Design & Development: Halflings [merged]

[Rpgraccoon]

Don't forget this sentence: instilling in these small folk a love of water and nature, as well as an innate wanderlust and stealth

This could mean a stealth boost and a nature boost. +2 Stealth +2 Nature

They still make great rogues, but they also make good rangers. A few new aspects, such as a tweak to Charisma and a slight influence over luck, in addition to making halfling warlocks viable, reinforce the halfling as a lucky, loveable protagonist. A halfling can also be a hard-to-kill enemy sharp of tongue and blade.

There are all the crunchy bits.

Warlocks Casting is Charisma Based Again.

Halflings +2 Charisma, Influence over-luck, +2 Stealth +2 Nature

However, does hard-to-kill mean they could get a +2 Con? That would be interesting to say the least. Ehh.. Most likely they will get the +2 Dex.

Thus, in the end it gives us this.

Halflings +2 Charisma +2 Dex, Influence over-luck, +2 Stealth +2 Nature

The only thing I didn't decipher to well is the love of water.

However, that could be role play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

However, I do love that halflings are "fearless". I hope they get some hefty saves against fear. A reckless halfling running up a monster's tail and onto it's back sounds like my kinda guy.

Man, that seems familiar somehow ...

 

[Rechan]

Man, that seems familiar somehow ...

That guy was an archer. Forget him.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The fluff change from 2e keeps them out of "Drizzt syndrome," where everybody wants to play the "exception to the racial norm" which results in a thousand Chaotic Good drow and adventurous halflings for every "normal" one presented.

A DM who didn't bother to present normal halfling society pre-3E would only have himself to blame if adventurers outnumbered civilians.

Honestly, I think your argument could apply to pretty much every race but humans in many games.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why, oh, why does this give me the image of a Halfling Warlock skipping through the forest, hugging the animals... then setting them aflame?

... named Little Bunny Foofoo.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Influence over-luck

Re-roll any one roll after the roll is known but before the result is determined; can be used for your roll or an opponents roll against you: Once per encounter/day?

However, does hard-to-kill mean they could get a +2 Con? That would be interesting to say the least. Ehh.. Most likely they will get the +2 Dex.

Being able to re-roll saves or whatever would make you hard to kill...

The only thing I didn't decipher to well is the love of water.

+2 swim? Would make sense for a water-borne race.

Do we get -2 STR for small? How to balance that? -2 STR, +2 DEX, CON, CHA!?

 

[Turjan]

Man, that seems familiar somehow ...

Yup. Even more kender than before.

 

[Gundark]

hmmm dissappointing

 

[smetzger]

Once they were in, they should have stayed true to their roots.

This is something that I really didn't understand, especially with 3e. LoTR was coming out and they decide to remove "chubby" and "hairy feet" as descriptors for halflings.

 

[Irda Ranger]

This is something that I really didn't understand, especially with 3e. LoTR was coming out and they decide to remove "chubby" and "hairy feet" as descriptors for halflings.

Right, because given the choice between doing all the cool stuff Boromir, Aragorn, Gimli, Eomer and Legolas (BAGEL) get to do, and the somewhat less cool stuff the Hobbits were doing in most of the movies, how many potential new D&D customers would pick "Hobbit"? The fact that Sam and Frodo were the main characters, and that Pippin and Merry got lots of lines, may have distracted you from the fact that (for the most part) the Hobbits didn't really do anything other than eat a lot, talk a lot, get stabbed, get kidnapped, get drunk and get high. And Sam's only two fight scenes were not nearly as dymanic and badass as any of BAGEL's. Or Gandalf's. Or Eowyn's. Or Treebeard's.

I fully admit that Halflings have their issues with having a good, clear theme and feel; but I don't think going back to Hobbits really has mass appeal.