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

[Dannyalcatraz]

This makes me rethink the Elf "fey ancestry". None of the fey have resistance to charm, so it is unclear why being a descendant would gain it.

By contrast, fey typically have Magic Resistance, as well as Innate Spellcasting. Thus the fey type and the fey ancestry should probably look more like these.

Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Of course, Magic Resistance is powerful, but it only applies to magic that allows a saving throw. No-save magic hits normally. The Magic Resistance trait can divide up into three traits, depending on the save ability: Int-Wis-Cha, Str-Con, and Dex.



Note the Gnome Cunning grants advantage against magic that allows a mental Int-Wis-Cha save. The Gnome is quite fey in this way. Perhaps other traits at a higher levels can expand this fey Magic Resistance to include Con and Strength. Later even Dex.

Likewise, the Forest Gnome has Natural Illusionist, which is something like an innate spellcasting, and again typically a fey trait.



For the Drow, the Magic Resistance fey type trait might start with Magic Resistance versus Dex save magic.

Without getting into particulars…yeah. Make the mechanics match the fiction.

For instance, back in the day, I toyed with the idea of Fey Elves getting Cha bonuses instead of Int bonuses, and swapping their preferred class to sorcerer instead of wizard.

 

[Faolyn]

This makes me rethink the Elf "fey ancestry". None of the fey have resistance to charm, so it is unclear why being a descendant would gain it.

A couple of ideas, both of which which would require rewriting some lore and mechanics:

All fey are resistant or even immune to charm when they're in the Feywild. It's just part of the magic of that plane. Only a few types of charm--say, those produced by mortal magic, or by aberrations and/or psionics--can affect a fey in the Feywild. As a result, spellcasters and aberrations are hunted down and captured whenever they enter the Feywild. On the mortal plane, fey lose that resistance (and those who were immune become resistant instead). Elves, because they naturalized themselves to the mortal plane, retain their resistance. Ditto gnomes, who are simply just more anti-magic than anti-charm.

Elves aren't really fey; they're exiles from the Feywild. Their resistance to charm is actually a magical effect all elves learn in order to protect themselves from the machinations of those fey who want to destroy the elves completely instead of letting them live in exile.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Elves aren't really fey; they're exiles from the Feywild. Their resistance to charm is actually a magical effect all elves learn in order to protect themselves from the machinations of those fey who want to destroy the elves completely instead of letting them live in exile.

While outcasts, they’re still the real deal. It’s just they’re “diminished” due to their lengthy exile, and they’ve been fibbing about their origins.

They’re the Unseelie.

 

[Yaarel]

A couple of ideas, both of which which would require rewriting some lore and mechanics:

All fey are resistant or even immune to charm when they're in the Feywild. It's just part of the magic of that plane. Only a few types of charm--say, those produced by mortal magic, or by aberrations and/or psionics--can affect a fey in the Feywild. As a result, spellcasters and aberrations are hunted down and captured whenever they enter the Feywild. On the mortal plane, fey lose that resistance (and those who were immune become resistant instead). Elves, because they naturalized themselves to the mortal plane, retain their resistance. Ditto gnomes, who are simply just more anti-magic than anti-charm.

Elves aren't really fey; they're exiles from the Feywild. Their resistance to charm is actually a magical effect all elves learn in order to protect themselves from the machinations of those fey who want to destroy the elves completely instead of letting them live in exile.

In reallife folkbelief, elves and fey dont just mess with human minds, they also mess with each others minds. Right off the top of my head, I can think of a story where one elf made an other elf fall crazily in love with her, then she disappeared. The forlorn elf against all reason decided to wait for her to return, eventually getting captured by humans, and during gruesome years, the elf ended up having a child with the daughter of the humans − which apparently was the plan of the original elf in the first place. Because these elves personify fate, some of the fates can be convoluted, and the karma can be brutal.

Because the fey are powerful mages they would develop resistance against magic. But I probably wouldnt want to see complete immunity, since in the folkbelief they too are susceptible to powerful magic. Advantage on a save sounds about right. But there is nothing special about charm, it would relate to magic generally.

 

[Don Durito]

"Chasten wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men, reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies, it is the other way around; magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane."

From Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel by Susannah Clarke.

 

[Yaarel]

For me,

The Feywild is a spirit realm, similar to how Shadowfell is a realm of ghosts.

The Material Plane has matter, but the other planes dont. The other planes are immaterial levels of existence.

The difference between Fey Elves and Material Elves is drastic. Some of these immaterial fey spirits chose to use magic to materialize into the Material Plane, taking on physical bodies of flesh and blood. These Material Elves decided to remain mortal and to not return to their original immaterial existence. They are still fey minds, but these embodied Elves have children and descendants and cultures in the same way Humans do.

 

[Don Durito]

I actually find that having Tolkien elves wandering around in a setting that also has fey elves just weird.

My preference is to cut out the Tolkien elves.

 

[Yaarel]

"Chasten wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men, reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies, it is the other way around; magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane."

From Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel by Susannah Clarke.

Because the fairies are fate, and perceive future consequences, their behavior responds to things that the humans dont normally see.

 

[Gammadoodler]

reallife folkbelief

I see you enjoy causing verbal whiplash.

(I know it makes sense, but the two words together took me on quite the journey)

 

[Hussar]

There is a separate issue as well with pointing to settings like Eberron or Dark Sun.

These settings are really not very popular overall. At least, according to WotC and others when they talk about this sort of thing. You've got hombrewers, you've got people who use the Forgotten Realms, and then, over there in the corner, you have everyone else. Sure, I'm sure that people have heard of Eberron. But the number of actual players? Very small. There's a reason that the Adventurers League stuff is all set in Forgotten Realms and, outside a couple of exceptions like Ravenloft, all the WOtC AP's have been baselined into FR. It's because we can at least sort of assume that D&D players will be familiar with FR stuff.

I mean, Dark Sun hasn't made an appearance in published material in ten years. And even then, that was for 4e and had 4e cooties all over it. Before that? Most current D&D players weren't even born when Dark Sun was first released. Never minding some of the even more esoteric settings like Birthright or things like that.

So, pointing to something like Eberron, which doesn't advertise the fact that it has halflings - that's certainly not the main draw of the setting- as a potential solution for those who want more halfling material isn't really fair. How would anyone even begin to think that, yeah, if I want an interesting take on halflings, I should pick up Eberron?