of Gnomes and Elfs fighter/mages

[ister]

Is the charm immunity for elves really in the game? I know that it is supposed to be, but I've never had an elf resist charm. It's meaningless anyway you'll hardly ever need/use that immunity.

On the math, a +1 is very simple. It means that the elf will hit 5% more than the gnome. Although, if you're using a long bow the elf actually gets +2 - +1 for the long bow elf bonus, and +1 for the 19 dexterity. So that means that the elf has a 10% better chance of hitting than than the gnome.

Now how much that matters depends. If you're facing a wolf (AC 7) and have a base THAC0 of 17, the gnome will hit 50% of the time and the elf will hit 60% of the time. The elf will do 20% more damage, and who cares. If you're facing an human cleric (AC 2) with base THAC0 15 the gnome will hit 35% of the time and the elf will hit 45% of the time so the elf is doing 29% more damage.

It all depends on the battle.

Anyway I think your argument that your F/M will be using bows unless there is an emergency is the reason why you shouldn't worry so much about how well the character will do with a bow. You want the character who is most effectively in the emergencies that will arise, not the character who is most effective at killing garden variety vermin.

And to me, that's the argument for the gnome. In your emergencies you WILL need to make some saves against spells. Early on the gnome will likely have a save of 10 while the elf will have a save of 15. Meaning the gnome will save twice as often. In the midgame this is less important, and the gnome will probably save about 50% more often, and certainly by the time you reach high levels the benefits are pretty small. But even then the gnome has other advantages, and the only real disadvantage (in emergency situations when you should be casting spells) is the lack of necro spells.