D&D General why do we have halflings and gnomes?

[Maxperson]

Wouldn't that seem like one of those ridiculous balance related rules that you normally dispense with?

Yes and I do

My house rules don't really belong in this kind of discussion, though.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Yes and I do

My house rules don't really belong in this kind of discussion, though.

Fair enough

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No.

But saying that you can grow a tropical plant in central California doesn't mean that they can grow anywhere. You need a similar enough environment, and most of the focus of DnD campagins take place is psuedo-Europe, with a european climate.

Which isn't Californian or tropical.

Do they, though? I’m pretty sure they don’t. Because I’ve never seen a D&D world not have taters and tomatoes and tobacco and other new world produce, or lack easy access to pepper, or really show any sign that the climate and flora ecology of the game world is actually European.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They did originally. Keep insisting on very precise terms of that trade too. Only small amounts. No more than once a month. Multiple tracks that are nearly impossible to find. ect.

No, they didn’t.

If you can walk one day to the west and visit your neighbor, why can't they walk one day to the east to visit you?

Excepting for these invisible paths through some terrain that is completely impassable if you aren't a halfling, if you've made a road from one village to the other, so that people can travel from one village to the other, then people who can find one village, can find the other.

Again, don’t care, not in reference to anything I actually said.

In the deep country? No.

Pretty easy to spot farms near me though. They tend to be a bit obvious.

Visit central California, especially the foothills around Bakersfield, or Eastern Washington, or any number of other places where the farmland ain’t flat.

 

[Mecheon]

"Forest gnomes and deep gnomes owe their innate magical abilities to Baravar, and all gnomes get their natural defense against magic from her shrewdness."

It's not natural. It was granted to them by a god. They then took that and developed it into stronger illusions to hide their villages.

Doesn't show up in the 5E notes I'm finding, those comments. Where's that sourced?

Either way, that's boring and dull. They're fey descendent, just let fey descendent beings be magical naturally. Mind, I've my longstanding dislike to how D&D handles gods in general.

 

[Maxperson]

Doesn't show up in the 5E notes I'm finding, those comments. Where's that sourced?

Either way, that's boring and dull. They're fey descendent, just let fey descendent beings be magical naturally. Mind, I've my longstanding dislike to how D&D handles gods in general.

It's in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes in the section that talks about Baravar.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They are half the size of humans, had strength penalties in most editions, and don't have magic/psionic/tech powers to make up for it. All the other small magicless folk in D&D live terrible lives.

Halflings haven't been magicless in any edition since OSR. Even with the racial restriction's of 1st edition halflings could be clerics.

 

[Oofta]

I'm sorry, what do wood carvings or scrimshaw have to do with the glass in the windows in the depiction halfling houses? Do you think that carving bone is somehow going to make glass windows?

Thanks for reminding me why it's pointless to bother responding to you. The original post was about goods that halflings might sell. One example was delicate glass figurines (or other finely wrought goods like lacework).

Once again that gets twisted into something completely different.

Why do pictures of most fantasy buildings for all races have glass windows? Even if true it's because most people today don't know how rare plate glass was.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So, we can extrapolate all kinds of powerful magic from minor kinda related magic, but we can’t extrapolate...stealth from...also stealth?

Seriously?

The write-ups of gnomes specifically reference their use of illusion magic to hide and protect their homes, and their working with good-aligned fey to the same end.

The write-ups of dwarves specifically calls out their martial traditions and their piety.

The write-up of elves specifically calls out their martial tradition with sword and bow, and their magic tradition.

The halfling tradition...says that they are farmers that love good cheer, good food and fine comforts.

And also, what the write-up says is that halflings “avoid notice”. Fair enough, they avoid trouble in the first place, they are good at scurrying out of the way if it looks like a fight will start, they are even naturally stealthy and good at concealing themselves behind larger creatures.

Concluding that they are good at hiding their entire community IS a pretty big extrapolation from what is described, especially since gnomes who DO hide their entire community are specifically described as doing so.

So why is it that gnomes have such a better write-up than halflings?

 

[FrozenNorth]

If halflings towns are secretly all Villages Hidden in the Leaves, then I at least want to see some more official art of halflings Naruto running.

If halflings are all Villages Hidden in the Leaves, then aren’t they gnomes?