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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6986151" data-attributes="member: 42582">Your second paragraph, which is a reasonable paraphrase of the Sage Advice sentence, demonstrates the use of "though" as an adverb. (Which is also how it is used by Sage Advice.)"Though" as a conjunction occurs in such sentences as "He ate his lunch though he didn't enjoy it." Notice how it is conjoining two clauses, each of which could be a self-standing sentence: "He ate his lunch. He didn't enjoy it."In the Sage Advice, though, there is only one main-clause verb and one relative clause verb in the relevant passage (I'm ignoring the final conjunction "and" which connects an otherwise independent main clause about elves): "A lightfoot halfling, though, can try to vanish behind a creature that is at least one size larger, . . ."The phrase that is at least one size larger is a relative clause (its verb being "is") and its grammatical function is adjectival - it characterises the main clause object a creature. If we put it to one side, we get as the main clause ""A lightfoot halfling, though, can try to vanish behind a creature."The word "though" here is an adverb. If we take it out, we're left with the self-standing clause "A lightfoot halfling can try to vanish behind a creature." There is no other clause being conjoined by use of "though" (cf the example I gave above, which illustrates two main clauses conjoined by "though" serving as a conjunction).But whether though is serving as an adverb or a conjunction, it's substantive contribution to meaning is the same: it signals some sort of contrast or opposition or tension between states of affairs. When used as a conjunctionm that will be a contrast between the two conjoined sentences. When used as an adverb, there will be some other sentence (typically the preceding one) with which the contrast is established. In the case of the Sage Advice, the contrast is between the ability of halflings and (as is stated in the previous sentence) the fact that "Normally, you can’t hide from someone if you’re in full view."If you wanted to rewrite the whole thing using "though" as a conjunction rather than an adverb it would be trivial to do so:Normally, you can’t hide from someone if you’re in full view, though a lightfoot halfling can try to vanish behind a creature that is at least one size larger, . . ,"Notice that this change of syntactic funciton of "though" (from adverb to conjunction) makes no substantive difference to the meaning of what is said. The intended contrast is still conveyed. Crawford's choice to use "though" as an adverb rather than a conjunciton is all about style (eg managing sentence length) and not about substantive content.</blockquote>

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