D&D 5E The Fate of the Smol

[Hussar]

That’s the problem though. You can absolutely have your weaker halflings. That’s 100% supported by the rules.

But I can’t have my strong halflings? Why not?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That’s the problem though. You can absolutely have your weaker halflings. That’s 100% supported by the rules.

But I can’t have my strong halflings? Why not?

If you don't want the species to impact the rules, I don't understand why you would need dedicated species rules at all. Why not just use rules of goliath and refluff it as halfling?

 

[Alzrius]

That’s the problem though. You can absolutely have your weaker halflings. That’s 100% supported by the rules.

But I can’t have my strong halflings? Why not?

Because the entire point of rules is to enforce limitations, i.e. things you can't do, and some of those limitations are going to go toward supporting a sense of verisimilitude insofar as making choices appear to have meaningful impacts.

If you want to have a "halfling titan" who regularly beats goliath bodybuilders in arm-wrestling contests, there's nothing narratively wrong with that idea. But as it stands in D&D 5E, if we take it as a truism that a goliath bodybuilder will have a Strength of 20, then that means the best your halfling can do will be to beat them 50% of the time, since even if they also have a Strength of 20, that's the maximum Strength they can have under the rules (and even then, the goliath's powerful build feature will mean that they outclass your halfling in terms of lifting and carrying).

The simple truth of the matter is that no RPG supports all character ideas, nor do they attempt to, and the further you push past the intended goals of the system the more you'll find that your character idea doesn't fit the game very well. If you love superheroes, for instance, your attempts to play The Flash in your D&D 5E game won't be very satisfying. Neither will playing Goku if you're a fan of shonen manga.

It's the difference between the ideas of "you can be whatever you want" and "you can attempt to do anything." The latter is the RPG credo that I'm familiar with, but more and more people seem to want it to be the former, and chafe at finding out that it's not as expansive as they thought.

 

[James Gasik]

Don't Goliaths have Powerful Build? So they'll always be able to lift more than a Halfling of equal Strength?

 

[DEFCON 1]

What is "true" verisimilitude? Verisimilitude is simply the appearance of realism without necessarily being realistic which is generally what I'm looking for in a game like D&D.

So you're okay with halflings overpowering goliaths on the occasional strength endeavor, so long as on the character sheet it is written down that the halfling has lower strength?

Yeah... I don't see why anyone in design would ever see that as doing much of anything. "The number is lower, so it gives the appearance of halflings having much worse strength... even though there are going to be plenty of times where that is patently false."

That appears to me to be absolutely pointless, and I can certainly understand why the designers wouldn't go out of the way to put in those kind of restrictions onto the races if they don't actually accomplish what they are meant to do.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So you're okay with halflings overpowering goliaths on the occasional strength endeavor, so long as on the character sheet it is written down that the halfling has lower strength?

Yeah... I don't see why anyone in design would ever see that as doing much of anything. "The number is lower, so it gives the appearance of halflings having much worse strength... even though there are going to be plenty of times where that is patently false."

That appears to me to be absolutely pointless, and I can certainly understand why the designers wouldn't go out of the way to put in those kind of restrictions onto the races if they don't actually accomplish what they are meant to do.

If it is pointless, why we have different bonuses for different characters and creatures at all? Why wizard has a higher int bonus than the barbarian, why giant has a higher strength bonus than an orc? If these differences in ability modifier are pointless and do not represent anything, why they exist? Get rid of them. You can replace them with proficiency bonus, if you don't want to completely redo the game maths and it would be close enough.

 

[le Redoutable]

they have not the same Str, but Halflings may do Aimed attacks doing the work of a Find Weakness ( so damage increase ) ( if you catch up ! )

 

[DEFCON 1]

If you don't want the species to impact the rules, I don't understand why you would need dedicated species rules at all. Why not just use rules of goliath and refluff it as halfling?

We don't need them. You are absolutely correct. The Race section of the book could write down and give us all the fluff of what these races are, and have no mechanical benefits or changes to them whatsoever.

But the designers don't want to do that. They want to give very minor mechanical benefits and changes to each of them. Now if you think those changes are too minor... that mechanically they each look too similar to each other... that's your right and your opinion. But hey... at least there's SOME difference for you... as we said, they could have given us no mechanical differentiation at all.

So the question for you is... are you an "all or nothing" person in this situation? You either want major changes and differences between races, or else don't bother with any at all and have it be purely flavor? That's certainly an option WotC could go with. They just choose not to.

 

[le Redoutable]

We don't need them. You are absolutely correct. The Race section of the book could write down and give us all the fluff of what these races are, and have no mechanical benefits or changes to them whatsoever.

But they don't want to do that. They want to give very minor mechanical benefits and changes to each of them. Now if you think those changes are too minor... that mechanically they each look too similar to each other... that's your right and your opinion. But hey... at least there's SOME difference for you... as we said, they could have given us no mechanical differentiation at all.

like in Warhammer 1st Ed where all weapons did 1d6 dmg

 

[DEFCON 1]

like in Warhammer 1st Ed where all weapons did 1d6 dmg

Heh... even in olden-days D&D all weapons did the same amount of damage.

I mean it's not like the minor mechanical difference in weapon damage between all the weapons on the chart has any sort of basis in reality either. Getting thwacked by a ball-peen hammer is only a couple die sizes (and HP of damage) less than taking a crossbow bolt to the face (and don't even get us started on the damage from firearms). And yet we all seem relatively okay with that travesty of reality and don't make a big deal about it (except for the few who can't stand Rogue characters getting to make d8 damage attacks via the rapier instead of just d6s.)

Everyone has their own hill to die on regarding which rules in the game need to have more or less "reality" to them to make them happy. And no one will ever agree. And that's why I've just washed my hands of the entire endeavor-- the board game rules are the board game rules and do not and will not ever be a good representation of what is actually going on. So to get out of shape over them is just a waste of my time.