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

[Bardic Dave]

Prove it.

5e halflings are drawn with oversized heads. That's their biggest distinctive part (granted, one that's almost universally loathed, but, hey, it IS what halflings are supposed to look like in 5e). That woman's head is not particularly oversized. She just looks like a small human. Which is not what a 5e halfling looks like. A 5e halfling looks like this (sorry)

That doesn't look very much like the woman in the image. I mean, proportionally, that's a lot closer to the gnome:

Well, this entire tangent is really beside the point, and I question why you need to argue over this, but the halfling in that painting does have an oversized head; her head is the same size as the human despite being half her height. Her proportions are much closer to that halfling bard than they are to that very lanky gnome ranger (whose head is kind of wide/oval and strangely shaped, but is otherwise fairly small for her size).

Do I have 100% confidence in my assessment? No, probably more like 90%. Regardless, I’m not sure why this point is particularly important.

You’ve made your case; you consider halflings boring and under-utilized and feel they need to either be significantly spiced up or if you can’t have that, removed to make room for another more “interesting” race in tbe spotlight. Most of us disagree with you for perfectly valid reasons. I’m not really sure what more needs to be said.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Honestly? It really, really was. It's just that it got wrapped up in a bunch of other crap and misunderstandings and talking past one another.

Look, I'm not interested in starting a fight. I never really was. I was posting in here because the points I was trying to make were being twisted around so badly. The whole "You only hate halflings" schtick and whatnot. That's why I stepped away from the thread. I was not adding to the conversation, only being a barrier.

I found something that illustrates my point rather well. This image is from the Player's Handbook:

Beautiful pic. One thing you have to hand WotC, they really do know their art.

But, here's my point. Is that a halfling making that map? Or a gnome? Or just a short human? How do you know? This, to me, is just so indicative of how little presence halflings have in the game. I can immediately recognize the dwarf and the elf. The person in the background in white? Maybe an elf or a human, not sure. I think elf, but, I could go either way. But the halfling/gnome/short person making the map? Who knows? And that's the problem in a nutshell. Halflings, because they have been so underutilized in the game for so long, lack any real, clear ... I'm groping for the right word here... image? presence? recognition factor? Whatever it is, they don't have it.

So, yeah, that's pretty much what we (plural) have been saying all the way along. Either use 'em or lose 'em. Pick one. Because, after 50 years of being pretty much the "also ran" race in the PHB, there's certainly room for improvement.

The person making the map is sitting down with some kind of drawing board on their knees. Given that they are chest high on the dwarf while sitting, I think it's fair to say that they are neither halfling nor gnome.

It doesn't take away from your point about underutilization, but it's also dumb to extrapolate much from individual art pieces.

 

[Yaarel]

If the halfling was less human, and more distinctive, it would be easier to utilize them in adventure narratives because they would have distinctive aspects to focus on.

 

[Faolyn]

WAHOO!!!! It only took well over a hundred pages but someone FINALLY sees the point we have been trying to make. That halflings are under utilized and, considering they are one of the "big 4", they should play a more prominent role in material. That, or, if no one is going to use them, punt them out of the PHB and make room for something that IS going to get used. I'm pretty happy with either one.

I pointed out all the named halfling NPCs in fourteen different published adventures. I pointed out how, in at least one of those adventures, there were as many named halflings NPCs as there were dwarf NPCs, and more than there were tiefling and dragonborn NPCs.

Here, I recounted the number of halflings Storm King's Thunder. I counted nine named living halflings (Oren, Taela, Sevembra, Lily, Koggin, Nelkin, Herivin, Roderik, and Finn); Taela's four kids; plus Larlow and Keltar, who are dead; 1d4+2 halfling prisoners, 4 halfling slaves; plus mentions of Silbar, a halfling pirate; and it mentions that there are populations of halflings in most human settlements and that halfling homesteads are "not uncommon" and are well-hidden.

Why are you continue to insist that they aren't including halflings in their adventures?!

The last time I pointed this out, you vanished into lurking. Are you going to do that again?

 

[Oofta]

I pointed out all the named halfling NPCs in fourteen different published adventures. I pointed out how, in at least one of those adventures, there were as many named halflings NPCs as there were dwarf NPCs, and more than there were tiefling and dragonborn NPCs.

Here, I recounted the number of halflings Storm King's Thunder. I counted nine named living halflings (Oren, Taela, Sevembra, Lily, Koggin, Nelkin, Herivin, Roderik, and Finn); Taela's four kids; plus Larlow and Keltar, who are dead; 1d4+2 halfling prisoners, 4 halfling slaves; plus mentions of Silbar, a halfling pirate; and it mentions that there are populations of halflings in most human settlements and that halfling homesteads are "not uncommon" and are well-hidden.

Why are you continue to insist that they aren't including halflings in their adventures?!

The last time I pointed this out, you vanished into lurking. Are you going to do that again?

Just remember that 5.9% rounds to 5% as well.

 

[Bardic Dave]

The person making the map is sitting down with some kind of drawing board on their knees. Given that they are chest high on the dwarf while sitting, I think it's fair to say that they are neither halfling nor gnome.

It doesn't take away from your point about underutilization, but it's also dumb to extrapolate much from individual art pieces.

This is a really dumb tangent, but look again: the dwarf is standing at a significantly lower elevation than the halfling (and so is the human/half-elf? on closer examination), and also positioned slighlty in the background. You can extrapolate from that that the halfling is about chin height on the dwarf when standing.

 

[Gammadoodler]

This is a really dumb tangent, but look again: the dwarf is standing at a significantly lower elevation than the halfling (and so is the human/half-elf? on closer examination), and also positioned slighlty in the background. You can extrapolate from that that the halfling is about chin height on the dwarf when standing.

Lol this is a pretty dumb tangent. Looks like he's positioned down about mid-shin. Does make her shorter than expected but looks to me like if she was standing, his head would be at her shoulders. Suggests to me that she's a dwarf, which sort of fits with proportions.

But we're playing fantasy forensics on a piece of art where it doesn't really seem like portraying racial or character archetypes was a significant priority.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Be that as it may, the game gives some monsters an explicit ability to cause the frightened condition in PCs that fail a save. Sometimes it's described as a magical effect but often it's pretty clear that it is not intended to be magical. Halflings are explicitly given a better chance at resisting the frightened effect whether it's magical or not, so by making the ruling the way you do, you're nerfing their ability relative to races that have general magic resistance. That's not very nice.

What effects are you saying are "pretty clearly" non-magical? You mention Dragon Fear but that is entirely ambigious, dragon's do have a lot of inherent magic and if this is meant to be non-magical, why are you immune for only 24 hours after you save? Why is simply knowing a dragon is nearby is enough?

A hag's Hideous Appearance? Again, innately and powerfully magical individual, and I've seen some pretty terrible things, not sure that if I was in a life or death fight I'd feel intense fear or flee from someone who was just incredibly ugly.

I'm not taking away halflings ability to resist non-magical fear, I just don't see any effects for non-magical fear in the game. And as for "not very nice" again, I find taking away a player's control of their character to be a problem. I played in a game very early on in my time with DnD where another player tried to force my character to be scared by rolling intimidation. Being told "this is very scary to you, you are terrified" isn't good RP.

EDIT: And what's more you're making the ruling to save the feelings of the big beefy fighter player who doesn't want their character to look like a big peepee pants baby, but they're going to fail the save anyway because they decided to dump WIS.

Wow. Assuming characters, assuming stats, and mocking players for not wanting their emotional autonomy removed. This isn't to "save their feelings" it is to recognize that the inner world of a character is one of the only things the player gets to control, and circumventing that without good reason is poor sportsmanship.

 

[Bardic Dave]

It’s been a slice folks! As of today, I’m back at work so I will no longer be able to obsessively check in on this thread. Enjoy yourselves! I’m out!

 

[Chaosmancer]

Let me phrase it like this: do I find your arguments persuasive? Not really, because you’re basing them in concepts like “realism” that don’t particularly resonate with me and which are not particularly important for creating an engaging and entertaining fantasy game.

I don’t see how your critique is based on design principles; your whole critique boils down to disliking the particular aesthetic choices the designers made for halflings, which is fair enough but it’s not “bad design”.

IMO, the designers hit all the right notes for halflings. Where’s the “bad” design?

I truly do not understand how people can say that "realism" isn't important for Fantasy. It really speaks to not understanding how fantasy operates. You need elements of realism to support the structure of the fantasy.

And, I believe I've stated this. They've hit all the right notes for hobbits. But they seemed to ignore the fact that they aren't Tolkien and they shouldn't be just making hobbits.

So you never said the phb lore is inadequate? Cause I’m pretty sure you did...

You are right. I did say that.

I did not say that halflings make poor PCs.
I did not say that halflings make poor "PHB fodder" which I assume is tied to the idea that I somehow want to remove them from the PHB, which hasn't really ever been my position.

So, as I told Sabathius, the arguments they claim I made, I never made.