Technology and tinkering, learn how to play as a Rock Gnome with our optimisation guide
What are Rock Gnomes?
Gnomes are short, inquisitive folk that are native to the Feywild. They’re often bearded but slimmer than dwarves and much more excitable. Rock Gnomes are particularly fond of technology and with an insatiable zeal for life and discovery, love nothing more than to tinker with some new contraption making them natural artificers.
Rock Gnomes often find their homes under the ground where they often also find their work; mining, smelting, inventing and all sorts of other industrious endeavours tend to preoccupy Rock Gnomes.
Rock Gnomes have been a playable race in D&D 5e since its inception and are featured in the Player’s Handbook. Our guide will tell you everything you need to know so you can play as a Rock Gnome of your own.
Is a Rock Gnome the right race for me?
Dungeons and Dragons lets you take a flexible approach to building a character, but if you’re going to stick to typical culture and the best-optimised build for a Rock Gnome you might consider the following:
Choose a Rock Gnome if you like…
- Having magical resilience
- Are innately curious about the world
- Love tinkering with tools and objects
A Rock Gnome might not be for you if…
- You don’t like being slower than everyone else
- You don’t like being smaller than everyone else
- You hate technology
If you think a Forest Gnome isn’t for you, not to worry, there are dozens of playable races for you to pick from, just check out our races guide to find out about all of them. For a different Gnomish subrace, you could consider a Deep Gnome or a Forest Gnome.
Rock gnome racial traits
| Ability Scores | +2 Intelligence; +1 Constitution |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Small |
| Speed | 25ft |
| Languages | Common and Gnomish |
| Traits | Small, Darkvision, Gnome Cunning, Artificer’s Lore, Tinker |
| Proficiencies | Tinker’s tools |
| Resistances | None |
| Darkvision | Yes |
| Innate spellcasting | Minor Illusion |
| Book found in | Player’s Handbook |
If you want to play as a Forest Gnome, your character will have the following traits and abilities (as found in the SRD for D&D 5e):
Darkvision – Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Gnome Cunning – You have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saves against magic.
Artificer’s Lore – Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to magical, alchemical, or technological items, you can add twice your proficiency bonus instead of any other proficiency bonus that may apply.
Tinker – You have proficiency with artisan tools (tinker’s tools). Using those tools, you can spend 1 hour and 10 gp worth of materials to construct a Tiny clockwork device (AC 5, 1 hp). The device ceases to function after 24 hours (unless you spend 1 hour repairing it to keep the device functioning), or when you use your action to dismantle it; at that time, you can reclaim the materials used to create it. You can have up to three such devices active at a time. When you create a device, choose one of the following options:
- Clockwork Toy – This toy is a clockwork animal, monster, or person, such as a frog, mouse, bird, dragon, or soldier. When placed on the ground, the toy moves 5 feet across the ground on each of your turns in a random direction. It makes noises as appropriate to the creature it represents.
- Fire Starter – The device produces a miniature flame, which you can use to light a candle, torch, or campfire. Using the device requires your action.
- Music Box – When opened, this music box plays a single song at a moderate volume. The box stops playing when it reaches the song’s end or when it is closed.
- At your DM’s discretion, you may make other objects with effects similar in power to these. The Prestidigitation cantrip is a good baseline for such effects.
Tactics
Mage Hunter: Forest Gnomes have advantage on saving throws against most spells making them great for throwing at spellcasters. Wisdom and then charisma are the most common saving throws from spells so bumping these up where possible will help you out too. Sadly, intelligence is your main ability score increase which is rarely needed against spells. Still, taking a class that can mix these elements can help.
Inventor: Having some minor artificer capabilities can be useful, though this is not a combat ability, the fact that it uses prestidigitation as a baseline for what it can do means you basically get a great utility spell available for any character. Music boxes make great distractions for enemy guards while you can make toys to impress and delight those you want to win over.
Which classes work well for a Rock Gnome?
Rock Gnomes are an odd mix of traits that don’t really pigeon hole then into one type of class or another. For instance, high intelligence works great for artificers, wizards, eldritch knights and arcane tricksters, but not a lot else (maybe rogues to some extent). On the other hand, magic resilience is great for frontline line martials while tinkerer is more of a social and stealth utility ability with darkvision also being great for scouting and stealth.
While this fits neatly with frontline artificer subclasses like armorers and battle smiths, being a Rock Gnome artificer actually makes tinkerer completely redundant as you can do all this as an artificer anyway.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that it’s hard to neatly assess which class is best for a Rock Gnome, especially when it mainly depends on your subclass, but I’ve tried anyway with the ratings below:
Artificer⭐⭐⭐⭐
Barbarian ⭐⭐
Bard ⭐⭐⭐
Cleric ⭐⭐
Druid ⭐⭐
Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monk ⭐⭐
Paladin ⭐⭐
Ranger ⭐⭐⭐
Rogue ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sorcerer ⭐⭐
Warlock ⭐⭐
Wizard ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
*Star ratings scored out of 5
Best classes for a Rock Gnome
As mentioned, Rock Gnomes feel like natural artificers, but tinker is entirely redundant for them. Having said that, everything else works well for an artificer; intelligence, constitution and some extra resilience are all what an artificer needs, especially a frontline one.
Wizards are an easy recommendation too as their natural lack of toughness means magic resilience is hugely useful. You can probably just grab prestidigitation instead of tinker but I suppose you can invest in another cantrips instead (not that wizards really need that.
Rock Gnomes aren’t perfect for rogues, but still do it fairly well, though I’d say a Forest Gnome does this better with minor illusion and the dexterity boost, but tinker is an interesting alternative distraction when stealthing around. Your best options is to go with an arcane Trickster which will really maximise on that intelligence boost.
The other great option here is an eldritch knight. Any fighter will gain a lot from the magic resilience and tinker gives fighters so much needed out of combat utility, but intelligence is largely redundant on fighters other than the eldritch knight.
Worst classes for a Rock Gnome
There are no terrible options for a Rock Gnome as the likes of gnome cunning, darkvision, constitution and tinker can be universally useful. Having said that, paladins and monks don’t have ability score increases to waste on intelligence and probably represent your worst options. Clerics, druids and barbarians probably aren’t getting enough out of the Rock Gnome’s abilities either to be worthwhile.
About Rock Gnomes
Rock Gnomes originally came from the Feywild but have since spread out across the Forgotten Realms and far beyond and are common throughout all settings. In their endless obsession to discover everything, they’ve even spread among the stars and can be found in Wildspace and beyond, tinkering with Spelljammer ships and even building Autognomes, another of D&D 5e’s more recent playable races.
Rock Gnomes typically live in small towns of about 500 other Rock Gnomes, often making their homes in burrows underground. These burrows are typically protected from unwanted guests through the use of illusion spells meaning if a Rock Gnome doesn’t want to be found, there’s a good chance you won’t find them.
While many Rock Gnomes live with other Rock Gnomes, their desire for discovery leads many to strike out away from their communities and into the wider world and mingle gladly with the other races of D&D. Rock Gnomes are generally seen as useful whether that be as a tutor for a wealthy family, a miner in an ore-rich region, a builder or any of the other many endeavours Rock Gnomes excel at. The main challenge is keeping them focused on the task at hand.
Other Gnome subspecies
Appearance
Rock Gnomes tend to be short, about 3-3.5 ft tall so tend to be about the height of a child and similar to a Halfling or a Kender. Unlike Halflings or Kender though, Gnomes have more mature looking features with beards and wrinkles marking their faces. What they do share with Halflings, Kender and even children, is a natural curiosity and energy. This tends to be channeled into tinkering, and Rock Gnomes are particularly renowned for their tinkering tendencies.
How to roleplay a Rock Gnome
While most Rock Gnomes are curious and excitable, this allows for a range of personality types. Even with these common traits, not all Rock Gnomes will think and act the same either, your Rock Gnome might be an outlier and not share these traits with their kin.
Your heritage and culture though is likely to affect who you are and the following can be important considerations when creating your Rock Gnome character:
- What are you curious about? – While most Rock Gnomes are curious fellows, they’re often curious about different things. Are you curious about nature, technology or human behaviour? Maybe all of it. What you’re curious about may determine how you act when you encounter different things.
- Social creatures – Rock 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. Be careful though that you don’t irritate the other players when manifesting these traits.
- Small creatures in a big world – While Rock Gnomes are very curious, they’re not idiots and know their limitations. They are aware that they’re smaller than most other races and must take precautions to protect themselves (such as using illusions to hide where they live). How does your Rock Gnome protect themself against the dangers of the world?
