GNOME ANCESTRY GUIDE - PATHFINDER 2E

howdy my name is nonat and welcome to my deep dive into the gnome ancestry in pathfinder 2nd edition now i've always been a huge fan of gnomes but in pathfinder 2e specifically they're amazing they have such cool unique features that have definitely been touched upon in other systems but in 2e they dive head first everything that makes a gnome magical and fae connected and colorful have all been given mechanics and purpose and some really cool meaning in the system so let's not waste any time and jump right into it again if this is your first time watching one of these deep dives i don't get too detailed into the lore of these ancestries otherwise we'd be here forever i specifically cover the mechanics video if you're interested there are definitely videos on the internet here uh the world wide web as it were of ancestry lore regarding the ancestries of galerion but starting off as we always do with the starting stats they have a surprising eight ancestry hit points gnomes and pathfinder are incredibly durable in fact one of their starting ability boosts is to constitution which is really impressive though they belittle they be fierce they are small though so that will come into play now and again when deciding what kind of armor and weapons to use as well as interacting with other creatures i believe anything small does get penalties to grappling and interacting with larger creatures though unlike other systems such as dnd 3.5 the penalty isn't directly to the number you simply cannot grapple anything more than one size larger than you so being small anything large or bigger cannot be grappled they do have a surprising 25 foot movement speed though on par with pretty much all of the other ancestries except for elves you think with such little legs they wouldn't be able to keep up as fast but man they're nimble as i said they get a boost to constitution and the other one goes to their charisma what i really kind of like about the gnomes as an ancestry base is they're not incredibly combat focused and that speaks true to their lore while gnome adventurers absolutely exist they're a very friendly peace loving people they just love adventure and telling stories and so the constitution to make it through these adventures and the charisma to tell these stories is just such a match made in heaven for this ancestry and of course adding to their non-aggressiveness due to their small stature and overall lighter builds they have a flawed strength they are not as bulky as other races their muscles are smaller they actually begin with three languages as well as their bonus from intelligence of common gnomish and sylvan all for free and then as many as they'd like extra from their intelligence modifier and they also only have low light vision not dark vision with all that out of the way let's get to the interesting stuff and jump into heritages starting off with the chameleon gnome which first off is just so flavorful and i love it uh they use a lot of words to basically say you can change your color at will your skin your hair everything physically about you can change now depending on how dramatic the change is it will take anywhere from one action to one hour if you already have green hair and dark brownish skin and you're in the woods well for one action you can camouflage into your surroundings if your color is not quite green maybe you have pink hair and very very pale skin in the woods you can still spend an hour to change your coloring to the dark green dark brown and then gain this camouflage bonus however long it takes once you've successfully camouflaged you get a plus two circumstance bonus to stealth checks so long as you're still in matching surroundings this is nuts by the way if we compare this to something off the top of my head that i just talked about the shadow dancer dedication at eighth level granting you a plus two to stealth checks in the dark this is just anywhere you match the surroundings which can take at most an hour even if you're in somewhere incredibly industrial with some dark gray and brown metals you can shift your colors to match the metal there is nowhere this will not be useful and this is one of my favorite heritages in the game on top of this just fun flavor-wise is while you're asleep you are constantly slowly changing colors and hues to match your dream if you're having a nightmare your hair might change like a bright scared red or a dark black but if you're having a nice peaceful dream about the ocean maybe it's a light blue or a sea green fey touch gnome is another incredibly powerful heritage gnomes have some of the best heritages in the game in my personal opinion faye touch gnome at first glance is just oh you get a cantrip you get any primal cantrip you want and you can cast it at will it heightens like normal since you get it from your heritage it uses charisma as the spell casting modifier what's amazing about this heritage is by spending 10 minutes realigning yourself with the fae you can switch your can't trip to any other can trip even prepared spellcaster classes can't do that unless they have specific things this is incredible to be able to switch from guidance to produce flame or to any other cantrip you might need in the moment with just 10 minutes that's amazing in a campaign it's unless you're in the middle of combat or a really heated encounter it's not hard to find 10 minutes to switch to any other cantrip on the primal spell list this is amazingly versatile additionally you add the fey trait to your character so if you take this heritage you are a humanoid gnome fae traits sensei gnome is not bad it's not usually one i will pick it's similar to the really good ear elves uh basically you get an imprecise sense of smell up to 30 feet which will be better or worse depending on if you are upwind or downwind from the scent you also get a plus two bonus to seek an undetected creature that's it personally i think i undersell the use of an imprecise scent i don't think they're that useful but that's just because i never think to use them i'm sure there are times where they can save your bacon umbral gnome is dark vision there's always one wellspring gnome is interesting this is for gnomes who are still magically inclined but they don't derive it from the fae in nature you can choose a divine arcane or a cult can trip and learn that one it functions very similar to the fae touched the only difference in this one is that it you cannot switch this one out so if you take fei touched it has to be a primal can trip but you can switch it within 10 minutes with wellspring gnome you pick one cantrip and you're stuck with that kandra but it can be from any of the other three traditions additionally if you ever get a future gnome ancestry feat that grants you a primal spell you can instead take a spell from the tradition you chose with wellspring gnome so if you choose divine and you get a future ancestry feat that grants you a primal spell you can instead gain a divine spell really cool i like the idea of a divine touched or an occult cursed gnome it's really neat vivacious gnome is great in that you're so positive and connected to the first world that negative effects have less of an effect on you you gain resistance to negative damage equal to half of your level and the doomed condition is one less effective on you it basically nullifies the first doomed condition you get so doom 1 does nothing to you doomed 2 counts and acts like doomed 1 and doom 3 works like dooms 2 etc effectively you just reduce your doomed condition by one you don't remove it but you treat it as one lower it's really solid and that's all the gnome heritages like i said some of my favorite in the game especially the chameleon and fey touched really cool stuff there but let's jump into what everyone likes to see from these the ancestry feats also worth mentioning uh i'm going to start putting these into chapters because this is a whole thing that youtube has that i haven't learned how to do at this moment but hopefully i'll figure it out in time for the premiere today at 7. basically if you look at the bar of the youtube video you should see it sort of segmented and you can see there's gonna be like introduction uh heritages and then each level of ancestry feats will be its own chapter so if you're looking for a specific ancestry feat i'll have them organized by level i'm hoping to go back and do this for all past deep dives as well as class deep dives as well so uh look forward to that whenever i manage to find six hours to sit down and do that we'll see starting off with animal accomplice which is just gana familiar as an ancestry feat this is amazing you just get a familiar gnomes are incredible guys this is a first level wizard or sorcerer feat and you can just take it as an ancestry feat it follows the same rules it can take the same number of abilities uh it says that most gnomes pick a burrowing animal but it does not have to be burrow elocutionist is amazingly powerful for a level one feat you recognize the chittering of ground creatures as its own peculiar little clear language you can ask questions of receive answers from and use the diplomacy skill with animals that have a burrow speed this is speak with animals as a passive effect at level one yes they have to be burrowing animals but those are everywhere unless you're in the sky or the ocean but still like there's there's squirrels and moles everywhere in the world if you spend an hour searching i bet you can find one and then just strike up a conversation with them hey do you know where the nearest town is and they'll be like oh yeah i hate the town they go over there we don't go that way they don't give us food they try to kill us apparently that's my mole voice uh this is super powerful fae fellowship makes you really good at working with and against the fae you get a plus two bonus to perception checks and saving throws against fey which means they are even they struggle even more to hide from you you get bonus to perception just to find them additionally you can make an instant diplomacy check against any fae you meet you do not need to talk to them for a while you can just try to make friends the second you meet them granted it takes a minus five but what's amazing about this is there's no reason not to make this check should you fail the check with the minus five you can just ignore the failure or the critical failure and make another check after the normal one minute of conversation and it just ignores the previous check so you can just say oh i'm gonna um that's a two never mind you just get to say never mind but if you roll high bam your diplomacy is out of the way and they already know you're friendly this is solid additionally if you have the gladhand feet you don't even take the minus five penalty to make the impression immediately so good first world magic just gets you an extra primal cantrip that's it not too powerful not too weak it's good i mean it's honestly always a good option maybe you didn't take any of the magical heritages and just want a cantrip or maybe you took wellspring gnome and you can take this as an arcane occult or divine kantrip it's a lot of flexibility here gnome obsession is honestly dude gnome level 1 feats are insane you pick any lore skill you want you automatically become an expert in it at level two and then at level seven and thirteen you automatically upgrade to master and legendary respectively this is a level one ancestry feat that gives you four skill increases over the course of 15 levels sure but that's still four skill increases for a level one ancestry feed this is so gross and i love it granted it's lore so it's a lot more specific than like arcana or occultism but it's still really good lore is helpful gnome weapon familiarity you are trained with the glaive and the kukri because their blades are curved and peculiarly shaped they're not even just gnome weapons they're just funny looking blades and that's why gnomes like them i love that you also gain access to uncommon gnome weapons and depending on proficiency advanced becomes martial marshall becomes simple uh i just love the first part that yeah you get trained in the glave and kukri because they're shaped funny and delusion sense is just a straight permanent upgrade against illusions you gain plus one two will saves and perception checks against illusions additionally if you would ever come within 10 feet of an illusion the gm makes a secret check for you for a chance to automatically disbelieve it even if you the player don't even think it's an illusion you can just instantly see through it should the gm's secret check pass which by the way the more i've played pathfinder the more i love secret checks i used to be on the side of don't take dice away from the player secret checks are a problem don't do it but i'm really starting to enjoy it i'm really really liking it and i might start integrating that into my games more side tangent anyway lost one's character guide we have some first level ancestry feats gnome polyglot this is similar to the nomadic halfling which we haven't covered yet so i don't know why i brought that up spoilers you know spoilers for the core rule book basically if you take this ancestry feat you get three additional languages right when you take the feet and whenever you take the multilingual feat instead of gaining two additional language you gain three this is again just back in that classic gnomes are friendly they want to be friends with everybody so they learn every language in the game so they can talk and diplomacize is that the word diplomacized diplomacy role diplomacy with everybody and all be friends it's great grim insight is so different from everything else that gnomes do it's strictly for umbral gnomes which is the one that granted you dark vision if you ever succeed on a fear-saving throw you get a critical success instead in addition the source of the fear effect becomes flat-footed against you i it says you gain insight about your would-be bully that you can exploit i kind of love reading this as they attempt to scare you and you just look them dead in the eye and scare them back and they're flat-footed for wonder i love this feat it's god no feats are so good and they don't stop coming dude they don't stop coming inventive offensive you can jury rig your weapons to perform in unexpected ways add one of the following weapon traits to a melee weapon you wield deadly d6 disarm non-lethal shove trip and versatile bludgeoning or piercing or slashing you cannot add a second trait to a weapon that already has it so you can't give something with shove shove again and it retains this trait until you successfully hit and deal damage with it additionally if you're an expert in crafting you can do this as a two action so your turn can be somehow strapping a ball to the end of your dagger and then dealing bludgeoning damage with it all in one turn like these aren't necessarily great effects especially for three actions but you it doesn't wear off over time so you can do this after every encounter add deadly d6 to your weapon add disarm to your weapon granted deadly d6 is probably the least useful it's great if it goes off but remember even if you hit and don't use the deadly d6 even if you hit and you don't crit the deadly d6 does break off i just love this so much especially once you can do it for two actions just being able to plop something on your weapon and hitting them with it oh it's just so flavorful i do want to stop for one second and talk about this sad gnome right here i know i said i usually don't get into lore in these videos but this is my single favorite part of gnomes in pathfinder the bleaching typically as a gnome gets on in years they start to lose their color this is specifically if their lust for adventure is not sated if a gnome is stuck in one place stuck in a routine doing the same thing over and over again they actually start to fade and lose their color like this gentleman here now there are some gnomes who survive this but most of the time when you reach the point that this gnome is they die once all of their color has drained they die some gnomes do survive it and they're called bleachlings but i just think this is such a unique dark aspect of gnomes everyone sees them and they're like oh look at the happy-go-lucky gnomes they're just ready for the next adventure to make another friend and tell another story but in reality that's how they live that's like food and water to them if they don't have adventure and stories they die and it's really dark and a really cool thing to role play in your character now this is not an instant thing it's not like if they go a week without an adventure they die no it takes months or even years but it's just this sad fact of life you know if they don't keep getting out they will just slowly whittle away to nothing it's sad really anyway off of that life giving magic once per minute as a reaction when you cast an innate spell you gained from your heritage or ancestry feat you gain temporary hit points equal to half your level it's not a lot but remember that this does work with kant trips it does not say spell slot so if you use your primal cantrip you got from your uh heritage then you know that's one or two temporary hit points until the end of your next turn i don't think this would have been overpowered if it was once per turn because you know even at level 20 it's 10 temporary hit points it's never going to save your life but it might reduce the damage you take over time it's a decent feat a little underwhelming compared to the rest and pretty useless if you don't already have a heritage that grants you a spell natural performer for one ancestry fee you get trained in performance and a first level performance skill feed is this as good as the one that gives you four skill increases for the lore skill not really but it's still not bad economy you know you're spending one ancestry feat for a skill increase and a skill fee which you usually only get every two levels so it's sort of trading off it's pretty equal trade in my opinion theoretical acumen is interesting once per day as a free action when you succeed at a recall knowledge check to identify a creature you can use your dc in that skill say arcana to replace a plethora of things you can use your arcana dc in place of a perception check to find it a deception check to faint against it or an intimidation check to demoralize it you can also replace your armor class with your skill dc against one of their attacks so this is really solid once per day you know if you especially if you're a spell caster if you're a wizard with a plus 8 to arcana but a 16 armor class well you know that plus 18 that's an 18 armor class instead of your normal 16. that's a buff or if you're a character with a low wisdom score and you're trying to seek this creature being able to use that dc can help a ton worst case scenario demoralize and faint are great actions so being able to use intelligence or wisdom on that is really good i wish it was more than once per day i think once per hour would have been fair unexpected shift is kind of insane as a reaction and this is once per round there's no limitation on this as long as you have a reaction to spend and you would take damage from really any source you can roll a dc-16 flat check so 25 chance to gain resistance to all damage equal to your level against the effect you also gain a plus two bonus to saving throws against that effect until the start of your next turn the only downside is you yourself become dazzled for one round this is kind of nuts i'm glad they put the dazzled condition on there because otherwise this would have been way too overpowered but this is a 25 chance against every time you take damage to reduce the damage by your level that's crazy honestly especially at lower levels to be able to reduce a hit by two or three damage that's huge and a bonus to saving throws this is solid this is just really really solid being dazzled sucks uh having to roll a flat check to because everything's considered concealed is rough but this could save your life this could absolutely save your life vibrant display specifically for chameleon gnomes is honestly pretty cool once every 10 minutes if you were to take the faint action you can cause your skin and hair to go disco tech and start changing colors rapidly and instead of fainting just one creature within melee reach you can faint against all creatures adjacent to you so if you're surrounded by five creatures you can use the faint action against all of them which means if you roll really well and you critically succeed that deception check then they're all flat-footed this is really good and finally in the apg we have even more incredible gnome level 1 feats empathetic plea you have to be trained in diplomacy like you're not as a gnome and is that presumptuous as a reaction if you would ever be attacked by a creature that you yourself have not attacked yet and it has not rolled yet you can cringe and use your puppy dog eyes and roll diplomacy against the creature about to attack you should you critically succeed they lose their action and cannot attack you until the start of their next turn should you just normal succeed they take a penalty to their strike a minus two if you're an expert in diplomacy which you probably will be at level two this inflicts a minus four on their attack role until the beginning of their next turn that means if they want to attack you three times their third attack penalty is going to be at -14 at level two this is nasty granted if you fail they're immune for 24 hours but what's really crazy about this is on a success or a critical success they're not immune afterwards as long as you yourself do not act hostile towards that particular target you can keep using this every turn so long as you have not attacked them if they keep attacking you you can keep using empathetic plea insane razzle dazzle for one free action once per hour if you would ever blind or dazzle a creature you increase the duration by one round this is really good because there are a lot of little effects that only blind or dazzle for one round so doubling that to two is really really solid and great action economy it just makes your blinding and dazzling spells even more effective granted only once per hour and that is all the level one gnome feats they're so good you can't make a wrong choice there's just so many good ancestry feats for gnomes holy cow guys like dwarves and elves were cool but good lord gnomes are winning as far as ancestry feats are concerned let's get even more insane at level 5 animal elocutionist you can talk to all animals not just burrowing animals you had to have take taken burrow elocutionist first but you can now talk to all animals and you get a plus one on your diplomacy checks against them to make an impression just permanently you're just amazing at talking to animals i mean there's not much more i can say about this feat it's just so oh oh hey buddy what's up what's that the nice people watching should should subscribe and they should they should what the video like the video oh well you're not gonna say no to this little guy right all right get out of here buddy i have a video to do buh-bye that was nice energized font in order to take this you have to have both a focus pool of at least one focus point and a heritage or ancestry feat that grants you magic so long as you meet those two requirements you can take this and once per day you can regain an additional focus point this is pretty good for level five as at this point there's not really a whole lot of ways to get more than one focus point back so being able to re-up back to two focus points after an encounter is solid and even once you can regain two focus points most classes can't regain three until at least the the high teen levels like 13 to 18 at some point in theirs where they can usually recover all three focus points so this is good for most of the game and gnome weapon innovator crit specialization with any gnome weapons as well as the glaiver kukri because their blades are shaped funny eclectic obsession is okay as this is one of the first gnome feats i'm like you have to have no obsession once per day you can become trained in any lore skill for 10 minutes this is really good as if you're in a mine you can be like hold up now i have a lower mining for 10 minutes and that can really save you granted it's only trained and it's only for 10 minutes you can't make it higher than trained there might be a higher level feet we'll see but it's not bad i guess you can compare this to the elf ancestry feats which let you have a different proficiency each day but that lasted the whole day whereas this one is only for 10 minutes granted this one you can do on the fly so right when you need it you can have it it's got its ups and downs intuitive illusions kinda nutty at level five you have to have taken illusion since but once per day as a free action when your turn begins you can sustain any illusion spell for a free action again once per day but this is usually like a level 12 or 14 class feet to no longer have to spend an action to sustain a spell you can basically think of this as once per day gain an extra action which at level 5 is pretty good action economy is king baby and any bonus actions you can get are really good especially on a spellcaster natural illusionist another feat that requires the illusion sense first level feat to take but by drawing upon the first world's magic you can cast illusory disguise item facade or ventriloquism once per day now that is once per day total not each so you can pick one of them to cast once per day which is kind of unfortunate that you only get to cast one of them but i suppose gnomes have had it good enough and don't deserve amazing feats all the way through uh at seventh level and every two levels after the spell keeps getting heightened so it does get better but you can never cast it more than once per day project persona is kind of a fan favorite i'll be honest for one action you can make your armor look however you like it can be a tuxedo it can be a loincloth it can be anything you want it does not change any statistics or stats or effects in any way it just changes the look and people can disbelieve the illusion versus your will dc it's just fun there is nothing amazing about this except for i guess you can role play and maybe sneak into some places like a commoner village or a fine party without taking your armor off uh but overall this is just such fun character i love it level nine's first world adept just lets you cast fairy fire and invisibility at second level once per day each just some extra magic for you vivacious conduit is good albeit a bit late in the game at level 9 you can take this and by resting for 10 minutes you can gain hit points equal to your constitution modifier times half your level so it's sort of like a little bit less than uh half of a normal rest what is nice that it mentions is you can rest while your wounds are being treated so while someone treats your wounds you can vivacious conduit and gain additional hit points from that it's not bad though it doesn't say anything about not being able to continue resting so i suppose you could just keep resting for 10 minutes which means if someone spends an hour treating your wounds you would gain that hit point six times maybe i don't see anything that says you can't maybe this is good maybe this is just a hold on give me an hour i'll be at full health fortuitous shift you have to have taken the unexpected shift reaction at first level but now instead of a dc-16 to gain the resistance to damage it's only a dc 11 and you no longer have the dazzled condition upon success this is pretty solid this removes any negative from it and now you have a 50 chance by spending your reaction to reduce the damage you take by nine no matter what the damage is really good no weapon expertise any time you would increase your proficiency from any other source you also increase it with gnome weapons also glaives and cookeries cause their blades are a silly shape cautious curiosity you have to have at least an arcane or a cult spell from your heritage or ancestry you gain the misdirection and silence spells and can cast them as second level innate spells once per day each but only on yourself you cannot target other creatures these ones also do not auto heighten life leap is a very over complicated way of saying you can flash through a creature without rolling acrobatics as long as the direct opposite as if you were flanking square of the creature is within your movement speed for one action you can teleport there the lore behind this is kind of insane in that you pass through the creature's life force so i guess you like enter their aura or even their bloodstream or something fly through them like a face spirit and then reappear on the other side kind of crazy you also have to be able to see the opposite side but other than that there's no saving throw there's no check you just do it solid way to get out of a corner instinctive obfuscation as a reaction at level 13 you can only take it if you have an arcane or a cult innate spell gained from your heritage or ancestry fee and once per day when you're attacked you can just gain the effects of mirror image you only get two mirror images instead of three but you just get it no spell casting no spell slot just really good it's worth noting at this point that with the wellspring gnome you can pick arcane and occult spells and that's usually how you'll get access to these feats that require those unfortunately there's no support for divine so if you happen to be a wellspring gnome who took a divine cantrip you can't get any of these specific feats and that's kind of unfortunate there's no feet support for divine wellspring gnomes and that's kind of sad finally the last feat we're covering here today is homeward bound at level 17 uh twice per week you can teleport to the first world which is the home of the fae and teleport back now one thing that's important to keep in mind the reason it's twice per week is because teleporting there and teleporting back are two different casts of the plane shift spell which is what this grants you so effectively this is once per week you can teleport there and back but this is just really good if for any reason you should need to go to the first world talk to the face strike a deal get some help you can go there and back to the material plane once per week that's kind of nuts there's not even a prerequisite heritage for this you just do this that's great and that is gnomes in pathfinder 2e i'm ending the video here because i really like mr mr bleachling he's he's really sad uh gnomes might be my favorite ancestry honestly i've played a gnome ranger and he's been super fun i haven't gotten to play him a lot but he's i play him in a pathfinder society once i hope to play him some more uh no their their feats are insanely good their heritages are super detailed and really fun and interesting and their overall lore is just so engaging i love gnomes and pathfinder y'all there's nothing else to say about it do you plan to play a gnome if so what heritage what class combo i want to hear about all your gnomes down in the description down in the comments whatever it is you guys can type into also we got through this whole video without enough i'm a good gnome and you've been named i'll understand if you unsubscribe thanks so much for watching guys i really hope you enjoyed the video thank you so much to my patrons for all of their continued support you guys are incredible i'm really almost to the point where this is a stable full-time job for me it's it's right on that cusp where i'm like but i think we're getting there also thank you for 3 000 subscribers you guys are absolutely insane i did not expect this kind of growth in the first six months so sincerely thank you so much i've got some really cool things in the works i've got some updates i gotta get out to you guys don't worry i'm sure you noticed that there was not a slithering episode uploaded this week i will get you more information on that soon i promise the series is not disappearing there's just some stuff going on behind the scenes i have a lot to talk about a lot of new stuff coming thank you so much for watching i hope you're excited for future videos i know i am and hey we premiered this at seven o'clock so yo everybody in the premiere what's good how you doing i see you you don't go unnoticed thanks for hanging out y'all all right enough rambling i just like talking to you guys i need to stream more anyway thank you so much for watching i hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time no nat ones

Channel: Nonat1s

Views: 16,565

Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, Gamemastery Guide, Pathfinder 2e Resolve Points, Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Pathfinder 2e Ancestry Guide, 2e Gnome, Pathfinder Gnome, 2e Gnome Heritage, Pathfinder 2e Gnome Heritages, Pathfinder 2e Gnome Feats, Pathfinder 2e Gnomes, Pathfinder 2e Gnome, Lost Omens

Id: FPe7Y99v72k

Length: 34min 44sec (2084 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020