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

[doctorbadwolf]

The point is that a nomadic people would have much less storage space for things.

The fact you keep harping on this is just hilarious. Nomadic people, in the actual really real world, keep things that aren’t strictly practical. Halflings are less prone to this, but when they do hold onto soemthing, they aren’t prone to showing it off. That is it, that’s the whole point. You keep trying to make it about some other crap that it isn’t about.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes. It is sort of a self-reinforcing circle. Elves are more popular because a wide variety of sub-races allow a great variety of builds (you can have your tree-hugger elf, your magic-focus elf or your underground angsty elf). But they are also given more sub-races than other races precisely because they are popular…

One solution would be to treat the sub-races as separate races, but I am concerned that this would lead to fewer non-elf races overall, so this is not a solution I would recommend.

This was what 4e did, referring to wood elves as elves and high elves as eladrin. It certainly didn't cause enough harm for dragonborn and tieflings not to make it from the 4e PHB into the 5e one; I think 5e . The other option for the big magical race of course is genasi.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my opinion, it is a theme.

Your turn.

Edit: notice how this directly and unambiguously addresses your central question.

1. It is an opinion, and
2. It happens to agree with you

Edit 2: can't believe I missed this..specifically it is a player character-facing theme. PCs gather power and level. There is no racial drive for this in anything I've seen.

This actually makes your argument more confusing though, since you've stated clearly that you have no issue with halfling PCs...and.. there is a good case to be made that Tolkien's halflings did gather powerful artifacts and "level up" along the way.

In fact, the hobbits did the most leveling up and gathering of powerful resources. The other characters did some leveling, Gandalf is 100% an NPC and also an angel that gets upgraded upon death to a higher station, but the Halflings return to the shire ina totally different tier of power and experience from when they left.

The idea that D&D doesnt allow for the themes of LOTR is such completely asinine nonsense that I don’t even know where to start, so I’ve just never interacted with it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Precisely. And in the sage advice they lay out a specific test to determine whether or not a thing fits into the second category and "seems magicky to me" isn't one of the criteria.

In fact, if you want to say that the frightened condition is always magical for the purposes of your role playing, there's nothing that specifically contradicts that. But unless the effect meets one of the criteria listed for inclusion in that second category of magic, by RAW, it's an effect that can't be dispelled, anti-magiced, or resisted by magical resistance.

As an example, a character targeted by a revenant's vengeful glare:
1) Can ignore the whole thing if they are immune to paralysis.
2) Has advantage on the saving throw if resistant to paralysis.
3) Can ignore the post-paralysis frightened condition of immune to frightened.
4) Gains no benefit from Halfling's Brave feature on the saving throw against paralysis, but does have advantage on subsequent saves against the frightened condition (or straight d20 if it can see the revenant)
5) Gains no benefit from magic resistance because there is nothing in the effect's description that would include it in the type of magic that can be dispelled, anti-magiced, or resisted by magic resistance.

That's the RAW.

Let's say I agree with you for a second. Point #5 "Gains no benefit from magic resistance because there is nothing in the effect's description that would include it in the type of magic that can be dispelled, anti-magiced, or resisted by magic resistance."

This right here tells me that there is a type of magic that can't be dispelled, resisted, yadda yadda.

So, a Revenant;s Vengeful Glare is magical, but it is not #magical#gamemechanictag. And so, being listed with "magical" in the text only applies if it is a type of magic that can be countered, dispelled, anti-magicked or resisted by magic resistance. However, not being listed as "magical" in the text does not mean it is not magical. Because there are types of magic that aren't tagged "magical" because they are too diffuse to interact with the game mechanics.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This was what 4e did, referring to wood elves as elves and high elves as eladrin.

IIRC, people had a fit about it though.

I feel subraces should just be removed. With the future being mechanically more customisable species I don't think there's much mechanical room for them, and thematically most of them are super weak. Like what's the difference between hill and mountain dwarves again? And sure, species can and should have different subgroups, but those are just cultures and ethnicities and don't need to be a mechanical thing just like human ones aren't. Besides such things are very setting dependent anyway.

And yeah, perhaps some species can have subgroups so different that they need separate mechanics, but then that should be a pretty major difference; I don't think having an elf (who by definition is magical) and eladrin (who is a slightly more magical elf) is that. Having dozens of marginally different elves really isn't needed.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not in my PHB.

double checks Huh, I thought it did. Then that is just bizarre. I wonder which effect it was that had them called out as frightened then.

 

[FrozenNorth]

This was what 4e did, referring to wood elves as elves and high elves as eladrin. It certainly didn't cause enough harm for dragonborn and tieflings not to make it from the 4e PHB into the 5e one; I think 5e . The other option for the big magical race of course is genasi.

True. My point is that if you only have room for 10 races in your PHB (which seems about standard across 4e and 5e), treating elves, eladrin and drow separately would mean ditching a lot of other races.

Edit. Just checked. 3.5 PHB had 7, 4e PHB had 8 races, 5e PHB has 9.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So, a Revenant;s Vengeful Glare is magical, but it is not #magical#gamemechanictag. And so, being listed with "magical" in the text only applies if it is a type of magic that can be countered, dispelled, anti-magicked or resisted by magic resistance. However, not being listed as "magical" in the text does not mean it is not magical. Because there are types of magic that aren't tagged "magical" because they are too diffuse to interact with the game mechanics.

This is pointless. Distinction between non-magical and magical-but-not-mechanically is not something the game recognises. It is classification that exist only in your head. And if it makes more sense for you to think things that way, sure, go ahead. But people in an inherently magical world probably wouldn't see things that way. The rain is probably cause by some sort of elemental spirits or whatnot in an fantasy world so is rain magical? To people in magical world magic is just a natural part of the world.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In my opinion, it is a theme.

Your turn.

Edit: notice how this directly and unambiguously addresses your central question.

1. It is an opinion, and
2. It happens to agree with you

Edit 2: can't believe I missed this..specifically it is a player character-facing theme. PCs gather power and level. There is no racial drive for this in anything I've seen.

This actually makes your argument more confusing though, since you've stated clearly that you have no issue with halfling PCs...and.. there is a good case to be made that Tolkien's halflings did gather powerful artifacts and "level up" along the way.

I have no idea why you think it would be a matter of opinion. Does your copy of the game not have levels? Do you know of many games of DnD where people never level up?

Yes, I see it as a fact that DnD has major themes involving the gathering of power. I also see it as a fact that Tolkien's work has major themes of the rejection of power. Those two things are at odds, they are literal opposites.

And, it doesn't matter that it is a "player-facing theme" because it is fundamental to how the game works and is presented. You could say Tolkien's theme was "reader facing" because it wasn't a racial drive either.

And actually, there was no leveling up for Sam and Frodo, the two who did the most good. They didn't really learn any new skills or gain any new powers. In fact, for the vast majority of the time, Sam and Frodo don't encounter any threats. The biggest is Gollum, which isn't a combat threat and is much more about the interpersonal relationships.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

True. My point is that if you only have room for 10 races in your PHB (which seems about standard across 4e and 5e), treating elves, eladrin and drow separately would mean ditching a lot of other races.

However, if you just get rid of the subraces, and let the elves just choose from short list of traits and cantrips so people can build their drow or wood elves or whatever, you will save some space and you can include more of actually separate species.