While true, remember that you and max are trying to
dismiss two different problems raised by two different posters through the use of plot armor. That dismssal just kept lurching into deeper extremes as the excuse poffered to dismiss one made the other a larger problem or turned halflings into something very much at odds with the god awful halfling culture in the phb.
No the precautions are far from reasonable & describe a culture extremely different from the one described in the phb. While that might result in an interesting culture to develop it is however a different topic
The two problems raised are
- @Chaosmancer brought up "what about monsters, bandits, & raiders" or something similar. He can correct me if that's grossly off the mark but I think it's close enough for page 48
- To this we got tales of how halflings avoid the use of roads & even paths while living far enough away from any of those that limiting themselves across uncleared terrain (can we say "forests") using nonrepeating routes through said forests to avoid making so much as a path that a skilled tracker such as a ranger could find or follow.
- @tetrasodium (myself) brought up the fact that the halfling monoculture described in the phb collapses in the presence of a more advanced culture spreading as the romans & monngols did through their respective areas. I gave links that went into the changes joining the roman empire brought to people not yet part of the roman empire such as roads, advanced construction, trade for exotic spices or other nonlocal products, the safety & expediency of roads subject to the occasional soldier patrol for safety, etc. Those benefits were large enough that villages would regularly go to a nearby roman linked city in attempt to join themselves into the roman empire to gain benefits. Preserving the halfling culture as described to keep FR's do nothing monocultures pure requires changing human nature so that nobody ever considers doing things like that even though it's happened in our history more than once in different parts of the world
- This was dismissed by suggesting that halflings don't have any interest in any of those benefits to the point where it was suggested that they don't even have an interest in things like exotic spices & nonlocal grain/produce because they are farmers in perfectly safe fertile land who grow & brew/distil everything they ever want to eat/drink.
Right off the bat people raising problems being dismissed noticed that the leaps into extremes being taken to dismiss the other problem raise a larger problem, turn halflings into omething bordering on
starfish aliens and make the other problem raised even more credible. Given that the silk road stretched from western europe to asia those halflings would need to live an extreme distance from everyone else to meet the distance needed for the attempted dismissial & FR is just too cluttered for that making a couple days through wilderness at least a plausible distance for a single trained & skilled scout to have trouble finding. You & max aren't suggesting a different "reasonable" distance from roads because then it would be laughable for the bandit/raider/orc** ranger chaos brought up to find their village.
All of the shunning of the benefits from things like roads & trade again links back to the dismissal excuse needing to dismiss that bandit**
and maintain the cultural stasis of isolated monocultures so it too leads to downright bizarre extremes where they grow/brew/distil everything in an incredibly bountiful area of land without needing to trade. The distances created o dismiss Chaos's problem bring up the problem of such an area existing. We know what happens when such a bountiful pristine area filled with people who have no real concept of organized self defense from other human/humanoids due to having everything they need right there in large enough quantities to avoid any need of fighting over it is discovered by a more advanced civilization. That did not go well for the people living in north & south america when the similarly bountiful new world was discovered by the Europeans.
On the idea that the presence of monsters & bandits makes FR into some ultra deadly death world we can look at our own history for reasonable analogs such as
wolves,
brown/
black/
grizzly bears, & in some regions things like the
tiger. Those threats range from cr1/4 to cr2 with bandits ranging from cr1/8 to cr2 giving a good range of monsters that could reasonably exist in settled areas that include
- many slimes & oozes
- various undead such as zombies skeletons & ghoul/ghast
- even a few monstrosities like hellhounds, winterwolves, & a few of the beefier humanoid types like goblinoids orcs, & so on resting right on the cusp as an alternative to rabid wolves/bears & trained soldiers turned bandit
In our world those threats were significant enough that communities would band together & do things like occasionally patrol roads forests to case off & kill predators or make banditry dangerous enough to allow merchants the ability to travel roads with reasonable expectations of arriving without the need of too many guards. Those traveling merchants liked to stick to roads despite the risk because it allowed them to carry enough goods in a cart or wagon to be worth the trip & made stumbling into a bear/wolf/tiger/etc den with an overprotective mother while lost less likely if they were traveling through untamed wilderness.
- or is that putting words in someone's mouth? would jungles be better? what?
- I'm just gonna call them & their ranger a bandit from this point on to save on words.
