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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What is the desired outcome from the partisans in this thread? People will stop playing halflings? Or other people will start using them? It feels like this got to page 41 largely out of inertia.

 

[Maxperson]

What is the desired outcome from the partisans in this thread? People will stop playing halflings? Or other people will start using them? It feels like this got to page 41 largely out of inertia.

More like the pathway out is hidden to cleverly to find.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Waukeen god of wealth & many others thwart that bit of plot armor

Who?

 

[Oofta]

I know it's been like 15 pages but none of that violence needed.. Continuing from there here we wind up with the response to being asked why "the gods" only applies to halflings being little more than those other gods need to be super exlicitly slated to be thwarting broad interpretation of halfling gods. That was questioned with a problem seemingly ignored for it's inconvenience & we looped right back to one sided application of "the gods". FR & FR style halflings impose so many levels of plot armor to justify isolated racial monocultures that don't interact or notably mix in logical ways that it creates some kind of oppressive big brother ruled hellscape where the poor nerve stapled mortals don't even act logically when different cultures meet in order to avoid things like nations existing in FR.

Unless you're burning green wood, a properly kept fire produces almost no smoke. Maybe you've never had a fireplace. Or a campfire. You might smell the smoke but that will largely depend on location, wind and proximity but that can be misleading because smoke smell can travel for many, many miles. In addition, if you've ever been in the woods there are all sorts of game trails most of which lead nowhere. Also assumes that an orcish horde big enough to wipe out entire villages is just going to pop out of nowhere.

You're also setting a standard of violence that would wipe out all but the most heavily fortified cities and then saying that it's "normal". There is no way every village, hamlet and farm is going to have a big enough wall to keep out all invaders. It's just not practical. I could also see halflings having "walls" of carefully tended brambles with passages just big enough for them that are difficult to spot.

But suppose that despite all the precautions the orcs do find the village. The residents will either fight or take flight. No matter what race they are. If such invaders are going to wipe out all halflings in existence they will also wipe out all farming settlements, most villages and all but the largest towns and cities which would then quickly starve.

 

[Voadam]

Corellion is busy being in a love triangle and raising orcs to death.

Not quite following that last bit, is it a Mordenkainen lore thing?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not quite following that last bit, is it a Mordenkainen lore thing?

I think he meant razing.

 

[Voadam]

I think he meant razing.

The only significant thing I remember about Correlion and orcs is when Gruumsh ambushed and stabbed him, so that elves formed from his blood, and then Correlion shot Gruumsh's eye out Christmas story style as a warning to knock it off. I was not aware of it as an ongoing theme the way "I love you Lolth, no I hate you Lolth, I love X elvish goddess" is a theme.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think he meant razing.

Auto-correct!

 

[tetrasodium]

@Vaalingrade I even spelled Waukeen right.

If they were stupid, sure. I didn't say wagons. I said animals. Those can go in a narrow pathway until you get close to the road. Then you vary up where you had, not repeating the same way often enough to form a well worn trail. There are ways to minimize the terrain damage, including not using it often and letting it bounce back.

There isn't as much plot armor as you think. There's some, but really no more than Orcs, Gnomes, Gnolls, Drow and other races with gods have.

Animals repeatedly traveling the same route create a path. If these villages are as far out & difficult to reach either there is a few halflings that spends most of their life bringing one pack animal* like a mule with
420 pounds of produce to trade for up to 420 pounds** of something else back & forth. Of course even though a mule could somehow carry 420pounds that's not really a reasonable volume to attach to a mule due to simple physics. Alternately bob could load up every mule in the village & carry it all at once... of course then you need to somehow feed that army of mules trampling a path through the forest

Spoiler: lets look at yields per acre

Even if you assume no magic is involved to improve yields & cut those dramatically to reflect less advanced farming techniques you still reach a level that makes the idea of not using some form of cart or wagon simply unbelievable. You are attaching an extreme level of paranoid secrecy & deliberate obscurement. That is on par with WW2 refugees in hiding from the nazi's level of caution & is just not reflected in the halfling culture described in order to defend plot armor used to keep other groups in the world from acting logically.

* oooh maybe they load up a couple mice to avoid creating a trail?
** mounts & other animals on Phb157 is conveniently adjacent to trade goods where the first item is 1 pound of wheat...

 

[Maxperson]

@Vaalingrade I even spelled Waukeen right.

Animals repeatedly traveling the same route create a path. If these villages are as far out & difficult to reach either there is a few halflings that spends most of their life bringing one pack animal* like a mule with

Blah blah Strawman blah. I explicitly said they would deliberately use different routes .