Why are they making demi-humans taller?

Klaus · Dec 17, 2007

double post--

Klaus · Dec 17, 2007

AllisterH said:
Wait.

Elves are only 5' tall on average? geez, I've never played an elf that short.

If you go by the official descriptions so far:

Firevalkyrie · Dec 17, 2007

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
In the case of halflings, a three foot tall human child can't even hold a pencil with one hand. (Well, that's what one developer said, back before 4e was announced.)

It was, I believe, Dave Noonan who said that one day he realized that his 3 foot, 30 pound, 2 and a half year old daughter was the same size as a fully grown adult halfling and that was when he realized how ridiculous the stated size of a halfling was.

Did any of the original designers of D&D have children at the time? I know Gary Gygax had kids later.

Traycor · Dec 17, 2007

WotC_Miko said:
What's a demi-human?

Halflings are still Small, btw.

Interesting. So Halflings will still be small, and all those "size medium, size small" rules will need to be in the PHB because of just that one race. I'm hoping that the size distinction requires less game time mucking out the details in this edition.

Clavis · Dec 17, 2007

Firevalkyrie said:
It was, I believe, Dave Noonan who said that one day he realized that his 3 foot, 30 pound, 2 and a half year old daughter was the same size as a fully grown adult halfling and that was when he realized how ridiculous the stated size of a halfling was.

Did any of the original designers of D&D have children at the time? I know Gary Gygax had kids later.

Halflings were not supposed to have the same proportions as humans, so the comparison to children is not entirely apt. Apparently somebody on the 3rd edition design team couldn't stand the idea of pudgy halflings with somewhat oversized heads, and decided that they needed to give them human proportion while making elves into fugly bug-eyed aliens.

One of the points of playing a halfling was that you weren't always a potent melee threat, so you used stealth and trickery. They were a rewarding challenge to play. Challenging the player appears to be antithetical to the 4th edition design philosophy, however.

MisterWhodat · Dec 17, 2007

Clavis said:
Halflings were not supposed to have the same proportions as humans, so the comparison to children is not entirely apt. Apparently somebody on the 3rd edition design team couldn't stand the idea of pudgy halflings with somewhat oversized heads, and decided that they needed to give them human proportion while making elves into fugly bug-eyed aliens.

One of the points of playing a halfling was that you weren't always a potent melee threat, so you used stealth and trickery. They were a rewarding challenge to play. Challenging the player appears to be antithetical to the 4th edition design philosophy, however.

I agree with the above, and just to add a bit...it is a fantasy game. An adult Halfling with a 16 strength would rule you in a fight, 3 foot tall or 4. I saw a midget in a bar fight once, and he couldn't have been over 3 and a half feet tall, and he whipped two guys asses, although one was pretty drunk it was still a rowdy fight. He used his size to his advantage and had both guys on the floor quick (as a side note he probably couldn't have done this in 4E with no trip attack) and pounded them. Now this guy was one of those proportionate LP's and not dwarfish at all.

My point was just suspend belief for a bit, and isn't it kind of cool that we can even get on here and argue about the height differences of creatures that don't exist?

Carnivorous_Bean · Dec 17, 2007

Novem5er said:
A human 3 year-old is already more than 3' tall (on average). If Halflings are 3' tall, but proportionate to an adult, they would look like a 3 year old with smaller heads, shorter torsos, and longer legs. What's the strength score of a human 3 year old? 2.... 3 max?

But not too many human three-year-olds have testosterone. If you blew a 3-year-old up to 6 feet tall, they'd be a lot weaker than a 6-foot-tall 30-year-old. A LOT weaker. They aren't made to do heavy physical work yet, or fight, because they're not supposed to.

I agree that a 3-foot-tall adult would be a lot weaker than a 6 foot tall one, but they'd be a heck of a lot stronger than the kid of another species who's that tall at a certain age.

kennew142 · Dec 17, 2007

WotC_Miko said:
What's a demi-human?

Halflings are still Small, btw.

Oh well, looks like I will be writing them out of my homebrew again (just like 90% of all homebrews I've run since 1980).

Carnivorous_Bean · Dec 17, 2007

It's also worth remembering that in the basic source for Halflings -- that is, the Lord of the Rings -- the halflings are not killing machines. Two of their noteworthy blows in the story -- against the troll that struck down Beregond, and against the Witch-King of Angmar -- were delivered by surprise, using enchanted weapons. Another one -- Sam's against Shelob -- used another enchanted weapon and the spider's own mass to damage her. The only one-on-one, toe-to-toe kill was Sam's near Balin's tomb in Moria, where he killed an orc with "a sturdy thrust of his barrow-blade" -- and orcs, in the Lord of the Rings books, are pretty small. After all, the hobbits were able to pretend to be orcs by putting on their helmets.

So, unless a character's worth is going to be measured in how many bodies they can pile up, a small character is still viable if the story admits of something beyond "omgzzz kill kill killllll."

Furthermore, I believe this was the whole thing with the halfling's racial advantages with bows and roguery -- if you're small, it makes sense that you get overlooked by larger creatures, can fit into more places, etc. (rogue) and are better in combat if you keep your distance and fill the opponent with arrows (archery), the tactic used by the halflings in the Scouring of the Shire.

And Tolkien's halflings were a bit more than 3 feet, IIRC, though I would need to check on his addenda.

And finally, if you make halflings medium, what the heck is the point of playing one? Just say "I'm playing a human, and he's exceptionally short."