Rystil Arden said:
I agree. In normal 3.5, elves, halflings, etc normally have to spend a feat for Weapon Familiarity in their racial weapons, and it is still an advantage for them as compared to just take the EWP. Giving it out for free would be even moreso, and triply so for two races worth.
Personally, I don't see why we need anything more elf/halflingy than the tallfolk halfling in the SRD.
How about a note that they can take feats available to either Halflings or Elves? This solves the problem with weapon familiarity, as they can take the feat later if it's an issue.
I don't think they should be medium. How about small, but drop the -2 strength? Frail Build might be acceptable, but they just don't seem like a medium race.
The 30' base speed bothers me a bit as well, as they're a bit short.
How about a bonus to save vs sleep if you don't grant imunity? Maybe a +4 (Since it's racial, it wouldn't stack with the +1 unless you specificly mentioned it would, but that's not a big deal)
The sterile makes sense, and explains why they are rare and have little of their own culture.
Favored class, I think Rogue makes more sense than Bard. They're more outcast so they would be more likely to develope rogue like skills.
I'd adjust the hight range a bit to bring down the variance. 1d8 should be enough, and a fairly broad spectrum still for such a short race. it will aslo fix their weight issues a bit.
I think they should get something racialy unique, otherwise I realy don't see the race filling a needed void in the world. Couple thoughs on that:
I know you mentioned survival and heal bonuses earlier, perhaps the nature of the elfling is one that is more attuned to nature, give them a few skill bonuses that way, and make them favored class Ranger.
Perhaps there is a particular thing that suits them well, and they get a particular bonus feat, like Run for example (This would let you make them small but with 30' of movement, as they move quickly and gracefully, and their legs are built to move their body well)
Just some random thoughts, in no particular order.