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

[TBeholder]

Because realistically, y'know, places trade with one another, cultures clash and merge.

From trade? Not a whole lot.

"This is just the village of only halflings" is not a thing that would happen often.

One word: ceilings.

 

[Chaosmancer]

100% wrong. Saying that luck makes them invisible to orcs is 100% a Strawman.

The lore says that you need to get lucky to find their villages and sometimes not even then. That's written in Mordenkainen's and there is no speculation involved.

See, this right here is what bothers me about this explanation.

Why do you need to get lucky to find a halfling village? They have large farms and orchards, those are fairly easy to find in a wilderness. They trade with other races, so there will be roads that wagons can travel down. They have fires, so you literally just have to walk towards the smoke.

Reading the lore in Mordenkainen's it says that you "might not notice the narrow path that cuts through the underbrush" but two enemies that might go after a halfling village are Ogres and Orcs. They don't care about following a path through the underbrush, they'll just rip and tear through the underbrush. And if you have a path that narrow that you can be following the main road and just walk right past it, then how do they take any of their produce anywhere? They just don't trade with anyone? They don't have any contact with the other races?

It makes no sense.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why do you need to get lucky to find a halfling village?

Magic.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Human commoners get 10's. Halflings have a racial +2. As for variant humans, they get 2 +1's, and 10+1=11, not 12. Second, humans get +s in all 6 stats with no one stat having dominance, that means that your commoners, even if you give them magical 12's, will still only have a 2 in 6 chance of having a 12 in an ability that gives a bonus to a weapon. 2/3 of the humans won't get that bonus to hit.

Adding the racial modifiers is an option, not a standard. We've had this discussion before, I don't expect you to listen to it this time either, but I like to dot my i's.

Sure, 2/3's might not, but the ones using the bows would likely be the ones with the higher dex, and the ones with the strength would be the ones using strength weapons. The entire point was simply to show that this insistance that Halfling luck would mean they hit far more often and crit far more often is a load of BS. Their Dex mod has done literally 20 times the work of the Lucky feature in ensuring accuracy.

First, were we're talking about goblins and they have a 15 AC. Second, a 16 is still a 30% chance to hit, not 25%. How am I supposed to know that you suddenly stopped talking about the Goblins that raid Halflings and just picked a random number out of your behind?

Because I've never been talking exclusively about goblins? I've talked about goblins as part of talking about common threats but I've also talked about ogres, hill giants and orcs. Who all have different ACs.

Also, you were supposed to know I was talking about that number when I literally said "So, if humans needed to roll a 16 to hit the enemy (because 10 in stat and no proficiency)". I didn't say "to hit a goblin" and I said "if". I was literally just demonstrating math.

And finally, it is only 30% if you include the +2 Dex, which is an option not a guarantee. It is also actually 31.5% if we include the Lucky feature, which was your entire argument. The feature you cared about was Lucky, and yet you keep ignoring it in your examples. Almost as though I was right, and it really does not cause the massive change you claimed it did. Since, you know, you don't seem to care about it any more and I need to keep correcting your numbers.

You aren't cheating by using variant humans. They just don't get any better to hit than normal humans when you are starting with 10's.

Except they do. Maybe only 1/3 of them, but +1 from the stat and then+1 from the feat gives them a 12 Dex.

Hell, even if you ignore that just getting proficiency alone is a +2 which is double what the the Halflings got from their 12 Dex. Making them more accurate.


Edit: Also, I like how you completely ignore the math showing how even without the 12 dex and prof, the humans are doing far more damage.

And you ignore the range problem

and you ignore the assertion that 400 attacks a round make no sense

and you ignore the weapons issue, still insisting on slings when that isn't what Mordenkainen's says they use. Which again, they say they throw rocks and hit them with sticks. Both of which are strength, not Dex.


Lot of ignoring the points the more I look at it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Magic.

What magic? Who is casting the spell? Since when do halflings have the ability to use illusion magic to protect their homes, that's a gnome thing?

The possibility we are given is that halflings are just so sweet and wholesome and unambitious that the world has bent to protect them. Or that their goddess as has bent the world to protect them.

So why doesn't that work for children of other races? Why doesn't that work for pregnant mothers of other races? Why haven't the gods of other races bent the world to protect their people too? Why don't the evil gods unbend the world?

It is simply poorly explained.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What magic? Who is casting the spell? Since when do halflings have the ability to use illusion magic to protect their homes, that's a gnome thing?

The sort of magic that doesn't involve spells, and wizards like Mordenkainen don't understand.

The possibility we are given is that halflings are just so sweet and wholesome and unambitious that the world has bent to protect them. Or that their goddess as has bent the world to protect them.

So why doesn't that work for children of other races? Why doesn't that work for pregnant mothers of other races?

Because they aren't halflings.

Why haven't the gods of other races bent the world to protect their people too? Why don't the evil gods unbend the world?

Because they can't, because they are not halflings.

It is simply poorly explained.

If you can explain it it aint magic.

 

[Minigiant]

That's the thing.

I have no problem with villages of people the size of grade schoolers with no army, no wizards, no nobility, no wealth, no political power, but tons of food. Just explain it.

And the reluctance of D&D to openly and overtly explain it hints that the design teams either want something but are afraid to make it concrete due to potential backlash OR they don't want to put halflings at that level of importance but did so out of obligation.

And if you have a race that issues making sense, it becomes harder to make PCs from their lands. This is because you have no frame of reference of what is normal and thus have no frame of reference to subvert tropes from.

This is why many video games ditch halflings. Because unlike a TTRPG, they have to attempt to make sense of a race as they typically provide racial, history, and location lore.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

"Why these folk are written as industrious, cheerful, fond of food and drink, and pleasant natured towards other races? There's no conceivable way they could live in harmony with other races! Why aren't I hearing about their wars of aggression?"

 

[Minigiant]

"Why these folk are written as industrious, cheerful, fond of food and drink, and pleasant natured towards other races? There's no conceivable way they could live in harmony with other races! Why aren't I hearing about their wars of aggression?"

No it's "Why haven't the 6ft green people eaten all the 3ft foodie people?. Do the foodie people have warriors and spellcasters? I wanna make a PC based on one. What! They don't exist!"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is why many video games ditch halflings.

Which video games ditch halflings?

Montaron (Baldur's Gate)

Alora (Baldur's Gate)

Mazzy Fenton (Baldur's Gate II)

Planescape: Torment has no halflings, but then it has no elves or dwarves either.