Tabletop talky
Figured out gnomes! They are capable of helping someone do something regardless of being trained or not, gain a pool of points they can spend on helping actions, and can get an ability that allows them to get advantage on changing someone's behavior (whether magic means or not) if they have a personal connection to who they're speaking with
IE they're good at getting people to not be charmed or at having their friends not betray them in general
Tabletop talky
Anyway I have my boy to thank for this he helped talk through how to develop gnomes around the concept of industrious and we came up with the idea of them being more like mythological gnomes who are helpers and then tried to write their abilities in alignment agnostic ways
Tabletop talky, size mechanics
The cool consequence of this though is you get to actually pick what size you are! You typically get a choice of two sequential categories.
Humans and similar are 6, 7.
Gnomes and similar are 4, 5.
Orcs and similar are 7, 8.
I'm torn on dwarves being 5, 6 or 6, 7. Leaning towards the latter since size isn't necessarily a measurement of height.
Tabletop talky, size mechanics
Let's talk size!
Size ranges from 1 to 12. Being bigger grants advantage for every two points difference and being bigger means it's harder to hit but you deal extra damage when you do, but you're easier to hit as well.
I need to figure out how to balance this because it doesn't feel right quite right yet but this is the general feel I'm going for.