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

[lingual]

I find them far less malleable. Because every time in this thread I've put forth an idea to change halflings I've gotten pushback of "those aren't halflings, stop trying to change them, they are perfect as is" type variety.

Elves can get twsited into bizzare concepts, and no one bats an eye, but make a halfling something other than a farmer, innkeeper or shopkeeper, and you've committed some error.

You should not let the strangers you disagree with on the internet dictate how you play the game. No one here cares how you run your game nor will anyone take offense to how it is run.

 

[Oofta]

You should not let the strangers you disagree with on the internet dictate how you play the game. No one here cares how you run your game nor will anyone take offense to how it is run.

No one has ever told them how to play their game. It's just that many people do not agree with them.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And who gets included in the free basic rules.

And which races get subraces.
And which races get featured inD&D branded board games.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I like D&D having small adventurer races.

I personally think 6e should have more in the PHB. Gnome Goblin, Kobold and Halfling for 4 options. Satyr and ratmen in supplements. And puppy dogs.

I am skeptical that the PHB will ever have more than 10 options, or even that it would be a good idea.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Folding gnomes and halflings together makes the "Core 4" races pretty much even and I'm happy. Sure, humans are the clear winners, but, it puts our new race on par with dwarves and elves for being played, and opens up space for a new race to appear in the PHB. Again, presuming they don't just keep adding more races to the PHB. But, that would resolve my issues with halflings as being largely a waste of space in the PHB.

It would make sense to drop Stoutfellows and leave the three small lineages as Lightfoot, Forest gnome and Rock gnome.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

look at 5% for a race

Still misrepresenting the stats. Amazing.

Btw, has it really never occurred to you that Halflings are 6% (that’s how rounding works) in spite of not being the central focus of any AP, being prominent in only 1 setting, and not having any splatbooks about them?

There are a hundred or more races for 5e. They’re more popular than almost all of them. Like…they’re in at least the top 10% of races by popularity.

 

[Faolyn]

I am just saying if you need to add them to your setting but have no ideas for them you can only copy past the book, Dragonborn have so little but they have something else to lean on,

Which is? The fact that they're anthro dragons isn't something to lean on; it's just how they look.

If you have no ideas for how to use a race, then don't use them. If you have a player who absolutely refuses to play anything else, then get them to write up the lore of the race. Then you, the DM, can build on that.

halfling have no such luck they are tied to one setting exactly and we do not have that as an official setting.

What setting is that? LotR? Because as I and others have shown, there's lots of stuff about halflings in the books that isn't tied to any settings whatsoever.

 

[Minigiant]

I am skeptical that the PHB will ever have more than 10 options, or even that it would be a good idea.

1. Human
2. Dragonborn
   1. Chromatic
   2. Metallic
3. Dwarf
   1. Hill
   2. Mountian
   3. Mul
   4. Duergar
4. Elf
   1. High
   2. Wood
   3. Half Elf
   4. Dark
5. Gnome
   1. Forest
   2. Rock
   3. Deep
6. Goblin
   1. Common
   2. Hobgoblin
   3. Bugbear
7. Kobold
8. Halfling
   1. Lightfoot
   2. Stout
   3. Kender
9. Orc
   1. Green
   2. Half Orc
10. Tiefling

that's 10

 

[Faolyn]

Most of the settings WOTC have pushed in 5e.

What Crimson meant is, their interracial relationships and things like that are setting lore, not base lore.

There's no Sauron or One Ring in D&D. So Halflings being corruption resistant, lucky, plucky brave, souls who do jack squat and are had to tempt doesn't really fit in D&D.

What's really funny is that those are pretty much 5e traits, and weren't present in the earliest editions where they really were hobbit knock-offs.

I mean, do the LotR elves' ability to see the entire world or whatever it was they could do really comparable to 60' darkvision--or even 60' infravision?

It's like porting Anakin Skywalker into D&D without the Force.

You mean, where he'd be a sorcerer or monk and you'd replace the Force with the Weave or ki?

Anakin: I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over!
Drizzt: What the heck is the Jedi?!

It's a lawful good cheddar monk, Drizzt.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, we're done. You insist on pretending you're sitting at my table and able to read my mind. Please do not respond to me again.

You're right, and I apologize. That was rude of me.