D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Gammadoodler]

Are halflings, the race, designed to nearly perfectly emulate hobbits, the race, a bad fit for DnD? Yes

Opinion.. or objective truth?

Not sure why you've chosen to evade a pretty simple question.

 

[Hussar]

Maybe this will clear things up for you.

-Regarding what counts as magical for the purposes of magic resistance:



-Regarding what can and cannot be dispelled with dispel magic:



I don't think there's as much wiggle room here as you seem to think.

Sorry, but, could you tell me where those quotes are from?

Because, well, you still didn't actually answer what I said. Specific trumps general, sure. So, magic resistance resists spells. Dispel magic breaks spells. Ok. I never said that these things were spells. You the one insisting that unless they are specifically called out as magical, they are not. So, again, how does a medusa turn something to stone without using magic?

 

[Hussar]

Oh for god's sake!

Is this magical?


There is no consistency about these things within the game. Why not? Because the game does not care.

Heh. There is so much irony here.

In 4e, a single fighter's power, Come and Get It was held up as everything wrong with 4e. How could you possibly have non-magical mind control? It made 4e the worst game ever written.

5e has the EXACT same thing, and everyone is falling over themselves to prove how it's non-magical. The times sure have changed.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

After over 130 pages... the takeaway is that some folks don't like halflings, and others do, and folks are willing to fight about that for a really long time.

Make it constructive, or the thread's gonna be closed.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fear should have been a condition, one that could be mechanized magically or not. The lack of specificity turns it into a septic tank of contention.

 

[Cadence]

Wow, that's your takeaway?

No, what I'm asking is, where is the halfling equivalent adventure? Where is the single, solitary adventure where halflings are the focus? Fifty years of the hobby and I'll bet, without googling it, you can't name a single halfling focused adventure.

That's a safe bet. As far as published modules I think I've only played B2, the G's, the Judge's Guild Dragon Crown, something about Ravnica, something old B/X or AD&D in a castle, the start of the B/X or AD&D slave pits, OG White Plume, OG Barrier Peaks, and I think Paladin in Hell, and some 3.5ish Conan thing with the elephant thing in a tower. Were any of those demi-human focussed?

 

[Hussar]

Fear should have been a condition, one that could be mechanized magically or not. The lack of specificity turns it into a septic tank of contention.

I was going to say. I don't recall a Fear condition. There's Frightened, but, that's always the result of something - X happens and gives you the Frightened condition. Is there a Fear condition?

Now, the point about Gelatinous Cubes doesn't actually work since Jelly Cubes are immune to the Frightened condition. So, magic or not, nothing can grant that condition to a G. Cube.

However, funnily enough, you COULD grant the Frightened condition to a zombie. Not sure how that works without magic being involved. But, the point that was raised earlier was that the game just doesn't specify. It's up to the individual table to make a determination. Which, well, is exactly what I said earlier that it's a grey area because the rules are pretty much silent on this.

But, all that aside, I LOVE how fighters in 4e taunting an enemy to make the enemy approach the fighter was the worst thing in the world in game design!!! Come and Get It was the poster child for every 4e hater to come out and tell everyone how 4e was the worst game in the world. Yet, we've got the EXACT same thing in 5e and everyone loves it. Just makes me giggle.

 

[Faolyn]

Wow, that's your takeaway?

No, what I'm asking is, where is the halfling equivalent adventure? Where is the single, solitary adventure where halflings are the focus? Fifty years of the hobby and I'll bet, without googling it, you can't name a single halfling focused adventure.

So, without googling, how many adventures of any kind can you name off the top of your head? With 50 years of the hobby, there's a zillion adventures, modules, and campaigns, plus Dungeon magazine, not to mention all the 3rd party stuff.

And then, how many of those adventures focus on any of the other main PC races besides humans? Sure, there's a few (by my count, only dwarfs, or at least only dwarfs mentioned in the title, which means elves shouldn't be a PC race either using your metric), but are there as many as you think there should be?

And finally, who cares? So what if halflings haven't been the "focus" of adventures? That has nothing to do with anything, especially not with the nearly 6% of people on D&DBeyond who played a halfling PC.

 

[Fenris-77]

More specifically (not ignoring your post above, just expanding on my own) if 'Fear' were mechanically defined and then you had abilities that gave that condition, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[Fenris-77]

So, without googling, how many adventures of any kind can you name off the top of your head? With 50 years of the hobby, there's a zillion adventures, modules, and campaigns, plus Dungeon magazine, not to mention all the 3rd party stuff.

And then, how many of those adventures focus on any of the other main PC races besides humans? Sure, there's a few (by my count, only dwarfs, or at least only dwarfs mentioned in the title, which means elves shouldn't be a PC race either using your metric), but are there as many as you think there should be?

And finally, who cares? So what if halflings haven't been the "focus" of adventures? That has nothing to do with anything, especially not with the nearly 6% of people on D&DBeyond who played a halfling PC.

To be fair, most published modules are agnostic on the composition of the party. Lots of them focus, in a narrative way, on one race or another, often an evil race, but whatever. No one really wants to play a module called Vault of the Halflings, or Descent into the Depths of the Shire. Not that any equivalents of those exist for humans either. Sometimes people mistake the fact that humans are the most populous race for a bunch of other things.