Forest Gnome druid make any sense?

[Triffiest of the Diffies]

I'm new to these kinds of games and when I was making my character I thought a forest gnome druid would be fun, but the thing is I see that Forest gnomes main thing is that they can talk to animals, but druids can do that too, am I just wasting my race ability if I pick druid? sorry if I didn't use correct terminology, I am really new to this

[Winter]

Anything you can conceive as a character makes sense. Go with what you think will just be a kick-ass time and you won't be disappointed.

[CrazyOdd]

It does give you an extra spell, given that Speak to Animals, requires to be selected as a Druid. While the Forest Gnome brings it without needing to put it in the active spell list.

[HughMann]

For min/maxing it is not a good choice, but if you just want to RP and have a good time. Go for it. If you have any knowledge of 5e DnD and/or CRPGs the game should not be super hard. I for one, know very little about DnD but play a lot of games and am having a decent time on the hardest difficulty in my solo play, but my co-op play on normal is actually harder.

[Quillithe]

Honestly the race ability is being wasted but it doesn't really matter since it's granted by pretty common potions anyway.

Pick it if you like the idea and appearance, races bonuses aren't really a big deal and combat is more about understanding the system than getting the last tiny bonus anyway

[ACS36]

GAME lets the players do anything/everything either way. You have access to animal speaking potions that last until your next long rest. Races don't matter much. Specialization don't matter much.

Anyone can use scrolls. Anyone can get shields/heavy armor with first level fighter. Your wizard wearing heavy armor and a shield, no problem! The entire game is fairly homogeneous experience.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by ACS36:

GAME lets the players do anything/everything either way. You have access to animal speaking potions that last until your next long rest. Races don't matter much. Specialization don't matter much.

Anyone can use scrolls. Anyone can get shields/heavy armor with first level fighter. Your wizard wearing heavy armor and a shield, no problem! The entire game is fairly homogeneous experience.

Well, sure if you use a class level and are a level behind in spells you can get armor and a weapon for a wizard but that's not the game being homogenous, that's it being flexible.

You can take a tradeoff of spells for combat proficiency. Honestly usually not worth it IMO. The armor isn't a big advantage and the weapons are basically useless unless you plan on 5 levels of fighter and an odd set of stats

[HidesHisFace]

Speak with animals is a spell that would otherwise have to have prepared and maybe juggle it once you cast it.
So while it is a bit redundant to have it duplicated on Gnome and Druid both, it at least saves you the need to juggle the menus.

Many of the powers like that are relatively meaningless, due to abundance of potions or scrolls - so there is just a flavour, really.
In any case, the racial powers are nothing that will really make or break the character, and perhaps the only situations where you probably should consider the race are combos with races that give you some proficiencies that class normally would not have - but even in those cases this is not really a major issue.