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

[Faolyn]

And you seemed to have missed the point entirely. Let me give you an example

I think that you're the one who has missed the point.

"Halflings have slings and can fight off the gnolls"

Or they might have other weapons. We have pointed out that traditionally, throughout D&D's history, halflings have commonly used slings and received bonuses when using them. That doesn't mean they are limited to slings, just like elves aren't limited to bows and swords, and dwarfs aren't limited to axes.

"Well, gnolls have bows in their entry, so they outrange the halflings, and they'd have to get really close to use the slings"

First, see above point.

Secondly, since halfling villages are canonically hidden, the gnolls would have to get pretty close to be able to find the halflings.

Third, if halflings live in an area prone to gnoll raids, they would make barriers of one sort or another (as I mentioned to Hussar, things like ha-has are right up their alley). Even if all they did was slow intruders down rather than stop them, that still gives the halflings an enormous advantage.

Earlier, someone pointed out mixing cannabis in with the wheat and how anyone who burns the crops would end up getting too high to be an effective raider. In response, I joked that halflings might cultivate halfling-friendly strains of yellow musk creepers instead. If halflings live in areas prone to raids, they may very well actually do things like this. Please note: I am not saying that all halflings will or must do these things. But in a magical world like D&Dland, halflings and other people who live places where raids are common are quite likely to use weird defenses such as this.

Imagine halflings who have "tamed" ankhegs; ankhegs are low-Int enough that they can be trained via simple positive/negative reinforcement to stay in one particular area and ignore halflings, but who will immediately pounce on anything larger. Gnolls, not being able to read Halfling (can Int 6 gnolls read any languages?), would ignore the "Danger: Ankhegs" signs the halflings post as a warning to friendlies.

Imagine halflings who raise and cultivate all sorts of exotic and deadly plants such as tri-flower fronds or mantraps. Because they might be dangerous, but they also might have useful byproducts (no reason to assume that either plants aren't edible) or just are pretty enough to replace roses and hyacinths. These plants would have been bred to not see halflings and halfling-shaped beings as food--but gnolls aren't halfling-shaped.

Imagine halflings who breed death dogs (get rid of the alignment and all you have are two-headed hounds with a venomous bite). Bitsie got a best in show ribbon and is more than a match for a raider. You can replace death dog with almost any other Small-to-Medium beast or monstrosity that has animal intelligence.

Imagine halflings who have a friendly relationship with a nearby copper dragon. Copper dragons love stories; halflings love stories. It's a match made in Bytopia. Gnoll raiders are approaching? Send a runner (or cast sending) to ask the dragon for help.

(And this is without bringing up that halflings tend to go out and adventure for a while before coming home to retire, thus ensuring that each village will have a few higher-level NPCs in it.)

And again: not saying that all halflings will or must do this (I'm repeating this because you have a bad habit of taking everything anyone says on face value and claiming that they meant it to be always true all the time). But you can bet that halflings who live in a magical world, and especially those that live in a particularly dangerous area, would have developed defenses beyond slings or bows.

Will these defenses work all the time? No, of course not. Even in the best-case scenarios there are going to be halfling casualties. But it all means that halflings aren't just sitting ducks.

"The halflings have tons of 4 ft high cover, they'll hide behind it and snipe the gnolls, and the gnolls can't shoot them behind the cover"
"Where did this cover come from? Anyways, if the halflings are pinned down behind cover, the gnolls can either just circle around it or keep them pinned and have some get into melee. The Halflings would be impeded by the cover too, making it harder to take out the gnolls without getting shot"

Sigh. This is why I put you on ignore in the first place. Your complete unwillingness to actually imagine things.

I think we can both agree that a typical halfling homeland consists of rolling hills, on which bushes, tall grasses, farm crops, copses and windbreaks of trees, and various above-ground houses, barns, silos, sheds, and so on. Y'know, farm country. So that's where the cover comes from. I realize that battlemaps are flat, but actual land isn't.

Two, the halflings aren't pinned down. Since they've likely lived in that area for a few generations, they know the land very well--much, much better than the gnolls do. If you spent your childhood in an area playing tag and hide-and-go-seek, then as an adult in the same area, you gain the home field advantage. You know that place like the back of your hand.

Halflings are running around from one bit of cover to the next. Since these halflings live in gnoll country, they likely have put halfling-friendly cover in 20-foot increments, giving them ample opportunities to run and hide. Those ornamental bushes that line the streets? Both pretty and cover-providing.

See the issue? I say slings aren't good enough, now halflings are getting a feat to make the slings good enough, instead of just... having them use a different weapon. Yes, the DM can make up anything they want. But once you start giving out feats to an entire race of people, you've started altering the game balance.

That's fine. Give them all bows. Every halfling village has at least one bowyer, or arbalest, or whatever a person who makes crossbows is called. They may not be the world's best bowyers, but they're good enough. Slings are traditional but aren't required.

Right, and crossbows are more effective weapons for them to use, and easier to train in the use of. So they are a good choice for defending the village.

That was my entire point. That right there.

OK. You may have that point. Except that I didn't see anyone claim that they could only ever have slings. Just that slings were cheap to make and easy to carry in a pocket, thus making it likely that most halflings could carry one and therefore not ever be caught unarmed.

And, if "everyone" gets proficiency in slings (which they don't, only every PC gets that) then humans and others could use slings every day too, because they are cheap, and easy to carry, and effective defenisve measures. But, I'm being told that no they can't, because humans aren't community minded,

No you aren't. Nobody has said that.

Humans could easily all carry slings. Go on, give all your humans slings. Nobody is going to care or complain if you do. The only reason all humans don't carry slings is because, way back when, the game designers decided that slings were a halfling thing and humans were stuck with everything else.

 

[Cadence]

The only thing is, I am making sure I apply the same standards to both, and as was the point in a post by Permeton, the game imagines that these sort of threats are serious enough that a village would call for help, from adventurers, whether they were halfling or human. They aren't perfectly safe

I think everyone would agree dwarves and elves need something far more threatening than a gnoll raid to start asking for help.

For the Dwarves, it looks like they don't make many connections to go ask for help from...

... but their homes are written up in the section on "Strongholds" So of the four primary races, I agree that Dwarves probably don't go asking for help very often as written in 5e!

I didn't see anything in Mordenkainen's about the elves having anything special for defense, or about enemies. I'm not sure why a small peaceful group of elves in the forest wouldn't take a bunch of Gnolls seriously and possibly be in trouble depending on numbers. I wonder how much the worry changes with the rainfall. I imagine living in the forest for the elves would be a lot riskier in the dry season. (For Halflings, do grass fires burn quickly enough that sheltering in burrows would save them... but not their crops?).

 

[Oofta]

I never stated halflings were freeloaders who contributed nothing.

It is stated that the humans are defending the halflings, if halflings were fighting alongside the humans, why would they state that? So, if the haflings aren't fighting beside the humans... where are they?

Now a local patrol and militia are mercenaries hired for the job. Dang, I wonder how that changed all of a sudden.

Right. I'm not sure how to read this post otherwise. Especially when you say "Wouldn't... humans ask for something in exchange? ... there is not a single thought being put into what the humans get out of it".

Do the books talk about collecting taxes, tithes, services? No. Does any book anywhere discuss commoners of any race being conscripted or serving in a militia? Again and again you keep twisting words around. Has anyone ever said halflings don't contribute to their own defense, ever? Why does it matter that historically people have frequently either payed for mercenaries or a militia? Some governments will conscript commoners, others won't. It just depends, there is no one rule, no one way.

I've been consistent. Halflings contribute. Be that taxes, tithes of goods, services (including military service) if that is the standard for other commoners in the region. You are the only one that insists that the humans get nothing in exchange.

 

[Cadence]

That's fine. Give them all bows. Every halfling village has at least one bowyer, or arbalest, or whatever a person who makes crossbows is called. They may not be the world's best bowyers, but they're good enough. Slings are traditional but aren't required.

Are the slings traditional because of something in Tolkien about them throwing rocks?
In 1e, they didn't particularly stand out in the MM:

 

[Oofta]

Huh. Guess I can no longer respond to Neonchameleon's responses to me

Edit: I do hate responding to people whose posts I can't see any more, but this is an example of the kind of BS we are dealing with here

Oofta stated "Nor have they ever stated that all humans are subject to conscription. Almost as if throughout history many countries primarily used mercenaries to fight their wars. Wonder where they got the money."

Changing the militia to mercenaries. I called him out on that, and the response I got from Neonchamelon right before they blocked me?

"Here's another place you are twisting things.

Militia protect against bandits and the like. They are very seldom mercenaries. Mercenaries are instead professional soldiers, mostly veterans, and used for fighting wars. I mentioned earlier that there were tiers for this sort of thing."


So, Oofta changes militia to mercenary. I respond and say that isn't what we are talking about, then the next person swoops in and says I'm twisting the argument by saying that militia's are mercenaries, which they aren't. Like I said.


Remember when Hussar was saying "Pick a Lane". This is what he is talking about. One person changes the argument, then when I point that out, I'm accused of twisting the argument by another poster.

Just like I was accused of making all elves super magical, a position I argued against, that a different poster held. But that was totally me right?

Yes, in some cases people hire other people for protection. In other cases they do not. I pay taxes and we have these people called "police". In other cases, I'm sure people have and will self-organize to protect themselves. But this is just more typical "I'm going to pick one aspect of a conversation out of context and blow it all out of proportion".

But yes. you've cracked the case! We are not a hive mind! Things like how halfling communities are defends is really, really campaign setting specific and has little or nothing to do with why people like halflings as PCs.

 

[Cadence]

Agreed, but I was demanded to provide historical data of humans using slings and why real world humans didn't have a society of sling-users.

So, I had to provide the real world answer to that question, which is that slings are difficult to use compared to a bow and insanely difficult to use compared to a crossbow. People could master them, but they took a lot of time and training. Which is why societies of sling users stopped really being a thing when easier weapons started existing and social dynamics changed.

Does this apply to DnD? Not really, but that wasn't what was being demanded of me

The history of the sling is entirely new to me. So thank you for the earlier quotes!

They seemed to have been used a lot later than I thought they had been...

and at some earlier points they seem to have had an advantage over the bows...

Was the training required to effectively use a bow in combat that much less than the sling? Was the training of the greatest bowmen (English longbow?) similar to that of the Balearic slingers?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Are the slings traditional because of something in Tolkien about them throwing rocks?
In 1e, they didn't particularly stand out in the MM:

In the 2e, 3.0, and 3.5 PHBs halflings get +1 to hit with slings (and thrown weapons).

 

[Faolyn]

Are the slings traditional because of something in Tolkien about them throwing rocks?
In 1e, they didn't particularly stand out in the MM:

View attachment 140798

No idea. They didn't get sling or thrown weapon bonuses in 1e (strangely, they had magic resistance and some--those of Pure Stout blood--had infravision and dwarf-like abilities to detect slopes). They got the +1 in 2e and 3e, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Was the training required to effectively use a bow in combat that much less than the sling? Was the training of the greatest bowmen (English longbow?) similar to that of the Balearic slingers?

Consider the firing methods of the two weapons.

The bow is: nock your projectile on the string, point, draw, release.

The sling is nest your load in a pocket, swing in rotational motion, then release. Timing that release point takes skill. Do it at the wrong moment, and you could even fire backwards.

And the bigger the payload, the longer the sling, and the more space it requires to use. I’ve seen ones big enough to launch half-bricks that were around 2’ long.

 

[Yaarel]

Except that if you look up elves in the DMG, in that mini-template setting, they don't get the cantrip ability, while drow do get their innate spellcasting.

Your reading of the DMG 282 is incorrect.

The NPC "Elf" requires the DM to decide whether this Elf is a High Elf or a Wood Elf, then to "see the Players Handbook for descriptions of this races features," including the High Elf Cantrip feature if this Elf is a High Elf.

This DMG High Elf NPC has Innate Spellcasting, just like the Drow Elf subrace has Innate Spellcasting.

Plus, the fact that it's called "cantrip" and not "innate spellcasting" or "legacy" (as per the tieflings) indicates that it's not an innate ability. Elves have always been mages, but they haven't been innately magical.

The Drow has the Dancing Light cantrip, and this "cantrip" is called "Innate Spellcasting".

The 5e Elf has innate magic (including innate spellcasting and other innate magical abilities). I actually dont care whether the Elf magic is learned or innate, but it happens to be, in 5e the High Elf has both. Each Elf subrace has innate magic, and the culture encourages them to take levels in mage classes.

At any rate, this has nothing to do with halflings.

It is part of the conversation about the Halfling being way too Human. The Elf too looks Human physically, but the Fey ancestry, innate magic, and high magic cultures, help distinguish the Elf from the Human.

They use psionics, not standard magic.

In D&D 5e, the psionic power source is a normal form of magic, like arcane, divine, and (soon) primal. Even in the original 5e Monster Manual, psionic is simply defined as "Innate Spellcasting" with a psionic tag. More recent examples of psionic include magical effects that are not spells, as well as nonmagical effects (usable in antimagic) that are created by psionic magic.

The Githyanki and Githzerai are a good example of a player race using Intelligence and Wisdom for Innate Spellcasting.

By the way, in the Monster Manual, the Drider uses Wisdom for Innate Spellcasting.

There are many examples of Innate Spellcasting that use Intelligence or Wisdom for it. It is incorrect to assume only Charisma.