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So I am currently playing in a party that decided to go all Gnome. Class wise our party has a good composition, Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue. We also have extra PC's that sit in when they are available to attend, a Ranger (crossbow) and some psionic class. At this point we are level 3 soon to be 4.
While playing all gnomes is fun, and we can all act silly while in the game. The PC's aren't irritating each other for doing so which is a plus. There have been several draw backs.
Getting over the -2 Strength issue. Our fighter is a strength build and on a 15 point buy is pretty neutered. But more than that we all have that same weakness. The weapon dice is also smaller, so at these earlier levels our damage takes 2 hits, particularly for our beater. The fighter has burned Exotic Weapon Prof. Bastard Sword just to get the effect of a long sword. Movement is also an issue, our fighter is speed 15 and the cleric doesn't want to wear medium armor and drop down to the same. The last major issue is that all the gear drops at medium size. Resizing and selling off gear to purchase it back at small is killing us financially.
So we have 4 major issues each hard to overcome. We don't really have any money either. This campaign is proving to be rather un-profitable. If we don't find clever ways to get around these issues the game will likely fail soon. Last night we spent 4 hours in one small fight and burned virtually all our resources to win.
So I need suggestions. How can we succeed with our plan of an all gnome party? How do we overcome the clear issues of playing a small character?
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I don't know about the rest, but it's your GM's responsibility to make sure the party is always at the proper wealth by level. What that means varies by campaign, but the the core suggestion is on this page.
If I were GMing this game, you would still feel like you were wasting money getting rid of medium gear, but I would be giving out enough wealth to make up for the loss.
One other suggestion. In a couple levels your wizard can prepare haste and you'll be able to afford boots of striding and springing. Both should help alleviate the movement speed woes.
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Have your fighter reroll as a gnome druid. His animal companion doesn't need to be small ;) Animal companions also have very good mobility, big cats and bears have 40 movespeed, rocs have 80 fly speed(but a little crappy on hp side, on the other hand,at low levels their ac is so high, nothing sort of magic missile or a negative channel will hit them). Please remember to put mw studded leather barding on your animal companion.
Magic items like cloaks, rings, belts, resize normally. At higher levels(wizard 5/cleric 7), there's greater magic weapon to make up for lack of enchanted weapons.
Wizard can also take crafting feats with their bonus feats(like craft wondrous), nothings off with a tinkering gnome.
Alternatively you can use dex to dmg feats like slashing grace, dervish dance, fencing grace, using piranha strike instead of power attack.
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Why not go Dex-based for the Fighter? Expensive in feats, but that's part of what the Fighter class is for.
Part of being small is getting it to work for you, instead of trying to overcome it.
That said, the classic party composition might not be the best for small characters.
You may have to role-play your way into getting a wealthy benefactor or selling your services to the highest bidder or purposely seek out a side-quest for pure profit instead of heroism. Bounty hunting, caravan guarding, general bodyguarding, bouncing a high falutin' establishment. Maybe rob the taxman? Steal from the rich, sell to the poor? Or better yet, the needy. The desperately needy pay more.
Maybe a wobbly-headed doll caper? Beagle-rasselin'? I conjure they have smallish droppings.
EDIT:
I once DMed for a group that built their own casino. Made gold hand over fist.
Also, have you talked to your GM about your concerns? Maybe s/he has a windfall waiting for you? Has the fighter considered dipping into slayer? A little sneak attack with no BAB or HP reduction is quite a nice thing.
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It's funny because we are playing Second Darkness, converted to Pathfinder, so we actually own a casino. lol. Unfortunately there is game mechanics for earning profit from the casino and they are more akin to Profession checks, leaving us making silver pieces. Although... Maybe we could sell the casino for a quick cash injection.
If you've got a party Rogue, they can do very well with Unchained and Small size. An UnRogue with Power Attack and Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Elven Curve Blade or Duelling Sword is a respectable damage-dealer, and should have passable AC too.
If you've got a Gnome Fighter trying to go the high strength route with low point buy, that's just not going to work. Change plan, reroll or accept that they're not going to be effective.
I think the ideal way to do an all-Small party would be to make most or all of them mounted builds with Medium mounts -- cavalier, paladin, summoner with an eidolon mount, druid with an animal companion mount, etc. -- there are probably a bunch more possibilities based on archetypes and hybrid classes that I'm less familiar with.
One of the best things about being small is the ability to get the most out of mounted combat feats by riding a creature that can go into dungeons with you. The great weakness of the paladin, cavalier, and other mounted frontline combatants has always been the inability of their Large mounts to enter many of the spaces where adventures take place. No ponies or donkeys, either -- you ride wolves, riding dogs, boars, leopards (Lini!), firepelt cougars (for local flavor, since you're playing one of the Varisia APs) -- anything with its own formidable natural weaponry.
For a Str-based gnome, I'd actually recommend ranger over fighter: use the Combat Style feats to pick up Two-Weapon Fighting without needing to invest in Dex and use a gnome hooked hammer (martial weapon for gnomes; two-handed for Power Attack and 1.5 x Str bonus, and/or when needing to move and attack; double weapon for full attacks). On reaching 4th level, lead blades becomes available to stack with enlarge person (cast by the wizard or from a potion).
Ultimately, the damage hit from being Small is either relatively easy to work around (spell damage, for example, is not affected by the caster's size) or quickly becomes minor as bonuses increase.
The WBL issue is probably more critical. You may want to discuss this with the GM; also, the characters may want to invest in Craft skills (with Obsession, gnomes are often pretty good crafters) and start taking item creation feats.
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I'd agree that a consult with the GM may help here. I like the flavour of the automatic bonus progression idea, myself. Fits low cash campaigns, and makes it so you're not as worried about the size of most of your loot. And it means your tried and true weapon doesn't end up on the used sword counter at Bloodbath and Beyond -- I don't like the RP flavour of selling off most of your junk. (Although a weapon shop in Sandpoint now has the slightly-used starting armour of one of its heroes now.) Even a subtle nudge of 'It feels like we're really not doing that great as adventurers'; don't go in screaming, of course.
Aside from that, as mentioned Craft can work around things to a minor extent; our group's barbarian is going that route to start providing magic weapons via Master Craftsman.
The problems actually haven't anything to do with being small.
Weapon Dice totally don't matter after a few levels. You lose between -1 and -2.5 damage - which is generally a good trade for +1 to hit!
But there are a lot of problems:
1. Fighter and Rogue on 15 point buy: Low point buy is inherently martial hostile and the weaker the class, the more it get's penalized by a low point buy.
2. Exotic Weapon Prof. Bastard Sword is a total waste of a feat - that's +1 to damage, or half of Weapon Specialization. Also, single wielding one-handed weapons is very low damage combat style in Pathfinder, unless your class actively supports it (like Magus).
3. Wrong loot size: Wondrous Items automatically resize to fit the wearer. You should ask the GM to make magical weapons and armor do the same.
4. Low wealth: Just like low point buy, this cripples the weakest classes (pure martials). You should ask the GM to hand out more loot.
The real problem is that unless the GM adjusts things, low point buy and low wealth means that your party does not have "a good composition" - under those circumstances, especially if you can't wear found weapons and armor, Fighter and Rogue are classes that simply suck.
Ask the GM to cut you some slack. I don't know what the Wizard and Cleric look like, but right now, you have an extremly low powered party. It is one of the duties of a GM to adjust the monsters. Your problems can't be fixed by a few good feats or something like that.
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The thread has been dead for a while now, but I have some free time and thought I would pop back in. So I talked to the GM, he will try to correct some of the financing issues. Second Darkness is an off night game we play, so we have only played once since.
I figured I would explain the current party composition better. Currently our 4 main characters are; a buff/Bless Equipment spec cleric, a illusionist wizard, a str based sword and board fighter and an unchained rogue. We have 2 additional characters that some times sit in; a crossbow spec ranger and some sort of psionic character. (player had been playing a bard but lost his character sheet and rebuilt as a psionic can't remember what kind).
By the sounds of peoples suggestions the fighter is a weak link. Should probably re-spec into something the point buy can get better reach.
We intentionally don't take animal companions for a reason. We like to conserve action economy around our table. It's not as if we never take them, in this case the ranger may, but typically we prefer the faster rounds.
Given that this game is a 15 point buy should the cleric look to try and off tank? I think the class is too multi-stat dependent. The player is trying to maximize casting and channels for Bless Equipment uses.
The Wizard being an illusionist doesn't throw around much damage. He mostly fills utility and battlefield control rolls. He loves grease.
It's weird, the rogue should be having the easiest time of it, but is the player that complains the most. We hear a lot of, "This is garbage, small characters get double ripped off with this smaller dice size AND a negative to str. these rules are stupid."
The ranger came in late to the party and had better starting gold. He took the trait allowing him to be proficient in what he made. Naturally he crafted himself a +1 Darkwood Heavy repeating Crossbow, cause why not. I think his first favored enemy is human, which makes sense in Riddleport.
At the end of the day, your GM has 2 choices: continue to "punish" you for choosing a weak party combination (martially), or simply balance the game out so it doesn't matter.
Also, doesnt magical armor change size to fit the wearer by default?
You're thinking of wondrous items. Armor and weapons require a special quality to resize.
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So I am currently playing in a party that decided to go all Gnome. Class wise our party has a good composition, Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue. We also have extra PC's that sit in when they are available to attend, a Ranger (crossbow) and some psionic class. At this point we are level 3 soon to be 4.
While playing all gnomes is fun, and we can all act silly while in the game. The PC's aren't irritating each other for doing so which is a plus. There have been several draw backs.
Getting over the -2 Strength issue. Our fighter is a strength build and on a 15 point buy is pretty neutered. But more than that we all have that same weakness. The weapon dice is also smaller, so at these earlier levels our damage takes 2 hits, particularly for our beater. The fighter has burned Exotic Weapon Prof. Bastard Sword just to get the effect of a long sword. Movement is also an issue, our fighter is speed 15 and the cleric doesn't want to wear medium armor and drop down to the same. The last major issue is that all the gear drops at medium size. Resizing and selling off gear to purchase it back at small is killing us financially.
So we have 4 major issues each hard to overcome. We don't really have any money either. This campaign is proving to be rather un-profitable. If we don't find clever ways to get around these issues the game will likely fail soon. Last night we spent 4 hours in one small fight and burned virtually all our resources to win.
So I need suggestions. How can we succeed with our plan of an all gnome party? How do we overcome the clear issues of playing a small character?
Wow, I often play small characters, so I never considered it impairing.
There are no issues playing small characters, your party is purposely choosing builds that play to your weaknesses, rather than your strengths. I mean, your 2 positive traits are CHA and CON, yet the party includes no characters focused on those stats. You have low STR, yet you have a fighter focusing on a STR build. And this isn't even a small character issue, it's a Gnome issue.
For a Gnome, the more obvious character Core class combinations would be Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Cleric, with Bard as possible substitution for either the cleric or rogue. Cleric, if included, should have the Travel Domain if going heavy armor and should be focused on channeling more than casting, as high CHA benefits channelling. Barbarian benefits from high CON for rounds of rage. Rogue should have a focus in CHA skills. If a Bard is included, they could easily fill the role of CHA rogue, but could also become the Healer of the party, since cure light wounds is one of their class spells. Lots of better options if not just selecting classes from the CRB.
Anyway, I'll address each issue:
For speed related issues, first and easiest option is a mount. You only need a medium mount, so moving around mounted is usually effortless in most pregenerated dungeons, which are scaled to medium creatures. Second would be selecting a class with a higher base speed. Core options are Barbarians, Monks, and Travel Domain Clerics. Third option, and this really only affects charges, is to take a reach weapon (an effective +5ft to your charge range).
Regarding STR and damage. Yes, your low strength and small size will impair STR builds. Unless taking a barbarian or other class with strength increases, the penalties against this build will outweigh it's usefulness unless the campaign is scaled for Gnome characters. I would personally suggest against STR builds. I suggest a low, but positive STR mod, with a Dex/weapon finesse focus. If you must use an STR build, I would most certainly take a two-handed weapon (or oversized one handed weapon).
As for item drops in medium form, that does suck regarding finances. Regarding weapons, remember that you can wield oversized weapons at -2 penalty to attack. Another, very valid option is the Catch Offguard/Throw anything feats. Those are amazing feats normally, and more amazing when money is tight. Unarmed Combat or natural weapons (like via druid) are very much valid options. You can also use sleight of hand, profession, craft, or perform skills to make money in town. No real solution for the armor, but you are getting a size bonus to AC, and since Dex isn't penalized, you should probably have at least a further +1 AC on every character in the party. So the need for heavier armor is probably less than the need is on medium characters.
I will add that since the entire party is small, being small grants a +4 to stealth checks. So avoiding combat, or fighting only when facing ideal circumstances, should be much easier for the entire party. I highly suggest making a point of training stealth on every character. It just really plays to your strengths as party of small characters. Even if the party has massive armor check penalities, +4 is not a low number and being able to avoid some combat is better than having to fight flat footed in every encounter.
Well, the first step is to find a Zoltar machine...