But they are human, in all but mechanics.
Which means they’re not human.
Their name even refers to them being half the size of humans. In Tolkien's works,
halflings were a type of human (or at least very closely related to them).
Related to. Not the same species. But then again, if you want to go that route any creatures that can interbreed in D&D would be closely related. Which includes dragons.
They're human in culture (primarily farmers that are typically most friendly with individuals/peoples that they're familiar with) and human in appearance (they're literally basically just humans but 3ish feet tall, and humans of that height exist in real life). They're as human as any of the D&D races get (excluding humans, of course). People were even joking earlier in the thread that they're more human than humans in D&D.
Dwarfs are human in culture (primarily miners and smiths that are typically most friendly with individuals/people that they’re most familiar with) and human in appearance (they’re literally basically just humans but 4ish feet tall and bearded, and humans of that height exist in real life).
Elves are human in culture (primarily foresters and scholars that are typically most friendly with individuals/people that they’re most familiar with) and human in appearance (they’re literally basically just humans but 5ish feet tall with pointy ears, and humans of that height exist in real life).
Orcs are human in culture (primarily soldiers and thugs that are typically most friendly with individuals/people that they’re most familiar with) and human in appearance (they’re literally basically just humans but 6ish feet tall with oversized teeth, and humans of that height exist in real life).
(And before you start in with lifespans—that rarely matters either in or out of character.)
I don't claim that they're basically just human because I dislike them. In fact, quite the opposite, as I detailed in the OP. One of my main reasons for disliking them is that they're basically just humans, but short. Stop with the strawmen, please.
That is a reason for you to dislike them. It is not a valid reason for them to be removed from the PH or for you to try to force other people to dislike them.
Have you read the last 220ish pages?
uh, yes. I’ve been here for basically all of them.
It was almost entirely people bickering back and forth over minutiae and tangents not related to the core of the OP.
Threads drift into new topics! Gasp!
Some people did explain how they're different in their world, like
@Oofta describing them as being the "happy people of the world, like Scandinavians" (who are literal nations-full of humans), and others describing them as just farmers (which has been the primary human profession for thousands of years in our history). I pointed out that most races have things that differ them from humans in significant ways (like elves and gnomes being related to fey, warforged being constructed, dwarves being resistant to poison and having darkvision, orcs having powerful build, yuan-ti being immune to poison and magic-resistant, dragonborn having breath weapons and damage resistance, animal-folk
being animal people, and so on), and most people just ignored that and continued to say "Well, most races are just humans anyway!"
Halflings have Luck, Nimbleness, and Bravery. Those don’t count? Being Naturally Stealthy (like lightfoots) or Poison Resistant (like stouts) doesn’t count? Being telepathic (like ghostwise) or magical (like lotusden) doesn’t count?
Halflings are more human that any other race in the game.
You have yet to say why that’s a bad thing. And you might as well say dwarfs are more dragonborn-ish than any other race in the game, so get rid of dwarfs and keep the dragonborn.
It doesn't matter if they fill the cultural niche of being farmers, because that's something humans already do in most fantasy worlds and in the real world. It doesn't matter if they're "happy people", because Gnomes already have that as one of their core defining personality traits and Humans have that in multiple real world nations.
And yet, halflings are more popular than gnomes are.
I'll let you go ask JRR Tolkien if that's true. (I mean, you pretty obviously can't, but it's also pretty obvious on what Tolkien would say if asked on the matter. I'm willing to bet that he wouldn't include Small humans and Hobbits in Middle Earth, because they might as well be the same thing.)
Why would I care what he has to say about halflings? He’s not running my D&D game and has no input on how halflings are depicted in it, or in any D&D game that does not take place in Middle-Earth.
They're going to be races. I don't see any reason why they would change the UA's Size of "Medium or Small" between its release and official publication, especially due to the fact that Custom Lineage and Dhampir, Hexblood, and Reborn characters have the same option, while being lineages. Owlins and Rabbitfolk will be races, not lineages, as lineages in 5e are something you can become instead of having to be born as it, but people are born as Owlins and Rabbitfolk.
Yes, I told you that, after you called owlin and rabbitfolk lineages. Stop mansplaining the answers I gave you back at me.
If Humans were treated in the same manner and just had the "Size: Medium or Small", that would practically invalidate the core reason halflings exist in the game.
No, because they are very different species, with different abilities, different outlooks on life, and different attitudes.
Mechanical differences that were added because the people that added Halflings to the game wanted them to be mechanically different.
Just like with elves and dwarfs.
Halflings didn't even have Lucky and Bravery based features until well after D&D was originally published. For all intents and purposes, Halflings were Hobbits, and Hobbits were Small Humans.
Back in 1e and 2e, halflings had magic resistance (in the form of bonuses to magic-related saves) and many had infravision and poison resistance. That’s not very human at all.
And the Realms is the core setting of the game, and it influences how Halflings are used in the PHB, which them influences how they're used in new settings.
Which, again, is the problem with the Realms and not with halflings. Halflings in Everton and Dark Sun are quite good.
Are you serious? Really, are you? Because if you are, how is it more of a problem to say "Small Humans have a hard time using Heavy Weapons" than it is to say "All Small Races have a hard time using Heavy Weapons"?!?!?
sigh.
Let’s try it this way. Imagine a game where the rules stated that light-skinned humans got
these traits while dark-skinned humans got
those traits. And justified it by saying that it’s because of physical and mental differences caused by having developed cultures in different environment, etc.
Would you be cool with that?
Now let’s say that the traits that one of those groups of humans got included something objectively less good than what the other trait got. Because of course that group gets that not-good trait, because elves who also have skin that color get a less-good trait.
Would you be cool with that?
I am ignoring all of this, because I already said that I wouldn't make halflings a human subrace. Just let humans be Medium or Small, like Owlfolk or Rabbitfolk, and you're fine. Stop trying to paint something as problematic just because you don't like the concept. It's highly offensive to both me and the groups of people you are trying to speak for.
Trying to remove a race you don’t like and pretending its OK because you would make humans be Small
or Medium is highly offensive to me and everyone who likes halflings or who has no strong opinions on halflings. Especially since few DMs would disallow Small humans in the first place.
I know they're not. I know that. You don't have to condescendingly explain that to me,
@Faolyn.
Why not? You have no problem being condescending to others.
My point is that people wouldn't be complaining about that if there wasn't 3 different Frog People Races in the first place! If Frog People were Frog People and there weren't 3 different types of them, people wouldn't be complaining about that.
But there are. You’re decades late at preventing the creation of three frogfolk races—actually, there’s more than three—and you’re decades late at preventing halflings from being a PC race.
But it does, because Grung, Bullywugs, and Grippli all have the same general thematic niche (Frog-Person), and Humans and Halflings have basically the same one, too (Human, but one of them is Small).
Again, can you stop speaking for Little People (the preferred term for people with Dwarfism), because unless they have assigned you as the Official Arbiter of All Things Related to the Representation of Little People in D&D, you're not allowed to speak for them and what they would consider offensive. (Which as a member of a marginalized community, I can say that it is highly offensive and very often harmful for people that aren't members of the marginalized community they are speaking for to attempt to speak for us. If you need a specific example,
here you go.)
Wow, you didn’t even read that article, did you? It‘s talking about a bad charity, thats all.
Also, I’m autistic as well. And queer. And have physical disabilities and mental illnesses. And a woman. And am part of other marginalized communities as well. And I worked with developmentally and intellectually disabled adults for 12.5 years, and I was and am an advocate for this population. I’m 100% for allies outside my community trying to warn others away from saying things that are deliberately hurtful.
