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

[Minigiant]

They do? Didn't someone say earlier that pretty much all official adventures (except Curse of Strahd) are set in FR? And how would we even tell these apart? Aren't they both the same sort of generic bland fantasy settings like

There are some stuff in other setting. And these settings are mentioned very often.

What that has to do with anything? Using halflings is not inherently any more difficult than using any other fantasy species

The point is new players and DMs will design based on what is pushed in the main books by WOTC.

And WOTC is pushing weak settings for halflings.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If goblins and kobolds make the 6e PHB, rest in pepperonis halflings and gnomes.

Very unlikely for a few reasons.

1) WotC is now afraid to remove anything from the core PH after everyone started pretending they liked gnomes to attack 4e.
2) With orcs no longer an acceptable whipping boy, kobolds and goblins are up to be batted. Much like gnolls, there has been a push to actively discourage people wanting to play gobbos and 'bolds, for example making pathetic cowardice a literal power of kobolds.
3) People will inevitably say kobolds were added because they can be copyrighted, much like famous WotC product identity, teiflings.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I would disagree with this. Pretty much all D&D media that I can think of (board games, video games, comics) has halfling as a playable character, much more than gnomes, tieflings and half-orcs.

Half-orcs are a bad race filling a strong niche. People don't like acknowledging them. Tieflings have only been in the core since 2008 so anything either old or retro won't include them.

Recently got Betrayal at Baldur’s gate board game. 4 core, plus a half-orc.

Not surprised they went retro with boardgames - especially when picking five races for a game published in 2017 and designed before the data really came through. And that was probably in early playtesting with the five races picked before 5e was published. The fifth race was at the time "Half-elf, half-orc, halfling", pick two as gnomes were dropped from 4e and there was a whaaargable against 4e so Tieflings and Dragonborn weren't in the running. And a half elf was awkward with both a human and an elf already there.

Picking five races in 2013 because you want five distinct characters would have been easy in 2013.

Baldur’s gate 3 keeps halflings, but drops dragonborn and gnomes.

Baldur's Gate 3 is in early access. The official goal includes all PHB races by launch. Dragonborn however are an extra animation challenge in a way even halflings aren't.

There is in addition the fact that mechanically, the Lightfoot Halfling (+2 Dex, +1 Cha) has great stat synergy for a large amount of classes, much more than gnomes with their +2 Int.

Which is little stronger for e.g. ranger than Forest Gnomes (+2 Int, +1 Dex). You can make your primary stat a 16 either way which is the key thing. And yet despite the strong stat synergy and complete thematic synergy for forest gnome rangers in 2017 halfling rangers were crushing gnome rangers by a margin of almost 2:1.

Seriously, who is on the other side of this issue? You keep on bringing up the “anyone who axes halflings should axe gnomes first” as if it is a cudgel despite no one really arguing against this.

People aren't acknowledging it. It's also a precursor to my next point - and means that anyone suggesting axing halflings are suggesting axing almost a quarter of the races in the PHB.

"Remove the lowest performing with care" and "axe the lowest quarter" are very different approaches.

I disagree with this, as to me, being small is not a niche.

And if that were the only part of either race this might be a point. But halflings and gnomes are also both notedly elusive and stealthy (compare, for example, to a small modron) and easily overlooked with connections with nature and a whole lot of curiosity plus being very humanlike. Gnomes are much more likely to be flashy and magical.

 

[Neonchameleon]

1) WotC is now afraid to remove anything from the core PH after everyone started pretending they liked gnomes to attack 4e.

To be fair a few of them were telling the truth. Most was more of the whaaargabl.

3) People will inevitably say kobolds were added because they can be copyrighted, much like famous WotC product identity, teiflings.

And they'd be talking out of their hats. Although WotC should have made tieflings part of the product identity; the word was, as far as I'm aware, invented for Planescape and they were growing in popularity in 2000. Kobold on the other hand dates back at least to the 13th Century (and is SRD).

 

[Oofta]

Very unlikely for a few reasons.

1) WotC is now afraid to remove anything from the core PH after everyone started pretending they liked gnomes to attack 4e.

Speak for yourself and stop making broad statements without justification. I happen to like gnomes, in my wife's game my nephew is playing one because he thinks they're fun.

 

[Minigiant]

Very unlikely for a few reasons.

1) WotC is now afraid to remove anything from the core PH after everyone started pretending they liked gnomes to attack 4e.
2) With orcs no longer an acceptable whipping boy, kobolds and goblins are up to be batted. Much like gnolls, there has been a push to actively discourage people wanting to play gobbos and 'bolds, for example making pathetic cowardice a literal power of kobolds.
3) People will inevitably say kobolds were added because they can be copyrighted, much like famous WotC product identity, teiflings.

I didn't say they remove halflings and gnomes.

I meant if goblins and kobolds are added to the 6e PHB, halflings and gnomes popularity will drop like a rock on Jupiter.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Half-orcs are a bad race filling a strong niche. People don't like acknowledging them. Tieflings have only been in the core since 2008 so anything either old or retro won't include them.

Which doesn’t change the fact that halflings are reasonably prominent compared to even quite popular non-core races, arguably, I would say, beyond how often they are played.

Which is little stronger for e.g. ranger than Forest Gnomes (+2 Int, +1 Dex). You can make your primary stat a 16 either way which is the key thing. And yet despite the strong stat synergy and complete thematic synergy for forest gnome rangers in 2017 halfling rangers were crushing gnome rangers by a margin of almost 2:1.

Strong disagree. A ranger’s primary stat is Dex, not Wis, so a +2 to Dex is more useful than a +1 to Wis. And that is without considering that a player wishing to play a ranger could also choose a Stoutfellow and benefit from both a +2 to Dex and a +1 to Con.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, being tired of being told contradictory things by you guys, I'm still waiting for your guys to pick a lane so we can have a conversation.

This is not a reasonable expectation.

I am not beholden to someone else's arguments. Ever. The end.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Strong disagree. A ranger’s primary stat is Dex, not Wis, so a +2 to Dex is more useful than a +1 to Wis.

Where does Wis come into anything? The Forest Gnome is +1 Dex, the Lightfoot Halfling is +1 Cha. And +1 is enough to get a primary stat of 16 on dex for the gnome so it's only a very slight lead. (Int and Cha are equally useless for most builds of ranger).

 

[Gammadoodler]

I didn't say they remove halflings and gnomes.

I meant if goblins and kobolds are added to the 6e PHB, halflings and gnomes popularity will drop like a rock on Jupiter.

This is a pretty silly prediction. You really think there is a significant crossover audience here?

I mean I can say that the 5e goblin mechanics are a lot stronger than the halflings', but they're not really even in the same thematic zip code.