D&D 4E Reinvisioning the Halfling for 4E

[variant]

I liked 3e halflings. :\

 

[Wormwood]

A glance around the average gaming table would see most of those are spot-on.

Flawless Victory

 

[Traycor]

As in "The artists are still putting finishing touches on the work." That's quite a bit different from "Let's start over from scratch on the racial conception." The run up time on that is way too long.

Actually the question regarding the art was what had been decided about iconics. The answer was "we haven't even decided yet".

That's not finishing touches. That means they haven't even decided what art they are going to use for most of the books yet. Typesetting can be done with placeholders for the art space.

There is still very much time to change the art direction of halflings if they haven't even decided what art to use yet.

I hope that's sarcasm. "Pirate" is a profession/culture, not a race. Get those confused and I'm sure Whizbang can straighten you out on the differences, given the issues he has with the Halflings in one of the 3E splats.

Yes, pirates are a profession/culture, and part of defining races is defining the culture. Halflings have already been portrayed to have a boating culture. Drawing some of the halflings as pirates would not change anything that has already been written about the halflings, and it wold go a long way towards making the halflings look cool and fun to play. Currently they just don't "look" compelling to play and that needs to change.

That's also what I like about the "swamp rat" look that I suggested. Halflings have already had their culture described as such, but they don't look that way in the art.

Nothing about how the halflings have been drawn defines their culture or their "cool factor". That's what I'm hoping to get at.

 

[~Johnny~]

I think Traycor's ideas are very sound, and exactly what I hope to implement in my own games. Curly hair, worn ostentatiously, is a simple and effective art direction idea. Large heads and other features to show scale are also a very good idea. And the "pirate-y" look, with bandanas and such, is brilliant as long as it's not taken too literally (as some people are taking it in this thread).

The "aye-aye"-inspired look is a fun idea and good art, but a little too far from human to jive with my concept of halflings. At some level, halflings should look a little like human kids -- the idea of plucky, optimistic, fearless little warriors has always been based on archetypes of the child hero.

 

[exile]

In a campaign world that I am cooking up, halflings (which still look a lot like Tolkein's hobbits) are descended from a group of rogue human wizards bent on world conquest. When their attempts were thwarted, the wizards were stripped of their ability to use arcane magic, transformed into teh humble form of the hobbit, and used as a servant race for more responsible wizards.

As for the standard 4E halflings, I'm all for bare feet; it makes perfect sense to me that a river people would often be barefoot. I kinda even dig the monkey-foot vibe mentioned above; it would certainly be ideal for climbing in rigging and what not.

Chad

 

[Wightbred]

I liked the R&C art generally, but I agree that the halflings were uninspiring.

My feeling is that the halfling will only be seen as an interesting option for my players if they didn't seem to be smaller, weaker versions of humans. IMO being too much like humans makes them uninteresting to play and seeming smaller and weaker is not a good way to entice players in.

Sticking somewhat within the guidelines of the OP, I'm thinking that in 4e:
1) I'll make halflings look radically different. In my case I'm thinking of a toned down version the Quickling pictures Traycor posted on another thread. I think this has a very good "river rat" feel and it will tempt my players.
2) I'll make them better than humans at something the players value: in my case speed. I'm intending to give halflings a slighly faster than human speed. Then my players will have a real choice with a smaller but faster race.

I know what I'm doing isn't really like any "halfling" we've seen before, but frankly I think this is what is needed to make them a viable race for my players, and I suspect the same is true for many other groups.

Edit: missing word

 

[Hussar]

Great Lemur - I love those pics. That's a great idea for halflings. At least they're very, very distinctive.

Hrm, make halflings a more erm furry race?

 

[hamishspence]

Pirate Halflings

World And Monsters talks of a culture of corsair halflings, based on a fog shrouded isle close to a major seaport. So, yes, they are already doing a pirate theme. Arrr!

Chances are the "Riverfolk" theme will be the main culture though. I actually thought is was going back to some Tolkien archetypes: the Stoors, halflings based around riverbanks who fish a lot. Gollum was of that type of Halfling culture. Fissssh.

3rd ed gave us the wandering halflings (Races and Classes made them caravenners)
3.5 ed Realms gave us a way for stay-at-home halflings to exhibit that trait in Luiren, by moving house regularly.

Now 4th ed has combined Wanderers with Waterfolk, and given them swampy homelands to travel from. It is an interesting theme. Swamp gives them a reason for waterproof boots and not wading barefoot: nasty diseases. It does avoid the issue of them not wanting to wear magic boots, now they do not go barefoot.

I wonder if some other races will be re-invented?

 

[Traycor]

World And Monsters talks of a culture of corsair halflings, based on a fog shrouded isle close to a major seaport. So, yes, they are already doing a pirate theme. Arrr!

Yes! Now let's hope that theme makes it into some of the artwork in the PHB1.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Someone over on rpg.net brought up the perfect fit for 4E halfling...