I have only recently discovered what interesting things you can do with Gnomes if you give them a dog/wolf mount.
My most recent gnome builds are:
1) Splash Dawnflower Dervish Bard, then go Hexcrafter Magus. That gives you almost every skill in the game as a class skill, which is a nice side bonus. Take alternate racial magic trait "Fell Magic," to hive with Hexcrafter, and as you advance, pick up the gnome-specific arcane pool options for "vicious" and "merciful," which in tandem give you +3d6 nonlethal per hit and the 1d6 you take on vicious is also nonlethal. Then carry a wyroot club and coup-de-grace all the unconscious foes for auto-crits to replenish your arcane pool. Take Animal Friend trait for Handle Animal, you get Ride out of class skills, and buy a riding dog. Fight from his back to mitigate small movement.
2) There are a lot of interesting synergies with a Venerable Lame Gnome Nature Oracle. -6 to phys stats, but con isn't so bad because of the +2 out of Gnome. +3 to mental stats including CHA. Generally dump everything as best as you can, and get your CHA up over 20 for all the bonus spells, save DCs, etc, and take Nature's Whispers for CHA bonus to AC instead of the venerable DEX you dumped. Bonded Mount is great synergy with Lame, because you ride the wolf for movement, and you're not subject to encumbrance anyway with Lame. I'm considering adding Dual Cursed template and Blackened with Lame, since you have so many spells to throw, might as well be a burner.
I really like gnomes too! I was very disapointed that the Advanced Race Guide gave them next to nothing. The feats are all based off of the main race traits. Some of the spells don't even work. They're missing a class archetype relative to the others. It's as though they had lots of awesome abilities that were cut because they playtested too powerful and then filled their section with fluff and suck to meet a publishing deadline. Very upset!
Anyway, I love Gnomes on Wolfback. My personal favourite trick is a Luring Cavalier with the Pyromaniac race trait. 1/day you can conjure a 120 ft ranged touch attack that you can use to throw a number of times equal to your level (minus 1 if a strict interpretation) and add your far challenge damage bonus to it. The spell treats it as a thrown weapon so you can full attack as needed.
Of course if you stay stock gnome you can talk to your mount and organize more intricate tactics.
Bad touch cleric gnomes now have the Fell Magic ability to boost their necromantic skills. There's also the option of using that for a Rogue to get Chill Touch sneak attack as a racial ability.
Speaking of Gnomes, when they go Rogue they're virtual wizards with Scrolls. Max out your favoured class bonus and UMD scrolls like nobody's business. Skill Focus (UMD), plus full ranks, plus full favoured class: +16 at 5th level, +29 at 10th level. Add Magical Aptitude, because why not and you increase these numbers to +18 and +31. Any spell you can buy is at your beck and call, and you're still small, sneaky, and snarky. When you're not using scrolls, sneak attack with wands like a boss.
Said gnome can also become absolute masters of languages. Get two extra languages per skill rank and talk to EVERYONE!
Gnome Rogue: Folderol Squibbenstirt
1. Magical Aptitude
3. Skill Focus UMD
5. Skill Focus Stealth/Diplomacy (Sneak vs Face)
7. Eldrich Heritage (Shadow/Serpentine)
Rogue Talents: Minor and Major Magic, getting Read Magic and Chill Touch.
Full ranks in UMD, Spellcraft, Linguistics until you run out of languages to learn, Steath and/or Diplomacy (both is good), and make sure you have a high enough intelligence/wisdom to use the scrolls you want.
Expensive to be certain, what with all the disposable magic you buy, but ready for any circumstance.
I love gnomes ... with hot sauce.
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I really like gnomes too! I was very disapointed that the Advanced Race Guide gave them next to nothing.
?!?!?!??
Have you seen the Prankster Bard archetype??? They debuff enemies by INSULTING THEM!!! How can you not love that? Use Versatile Performance to demoralize enemies using Perform: Comedy instead of Intimidate to insult them some more, and avoid the -4 penalty for being smaller than your target, and you can give the same enemy two different penalties of -2 to hit, for a total of -4. By insulting them!!! The RP potential there is just insane.
And unlike most bard archetypes that completely redefine the class, this one just gives up less used bardic abilities (fascinate, suggestion) and retains the core abilities that define the class (inspire courage, inspire competence, bardic knowledge).
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Here are the things they got that I like: That bard archetype, and the Fell Magic racial ability. (Some of the favored class bonuses are nice too, like the witch and cavalier.)
The Gunslinger is interesting but powered down relative to the damage output of the normal class. This changes the meaning of the class to something that others do more reliably. Not saying it wouldn't be fun, but I am saying it won't be easy to use to specific effect as the normal class.
The Saboteur Alchemist gains abilities that change the way the alchemist runs. Blowing things up is a hard thing to plan for in any game and the majority of architectures have such a fierce story element that bypassing things by destroying them will likely give a DM pause.
The bard is neat.
The fourth class they get is worse than EVERYTHING else the other races get in that it doesn't exist. A class that makes things worse is still an option you can take. This option does not exist for Gnomes. (Technically speaking humans get a bloodline and halflings get an order. This still presents an option that gnomes have no access to.)
The gnome feats amplify only core race abilities. Halflings got some interesting feats. Dwarves and Half-Orcs got very interesting feats. Humans got great feats, not surprisingly. Gnomes got feats that are narrow to the point of uselessness and the majority of them amplify abilities you would like to trade out at character creation. One of which is a weapon focus feat specific to only one weapon in the hardcovers: The Gnome Hooked Hammer.
The illusionary object creation spells do not function as written as you automatically disbelieve your own spells. Meanwhile half-elves can use a spell and gain a feat.
The gnomes got very little love in that book and the fact that they are the only race in the entire book with only three archetypes or other class options leads me to believe that there was a broken one that was discovered in playtesting that was replaced by padding the Gunslinger or adding fluff. Note that the Gnomes have more fluff than any of the other races. The next closest is Elves and they got the full four archetypes.
I love gnomes because they are fun to roleplay. It seems that being fun to roleplay has a cost in that you cannot be as effective in combat and you cannot have the nice things the other races do.
If I sound bitter it's because I am. I love gnomes, but the game doesn't support them to the extent that the other races have support.
Gnomes are awesome.
The are a blast to play. Master Tinker goes a long way to making them more viable in many situatations.
I would love to see more and I would have liked to see more in the Gnomes sourcebook.
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I like the way the Pathfinder does Gnomes.
The whole "literally dying from boredom" thing is awesome and flavorful.
I would, however, never play a Gnome.
Not even in the "all Gnome" RotRL game I am in, did I play one.
I don't like the idea of RPing one.
They remind me too much of Kender to do so.
The core of my being swells with hatred for Kender.
I like the way the Pathfinder does Gnomes.
The whole "literally dying from boredom" thing is awesome and flavorful.
I would, however, never play a Gnome.
Not even in the "all Gnome" RotRL game I am in, did I play one.
I don't like the idea of RPing one.
They remind me too much of Kender to do so.
The core of my being swells with hatred for Kender.
Kender? The Halflings from Dragonlance? Whats so bad about Kender (besides the Kleptomania) I've played in DragonLance and have played a Kender.... Dragonlance had Tinker Gnomes but Kender are a blast to play although they tend to die alot (for us)..
I actually like how Golarion does Gnomes (when compared to Forgotten REalms,ect) and my current character is a Female Gnome pyromaniac Druid with the Fire Domain... my Dm was hesitant at first with the pyromaniac racial type but I roll so crappy that it was never overly powerful and fun to roleplay.
Since I'm a Druid the lack of movement isn't much of a factor. Infact I"m the fastest character in my party (Air Elemental) or I can tank ( Large Fire Elemental)... Need Hitpoints? Water Elemental gives me +30 hitpoints at level 10... SWEET