The Gnomes have always been a beloved race in my opinion. I like putting them in parties with larger races and letting players decide how they’re gunna work out the size differences in fights and when exploring. One of the best things I’ve seen players do is have a Goliath character basically use a Gnome thief as an off hand weapon against a large creature. Swinging an axe in one hand and just kinda jabbing the Gnome at the creature with the other, letting her stab at it a few times without risking being instakilled by getting eaten. Addition: They thought about using her as a projectile weapon but decided not to as being thrown like that might kill her if she missed the creature and hit a tree or boulder.
I have a forest gnome ranger who is bewildered and excited by cities, she is just an adorable smol bean who is just too pure. The rest of her group is made up of a rock gnome rogue whose nickname is Badger, and a sverfneblin druid named Dandelion. Together they are the Gnomeforce!!!!!!!
after seeing this vid, I'm totally giving the Gnomes the Powerful Build racial trait! "Powerful Build: You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift."
@@stevengossette9392 Diamonds by Rhianna, tuned to sound "gnomish." Which is a reference to the gnome creation: the first gnomes were born from gemstones.
Because of Gnome high strength relative to their mass, I allow Gnomes to have the same leap and sprint abilities as humans in my campaigns. They may have shorter limbs, but far better explosive movement capability. What inspired this point of view is that I was a player years before that and I created an acrobatic thief gnome. Our DM pondered it and made that a rule and it made sense, it still does. I created the character because the party had serious problem-solving types, no rogues, and no fun characters. Why not have a fun little guy who bounces about who is also a skilled burglar?
For sure, Pat Kilbane of the Dorks of Yore channel has a very good RPG science video on just that sort of thing, the power to weight ratio of the Gnomes and Halflings is much, much greater than their child-like statue suggests.
Okay, I just took your suggestion and watched his giant punch video. I was using stuff like this decades ago but not as in-depth. Thanks, AJ! I subscribed to him too!
@@AJPickett Since my last post, I ran a game after altering Gnomes and Halflings accordingly. The response was 100% positive. People who normally favor Dwarves suddenly loved both Gnomes and Halflings just as much!
I love playing as kobolds. I find thier mentality fun to play. I think my favourite was a Kobold bard who mistook that burning hate she felt for gnomes as lust and would obsessively pursue every gnome she met.
Down votes mean nothing to me, they achieve exactly the same as an up vote actually, so.. *shrug* doesn't bother me. I'll be sad when the day comes that I have no down votes any more. Pffff... that day will never come.
It's just I make my own videos and I know what goes into these so I have a respect for what you do as I know how difficult and time intensive they are to make.
In my campaign, gnomes are a surface dwelling offshoot of dwarves that have an affinity for wood working and above ground pursuits. Gnomish communities are usually located in close proximity to dwarven kingdoms where they work together in a mutually beneficial relationship.
I have never felt more like a gnome, standing 6' tall; the forest gnome section sounds a lot like the sami/laplanders. They were notable tribe for being rogue-like hunters... can't ignore their hats either. Their 2nd door into their excavation being "the real door" is so very, very Terraria.
in my Campaign World, Gnomes are Giant Kin (along with Goliaths, Ogres, Trolls & Cyclops) and are divided in the Urban (Rock), Wild (Forest) & Deep (sub)races, which look totally different from one another. the Urban Gnomes have made all the greater cities & look like Humans or Dwarves; the Wild Gnomes have all the same ability to talk to small (not just burrowing) animals, & look like their environments; Deep Gnomes are Deep Gnomes.
I'm using a gnome as a npc right now for my campaign and this video is very helpful for me to flesh out her character and backstory. Thank you and keep making these awesome videos. They really helped me in creating unique monster variants for my campaign or just for fun.
Love your series!! I created a forest gnome monk in my lastest D&D 5e game that I am absolutely loving to play currently. I gave mine a more jovial type attitude as he is in his early 20's and he talks in riddles when spoken too. Using the UA playtest material, he has an affinity towards fire (spark of the phoenix). Starting out at Level 1 is pretty slow but I am certainly enjoying the character development and build up. Keep up the good work!
I'm playing a Forest Gnome folk hero, thief/druid and he is a blast to play, sneaky, a little bit reckless at times, perhaps over confident, but he gets into some very fun situations and always manages to move the story along in interesting ways.
Wow, we've gone from so many to just three subraces. I've really fallen in love with the Rock Gnome of 5e. I really enjoy creating Rock Gnome characters.
Frederick Pagliarulo yeah, I do like how they slimmed it down to the essential three groups, keeps all the important stuff, eliminating the clutter. pretty much sums up 5th edition.
Y'know, with so many subterranean races being better at digging than Dwarves, one has to wonder why digging is a distinguishing feature about Dwarves. When everything surpasses your measuring stick, then you need a new measuring stick.
Thinking of a large wolverine or honey badger to be the very ornery mount, or maybe just pet of an equally mean gnome. Even the owl bears know to be weary.
Yeah, not all Gnomes are good hearted, and those who are inclined could perhaps form a bond with creatures of an evil bent, such as Displacer Beasts and Dire Weasels.
My last gnome was in a GURPS fantasy game as an earth mage. Since having a high strength was also useful for fatigue points I threw a couple of his points into Brawling and bought a set of nice, heavy gauntlets. He was a terror in bar fights.
I think the main reasons the gnome race isn't as popular, is because people usually just imagine them as tiny old men with minor magical ability. Most movies and fantasy material tend to use them as such. So it makes it hard to imagine them going out adventuring and fighting. Personality I always imagine my gnome as a magical prankster. I can't remember what I watched in my childhood that inspired me to always make my gnomes like that
26:05 Are there any spells to grow a beard and scalp hair (Silverbeard only grows a beard)? I want to rp a Svirfneblin (sp?) that wants to get a proper gnome beard and hair. :P
A wild mages magic surge can give you a beard of feathers until you sneeze, or make your hair fall out (and grow back within 24 hours), but I don’t know of any others. You could always ask the dm to home brew something, though.
Alter self could do this easily, same thing with disguise self. Also there's the belt of Dwarvenkind which has the side effect of making any race that wears it grow a thick beard, but you could literally just make a magic item that allows you to do this if you work together with your DM, it's literally just a cosmetic effect so it shouldn't be too hard or expensive, but it may require an exotic material component like strands of dwarven beard. Which could be as lethal to get your hands on as any dragon scales...
If AJ ever renamed the channel, that is what he should rename it. Monster Ecology. But I kind of like the fact that it's named The Mighty Gluestick, and it should become a thing in D&D circles. For some reason, it still sounds like something you'd come across somewhere in DnD. The gnomish articifers shop, The Mighty Gluestick, for instance. XD
I know this is an old video, but it really helped me out. Recently joined a campaign, and as someone who rarely plays Gnomes, I figured I'd give it a go. Playing a Rock Gnome Order of Scribes Wizard. He's an archivist of sorts. Loves to research, catalogue, and safeguard magical items and artifacts. He doesn't really want the power, he just wants to open a museum. Outside of finding and cataloging magical items, he also has a psuedodragon that he's trying to figure out how to turn into a full dragon (purely to just protect his eventual museum). Scribes Wizard is fun cause I like to just make all of his spells do bludgeoning damage. He has a bunch of pebbles for his sling that I flavor him using as mediums for his spells (take a pebble, do some magic, throw it as a "fireball" that does bludgeoning damage)
"Not everyone's favorite race"? You mean insane people? Gnomes are my favorite race by far, and should be everyone else's! Anyone who hates gnomes is merely an illusion
ah i like your pun good sir! I've been playing a gnomish barbarian with the path of the totem warrior and going for the bear totem, quite fun i might add
For whatever reason among the gnomes forest gnomes are my favorite. I don't know why, maybe it's the minor Illusion, maybe it's the talking to the animals. Either way my Forest gnome (rogue) Pirate will be interesting. Good video as always.
When I look up Gnome I feel the need for something eccentric, either a friend of animals or an inventor. I did not know a lot about them, but on a whim I threw in a traveling gem merchant rock gnome who travels with 3 mastiffs , one as a mount and the other two as pack mules/bodyguards, and my players reacted well to the spunky girl who is good hearted but wary of people with those with no clear goals. Deep Gnomes are a thing I have tried to come up with something interesting for. After deliberation I think some sort of thief (which I usually find boring) might be interesting, play up the expectation of expected neutral merchants to be a kleptomaniac little bugger, who has stolen or steals from all the dangerous Underdark races.
DuskyPredator deep Gnome character, now NPC, Shnikledik, cleric of Gelf Darkhearth, church of the broken anvil, steals objects of beauty or personal value to be smashed on the anvil in sacrifice to Gelf. As an NPC cleric he demands payment for divine services via player characters giving him treasured possessions he destroys in front of them before healing, removing affliction, divination or speaking with the dead. He's a merciless bastard but you can get his help even when you have no coin.
AJ I became a patron after I watched this because I use ad blocker and you deserve an income for the work you do. I rely on your videos because I have dyslexia and I find your material very helpful
I don't understand why there is such a common belief that gnomes have little to no mythic history. Gnomes are domovoi in my opinion (or boggans if you prefer). I tend to think of Rock gnomes as the major subrace that escaped the kobolds, with the forest and deep variations being those which escaped through the faedark / shadowdark respectively.
to clarify the differences in strength: halving all of a creature's dimensions such as height will: quarter strength as represented by the cross-sections of muscles and bones and quarter the potential area of contact between the creature and another surface; and reduce the creature's weight by a factor of eight. Think of a line, a square and a cube. While a gnome would still lack the actual strength for a thumb wrestle, they would gain proportional strength for acrobatics.
@@AJPickett This all also explains how a squirrel can fall from a tree and remain relatively unharmed but, if an ogre fell from the same tree, it might not fare so well. Maybe this is why ogres don't climb trees
Also aj. Would you consider doing an episode on Lantan. It has so few details, even a brief dive into speculation on ecosystem history and governance structure would be amazing. Keep up the good work
Good video. Although I have basically replaced the deep gnomes with my own race in game because mechanically they play very similar and live in a similar environment.
Thanks AJ. I've only briefly played one gnome (badly), and my players never pick them. You've helped make them much more interesting to me, and I'll give them another shot. :)
so as a general rule are they like wow gnomes or are they built like small humans or is that halflings? or rather how do they differ i honestly don't know i only recently got into dnd
Good video, one thing though. When you get to a certain point of weight it doesn't matter how light you are, you still take full damage from falling or being thrown. It works for insects because they have exoskeletons, and many weigh less than a gram; but throwing a child across a room would do the same damage as if you were able to throw an adult with the same force.
I may have a tricky lore query…. Since we know that most academic recordkeeping is done in gnomish… What is the gnomish unit of measurement?… What do they call it? Is it gnomtric?
I never actually thought about that... Now to somehow work the "two gnomes in a trenchcoat" trick into my next campaign... Or even better, I could get my simulacrum to carry my character, for better coordination.
I basically always try to either play a gnome or a kobold, depending on the campaign I sometimes branch out and play a svirf. I like svirfneblin because their more cynical and yet fun loving nature matches my own.
I loved the gnome( I think it was a gnome) in neverwinter nights, shame they played it like everyone thought his stories were boring his romance would be better than the Boring casavir lol
always wondered about the difference in existence/creation/emergance between a dragonborn & a cobolt. but as for humans & gnomes, who would win that bar fight?
Rewatching gnomes, leaving a comment to feed the algorithm. " Rats of Nimh," seen just before my 6th birthday. Psionic wererats, leaving in over size rose bushes like Elf Quest elves plant/tree shapers. 2.) With WotC 3e in my playing group campaign settings forest gnomes are all druid/wizards with Hats of Disguise/ alteration to hide in plain sight as small/oversize mushrooms just sitting around. Average teenage adventuring gnome is rogue2/druid3/wizard3, CR: 8 with maybe a few levels of sorcerer and bard. Adults are average CR:12 up to CR:15 with numerous minor magic items. They are very Fae like. b.) Red Caps are just murderous gnomes that have three or more levels of rogue and ham string their victims and slowly stalk them over a few days. c.) My teenage 13yo cousins ran many as rogue3/bard3 pick pocks in the forest. d.) Smurfs, fighting against a giant with an oversize house cat. 3.) 3e CR xp adjustment for PC character level, so giant spiders with CR6 will still give a few hundred xp to 12th-level PCs. Less high heroic adventure and more cartoon fairy tale games.
If that first Gnome fired that cannon she carried the recoil would send her just about as far backwards as the cannonball went forward. More of an escape device/weapon as when the smoke cleared she would of disappeared.
I point of irony. Kobolds (REAL kobolds) are German Gnomes and are not reptilian (they just look like scruffy Gnomes), so it's funny that Gnomes and Kobolds (Gnomes) are hated enemies. One of the tragic effects of TSR either not understanding what a Kobold was or recreating them entirely. In my campaign world Kobolds are a sub-race of Gnome mining away in the mountains of what would be equivalent to Northern Europe in climate, and naturally have nothing to do with dragons, sorcery or reptiles. I am a traditionalists in this respect and as a result many traditional D&D creatures don't make the cut.
1800's Victorian fairy tales, .. " The king of the gnomes was named Gob, and all of his followers were called .. Goblins. " "cough, cough," .. deep gnomes mine .. goblin silver .. to create blue steel. Plot point in my games I ran since AD&D2ndE from the early 1990's if a gnome collects a thousand gp and place all of them into a cooking pot, a " crock," they naturally gain 1st-level illusionist abilities. Once they collect 7,000gp they gain Limited Wish. More or less gnomes in my campaign are " Leprechauns." Also in my 3rdE settings I stick with the more .. fairy tale .. for non humans. From gnomes, goblins, to ogres I multiclass them as rogue3/sorcerer4, so all of them can turn Invisible and Alter Self. " cough, " ... traditionally gnomes are illusionist/ druids waging war against goblin sorcerer/ druids with a lot of trash talking. Since in D&D goblins age to death by 40 years, they are in a state of reincarnation and reattuning their souls to new bodies. So a 3rd-level sorcerer goblin will run around with a cantrip Wand of Spoil Milk effect or use Plant Growth to cover a farmer's garden/ grain fields with weeds. A gnome using Haste will function more as a Time Compression Field as he milks a farmer's cow in the early morning. Due to the number of Earth's Spider totem/ gods that function as trickster/dream walkers, I find it hard that so many players can't grasp drow could still worship or work with another spider deity other than Lolth. " Earth/ cave/deep/dark elves " that live in crystal caves visiting/ plaguing human dreams with the Dream/ Nightmare spell seems to be something more to deal with than a bunch of Lolth priestess bickering with each other and only doing a surface raid once every few decades. With 3rdE , .. CR system if you make multiple Search / Spot checks and catch eight toads( CR:1/8)/frogs you earn 300xp. from PC character levels 1st to 4th. So running a game with a bunch of young teenagers PC deep gnomes chasing down cave lizards/ toads to make alchemy potions is a way to pass the time. A steam vent lizard could grant a metamagic feat bonus to the potion use, without using a high spell slot.
@@krispalermo8133 You really have to scrap a lot of what TSR/WotC has made with traditional myth and lore, they really drop the ball a lot. For those of us who want to play in a world of authentic or traditional fantasy it is impossible to do without changing what the core game is.
@@level9drow856 Very true. Anything from TSR/WotC and you end up with a lot of home brewing, but .. Authentic or traditional fantasy is also period frame in a given location when such .. fairy tale .. legends takes place. Back in the 1990's as a teenager before a good working internet was around, I still had to go through printed books with a lot of cultural bias just to look up anything on Wicca or other forms of witchcraft. Turn out my German born extend family members were from the lesser petty nobility and were in charge of forest management for timber, hunting and to keep other families from traveling through the forest to make cattle raids. Along with being part of blood feuds and minor civil war during the 1800's. Since my family were forest wardens they were also Keeper of the Hounds, which is also an Angrboda wolf cult. Surprise, surprise, a group of hardcore Lutherans turn out to be a bunch of pagan witches. Their house spirits are Jotun other than the Aser. Swabian/ Prussian have their own family takes on German myths. And they refer to themselves as .. druids . And they were nothing like the Wicca style druids I was reading in the books current in the early 1990's. Some of those old WW II German veterans were scary to be around, and those mean azz 70 year old German women could just look at you and put the Fear of G*D in your bones. 2.) Greek Medusa and her Gorgon sisters. a.) Basic myth of Medusa and Poseidon being a bad boy. And Athena turning Medusa into a monster as punishment. b.) Older myth, Medusa was turn into a monster so she could have revenge on Poseidon and hunt his mortal children. c.) Another older myth, Medusa and her sisters were already snake like monsters and Medusa was given a Stone Glare when she was made a guardian of a given island. d.) The question I had since I was a grade school age child was, " Was Medusa pregnant with Poseidon's child/ children ?" e.) 25 years ago my first game let us run monstrous PCs and I PC more than a few AD&D2ndE medusa characters, with male variants and had some very epic heroic deaths. 3.) Old 1970's Marvel comics, " Tales of Asgard." Which makes a fun Spelljammer/ Planescape campaign setting. We also crossed it into WotC 3rdE system of magic, psionics, and Star Wars RPG. Any campaigns, or game styles you like to share will be nice to read about ?
hey just wondering im creating a wizard and i saw this in the phb and didn't know if i had 2 spell slots or 4 cuz my inteligence is 17 "You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so. choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level" but in the spell slot table its says 2
when your prepare a spell your are saying that out of your list of spells you want to be able to cast these ones until your next long rest, after your next long rest you can switch out as many spells as you want with spells you have learned.
My problem with gnomes is that they overlap too much with other highly humanoid races, especially halflings and dwarves, even their sadly underused tinkering aspect often overlaps with that of goblins I feel like its redundant to add gnomes if you already have dwarves and halflings, at least if you go about them in the way the D&D canon describes them, they need a lot of effort from the GM to make them feel like their own thing
Now I gotta play a Gnome that talks like Yoda I can do a perfect Yoda voice and also a Macho Man Randy Savage voice. Ever want to hear Macho Man , Yoda , and Mr T talk to each other well I can do that.
I don't know how to tell Gnomes this but I was just looking at Grung character art and most of them are wearing Gnome clothes! I swear I seen one wearing McGuffin's sweater...I don't know who's shorts or shoes it was wearing. Something has to be done, even if it takes Autognomes.
This whole McGuffin gone miss'in thing has got my hairs on end! The way those poisonous greasy devils jump around got me to thinking about flexible stilts, maybe at an angle...I even dreamed about him. It was terrible. He looked gnaunt, dirty rags like a zombie. He looked like he wanted to say something, I know McGuffin is alive!
1:44 gnome subraces
3:30 whisper
4:06 the forgotten folk
23:40 forest gnomes make good rogues
The Gnomes have always been a beloved race in my opinion. I like putting them in parties with larger races and letting players decide how they’re gunna work out the size differences in fights and when exploring. One of the best things I’ve seen players do is have a Goliath character basically use a Gnome thief as an off hand weapon against a large creature. Swinging an axe in one hand and just kinda jabbing the Gnome at the creature with the other, letting her stab at it a few times without risking being instakilled by getting eaten.
Addition: They thought about using her as a projectile weapon but decided not to as being thrown like that might kill her if she missed the creature and hit a tree or boulder.
And _this_ is just one reason I _love_ Gnomes! 😂
Outstanding execution!
Gnomes are the most underrated race in DnD & Baldur's Gate 3.
I have a forest gnome ranger who is bewildered and excited by cities, she is just an adorable smol bean who is just too pure. The rest of her group is made up of a rock gnome rogue whose nickname is Badger, and a sverfneblin druid named Dandelion. Together they are the Gnomeforce!!!!!!!
Needs a fourth party member called Gnome Gnomeperson, a Goblin
Me have female half fey/half gnome with dragonfly wings. Annike half fey/half gnome druidess is.
after seeing this vid, I'm totally giving the Gnomes the Powerful Build racial trait!
"Powerful Build: You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift."
YODA WAS A SPACE GNOME! love it
Trollocs I always though of him as a Space Goblin.
What was that beginning song??
@@stevengossette9392
Diamonds by Rhianna, tuned to sound "gnomish." Which is a reference to the gnome creation: the first gnomes were born from gemstones.
I like him better as an Illithid.
Because of Gnome high strength relative to their mass, I allow Gnomes to have the same leap and sprint abilities as humans in my campaigns. They may have shorter limbs, but far better explosive movement capability. What inspired this point of view is that I was a player years before that and I created an acrobatic thief gnome. Our DM pondered it and made that a rule and it made sense, it still does. I created the character because the party had serious problem-solving types, no rogues, and no fun characters. Why not have a fun little guy who bounces about who is also a skilled burglar?
For sure, Pat Kilbane of the Dorks of Yore channel has a very good RPG science video on just that sort of thing, the power to weight ratio of the Gnomes and Halflings is much, much greater than their child-like statue suggests.
Okay, I just took your suggestion and watched his giant punch video. I was using stuff like this decades ago but not as in-depth. Thanks, AJ! I subscribed to him too!
Excellent :) Pat is producing an amazing documentary all about the origins of D&D, I have been keenly following it's progress as a patron of his.
NerdGasm time.
@@AJPickett Since my last post, I ran a game after altering Gnomes and Halflings accordingly. The response was 100% positive. People who normally favor Dwarves suddenly loved both Gnomes and Halflings just as much!
Halflings and gnomes are my favorite races there’s something about the small races that make them awesome
I love playing as kobolds. I find thier mentality fun to play. I think my favourite was a Kobold bard who mistook that burning hate she felt for gnomes as lust and would obsessively pursue every gnome she met.
I love how thorough you are. It amazes me how you ever get thumbs down...
Down votes mean nothing to me, they achieve exactly the same as an up vote actually, so..
*shrug*
doesn't bother me.
I'll be sad when the day comes that I have no down votes any more.
Pffff... that day will never come.
It's just I make my own videos and I know what goes into these so I have a respect for what you do as I know how difficult and time intensive they are to make.
The Cobolds disliked this video.
You just won a bunch of Gnome arguments for me, AJ Prickett. Thank you. We do have some arguments but with this one, we completely agree.
QorinHalfhand. Kobolds.
Wow, this is really weird guys I always thought I’d be maybe an elf or half orc in the dnd realm but no I’d definitely be a gnome
I'd be a dire halfling :)
lol, I've always told folks I'm a dire gnome.
The Svirvneblen is by far my favorite of the gnomish offshoots. The Tinker gnomes are great too!
In my campaign, gnomes are a surface dwelling offshoot of dwarves that have an affinity for wood working and above ground pursuits. Gnomish communities are usually located in close proximity to dwarven kingdoms where they work together in a mutually beneficial relationship.
That's how I ran them before I encountered the Faerun campaign setting.
I've placed them as a sort of hobbit like folk, except they're located under foot hills of mountains. Very secretive and hide their dwellings a lot.
I don’t think Gnomes get enough love. Thank you for the wealth of knowledge!
I have never felt more like a gnome, standing 6' tall; the forest gnome section sounds a lot like the sami/laplanders. They were notable tribe for being rogue-like hunters... can't ignore their hats either. Their 2nd door into their excavation being "the real door" is so very, very Terraria.
You and the Silent PH really do make good lore videos.
And Mr Rhexx and Dungeon Dad and Arcane Forge... there is a few of us :)
in my Campaign World, Gnomes are Giant Kin (along with Goliaths, Ogres, Trolls & Cyclops) and are divided in the Urban (Rock), Wild (Forest) & Deep (sub)races, which look totally different from one another.
the Urban Gnomes have made all the greater cities & look like Humans or Dwarves; the Wild Gnomes have all the same ability to talk to small (not just burrowing) animals, & look like their environments; Deep Gnomes are Deep Gnomes.
I'm using a gnome as a npc right now for my campaign and this video is very helpful for me to flesh out her character and backstory. Thank you and keep making these awesome videos. They really helped me in creating unique monster variants for my campaign or just for fun.
Most welcome!
Gnomes have grown on me the more I play them/learn about them! Thanks AJ!
Glad to hear!
As opposed to the Gnomes of Mount Nevermind, I'd say the others can actually build things efficiently and make them work without exploding.... :D
Hey now... explosions only happen 65% of the time.
Love your series!! I created a forest gnome monk in my lastest D&D 5e game that I am absolutely loving to play currently. I gave mine a more jovial type attitude as he is in his early 20's and he talks in riddles when spoken too. Using the UA playtest material, he has an affinity towards fire (spark of the phoenix). Starting out at Level 1 is pretty slow but I am certainly enjoying the character development and build up. Keep up the good work!
I'm playing a Forest Gnome folk hero, thief/druid and he is a blast to play, sneaky, a little bit reckless at times, perhaps over confident, but he gets into some very fun situations and always manages to move the story along in interesting ways.
AJ Pickett Ha! Love it!!
Wow, we've gone from so many to just three subraces. I've really fallen in love with the Rock Gnome of 5e. I really enjoy creating Rock Gnome characters.
Frederick Pagliarulo yeah, I do like how they slimmed it down to the essential three groups, keeps all the important stuff, eliminating the clutter. pretty much sums up 5th edition.
Y'know, with so many subterranean races being better at digging than Dwarves, one has to wonder why digging is a distinguishing feature about Dwarves. When everything surpasses your measuring stick, then you need a new measuring stick.
I never realized people hated on gnomes so much... Gnomes are awesome and make for great PCs and encounters. Do you guys even Gnome??
Thinking of a large wolverine or honey badger to be the very ornery mount, or maybe just pet of an equally mean gnome. Even the owl bears know to be weary.
Yeah, not all Gnomes are good hearted, and those who are inclined could perhaps form a bond with creatures of an evil bent, such as Displacer Beasts and Dire Weasels.
Guy Bob Owl bears know to be weary? That must be very tiring.
Dire weasel...... wouldn't want to find that in your pants.
My last gnome was in a GURPS fantasy game as an earth mage. Since having a high strength was also useful for fatigue points I threw a couple of his points into Brawling and bought a set of nice, heavy gauntlets. He was a terror in bar fights.
Yoda looks more like a goblin than a gnome.
I don't know where to submit this, but I would like to see one of these videos about halflings.
I think the main reasons the gnome race isn't as popular, is because people usually just imagine them as tiny old men with minor magical ability.
Most movies and fantasy material tend to use them as such. So it makes it hard to imagine them going out adventuring and fighting.
Personality I always imagine my gnome as a magical prankster. I can't remember what I watched in my childhood that inspired me to always make my gnomes like that
26:05 Are there any spells to grow a beard and scalp hair (Silverbeard only grows a beard)? I want to rp a Svirfneblin (sp?) that wants to get a proper gnome beard and hair. :P
hmmmm, there may be, I don't know.
A wild mages magic surge can give you a beard of feathers until you sneeze, or make your hair fall out (and grow back within 24 hours), but I don’t know of any others. You could always ask the dm to home brew something, though.
Alter self could do this easily, same thing with disguise self. Also there's the belt of Dwarvenkind which has the side effect of making any race that wears it grow a thick beard, but you could literally just make a magic item that allows you to do this if you work together with your DM, it's literally just a cosmetic effect so it shouldn't be too hard or expensive, but it may require an exotic material component like strands of dwarven beard. Which could be as lethal to get your hands on as any dragon scales...
What was that gnomish term at the beginning? "Mega Gamata?" (sp?)
Magga cammara
"by the stones"
@@AJPickett Also one of Bruenor Battlehammer's favorites.
I'm playing a forest gnome wizard who's one of my favorite characters in years.
Monster Ecology has blown my mind 🤯
If AJ ever renamed the channel, that is what he should rename it. Monster Ecology. But I kind of like the fact that it's named The Mighty Gluestick, and it should become a thing in D&D circles. For some reason, it still sounds like something you'd come across somewhere in DnD. The gnomish articifers shop, The Mighty Gluestick, for instance. XD
8:50. Whoa, I've never heard anyone make that distinction before in D&D. I actually really like it!
5 years before Wizards of the Coast caught up, I may add. pffft. And they STILL got it completely wrong.
I know this is an old video, but it really helped me out. Recently joined a campaign, and as someone who rarely plays Gnomes, I figured I'd give it a go.
Playing a Rock Gnome Order of Scribes Wizard. He's an archivist of sorts. Loves to research, catalogue, and safeguard magical items and artifacts. He doesn't really want the power, he just wants to open a museum. Outside of finding and cataloging magical items, he also has a psuedodragon that he's trying to figure out how to turn into a full dragon (purely to just protect his eventual museum).
Scribes Wizard is fun cause I like to just make all of his spells do bludgeoning damage. He has a bunch of pebbles for his sling that I flavor him using as mediums for his spells (take a pebble, do some magic, throw it as a "fireball" that does bludgeoning damage)
"Not everyone's favorite race"? You mean insane people? Gnomes are my favorite race by far, and should be everyone else's! Anyone who hates gnomes is merely an illusion
ah i like your pun good sir! I've been playing a gnomish barbarian with the path of the totem warrior and going for the bear totem, quite fun i might add
only fit for monster bait. filthy Gnome vermins
My kobold rogue would like a word with you
Twisted Tentacle Inn my favorite are the Elves.
The greatest race is Gnome
I dont understand how a species thats so inovative,that likes to enjoy life,to discover it,invent stuff ,... can be so unpoppular.
For whatever reason among the gnomes forest gnomes are my favorite. I don't know why, maybe it's the minor Illusion, maybe it's the talking to the animals. Either way my Forest gnome (rogue) Pirate will be interesting. Good video as always.
Mine as well.
When I look up Gnome I feel the need for something eccentric, either a friend of animals or an inventor. I did not know a lot about them, but on a whim I threw in a traveling gem merchant rock gnome who travels with 3 mastiffs , one as a mount and the other two as pack mules/bodyguards, and my players reacted well to the spunky girl who is good hearted but wary of people with those with no clear goals.
Deep Gnomes are a thing I have tried to come up with something interesting for. After deliberation I think some sort of thief (which I usually find boring) might be interesting, play up the expectation of expected neutral merchants to be a kleptomaniac little bugger, who has stolen or steals from all the dangerous Underdark races.
DuskyPredator deep Gnome character, now NPC, Shnikledik, cleric of Gelf Darkhearth, church of the broken anvil, steals objects of beauty or personal value to be smashed on the anvil in sacrifice to Gelf. As an NPC cleric he demands payment for divine services via player characters giving him treasured possessions he destroys in front of them before healing, removing affliction, divination or speaking with the dead. He's a merciless bastard but you can get his help even when you have no coin.
AJ I became a patron after I watched this because I use ad blocker and you deserve an income for the work you do.
I rely on your videos because I have dyslexia and I find your material very helpful
I appreciate it
I don't understand why there is such a common belief that gnomes have little to no mythic history. Gnomes are domovoi in my opinion (or boggans if you prefer). I tend to think of Rock gnomes as the major subrace that escaped the kobolds, with the forest and deep variations being those which escaped through the faedark / shadowdark respectively.
Thank you so much for your videos! Yours is one of my favorite channels and I learn so much that I can use in my campaigns or share with my players.
to clarify the differences in strength:
halving all of a creature's dimensions such as height will:
quarter strength as represented by the cross-sections of muscles and bones and quarter the potential area of contact between the creature and another surface; and
reduce the creature's weight by a factor of eight.
Think of a line, a square and a cube. While a gnome would still lack the actual strength for a thumb wrestle, they would gain proportional strength for acrobatics.
Yep
@@AJPickett This all also explains how a squirrel can fall from a tree and remain relatively unharmed but, if an ogre fell from the same tree, it might not fare so well. Maybe this is why ogres don't climb trees
Always loved Gnomes - played many of them over the years, in 1st/2nd Edition AD&D ...
Also aj. Would you consider doing an episode on Lantan. It has so few details, even a brief dive into speculation on ecosystem history and governance structure would be amazing. Keep up the good work
My freind was a barbarian gnome.
That is such an amazing combo, especially with gnome cunning. Magic saves are an achilles heel for barbarians and gnomes get advantage on all of them!
similar to halflings...speaking of which....could you do halflings? if its not to much trouble
Well I suppose I have to now! All these player races, I didn't expect them to be so popular. :)
Good video. Although I have basically replaced the deep gnomes with my own race in game because mechanically they play very similar and live in a similar environment.
"As usual we're going to go deep into the lore of the gnomes."-Balls Deep in the gnomes you could say. HAHA...I am terrible.
If I were a species I would be a Gnome. I don't need titles I just need a comfortable home, fun, good drink, beauty and a good book.
"Fen and the Every Path" ... The Adventures of Fen the Gnome Ranger .... It changed the way i thought about gnomes....
Do Forest Gnomes Get along with wood Elfs.
yes
The best race in D&D
Thank you SO MUCH for this extensive video on Gnomes! I'm currently making a gnome city for my campaign & this has helped A LOT
You're very welcome!
Gnomes are by far my favorite race. I don't understand those who hate. I guess I do. I feel that way about Dwarves.
That was quite an extensive dive into the lore of gnomes. Thank you
love all the videos :) Have you done Mephits yet on the channel?
Adding them to the list!
Thank you, that's really nice of you :) Looking forward to it!
Love your content! You're the best! This is my obligatory content to improve your results in the UA-cam algorithm. :) ❤
Thanks AJ. I've only briefly played one gnome (badly), and my players never pick them. You've helped make them much more interesting to me, and I'll give them another shot. :)
so as a general rule are they like wow gnomes or are they built like small humans or is that halflings? or rather how do they differ i honestly don't know i only recently got into dnd
They are a bit taller than Halflings, but weigh about the same.
Thanks again sir! As seems usual you are on track with insights and info I need.
Thanks, glad to hear it! If you like Deep Gnomes, you may like the next guys I have lined up for next weeks monster vid.
They might not be most people's favorite, but they are my favorite race to play. I love tiny badasses.
> "Gnomes, not everybody's favourite race..."
You take that back or I shall show you GNO-MERCY!
Gnomes are surprisingly fascinating.
Good video, one thing though. When you get to a certain point of weight it doesn't matter how light you are, you still take full damage from falling or being thrown. It works for insects because they have exoskeletons, and many weigh less than a gram; but throwing a child across a room would do the same damage as if you were able to throw an adult with the same force.
I may have a tricky lore query…. Since we know that most academic recordkeeping is done in gnomish… What is the gnomish unit of measurement?… What do they call it? Is it gnomtric?
personally enjoyed how th gnomes were depicted in dragonlance was somewhat humorous
yeah, I devoured those books :)
I’m interested in playing a river gnome, were can I get information on playing one?
I never actually thought about that... Now to somehow work the "two gnomes in a trenchcoat" trick into my next campaign...
Or even better, I could get my simulacrum to carry my character, for better coordination.
I thought it was impossible, but you've made gnomes interesting.
YES! That is the very best I hoped for with this video :D
Thank you for letting me know.
Do the Gn'elf and Gn'oblin next.
*""Hello me old chum! I'm not a Gn'elf! I'm not a Gn'oblin! I'm a Gn'ome! And you've been GNOME'D!"*
So, I'm currently playing a halfling and I was hoping you could post a bid about them.
That’s a good thumbnail.
I basically always try to either play a gnome or a kobold, depending on the campaign I sometimes branch out and play a svirf. I like svirfneblin because their more cynical and yet fun loving nature matches my own.
I loved the gnome( I think it was a gnome) in neverwinter nights, shame they played it like everyone thought his stories were boring his romance would be better than the Boring casavir lol
Great video, very helpful. thanks so much
Great video! Starting a Deep Gnome character and this helps me a lot.
always wondered about the difference in existence/creation/emergance between a dragonborn & a cobolt. but as for humans & gnomes, who would win that bar fight?
Rewatching gnomes, leaving a comment to feed the algorithm.
" Rats of Nimh," seen just before my 6th birthday.
Psionic wererats, leaving in over size rose bushes like Elf Quest elves plant/tree shapers.
2.) With WotC 3e in my playing group campaign settings forest gnomes are all druid/wizards with Hats of Disguise/ alteration to hide in plain sight as small/oversize mushrooms just sitting around. Average teenage adventuring gnome is rogue2/druid3/wizard3, CR: 8 with maybe a few levels of sorcerer and bard. Adults are average CR:12 up to CR:15 with numerous minor magic items. They are very Fae like.
b.) Red Caps are just murderous gnomes that have three or more levels of rogue and ham string their victims and slowly stalk them over a few days.
c.) My teenage 13yo cousins ran many as rogue3/bard3 pick pocks in the forest.
d.) Smurfs, fighting against a giant with an oversize house cat.
3.) 3e CR xp adjustment for PC character level, so giant spiders with CR6 will still give a few hundred xp to 12th-level PCs.
Less high heroic adventure and more cartoon fairy tale games.
In D&D I like the gnomes. In World of Warcraft... they should be the main ingredient in all cooking recipes. Can't stand the WoW gnomes.
They are the only Alliance race I do like. Then again they also double as a handy snack whenever my undead rogue needs to regain health in a hurry...
If that first Gnome fired that cannon she carried the recoil would send her just about as far backwards as the cannonball went forward. More of an escape device/weapon as when the smoke cleared she would of disappeared.
I point of irony. Kobolds (REAL kobolds) are German Gnomes and are not reptilian (they just look like scruffy Gnomes), so it's funny that Gnomes and Kobolds (Gnomes) are hated enemies. One of the tragic effects of TSR either not understanding what a Kobold was or recreating them entirely.
In my campaign world Kobolds are a sub-race of Gnome mining away in the mountains of what would be equivalent to Northern Europe in climate, and naturally have nothing to do with dragons, sorcery or reptiles. I am a traditionalists in this respect and as a result many traditional D&D creatures don't make the cut.
1800's Victorian fairy tales, ..
" The king of the gnomes was named Gob, and all of his followers were called .. Goblins. "
"cough, cough," .. deep gnomes mine .. goblin silver .. to create blue steel.
Plot point in my games I ran since AD&D2ndE from the early 1990's if a gnome collects a thousand gp and place all of them into a cooking pot, a " crock," they naturally gain 1st-level illusionist abilities. Once they collect 7,000gp they gain Limited Wish. More or less gnomes in my campaign are " Leprechauns."
Also in my 3rdE settings I stick with the more .. fairy tale .. for non humans. From gnomes, goblins, to ogres I multiclass them as rogue3/sorcerer4, so all of them can turn Invisible and Alter Self. " cough, " ... traditionally gnomes are illusionist/ druids waging war against goblin sorcerer/ druids with a lot of trash talking. Since in D&D goblins age to death by 40 years, they are in a state of reincarnation and reattuning their souls to new bodies. So a 3rd-level sorcerer goblin will run around with a cantrip Wand of Spoil Milk
effect or use Plant Growth to cover a farmer's garden/ grain fields with weeds. A gnome using Haste will function more as a Time Compression Field as he milks a farmer's cow in the early morning.
Due to the number of Earth's Spider totem/ gods that function as trickster/dream walkers, I find it hard that so many players can't grasp drow could still worship or work with another spider deity other than Lolth. " Earth/ cave/deep/dark elves " that live in crystal caves visiting/ plaguing human dreams with the Dream/ Nightmare spell seems to be something more to deal with than a bunch of Lolth priestess bickering with each other and only doing a surface raid once every few decades.
With 3rdE , .. CR system if you make multiple Search / Spot checks and catch eight toads( CR:1/8)/frogs you earn 300xp. from PC character levels 1st to 4th. So running a game with a bunch of young teenagers PC deep gnomes chasing down cave lizards/ toads to make alchemy potions is a way to pass the time. A steam vent lizard could grant a metamagic feat bonus to the potion use, without using a high spell slot.
@@krispalermo8133 You really have to scrap a lot of what TSR/WotC has made with traditional myth and lore, they really drop the ball a lot. For those of us who want to play in a world of authentic or traditional fantasy it is impossible to do without changing what the core game is.
@@level9drow856 Very true. Anything from TSR/WotC and you end up with a lot of home brewing, but ..
Authentic or traditional fantasy is also period frame in a given location when such .. fairy tale .. legends takes place.
Back in the 1990's as a teenager before a good working internet was around, I still had to go through printed books with a lot of cultural bias just to look up anything on Wicca or other forms of witchcraft. Turn out my German born extend family members were from the lesser petty nobility and were in charge of forest management for timber, hunting and to keep other families from traveling through the forest to make cattle raids. Along with being part of blood feuds and minor civil war during the 1800's.
Since my family were forest wardens they were also Keeper of the Hounds, which is also an Angrboda wolf cult. Surprise, surprise, a group of hardcore Lutherans turn out to be a bunch of pagan witches. Their house spirits are Jotun other than the Aser. Swabian/ Prussian have their own family takes on German myths. And they refer to themselves as .. druids . And they were nothing like the Wicca style druids I was reading in the books current in the early 1990's. Some of those old WW II German veterans were scary to be around, and those mean azz 70 year old German women could just look at you and put the Fear of G*D in your bones.
2.) Greek Medusa and her Gorgon sisters.
a.) Basic myth of Medusa and Poseidon being a bad boy. And Athena turning Medusa into a monster as punishment.
b.) Older myth, Medusa was turn into a monster so she could have revenge on Poseidon and hunt his mortal children.
c.) Another older myth, Medusa and her sisters were already snake like monsters and Medusa was given a Stone Glare when she was made a guardian of a given island.
d.) The question I had since I was a grade school age child was, " Was Medusa pregnant with Poseidon's child/ children ?"
e.) 25 years ago my first game let us run monstrous PCs and I PC more than a few AD&D2ndE medusa characters, with male variants and had some very epic heroic deaths.
3.) Old 1970's Marvel comics, " Tales of Asgard."
Which makes a fun Spelljammer/ Planescape campaign setting. We also crossed it into WotC 3rdE system of magic, psionics, and Star Wars RPG.
Any campaigns, or game styles you like to share will be nice to read about ?
So what you're telling me is that all gnomes have ADHD. That tracks.
Would gnomes become or join slaver groups? I just wanted to know because of my half-orc druids character's backstory.
What was the opening song for the video?
Jonathan Wells all music used is listed in the "the music used" playlist on my channel home page.
Who are better miners dwarves or gnomes? And who are better smiths?
Kobolds are the best miners, some races even employ them to as diggers, as for smiths it depends as each race has there own stile.
Wouldn't half gnomes be just as common as half-elves and such? Or does the magical influence of the feywild make elves easier to cross breed with?
Sorry, can't even stomach a theoretical debate about that.... ugh!
@@AJPickett that's fair 🤣
Would you please make a video on mephits?
They are most certainly on my list, and I just gave them a bump up for you.
What I learned in this video:
Santa "elves" are just gnomes.
20:40 .. picture is very Elf Quest comic for Wolf Riders.
What is that track in the beginning of this video AJ? It sounds like a remix of Rihanna, and I REALLY want the full track.
hey just wondering im creating a wizard and i saw this in the phb and didn't know if i had 2 spell slots or 4 cuz my inteligence is 17
"You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so. choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level"
but in the spell slot table its says 2
when your prepare a spell your are saying that out of your list of spells you want to be able to cast these ones until your next long rest, after your next long rest you can switch out as many spells as you want with spells you have learned.
Whisper gnome Beguiler/rogue was the best guy I ever played in D&D :p
My problem with gnomes is that they overlap too much with other highly humanoid races, especially halflings and dwarves, even their sadly underused tinkering aspect often overlaps with that of goblins
I feel like its redundant to add gnomes if you already have dwarves and halflings, at least if you go about them in the way the D&D canon describes them, they need a lot of effort from the GM to make them feel like their own thing
Enchanting and beautiful beings
Now I gotta play a Gnome that talks like Yoda I can do a perfect Yoda voice and also a Macho Man Randy Savage voice. Ever want to hear Macho Man , Yoda , and Mr T talk to each other well I can do that.
Excellent, one of the many skills of the dungeon master.
TheDragonlanceGnomesaremyfavorite.
Hisssssss.
Do they have the Sidhe in D20? Could you do a vid on them?
I don't know how to tell Gnomes this but I was just looking at Grung character art and most of them are wearing Gnome clothes! I swear I seen one wearing McGuffin's sweater...I don't know who's shorts or shoes it was wearing. Something has to be done, even if it takes Autognomes.
"Gnomes didn't stand for it when the Kolbold tried, and I won't stand for it now!"
This whole McGuffin gone miss'in thing has got my hairs on end! The way those poisonous greasy devils jump around got me to thinking about flexible stilts, maybe at an angle...I even dreamed about him. It was terrible. He looked gnaunt, dirty rags like a zombie. He looked like he wanted to say something, I know McGuffin is alive!
I swear, I seen one leap more than 50 foots!
in the mystara setting ,
there is a gnomish alfabet in the northen reaches gazeeter