| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gonna live post this as I listen through.
Logan on MAD Monks: Strength and Dexterity are gonna be important to all monks, but there are different ways to play to both. Ki powers are optional, and not all have DCs, so not every monk needs wisdom. From this we can infer that while ki power DCs are Wisdom based, the size of the focus pool is not. This is strong evidence that characters only start with one focus point regardless of stats, especially next to Oblivion Oath's Karina.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They also confirmed an added wrinkle to ability score adjustments from ancestries as discussed in this thread and confirmed the delayed release of the Lost Omens World Guide as discussed in the later posts of this thread.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gonna live post this as I listen through.
Logan on MAD Monks: Strength and Dexterity are gonna be important to all monks, but there are different ways to play to both. Ki powers are optional, and not all have DCs, so not every monk needs wisdom. From this we can infer that while ki power DCs are Wisdom based, the size of the focus pool is not. This is strong evidence that characters only start with one focus point regardless of stats, especially next to Oblivion Oath's Karina.
There is a style, confirmed a while back, that lets you keep Dex milder on your monk, but that's a very particular choice.
Gonna try to focus this on new stuff that hasn't been spoiled elsewhere on the boards.
There is a style, confirmed a while back, that lets you keep Dex milder on your monk, but that's a very particular choice.Gonna live post this as I listen through.
Logan on MAD Monks: Strength and Dexterity are gonna be important to all monks, but there are different ways to play to both. Ki powers are optional, and not all have DCs, so not every monk needs wisdom. From this we can infer that while ki power DCs are Wisdom based, the size of the focus pool is not. This is strong evidence that characters only start with one focus point regardless of stats, especially next to Oblivion Oath's Karina.
Yeah, that style with the max dex cap, right?
Interesting. I’m liking that Ki powers aren’t tied to Wisdom; that’ll make some powers interchangeable and relevant for much more builds. The Ki pool though is kind of a mixed feeling. It means you don’t need high Wis to spam Ki Strike, but i wonder how that will make max pool sizes look. I liked the idea that picking power based feats rewarded you with more points, and if every class gets a single focus point regardless of stat that makes me think it’s tied to level. None of this is bad per say, but rather curious none the less.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gonna try to focus this on new stuff that hasn't been spoiled elsewhere on the boards.
Yeah, that style with the max dex cap, right?
I know it isn't new, but the OP said all monks have to focus on Dex, so just making sure. ;)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Logan says; "So one of the things we didn't want to do was kind of like give everybody universally a reaction they can use all the time for everything, because we know how much chaos that can make at the table." So different reactions are class and situation specific.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Interesting. I’m liking that Ki powers aren’t tied to Wisdom; that’ll make some powers interchangeable and relevant for much more builds. The Ki pool though is kind of a mixed feeling. It means you don’t need high Wis to spam Ki Strike, but i wonder how that will make max pool sizes look. I liked the idea that picking power based feats rewarded you with more points, and if every class gets a single focus point regardless of stat that makes me think it’s tied to level. None of this is bad per say, but rather curious none the less.
Advanced Bloodline (Feat 6). Prereq: bloodline spell. You gain the advanced bloodline spell associated with your bloodline. Increase the number of Focus Points in your focus pool by 1.
Sorcerer gain extra focus with feats, but maybe monk is different.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Can you at least confirm that with the inclusion of the option to NOT focus on Wisdom as a Monk, you've ALSO included a way to make a functional Wisdom/Ki focused one as well that doesn't need to rely on Strength and Dexterity on TOP of Wisdom, or is this simply a case of one option letting certain Monks "opt-out" of that particular Stat?
Interesting. I’m liking that Ki powers aren’t tied to Wisdom; that’ll make some powers interchangeable and relevant for much more builds. The Ki pool though is kind of a mixed feeling. It means you don’t need high Wis to spam Ki Strike, but i wonder how that will make max pool sizes look. I liked the idea that picking power based feats rewarded you with more points, and if every class gets a single focus point regardless of stat that makes me think it’s tied to level. None of this is bad per say, but rather curious none the less.
Logan did actually make it sound like you could kind of spam ki strike, but I'm not sure if that is because you have a big focus pool vs being able to refocus to get it back. Focus = level would be a lot to play with, which might be very fun, but sounds too good to be true.
It sounds like the only 3 rogue rackets are going to be our playtest updates, but Logan says the design space is open to make rackets such as something Vigilante like or a rogue that inherently uses spells.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Monks can't get Attack of Opportunity without multiclassing, but Logan believes the Champion AND THE BARBARIAN can!
Yaaaas Giant reach~!
Can you at least confirm that with the inclusion of the option to NOT focus on Wisdom as a Monk, you've ALSO included a way to make a functional Wisdom/Ki focused one as well that doesn't need to rely on Strength and Dexterity on TOP of Wisdom, or is this simply a case of one option letting certain Monks "opt-out" of that particular Stat?
If you're looking to have a low Str AND a low Dex, I'm going to guess that the Monk won't be a good fit and what you really want is something like the Kineticist, if that gets re-introduced in Pathfinder 2E. But maybe I am misunderstanding your question/request.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Can you at least confirm that with the inclusion of the option to NOT focus on Wisdom as a Monk, you've ALSO included a way to make a functional Wisdom/Ki focused one as well that doesn't need to rely on Strength and Dexterity on TOP of Wisdom, or is this simply a case of one option letting certain Monks "opt-out" of that particular Stat?If you're looking to have a low Str AND a low Dex, I'm going to guess that the Monk won't be a good fit and what you really want is something like the Kineticist, if that gets re-introduced in Pathfinder 2E. But maybe I am misunderstanding your question/request.
I think what Themericsystem is saying is that they want a Dex/Wis or Str/Wis Monk to be viable. One who focuses on Wisdom as much as their attack stat, which seems reasonable enough to me as a request.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Logan confirms that you get 1 point in your focus pool and you can take feats to get more. You have to spend 1 point to cast a focus spell. (Presumably ANY focus spell, which has interesting implications for low level focus spells vs high level focus spells. Presumably the former gets mad heightening to keep them relevant.) This was in reference to the sorcerer, but it sounds like this is true for all classes.
10 minutes to regain focus, as we know. But Logan confirms our suspicion that sorcerers just regain their focus by waiting, unlike monks meditating or clerics praying. (He doesn't say explicitly that they get the focus back even if they don't stop to rest after 10 minutes, but I believe that is the implication.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...Know Direction reveals...
Thanks for doing this, by the way. Started to watch it last night, but didn't have the time to dedicate to it.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wizards still have enough spells for their school specialist purposes. Sorcerers get later bloodline powers through feats a la the playtest. Each magical tradition has an associated sorcerer feat to make you "More occult, more divine, etc." Not sure if these are the same as the Evolution feats from the playtest.
Spell duration is buffed. Various buffs and utility spells had their duration or number of effects or targets increased.
Wizards got a solid number of non-metamagic options. School specialists get a lot more use out of their focus spells. It sounds like all wizards might get the advanced power tied to their school, possibly implying they don't need to spend a feat to get it anymore.
Ranger got a fair number of changes. More options for fighting styles. Something similar to rackets, but sounds like we might have a new one because there is an option for agile weapons, archers, or crossbows. The first two were the same Hunter's Edge during the playtest, so it sounds like bows might have gotten a more unique thing.
There have been some revisions to minion and pet rules, but Mark is evidently the guy to talk to about that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think what Themericsystem is saying is that they want a Dex/Wis or Str/Wis Monk to be viable. One who focuses on Wisdom as much as their attack stat, which seems reasonable enough to me as a request.
OK, yeah, that make sense, and I agree is reasonable.
In the playtest, Wisdom governed the size of the spell point pool, and set the DC for Ki abilities. Now that focus pools seem to be set at 1 and grow with feat size, Wisdom would only govern Ki DC. So yeah, hopefully they added some Class Feats that make use of a good Wisdom score.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
10 minutes to regain focus, as we know. But Logan confirms our suspicion that sorcerers just regain their focus by waiting, unlike monks meditating or clerics praying. (He doesn't say explicitly that they get the focus back even if they don't stop to rest after 10 minutes, but I believe that is the implication.)
I found this to be a frustratingly unclear answer. Logan did not clarify whether this was a mechanical thing or just a flavor thing.
He said something along the lines that the Sorcerer needs to "chill out for 10 minutes" to regain focus. Which makes it sound like just flavor—how's that any different than the Monk meditating or the Cleric praying?
But I think he was just being unclear. I stand by my guess that Sorcerers will automatically regain focus as long as they are out of combat in a relatively peaceful situation for 10 minutes, and that they can perform other actions in those 10 minutes.
E.g., a melee Sorcerer might take those 10 minutes to repair her shield, and would also regain focus in that time (in contrast to other classes, which would need to spend that time doing nothing but refocusing).
E.g., a melee Sorcerer might take those 10 minutes to repair her shield, and would also regain focus in that time (in contrast to other classes, which would need to spend that time doing nothing but refocusing).
I was kinda hoping that my druid could count time spent Treating Wounds on his animal companion as being one with nature to also regain his Focus, but maybe that's slicing the cheese a little too thin.
It probably won't happen, but I think it would be really cool to have a feat or some such to allow a character to refocus in combat. Like maybe a full turn of spending all actions to refocus.
E.g., a melee Sorcerer might take those 10 minutes to repair her shield, and would also regain focus in that time (in contrast to other classes, which would need to spend that time doing nothing but refocusing).I was kinda hoping that my druid could count time spent Treating Wounds on his animal companion as being one with nature to also regain his Focus, but maybe that's slicing the cheese a little too thin.
I'm guessing there will be a general Refocus rule—spend 10 minutes doing something as appropriate; you cannot perform other actions during this time—from which Sorcerer will carve out a special exception.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
It probably won't happen, but I think it would be really cool to have a feat or some such to allow a character to refocus in combat. Like maybe a full turn of spending all actions to refocus.
That's not very likely, especially because you could then use it out of combat to spam focus spells every other round. There's quite a bunch that would cause major detrimental cascading effects if they were basically cantrips (which is why they are focus spells) based on their duration or the rate of gain of out of combat benefits.
You could potential have options that let you do that once a day or something like that though!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Jason said that they had always been planning on putting in the extra flaws thing, but simply didn't want to put in the playtest. Interesting.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
All 5 gnome heritages awwww snap
Chameleon gnome: let's you change your hair to suit your mood, blending ing .
Fey Touched gnome: casts a primal cantrip. Gives you a stronger tie to nature.
Sensing gnome: Keen sense of vision and smell, bonus to perception checks to find things they can't see.
Umbral Gnome: Dark vison.
Wellspring Gnome: connection to different source of magic, gets a cantrip from occult, divine, or arcane.
8 HP for gnome, speed is still 25, ability boosts and flaws are the same.
Gnome feats sounded pretty much like what we had in the playtest, at least for 1st level choices. Cantrips, familiar, burrow speech, fey connection, illusion sense, weapon familiarity.
I would hope that Logan meant Monks need to focus on Str or Dex. Since there's that style which caps your dex for str monks, and dex monks who are using a d8 finesse stance seem to do fine damage even if they are adding +1-2 from str instead of +3-4.
But you should need dex or str because you are going to be rolling to hit.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Levels of awareness have changed: observed, hidden, undetected, and the new addition: UNNOTICED. Hell yeah, I was advocating for that one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's not very likely, especially because you could then use it out of combat to spam focus spells every other round. There's quite a bunch that would cause major detrimental cascading effects if they were basically cantrips (which is why they are focus spells) based on their duration or the rate of gain of out of combat benefits.
Couldn't it have wording like stances "You can enter a stance only in encounter mode" to prevent out of combat spam?
Each magical tradition has an associated sorcerer feat to make you "More occult, more divine, etc."
My first take from this was they got rid of standard divine/occult/primal lists, with associated BLs having option to choose those or arcane list. But I think it's more about simply having Feats shared by all BLs of given tradition, which is less radical a change from Playtest.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Each magical tradition has an associated sorcerer feat to make you "More occult, more divine, etc."My first take from this was they got rid of standard divine/occult/primal lists, with associated BLs having option to choose those or arcane list. But I think it's more about simply having Feats shared by all BLs of given tradition, which is less radical a change from Playtest.
I believe that this is referring to the feats Arcane Evolution, Occult Evolution, Divine Evolution, Primal Evolution, Greater Mental Evolution, and Greater Vital Evolution. We saw the following two feats in the Banquet slides:
Greater Mental Evolution (Feat 16). Prereq: Arcane Evolution or Occult Evolution. Add one spell to your spell repertoire for each spell level you can cast.
Greater Vital Evolution (Feat 16). Prereq: Divine Evolution or Primal Evolution. Twice per day you can cast a spell after you’ve run out of spell slots of the appropriate spell level; the two spells you cast with this feat must be of different spell levels.
I don't think we've seen what the prerequisite feats do here.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Each magical tradition has an associated sorcerer feat to make you "More occult, more divine, etc."My first take from this was they got rid of standard divine/occult/primal lists, with associated BLs having option to choose those or arcane list. But I think it's more about simply having Feats shared by all BLs of given tradition, which is less radical a change from Playtest.
BL is used to designate a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. So every time you shorthand bloodlines to BLs, it give an entirely different meaning than what you're intending. Every time I see it, it seems odd until it clicks in my head what you're talking about.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sad to see Bleachling gone as a heritage. I loved the flavor behind it. Suppose I'll make my playtest gnome a Chameleon instead for coloration stuffs.
I feel like we're going to get more heritages in later books. I would guess the omission of bleachling from the core rulebook is mostly a reflection that bleachlings are really quite rare, and would be better represented as an uncommon heritage in a different book.
I also hope we get something like the "Fell Gnome" heritage back, but "you are a gnome who reminds people of redcaps and gremlins" doesn't seem like a thing that is welcome in a lot of communities (even of gnomes.)
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's not very likely, especially because you could then use it out of combat to spam focus spells every other round. There's quite a bunch that would cause major detrimental cascading effects if they were basically cantrips (which is why they are focus spells) based on their duration or the rate of gain of out of combat benefits.Couldn't it have wording like stances "You can enter a stance only in encounter mode" to prevent out of combat spam?
That would lead to players trying to trigger encounter mode by voluntary stunts. "The fighter and I decide to spar for combat practice. That triggers encounter mode."
Plus, for roleplaying versimitude I would prefer that exploration mode and encounter mode transition seamlessly from one to the other. Activities enabled by mode create a visible seam. In contract, though a ten-minute activity tends to force exploration or downtime mode, "ten minutes" has more realism than requiring exploration mode. And we could run ten minutes as 100 turns in encounter mode if the players really wanted to.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
]BL is used to designate a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. So every time you shorthand bloodlines to BLs, it give an entirely different meaning than what you're intending.
So this must be one of those linguistic subcommunities thing, since I have literally never heard of that and if I'm going to misread "BL" I'm vastly more likely to misread it as BorderLands, Bell Labs, Bachelor of Law, Boston Legal, Bud Light, the Basic fuzzy Logic (traditionally abbreviated BL), Breech-Loading, etc.
So we can see that all simple acronyms have a lot of different readings, and I don't think we're going to get logicians to stop using BL because it can be misread considering that mathematicians have not relented on the Wiener Measure, T$+@ group, or the Cox–Zucker machine yet (all of those are wikipedia links and are completely innocent and SFW except for their names, and Norbert Wiener had no say in the matter honestly, and Jacques T~!% might be sad that Paizo censors his name.)
Like you sit down to read a paper about "Curved Wiener Spaces" and you laugh, but that's not a headspace that's contextually relevant so you get over it.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So this must be one of those linguistic subcommunities thing
It's LITERALLY the first thing to come up if you google search BL...
Second, I was just giving a heads up: I'm not offended or anything, just letting it be known that's what it's commonly known as. If you consume any Asian media, there's a good chance you've seem BL used in the way I mentioned.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would guess the omission of bleachling from the core rulebook is mostly a reflection that bleachlings are really quite rare, and would be better represented as an uncommon heritage in a different book.
I also hope we get something like the "Fell Gnome" heritage back, but "you are a gnome who reminds people of redcaps and gremlins" doesn't seem like a thing that is welcome in a lot of communities (even of gnomes.)
Yeah, I think the implications of pushing Redcaps/Gremlins as Core assumption probably weren't desired in end analysis. Although slightly different issue, Bleachling also felt like it's "hush-hush rare horrific disease/curse" vibe had it's legs cut out from under it, if that's just a standard Core level 1 build option. I kind of felt similar about Svirfneblin and even Cavern Elf for that matter.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So this must be one of those linguistic subcommunities thingIt's LITERALLY the first thing to come up if you google search BL...
Yeah, this search reinforced the fringe phenomenon claim. "BL" isn't a common acronym, it makes sense that the Extremely Online version would take precedence.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, this search reinforced the fringe phenomenon claim. "BL" isn't a common acronym, it makes sense that the Extremely Online version would take precedence.So this must be one of those linguistic subcommunities thingIt's LITERALLY the first thing to come up if you google search BL...
Not really. It comes up in that AND the 3 video options AND the sidebar explanation AND the first entry in people also ask. So in the first 8 items in the page, 6 reference the term I spoke of... :P
ANYWAY, this is getting off topic. I've said my piece so I have nothing else to say on this.
You could potential have options that let you do that once a day or something like that though!
It's possible that is happening in this Iconic Encounter. Maybe Kyra just finished her ten minutes of prayer in the nick of time, or maybe she has a once-a-day Focus refresh. Who can say?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could potential have options that let you do that once a day or something like that though!It's possible that is happening in this Iconic Encounter. Maybe Kyra just finished her ten minutes of prayer in the nick of time, or maybe she has a once-a-day Focus refresh. Who can say?
A cleric doing something particularly in line with the tenants of their deity might also trigger it, me thinks, at the GMs discretion.
Had to run a game, will resume updates tonight or tomorrow.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Back on topic...
Levels of awareness have changed: observed, hidden, undetected, and the new addition: UNNOTICED. Hell yeah, I was advocating for that one.
Each sense you have (sight, smell, hearing, etc) seems to have a limit for how far it can take you to any of these.
Precise senses can take you all the way to observed, imprecise senses can't. I'm guessing there are ancestry feats that allow you to make an imprecise sense precise?
If you use stealth to hide in the space you're in, you move from observed to hidden. If you sneak away so they don't know which space you're in, you become undetected. But you can't become unnoticed again once you have been noticed in the first place. It makes a lot of sense.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Quiet periods are now over. Monday will have a blog introducing broad concepts, and hopefully every Monday after. :)
Articles, interviews, and such will be coming soon. Including subsequent Know Directions.
Jason's one big difference from playtest to final version: "we heard you. The way we ran those playtests was to listen to you."
That is it for the Paizo staff interviews.
Other tidbits I caught from the interview:
Perception Tiers were reworked to Observed/Hidden/Undetected/Unnoticed. Getting rid of Seen/Unseen was obvious improvement, given the system is supposed to cover non-visual senses as well (and retaining 'Seen' as visual-specific reference seems useful).
I'm not sure I really like the ultimate terminology other than Observed. Both tier #3 and #4 using negations ("Un-") of terms that are barely distinct in real English just feels confusing. I think the essence of their concepts, that one grants minimal awareness of mere existence, while the other lacks even that, is more directly conveyed by direct pairing, i.e. "Detected/Undetected" or even "Aware/Unaware". "Hidden" also feels semantically confusing: besides inverting all three other tiers' framing of awareness as positive and unawareness as negative (Un-), as a real English word it could IMHO just as easily be applied to #3 or #4 tier of awareness. So I would prefer framing it as a positive awareness, if not as strong as Observed, like... "Pinpointed" (which was even used in 1E). Observed/Pinpointed/Detected/Undetected feels so much tighter IMHO.
I am curious what other developments occured in Perception... I was hoping for range to more smoothly influence degree of info revealed (ala "you see a group of figures atop the far hill but can't make out their exact number or species", potentially also related to things like fog/smoke, or terrain like jungle or wind could degrade perception vs 'standard' conditions.
| 18 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's why we didn't use Detected or Aware or Sensed (sensed was the old version): A lot of the time you gain this condition by being sneaky and it just reads wrong even though it's right. Like so
Hide: On a successful Stealth check to Hide, you are detected.
|
Here's why we didn't use Detected or Aware or Sensed (sensed was the old version): A lot of the time you gain this condition by being sneaky and it just reads wrong even though it's right. Like so
Hide: On a successful Stealth check to Hide, you are detected.
... That would be quite the weird wording, I concur.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
... That would be quite the weird wording, I concur.Here's why we didn't use Detected or Aware or Sensed (sensed was the old version): A lot of the time you gain this condition by being sneaky and it just reads wrong even though it's right. Like so
Hide: On a successful Stealth check to Hide, you are detected.
Instead, we can say On a successful Stealth check to Hide, you are hidden, which feels less offputting and even intuitive.
Hmm, IMHO phrasing it like "...you can not be Observed, but are still Detected" or even more succinctly "...you are ONLY Pinpointed/Detected" reads intuitively... With "still"/"only" expressing Perception's logical hierarchy where Stealth doesn't ADD new "Detected" info but only suppresses upper tiers... But I can see how you could arrive where you did if you were absolutely designing for single-term direct referents ("you are X"), even if IMHO "not... still" and especially "only" isn't heavy grammatic baggage and reads naturalistically (contextualizing to make clear you accomplished something useful).
That was just an actually confusing/awkward thing from playtest for me personally that seemed like it carried over into final, albeit with terminology shifting, and I just wanted to specify the distinct ways it was confusing. Sorry for the brutal honesty, I understand there is a million competing design goals, and am over-all very positive and impressed with everything I have seen so far of final system!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hmm, IMHO phrasing it like "...you can not be Observed, but are still Detected" or even more succinctly "...you are ONLY Pinpointed/Detected" reads intuitively... With "still"/"only" expressing Perception's logical hierarchy where Stealth doesn't ADD new "Detected" info but only suppresses upper tiers... But I can see how you could arrive where you did if you were absolutely designing for single-term direct referents ("you are X"), even if IMHO "not... still" and especially "only" isn't heavy grammatic baggage and reads naturalistically (contextualizing to make clear you accomplished something useful).
That was just an actually confusing/awkward thing from playtest for me personally that seemed like it carried over into final, albeit with terminology shifting, and I just wanted to specify the distinct ways it was confusing. Sorry for the brutal honesty, I understand there is a million competing design goals, and am over-all very positive and impressed with everything I have seen so far of final system!
But that assumes that every GM is going to be eloquent/enough to immediately know how to say that succinctly without stumbling over their words to get the right idea across and not misconstrue their players.
Remember that sometimes the wording choices are picked not because it would be hard for anyone to get the words out the right way, but because there is too much of a potential for it to be awkward and that might slip some people up. And if you need a note in the book telling GMs "hey, when you tell your players that they are detected, make sure you remind them that they are only just detected so that it doesn't give them the wrong idea", that is sort of an indicator that the wording is unintuitive and can lead to confusion.
All 5 gnome heritages awwww snap
Chameleon gnome: let's you change your hair to suit your mood, blending ing .
Fey Touched gnome: casts a primal cantrip. Gives you a stronger tie to nature.
Sensing gnome: Keen sense of vision and smell, bonus to perception checks to find things they can't see.
Umbral Gnome: Dark vison.
Wellspring Gnome: connection to different source of magic, gets a cantrip from occult, divine, or arcane.
8 HP for gnome, speed is still 25, ability boosts and flaws are the same.
Gnome feats sounded pretty much like what we had in the playtest, at least for 1st level choices. Cantrips, familiar, burrow speech, fey connection, illusion sense, weapon familiarity.
Sounds like the cleaned up one of the heritage problems. No longer has that incentive for all gnomes to be Sniviblin or Bleechlings. But now Umbral Gnome will be the popular one, which at least isn't tied to something that's supposed to be rare on the surface. Chameleon is the most flavorful, but probably least mechanically useful.