D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Minigiant]

My position has been to merge the two groups that are very similar and both partially lacking in long-term durable appeal--halfling and gnome--to create a single group with more options and stronger inherent flavor than either option alone. It's a rare example of me favoring an ever-so-slightly more minimalist position, but since almost nothing is actually lost (ghostwise halflings and svirfneblin aren't exactly dramatically different, and that's really the main "loss" here) I find it not much of a minimalism approach.

...

Other than that, every species/race/whatever had four flavors for overall consistency. Hinnfolk (halflings + gnomes) also had four: lightfoot, stoutheart, cragstep, ghostwise. They're creatures of the land, tending it and listening to it--but those who come from deeper in the earth are weirder than those that come from its surface. Cragstep aka "rock gnomes" are eccentric inventors and tinkerers, but usually not dangerous. Ghostwise are sharper, wiser, but also...more than a little too close to the weirdness of the Underdark.

My personal stance is that halflings and gnome actually don't share that much other than being.

Halflings literally are small humans and that's the problem.

Homes are there on thing.

So in order to really together halfling and gnomes you would have to really lose a lot from.

That's why to me personally would be to make halflings more separated from the talking idea of hobbits them being pretty much small humans that are slightly more lucky into small humanoids that have their entire existence based around luck.

Halflings would have a access to the luck mechanic that the base game uses much has how elves naturally have spells.
So to me halflings would have a natural luck point and a sub species would have individual subspecies uses for these luck points. Light food would be able to gain a luck point when they roll a one and does ignore the one results. Where is a stout halfling would have the ability to spend a luck point in order to reroll any status effect affecting them .

Gnome can then stay as masters of craft either by tinkering or illusion as Rock gnomes and Forest gnomes do respectively. That's why I kind of gutted any other kind of gnomes other than deep gnomes who would have a dueling and mining focus on Craft.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My personal stance is that halflings and gnome actually don't share that much other than being.

Halflings literally are small humans and that's the problem.

Homes are there on thing.

So in order to really together halfling and gnomes you would have to really lose a lot from.

That's why to me personally would be to make halflings more separated from the talking idea of hobbits them being pretty much small humans that are slightly more lucky into small humanoids that have their entire existence based around luck.

Halflings would have a access to the luck mechanic that the base game uses much has how elves naturally have spells.
So to me halflings would have a natural luck point and a sub species would have individual subspecies uses for these luck points. Light food would be able to gain a luck point when they roll a one and does ignore the one results. Where is a stout halfling would have the ability to spend a luck point in order to reroll any status effect affecting them .

Gnome can then stay as masters of craft either by tinkering or illusion as Rock gnomes and Forest gnomes do respectively. That's why I kind of gutted any other kind of gnomes other than deep gnomes who would have a dueling and mining focus on Craft.

I've never understood why some folks insist on conflating gnomes and halflings. Even if you for some reason don't think both are "needed", what benefit is served?

 

[Minigiant]

I've never understood why some folks insist on conflating gnomes and halflings. Even if you for some reason don't think both are "needed", what benefit is served?

I don't believe how TSR, WOTC, & Most fantasy dungeon games Coltrane gnomes and halflings having a point.

But there are inklings in both gnomes and halflings that are often missing in many games that could be played up and then enhanced in those species.

Gnomes naturally have a craft Link in there bio. They are the tinkerers of technology or the manipulators of magic. And some settings in other games those aspects are given to dwarves or elves respectively and thus gnomes are not needed. But since that doesn't necessarily happy ending The gnome can take that lead of being "I am especially good at engineering, biology, or allusions."

The same thing with halflings. The man unique aspects of halflings is that either they are extremely agile, very corruption resistant, or they're very lucky. Seeing that corruption is not a major aspect of D&D and agility is a base factor in your dexterity score the only place where happens can lean on as a species is luck. So halflings should play up luck.

The problem is that many people lean so heavily on tradition or talking that they desire to inject halflings or norms into the game in a way that does not match the game it isn't because when they come from has a different ecosystem which does not match D&D.

It's the old Rangers don't catch spells in the "X"-series forgetting that that book series does not have giants and dragons and demons and mind flayers in it which typically require magic to constantly deal with.


---

And personally I like the Luck Point mechanic.

I think you should be able to access luck points and whatever way that your game has luck points and either class species or whatever their feat equivalent is.

I personally believe that the resource for the Rogue class should be luck points. And by playing a halfling, you get extra luck points because halflings get luck points by being halflings.

The same thing with gnomes to me gnomes should get infusions as a natural biological aspect of themselves. Gnomes naturally know how to make magic items instinctually. Not culturally. it's in their very makeup to make magic items.


If you play an elf you get spells.
If you play a halfling you get luck points.
If you play a gnome you'll get infusions.
If you play a dragonborm you get a breath weapon.

 

[Scribe]

I've never understood why some folks insist on conflating gnomes and halflings. Even if you for some reason don't think both are "needed", what benefit is served?

I think Gnomes are increasingly less popular, and so putting in the effort to really give them a place feels off.

They are always at the bottom of my list, and my current poll shows the same.

 

[Minigiant]

I think Gnomes are increasingly less popular, and so putting in the effort to really give them a place feels off.

They are always at the bottom of my list, and my current poll shows the same.

Gnomes are low on the popularity list because mechanically they are weak and their default cultures are not cultures that you can either inject into most stories or interact in as incomers experiencing a new society.

Now if gnomes had giant mech hidden by illusions around there small villages that can come out anytime somebody tries to attack them and the people inside of hometowns have all kinds of experimental illusion or tinker items 10 people might feel drawn to them and desire to make their own no based technologies.

Yeah but put Voltron and Voltron lions in the MM and make them gnomish.

(PROUD MEMBER OF THE "ADD CRAZY 80S & 90S KIDS NONSENSE" INTO D&D CLUB)

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think the issue with gnomes is that they're 'too mundane,' halflings that is actually somewhat their niche, letting you be 'the ordinary one' in a genre where even humans are often stereotyped as bold and ambitious, but gnomes, while slightly magical are still tend to end up in the just another 'small people' category, IMO they need to lean more into their inspiration from supernatural brownies and sprites, forest spirits and such.

 

[Lanefan]

okay, but i feel confident in asserting that if half the main cast had been subject to turnover between each instalment then far less people would've been invested in either of those franchises, the individual characters matter as much as the banner they unite under, the secondary cast might fluctuate but you've typically always got some of the old favourites in centre stage.

While a few key characters made it all the way through, I'd say Game of Thrones did just fine with a lot of turnover of main characters.

 

[Lanefan]

Precisely.

People tend to have Issues when even one single character gets recast. Consider the issues with T'Challa needing to be recast because of the unfortunate death of Chadwick Boseman, the original actor. They literally put in an explicit "This actor is Black Panther now" scene with the new actor (in context, having a minor beef with Tony Stark and saying "I'm here, deal with it" or something like that, nudge nudge wink wink say no more, say no more etc.)

To lose half the cast every movie--such that none of the same characters are still there by the end of the third--would pretty much kill any franchise ever.

Continuity matters, and people really do care about both specific-character continuity AND intra-party continuity.

Tell that to GRRR Martin.

Because, @Lanefan, while you are correct that the group is more than the sum of its parts, when you literally remove the entire sum of the parts, most of the things that were "more" than that sum also disappear. Most of that "more than the sum of the parts" is in the many different interrelations between specific people.

If we have a five-member party, for example, you have the five individual characters, sure. But you also have ten pairs (AB, AC, AD, AE, BC, BD, BE, CD, CE, DE), and ten more triplets, and five more one-person-missing sets. All of those things can be interesting in themselves, and they are--necessarily--more than JUST the sum of A + B + C + D + E as individuals.

People, being people, tend to attach to people rather than vague, nebulous, ill-defined group notions. Kill off everyone they liked--and thus every single possible intra-group dynamic--and people will tend to lose interest very quickly.

Tell that to long-term fans of any sports team. Sure, everyone probably has specific favourite players at any given time but in the end it's always the team that matters, even if-when those specific favourite players aren't there any more.

That's how I tend to look at D&D parties, particularly when I'm the DM.

The exact same thing happens to a lot of people, I'd argue most people, when you have serial loss of characters in a TTRPG. Sure, they can choose to try to keep up their investment despite having it thrown away over and over, but there's only so much investment most of us can give before we just become numb and stop caring.

Some of us like the challenge of trying again.

Remember that the eight deadly words happen both when the story fails to actually grip us, and when we aren't given enough reason to keep investing. Those eight deadly words are: "I don't care what happens to these people."

Maybe the reason to keep investing is something beyond your own PC(s).

 

[mamba]

The fact that you must do this to have any chance of winning does not mean it is not gambling. Just like when I am looking at that lottery ticket - if I don't buy a ticket I have no chance of winning the $100 million jackpot.

Except that if I do not buy a ticket, I am not losing anything but the possibility of winning the lottery. If I do not fight, I am losing the fight. Buying the ticket is gambling, fighting when someone is going to punch you no matter what is not

 

[Lanefan]

I think Gnomes are increasingly less popular, and so putting in the effort to really give them a place feels off.

They are always at the bottom of my list, and my current poll shows the same.

In our 1e-adjacent crew Gnomes have almost always been 7th on a list of 7 options in terms of overall popularity, as measured by what people have actually played over time. It usually goes:

1. Humans
2. Elves
<the rest, sequence always changing>
7. Gnomes

That said, there's also always been one or two specific players who love Gnomes thus making it nearly impossible to get rid of them entirely.