Gnome Class Guide

*For general class information see Gnome.*
## Early game

New players sometimes avoid choosing the Gnome class because of their very low HP, H2H, and Strength, and the fact that they can only use lowly daggers as weapons. These factors may explain why the Gnome's in-game difficulty rating is listed as "Master." However, while the Gnome may appear to have the weakest start in the game, they have a few early game advantages that a new player might overlook.

### Gambling strategy

Gnomes start with the highest Luck of any class. This can be extremely useful becuase a gnome can quickly gamble and get enough money to fully outfit themselves before their first fight! (*see Beginning Strategy*) Gambling can be used to overcome the gnome's difficult start, because any hero that has obtained a Leather Scale Mail (enchanted to +3), the FlameShield spell, and the Ring of Protection is nearly impervious to most enemies in the Valmorgen sewers.

### Temple enchantment strategy

While Gnomes are most renowned for Luck, they also have Willpower as their primary stat. With the numerous Temples in Valmorgen, Gnomes have a wide selection of enchantments, the most potent of which (for the early game) arguably being Wind Storm, obtained from the Temple of Lunord. Any hero with Wind Storm is capable of overcoming nearly any encounter in the sewers and Lower Sewers, although it should be kept in mind that Rust Spitters have ranged attacks that act early during combat, and that Ratman Champions and Trolls can withstand the spell enough to engage in melee.

Before going to Venn's Spire, you can pray for 100-150 turns of Wind Storm and, unless you're *really* unlucky, you will get most of the keystones by the time enchantment ends. Note, however, that Wind Storm should not be used at Venn's Spire if you are attempting to reach 20 base strength as described below.

## Gnome Champion

A miraculous transformation occurs when a Gnome manages to claw his or her way to level 8, at which point they become a Gnome Champion, just like in the original *Majesty: Northern Expansion*. Once they become Champions, they gain the Combat Luck ability, along with a large HP increase and some additional strength. With Combat Luck, the Gnome Champion attains extremely high combat stats that can then be further enhanced with items, particularly items socketed with Elf Beard Rings. Such items allow the Gnome Champion to attain exceptionally high combat stats easier and earlier than any other class. Therefore, the in-game difficulty rating of "Master" is probably misleading (as are many other difficulty ratings).

To explain this further, most items and Beard Rings boost a single attribute, such as Dodge, Parry, Magic Resistance, or Hand-to-hand. For a Gnome, a single point of Luck boosts **all four** of these attributes. As such, the Elf Beard Ring's +5 Luck is four times as powerful as individual beard rings, making it by far the most important beard ring for Gnomes. Also, the normally worthless of embeddable luck-boosting items (Emerald Trinket, Emerald Pendant, and Emerald Amulet) can also provide a substantial boost for a Gnome very early in the game.

The obvious weakness of this class is the lack of attacking damage, a deficiency that will be part of the Gnome throughout the game. However, a lack of damage doesn't matter so long as the enemy cannot easily hurt you. For this reason, the Gnome Champion is generally a very proficient class, so long as the enemy does not require heavy damage to be defeated. As mentioned, raising Luck is the key to success. After stepping outside of Valmorgen, you can can begin collecting minor luck-boosting. Then, move on to Elf Beard Rings, which should be embedded into items such as the War Gauntlet. By gathering luck and stats-increasing items, Gnomes can reach exorbitant stats, particularly for Parry and MGR. As a result, in the long run, many enemies will not be able to even inflict damage on a Gnome.

## Increasing base strength to 20

Gnomes have a starting strength in the range of 2-7. The Gnome Champion promotion at level 8 provides a permanent boost of +8 strength. Since all heroes can train strength to 12 at the gym in East Cheswick, it is possible to reach a base strength of 20 by delaying the level-up to level 8 (and hence, delaying the Gnome Champion promotion) until strength has been trained to 12. When strength has been trained to 12, leveling up to level 8 will result in a total of 20 base strength.

Delaying the champion promotion until strength is fully trained will make the gnome as strong as possible, but doing so requires planning and effort in *avoiding* the gain of experience. One possible approach is described below:

* *First*, get to level 7 and teleport to Venn's Spire after accumulating enough gold (preferably enough to later recruit Hedge Wizard followers at Venn's Spire), and also after accumulating a sufficient quantity of Potions of Monster Detection. These potions can also be acquired in Venn's Spire by talking to the innkeeper to unlock his shop.
	+ The Monster Detection potions allow non-mandatory fights to be avoided, thereby avoiding the associated XP gain by completing these fights.
	+ When followers are in your party, the amount of XP that is gained by you and each of your followers is based on the respective amount of damage inflicted. Therefore, for mandatory fights, avoid XP gain by having followers inflict most of the damage.
		- PowerShock and temple spells such as Wind Storm should not be used, because these spells inflict a significant amount of damage, resulting in XP gain.
		- Unequip your weapon to minimize damage that you do.
		- Hedge Wizards are effective because they have high damage output. Their disadvantage is that they can desert your party. Other followers, such as Fighters and Archers, can be also be used. Fighters and Archers can be advantageously obtained prior to travelling to Venn's Spire. However, Fighters do not attack until combat round 3, and Archers are ineffective against the skeletons in one of the encounters at Venn's Spire due to the skeleton's high dodge rating.
* *Second*, find all the keys required to leave this location. Be mindful of yoru current exp - evade as much encounters as possible. Don't forget about avoiding experience rewards for peaceful solutions to certain encounters (for this reason, peaceful solutions are not preferred). If your experience exceeds 235 (as described below), tou may consider challenging the Warrior of Discord at the Spire's entrance for quick and easy death or return to Valmorgen through the innkeeper's passage and die a few times before re-entering Venn's Spire.
* *Third*, open the Spire and solve the puzzle. But, before heading back to Valmorgen, make sure your XP is **less than 235** at level 7, because the reward for completing Venn's Spire is somewhere around 510 experience points at this level.

Congratulations! Now, now you can leave Valmorgen and only thing left is to farm enough gold to buy map of Fertile Plains and to train your Strength to the cap. Just watch your amount of experience and don't forget about followers.

## Midgame Strategy

Once done with Venn's Spire, your goals are slightly different that the usual. As noted above, Luck is the most important stat to boost. Gnomes are vulnerable to any magical attacks, due to low MGR and HP. Using Shapeshift Tincture against hard fights is helpful too. Note that you can get 8,000 gold from a fairly easy quest in Lormidia.

A good place to hunt is in the Goblin Territory, where you can find Emerald Trinkets laying around. Once you get 6 of these, embed them into your Dagger and Armor, and learn the "Lucky Item!" schematic for embedding the trinkets. This is fairly easy and gives you +6 to all your important skills! Later on, Emerald Trinkets are superseded by the +3 Luck Emerald Amulets in Darkmoor Swamp. However, Darkmoor Swamp is a difficult area until the later stages of the mid game.

At this point, you can branch off in several different directions:

* Beat the Merlan's quest series. However, they require a lot of turns.
* Fight on the Fertile Plains. Get some loot, including precious Elf Beard Rings (+5 luck each!) that can eventually be placed into armbands and gloves. You also get components for making the schematics below. The bad news is that you cannot actually socket Elf Beard Rings into armands or gloves without the special Socketing Manual found in the Dark Forest Wild Garden Abandoned Library - but you can socket the Mithril Belt and Nevryl Amulet with schematics from Valmorgen Library, and they will give you very significant +30 boost to H2H, Dodge, Parry & MGR. No other class can receive such huge bonus on this game step.
* Push through the Abandoned Library in the Dark Forest Wild Gardens. It is much easier than the Dark Forest itself and you can get some schematics including the Socketing Manual. Other valuable schematics are the Night Dagger (9 damage, +15 to H2H, Parry, Dodge) which is fairly easy to assemble. Keep in mind that digging through moldy schematics for hundreds of turns with nothing to show for it is a terrible form of torment - but it's most necessary for embedding.
* In the Dark Forest Wild Gardens, you can find accessories that give you a significant boost to your fighting skills. But in the Elven Valley it's much easier, so maybe you'll decide not to risk in Gardens' Old Guardhouse encounters.
* You could try to find the Golem Fist, which is an incredible offensive weapon for the Gnome, and deals more damage than by the Champion Blade later. It's a weapon that always hits for 10 and is equivalent to a 19 damage regular weapon (it does 1-19 damage and averages 10).
* The Champion Blade can be upgraded to the Knight's Blade at the Imp's Workshop. It's a significantly better defensive weapon and much better than the Golem Fist, especially when your motto is 'do not get hit'!

As alluded to above, Gnomes have the ability to significantly boost their combat skills faster than other classes, which can really make this class a powerful one.

Early in the game, low hit points and armor makes gnomes vulnerable to poison. Later in the game, Gnome Champions can compensate with their excellent Dodge/Parry.

## Items

Below are the optimal items for each category, as well as other notable items important to this class. For a full list of usable items, see Items usable by Gnome.

* **Weapon**
	+ Champion Blade (*Damage: 12, Double Attack +60*) → Knight's Blade (*Damage: 13, Double Attack +80, H2H +10, PAR +5*)
	+ Golem Fist (*Damage: 10, Slayer*) – A potential alternative to the Knight's Blade; useful when combined with +damage items.
	+ Mithril Dagger (*Damage: 7*) with 3x Emerald Amulet (*Luck +9*) – Useful for maximizing magic resistance
	+ Night Dagger (*Damage: 10, H2H +15, PAR +15, DOD +15*) – Best weapon early on, and remains useful later in the game for maximizing parry.
* **Armor**
	+ Mithril Studded Leather Armor (*Armor: 6, DOD +10*) embedded with 3x Emerald Amulet (*Luck +9*)
	+ Medusa Mail (*Armor: 7, MGR +15*)

* **Cloak**
	+ Lucky Reinforced Cloak (*Armor: 1, Luck +10*)[Thallis item]
	+ Early on: Protective Cloak (*MGR +5*) or Sneaky Reinforced Cloak (*Armor: 1*)
* **Headgear**
	+ Circlet of Lycanthropy (item) (*H2H +15, Ranged +15, Parry +15, Dodge +15, periodic Werewolf Form*) → True Werewolf Circlet (*adds Armor: 1, MGR +10; upgraded at Imp Workshop*)
	+ Helm of Displacement (*Wind Storm, Teleport (Short), PAR -10, MGR -5*) – Can be useful for group damage, though the opportunity cost by not using the Circlet is quite high.
	+ Early on: Iron Skull Cap (*Armor: 1*) or Battered Crown (*PAR +10*)
* **Belt**
	+ Belt of Godly Luck (*Armor: 1, Luck +10, STR +8, DMG +1*)[Thallis item]
	+ Belt of Ravaging (*STR +32, H2H +25, DMG +4, DOD -15, PAR -15, MGR -10*) when increased damage is required and if reduced defense is acceptable
	+ Mithril Belt embedded with 3x Elf Beard Ring (Luck +15) – *This is arguably better than most other belts for general combat,* but you should prioritize using Elf Beard Rings on other slots first since there are other good options here.
	+ Before the above items are available, the following items are useful:
		- Belt of Brawling (*Armor: 1, STR +16, H2H +20, PAR +5, DMG +1* when embedded with a Holster or Scabbard of Might)
		- Ancient Belt of Godly Luck (*Luck +5*)
		- Belt of Rage (*STR +16, H2H +10, DMG +2, DOD -5, PAR -5*)
* **Footwear**
	+ Boots of Lunord (*Armor: 2, PAR +10, DOD +15, MGR +5, Damage +1, Speed +2*)
	+ War Chargers (*Armor: 3, HTH +10, STR +4*)
* **Gloves**
	+ War Gauntlets (*H2H +5, Parry +10, STR +4*) embedded with 2x Elf Beard Rings (*Luck +10*)
	+ Gnomish Rage Gloves (*Luck -12, DMG +6*)[Thallis item] – Useful for encounters against highly armored opponents, especially when used in conjunction with the Golem Fist.
* **Armband**
	+ Mithril Bracers (*PAR +5*) or Nevryl Bracers (*MGR +5*) socketed with 2x Elf Beard Ring (*Luck +10*)
	+ *Note*: Thallis offers Lucky Bracers (*Luck +8*), but because they're not socketable, they are strictly inferior to the above bracers socketed with Elf Beard Rings
* **Necklace**
	+ Ring Amulet embedded with Ring of Protection (*total: Armor: 3, PAR +15, DOD +15, MGR +15*) or Dark Band (*total: Armor: 1, H2H +10, PAR +15, DOD +15, MGR +5, Damage +2*)
	+ Nevryl Amulet with 3x Elf Beard Rings (*Luck +15*)
	+ Neckband of Smashing (*Damage +5*)
	+ MGR-boosting necklaces (Blue Charm / Rezzenthells Spellkiller / Dwarven Locket) are useful against magic-wielding opponents.
* **Ring**
	+ Ring of Protection, Dark Band, or Ring of Fortitude
* **Accessory**:
	+ Lucky Rabbits Feet (*Luck +10*)[Thallis item]
	+ Before the above item is available, the following items are useful:
		- Black Stone (*PAR +15*) and Black Leaf (*DOD +15*) are very useful early on.
		- Carved/Black Claw (*H2H +15*) and Carved Tooth (*STR +15*) can be useful as well. *The Carved Claw weighs slightly less than the Black Claw.*
		- It may be worth doing enough of the Sewer Tunnels questline (side with the Goblins) to get a Luck Talisman (*Luck +3*) early on, before or after leaving Valmorgen.