The Grassy Gnoll
Explorer
To be fair I plan on making a tribe of polar mammoth riding carnivorous halflings. That boy fits like a glove of missile catching.
D&D 5E First impressions last
If the halfling picture in the PHB looked like this, I would be far more interested in the race. As it stands though, they are just humans that are short. I don't really understand the purpose of halfling, other than nostalgic uses, when the Gnomes make a far more interesting Small Folk.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Yeah, that's a picture from 2nd edition (Darksun). Halflings in that settings are cannibalistic savages with psionic powers instead of magic.
Zardnaar
Legend
Better art than 5E lol. 5E has great art except for halflings and Gnomes
Just the idea of a savage Halfling sounds better. A tightly muscled, tribal race, geared towards survival in nature. Way better than a bunch of fat hobbits. Aside from the Mastermind picture in the SCAG I have yet to see a picture of a halfling that didn't look pudgy.
As a matter of fact, that will be the halflings in my world now. I have been trying to figure out how to do them in a way that was interesting, and was thinking of just removing them entirely, but I like this.
Zardnaar
Legend
I kind of blended the Darksun and Eberorn Halflings together in my last game. They were horde land steppe warrirors riding raptors.
It may or may not be common knowledge 'round these parts, but interestingly, @The Grassy Gnoll both of the classes that you liked/were drawn to were done by Larry Elmore. The rest, including those round headshots, are all Jeff Easley.
I concur that Elmore's more crisp and, for lack of a better term, "realistic" work (and Jeff Dee's comic book/superhero-style stuff as well, for me) definitely captured my attention and imagination more than Easley's kind of "brushed wispy" inks.
I was similarly baffled, and I suppose shall be to our dying day, that of all the classes presented in Mentzer, the /Magic-User/ was the one that didn't get a full character shot (and also noted that halfling and elf were forced to "share" a spot, though I personally love elves and halflings and always enjoyed that picture). The guy with the spells?! The wizard?! That's who you think you don't need to show a picture of to people in the real world?! It made [and makes] NO sense to me.
Equally irritating was the severe dearth of images in/among the spell sections. Cleric spells had at least two cool ones (Detect Magic and Cold Resistance, I believe). MUs had barely in it/back of the hood for the Phantasmal Force & Mirror Image (also Easley)...and two small/tiny Elmores, an unconscious halfling near Sleep and a female mage, kind of..."phased out" to indicate Invisibility (or so I've always presumed since it's the only spell description near it that could possibly make sense).
Still, I was in D&D for the magic, man. If it didn't have spells, my interest was immediately lessened. So, no big surprise, art or no, my first ever (and ciontinued favorite) class is the MU/mage, my 2nd was a Cleric (female, as well. haha), and my third was an elf. And through the decades, those [and with AD&D druids and illusionist -in no small part due to that Jeff Dee illusionist image from the Rogue's Gallery- also] have always been my go to/favored classes and humans, elves, halflings [and half-elves with the occasional gnome with AD&D] for my go to races.
I concur that Elmore's more crisp and, for lack of a better term, "realistic" work (and Jeff Dee's comic book/superhero-style stuff as well, for me) definitely captured my attention and imagination more than Easley's kind of "brushed wispy" inks.
I was similarly baffled, and I suppose shall be to our dying day, that of all the classes presented in Mentzer, the /Magic-User/ was the one that didn't get a full character shot (and also noted that halfling and elf were forced to "share" a spot, though I personally love elves and halflings and always enjoyed that picture). The guy with the spells?! The wizard?! That's who you think you don't need to show a picture of to people in the real world?! It made [and makes] NO sense to me.
Equally irritating was the severe dearth of images in/among the spell sections. Cleric spells had at least two cool ones (Detect Magic and Cold Resistance, I believe). MUs had barely in it/back of the hood for the Phantasmal Force & Mirror Image (also Easley)...and two small/tiny Elmores, an unconscious halfling near Sleep and a female mage, kind of..."phased out" to indicate Invisibility (or so I've always presumed since it's the only spell description near it that could possibly make sense).
Still, I was in D&D for the magic, man. If it didn't have spells, my interest was immediately lessened. So, no big surprise, art or no, my first ever (and ciontinued favorite) class is the MU/mage, my 2nd was a Cleric (female, as well. haha), and my third was an elf. And through the decades, those [and with AD&D druids and illusionist -in no small part due to that Jeff Dee illusionist image from the Rogue's Gallery- also] have always been my go to/favored classes and humans, elves, halflings [and half-elves with the occasional gnome with AD&D] for my go to races.
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The Grassy Gnoll
Explorer
I kind of like the emo gnome (gnemo?) archer myself.
Zardnaar
Legend
I remember art for raise dead and fly either from the expert blue book or the BECMI rules cyclopedia.
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FormerlyHemlock
Hero
I read about Ghostwise halflings in SCAG and think, "These guys are probably deliberately evocative of Athasian (Darksun) halflings." They even ride giant owls, and between telepathy and Wisdom bonus they make fantastic Moon Druids.
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