Why do Halflings get damage bonuses?

[TrippyHippy]

One thing that caught my eye with the new playtest, that may have been there before but I missed, was the notion that Halflings have special training with small weapons? So a dagger, normally at D4 damage, get's stepped up to a D6. A short sword, normally D6, gets stepped up to a D8.

Why!!!???

As far as I'm aware, Halflings from fantasy literature are hardly warlike people. Moreover, they are a diminuative race that only use daggers and short swords on the grounds that they are too small to use anything else. If anything, they should do less damage rather than have a step up. Unless we are saying that the entire race of Halflings have access to pint-sized Ninja training, then at the very least let them apply the same damage with weapons as everyone else.

On some related notes, is it possible to integrate the wepon list into clear grades of damage - d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12 - as standard categories?

Also, I still see that a Wizard get's to impart d4+1 ranged damage at will to anyone they want - without needing to worry about making a hit roll. Is this what people want?

 

[slobo777]

Both the halfling damage boost and the wizard at wills are attempts at mechanical balance between player character build choices. The "balance" here is to make more character concepts choice neutral when it comes to combat effectiveness.

In the case of the Wizard, I am not convinced the attempt works as intended.

Both can be justified with suitable fluff. For instance, 3E managed to grant a +1 to hit and +1 to AC for all Small creatures due to relative accuracy of blows and difficulty to hit them. A scale up of weapon damage dice is effectively the same thing, with less focus on it being difficult to hit them (they have to get closer to hit you anyway!), and has the added advantage that it can be pushed simply onto a range of weapons that the fiction supports nicely - i.e. stuff you could realistically imagine a Halfling weilding.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Well, 'balance' in this instance is a false goal if the effect is to make damage in combat inheritely illogical from the off.

 

[slobo777]

Well, 'balance' in this instance is a false goal if the effect is to make damage in combat inheritely illogical from the off.

There are plenty of us that see damage system as inherently illogical from 1E. But let's not re-open the hit points debate.

It's definitely highly abstract, and I have no problem with "character X is better at using weapon Y" translating into a either a bonus to hit or a damage boost completely arbitrarily.

However, it's fair to say the D&D generally follows the A-Team mentality on damage - bigger stuff has bigger effects (whilst no-one gets seriously hurt). So yes, it does go a little counter to D&D's norms to directly grant more damage due to something being smaller . . .

. . . but you could easily see the Halfling damage die increase as equivalent to a minor "sneak attack" effect due to getting more accuracy. I really don't see how that could be inconsistent or "bad-wrong"?

 

[Underman]

Halfling (and gnome) capabilities in melee is one of those glaringly silly elements of D&D that everyone always loved to gloss over.

I think this new mechanic only psychologically puts forgotten halfling-size deficiencies at the forefront again.

Imagining a small teenager or tall child with a knife; they could probably sneak in exactly one good surprise stab; mostly it's very easy to kick them away, overpower them, or fend them off with a longer weapon.

Halflings as PCs that engage in melee could just be imagined as "exotic" and excluded from gritty- or verisimilitude-oriented games.

 

[tlantl]

I have similar issues with the dwarf and elf increasing the die size for their favored weapons.

In reality the increase in die size only grants a one point increase in average damage output.

You could say that it replaces the races bonus to hit with those weapons since your attacks remain static for so long that a bonus to hit is way more powerful than a one point increase in average damage output.


My question is why can't an elven wizard use the long bow or long sword? These are traditional weapons used by all elves, at least until they decide to become wizards, that every elf learns to use as soon as they are old enough to pick them up.

(I realize this isn't true for AD&D but if the game is going to adopt these tropes then they should make sure they are consistent)

 

[TrippyHippy]

Actually reading through the entire Races document, it's apparent that the whole 'balance' issue is really just a euphemism for 'power-creep' again.

Why on earth is it necessary for each race to get so many traits? Weapon Training traits are unnecessary and stereotyping, and other traits overpowering too - all Dwarves are immiune to poison now? Hill Dwarves get 'mega' Hit Dice! And the final absurdity to balance all this is Humans all getting +1 to all Ability Scores and +2 to one of their choice!

So average Humans are, by default, going to be 'above average' in everything - all in the name of balance...? The whole thing is out of control. Get a grip!

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, what's up with this?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA"]Randy Newman - Short People - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Thac0 the Barbarian]

I would argue that there's really no such thing as power creep before an edition is defined Power creep could either be argued in relation to earlier in the edition, such as caused by splat books, or as having character that has significantly more power than similar characters in prior editions. But untill things like hit points, average damage, survivability, another traits are defined, there's nothing to compare creep against.

 

[slobo777]

So average Humans are, by default, going to be 'above average' in everything - all in the name of balance...? The whole thing is out of control. Get a grip!

I think that's a different topic to your OP.

I definitely wouldn't support the +1 to all, +2 to choice in the playtest material as either well-designed or balanced (in terms of race choices being equal). I'm surprised it passed through early stages of QA.

However, I'm fine with halflings being locked out of heavy weapons and in return getting more damage with what they are allowed, if that supports players wanting to play viable halfling warriors, without adding reams of special adjustments to "realistically" model size advantages and disadvantages. It's simplified, yes, but not IMO some travesty in game design. Each to their own though, I have never, ever, played a Halfling or Gnome character and have no desire to . . .