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

[Chaosmancer]

By what metric is this lore good? Like for example I'd be hard pressed to remember any FR lore that rises above meh. And some of it is actively stupid and offensive.

Completeness, depth, and complexity.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

1) WotC is now afraid to remove anything from the core PH after everyone started pretending they liked gnomes to attack 4e.

I'll have you know that I both never played any edition of D&D before 5e, and also love Gnomes through and through. They're actually my favorite player race!
(In your face, Halflings! Booyah! That's right! Booyah!)

 

[Chaosmancer]

And in the case of the unfortunate gnolls attacking a halfling thorp:

1. They didn't realise there was a halfling village there at all. They thought that it was just a collection of hills, not realising that the hills were artificial and halflings lived in them.
2. They knew that there was a halfling farmer there but not that the farmer was near the village
3. They realised that there were a number of buildings, but made the mistake of expecting human sized populations from the houses rather than halflings living more densely and in tighter communities. So they thought the thorp was ten to fifteen people rather than thirty
4. They realised there were thirty or so halflings but were expecting half a dozen militia members with weapons and armour rather than two dozen halflings who were all carrying slings.
5. They'd been warned that halflings all carried slings and how many there were but didn't take the warnings seriously; there are almost no famous halfling warriors. So "Halflings. Without serious armour. How dangerous could they be?" Gnoll raiders attacking a village are normally outnumbered and still slaughter bigger people than halflings.
6. They had all the warnings they needed ... and got ambushed anyway.

Any or all of those could apply.

"The gnolls are idiots and know nothing about halflings, and if we ignore how the game mechanics are presented they will get slaughtered"

Not exactly a convincing argument. I mean, points 1 thru 3 are literally just "the gnolls have no idea it is a halfling village and what a halfling village is"

Four is "We expect six people with weapons, not 24 with weapons" even though supposedly every halfling shire and thorp has people carrying slings all the time.

Five is... pointless? Like, just restating the situation. Unless you are thinking gnolls, who want to kill everything, aren't attacking at full force because they... don't think the halflings will fight back? Like, what are you even thinking this means?

Six is... that somehow this village of farmers, that the gnolls came upon and saw a farmer from, managed to ambush the people ambushing them. Somehow.

So, let's assume that everyone isn't completely ignorant of halflings. That gets us magical ambush and that the gnolls miscounted. But. 10 gnolls vs 24 halflings is still in the gnolls favor.

 

[Chaosmancer]

First the Eberron halflings you are most likely to meet in most campaigns are from the Dragonmarked houses; Gallanda and Jorasco - with the mark of healing and the mark of hospitality respectively. Halflings living in larger communities and known for their hospitality? That's about as close to vanilla PHB halflings as you can get. Further away are the Tallenta Plains with its dinosaur riding halfling nomads because no race is a monoculture and different people in different environments. But the default adventurer zone is Sharn, population measured in hundreds of thousands, with humans as the most common race with a third of the city's population - and halflings as third most common with a tenth and being approximately PHB-standard halflings. The Talenta Plains are on literally the far side of the continent, multiple hostile countries away and you literally have to cross the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is The Mournland to get there. So no, Eberron halflings aren't "radically altered" other than that there are multiple halfling cultures.

Ah, right. Most Eberron halflings are just humans. The only halflings with a unique culture and outlook are the Talenta halflings that are "literally the far side of the continent, multiple hostile countries away and you literally have to cross the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is The Mournland to get there."

Because, Gallanda and Jorasco are just as money-grubbing as the other Dragonmarked houses. And they all live in human kingdoms. Have adopted human dress and human culture... and yeah, basically have nothing to make them unique.

So, 1/5 settings with something interesting done with halfligns then?

No. I've taken the attitude that the PHB is fine and Eberron is fine (as for that matter is Dark Sun; PHB standard halflings would not work in such a divergent setting). And that the halfling archetype is fine. Oh, and the Nentir Vale halflings are also fine with multiple organisations and being PHB standard (the Nentir Vale being the 4e setting). And halflings fit pretty well into Ravenloft (there are few in Barovia but 98% of Barovia is human; this isn't something to do with halflings).

The problem is more to do with the Forgotten Realms and the Realms being the default setting than it is anything else. Halflings aren't weak in the PHB - but the Realms are the default setting.

And it makes no sense at all to remove halflings from the PHB because the Realms doesn't do right by them. It also doesn't make sense to tailor halflings specifically to people who are passionate in their dislike of halflings.

But.... Eberron halflings are even more literally human. Unless you count the Talenta halflings. Nentir Vale I'm not familiar with, but since the comment is made that they no longer have 4e lore, I'm going to guess there would have to be some major changes.

So, what makes these different from the Realms?

 

[Neonchameleon]

and Exandria barely does any better than the Forgotten Realms in this manner

Exandria on the other hand has precisely one sourcebook. I don't even want to know how many sourcebooks there have been for the Realms over the years and I don't think the Realms have done much with halflings since the 80s.

(Lotusden Halflings are cool, but literally could just be Gnomes and there would be no difference). I know next-to-nothing about Nentir Vale, so I'm going to need an explanation of Halflings from that setting, if you would be so kind to provide it.

It's deliberately given as inspiration and lore snippets for the DM to pick up rather than having a bible. Multiple different organisations with halfling members that are reasonably promenant, showing there is more than one way to be a halfling. A relatively decent cosmology, with Avandra (one of the more popular PC deities, Goddess of freedom, trade, travel and adventure) being the main patron of Halflings - but they were created by Melora (Nature, wilderness, and the sea) and Sehanine Moonbow (moon, autumn, trickery, illusion). Critical Role basically uses the Nentir Vale pantheon.

Again, start with PHB Standard and expand things from there. What do they do in multiple environments? How do they interact with the gods (and the single most boring option is "their god is X").

Gnomes, in the Nentir Vale, live in the Feywild. Being creatures of faerie rather than normal they are far more magical and otherworldly which makes them far more strongly drawn than in most other D&D settings. It IMO does them a vast amount of good thematically, making them distinct from halflings and playing up their otherworldliness. And makes both forest gnomes and rock gnomes seem exceptionally muted by contrast.

And another minor correction, there have only been two seasons of critical role,

I'm counting Exandria Unlimited as the third season.

and only one of them included a Halfling PC, and that PC was a Goblin for about half of the campaign, so I'm going to count that as .5 Halflings in one season of Critical Role.

There were two gnome PCs in Season One of Critical Role, so going off of the fact that only about half of season 2 included a Halfling PC to support this statement:

There are 4 times as many long-term Gnome PCs (2 of them) than long-term Halfling PCs (.5 of them) in the combined first two seasons of Critical Role.

And there's now one in Exandria Unlimited.

The amusing irony here is that there have been precisely zero long term elves and dwarves combined in season 1 and 2 - and one long term dwarf in Exandria Unlimited. Times, they are a-changing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I thought my meaning was pretty clear. I did not say anything about how Dragonborn are supposed to be played.

But when talking about why a Dragonborn commoner would be different you said:

"The PHB also describes (and it seems weird to have to explain this) the personal qualities that the dragonborn culture values most, and their values as a culture are much different than those of the halfling culture,"

"I think that any character that had any knowledge of dragonborn culture, that met a hippy dippy dragonborn character would think it was strange and might wonder why this guy is so easy going when most of the other dragonborn they have met are very stern and serious and very into swords and familial honor"

The only differences you listed is how they are supposed to be played, their default lore. Ignoring how they are actually being played in this instance.

This is absurd. Of course halflings tell their children about things that happen outside their village. What makes you think they don't?

The people who've told me that the only thing halflings care about are their villages and that they don't really care too much about the outside world because they are content with what they have?

I mean, let us take this Dragonborn village for a moment, that has decided to live a different way than their kin. So you really think that they are going to constantly tell their kids about how their kin live, when all they are really concerned with is the peaceful and content life they have right now?

And even if they did... so they know that their life isn't typical for Dragonborn, it doesn't change their life in any way to know that.

The fact that there is a dragonborn village with a culture that is diametrically opposed to the typical dragonborn culture implies some sort of schism at some point in history. Why are these dragonborn living in a peaceful commune when most others are more martially inclined? What is their relationship with other dragonborn setlements? Why would they not tell their youngsters something like, "Someday you might wish to leave our village. If you do you might encounter others who look a lot like you. Just know that they may not be as... kind to outsiders... as you expect them to be."

Now, you could say that maybe this dragonborn commune is completely isolated from all other dragonborn communities and maybe the history of the founding of their village is lost to the mists of time and everyone living there really is oblivious to the fact that there are dragonborn living elsewhere in the world who are less peaceful, less humble, more motivated by honor, etc. If the entire story was confined to that village, you're right, there's no reason for anyone to think twice about just sitting around the campfire singing Kumbayah. The problem is 1) That would require a level of isolation from the rest of the world far more extreme than anyone is proposing for halflings, and 2) How the eff do you write a campaign that takes place entirely within a peaceful village.

Now, say that you do want to start your story with this improbable dragonborn hero living in this improbable dragonborn commune. They have to leave town at some point right? Because otherwise there's no story. They will then encounter other people who themselves have encountered (or at least heard stories about) other dragonborn and this easygoing, humble, kind-hearted dragonborn is not going to fit their expectations whatsoever. The dragonborn from the commune will have a much different experience in the world than the halfling from the shire.

To me, "Dragonborn raised in a peaceful communal village" sounds like a launching point for a good fish out of water story. I think it could be really interesting. The player making that character can play it however they want, but you can be sure that, as another example, if they came across other dragonborn in the world, those other dragonborn would find the hippy dragonborn's apparent lack of drive and martial prowess disgraceful, and they would make their feelings apparent.

So, this is really just based on people not expecting dragonborn to be peaceful and content with life, and so every stranger they encounter who finds a kind-hearted humble dragonborn is going to be entirely confused. But if they meet a kind-hearted and humble halfling that fits their stereotyped image.

So, your entire argument is "dragonborn aren't sterotypically kind, so everyone will judge a Dragonborn who is kind as being weird but Halflings are stereotypically kind, so no one will think they are weird.


Yeah... that sucks as a reason that Dragonborn don't work for this story. I don't typically take into account "people will stereotype them differently" when I build my characters.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ah, right. Most Eberron halflings are just humans.

And most "non-humans" in any setting are just types of human with human psychologies of various sorts turned up to 11 being written by humans and played by humans in a way that is comprehensible to humans. I've already shown how elves are the glitterati.

If we're doing this then there are no non-human races in D&D. By definition there can't be because humans can't understand things that different.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The issue with this is if the gnolls are inflicting 3:1 casualties then they are still losing the strategic battle heavily. Gnolls are raiders and obligate carnivores which means that they need a ludicrous amount of land to get the meat they need. Meanwhile halflings are notedly good farmers and can therefore support very high population densities. I'm not saying the halflings want 3:1 casualties against them but the gnolls can't take those losses. Not that the halflings want to, admittedly. Gnolls, as raiders, need to keep their packs large because everyone's going to either attack or call for help.

And gnolls replenish their numbers by having hynea's eating their kills. So, if they lose 6/10 gnolls fighting the halflings, and then have a pack of 10 hyena's eat some of the 30 corpses... they are now 16 gnolls who need to find some new hyenas.

Actually, right next to the line about "a single gnoll can recreate a warband" in Volo's, there is a line that gnolls... commonly attack from a distance first. So, that's interesting to note going forward.

And you can't assume the halflings will be stupid either. You can also assume that when the halflings thoroughly fort up in their burrows that the gnolls will go elsewhere. And that the halflings will have prepared the ground.

Right... because they can't break down doors?

Maybe they can all hide, but that's a pretty big if, and if they do just hide until the gnolls leave, they haven't exactly won.

Always assuming that the ground is open and the halflings, who prepared the terrain, aren't obscuring the sight lines and using four foot high pieces of cover. Good cover for halflings, lousy for gnolls.

Man, this is some farming village. Fortified doors, covered in entire sections of 4 ft cover that the farmers dart between as they keep mobile to avoid the gnolls, from any angle of attack...

I remember when I was eviscerated for daring to suggest they have a single wall, now we've got a literal maze in the streets.

And what about the halfling's prepared defences - full cover is +5 for AC of 16 or 17. These aren't good numbers.

I didn't assume the halflings to turn their village into a maze with minutes of warning, so that they could have 3/4 cover from any possible angle of attack. I was more picturing a guy running into town with Gnolls about 3 minutes behind him.

I guess they've built these massive lines of wooden walls (treated to prevent them from burning from the gnolls flaming arrows (Volo's pg 35) ) and have them laying in the dirt with a complex pulley system, so all they have to do is pull a single lever and dozens of walls spring up along all the roads.

And... somehow they can retain that 3/4 cover, but also attack the gnolls with no cover bonus, but the gnolls can't ready actions to hit the halflings when they step out of cover. I'm sure that's not an extreme amount of tactics in favor of the halfling farmers with no militia training who just go around carrying slings because that's all they need.

Or down to 0%. The halflings consider they win if the gnolls go away. So the halflings just drop behind cover if the gnolls try this. Disadvantage vs disadvantage with the halflings with far higher numbers, better cover, and better terrain knowledge.

Wait. So... if the gnolls have a group with bows, the halflings will lay in the dirt.

And if some of the gnolls without bows, charge the walls with their spears.... the halflings will dash away and kite them...

Which will let them be shot by the bows.

So, they will stay put... and get killed by the spears.

How is this exactly supposed to work?

What do you mean "pop out". Gnolls have a passive perception of 10. Halflings hide - and attack from behind three quarters cover.

So, we are assuming the halflings always hide, then attack, which is two turns, and then they need to hide on the third turn....So they aren't hidden when the gnolls counter attack. And I'm still not sure how they are attacking from behind 3/4 cover without any penalties, but also never exposing themselves to counter-fire from bows.

Man, these halfling farmers with no militia training are amazing. Fully fortified village with instant cover, and they are completely coordinated so that 1/3 are hiding, 1/3 are attacking and 1/3 are moving and yet all of them are completely untouchable by the gnolls. Because... reasons.

Which are fewer for raiders than people defending prepared positions on home ground.

And what are gnolls actually going to do at night? They explicitly don't attack fortified positions; they're bullies. Halflings in their holes are effectively in fortified positions. Congratulations - that door has an arrow sticking out of it. They're looking for food and explicitly don't attack fortified positions. Which in gnoll territory halfling burrows are and ones that make the gnolls crawl.

Yeah, they explicitly don't attack fortified positions, like castles.

A Halfling village isn't that fortified. Well, the one you created is, but "I lock the door" isn't enough to be considered fortified, otherwise gnolls wouldn't attack any town, ever. because human doors are bigger and heavier.

And they aren't "looking for food" they are looking to slaughter as much sentient life as possible. Just because the halflings bar their doors doesn't mean the gnolls are going to shrug and go away.

And, let us say that a gnoll does break into a halfling home. Squeezing is difficult terrain, and the halflings will have advantage to attack them, but you are also in close quarters, so the halfling is defintely dying in that situation. Unless you somehow have seven halflings in the room to pile on the gnoll with knives. And even then, that single gnoll is taking out two haflings.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Im going to give you the thing that,to me, would be the biggest difference. Baby making.

Presumably dragonborn lay eggs??? Think of all the ways human society would be different if we just changed that one single thing. Would everyone store their eggs in some sort of super defended armory instead of in their personal house? Are there egg-keepers as a job? Is there less of a traditional division between males and females when females are never pregnant?

There is so much to explore in this one difference that you could base an entire campaign just exploring the nuance of baby raising between all the different race choices.

Oh sure, that is a big difference. It is also not the differences that @carkl3000 seems to be focused on. I'd also say that this is something that can make Dragonborn fascinating, but in no way counteracts anything that is being put forth as a point about halflings.

Personally, things like egg-laying are where I love to build out races from.

But in closing I'd offer you a counter question. Is it possible for you to write a simple village visit encounter in which you NEVER explicitly state which race the village belongs to but in which the players could all guess what race they were visiting?

1. You enter your hosts home, surprised at how the tiny branches all entertwined to form a door as solid as yours.

2. You enter your hosts home, surprised at how dry and airy it feels...a far sight from the dampness and mildew you pictured.

3. You enter your hosts home careful to stop low to avoid the threshold. You mouth immediately waters as the scent of rhubarb pie fills your nostrils.

4. You enter your hosts home and immediately fel a strange sense of unease at the complete lack of kitchen, dining room, and even tables or chairs save a standing workbench in one corner and what might be a chair buried under years of debris in the opposite

Probably. I'd say you did a good job here. Guessing

1) Probably elf, but I'd also guess Firbolg

2) My first thought was Lizardfolk, because they are the only swamp dwellers I cab think of, but you might have been going for Dwarf because of caves.

3) Since you did short and food, I'm guess you meant halfling. But if you just went for the pie it could have been anyone who makes rhubarb pie

4) pfft, okay, that's a good rock gnome joke.


Here is a curious one

5) You pull up a stool, moving carefully in the dark as your host lights a large central fire. You note the walls are spartan, and what few things are out look like they can be packed quickly.

 

[lingual]

Yall doing more analysis of the mechanics and economy than the game designers ever cared or bothered to do.

There are countless "mechanics" we can find that would ruin the economy, change the fabric of the world, or win an argument in the internet.

The game was designed to be social activity that is supposed to be fun.