Drinking from the Goblet of Amgems

[Empath Negative]

Houndlings..


So, tell me if this is WILDLY overpowered.


A militaristic band of halflings that, rather than being the friendly traders and caravaneers... are prone to murdering members of those caravans and taking their stuff.

Think of them like murderous, albeit not exactly evil, stereotypical "gypsies". To them they live in a land of fierce giants who will rape and plunder and destroy halflings, given the opportunity.


So, in game rule terms it works like this...


Houndlings have -2 Charisma, lose the racial luck bonus on saves, lose the racial bonus on thrown weapons, gain weapon focus for either the hand, light, or heavy crossbow, the rapid reload feat, and allow him to substitute his character levels for fighter levels for any fighter bonus feat that has a minimum fighter level as a prerequisite, such as weapon specialization.


I want to make a troupe of halfling snipers to assassinate a few of my players, complete with little halfling ghillie suits.

It's all because the player characters in question tampered with a rather sacred artifact (above mentioned goblet).

So they have to die.

 

[VariSami]

I'd say that is a bit overpowered. Especially if you consider it as a player race.

The way I'd put it is: replace the Weapon Focus with a simple bonus like the one they had with thrown weapons prior. Now it's crossbow-based. Rapid reload is mostly important at mid to high levels when they gain extra attacks. I'd probably have them pick the feat instead of just giving it away: few races allow instant feats other than profiencies. Which reminds me: racial profiency (or familiarity) with the repeater crossbow? That way you could emulate Rapid Reload easily.

Having them qualify for Fighter Feats kind of makes the Fighter class useless for them. Of course you'd still get feats but you'd also get the Fighter's "class abilities" at will (since they're normally limited to them and Warblades). The way I'd approach this would probably be just allowing them 1 Fighter bonus feat on level 1. You know, a bit like Braveheart Halflings but more limited in scope. It would even replace the same racial ability (the saving throw bonus).

 

[Empirate]

Overpowered? Not in the slightest. Balanced? Hell, yeah, although I'd pick regular Halfling over these guys any day of the week.

1. Weapon Focus instead of generic bonus to a certain kind of weapon just means that you can't take WF to get a larger overall bonus anymore. So this is a slight bit weaker to everybody who likes WF, and represents no change to everybody who doesn't. Except you now fulfill prereqs that include WF, but that is really not a big deal.

2. Rapid Reload only gets rid of the ridiculousness that is normal crossbows in a good way. Is it useful? Yes. Is it better than +1 to all saves? Nope.

3. Ability to qualify for fighter-only feats as a fighter of your character level; vs. -2 to Cha. I don't know, those fighter-only feats are really weaksauce, and stat hits can really hurt. I can't say this is an OP change either.

Can you make a good crossbow sniper build with these guys? Yes (insofar as you ever could make a good build for crossbow wielders). Can you make a lot of other decent builds with them? I don't know, small-sized warriors need a lot going for them to be viable, and non-warrior builds would really prefer the regular PHB Halfling.

All in all, I don't detect a trace of 'overpowered'.

 

[VariSami]

Ok, i concede that point: they're not overpowered. However, design-wise they seem a bit clunky and abnormal when compared to the standard bonuses races allow for.

Feats are often reserved for clearly monstrous races and even they gain ones which represent some physical, not trained capability. Compare Improved Initiative to something like Weapon Focus. Completely different. Even if the whole race is supposed to be martial in nature.

And like I said, being able to gain Fighter-only feats would make Fighter an even worse class for the Houndlings. Of course most ranged buílds are starved for feats but the dip of 2 levels of Fighter ought to suffice to fix any and all such problems. While possible, it is very unorthodox.