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

[lall]

Apologies if folks have already mentioned this. Halflings are baby humans. If they’re boring, blame humans. Forest gnomes are baby elves, woodsy, skinny, and attractive, at least for a gnome. The other gnomes are baby dwarves, a bit on the stocky side.

 

[Iry]

Apologies if folks have already mentioned this. Halflings are baby humans. If they’re boring, blame humans. Forest gnomes are baby elves, woodsy, skinny, and attractive, at least for a gnome. The other gnomes are baby dwarves, a bit on the stocky side.

Gnome are small folk with pointed red hats. I suppose some distant gnomes could have white hats, but only if the papa still wears red.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Apologies if folks have already mentioned this. Halflings are baby humans. If they’re boring, blame humans. Forest gnomes are baby elves, woodsy, skinny, and attractive, at least for a gnome. The other gnomes are baby dwarves, a bit on the stocky side.

Adds Iall's name to The List ...

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'd hate this. I want at least some sort of WYSIWYG. Probably beyond the topic of this thread though.

I'm deeply impressed with your ability to know how much HP damage a weapon does on sight.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm deeply impressed with your ability to know how much HP damage a weapon does on sight.

Really? I know that I and most of my table could list the damage dice for every single weapon in the PHB and DMG (firearms and futuristic weapons), including whether or not they're finesse/versatile.

 

[Mecheon]

I guess I just don't get it.

I don't know when things like Innocence, Authenticity, Tranquility, friendship, just plain being comfortable and in harmony with one's self and surroundings became such UNheroic concepts.

They're not, unheroic concepts. Its just making an entire race that adheres just to those concepts and nothing further doesn't really make it stand out.

You can explore all of those concepts without a problem with a human and the story would be basically no different when done with a halfling. They're just too close to baseline humans to stand out, unless you're going for that sweet, sweet rogue dex bonus. Of course, the one time they leaned into 'people play this to be rogues' was Kender and, y e a h.

They are more popular, have a clearer niche of characters where they reinforce the theme, have far more long term consistency, don't have a theme that is undermined by it being the race's theme, and could easily absorb both forest and rock gnomes into their archetypes without breaking a sweat. And aren't almost completely reshuffled from edition to edition because they have more of an identity.

This is one I'm gonna disagree on.

Gnomes are the Magical Little People, and that's a ridiculously longstanding niche from mythology. Halflings are that stuck into their theme that adding gnomes in would not be a good fit at all, but ironically the looseness of the gnome theming would make it easier for them to consume the halfling niches in turn.

Gnomes could absorb the halfling niche and trappings without too much trouble, because when it really gets down to it is "Enjoy living nice life" which can easily be worked into their whole illusion/trickery thing. Halflings could not absorb the Gnome niche because its going to swing either heavy into illusions, or heavy into tinker, the one lasting gnomish niche ever since Mystara and that whole flying gnomish steampunk city they had. Its just too far from what Halflings have always tried to set themselves as.

Halflings have that problem of certain 3.5E races where they're way too narrow on a Very Specific Concept to their detriment, which is ironic given 3E was one of the ones that tried to give them a bit of a revamp

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

+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

When you say things like “to be honest you sound like you believe in fantasy not play in fantasy”, you’re making it personal. Making it personal is against the ENWorld ToS. So don’t do that,

 

[Mind of tempest]

You can't say that they both have and do not have a setting place.

There's also no such thing as a "race slot." You can have as many or as few races you want in any given world. The PH just includes the traditional ones, plus a few breakouts like dragonborn and tieflings. You could make a world with none of the traditional races, including no humans, if you really wanted to.


Well, maybe you need to sit down and really think about it, rather then just reacting. But some effort into it.

race slot is an abstraction, if I have dwarves orc, minotaurs and goliaths they all compete for strong guy role and clutter the setting, realistically you only need one per setting unless you know how to make them all feel super different, hence the term race slot, there are lots of things who are nearly elves in fantasy but are clearly not so elf is design to fit in a slot.

I have, I learned the answer is not in me thus I seek it, it might be because no one has thought of it yet in which case minds must be set in motion to generate the answer hence I am in this thread as either I will generate it or one of the other participants will.

They're not, unheroic concepts. Its just making an entire race that adheres just to those concepts and nothing further doesn't really make it stand out.

You can explore all of those concepts without a problem with a human and the story would be basically no different when done with a halfling. They're just too close to baseline humans to stand out, unless you're going for that sweet, sweet rogue dex bonus. Of course, the one time they leaned into 'people play this to be rogues' was Kender and, y e a h.


This is one I'm gonna disagree on.

Gnomes are the Magical Little People, and that's a ridiculously longstanding niche from mythology. Halflings are that stuck into their theme that adding gnomes in would not be a good fit at all, but ironically the looseness of the gnome theming would make it easier for them to consume the halfling niches in turn.

Gnomes could absorb the halfling niche and trappings without too much trouble, because when it really gets down to it is "Enjoy living nice life" which can easily be worked into their whole illusion/trickery thing. Halflings could not absorb the Gnome niche because its going to swing either heavy into illusions, or heavy into tinker, the one lasting gnomish niche ever since Mystara and that whole flying gnomish steampunk city they had. Its just too far from what Halflings have always tried to set themselves as.

Halflings have that problem of certain 3.5E races where they're way too narrow on a Very Specific Concept to their detriment, which is ironic given 3E was one of the ones that tried to give them a bit of a revamp

ah so my consideration that the basic function halflings have needs to be bulked up is not unreasonable, would consideration on what could be used as ideas be a good idea?

When you say things like “to be honest you sound like you believe in fantasy not play in fantasy”, you’re making it personal. Making it personal is against the ENWorld ToS. So don’t do that,

I have been getting too emotional in this thread, I am sorry and will avoid doing it again.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

@Mind of tempest

A note, because you’re new- and because I once did something similar myself in my early days- and you’re apologizing, commenting on moderation in thread is actually a potential violation of site ToS. It’s preferred that you make comments on moderation to private messages.

I just wanted to clarify that so you (and others) don’t make the error again.

 

[Mecheon]

ah so my consideration that the basic function halflings have needs to be bulked up is not unreasonable, would consideration on what could be used as ideas be a good idea?

I think its moreso the problem is at the root. You change them enough to make them stand out and, they won't be Halflings any more

Halflings have been defined by being "The Regular Short Race". They can't delve into magic, because the gnomes have their hands all over that. Martial and more conflict? That's the way of the Dwarf. Unfortunately Halflings hit their niche head on but, its a very tiny niche, compared to what every other main race has. In addition, unlike gnomes or dwarves who have mythology to draw on, halflings are sort of stuck in being, well, hobbits.

As much grief as I give Dragonlance, it at least had the right idea trying something with them by going the Kender route, and there's a reason the idea of the Halfling Mafioso is a reoccuring one out there (It works really well with what they've got), but the halfling may have been doomed to be stuck in a rutt by the very niche it fills