Reimagining the Hobbit

[Dragonhelm]

Okay, so on the other thread about how we like our halflings, the poll results thus far point to hobbits being in the lead with the 3.5 halfling at 3rd.

With that in mind, it occurs to me that people may want to play a hobbit, but to do so in the atmosphere of the current era of D&D, and not just in terms of how they are viewed in old school games (and nothing wrong with old school).

So if you wanted to replace the 3.5 halfling with a modernized hobbit, how would you do it? What would you change and what would remain the same? Would you use the D&D PHB stats, or would you come up with something new?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would come up with new stats. The current stats are a weird hybrid intended to please folks who all want to play wildly differing sorts of "halflings."

 

[Dragonhelm]

Leave it to our own Klaus to have just the thing I was looking for!

Here's a male halfling...

And here's a female halfling...

I really like the pic of the male halfling myself. You look at him, and a lot of the classic elements are there. Now he doesn't have the hairy feet, but you could add those back in.

Okay, so this is progress.

So that's the look I'm going for. What other things would you add in, both culturally and mechanically?

 

[Sketchpad]

-1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con
Small
Hunger: Hobbits are always hungry, often having several meals in a day. If they go without food for a day, they begin to fatigue. Make a Fort Save (DC 15) every hour afterwards for the halfling to move on without food.
Padded Feet: +2 to Move Silently and may travel over rough terrain barefoot without ill effect.

 

[Ilium]

Halflings in my game are quite Hobbit-like, but instead of a bucolic English flavor, they're cosmopolitan-Roman. They still like comfort and home, but that home is likely to be a villa with a sunny courtyard and olive trees out back. They're homebodies, but love to hear about and meet people from far-off lands so they can say, "My! that sounds exciting. Pass the grapes."

 

[The Lost Muse]

Tolkien himself has 3 varieties of hobbit, which I believe are detailed in the Appendix to the Lord of the Ring, volume I.

 

[lukelightning]

-1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con

You do know, of course, that odd-numbered stat modifiers (e.g. +1) are not a good idea, right?

 

[mmu1]

-1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con
Small
Hunger: Hobbits are always hungry, often having several meals in a day. If they go without food for a day, they begin to fatigue. Make a Fort Save (DC 15) every hour afterwards for the halfling to move on without food.
Padded Feet: +2 to Move Silently and may travel over rough terrain barefoot without ill effect.

Hobbits like their six meals a day - when they can get them - but if the Hobbit and the LotR are anything to go by, they do just fine when forced to ration food - as well as, if not better, than full-sized humans, though of course not as well as the almost supernaturally tough Elves, Dwarves, and Numenoreans...

 

[mmu1]

I'm assuming the idea is to make them a viable D&D race, not to try to really reflect how they appear in the books, right? (because then, we'd need to talk about something like -4 str, -4 con at the least)

The current ability adjustments are fine - mostly, I'd tinker with their racial abilities. The ability to Hide in Plain Sight in natural environments wouldn't be out of place. Neither would be something allowing to either use their Wisdom score in place of Ref and Con for save modifiers, or added in as a bonus (though I think that'd be too much), to reflect their ability to deal with hardship purely through being "of sterner stuff" than they might appear. And definitely a bonus to Will saves vs. Fear, Compulsion and Enchantment.

 

[freyar]

I'm assuming the idea is to make them a viable D&D race, not to try to really reflect how they appear in the books, right? (because then, we'd need to talk about something like -4 str, -4 con at the least)

I actually think Tolkien would give a positive Con modifier to hobbits. They constantly handle physical adversity much better than the "big people," at least according to Gandalf and the elves.