D&D General why do we have halflings and gnomes?

[Minigiant]

They don't leave it open at all. The fabled halfling luck causes them to be ignored a lot of the time by bad races, and then when someone does threaten them, they defend themselves and with their luck, they would defend themselves quite ably.

Neither the rules nor the lore say that. It's totally open.
This is an excuse reason given due to halflings not being fully intergrated into the game as an iconic core race but stated to be one.

If halflings are master slingers and duelists, then slings need to be better weapons or shortswords given to halflings for free with upgrades.
If halflings are super lucky, it needs to apologize to 4e and get Second Chance back in the base class rules.

 

[Chaosmancer]

With halfling village with 400 halflings slinging stones, it will happen almost every round. In multiples a lot of the time. And that's just for crits. I also love how you singled out crits and omitted all of the extra hits that I also mentioned. It didn't go unnoticed.

Because all of those extra hits are also only .25% more likely.

Seriously the way the math works out you just add .25% to every number over 1, with 1 being .25%

So, if humans needed to roll a 16 to hit the enemy (because 10 in stat and no proficiency) they have a 25% chance to hit, hitting on 16 or higher.

Halflings get a 26.25% chance to hit. It is literally a 1.25% increase. That is incredibly minor.

Sure, it becomes more certain if you can somehow make 400 attacks against the same enemy in a round, but the difference is not going to turn the tide of the battle.

Humans: 400 attacks, 25%, get about 100 hits
Halflings: 400 attacks, 26.25%, get about 105 hits.

That is it, five more attacks land. Could it make the difference? Sure, but 5 attacks out of 400 is an increase of 1.25% (shocking I know) and is again very very minor. And that is assuming 400 attacks, if you get something more reasonable like 30 attacks, it is 7.5 and 7.875. And since partial attacks don't count, it is equal.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I’d need all day to dig into all the baseless assumptions, logical leaps, and just plain nonsense, in your post.

Instead, I’ll say this. No, halflings training with weapons would not equate to “stockpiling” anything, from any perspective. No, there is no dichotomy between halflings as described in the phb and halflings who own arms and armor and know how to use them to defend their town.

You're reaching all over the place.

No I'm not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Good lord. Yeah, I’m just gonna stop interacting with you for a while, after your last several replies. It’s getting tedious. I don’t know why you’re so dedicated to the idea of halflings “not making sense” or whatever, and I don’t really care. You’re obviously completely unwilling to even engage with a different perspective.

This "different perspective" is that somehow having advantage against fear means they are going to succeed on risky manuevers more often, because they can't get frightened and therefore they won't mess up.

Look, I get it, Fear is dangerous on the battlefield. Losing control of yourself due to fear can get you killed. THAT IS WHY WE TRAIN. People train to fight to overcome that fear responses. They train so that they can react even when afraid. Halflings not being scared are just like any other trained soldiers who... aren't scared. Or have managed their fear.

Not being scared is important, but it doesn't win you battles, it doesn't prevent you from failing. Acting like a lack of fear is the answer to war ignores how we have adapted to overcome fear ourselves.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You might want to re-read my comment.
Raiders who are just after food and shinies aren't going to want to risk their lives. If the resistance a target puts up means that there is a reasonable chance of them getting killed, they will back off.
The fact that their raiding force could probably take the village in the end is generally of no interest to an individual goblin if there is a good chance that they, personally, will get hurt or killed.

Ah, I didn't get that point from you post.

Okay, sure, the raiders are likely not going to risk their lives overly much. But, let us consider this, how much risk is there is killing the one halfling farmer who comes out to see why the goats are bleating? How much is it a risk to kill the whole family who lives on the outskirts of town?

Sure, if it is just a raiding party who is after a bit of food, they may not attack the entire village. But, massive raiding parties who are looking to wipe out a village do exist. They are threats in the world's of DnD. I've already posted in this thread at least one historical account from FR of not only a raid that destroyed Phandalin, but of that same group of orcs creating four different mass hordes to try and destroy Waterdeep.

These aren't things that never happen. These are events that do occur, and if they can happen five times in the same mountain range, then they could happen in other places as well.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They don't leave it open at all. The fabled halfling luck causes them to be ignored a lot of the time by bad races, and then when someone does threaten them, they defend themselves and with their luck, they would defend themselves quite ably.

Which is just... hand wavy.

By luck they aren't attacked
And if they are attacked by luck they aren't attacked heavily
And if they are attacked, and it is fairly heavy, then by luck they are able to drive the enemy off

And by luck... it is just so hard to do this properly. You could just as easily say that everything is luck, so of course Aragon got lucky that his ancestor had an oath with some ghosts. And Gandalf was lucky that he made it Helm's Deep in time. And Merlin was lucky to have found Arthur and Lancelot just got lucky in every fight and.... it isn't compelling. If everything is luck, then it doesn't feel earned.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You mean, like actual Scots?

Wouldn't know, never met a true Scotsman

 

[Maxperson]

"go to this ruin where the goblins who have been attacking us are" is almost literally one of the most common tropes in fiction gaming. Where you get this idea that they almost never raid towns boggles me.

Ruin =/= dungeon. Ruin = ruin or ruin = goblin village.

 

[Maxperson]

Neither the rules nor the lore say that. It's totally open.

er, "Among the many arcane and mundane topics addressed in this tome, the elves set down thoughts regarding the power of innocence.
They recounted how they had long observed the halfling race, watching as the chaos of the world swept around them and left their villages untouched. While ores, dwarves, and humans struggled, fought, and spilled blood to expand their territory"

So I guess you are correct that it isn't luck, but the lore does in fact say that they get ignored much of the time.

No wait, luck is part of it, too. The following is lore about halfling villages.

"It takes a combination of luck and persistence for an ordinary traveler to find such a place , and often that's not enough."

This is an excuse reason given due to halflings not being fully intergrated into the game as an iconic core race but stated to be one.

They are integrated. They just aren't integrated in the same manner as the other races. Not integrates as YOU think they should be, does not equal not integrated.

If halflings are master slingers and duelists, then slings need to be better weapons or shortswords given to halflings for free with upgrades.
If halflings are super lucky, it needs to apologize to 4e and get Second Chance back in the base class rules.

Nobody said anything about "master." That's a Strawman and not a very good one. Lucky =/= master.

 

[pogre]

why do we have halflings and gnomes?

They're a lot easier to integrate into campaign worlds for me than some of the odd heritages in the game. My D&D campaign world is pretty much The Mos Eisley cantina these days.