How would you defend Gnomes?

[LizardfolkLich]

I'm trying to think up some crazy ingenious ideas that gnomes are known for that they can use to defend themselves against your generic forces of darkness, including siege engines. I'm open to anything at all (minus cheese) so throw them at me!

The gnomes in question are actually a moderately sized trading town that is predominantly gnomes but with a healthy cosmopolitan population of humans, elves, dwarves, etc. The standing army is almost entirely gnomish however. The city is surrounded by a good wall that is about 10-15 feet wide and 20 feet tall. The town also has an extensive undercity/tunnel network that also extends outside the walls into the hilly countryside.

All this information is right off the top of my head so I can provide more as necessary. Any ideas, playgrounders?

[megabyter5]

Is it a completely above-ground settlement? Are their enemies mindless hordes, or a well-coordinated army? Gnomes are natural illusionists, so one tactic is to just hide the city under an imaginary mountain. Then there's the old burning oil trick, which never fails to impress... But I don't think gnomes, who are known for alchemy, would limit themselves to just oil. How about a pot of Alchemist's Fire to throw on them? Even better, load it into a catapult.

Yeah, that sounds good... Have them shoot some Alchemist's Fire out of a catapult.

[randomhero00]

Gnomes are known for trickery.

Ever fought against good/hard mode kobolds at low level with all their traps? Basically do something similar with gnomes on a grander scale.

The place you enter can be callapsed into a huge pit of spikes. Their weakness in their town is actually their strength (whatever that might be). If its a wall for instance, then the wall is designed to come down....and filled with explosives. And of course add some permanceied illusions that would really confuse a hostile army.

Just think trickery and illusion with some alchemical stuff thrown in.

edit: and that includes the offensive propaganda game. Make up a legend (which would be an illusion provided by only a few high ranking gnomes) that an invincible monster guards their town. Something collosal.

Make the enemies so paranoid and scared that they wouldn't even want to touch the town.

[Hyfigh]

Really small shields?

[Ravens_cry]

Is it a completely above-ground settlement? Are their enemies mindless hordes, or a well-coordinated army? Gnomes are natural illusionists, so one tactic is to just hide the city under an imaginary mountain. Then there's the old burning oil trick, which never fails to impress... But I don't think gnomes, who are known for alchemy, would limit themselves to just oil. How about a pot of Alchemist's Fire to throw on them? Even better, load it into a catapult.

Yeah, that sounds good... Have them shoot some Alchemist's Fire out of a catapult.

I do not believe one shoots ANYTHING "out" of a catapult, except maybe ballista and related siege engines.

[molten_dragon]

I do not believe one shoots ANYTHING "out" of a catapult, except maybe ballista and related siege engines.

Hmmm, a catapult that shoots ballistas...

[megabyter5]

I do not believe one shoots ANYTHING "out" of a catapult, except maybe ballista and related siege engines.

If it's a semantics war you want, I'll be happy to retaliate. If you launched siege weaponry from a catapult, it would break. And then your enemies would fix it and use it against you. Congratulations, you've now supplied your attackers with a trebuchet.

[Ravens_cry]

If it's a semantics war you want, I'll be happy to retaliate. If you launched siege weaponry from a catapult, it would break. And then your enemies would fix it and use it against you. Congratulations, you've now supplied your attackers with a trebuchet.

It's not a semantics war, though if that's how you want to see it, it's completely a different way of launching a projectile at an enemy. One is like throwing something, the other is akin to spitting. Rather different methods.

[Greenish]

Hmmm, a catapult that shoots ballistas...

…and said ballistae launch a rain of heavy crossbows midair.

[Tyndmyr]

Hmmm, a catapult that shoots ballistas...

I approve of this idea. With gnomish battle teams aboard the ballistas, frantically firing downward into battle, before engaging some half-baked pre-crash "safety" device.

[Coidzor]

Decoy settlements which are staffed by a small team of illusionists that cycles out, probably in a sort of 'reservist' situation and serve as waystations for their scout patrols and double as monitoring stations of the surrounding countryside. As well as actually completely camouflaged and separate from the main tunnels systems of redoubts and tunnels used by the scouts who also double as guerillas when any coherent force marches on the city.

So, they provide both an early warning system and a death trap for enemy vanguards/foragers, and serve to prepare a system of guerilla harassment/sabotage to an enemy force.

Also, you said that there are tunnels leading from the undercity into the surrounding countryside. Those are both vulnerabilities and assets. 1. anything other than small-sized creatures would have to squeeze to get into them, 2. imagine Tuckers' Kobolds with a proper budget and you can imagine how painful and expensive in material it would be to try to take one of those tunnels, only to have it collapsed and sealed with the force inside of it buried/crushed.

[Zergrusheddie]

…and said ballistae launch a rain of heavy crossbows midair.

Gnomish Air-burst Technology at it's finest.

I'll give another hit at Illusions. Illusions are pretty much the bread and butter of Gnomes and what they are most know for. Considering they are Gnomes, you could also have them focus on Underfoot Combat + Confound the big folk with a Mass Reduce Person. "Beware of the Gnomish Infantry in the hills. They are masters of bringing a man down to their level!" Maybe have them know the good ol' combo of Iaijutsu Focus + Gnomish Quick Razor.

[Toliudar]

Illusions are definitely a big part of a potential gnomish defense.

Individual illusionists, sneaking out through the tunnels behind the approaching army, create illusions of whole squads of gnomes popping up among the existing troops, so that at best they waste time diverting their energy attacking nothing, and at worst end up shooting each other.

Illusionary fog clouds over enemy archers and seige weaponry. The defenders know that they're illusions and can see through them, but a large number of the opponents can't.

Illusionary walls on top of the real parapets mean that defending troops have total concealment from opponents until they get into melee range, but can see out just fine.

Dancing lights and ghost sound mean never REALLY knowing whether there are gnomish death squads approaching from the other side of that hill.

Illusionary summoned monsters sent in among the opponents get them used to ignoring such things...and then the gnomes send in the real summons.

Gnome bards disguised as the invading race infiltrate in advance and use fascinate/suggestion to make many of them think they're going to lose (or that they're scared of baby-eating gnomes, or whatever). Gnome bards in the defense, of course, boost the defenders into long-nosed killing machines with Inspire Courage.

[Coidzor]

Hmmm... Gnome Fighter Substitution Levels that capitalize on such synergy...

[Ilmryn]

Gnomes are good at alchemy, right? Smokepowder+alchemist's fire= fire cannons!

[Coidzor]

Gnomes are good at alchemy, right? Smokepowder+alchemist's fire= fire cannons!

Ooo, that reminds me, illusion-covered punji stick pits and areas of the battlefield covered with caltrops...

[Slipperychicken]

With the whole trickery/illusions thing going on...
[Okay, this isn't so much for a settlement as strategy in general]

Make illusions of things that would make armies stall (forts, towers, walls, etc.). Also, you could pull a fake-out on them: make an illusion that looks a *lot* like the gnomish army, keep marching it into the enemy, do this for a very long time until they realize that these armies are just illusions. If they stop reacting to the fake army(s), bring out the real one and catch them with their pants down. If they respond to every one as a legitimate threat, keep at it and wear their morale down as far as it can go. Make them doubt their maps (random forests, mountains, deserts, change the roads up): medieval armies had pretty unreliable maps as it was, but that would just make it hell. Good luck managing supply caravans when the road to stops 30 miles away from camp. Hide your real forts and settlements and put up fake ones where you think the army's marching. Also, if you can, put things up to psyche them out like in 'Nam (mutilated corpses, screaming women, images of the commander being murdered).

TLDR: Abuse illusions, guerrilla tactics all the way. Works even better if the gnomes have a lot of land/illusionists to work with.

EDIT: Didn't read the part with the tunnel network... have guys pop up through holes in the ground, let a few shots/spells off, and go back in before anyone notices.

[DMfromTheAbyss]

Lots of illusions, traps and misdirection, mixed with enough actual siege equipment and legitimate hit and run assaults to keep the enemy guessing. Invisible sapping teams and alchemy based explosives. Small enclosed tunnels filled with badgers/dire badgers and or gnomish infantry formations. Throw in illusionary towns and or making illusions of your own forces over the forces of your enemy while having your own forces illusioned to look like your enemy.. mass confusion for the enemy, easy pickings for the gnomes. Until the enemy whips out something to see through all the illusionary fun.

And when the enemy goes for something to see through the illusions.. two words..

INVISIBLE DARKNESS

Spoiler

Show

A darkness 15 foot radius type spell, metamagicked/changed to make the spell invisible. So if you don't have true sight or a way of seeing past illusions you can see just fine, if you do you are effectively blinded. Liberally spread out over the field of operations to make the opponent blind or so paranoid they leave.

[kieza]

I'm going to go with illusions too, but instead of using them to confuse and confound the enemy, use them to scare them. Illusions of horrible ghosts and geists, reanimated soldiers, etc. Break the enemy's morale directly, rather than doing so via fatigue.

Also, if you can figure out a way to make the illusion only visible to certain people, make one officer see one threat, another something different, and so on...and leave the troops unaffected. Instant mutiny as the troops lose faith in their leadership.

[Rasman]

Gnome Commandos.

They were...a little crazy...but pretty hardcore. They used Gillie suits and other types of sneaky sneaky to launch ambushes on the main roads headed in the direction of their settlement.

They're the most interesting Gnomes I've ever run into that didn't make me want to drop kick them into a river.

[Escheton]

Earth Ele's
Alchemist Fire Golems
Catapults that shoot hang-glider-trebuchets that swing soft-landing-balistae that shoot heavy-crossbow-golems(homunculi)
Badgers, lots and lots of badgers.
Dire badgers, bunches
Maze tunnel tactics, no gnome city can openly be approached.

[Skorj]

Fluff-wise, Gnomes need to be significantly different from Tucker's Kobolds. I personally like them as Tucker's Kobolds + long term planning = elegance. Gnomish trickery should be strategic (and not require constant reflex saves just to go to the pub), not tactical and improvised.

For example, any scenario in which you lay siege to the town, have a hard fought battle, finally break in, and only then realize you've lost: because the whole town was an illusion, because the whole town was a trap, because meanwhile the Gnomes sold your home city to the highest bidder, something like that.

[Coidzor]

For example, any scenario in which you lay siege to the town, have a hard fought battle, finally break in, and only then realize you've lost: because the whole town was an illusion, because the whole town was a trap, because meanwhile the Gnomes sold your home city to the highest bidder, something like that.

And in Zilargo, Eberron: All of the above.

[ericgrau]

Combat
Gnomes prefer misdirection and deception over direct confrontation.

They would rather befuddle or embarrass foes (other than goblinoids or kobolds) than kill them.

Gnomes make heavy use of illusion magic and carefully prepared ambushes and traps whenever they can.

Yeah, traps, illusions, humiliation, ambushes, etc. What everyone said. I'll add passageways (e.g., through or between city walls) with arrow slits and murder-holes (basically melee slits), with false walls permanent illusions and other tricks to confuse those trying to pass through them.

The nearby dwarves could provide professional stonework while the elves provide some minor magic items: elixirs of hiding and sneaking. Along with alchemical items and potions from the gnomes. Most low level grunt soldiers will only have one or two per battle due to cost but you can still go a long way with that. The 1-2% captains and other elites will probably be around level 5 and have more permanent magic items like hats of disguise (I'm a goblin!), rings of feather fall (wall elite paratrooper corps go!), lesser rods of extend spell and 2nd level wands of spells like invisibility.

[Tvtyrant]

Illusions that convince the enemy that different units are Gnomes, so they slaughter each other.

[Mikeavelli]

Can you put Magitek-Mecha into the mix? I've always wanted to see Gnomes in Mecha.

[Skorj]

Can you put Magitek-Mecha into the mix? I've always wanted to see Gnomes in Mecha.

Aren't those called Warforged?

[Mikeavelli]

Do warforged have little compartments for their gnomish pilots to ride in?

[AshDesert]

My suggestion would be this. First, you have every spellcaster in the town use their highest level illusion to put hundreds of identical mountain illusions on top of the town's real location. Every enemy should fail against at least one save to disbelieve should they interact with it, so they're unlikely to find the real location. Then, have your illusionists create a full-blown copy of the village. Set up all kinds of traps that trigger as soon as anything touches the walls (with a size limit of course, you don't want to have birds setting the traps off, after all). Really use your imagination here.

From there, I think it would probably follow fairly standard siege warfare, but with nonstandard ammunition, mostly involving alchemical stuff (acid, flaming oils, all sorts of stuff). I'd consider using ballistae or even cannons in place of catapults. Gnomes should have more advanced technology than the attackers at the very least.

EDIT: Definitely use illusions during the battle too. Gnomish battle units showing up in the middle of their units is a pretty good idea.

[bladesmith]

Can you put Magitek-Mecha into the mix? I've always wanted to see Gnomes in Mecha.

I second this motion. Even my normally gnome-adverse group has agreed to play in a game with these, if we can ever figure out how to stat it. My personal suggestion would be gnomish artificers with modified golems that load various wand chambers and what not.