D&D General Not *Another* Halfling Thread! (+)

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay hear me out.

What if, a thread about DnD Halflings, but positive?

Pictured: Finnan O'Foalan Thrice-Dead, Chosen of Mask, son of a Sembian farmer, called Mac Mohrwylaedd in the hin tongue

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But seriously, let's talk Harflings in the Dungeons Dragons! In a + thread! So no crapping anyone's ideas, no yucking anyone's yum. If you don't like halflings, think they should get shunted to the Monster Manual, or whatever other hot take, there is a perfectly silly existing thread for that. This here thread is for shirefolk, nomadic river traders, anarcho-socialist mail carriers, also nomadic dinosaur raising tribesfolk of the windy plains, wanderlust fueled engines of unbridled curiosity and optimism, isolationist cannibals, fishers and farmers, thieves and scoundrels, and on very rare occasions, great leaders who unite the free peoples to do great works. Call them Hin, Kender, Hobbits, Talenta, or just plain old Halflings, just don't call them late for dinner! Or supper, for that matter.

We can start with a questions.

A. What is your favorite halfling PC you've played or played alongside or DMed for?

2. What have you done with halflings in a homebrew world, or done to mod their place in a published world, that you're particularly proud of?

Third. What's an idea for either of the above that you haven't gotten a chance to use yet, or haven't finished working out?

Quatrieme. Share your favorite piece of halfling art, an example of your preferred art style or art direction for them. I guess we have to follow our own rules here, too, and not make fun of art styles for halflings that we reeeeeally dislike. Keep it positive!

I'll post mine in a followup post!

 

[rgoodbb]

I'm about to play a female halfling mountain druid called Solveig Skov in a viking-esk campaign. She is a friend of the dwarves, and the living mountain has gifted her powers. She is also called the Scree Witch or the Cave Witch. I am looking forward to playing a Floki/Yoda style role in an old woman's body. I think she will be Stout.

I love the halfling racial abilities. So much so that 25 speed and no Darkvision is not a massive loss for me. I also like looking like the underdog and being overlooked as harmless...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A. What is your favorite halfling PC you've played or played alongside or DMed for?

A friend of mine played a ninja-themed Halfling in a brief 2Ed Dark*Sun campaign. Refined in social situations- an oddity in Athas- and dangerous in combat. Fun PC to play alongside.

I personally played a halfling who was all about ranged combat. Lots of fun to play.

2. What have you done with halflings in a homebrew world, or done to mod their place in a published world, that you're particularly proud of?

For one homebrew, I designed a small-sized flying Thri-Kreen variant that was culturally very halfling-like.

Third. What's an idea for either of the above that you haven't gotten a chance to use yet, or haven't finished working out?

I still haven’t had a chance to play my halfling barbarian who used 2WF with bladed gauntlets.

 

[Lanefan]

As a PC my favourite and longest-serving Hobbit was a fine old chap named Perethorn "Pippin" Greenbuck, a Nature Cleric (you'd call that a Druid).

He liked his creature comforts, and made a point of inserting himself into the "old boys' club" in any town we ever visited so as to ensure himself (and, by extension, the rest of the party) a warm welcome should we return there. But he was also handy in the field over an 8-adventure career, until...

He set and still holds the record among all our games for the farthest negative any creature - friend or foe - has ever gone in hit points, courtesy of his being in a confined space (the inside of a dragon's closed mouth) when a wand of lightning he was carrying broke and released all its charges at once. After every d6 in the room had been rolled several times over, he finished at -265 h.p.

But he did take the dragon down with him.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

They are very cool as riders of monster mounts.

They are perfect for a quiet fantasy farming simulation videogame.

They are right for stories of survival folk horror when the main strategy is stealth instead facing the monsters. Jerren, the evil halflings, can be really dreadful, worse than gnolls.

Law allows your PCs dating and marry halflings.

With the new rules of creations of PCs you can enjoy cute magical girls style Chibiusa or Pretty Cure.

Cute halflings heroines can be useful to sell dolls, posters, waifu-pillows and other merchandising products.

Like Disney princesses they can befriend animals of the forest thanks the spell "speak with animals", oh sorry, those are the gnomes.

Small but tough they can learn martial arts, facing Namekians or Sayians and marry ginoid* A18. Oh, sorry, that is Krilin.

*(ginoid is for female gender, android for male or no-binary).

 

[Shiroiken]

I've not played a lot of halflings, but I've had quite of few players obsess over them. My personal favorite is to introduce warrior halflings, like a paladin, which always seemed to confuse people. The strangest halfling I played was as a fill in when a player couldn't make it and I could, where he carried hundreds of shuriken in 3E without any logical way he could actually carry them (I joked he wore them as armor).

Halflings are omnipresent in my Greyhawk, with them found in almost every single region. While they never control any territory, they tend to band together in halfling villages and "halflingtown" sections of cities. They tend to be a bit on the downtrodden side, as the bigger folk often bully them, so there's quite a bit of solidarity. Most halfling thieves won't steal from other halflings, and there's some halfling thieves guilds that specifically steal to redistribute to the halfling community.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What if, a thread about DnD Halflings, but positive?

Won't that be a bit...

short?

...I'll see myself out.

Edit: Just kidding! I'll actually read the OP and answer the questions.

A. What is your favorite halfling PC you've played or played alongside or DMed for?

2. What have you done with halflings in a homebrew world, or done to mod their place in a published world, that you're particularly proud of?

Third. What's an idea for either of the above that you haven't gotten a chance to use yet, or haven't finished working out?

Aelph: That would, hands-down, be Ozruk the Fighter. Absolutely hilarious character, but with a great roleplayer behind it. Started out with the goal of being a CN tough-as-coffin-nails "hard man making hard choices" character specifically intending to prove to my Paladin that the world is a dark place and you have to accept and work within that darkness if you want to fight it. Ended up genuinely admiring the (moral) strength and consistency of my character so much, he shifted to Chaotic Good (very, very Chaotic, but still truly Good.)

II: I haven't actually used them much. In my current game, I've tried to make it clear that typically "monstrous" races are welcome in society (lifting that bit from Al-Qadim), so I don't think I've included any proper halflings in my game--yet. I'll have to think about what would make sense for a semi-arid/desert region in terms of halflings, since the usual "country squire"/"salt-of-the-earth farmer" types are a bit less fitting when you have rolling sandy dunes instead of rolling grassy hills. Edit: Perhaps draw on the "Smeagol was a hobbit-like being, but of the river rather than of the hills" direction, since there's one big river and, almost certainly, several smaller rivers running through the region.

Tercero: In my "if I ever wrote a game, this is what I'd do" rules, I have combined Gnomes and Halflings into "hinnfolk," small partially-fey beings whose physiology arises from where they're raised, rather than what their parents specifically were. There are four types (as, in these rules, there are four types of every race except human, which only has three*): lightfoot (forest-dwelling, have a magical knack for befriending creatures), stoutheart (plains-dwelling hunters and/or nomadic herders, knack for stealth), cragstep (shallow-underground/near-surface dwellers, gifted with tinkering/alchemy), and ghostwise (deep-underground/cavern-dwelling, innate psionic talents.)

*For those curious, the three human or "wanderfolk" variants are standard/"Earthbound," Dual-Blooded/"Planetouched," and SPAAAAAACE "Starbound" (think elan: humans Weirded™ because they have been found guilty, of being in space.) Dual-blooded would have rules for importing in half-traits from essentially all other races, because humans, like dragons, can get busy with anyone.

 

[SakanaSensei]

I played a halfling named Rook who was a multi class monstrosity, but most of their flavor came from swarmkeeper ranger, which I flavored as having a fae raven with nine eyes. This raven, Russel, was able to split itself into multiple smaller corvids, to a maximum of 9, 1-eyes ravens.

Rook was my second character in Curse of Strahd after my first character died, and they were a native of Barovia, a monster hunter who wandered between the towns taking care of issues as needed. They were the soft spoken, get things done type. And Russel was a very, very good boi.

 

[Lycurgon]

Halflings have a special place in my heart since my first character I make at age 8 whose class was Halfling. At the time I was not familiar with Hobbits and the artwork was of an athletic little guy. I think part of what attracted me to them is I was small too at the time. Since then I have remained a fan of halflings and have played a number of them over the years.

I am not as keen on halflings with a more hobbit-like body type, I like my halflings to be lithe, slim looking little fellows. But I am not against other people's preferences, if people want their halflings to be totally hobbit like that's fine by me, I might be a little less inclined to play if that was the only way halflings were in someone's campaign world. (Although when I played MERP years ago I chose a Hobbit - although he died within 5 min of game start.)

I also like looking like the underdog and being overlooked as harmless...

I think this is part of what I like about halflings too. Recently I have been playing a lot of other small races: goblins, kobolds, and mouse-folk. Being underestimated and proving that small doesn't mean meek.
Strangely I also like playing big, tough races like Half-Orc, or Goliath. While I do play humans and Half-Elves, and Elves etc, medium sized characters are not generally as exciting for me.

I like Halfling luck and their racial luck feats they can get. Saving others when they roll 1s feels really good, even if it is not the best feat. I like their warrior god Arvoreen the Defender, a different sort of warrior god than most races have.

Will post more about halflings in my homebrew world when I have time.

 

[Lycurgon]

Here is the picture that make me want to play a halfling as my first character: