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For me, Gnomes are akin to Elven halflings, whereas actual Halflings are tied more to humanity. Rock Gnomes are a sect or culture who found themselves allied with Dwarves, grew beards and took up tinkering. Whereas Forest Gnomes are the original sect, who have been cut off from the Feywild and now take care of nature/animals.

The wholesome love of Gnomes ive been reading in the comment section makes me happy.

Why don't gnomes have homelands? They're gnomadic

Are you kidding me? Gnomes rule! They have all the coolest features of halflings, elves, and dwarves...

Stumbled upon what has become my favourite way to see Gnomes when someone once made a "all the best stuff comes from Gnomeland" joke. If you look at them like people have looked at the Japanese, suddenly they become a lot more interesting. The outside world views them as either wild inventors at the forefront of technology (your Rock Gnome artificers) or staunch spiritual traditionalists (your Forest Gnome wizards and druids) - reality is, while those two "groups" have strong places in the culture, it's hugely more diverse than that and many Gnomes can get quite exasperated when people keep assuming they fit in one group or the other ("Hey, Gnome warrior buddy, be a sport and calm this bear down will ya? You're one of those types, right?"). Transplant over ideas of erasure (everyone always steals ideas from Japanese/Gnommish culture while forgetting they exist) and you've got a fairly easy template for how they fit into the world.

In my world, gnomes were made by the gods right at the end of the universe, and they sent them slowly back in time to fix the errors of the universe, so their barrens will occasionally jump back in time as they both try to mechanically and naturally repair the world. I call them "time sick" and it makes them unique enough to stand out while still fitting into the world.

My favorite race, what up gnomies!?

Lantan is the name of the place where forgotten realms gnomes live. They protect their high tech from outsiders. The island is near chult.

There's no race like gnome

Excellent gnomenclature, gnomesayin'.

Guys there’s this weird audio glitch in the video where it sounds like you’re saying all these negative things about Gnomes while praising Halflings, when clearly you mean to praise Gnomes and say negative things about Halflings.

You're saying they're from... Gnome Man's Land?

I love to play as gnomes myself. One of my favorite characters I've ever made was a 5e forest gnome monk of shadows named Gillimead. He would serve as a scout for the party since we didn't have a rogue or a ranger. He would communicate with the small animals and then slink in and out of shadows knocking out people to help clear a path for his party members. I especially remember in the early stages, when I didn't have the power to teleport via shadows to get to high ground, I would ask our fighter to throw me up to places and prayed he rolled high. I face planted a lot of walls that campaign.

Can't really say that I understand your connection between gnomes and halflings. Sure, both are short, but that's really about where the similarities end. I think of gnomes as intrinsically magical and elf-like in many ways, while halflings are just short humans that like to chill out. If anything, I'd say the gnomes are more connected to elves, especially when you think of elves as the small kind in santa's workshop.

I LOVE Gnomes! Gnomes are fantastic, and they provide great stories! I love my Gnome Champion who uses a Longsword as a Great Weapon! I enjoy your shows, but I have never disagreed so much! In my Campaign there are enclaves of Gnomes who live just like humans, but there are also powerful gnome merchants, and an infamous gnome assassin who "everyone" knows about but has never seen.....

Finally, my preferred playable race. I love these little guys. 💕

I definitely see gnomes thriving in harsh environments. They only need a fraction of a food a hob- er- I mean, _halfling_ would need, so I could see Gnome communities popping up in arctic or arid lands -- coming and going with the seasons and wild game. Desert Gnomads, if you will.

Watching this 3 years after it's published, and immediately scoffing at the Gnome minimization and conflating them with Halflings. The Gnome erasure will not stand!

I built a unique place into my world for the gnomes. Namely, when the ancient times of my world violently ended, their finest mages locked their people into a deep slumber and shunted their magical, wondrous city into a demiplane until things stabilized. The unintended side-effect was that the gnomes awoke in modern times with serious amnesia, and have been rediscovering themselves ever since. The forest gnomes, essentially bred to be gardeners and farmers for the massive cities of the ancient past, went out into the world to cultivate and nurture, while the rock gnomes took their analytical, computational, and inventive skills and made a sophisticated society that fulfills most of the world's mathematical and scientific pursuits.

Waiting for the day one or both of you guest on Critical Role!

No mention of Gar Glittergold :(

In my party, the leader is a gnome assassin. And she is terrifying! She's the hardest hitter and I think she's the only one in the party who hasn't been knocked unconscious at least once

The Gnomes in my homebrew world are obsessed with perfect shapes. They carved down their mountain to the 'perfect shape' as viewed by their leader. Unfortunately this often means they have to build new homes when a new leader comes into power. The leader who thought spheres were perfect didn't last very long. He was crushed by the mountainous sphere at the opening ceremony when a really strong gust of wind came through. (And yes, they're tinker gnomes)

This is great inspiration for my wizard tinker gnome, Cleophrastus Bombastus!

I think the difference in treatment between gnomes and halflings really boils down to the effect of Lord of the Rings. When you say halfling, people think Frodo and Sam trudging through Mordor, being all emo about their burden. When people hear gnome, they think weirdos that make shoes for stressed out shoemakers. Halflings have the luxury of being associated immediately with a serious fantasy story like the Lord of the Rings while gnomes are just those porcelain statues old people put in their gardens. That or gnomes in stories. Like Rumplestiltskin. Was he a gnome? Sure has a name of one. That sort of image is one that I like. Gnomes being these fey creatures that can be both helpful and malicious. It's that fairytale flair that I love. Never know what to expect from a gnome.

That thumbnail is amazing

It's older than Critical Role. One of the 3.5 iconics was a gnome bard.

Finally! I’ve been checking all day! Love you guys!

Pretty sure the Gnome bard thing started in 3rd Edition, with favored classes and everything.

I'm playing a 700 year old gnome named Jeffery right now. his goal is to become a lich. he's made a deal with graz'zt to learn the lichdom ritual. Now his eyes are pure red. it's fun

Was waiting for this. You guys gnome so well!

I had a 2'4" Forest Gnome spell casting bandit that used a 6' tall +1 trident that allows him to breathe underwater. He is one of my favorite characters in 35 years of gaming! I played many gnomes(most illusionists) in 2E!

"Nome. Alaska". Took me a moment, but I gnome a good pun when I hear one.

Weird, it seems like you somehow think that gnomes and halflings are basically the same thing, but that can't be right. Right?

In my current homebrew, I use halflings as half-human half-dwarf, and gnomes as half-dwarf half-elf. The dwarves are heavily influenced by the divine, and elves by the arcane, which is the source for the gnomes' strange, esoteric themes. This was largely built out of both the desire for more half-breed characters, and generally having no real justification for gnomes. While half-elves and halflings breed true, half-orcs and gnomes are mules, as a backhand way of shoehorning their rarity in.

I really like eberron Gnomes. they’re assassins creed 2 davincis. italian inventors with venice as their capital, but are unsuspectfully stabby and have their secrecy

This one's for my gnomies (pours out his drink)

I love Gnomes. Comedic badass sounds like the perfect description of every hero id love to play. Glad you guys gave em a fair shake!

That's great and all... . . . . But what about the dragonborn?

You guys are THE nerds haha. Love your show, keep em coming! Thanks guys!

In my world Gnomes are explorers and researchers, that run the Research Commission from this huge modernized (up to current tech levels in my world) city, that lies at the bottom of a giant green valley. They often send researchers and ambassadors to other lands for political and exploratory purposes.

Someday, I shall play a gnome barbarian named Tottleby Tempertoss. I wish for him to be thrown at his enemies.

Thank you for your love of David the Gnome! Had to sign along with you at the end, lol. And your gnome paladin sounds awesome, Jim! I love going against type. For my first 5e character, I made myself a gnome warlock of the archfey - her village makes a lot of druids, but she encountered an archfey on her druid training and...oopsie, warlock! In 3.5, I had a gnome bard and a gnome sorcerer/rogue/gnomish trickster. I don't get the gnome hate. They're awesome!

Gnomes from the Dragonlance/Warcraft standpoint always end up in my campaigns. It’s always fun describing a gnome hut/settlement and seeing my players faces range from “Interesting!” to “Is this safe?”

Well you be covering the Races in Volos Guide to Monsters? I think covering them could give you more video ideas & maybe people haven't heard of them.

Gnomes in forgotten realms are from island of Lantan, and they were the quintessential steampunk gnomes, long before WOW popularized it.

My fiercest character was a mad gnome sorcerer barbarian living on my DMs frozen moon of a setting. Talifergen Screamingwhisper aka Tali would axe murder you if you couldn't convince him you weren't a goblin spy... Gnomes were split into village and barbarian gnomes in his world thanks to my character concept, it was super fun and he went from 1st to 18th level before getting imprisoned in a cursed coin at the end of our campaign.

Worth a like purely for the thumbnail alone! Love you guys!

Starting a campaign today with a STR-based rock gnome fighter, and love your forest gnome paladin and lots of the other ideas in here. Cheers!

I loved my gnome gunslinger... Rock gnome, Artisan, Artificer gunslinger... I handled picking locks, finding traps, identifying magic items, appraising loot, and smithing

Very good content! Really like it! :D

I know that a lot of people see gnomes as a joke... So I made a custom setting in which there is an empire or rock gnomes that employs steam punk technology and black gunpowder guns to conquer other kingdoms...

Gnomes > halflings every damn time

Gnome more races after this one?

Frodo is to Halflings, as leprechauns are Gnomes. As a Brit, I think of Gnomes as Irish, Halflings as Welsh, Dwarves as Scotish, and Elves as from the Isles (Jersey, Man, Wight, etc).

I don't like halflings, but Gnomes are the best.

i play a deep gnome cleric (light domain) in AL and i love it! thanks for all the great videos! :-)

One thing I love about gnomes is that they actually pick names for when they venture out based on how fun they are to say. In their own homes, each person has a different name for everyone who knows them. I love them.

I just joined my first party and semi-randomly picked the forest gnome. This conversation was really thought provoking. Thanks!

Gnomes fit in as a technologically advanced race

In the Forgotten Realms, Gnomes come from the island of Lantan.

Gnomes are my favorite. They are funny, fun, happy, good hearted, curious, intelligent, magical and just awesome.

I think this is the first time I noticed the Crown Royal dice bag, classic!

It was cool to see you film this with some of your actual fans in the background!

My group has played two gnomes and they were two of my favorite characters we've had.

As a first time player setting up my first character I'm super glad the gnomes were in the book I borrowed. I enjoy their characteristics and subraces

I used to be very critical of Gnomes which in retrospect is bizarre, my current PC is a deep gnome wizard and I'm having an absolute blast. Love all the content guys it's excellent

thanks for the david the gnome recommendation, helps to keep my druid gnome(from another system, not playing d&d at the moment) a bit more cheerful^^

David the gnome is a lovely animated series. Loved it!

Gnomes advantage on half of all magical saving throws is pretty dang nuts. They are cool

Touching on that was said about gnomes being caretakers of little things: I play them as the more intellectual of the races, specifically for knowledge and/or secrets. In my campaigns, gnomes are known for their treatises, libraries, and highly sought as scribes and mediators. This plays towards them as tinkerers (mechanical knowledge most don't know), critter protectors (bonding with little creatures that most overlook and finding strength and resourcefulness), and as illusionists (whereas most favor more direct or practical magic).

Love your content! You're the best! This is my obligatory content to improve your results in the KZfaq algorithm. :) ❤

My first character was a gnome, which I ran from 1st to 11th level in 2nd Edition AD&D. Our DM had made us roll for race. Ugh. In AD&D being a certain race meant you were restricted to certain classes, so in addition to being a crappy gnome, I had to be an Illusionist instead of (what I perceived to be) a more powerful Evoker. There was nothing I could do but play what i was given, so I grudgingly got into playing my "weak" illusion spells with my dumb gnome and quickly found that I was the most powerful character in the party. Minor illusions allowed us to avoid combat, use traps against enemies, sow dissension and generally wreak havoc. I started to really get into roleplaying the mischevious nature of the Gnomish and devising ever more creative ways of using my illusions and consequently had the most fun i have ever had playing DnD with that character. He is still my favourite charcter i have ever played. Don't knock a gnome til you've tried one.

Gnomes in my setting are shadowfell beings created by a race of technologically advanced inter-cosmic nomads to be assistants and servants. They were simply left around after that race harvested what they needed from the prime material. That race was basically a master race of Halflings from a universe where halflings conquered every known race on each plane. Dwarf tech is based on Gnome tech.

I like the race videos you guys are throwing down. They provide some interesting perspectives and inspiration. In my setting Gnomes actually play a pretty critical role (no pun intended). They are the magic savants, not the elves. In order to stop the advance of the Dwarven Hordes (mentioned in the Dwarf video comment) they set off a "Atomic Bomb". Essentially the Mana Bomb from WoW but much like in our own WWII, they weren't entirely aware of the scope of its effect and it has created a world wide instability in the flows of magic, creating pockets/bubbles where magic doesn't act reliably, opening portals to different planes, etc.

David the Gnome! I loved that show man, it was so cool and so weird. To me Rock Gnomes are culturally related to Dwarves but distinct from them. They live in the same communities as dwarves and are generally the artisans at the end of the mining, processing cycle. No one makes a better blade than a gnome, or jewelry that can kill you, or an automated forge so the dwarves can produce all those epic axes. In general Gnomes have no homeland of their own and are an entire race of refugees. This is because their hubris was nearly the entire world's undoing. Once they had the most marvelous city. It was a techno-magical marvel and they were the centre of knowledge while humans were still scraping two rocks together and trying to make fire. The city of golden spheres floated in the caldera of an active volcano and harnessed its energy to power their magical experiments. At the end these involved long distance transportation through the voids between worlds without crossing space. Long story short things went very, very wrong. The city collapsed sinking into the earth and disappearing into the underdark , all of their knowledge was lost and they put the world in great peril. Because of this some decided to reject their technological ways and return to the old ways of caring for nature and being one with the land. Others craved a return to their glory and pursue that ancient knowledge one invention at a time. The deep gnomes, those who sank with the lost city, were enslaved by the denizens of the underdark and became a grim folk who think only of survival and do not dream of the workings of the universe. Except for the deep gnomes it is custom for few gnomes to congregate in large numbers for fear their natures will spur on an explosion of creative drive and they will rocket towards calamity again. Some still dream of finding the lost city, its gleaming orbs containing the lost knowledge of the gnomes. Others think it is better it stays lost if it ever existed at all.

Gnome druid is a great build. My guy Fafersch once turned into a brown bear grappled the bugbear warchief dragged him off, them through him into lava. Just having that option of for a fastball special is worth so much.

The way Gnomes are depicted in path finder are great.

really? I akin them to Elves and Goblins far more than halflings, outside size. fey connection, often trapped on the material plane for 1000's of years. mine are typically all magical crazy tinkers, a step closer to the wild and erratic Fey side. a sort of 'elves adapted themselves to thier new world, gnomes try to adapt the new world to the whimsy of the fey.' without going to the full wild extent of satyrs and pixies and such.

I came up with a forest gnome nature cleric and I love him.

Gnomes are from Hardbuckler! Just east of the Trielta Hills!

I just recently added my younger brother into my D&D campaign and he plays as a gnome. He's a very excitable and energetic rock gnome, ranger with the new Monster Slayer archetype. He uses magic to debuff and negate the monsters attacks as well as give others an advantage. He then uses his tinkering ability to craft small devices such as net launchers, grappling hook, and mini flame throwers to deal some damage. It gets really fun in moments like fighting fire giants, when he crawls around on them Dealing mass damage. While the goliath barbarian struggles to stay alive. Gnomes are defiantly an awesome race to play. Its just one of those things you have to get creative with in D&D

In my world I've gone with gnomes as a race of engineers as a sort of extension on the tinkering trope. They are relatively reclusive, and both exist as a later of mystery to the world and as a tool to handwave away why certain things like airships and trains exist.

One of the things that always makes my day is Jim's excited face while Pruitt is doing the intro. It's the personification of :D

I kind of see gnomes as the condensed version of larger races. Like race concentrate. All the foresty magic of the elves is boiled down into a forest gnome. All the craftiness of the dwarf is distilled down into a rock gnome. Which is what you would expect from a Fey race... one aspect of a thing, taken to almost absurd levels.

i have a forest gnome druid circle of the shepherd and he is AWESOME

Hello from a year and a half into your future! I know I'm late to the party, but since Gnomes are my favourite D&D race I feel the need to come to their defense: I think it's fairly easy to define Gnomes from Halflings by two distinct traits... Firstly they're far more industrious. Forest Gnomes, from the tradition of the Kabouter/Klabauter, might be fey-like guardians of nature but they'd still make regular use of non-destructive technologies like watermills and windmills. They need that infrastructure because to my mind they're not simply acting on a whim, pulling the occasional thorn from an infrequent rabbit's foot; instead they're running clinics to treat and heal *all* the small creatures of the forest; they're organising working-bees to help *all* the squirrels store enough acorns for a long winter; they're farming giant mushroom-houses in situ, growing whole villages in new forest copses; etc. Similarly the Rock Gnomes aren't carving out enormous caverns like the Dwarves do; they're not building Moria. They mine carefully and purposefully, in pursuit of rare elements. They don't treat the pickaxe as some kind of noble artifact, and mining for them is just a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Hell, it's a job for drilling automatons wherever possible... The ends are all those fantastical things which Gnomes can create from the rare minerals and gems they recover from the earth. The second trait, which Jim seems to have hit on, is that Gnomes always struck me as natural riders. They're more like Rohirrim or Dothraki at 1/4 scale than they are Halflings or Dwarves... Again, in my mind and in my homebrew this is because they always feel compelled to compensate for their small stature when dealing with the larger races. They're just as intelligent, just as capable, and yet I always imagine how hard it must be to feel like someone is taking you seriously when you only come up to their knees. So Forest Gnomes ride forest creatures: Wolves, Deer, Eagles, Goats, etc. Their children grow up riding foxes and squirrels, and it's all done in a reciprocal pact with those creatures, not through domestication or subjugation. Rock Gnomes might ride in automatons, warforged, auto-mobile carts or clockwork spiders, etc. But in both cases, whenever they're in a position to deal with the larger races I imagine they'd favour any conveyance which puts them at or near an eye-level between 4ft-5ft. [EDIT] In my homebrew setting it's the Rock Gnomes that invent blackpowder. It's still their exclusive technology, and it gives them a class of ranged weaponry equivalent to heavy crossbows and longbows. This has granted them a kind of independent military parity which they'd previously lacked... But it's their effort to share this technology with their Forest brethren which is creating a schism with the other fey races. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, is the further idea that the Forest Gnomes unknowingly hold the key to the future development of nitrocellulose smokeless powder. :)

In my campaign world (that currently is only in my head) Rock gnomes (or crag gnomes) are the creators of the warforged and have a clockpunk aesthetic instead of the steampunk dwarfs. They were an island nation and had a civil war that ended with effectively a magical nuke going off shattering the island.

Keith Baker did the Eberron gnomes a solid: Zil assassin culture, the Trust, Mark of Scribing dragonmarked house, and now the seafaring Lorghalan gnomes with a lost island vibe, but elementals. What’s not to love?

Much like your Gnome Paladin, I played a Knight that was a Gnome Fighter named Pipwhistle Dragonstone who opened every fight with a Rod of Wonder before spurring his wardog mount into the fray. Also, I kinda feel like the enemies of the Goblins might be Dwarves, but when you want to build in perfect animosity with Kobolds you go Gnomes. When Tucker's Kobolds are mining into your settlement and attacking you want a contingent of Breachgnomes to hold the line and go into those tunnels. They're the only PC race that stands a chance.

13:00 Gnomes are from Lantan, the great temples and workshops of Gond, etc. etc.

Haflings smoke weed, gnomes build robots

A beautiful and tragic story of a gnome? Burt Reynolds esq. #themeatmancometh

In my homebrew campaign, Gnomes have one of the largest empires in the world. Despite them taking the smallest continent as their own, they technically have the largest due to how far the dig into it. Forst gnomes come from the surface forests, rock gnomes from the cities to the coast and deep gnomes from deeper down. My players have majoritivly only been playing in this continent, which means that theyre all about 2ft taller than all the other humanoids around them. Also, their origin is that they were created by the first fey lords who colognised the material plane as servants. The forest gnomes were those who remained slaves the longest, and the other two escaped deep into the ground to escape their servitude.

Scanlan Shorthalt from Critical Role definitely confirms what Jim said early on that they just feel like another halfling. Scanlan is gnome only in name, but typical halfling bard through and through!

The gnome actually might be my favorite of the races because of that, as you say, fey-type association. As for the idea of a gnome bard archetype, the 3e PHB has bard as the gnome's favored class (back when that was a thing). I'm actually playing a gnome bard right now, and it's given me a fantastic role playing opportunity. In my homebrew campaign setting, gnomes are Irish-inspired, so I tied that in with the gnome's inventive and tinker-ish nature in such a way that he "invented" what in the real world are Uilleann pipes. Can't wait to see your video on dragonborn. You guys are awesome.

engywook and urgl from the neverending story are to me the best example of ingenious, clever and utterly crazy gnomes. With this in mind, I can define quite clearly the distinction between them and the halflings. They are 2 distinct sub species from a common fey ancestor.

I recall a few bits of lore, perhaps in older editions, mentioning dwarves seeing gnomes as "cousins" of sorts. As a result, that's what they've always been in my head. Distant, but very friendly, cousins. Given Rock Gnome was the default in 3rd, it was my assumption Forest Gnomes split off from them, becoming more isolated and nature focused as a result. Perhaps a disagreement with the focus on machinery? The way I see it, though, gnomes are naturally creative, whether that's in machinery, or magic, or any other craft they pursue. Also, gnomes are one of my favorite races. I've always seen them as way more lighthearted and fun than halflings, who were either the stuffier hobbits or nomads eking out a living because they're mistrusted.

I had to learn a bunch of stuff for one of my players. Gnome are great