Halflings

[captaincursor]

I like the new fluff. Maybe it's just my players, and myself, and the designers at WotC, but I have never encountered a halfling that was anything like a hobbit, at least in third edition. Every player that played one was usually a died to the wool killer that was just waiting to put that poison tipped crossbow bolt into your jugular when your back was turned, and it was only the party's intercession that focused the brutal killer from carving a swash of destruction across the land.

I would write it all off to my players being crazy and all having desires to act out thier Napoleon complexes, but then in the official campaigns we get the same treatment. Yes I know that in Eberron they were initially given the very hobbity dragonmarks of the house of beer and the house of healing, but since Sharn was the main place to start a campaign the PCs would really end up dealing with the halflings from the Boromar Clan. Three feet tall thugs with velociraptors as pets and likely to put you into the hospital where you were guaranteed a long and expensive stay, because they controlled the hospitals in that city.

So yeah, never once have I encountered a Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, Merry or Pippin, instead I've encountered Belker Bitterleaf over and over and over, be it player made, or out of the supplement. So bring on the "new" fluff that seems to echo how my players play the race anyway. Down with homebodies that have adventure thrust upon em, up with insane, 3' tall killing machines. And yes I know, your milage may vary.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The thing is, the halflings were already "vagabond gypsy sneak-thieves" in 3e. This meant that the Frodos and Bilbos could still exist, at the fringes of halfling society, sedentary weirdos who nonetheless retained the ability to hide in shadows and stab people in the shins when needed. Those who liked the Hobbits could still have the Hobbits.

I'm not sure with the new aquatic focus in 4e if they'll loose that forever.

Not to mention that FFZ already DID the whole "traveling river caravan sneaky merchant race" in the form of the Selkies, but that just means that Halfling cultural stuff might be good to yoink for Selkie cultural stuff. It just means that importing halflings to an FFZ game is pretty much redundant. Which might be okay.

That's not to say that I don't love the new halfling stuff, just that...eh. We might be getting rid of the hobbit flavor forever with this one, which isn't entirely positive (though not that much missed), and we're exchanging it for a flavor that, at least in my games, already HAS a people to fill it's niche.

I'll admit freely that those are very relative reasons for not being all WOO HOO about the new flavor, though.

 

[Xethreau]

I don't mind halfling's new fluff at all (I like it), but I do wish they were shorter.

Say, HALF as tall as your average human? (3' or shorter on average)
Not to say that Hobbits are they way to go, but the one thing that I did like translating from Tolkein to D&D about the halfling was the whole "only a child to your eyes" thing.

 

[Horacio]

3' tall is as tall as a four years child.
Before I didn't mind. But now, when I look at my 3'6'' six years old daughter, I think I find 3' tall halfling a bit ridiculous... or a bit creepy.
4' tall halfling are, if I recalll corectly, as tall as Peter Jackson's hobbits. They didn't seem too tall in the movies, did them?

 

[Relique du Madde]

Personally, the only thing I don't like about the new halflings are that they are still kenders.

 

[carmachu]

Personally, the only thing I don't like about the new halflings are that they are still kenders.

Actually its that their MORE like kender now is the dislike.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

This reminds me of the discussion of the early art releases:green dragon, Re/Generation and Victory (and Looting). People were arguing whether the rogue figure was a halfling or a short human woman. I thought human at the time but now halfling looks a lot more likely. I also get the impression those paintings were chosen because it's hard to tell exactly how tall the halfling and elf/eladrin are.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I have both types of Halflings

I have both types in my campaign (based off Keith Robinson's excellent The Kyngdoms Campaign Setting)

There is a "Shire"-type of halfling country in that world, surrounded by friendly dwarf and human kingdoms, so its kinda sheltered... So I decided that the halflings from that part of the world are bucolic, peaceful people, devoted to agriculture and raising prize-winning pigs and sheep.

The halflings in the rest of the continent are a variation of the 3rd edition Halfling: nomadic traders, living in caravans and associated with commerce and entertainment.

Both types of Halfling place high value on extended families. They also share a distrust of strangers and a philosophy of "Halflings first".

The nomadic halflings tend to look down upon their farmer cousins, however even the most urbane and sophisticated halfling rogue dreams of making "one last big score" to buy a large farm in the old country to retire.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I prefer hobbits, but I can live with 3E halflings, or even the new fluff ... but the implied mild kleptomania is disturbing. I hate kender.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I think WotC should have dropped the name "halfling" and just called them "kender." Not only would halflings not think of themselves as half the size of anything, they also are now much closer to kender anyway. IMO, WotC should have redefined kender into a less lame race like how they redefined dragonborn or tieflings. They could have still given a shout out to "old school" by having a blurb saying "the big folk sometimes derisively refer to them as 'halfling'." This would have had the added benefit of being more Tolkien.

In any case, I think halflings will call themselves kender in my 4e campaigns.