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

[Chaosmancer]

Entangle and Spike Growth

If they are 3rd and 5th level respectively. I do believe most commoners are not 5th level characters.

 

[Minigiant]

Except the 'things to fill the niche' have been 'nothing like what the niche is'.

The niche is a 'normal' race to fill the void left by all humans being explicitly Vin Diesel and Scarlet Johannsen instead of Jason Alexander and Wanda Sykes. The solution seems to be 'how about Jason Statham and Kate Beckensale?'.

That's was always the issue to me.

Kid: Humans! Humans! Humans!
DM: We have humans at home. keeps driving

Humans at home: Halflings.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Making elves and/or gnomes into true Fey is something I’ve toyed with but never implemented in an ongoing campaign.

If I did that, I’d probably play up the innate nature/illusion magic element of gnomes (so druid & illusion classes would be their strong suit), and the environmentalist/enchantment magic side of elves (more rangers & sorcerers).

Which would leave halflings Vs gnomes as even more analogous to humans Vs elves. Which would mean I’d want to give the Halflings a little bit more to work with, mechanically. Porting over a bit of resistance to harmful magic from Dwarves, perhaps? Strengthening their luckiness might work. Hell..maybe even make them into shapechanging prairie dog type critters. Or just have aspects similar to burrowing mammals, like enormous cheek pouches.

My issue with making them allergic to "cold iron" is that I am much more familiar with them being allergic to "iron and steel" which would be... everything. Which is a much harsher penalty than I think should be given out.

I know that DnD made a specific material called "cold iron" but it just doesn't fit with how Fey are presented to have it be some very special material that is rare and hard to come by.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm specifically talking about the Lore.

Elf Lore - they're old, distant, haughty nobles that think they're better than everyone else
Dwarf lore - they're drunkards who are prone to violent reactions towards simple affronts
Dragonborn lore - they're militaristic and unified in their service of the kingdom

Any race's lore can be replaced with a human. Those that only object to halfling lore because it's "too human" merely hate halflings and aren't having an authentic debate.

No, because they are far more than those simplified explanations. Age alone makes Elves and Dwarves very different from humans. Not to mention their other lore. Plus, even your simplified version of dwarves is just wrong.

I might give you Dragonborn (a brand new race with less than two decades in the game, over only two editions, whose lore from the last edition had to be completely rewritten for 5e) except that their physiology leads itself to plenty of uncanny value moments that Halflings simply don't.

But, dismissing our opinions as nothing more than baseless hate is par for the course at this point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not sure that raw mechanical advantage plays a very large role in people's decisions to play something. It's a danger to think that optimization is a major consideration when choosing things for characters.

Sure, but there is this weird idea people keep putting forth that halflings are better at hiding in the forest than Forest Gnomes, and it is just a bizarre position that I think belittles how powerful being able to talk to the animals is in a forest where you have been living for decades or longer

 

[Chaosmancer]

Except the 'things to fill the niche' have been 'nothing like what the niche is'.

The niche is a 'normal' race to fill the void left by all humans being explicitly Vin Diesel and Scarlet Johannsen instead of Jason Alexander and Wanda Sykes. The solution seems to be 'how about Jason Statham and Kate Beckensale?'.

This has always been a bizarre argument to me. Are people seriously running humans as all being action star bad-asses and not having any humans who are just common folk? Why? Nothing in the game supports this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, no evidence save the fact that halflings are largely ignored by the game publisher, and every bit of evidence we do have points to them being under performing where the only reason they are as high as they are is because they are given such a prominent position.

But, yes, no evidence.

5.9%x4.7%= 5% is not rounding down by the way. It is rounding up, no? You have a single poll that places halflings at 5.9%, from 2017, some time before there were a hundred races in 5e. 2017 is pretty early days and halflings, despite having so little competition from other official sources, still swim around at the bottom of the barrel. The next bit of information we have, sees their popularity dropping and that's from 2019.

It's 2021, do you really think that halflings have become MORE popular? There are what, 9 races in the PHB? We'll say that non-PHB races count as a "10th" race. That means each race should be somewhere around 10%. We can quibble over the percentage, I'm certainly not wedded to that specific number. But, apparently, at 4.7%, halflings really are underperforming quite badly.

The fact that other races are also underperforming does not change that fact. Like I said, I have zero problems axing many races from the PHB. I am certainly no traditionalist who needs to have a cuddle with a well trodden path PHB in order to play D&D. Again, the fact that the first time they add new races to the PHB, those new races are outperforming ALL the traditional races save humans speaks volumes to me. But, apparently, that's not evidence either.

Just out of curiosity, what would count as evidence @doctorbadwolf? What would you consider acceptable evidence that halflings (as well as a number of other races) are underperforming?

Usage statistics from before 5e would something. Certainly not “they aren’t the focus of any adventures”, because the notion that this is evidence for or against anything is pure nonsense.

If anything, the lack of Halfling lore and prominence in APs combined with them being more popular than the vast majority of races, including multiple other PHB races, would suggest that they are very popular. It isn’t enough to go on, by itself, but it sure as hell doesn’t point in the direction you keep trying to get it to point.

 

[lingual]

You are correct, this is something that I feel deserves an official change to the game. 50 years of halflings being one of the four most prominent races in the game and they lack any sort of exploration. Even the smallest hint of anything is lept upon as "proof" that the halflings are more complex, because there isn't anything else for people to point towards.

And, it is fine if you don't care about that. It is fine that you like halflings to be a blank slate to write upon. It is fine that you want them to be "faded into the background" to the point where we can have them vanish without anyone noticing. But just because you want to keep running them that way, doesn't mean that the rest of us would like the company to actually validate halflings being given the position of prominence they have been given.

Here is where your posts can be a bit grating.

I think halflings are fine. I think there is a place for a pastoral, small race and I am content with it. My players are.content with it. From a business standpoint, I think it would horrible for WOTC to get rid of the "hobbit" like race. A lot of gamers probably started playing this game because of LOTR.

However, you think I am somehow fine with them "fading into the background" and vanishing. I disagree with your stance and now you somehow hint that I am wrong and that my attitudes will lead to the extinction of halflings.

Again, there is a difference between "you do it your way" and "you do it my way". When pressing for official changes to rules, presentation, or whatever, it is the latter.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Except the 'things to fill the niche' have been 'nothing like what the niche is'.

The niche is a 'normal' race to fill the void left by all humans being explicitly Vin Diesel and Scarlet Johannsen instead of Jason Alexander and Wanda Sykes. The solution seems to be 'how about Jason Statham and Kate Beckensale?'.

it is nothing to do with lore but mechanics there everyone has to be crazy good to nut be wet cardboard level of useful in dnd it is oddly dumb.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My issue with making them allergic to "cold iron" is that I am much more familiar with them being allergic to "iron and steel" which would be... everything. Which is a much harsher penalty than I think should be given out.

I know that DnD made a specific material called "cold iron" but it just doesn't fit with how Fey are presented to have it be some very special material that is rare and hard to come by.

I wouldn’t do ALL ferrous metals, no! As you say, it would be too common a weakness to be playable unless you significantly boost their powers.

“Cold iron” would be some kind of special material, either by nature or ritual. Perhaps the “cold” would be the cold of the void of space- IOW, another name for meteoric steel, aka starmetal.