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

[Chaosmancer]

Because the bolded part is offensively dismissive. It's a fact that they have skills. It's a fact that those skills are good enough to get by. It's in the book you claim to have read.

I was asked how dwarves could possibly have fires for their forges and breath while underground. The answer (in part) is that they are master stonecrafters.

Are other races capable of crafting stone? Yes, but dwarves are usually the best. Can you have a non-dwarf who is a better stonecrafter? Yes, and they would be incredibly exceptional.

So I asked, if Halflings are able to hide entire villages, a skill no one else exhibits, and they do it with no magic and only through skill, because I was being accused of "man at the gym fallacy" for allowing magic to work, then what skills are those? What is it that halflings can build and use that no other race can match, in general?

Your response was "other crafts"

Well, everyone has "other crafts" it isn't like dwarves are the only blacksmiths in the world. And dwarves have chefs and carptenters too.

But, no other race can hide an entire village from sight with mundane means, so what halfling skills are we talking about? Generic skills that every race has? Then every race can hide their villages.

Except, you also want to take it one step further. The real answer is magic, via Divine Intervention. It is literally because the Gods will it so.

Yep.

Except, since you read the entire section, you deliberately omitted the crafts portion, "One family might provide baked goods, while another one cobbles shoes or knits clothing."

It gives baking, cobbling and knitting as non-exhaustive examples of crafts Halflings engage in.

Oh wow! Halflings can BAKE!

Well, clearly their skill at baking and making shoes and knitting clothes is what allows them to hide entire villages. So, how does that work? How does their skill at shoe-making allow them to blend their village into the scenery and go undetected.

And... hmm, humans and elves and dwarves can also bake, cobble and knit. So, they should all be able to hide their villages too, perfectly blending into their surroundings and avoiding detection.

So, why don't they?

This is an irrelevant Red Herring. We aren't talking about Humans. It doesn't matter if they have skills. And the second part is a Strawman, since literally no one here has said that they use the skills to hide.

Actually, it was literally what I was demanded of by Gammadoodler, right here is a good spot for that

Perhaps assorted skills from adventuring, the experience of which has allowed the to "level up" beyond the capabilities of the basic descriptions of their race.

If I compared how 11th level halfling rogues or bards would protect their villages to how a common gnome would do it, that comparison would be similarly unfair.

So, @Gammadoodler , bad news, you are literally no one, because in trying to address your points I was really engaging in a Strawman.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So your dwarves are farmers.

My dwarves all live in a central mountain called Harth.

They don't farm, per se, in that they don't tend to grow crops like wheat or corn. They do have goat herds on the mountain slopes, the mountain has many heavily defended entrances and exits, and they do have insect farms within the mountain. Specifically they raise Cave Fishers, for their silk and alcoholic blood.

The Underdark in DnD is not energy neutral, and via some magic crystals and careful cultivation, they have large mushroom and other crops that can grow in low-light/ no sun environments. I had a listing somewhere but I'd have to go digging.

Additionally, they trade extensively, especially for spices, because traditional dwarvish cuisine tends to be bland. Even their alchohol is really just because most of the water in Harth is not very potable.

The thing is, despite you seeming to think this was a gotcha question, nothing in the books tells us that Dwarves don't farm. No one has ever told us that they don't trade, in fact, the PHB specifically says that they do trade. My dwarves are unchanged from the standard in a lot of ways, with additions added on because I had questions that had gone unanswered.

 

[Gammadoodler]

My dwarves all live in a central mountain called Harth.

They don't farm, per se, in that they don't tend to grow crops like wheat or corn. They do have goat herds on the mountain slopes, the mountain has many heavily defended entrances and exits, and they do have insect farms within the mountain. Specifically they raise Cave Fishers, for their silk and alcoholic blood.

The Underdark in DnD is not energy neutral, and via some magic crystals and careful cultivation, they have large mushroom and other crops that can grow in low-light/ no sun environments. I had a listing somewhere but I'd have to go digging.

Additionally, they trade extensively, especially for spices, because traditional dwarvish cuisine tends to be bland. Even their alchohol is really just because most of the water in Harth is not very potable.

The thing is, despite you seeming to think this was a gotcha question, nothing in the books tells us that Dwarves don't farm. No one has ever told us that they don't trade, in fact, the PHB specifically says that they do trade. My dwarves are unchanged from the standard in a lot of ways, with additions added on because I had questions that had gone unanswered.

So for your dwarves you invent fantasy bs-ery to address items lacking in the lore or common sense, but it's ridiculous to do so for halflings. Got it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So it says somewhere that gnomes have anything other than a minor illusion cantrip which only covers a 5 ft cube and lasts for a minute?

They are master story tellers and the books associate them with bards in the imagery and examples of bards. I guess I wasn't aware of any rule anywhere that stated that you couldn't take a class if it wasn't listed as an association in the book.

[EDIT: I did for get the part about gnomes, it's just a different explanation of how they hide their villages in MToF]

As your edit points out, yeah, Gnomes are said to have more than the minor illusion cantrip. So yes, they can do more than you keep saying that they can.

Now, I will grant you that they are known as the best storytellers. That is something that is often overlooked, and I like that angle for them. I guess I've never really thought about them being associated with images and examples of bards, it is usually thieves, but it does fit them quite well.

Of course then you go making baseless accusations about how I must be assuming that you can't take a class if there isn't an association. Wrong, not what I was saying. You may remember that many DMs I've talked to have repeatedly claimed that adventurers are rare and unusual. So, just assuming that mid level adventurers are running around every small town is actually something I've been told repeatedly not to do.

So, if they didn't have a strong bardic tradition, then assuming they have a lot of mid-level bards is a stretch. But, like I said, you are right that they have a strong tradition of storytelling. That could tie them into being a good place for bards.

 

[Gammadoodler]

My dwarves all live in a central mountain called Harth.

They don't farm, per se, in that they don't tend to grow crops like wheat or corn. They do have goat herds on the mountain slopes, the mountain has many heavily defended entrances and exits, and they do have insect farms within the mountain. Specifically they raise Cave Fishers, for their silk and alcoholic blood.

The Underdark in DnD is not energy neutral, and via some magic crystals and careful cultivation, they have large mushroom and other crops that can grow in low-light/ no sun environments. I had a listing somewhere but I'd have to go digging.

Additionally, they trade extensively, especially for spices, because traditional dwarvish cuisine tends to be bland. Even their alchohol is really just because most of the water in Harth is not very potable.

The thing is, despite you seeming to think this was a gotcha question, nothing in the books tells us that Dwarves don't farm. No one has ever told us that they don't trade, in fact, the PHB specifically says that they do trade. My dwarves are unchanged from the standard in a lot of ways, with additions added on because I had questions that had gone unanswered.

Yes, @Maxperson and I do have different reasons regarding why we might think halflings are ok. Though for my own part, I do agree that there are ways the write-up could be improved.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Source? Or just more assumptions on your part?

What weapons do commoners have? Wooden shovels and pitchforks? If you've given them more effective armaments in your world then give halflings the equivalent. Again you make assumptions that other commoners have access to stuff that is not written anywhere then point to the lack of things you've added on top of what's written for other races as "evidence" that halflings suck.

Wooden farming tools and pitchforks are part of it, yes.

Most people also carried knives, for eating and skinning. Daggers are more effective weapons than sticks and stones.

Also, most farmers needed to split wood for fires, so a lot of them had handaxes.

Having a small hunting bow wasn't too uncommon. Not usual, but nothing out of line for a local to have a simple bow.

Hammers and sickles would also be fairly common.

Any of these could be used. Halflings even would logically have some of them. And yet, the description of their tactics tells us that they choose to use rocks and sticks.

So, I am not pointing to "things I've added on top of what is written" you are going about this backwards. I'm saying "halfling lore is written to tell us this. This doesn't make sense. If we assume this is all they have, which is what we are told they use, then it doesn't make sense"

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ah, I missed that.

Of course it also states for halflings that:

Although halflings aren’t reclusive by nature, they are adept at finding out-of-the-way places to settle in. It takes a combination of luck and persistence for an ordinary traveler to find such a place, and often that’s not enough. For those who subscribe to the idea that Yondalla actively shields her worshipers from harm, this phenomenon is easily explained — she looks out for their homes just as she protects their lives. Whatever the reason, travelers might look for a halfling village, but they fail to notice a narrow path that cuts through the underbrush, or they find themselves traveling in circles and getting no closer to their goal. Rangers who have encountered halflings or lived among them know of this effect, and they learn to trust their other senses and their instincts rather than relying on sight.​

​

So I guess that it's okay for gnomes to hide their villages but not halflings because of ... reasons. Reasons that have never been explained. It's in the same book, same chapter. The description makes it clear it's some kind of supernatural effect, just more luck than explicit illusion magic.

Because I was explicitly accused of "man at the gym" fallacy for demanding a supernatural explanation for halfling hiding? That's one.

Second, what is the source of halfling luck? it is one of two things.

1) Halflings are so innocent and pure that the universe warps itself to protect them.
-- This has major bad taste in my mouth implications for the rest of the sentient races, who are called out as explicitly protecting halfling villages in the PHB

2) Halfling Gods directly interfere in a manner above and beyond anything done by other gods.

---- And this... leads me to as why? If the truth of halflings is that their gods protect them more than any other god protects their worshippers, why? If we are dealing with a massively divinely blessed race, why aren't we exploring that? There are implications of a culture that is built upon the fact of divine intervention to keep them safe and happy.


So, sure, if we want to claim they are blessed by the gods in a manner unheard of by any other race, then we can go with that. But can we at least acknowledge it? And acknowledge that in many other circumstances "divine intervention" is seen as a weak narrative device?

 

[Chaosmancer]

So for your dwarves you invent fantasy bs-ery to address items lacking in the lore or common sense, but it's ridiculous to do so for halflings. Got it.

Which part of my explanation was "fantasy bs-ery"?

And, for the... 10th time? I DID homebrew halflings to fit my world

I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.
I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.
I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.

Can I repeat this enough times yet? I can keep going.

But, where for dwarves whatever "fantasy bs-ery" I made seemed to be fairly mild. Halflings keep twisting deeper and deeper into holes of logic that require me to either say "Divine Intervention!" or to stop caring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, @Maxperson and I do have different reasons regarding why we might think halflings are ok. Though for my own part, I do agree that there are ways the write-up could be improved.

Really?

Because, you know, that was my position.

And then @Maxperson and @Oofta started in on me about how halflings were perfect and if I didn't make my world so much more dangerous that no civilization could possibly survive.... and halflings would never sell things for coin because money corrupts.... and the books don't say that, those are just religious excersises.... and you can just wave that away, it is fantasy it doesn't have to be real..... and you don't hold other races to these standards do you...


And on, and on, and on, and on.

"The write up could be improved, because they really should have better defenses for their villages" was my point.

But no I must hate halflings, be too lazy to homebrew them, and hate all of fantasy, while also engaging in Fantasy bs-ery, likely due to my lack of reading comprehension, because I don't accept how perfect they are.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Which part of my explanation was "fantasy bs-ery"?

And, for the... 10th time? I DID homebrew halflings to fit my world

I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.
I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.
I did homebrew halflings to fit my world.

Can I repeat this enough times yet? I can keep going.

But, where for dwarves whatever "fantasy bs-ery" I made seemed to be fairly mild. Halflings keep twisting deeper and deeper into holes of logic that require me to either say "Divine Intervention!" or to stop caring.

I didn't see any acreage calculations for the required size of goatherds to support an entire city of dwarves, not did I see anything about how calorie dense the fantasy mushrooms must be. It's the exact same kind of hand waving as 'fantasy plants'. It works because you say it does. And you've not descried the dwarven lore for failing to address it.