 Howdy how's it going? My name's DavyChappy and it's time to talk about one of the most easily forgotten races in Dungeons & Dragons, a fact proven by that one poll from four years ago, the gnome. I'm gonna give a deep dive on every gnome-ish feature so that you know which class to pick when you're playing a dead meme. As always keep in mind the majority this is just my opinion and more so than ever you should know that there is no meta strategic race class combo so you should just play whatever you think is the most fun. This video only serves to point out the synergistic things that might impact your fun if you're not prepared for it. So feel free to play your games however you want and really quick I'd like to give a brief shout out to my new patrons this month. Merriam A, Freezer Fox, Brother, Sibling Sister, Crystal, Peniotu, Scarlet, Wyvern 375. Thank you so much for pledging to my Patreon it's because of you that I am able to annoy the shit out of my neighbors by screaming at the top of my lungs. But with that out of the way let's begin. So starting it off your average gnome is a small creature which in the early days of 5e made it susceptible to a reduced 25 foot move speed. Wizards of the Coast no longer thinks that lowering movement speed is fun so if you want to play a gnome without a broken leg pick up the squat nimbleness or mobile feats. Besides that gnomes only get dark vision, a plus 2 to intelligence, and an otherworldly brain that gives advantage on magical mental saves. The dark vision is dark vision. The intelligence bonus is half of the reason why nobody played a gnome since only wizards and now artificers care about intelligence and that was their major bonus which is why you should consider Tosh's optional rules if you want to get gnomed. And as for the magic resistance it's definitely not bad but your mileage may vary depending on how often spellcasters are squaring up against you. I've always been a believer that people who think magic resistance is overpowered need to calm down and playing a yawn tea on necro hunt only confirms my suspicions. Not only does the DM not have to use any spellcasters in their fights but monster abilities that look like magic but don't say that they're magic do not fall under the conditions of this ability such as literal dragonfire. Even when there is a spellcaster they don't have to target you they can hit somebody else they could help some other bad guys and if they do want to fight you all they have to do is hit you with the spell that calls for an attack roll instead of a saving throw and you're still just as susceptible as everybody else. Seriously if you've watched it necro hunt is a campaign filled with spellcasters and I think that I've only had to make one saving throw against some guy who threw poison at the snake man because apparently he was the only person who didn't read Volo's guide to know the natural resistances of an entire race of people. Now have that usefulness because gnomes only get advantage on mental saving throws against spells and then let a tear fall from your little gnomai as the light from a fireball fills your senses. All that said if you're playing in a campaign particularly in the Feywild where charms and illusions are a diamond dozen you'll be amazing but it's kind of like being a ranger in their favorite terrain. Now you might have noticed that through this whole spiel I never once mentioned a class even though that's what this whole series is about and that's because the majority of the base gnome features are so universal that there's nothing to say about them except that technically you're more likely to get hit by mental saving throws if you're an in your face target like the monk fighter or barbarian but it's not like other classes can't get targeted too so there's really not much of a difference but most of the flavor comes from the sub races anyway and the gnomes got four of them. First up is the forest gnome indicative of the sprightly nature of the fey touched halfling elves by giving you the minor illusion cantrip and the ability to communicate with any beast of size small or smaller. The minor illusion cantrip is kind of like whatever. Magical jpegs are nice and being small means that you can form a barrel around yourself like it's divinity. Just remember that the jpeg doesn't move on its own. The natural communication with animals however is a lot like your magical mental saves in that the mileage comes and goes as wooden critters become less frequent. It's basically a size specific always on speak with animals and the fact that most creatures don't expect the local fauna to be snitchin means that you can do a lot of reconnaissance with any squirrels hungry for nut. This may imply that druids would be better off playing forest gnomes and yeah if you're looking for a free casting of speak with animals that only works on rodents then this is a pretty good pick. Although I'd also have to point out that the druid is one of the only classes to get spells that fulfill that role anyway and the ranger literally gets free spells to do this so maybe you're better off playing the rogue and using your relationship with mice to help them steal for you and then use minor illusion to pretend to be a ficus. The rock gnome is the artificer before artificers were a thing expressed subtly by having the word artificer in one of their skill names where forest gnomes like to keep things all natural. Rock gnomes fully embrace the technological role that they live in by getting expertise in history roles involving any magitek items as well as a really cool trait called tinker that lets you spend an hour and 10 gold using tinker's tools which you also get proficiency in and by the end of it you can make a gimmicky device that can be either a lighter, a music box or a tiny little clockwork toy. With the exception of the lighter the tinker's toys are only as useful as you make them because they don't actually do anything of the media value. But dabby I hear you say you can use them as a distraction, they make noise! Yeah, soak a bell on a string, soak in a rock, throw an add unincredible force. When you take the tinker gnome you're not doing it because your natural skills would be the difference between life and death, you're doing it because whimsy and fun are your bread and butter and the rock gnome can warm them into toast. As you've probably noticed every single trait given by the base gnome and its two basic subraces are almost completely universal because no class cares about your ability to post music box covers on soundcloud. I can't even call one better than the other because both subraces prioritize fun role play over being immediately useful which is something that I can get behind but it meant that the only edge one had over the other was that rock could give a con bonus which everybody could use whereas forest would give a dex bonus which only 92% of classes could use. Now with Tasha's that bonus doesn't even matter so I guess we just have to move on to the deep gnomes. Sverfnebelin is how you pronounce the actual name of these people but I'm gonna keep calling them deep gnomes because no word should put an S in a V right next to each other, blame the Norse. Deep gnomes only get two tricks those being superior dark vision up to 120 feet and advantage on hiding in rocky terrain which the under dark is exclusively full of. What's noteworthy is that unlike the other under dark races Sverfnebelin do not suffer from sunlight sensitivity meaning that there's no negative for taking that site beyond site. It's a good thing too because by this point you may have noticed how few abilities every gnome ends up with by the time they pick their subrace so tacking on sunlight sensitivity would have just been cruel. Much like mental saving throws hiding in rocky terrain is contingent on there actually being rocky terrain so while your adventure doesn't have to take place within the under dark you should still check with your DM to make sure that one of your racial features is actually going to get used. Unlike with the other subraces the deep gnome has just a bit of nuance since stealth as a mechanic is best utilized by people who don't wear sheets of metal to work every day but you can make the argument that even paladins could make use of the advantage since it would cancel out their disadvantage and ensure that you never have to roll a second d20 ever again or you could go rogue get advantage on all of those bonus action stealth checks and pop out of every rock to surprise the flumps that dare cross you. Finally if you're looking for something that'll say to you hey man i know that you're going into this dungeon full of dragons and i want to supply you with something more than just a lighter and some rocks then ebron will always have your back because gnomes get their own dragon mark the mark of scribing. The mark of scribing still refuses to make you combat ready but in true dragon mark fashion it gives you a free d4 and certain skill checks in this case history and the often used calligraphers supplies which because i know you haven't opened a xanathar book in two years except a look at the subclasses i'll let you know can be used to decipher ancient and or magical writing and also who wrote them as well as teaching you how maps work not that this trade actually gives you the tool proficiency for calligraphers supplies if you don't already have it. It does however dump a whole bunch of free magic on you in the form of message comprehend languages and magic mouth if you're a spellcaster you also get a bunch of other spells added to your spell list to follow the same theme of talking slash writing and are all determined to be as utility focused as possible under normal circumstances i would say that because every dragon mark subrace is so spell focused the barbarian wouldn't be a good fit on account of its inability to spell when it's blinded by rage that said because literally not a single one of these free spells will be of use to you during a fight the chances of you needing to use them while raging are basically zero so this might be the perfect choice if you're interested in playing a studious bookworm who holds down a day job as an accountant but flies off the handle when a customer shows up five minutes before close time jessica that said the dragon marks will always get the best mileage if you play a spellcaster but since this only goes up to level five spells any spellcaster will do even the pseudo wizard subclasses will only be missing out on dream so it's up to you to weigh whether or not you want to eventually travel into random people's subconscious and see all of their disgusting fantasies overall the gnome is a very utility based race having almost no abilities that could be used to directly assist in battle or spring board off of another class and therefore being almost entirely uninterested in classism they exist to be jovial and if you want to play a race that has an extreme emphasis on role-playing gimmicks the gnome is a really good choice with all that in mind normally i wouldn't bring up the feats in this type of video because this is more based on talking about what the races innate traits are so that you can make an informed choice about what type of OC you want to draw for the next six months but where some of the feats feel like additional choices to make the races feel even more amazing the gnome exclusive feet fade away is almost a no brainer if you're looking to get the most out of your game it still fits the almost pacifistic mold that gnome seem to be going for by only serving to get you out of a fight not help you win one but the ability to turn invisible as a reaction when you get hit is about the most gnome-ish thing that could happen to you and if you want to use this for role-play purposes keep in mind that you can always punch yourself in the face the next time you get caught in an uncomfortable conversation about race with your uncle at a family meetup but that'll about do it i hope you enjoy this video be sure to leave a like comment subscribe ring the bell check out all my social media in the description below and maybe support me on patreon so that i can afford my utilities bill after playing a gnome for one session but yeah defy out