of players on these boards have already tested and enjoyed characters using the MM races; just look at the Character Development board. You're wrong about the MM character races, it's as simple as that.
The note before the section in the MM manual reads more like a heads-up about abilities (like the minotaur's charge) that don't scale exactly the same for PC's as for NPC's than a giant, flashing "these races are totally imbalanced for players!" warning. You have to really want the 4th edition monster PC rules to fail to claim that every PC race presented in the MM is worthless; in practice, they work extremely well.
This disagreement is founded largely in varying expectations for core material. You shouldn't need to pick and choose from core materials; it should all be acceptable for inclusion in every campaign. This is one of the aspects of 4e that simply isn't ready to be included as core.
And also, Gnomes have *no* innate rights, NONE to be a base race. The only ones that are vital to D&D players, CLASSIC D&D, are more or less humans, elves and dwarves, I'd argue; perhaps even JUST Humans (others are much 'humans in suits'). The rest is window dressing.
Races where added and removed to CORE books since the very days; Gnomes where not even there at start, Half-orcs where removed in AD&D2 from base core books.
And also, setings, vanila or exotic, changed much of that - the VERY classic D&D setting Dragonlance had NO orcs, NO half-orcs, and yet, nobody wil; argue it's not D&D - by example. And Dark Sun KILLED the WHOLE RACE in it's distant history.
So, bah.
In addition, Gnomes have alreay been confirmed as a race in the Player's Handbook II. Will the racial entry be exaclty the same as the one in the Monster Manual, probably not. Going from the Warforged Article in this month's Dragoon I'd say that it'll be tweaked slightly, but it will be essentially the same.
Some folks don't want to wait that long, and they don't have to. They CAN play a gnome now, many do.
Basically meaning that some adjustment and descrection would need be used before making them into PCs and that some traits and powers would have to be toned down etc first. It is suggesting a guideline only and not the use of that information for hard and fast rules for making all these races as PCs.
Though some, such as the gnome, would need very little, if any, work.
Raaarw
It says in plain english, these races are not balanced for use as PCs...
Actually, it doesn't say that at all, and I have no idea how you could possibly interpret that paragraph as saying that. What it does say is that, "these traits and powers are more in line with monster powers than with PC powers." That say absolutely nothing about their balance. What it's saying is that these racial traits and abilities are different in style than what you could normally expect a PC to have.
For instance, no normal PC race has racial powers that require a standard action to use, while I think 3 or 4 MM races do. That doesn't mean it's overpowered; it's just not what the creators had in mind for generic PC races, because they wanted normal PC races to have extra, more generic powers to add on to their abilities, not powers that would become a major part of your repertoire and heavily influence how you would play that race.
They're more specific in concept and abilities such that they further channel certain races into certain classes. Take the Orc for example, which has the ability to get +2 speed on a charge. However, not every character class wants to charge, this racial feature is useless unless you play only certain classes. This is unlike the normal PC races, because I can't think of a single feature any normal PC race has that every single class can't benefit from (with the possible exception of free racial weapon proficiencies).
Every normal PC race with the exception of the Human has a bonus to two different skills. This is not so with the MM races, so they don't follow the expected pattern.
There's also the issue of defenses. With the normal PC races, if you get a boost to two stats which would normally add to the same defense, you get something to cover for that. For instance, the Eladrin gets +2 DEX and +2 INT, which both affect Reflex, so they get a +1 to Will in order to make up for this discrepancy. Humans too get defense boosts because they only get a boost to one stat. Even the DDI Warforged got a boost to Will, because its +2 STR and +2 CON would normally cover the same defense.
And so the Warforged brings me to my final point. Notice that when it was upgraded on DDI for more frequent PC use, it got more added onto it. This leads me to believe that as written in the MM, it's actually not a very powerful race and needed a boost with some more flavorful abilities to bring it up to par. My guess is that this pattern will be repeated.
Basically, that paragraph isn't saying that the races back there are too powerful or unbalanced. It's saying they're balanced differently.
> PCs.
>
> Basically meaning that some adjustment and descrection would need be used
> before making them into PCs and that some traits and powers would have to
> be toned down etc first.
With a couple of exceptions which others have noted, they would need to be toned up, not down. They're "more in line with monsters" in that they're more limited in their application, and they're also much fewer in number - typically 2, sometimes 3 - whereas PC races end up with 4-6.
I never liked the gnomes being added to 3e as a core rarce to begin with. It was just a halfling of a different flavor. The new monster version is pretty cool, but I'd still never play one as a character.
Who am I to judge others that want to. It's an option that as a DM I'd allow. It doesn't seem broken. Is it balanced? I don't think it was intended to be balanced...yet. I hear that's coming in PHB II.
It says in plain english, these races are not balanced for use as PCs and yet everyone seems to think the Half-Orc and Gnome have been saved. It's utterly ridiculous; Gnomes and Half-Orcs are axed, gone, and relegated to the place where unbalanced and unplaytested splatbook races go to die.
Those races are clearly not balanced for play as PCs (Doppelganger? Are you f'ing serious?) Any attempt to claim any of those races is core PC races amounts to the age-old idiot's justification, "I can rule 0 it, so it isn't broken."
Okay, Mr. Ed...
Let's see if I can understand your point correctly.
The section says that as a tendancy the stat blocks were created more with monsterous powers than PC powers in design. You then, as an example, bring forth an example that no one is talking about playing.
Let's try a different approach shall we?
We understand, as in their disclaimer, that perhaps those writing the books did not necessarily bend over backwards and alter the monster's concept to such a signifigant degree that the PC versions would be totally irreconcilable with their monster stat block versions.
This does not necessarily mean that we can say all that falls within this section is "unsaved", however, as your extremist position posites.
Consider instead of how you brought up the example of the Doppleganger. This is surely not the only such example, but there are monsters that likely appear within this section whose very nature violates the system of skills, feats, roles and PC powers as such that removal of those violating traits would simply make it no longer that monster and leaving those traits would make them a volitale PC prone to abuse.
Even if it is simply a small fraction of monsters within this section that fall under that category, we can understand why the disclaimer would appear. Even those who do not may need a few tweaks that will appear down the line. In fact, no doubt, even those that appear within the Player's Handbook as core races will soon be revealed to be poorly balanced in ways that were not entirely clear upon designing but only appear after a good amount of play and a host of twinks each trying to leverage them in the most game-breaking manner for purposes of their own ego boosting.
But even with the presence of the disclaimer it is far too much to uniformly declare that all those that appear within that section are entirely invalid. Instead a wiser, more prudent and most just strategy would be to look at the individual entries and decide upon the merits and flaws of that particular entry if it is properly adjusted or not.
Just from a very obvious standpoint it is clear that making natural humanoids who are not capable of any more fantastic or supernatural feats upon their own merits than those who appear as core races would be far easier for the designers to cast in a relatively similar mold as the core races and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this was not the case.
In fact, moreover, it would be entirely correct to consider that the races that those crafting the game are WELL aware people would be very likely to be playing would have been given extra consideration than those who they feel are unlikely to be put in the hands of a PC except by a DM who is not particularly concerned about the PCs wielding very dangerous powers within the game.
As such rather than attempting to use the disclaimer and the example of a Doppleganger as proof of the invalidity of the Gnome entry, please use the entry of the Gnome as proof of its invalidity, if it indeed is so, and, if you were intending to be useful rather than destructive, please submit an example of a less error-prone set of crafted rules by which to play a Gnomish character.
Keep in mind, if you will, that regardless of whether they are paid for it, regardless of whatever experience they may have, regardless of special status or hosts of fans, ultimately those crafting the game are merely simple, albeit perhaps not always humble, nerds whose own personal perferences, desires, allegiences, views, knowledge-bases and backgrounds will undoubtly affect their final work. Especially since the game industry is incredibly incencous and the mechanics of peer review by opposing perfered parties hovers between 'inadequete' to 'nonexistent'.
As such, properly peer-reviewed creations by the entirity playerbase are undoubtedly going to be superior to that which those writing the game autonomously declare as "official".
As such, properly peer-reviewed creations by the entirity playerbase are undoubtedly going to be superior to that which those writing the game autonomously declare as "official".
Considering the subjective and all too often conflicting base, I disagree.
Basically, that paragraph isn't saying that the races back there are too powerful or unbalanced. It's saying they're balanced differently.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I took it.
You can't play gnome, because they are monsters.
Raaarw
But they have a lair. And treasure to give out, like trick or treat but without the trick.
Its been a torturous ordeal every step of the way, but fitting penance for playing 4th Edition in the first place.
Seriously, they are in the back of the MM, and they arent bad. If you dont like them, then make your own or wait for a DDI article or book to feature them. Just because a few people think they suck, doesnt mean they suck (or more importantly, that they arent fun).
I'm playing a gnome artificer right now and managed to eke by with such a god-awful, underpowered character up to 3rd level.
Its been a torturous ordeal every step of the way, but fitting penance for playing 4th Edition in the first place.
Is the problem with that combination the "Gnome" or the "Artificer" part? I'd be willing to bet the later.
After a cursory look, the MM PC races do appear to be demonstrably lacking in comparison to the PHB races (in fact, they are all 2-3 powers/abilities short of what the PHB races have with only a couple exceptions!)
However, the PC Gnome in that book is like like the ultimate spy/scout. They can both approach and escape with extreme ease.
But maybe you don't do that much as an Artificer.
I'm having a BLAST with this character (literally). I'm better able to keep the party afloat to the point where I'm considering the possibility that having both healing infusion things could be a broken thing.
Mostly the fun comes from the artificer, but I've been a longtime gnome fan and dont see anything particularly sucktacular about them. I'm not going to compare damage output to, say, a warforged fighter, but I'd be willing to compare them against a tiefling wizard.