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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8695589" data-attributes="member: 6801228">So, continuing to fight despite fear isn't bravery. Only charging forward is bravery. You can't ignore fear if you are frightened, because acting in spite of fear isn't ignoring it. Still being under the condition of fear isn't still being afraid, because the condition isn't doing anything. Just like you aren't charmed anymore if the creature that charmed you isn't in the room making charisma checks at you, right? You just have to narrow it down so that only a single course of action is bravery, just because of halflings. And yet people are baffled why I think halflings being shoved into this "we are braver" space is bad for the narrative of the game. This sort of twisting of a concept as fundamental as bravery is just wrong, on top of the fact that is makes no sense. So, you have an involuntary physical response. Something you can't control. Then, after a few moments, maybe about 6 to 12 seconds after that response, you can act in spite of the fear. I wonder if you could represent that as taking a turn or two and making a wisdom saving throw. You know, like the game already does.Flat negatives aren't great as a design space, they end up stacking too much. Better to limit them when you can. I made the name as a bit of a pun, "unshakeable" because they do not shake when frightened. Personally, I think the idea of X times per day is leaning into it being a magical ability, so I don't like that. You could give them straight immunity, but the problem I have with that is that roleplaying a truly "fearless" individual is not only an incredible challenge as a player, but it encourages behavior which would be massively detrimental to the group as a whole. You could see that in some of the references to Kender, where being without fear made them charge into danger, which caused problems for the other party members. Personally, if you must absolutely be able to move forward, I'd say ignore the disadvantage and treat moving toward the source of the frightened condition as difficult terrain. But while I know some people see the "not being able to advance" as the "best" part of fear, that is usually in response to spells which casters use to protect themselves, it doesn't matter as much for melee, the disadvantage is the toothier part of the ability in general.So, depictions of halfling luck written by people for a DnD setting, shouldn't inform how we think about halfling luck in a DnD setting? Because I'm not saying one medium is the same as the other, and while people are obsessing over dragons being immune to falling spikes, they are ignoring the part that actually matters. Let's say the dragon had 50 hp left. That's enough that a critical from a thrown boulder can kill it. Then people can be happy that a rock killed a dragon. Now, what happened? The halfling finds a gemstone while circling the fight. The halfling ignores the fight, and goes for the gemstone. The halfling pries free the gemstone, only to fall off the statue and hit an stalactite. This stalactite then falls and kills the dragon, that the halfling was unaware of, right before it killed the human fighter. This is not uncommon in the trope of the small, lucky person. Knocking out or defeating a powerful enemy that they were not aware of by accident is a very common outcome. The monster is about to stab the helpless main character, the lucky sidekick opens a door and smashes the monster in the face, being completely unaware of what is happening, allowing everyone to escape. This happens again and again and again. This is the trope halfling luck is pulling on in the narrative. This is not something that happens in the game at the table, and it isn't something we would WANT to happen at the table. No mechanical ability that allowed the halfling to immediately interrupt and/or defeat an enemy with 50 or less hp by accident would be acceptable to anyone. This isn't about how comics and books are different than the game, this is about how the tropes and narratives are presented and how they are integrated into the game. He did for a while, burnt through the entire feat in a single combat. Started thinking it really wasn't worth it since he still failed every time he used lucky. Can we be done judging my friend about how he should build characters? I guarantee that after Seven years of thinking about and struggling with it, he's thought about it more than you have from your armchair. If I was talking about adding those numbers together, you would be correct. But I wasn't. So you aren't correct, you are misunderstanding my post. Yes, the average player will get 21 more often than note. But, statistically, someone has rolled 2/3/4/1/5/6 on 6d6. This means that, statistically, someone has rolled 1/1/1/1/1/1 on 6d6. Expand this out, over the course of someone's life, they will roll a distinct and unique set of numbers on all dice. That set of numbers is 100% unique to them, and statistically, someone's set of numbers will have more low numbers than other peoples. Trying to dismiss someone's set of numbers because "luck isn't real" ignores that someone, somewhere, at some time, has to be the person who is at the bottom end of the bell curve. Otherwise it wouldn't be a bell curve, it would be a straight line.  But again, if you are playing a race whose supposed to be uniquely tall, and everyone else is tall, then you aren't uniquely tall. No one is going to comment on your character being tall, because everyone in the party is tall. You won't need special treatment for being tall, because everyone will need that treatment for being tall. Halflings as a race could possibly be braver in an objective sense, but once they are in a party full of people who are incredibly brave... then it is kind of not worth mentioning, because they aren't braver than everyone else in a way that makes them notable. You get told of the terrifying monster of the woods, and you shouting "I'm not scared" doesn't matter, because no one else is scared either. You aren't braver in the narrative, because you cannot possibly be braver in the narrative. Which means it is kind of a waste to say that you are.</blockquote>

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