How about a survey on the 3E halfling?

[Andrew D. Gable]

The term hob, as I mentioned, is fairly common in English folklore and is included not only in the term hobbit but also in
(examples follow)

As well, the ghost involved in the haunting of an Enfield (London) apartment in the 70s or 80s gave his name to a psychic as "Hobbs" (or maybe it was "Hob").

Gods, how I love old folklore and how it relates to current-day bizarre phenomena...

 

[JeffB]

Y'know I don't mind skinny halflings..it just I don't like the 3E skinny halflings..they are too thin..and too small...and the rasta-man hair is just ...dorky....to me at least...I just can't take them seriously...epsecially the "villianous" ones WOTC keeps trying to push off on us...like the Black Fang Brotherhood (or whatever it is) one in FRCS....oooooo..skkkkkaaaawwwwyyyyy...

Bill Willingham and Jeff Dee were doing much cooler "non-typical" halflings back in the 1E and Basic/Expert game days...Check out the second cover version of S2 (in the mod itself near the end), the original cover art of A1, the green cover T1, and the original Expert rulebook.

BTW, I'm over 30...

Blodgett rules!

 

[Greylond]

Original Halflings as a race actually had a completely different feel to them. They had a totally seperate culture and racial attributes(I'm not talking about stats here)

Now they are basically Humans in funny suits.


One of the MANY things to hate about 3rd Edition.


Greylond

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

The 3E playtesters that helped create 3E weren't new players (they sure as heck shouldn't have been),

Why shouldn't they have been? One of the goals of the new edition was to make it accessible to people who had never played before. I would imagine that a number of the playtesters were, in fact, new players.

But I agree, saying that they changed the halflings "to cater to the new players" doesn't really hold much water.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

One of the MANY things to hate about 3rd Edition.

Greylond

I know, I know, I shouldn't feed them...but ah, what the heck. What are some other things you hate?

 

[Greylond]

Just about it all.

If you want details go over to the Dragonsfoot or kenzerco boards and read my rants.

Greylond

 

[Stephenls]

I'm 19 years old and I like the newer, thinner halflings.

Reason? It's really, really hard to draw a cool-looking character that is also chubby and with bare, hairy feet. It only comes off looking comical. 3e halflings, on the other hand, look very cool. Take Lidda as an example.

One of the things I always hated about the 2e PHB was the way halflings (and, to a lesser extent, dwarves, who suffered from the same proportion problems) were illustrated.

Also, I find it supremely unrealistic that a dungeon-crawler would go barefoot.
--
Stephenls
Geek
I have the coolest Hell in gaming. -Geoffrey C. Grabowski

 

[Ermanaric]

If you know anything about halfling the bottom of their feet is VERY tough so tough it's like leather. another thing not ALL halfling were chubby. Did Frodo and Pippin and Merry look fat to you in the movie? They just TEND to be that way. Surely the rare ones that DO adventure are probaably going to be in better shape ( thinner?). also if you relly think about it a wood elf is just about the same way typically in the original edition the elves were prtrayd as being on the norm folicking and dancing around in the woods and weren't violent as say HUMANS were. It was a RARE thing for them to leave their home and go adventuring. This usually held true for most of the demihuman races and i say USUALLY not always. Sure they could fight and go on quests. But this was usually only for their own kind or of dire importance. The typical beginning adventurer doesn't apply there. Hlaf-elves and half-orcs were adifferent story however.

 

[hong]

If you know anything about halfling

... it's that they're make believe. Fairies.

Oops, that's elves.

the bottom of their feet is VERY tough so tough it's like leather.

Halfling leather <--> elven chain! You can tell it's real halfling by the toes poking out, just like you can tell it's real elf by the ears!

another thing not ALL halfling were chubby.

True, not after they've been turned into leather.

 

[Lylanthwol]

Meep, you should take a look at Greylond's rants, quite pointed. You'll find mine there as well, quite... different is all I'll say.

Back to the subject at hand. To paraphrase a few statements here, 3E Halflings are cool?

Cool? A Hobbit is not a can of Pepsi to be yanked out of a refrigerator and gulped down to ward off sleep and hype oneself into sugar shock. That is, if life for you is about appearance and glam over substance and style, a Hobbit is not for you. Apparantly it's not for Wotc either.

Halflings of earlier editions are the stay at home mom's of society.

Say it isn't so! You mean that the adventuring Hobbits are as unusual for their breed as the Wizard is to Human society? And here I was wondering for the past several decades why Ms Le Fey wasn't my next door neighbor!