Ever since I came to Dragon Realms, I have played many characters. I have played humans, dwarves, elotheans and even one fateful tog who made it to 7th circle then mysteriously went for a walk when I forgot favors. From an RP point of view, my personal favorite race and the one for which most of my major characters came from is gnomes.
Of all the races out there, gnomes have an incredibly difficult time in the younger circles and while it gets better, it doesnt get much better from a mechanics point of view. Weapon skills depend on damage for learning IE they need more and more strength as you get more advanced to get the extra oomph to learn at a decent rate from a weapon. Evasion SHOULD be a point where gnomes excel but being consistantly overburdened makes all our extra reflexes moot.
We cant even ride horses...we have to get trained goats or ponies that kneel to ride.
I understand being of small stature all the various penalties gnomes suffer can be justified...what I dont understand is why gnomes get all the "Penalties" of being small without any of the perks.
Gnomes should have a good NATURAL evasion bonus due to creatures having to bend down just to hit us. Think Yoda in the Star wars and you have an idea how we should be able to fight.
We should have a slight bonus to the usage of lighter weapons.
We should have a good bonus to retreating because we are small and can dodge through holes other folks wouldnt be able to escape through.
Anything having to do with coordination, we should have a slight speed advantage over other races (read this as a slight RT bonus for certain skills)
Further, we should have (and hopefully the gnome village will accommodate) shops that sell nice lightweight equipment of all types. This includes things like backpacks, sheaths and lightweight gnome sized weapons.
Anyways, it seems like all gnomes are to most folks is a small joke...and there is no reason for anyone to play a gnome outside of RP because there are no real advantages to being a gnome over a member of another race.
Skazar
