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

[Hussar]

I have changed my point of view. Halfling luck (and fear that can't be resisted by magic resistance) might be magical, but it might not be either. Maybe in D&D physics there's a luck particle that resides deep in the halfling's hypothalamus.

Now isn't THAT convenient. You were pretty adamant before about the division. Went so far as to post several times that unless something was specifically called out as magical, it wasn't magical.

So, which is it, in your opinion. Are they magical or not? After all, you insisted that it MUST be one or the other before. Spent a rather lengthy amount of time insisting it as I recall. Seems rather odd that now, after all that, you would suddenly decide that something being magical might be or might not be. Almost like being magical was a DM decision and not something specifically covered by the rules.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Hang on.

Earlier in the thread, you folks flat out refused to entertain the idea that halfling luck was magical in nature or that it came from the gods. I was told that it MUST be 100% natural and inherent to a halfling. After all, it doesn't stop working in an anti-magic field, right. It is, by the rules, non-magical in nature. That was the argument made by @carkl3000, repeatedly.

Are you now saying that @carkl3000 is wrong?

I mean. We're not a hive mind. There are certainly areas where I differ with other who have advocated on halflings' behalf.

IIRC though that was an argument related to an interpretation that significantly increases the effectiveness of gnomes' features.

I do like the idea of killing elves with dispel magic or antimagic fields though.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm going to disagree here. Shock.

This is 100% an appeal to tradition and nothing else.

Interesting. The last halfling player I had at my table was playing her very first game of D&D. And it was the race she chose.

Saying "people like it and it enables them to play the characters they want" is the literal opposite of an appeal to tradition.

Indeed in my experience halflings are great for slightly confused newbies. The "I'm out of my depth here and uncertain but I'm going to continue" (which isn't the same as a traumatic bad day but can overlap) underlying the halfling is a decent away of aligning what an uncertain newbie is feeling with what their character is feeling, making it easier to get into character.

Heck, even look at the lists of why people like halflings - Tolkien appears right there at the top of the list, as well as pointing to Moldvay Basic (the BEST version of D&D mind you), an edition that hasn't been in print for thirty years. And, no, they don't help players tell a different sort of story. They help players tell ONE story. The same story over and over and over again that was first told almost a hundred years ago now that they probably read in elementary school when they first got into the genre

Yes the "out of my depth in a D&D world" may be a common story but by the same token it will be the first time that person has experienced and got to put their spin on that story. Should we start burning books that have sold over a thousand copies and are out of copyright?

 

[carkl3000]

Now isn't THAT convenient. You were pretty adamant before about the division. Went so far as to post several times that unless something was specifically called out as magical, it wasn't magical.

So, which is it, in your opinion. Are they magical or not? After all, you insisted that it MUST be one or the other before. Spent a rather lengthy amount of time insisting it as I recall. Seems rather odd that now, after all that, you would suddenly decide that something being magical might be or might not be. Almost like being magical was a DM decision and not something specifically covered by the rules.

Even before that argument concluded, I had refined my point of view, and I sincerely apologize for any of my statements prior to that point that were factually wrong. And Gammadoodler is correct in the above post. It was primarily an argument about what effects could be resisted by Gnome Cunning. I still maintain that by the rules, unless the effect specifically says that it is magical, it's not resisted by magic resistance or gnome cunning. At that point, you can call it magic, you can call it fantasy physics, you can say it's just a really scary dragon, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Yaarel]

All that aside, I gotta admit it does fit to a bloody T. That is actually quite impressive. As an additional thought though, it does highlight just how alien elves really are. If the closest thing to an elf is a Hollywood Celebrity, then elves really are pretty darn alien.

As scholars like Alaric Hall point out, what ultimately defines an Elf as an "elf", is superhuman charming beauty and glamor. While the other aspects are significant, they are less.

The Scottish sith equated to the Nordic alfar, because they share this magical charm and beauty in common. Even the Greek nymphe became an "elf" (in glosses of manuscripts) because of the charming.

This is why Charisma, magical charm, and a beauty beyond human, is vital for the mythologically accurate elf archetype. The magic is Charisma magic. (It is also why they correlate with the magic of the Charisma Bard even by circumlocutions like "minstrels, artists, sages", "poets", "singers".)



It is exactly correct, that the Elf archetype heightens the manner of "glamorous" human celebrity superstars.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They shouldn't be in the PHB because, despite having every advantage, being promoted to the front (in the case of Eberron quite literally) of every WotC product, and being one of the longest existing elements in the game, they are a tiny niche option that is basically just "the rogue race" and I believe that the PHB should reflect what players are actually playing.

So halflings. Please stop repeating this same lie, it has been debunked several times. By all the numbers we have available halflings are among the nine most popular races, so if popularity is the metric, they deserve their place in the PHB.

Either admit that you just hate them and want them gone for that reason, or admit that you were wrong about the numbers and they deserve to be in PHB. It is dishonest to try to pretend that your stance is based on data, when we all can plainly see that the data does not support your stance.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Hang on.

Earlier in the thread, you folks flat out refused to entertain the idea that halfling luck was magical in nature or that it came from the gods. I was told that it MUST be 100% natural and inherent to a halfling. After all, it doesn't stop working in an anti-magic field, right. It is, by the rules, non-magical in nature. That was the argument made by @carkl3000, repeatedly.

Are you now saying that @carkl3000 is wrong?

Did you miss the 50-60 pages where we discussed Yondalla granting them favor and the discussing the difference between magic and Magic from the tweet?

 

[Faolyn]

Umm, nope.

They shouldn't be in the PHB because, despite having every advantage, being promoted to the front (in the case of Eberron quite literally) of every WotC product, and being one of the longest existing elements in the game, they are a tiny niche option that is basically just "the rogue race" and I believe that the PHB should reflect what players are actually playing.

I mean, if you're going to talk about someone else's argument, at least make a basic attempt to show what that argument is.

So here we see that you haven't read the posts of other people who don't want halflings in the PH. OK.

 

[Faolyn]

So halflings. Please stop repeating this same lie, it has been debunked several times. By all the numbers we have available halflings are among the nine most popular races, so if popularity is the metric, they deserve their place in the PHB.

Either admit that you just hate them and want them gone for that reason, or admit that you were wrong about the numbers and they deserve to be in PHB. It is dishonest to try to pretend that your stance is based on data, when we all can plainly see that the data does not support your stance.

Hey, "halflings are the rogue race" is a brand new argument from Hussar! They've gone from rounding actual numbers down instead of up to saying that because "halfling rogue" is common to the point of being cliché, it's actually a tiny niche that nobody picks!

 

[Faolyn]

Now isn't THAT convenient. You were pretty adamant before about the division. Went so far as to post several times that unless something was specifically called out as magical, it wasn't magical.

So, which is it, in your opinion. Are they magical or not? After all, you insisted that it MUST be one or the other before. Spent a rather lengthy amount of time insisting it as I recall. Seems rather odd that now, after all that, you would suddenly decide that something being magical might be or might not be. Almost like being magical was a DM decision and not something specifically covered by the rules.

So... it's bad that someone changes their mind when they get new data? Would you rather people stuck to their guns even when the data shows they're blatantly wrong?