Gnomes are in wide demand as alchemists, inventors, and technicians, though most prefer to remain among their own kind in simple comfort. Gnomes adore animals, gems, and jokes, especially pranks. They love to learn by personal experience, and are always trying new ways to build things. Gnomes stand 3 to 3 1/2 feet tall, with skin that ranges from dark tan to woody brown. Their hair is fair, and their eyes are often some shade of blue. Gnomes generally wear earth tones, but decorate their clothes intricately. Males favor carefully-trimmed beards. Gnomes live 350 to 500 years.
Gnomish ability adjustments: +2 constitution, -2 strength
Favored class (wizard): A multiclass gnome's wizard class does not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing.
Special abilities[]
- Hardiness vs. illusions: +2 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting spells.
- Offensive training vs. reptilians: +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against reptilian humanoids.
- Offensive training vs. goblinoids: +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears).
- Defensive training vs. giants: +4 dodge bonus to AC against giants.
- Skill affinity (listen): +2 racial bonus to listen checks.
- Skill affinity (concentration): +2 racial bonus to concentration checks.
- Spell focus (illusion): Gnomes add +2 difficulty class to any illusion spells they cast. This counts as the feat so characters are able to select greater spell focus (illusion) at first level.
- Low-light vision: Allows them to see better than normal in the dark.
- Small stature: Gnomes are small creatures, giving them some benefits and drawbacks.
- +1 size modifier to attack rolls.
- +1 size modifier to armor class.
- +4 size bonus to standard stealth and detection checks (modifies hide, listen, move silently, and spot).
- Cannot use tower shields.
- Cannot use large weapons.
- At character creation, choosing a package other than the default may give gnome characters starting equipment or weapon-related feats (at any level) that they cannot use.
PC default biography[]
"Your curiosity has always led you into strange and dangerous circumstances, and now you find yourself outside the close circle of your clan, surrounded by humans and other races. Your guess is that more strange adventures are on their way."
Notes[]
- Often stereotyped as crazed inventors with a diet of turnips.
- Stereotypically, gnomes speak incredibly fast, often illustrated as a string of text with no spaces.
- The NWN gnome is a rock gnome. There are two other subraces in the Forgotten Realms — forest gnomes and deep gnomes (also known as svirfneblin).