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

[Faolyn]

Sorry, yes, I'm still lurking, and I will respond to direct questions and honestly, this is a fair question.

For me to consider any racial option to be relevant, it has to be played more often than what halflings are. To be fair, halflings are probably right on the edge of where I would consider the tipping point.

This is a total non-answer. Because no matter what number we show you, you will continue to say that halflings aren't quite there. You have accepted that halflings are in the top nine races, out of 40+ official races and 55+ subraces, and an unknown but very large number of 3pp/homebrew races. But then you moved the goalposts and started claiming that any race (you mentioned bullywugs, IIRC) would be "that popular" if it were in the PH, despite absolutely no reason to believe that would be true.

Likewise, I showed you how many halflings were in the adventures and you moved those goalposts, claiming that they were just there and not really an important part of the story, despite the fact that in all of those fourteen adventures they performed the same functions as every other NPC and in several of those adventures were said to live in the area in decently large numbers.

So yes, it is about you refusing to accept the simple fact that halflings are popular enough. Maybe they're not popular enough for your tastes, but they're popular enough for D&D in general. And no, I don't believe you are telling the truth when you claim there's a threshold where you would accept them. Your actions have shown on multiple occasions that you simply don't want halflings in the PH, that halflings are not to your taste, and nothing will ever change your mind and let you admit you were wrong. Heck, it took me and one other person calling you out, twice I believe, before you would admit that you were wrong and I had actually gone through fourteen adventures and not just focused on one, like you claimed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For me to consider any racial option to be relevant, it has to be played more often than what halflings are.

From what you've said here and elsewhere you've implied that by definition halflings are therefore irrelevant because it is impossible for halflings to be played more than halflings are.

I'm fairly sure you don't think you mean that - but the 5% threshold you set looks as if it was set after you looked up statistics for halflings and found them just under that

I look at that number and say, "Despite having every possible advantage you could have - appearing in every edition of the game, having a HUGE writer like Tolkien behind them (while I'm not a fan of how much Tolkien influences the game, I certainly can't deny it), being promoted as one of the 4 most common races, being a race that is almost never banned from games and is one of the most acceptable to DM's races in the game, it gets played about 5(ish) percent of the time."

And I look at them and say that's a distortion.

Wasn't it you who dug up the lack of lore in the Realms on halflings and Yolanda? Wasn't it you who dug up just how little they are used in adventures in practice? Lip service has been paid to giving them advantages - but when it comes down to it neither TSR nor WotC have ever really cared about halflings, and especially not in the biggest setting around. Even gnomes have a much better deity in the Realms than halflings do. For that matter gnomes have an actual pantheon of eight deities in the Realms - and yes the halflings have six, but I don't believe the gnomes have ever had the indignity of having their deity demoted to an aspect of someone else - and left with a new chief deity almost entirely lacking in lore other than this event. And back in the greyhawk days the Gnomes had far more lore and detail than Halflings.

After forty years of being one of the least played PHB races, it's probably time to let something else have a swing at the bat.

Or possibly it's time to give them an actual chance rather than simply saying they are there and that they are common, and stopping there the way the default setting for D&D does.

Short changed, overlooked, and ignored - and still trucking along despite getting mere lip service. It's probably time to actively let halflings have a swing at the bat rather than just send them out into the deep outfield and then complain when they don't hit home runs. The archetype is solid - but nothing's been done with them by TSR or WotC (Eberron being an honourable exception).

 

[carkl3000]

I know, by the way, that I'm going to in the near future start being accused of saying "halflings can't defend themselves" or some other hyperbolic version of Minigiant's argument, so I'd figure I'd get out ahead of it and go ahead and put down my thoughts.

Halflings would be just as fine as the other races, if they have crossbows, training in using them, and some planning for dealing with something like a Gnoll attack.

But, I also want to state that for Humans, Halflings, and Dragonborn, Gnolls are a TERRIFYING enemy. Darkvision and being smarter than a stick means that gnolls will attack at night, when these races have a harder time seeing their enemies. If they are going through darkness, a halfling is likely looking at +1 w/disadvantage against a 15 AC and 22 hp to chew through (about 4 hits). Meanwhile the Gnoll can throw a spear at the 11 AC halfling/human/Dragonborn and kill them in a single attack. An if they get in melee range, they can kill two a turn.

With weapons, some training, and a plan? The village can survive. But if you are relying on hoes and shovels or just thrown rocks? That takes you to needing 5 to 6 hits per gnoll with +1 and very likely disadvantage from range. It is a bad situation for anyone.

The problem I tend to find is that the idea of a halfling town militia is met with derision and scorn, and then the "whataboutisms" of humans and others come, then the accusations of death worlds and it all starts turning into a mess because people can't accept halflings believing in self-defense.

If you are creating random encounter tables and rolling dice to determine which villages survive in your world, this kind of thing might make sense. If you're telling a story, I think it's ok to leave game mechanics out of it. I think it's a mistake to think that analysing the proficiency bonuses and ability modifiers of the inhabitants of a built world makes the world more realistic because... it's not real , neither the inhabitants nor the game mechanics...

If your story needs for a halfling village to repel a band of orcs, make it happen. You're the one telling the story. If Aunt Hattie can chase away a bugbear with a rolling pin singlehandedly, (MToF p.100) an entire village, under the right circumstances, should be able to do alright.

 

[Faolyn]

Just because they don't value money doesn't mean they have no valuables.

A farm is a farm. A bunch of wheat is a bunch of wheat.

With how unsustainable the orcs are in their lore, orcs would be raiding every halflings village on a regular basis just to survive.

Orcs don't seem the time to care about wheat (neither do goblins, gnolls, or any other raider-race; maybe human bandits would care about wheat). Orcs would go after the farm animals, yes, but the raw ingredients for bread? Nah.

And halflings only get a +2 to Dex. That's only a 5% increase. They don't even get a size bonus to stealth, AC, and attack rolls in 5e.

That's because they don't do size bonuses to anything in 5e. No race gets them. And halflings "only" get a +2 but every pre-Tasha's race gets a +2 in something.

Halflings kinda suck mechanically. Some minor luck and bravery would not keep a tween sized humaniod from being punted around by full sized medium creatures who are trained for battle.

Assuming that full-sized medium creature can find them. Halflings are more the type to let the big creatures plunder their fields while they make sure they remain safe, then carefully follow them back to their base and steal it all back. (That Dex bonus helps them out on both of those things.)

Edit: Don't forget that in any halfling village, like with any other humanoid village of any size, there's going to be at least one or two individuals with class levels--and possibly more than that.

 

[bedir than]

I just want what people say the lore is or what they say the mechanics are that make halflings fit into D&D to match what the actual lore and/or mechanics described in the books

I'm sorry, but thousands of comments have done that. Will you believe us on the thousand and first?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Orcs don't seem the time to care about wheat (neither do goblins, gnolls, or any other raider-race; maybe human bandits would care about wheat). Orcs would go after the farm animals, yes, but the raw ingredients for bread? Nah.

The big danger IMO is orcs burning the fields. But some plants burn more easily than others.

 

[Faolyn]

The big danger IMO is orcs burning the fields. But some plants burn more easily than others.

Personally, I always picture halflings as being more root vegetables and brassicas than grains.

 

[Cadence]

Personally, I always picture halflings as being more root vegetables and brassicas than grains.

And now I'm picturing Halflings growing like carrots. I thought that was gnomes!

 

[Minigiant]

Orcs don't seem the time to care about wheat (neither do goblins, gnolls, or any other raider-race; maybe human bandits would care about wheat). Orcs would go after the farm animals, yes, but the raw ingredients for bread? Nah.

Which is stupid as there would be less to eat and harder to preserve.

I can't wait until WOTC attempt to make a setting that is at least a bit more logical that its dumb default fluff. I'll likely have to wait forever though.

That's because they don't do size bonuses to anything in 5e. No race gets them. And halflings "only" get a +2 but every pre-Tasha's race gets a +2 in something.

Exactly.

So a halfling is only 5% better at stealth than a human. And the "well halflings are all ninja" logic falls apart.

Assuming that full-sized medium creature can find them. Halflings are more the type to let the big creatures plunder their fields while they make sure they remain safe, then carefully follow them back to their base and steal it all back. (That Dex bonus helps them out on both of those things.)

Their bonus is literally just a +1.
That's worse than base proficiency.

 

[Faolyn]

Small creatures eat as much as medium ones. And halflings are not more dangerous than humans.

I like halflings.
My complaint is that 5e rules and lore for halflings is dumb and no DM can run halflings seriously without houseruling the mechanics and/or changing the lore.

I have run halflings without houseruling their mechanics at all, and the lore is only barely changed to fit my setting: to whit, they have boats and are one of the only races to mint coins. No other changes at all. Of the currently five PCs in the party, three are halflings. We've gone from 1st-7th level. I've had plenty of time to deal with their mechanics and they don't suck mechanically at all.