Gnomes D&D 2024: Species/Race Optimisation Guide

Curious and cautious, learn how to optimise a Gnome with our guide to the updated species for D&D 2024.

What are Gnomes?

The creation of the gods of magic and invention, Gnomes are short, curious beings with an enthusiastic streak. They stand a little taller than Halflings, but a little shorter than Dwarves at 3-4ft. You can often recognise them from their short beards and pointed ears, though good luck finding one of they don’t want to be found as they can be extraordinarily secretive.

Having said that, Gnomes now are far more sociable and cosmopolitan than they once were. Many Gnomes have now integrated into wider society throughout the planes. However, there was a time when you’d almost never see a Gnome if they didn’t want to be found; often using magic to keep their presence and homes a secret.

Gnomes come in a couple of main varieties; Forest and Rock Gnomes. Much of this distinction comes down to the source from which they learnt their magic. Forest Gnomes were primarily taught in the ways of nature and illusion, while Rock Gnomes were primarily taught in the ways of technomancy and invention.

Gnomes in D&D 2024 aren’t hugely different from their 2014 counterparts, but do come with some important and subtle differences along with the wider changes to rules and classes coming to D&D 2024.

If you want to create an effective and optimised Gnomish character, then read on for my tips and tactics for these curious creatures.

Is a Gnome the right species for me?

Choose a Gnome if you like…

Being resilient to many nasty effects
Having some magical utility up your sleeves
Being extremely curious

A Gnome might not be for you if…

You want to focus more on combat abilities
Aren’t interested in providing out of combat utility
Want to be tall

What’s changed for the 2024 Gnome?

Gnomes get some subtle, but important changes to their traits in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. These include:

Having a 30ft movement speed rather than the 25ft small species used to be limited to
Speak with beasts for Forest Gnomes has now been replaced by the spell speak with animals offering far more use cases, but can be cast less often
Rock Gnomes now get the mending and prestidigitation spells
Rock Gnomes’ tinkering trait is rolled into their prestidigitation spell allowing them to apply the effects to a usable device
Gnome cunning gets a subtle, but important improvement. Advantage on intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws applies to all these saves, not just ones coming from magic. This lines up with many recent changes to monster stat blocks which have many spell effects performed not using spells at all giving Gnomes better protection against attacks of the mind

For a full breakdown, check out my article on all the species changes coming to D&D 2024.

Gnome 2024 traits

Creature Type	Humanoid
Size	Small
Speed	30ft
Traits	Darkvision, Gnomish cunning, Gnomish lineage
Resistances	Intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws
Proficiencies	None
Darkvision	Yes
Innate spellcasting	Minor illusion and speak with animals or mending and prestidigitation
Book found in	Player’s Handbook 2024

Darkvision: You have darkvision for up to 60ft

Gnomish cunning: You have advantage on all intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws

Gnomish lineage: Choose one of the following lineages:

Forest Gnomes: You can cast the minor illusion and speak with animals spells.
Rock Gnome: You can cast the mending and prestidigitation spells. You can also imbue a clockwork device with the effects of prestidigitation that others can activate.

Where are the ability score increases?

You may have noticed that there are no ability score increases associated with your species any more. This is because these increases are now linked to your background. This gives you more flexibility to play the species you want and optimise more easily for a broader range of classes.

Check out our guide to backgrounds in D&D 2024 to find out more.

Tactics

Impenetrable mind: A lot of saving throws rely on wisdom in particular, but adding in intelligence and charisma makes you tough to a lot of effects. Particularly the likes of the charmed and frightened conditions.

You can lean into this by picking a class proficient in these types of saving throws (the 2 features stack) or investing in these ability scores. On the other hand, if you want a broader range of saving throw resiliences, you can focus more on saving throws from other ability scores like dexterity and constitution.

Utility spells: Gnomish spells are high in out of combat utility and offer little use in combat. I prefer what a Forest Gnome has to offer, though a bit of cleverness can make use of prestidigitation quite nicely too.

Speaking with animals is great for scouting and investigation. Some DMs will give you more from this than others, especially if they take cues from Baldur’s Gate 3’s approach to speaking with animals.

Minor illusion can be loads of fun. Create a fake door for someone to get confused by, conceal a real door to get an enemy stuck, an image of a person to momentarily confuse an enemy or the sound of a commander ordering guards away. There are loads of options if you’re prepared to get creative.

A Rock Gnome’s clockwork devices can be a great source of distraction, or an excellent way to delight NPCs and help win them over.

Choosing a class for your Gnome

Below I’ve scored how well each class works with a Gnomes:

Artificer⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Barbarian ⭐⭐

Bard ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cleric ⭐⭐⭐

Druid ⭐⭐

Fighter ⭐⭐⭐

Monk ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Paladin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rogue ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sorcerer ⭐⭐⭐

Warlock ⭐⭐⭐

Wizard ⭐⭐⭐

*Star ratings scored out of 5

Best classes for Gnomes

Gnomes are perhaps the hardest 2024 species to rate for classes as they have an unusual spread of utility traits that can kind of work for most classes. However, there are a few elements that make them a little more useful for certain classes:

Utility specialists will get more from Gnomish spells. Imagine a rogue sneaking around and needing to distract a guard. The likes of minor illusion and prestidigitation are ideal for this.
The more danger characters are in from conditions, the more they’ll need gnomish cunning, so frontline characters also benefit here
A decent charisma will also help with speaking with animals

Normally I’d suggest that being able to repeat cast spells would be useful, but most Gnomish spells are cantrips, and the one that isn’t (speak with animals) gets multiple castings that will rarely be expended.

With that in mind, I’d recommend the following classes for a Gnome:

Artificer – Artificers are often trim on spells, so a couple of extras is great. Battlesmiths and armorers are frontline warriors that lack some of the durability of dedicated martials making gnomish cunning very useful. As a utility specialist, and with armorers having dedicated stealth mode armor, they fit nicely with a Forest Gnome. In fact, I’d stick to a Forest Gnome for an artificer as you get very similar options to a Rock Gnome already.
Bard – The most utilitarian of all the classes! The spells will be handy and you should have an excellent charisma making speak with animals more useful. Valor bards and dance bards will get a lot of mileage from the extra resilience from gnomish cunning so are perhaps your stand out options.
Ranger – Probably your most martial option for a Gnome meaning plenty of use out of gnomish cunning. Rangers also work well for stealth and scouting. Consider something like minor illusion to cover your tracks or hide from an enemy that’s trailing you. You should also naturally have a solid wisdom score to aid your spellcasting.
Rogue – This is the most sneaky of your options and that works well for minor illusion. Rogues don’t always need a great charisma or intelligence, but it’s easy to build one with either. Both types of rogues work well and if you want to lean into the deceptive side of a rogue, then charisma is great (and can be used as your spellcasting ability). Intelligence works well for arcane tricksters which may be your best option for a Gnome.

Worst classes for Gnomes

There are no truly bad Gnome classes. Barbarians will struggle a bit though. You’re too reliant on strength, dexterity and constitution to focus on spellcasting abilities. You can’t cast spells while raging. Previously, this wouldn’t have been so bad for a bunch of out of combat spells, but barbarians do rage outside of combat now to enhance their skills. Unfortunately, this is likely also a similar time to when you might want to cast your Gnome spells.

Druids already get speak with animals as standard so this is wasted on them. Generally though, Gnomes are a pretty versatile class.

About Gnomes

Appearance

Gnomes tend to be short standing at about 3-4ft tall so tend to be about the height of a child and a little taller than a Halfling or Kender. Unlike Halflings or Kender though, Gnomes have more mature looking features with beards and wrinkles marking their faces.

Gnomes tend to live longer than Humans, though not as long as a lot of other fey creatures like elves. A typical Gnome will live for about 350 years, which is not nearly long enough to learn everything they want to know.

Personality

While Gnomes may be more mature looking than Halflings, Kender and children, they do share a natural curiosity and energy with all these people. This can often be channeled towards their intrigue in magic. Forest Gnomes delight in illusory magic while Rock Gnomes are fascinated by the magics inherent within technology.

Gnomes are generally appreciated by other races who tend to see them as useful people, whether that be as a tutor for a wealthy family, a wizard to protect a family home or just a willing worker. This is mainly due to their enthusiasm for even the most menial of tasks. The main challenge is actually keeping a Gnome focused on the task at hand.

Roleplaying a Gnome

If you choose to play as a Gnome, consider some of the approaches below when roleplaying them:

What are you curious about? – While most Gnomes are curious fellows, they’re often curious about different things. Are you curious about nature, magic or human behaviour? Maybe all of these, or something else entirely. What you’re curious about may change how you act in different circumstances.

Sociable creatures – Gnomes are highly sociable and want to find out everything they can, including about people. While this does make them friendly (normally), other races can find their behaviour to be incessant. How does this manifest though? Do you ask a lot of questions for example? Just be careful that you don’t irritate the other players (or the DM) when manifesting these traits.

Small creatures in a big world – While Gnomes are very curious, they’re not idiots and know their limitations. In fact, they often demonstrate extraordinary levels of caution in many instances. You’ll be aware that you are smaller than most other races and must take precautions to protect yourself (such as using illusions to hide where you live). How does your Gnome protect themself against the dangers of the world?