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

[Gammadoodler]

It'd be nice of Small wasn't nothing but a liability to force them out of certain options (like using polearms) for no good reason (no, verisimilitude is not a good reason. Like, ever.)

At least in 3.5 it gave you a bonus to hit and AC. In 5e, they get nothing to compensate.

I keep waiting for an ergonomically appropriate goblin stronghold.

Get ready to crouch a lot and leave your polearms at home folks.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And, again, I'd have zero problem with dropping any race from the PHB that is rarely played. Whether it's 5.9% or 4.something percent from a later poll (funny how that averages out to about 5%, but, there are those who INSIST on keeping that .9 percent but refuse to acknowledge the other, more recent numbers, almost like some folks might just possibly be arguing in bad faith.),

So far as I can recall, 4.x percent hasn’t been backed up with a source.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The thing is that the PHB does reflect what's actually played - or to be more accurate what's being played reflects the PHB. There are nine races in the PHB which means that 5% is in round terms at the low end of the expected range but still within the expected range - especially when humans are visibly the most popular race. And there's this feedback property. That which is in the PHB is played. There were lots of complaints when the gnomes were removed, and they're even less popular than halflings. There's another big issue - that if each race covers a niche then you don't expect all niches to be the same size. Indeed if the races were equally popular then it would be pretty much proof positive that D&D race was meaningless rather than said something about the character.

Also D&D Beyond provides a pretty decent test from what's out there of what people are actually playing. There's nothing nipping at the heels of halflings saying "we can do that better" except possibly forest gnomes (but they're a PHB race too and less popular overall).

In your attempt to torch the PHB races en-masse you are attempting to remove what players are actually playing and replace them with what people might play. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You are doing literally the opposite of what you claim to want.

I've made my suggestions as to races that might be on the cusp of promotion (Genasi, Tabaxi, Orcs or Goliaths) and why they have a niche. With two of those three fitting into already existing races (Genasi are more magical than elves so eat a lot of high elf territory, and orcs and goliaths are both rivals for half-orcs). I suspect that Tieflings may already be entrenched in the niche tabaxi would take.

Given that halflings clearly have a niche, that there's a non-trivial number of people clearly happy with halflings in their niche, and that the only rival I'm aware of for their role is even less popular, and you've offered precisely nothing in the way of improvement why does the idea of tearing away what people already play and not even offering any sort of alternative in order to court an audience you don't even know exists so matter to you?

The other thing, that I haven’t seen mentioned, is that 5, 6, or even 4, percent means that most parties probably have a halfling in them.

 

[Faolyn]

So cats that have demons in their ancestry.

How would we tell them apart from normal cats?

Forked tails.

 

[Cadence]

The other thing, that I haven’t seen mentioned, is that 5, 6, or even 4, percent means that most parties probably have a halfling in them.

At six percent, a party of six only has a 31% chance of having one, right?

1.-94^6

 

[Neonchameleon]

How is it that you reduce all the lore and descriptions of halflings and gnomes to size? Are all medium races all the same too?

I don't - but neither has that much lore or description tbh and they work well as subraces with forest gnomes being what happens when you push halflings right to the edges.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

At six percent, a party of six only has a 31% chance of having one, right?

1-94^6

Eh, most or a plurality, either way it’s enough to meet the “don’t mess with it” threshold.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I keep waiting for an ergonomically appropriate goblin stronghold.

Get ready to crouch a lot and leave your polearms at home folks.

I do that with Kobold warrens.

Pro tip: if you’re in a Kobold warren and you find yourself in a room tall enough for you to stand upright in, it‘s a trap.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And the counter-point is that the halfling numbers are artificially deflated by the way the Realms in particular deemphasise them. And yet they are still up there, far more consistent than the red headed stepchild of D&D, the gnome.

So there's clear demand to play halflings despite the way they are deemphasised. The big question is that if halflings had been given the same love as dwarves would we even be having this conversation.

Amusingly, many posters have claimed that what we see as halflings being "deemphasized" is exactly the reason they want to play halflings. So, for those players they are popular because they were deemphasized.

Wonder if that would be about 5% of the player base...

 

[Chaosmancer]

So all of them are more better able to handle the trials they face at the end of the story than at the beginning, and all that changed was a singular wound to their delicate halfling hearts..

Sure, that makes sense.

At what point do they receive martial training? Practice sneaking? Learn how to maintain their gear?

Before Isengard, how many times did a halfling actively participate in a fight, rather than just run away or cower? I can think of a single time. For 50% of a trilogy. So yeah, they really didn't gain a whole lot of combat experience.

Cool. We're assigning levels to our protagonists. Sounds like D&D.

Yeah. "After your epic adventure to save the world, you are at the point mentally and physically where in this world we would expect you to be able to kill big rats in a basement" Clearly what they went through in LoTR must be very comparable to DnD.

So, in D&D, is most loot given to serve an extremely specific narrative purpose, or is it maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) given because the person giving it thinks it might be useful or valuable?

Because it sounds like you're trying to make the case that Galadriel knew the perils they were about to face and chose to give them stuff she did not think they'd have any use for...which is again, a hilarious way to view her as a character.

No. What I am pointing out is that a magical light in the dark is a very important narrative device for Tolkien, that allows for a lot of symbolism in the moment.

In DnD that super important relic that let Sam kill a demonic demi-god is a common item that most players wouldn't even be interested in, because they could just have a torch instead. Heck, a strong subset of players could just make their own light.

You are trying to make it seem like this can be mapped to DnD... but when you do it falls apart completely. My level 1 artificer made an item comparable to Galadriel's light with a basic ability that most people consider fluff. The scales are completely different. And this is by the way, the only item you've focused on, again something like the tree seed barely even counts as existing in the story, because it only gets used in the epilogue.

Wait, are we running stats for how adventurers fare while they are still adventuring? Because it's a hazardous profession in D&D too. Like, where do you think all that loot you keep harping on comes from?

Nevermind that throwing out 4 of the dwarves for lack of an epilogue is a fairly misleading thing to do. We don't know how they fared, but those results would have a significant impact on the rate you're trying to show.

I also notice that you've tried no such exercise with D&D adventurers. Why might that be?

Because DnD adventurers are singular at the table, and in my expeirence they don't die. I actually had a discussion with a guy earlier tonight. I've never really killed a player character permanently. The only time I ever did I was specfically asked to give too leaving players epic death scenes.

And much of the loot in my games comes from attacked towns, merchants, ect. Adventurers do die, but notably, if a group of PC adventurers retire... they aren't later revealed to have died or met some other terrible fate. Also, I agree that their results could have a significant impact, but they weren't considered important enough to mention, so they could have been killed in Moria, or they could have been killed going after another lost home. We simply don't know.

A) So you've established that you don't run an LoTR-type setting in your play by post game.. hooray..so what?

B) So even without those items it'd still be D&D. Cool.. we agree.. I think we're done discussing this particular anecdote.

A) It is also unlikely Eberron, Greyhawk, Mystara, Darksun, Forgotten Realms, Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica, Strixhaven, My Homebrew world (not the play by post), my friend's homebrew world (Not the play by post), Oofta's world.... you know, I can't think of a single DnD world that is like Middle Earth.

B) Ignoring the point. There is a pattern in DnD worlds where the PCs get a lot of magical gear. I can prove it with other groups of mine if that would make you feel better. Each in a different world and a different DM.

So I assume at some point the plan was to show how the arguments for factual thematic suitability based on your critical readings of Tolkien and D&D and setting practicality within D&D are related. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure you'll get there.

I do like the self-proving argument you included though. That's a fun new trick.

"Hobbit's reject power"
"But Merry and Pippin didn't"
"Then they're not really Hobbits"

I believe this is known as the "No true Scotsman.." defense.

It would be the "No True Scotsman" if I said they weren't really hobbits. Gollum was considered to potentially have once been a hobbit. He certainly was corrupted. Therefore it is possible that Tolkien intended that same sort of effect for Merry and Pippin. After all, it was Merry I believe who also ended up holding the Palantir and getting a head full of dark wizard before Gandalf snatched it from him.

And yet, it was specifically stated that Same was able to reject the rings promises because he knew he was a simple hobbit who shouldn't really desire those sort of things. Something we could say would not have been true for the hobbits who joined in the armies.