I don't know if anyone is going to agree here, but I think that looks-wise, pathfinder absolutely butchered gnomes. The wacky green and purple skin tones and crazy hair just do nothing for me and I think the gnome's picture in the Races section of the PhB almost looks like a joke.
As characters, MY gnomes have always been brooding and sinister little fellows- and while this was not really your typical gnome lore wise, I could always take comfort in their dignified, NORMAL skin and hair. To me, they were basically smaller, more neurotic and magical humans. What I see now irks me. Sure, I still make gnomes and imagine them in a D&D flavor, but the gnome as presented in the book is a freaking fairy.
Anyone agree or disagree?
Your character can look like whatever you want it to look like.
I'll never play one, so I don't really care, but making them not just short humans (that niche is taken) is an improvement in my eyes.
I want a setting that does gnomes like garden gnomes...
Paizo really set up to create some individuality in those "way too similar" races. Gnomes became and interesting and unique race, rather than "the other short folk". Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Ogres all got spaced apart too. They are way more distinctive than they used to be.
One character that is worth checking out, if you have the book, is Tris Darkjest, the Chaos Arrow in the NPC Codex. She is an off putting little gnome that is really, really malicious.
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but the gnome as presented in the book is a freaking fairy.
Anyone agree or disagree?
You read the flavor text, right? Where it says gnomes are exiles from Fairy? That's exactly what they are supposed to be.
Also, they make the point that gnomes, being fae, can have practically any skin tone or hair color. (My gnomes tend to be insprired by Froud and Henson, personally.)
And anyone who has read any fairy tales knows that creatures out of fairy may look jolly or dour, but that what they look like has nothing to do with what they do.
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I quite like the Pathfinder gnomes.
But they are very different from standard D&D gnomes, which have varied greatly between editions (to say nothing of campaign settings).
And D&D gnomes in general are pretty darn different from both the gnomes of mythology and what common people think of gnomes.
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I have no objection to the Pathfinder gnomes. Lore-wise, they and the 3.5 edition of gnomes (the philosopher-pranksters) are about even with me in terms of how much I like them. Honestly, I don't really touch upon gnomes most of the time, since I have little interest in them. But making them fey-touched troll-hair people is as good lore as any. Also, Gnomes of Golarion is still endlessly amusing to flip througb because of the rainbow-colored background. Heh, those crazy gnomes.
I want a setting that does gnomes like garden gnomes...
You mean Redcaps?