Halflings - What's the Attraction?

[gribble]

Why would anyone choose to play a halfling? Am I just missing something? Or do halflings suck worse than the half-elf?

Their racial encounter power is very good, and they have some very good racial feats. The bonus against opportunity attacks is very good for a ranger or rogue as well.
Also, it may be situational, but I ran the adventure out of the DMG last night, and it had some rather big advantages for being small:

Spoiler

Small creatures didn't trigger some traps (made to not affect kobolds) and could squeeze through the bars of a portculis (again, made so kobolds could get through)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Off topic again:

My earlier post about careful attack vs twin strike was incorrect. The number is in fact 19, not 18. So yeah, it's pretty awful (or rather twin strike is extremely good).

 

[pukunui]

... what race has an "always on" ability? All I can see is that humans get a bonus to defenses to make up for their lack of a second +2 to an attribute. Tieflings get fire resistance, but that's not always applicable. Other than that, everything else is situational. Dragonborn only get +1 while bloodied, tiefling only get +1 to bloodied. Etc.

I don't think you've been reading the same rule book everyone else has been reading. No one gets an always on +1 bonus based on race. They do get them based on class. But not from race.

Eladrin and warforged get a +1 to Will Defence. Dwarves, Eladrin, and Elves get free weapon proficiencies. Humans get a +1 to their defences and an extra feat, plus an extra skill (which Eladrin also get).

Perhaps "always on" was the wrong phrase. My point was that other races have features that aren't situational, whereas halflings don't.

 

[pukunui]

Their racial encounter power is very good

I'll agree that it is very good, but does it make up for the relative paucity of halfling racial features when compared to the other races in the PHB? I'm not so much complaining about what halflings get as I am how little they get compared to the other races ...

and they have some very good racial feats.

That's great but I'm just talking about the racial features. Not their feats. Feats are optional. I'm talking about the stuff you get automatically when you choose halfling over some other race.

 

[charlesatan]

Eladrin and warforged get a +1 to Will Defence. Dwarves, Eladrin, and Elves get free weapon proficiencies. Humans get a +1 to their defences and an extra feat, plus an extra skill (which Eladrin also get).

Perhaps "always on" was the wrong phrase. My point was that other races have features that aren't situational, whereas halflings don't.

+1 to Will Defense is there because the ability modifiers of Eladrin and Warforged affect the same saving throw (Reflex and Fortitude respectively).

The weapon proficiencies are what I'd call "situational" since you're not always going to use them. Either way, Halfling's +2 AC against Opportunity Attacks isn't what I'd call situational.

 

[BASHMAN]

Back on the Topic of Halflings, I have to say that I found a good workaround the "weapon shrinkage" problem-- Scimitars. I think they should be described as the halfling's racial weapon. They are the only d8 damage weapon a halfling can use w/o taking a feat in one hand, and they are a high crit weapon. And if you play a TWF ranger, you can dual wield them.

Halflings and scimitars go great together. Only dead halflings carry longswords.

 

[pukunui]

All right. Let's look at it this way:

Halflings get three racial features (not including stat and skill bonuses and the like). This is the same as dragonborn and tieflings. Most of the other races get four, with dwarves getting five and eladrin six. So halflings are certainly at the bottom when it comes to the sheer number of racial features, but at least they're not alone there ...

 

[Gloombunny]

Why do you care so much about quantity of racial features without regard to quality?

 

[pukunui]

Why do you care so much about quantity of racial features without regard to quality?

Probably because I'm not very good at judging quality.

 

[Incendax]

Halflings make interesting Rangers.
A Halfling Ranger has no reason to take the Two Weapon Fighting style, because all his one handed options are versatile and need to be wielded with two hands. Instead, the Halfling is stuck dual wielding smaller weapons.

But, there's no penalty for taking Archery style. That means the Halfling Ranger using two melee weapons still gets +4 AC Versus Opportunity Attacks, and another +2 if he's lost in the crowd.