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

[Chaosmancer]

LOL Proficiency =/= proficiencies. You said proficiency, which has a very specific game meaning related to level. You really need to be clear with your terms.

So the utterly ludicrous commoners you have who are commoners, yet weapon masters, have proficiency with long bow. So what. Halflings can use simple weapons like slings and short bows just the same.

I used the same term, referencing the same mechanics that I mentioned before. If you aren't paying enough attention to follow along when I literally state the conditions, then it isn't my fault you get confused.

Oh, unless you are referencing the Proficiency Bonus. Which, in that case, means you just don't understand the rules. Because anything with a CR 0 get a +2 Proficiency Bonus, as listed the MM on page 8. Farmers and other commoners would be a CR 0, after all spiders and bats are CR 0. So, they would have that bonus, since it isn't always tied to Level.

Halflings are not proficient with simple weapons. So, I don't know what difference that would make at all.

Making all commoners weapon masters is absurd.

Why? Variant humans get feats. Weapon Master is a Feat. Ergo Variant Humans can get the feat.

And entire group of people having weapon proficiencies isn't absurd, seeing as how Elves and Dwarves both do it.

And, even if it was absurd, even if I give you that... I did an entire seperate set of math with Basic Humans, who had a +0, who still outperformed the halflings. So even if it is absurd, the point that Lucky makes halflings more dangerous was still disproven.

So what. It's irrelevant that tactics practiced in honor of their goddess is mentioned. They still have other weapons and adventurers to kill invaders with.

It goes against nothing. Nothing there says only sticks and stones to break your bones.

So, you don't like the lore, so you will ignore it. It doesn't make sense to you, so it must be irrelevant. There must be weapons and adventurers in the village, even though there is nothing to say that ever in any pf the write ups and you have no proof for it.

Well Max, I'm not here to argue your head canon, I'm here to argue RAW. Especially since the entire point is that the RAW doesn't really work. If you need to add retired adventurers and ignore the listed tactics halflings use to make it make sense to you... then I'm right.

Where does it specify what all rocks are?

BS. You cannot use a throwing stone as a melee weapon. It's too small.

I'm sorry, who said "throwing stone" do you mean a pebble?

They say rocks. A rock, in my experience, is about hand sized. Halflings have small hands.

Now, picture a person with a rock the size of their hand. Now imagine them hitting someone with it. That, is not too small to be a melee weapon. That is in fact, one of the oldest melee weapons on the planet. Tied only with the large branch.

 

[see]

"Why do we have halflings?" is, of course, a different issue than "Having peaceful halfling shires breaks my suspension of disbelief."

The answer to the first is quite obviously "So people who want to play Bilbo, Samwise, Pippin, or Merry can".

The response to the second is, "Then don't have 'em in your game world."

If your "fix" to halflings stops them from supporting the play-a-hobbit-from-the-peaceful-Shire narrative, you aren't fixing halflings, you're breaking them. The purpose of the game, rules and fluff alike, is to support what people want to play, rather than make an artistic statement. When you put setting coherence above that, you're messing with Batman's cake, with the commercial results seen in 4th edition.

 

[Maxperson]

You realize that Gods and magic apples to both sides of the equation not just the one convenient to your scenario

Cool. Show me where it says that the Orc gods work to overcome the Halfling gods and remove Halfling luck. If you can, then there are two sides to this. Otherwise, it's just the Halfling gods.

Gods tend to work in limited capacity related to their portfolios and Orc/Goblin gods aren't the subtle sort to go around and try to negate Halfling luck.

 

[Maxperson]

No adventurers, no magic, no weapons. You are adding that where it does not exist. Nothing in any part of the Halfling lore anywhere says they have a preponderance of retired adventurers.

This is patently false. The PHB puts Halflings on par with Humans, Elves and Dwarves for how many adventurers are used. Further, it says this in Mordenkainen's...

"Some elders - especially those who once had fancy feet themselves- just shrug, smile, and say it is the way of things."

Fancy feet is the term for adventurers, so it is explicitly stating that there are retired adventurers in the village.

Again, assuming something with zero supporting evidence. Nothing says anything about retired adventurers in the halfling village.

Again, wrong.

And, can you point to literally any other tactics that their only War Goddess has them practice? I mean, she is their only deity of war, their only diety of defense, and those are the only tactics listed in the book.

It's literally listed under the goddess, and not where it talks about Halfling society above. It's her thing.

Or, you know, a summary of the various points made by a variety of posters in this thread.

Who me one who said that Halflings are Marines who can't do any wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

Halflings are not proficient with simple weapons. So, I don't know what difference that would make at all.

Of course they are. Where'd you get the idea that they aren't?

"Most people can use simple weapons with proficiency. These weapons include clubs, maces, and other weapons often found in the hands of commoners."

Why? Variant humans get feats. Weapon Master is a Feat. Ergo Variant Humans can get the feat.

If you don't already know, there nothing I can do to help you understand.

Well Max, I'm not here to argue your head canon, I'm here to argue RAW.

You should try it sometime. You keep getting it wrong from "No retired Halfling adventurers" to "Halfings don't have proficiency with simple weapons."

I'm sorry, who said "throwing stone" do you mean a pebble?

No.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

No, it doesn’t.

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.

Halflings make sense.

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.

Or they don’t want to look like Tolkien ripoffs, and Halflings are the only classic race that originates in Tolkien.

The Bountiful Luck feat.

If you have a race of super lucky people who can deter orcs with their luck and share luck, the question is begged whether a halfling neighborhood in a human city grants the city this protection or not.

If halflings have luckand everyone knows, then people will attempt to harness it. Every lord would pay to have these curcious folk to move to their cities and towns. Cheaper that paying a militia. Now if halfling luck can't be cestored on others easily (like it does in my world), then people wont attempt to harness the halfling luck field.

None of this means anything or makes any sense. At some point you got too deep into a dive relating to your own homebrew world, and lost sight of the basic game.

You’re inventing problems to solve.

 

[Chaosmancer]

"Why do we have halflings?" is, of course, a different issue than "Having peaceful halfling shires breaks my suspension of disbelief."

The answer to the first is quite obviously "So people who want to play Bilbo, Samwise, Pippin, or Merry can".

The response to the second is, "Then don't have 'em in your game world."

If your "fix" to halflings stops them from supporting the play-a-hobbit-from-the-peaceful-Shire narrative, you aren't fixing halflings, you're breaking them. The purpose of the game, rules and fluff alike, is to support what people want to play, rather than make an artistic statement. When you put setting coherence above that, you're messing with Batman's cake, with the commercial results seen in 4th edition.

You know, I can respect this from a certain point of view. But, there are a few issues.

Firstly, Middle Earth is not a DnD world. In Middle Earth there are so very very few threats compared to your typical Dungeons and Dragons setting. So, it is far easier to have peaceful shires where nothing bad ever happens and no threats loom large in the mind.

Secondly, you can still play those characters without the Shire. Bilbo going on an adventure because an old wizard tempted him with a break from his mundane life can still work, even if his mundane life is in a small village that has a militia garrisoned nearby. Samwise the stalwart friend, practical individual, and fine chef still works in a DnD setting. All of his personality traits can be fairly easily translated over. What can't be is the Shire, the place where nothing bad ever happens. That place is very hard to translate into DnD.

Thirdly, Hobbits already aren't Halflings. For example, one of the most iconic visual images of Hobbits were their large, tough feet with bushy hair growing on top. Halflings haven't done that since first edition. Since when were Hobbits incredibly lucky? That was never a thing for them.


Look, I get people wanting what they want. But setting coherence is a good thing. It isn't a boogeyman out to steal your fun. You want Peaceful Shires where nothing bad ever happens, where the people live lives untouched by any danger... then build a setting where that is possible, where there are so few threats that an entire quarter of the global population is never under threat of anything. But DnD does not naturally contain that setting. DnD wants to be a place where monster attacks are common, and only the actions of a few brave souls protects the village from devastating attacks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is patently false. The PHB puts Halflings on par with Humans, Elves and Dwarves for how many adventurers are used. Further, it says this in Mordenkainen's...

"Some elders - especially those who once had fancy feet themselves- just shrug, smile, and say it is the way of things."

Fancy feet is the term for adventurers, so it is explicitly stating that there are retired adventurers in the village.

So... they have no more retired adventurers than any other place on the map. The same as the Humans, elves and dwarves...

How many of those places are completely safe from attack by monsters? How many times do you go to a town and find that the retired population of adventurers is more than sufficient to handle the nearby threats?


Also, holy selective reading Batman. You want to take that to mean that there are retired adventurers in every village? Let us look at some of the surrounding text.

See, the section you are pulling from is explicitly about adventurers, and it starts by telling us that the tendency to wander off is outgrown by "almost all children" the term fancy feet referring to the ones who don't outgrow it. Hmm, that seems to indicate a smaller bit of the population. Then, we get to the text talking about how each village handles it, where we get your line about "some elders" who had Fancy Feet themselves... Which is then followed by:

"Nevertheless, well-meaning villagers might try to dissuade a youngster from leaving the community. Other villages are much more supportive of one of their members who demonstrate the urge to adventure, likely because some of their their elders have gone into the world and returned to tell about it."

See, this text is kind of phrased in a way that is important. By saying "other villages" that implies more than one grouping, and what makes these villages unique are elders who left and came back. This, by quite literal definition, would mean that the flip side of that coin are villages whose elders didn't leave, or left and didn't come back. Meaning those villages don't have retired adventurers.

Which disproves your assertion that every single halfling village has a squad of retired, elderly adventurers ready to fight for their homes. Since the text tells us that not every village has retired adventurers in it. Also, here is a fun fact. I read through that section a few times. Know what I didn't see mention of? Magic and Weapons. Which was a rather important part of your claim.

It's literally listed under the goddess, and not where it talks about Halfling society above. It's her thing.

You mean the part I keep referencing? The one where you have these tactics:

Scatterstrike. The halflings run in every direction as if in a panic, but then they regroup and circle back to attack with a concentrated effort.
Turtle Shell. Halflings cluster together and cover each other with shields, washtubs, wheelbarrows, coffer lids, or anything else that can deflect a blow.
Troll Knocker. A few halflings act as bait to lure a troll or other large creature into a clearing where the rest of the group can hurl stones at it from concealment to confuse the monster, persuading it to seek other prey.
Swarming Stickwhackers. Halflings rush an intruder in waves, swatting the enemy with sticks on all sides.
Fiddle and Crack. A halfling fiddler lures the monster into a trap, usually a net or a pit, followed by several burly halflings wielding large sticks and hitting the monster from a safe vantage.

These tactics, listed under the goddess, that mention rocks and sticks? The ones that don't mention any other weapons or tactics? These are the ones that tell us that they are going to use more than rocks and sticks? Where?

Who me one who said that Halflings are Marines who can't do any wrong.

See Max, I know how this is going to go already. Because you are obsessed with precise wording you are going to declare "Gotcha! They never said Marine!" while ignoring the larger point. I'm going to try anyways though, because I always hold out vain hopes.

Let us look at this from Doctorbadwolf

Also, halflings, unlike humans, wouldn’t run away in terror, they’d use hit and run tactics without giving in to fear.

Because people are really losing sight of how powerful Brave is as a racial trait, in terms of worldbuilding.

Halfling shield walls don’t fear the charge. Halfling cavalry don’t fear the wall.
Fear is a huge part of whether people survive danger, whether townsfolk repel bandits, etc.

A lower level fiend that could wipe out a human village will have a harder time with a halfling village because the halflings aren’t going to panic, and they are extremely unlikely to flub anything they try to do, which means they are more likely to try ballsy tactics, and less likely to have Hail Marys blow up in their faces.

Also, 5e totally misunderstands the lethality of slings, as a tangential note. A village where everyone is reasonably skilled with one and not afraid to use them in defense of thier town is a place where the incentive to raid needs to be much higher.

So, that bolded part is a claim that few things will go wrong. Not "extremely unlikely to flub anything they try to do" and "less likely to have Hail Marys blow up in their faces"

Also note how he mentions that a halfling village would be harder to wipe out than a human village, which actually has a trained guard with proper equipment. Note how he is talking about their shield walls being superior because they don't fear the charge, how their cavalry is superior because they don't fear the shield wall. This is implying they make far better quality soldiers than the other races.

So, I chose the term "Marine". High Quality soldiers, some of the toughest and deadliest, to represent this depiction. This idea that Haflings are simply superior warriors because of their innate bravery.

So, one person. You will declare "GOTCHA" because he didn't use the specific word Marine, and he didn't go all the way and claim that they would never once make a mistake, but I'm used to that by now.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Of course they are. Where'd you get the idea that they aren't?

"Most people can use simple weapons with proficiency. These weapons include clubs, maces, and other weapons often found in the hands of commoners."

Wow, you sure do love your out of context lines of text.

That particular line comes from the rules on Weapon Proficiency, let's get that first part of the text in here, shall we?

"Your race, class, and feats can grant you proficiency with certain Weapons or categories of Weapons. The two categories are simple and martial. Most people can use Simple Weapons with proficiency. These Weapons include clubs, maces, and other Weapons often found in the hands of commoners."

See that first sentence? The bolded one? It tells us that proficiency comes from 1) race, 2) Class and 3) feats. And we are speaking specifically about PCs, whom all have a class.

Every PC class has some simple weapons they are proficient in, this being the "most people" they were refering to. So, halflings as a race don't get simple weapons. They are level 0, so they don't have a class, and they don't have any feats...

So where does this proficiency come from? Are we just going to declare that everyone in the world is proficient with simple weapons? Why then is it a specific type of profiency you need to have? Seems to me that you are once more just making up things that the rules don't support.

Edit: And I just realized it is even more egregious than I first thought. Because you are trying to declare they have proficiency with shortbows. Shortbows are specifically given to Elves as part of their Weapon Training feature. Which tells us that no, not every commoner is proficient with a shortbow.

If you don't already know, there nothing I can do to help you understand.

No rebuttal against me using the rules as written. Unsurprising. Continued ignoring of every other point to try and focus on the ones that you think you can disprove. Also unsurprising.

You should try it sometime. You keep getting it wrong from "No retired Halfling adventurers" to "Halfings don't have proficiency with simple weapons."

1) Text does not say every single halfling village has elders that were adventurers, which was your claim
2) Text does not give every single person in the world proficiency with simple weapons


Maybe I'm not the one who needs to try looking at RAW.

 

[Oofta]

The point is that halflings live in a world so full of predators it beggars our current ecosystems.

Yet they are perfectly safe from all threats? They can live in out of the way places, with large farms, and orchards of fruit bearing trees, and yet not be threatened by anything?


The worlds of DnD are hyper-dangerous. Mordenkainen's tells us that most halfling villages defend themselves with rocks and sticks. That doesn't work. That doesn't make sense. They would need to have better defenses than that. Because the worlds of DnD are far too dangerous.

By your logic no commoners or farmers could survive outside of city walls and everyone would starve to death. If your D&D campaign world is that dangerous, it's illogical.

Do armies invade? Sure. They always have. People scatter, hide, or suffer the consequences just like (unfortunately) in the real world. Halflings are just slightly better at their communities going unnoticed.