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The Oakenshield
2010-11-10, 07:25 AM
Anyone know of any builds they're good in ?

I would love to know, because I really like that race.

Thanks.:smallsmile:

WitchSlayer
2010-11-10, 07:27 AM
Gesundheit

Yuki Akuma
2010-11-10, 07:34 AM
They'd make okay Shadowcraft Mages if they could buy off that LA.

Escheton
2010-11-10, 07:35 AM
Don't feel like scouring through books, so if you could mention in which their stats are mentioned I'll have a look.
Would prolly help others too.

Project_Mayhem
2010-11-10, 07:36 AM
Erm, MM1?

They're the deep gnomes

Yora
2010-11-10, 07:37 AM
Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm#svirfneblin) they are.

-4 Charisma and LA +3 makes them quite terrible for anything.

HunterOfJello
2010-11-10, 08:19 AM
+3 LA with no worthy race features? No thanks.


Play a +0 LA gnome of some sort and add in the Shadow (+2)or Dark (+1) template instead.

Escheton
2010-11-10, 08:24 AM
Rogue/monk/assassin.

Unhittable, unfindable, deadly.

grarrrg
2010-11-10, 08:45 AM
Gesundheit

Aww. Beat me to it.

Let's see, the SRD says:
•-2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma.
•Darkvision out to 120 feet and low-light vision.
•Spell resistance equal to 11 + class levels.
•+2 racial bonus on all saving throws
•+4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against all creatures.
•Spell-Like Abilities:
•Nondetection (Su): A svirfneblin has a continuous nondetection ability as the spell (caster level equal to class levels).

Hmm...Dex & Wis bonus with a Cha penalty, +Saving throws, +4 AC, various spell-like abilities, and woefully underpowered for their LA.

They would make the PERFECT Monk!

dsmiles
2010-11-10, 08:50 AM
Aww. Beat me to it.

Let's see, the SRD says:
•-2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma.
•Darkvision out to 120 feet and low-light vision.
•Spell resistance equal to 11 + class levels.
•+2 racial bonus on all saving throws
•+4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against all creatures.
•Spell-Like Abilities:
•Nondetection (Su): A svirfneblin has a continuous nondetection ability as the spell (caster level equal to class levels).

Hmm...Dex & Wis bonus with a Cha penalty, +Saving throws, +4 AC, various spell-like abilities, and woefully underpowered for their LA.

They would make the PERFECT Monk!

Do they not get the "get a couple of svirfnelbin together and summon an elder earth elemental" shtick anymore? That was always my favorite part of the deep gnomes...:smallfrown:

Greenish
2010-11-10, 08:51 AM
Aren't there lesser svirfneblin somewhere?

Myth
2010-11-10, 10:01 AM
They are great if you are playing Icewind Dale II. In 3.5 that LA is murder.

Cieyrin
2010-11-10, 03:02 PM
Aren't there lesser svirfneblin somewhere?

PGtF, I believe, has those, though I'm AFB at the moment.

EDIT:
Do they not get the "get a couple of svirfnelbin together and summon an elder earth elemental" shtick anymore? That was always my favorite part of the deep gnomes...:smallfrown:

It's a feat in RoF now: Summon Earth Elemental (http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Summon_Earth_Elemental)

SurlySeraph
2010-11-10, 03:20 PM
The stats are nice for a Swordsage, and the save bonus, dodge bonus, and SR make them decently survivable. You could probably do a decent Jade Phoenix Mage (or possibly RKV, if you can find a domain that gives good enough illusion spells) using Shadow Trickster. Dropping your SR to buff pre-combat would be a pain for a gish, but wouldn't make it unfeasible. The LA hurts a lot, of course, but you could probably make a playable build.

realbombchu
2010-11-10, 03:29 PM
The lesser variety is indeed in Player's Guide to Faerun and is much better, if only because that level adjustment is removed.

I've heard that whisper gnomes are awesome. May I suggest that you play the fluff of a deep gnome with the crunch of a whisper gnome? Ask first, of course, but it might be kinda cool.

Frosty
2010-11-10, 03:41 PM
If the LA were Racial (humanoid) HD instead, then they'd be good.

Cieyrin
2010-11-10, 03:54 PM
The stats are nice for a Swordsage, and the save bonus, dodge bonus, and SR make them decently survivable. You could probably do a decent Jade Phoenix Mage (or possibly RKV, if you can find a domain that gives good enough illusion spells) using Shadow Trickster. Dropping your SR to buff pre-combat would be a pain for a gish, but wouldn't make it unfeasible. The LA hurts a lot, of course, but you could probably make a playable build.

The Shadow or Illusion domains are probably just what you're looking for.

SurlySeraph
2010-11-10, 04:54 PM
Following up on my ideas above:

Jade Phoenix Mage: LA +3/ Illusionist Focused Specialist 5/ Swordsage 1/ JPM 8/ Shadowcraft Mage 1/ Shadowcrafter 2, maybe?
Stay in Child of Shadow Stance to die less. Finding a way to fit in Master of Nine 2 for dual stances (to combine Shadow Trickster with Firebird Stance to get nice Shadow Conjuration/ Evocation fire spells) might be worthwhile. And more emphasis on Shadowcraft Mage and Shadowcrafter would almost certainly be worthwhile, if I understood how to build Shadowcraft Mages. On the other hand, I'm not sure even casting Shadow Miracles in 2nd-level spell slots or whatever it is that SCMs do is enough to make this optimal.

Ruby Knight Vindicator: LA +3/ Cloistered Cleric 4/ Crusader 1/ RKV 10/ Divine Oracle, Shadowbane Stalker, or something else divine 2. Or use Alternate Source Spell for Shadowcraft-age.
Shadow and Illusion domains, Knowledge Devotion, DMM Persist Mislead and stay in Child of Shadows for a 50% miss chance and a 20% miss chance. SCM's Cloak of Shadows improves this further, since its miss chance also isn't concealment and therefore also applies. I'm sure you can improve it more with more miss-chance-gaining spells.
Extra Turning and Nightsticks would be pretty much mandatory to have a decent number of turns, and you wouldn't get much mileage out of Divine Impetus. In fact, dropping the last 5 levels of RKV for Shadowcrafter/ SCM is probably best. Domain Spontaneity (Silent Image) would be nice, though he'll be ridiculously feat-starved in any event.

Those builds are both pretty pants-on-head, and ineffective before very high levels, and a Whisper Gnome would do all of it better, but they're at least plausible. And I'm going to pass the buck to someone who has Races of Stone and thus can figure out a plausible build. I suspect straight Illusionist/ whatever PrCs Shadowcraft Mages use would be more effective than my attempts at gishery.

nedz
2010-11-10, 06:04 PM
Gnome, Deep (lesser) (Svirfneblin (lesser)) (PGF p191)
• +2 Dex –2 Str
• Favoured class Rogue
• Small size
• 20’ movement
• +1 DC to any Illusion spell cast
• +2 Racial bonus on save vs. Illusions
• +1 Racial bonus on attack vs. Kobolds & Goblinoids.
• Darkvision 120’
• +2 Racial bonus on saves vs. spells & spell-like abilities
• +2 Racial bonus on Hide checks (+4 if underground)
• +1 Dodge bonus to AC vs. all creatures
• Stonecunning:
- +2 Racial bonus to notice unusual stonework
- Automatic Search check if a Svirfneblin passes within 10’ of unusual stonework
- Can search for stone-based traps as a Rogue
• Able to cast the following spells 1/day at ½ Character level:
Daze, Resistance, Lullaby

Beguiler would seem to work ?

Frosty
2010-11-10, 06:27 PM
They're like Dwarves with better bonii. Good for many classes.

Zeta Kai
2010-11-10, 06:41 PM
I've always been perplexed by their LA (or those of many, many other monsters). In theory, LA is supposed to mean that a creature's inherent abilities are roughly equal to X number of levels in a PC class. But the designers clearly had no clue how to accurately value a creature's powers.

A good example is the fact that RHD counts toward a monster's LA, on a 1:1 basis. This makes no real sense, as the RHD comes with skill points, saving throw bonuses, feats, & BAB only; no class features of any sort are included. You know what that sounds like? A dead level. Like the kind that make up an NPC class. When you add levels of an NPC class to a monster, it is always considered a non-associated class level (NCL), which do not contribute to a monster's CR on a 1:1 basis (the calculation is complicated, but it basically is 1/2:1 until a certain point, then 1:1 thereafter). This is not balanced, this is lazy, & it makes monsters with RHD prohibitively expensive for players to use.

Other monsters with LA higher than +1 are just as bad, & so nobody plays them. It has been suggested that this was the intent of the designers, as they wanted to discourage the use of non-player races in games. But I think that this was a bad move, one that limits the game where it should be opening it up to new possibilities. It should be up to the DM & the players what races they wanna play, not a close-minded designer (or, more likely, a close-minded executive at a game company).

SurlySeraph
2010-11-10, 08:59 PM
Well, many monsters with RHD get unique special abilities that you can't get otherwise. That's a lot like a class feature. Rarely worth it, especially since ones with really abilities that would be really useful to players (Choker, Planetar, etc) tend to be LA -. But still.

Shifting gears now. There are high-LA races that are appealing, but for some (like the topic of this thread) I can kinda see how the designers thought their abilities justified the LA, but not why that race should have such abilities in the first place. The topic of this thread is a great example.

Why exactly are Svirfneblin so good at dodging that they get a +4 dodge bonus vs all creatures, but not against traps? Why are they *only* that good at dodging, but not that good at everything else Dex is used for? If halflings get +1 to all saves because they're specially lucky, does this mean Svirfneblin are twice as lucky as halflings? What social ramifications would it have for every single member of their society to be able to magically disguise himself as someone else, and to be able to blind or deafen someone else once per day? You need a 5th-level cleric to be able to heal that, so a bickering low-level Svirfneblin community could really cripple itself if a feud broke out. And so on.

Starbuck_II
2010-11-10, 10:40 PM
A good example is the fact that RHD counts toward a monster's LA, on a 1:1 basis. This makes no real sense, as the RHD comes with skill points, saving throw bonuses, feats, & BAB only; no class features of any sort are included. You know what that sounds like? A dead level. Like the kind that make up an NPC class. When you add levels of an NPC class to a monster, it is always considered a non-associated class level (NCL), which do not contribute to a monster's CR on a 1:1 basis (the calculation is complicated, but it basically is 1/2:1 until a certain point, then 1:1 thereafter). This is not balanced, this is lazy, & it makes monsters with RHD prohibitively expensive for players to use.


Is that written anywhere?
I'm pretty sure 2 RHD = 1 LA. So lower the LA each by adding 2 RHD each.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-11-10, 10:58 PM
The stats are nice for a Swordsage, and the save bonus, dodge bonus, and SR make them decently survivable. You could probably do a decent Jade Phoenix Mage (or possibly RKV, if you can find a domain that gives good enough illusion spells) using Shadow Trickster. Dropping your SR to buff pre-combat would be a pain for a gish, but wouldn't make it unfeasible. The LA hurts a lot, of course, but you could probably make a playable build.

IIRC you auto pass your own SR when casting spells on yourself.

erikun
2010-11-10, 11:00 PM
+0 LA Svirfneblin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) are quite sexy, getting the Dex and Con bonuses, Darkvision, and illusion bonuses. They're good at anything that gnomes in general are good at, specifically rogues, wizards, and clerics. They aren't too great as sorcerers, obviously.

The full Svirfneblin have a serious LA problem. They obviously aren't going to make good straight wizards or clerics, although rogues and gishes still work. +2 saves, +4 AC, and nondetection can be handy. I suppose if you want a bit of a challange, a Svirfneblin Druid would be interesting to play.