D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Yaarel]

I'd prefer the half races and multilineage be subraces of the full races and lineages.

Way too many possible combinations.

A character might be an elemental-touched orc-dwarf, etcetera.

Honestly, almost anything is possible.

A mix-match lineage mechanic is more helpful, and wastes less space during page-count.

 

[Neonchameleon]

+2 Cha is just +1 to the roll.
Proficiency goes from+2 to +6.

D&D Elves talk diplomacy but they aren't good at it. Half Elves are.

That's part of the problem with halflings.

1. The fluff of halflings is "I am a short human."
2. The crunch of halflings is "I am a short human."
3. The filling of halflings is "I am a short human."
4. The icing of halflings is "I am a short human."
5. Humans already exist in D&D.
6. Halflings look like variant humans

The fluff of most D&D races is "I am prosthetic forehead human with certain human traits turned up to 11". I fail to see how this is a specific problem with halflings.

 

[Yaarel]

+2 Cha is just +1 to the roll.
Proficiency goes from+2 to +6.

D&D Elves talk diplomacy but they aren't good at it. Half Elves are.

That's part of the problem with halflings.

1. The fluff of halflings is "I am a short human."
2. The crunch of halflings is "I am a short human."
3. The filling of halflings is "I am a short human."
4. The icing of halflings is "I am a short human."
5. Humans already exist in D&D.
6. Halflings look like variant humans

But the higher the bonus, the more impacting it becomes. High enough and it is auto-win. So, to actualize the Elf flavor, the +2 Charisma is very important.’



About the Halfling, youre not wrong.

 

[jayoungr]

so you can see how I pitcher halfling all cardboard, I would like to know what makes a thing move beyond a gimmick race and into something more as that would be nice and make people better at crafting something.

The answer is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different things inspire different people.

As you see above, I complained about not being able to create good characters with the extensive amount of cultural differentiation and worldbuilding that this DM was giving me for that setting. Want to know what one of my absolute favorite characters of all time is? A halfling rogue, now level 10, who started out as the bog-standard downloadable level 1 character sheet from the WotC website. I've developed her personality, her backstory, her likes and dislikes; she's real to me.

I'm not going to claim that this approach is going to work for everyone, though. I'm just using it as an example of how different players click with different things.

 

[Minigiant]

The fluff of most D&D races is "I am prosthetic forehead human with certain human traits turned up to 11". I fail to see how this is a specific problem with halflings.

Because some times it's "I am scaly, breath fire, resistant to it, and maybe grow wings"

Sometimes it's "I am short"

 

[Minigiant]

What are dwarves, except short (though not even that short) humans who like beer, axes and mining? What are elves except pretty and haughty humans? What are goliaths except tall humans who live on mountains? What are orcs except ugly and savage humans?

Like I get it, I want fantasy species to be more unique than that too, so I homebrew my own, but I feel that the standards here are not applied fairly!

Dwarves see in the dark and are poison resistant.

A dwarven mine might be pitch black and full of miasma. That's unusual.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Dwarves see in the dark and are poison resistant.

A dwarven mine might be pitch black and full of miasma. That's unusual.

Not really. In D&D not seeing in the dark is unusual!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because some times it's "I am scaly, breath fire, resistant to it, and maybe grow wings"

Sometimes it's "I am short"

I feel that one of these things is trying to be cool a bit too hard.

 

[Yaarel]

I say you should go full solar punk for the high elves as it would really fit them.

For the Alfar Elves in my setting, they are solar. Albeit, they are more the sunrays, sunbeams, silverlining of clouds, even gleaming snow reflecting sunlight, thus are the gentler life-giving aspects of the sun. The blazing fiery aspects are lessso. For example, they swap out Darkvision for a luminous cantrip called "Elf Shine", that is both an aura of illumination and while on is an advantage to Persuasion checks if in line-of-sight.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Not really. In D&D not seeing in the dark is unusual!

It depends on what you define as "usual". For me, "usual" means human-like, and "unusual" are non-human-like traits (like darkvision, damage resistance, etc). If you mean "usual" as "lots of races have this", sure, darkvision is "usual", but IMHO, that's a bad way to measure traits in D&D.