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

[Chaosmancer]

I know, by the way, that I'm going to in the near future start being accused of saying "halflings can't defend themselves" or some other hyperbolic version of Minigiant's argument, so I'd figure I'd get out ahead of it and go ahead and put down my thoughts.

Halflings would be just as fine as the other races, if they have crossbows, training in using them, and some planning for dealing with something like a Gnoll attack.

But, I also want to state that for Humans, Halflings, and Dragonborn, Gnolls are a TERRIFYING enemy. Darkvision and being smarter than a stick means that gnolls will attack at night, when these races have a harder time seeing their enemies. If they are going through darkness, a halfling is likely looking at +1 w/disadvantage against a 15 AC and 22 hp to chew through (about 4 hits). Meanwhile the Gnoll can throw a spear at the 11 AC halfling/human/Dragonborn and kill them in a single attack. An if they get in melee range, they can kill two a turn.

With weapons, some training, and a plan? The village can survive. But if you are relying on hoes and shovels or just thrown rocks? That takes you to needing 5 to 6 hits per gnoll with +1 and very likely disadvantage from range. It is a bad situation for anyone.

The problem I tend to find is that the idea of a halfling town militia is met with derision and scorn, and then the "whataboutisms" of humans and others come, then the accusations of death worlds and it all starts turning into a mess because people can't accept halflings believing in self-defense.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Bard music of the Elves is magical. Their art is magical. Their structures are magical.

In your headcanon or homebrew, maybe. Not in the game as presented.

Different communities adapt differently.

The Human martial power source is as effective as the Elf magical power sources.

It is a matter of flavor.

No, it isn't. No amount of human purely non-magical war can effectively counter magic used in statescraft. Just a single glamour bard who performs for and charms the human leaders makes any number of armies useless.

 

[Yaarel]

In your headcanon or homebrew, maybe. Not in the game as presented.

There are many references to elven magic in the Players Handbook, not even looking at the other D&D books.

When you assemble these references to elven magic, the resulting picture is each elven culture weilds heavy magic. They are a magical people.

No, it isn't. No amount of human purely non-magical war can effectively counter magic used in statescraft. Just a single glamour bard who performs for and charms the human leaders makes any number of armies useless.

The martial power source includes heavy damage dealing, high hit points, stealth, and can save versus magic.

An army of human warriors is a comparable threat to an army of elven mages.

 

[Hussar]

/snip;


Halflings, by your admission, are played at 25% of tables and are in the top 9 races. I've asked you before: what more do you need for you to admit that they are relevant?

Sorry, yes, I'm still lurking, and I will respond to direct questions and honestly, this is a fair question.

For me to consider any racial option to be relevant, it has to be played more often than what halflings are. To be fair, halflings are probably right on the edge of where I would consider the tipping point.

See, it's not about me "lying" or "refusing to accept" anything. It's simply a difference in interpretation of the available information. For you guys, apparently you look at halflings at 5 (ish) percent and say, "WOW, that's being played so often that it would be inconceivable to pull them out of the PHB." Fair enough. I (obviously) disagree. I look at that number and say, "Despite having every possible advantage you could have - appearing in every edition of the game, having a HUGE writer like Tolkien behind them (while I'm not a fan of how much Tolkien influences the game, I certainly can't deny it), being promoted as one of the 4 most common races, being a race that is almost never banned from games and is one of the most acceptable to DM's races in the game, it gets played about 5(ish) percent of the time."

After forty years of being one of the least played PHB races, it's probably time to let something else have a swing at the bat. Maybe the new idea won't be popular. Maybe it will fail miserably. That's entirely possible. But, simply shrugging and accepting mediocre results (and YES, being at or near the bottom of the list for PHB races for EVERY EDITION is mediocre IMO) is not the way forward. Again, I'm not saying dump halflings. They can be in the DMG, like lots of races (that are played around as often as halflings) are. It gives the base game a chance to breathe and appeal to a broader audience.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Driven too..... make peace? To settle differences between people? How is it not halflings to try and get two people to get along?

IOW: Halflings are Switzerland, distributed across the campaign world instead of all clumped up in one country!

”Sheath your weapons- you stand in The Shire! This is Hollowed* Ground!”






* not a typo.

 

[carkl3000]

This is all good and wonderful... but it is all just the personality.

It's a culture. And it's predicated on the fact that all halflings have a QLP (quantum luck particle) residing in their hypothalami and they are all protected by an AFF (anti-fear field). Neither of the these things is magical by the way. Both are a direct result of the fundamental laws of D&D physics.

Joking aside, I was describing halfling culture and I think I stuck pretty close to the way they are described in the book.

Does that mean that one can't create a village of dragonborn pacifist farmers? No! But that would be a really unusual village! And the hero hailing from that village would have a much different story from that of a halfling raised in a typical halfling village.

Conversely, does it mean that you can't have a band of halfling "lost boys" roving the countryside and sticking up merchant caravans? No! But part of the flavor of that story is that the life they have chosen is pretty antithetical to the greater halfling culture.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ugh. Won’t this thread ever die?

Halflings are too lucky for that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But if you are relying on hoes and shovels or just thrown rocks?

Who on earth is doing that?

The problem I tend to find is that the idea of a halfling town militia is met with derision and scorn,

Where did this happen?

The thing is I do not expect a halfling town militia to look like that of other races because halflings aren't other races. It's at once both more informal and pretty effective. I go back to Tolkien here where just about every hobbit was, from memory, just about good enough with a stone or slingshot to hit a bird.

Every halfling in a settled halfling community carries a sling and bullets. It doesn't stand out because slings and slingstones and bullets are tiny and easily concealable; most people not in the know think that that bag is the halfling's purse, much to the disappointment of a number of cutpurses. Most (like most people of most races) also carry belt knives that they can use as daggers. Few halflings wear more than leather armour and they don't run a formal militia. But every halfling is armed with a ranged weapon as a matter of course. The sling has no listed weight and sling bullets are both light and incredibly cheap. And in 5e pretty effective. Halflings are both brave and loyal to the community - and rather than a militia they just shout for help and just about the entire community is armed and combat effective.

Is this the way most human militias work? No. It's far more community focused and far more low key. Is it comfortable? Yes - far moreso than e.g. wearing armour or prancing around with heavy weapons. Is it practical and unostentatious? Yes. Is it effective? Yes, definitely - and there's a huge time saving of not having to wait for the officially designated militia. It's also something that most of the halflings' guests don't know about. Why would they? While they remain friends those sling stones aren't going to be used on them.

Comfort, practicality, community focus, lack of ostentation. Halflings have a definite aesthetic from the PHB.

 

[Minigiant]

The problem I tend to find is that the idea of a halfling town militia is met with derision and scorn, and then the "whataboutisms" of humans and others come, then the accusations of death worlds and it all starts turning into a mess because people can't accept halflings believing in self-defense.

This is all I'm saying.
For some reason there is resistance against pulling halflings into the world. Halflings are smaller, have no mentions of a martial, expert, craft, or magical culture, and the game mechanics go out their way to nerf them.

I just want what people say the lore is or what they say the mechanics are that make halflings fit into D&D to match what the actual lore and/or mechanics described in the books. If it matched, this thread would have ended 100 pages ago. However there is pressure to not make things match up.

 

[Yaarel]

Who on earth is doing that?

Where did this happen?

The thing is I do not expect a halfling town militia to look like that of other races because halflings aren't other races. It's at once both more informal and pretty effective. I go back to Tolkien here where just about every hobbit was, from memory, just about good enough with a stone or slingshot to hit a bird.

Every halfling in a settled halfling community carries a sling and bullets. It doesn't stand out because slings and slingstones and bullets are tiny and easily concealable; most people not in the know think that that bag is the halfling's purse, much to the disappointment of a number of cutpurses. Most (like most people of most races) also carry belt knives that they can use as daggers. Few halflings wear more than leather armour and they don't run a formal militia. But every halfling is armed with a ranged weapon as a matter of course. The sling has no listed weight and sling bullets are both light and incredibly cheap. And in 5e pretty effective. Halflings are both brave and loyal to the community - and rather than a militia they just shout for help and just about the entire community is armed and combat effective.

Is this the way most human militias work? No. It's far more community focused and far more low key. Is it comfortable? Yes - far moreso than e.g. wearing armour or prancing around with heavy weapons. Is it practical and unostentatious? Yes. Is it effective? Yes, definitely - and there's a huge time saving of not having to wait for the officially designated militia. It's also something that most of the halflings' guests don't know about. Why would they? While they remain friends those sling stones aren't going to be used on them.

Comfort, practicality, community focus, lack of ostentation. Halflings have a definite aesthetic from the PHB.

I vaguely remember a scifi short story, set in the near future. Something like. The EU more fully consolidated its federal government, forcing its member states into subordinate client states. In response, Switzerland ended its national army. Instead, it trained every Swiss citizen to be assassins, to take out any global leader. Then the other nations left Switzerland alone.

This kinda reminds me of Halflings. But the Halflings are less nationalistic, and more family mafias.