{Deep Gnome
Base: Gnome
Favored Class: Wizard
Stats:-2 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Wis, -4 Cha. Darkvision, Cause Blindness (1/day), Blur (displacement 1/day), Change Self (Eagle's Splendor 1/day). Stonecunning, Nondetection, +4 dodge bonus against all creatures, +2 bonus on all saving throws, Small Stature, Hardiness Vs. Illusions, Offensive Training vs. Reptilians, Offensive Training vs. Goblinoids, Defensive Training vs. Giants, Skill Affinity Listen, Skill Affinity Concentration, Spell Focus Illusion. +4 racial bonus to hide. ECL 3.
The Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin) are a subrace of gnomes from the Underdark. They are quick and perceptive, yet suspicious and reclusive to an extreme. Svirfneblin have gnarled physiques, brown or gray skin, gray eyes, and gray hair (although males are often bald). They tend to be sullen, withdrawn, and suspicious to a fault.
The deep gnomes may be the among the stealthiest and most elusive of races. Centuries upon centuries of surviving the deadly perils of the Underdark have bred in this race an amazing gift for avoiding attention. In their cavern homes they are nearly undetectable with magic. Even in the strange and threatening (to them) surface world, the deep gnomes' natural stealth makes them difficult to spot or catch.
[Source: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting by Greenwood, Reynolds, Williams, and Heinsoo, published by Wizards of the Coast, page 11-13.]}
Obviously, I am a total newbie here. As such, I thought that a race that is hard to detect and hard to hit might be a good choice for exploring Hala, even given the penalties to the attributes. To make sure that I understood how deep gnome worked, I made a basic gnome fighter with:
ST 14
DX 12
CO 16
IQ 12
WI 10
CH 12
I then tried the character creator and eventually deciphered how to make it operate. Right before the creator "explodes" the model, it says that you must wait 10 seconds to log back on (this makes sense) and says you should talk to the creator again when you do log back on to get race specific items. After the explosion and log out, I waited a good five minutes and then logged back in.
I tried to talk to the character generator about those race specific items, but the only conversation option was to quit.
The stats of my new deep gnome appeared to be correct, based on what is posted in the World Information forum:
ST 14 (no change because gnome already gets -2)
DX 10 (-2 adjustment)
CO 14 (going from +2 for gnome to no adjustment for deep gnome)
IQ 12 (no adjustment)
WI 12 (+2 adjustment for deep gnome)
CH 8 (-4 adjustment for deep gnome)
My class levels were humanoid (3)/fighter (1), which made sense given the ECL.
My hit points were 18, which took me a bit of time to decipher. My best guess is that I got 10 for the fighter level, 0 for each humanoid level, and 2 for CO bonus times my four levels. Does that make sense to anyone else?
My AB was 5, which would seem to correspond to 2 for ST, 1 for the fighter level, and 2 for the three humanoid levels, though I am not sure why the humanoid levels give AB, but not hp.
The strangest thing, though, was that I had a 10 armor class. It seems to me that the basic trade off for deep gnome is the attribute penalties (ouch), the ECL of 3 (big ouch), the +4 dodge AC (big yeah), and the +2 saves (yeah). Based on my AC of 10 and my reflex save of 1 (I assume the 1 comes from the 3 humanoid levels), it appeared that neither the AC nor the saves were being applied.
I am sure I am just missing something, but just in case there was a problem, I thought I would report the situation. For now I think I will just explore with a human.
This deep gnome stuff is too complex for me brain to handle. 
*pictures numerous trips to the death plane*
