# The Trouble with Halflings



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings do not need to be "integrated into the game world". They are described as having hidden settlements, so if no one has ever seen one until a PC turns up it's not surprising. And if a PC does not turn up, it doesn't matter.

Halflings are a popular choice in our games, and are simply played as humans, only smaller. We have had an elderly wizard, an archaeologist turned barbarian, and a rogue.


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## Shiroiken (Jul 11, 2022)

Rural Halflings in my Greyhawk are typically small farming communities under the control of a human/elven/dwarven overlord. They tend towards being insular, like most of the non-human races, but tend to be friendly towards those of the land they live in. Other than the occasional wanderlust that hits some young adults, very few become adventurers.

Urban Halflings are often considered a scourge, since they've typically leaned into their innate thieving abilities. While nothing like the infamous Kender, most see nothing wrong with supplementing their income with a bit of thievery of the big folk.  These halflings often become adventurers, for the same reasons that humans do.


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## Hussar (Jul 11, 2022)

I'm with you on this one @talien.  Halflings have barely registered in my gaming in years.  The odd PC but, far more often other short races have featured - kobolds particularly.  Between halflings and gnomes, they've mostly been completely absent from the circle of players I've gamed with or DMs I've played under.

I remember, years ago, a player playing a short, charismatic bard... kobold.  Character was well spoken, intelligent, urbane, all the things that most people would associate with either halfling or gnome.  It was a 3e game, so, it's not like gnome bard was an unknown thing.  So, a few levels into the campaign, I finally asked the player why kobold?  Why play a kobold that was pretty much everything that you would expect from either a halfling or a gnome?  Her answer was basically that the thought of playing a halfling or a gnome just never occurred to her.  Wasn't even on her radar.  She later played a halfling in a 4e Dark Sun campaign but, that's probably closer to what a kobold typically is.


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

While it is true that elves and dwarves have deeper mythological roots than halflings, their inclusion in D&D is no less due to the popularity of Tolkien at the time. In addition, while Hobbits specifically are an invention of Tolkien, the hidden small folk exist in every culture the world over.


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## schneeland (Jul 11, 2022)

We had a couple of halflings in our campaigns, mostly of the classical Hobbit type, sometimes a bit more of the cutthroat thief type. It never posed a particular problem, but overall they were rare.


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## aco175 (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings are a staple in my games.  The PCs run into them about the same rate they run into the other PHB races.  A generic town like Phandalin has a few, but the group may need to head far south to find whole villages of halflings.  They are accepted in more pastoral circles, but tend to be overlooked when force is needed.  Most of the halflings do not mind it that way, but will stand up if their lands are threatened.  I guess it is more a LotR view of them.  

I did try to get through all of 5e by only playing halfling rogues, but needed to add a couple dwarf clerics along the way for Adventure League play.


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## Bitbrain (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings are not a species in my home game, but a term for any non-goblinoid humanoid species whose average height is equal or less than three and a half feet tall.

Kender (dragonlance), Hin (mystara), Vegepygmies, Kobolds, and Darklings are all halflings.


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## RuinousPowers (Jul 11, 2022)

I never was a fan of Halflings, and I would just expand the presence of gnomes in their place.


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 11, 2022)

In my settings halflings and gnomes are the same race/species. I just can’t justify having both and them staying separate, but I don’t want to eliminate either. Plus combined they become a richer culture with more depth and variety.

Halfling is an exonym; they call themselves gnomes.

Players can use either sets of rules, or we can brew up something for a more unique take.


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## John R Davis (Jul 11, 2022)

Gnomes way cooler than halflings.
Had a few hobbits in MERP/DECIPHER/TOR but rarely see them in 3.5/PF or 5th


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## Celebrim (Jul 11, 2022)

I took them out.  I believe that they only really belong in Tolkien's middle earth, and that in Tolkien's middle earth they are a simply a human racial group not that dissimilar in distinctiveness physically to say pygmies and culturally representing the rural farming English farming culture of Tolkien's youth in a somewhat idealized form.  (While the halflings of Tolkien do not identify as Men, it's clear from the Legerdemain that they are a human subgroup and not a separate class of Children of Illuvatar - for example they are mortal.)  As such, they don't offer a particularly interesting or distinctive choice unless you completely reimagine them in which case you should stop identifying them according to Tolkien's terms.  Kender are in fact IMO, whatever utility they have as PC race and whether or not they are hated, at least distinctive and fair to Tolkien in that they don't pretend to be Tolkien's creation.

The primary 'little folk' race in my campaign is the Sidhe which are one of the fey races.  Sidhe are diverse enough that you could play one who had many of the characteristics of a halfling or a gnome or a kender if you wanted to play a character like that, you'd simply be a slightly odd member of your race but probably no odder than some of the other members of your race you'd run into.  You lose that attribute of being part of a community of nearly identical beings that you get with halfling or gnome or kender, and I guess some players could be disappointed by that, but I haven't had those players.


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## Charles Dunwoody (Jul 11, 2022)

I always played a halfling thief in my brother's AD&D campaign. I saved the whole party by taking down a harpy which had charmed everyone else in the ruined keep near Hommlet. Never had a problem integrating!


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## payn (Jul 11, 2022)

I have long jettisoned the Hobbit comparison. I've seen portrayals of traveling nomad families of halflings, sailors (smaller folks less food and more storage?), etc... Basically the opposite of hidden hermits that are fat and dont ever go anywhere.


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

jmartkdr2 said:


> In my settings halflings and gnomes are the same race/species. I just can’t justify having both and them staying separate, but I don’t want to eliminate either. Plus combined they become a richer culture with more depth and variety.
> 
> Halfling is an exonym; they call themselves gnomes.
> 
> Players can use either sets of rules, or we can brew up something for a more unique take.



In my last home brew campaign world, halflings were the native inhabitants of the island to which the human explorers/conquistadors had come and we explored for colonialist questions.

Well, they were the mortal natives, anyway. Half of the island was covered in a fey forest (basically the feywild on the Prime) and all the fey races dwelled there -- elves, dwarves, goblinoids and gnomes. Gnomes in fact were "good" goblins, or goblins were "evil" gnomes. Whichever. it was a seelie/unseelie thing.


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## Mezuka (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings have been practically absent from my D&D games in the last 41 years. Only one player had an Halfling thief during our first AD&D campaign in 1982. After that nada.


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## AnotherGuy (Jul 11, 2022)

For me, halflings make more sense with class level and ability score limits.


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## Tyler Pickering (Jul 11, 2022)

We play Pathfinder 2E and have had multiple players play them, they are a fantastic race with great racial feats.


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## Oofta (Jul 11, 2022)

I've played halflings, have a player with one in my current campaign.  I don't find if particularly difficult to integrate them in to my game world.

They basically fall into 3 categories: agrarian, nomadic tinkers, city folk.  

The agrarian halflings are in hidden away alcoves and valleys, typically using a connection to nature and luck to avoid notice.  While they're happy to have guests, they don't seek them out and do their best to avoid notice.  In civilized lands, they're good tenants who happily live simple lives, paying taxes and not really causing much trouble.

The nomadic halflings travel around on carts trading small goods, selling intricate craftwork and helping with repairs or buying broken items to fix and sell down the road.   Perhaps the biggest reason they are welcomed is because of the news of the wider world and acting as messengers and mail carriers.  Because they rarely get involved in politics they generally give a balanced report of what's going on, as well as trading gossip when they can.

City folk tend to live in attics and out of the way places or build in out of the way places and alleys.  Like their nomadic cousins, they specialize in small crafts including intricate carvings, detailed metalwork or lace.  Because of their size they also do odd jobs that suit their size such as chimney sweeps.  While some do turn to a life of crime in general they are quiet and considerate neighbors who just happily go about their lives.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

my hatred of halflings is absolute, I believe the only halfling should be in Tolkien's setting and nowhere else as any attempt to fix them removes anything that makes them a halfling, in eberron they might as well have made the the dinoriders any other races as they would be cool regardless.
darksun dwarves are less a departure from the base idea than the darksun halfling who might as well be anything else.
halflings do not deserve the fourth spot of common races, they should be moved towards the uncommon as they are less needed.

that said I do see the utility of a small folk race, I just do not really gel with any of the ones presented.

I do wonder how to do an evil version of halfling which I have ideas for.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 11, 2022)

I absolutely love halflings, so this “problem” feels kinda overblown to me. Yes, Tolkien’s hobbits were _generally_ not the adventuring types, but first of all both stories made a point about how some hobbits (the Tooks in particular) very much _were_ driven to adventure, and were in fact surprisingly well-suited to it. Indeed, hobbits surprising other characters with their capability is kind of a running theme. Second of all, while Tolkien’s hobbits are of course the inspiration for D&D’s halflings, halflings have grown well beyond that. They are defined in D&D by their curiosity, pluck, and wit (and, yeah, a lot of that is a softening of Kender).

To answer the question of how folks have confronted this “problem”, such as it is, in their own games, I’ve specifically made the Tolkienesque notion of the halfling homebody an in-world stereotype.


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## Stormonu (Jul 11, 2022)

I've had halfling players throughout my years as DM, and have played them myself.  Kender too. (disclosure; growing up I quite niave about property.  Not in a malicious or kleptomaniac way, but I often didn't "get" that it wasn't okay to use friends and other people's possessions without their permission.  Unless it was edible, it would end up back where it came from after I was finished.  In that regard, I "get" kender).

As far as my homebrew goes, they're called hillenfaey, and they live together in a kingdom with the gnomes, the kingdom is called Llinn (Lyn).  It's a rural realm, but the gnomes and halflings are just as adventurous as any other race, and twice as mischievous.  Hillenfaey have a presence just about everywhere, preferring rurals areas just on the outskirts of big cities or rural areas in civilized areas.  But they're just as brave to make and defend a home in border areas as well - with their housing having deep, easily defended cellars.

If you're having problems with using halflings, I suggest looking up the old Finneous Fingers comic from Dragon.  That'll get you thinking out of the box.


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## payn (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I do wonder how to do an evil version of halfling which I have ideas for.



Oh, thats a good idea. I dont think I've used an evil halfling before. Maybe a few henchmen, but never a big player.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 11, 2022)

payn said:


> Oh, thats a good idea. I dont think I've used an evil halfling before. Maybe a few henchmen, but never a big player.



I could see a halfling thieves’ guild kingpin being a really cool villain for an urban adventure.


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## wicked cool (Jul 11, 2022)

in season 3 of critical role one of the characters plays a character that at times has that kender quality. Its done in a way thats humorous but not obnoxious (i think the obnoxious part is key)

Mercer has integrated his halflings into his world  without a problem. they are farmers ,on city council etc . just like orcs and any other race


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## billd91 (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings have been relatively common in games I run and play in. We've never had any problem with them or, pertinent to the other thread, gnomes - or of them being separate. 
If we ever have a player with an irrational hatred of either, they're generally put in a position of "shut up about it or leave".


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## Stormonu (Jul 11, 2022)

payn said:


> Oh, thats a good idea. I dont think I've used an evil halfling before. Maybe a few henchmen, but never a big player.



Heh, mine are called Dwillows and they have a mafia-like structure.


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## John R Davis (Jul 11, 2022)

wicked cool said:


> in season 3 of critical role one of the characters plays a character that at times has that kender quality. Its done in a way thats humorous but not obnoxious (i think the obnoxious part is key)
> 
> Mercer has integrated his halflings into his world  without a problem. they are farmers ,on city council etc . just like orcs and any other race



Sort of the issue for me. When anything can be just like any race, everything start to lose its uniqueness, and truly become ' humans in a rubber mask'. IMO


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## Tales and Chronicles (Jul 11, 2022)

payn said:


> Oh, thats a good idea. I dont think I've used an evil halfling before. Maybe a few henchmen, but never a big player.



There was Montaron, the rude and sadistic halfling assassin in Baldur's Gate 1. 

Same with the halfling mercenary from Neverwinter Night 1, Tommy something. Not evil, but not a choir boy.


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## Grantypants (Jul 11, 2022)

I used Kender as the "evil version" of Halflings. In my world, the "evil versions" of races (Drow, etc) aren't literally underground in the Underdark, they're figuratively underground secret societies. My Kender understand private property, they just reject the concept.


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## Scott Christian (Jul 11, 2022)

Halfling are in my home game. The vlings (similar to elves) and humans were able to procreate for a while. No one knows why or how, but now they are unable. Some say it was the god's will, others say it was magic... some say love had something to do with it. But, one thing is certain, the offspring of the vlings and humans were short. Their name, halfling, actually started out as half-vling.
Several hundred years later, some of the halflings don't even believe they are descendants of vlings. Scholars know, but the teaching is not widespread, and is mostly kept alive through storytelling - which the halflings are famous for; their dialect is known for lots of onomatopes, whistles, odd sounds for different punctuation, etc. 
They live in the same kingdom as the vling and humans; however, most tend to stay on the outskirts in farming villages. This is a product of the original vling and human couples feeling like outcasts in the city, as many in the court and church opposed their relationship. 

As far as my players' perspectives, they work well within the campaign world. There is a touch of the familiar, and enough in their culture and appearance that make them a little different.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I absolutely love halflings, so this “problem” feels kinda overblown to me. Yes, Tolkien’s hobbits were _generally_ not the adventuring types, but first of all both stories made a point about how some hobbits (the Tooks in particular) very much _were_ driven to adventure, and were in fact surprisingly well-suited to it. Indeed, hobbits surprising other characters with their capability is kind of a running theme. Second of all, while Tolkien’s hobbits are of course the inspiration for D&D’s halflings, halflings have grown well beyond that. They are defined in D&D by their curiosity, pluck, and wit (and, yeah, a lot of that is a softening of Kender).
> 
> To answer the question of how folks have confronted this “problem”, such as it is, in their own games, I’ve specifically made the Tolkienesque notion of the halfling homebody an in-world stereotype.



okay, what are halfling lead nations like?


payn said:


> Oh, thats a good idea. I dont think I've used an evil halfling before. Maybe a few henchmen, but never a big player.



well I know of two groups to work from north Korea which stereotypes its own people as small and weak needing a strong hand to guide them as justification for their despotic leaders, and a group of people who claimed to be ever much a decedent of the English and were also known to be rural the confederate states of America not certain where to go from there but they are largely considered evil and could work as a starting point.


vincegetorix said:


> There was Montaron, the rude and sadistic halfling assassin in Baldur's Gate 1.
> 
> Same with the halfling mercenary from Neverwinter Night 1, Tommy something. Not evil, but not a choir boy.



I meant in the large group sense the equivalents of say the Duergar for the dwarves.


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## payn (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> well I know of two groups to work from north Korea which stereotypes its own people as small and weak needing a strong hand to guide them as justification for their despotic leaders, and a group of people who claimed to be ever much a decedent of the English and were also known to be rural the confederate states of America not certain where to go from there but they are largely considered evil and could work as a starting point.



I likely dont need to cleave so close to real life and/or literal examples. 

Urban: Thieves Guild leader
Dungeon: Cultist leader
Sea: Ship Captain

Work from there.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 11, 2022)

wicked cool said:


> Mercer has integrated his halflings into his world without a problem. they are farmers ,on city council etc . just like orcs and any other race



Mercer does what I do. People are people. they might be short people, or big grey people, but they are still just people.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 11, 2022)

All races in D&D are just "humans in rubber masks", so it's never been an issue nor a concern.  They get chosen to be played usually for the same reason any race gets chosen... the players wants the game mechanics.

The trope of the D&D adventuring party is that the members are all doing the exact same thing together-- they are journeying as a group to accomplish goals.  Maybe they are group goals, maybe they are individual goals that the others agree to assist on.  But they are all working as one unit.  Essentially, "Adventuring Party" is its own "race" moreso than even the races in the PHB.  Because the stereotypes of the "Adventuring Party" at a macro level are much more cohesive and played true than any sort of stereotypes any of the true races have.

Any differences these races have come out in character on the micro level-- mainly as personality quirks.  And personality quirks are not race specific.  Dwarves are "typically gruff".  Well, there are plenty of humans that are gruff too.  So "gruff" isn't a dwarven trait, it's a universal one.  You will also find dragonborn that are gruff.  Hobgoblins that are gruff.  Halflings that are gruff.  Even elves that are gruff.  So "being gruff" in an adventuring party is no more or less "dwarfy" than anything else the character might be.  Halflings are "typically home-centric".  And so are members of every other race too.  So being "home-centric" or "food obsessed" means nothing to distinguish a Halfling from anyone else.  Especially considering a Halfling PC in D&D is typically about "going out on adventure with other members of the adventuring party"-- just like every other member of the party is, regardless of their race.

So if someone chooses Halfling, it's not because they have some super-secret Halfling identity they want to try and present... it's because they want to play certain character personality quirks (which could come from playing ANY race in the game) and the four or five game mechanics the Halfling race in the PHB gives them (which ONLY comes from playing a Halfling.)  That's why everyone does it in my opnion.


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## Blue (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings are my favorite race, though I'm a little bit sad 5e puts penalties on all small creatures without corresponding offsetting bonuses.

The are the *Everman* - even more than humans who can be adventuresome, halflings adventurers can represent the non-adventurers, a point-of-view celebrated in The Hobbit yet often lacking from adventuring parties.

They are *community driven*, which gives them strong ties to their found family of adventurers as well as strong hooks for many adventures.

They are *The Batman*, in that even when the odds are against them they will pick themselves up and proceed forward.  Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings personifies this.

They can be *comic relief* - like a person only tiny can lend itself from slapstick to standing on a table during a negotiation.  Play up their love of creature comforts, food, or pipeweed.  Lots of angles here.

They are *unexpected* - while some "rare" races like Tieflings seem a dime a dozen, halflings don't have as much love, meaning when you do see one they will be fairly unique.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

payn said:


> I likely dont need to cleave so close to real life and/or literal examples.
> 
> Urban: Thieves Guild leader
> Dungeon: Cultist leader
> ...



those are individual villains you can drop any race into that slot, I like to show how ideas can go wrong I like seeing a dark reflection of something it shows how they are not perfect.


Blue said:


> Halflings are my favorite race, though I'm a little bit sad 5e puts penalties on all small creatures without corresponding offsetting bonuses.
> 
> The are the *Everman* - even more than humans who can be adventuresome, halflings adventurers can represent the non-adventurers, a point-of-view celebrated in The Hobbit yet often lacking from adventuring parties.
> 
> ...



Halflings are literally said to be in the top four most common races they are only unexpected because people outside the game moved on.


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## James Gasik (Jul 11, 2022)

I have a soft spot for "small" races, because the idea of a 3' tall person kicking ass and taking names amuses me.  Hence why one of my long running characters is Royle Gladdenstone, "The World's Strongest Gnome".

In my current campaign, I've replaced Halflings with "Smallkin" (also known as Lilka), who are a race related (somehow) to both Humans and Elves.  Humans and Elves cannot interbreed with each other, but they can have children with Smallkin.  Throughout history, where Humans go, Smallkin follow, and during the Elf Wars, where all the Elven nations went to war, they remained neutral.

From my campaign document:

"As their name suggests, Smallkin are about a foot and a half shorter on average than Humans, with slender builds and youthful features.  Male Smallkin often sport mustaches and short beards to be taken a little more seriously.  Smallkin have latent psionic abilities, which have helped them survive all manner of adversity, as well as a secret tradition of martial arts known as _Vetchkunst_, which is based around leaving the hands free for defense and attacking with powerful kicks, using tough-soled, reinforced shoes known as _strijdclogs_."


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## Tales and Chronicles (Jul 11, 2022)

I love my Halflings to be supernaturally able to 1) always be at the right place at the right moment or 2) disappear from where they should have been. Halflings also develops psionic tendencies toward ''being there, then not-there, then not back here again''.

But that capacity to remove themselves from sight and never stand in the way has some downsides. They can be so much ''not there'' that they become skulks, literally so unobtrusive that they are partially removed from creation. 

So trying to stay in close-knit communities is a good way to not becoming forgotten to inexistence. That's why they mingle so easily with the others. And that why striking on your own to go on an adventure is not a good idea: chances are you'll become a nameless, forgotten cautionary tale figure....literally.


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## Blue (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> those are individual villains you can drop any race into that slot, I like to show how ideas can go wrong I like seeing a dark reflection of something it shows how they are not perfect.
> 
> Halflings are literally said to be in the top four most common races they are only unexpected because people outside the game moved on.



Agreed.  As mentioned, players will pick rare races more than the common race of halflings.  That was the point of that stanza.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 11, 2022)

Blue said:


> Agreed.  As mentioned, players will pick rare races more than the common race of halflings.  That was the point of that stanza.



In my experience, players pick "rare" races more often than dwarves, elves, and possibly humans too. But player characters are exceptional by nature.


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## Mistwell (Jul 11, 2022)

Halflings have always been extremely popular in all our campaigns dating back to 1e and B/X. We have two in one game right now.

Which is all anecdotes but this entire article is premised on the authors anecdotes. 

In DnDBeyond's tracking of races chosen by active PCs on their system, Halfling rated almost exactly in the middle.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> In my experience, players pick "rare" races more often than dwarves, elves, and possibly humans too. But player characters are exceptional by nature.



humans are always popular as either the black slate for the master actor or the I am basic option, at this point elves and dwarves have been done to death and are so samey it hurts.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> humans are always popular



?

It's been a while since I've seen one.


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## Laurefindel (Jul 11, 2022)

My relationship to halfling in D&D is similar to that of gnomes and half-orcs. Love their racial features but don't like playing them. As vain and shallow as it sounds, its mostly about what they represent or how they are represented. The only times I played a halfling or half-orc in recent times is when I had the DM's permission to play what basically were variant humans...

I'm 5'8" in real life, so I'm not _that _short but I'm relatively light-weight. I'm just as strong as my friends but since that 12 lbs axe is 10% of my weight, I find it rather unwieldy and I just don't have the mass required to wrestle my 250 lbs monster of a hockey player friend. In short, I'm a small creature. Halfling would fit me just right.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> ?
> 
> It's been a while since I've seen one.



the data we can find say humans are popular it was in the character builder survey.


Laurefindel said:


> My relationship to halfling in D&D is similar to that of gnomes and half-orcs. Love their racial features but don't like playing them. As vain and shallow as it sounds, its mostly about what they represent or how they are represented. The only times I played a halfling or half-orc in recent times is when I had the DM's permission to play what basically were variant humans...
> 
> I'm 5'8" in real life, so I'm not _that _short but I'm relatively light-weight. I'm just as strong as my friends but since that 12 lbs axe is 10% of my weight, I find it rather unwieldy and I just don't have the mass required to wrestle my 250 lbs monster of a hockey player friend. In short, I'm a small creature. Halfling would fit me just right.



I am also but how is either of us small average height in some places used to be 4 ft ish I am tall by medieval standards and give we play a lot of knights and fight dragons who steal castles I would not be out of place based on my height also axes are far more light than you think.

halflings are like less than 3ft they are like adult children.


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

Mistwell said:


> Halflings have always been extremely popular in all our campaigns dating back to 1e and B/X. We have two in one game right now.
> 
> Which is all anecdotes but this entire article is premised on the authors anecdotes.
> 
> In DnDBeyond's tracking of races chosen by active PCs on their system, Halfling rated almost exactly in the middle.



That's a lot of races ago.


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## wicked cool (Jul 11, 2022)

you could do what skyrim does
orcs-they mingle with society but also have their own strongholds 
wood elves-probably the closest to halflings. they are allowed into society but most dont have positions of power. shopkeepers /hunters etc . its funny are there any vampire halflings in D&D lore. we now have small kobold vampires and small mindlfayers


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## RoughCoronet0 (Jul 11, 2022)

I’ve always had a soft spot for halflings and I love using them as NPCs, often playing up their friendly and hospitable nature which seems to be rare among most of the other core humanoid races who are typically more dour or serious.


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## MGibster (Jul 11, 2022)

This isn't a problem specific to halflings, it's also a problem with dwarves, elves, and even goliaths.  D&D does a very poor job in my opinion of figuring out how each race fits into the world.  Why are they there?  If it's just because they're cool and people want to play them, fine, but from a narrative perspective that's not a satisfactory answer.


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

MGibster said:


> This isn't a problem specific to halflings, it's also a problem with dwarves, elves, and even goliaths.  *D&D does a very poor job in my opinion of figuring out how each race fits into the world.*  Why are they there?  If it's just because they're cool and people want to play them, fine, but from a narrative perspective that's not a satisfactory answer.



Emphasis mine.

I would submit that this isn't |D&D"'s (which I assume you mean WotC's) job. It is the job of the individual groups. The races should be as loosely defined as possible in the PHB (same with monsters in the MM) so that groups feel free to customize, include and ban freely. Obviosuly, campaign settings should give the different races/heritages their places, but binding that stuff into the PHB as strongly as it is in 5E does a disservice to the freedom inherent in the game IMO.


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## payn (Jul 11, 2022)

Another unique aspect of halflings in many of my games is making homes within homes. Halflings don't typically have halfling only or dominant nations, cities, communities. They thrive on diverse communities and working with them.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay, what are halfling lead nations like?



As with nations run by members of any race, there isn’t one answer. Each nation is unique, and the races of their leaders do not determine their character.


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## MGibster (Jul 11, 2022)

Reynard said:


> I would submit that this isn't |D&D"'s (which I assume you mean WotC's) job. It is the job of the individual groups. The races should be as loosely defined as possible in the PHB (same with monsters in the MM) so that groups feel free to customize, include and ban freely. Obviosuly, campaign settings should give the different races/heritages their places, but binding that stuff into the PHB as strongly as it is in 5E does a disservice to the freedom inherent in the game IMO.



I don't think WotC does a great job fitting in all the races into their own settings.  This is partly because there are just so many of them.


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## Stormonu (Jul 11, 2022)

wicked cool said:


> its funny are there any vampire halflings in D&D lore.



Yep, they were done in 2E Ravenloft.



Spoiler









...And vampire kender too, in Sithicus.


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## Argyle King (Jul 11, 2022)

In one of my older homebrews, I had Halflings and Gnomes both be from the same area of the world. To everyone else, they looked exactly the same; had the roughly the same culture; and etc. However, they would both respectively be extremely upset when they were called the wrong thing.

The idea was based partially on flavor text associated with the Floating Nose from Munchkin and partially on an extreme caricature & extreme oversimplification of time spent deployed to a balkanized area.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 11, 2022)

In my opinion they are too typecasted into the stealth classes(rogue, or ranger). I like them in the battlefield like a David vs Goliath. 

They are perfect like the little town of happy nPC who peacefull. That gives me a special vibe as the old cartoons. 

They are perfect for the D&D horror stories because they look more vulnerable in the eyes of the audience. Their racial traits help them for the style of survival horror.

How would be a halfling monk using a magitek version of jumping stilts? Or little-sized PCs fighting as martial adepts thanks special maneuvers as jumps to attack taller enemies.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 11, 2022)

I use haflings NPCs and have had PCs with no trouble... kenders on the other hand...problems, every last one


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## Mistwell (Jul 11, 2022)

Reynard said:


> That's a lot of races ago.



In the 9 years since 5e came out, it was 2 years ago. I don't feel like it's misrepresentative for where the race is, as a generalization. I don't think this article in any way was talking about "This is an issue particular to this month in D&D" but was rather far more reaching to "The problems with Halflings" for decades. Which is what I'm replying to. I think the race remains middling-level of popularity as a generalization, even if there are new shinnies in the moment.


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## Dragonhelm (Jul 11, 2022)

My main criticism about this article is that it's anecdotal. "In my experience" does not equal a trend. I would like to see some objective data on what races players are playing.

As for kender...

*Players. Players are the problem.*

Ever since the internet was a thing, I've seen this criticism that kender are a bad race. Anecdotal evidence always seems to showcase problem players, yet we don't hear about the good players who never have an issue with kender - largely because they are familiar with the source material and understand it.

Jerk players can just as easily rob the party by playing a human rogue. 

Halflings are fine. Play them like they're from the shire or like kender or somewhere in-between. Play them however you want. And if you're really cool, get that hairy feet thing going.


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

Mistwell said:


> In the 9 years since 5e came out, it was 2 years ago. I don't feel like it's misrepresentative for where the race is, as a generalization. I don't think this article in any way was talking about "This is an issue particular to this month in D&D" but was rather far more reaching to "The problems with Halflings" for decades. Which is what I'm replying to. I think the race remains middling-level of popularity as a generalization, even if there are new shinnies in the moment.



The data was from 2017 -- 5 years ago. I was just saying that's pretty outdated.


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## MGibster (Jul 11, 2022)

Dragonhelm said:


> My main criticism about this article is that it's anecdotal. "In my experience" does not equal a trend. I would like to see some objective data on what races players are playing.



Any idea where that objective data might come from?


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## Reynard (Jul 11, 2022)

MGibster said:


> Any idea where that objective data might come from?



AL and Beyond are probably the only reliable sources.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 11, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I don't think WotC does a great job fitting in all the races into their own settings.  This is partly because there are just so many of them.



I'd argue that the larger reason is that most of their race-based resources are invested in developing increasingly obscure brands of elves. 

_Lead Designer: ok everyone. We now have forest elves, underground elves, shadow elves, sea elves, and snob elves.. what's next?

Number 2: uhhhh...sea-forest elves?

Lead Designer: brilliant Number 2, we get two more from that, one version slightly more forest than than sea...we'll call it a swamp elf

Number 2: ohhh...and the other could be more sea than forest..

Lead Designer: ..exactly Number 2.. we'll call that one...hmmmm.

Number 2: Kelp elf?

Lead Designer: I love it..what's other combinations have we negl...

Jensen: Uh guys.. are we ever going to spell out the differences between Lightfoot and Stout halflings..from the PHB?

Lead Designer: Get out Jensen! Can't you see we're working here? Go make a sandwich or something and leave the work to the professionals. 

Number 2: underground shadow elves?

Lead Designer: yesss! More! MORE! keep them coming.._


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## doctorhook (Jul 11, 2022)

John R Davis said:


> Sort of the issue for me. When anything can be just like any race, everything start to lose its uniqueness, and truly become ' humans in a rubber mask'. IMO



I agree, and I say that as someone who tries really hard to avoid the bioessentialism trap. The Mos Eisley Cantina/cosmopolitan vibe works for me in certain locations (e.g.: Sharn, in Eberron), but when it comes to NPCs I prefer to make the races culturally unique in my settings. I do find it boring if orcs and gnomes are always just humans with different heights. (Obviously PCs are under no such restrictions.

So when it comes to halflings, I usually find them pretty boring—they really are just short humans in most settings.


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## Atomoctba (Jul 11, 2022)

I am having the same trouble recently. In my actual campaign I decided make a clear distinction of the biological feel of races/ancestries/however you prefer to name them. Any race could be of any culture, so the way of thinking is not a factor here. A dwarf can be grumpy and workaholic as much a human or elf could be. Some dwarves are more frivolous and inconsequential than the typical elven stereotype, and so on. What makes a dwarf a dwarf or an elf an elf then? Biology.

So, in the current campaign, dwarves are almost earth elementals that have flesh instead of rocks as body. Elves are linked in a fundamental way with nature (not fey, nature itself, making them better druids than mages or whatever). Gnomes are literally fey creatures that were born in dreamscape, but were trapped in the "waking world". But halfling? Remove the cozy nature and the carpe diem aptitude from them and they are just small humans. I am struggling to make them distinct someway from the biological aspect.


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## payn (Jul 11, 2022)

Atomoctba said:


> I am having the same trouble recently. In my actual campaign I decided make a clear distinction of the biological feel of races/ancestries/however you prefer to name them. Any race could be of any culture, so the way of thinking is not a factor here. A dwarf can be grumpy and workaholic as much a human or elf could be. Some dwarves are more frivolous and inconsequential than the typical elven stereotype, and so on. What makes a dwarf a dwarf or an elf an elf then? Biology.
> 
> So, in the current campaign, dwarves are almost earth elementals that have flesh instead of rocks as body. Elves are linked in a fundamental way with nature (not fey, nature itself, making them better druids than mages or whatever). Gnomes are literally fey creatures that were born in dreamscape, but were trapped in the "waking world". But halfling? Remove the cozy nature and the carpe diem aptitude from them and they are just small humans. I am struggling to make them distinct someway from the biological aspect.



The missing link? Halflings and humans evolved apart at some point.


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## Minigiant (Jul 11, 2022)

I raised the status of Halfling one of my settings by making the Halfling goddess the goddess of family and hearth. She marries her children to the children of other gods to instil a pledge of protection of halflings by other races. 

This allows halflings to live more carefree as they know many of the bigger folk are both duty and divinely bound to protect them. In return halflings have that same duty to others and are fierce allies in war.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> As with nations run by members of any race, there isn’t one answer. Each nation is unique, and the races of their leaders do not determine their character.



okay, how do you imagine some halfling dominant cultures working as I literally can't?


Dragonhelm said:


> My main criticism about this article is that it's anecdotal. "In my experience" does not equal a trend. I would like to see some objective data on what races players are playing.
> 
> As for kender...
> 
> ...



true the players are a problem but the kender are written in such a fashion that it makes it a perfectly obvious interpretation.


Gammadoodler said:


> I'd argue that the larger reason is that most of their race-based resources are invested in developing increasingly obscure brands of elves.
> 
> _Lead Designer: ok everyone. We now have forest elves, underground elves, shadow elves, sea elves, and snob elves.. what's next?
> 
> ...



dude will still do not know what hill dwarves even are and they are at least understandable to adventure as.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay, how do you imagine some halfling dominant cultures working as I literally can't?



I mean we have perfectly fine examples in the Shire, Buckland, and Bree. Small rural communities, big on neighborly hospitality, maybe a little cautious of outsiders.


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## Atomoctba (Jul 11, 2022)

payn said:


> The missing link? Halflings and humans evolved apart at some point.



Ok, but what make they REALLY distinct besides the size? Something that says, "wow, humans never would do able to do that in a biological way?"


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> dude will still do not know what hill dwarves even are and they are at least understandable to adventure as.



If that is the case, then an ability or inability to use them has basically nothing to do with D&D as game/setting lore either for halflings or hill dwarves.


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## BookTenTiger (Jul 11, 2022)

I love love love halflings!

I find them very easy to pop into a campaign. I actually like to lean into the "humans with masks" trope and use different races for NPCs without worrying about where they came from in the world. Is the bartender big and brusque? Why not make them an orc? A dwarven smithy and a gnome smithy are going to elicit different reactions from the players because of the tropes surrounding those races. At the same time, making the stubborn, piggish town guard a Halfling is a fun way to upend tropes.

Halfling often show up in positions in which I want the players to interact with underdogs, folk of the earth, or streetwise people. Their small size means they have a slightly different perspective on the world, and it's fun to communicate that to the players.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I mean we have perfectly fine examples in the Shire, Buckland, and Bree. Small rural communities, big on neighborly hospitality, maybe a little cautious of outsiders.



true but I wanted anything other than Tolkien as I want to see them have a place outside of Tolkien, I may hate them but at least one them has some real backing so it does not feel like hating one-dimensional cardboard cut-out.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 11, 2022)

Atomoctba said:


> Ok, but what make they REALLY distinct besides the size? Something that says, "wow, humans never would do able to do that in a biological way?"



Size is distinct enough. Humans don't send their toddlers out onto the battlefield. Adult halflings are the size of human toddlers. And they grab swords, spears, and shields to go out and kill monsters/bandits/whatever.

And strangely enough, they are pretty successful at it (or at least they rarely fail disastrously)


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 11, 2022)

I love halflings, but I can't blame anyone who entered the game now with the art they have now to want them gone. Gone forever.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 11, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> I love halflings, but I can't blame anyone who entered the game now with the art they have now to want them gone. Gone forever.



Fair.


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## Tonguez (Jul 11, 2022)

I agree gnomes and goblins are far more fun than pecks 

and yeah, halflings do play as just short human farmers and laborers. if anything by taking the example of Sméagol, I tend to view them as just a more settled type of goblin.
These pecks are tolerated scavengers on the fringes of human settlements,  commonly exploited and crowded into ghettos.

 Otherwise I’ll make them NPC trooping fey, and thus more capricious than most


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## Lanefan (Jul 11, 2022)

First off: round here they're not Halflings, they're Hobbits.  Pretty much full-on Tolkein, only with a) a bit more connection with and information abut the world beyond their borders and b) a bit more willingness to get out there and interact with said world, largely due to one of their deities quietly being among the most powerful of all deities.  The exceptions are the Hobbits of the south seas, who are a maritime species based on a scattered group of offshore islands and who happily interact with anyone they can trade with/pirate from/sail for.

Our Elves and Dwarves are also quite Tolkein-ish in many ways.

And in our games they're played about as much as any other second-tier species (i.e. anything not Human, Part-Elf or Elf), which is to say maybe 10% of all characters over time have been Hobbits.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 11, 2022)

I'm not sure why people keep imagining D&D halflings just as hobbits. They have for a long time not been just that, they have a decent dose of kender in them. And I prefer them that way, makes them more adventure-friendly.


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## Lanefan (Jul 11, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not sure why people keep imagining D&D halflings just as hobbits. They have for a long time not been just that, they have a decent dose of kender in them. And I prefer them that way, makes them more adventure-friendly.



It's a very (very!) short jump to put some kender-isms into Tolkein Hobbits.


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## ART! (Jul 11, 2022)

I have not had this experience; halflings get chosen about as often as dwarves in our group, and I don't recall any aversion to halflings in previous groups.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 11, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not sure why people keep imagining D&D halflings just as hobbits. They have for a long time not been just that, they have a decent dose of kender in them. And I prefer them that way, makes them more adventure-friendly.



but has their basic culture evolved?


ART! said:


> I have not had this experience; halflings get chosen about as often as dwarves in our group, and I don't recall any aversion to halflings in previous groups.



do you happen to know why they are liked?


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## Dragonhelm (Jul 11, 2022)

MGibster said:


> Any idea where that objective data might come from?



D&D Beyond would be a good source. Possibly Roll20 and user surveys.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 11, 2022)

My headcanon for haflings is that they are charismatic daredevils. They love to try things, talk about the things they’ve tried, and hear about things they haven't tried yet. 

I don't exactly mind if there is a particular Tolkienesque bent to that, but it isn't a flavor I'd find particularly interesting. 

If my halflings are going to be country bumpkins, I want them to be bootlegging in souped up airboats and running illegal owlbear fights rather than sitting down for quiet Sunday picnics.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 11, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> If my halflings are going to be country bumpkins, I want them to be bootlegging in souped up airboats and running illegal owlbear fights rather than sitting down for quiet Sunday picnics.



But that _is_ a quiet Sunday picnic, isn't it?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 11, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> But that _is_ a quiet Sunday picnic, isn't it?



Maybe if the swamp elves decide to attend. I believe their racial abilities include "virulent boredom" and "let me tell you about probiotics"


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## Stormonu (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but has their basic culture evolved?
> 
> do you happen to know why they are liked?



Yeah, it has.  4E even had them as river nomads, which still boggles me.

This was one of the first D&D depictions of halflings I ran across, and to me it really enforced the difference from hobbits:




One of the reasons I liked to occassionally play them was three-fold; they're Jack the Giant Slayer, where everyone/everything is bigger than they are and they have to be smarter; second they tend to be dismissed/overlooked allowing you to get away with things/get places others couldn't and thirdly, their appearance can be somewhat childlike allowing you to play eternal optimist, chirpy and fast-talking individuals (a break from my old curmudgeonly love of being a grumpy dwarf)


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## Minigiant (Jul 11, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> One of the reasons I liked to occassionally play them was three-fold; they're Jack the Giant Slayer, where everyone/everything is bigger than they are and they have to be smarter; second they tend to be dismissed/overlooked allowing you to get away with things/get places others couldn't and thirdly, their appearance can be somewhat childlike allowing you to play eternal optimist, chirpy and fast-talking individuals (a break from my old curmudgeonly love of being a grumpy dwarf)



The thing is...

....Halflings aren't the only small race.

If gnomes, goblins, kobolds, fairies, and rabbit people can be small, then the halfling specialness of "being small" stops being special. This is especially true as small humaniods are added to the player side or DM side of the table. This is I think halflfings had to evolve over time. Because even if you don't do a setting with many small races, even one other small race eats at a halfling whose whole point is to be "be small and underestimated".

I think this is why goblins, kobold, and fey folk gained a lot of popularity in the last 20 years and PCs and major NPC setpieces. You get to be small and have anoter tweak on the character. Not gnomes though for reasons another thread explains.


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## Stormonu (Jul 11, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The thing is...
> 
> ....Halflings aren't the only small race.
> 
> ...



Funny thing that - I've never played a gnome.  Most of the other races you mention - goblin and kobold have only been PCs in my game starting with 5e.

Gnomes seem to have their own thing with "tinkering" from the days of Tinker Gnomes in DL.  Goblins & Kobolds - I don't see the appeal and would have to let someone else answer why they enjoy those races.  However, their existance doesn't lessen halflings in my eyes.  They're still the "country mouse in the city" in my eyes.


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## Maxperson (Jul 11, 2022)

Most of why I never saw halflings played was their speed.  I heard a lot of, "Hmm.  Maybe I'll play a halfling this time. Oh, that's right. They're slow so never mind."  I think if they moved 30 they would be played more.  Perhaps not a lot more, but you'd see more halfling PCs.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 11, 2022)

D&D loves to punish Small people for that sweet, sweet verisimilitude.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 11, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> D&D loves to punish Small people for that sweet, sweet verisimilitude.



Being small is mostly (a mild) disadvantage in 5e. Which is fine, but I don't think balancing of the species rules takes this into account.

So give them something extra! Perhaps something that further reflects their small size verisimilitudously! For example +1 to AC and/or dex save because they're harder to hit due being a small target.

What I don't want is all the species rules to become homogenised non-representative mush because the unimagine designers cannot think other ways to balance things than making everyone the same.


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## Minigiant (Jul 11, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Most of why I never saw halflings played was their speed.  I heard a lot of, "Hmm.  Maybe I'll play a halfling this time. Oh, that's right. They're slow so never mind."  I think if they moved 30 they would be played more.  Perhaps not a lot more, but you'd see more halfling PCs.




One thing I missed was the halfling's natural bonus to jumping. I felt it made a bit of sense that they couldn't move those pudgy legs fast but they were packed with more muscle which let them jump and climb better. A 10th level halfling fighter would be jumping around in combat like Yoda.

Part of me wishes every small race had a little bonus with explained how they adapted or were blessed to survive.
Halflings wouldbe springy and clingy. Gnomes would get illusions. Goblins would be faster that youd expect..


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 11, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I do wonder how to do an evil version of halfling which I have ideas for.



Back in the 3.5 Book of Vile Darkness supplement, there were Jerren who were evil halflings. Not there was any more to them than "halfling, but evil."


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Being small is mostly (a mild) disadvantage in 5e. Which is fine,



It is, in fact, not


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## Maxperson (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> It is, in fact, not



Not what? Fine? Or a small disadvantage?


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Not what? Fine? Or a small disadvantage?



Not fine. We left punishing people for playing a race behind twenty years ago.


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## Maxperson (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Not fine. We left punishing people for playing a race behind twenty years ago.



They should have kept the hide bonus for being small.


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## Yaarel (Jul 12, 2022)

If I recall correctly, I have never been in a game where a player played a halfling.


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## Yaarel (Jul 12, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Most of why I never saw halflings played was their speed.  I heard a lot of, "Hmm.  Maybe I'll play a halfling this time. Oh, that's right. They're slow so never mind."  I think if they moved 30 they would be played more.  Perhaps not a lot more, but you'd see more halfling PCs.



4e halfling is full speed at 30 feet. It helped them feel different from the dwarf and gnome.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> 4e halfling is full speed at 30 feet. It helped them feel different from the dwarf and gnome.



When I thought out how halflings were going to be in my game, the hodgepocalypse, I found that mixing them with 1970s truckers really gives them their own identity. They scour the roads driving monstrous vehicles and providing trade between settlements all will talking in that silly lingo. 

With all the political events that have happened in the last couple of years has given me a conceptual model of how evil halflings will operate. One of these days I am so building a bouncy castle dungeon.


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## Yaarel (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> When I thought out how halflings were going to be in my game, the hodgepocalypse, I found that mixing them with 1970s truckers really gives them their own identity. They scour the roads driving monstrous vehicles and providing trade between settlements all will talking in that silly lingo.
> 
> With all the political events that have happened in the last couple of years has given me a conceptual model of how evil halflings will operate. One of these days I am so building a bouncy castle dungeon.



Huh. As a DM, I like the 4e river nomad halfling. May they kinda are like a trucker? They transport goods between towns, and follow a seasonal traderoute circuit.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

If you're going for a more fantasy-based model, make them River rats.  Mike Fink as a halfling as it were.


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## payn (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> If you're going for a more fantasy-based model, make them River rats.  Mike Fink as a halfling as it were.



With all this disadvantage and river rat talk im having a flashback to the 80's. Gotta name my next halfling _Fontana; the river rat
_


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## Yaarel (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> If you're going for a more fantasy-based model, make them River rats.  Mike Fink as a halfling as it were.



I needed to wiki Mike Fink. Sadly, his antics include harming US Indigenous and Blacks, but perhaps his brutal "pranks" were equal opportunity. At least, they arrested him for crippling a Black person.

He might be a decent Chaotic Evil halfling archetype if half his size.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

agreed, Mike Fink was a horrible human being (He was the reason why the clean insult was "you Fink"), which means he makes a great adversary as a Halfling.

Plus Now you have a reason why people don't trust Halflings.  They are thieves and blaggards and are racist against non-halflings.

edit: Another way of expanding is give them dibbs over the seas.  They were the first surface dwellers that figured out sails as an extension of their riverboat trade consortium.


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## Mistwell (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> The data was from 2017 -- 5 years ago. I was just saying that's pretty outdated.



The 2019 data showed basically the same thing. Lightfoot halfling was right between the two main Dwarf subraces.


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## Yaarel (Jul 12, 2022)

Mistwell said:


> The 2019 data showed basically the same thing. Lightfoot halfling was right between the two main Dwarf subraces.




Judging by the 2019 data, the "core four" today are probably:

• human (including default and variant)
• elf (including half, wood, high, drow, and eladrin)
• tiefling
• dragonborn (now including gem, metallic, and chromatic)

Plus expanding to a popular seven:
• dwarf (including mountain, hill, duergar, and mul)
• halfling (including lightfoot, stout, kender, and ghostwise)
• orc (including half)

Unfortunately, the gnome doesnt make this list, while rock and deep get a 2019 mention, forest is omitted.

A top 10 includes
• goliath
• gnome
• aasimar



My overall impression is:

• Halfling is an important part of the D&D heritage.

• Maybe halfling need not be one of the "core four" races.

To make the halfling supplemental, like goliath and genasi, but also prominent in certain settings, might be the way to go.


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## lall (Jul 12, 2022)

Their heads are too big, their feet too hairy, they’re often perceived as pudgy, and they’re basically smaller humans, which are boring. Plus, the name is lame.

Pathfinder fixed gnomes but Wizards is committed to gnomes having schnozzes the size of halfling heads.

Thank goodness for the fairy, the only small race that doesn’t break mirrors.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

Personally I blame the halfling art in the 5e phb.


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## MGibster (Jul 12, 2022)

Look at it!  Look upon it, ye mortals, and weep!


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## J.Quondam (Jul 12, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Huh. As a DM, I like the 4e river nomad halfling. May they kinda are like a trucker? They transport goods between towns, and follow a seasonal traderoute circuit.



I love that! And instead of normal names, they could go by trucker handles like "Rubber Ducky," "Large Marge" and "Rusty Nail".


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## MGibster (Jul 12, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Huh. As a DM, I like the 4e river nomad halfling. May they kinda are like a trucker? They transport goods between towns, and follow a seasonal traderoute circuit.



In my own setting, the halflings were considered to be a protected people by the big bad evil empire.  The empire decreed that none would harm the halflings and they had free passage to go anywhere without being subject to any sort of traveling tax.  However, they were not permitted to stay at one place for more than a year.  So they're mostly traders and merchants who travel the breadth of the empire and its tributary kingdoms.


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## Faolyn (Jul 12, 2022)

In one of my settings, I made halflings into one of the only two races to have cities and to issue currency (the other race being dwarfs), as the world-forest actively resists large settlements. Everyone else has small towns at most. As a result, three of of five PCs are halflings. One of the major villains (who is dead... for now) was a halfling as well.


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## scotchgarble (Jul 12, 2022)

I’ve been drafting a campaign setting based off of Norse mythology in which the dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings ( the last two as land wights) exist as the divine beings they are. Players can play as these beings but become mortal from their own misdeeds or misdeeds done to them. In the halflings’ case, I envision, for example, an innocent forest spirit witnessing some depraved or dishonorable action done in their wood and the trauma causes them into a corporeal halfling form. Their in-game traits allow them to maintain the “residue” of their original magical form.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 12, 2022)

lall said:


> Pathfinder fixed gnomes but Wizards is committed to gnomes having schnozzes the size of halfling heads.




Um... not a single piece of 5e Gnome art depicts them with large noses. So, I have zero idea where you are getting this from.


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## Stormonu (Jul 12, 2022)

payn said:


> With all this disadvantage and river rat talk im having a flashback to the 80's. Gotta name my next halfling _Fontana; the river rat
> _



Whelp, now I know where GW's Cataphron Breachers came from, at least.


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## Minigiant (Jul 12, 2022)

One thing I've always tried to do is to get into the more alien parts of a race's mindset.

Elves are long lived and skilled. They, if allowed, will create great kingdoms and perfect elements of their culture and technology/magic because every elf has all the time in the world to do so. They also don't think about the short term that hard. That's why elves use bows.  They mastered bows and hold a sense of superiority wen doing so. So when crossbows and guns appear, elves low down on these new weapons. So you can take elves and put them in new setting with heavy twists but still feel the elfiness.

But with halflings,it's harder to get into their mindset without changing it a bit. Because mentally, they don't interact with much. This puts them at odds of being PCs or major NPCs. They are either children or homebody. So they are fully reactive to the setting at base.


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## R_Chance (Jul 12, 2022)

There's nothing wrong with the standard bucolic Hobbit / Halfling. The bulk of the population of most races lead non adventurous lives. Humans are mostly peasant farmers, Dwarfs are miners and craftsmen, etc. The adventurers are the ones that don't fit the standard roles of their people / culture or come from small segment of the population. If, as a race, they need a special niche it could be something as straightforward as a specific agricultural product they raise, or expertise in a specific craft. Something that can fit them into a larger economy. 

Some of my Halflings live in hidden villages (even their fields are camouflaged) and do a booming trade with Gnomes, Wood Elfs, and Forest Goblins. Others live in human areas (more openly and often in mixed communities) or in enclaves in cities and towns. They fit the setting. I've only had a couple of PC Halflings. They were the ones that didn't fit or took their skills in a new direction. Adventuring.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 12, 2022)

R_Chance said:


> There's nothing wrong with the standard bucolic Hobbit / Halfling.



The thing I've noticed about halfling PCs is that they tend to have "bucolic" names, in the Tolkien fashion, even if they are mighty adventurers. So, Jed Heathertoes would be a halfling, but Zorg the Slayer would not.


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## GMMichael (Jul 12, 2022)

talien said:


> Part of the issue with kender is that they aren't thieves, per se, but have a child-like curiosity that causes them to "borrow" things without understanding that borrowing said things without permission is tantamount to stealing in most cultures.



"Imagine no possessions.  I wonder if you can."   I guess Lennon had an issue too.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 12, 2022)

I base them off Darksun or Eberron ones.


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## Horwath (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Not fine. We left punishing people for playing a race behind twenty years ago.



While I agree 100% with ability bonuses from race should be removed as so many things derive from ability modifiers,
I really think that size of the character should come with more advantages and disadvantages.

smaller size weapons should make a comeback, slightly less speed(25 vs. 30ft), disadvantage on opposed STR checks(of fixed bonus/penalty per size category like in 3,5e).

bonuses on stealth, be that advantage, fixed bonuses, or default proficiency/expertise in Stealth,
weapons and armors that cost and weight 1/4 to 1/2 of default size, less need for food, having 2 small characters in same 5ft area with no penalties


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

jmartkdr2 said:


> Back in the 3.5 Book of Vile Darkness supplement, there were Jerren who were evil halflings. Not there was any more to them than "halfling, but evil."



yeah that is the point I hate just generic edge evil, I like my evil to have reasons why they are this way not necessarily good ones but you see how they turned from the archetype into something worse makes them more grounded and thus all the more horrific.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> yeah that is the point I hate just generic edge evil, I like my evil to have reasons why they are this way not necessarily good ones but you see how they turned from the archetype into something worse makes them more grounded and thus all the more horrific.



So do we need to stow a few of them away in the underdark, paint them grey or green and find an evil, oppressive deity or race who maybe has been out of work for a bit and give them someting to do? Maybe we could use Lolth's degenerate older brother Swolth or Grumsh's estranged stepson Chumpsh?

Because near as I can see, that is the D&D process for making evil races. 

I liked the idea from the last great halfling thread (that I participated in at least) of evil halflings who live by an edict of "mandatory happiness". They aren't greedy or selfish or anything, but you better put a smile on your face while they are around.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So do we need to stow a few of them away in the underdark, paint them grey or green and find an evil, oppressive deity or race who maybe has been out of work for a bit and give them someting to do? Maybe we could use Lolth's degenerate older brother Swolth or Grumsh's estranged stepson Chumpsh?



No, you make them a cheerful, friendly rural folk who love singing, dancing and eating their guests.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So do we need to stow a few of them away in the underdark, paint them grey or green and find an evil, oppressive deity or race who maybe has been out of work for a bit and give them someting to do? Maybe we could use Lolth's degenerate older brother Swolth or Grumsh's estranged stepson Chumpsh?
> 
> Because near as I can see, that is the D&D process for making evil races.
> 
> I liked the idea from the last great halfling thread (that I participated in at least) of evil halflings who live by an edict of "mandatory happiness". They aren't greedy or selfish or anything, but you better put a smile on your face while they are around.



honestly, what is it with the underdark being filled only with evil people it seems unlikely?


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 12, 2022)

The abilities bonus have been for a long time one of the marks of identity of the PC races, but with the handicap of typecasting these into certain classes (fighting, stealth or spellcasting). I would rather the system of Pathfinder 2 because this allows more flexibility. 

Do you know what would be funny? Today the farming simulation videogames are becoming very popular, and the halflings are too good for a hypotetical (kid-friendly) D&D farming simulation. Hasbro would dare to launch a version for mobile or tablet, because these need lesser money and time.


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## Danny Prescott (Jul 12, 2022)

I've no issue with Halflings as presented, but then again my gateway to rpg's was definitely Tolkein. I've played them many times (didn't play the Kender when we did Dragonlance way back when but then only because someone else had already bagged the character). On reflection I can't think of many times other players have gone for them, so perhaps there's personal affection (or disaffection) at play. I certainly identified with them being a not very tall kid from a rural UK backwater..


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## Minigiant (Jul 12, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Do you know what would be funny? Today the farming simulation videogames are becoming very popular, and the halflings are too good for a hypotetical (kid-friendly) D&D farming simulation. Hasbro would dare to launch a version for mobile or tablet, because these need lesser money and time.




I always thought WOTC could do a complex PC and a kid friendly noble version of a town builder colony game with D&D races. Halflings would be great for making food and staying happy but be weaker at defending against monster attacks. Elves would be the opposite, they shoot and blast monsters to hell but they'd never want to work and demand the most luxuries.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

Evil halflings should have a parody of make <insert fantasy land here> great again.


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## Oofta (Jul 12, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> The thing I've noticed about halfling PCs is that they tend to have "bucolic" names, in the Tolkien fashion, even if they are mighty adventurers. So, Jed Heathertoes would be a halfling, but Zorg the Slayer would not.



I don't know.  Jed "The Slayer" Heathertoes may be the name of my next PC.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> No, you make them a cheerful, friendly rural folk who love singing, dancing and eating their guests.



And all the other races know it but won't do anything about it because no one else can grow Fava beans quite the same way.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> honestly, what is it with the underdark being filled only with evil people it seems unlikely?



I assume there was some kind of friends and family referral bonus that just got entirely out of hand.


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## lall (Jul 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... not a single piece of 5e Gnome art depicts them with large noses. So, I have zero idea where you are getting this from.



The nose of the forest gnome in the PHB is quite large and in line with the PHB text “Their tan or brown faces are usually adorned with broad smiles ( beneath their prodigious noses)…” Prodigious means “remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree.” So read that bit as “(beneath their huge honkers)”.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> While I agree 100% with ability bonuses from race should be removed as so many things derive from ability modifiers,
> I really think that size of the character should come with more advantages and disadvantages.
> 
> smaller size weapons should make a comeback, slightly less speed(25 vs. 30ft), disadvantage on opposed STR checks(of fixed bonus/penalty per size category like in 3,5e).
> ...



So... basically unplayable in the one pillar of the game the designers care about with some token bonuses to things that rarely matter.

No thanks, 3e was a couple of decades back thataway.


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## Horwath (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> So... basically unplayable in the one pillar of the game the designers care about with some token bonuses to things that rarely matter.
> 
> No thanks, 3e was a couple of decades back thataway.



you can play every spellcaster, support and skill monkey. Maybe even better than medium size race.
Just don't expect to meet weapon damage output.


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## Krachek (Jul 12, 2022)

Halfing can do dex weapon damage as much as any other race.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> you can play every spellcaster, support and skill monkey. Maybe even better than medium size race.
> Just don't expect to meet weapon damage output.



Or maybe we should follow the Tasha's trend and stop pigeon-holing people for the species they play.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Krachek said:


> Halfing can do dex weapon damage as much as any other race.



Not if you bring back weapon size to further punish them for the crime of being short.


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## Horwath (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Not if you bring back weapon size to further punish them for the crime of being short.



short people, short weapons.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> short people, short weapons.



Arbitrary weapon damage, no reason to make short peoples' weapon suck.


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## Horwath (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Arbitrary weapon damage, no reason to make short peoples' weapon suck.



one good thing about 3.0 was weapon size category.

Medium creature needed one hand for medium weapons, two hands for large weapons and could dual wield small weapons for less penalties.

for small and large races, you just slide the table one step up or down.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> one good thing about 3.0 was weapon size category.
> 
> Medium creature needed one hand for medium weapons, two hands for large weapons and could dual wield small weapons for less penalties.
> 
> for small and large races, you just slide the table one step up or down.



Or you could go with the idea that whatever acrobatics or whatever else the small race needs to do to be effective with the weapon, is the stuff they are trained to do.

Halflings using swords and shields in combat don't have to fight the same way medium creatures fight with swords and shields.


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## ART! (Jul 12, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but has their basic culture evolved?
> 
> do you happen to know why they are liked?



The Lucky and Nimbleness traits seem to be the big draws.


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> one good thing about 3.0 was weapon size category.
> 
> Medium creature needed one hand for medium weapons, two hands for large weapons and could dual wield small weapons for less penalties.
> 
> for small and large races, you just slide the table one step up or down.






Gammadoodler said:


> Or you could go with the idea that whatever acrobatics or whatever else the small race needs to do to be effective with the weapon, is the stuff they are trained to do.
> 
> Halflings using swords and shields in combat don't have to fight the same way medium creatures fight with swords and shields.




These comments hint at the place of legacy "simulation" elements that some players want and others don't. While the size and strength of halflings (and other small races) was never really "realistic" (they are about the size of a 4 year old human child) some nods were made toward preserving suspension of disbelief. One consequence of tons of "weird" races and the general community embrace of Rule of Cool is that it is harder to try and even a material culture for differently sized or shaped species. I mean, can the minotaur or centaur PC go into the tavern with the rest of the party?


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## CreamCloud0 (Jul 12, 2022)

If i were to describe how i see halflings it would probably be ‘unobtrusive and sociable’ they’re friendly folk who are easy to get along with and don’t typically make a nuisance of themselves, so other species don’t mind having them around, They don’t have grand ambitions and those that do still seem to carry a sense of having humble goals, there’s few if any halfling cities or empires but there’ll be halflings in near every city and empire, offerings their skills and talents in exchange for the safety of the larger and stronger species’ city’s defences, oh and maybe you might sometimes find a halfling village nestled away from the rest of the world in the woods or the hills but it’ll be a smaller settlement, you’ll be welcomed in offered a delicious hot meal and a warm bed in exchange for news and stories of what’s happening outside before giving you directions to your destination and wishing you good fortune on your travels when you set out again


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> These comments hint at the place of legacy "simulation" elements that some players want and others don't. While the size and strength of halflings (and other small races) was never really "realistic" (they are about the size of a 4 year old human child) some nods were made toward preserving suspension of disbelief. One consequence of tons of "weird" races and the general community embrace of Rule of Cool is that it is harder to try and even a material culture for differently sized or shaped species. I mean, can the minotaur or centaur PC go into the tavern with the rest of the party?



My general take on "realism" with respect to made-up fantasy races is that the rules say what they are able to do and there are no actual real world references from which to make conclusions with respect to their physical capabilities and/or limitations.

So our only clues to what their physiology should "realistically" allow are those rules. Maybe their muscles and bones are laced with adamantine, or magic, or whatever. If the rules say they can do it, they can. They are not just little humans. There is no merit in just extrapolating humans downward and calling it "realism".

As it relates to worldbuilding, how you incorporate fantasy races is certainly a matter of taste. But I would expect that if a business expects to make money from a variety of creatures with a variety of ergonomic needs, then they would either make efforts to accommodate those needs or not and either they would not get business from the creatures whose needs are not met, or those creatures would be uncomfortable. 

The wider the disparity of needs a place elects to accommodate, the more exotic that place might seem to the players, since they are not traditionally going to taverns where other patrons may see in the dark, climb, fly, or just be significantly larger or smaller than they are. This, again, is neither pro nor con with respect to "realism". 

Can the centaur or minotaur pc go into the tavern with the party..maybe, maybe not, depends on how much money the tavernkeeper might expect to make off of large hooved creatures..ymmv.

The fantasy world is not Earth. The rules are different. There is no singular answer.


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> My general take on "realism" with respect to made-up fantasy races is that the rules say what they are able to do and there are no actual real world references from which to make conclusions with respect to their physical capabilities and/or limitations.



Sure, but not only are the rules just made up, they change between editions. hence the legacy part. Even if WotC eliminates Strength penalties for halflings (just as an example), doesn't mean a GM would be in the wrong to reintroduce them in 5E for "realism" reasons -- especially given they have always been there in some form or another. It's possible it is a bad idea from a game balance cascade standpoint, but not from a those one.


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## grimslade (Jul 12, 2022)

I have played halfling characters in every edition back starting with basic. When I started, I was much younger and smaller than the people I played with, so the draw to halfling was natural. I loved Tolkien and all fairy tales. Halflings filled that niche. So I have a very soft spot for halflings.
That said, halflings are small humans with specific perks in 5E. The move away from racial stats and towards custom lineages really begins to blur the lines between races mechanically. All the races are humans in different hats because we are all humans playing them. If we are players, we don't have the agency to define what halflings are in the world. Halflings are defined in FR, GH, Eberron, and Dragonlance, so it comes down to DMs who build their own settings. What is the story for halflings in your world?
Like I said I love halflings but in my homebrew, I partially stole the origin story for 4E gnomes. Halflings are from the feywild. They can not escape their cruel masters, so they try to build a better life for their children by swapping them with other races' children in the prime. Halflings are changelings. They grow up in their 'adoptive' family's communities, but they still have a touch of fey luck about them. So halflings have a stigma about them, but can be found everywhere.


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## bulletmeat (Jul 12, 2022)

I don't remember if it was by the book or how we played them but I loved the halflings in the scarred lands.  They were slaves that sought revenge against the giant masters that abused them, creating a league of assassin's that could hide and strike unseen.
That and Dark Sun halflings were great as well.  It's one thing if a kender steals your purse, but it's another thing if a halfling from Athas steals your toe or finger or forearm. 

And besides cleric, my favorite b/x class is the halfling.  It was easier to get swallowed and stab from the inside out.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Sure, but not only are the rules just made up, they change between editions. hence the legacy part. Even if WotC eliminates Strength penalties for halflings (just as an example), doesn't mean a GM would be in the wrong to reintroduce them in 5E for "realism" reasons -- especially given they have always been there in some form or another. It's possible it is a bad idea from a game balance cascade standpoint, but not from a those one.



As long as that gm understands that their "realism" justification is actually just personal preference with delusions of grandeur, sure.

Edit: I mean, even here on earth, body size is not a reliable indicator of strength. Look up anyone who has gotten attacked by a chimp. It's not pretty.


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Horwath said:


> one good thing about 3.0 was weapon size category.
> 
> Medium creature needed one hand for medium weapons, two hands for large weapons and could dual wield small weapons for less penalties.
> 
> for small and large races, you just slide the table one step up or down.



No, no it wasn't. It just meant that the loot you got from an adventure was even more likely to not be what you needed.

3E sadly tricked an entire generation of gamers into thinking  "more rules = more real" and more "real = more better". It wasnt. From the spreadsheet to manage the 75 different types of bonuses to sucking over an hour of my life to adjudicate a single high level disjunction spell in the middle of combat, 3E can die in a fire forever.  

HP are abstract anyways, and the game should be set so that the two main sizes of characters played, small and medium, are basically interchangeable.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

bulletmeat said:


> I don't remember if it was by the book or how we played them but I loved the halflings in the scarred lands.  They were slaves that sought revenge against the giant masters that abused them, creating a league of assassin's that could hide and strike unseen.



I don’t know about the league of assassins part, but it’s definitely by the book that Scarred Lands halflings were formerly enslaved by the larger races. I love that take, and it’s a big inspiration behind my take on halflings.

Do halflings really live alongside other races and lack communities of their own larger than little farming villages because they’re a quaint, friendly folk who inherently lack ambition towards empire-building? Or is that just the narrative the dominant culture tells themselves to justify a state of affairs where the legacy of halfling slavery has denied them the opportunities other races have had?


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> As long as that gm understands that their "realism" justification is actually just personal preference with *delusions of grandeur*, sure.
> 
> Edit: I mean, even here on earth, body size is not a reliable indicator of strength. Look up anyone who has gotten attacked by a chimp. It's not pretty.



Emphasis mine.

This thing here? It is getting really freaking old around here.


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## bulletmeat (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> No, no it wasn't. It just meant that the loot you got from an adventure was even more likely to not be what you needed.
> 
> 3E sadly tricked an entire generation of gamers into thinking  "more rules = more real" and more "real = more better". It wasnt. From the spreadsheet to manage the 75 different types of bonuses to sucking over an hour of my life to adjudicate a single high level disjunction spell in the middle of combat, 3E can die in a fire forever.
> 
> HP are abstract anyways, and the game should be set so that the two main sizes of characters played, small and medium, are basically interchangeable.




Though I don't know about 3e burning in a fire, I do agree that weapon size was more of a problem than a solution.  In 2e we did a 40% roll on found items if we had a halfling or gnome in the party; under meant it was for the small folk.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

I really don’t get what’s the point of fantasy species if the differences are just cosmetic.


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I really don’t get what’s the point of fantasy species if the differences are just cosmetic.



Some people put a high emphasis on the look of their character. Spend some time on r/dnd and it is mostly character sketches.


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## bulletmeat (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Do halflings really live alongside other races and lack communities of their own larger than little farming villages because they’re a quaint, friendly folk who inherently lack ambition towards empire-building? Or is that just the narrative the dominant culture tells themselves to justify a state of affairs where the legacy of halfling slavery has denied them the opportunities other races have had?



For SL we had the farming folk as a front for the league.  They were Assassin's Creed 3-4 years before the game came out.  Frodo Stabbins w/out a doubt.


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> These comments hint at the place of legacy "simulation" elements that some players want and others don't. While the size and strength of halflings (and other small races) was never really "realistic" (they are about the size of a 4 year old human child) some nods were made toward preserving suspension of disbelief.



Chimps are also roughly toddler size and will rip your limbs off.


Reynard said:


> One consequence of tons of "weird" races and the general community embrace of Rule of Cool is that it is harder to try and even a material culture for differently sized or shaped species. I mean, can the minotaur or centaur PC go into the tavern with the rest of the party?



The centaur can go in, but only if they answer some questions...


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Emphasis mine.
> 
> This thing here? It is getting really freaking old around here.



There are no real halflings. As such it is objectively untrue that any mechanical change would be either more or less "realistic" except in the mind of that person making it.

I don’t begrudge anyone the choice to make adjustments to things that they don't think fit with their vision. But is it really that wrong to just label that choice what it is, "personal preference"?

Why go through the gymnastics of trying to prove that you are using the most correct make believe?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Some people put a high emphasis on the look of their character. Spend some time on r/dnd and it is mostly character sketches.



I’m like that too and I get it. But when I play a _game_ I want the rules and character concept to be connected.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 12, 2022)

ART! said:


> The Lucky and Nimbleness traits seem to be the big draws.



And +2 Dex.

This is why it always frustrates me when people suggest that halflings are more than gnomes due to anything other a comically good stat line-up.

Gnomes get a +2 Int.  Which classes benefit from a +2 Int?  Wizards, and as of 2020, artificers.

Who benefits from a +2 Dex?  Every character (not class, character) except for Str-based fighters, paladins and clerics.


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## Ancalagon (Jul 12, 2022)

My spouse is playing a halfling in a game I'm running, and in another group while we don't have a halfling now, we've had them before and I think we will get one in the next campaign.  So no "lack" of halfling in my gaming life, although it has not been as popular as say dwarves or elves.

That being said, I've somewhat recently build a list of every PCs I've played in 30 years of gaming and... no halflings!  Gnomes and dwarves sure, but no halflings.

I think the reason is that to me there is a fundamental tension in  how they are depicted - halflings are all pastoral peaceful type (ie hobbits), with the sole exception of every PC or NPC the party meets which are sneaky, thieving and sometimes murderous.  That has always bothered me.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I really don’t get what’s the point of fantasy species if the differences are just cosmetic.



Why is this only ever trotted out when it's time to give something a bunch of penalties and lock them out of options?

Where is this when DM's cry blood over flying species?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Why is this only ever trotted out when it's time to give something a bunch of penalties and lock them out of options?



It's not. As you might remember in this very thread I suggested appropriate bonuses for the small species.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jul 12, 2022)

Oh, how I loved the Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix. So many great, creepy monsters designed to challenge players' expectations, leaving them on uncertain ground (which is one of the best routes to fear in D&D in my experience).



Stormonu said:


> Yep, they were done in 2E Ravenloft.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I can say that I've never met someone that played the kind of thief/rogue that routinely stole from the party that miraculously was a good player when not playing a kender or thief/rogue.



Dragonhelm said:


> My main criticism about this article is that it's anecdotal. "In my experience" does not equal a trend. I would like to see some objective data on what races players are playing.
> 
> As for kender...
> 
> ...




For the entirety of my D&D-playing span, I've never had any trouble with halflings and their place in the world(s). However, I started running DCC RPG some months ago and now I find that they just don't fit as well when you're specifically channeling Lin Carter, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, etc., and trying to avoid Tolkien (I love Tolkien to the point of having a tattoo, but I am doing this so that my campaign feels more evocative of the other parts of Appendix N).

It wasn't until I'd been running my game for months that I played in a Shudder Mountains game run by Brendan LaSalle. He took the DCC RPG Halfling class and just reskinned it as a "Luckiest Sumnab*tch You've Ever Met" (human) class. Had I seen that before starting my own campaign, I absolutely would've borrowed that trick.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> Chimps are also roughly toddler size and will rip your limbs off.



No, the toddler sized ones won't. This is the common internet misconception caused by thinking what young bonobos look like and what adult male chimpanzee can do. Chimps can get a lot larger than most people think. They're about 1.5 times as strong pound per pound than humans, so stronger than they look for sure, but not nearly at the internet hyperbole levels.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not. As you might remember in this very thread I suggested appropriate bonuses for the small species.



The +1 to AC that ALL Small creatures got in 3x and presumably would in verisimilitude world? On top of the mountain of punishment's already given. That's not much of a bonus and certainly doesn't make up for realisming them to death.


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I don’t begrudge anyone the choice to make adjustments to things that they don't think fit with their vision. But is it really that wrong to just label that choice what it is, "personal preference"?



This is disingenuous backpedaling. You literally used the term "delusions of grandeur" to describe the "preference" you are now totally fine with. It was rude and elitist and intended to denigrate. Normally I would have just scrolled on by but this is a behavior that is getting more and more normalized on these boards where folks feel free to attack another playstyle -- particularly anything that has even a whiff of "simulation" or "realism." I am not sure when that attitude started, but it rears its ugly head on the regular lately.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> The +1 to AC that ALL Small creatures got in 3x and presumably would in verisimilitude world? On top of the mountain of punishment's already given. That's not much of a bonus and certainly doesn't make up for realisming them to death.



What mountain of punishment? Some measly weapon restrictions and one square of move less? 

You can fiddle with the balance and add things until it seems fair enough, but I want that effort actually be made. Ultimately homogenising everything is the laziest way to balance things. I don't want that. I like halflings, but I don't expect or want them to play exactly the same than humans let alone goliaths. I actually want it to feel that the character being hella small matters!


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> This is disingenuous backpedaling. You literally used the term "delusions of grandeur" to describe the "preference" you are now totally fine with. It was rude and elitist and intended to denigrate. Normally I would have just scrolled on by but this is a behavior that is getting more and more normalized on these boards where folks feel free to attack another playstyle -- particularly anything that has even a whiff of "simulation" or "realism." I am not sure when that attitude started, but it rears its ugly head on the regular lately.



It is neither disingenuous nor backpedaling.

It is a separation of the action (making a mechanical change) from the reason for making the change ("changing a fantasy creature's mechanics will make it more like the real thing").

People can make halflings stronger, weaker, or a sentient potato for all I care. Whatever makes people happy.

The problems with touting that change as "more realistic" to anyone outside themselves are that:

A. It's not true..there is no "real" thing
And
B. They are implying (even if unintentionally) that those who do not adopt that change are failing to achieve the same peak roleplaying fidelity.

It is an action that falsely thinks it is achieving more than it is..i.e. delusion of gradeur.

(Note: this is distinguished from the gm having delusions of grandeur which i do not believe. The gm is making a creative choice. I may not agree with it or the reasons behind it, but my preferences are no more valid than theirs.)


----------



## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> What mountain of punishment? Some measly weapon restrictions and one square of move less?



AKA not being able to play certain classes in any way approaching effectively. 

People understand how bad garbage weapons are, but I don't think people understand how terrible being slower actually is.


Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't want that. I like halflings, but I don't expect or want them to play exactly the same than humans let alone goliaths. I actually want it to feel that the character being hella small matters!



But why does it have to equal sucking harder and being effectively barred from certain classes?

Why not give them awesome things only they can do instead? That also makes them different. That also makes being small matter. But too many folks seem to feel the only way to do that is a pile of debilitating penalties or tedium.


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## Umbran (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> delusions of grandeur




*Mod Note:*
Of course, by making this insulting, you've succeeded in increasing resistance to your point.

If you actually thought this was a constructive way to phrase it, please take this opportunity to rethink your approach.  If you didn't think this was constructive, but did it anyway, that's worse - please rethink your approach.


----------



## Umbran (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> This is disingenuous backpedaling.




*Mod Note:*
This is not helping.  

Without authority to back it up, confrontation like this isn't effective.  It generally turns the discussion into an ego conflict between you, rather than actually resolving any issues.

When you see a problem, please report the post in question, and let moderators handle it.  Thanks.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> But why does it have to equal sucking harder and being effectively barred from certain classes?



They don't suck and are not barred from any classes. The only class they might have a slight difficulty (at least with their fixed ASI version) is barbarian, which unlike every other melee class is built to run solely on strength. This I feel is a flaw in the barbarian class, and should be fixed at that end.



Vaalingrade said:


> Why not give them awesome things only they can do instead? That also makes them different. That also makes being small matter. But too many folks seem to feel the only way to do that is a pile of debilitating penalties or tedium.



Sure. And they have that. And could have more. But this doesn't mean there cannot be some limitations too. And ultimately what is a penalty and what is just a lack of bonus is in the eye of the beholder. ASIs are bonuses, but a lot of people started to see a lack of ASI as a penalty. And same can happen with features. If some feature is seen as beneficial enough and it is common enough, it will start to seem as an expected default. Darkvision has almost become this.


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Why is this only ever trotted out when it's time to give something a bunch of penalties and lock them out of options?
> 
> Where is this when DM's cry blood over flying species?



It can be multiple things. I'm totally cool with someone using a different ancestry/race mechanics, but am not a fan of how WOTC keeps trying to erase any meaningful intersection between ancestry and shared culture. "Everyone is people and exactly like everyone else" is boring IMO. That's not to say that every elf has to be the same (particularly PC's), but If there's no cultural hook, there's also no playing against type.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> It can be multiple things. I'm totally cool with someone using a different ancestry/race mechanics, but am not a fan of how WOTC keeps trying to erase any meaningful intersection between ancestry and shared culture. "Everyone is people and exactly like everyone else" is boring IMO. That's not to say that every elf has to be the same (particularly PC's), but If there's no cultural hook, there's also no playing against type.



it is a complex problem of how do we not just make everyone the same but also some of the worst ideas for cultures that are flat offensive?


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> No, the toddler sized ones won't. This is the common internet misconception caused by thinking what young bonobos look like and what adult male chimpanzee can do. Chimps can get a lot larger than most people think. They're about 1.5 times as strong pound per pound than humans, so stronger than they look for sure, but not nearly at the internet hyperbole levels.



The issue is comparing halflings to toddlers/small children (which resulted in that garbage PHB art... seriously, who the hell approved it?). 

Even slapping a -2 strength shows they are massively stronger per pound than an adult human, as a same size human child has a strength of about 4 (and an equally terrible dex)


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 12, 2022)

lall said:


> The nose of the forest gnome in the PHB is quite large and in line with the PHB text “Their tan or brown faces are usually adorned with broad smiles ( beneath their prodigious noses)…” Prodigious means “remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree.” So read that bit as “(beneath their huge honkers)”.




I am aware of what prodigious means. 

But, you mean this picture? 





Sure, there nose is relatively large. But it is almost a bit romanesque, like from this 





It certainly isn't "having schnozzes the size of halfling heads." to have... slightly larger noses than the norm.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I am aware of what prodigious means.
> 
> But, you mean this picture?
> 
> ...



gnoman empire anyone?


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> The issue is comparing halflings to toddlers/small children (which resulted in that garbage PHB art... seriously, who the hell approved it?).



The PHB halfling art was a result of wanting to update halfling visual design so that they could be clearly distinguished from humans without another creature or object in the picture for scale reference. During the open playtest, there were a number of creatures that got design updates, where they showed off several concept arts and held polls to help decide which would be the new look going forward, and halflings were among those creatures. The winning halfling concepts had distorted proportions to help communicate their size, and they looked pretty good _in the style of the artist who drew them_, but I don’t think the new proportions translated well to other artists’ styles. It was also a controversial decision even at the time - the winning design was by a narrow margin and a lot of folks who didn’t vote for it disliked it very strongly.

Here are some examples of the concepts. You can see how the PHB halfling art is using the same proportions, but it just doesn’t work as well there.


Spoiler


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 12, 2022)

R_Chance said:


> There's nothing wrong with the standard bucolic Hobbit / Halfling. The bulk of the population of most races lead non adventurous lives. Humans are mostly peasant farmers,





And I think this is part of the issue for a lot of people. The idea is that Halflings are bucolic farmers and that's their identity. It is also the identity of the bulk of humans. So, other than being small, there are almost no differences between humans and halflings. 

And yes, people point out that being small is a major thing... but there are multiple small races. In fact, there are now officially 16 races that can be small sized. All of them with OTHER traits that make them not just small humans. 

And when halflings are the kind farmers who would give you the shirt off their back and treat you to dinner... they are surly thieves and edgy mobsters who will break your kneecaps. There is such a disconnect between the classical halfling common person and the classical halfling adventurer that it is insane. And there is no real reason for it. The only reason halflings are commonly thieves is because they are a +2 Dex race, and Bilbo has hired as a Burglar. Which he wasn't even particularly good at, unless it was too dark to see or he was invisible.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And I think this is part of the issue for a lot of people. The idea is that Halflings are bucolic farmers and that's their identity. It is also the identity of the bulk of humans. So, other than being small, there are almost no differences between humans and halflings.
> 
> And yes, people point out that being small is a major thing... but there are multiple small races. In fact, there are now officially 16 races that can be small sized. All of them with OTHER traits that make them not just small humans.
> 
> And when halflings are the kind farmers who would give you the shirt off their back and treat you to dinner... they are surly thieves and edgy mobsters who will break your kneecaps. There is such a disconnect between the classical halfling common person and the classical halfling adventurer that it is insane. And there is no real reason for it. The only reason halflings are commonly thieves is because they are a +2 Dex race, and Bilbo has hired as a Burglar. Which he wasn't even particularly good at, unless it was too dark to see or he was invisible.



they need to have someone go over them and make them work better?


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> The PHB halfling art was a result of wanting to update halfling visual design so that they could be clearly distinguished from humans without another creature or object in the picture for scale reference. During the open playtest, there were a number of creatures that got design updates, where they showed off several concept arts and held polls to help decide which would be the new look going forward, and halflings were among those creatures. The winning halfling concepts had distorted proportions to help communicate their size, and they looked pretty good _in the style of the artist who drew them_, but I don’t think the new proportions translated well to other artists’ styles. It was also a controversial decision even at the time - the winning design was by a narrow margin and a lot of folks who didn’t vote for it disliked it very strongly.
> 
> Here are some examples of the concepts. You can see how the PHB halfling art is using the same proportions, but it just doesn’t work as well there.
> 
> ...



The "best" of the art is still awful IMO, and and the rationale behind doing so is pretty dumb. Toddlers haven't grown into their heads and their limbs are spindly due to being underdeveloped. I shudder to think what a larval halfling looks like... just all head with vestigial growing limbs, like a tadpole. This is not the body of a coordinated and dextrous creature.  Even adult halflings still have feet so small they should be having a hard time standing (which is funny given their previous big feet in prior editions).

They failed in their redesign. Time to go back to the drawing board.


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## Stormonu (Jul 12, 2022)

Haflings and their hairy feet, dwarves and their beards*, and gnomes with big schnozes will always be a thing in my campaign world.

* I’m currently playing a dwarf assassin spy whose hairless .  Playing against type is a thing.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> The "best" of the art is still awful IMO, and and the rationale behind doing so is pretty dumb.



That’s your opinion, and you’re not alone in it, but there are also many others who feel differently - and during the open playtest, a plurality of the people participating did so. I definitely think that giving them a visually distinctive design so they could be told apart from humans without a scale reference was a good idea, even if the execution didn’t really work out.


ehren37 said:


> Toddlers haven't grown into their heads and their limbs are spindly due to being underdeveloped. I shudder to think what a larval halfling looks like... just all head with vestigial growing limbs, like a tadpole. This is not the body of a coordinated and dextrous creature.  Even adult halflings still have feet so small they should be having a hard time standing (which is funny given their previous big feet in prior editions).



Yes, and dragons’ wings wouldn’t be able to actually generate enough lift to fly. It’s fantasy, it isn’t supposed to be totally realistic. It’s fine if you don’t like the design, but this isn’t a very compelling argument against it.


ehren37 said:


> They failed in their redesign. Time to go back to the drawing board.



I don’t know when the last time you looked at art in a D&D book was, but they have. Halflings haven’t looked like this in 5e art in many years.


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## payn (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> The PHB halfling art was a result of wanting to update halfling visual design so that they could be clearly distinguished from humans without another creature or object in the picture for scale reference. During the open playtest, there were a number of creatures that got design updates, where they showed off several concept arts and held polls to help decide which would be the new look going forward, and halflings were among those creatures. The winning halfling concepts had distorted proportions to help communicate their size, and they looked pretty good _in the style of the artist who drew them_, but I don’t think the new proportions translated well to other artists’ styles. It was also a controversial decision even at the time - the winning design was by a narrow margin and a lot of folks who didn’t vote for it disliked it very strongly.
> 
> Here are some examples of the concepts. You can see how the PHB halfling art is using the same proportions, but it just doesn’t work as well there.
> 
> ...



Even the concept stuff was too pixar fatling for my taste.


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## billd91 (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I don’t know when the last time you looked at art in a D&D book was, but they have. Halflings haven’t looked like this in 5e art in many years.



That may be part of the problem. There are more halfling distinctive examples by other game companies like Paizo. For example, Lem:



You pretty much can't look at that picture and not realize it's a halfling.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 12, 2022)

Let's remember little PCs are more allowed to ride flyer monster mounts. 

Maybe in a D&D videogame focused into a survival zombie postapocalypse (maybe the "new" Falkovnia, or other land) and building and managing a survivor camp halflings could be very useful thanks their stealth skills. 

Little humanoids are harder to be adapted into action-live productions. The dwarfs from the real life have got different body proportions.

A gnomes with enough experencie can be ready with more tricks than Batman's belt.

* I imagine halfling adventures wearing boots because some DMs could design sadist and painful traps for shoeless intruders (not only halflings but also animal companions). Do you remember the scene of the broken glasses in the movie "Die Hard"?


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## Faolyn (Jul 12, 2022)

Dragonhelm said:


> My main criticism about this article is that it's anecdotal. "In my experience" does not equal a trend. I would like to see some objective data on what races players are playing.
> 
> As for kender...
> 
> ...



I'm going to disagree, because kender have bad lore to begin with.

They're fearless, but they lie immediately to get out of trouble. If they have no fear and are curious even about death, they would have no need to lie. They'd be honest all the time, consequences be darned.

They have no sense of personal property, but they don't _give _things away; they only take things. They should be as willing to give things to other people as they are to take them.

They're as intelligent as a human, but can't seem to understand that other races have different thoughts about concepts such as personal property. They should be able and willing to _not _take everything that they come across. As far as I can tell, they never had a penalty to either Intelligence or Wisdom to explain this lack of self-control. Additionally, since they have normal levels of Intelligence and Wisdom, they shouldn't believe their lies.

They're totally innocent, but somehow are able to string together insults to make even the most hardened of souls angry. In reality, an "innocent" kender's taunts should be as insulting as a toddlers. But they're (magically?) infuriating.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

payn said:


> Even the concept stuff was too pixar fatling for my taste.



Yeah, it was a pretty polarizing design.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> The "best" of the art is still awful IMO, and and the rationale behind doing so is pretty dumb. Toddlers haven't grown into their heads and their limbs are spindly due to being underdeveloped. I shudder to think what a larval halfling looks like... just all head with vestigial growing limbs, like a tadpole.



…That’s actually a pretty cool concept for halflings!


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That may be part of the problem. There are more halfling distinctive examples by other game companies like Paizo. For example, Lem:
> View attachment 253481
> You pretty much can't look at that picture and not realize it's a halfling.



That picture probably isn’t the best example because the mugs provide a scale reference. But yeah, his proportions would probably communicate that he’s small without the mugs, and the hairy feet are a dead giveaway.

I’m not saying the early 5e halfling design was the best way, let alone the only way, to make halflings visually distinct from humans. I was just providing context for folks who might not have been around for the playtest.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

Okay I'll bite.

What's the best picture of a Halfling should look like?


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## lall (Jul 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I am aware of what prodigious means.
> 
> But, you mean this picture?
> 
> ...



Sorry, defined it for myself. Here are synonyms, again, for myself: enormous, huge, colossal. Not halfling head-sized, but not “slightly larger”. The gnome pic above isn’t horrible, but given the author’s own choice of words, I’m led to believe my gnome has to have a prodigious nose. I haven’t seen artwork in 5e of a non-prodigious nose. Some may have a different opinion. Perhaps those folks can produce an erratum of the PHB text.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> Okay I'll bite.
> 
> What's the best picture of a Halfling should look like?









I think this has pretty decent proportions that communicate the small size without looking weird.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think this has pretty decent proportions that communicate the small size without looking weird.



Cover the feet and we are in agreement.

I don't care if they have big or hairy feet, I'm just not Quintin Tarentino.


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## payn (Jul 12, 2022)

I was just looking for my favorite halfling art (It's Paizo PF1 _Gods and Magic_ supplement but nothing online) and realized another issue I have. Halflings are often depicted child like because of their size. They are usually doing things like balancing a bottle on their nose or sucking a lollipop. Few actually get the adventurer look that other race artwork generates. Also, barely any elderly halflings either.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think this has pretty decent proportions that communicate the small size without looking weird.



I hate that this thing is almost cute.


payn said:


> I was just looking for my favorite halfling art (It's Paizo PF1 _Gods and Magic_ supplement but nothing online) and realized another issue I have. Halflings are often depicted child like because of their size. They are usually doing things like balancing a bottle on their nose or sucking a lollipop. Few actually get the adventurer look that other race artwork generates. Also, barely any elderly halflings either.



this is one of the many things that disturbs me about halflings the fake childness of them makes me scared of halfling mains.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 12, 2022)

Going for the obvious one.






Warwick Davis knocked it out of the park.

Short, but an adult.

Infectious smile.

and a wizard...so suck it pre 3rd edition.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 12, 2022)

payn said:


> I was just looking for my favorite halfling art (It's Paizo PF1 _Gods and Magic_ supplement but nothing online) and realized another issue I have. Halflings are often depicted child like because of their size. They are usually doing things like balancing a bottle on their nose or sucking a lollipop. Few actually get the adventurer look that other race artwork generates. Also, barely any elderly halflings either.



BRB, commissioning my artist to draw a totally ripped halfling jump-punching the soul out of a man.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

payn said:


> I was just looking for my favorite halfling art (It's Paizo PF1 _Gods and Magic_ supplement but nothing online) and realized another issue I have. Halflings are often depicted child like because of their size. They are usually doing things like balancing a bottle on their nose or sucking a lollipop. Few actually get the adventurer look that other race artwork generates. Also, barely any elderly halflings either.



This one has the human proportions problem, but she satisfies the elderly and adventurey requirements.









						Pin on Art I Like
					

Dec 29, 2015 - Molly Mayapple, from Pathfinder Adeventure Path: Dance of the Damned / Paizo by Ekaterina Burmak




					pin.it
				




Often art that’s nominally supposed to be of gnomes or dwarves, or sometimes even elves works well for less-childlike halflings.


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## Hussar (Jul 12, 2022)

Reynard said:


> This is disingenuous backpedaling. You literally used the term "delusions of grandeur" to describe the "preference" you are now totally fine with. It was rude and elitist and intended to denigrate. Normally I would have just scrolled on by but this is a behavior that is getting more and more normalized on these boards where folks feel free to attack another playstyle -- particularly anything that has even a whiff of "simulation" or "realism." I am not sure when that attitude started, but it rears its ugly head on the regular lately.




Oh. That’s an easy question to answer. 

It started about 15 years ago when the “DnD is sim” crowd used that to bludgeon everyone over the head repeatedly, over and over and over again to “prove” why 4e was the worst edition in existence. 

Fifteen years of endless badwrongfunning from the sim crowd makes people rather tetchy about the whole thing.


----------



## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Yes, and dragons’ wings wouldn’t be able to actually generate enough lift to fly. It’s fantasy, it isn’t supposed to be totally realistic. It’s fine if you don’t like the design, but this isn’t a very compelling argument against it.



I know you're just replying to give context, but "cuz fantasy" isnt a valid deflection when WOTC decided to make them stupid and ugly based on non-fantasy human biology. "Cuz Fantasy" should have been an excuse to make them not grotesque! Cuz fantasy is why they don't have a +6 to strength.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> Going for the obvious one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Have you seen that they’re making a Willow series on Disney+ with Warwick Davis reprising the role? The trailer looked pretty dope.


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 12, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> I know you're just replying to give context, but "cuz fantasy" isnt a valid deflection when WOTC decided to make them stupid and ugly based on non-fantasy human biology.



Stupid and ugly is your opinion. “They would have weird fetuses” is a poor attempt to try to pass your opinion off as objective. It’s stylistic. You either like that or you don’t, and it’s fine if you don’t, but appeals to realism don’t make your opinion any more valid than someone else’s who does like it.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Stupid and ugly is your opinion. “They would have weird fetuses” is a poor attempt to try to pass your opinion off as objective. It’s stylistic. You either like that or you don’t, and it’s fine if you don’t, but appeals to realism don’t make your opinion any more valid than someone else’s who does like it.



Unless of course, your stylistic opinion is that the game could have a few more spells or elf subraces..in which case..welcome to WOTC.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Have you seen that they’re making a Willow series on Disney+ with Warwick Davis reprising the role? The trailer looked pretty dope.



Original Willow is one of a few movies that pre-internet teenage me was convinced had been part of some weird dream rather than an actual movie. See also Labyrinth. 

Not sure if I was happy or disappointed to find out they were real.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 12, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> they need to have someone go over them and make them work better?




I don't understand the question. Can you clarify?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 12, 2022)

lall said:


> Sorry, defined it for myself. Here are synonyms, again, for myself: enormous, huge, colossal. Not halfling head-sized, but not “slightly larger”. The gnome pic above isn’t horrible, but given the author’s own choice of words, I’m led to believe my gnome has to have a prodigious nose. I haven’t seen artwork in 5e of a non-prodigious nose. Some may have a different opinion. Perhaps those folks can produce an erratum of the PHB text.




So, you stated "having schnozzes the size of halfling heads."in your first post. Now you are pulling back from that. 

Also, you just said that you don't think the above pic is "horrible" but then say you've never seen 5e gnome art with a "non-prodigious" nose. But... that's the forest gnome from the PHB? The one you used as an example yourself? 

I also think you are misunderstanding the idea of context here. Yeah, for noses, they have relatively big noses. But not outside of the human norm, and there are plenty of real-life people with big and prominent noses. So, in terms of noses, they have what is referred to as a prodigious nose, but that doesn't mean they have noses like a probiscus monkey, which they had in earlier editions. Their noses are... slightly bigger than average, which people who talk about nose size a lot tend to refer to as "prominent" or "prodigious"


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## Wyckedemus (Jul 12, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> my hatred of halflings is absolute, I believe the only halfling should be in Tolkien's setting and nowhere else as any attempt to fix them removes anything that makes them a halfling, in eberron they might as well have made the the dinoriders any other races as they would be cool regardless.
> darksun dwarves are less a departure from the base idea than the darksun halfling who might as well be anything else.
> halflings do not deserve the fourth spot of common races, they should be moved towards the uncommon as they are less needed.
> 
> ...



Regarding evil halflings, in my home campaign I have introduced a society of small-sized tieflings spawned from halfling stock, colloquially called hellflings. They love to eat charred bbq, drink heavily, tailgate at music-filled rallies inspired by worship of Asmodeus and the Archdevils, and they love to raise a little hell in their little corner of the world, they call the Nine Shires.


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## Hussar (Jul 12, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Haflings and their hairy feet, dwarves and their beards*, and gnomes with big schnozes will always be a thing in my campaign world.
> 
> * I’m currently playing a dwarf assassin spy whose hairless . Playing against type is a thing.




And yet halflings have not had hairy feet since the nineties.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I don't understand the question. Can you clarify?



I mean the halfling needs an overhaul to make all its traits make sense and work together properly.


Wyckedemus said:


> Regarding evil halflings, in my home campaign I have introduced a society of small-sized tieflings spawned from halfling stock, colloquially called hellflings. They love to eat charred bbq, drink heavily, tailgate at music-filled rallies inspired by worship of Asmodeus and the Archdevils, and they love to raise a little hell in their little corner of the world, they call the Nine Shires.



that is both funny and insulting teiflings have no biological component that makes that them evil.


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## Reynard (Jul 12, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> Okay I'll bite.
> 
> What's the best picture of a Halfling should look like?



Obviously!


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Unless of course, your stylistic opinion is that the game could have a few more spells or elf subraces..in which case..welcome to WOTC.



The application questions must be weird:

Are you a US citizen or otherwise authorized to work in the United States?
Are you at least 18 years of age?
Do you think wizards are the best class?
Do you think there can never be too many elves?

(anyone who answers no to any of these is automatically rejected)


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## Hussar (Jul 12, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That may be part of the problem. There are more halfling distinctive examples by other game companies like Paizo. For example, Lem:
> View attachment 253481
> You pretty much can't look at that picture and not realize it's a halfling.




But again. This hasn’t been a DnD halflings in more than 20 years. And if WotC did that all you’d hear would be endless kvetching about how WotC was stealing from Tolkien and yet more proof that they are creatively bankrupt. 

There’s no win condition here. Only losing on your own terms.


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## ehren37 (Jul 12, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think this has pretty decent proportions that communicate the small size without looking weird.



That still looks like 7 year old in cosplay, but at least I'm not reaching for the bat guano. Lem looks the best IMO.


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## Minigiant (Jul 12, 2022)

The truth is Hobbits and Hobbitish Halflings were made for a setting with 4 races with 4 cultures.

D&D isn't that anymore and hasn't been for 40 years. The PHB comes with 9 races and 14-20 cultures at base. And adds races and cultures every years.

So Halflings who are defined by being small or towny no longer have those as unique. Much like the dexterity bonus.

So halflings have to figure out what makes them unique.


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## billd91 (Jul 12, 2022)

Hussar said:


> But again. This hasn’t been a DnD halflings in more than 20 years. And if WotC did that all you’d hear would be endless kvetching about how WotC was stealing from Tolkien and yet more proof that they are creatively bankrupt.
> 
> There’s no win condition here. Only losing on your own terms.



Losing on your own terms is still losing. Since halflings are pretty obviously lifted from Tolkien, hairy feet or not, what's the point of diverging? You just end up with endless threads on fan sites griping about their pointlessness other than being small. It's a self-inflicted problem.
Plus, there still are hairy footed halflings canonically within D&D. Check out Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and its reference to Greyhawk.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 12, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The truth is Hobbits and Hobbitish Halflings were made for a setting with 4 races with 4 cultures.
> 
> D&D isn't that anymore and hasn't been for 40 years. The PHB comes with 9 races and 14-20 cultures at base. And adds races and cultures every years.
> 
> ...



Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?


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## Maxperson (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?



Rings of Power?


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## Minigiant (Jul 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?



All three are super rare and niche in implementation. Hence the problem.

It would be something if halflings are supernaturally brave, incredibly sneaky, or had incredible luck. But its just 3 minor features..

And again it's barely unique. Kobolds now get a bravery feature. And Gnomes can illusion their own cover.

It's a similar problems with dwarves and elfves but those races are strong mechanically as well and lack a racial penalty.


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## Hussar (Jul 13, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Losing on your own terms is still losing. Since halflings are pretty obviously lifted from Tolkien, hairy feet or not, what's the point of diverging? You just end up with endless threads on fan sites griping about their pointlessness other than being small. It's a self-inflicted problem.
> Plus, there still are hairy footed halflings canonically within D&D. Check out Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and its reference to Greyhawk.




Well there is the whole getting sued by the Tolkien estate that probably plays a role in losing hairy feet. 

But again, this issue was lost twenty years ago. That’s a long time to hold out for hairy feet. .


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## Hussar (Jul 13, 2022)

Oh about the chimp comparison. A full grown chimp is about four to five feet tall and around 150 pound. 

Chimps aren’t halflings. They’re dwarf sized. Halflings as written are about the size of a large house cat. 

If we’re into “realism” and all that. Actually best comparison would likely be Rocket Raccoon. And even he’s probably bigger than a normal halflings.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 13, 2022)

You think Halflings are treated badly now?

Read "The munchkin's guide to Power Gaming" for absolute tongue and cheek disdain.


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## Oofta (Jul 13, 2022)

Small size creatures have half the carrying capacity of medium sized creatures, in effect a halfling with an 18 strength is not as strong as a human with an 18 strength.  The application of strength as it applies to things like attack bonuses or athletics checks is a game construct, and an imperfect one at that.

Oh, and magic.  Magic explains everything.


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## Stormonu (Jul 13, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And yet halflings have not had hairy feet since the nineties.



A lie told by gnomish cobblers trying to cover the truth!


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Small size creatures have half the carrying capacity of medium sized creatures, in effect a halfling with an 18 strength is not as strong as a human with an 18 strength.  The application of strength as it applies to things like attack bonuses or athletics checks is a game construct, and an imperfect one at that.
> 
> Oh, and magic.  Magic explains everything.



All of those things are game constructs. That said, in 5e, the drop-off in carrying capacity happens at Tiny, not Small, so at least there is less in the way of inconsistency.

It does mean that the small races are considerably stronger on a pound for pound basis than most of their medium-sized cousins. IIRC, the main mechanical differences for small sized chars relate to "heavy" weapons and grappling.


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## Oofta (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> All of those things are game constructs. That said, in 5e, the drop-off in carrying capacity happens at Tiny, not Small, so at least there is less in the way of inconsistency.
> 
> It does mean that the small races are considerably stronger on a pound for pound basis than most of their medium-sized cousins. IIRC, the main mechanical differences for small sized chars relate to "heavy" weapons and grappling.



D'oh!  Bad memory. Still, there's nothing stopping a 20 strength pixie.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> D'oh!  Bad memory. Still, there's nothing stopping a 20 strength pixie.



No worries. I had to look it up myself. Only time I've actually seen that section of the rules used in play was when I had a character die and no one in the party was strong enough to haul away my corpse


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## Oofta (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> No worries. I had to look it up myself. Only time I've actually seen that section of the rules used in play was when I had a character die and no one in the party was strong enough to haul away my corpse



Tell me about it. I'm currently playing a game where we're all in the jungle so no one made a strength based PC.  Our strongest PC has a 10.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?




The problem with these are pretty obvious I think. 

Bravery is a personality trait that everyone has. Saying halflings are brave is like saying humans are industrious.... so are a BUNCH of other races, so it isn't really unique, and you can't do much with it. Besides, most characters are brave, they are adventurers

Stealthiness is a class feature. All rogues are stealthy. All rangers are stealthy. ect ect ect. And halflings aren't particularly anymore stealthy than anyone else. Put a halfing, a rock gnome, a goblin and a kobold in a room full of boxes, and they all hide just as well. Make a halfling a paladin and a Triton a rogue, and the triton is stealthier than the halfling.

And luck is... so hard to define. It can't work as a character trait for an actual character, because you can't actually control the luck at the table. It just has to be enforced via plot armor, and that's bizarre and hard to pull off. If a DM doesn't particularly force explanations that make a halfling luckier than everyone else.... then they aren't luckier than everyone else.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> All three are super rare and niche in implementation. Hence the problem.
> 
> It would be something if halflings are supernaturally brave, incredibly sneaky, or had incredible luck. But its just 3 minor features..
> 
> ...



I'd agree that the abilities are undertuned compared to some other races now that racial ability mods are going away, especially considering the lack of darkvision. 

I would however, disagree that they are not unique, and also that they any of the abilities even should be absolutely unique to one race. You are getting the package of abilities, not just one. 

All that said, I prefer the pf2e ancestries by a wide margin.


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## Irlo (Jul 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The problem with these are pretty obvious I think.
> 
> Bravery is a personality trait that everyone has.



But not everyone has advantage on saving throws vs. fear effects. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Stealthiness is a class feature. All rogues are stealthy. All rangers are stealthy. ect ect ect. And halflings aren't particularly anymore stealthy than anyone else.



Some of them at least can hide when obscured only by a medium or larger creature. That’s unique, I think. 



Chaosmancer said:


> And luck is... so hard to define. _It_ can't work as a character trait for an actual character, because you can't actually control the luck at the table. It just has to be enforced via plot armor,



Or enforced by a feature like the ability to reroll ones on attacks, saves, and ability checks.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The problem with these are pretty obvious I think.
> 
> Bravery is a personality trait that everyone has. Saying halflings are brave is like saying humans are industrious.... so are a BUNCH of other races, so it isn't really unique, and you can't do much with it. Besides, most characters are brave, they are adventurers
> 
> ...



So it probably helps to look at how the mechanics of their features actually work.

"Bravery", mechanically, means that halflings are less likely to become debilitated by fear. It's not just that they are willing to do dangerous things, it's they do they physiologically/psychologically experience fear differently than other creatures.

"Naturally Stealthy" (Lightfoot only), mechanically means they can hide around larger creatures. Put a stealthy lightfoot halfling and any other stealthy in a room full of boxes, and, sure, they are equivalent; put them in a crowded bar, and it's a difference of night and day. They just know how to avoid people's eyeballs.

"Halfling Luck", mechanically, means that they are less likely to encounter guaranteed or worst-case failures. They just have way fewer terrible no-good really bad days than other races. I'd agree that it's a weak characterization of being lucky since it's passive and only comes up maybe 5% of the time, but it is, at least, distinct in what it does. I wish it was a little stronger or had more of an active application, but it isn't bad.

Edit: @Irlo  ninja'd with concision


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I'd agree that the abilities are undertuned compared to some other races now that racial ability mods are going away, especially considering the lack of darkvision.
> 
> I would however, disagree that they are not unique, and also that they any of the abilities even should be absolutely unique to one race. You are getting the package of abilities, not just one.



The problem is like you said the package is undertuned.

Let's look at the goblin: It's traits are its favorability to darkness, anger to bigger folk, and nimbleness.

So it has Darkvision, Fury of the Small, and Nimble Escape. So whether you make a goblin fighter or goblin wizard, you can feel and play that angry little monster jumps out the darkness to backstab foes and runs away screaming if in a bad situation.

With the halfling, you can easily go a whole session without displaying your halflingness. Because the halfling package is *reactive and passive*  but lacks the *power* to shine brightly.
The Dwarf's races are reactive and passive but big and constantly on display  The Hill dwark has more HP. The Mountain Dwarf has a big STR boost and usually better AC. nd wih Tasha's you can even trade out redundantdwarf features for ones you want to use more.

Solution 1: Lucky gives you a luck point instead of a passive reroll.
Solution 2: Brave affect all allies within your walking speed.
Solution 3: Halfling Nimbleness lets you Disengage as a bonus action



Gammadoodler said:


> All that said, I prefer the pf2e ancestries by a wide margin.



Naaaaah.
Pf2 Ancestries rely on optional feat for power and it makes members of a race share way too little in common.


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## lingual (Jul 13, 2022)

There was a 3k post last year about errata-ing halflings out of the Players Handbook.

Basically - some insisted that halflings get errata'ed out of the Players Handbook - so you would basically have to buy a splat book to play them - I forget the details.


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

lingual said:


> There was a 3k post last year about errata-ing halflings out of the Players Handbook.
> 
> Basically - some insisted that halflings get errata'ed out of the Players Handbook - so you would basically have to buy a splat book to play them - I forget the details.



The details were like the original article post.

Few DMs and World designers integrated Halflings into their worlds. Most either turned them into Hobbits and stuck them into a world where hobbits don't make sense. OR they turned them into Kender and made a race that encouraged players and DMs to be annoying. The settings that actually made halfling match the setting (Dark Sun, Nentir Vale) are not official supported.

Basically it was like putting Kryptonians  (or Bizarro Kryptonians for Kender) in D&D with no adaption because people like Superman (Or Bizarro).


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The problem is like you said the package is undertuned.
> 
> Let's look at the goblin: It's traits are its favorability to darkness, anger to bigger folk, and nimbleness.
> 
> ...




Solution 1: I like
Solution 2: I think is unnecessary
Solution 3: Is fine I think, but I like "naturally stealthy" for the lightfoots better.

I'd agree the goblin is a stronger package and I like what they did with it, but the halfling came first. The goblin and the new kobold are power crept options the halflings haven't kept up with, but I'm not sure that most of the phb races kept up with it.

As far as the dwarf stuff. I'm struggling to think of a single feature that doesn't cause drowsiness. The ASIs and darkvision are the most notable things I can come up with and that's just..sad.

As it relates to pf2e, the heritages provide the baselines for what all members of the subtype have in common, and the feats provide great ways to choose how you become a dwarfier dwarf as time goes on. I'd say there are definitely too many feats to choose from, but I like the baked in diversity within the families. Seems like our mileage have varied.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

lingual said:


> There was a 3k post last year about errata-ing halflings out of the Players Handbook.
> 
> Basically - some insisted that halflings get errata'ed out of the Players Handbook - so you would basically have to buy a splat book to play them - I forget the details.



There might have been a few. I believe the range of opinions went from what you describe to "Halflings shouldn't be a 'core four' race (whatever that means)", to "Hallings are cool and don't have to just be Hobbits", to "I love Hobbit halflings, they're my favorite thing".

In between, there was literary criticism, propositional mythology, "realistic" fantasy wargaming, probably some war crime about putting pineapples on pizza, etc.

We're starting to work through some of the beats. Folks might be able to just start re-linking some old posts...Efficiency ftw


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Solution 1: I like
> Solution 2: I think is unnecessary
> Solution 3: Is fine I think, but I like "naturally stealthy" for the lightfoots better.
> 
> ...




But even the old goblin and kobold had more flavor and power than the halfling.

I think the halfling and to a lesser extent dwarf and elf suffered for 5e's early push to bring in 2e and 1e fans. So they were designed with boring weak passive racials.

Dragonborn, Tiefling, and the exotic races were designed and redesigned for the late 3.5, 4e, and new fans who liked fantastical, dynamic, and major racials.

Like the Hallfing's Second Chance ability from 4e was left off the base race and readded in XGTE as a feat. Same with Bountiful Luck. So it seems that WOTC sees the halfling as a little sneaky walking lucky charm but downplayed it to cater to old school fans.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> But even the old goblin and kobold had more flavor and power than the halfling.
> 
> I think the halfling and to a lesser extent dwarf and elf suffered for 5e's early push to bring in 2e and 1e fans. So they were designed with boring weak passive racials.
> 
> ...



More mechanical power, probably (though original kobold had sunlight sensitivity, so I'm inclined to call that one a wash). More mechanical flavor, agree to disagree.

From my perspective, halflings could use a little bit more/better mechanical support and maybe a lore entry that doesn't seem like an act of editorial malpractice, and it'd be good to go. 

I mostly think they're fine, but could use some pretty minor investment to get them into a significantly better place (for me). As we've seen already though, there are plenty of folks who think they are great just the way they are.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Irlo said:


> But not everyone has advantage on saving throws vs. fear effects.




But that's mechanics, not story. My ranger may be pissing down his leg from fear effects, but he is still standing and shooting at that dragon. Are you going to try and claim that feeling and being affected by fear makes you not brave? Or do we still hold that doing something *despite *fear is bravery? 

I won't deny advantage on saving throws is mechanically good. But story-wise, everyone who decides to go and fight the darkness for the good of those who can't is brave.



Irlo said:


> Some of them at least can hide when obscured only by a medium or larger creature. That’s unique, I think.




Some of them can hide in a crowd. But they can't hide any better in any other circumstance. And again, a halfing Paladin isn't sneakier than a Bugbear rogue, or a dragonborn rogue, or an elven rogue, or a human rogue. Because "I am a rogue" is more important to being sneaky than "I am a halfling" So how is it a defining part of their racial character if it is something determined by class?



Irlo said:


> Or enforced by a feature like the ability to reroll ones on attacks, saves, and ability checks.




Can you re-roll a 2? A 3? What if you re-roll that one and still fail? 

Yes, again, it is a good mechanic. However, it doesn't really fit into the story easily. The halfling isn't any luckier than an orc fighter who rolls a 1 on their save and uses indomitable. Unless the DM forces it into the story, which is incredibly awkward to do, by determining randomly which events are "halfling luck" and which are just.... normal luck.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Guess I should have scrolled down and seen this was two responses



Gammadoodler said:


> So it probably helps to look at how the mechanics of their features actually work.
> 
> "Bravery", mechanically, means that halflings are less likely to become debilitated by fear. It's not just that they are willing to do dangerous things, it's they do they physiologically/psychologically experience fear differently than other creatures.




Yes, this is the mechanic. However, "experiencing fear differently" isn't "bravery" and like I said, my ranger may be "debilitated" by fear, but he is still fighting. And fighting despite fear is bravery. Must PCs are "brave" because they go out and face murderous monsters the size of houses on the regular.



Gammadoodler said:


> "Naturally Stealthy" (Lightfoot only), mechanically means they can hide around larger creatures. Put a stealthy lightfoot halfling and any other stealthy in a room full of boxes, and, sure, they are equivalent; put them in a crowded bar, and it's a difference of night and day. They just know how to avoid people's eyeballs.




And put them in the forest with a wood elf, and the wood elf is stealthier. 

And again,  if I build a cleric or paladin halfing and have them try and hide in a crowded bar, while a half-orc rogue tries to hide in the same bar... Rogue is more likely to succeed. 

And as you note, this is only a specific sub-race of halflings. So it can't even be used to describe all halflings if I concede the point, just a single sub-race out of six. So, 5/6 halflings are not particularly stealthy at all.



Gammadoodler said:


> "Halfling Luck", mechanically, means that they are less likely to encounter guaranteed or worst-case failures. They just have way fewer terrible no-good really bad days than other races. I'd agree that it's a weak characterization of being lucky since it's passive and only comes up maybe 5% of the time, but it is, at least, distinct in what it does. I wish it was a little stronger or had more of an active application, but it isn't bad.




But again, mechanics aren't the story. Unless the DM is pushing the narrative by having unusual and "lucky" things happen to the halfling on the regular, they aren't any luckier than any other PC. Heck, they are less lucky than a human who takes the Lucky feat. 

I've seen halflings in game, and seen this ability only come up once... and they failed the check anyways. It just doesn't provide a strong narrative to hang the race off of.


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## Maxperson (Jul 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> D'oh!  Bad memory. Still, there's nothing stopping a 20 strength pixie.



That's why I raised the stat cap to reflect racial bonuses.  You may have a 20 strength pixie, but no pixie can physically match the 22 strength goliaths.


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## Dragonhelm (Jul 13, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They're fearless, but they lie immediately to get out of trouble.




Is it a lie if they honestly believe it? Dictionary.com defines "lie" as "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth. "

Key word there is "deliberate."

Kender will often say something like "You must have dropped it" or "I was afraid someone else would take it."

Per Dragonlance Adventures...



> "All of these lines are delivered with an innocent sincerity that is all the more maddening because the kender really is sincere! A kender might not necessarily remember where he found something, even if he picked it up half a minute before, and such responses are often delivered as part of a subconscious defense mechanism. Intense curiosity is a trait ingrained in their souls and minds from their racial creation by the Greystone of Gargath."




As there is no deliberate telling of an untruth, no lie present.



Faolyn said:


> They have no sense of personal property, but they don't _give _things away; they only take things. They should be as willing to give things to other people as they are to take them.




Kender can give items away just as easily as a human.



Faolyn said:


> They're as intelligent as a human, but can't seem to understand that other races have different thoughts about concepts such as personal property. They should be able and willing to _not _take everything that they come across.




Let's look to history for this one. The colonizers of the Americas and the Native Americans had different understandings of owning land. The Europeans have an understanding as we do now. The indigenous peoples thought that land belonged to everybody. (And I may be misremembering this some.)

Point is, two peoples who are as intelligent as each other, yet who have different views on the concept of land ownership.



Faolyn said:


> As far as I can tell, they never had a penalty to either Intelligence or Wisdom to explain this lack of self-control. Additionally, since they have normal levels of Intelligence and Wisdom, they shouldn't believe their lies.




In the Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Races of Ansalon sourcebooks for 3.5, kender had a -2 to Wisdom.




Faolyn said:


> They're totally innocent, but somehow are able to string together insults to make even the most hardened of souls angry. In reality, an "innocent" kender's taunts should be as insulting as a toddlers. But they're (magically?) infuriating.




No magic about it, contrary to the first Heroes of Krynn article for Unearthed Arcana.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 13, 2022)

I feel we are talking as if we couldn't agree about how to cook certain recipe.

Maybe halflings can have the same genotype and showing different phenotypes. Then we could to have two halflings with the same stats, game mechanical and racial traits, but a different look, one of them as a hobbit clone, and the other as a kender clone.

Somebody could publish in the next year a new webcomic about halflings surviving a zombie apocalypse as a mixture of epic fantasy and parody of D&D stereotypes and zombies movies, and then halflings would become more popular. Or a webcomic as parody is magical girls and isekai when a human woman in the new world becomes a female halfling (or reincarnated because druid's spell was cheaper than the true resurection).

There was a canon evil version of the halflings, the jerren, from 3rd Book of Vile Darkness, and they were very "grimm", they could be like the no-contagious version of the "Crossed" gore horror comic.

How could we create a variant subrace replacing any racial traits to become better spellcaster than the classical stealthy hero? 

* Maybe in a future WotC desings magitek "exosuits" or "powered armors" as contruct monster mounts, and later to sell toys of transfomers D&D monsters.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Guess I should have scrolled down and seen this was two responses
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Your ranger who is still fighting despite being frightened is rolling with disadvantage, and cannot move closer to the source of their fear. They are debilitated while the halfling is not (or at least are more likely to be debilitated holding all other things equal). Sure they are brave, but not the way that halflings are brave. 

Would changing the feature name to "unshakeable" or something ease the semantic angst related to this ability? Because, unless I'm missing something,  the whole issue seems to revolve around the definition of "bravery" rather than anything related to the effect of the ability.

Yes, a wood elf has a similar feature to improve stealth in the woods. And that wood elf gets less use out of that feature when they are a paladin or cleric too. It does not make the wood elf feature any less definitive for a wood elf. And, yes it is one subrace. IIRC, from what little and godawful lore there is, it is the predominant one, so probably(?) not 5/6 but who knows really. In either case, the other subraces have other things they can do with varying effectiveness. 

The lucky thing is a fine narrative with a weak mechanic. Improving the mechanic to support the narrative is an easy fix, and I'd like it I'd there was one. But such a fix should require no adjustment to the narrative.


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## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

Dragonhelm said:


> Is it a lie if they honestly believe it? Dictionary.com defines "lie" as "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth. "



If they honestly believe a lie of their own telling, then they're an entire race of people with delusional psychoses, which is _not_ really appropriate as a PC race.  

And if they _don't_ believe their lies, then they're a race of pathological liars, which is _also _not really appropriate as a PC race. 

Neither of these make for a logical non-supernatural race, not even even by D&D terms. Those are the kind of traits you'd see in faeries or demons.



Dragonhelm said:


> Kender can give items away just as easily as a human.



_Do_ they? Because I never see them written as people who give freely. Instead, they're written about as takers. If kender truly don't understand personal property, then they'd give away things _a lot more readily _than a human, who _does._ 



Dragonhelm said:


> Let's look to history for this one. The colonizers of the Americas and the Native Americans had different understandings of owning land. The Europeans have an understanding as we do now. The indigenous peoples thought that land belonged to everybody. (And I may be misremembering this some.)
> 
> Point is, two peoples who are as intelligent as each other, yet who have different views on the concept of land ownership.



Europeans and Native Americans had two very different cultures, separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years of different cultural development. This is true.

The kender basically _don't _have a culture, however. Their write-ups say that they're effectively too chaotic for any, and their only true society is the nuclear family. They don't even have the ability or desire to maintain an _extended family_. They have no laws of their own, no social mores, _nothing_. Each kender does whatever they heck they want to do. If they have any cultural elements at all, then it's elements they've appropriated from others. Meaning, humans, elves, dwarfs, gnomes, etc. All races they lived near to and interacted with fairly often over the course of however long these have been in existence on Krynn, as opposed to having been separated by them for, as I said, thousands of miles and thousands of years.

There is no logical reason why they shouldn't have realized centuries ago that other people don't like it when you take their things. So they either _can't _understand or they simply don't care, both of which would likely make them sociopaths. 



Dragonhelm said:


> No magic about it, contrary to the first Heroes of Krynn article for Unearthed Arcana.



That was an exaggeration. But having it be completely non-magical makes it even _more _illogical that these supposedly innocent, kindly beings are able to taunt people so horrifically to the point that, as "All About the Kender" says (in Dragon #101), full-scale riots have happened as a result of their taunting. How angry do you have to be able to make people, plural, for there to be a full-scale riot?

So kender, _as written,_ are some combination of delusional, pathological liar, kleptomaniacal, sociopathic, anarchal, and/or vicious hecklers that aren't fit for even impolite company. That we're all supposed to find charming because of reasons. 

So while many of the problems that come with kender are because of the players, those players are playing the race as they were written to be.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Somebody could publish in the next year a new webcomic about halflings surviving a zombie apocalypse as a mixture of epic fantasy and parody of D&D stereotypes and zombies movies, and then halflings would become more popular. Or a webcomic as parody is magical girls and isekai when a human woman in the new world becomes a female halfling (or reincarnated because druid's spell was cheaper than the true resurection).



Halflings have played a fairly important role in Yet Another Gamer Comic for a very long time no. Sadly, that comic probably isn't itself popular enough for it to have a major impact on halfling culture. If anything, Belkar from OOTS has had a bigger impact.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Halflings have played a fairly important role in Yet Another Gamer Comic for a very long time no. Sadly, that comic probably isn't itself popular enough for it to have a major impact on halfling culture. If anything, Belkar from OOTS has had a bigger impact.



There's a reason why you don't see halflings in many media outside of D&D save  for maybe 1-2 characters or a mention.

Halflings as Hobbits don't integrate with many setting. Tolkien wrote Hobbits for a 4 good race setting. So outside of those, hobbitish haflings are minor. People who love halflings as hobbits tend to be old school and run monoculture, low race, hard good-evil settings.

Halflings as Kenders are just an excuse to play a child with the rights of an adult or an annoying character.

Halflings as how 5e depict them are 75% there to be important in many settings. They just need to be tied to the world a wee bit more.



LuisCarlos17f said:


> Somebody could publish in the next year a new webcomic about halflings surviving a zombie apocalypse as a mixture of epic fantasy and parody of D&D stereotypes and zombies movies, and then halflings would become more popular. Or a webcomic as parody is magical girls and isekai when a human woman in the new world becomes a female halfling (or reincarnated because druid's spell was cheaper than the true resurection).



In fact this doesn't happen. Fantasy media is quick to take D&D style elves, dwarves, orcs, and even dragon people and drop them in new setting with new twists. This rarely happens to halflings and theymight get a mention just to get a "oh and he's a halfling" character.

Warhammer has halflings in their fntasy setting as a minor mention and a pair of units in a unsupported faction. They aren't in 40k nor their fantasy reboot unlike elves,, dwarves, and orcs.

Halflings are hard to use as they lack anything specifically unique and the unique combination of traits are not strong enough in crunch or fluff to find a niche within setting affairs and character creation.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?



name adventures who are not brave.
elves already have that plus cat people and bugbears(why are they called bugbears they not particularly bug-like in any way)
how do they have luck? it is not something genetic and luck magic is not really a thing.


Minigiant said:


> There's a reason why you don't see halflings in many media outside of D&D save  for maybe 1-2 characters or a mention.
> 
> Halflings as Hobbits don't integrate with many setting. Tolkien wrote Hobbits for a 4 good race setting. So outside of those, hobbitish haflings are minor. People who love halflings as hobbits tend to be old school and run monoculture, low race, hard good-evil settings.
> 
> ...



halfings are in 40k they are just known as ratlings.


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## Hussar (Jul 13, 2022)

lingual said:


> There was a 3k post last year about errata-ing halflings out of the Players Handbook.
> 
> Basically - some insisted that halflings get errata'ed out of the Players Handbook - so you would basically have to buy a splat book to play them - I forget the details.



As probably the biggest proponent of this, I would point out that this is VERY inaccurate.  As in not even remotely right.

What was ACTUALLY suggested (and I believe I suggested it again here) was that halflings get bumped to the Monster Manual or a section of the DMG, similar to where we find Eladrin now.  All the rules are kept.  Nothing is lost, nor would you have to "buy a splat book to play them".  However, that would open up space in the PHB for a couple of new races to see if they can gain more traction than the two "also rans" of D&D.   My personal picks would be an anthropomorphic template race - something that lets you pick an animal and select a couple of traits that fit with that animal - and probably Warforged since Warforged seem to be a very popular option and fill one hell of a lot more interesting niche than either gnomes or halflings.

And for that, I got absolutely dog piled on and told that I hate halflings and gnomes and the only reason I would think this is because I hate gamers.    It was rather bizarre to be frank.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There's a reason why you don't see halflings in many media outside of D&D save for maybe 1-2 characters or a mention.



There are two reasons, the Tolkien association, and that they are faffy to do in live action.

Still, the Amazon LotR prequal has halflings, despite them not actually appearing in the Silmarillion.


Minigiant said:


> Tolkien wrote Hobbits for a 4 good race setting.



I'm sure Tolkien didn't at any point think "I am creating a four good race setting".


Minigiant said:


> So outside of those, hobbitish haflings are minor.



They are minor _in_ Tolkien.


Minigiant said:


> People who love halflings as hobbits tend to be old school and run monoculture, low race, hard good-evil settings.



Nope, my players are fond of halflings because they are cute, English, and they like the "Lucky" trait. And our settings are not monoculture, low race, or hard good-evil.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> There are two reasons, the Tolkien association, and that they are faffy to do in live action.
> 
> Still, the Amazon LotR prequal has halflings, despite them not actually appearing in the Silmarillion.



Well that's because it's LOTR. That's my point.



Paul Farquhar said:


> I'm sure Tolkien didn't at any point think "I am creating a four good race setting".



No. He design each race to take up a specific culture and not overlap.

That's my point.

I could easily replace Halflings with cute, rural, English humans and they would be missing nothing but being small.

I could easily replace Halflings with Gnomes if I need small people with human colored skin. That's what Warcraft did.

Tolkien designed Hobbits with a purpose.

D&D designed Halflings for a few mechanics and cultures... then gave the same or similar mechanics to humane, gnomes, goblins, dwarves, elves, kobolds, and now harengon.



Paul Farquhar said:


> They are minor _in_ Tolkien



Exactly. D&D took a minor race in another media, made it a major race without changing much, then preceded to lore creep and power creep it.

Halfling is probably the first example of lore creep in a game. 


Paul Farquhar said:


> Nope, my players are fond of halflings because they are cute, English, and they like the "Lucky" trait. And our settings are not monoculture, low race, or hard good-evil.



I said "tend to be".

And how important or impactful are halflings in your settings? Do they have a unique niche or place that only they can  occupy?


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Tolkien designed Hobbits with a purpose.



Yes he did. But not because that culture was a necessary part of his fantasy world, from which they are largely absent. They are viewpoint characters, representing himself and the reader, who he imagined as working/middle class middle Englanders. They are small because his fantasy world is so much bigger (in a metaphorical sense) than everyday real life.


Minigiant said:


> And how important or impactful are halflings in your settings? Do they have a unique niche or place that only they can occupy?



No races have a unique niche in my setting. That's the nature a high race setting. People are just people, irrespective of they are tall, short covered in fur, covered in scales, or whathaveyou.


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Yes he did. But not because that culture was a necessary part of his fantasy world, from which they are largely absent. They are viewpoint characters, representing himself and the reader, who he imagined as working/middle class middle Englanders. They are small because his fantasy world is so much bigger (in a metaphorical sense) than everyday real life



And this is the main problem with hobbit like halflings.


If they whole race is tied to a culture you can't really alter and a physical chasis with few unique or impactful features, you don't have the freedom drag them into new setting or change them without making them something unrecognizable.

In contrast you can make 150 types of elves because their base haughty, long life, feyness, and gracefulneess still shines and offers new takes on them without removing the parts people like about them.

Stick Wood, High, Dark, Shadow, or Fire in front of halflings and you likely lose half their popularity.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> you don't have the freedom drag them into new setting



You can drop them into any high race setting, because no one needs to have a special culture or weird physical features, they might just have blue skin or a knobbly forehead.

Since high race is standard for D&D now, I would say that's a problem solved.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> There are two reasons, the Tolkien association, and that they are faffy to do in live action.
> 
> Still, the Amazon LotR prequal has halflings, despite them not actually appearing in the Silmarillion.
> 
> ...



cute and English are not compatible it defies the laws of nature, aside from maybe dogs.


Paul Farquhar said:


> You can drop them into any high race setting, because no one needs to have a special culture or weird physical features, they might just have blue skin or a knobbly forehead.
> 
> Since high race is standard for D&D now, I would say that's a problem solved.



the problem of a high-race setting is eventually people get bored of the lack of connection there is no internal logic just cool people adventuring which will not keep people long term given the list of things dnd competes with for valuable human free time.


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## Oofta (Jul 13, 2022)

The basic complaint with halflings seems to be that they're "just short people with a couple of traits".  That's it?  Are _any_ races in D&D anything other than people with a handful of minor traits that emphasize some aspect of human nature?  For that matter, is it really that different in the vast majority of fantasy or sci-fi?

We're human.  We humanize the motivations and thought patterns of practically every living creature to one degree or other.  From Star Trek to Star Wars to Babylon Five to D&D, alien species are fundamentally just humans with rubber masks.  They have tendencies toward some aspect of culture so they have a common identity that certain special individuals or small groups can fight back against.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> name adventures who are not brave.
> elves already have that plus cat people and bugbears(why are they called bugbears they not particularly bug-like in any way)
> how do they have luck? it is not something genetic and luck magic is not really a thing.
> 
> halfings are in 40k they are just known as ratlings.



See posts in reply to @Chaosmancer .


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 13, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> the problem of a high-race setting is eventually people get bored of the lack of connection there is no internal logic just cool people adventuring which will not keep people long term given the list of things dnd competes with for valuable human free time.



"Just cool people adventuring" suits us just fine, and no one seems to be getting bored with it.

Lore heavy worldbuilding seems to be the path to boredom to me.


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> The basic complaint with halflings seems to be that they're "just short people with a couple of traits".  That's it?  Are _any_ races in D&D anything other than people with a handful of minor traits that emphasize some aspect of human nature?  For that matter, is it really that different in the vast majority of fantasy or sci-fi?
> 
> We're human.  We humanize the motivations and thought patterns of practically every living creature to one degree or other.  From Star Trek to Star Wars to Babylon Five to D&D, alien species are fundamentally just humans with rubber masks.  They have tendencies toward some aspect of culture so they have a common identity that certain special individuals or small groups can fight back against.



Dragonborn breath fire.
Tiefling have infernal magic
Goliaths lift like ogres
Genasi have elemental resistances and features
Aaracroka fly

"Halflings reroll if they roll very bad"


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> "Halflings reroll if they roll very bad"



This happens a lot more than this


Minigiant said:


> elemental resistances



Over the course of a game.

To delighted cries of "lucky!"


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Naaaaah.
> Pf2 Ancestries rely on optional feat for power and it makes members of a race share way too little in common.



PF2, the game where your wood elf character has to spend their sole 1st level racial feat to learn Elf Lore.

The problem with this approach is that you end up having to choose between racial feats that are mechanically useful, and racial feats that make sense for the character.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> PF2, the game where your wood elf character has to spend their sole 1st level racial feat to learn Elf Lore.
> 
> The problem with this approach is that you end up having to choose between racial feats that are mechanically useful, and racial feats that make sense for the character.



Also the game where your wood elf character can get a climb speed without spellcasting or class feat expenditure. Also the game where an elf being long-lived can have any mechanical relevance. 

The options are many. Some are more niche than others and that is kind of a problem. As it relates to your mechanical issues with halfling features, specifically, the game solves them pretty handily. 

I prefer it because I think it does better than the "if you don't like bad racial features, then choose a different race" approach that 5e employs.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> As it relates to pf2e, the heritages provide the baselines for what all members of the subtype have in common, and the feats provide great ways to choose how you become a dwarfier dwarf as time goes on. I'd say there are definitely too many feats to choose from, but I like the baked in diversity within the families. Seems like our mileage have varied.



Different heritages provide different baselines.  The baseline provides what different members of an ancestry have in common.

To use halflings as an example, all halflings have 6 base hp instead of 8, are small instead of medium, have a +2 Dex and +2 Wis and -2 Str and Keen Eyes.

By way of contrast (using the term loosely), all elves have 6 base hp instead of 8, are medium instead of small, have +2 Dex, +2 Int and -2 Con, and Low-Light Vision.

Note that one of the heritages, Twilight Halfling, gives halflings low-light vision, further blurring the distinction.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> "Just cool people adventuring" suits us just fine, and no one seems to be getting bored with it.
> 
> Lore heavy worldbuilding seems to be the path to boredom to me.



no heavy exposition bores people, people love a well-built world they enjoy getting lost in them, hell even critical role has world-building if only so it makes so story sense, no world-building only works in adventures league where everyone is there only for themselves no proper group.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> If they honestly believe a lie of their own telling, then they're an entire race of people with delusional psychoses, which is _not_ really appropriate as a PC race.
> 
> And if they _don't_ believe their lies, then they're a race of pathological liars, which is _also _not really appropriate as a PC race.



Absolutely.  I would take it even further.  Do these bizarre memory lapses apply to anything other than taking things that don’t belong to them?  Then they are lying, not delusional.



Faolyn said:


> _Do_ they? Because I never see them written as people who give freely. Instead, they're written about as takers. If kender truly don't understand personal property, then they'd give away things _a lot more readily _than a human, who _does._



_Agreed._


Faolyn said:


> Europeans and Native Americans had two very different cultures, separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years of different cultural development. This is true.



Agreed.  Furthermore, Europeans and Native Americans had different concepts of land ownership.  Kender are incapable of understanding private property.  That is different, and incoherent in a supposedly intelligent race.


Faolyn said:


> So kender, _as written,_ are some combination of delusional, pathological liar, kleptomaniacal, sociopathic, anarchal, and/or vicious hecklers that aren't fit for even impolite company. That we're all supposed to find charming because of reasons.



_Authorial fiat_.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> cute and English are not compatible it defies the laws of nature, aside from maybe dogs.



I object to the suggestion that dogs bred in the United Kingdom are “English” in any meaningful sense. Therefore, they can be cute eithout invalidating your point.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I object to the suggestion that dogs bred in the United Kingdom are “English” in any meaningful sense. Therefore, they can be cute eithout invalidating your point.



fair point


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Different heritages provide different baselines.  The baseline provides what different members of an ancestry have in common.
> 
> To use halflings as an example, all halflings have 6 base hp instead of 8, are small instead of medium, have a +2 Dex and +2 Wis and -2 Str and Keen Eyes.
> 
> ...



So within the base class (no heritages), they have the same base hp and dex bump, but nothing else in common including either size or move speed and you find this..indistinct?

(Edit/Note: base hp in pf2e I'd only actually applies in the hp calculations at level 1 and beyond level 1 become increasingly irrelevant to total char hp. Char size in Pf2e is mostly irrelevant except with respect to trips and grapples. Movement speed is huge though as movement costs actions and cannot be broken up. Wis vs Int bump means elves have more skills but less perception relative to halflings. Str vs con flaws mean halflings typically do less damage with weapons while elves have fewer hp.. these are not insignificant differences in total) 

You do bring up twilight halfling which is one several halfling heritages and indeed does give lowlight vision, but you do not bring up cavern elf, which is one of several elf heritages and gives darkvision (a step better than low light vision). A further distinction.

And then there are the feats, which, especially for halflings and elves, are radically different between the two of them.

If you are intending to say that ancestries in PF2e are same-y, this is a poorly chosen example.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Also the game where your wood elf character can get a climb speed without spellcasting or class feat expenditure.



At 9th level, by using the highest of their 3 racial feats, for a climb speed of 10’.


Gammadoodler said:


> Also the game where an elf being long-lived can have any mechanical relevance.



But only if you spend a feat on it.  So if you are investing in that feat tree, your 400-year old elf is unlikely to know Elf lore.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> At 9th level, by using the highest of their 3 racial feats, for a climb speed of 10’.
> 
> But only if you spend a feat on it.  So if you are investing in that feat tree, your 400-year old elf is unlikely to know Elf lore.



Compared to 5e where neither of those things is achievable within those races' portfolios. 

(Note: a lack of Elf Lore does not impact the history skill at all, which elves are better at by virtue of having a higher INT.)


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## Dragonhelm (Jul 13, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That may be part of the problem. There are more halfling distinctive examples by other game companies like Paizo. For example, Lem:
> View attachment 253481
> You pretty much can't look at that picture and not realize it's a halfling.



Paizo nails halflings on the head. That's why I always envision halflings in D&D as Pathfinder halflings.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 13, 2022)

Dragonhelm said:


> Paizo nails halflings on the head. That's why I always envision halflings in D&D as Pathfinder halflings.
> 
> View attachment 253576



God I love Pathfinder’s character designs. They’re just the right amount of busy.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Dragonhelm said:


> Is it a lie if they honestly believe it? Dictionary.com defines "lie" as "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth. "
> 
> Key word there is "deliberate."
> 
> ...




Problem. The players know it is a deliberate telling of an untruth. The players know that the kender player chose to steal something as a conscious decision, and is now lying about it. They then have to accept that the narrative conceit is that the player is lying, but the character is not, and they aren't supposed to get upset with the character, because the narrative states it was an accident and the character doesn't know any better. 

This is why playing Kender is difficult for a lot of groups. The narrative says they will act in ways that most parties find unacceptable, but that they have no idea they are doing so and no one can stay mad at them for it. And that disconnect causes strife. 

Now, it is possible to play them well, and to not have this issue, but it is very very easy to fall into this trap at the table. They work narratively, but not in real play.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Your ranger who is still fighting despite being frightened is rolling with disadvantage, and cannot move closer to the source of their fear. They are debilitated while the halfling is not (or at least are more likely to be debilitated holding all other things equal). Sure they are brave, but not the way that halflings are brave.
> 
> Would changing the feature name to "unshakeable" or something ease the semantic angst related to this ability? Because, unless I'm missing something,  the whole issue seems to revolve around the definition of "bravery" rather than anything related to the effect of the ability.




That is because you are taking the effect of the ability and using it as proof of the narrative, which cannot exist without that ability. And in fact, you are literally saying "both are brave but in different ways" Which also applies to the fighter who made their save and ISN'T debilitated by fear. 

So, now we have a character who is brave for fighting despite the fear. 
We have a character who is brave for not being afraid against something scary

And we have a character who is brave because they will roll twice and take the better result, which may leave them to be brave by fighting on despite the fear or brave because they are not afraid against something scary

Which.... is exactly like the first two? Halflings don't create a third type of bravery. They just have a dice mechanic. And there are a lot of dice mechanics that can help with saves against fear.



Gammadoodler said:


> Yes, a wood elf has a similar feature to improve stealth in the woods. And that wood elf gets less use out of that feature when they are a paladin or cleric too. It does not make the wood elf feature any less definitive for a wood elf. And, yes it is one subrace. IIRC, from what little and godawful lore there is, it is the predominant one, so probably(?) not 5/6 but who knows really. In either case, the other subraces have other things they can do with varying effectiveness.




So, wood elf has a similar feature. Has anyone ever put forth that Elves are particularly stealthy and sneaky? Is that a defining feature of the elves, how unobtrusive they are? No, that isn't really something we talk about with elves. It comes up if you want to talk about Wood Elves in specific in the forests in specific, generally with respect to specifically being rangers, but it isn't anything more than that. 

And yeah. five out of the six halfling subraces aren't stealthy, so why say halflings are stealthy? The majority of "types" aren't, even if the lightfoot happens to dominate the others in terms of population (which we have zero way to confirm)



Gammadoodler said:


> The lucky thing is a fine narrative with a weak mechanic. Improving the mechanic to support the narrative is an easy fix, and I'd like it I'd there was one. But such a fix should require no adjustment to the narrative.




And played experience tells me it isn't a fine narrative, because it never actually comes up in anyway at the table. And unless you drastically changed the mechanic, that won't change.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> The basic complaint with halflings seems to be that they're "just short people with a couple of traits".  That's it?  Are _any_ races in D&D anything other than people with a handful of minor traits that emphasize some aspect of human nature?  For that matter, is it really that different in the vast majority of fantasy or sci-fi?
> 
> We're human.  We humanize the motivations and thought patterns of practically every living creature to one degree or other.  From Star Trek to Star Wars to Babylon Five to D&D, alien species are fundamentally just humans with rubber masks.  They have tendencies toward some aspect of culture so they have a common identity that certain special individuals or small groups can fight back against.




I know this comes up every single time, but I really think this misses the mark. Sure, everything written is just a human in a funny mask with funny powers. The Martian Manhunter, the psychic shape and density shifting alien from mars is just a human with a funny face. 

But, let's take a moment and focus in on DnD and what people are actually saying the problem is. Let us take Gnomes and other small races for a second. Because one big difference between halflings and humans is size, but as I pointed out there are 16 other small races, so this can't be defining for the halflings anymore. 

Forest gnomes are inquistive and shy, don't like outsiders. Okay, that could be any human community sure, but they also have an innate skill in illusion magic that the entire race shares and they can communicate with beasts. Now, sure, you could make a human community that has illusion magic and talks to animals, but that isn't what human communities typically look like in DnD, is it? So, this gives us a vector to explore different community organizations. Things like having the birds of the forest act as spies and a warning system for the people, having digging work done by friendly badgers, or treating the animals as neighbors. This would look nothing like your typical human settlement. 

What about Rock Gnomes? They are inquisitive and inventive, and they build things using clockwork and technology. This is kind of just straight human right? In fact, historically, there were a lot of humans who did this and it is easy to have a tech-heavy human settlement... but do we? DnD does not typically have tech-heavy places. You rarely see humans involved with a lot of industrial processes or making clockwork figures or items. IT happens, but it isn't common. Notably in Eberron the Rock Gnomes tend to fade out of sight, because the entire setting is very tech heavy, while the Forest Gnome is used as their baseline. But outside of Eberron, the Rock Gnome rises to be the more prominent, because their approach to living with technology and using technology to improve and shape their lives is so different from what everyone else in the setting is doing. 

Then you have Kobolds and Goblins, and the first thing to note here is that the lore for these races varies wildly, because in a lot of settings, they are the evil bad guys. They are the enemies of the good races, and associated with many of the threats out in the dark woods. This also makes them incredibly malleable, because they are different in every setting and every edition. Add on to that, they look nothing like humans, and they have a biology that would offer hooks to expand into non-human concepts. It is almost hard to talk about these races, because they are so vastly different. The Dhaakani of Eberron are practically a eusocial hive mind. Other settings have goblins as the vicious slaves of a dark god. Other settings have them as the larval form of hobgoblins, giving a distinctly non-human life cycle. It takes no effort at all to make them different from a typical human settlement in DnD.

 But what about halflings? They, like gnomes, look like humans. They live simple pastoral lives. Which... describes the typical human settlement in DnD. Being brave is something that can be applied to any race, especially any small race. Sure, they have mechanics to back it up, but just as a storytelling hook "and the community was brave" doesn't give you anything to make them different. Same with lucky, they can't really do anything with that to really differentiate themselves while just living simple pastoral lives of ease. Especially since, living those lives is explained by being lucky. So... what makes them different from any other peaceful human settlement? They are depicted in the exact same manner you would depict a peaceful human farming community, with really no differences... except that they are small. 


The point of the "rubber mask" as we like to to call it is giving the writer something interesting to work with. "What if humans, but they photosynthesize and don't need to eat or prepare food?" "What if humans, but they reincarnate and have memories of their past lives, and live for hundreds of years?"  "What if humans, but they can alter their physical body in any way they want, and look like anyone?" These hooks provide something, they provide a way to restructure the expected and explore new and interesting things. "What if humans but short?" really doesn't provide the same level of hook, especially if you can do "what if humans but short AND...." like the other small races provide.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 13, 2022)

If only game designers and writers tapped into their vast experience with all the other sapient species we share the planet with to create truly non-human species.

Seriously, how are we expecting a species that can't bother to stop ascribing human personalities and motivations to our pets to come up with a completely alien mindset. Even the deepest xenofiction is colored by humanity.


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## Oofta (Jul 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I know this comes up every single time, but I really think this misses the mark. Sure, everything written is just a human in a funny mask with funny powers. The Martian Manhunter, the psychic shape and density shifting alien from mars is just a human with a funny face.
> 
> But, let's take a moment and focus in on DnD and what people are actually saying the problem is. Let us take Gnomes and other small races for a second. Because one big difference between halflings and humans is size, but as I pointed out there are 16 other small races, so this can't be defining for the halflings anymore.
> 
> ...



There's only so much design space available.  I don't think you need obvious supernatural capabilities to make a race unique.  Take lucky as an example.  You think it doesn't have much impact, but everyone at the table tends to cheer when one of our halfling PCs uses it.  It comes up _a lot_ if the player takes the feat to share their luck with everyone at the table.  Brave?  That primarily applies to standing up against a threat from something bigger and badder, which for halflings is most things.

In other words I think lucky (and brave) are just as impactful as being able to talk to small animals, probably mores so in games I've player.  YMMV.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> That is because you are taking the effect of the ability and using it as proof of the narrative, which cannot exist without that ability. And in fact, you are literally saying "both are brave but in different ways" Which also applies to the fighter who made their save and ISN'T debilitated by fear.
> 
> So, now we have a character who is brave for fighting despite the fear.
> We have a character who is brave for not being afraid against something scary
> ...



So in one case a mechanic isn't a trait because it is a mechanic. In another a trait isn't a trait because you've never seen it operate effectively as a mechanic. Heads you win tails I lose I guess.

And in the third, yes stealthiness is something frequently attributed to elves despite not all subraces getting a specific stealth ability. This is likely due to the fact, that like halflings, their racial ASI bump was to dex..which governs stealth (Others where this is true, goblin, kobold, kenku..but perhaps they aren't classically stealthy either). Wood elves and lightfoots are the "even stealthier" versions of stealthy races. Not really sure why this is controversial.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So within the base class (no heritages), they have the same base hp and dex bump, but nothing else in common including either size or move speed and you find this..indistinct?



I do find this indistinct.  We were comparing universal ancestry traits (i.e. traits shared by all members of the ancestry).

By way of comparison, elves in 5e also have the size difference with halflings, but get Fey Ancestry, training in Perception, they trance rather than sleep, and Darkvision. Halflings get Lucky, Halfling Nimbleness, Brave and the slightly lower walking speed.

But let’s include subraces/heritages.  Your heritage in PF2 grants you one additional trait.  In 5e, a Wood elf would get Wood elf Weapon Training, Fleet of Foot and Mask of the Wild.  Lightfoots just get Naturally Stealthy.

However, that ignores the fact that 5e racial traits tend to be “bigger” than PF2 ancestry feats.  Fey Ancestry is the equivalent of 2 or 3 PF2 feats, and if you want to keep using Elf Weapons at higher levels, you need both Elf Weapon Familiarity and Elf Weapon Expertise.



Gammadoodler said:


> (Note: a lack of Elf Lore does not impact the history skill at all, which elves are better at by virtue of having a higher INT.)



Except Dwarves don’t have a bonus to Int, and also aren’t natively proficient in Dwarf Lore, nor are Halflings in Halflings Lore, nor any race proficient in the lore of its people.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Seriously, how are we expecting a species that can't bother to stop ascribing human personalities and motivations to our pets to come up with a completely alien mindset. Even the deepest xenofiction is colored by humanity.



“Can’t succeed, don’t try” is a pretty pessimistic outlook snd makes perfect the enemy of the good.

Most people on this board would argue that at least some of the 5e races have enough to distinguish them from humans.

If you believe halflings do as well, argue that, but arguing that all races are just humans in rubber masks is just conceding the argument (and guaranteeing that you won’t convince anyone who believes that at least one race isn’t just a human in a funny mask).


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> “Can’t succeed, don’t try” is a pretty pessimistic outlook snd makes perfect the enemy of the good.
> 
> Most people on this board would argue that at least some of the 5e races have enough to distinguish them from humans.



It's not a question of 'don't try'; it's the fact that they do try and it's never good enough for some people who want elves to be China Melville creatures or something instead of anything near approachable by normal players.

Also, the refrain of 'humans in funny hats' is usually reserved to defend metagame elements that don't reflect the in universe reality at all anyway and is just a stalking horse.


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

One of things that the "new school" races do well and easily is both distinguish themselves from being a human in a hat and being malleable enough to incorporate themselves into settings without losing their original aspects.

A dragonborn can be a proud draconic race with elemental resistances and dragonbreath. And you can make them nomads, mercenaries, bureaucrats, or a stereotypical medieval kingdom layout and still feel like a dragonborn.


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## ad_hoc (Jul 13, 2022)

Halflings make really good paladins esp. nature but not so much vengeance.

They may have wanted a quiet life but then something happens and they rise to the challenge and find their calling to protect others like they protected their community.

Halflings fit in D&D they just need something to kick them in the butt to get adventuring.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

ad_hoc said:


> Halflings make really good paladins esp. nature but not so much vengeance.
> 
> They may have wanted a quiet life but then something happens and they rise to the challenge and find their calling to protect others like they protected their community.
> 
> Halflings fit in D&D they just need something to kick them in the butt to get adventuring.



that is the basic heroic narrative of half of all characters, the other half having no parents.
what sets the halfling above the rank and file?
plus they just need to be worked over properly if they are supposed to be a big four race.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I do find this indistinct.  We were comparing universal ancestry traits (i.e. traits shared by all members of the ancestry).
> 
> By way of comparison, elves in 5e also have the size difference with halflings, but get Fey Ancestry, training in Perception, they trance rather than sleep, and Darkvision. Halflings get Lucky, Halfling Nimbleness, Brave and the slightly lower walking speed.
> 
> ...



Fey Ancestry is a direct analogue to Bravery and features a less honest title. Trance is 98% a ribbon ability, kind of like Halfling Nimbleness. So we're down to Darkvision and Perception training vs. Lucky. I'd agree the elf package is stronger, but not dramatically so.

Including subraces, Wood Elves get Weapon training (which is only relevant if you plan to use weapons, and managed to pick a class that doesn't give you proficiency in those weapons, so only rogues, monks and weird gish builds need apply), Fleet of foot (probably the strongest benefit), and Mask of the Wild (which seems similar to Naturally Stealthy but keys off of mechanical conditions I can't recall ever seeing in play). This is vs. Naturally Stealthy. I'd again agree that the elf package is stronger, but again, not dramatically so.

Separately, I disagree regarding the "size" of racial traits vs. PF2e feats. Fey Ancestry gives some protection against charm, specifically. There are a wide variety of feats that can give protections against all mental effects or all emotion effects. Also, in general, ancestry feats get stronger throughout character progression, sometimes dramatically so.

The only times you'd want to spend additional feats to continue to use Elven Weapons at higher levels are in instances where you somehow have chosen a class that doesn't grant critical specialization and/or somehow grants particular weapon proficiencies without including your chosen elf weapon. Not getting crit spec can happen, but not that frequently among the weapon martial classes. The weapon advancement thing pretty much never happens for martial classes. The fault in PF2e for these is content bloat rather than the incorporation of feat taxes.

Regarding Lore, sure. But most all PF2e characters are proficient in the lore for their background (e.g alcohol lore, warfare lore, tanning lore, etc) almost like the lore they know about is the stuff they were doing. And the feat they might use to become trained in the lore of their people also includes multiple incremental skill proficiencies. But in any case, it's not like there is racial lore knowledge granted to 5e characters at all.

Coming out of this discussion, the thing I'm curious about is how much practical experience you have with PF2e? It has faults, as I've mentioned, but the things you're highlighting seem to include misunderstandings that would have gotten ironed out between rulebook reading and character creation/live play. Could just be table/player variation?


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## Cadence (Jul 13, 2022)

ad_hoc said:


> Halflings make really good paladins esp. nature but not so much vengeance.
> 
> They may have wanted a quiet life but then something happens and they rise to the challenge and find their calling to protect others like they protected their community.
> 
> Halflings fit in D&D they just need something to kick them in the butt to get adventuring.




My latest commander deck in MtG features one.  (Although I need to rethink what the enchantments are to make it fit D&D).


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## R_Chance (Jul 13, 2022)

A lot of "problems" related to Halflings is the number of races / ancestries that share similar size / abilities etc. They are not unique or special. Out of curiosity does everyone use all the available races / ancestries in their setting / game? How many people use their own homebrew races / ancestries? Finally, how many people have multiple races / ancestries filling the same basic niche?


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## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

Hussar said:


> As probably the biggest proponent of this, I would point out that this is VERY inaccurate.  As in not even remotely right.
> 
> What was ACTUALLY suggested (and I believe I suggested it again here) was that halflings get bumped to the Monster Manual or a section of the DMG, similar to where we find Eladrin now.  All the rules are kept.  Nothing is lost, nor would you have to "buy a splat book to play them".  However, that would open up space in the PHB for a couple of new races to see if they can gain more traction than the two "also rans" of D&D.   My personal picks would be an anthropomorphic template race - something that lets you pick an animal and select a couple of traits that fit with that animal - and probably Warforged since Warforged seem to be a very popular option and fill one hell of a lot more interesting niche than either gnomes or halflings.
> 
> And for that, I got absolutely dog piled on and told that I hate halflings and gnomes and the only reason I would think this is because I hate gamers.    It was rather bizarre to be frank.



While I agree on having something like an anthro race (or, let's face it: tabaxi), goblins, or warforged in the PHB, what would be _gained _by relegating halflings and/or gnomes to the DMG or MM? The only possible _benefit _would be keeping the page count the same. But is that really a problem? I don't think people would mind if the PHB was a bit bigger (the Adventurer's Guide for Level Up is over 650 pages long, but that book contains cultures, destinies, maneuvers, strongholds, downtime activities, crafting, synergy feats, and a bunch of other things that almost certainly won't be in D&D 5.5 or 6e, or at least not in the PHB). And a bigger PHB is hardly a problem in a world of digital resources.

In 5e, the eladrin were used as a guide on how to make your own race. They weren't stuck in the DMG as being an unpopular choice.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I agree on having something like an anthro race (or, let's face it: tabaxi), goblins, or warforged in the PHB, what would be _gained _by relegating halflings and/or gnomes to the DMG or MM? The only possible _benefit _would be keeping the page count the same. But is that really a problem? I don't think people would mind if the PHB was a bit bigger (the Adventurer's Guide for Level Up is over 650 pages long, but that book contains cultures, destinies, maneuvers, strongholds, downtime activities, crafting, synergy feats, and a bunch of other things that almost certainly won't be in D&D 5.5 or 6e, or at least not in the PHB). And a bigger PHB is hardly a problem in a world of digital resources.
> 
> In 5e, the eladrin were used as a guide on how to make your own race. They weren't stuck in the DMG as being an unpopular choice.



It is more something else could take the small race slot they both fight over and free up another slot for a new race.


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## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Dragonborn breath fire.
> Tiefling have infernal magic
> Goliaths lift like ogres
> Genasi have elemental resistances and features
> ...



They're also Brave (and a lot of monsters inflict the frightened condition) and Nimble. And, depending on the subrace, are Stealthy (Lightfoot), poison-resistant (Stout), innately magical and have no problems with difficult terrain (Lotusden), or telepathic (Ghostwise). And then there's the dragonmarked halflings.


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## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> It is more something else could take the small race slot they both fight over and free up another slot for a new race.



Except that there's no "small race slot." They could add a third Small race without problem.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 13, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Except that there's no "small race slot." They could add a third Small race without problem.



it would have to compete with the classic two and we do not know how willing they are to add more pages hence the slot.
plus fourth most common race is a significant thing to be given halflings low relevance in most settings.


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## James Gasik (Jul 13, 2022)

I remember a time when Gnomes were pushed out of the core PHB and into the Monster Manual, and players lost their collective minds.  Over *Gnomes*.  

I really doubt removing Halflings from the core PHB would go over any better.


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 13, 2022)

R_Chance said:


> A lot of "problems" related to Halflings is the number of races / ancestries that share similar size / abilities etc. They are not unique or special. Out of curiosity does everyone use all the available races / ancestries in their setting / game? How many people use their own homebrew races / ancestries? Finally, how many people have multiple races / ancestries filling the same basic niche?



Theoretically I allow everything and try to fit in as much as possible. But I only worry about the races the players actually choose to play - the rest are just nebulously “around.”


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## Cadence (Jul 13, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I remember a time when Gnomes were pushed out of the core PHB and into the Monster Manual, and players lost their collective minds.  Over *Gnomes*.
> 
> I really doubt removing Halflings from the core PHB would go over any better.



I wonder if it was that Gnomes were moved (meh, who cares).  Or that they were moved for Dragonborn, Eladrin, and Tieflings (wtf, who are the trying to appeal to that isn't us*!).    It feels like the 5e approach of including all the basic ones from former editions was a smart play.

* Us = old time players like me, the person typing this.


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## payn (Jul 13, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I wonder if it was that Gnomes were moved (meh, who cares).  Or that they were moved for Dragonborn, Eladrin, and Tieflings (wtf, who are the trying to appeal to that isn't us*!).    It feels like the 5e approach of including all the basic ones from former editions was a smart play.
> 
> * Us = old time players like me, the person typing this.



I was annoyed when Bard and Barbarian were moved out in favor of warlord too. I was told just hang out until PHB II and PHB III came out, but I was already gone by then.


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## Faolyn (Jul 13, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> it would have to compete with the classic two and we do not know how willing they are to add more pages hence the slot.
> plus fourth most common race is a significant thing to be given halflings low relevance in most settings.



They were willing to add dragonborn and tieflings, both of which had to compete with the "classic four." And they added drow to the "classic two" types of elf.

It's really not a competition. New players won't know that goblins are unusual in comparison to halflings or gnomes, and many, possibly even most, more experienced players either won't care or will be pleased to see them in the main book.

And how often a race is used depends very heavily on the table. As I said, in one of my games, three of the five PCs are halflings. When I built this world[1], I spent literally about _two minutes _thinking about a way to make halflings more prominent. Their write up in the race-sheet I put out was maybe two short paragraphs. Maybe other DMs need to also spend a few minutes thinking up a niche for the halflings and gnomes in their settings, or carving out a niche for them in an established setting. 

As an aside, in my Ravenloft game, I limit the races to human and human-adjacent: "faerie-touched" (half-elves), homebrew caliban, and now, the three races from VGR. There was one human, but the player didn't like her character (a ranger) and so had me kill her off, and how she's playing a caliban. In the other games we're playing that I'm not running, there's not a single human character, despite human's _high _relevance in all of these settings: two games are in the Realms, and the third is Eberron; one player is planning on running Spelljammer game when that comes out and based on what the other players have mentioned, I'm about 99% positive there's no humans there, either. 

So sure, maybe D&D Beyond and AL games reports lots of humans and few halflings, but honestly, only a fraction of players use D&D Beyond.


[1] The house we gamed at, in the Before Times when we still gamed in person, belongs to the parents of one of our group; he's since moved out, but his parents are lovely people who didn't mind us using their huge table. They also hosted a student every year. We would always ask the student if they wanted to join us and mostly they'd smile and back away slowly but one guy was actually interested. None of the games we were currently running were really appropriate for newbies--I was running Ravenloft, for instance, and I didn't want this guys introduction to D&D to be horror--but since I always have a zillion setting ideas in my head at any moment, I _very quickly_ banged one out. Like, within a couple of hours. As it turns out, once the student stopped gaming with us, the rest of the players liked the setting enough to want to continue with it. And we still have three halflings. Oh, and the student played a gnome.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 13, 2022)

payn said:


> I was annoyed when Bard and Barbarian were moved out in favor of warlord too.



I felt the same...

Then I read the warlord and all was forgiven.

But swear to god, I will fully engage in a decade long misinformation campaign against 5.0e if they remove halflings.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Separately, I disagree regarding the "size" of racial traits vs. PF2e feats. Fey Ancestry gives some protection against charm, specifically.



This to me is an inaccurate comparison.  The analogue to Fey Ancestry is Elf feat Forlorn, which gives a +1 circumstance bonus to emotion effects, and successes become crits.  By way of comparison, Fey Ancestry gives advantage on charm effects AND magic can’t put you to sleep.



Gammadoodler said:


> The only times you'd want to spend additional feats to continue to use Elven Weapons at higher levels are in instances where you somehow have chosen a class that doesn't grant critical specialization and/or somehow grants particular weapon proficiencies without including your chosen elf weapon. Not getting crit spec can happen, but not that frequently among the weapon martial classes. The weapon advancement thing pretty much never happens for martial classes. The fault in PF2e for these is content bloat rather than the incorporation of feat taxes.



You could take Elf Weapon Familiarity if you are martial class that really wants to use an Elven Curved Blade for some reason.

Or, you could take it as a non-martial class for RP reasons or to complement your spells/bombs.  In that case, Elven Weapon Expertise is a feat tax to continue to use the weapon past 13th level. (Plus, you are one step behind from 7th to 13th level).


Gammadoodler said:


> Regarding Lore, sure. But most all PF2e characters are proficient in the lore for their background (e.g alcohol lore, warfare lore, tanning lore, etc) almost like the lore they know about is the stuff they were doing. And the feat they might use to become trained in the lore of their people also includes multiple incremental skill proficiencies. But in any case, it's not like there is racial lore knowledge granted to 5e characters at all.



If a feat says that you need to take it to become trained in Elf Lore, characters who don’t take aren’t trained in Elf Lore.  The exception proves the rule.



Gammadoodler said:


> Coming out of this discussion, the thing I'm curious about is how much practical experience you have with PF2e? It has faults, as I've mentioned, but the things you're highlighting seem to include misunderstandings that would have gotten ironed out between rulebook reading and character creation/live play. Could just be table/player variation?



Just Wow!  I disagree with you therefore I don’t have equivalent experience in PF2?  That doesn’t sound condescending at all!


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> I felt the same...
> 
> Then I read the warlord and all was forgiven.
> 
> But swear to god, I will fully engage in a decade long misinformation campaign against 5.0e if they remove halflings.



How would you feel if, instead of removing them, they hid all the relevant lore and mechanics within a section for another medium race (as a non sequitur within the section, not as a member of that race)? 

Personally I think that'd be a great yardstick by which to identify the "real" halfling players.

I'm just imagining the editors going.."I'll show you 'Naturally Stealthy'".


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## Mistwell (Jul 13, 2022)

Shades of Eternity said:


> Okay I'll bite.
> 
> What's the best picture of a Halfling should look like?



I've always liked this one:


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> This to me is an inaccurate comparison.  The analogue to Fey Ancestry is Elf feat Forlorn, which gives a +1 circumstance bonus to emotion effects, and successes become crits.  By way of comparison, Fey Ancestry gives advantage on charm effects AND magic can’t put you to sleep.
> 
> 
> You could take Elf Weapon Familiarity if you are martial class that really wants to use an Elven Curved Blade for some reason.
> ...



Yes all emotion effects, not just charm, and pushing success into crits typically means that you are fully negating that effect on a success. It's emotion effect Evasion in 5e parlance. It applies to more things and has a comparable to stronger effect (imo - though with tiered levels of success in PF2e, that can be a pretty nuanced conversation).

The Elven Curve Blade is a martial weapon. Most martial characters get scaling martial weapon proficiency. The weapon is uncommon, so you may need the feat in so you can get the weapon (in case your DM decides not to let you find or buy one for some reason), but most martial characters get nothing beyond that out of the feat.

And sure, if you want your non-martial to use those weapons, you could choose to look at the additional feats as taxes, or you could choose to look at them as tools to allow your character to do things that are not well supported by the class you have chosen. But they are taxes you _choose_ to pay along the way, rather than being stuck with potentially vestigial features provided at character creation.

With regard to Lore skills, there are literally infinite types of Lore you can be trained in. And it is not typically a check I've seen a DM call for so much as something a player will ask if it applies. Besides that, I don't know why anyone would assume that a given character would automatically be up on their racial lore. Some folks are really into geneaology/history related to their families. Some are really into historical battles and tactics. Some are really into booze. 5e doesn't even have Lore skill as a concept. Pf2e let's you spend a feat and get some skills and the lore. Seems more like a feature than a bug to me.

I'm sorry if it seems condescending to question your play experience. But your way of describing mechanics does not come close to how I've seen those mechanics in play. It could well be table variation, in which case I'm genuinely curious about your experience and why it differs from mine.

For me, I've been playing off and on for about a year and half. Our characters are currently level 8 and I've used 4 PCs in 4 different classes through those levels (one low level spell caster and 3 different martials; 1 dead, 2 semi-retired, 1 current).


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## Minigiant (Jul 13, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I remember a time when Gnomes were pushed out of the core PHB and into the Monster Manual, and players lost their collective minds.  Over *Gnomes*.
> 
> I really doubt removing Halflings from the core PHB would go over any better.




Oh it would cause a riot.

But it wouldn't be hard to agree that halflings mostly get a legacy inclusion. Halfling are heavily played because they are rarely banned and so often an option at every table. 


But if 5e does 12 classes each with at least 2 subclasses, 6e can handle 12 base races.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> For me, I've been playing off and on for about a year and half. Our characters are currently level 8 and I've used 4 PCs in 4 different classes through those levels (one low level spell caster and 3 different martials; 1 dead, 2 semi-retired, 1 current).



Played through Plaguestone, not a success.  Decided to give it another shot with Abomination Vaults, completely different table, dropped it at the end of book 1.  Ran a One-shot for my kids, also a dud.

Overall, despite some good ideas, the system is a slog to play.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 13, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Played through Plaguestone, not a success.  Decided to give it another shot with Abomination Vaults, completely different table, dropped it at the end of book 1.  Ran a One-shot for my kids, also a dud.
> 
> Overall, despite some good ideas, the system is a slog to play.



Out of curiosity all in person or any online? My game has been 100% online through Foundry which incorporates a bunch of quality of life features and automates a lot of the fiddly bits. 

I suspect I would not like the system near as much without those automations.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Oofta said:


> There's only so much design space available.  I don't think you need obvious supernatural capabilities to make a race unique.  Take lucky as an example.  You think it doesn't have much impact, but everyone at the table tends to cheer when one of our halfling PCs uses it.  It comes up _a lot_ if the player takes the feat to share their luck with everyone at the table.




And like I said, at my table it was "Wait, sweet I have re-roll!" followed by "Aaaand, I failed. Okay." and everyone forgot about it from then on. 

And also, what you are describing is AT THE TABLE it does nothing for the game world, or the narrative. Again, unless a DM goes out of their way to describe lucky things happening to the halfling, they are no luckier than any other character. And you shouldn't need a feat to make your race feel like it matters.




Oofta said:


> Brave?  That primarily applies to standing up against a threat from something bigger and badder, which for halflings is most things.




No it doesn't? Brave does absolutely nothing to help a halfling stand up to goliath, giants, bugbears, hobgoblins, gnolls, humans ect ect ect. 

In fact, a halfling and a human facing a giant are again equally as brave, unless you want to say the halfling is braver because they are smaller.... and that logic would apply equally well to any goblins, kobolds, or gnomes in the party.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So in one case a mechanic isn't a trait because it is a mechanic. In another a trait isn't a trait because you've never seen it operate effectively as a mechanic. Heads you win tails I lose I guess.




Even if I saw it effectively as a mechanic, that still doesn't change the rest of the narrative. I've seen people take the lucky feat. They didn't feel any "luckier" than any other player. They could just re-roll the dice. That isn't luck, that's a metagame manipulation of the game engine. Because in the narrative... they were still incredibly UNLUCKY. And in fact, the reason they took the feat is they have notoriously bad dice luck and were trying to counter-act that... and it still didn't work.



Gammadoodler said:


> And in the third, yes stealthiness is something frequently attributed to elves despite not all subraces getting a specific stealth ability. This is likely due to the fact, that like halflings, their racial ASI bump was to dex..which governs stealth (Others where this is true, goblin, kobold, kenku..but perhaps they aren't classically stealthy either). Wood elves and lightfoots are the "even stealthier" versions of stealthy races. Not really sure why this is controversial.




So... if getting a dex bump makes them stealthy, not only does that no longer apply, but it also used to apply SEVENTEEN other races, including humans and warforged who could get bumps to Dexterity under the old rules. 

So, are we going to sit here and say that Warforged are defined by being particularly stealthy? Somehow, I doubt that. 

So, again, "is stealthy" is not a racially defining feature. It is a class or character feature.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And like I said, at my table it was "Wait, sweet I have re-roll!" followed by "Aaaand, I failed. Okay." and everyone forgot about it from then on.
> 
> And also, what you are describing is AT THE TABLE it does nothing for the game world, or the narrative. Again, unless a DM goes out of their way to describe lucky things happening to the halfling, they are no luckier than any other character. And you shouldn't need a feat to make your race feel like it matters.



This again?

They're lucky because having something truly catastrophic happen to them is incredibly rare. This is because they reroll nat 1s, which _many _tables still have as something extra-bad. Heck, I've had players give _themselves _critical failures when rolling a 1, even when I told them they didn't have to. 

If you want them to be luckier than that, then as a DM, narrate lucky but not game-altering events. If you're the player, do the same. "I steal an apple" <rolls well enough on Sleight of Hand to do so> "What luck! I got a perfectly-shaped apple with no blemishes!"



Chaosmancer said:


> No it doesn't? Brave does absolutely nothing to help a halfling stand up to goliath, giants, bugbears, hobgoblins, gnolls, humans ect ect ect.
> 
> In fact, a halfling and a human facing a giant are again equally as brave, unless you want to say the halfling is braver because they are smaller.... and that logic would apply equally well to any goblins, kobolds, or gnomes in the party.



But it does help them stand up to dragons, beholders, satyrs, blackguards, cloakers, androsphinxes, a whole bunch of undead, many demons, devils, and yugoloths and even _arch fiends_. It also protects them from several spells and spell-like abilities.

The Brave trait protects them from the _frightened condition_. It doesn't prevent them from being intimidated.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> That is because you are taking the effect of the ability and using it as proof of the narrative, which cannot exist without that ability. And in fact, you are literally saying "both are brave but in different ways" Which also applies to the fighter who made their save and ISN'T debilitated by fear.
> 
> So, now we have a character who is brave for fighting despite the fear.
> We have a character who is brave for not being afraid against something scary
> ...



Of course the ability is proof of the narrative, and vice versa.  Because that's how lore and mechanics work.  Medusa has the narrative turn things to stone, and a matching mechanic of turn things to stone.  Dragons have the narrative can fly and have breath a weapon, and matching mechanics of can fly and have a breath weapon.

With halflings there is a racial ability of bravery.  That means that as a race, halflings are braver than humans, even if a human fighter succeeds in making his save.  These are not multiple kinds of bravery.  There is only one kind of bravery.  Being brave.  Halflings just have a supporting mechanic so that the race as a whole can be braver.

Nor does it matter if there are other mechanics than can help with saves vs. fear.  Entire races don't have those.  Halflings do.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Even if I saw it effectively as a mechanic, that still doesn't change the rest of the narrative. I've seen people take the lucky feat. They didn't feel any "luckier" than any other player. They could just re-roll the dice. That isn't luck, that's a metagame manipulation of the game engine. Because in the narrative... they were still incredibly UNLUCKY. And in fact, the reason they took the feat is they have notoriously bad dice luck and were trying to counter-act that... and it still didn't work.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



By that logic, dwarves are no sturdier against toxins, and gnomes have no magical resistance. They just have access to metagame manipulation of the game engine. Perhaps there is a point where we can accept that some connection exists between such manipulations and the traits they portray?

We can also realize that if the die rolls are spectacularly unlucky, they will negate most features from any source. If you can't roll above a 5 ever, most features that give advantage or proficiency will be ineffective. That does not mean those features did not exist. It is silly to suggest otherwise.

I realize I should have been more specific with.respect to the Dex bump. Specifically that the dex bump (+2), by itself impacts the modifier. I'd assumed that might be apparent by virtue of the other races referenced (ones which have the +2 which, not coincidentally, are also associated with stealth), but I see I was mistaken in this assumption. I hope this clarifies my position.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And like I said, at my table it was "Wait, sweet I have re-roll!" followed by "Aaaand, I failed. Okay." and everyone forgot about it from then on.
> 
> And also, what you are describing is AT THE TABLE it does nothing for the game world, or the narrative. Again, unless a DM goes out of their way to describe lucky things happening to the halfling, they are no luckier than any other character. And you shouldn't need a feat to make your race feel like it matters.



Some of those extra rolls will be successes and if the DM is doing his job, those successes will be described in a way that makes it a lucky success.  Halflings are in fact lucky in the game world due to the racial ability unless the DM messes it up, and if he does it isn't the fault of the game or race.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Even if I saw it effectively as a mechanic, that still doesn't change the rest of the narrative. I've seen people take the lucky feat. They didn't feel any "luckier" than any other player. They could just re-roll the dice. That isn't luck, that's a metagame manipulation of the game engine. Because in the narrative... they were still incredibly UNLUCKY. And in fact, the reason they took the feat is they have notoriously bad dice luck and were trying to counter-act that... and it still didn't work.



Let's say the race is orc and the PC fails 20 rolls.  Well that PC failed 20 rolls which in the fiction is 20 failed whatevers.  Now let's say the race is halfling and the PC fails 20 rolls, and gets to re-roll 2 of them, succeeding once.  That PC failed 19 rolls which in the fiction is 19 failed whatevers.  He was objectively luckier than the orc would have been in the fiction.  It's not just metagame manipulation.


Chaosmancer said:


> So... if getting a dex bump makes them stealthy, not only does that no longer apply, but it also used to apply SEVENTEEN other races, including humans and warforged who could get bumps to Dexterity under the old rules.
> 
> So, are we going to sit here and say that Warforged are defined by being particularly stealthy? Somehow, I doubt that.
> 
> So, again, "is stealthy" is not a racially defining feature. It is a class or character feature.



Halflings as a race are not stealthy.  They are nimble.  The lightfoot subrace is stealthy, and they have a racial stealth ability that humans and warforged do not have.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> If you want them to be luckier than that, then as a DM, narrate lucky but not game-altering events. If you're the player, do the same. "I steal an apple" <rolls well enough on Sleight of Hand to do so> "What luck! I got a perfectly-shaped apple with no blemishes!"





This is not going to go over well at most tables.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> This is not going to go over well at most tables.



Why not?


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> This is not going to go over well at most tables.



And as Maxperson said: why not? If you (A) keep the luck from giving mechanical bonuses and (B) don't give the other players _bad _luck, there shouldn't be any problem.

Or, you know, you could just realize that "Lucky" doesn't have to have any more narrative ability than "Fey Ancestry" does. I mean, do you do special roleplaying for elves to justify their resistance to being charmed? Or do you just let them save with advantage?


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

It's not that Halflings are not lucky, nimble, or brave.

It's that the representation of halfling luck, nimbleness, and bravery in lore and mechanics were designed weak and to a standard of gamestyle D&D ain't anymore.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 14, 2022)

talien said:


> Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.



And I don't think that anyone in a game I've played in or run has played a dwarf. Should I therefore, based on the fact that my groups appear to be outliers, start a thread about "the trouble with dwarves"? And how they are painfully stereotypical while very few of their tropes make any sense at all.


talien said:


> As a literary construct, hobbits serve a specific purpose. In *The Hobbit*, they are proxies for children. In *The Lord of the Rings, *they are proxies for farmers and other folk who were thrust into the industrialized nightmare of mass warfare. In both cases, hobbits were a positioned in contrast to the violent lifestyle of adventurers who live and die by the sword.



Indeed. And the Lord of the Rings version works well to highlight a certain specific character. There is literally no problem I have ever seen integrating people, whether farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, or bureaucrats who are thrust into either the industrialised nightmare of mass warfare or the cyberpunk/magipunk dystopian where warbands and corporations are king or the dangerous world of spies, assassins, and agents. Or any other standard start to an adventure.


talien said:


> Kender. Kender Are the Problem​



Indeed. Good job halflings _aren't_ kender.


talien said:


> The latest incarnation of halflings brings them back to the fun-loving roots. Their appearance is decidedly not "little children" or "overweight short people." Rather, they appear more like political cartoons of eras past, where exaggerated features were used as caricatures, adding further to their comical qualities. But this doesn't solve the outstanding problem that, for a game that is often about conflict, the original prototypes for halflings avoided it.



This is not a problem. This is a background. The refusal of the call is a classic stage on the Hero's Journey. And just because they come from folk of humble origins doesn't mean they can't stay adventuring.


talien said:


> They were heroes precisely because they were thrust into difficult situations and had to rise to the challenge. That requires significant work in a campaign to encourage a player to play a halfling character who would rather just stay home.



No it doesn't. It requires a lampshade. The last halfling in a campaign of mine went to the carnival and got cursed. The one before that fell asleep and woke up somewhere else where they didn't have a bed near them. The one before that started off trying to fend off bandits who wanted to burn their village. All you need to do is set them off on the path or ask the player.


talien said:


> There's also the simple matter of integrating halflings into societies where they aren't necessarily living apart. Presumably, most human campaigns have farmers; dwarves and elves occupy less civilized niches, where halflings are a working class who lives right alongside the rest of humanity in plain sight. Figuring out how to accommodate them matters a lot.



It takes literally almost no work. Halflings will try to integrate into any society that allows them - and a lack of halflings is a symptom of racism.


talien said:


> Do humans just treat them like children?



No. They treat them like people. People who they pay to do jobs. Or people who they pay to get services from. Or people who pay them for things. There are some jobs halflings aren't that good at due to being small and some they are due to being small.

But I think I see the core problem here. You say "Do humans" as if all humans think exactly the same way on most major issues. Me? I prefer more diversity of thought. And of society.


talien said:


> Would halflings want to be anywhere near a larger humanoids' dwellings as a result?



If the humans are asshats who treat them like children, no. But this is assuming the humans are asshats.


talien said:


> Or are halflings given mythical status like fey?



No. Next.


talien said:


> Or are they more like inveterate pranksters and tricksters,



No. They aren't kender.


talien said:


> treating them more like gnomes?



They aren't gnomes.


talien said:


> And if halflings are more like gnomes, then why have gnomes?



A question only 4e has managed to answer by making gnomes pointful.


talien said:


> I still haven't quite figured out how to make them work in my campaign that doesn't feel like a one-off rather than a separate species.



So ordinary people are a one-off. Your entire world must be pretty gonzo.


talien said:


> But I did finally find a space for gnomes, which I'll discuss in another article.
> 
> *Your Turn: How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?*



By spreading them out and having them there. There's a lot less work required for people trying to get on with life than people trying to impose their order on the world the way elves and dwarves do. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> This again?
> 
> They're lucky because having something truly catastrophic happen to them is incredibly rare. This is because they reroll nat 1s, which _many _tables still have as something extra-bad. Heck, I've had players give _themselves _critical failures when rolling a 1, even when I told them they didn't have to.




So a halfling will never be present when the King of a Nation is assassinated and the party set-up as the murderers? Because, that is something truly catastrophic happening, so the DM will always make sure that the halfling is known to be innocent, right? 

Oh, wait no. They just re-roll 1's. Which, per RAW are no worse than rolling a 2. Sure, players may give themselves crit fails, but players also have their characters quote Monty Python, doesn't mean it exists in the game world. So, again, *narratively*, the halfling player is no luckier than any other player. Unless the DM narrates and explicitly goes out of their way to be luckier than normal.



Faolyn said:


> If you want them to be luckier than that, then as a DM, narrate lucky but not game-altering events. If you're the player, do the same. "I steal an apple" <rolls well enough on Sleight of Hand to do so> "What luck! I got a perfectly-shaped apple with no blemishes!"




Like this, right here. The DM has to enforce the luck, or it doesn't actually matter. Sure, I as the player can insist on events being particularly lucky... but I can do that with any character? And what do I do if the DM tells me to stop? Is my entire race concept now under threat? 

Are you seeing why just saying "they are lucky" is leading to problems? Because they aren't. DnD is a game based on luck, based on die rolls, and THAT enforces itself at the table. You could play a halfling who generally fails when it matters, just because the D20 doesn't swing your way. And the actually luckiest player at the table could be anybody. Unless the DM specifically enforces that your character is just luckier than your peers... you aren't.



Faolyn said:


> But it does help them stand up to dragons, beholders, satyrs, blackguards, cloakers, androsphinxes, a whole bunch of undead, many demons, devils, and yugoloths and even _arch fiends_. It also protects them from several spells and spell-like abilities.
> 
> The Brave trait protects them from the _frightened condition_. It doesn't prevent them from being intimidated.




Right, so does anyone who succumb to the frightened condition lose the right to call themselves brave? Again, my ranger may be so scared his hands are shaking, but he is still shooting the dragon. Is that not bravery? And if that is bravery, then my ranger is also brave. So, why describe halflings as "the race that is brave" when every single adventurer is brave?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Of course the ability is proof of the narrative, and vice versa.  Because that's how lore and mechanics work.  Medusa has the narrative turn things to stone, and a matching mechanic of turn things to stone.  Dragons have the narrative can fly and have breath a weapon, and matching mechanics of can fly and have a breath weapon.
> 
> With halflings there is a racial ability of bravery.  That means that as a race, halflings are braver than humans, even if a human fighter succeeds in making his save.  These are not multiple kinds of bravery.  There is only one kind of bravery.  Being brave.  Halflings just have a supporting mechanic so that the race as a whole can be braver.
> 
> Nor does it matter if there are other mechanics than can help with saves vs. fear.  Entire races don't have those.  Halflings do.




So, the ranger who is shaking and terrified out of his mind while fighting the dragon, but is still fighting the dragon, is not brave. Because he doesn't have a mechanic that allows him to be brave. 

Sure, we can say that halflings are "more likely to be brave" but again... 99% of adventurers are brave, so your halfling adventurer being brave is meaningless. So is everyone else who is eager to rush into the dragon's lair, kill it, and steal its hoard.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Are you seeing why just saying "they are lucky" is leading to problems?



Because people will overthink it waaaay too far to prove a point?


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Dragonborn breath fire.
> Tiefling have infernal magic
> Goliaths lift like ogres
> Genasi have elemental resistances and features
> Aaracroka fly



And all of these are monsters which should never have been made PC-playable in any edition.

Making everything and the kitchen sink PC-playable is what's pushing the Hobbit to the sidelines, as there's so many other similar-ish species competing for the same niche-resources.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Why not?



The player narrating the results of their own action? Kind of a reversal of the expected roles, is it not?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> By that logic, dwarves are no sturdier against toxins, and gnomes have no magical resistance. They just have access to metagame manipulation of the game engine. Perhaps there is a point where we can accept that some connection exists between such manipulations and the traits they portray?
> 
> We can also realize that if the die rolls are spectacularly unlucky, they will negate most features from any source. If you can't roll above a 5 ever, most features that give advantage or proficiency will be ineffective. That does not mean those features did not exist. It is silly to suggest otherwise.




So, the halfling is not lucky unless the player is lucky. You seem to be coming around to getting my point with this. Taking half damage from poison is very different from "being lucky" because the poison damage is also itself a game mechanic. But luck isn't. Luck is what you deal with every time you roll the d20. And the halfling is no luckier than anyone else. Unless the DM goes out of their way to narrate that luck.



Gammadoodler said:


> I realize I should have been more specific with.respect to the Dex bump. Specifically that the dex bump (+2), by itself impacts the modifier. I'd assumed that might be apparent by virtue of the other races referenced (ones which have the +2 which, not coincidentally, are also associated with stealth), but I see I was mistaken in this assumption. I hope this clarifies my position.




Ah, so now it isn't just a dexterity bump, but specifically a +2 Dexterity bump. Which, again, no longer matters in the game. But, we all know how the brightly colored Aarcrockra are known for their stealth right? I mean, bird people are always stealthy. And tielflings, one of thier most notable traits is their incredibly abilities at stealth and blending in. Especially the winged Tieflings who get +2 Dexterity. Nothing like massive batwings to make you stealthy. Plus Variant Humans with the Gunner trait. Nothing like firearm usage to make you incredibly sneaky. 

I hope this also clarifies my position, because again, +2 Dex doesn't make you sneaky. Classes like Rogue make you sneaky.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> And as Maxperson said: why not? If you (A) keep the luck from giving mechanical bonuses and (B) don't give the other players _bad _luck, there shouldn't be any problem.



I guess. I feel like most DMs wouldn’t be too keen on players narrating the results of their own actions. But I’m sure it will vary from table to table.


Faolyn said:


> Or, you know, you could just realize that "Lucky" doesn't have to have any more narrative ability than "Fey Ancestry" does. I mean, do you do special roleplaying for elves to justify their resistance to being charmed? Or do you just let them save with advantage?



Oh my. I seem to have stepped into a much more heated discussion than I realized. No, I don’t think either Fey Ancestry or Lucky need to be roleplayed in any particular way.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Some of those extra rolls will be successes and if the DM is doing his job, those successes will be described in a way that makes it a lucky success.  Halflings are in fact lucky in the game world due to the racial ability unless the DM messes it up, and if he does it isn't the fault of the game or race.




So, you are agreeing with me. Halflings are no luckier than any other race, unless the DM goes out of their way to make them luckier. You can say that not doing that is a failure on the DMs part and they should feel bad, but I don't really notice the need for the DM to narrate my tiefling's devilish heritage, or my Goliaths massive size, or my gnome's ability to talk to animals. So... if only halflings have a trait that requires the DM to twist the narrative to support it... might that be a bad design on the part of the race? Might it then be fair to say that, unless the DM is enforcing it narratively, it doesn't really exist, and therefore is a bad way to describe the race?


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Mistwell said:


> I've always liked this one:



I use this portrait for an NPC adventurer in my campaign, who would right now be running with a party were that party not still awaiting a return to in-person play.

He can be pretty much summed up in two words: "professional troublemaker", which matches that wonderful smirk on his face in the picture.


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And all of these are monsters which should never have been made PC-playable in any edition.
> 
> Making everything and the kitchen sink PC-playable is what's pushing the Hobbit to the sidelines, as there's so many other similar-ish species competing for the same niche-resources.



Well that's like your opinion man.

The problem is not that all these races were made playable. IT was that every race was not not designed for the same level of fantasy.

Halfling was designed for a low fantasy , low magic, humanocentric LOTR-clone world. The second you play anything else, it gets outshined. That's the whole point of the thread.* Integrating halflings in other types of settings.*


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Halflings as a race are not stealthy.  They are nimble.  The lightfoot subrace is stealthy, and they have a racial stealth ability that humans and warforged do not have.




Thank you for agreeing with me. Again. 

Now, does that lightfoot subrace have the additional ability to hide anywhere? A general bonus to stealth? No. They have a bonus to hide in crowds or behind other people. So they are specifically more stealthy in specific situations. 

Following up, does a halfling paladin in full plate armor tend to be sneakier than a Dragonborn rogue with expertise in stealth? No. So, it is fairly accurate to say that class and class abilities are a better measure of stealth than racial abilities. Sure, the paladin can try and hide behind the dragonborn... but making the attempt isn't the same as succeeding.

So, calling all halflings particularly stealthy, is a bad descriptor, because at best it only describes 1/6th of all halflings, and class matters far more than race when it comes to this aspect of the character.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Making everything and the kitchen sink PC-playable is what's pushing the Hobbit to the sidelines, as there's so many other similar-ish species competing for the same niche-resources.



This idea that races require niches that are some sort of limited resources is bizarre to me. Wanting races to be well-integrated into the campaign setting I can understand. But why do some people treat this integration as a zero-sum game? As long as the DM has the desire to do so, what’s wrong with them integrating any and every race they please into their setting?


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So a halfling will never be present when the King of a Nation is assassinated and the party set-up as the murderers? Because, that is something truly catastrophic happening, so the DM will always make sure that the halfling is known to be innocent, right?



She was talking about catastrophe hitting the halflings, not a halfling being present when some other king is affected by one.


Chaosmancer said:


> Oh, wait no. They just re-roll 1's. Which, per RAW are no worse than rolling a 2. Sure, players may give themselves crit fails, but players also have their characters quote Monty Python, doesn't mean it exists in the game world. So, again, *narratively*, the halfling player is no luckier than any other player. Unless the DM narrates and explicitly goes out of their way to be luckier than normal.



A 1 is always worse by RAW for non-halflings than a 2, because at a minimum you are 1 less likely to succeed at your goal. For a halfling a 1 is better than a 2 because you can re-roll and are unlikely to get an equally bad result. 95% of the time it will be better, and 90% of the time it will be better than a 2.

So again, narratively, halflings are luckier than other races.  The DM doesn't have to go out of his way to narrate them to be luckier.  That's the status quo.  He has to go out of his way to not narrate them correctly in order for them not to be luckier in the fiction.


Chaosmancer said:


> Like this, right here. The DM has to enforce the luck, or it doesn't actually matter. Sure, I as the player can insist on events being particularly lucky... but I can do that with any character? And what do I do if the DM tells me to stop? Is my entire race concept now under threat?



That is wrong.  The DM may go out of his way to make them even luckier in the fiction than the dice show, but without that extra oomph to luck they are still luckier in the fiction. You cannot do that with any character.  Their inherent luck that is narrated by the DM in good faith is something no other race gets.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right, so does anyone who succumb to the frightened condition lose the right to call themselves brave? Again, my ranger may be so scared his hands are shaking, but he is still shooting the dragon. Is that not bravery? And if that is bravery, then my ranger is also brave. So, why describe halflings as "the race that is brave" when every single adventurer is brave?



Again, it's a racial trait that makes them braver than normal, not fearless.  So no, missing a save doesn't cause them to lose the right to call themselves brave.  Heck, since it's forced fear and not cowardice, a failed save doesn't do that to anyone.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Well that's like your opinion man.
> 
> The problem is not that all these races were made playable. IT was that every race was not not designed for the same level of fantasy.
> 
> Halfling was designed for a low fantasy , low magic, humanocentric LOTR-clone world. The second you play anything else, it gets outshined. That's the whole point of the thread.* Integrating halflings in other types of settings.*



I don’t get this either. What’s wrong with halflings being relatively mundane? Not every race needs to be equally fantastical. It’s ok to have some normies. Some people like to play normies.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, the ranger who is shaking and terrified out of his mind while fighting the dragon, but is still fighting the dragon, is not brave. Because he doesn't have a mechanic that allows him to be brave.



Nobody has said that, and it's not relevant in any case.  The ranger being brave doesn't make the ranger's race as a whole braver than other races.  Unless the ranger is a halfling anyway.


Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, we can say that halflings are "more likely to be brave" but again... 99% of adventurers are brave, so your halfling adventurer being brave is meaningless. So is everyone else who is eager to rush into the dragon's lair, kill it, and steal its hoard.



It's not meaningless. It's part of the character's racial identity and statistically the halfling will succeed at more fear saves than the other races, so will over time be braver.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you are agreeing with me. Halflings are no luckier than any other race, unless the DM goes out of their way to make them luckier. You can say that not doing that is a failure on the DMs part and they should feel bad, but I don't really notice the need for the DM to narrate my tiefling's devilish heritage, or my Goliaths massive size, or my gnome's ability to talk to animals. So... if only halflings have a trait that requires the DM to twist the narrative to support it... might that be a bad design on the part of the race? Might it then be fair to say that, unless the DM is enforcing it narratively, it doesn't really exist, and therefore is a bad way to describe the race?



No.  No that wasn't agreement.  I proved that they are in fact luckier no matter what, and that luck will be in the fiction as well unless the DM is DMing in bad faith and refuses to narrate their luck as luck.  If you have such a bad faith DM, then the halfling is just luckier with the rolls.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> The player narrating the results of their own action? Kind of a reversal of the expected roles, is it not?



For minor things I've haven't seen a DM quibble over it since AD&D.  I'm sure some do, but I don't think that it's most tables.


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> This idea that races require niches that are some sort of limited resources is bizarre to me.



Not to me.

Humans are supposed to be the species that can do everything sort-of well.  They're the baseline.  Other species each come with certain advantages and disadadvantages in comparison to Humans, which in sum is what represents that species' adventuring niche and thus tends to push those species toward some classes and away from others.

I just don't see a problem with this.

Hobbits make good rogue-types and lousy melee warriors.  So what?


Charlaquin said:


> Wanting races to be well-integrated into the campaign setting I can understand. But why do some people treat this integration as a zero-sum game? As long as the DM has the desire to do so, what’s wrong with them integrating any and every race they please into their setting?



Integrating a bunch of different species into the *setting* i.e. where and how they live, what role(s) each fills in the world, etc., is up to each DM to do in whatever manner she will based on her ideas for that setting.

What I'm talking about is integrating them into the *run of play *- what special thing(s) does this species bring to an adventuring party, and at the same time what other special thing(s) doesn't it have that most if not all others do?  In other words, I'm approaching species comparison much the same as one would approach a comparison of classes; with the exception of there being no generically-always-useful class to mirror the generically-always-useful Human species.


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## Hussar (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I agree on having something like an anthro race (or, let's face it: tabaxi), goblins, or warforged in the PHB, what would be _gained _by relegating halflings and/or gnomes to the DMG or MM? The only possible _benefit _would be keeping the page count the same. But is that really a problem? I don't think people would mind if the PHB was a bit bigger (the Adventurer's Guide for Level Up is over 650 pages long, but that book contains cultures, destinies, maneuvers, strongholds, downtime activities, crafting, synergy feats, and a bunch of other things that almost certainly won't be in D&D 5.5 or 6e, or at least not in the PHB). And a bigger PHB is hardly a problem in a world of digital resources.
> 
> In 5e, the eladrin were used as a guide on how to make your own race. They weren't stuck in the DMG as being an unpopular choice.



That's a fair question.  And, I think there are two things to be gained here.

1.  Cleaning out the cruft.  I'm sorry, but, Halflings and Gnomes are as relevant to the game as pages of descriptions of polearms.  They are barely played, have virtually no impact on any of the settings and, despite having every possible advantage - being one of the 4 races in the SRD is a BIG advantage - they still scrape the bottom of the barrel.  For fifty years.  It's time to let them go.  I doubt that they are going to make the PHB much bigger than it is - and I also doubt they are going to add many new races to the PHB - the 10 (ish) there seems to be a solid number.

2.  It means that going forward, the game designers do not have to assume that every group has a halfling (or a gnome) and include halfling and gnome options in every single supplement.   Because, let's be honest, you can't have a supplement that excludes anything from the PHB.  They've demonstrated that pretty clearly.  All the player facing books for 5e had to include halfling and gnome material.  Bumping the halflings and the gnomes to the DMG (or, IMO, a player section in the MM along with all the other possible player races) means that WotC isn't forced to include halflings and gnomes in every single book.  It frees up so much design space and cuts away the dead weight that's been dragging in the game for decades.

I honestly can't see any benefit of including two races in the PHB that virtually no one actually plays.  I'm sorry, but, that's really the bottom line.  Despite being a Core 4 race, halflings are (and always have been) the "also ran" race in the game and gnomes may as well not exist at all.


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> What I'm talking about is integrating them into the *run of play *- what special thing(s) does this species bring to an adventuring party, and at the same time what other special thing(s) doesn't it have that most if not all others do? In other words, I'm approaching species comparison much the same as one would approach a comparison of classes; with the exception of there being no generically-always-useful class to mirror the generically-always-useful Human species.



And the problem is that Halfling don't actually bring much to the table. Mostly because halfling fans didn't let it(well they might now)

Halfling The Race are from a tradition where races didn't give you much. But even in those time halflings gave you the less. Dwarves use to give you magic resist, poison resist,and darkvision. Halfling had both resists and a downgrade of infravision.

Now halfling lost both base resists, special vision, have fewer weapon choices, and have harder time knocking foes down. *Dwarves kept everything but the magic resist AND got more.*

The problem isn't all the fantastical races. The problem is all the fantasical parts of halflings *suck *because a bunch of halfling fans want to play challenge mode.

*Halfling is a Hard Mode race.* Don't blame Dragonborn or Genasi for that. Blame fans who purposely want halflings to be weak so "they can be underestimated".


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not to me.
> 
> Humans are supposed to be the species that can do everything sort-of well.  They're the baseline.  Other species each come with certain advantages and disadadvantages in comparison to Humans, which in sum is what represents that species' adventuring niche and thus tends to push those species toward some classes and away from others.
> 
> ...



Sure, but why must there only be one race that makes good thieves and poor warriors?


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> And the problem is that Halfling don't actually bring much to the table. Mostly because halfling fans didn't let it(well they might now)
> 
> Halfling The Race are from a tradition where races didn't give you much. But even in those time halflings gave you the less. Dwarves use to give you magic resist, poison resist,and darkvision. Halfling had both resists and a downgrade of infravision.
> 
> ...



I don’t really agree, but even granting this for the sake of argument… so what? What’s wrong with having a “hard mode race”?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, the halfling is not lucky unless the player is lucky. You seem to be coming around to getting my point with this. Taking half damage from poison is very different from "being lucky" because the poison damage is also itself a game mechanic. But luck isn't. Luck is what you deal with every time you roll the d20. And the halfling is no luckier than anyone else. Unless the DM goes out of their way to narrate that luck.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The halfling is lucky as a function of access to an ability which gives them an advantage with respect to results that are adjudicated through the application of chance (the d20). They are 20 times less likely to critically fail a roll.

As for the part about the dex bump..while I understand that racial ASIs are not really a thing anymore, we should get one thing perfectly clear before moving on.

*In 5e, an increase to a character's dex modifier literally..mechanically..100% means that character is stealthier as a result of that increase. *

That's just like how the game works. As for your contra-examples..

As far as Aaracockra go, near as I can tell they have zero tradition of anything beyond flight and being a bird. Flight which has often meant they've received a hard ban at basically every table I've ever seen.

For bat-winged Tieflings, let's see..is there any other fictional character that might serve as a parallel..a humanoid that flies around looking like a bat. Some sort of bat-man maybe.. Maybe he soars around in the darkness..maybe he thinks he is the night. Well, if such a character did exist, they might be kinda stealthy, yeah.

As for humans, specifically variant ones. Let's think on this, the actual racial benefit is the opportunity to select from a wide number of feats, some of which may impact your ASIs, others which would not. The trait, such as it is, is variety. That said, your Gunner example *would be stealthier *despite their penchant for firearms. Because that is how stealth works in 5e.

It is governed by:

1. your proficiency/expertise in the stealth skill + your dex mod + your d20 roll (and any other flat or dice-rolled bonuses), and

2. Your ability to convince the dm that your character is in a position that would allow them to hide.

Generally speaking, class and subclass selections offer access to more impactful bonuses or more situations a dm can assent to stealth applicability, but the mod is always relevant and a larger dex mod makes characters sneakier than a smaller mod 100% of the time.


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I don’t really agree, but even granting this for the sake of argument… so what? What’s wrong with having a “hard mode race”?



Nothing.

The issue is fans of the hard mode races being upset when people state that the Hard Mode races are weaker, less fantastical, and integrate worse with different settings.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Nothing.
> 
> The issue is fans of the hard mode races being upset when people state that the Hard Mode races are weaker, less fantastical, and integrate worse with different settings.



Should have stopped at "weaker," but, hey, 1 out of 3 ain't bad.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I don’t really agree, but even granting this for the sake of argument… so what? What’s wrong with having a “hard mode race”?



Like maybe tell people about it when you do it first?

And also not take up the slot of an iconic species that people who aren't hardcore might want to take too?


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I guess. I feel like most DMs wouldn’t be too keen on players narrating the results of their own actions. But I’m sure it will vary from table to table.



I think that depends a lot on both the table, the players, and the type of actions. IME, DMs love it when you get creative with your descriptions. We do this a lot at my table, especially when we roll badly. "I rolled a 3 for Perception, and noticed a particularly interesting stain on that floor tile."

But anyway, in my example, it was more that the DM ruled that the roll was high enough to steal the apple, and since the quality of the apple is meaningless to anything, the player is free to say that they "luckily" managed to grab a really good apple. Not that they luckily managed to grab a magical apple or something like that.



Charlaquin said:


> Oh my. I seem to have stepped into a much more heated discussion than I realized. No, I don’t think either Fey Ancestry or Lucky need to be roleplayed in any particular way.



Yeah, you missed one heck of an argument from a while ago on this exact same thing. And I agree with you. It's a passive trait, not one that requires the DM bombard the players with in-game examples of how it works for it to be meaningful.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Oh, wait no. They just re-roll 1's. Which, per RAW are no worse than rolling a 2. Sure, players may give themselves crit fails, but players also have their characters quote Monty Python, doesn't mean it exists in the game world. So, again, *narratively*, the halfling player is no luckier than any other player. Unless the DM narrates and explicitly goes out of their way to be luckier than normal.



_Wrong._

A natural 1 on an attack roll is always a failure, no matter what. Even if the roll would otherwise be high enough to hit the target because of other modifiers, a natural 1 is always a failure.

A natural 1 on a death saving throw counts as two failures. 

A halfling will never have to worry about any of these things. Because they have the Lucky trait, which allows them to reroll 1s.

And while a natural 1 is not an auto-fail on a skill check or saving throw, I'm pretty sure that a large percentage of tables would say it is. Which means that halflings don't have to worry about that, either.



Chaosmancer said:


> Are you seeing why just saying "they are lucky" is leading to problems? Because they aren't. DnD is a game based on luck, based on die rolls, and THAT enforces itself at the table. You could play a halfling who generally fails when it matters, just because the D20 doesn't swing your way. And the actually luckiest player at the table could be anybody. Unless the DM specifically enforces that your character is just luckier than your peers... you aren't.



Nope. Because you don't require an elf roleplay Fey Ancestry and you don't require a dwarf to roleplay knowing how to use brewer's tools. So why would you require a halfling to roleplay an equally passive trait? Lucky is _no different _than any other trait. For some reason, you just think it has to be.

Halflings are Lucky. That is the name of a trait that gives them a specific ability. They don't have to also be lucky in the sense that they find lost coins everywhere or manage to prevent the king from being killed and their friends from being framed. Would you complain as much if the name of the trait was "Reroll 1s" instead?



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, so does anyone who succumb to the frightened condition lose the right to call themselves brave? Again, my ranger may be so scared his hands are shaking, but he is still shooting the dragon. Is that not bravery? And if that is bravery, then my ranger is also brave. So, why describe halflings as "the race that is brave" when every single adventurer is brave?



They are brave. But they do not have the Brave trait. Those are two separate things. The trait Brave gives the advantage on saving throws against being frightened. It has nothing to do with how courageous they are. It's just a name.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I think that depends a lot on both the table, the players, and the type of actions. IME, DMs love it when you get creative with your descriptions. We do this a lot at my table, especially when we roll badly. "I rolled a 3 for Perception, and noticed a particularly interesting stain on that floor tile."



Yeah, fair enough. In my experience DMs love it when players get creative with their descriptions of the _action_, not the _outcome_, which is usually the DM’s job to describe. Unless the DM specifically invites the player to describe the outcome, _a la_ Matt Mercer’s “how do you want to do this?” But I suppose if it’s just adding a little descriptive flair to an outcome the DM has already narrated, a lot more groups would probably be just fine with that.


Faolyn said:


> But anyway, in my example, it was more that the DM ruled that the roll was high enough to steal the apple, and since the quality of the apple is meaningless to anything, the player is free to say that they "luckily" managed to grab a really good apple. Not that they luckily managed to grab a magical apple or something like that.



Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I misunderstood your meaning, it sounded like the player in your example declared that they were going to make a check rather than describing an action and the DM calling for them to make a check, then upon seeing the high result, assumes it would be successful and described the success themselves rather than allowing the DM to narrate the results. _That_, I think would go over poorly in a lot of groups, though certainly not every group.


Faolyn said:


> Yeah, you missed one heck of an argument from a while ago on this exact same thing. And I agree with you. It's a passive trait, not one that requires the DM bombard the players with in-game examples of how it works for it to be meaningful.



Oops! Sorry for butting in without proper context.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> _Wrong._
> 
> A natural 1 on an attack roll is always a failure, no matter what. Even if the roll would otherwise be high enough to hit the target because of other modifiers, a natural 1 is always a failure.
> 
> ...



Also, like, how often do you make a check where you would succeed on a natural 1? In my games, literally never because I wouldn’t call for a check in the first place if that was the case. That means at bare minimum, halflings have a 5% chance of turning a failure into a reroll. That’s not _much_ but it’s not _nothing._


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I absolutely love halflings, so this “problem” feels kinda overblown to me. Yes, Tolkien’s hobbits were _generally_ not the adventuring types, but first of all both stories made a point about how some hobbits (the Tooks in particular) very much _were_ driven to adventure, and were in fact surprisingly well-suited to it. Indeed, hobbits surprising other characters with their capability is kind of a running theme. Second of all, while Tolkien’s hobbits are of course the inspiration for D&D’s halflings, halflings have grown well beyond that. They are defined in D&D by their curiosity, pluck, and wit (and, yeah, a lot of that is a softening of Kender).
> 
> To answer the question of how folks have confronted this “problem”, such as it is, in their own games, I’ve specifically made the Tolkienesque notion of the halfling homebody an in-world stereotype.



My halflings are much more Bud Cubby (Dimension20) than Fatty Bulger. 

In Islands World and Space Fantasy, and my FR games, Hin (halfling is absurd. No way they call themselves that) tend to be the ones running courier and postal services, and they tend to me amiable and friendly anarchist who will burn the whole thing down if they can’t peacefully solve systemic injustice.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Well that's like your opinion man.
> 
> The problem is not that all these races were made playable. IT was that every race was not not designed for the same level of fantasy.
> 
> Halfling was designed for a low fantasy , low magic, humanocentric LOTR-clone world. The second you play anything else, it gets outshined. That's the whole point of the thread.* Integrating halflings in other types of settings.*



Integrating halflings in other types of settings requires imagination and a bit of thought.

Go with their basic idea: they're simple farmers. OK. Maybe they're the only ones who really do much farming, though. Elves live in forests, dwarfs live underground, humans live in cities, and gnomes live in laboratories. Thus halflings have their niche, and because of that, they're important. Anger the halflings, and you lose your food. Halfling fighters are common protectors of the fields and crops and, more importantly, the merchants who bring the crops to the cities and forests and underground. Halfling druids are important because other races don't have their agricultural knack and so need some guidance on how to do small-scale farming--halflings may have the monopoly on civilization-friendly druids. Halfling bards are important because they travel with the merchants (to entertain them on the road) and so pick up knowledge from far-flung places, which they then disseminate as they go along.  As a result, most people believe halflings are pretty rich, even though the halflings themselves rarely display their wealth. And to bring that into your next campaign, all you have to say is "most races don't have a lot of farmers and rely on halflings to do the work, and halfling merchants are a common sight in settlements" and then have an example of a halfling fighter, druid, and bard appear somewhere in the game.

Or do something slightly different than the norm. Maybe halflings have a great reverence for life (or are squeamish about killing) and so have become monster trainers, or diplomats, or the only people to regularly welcome half-breeds and members of "evil" races. Maybe halflings love to entertain and so halfling authors, singers, are common, and so are halfling circuses.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> My halflings are much more Bud Cubby (Dimension20) than Fatty Bulger.
> 
> In Islands World and Space Fantasy, and my FR games, Hin (halfling is absurd. No way they call themselves that) tend to be the ones running courier and postal services, and they tend to me amiable and friendly anarchist who will burn the whole thing down if they can’t peacefully solve systemic injustice.



Love it! Hin is a good name too. I‘ve always figured the names of the races in the PHB are what humans call them rather than what they call themselves. “Dwarves” is another one that feels weird as an autonym,  and half-elf/half-orc is obviously a humanocentric naming convention - I assume elves/orcs would refer to them as “half-human.” My halflings just call themselves “people” and humans “big folk.” Dwarves call themselves dwerrow, as do gnomes which are very closely related to dwarves. For elves, I continue my ongoing trend of shamelessly ripping off Dragon Age and have them call themselves Ela-Vhen, which is where the common misnomer “elven” comes from, and “elf” is sort of back-derived from that misnomer. Ela is “elvish” for people and Vhen for forest, and Ela-Vhen properly refers to wood elves. High elves are Ela-Drin (from which the term Eladrin is derived), and dark elves are Ela-Drow (from which the term Drow is derived). Drin and Drow are a _bit_ like Seelie and Unseelie.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Hussar said:


> That's a fair question.  And, I think there are two things to be gained here.
> 
> 1.  Cleaning out the cruft.  I'm sorry, but, Halflings and Gnomes are as relevant to the game as pages of descriptions of polearms.  They are barely played, have virtually no impact on any of the settings and, despite having every possible advantage - being one of the 4 races in the SRD is a BIG advantage - they still scrape the bottom of the barrel.  For fifty years.  It's time to let them go.  I doubt that they are going to make the PHB much bigger than it is - and I also doubt they are going to add many new races to the PHB - the 10 (ish) there seems to be a solid number.



As has been mentioned before, D&D Beyond published the percentages of what races were played. Between lightfoot and stout halflings, they made up 4.7% of the 8.8 million characters made and played on that service. That means 413,000 halflings were played _just _on D&D Beyond. 

That is not "barely played." And for what it's worth, 4.7% of players played half-orcs. So halflings and half-orcs are tied for popularity on D&DB.

Halflings have a pretty important role in Eberron, which is a very popular setting. They had an important role in Dark Sun. IIRC, they were fairly important in Birthright, or at least had a strong plot hook. And they have more of a history than the vast majority of D&D races do, both due to they're history in the game and in popular culture (quick, picture a tabaxi village).

Tenish) races may seem like a solid number, but once upon a time four was a solid number, then seven. Used to be four classes was all that was needed. Now there's thirteen.



Hussar said:


> 2.  It means that going forward, the game designers do not have to assume that every group has a halfling (or a gnome) and include halfling and gnome options in every single supplement.   Because, let's be honest, you can't have a supplement that excludes anything from the PHB.  They've demonstrated that pretty clearly.  All the player facing books for 5e had to include halfling and gnome material.  Bumping the halflings and the gnomes to the DMG (or, IMO, a player section in the MM along with all the other possible player races) means that WotC isn't forced to include halflings and gnomes in every single book.  It frees up so much design space and cuts away the dead weight that's been dragging in the game for decades.



So wait, you think halflings and gnomes aren't well-supported, but at the same time you don't want them in the PB so they won't be supported in supplements?


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Sure, but why must there only be one race that makes good thieves and poor warriors?



D&D always built races for specific builds. Read the DMG section on making a race. They gave the assimar bonuses to Wisdom and Charisma _specifically _so they'd make good clerics and paladins. 

So blame whoever decided that because Bilbo was a burglar that meant _all _halflings had to be burglars.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> She was talking about catastrophe hitting the halflings, not a halfling being present when some other king is affected by one.




So.... being accused of regicide when you didn't do it isn't catastrophically unlucky? See, kind of weird to think about luck only applying when you actively are doing a thing. That's not how luck works. 



Maxperson said:


> A 1 is always worse by RAW for non-halflings than a 2, because at a minimum you are 1 less likely to succeed at your goal. For a halfling a 1 is better than a 2 because you can re-roll and are unlikely to get an equally bad result. 95% of the time it will be better, and 90% of the time it will be better than a 2.
> 
> So again, narratively, halflings are luckier than other races.  The DM doesn't have to go out of his way to narrate them to be luckier.  That's the status quo.  He has to go out of his way to not narrate them correctly in order for them not to be luckier in the fiction.




You want to quibble over the math, a halfling is X% less likely to fail because they can re-roll 1's. 

I'm pointing out the practical reality. If you could succeed on a roll of 2 or better, you generally don't roll the dice. Most rolls that actually matter require you to roll at least an 8 or higher. So if a halfling and non-halfling both roll a 2, they both had bad luck.

And again, no. Halflings are not narratively more lucky, they are some random % more lucky when they take actions that involve rolling the d20. They otherwise are exactly as lucky as everyone else. If the DM never describes a lucky thing happening to a halfling... then how is that halfling lucky? Because they might not fail when the roll the dice? That is true of everyone. Heck, many characters are 30% luckier than halflings in specific circumstances, if we want to go by this definition. 



Maxperson said:


> Again, it's a racial trait that makes them braver than normal, not fearless.  So no, missing a save doesn't cause them to lose the right to call themselves brave.  Heck, since it's forced fear and not cowardice, a failed save doesn't do that to anyone.




Exactly. So, saying "Halfings are the race that is Brave" is flatly wrong. Because every adventurer, no matter their race, is brave. Again, I don't care that mechanically halflings are X% less likely to succumb to magical fear, because falling to magically induced fear DOESN'T change the fact that you are brave. So it becomes a meaningless distinction, a statement of "Everyone is brave, but sometimes halflings are more brave than normal" which... I could say about any class with Wisdom save proficiency. 




Maxperson said:


> Nobody has said that, and it's not relevant in any case.  The ranger being brave doesn't make the ranger's race as a whole braver than other races.  Unless the ranger is a halfling anyway.
> 
> It's not meaningless. It's part of the character's racial identity and statistically the halfling will succeed at more fear saves than the other races, so will over time be braver.




I know nobody has said that. I said it to prove a point. The point being, if falling under a magical fear effect and still fighting means you are brave, then halflings aren't uniquely brave. They are just statistically less likely to be affected by a mechanical condition. Because we can't define bravery as succeeding on saving throws against fear effects. If succeeding on a saving throw means you are brave, then failing means you aren't, and the ranger is not brave. But, we know narratively that that doesn't work. Being frightened and still fighting =  being brave. 





Maxperson said:


> No.  No that wasn't agreement.  I proved that they are in fact luckier no matter what, and that luck will be in the fiction as well unless the DM is DMing in bad faith and refuses to narrate their luck as luck.  If you have such a bad faith DM, then the halfling is just luckier with the rolls.




So, the DM not twisting the story and giving the halfling special attention and special nods makes them a Bad Faith DM. 

Wow. That is certainly a way to look at the world. "The Dm didn't really emphasize how my character is special, they are a Bad DM who isn't acting in Good Faith." 

Are you sure you want that to be your position?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Sure, but why must there only be one race that makes good thieves and poor warriors?




For me, it ends up being a bit of narrative bloat. I'm not saying you can't, but for example, I hate the idea that we have Tritons and Sea Elves. They are both good aligned, water people who rule the oceans. Narratively they fill the exact same niche. Visually and even mechanically, they start having the same niche. 

So, when we get an expansion of racial feats, like we got in Xanathar's... what's likely to happen? Well, they may both get one... but the Sea elves are tied to elves, and they are more consolidated under a single lore. So, more than likely, they will get more support. Which has already happened, because Sea Elves are elves, so they get elf specific feats, classes, and items already. Which means that eventually, the Tritons are... just there. No one cares about them, because anything they get as support can just go to the Sea elf, who is already more supported and therefore more popular. 

So, when you realize you want a small race, but there are a lot of them, you start wondering what you can cut, and what you can focus on. Because presenting all of them is too much, and dilutes the focus.


This isn't a problem that cannot be overcome. You can obviously and clearly have solutions to this, but it creates a pressure. There may be incredibly excellent monsters in the 3.5 MM #4, but they will never be as popular as the stuff which covered the same niche first, and got the support. To beat this pressure, they have to have a powerful hook that draws attention to them, that makes you go "AHA, that is perfect for my needs!"


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> D&D always built races for specific builds. Read the DMG section on making a race. They gave the assimar bonuses to Wisdom and Charisma _specifically _so they'd make good clerics and paladins.
> 
> So blame whoever decided that because Bilbo was a burglar that meant _all _halflings had to be burglars.



No, I mean why can’t there be more than one race that’s built to be burglars?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> The halfling is lucky as a function of access to an ability which gives them an advantage with respect to results that are adjudicated through the application of chance (the d20). They are 20 times less likely to critically fail a roll.




You guys keep repeating the same thing, and keep missing my point. 

Sure X% of the time a halfling won't fail at the action they tried to take. It is a small percentage of the time, less than 5%. But outside of rolling the d20 the halfling is no luckier than anyone else. Because the true "luck" that the player expeirences is their own luck at the table, and the narrative the DM enforces. And if the DM doesn't come in and say "that arrow missed you because you are lucky" or "You find the journal because you are lucky" and instead describes these actions exactly like they describe EVERYONE ELSE then the halfling is no luckier than anyone else.



Gammadoodler said:


> It is governed by:
> 
> 1. your proficiency/expertise in the stealth skill + your dex mod + your d20 roll (and any other flat or dice-rolled bonuses), and
> 
> ...




Huh. See, I read this, and I see some interesting things. For example, where do half of your proficiencies come from? Your class. Halflings don't have proficiency in stealth. Most of the time, your proficiency in stealth will come from your class, I can only think of a single race that gives it. Tabaxi.

Halflings don't get expertise in stealth. Expertise in stealth is very rare. It is limited to.... class selection. 

Your Dex mod DOES affect your stealth... but it also no longer is limited to specific races, and it was never limited to halflings. Again, 17 races who got a bonus to dexterity. 

Now, stay with me here. Proficiency, Expertise, Dex Mod, and rolling the die. Even if we count rolling the die 50% of your ability to be stealthy comes from.... YOUR CLASS. The only thing the race does is give a bonus to your dex mod.... and it doesn't even do that anymore. 

And so, again, if you want to argue that halflings are "The race that has stealth" then you have to argue that for every race that can get a dex modifier. And currently, that is all of them. But, even more than that, between 50% and 66% of the stealthiness of a character comes from.... THEIR CLASS.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> For me, it ends up being a bit of narrative bloat. I'm not saying you can't, but for example, I hate the idea that we have Tritons and Sea Elves. They are both good aligned, water people who rule the oceans. Narratively they fill the exact same niche. Visually and even mechanically, they start having the same niche.
> 
> So, when we get an expansion of racial feats, like we got in Xanathar's... what's likely to happen? Well, they may both get one... but the Sea elves are tied to elves, and they are more consolidated under a single lore. So, more than likely, they will get more support. Which has already happened, because Sea Elves are elves, so they get elf specific feats, classes, and items already. Which means that eventually, the Tritons are... just there. No one cares about them, because anything they get as support can just go to the Sea elf, who is already more supported and therefore more popular.
> 
> ...



To me, the only problem here is that Sea Elves are yet another elf subrace. If there were just two non-elf races with similar aquaman themes, I wouldn’t be bothered.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> _Wrong._
> 
> A natural 1 on an attack roll is always a failure, no matter what. Even if the roll would otherwise be high enough to hit the target because of other modifiers, a natural 1 is always a failure.
> 
> ...




Sure, a nat 1 is worse on death saves. But you probably missed your attack roll on a 2 as well. Think the only time I saw a character who didn't miss on a two, they had advantage and the DM just asked them to stop rolling, because it didn't matter, they hit. 

But yeah, halflings are hard to kill. Halflings don't miss when stabbing people as often. And people use homebrew rules. 

But that isn't the same as what we consider to be "lucky". You don't need to convince me that re-rolling 1's is a useful ability, sure it is a useful ability, my objection is that that alone constitutes enough to claim that the entire race is lucky. Lucky characters don't just bleed out slower. That's never how supernatural luck is presented in basically any fiction. 

Here, let's give an example, because people hate examples, 





This is a comic depicting a halfling thief. The Halfling is stealing a gem while her party is fighting a dragon. She gets the gem free, but loses her balance and hits those stalactites. Those stalactites fall down and kill the dragon, preventing a TPK. 

So, I bet someone is going to say that this was an example of a nat 1 turning into a nat 20. So, I'll ask this. How many times have you had a Nat 20 "steal object" roll, auto-kill a dragon that was above half its hp and about to kill the entire party? This is how halfling luck is depicted in narratives, this is an officially licensed DnD comic (for 4e) and what it depicts is something that would never once happen at a serious table. 

But, this is exactly what we are told halfling luck IS. Despite it never actually happening at any table I've ever played or seen.



Faolyn said:


> Nope. Because you don't require an elf roleplay Fey Ancestry and you don't require a dwarf to roleplay knowing how to use brewer's tools. So why would you require a halfling to roleplay an equally passive trait? Lucky is _no different _than any other trait. For some reason, you just think it has to be.
> 
> Halflings are Lucky. That is the name of a trait that gives them a specific ability. They don't have to also be lucky in the sense that they find lost coins everywhere or manage to prevent the king from being killed and their friends from being framed. Would you complain as much if the name of the trait was "Reroll 1s" instead?




But I'm not complaining about the trait. I'm complaining that when someone was asked "What makes a halfling different from other races" the answer was 

1) They are stealthier than other races (Only even conceivable true with the Dex mod, though they originally meant the lightfoot ability) 
2) They are braver than other races (see my discussion on why that doesn't work) 
3) They are luckier than other races. 

To defend point three, everyone is pointing to the Lucky feature. "There!" they say "There is why halflings have supernatural good luck that differentiates them from all other races" But, as I'm trying to point out... it doesn't actually do that. It allows a few re-rolls when you might roll a 1. That's it. It isn't causing fortuitous cave-ins, it isn't causing them to find the secret key to lost vault hidden in the sands, it isn't allowing them to stumble on the secret dryad's grove, it isn't causing NARRATIVE luck. Not unless the DM forces it to happen.  



Faolyn said:


> They are brave. But they do not have the Brave trait. Those are two separate things. The trait Brave gives the advantage on saving throws against being frightened. It has nothing to do with how courageous they are. It's just a name.




Exactly. Thank you. Therefore Halflings are not particularly braver than other races. They are not uniquely brave in any way. They just have a trait that grants advantage. 

I'd never say elves have "Iron Wills" because they have fey ancestry that gives them advantage against charm. So why do we want to say that halflings must be uniquely and strangely brave when compared to other races just because they have advantage on the roll? Especially since, again, failing the roll doesn't mean you are not brave. 

Is advantage on fear rolls a useful and powerful ability? Sure. Mechanically it is a good ability. But I'm not talking about the mechanics of the trait. I'm talking about the narrative.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You guys keep repeating the same thing, and keep missing my point.
> 
> Sure X% of the time a halfling won't fail at the action they tried to take. It is a small percentage of the time, less than 5%. But outside of rolling the d20 the halfling is no luckier than anyone else. Because the true "luck" that the player expeirences is their own luck at the table, and the narrative the DM enforces. And if the DM doesn't come in and say "that arrow missed you because you are lucky" or "You find the journal because you are lucky" and instead describes these actions exactly like they describe EVERYONE ELSE then the halfling is no luckier than anyone else.
> 
> ...



I expect some of the repetition here may be a result of having the eminently reasonable position that the dm does not need to specifically tie all of your successes and failures to the feature that allowed it. Further, the failure to mention the feature does not negate that feature.

I'd conceded the change to racial stat mods at the very beginning of this exchange and have continued to take note of it. The point, such as it was, is the way in which the traditional racial ability bonuss were used to reflect those races' capabilities, including stealth, as of when those races were  designed and released. Sure, Tasha's wipes the slate clean, but it doesn't change the original design process.

I've also noted that class plays a bigger part of a character's capabilities than their race selection (in point of fact it's right there in the message you've replied to).

But it's the same way with pretty much every racial feature.  A mountain dwarf monk getting medium armor proficiency didn't make them a warrior, but it is a reflection of a mountain dwarf's martial tradition..even if the character never uses it.

Having your character lean away from the roles which their racial features would support does not negate the traditions/traits those features were intended to reflect.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Also, like, how often do you make a check where you would succeed on a natural 1? In my games, literally never because I wouldn’t call for a check in the first place if that was the case. That means at bare minimum, halflings have a 5% chance of turning a failure into a reroll. That’s not _much_ but it’s not _nothing._



Actually now that I think about it, you can figure out exactly what this effect is “worth” just by replacing the 5% chance of a natural 1 with a 5% chance of a 10.5 (the mean average value of the reroll) and calculating the new average. That comes out to 10.975, so Lucky is worth about +0.475 to every roll. In other words, halflings are about 2.375% more likely to succeed at anything they attempt than anyone else due to their luck. I say “about” because advantage and disadvantage mess with the odds slightly, as do the special cases where a natural 1 is especially bad like attack rolls and death saves.


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> And the problem is that Halfling don't actually bring much to the table. Mostly because halfling fans didn't let it(well they might now)
> 
> Halfling The Race are from a tradition where races didn't give you much. But even in those time halflings gave you the less. Dwarves use to give you magic resist, poison resist,and darkvision. Halfling had both resists and a downgrade of infravision.



Hobbits (a.k.a. Halflings) also had bonuses with missiles that no other species had and which could at times be a big deal.


Minigiant said:


> Now halfling lost both base resists, special vision, have fewer weapon choices, and have harder time knocking foes down. *Dwarves kept everything but the magic resist AND got more.*
> 
> The problem isn't all the fantastical races. The problem is all the fantasical parts of halflings *suck *because a bunch of halfling fans want to play challenge mode.
> 
> *Halfling is a Hard Mode race.* Don't blame Dragonborn or Genasi for that. Blame fans who purposely want halflings to be weak so "they can be underestimated".



Halflings probably shouldn't have lost what they lost.  Dwarves (and some other species) getting more is just an example of power creep.


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Sure, but why must there only be one race that makes good thieves and poor warriors?



Because there'll be (hopefully only!) one other species that makes good warriors and lousy wizards.  And a third that makes great wizards but lousy clerics.  And a fourth who shine as clerics but aren't much use as fighting.  Etc. (there's obviously loads of room for fine-tuning these niches but I think this gets the idea across)

Same as classes: there's one class (well, group of classes now) that are good at sneaking and bad at melee; there's other classes that are good at arcane casting but not much use at sneaking, etc.  Synergizing these two things such that one is playing both a species and a class that are good at roughly the same thing is where archetypal class-species combinations come from.  I'm fine with this.

There's no need for 30 different playable species; much like there's no need for 50-odd playable classes.  It's easy to determine when the limit's been reached, and that's when there's no niche left to put something new into without kicking something else out.


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Like maybe tell people about it when you do it first?
> 
> And also not take up the slot of an iconic species that people who aren't hardcore might want to take too?



Which iconic species' place is the Halfling currently occupying, other than its own?


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> _Wrong._
> 
> A natural 1 on an attack roll is always a failure, no matter what. Even if the roll would otherwise be high enough to hit the target because of other modifiers, a natural 1 is always a failure.
> 
> ...



If they roll another '1' on the reroll are they forced to keep it, or can they keep re-rolling until no '1' appears?

If the first is true, then "never" becomes "hardly ever".


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Hobbits (a.k.a. Halflings) also had bonuses with missiles that no other species had and which could at times be a big deal.
> 
> Halflings probably shouldn't have lost what they lost.  Dwarves (and some other species) getting more is just an example of power creep.




Halflings lost what they lost because a whole mess of old school and halfling fans saw halflings are challenge mode or joke characters. So they didn't speak up when halfling was being designed weak.

Look at halflings in many OSR games. Halflings are usually the weakest race.

No one spoke up about small size being 90% of the time a penalty* until the goblin players started making goblin PCs.* The Halfling and Gnome fans said nothing.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflings lost what they lost because a whole mess of old school and halfling fans saw halflings are challenge mode or joke characters. So they didn't speak up when halfling was being designed weak.
> 
> Look at halflings in many OSR games. Halflings are usually the weakest race.
> 
> No one spoke up about small size being 90% of the time a penalty* until the goblin players started making goblin PCs.* The Halfling and Gnome fans said nothing.



how strange the goblin player cares more about whether they get what they want.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because there'll be (hopefully only!) one other species that makes good warriors and lousy wizards.  And a third that makes great wizards but lousy clerics.  And a fourth who shine as clerics but aren't much use as fighting.  Etc. (there's obviously loads of room for fine-tuning these niches but I think this gets the idea across)
> 
> Same as classes: there's one class (well, group of classes now) that are good at sneaking and bad at melee; there's other classes that are good at arcane casting but not much use at sneaking, etc.  Synergizing these two things such that one is playing both a species and a class that are good at roughly the same thing is where archetypal class-species combinations come from.  I'm fine with this.
> 
> There's no need for 30 different playable species; much like there's no need for 50-odd playable classes.  It's easy to determine when the limit's been reached, and that's when there's no niche left to put something new into without kicking something else out.



Sure, there’s no _need_ for more than one of each. Doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with having more than one anyway.


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## James Gasik (Jul 14, 2022)

Now that Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse has offered Small-size options to races like Aasimar, I imagine Halflings would need a boost to stay competitive. 

Especially if Kender are printed with immunity to fear.

As for Halfling Luck, it is nice to have.  I was playing a Battlemaster Halfling Archer, and the ability to reroll a 1 was nice, but I will admit, it probably only came up maybe a dozen times over 12 levels.

About the bravery thing, before I got Resilient (Wis), I had to fight a powerful dragon in Storm King's Thunder that had a save DC for it's fear aura that was so high for me that I couldn't save on a 20.  All the advantage and rerolling in the world can't fix that.

But that has more to do with the saving throw system than Halflings. Fear did not come up for me as often as Poisoned, which is a status condition the monster design team seems to adore with all their hearts.

I like Halflings, I've played several over the years.  It's annoying that Small is now straight downside instead of a mixed blessing like it was in 3e, but it only really affects certain builds.  But right now, their main reason to exist is that, yeah, very few DM's are going to put them on their ban list.

I would like to see WotC lean harder into what really makes them different than "small humans".  They suffer from the PHB's conservative race design, and attempts to make them more like "classic halflings", while going on to design better races that fill their niche.  But as long as the LotR fandom continues to exist, and WotC continues to feel their needs to be "basic" character options, the Halfling isn't going to ever leave the PHB.


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## Hussar (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> As has been mentioned before, D&D Beyond published the percentages of what races were played. Between lightfoot and stout halflings, they made up 4.7% of the 8.8 million characters made and played on that service. That means 413,000 halflings were played _just _on D&D Beyond.
> 
> That is not "barely played." And for what it's worth, 4.7% of players played half-orcs. So halflings and half-orcs are tied for popularity on D&DB.
> /snip




To me that’s barely played and a waste of space. And note half orcs are likely getting the axe too. 

That’s essentially 1 in 4 tables has a halfling. Pretty close. Which could easily mean that halflings are almost never seen by many tables. 

For a core 4 race with fifty years of history and the backing of Tolkien, it’s a pretty sad showing. 



> So wait, you think halflings and gnomes aren't well-supported, but at the same time you don't want them in the PB so they won't be supported in supplements?




Nope. I’m saying that their presence in the phb means that everyone is forced to throw them a bone in supplements that virtually no one uses or cares about. 

Bump them out of the phb and now we can have support for races that are actually getting played like tieflings or dtagonborn or warforged. 

I’d say that warforged are a heck of a lot more important to ebberron than halflings or gnomes. And Birthright? Sorry but who cares about a thirty year old setting that almost no one played even back in the day and hasn’t had a book for it since the 90’s?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Hussar said:


> That's a fair question.  And, I think there are two things to be gained here.
> 
> 1.  Cleaning out the cruft.  I'm sorry, but, Halflings and Gnomes are as relevant to the game as pages of descriptions of polearms.  They are barely played, have virtually no impact on any of the settings and, despite having every possible advantage - being one of the 4 races in the SRD is a BIG advantage - they still scrape the bottom of the barrel.  For fifty years.  It's time to let them go.  I doubt that they are going to make the PHB much bigger than it is - and I also doubt they are going to add many new races to the PHB - the 10 (ish) there seems to be a solid number.
> 
> ...



This is your personal bias talking. A lot of people care about them, they're doing OK in popularity polls. And what's craziest about this is that you'd want to remove _both _halflings and gnomes. Like sure, they're similar so I'd understand removing one, but removing both would be like removing elves and half-elves.

When choosing a selection of "basic races" in PHB, they should aim for set in which most people can find _something _they like, so I would see an argument for removing _either _halflings or gnomes (as people who like one are likely be pretty OK with playing the other in a pinch) for something like warforged or tabaxi, but removing both would be removing an entire broad archetype and that's a bad move.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Out of curiosity all in person or any online? My game has been 100% online through Foundry which incorporates a bunch of quality of life features and automates a lot of the fiddly bits.



Two campaigns online, the one-shot was in person.  I agree that in person was harder, since when I play in person, I don’t use any electronics.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Even if I saw it effectively as a mechanic, that still doesn't change the rest of the narrative. I've seen people take the lucky feat. They didn't feel any "luckier" than any other player. They could just re-roll the dice. That isn't luck, that's a metagame manipulation of the game engine. Because in the narrative... they were still incredibly UNLUCKY. And in fact, the reason they took the feat is they have notoriously bad dice luck and were trying to counter-act that... and it still didn't work.



You just described two of my players.  The worst is that pretty much every time they use Lucky, they roll the same number or worse.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> This isn't a problem that cannot be overcome. You can obviously and clearly have solutions to this, but it creates a pressure. There may be incredibly excellent monsters in the 3.5 MM #4, but they will never be as popular as the stuff which covered the same niche first, and got the support. To beat this pressure, they have to have a powerful hook that draws attention to them, that makes you go "AHA, that is perfect for my needs!"



Which seems to have happened for Dragonborn, Tieflings and, arguably, Genasi.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Hussar said:


> To me that’s barely played and a waste of space. And note half orcs are likely getting the axe too.
> 
> That’s essentially 1 in 4 tables has a halfling. Pretty close. Which could easily mean that halflings are almost never seen by many tables.
> 
> ...




I wonder if Ebberron is the setting in less than 5% of tables.  If so, does that mean it's hardly played and we should cut it? (I could swear I read something like less than 5% is cuttable...).


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> This idea that races require niches that are some sort of limited resources is bizarre to me. Wanting races to be well-integrated into the campaign setting I can understand. But why do some people treat this integration as a zero-sum game? As long as the DM has the desire to do so, what’s wrong with them integrating any and every race they please into their setting?



Personally I dislike massive conceptual overlap. I like a clear selection of solid archetypes that are still broad enough that they don't become totally flanderised. 

Now I don't agree with @Lanefan that this is necessarily an issue with "monster races" unless you want to include a ton of them. They usually actually bring something pretty distinct to the table. Like the dragonborn are actually obviously rather different than elves or halflings. Now if you want also include the lizardfolk and troglodytes then we might face the problem I mentioned.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Two campaigns online, the one-shot was in person.  I agree that in person was harder, since when I play in person, I don’t use any electronics.



Gotcha. May just be table variation then. If you ever decide to give it another try and haven't used Foundry yet, I'd strongly recommend it. The pathbuilder app is also very good. Together, the two of them have brought down the player-facing fiddliness enough that the game runs about as good or better than 5e on Roll20.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Which iconic species' place is the Halfling currently occupying, other than its own?



What I'm saying is the halfling shouldn't be hard mode because it's iconic.

Also, it's clearly not intended to be hard mode, it just is because of Small species hate.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

It wouldn't have been true a year ago, but after a bunch of these threads, I think I would be just fine with having Halflings be a subtype of gnome in 5.5 (forest gnome=elfy magicky ones, rock gnome=dwarfy tinkery ones halfling=agrarian humany hairy footed ones).

Not sure how to sell that opinion though.


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## lall (Jul 14, 2022)

I would feel less shame playing a halfling if most of them looked like Lidda. And I believe they’re called hin in Forgotten Realms. The remaining shame would go away if “halfling” was replaced with that across the board.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

@payn I could see going a step further and really cheesing a lot of people off.  Make gnomes and Halflings like the plane touched, but they'd be the spirit touched, and could play off all of the old household spirits and gods. (I'm pretty sure that it would make one or two of the regular posters on EN happy to pull those myths in -- I'm not there yet).


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Cadence said:


> It wouldn't have been true a year ago, but after a bunch of these threads, I think I would be just fine with having Halflings be a subtype of gnome in 5.5 (forest gnome=elfy magicky ones, rock gnome=dwarfy tinkery ones halfling=agrarian humany hairy footed ones).
> 
> Not sure how to sell that opinion though.



Especially since gnomes should be the ones escorted out.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Especially since gnomes should be the ones escorted out.



I mean, I'm good with rock gnome being the dwarfy halflings and forest gnome being the elfy halflings  too.  

Maybe they could have two versions of the PhB based on which name got higher billing.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Love it! Hin is a good name too. I‘ve always figured the names of the races in the PHB are what humans call them rather than what they call themselves. “Dwarves” is another one that feels weird as an autonym,  and half-elf/half-orc is obviously a humanocentric naming convention - I assume elves/orcs would refer to them as “half-human.” My halflings just call themselves “people” and humans “big folk.” Dwarves call themselves dwerrow, as do gnomes which are very closely related to dwarves. For elves, I continue my ongoing trend of shamelessly ripping off Dragon Age and have them call themselves Ela-Vhen, which is where the common misnomer “elven” comes from, and “elf” is sort of back-derived from that misnomer. Ela is “elvish” for people and Vhen for forest, and Ela-Vhen properly refers to wood elves. High elves are Ela-Drin (from which the term Eladrin is derived), and dark elves are Ela-Drow (from which the term Drow is derived). Drin and Drow are a _bit_ like Seelie and Unseelie.



That’s fantastic. My dwarves in the game I’m writing call themselves Döragr, and the elves are just alfar, which isn’t as fun. I’ve been meaning to rename the svartalfar especially, to something more on theme for semi-nocturnal elves who are descended from spirits of the night, the hunt, moonlight and starlight.


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Now I don't agree with @Lanefan that this is necessarily an issue with "monster races" unless you want to include a ton of them. They usually actually bring something pretty distinct to the table. Like the dragonborn are actually obviously rather different than elves or halflings. Now if you want also include the lizardfolk and troglodytes then we might face the problem I mentioned



But that's the thing.

Although dragonborn, lizard folk, and troglodytes are all scales, they are very different mentally and physically with vastly different and impactful racial "powers".

The issue with halflings is mentally they overlap with human farmers and physically their powers are so nerfed that they aren't impactful if any other small races exist.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So why do we want to say that halflings must be uniquely and strangely brave when compared to other races just because they have advantage on the roll?



This reads as not understanding the thing as a rhetorical device. 

They’re brave because they are described as such. The Brave trait then represents that by making them meaningfully less likely to be frightened. It’s that simple.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So.... being accused of regicide when you didn't do it isn't catastrophically unlucky? See, kind of weird to think about luck only applying when you actively are doing a thing. That's not how luck works.



Sorry, I misunderstood.  I didn't realize you were moving the goalposts she set up from the race to an individual and thought the catastrophe was the king being killed.  Sure, an individual might be present and accused.  How is that a catastrophe to the halfling race?


Chaosmancer said:


> You want to quibble over the math, a halfling is X% less likely to fail because they can re-roll 1's.



Luck is luck. You don't have to be lucky half the time to be lucky.


Chaosmancer said:


> I'm pointing out the practical reality. If you could succeed on a roll of 2 or better, you generally don't roll the dice. Most rolls that actually matter require you to roll at least an 8 or higher. So if a halfling and non-halfling both roll a 2, they both had bad luck.



Well, no.  Failing isn't the same as bad luck. Bad luck is failure plus more.  Rolling a 2 for a death save is failure.  Rolling a 1 and missing two saves is bad luck.  It worse than a normal failure.  Your human fails that 1 time in 20.  My halfling fails it 1 time in 400, because I'm luckier than you are.


Chaosmancer said:


> And again, no. Halflings are not narratively more lucky, they are some random % more lucky when they take actions that involve rolling the d20. They otherwise are exactly as lucky as everyone else.



This translates into, "Halflings aren't luckier than other people in the narrative, they are just luckier than other people narrative."  Those rolls are for actions that happen in the narrative, which halflings will objectively make more often due to their good luck.  So yes, other than being luckier than everyone else, they are exactly as lucky as everyone else.


Chaosmancer said:


> If the DM never describes a lucky thing happening to a halfling...



Then the DM is acting in bad faith and deliberately ruining part of the halfling's story.  Bad DMs are bad, yes.  Bad DMs don't make halflings as a game race unlucky in the narrative.  They can only ruin their own games.


Chaosmancer said:


> Exactly. So, saying "Halfings are the race that is Brave" is flatly wrong. Because every adventurer, no matter their race, is brave. Again, I don't care that mechanically halflings are X% less likely to succumb to magical fear, because falling to magically induced fear DOESN'T change the fact that you are brave. So it becomes a meaningless distinction, a statement of "Everyone is brave, but sometimes halflings are more brave than normal" which... I could say about any class with Wisdom save proficiency.



Adventurers are not a race, so it doesn't matter if every PC is brave or not.  It can have no bearing on the fact that halflings as a race are braver than any other race that also does not have some sort of bravery mechanic to support it.  

There are also levels of bravery.  One can be braver than another.  So even if adventurers are brave.  A halfling will almost always be braver. That halfling PC will have the adventurer bravery you mention, plus will make more saves and spend less time cowering than the others due to the racial ability.


Chaosmancer said:


> I know nobody has said that. I said it to prove a point. The point being, if falling under a magical fear effect and still fighting means you are brave, then halflings aren't uniquely brave. They are just statistically less likely to be affected by a mechanical condition. Because we can't define bravery as succeeding on saving throws against fear effects. If succeeding on a saving throw means you are brave, then failing means you aren't, and the ranger is not brave. But, we know narratively that that doesn't work. Being frightened and still fighting =  being brave.



Braver. Not brave.  Braver.  That have a racial bravery that isn't matched by any other race.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, the DM not twisting the story and giving the halfling special attention and special nods makes them a Bad Faith DM.



How is narrating what happens "twisting the story and giving the halfling special attention?"  That's literally the DM's job.  The halfling has an ability that is in fact in the narrative and if the DM doesn't narrate it, he's acting in as much bad faith as if I declared I'm trying to climb a wall and he said, "No you aren't." 

From page 6 of the PHB

"*3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions.* Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1."

So the halfling declares an action to climb the wall and rolls a 1. Halfling *luck* kicks in and he re-rolls and gets a 17.  Success!  The result of that action is, "The halfling gets lucky and climbs the wall."  The DM is obligated by RAW to narrate that.  There's no "twisting" going on.  There's no "giving the halfling special attention" going on.  It's simply how the game is played and the DM refusing to do that is acting in bad faith.


Chaosmancer said:


> Wow. That is certainly a way to look at the world. "The Dm didn't really emphasize how my character is special, they are a Bad DM who isn't acting in Good Faith."
> 
> Are you sure you want that to be your position?



It's not my position.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> they aren't impactful



"Not impactful" is exactly what halflings are meant to be. They were designed as observers, and a good observer has a minimal impact on the system.

Adventurers, as always, are the exception.


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## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If they roll another '1' on the reroll are they forced to keep it, or can they keep re-rolling until no '1' appears?
> 
> If the first is true, then "never" becomes "hardly ever".



They have to keep the new roll.  So it's a 1 in 400 chance of happening.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Great, @Maxperson and @Chaosmancer are debating each other. That's a guarantee that this thread will reach hundred pages.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> To me, the only problem here is that Sea Elves are yet another elf subrace. If there were just two non-elf races with similar aquaman themes, I wouldn’t be bothered.




Fair enough, but at least I think this helps highlight why the issue exists. 

This is why, for me, I've been adopting a position of consolidating the races, not mechanically at least, but narratively. So, Goliath and Firbolg are related and both "giant-kin".

The one that gives me the biggest headache is trying to do a "Beast Folk" race because it would include

Aaracrockra (Bird)
Kenku (different Bird) 
Owlin (third different Bird)
Harengon
Leonin (Cat)
Tabaxi (different cat) 
Lizardfolk?
Loxodon
Minotaurs
Shifters (Which include thick hided creatures like bulls and elephants, Cats, Wolves and dogs, and then a generic catch all) 
Tortle?

And I think I missed at least two others. And trying to work them all under a single umbrella is hard.


----------



## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Shifters are supposed to be diet lycanthropes, not beast men.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Fair enough, but at least I think this helps highlight why the issue exists.
> 
> This is why, for me, I've been adopting a position of consolidating the races, not mechanically at least, but narratively. So, Goliath and Firbolg are related and both "giant-kin".
> 
> ...



If I were to try and create a beastfolk race I'd ditch all of those races above and just make one Beastfolk race.  The player gets to choose which type he wants to be.  I'd also ditch birds, since those are not beasts.

From there I'd figure out racial bonuses based on the beast selected.  If they take lion as their type of beast, well lions are majestic and agile, so +2 Cha, +1 Dex.  If elephant, well they are huge and strong, and they never forget, so +2 Str, +1 Int.  And so on.  

For racial abilities some generic Beast Senses which gives a bonus to perception or maybe advantage on perception checks, darkvision as a catchall since many animals can see in the dark and that could easily bleed over into a racial ability.  

It would take some work, but I don't think it would be hard unless you're trying to keep all the beastial races both separate and under the same umbrella.  Merge them.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I expect some of the repetition here may be a result of having the eminently reasonable position that the dm does not need to specifically tie all of your successes and failures to the feature that allowed it. Further, the failure to mention the feature does not negate that feature.
> 
> I'd conceded the change to racial stat mods at the very beginning of this exchange and have continued to take note of it. The point, such as it was, is the way in which the traditional racial ability bonuss were used to reflect those races' capabilities, including stealth, as of when those races were  designed and released. Sure, Tasha's wipes the slate clean, but it doesn't change the original design process.
> 
> I've also noted that class plays a bigger part of a character's capabilities than their race selection (in point of fact it's right there in the message you've replied to).




You'd conceded it, then brought it back up to try and support your position. And you agree that class plays a bigger role, yet you insist on arguing with me, when that is my main point. 

_shrug_ Really confusing me here why you are pushing forth ideas you don't seem to agree with.



Gammadoodler said:


> But it's the same way with pretty much every racial feature.  A mountain dwarf monk getting medium armor proficiency didn't make them a warrior, but it is a reflection of a mountain dwarf's martial tradition..even if the character never uses it.
> 
> Having your character lean away from the roles which their racial features would support does not negate the traditions/traits those features were intended to reflect.




Actually, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. 

If someone came up to me and said "Dwarves are the race that wear armor" I would respond to them exactly as I have been responding to "halflings are the stealthy race" 

First I would point out that it is not all dwarves, just like it is not all halflings that are particularly stealthy. 
Then I would point out that your class determines your armor wearing ability, just as your class determines how stealthy you are. 
Finally, I would point out that there are other races that get armor proficiency and therefore even if I conceded the previous two points, it still wouldn't make them "particularly dwarvish" to wear armor. Just while if I accept +2 dex = stealthy that doesn't make being stealthy "particularly halfling" 


Am I denying that Mountain dwarves have a trait that allows them to wear armor? No. In fact, that has nothing to do with my points at all.


----------



## jmartkdr2 (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Fair enough, but at least I think this helps highlight why the issue exists.
> 
> This is why, for me, I've been adopting a position of consolidating the races, not mechanically at least, but narratively. So, Goliath and Firbolg are related and both "giant-kin".
> 
> ...



If you want players to be able to play nearly any animal as beastfolk, you need a freeform build-you-own-beast setup. Like, "pick 3 features off the following list:"

I think it's quite doable, although you end up with low-flavor races (kenku are just bird people). Short of that, you need a number of separate races, probably a dozen or more.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> This reads as not understanding the thing as a rhetorical device.
> 
> They’re brave because they are described as such. The Brave trait then represents that by making them meaningfully less likely to be frightened. It’s that simple.




"They are brave because we say that they are brave" doesn't really help though, does it? 

Orcs, gnolls, dwarves, and dragonborn are all described as some variation of "fearless" but they aren't trotted out as being particularly fearless. Especially because, to keep repeating myself, nearly all adventurers are brave. My elf ranger is brave, my half-orc samurai is brave, my gnome cleric is brave, my tielfing artificer... isn't brave but he is vicious, my human barbarian is brave, my half-elf paladin is brave. 

How do I know they are brave? Do they have the Brave Trait? No. they are brave because they went out and fought monsters that would rip them limb from limb to protect the innocent who could not protect themselves. They delved deep into caves and ruins, seeking what was lost. They are brave because of what they choose to do.

The only way people seem to have to claim halflings are more brave than the other races... is that they have advantage on the save against fear. But, as established, FAILING that check does not mean your character is not brave. So... halflings are brave because we say they are, and that is not represented in any possible way at the table, because they are just as brave as everyone else sitting at the table.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You'd conceded it, then brought it back up to try and support your position. And you agree that class plays a bigger role, yet you insist on arguing with me, when that is my main point.
> 
> _shrug_ Really confusing me here why you are pushing forth ideas you don't seem to agree with.
> 
> ...



So your position is that where multiple source may provide an advantage for a given skilll only the strongest source of advantage gets any credit for that contribution? That is an odd position to take.

Commenting on how the initial design process for the phb races contributes to the perception of those races feels relevant to me. You disagree 

As to your conclusion with respect to the dwarf, that seems completely backwards to me, like your conclusion is that no racial feature indicates any kind of racial predilection if there is any intersection with class abilities..it's bananas.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Sorry, I misunderstood.  I didn't realize you were moving the goalposts she set up from the race to an individual and thought the catastrophe was the king being killed.  Sure, an individual might be present and accused.  How is that a catastrophe to the halfling race?




Oh, sorry. I didn't realize "the halfling is too lucky to have something catastrophic happen to them" was now "the halfling race is too lucky to have something befall the entire race" 

It also doesn't affect the incredibly lucky races of the Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Goliaths, Firbolgs, Centaurs, Satyrs. Man, there sure are a lot of races that are lucky huh? 

Oh wait, you don't mean that either. Weird. So, since we are still talking about a single halfling in a party of adventurers like we have been this entire time, as a representative of their race... maybe don't go shifting the goalposts?



Maxperson said:


> Well, no.  Failing isn't the same as bad luck. Bad luck is failure plus more.  Rolling a 2 for a death save is failure.  Rolling a 1 and missing two saves is bad luck.  It worse than a normal failure.  Your human fails that 1 time in 20.  My halfling fails it 1 time in 400, because I'm luckier than you are.




Interesting. Failure isn't bad luck. But success is good luck? So, halflings have good luck because they succeed more often, but failure isn't bad luck it is just.... what? After all, my X% more likely to succeed was met with "luck is luck" 

Because, you know, if I was laying on the ground bleeding to death... I'd say that I must have had some pretty bad luck to end up in that position. Normally, if I had good luck, I wouldn't be laying on the ground bleeding to death. Whether or not a particular six seconds gets me closer faster doesn't matter as much as being in that position. After all, you've now defined failure as both rolling a 2 and as rolling a 1. 

See, the human fails 45% of time (anything lower than a 10) and the halfling fails 47.25% of the time (Anything lower than a 10, with a reroll). Sure, the halfling is very unlikely to roll a 1... but that isn't failure. Failure is failing the roll.



Maxperson said:


> This translates into, "Halflings aren't luckier than other people in the narrative, they are just luckier than other people narrative."  Those rolls are for actions that happen in the narrative, which halflings will objectively make more often due to their good luck.  So yes, other than being luckier than everyone else, they are exactly as lucky as everyone else.




Really? So, when my Fighter reaches level 3 and gains proficiency in the Arcana skill, he has become 10% luckier than he was before? Because, succeeding on the action = Luck. 

Bards hand out luck. Clerics cast luck spells on everyone. Magical swords are all lucky. Because succeeding on an action is luck. 

Wait no. You don't mean that. You mean that halflings succeeding on rolls is because of luck. Not because of their proficiencies, ability score modifiers, class features, and everything else. 

Wait wait, no. You don't mean that. You mean that the lucky feature means that they will probably succeed at an action about 3% more often than everyone else, because they are lucky. Which, by the way, is such a small percentage it will not be noticed at a particular table. Survey's and such used to gather information generally have a 3% margin of error, which this falls into. So, this is quite literally a margin of error. 

So, unless the DM enforces this... which we will discuss in a moment, huh?



Maxperson said:


> Adventurers are not a race, so it doesn't matter if every PC is brave or not.  It can have no bearing on the fact that halflings as a race are braver than any other race that also does not have some sort of bravery mechanic to support it.
> 
> There are also levels of bravery.  One can be braver than another.  So even if adventurers are brave.  A halfling will almost always be braver. That halfling PC will have the adventurer bravery you mention, plus will make more saves and spend less time cowering than the others due to the racial ability.
> 
> Braver. Not brave.  Braver.  That have a racial bravery that isn't matched by any other race.




Actually, the adventurers and PCs being brave matters a lot. In fact, it could be the only thing that does matter. Because who does your character get compared to? The other PCs. I'm reminded of the Worf effect. I'm sure you've heard about it. Is Worf a bad-ass warrior? Sure, we are told he is, but if you watch the show you see him... lose. Constantly. He could fold the vast majority of humans on Earth into a pretzel, but that doesn't really matter because we never see him do it. He's the guy that always loses the fight, so it doesn't matter how much you tell us he is a great warrior.

Sure, the common peasants are running in fear... but your companions aren't. Most fear effects don't include "cowering", in fact, I think only a single fear effect in the game changes your stated actions at all. So the halfling will in fact not be cowering less than his companions, because his companions will generally not be cowering. 

And, again, if we are going to measure bravery as "succeeds on saving throws vs fear" then the Monk, Druid and Cleric are even braver than most halflings. Being high wisdom classes. Some Ranger's too. Because, they are going to succeed on those fear saves, so they must be even braver. Except, again, we don't define bravery by whether or not you feel magical fear.




Maxperson said:


> It's not my position.




Interesting. It is not your position that a DM who goes out of their way to narrate the halfling as being luckier than his companions is a bad DM. And yet



Maxperson said:


> Then the DM is acting in bad faith and deliberately ruining part of the halfling's story.  Bad DMs are bad, yes.  Bad DMs don't make halflings as a game race unlucky in the narrative.  They can only ruin their own games.




You speak about Bad DMs ruining the game by not doing exactly that. So, what gives? If I don't go out of my way to describe lucky things happening to halfling because of their luck... I'm a bad DM? That is a level of care for the race that no other race gets. I'm not a bad DM for not narrating the Kenku's voice as particularly strange. I'm not a bad DM for not narrating that the Goliath is particularly tough. I'm not a bad DM for narrating that the Firbolg is soft-spoken and doesn't understand names. 

But I'm a Bad DM if I don't make sure to narrate how lucky the halfling is. 

Ah, wait, I think I see what is going on here. 



Maxperson said:


> How is narrating what happens "twisting the story and giving the halfling special attention?"  That's literally the DM's job.  The halfling has an ability that is in fact in the narrative and if the DM doesn't narrate it, he's acting in as much bad faith as if I declared I'm trying to climb a wall and he said, "No you aren't."
> 
> From page 6 of the PHB
> 
> ...




You aren't understanding my position. At all. 

To roll this back. Let's take your example of climbing that wall (which shouldn't be a roll, but that is neither here nor there) 

So the halfling declares an action to climb the wall and rolls a... 5! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't. Maybe the halfling is searching a room and rolls a.... 15! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't. 

In fact, I have seen a halfling character go an entire campaign without rolling a 1 on a d20 check. There is, after all, only a 5% chance of rolling a 1. So, in that situation... is the halfling lucky? No. Their "luck" never manifests... 

Unless when the gnoll fires an arrow at the halfling and misses the halflings armor class, the DM says it is because of halfling luck. Unless when they are walking through town, and the party is hit by a gang of pickpockets, they ignore the halfling because of halfling luck. Unless the DM twists the story around and makes sure to add to their narration "the halfling is lucky" in times when THE HALFLING ISN'T ROLLING. Because other than that? We will say 97% of the time, the halfling isn't any luckier than anyone else. They may roll a 1, get that stroke of good fortune... and still fail. So, they don't get that narration of being lucky. Or they succeeded, and the DM attributes it to their luck, where for any other character it would be because of their skill. 

And, if I take you at your own words. You think that a DM who doesn't do that, who doesn't change the narrative to reflect how special the halfling is when they aren't rolling, is a Bad DM. Or you think that the halfling will roll enough 1's that re-roll into successes that anyone will remember and appreciate how lucky halflings are.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

jmartkdr2 said:


> If you want players to be able to play nearly any animal as beastfolk, you need a freeform build-you-own-beast setup. Like, "pick 3 features off the following list:"
> 
> I think it's quite doable, although you end up with low-flavor races (kenku are just bird people). Short of that, you need a number of separate races, probably a dozen or more.




I know. Again, I've been trying not to just make a new race, but it would be easier. 

But this is more meant to highlight to Charlaquin how having too many overlapping races can be a problem.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So your position is that where multiple source may provide an advantage for a given skilll only the strongest source of advantage gets any credit for that contribution? That is an odd position to take.
> 
> Commenting on how the initial design process for the phb races contributes to the perception of those races feels relevant to me. You disagree
> 
> As to your conclusion with respect to the dwarf, that seems completely backwards to me, like your conclusion is that no racial feature indicates any kind of racial predilection if there is any intersection with class abilities..it's bananas.




So, you have often heard people describe dwarves as "the armor wearing race?" 

Me? I've heard them as the underground, smithing, stubborn as stone, long-lived, bearded with a resistance to poison and high alcohol tolerance race. "wears armor" doesn't even make the list. 

I also never spoke about advantage at all, so I have no idea where you pulled that from. And sure, I wasn't going to bring up the change in Tashas and the PHB, you did. Because it came down to the only way to show halflings were "the stealthy race" was to go to ability score improvements. And then you had to go to specifically +2 to dexterity and ignoring everything else. And, personally, when you are talking about a skill and you have to compete with proficiency (which is twice as impactful at level 1) and expertise (which is twice as impactful at level 1), then I think it is fair to say that it isn't the race that is mattering. 

The reason why halflings are seen as particularly stealthy? It is because they are shoe-horned as Burglars. The vast majority of halfling characters I have ever seen are meant to be rogues, so they have the rogue's trope, which include high stealth. But if you break that away, if you look at just the race, and not the race/class combo... it becomes pretty obvious that nothing about halflings really is about them being incredibly stealthy.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

At the risk of saying words and thereby proving someone else's point or agreeing with them when I am no way doing so...

Are dwarves really the species we want to use as an example of species design here? Dwarves are as ISO standard as they come. Beards, axes, hammers and being John Rhys Davis.


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## Stormonu (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Dragonborn breath fire.
> Tiefling have infernal magic
> Goliaths lift like ogres
> Genasi have elemental resistances and features
> ...



Halflings are adult children (note this is different from childish adults!)

<EDIT> Or, if you want to go mechanical: Halflings are unseen (they're good at stealth or otherwise not being noticed).


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> "Not impactful" is exactly what halflings are meant to be. They were designed as observers, and a good observer has a minimal impact on the system.
> 
> Adventurers, as always, are the exception.



That's the point. 

The mechanics are for adventurers.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> To me, the only problem here is that Sea Elves are yet another elf subrace. If there were just two non-elf races with similar aquaman themes, I wouldn’t be bothered.



That really doesn't matter though. If you look at the natural world, it is full of organisms that seem very similar to each other. Some are related and some arn't, but there is no rule in nature that says "this slot is already taken, find your own". In fact, in nature ideas repeat themselves over and over.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> That really doesn't matter though. If you look at the natural world, it is full of organisms that seem very similar to each other. Some are related and some arn't, but there is no rule in nature that says "this slot is already taken, find your own". In fact, in nature ideas repeat themselves over and over.



Does "having a slot filled" somewhere makes it less likely in that place yhat something will evolve to compete against the thing that's already there? (As opposed to, say, different things evolving to do the same things on separate continents?)


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> At the risk of saying words and thereby proving someone else's point or agreeing with them when I am no way doing so...
> 
> Are dwarves really the species we want to use as an example of species design here? Dwarves are as ISO standard as they come. Beards, axes, hammers and being John Rhys Davis.




Dwarf is the best of the worse designed races. Although it's racial features are mostly very passive the package is unique and impactful.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Does "having a slot filled" somewhere makes it less likely in that place yhat something will evolve to compete against the thing that's already there? (As opposed to, say, different things evolving to do the same things on separate continents?)



Yes, that's exactly how it works. There are ecological niches.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, that's exactly how it works. There are ecological niches.



But many of those niches are so subtle that it's hard to differentiate them. For example Darwin's finches, who differ only by having slightly longer or shorter beaks, depending on what kind of seed they eat. They are still different species even though slight difference in beak length has no significant effect on gameplay.


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## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> But many of those niches are so subtle that it's hard to differentiate them. For example Darwin's finches, who differ only by having slightly longer or shorter beaks, depending on what kind of seed they eat. They are still different species even though slight difference in beak length has no significant effect on gameplay.




I have sometimes wondered how the species counts of Aves and Mammalia would change if we went back in time and switched the ornithologists with the mammalogists.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 14, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I have sometimes wondered how the species counts of Aves and Mammalia would change if we went back in time and switched the ornithologists with the mammalogists.



I have several different types of mice in my garden too. but I can't tell what makes a house mouse different from a field mouse.

And amphibia. I have two species of newt and three species of frog in my pond.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Hussar said:


> To me that’s barely played and a waste of space. And note half orcs are likely getting the axe too.
> 
> That’s essentially 1 in 4 tables has a halfling. Pretty close. Which could easily mean that halflings are almost never seen by many tables.
> 
> For a core 4 race with fifty years of history and the backing of Tolkien, it’s a pretty sad showing.



_Not _including sub-races, there are 50 or so official races. There are countless 3pp and homebrew races.

If halflings and/or gnomes appear in a quarter of all tables, that's an _amazingly high number._ 

If half-orcs get the cut, it'd be because WotC comes up with a better way to do half-races or because they want to avoid half-races altogether, not because they're unpopular.



Hussar said:


> Nope. I’m saying that their presence in the phb means that everyone is forced to throw them a bone in supplements that virtually no one uses or cares about.



First, 400,000 people is not "virtually no one." 

Secondly, how much space is actually spent in those supplements "throwing them a bone" that you desperately need to reclaim? And if nobody cares about these supplements, then why do you care that there are halflings or gnomes in them?



Hussar said:


> Bump them out of the phb and now we can have support for races that are actually getting played like tieflings or dtagonborn or warforged.
> 
> I’d say that warforged are a heck of a lot more important to ebberron than halflings or gnomes.



Halflings have two different dragonmarks _and _a bunch of dino-riders _and _organized crime. Warforged don't actually have all that much going on for them in the wider world. They're _cooler_ than most other races, because they're robots, but unless the DM is going to run a warforged-rights campaign, they're not actually all that _important_. Eberron halflings actually have an impact on the world around them.



Hussar said:


> And Birthright? Sorry but who cares about a thirty year old setting that almost no one played even back in the day and hasn’t had a book for it since the 90’s?



I think the same could be said about Spelljammer, and that's getting an update very soon.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If they roll another '1' on the reroll are they forced to keep it, or can they keep re-rolling until no '1' appears?
> 
> If the first is true, then "never" becomes "hardly ever".



Hardly ever is still a heck of a lot luckier than 5%.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you have often heard people describe dwarves as "the armor wearing race?"
> 
> Me? I've heard them as the underground, smithing, stubborn as stone, long-lived, bearded with a resistance to poison and high alcohol tolerance race. "wears armor" doesn't even make the list.
> 
> ...



Re: dwarves as the armor wearing race..kinda yeah, or do you think all the blacksmithing they do is to so they can make nifty metal decorations for their mines. (Also note: for all dwarves, their speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor the way it would be for other races, probably coincidence though)

Not advantage in the 5e sense. Advantage in the common English sense as in having a better dex modifier puts me in a more favorable position to make stealth checks than not having a higher dex mod. As in having 5e advantage on saves against fear puts me in a better position to make saves against fear. As in having the ability to re-roll critical failures puts me in a more favorable position to avoid critical failures.

When you talk about a skill, anything that makes you better at that skill makes you better at that skill..full stop.

The reason halflings have historically been chosen as rogues is that they have historically had features that allow them to function as better rogues than many other races. Or is your position that someone has been strong-arming players into choosing that race/class combination against the better interests for 6 of the 8 years in this edition (also bananas)?


----------



## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I have several different types of mice in my garden too. but I can't tell what makes a house mouse different from a field mouse.
> 
> And amphibia. I have two species of newt and three species of frog in my pond.




And now I want a graftable plant-folk species.  (Add new variety cleft grafts as you level up?  A partial clone army?)









						Tree of 40 Fruit: Dazzling Franken-Tree Has Roots in Science
					

A newly unveiled art project featuring a live tree that bears 40 different kinds of fruit is more than just a conversation piece. The so-called "Tree of 40 Fruit" — currently blossoming in a variety




					www.livescience.com


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Fair enough, but at least I think this helps highlight why the issue exists.
> 
> This is why, for me, I've been adopting a position of consolidating the races, not mechanically at least, but narratively. So, Goliath and Firbolg are related and both "giant-kin".
> 
> ...



That seems crazy to me. None of these animals are closely related, why would the anthropomorphic versions be?


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> That really doesn't matter though. If you look at the natural world, it is full of organisms that seem very similar to each other. Some are related and some arn't, but there is no rule in nature that says "this slot is already taken, find your own". In fact, in nature ideas repeat themselves over and over.



Right, I agree. I have absolutely no issue with there being multiple sea-people races. I do find the proliferation of elf subraces a little boring.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> That seems crazy to me. None of these animals are closely related, why would the anthropomorphic versions be?



For the Tabaxi and Leonin though...


----------



## Azzy (Jul 14, 2022)

Has no one mentioned the BECMI Gazetteer, the Five Shires yet? A whole country of halfings (they prefer their endonym "hin", thank you very much), written by Ed Greenwood no less.


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Does "having a slot filled" somewhere makes it less likely in that place yhat something will evolve to compete against the thing that's already there? (As opposed to, say, different things evolving to do the same things on separate continents?)



Not necessarily. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.


----------



## Helldritch (Jul 14, 2022)

Ok, late to the party but.
1) No problems with halflings.  We have had plenty of them over the years and currently have a bard halfling in one of my groups. 

2) Kenders never were a problem in any of my games. I strictly forbid stealing from the group and made it a chance per level to have the exact trinket needed whenever appropriate. Need a dagger? 5th level means 60% to have it. Need a needle? Under two gold it's a 100% Where you got it is irrelevant. It might be a spae needle from one of the character or one you handled in town. 

Hey, even magical potion might be there. How you got it I do not care, nor should the other players. This made kender valued members of any group and the aspect of handling wad often leading to troubles in towns but since they so often  saved the day because of this chance to have almost anything on hand, players were a tally doing the same thing as Caramon
 That is defending their little friend. Need a map? That little kenderi might have it. Got captured and lost your pearl to identify? Hey! Guess what? That little Kender found it. Here it is my friend. 

Doing it this way would have made it so Kenders would be appreciated.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, a nat 1 is worse on death saves. But you probably missed your attack roll on a 2 as well. Think the only time I saw a character who didn't miss on a two, they had advantage and the DM just asked them to stop rolling, because it didn't matter, they hit.



Sure, you'd probably miss your attack on a 2. But you'd get a chance to reroll a 1, which gives you an extra chance to roll and maybe even get a crit.



Chaosmancer said:


> But yeah, halflings are hard to kill. Halflings don't miss when stabbing people as often. And people use homebrew rules.
> 
> But that isn't the same as what we consider to be "lucky". You don't need to convince me that re-rolling 1's is a useful ability, sure it is a useful ability, my objection is that that alone constitutes enough to claim that the entire race is lucky. Lucky characters don't just bleed out slower. That's never how supernatural luck is presented in basically any fiction.
> 
> ...



No. This is an example of a plot contrivance in a comic, which _clearly _does not actually follow D&D rules any more than D&D novels did. Now, I haven't read this comic, but I'm willing to bet that they also have people killing evenly-matched monsters with single, well-placed blows rather than the multiple attacks that it usually takes a real character. Heck, even your example seems to indicate that a falling stalactite, which is weak enough to break under the weight of a falling halfling and which _maybe _would do 4d10 damage if the dragon failed a Dex save (or whatever amount of damage 4e would say), is enough to kill a dragon capable of causing a TPK. I should think that alone would be enough to tell you that this comic isn't following D&D rules. If the dragon is so badly injured that 4d10 damage is enough to kill it, then it's weak enough that it would be killed by the party before it could TPK them. Especially since that halfling up there doesn't look even slightly injured.

A D&D comic that actually followed D&D rules would be more like this:





Which is why "serious" D&D comics _don't _follow game rules and try to be realistic but occasionally pull stalactite ex machinas out.



Chaosmancer said:


> But I'm not complaining about the trait. I'm complaining that when someone was asked "What makes a halfling different from other races" the answer was
> 
> 1) They are stealthier than other races (Only even conceivable true with the Dex mod, though they originally meant the lightfoot ability)
> 2) They are braver than other races (see my discussion on why that doesn't work)
> 3) They are luckier than other races.



These are all traits. You are confusing traits with narration. They are different things.

Unlike other races, _all _halflings have advantage on saving throws to avoid being frightened.
Unlike other races, _all _halflings can reroll 1s, and can do so every time a 1 is rolled.
Unlike other races, _all_ halflings can move through the space of Medium and larger creatures.

Only halflings can do these three things.

Also:

Unlike other races, some halflings are _also _capable of hiding behind other creatures.
Unlike other races, some halflings are _also _naturally resistant to poison.
Unlike other races, some halflings are _also _telepathic.
Unlike other races, some halflings are _also _attuned to nature's magic.
Unlike other races, some halflings are _also _dragonmarked and have have magic related to healing or hospitality.

These things make halflings different from all other races.

How you choose to narrate this is up to you, not the game.



Chaosmancer said:


> To defend point three, everyone is pointing to the Lucky feature. "There!" they say "There is why halflings have supernatural good luck that differentiates them from all other races" But, as I'm trying to point out... it doesn't actually do that. It allows a few re-rolls when you might roll a 1. That's it. It isn't causing fortuitous cave-ins, it isn't causing them to find the secret key to lost vault hidden in the sands, it isn't allowing them to stumble on the secret dryad's grove, it isn't causing NARRATIVE luck. Not unless the DM forces it to happen.



I can't think of a single race in D&D's history that has a trait that allows them to alter the narrative of the game. So why are you singling out halflings?



Chaosmancer said:


> Exactly. Thank you. Therefore Halflings are not particularly braver than other races. They are not uniquely brave in any way. They just have a trait that grants advantage.



So again, your problem is with the name of the trait, not with the trait. Rename all their traits, if they bother you so much.



Chaosmancer said:


> I'd never say elves have "Iron Wills" because they have fey ancestry that gives them advantage against charm. So why do we want to say that halflings must be uniquely and strangely brave when compared to other races just because they have advantage on the roll? Especially since, again, failing the roll doesn't mean you are not brave.
> 
> Is advantage on fear rolls a useful and powerful ability? Sure. Mechanically it is a good ability. But I'm not talking about the mechanics of the trait. I'm talking about the narrative.



They likely named it that because it's an interesting name, not because they expected that people would seriously think that it means that all halflings must be braver about everything than everyone else.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> No, I mean why can’t there be more than one race that’s built to be burglars?



There _should _be. And technically, any race that gets a bonus to Dex (which is all Small races and several Medium ones) will be a good race to play rogues with. 

The problem is that unless it's for a specific world, WotC--and TSR--has rarely put much effort into deciding how each race actually fits into the world. So it's up to the DMs to decide that.


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## ehren37 (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Also, like, how often do you make a check where you would succeed on a natural 1? In my games, literally never because I wouldn’t call for a check in the first place if that was the case. That means at bare minimum, halflings have a 5% chance of turning a failure into a reroll. That’s not _much_ but it’s not _nothing._



But with 5E's low AC's and DC's, you're turning more than 5% of misses into re-rolls. Which likely hit. When you when you hit on an 8 or higher, that's a reroll on about 15% of your misses. Just like a +1 AC, it matters more on the margins. An expertise skill becomes even reliable when you reroll 20% of your failures.

If D&D had degrees of success and failure beyond crit, hit, and miss, it would be more ideal, but you all are definitely downplaying a solid ability.


----------



## Irlo (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And, again, if we are going to measure bravery as "succeeds on saving throws vs fear" then the Monk, Druid and Cleric are even braver than most halflings. Being high wisdom classes. Some Ranger's too. Because, they are going to succeed on those fear saves, so they must be even braver.



Why compare halflings to monks, druids, and clerics? Compare a halfling monk to a non-halfling monk.


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## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Personally I dislike massive conceptual overlap. I like a clear selection of solid archetypes that are still broad enough that they don't become totally flanderised.
> 
> Now I don't agree with @Lanefan that this is necessarily an issue with "monster races" unless you want to include a ton of them. They usually actually bring something pretty distinct to the table. Like the dragonborn are actually obviously rather different than elves or halflings. Now if you want also include the lizardfolk and troglodytes then we might face the problem I mentioned.



My personal go-to is to say that such creatures are all the same race and culture(s), it's just that the race itself is highly variable and not every member has the same abilities. "Reptilian" is a race. If you want to play one can choose from dragonborn or lizardfolk stats (or kobold or whatever other reptilian races can be found in D&D).


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> There _should _be. And technically, any race that gets a bonus to Dex (which is all Small races and several Medium ones) will be a good race to play rogues with.



Right, I agree with you; I’m using the Socratic method.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you have often heard people describe dwarves as "the armor wearing race?"


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> My personal go-to is to say that such creatures are all the same race and culture(s), it's just that the race itself is highly variable and not every member has the same abilities. "Reptilian" is a race. If you want to play one can choose from dragonborn or lizardfolk stats (or kobold or whatever other reptilian races can be found in D&D).



I'm too OCD for system aesthetics for that to not bother me. I could tolerate it in someone else's game, but I wouldn't do it that way in mine. Like it obviously is a post hoc kludge for different race mechanics. I would start from the fiction I have (in this case one lizard species) and choose a or write rules for that. If variability is part of the fiction, then that is written in the unified lizard rules.


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## James Gasik (Jul 14, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> At the risk of saying words and thereby proving someone else's point or agreeing with them when I am no way doing so...
> 
> Are dwarves really the species we want to use as an example of species design here? Dwarves are as ISO standard as they come. Beards, axes, hammers and being John Rhys Davis.



Hey sometimes they're Richard Armitage!


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I have several different types of mice in my garden too. but I can't tell what makes a house mouse different from a field mouse.











						Field Mouse vs House Mouse: What’s the Difference?
					

A field mouse and a house mouse can appear very similar upon first glance, but there are differences. Read more about these rodents now!




					a-z-animals.com


----------



## Cadence (Jul 14, 2022)

_Report from the Royal Society of Organized Naturalistic Investigation _
*On Debunking the Racialist Claims Concerning The Characteristics of Dwarves and Halflings *
_As investigated in the 10th year of the Fifth Era_

We randomly selected 25 mountain dwarves and 25 stout halflings from the tax rolls of the kingdom. We then attempted to find a halfling that matched each dwarf on the big 6, career, background, and training.  We did the same for finding a dwarf to match each halfling.  This was judged to be adequately done for a total of 22 dwarf-halfling pairs out of the 50 possible by our matching sub-committee.  To avoid bias, the sub-committee was selected from our society's  dwarf and halfling members, and made up equally of each lineage. We also consulted the oracle of our patron who agreed with the subgroup's deliberative operations. We note that as compared to the full dwarf and halfling population respectively, the final 22 dwarves were on average higher on the DEX-big6 scale than the dwarven population as a whole and the final 22 halflings were on average slightly higher on both the CON-big6 and STR-big6 than the halfling population as a whole.  We attribute this to random sampling error.  The most enduring dwarf in the original sample and most dexterous halfling in the original sample were unable to find matches given the other restrictions and were not among the 22.  We attribute this to natural random variation in the distributional extrema.  (See Appendix A for detailed statistics on the 22 pairs).

We then put the selected pairs through various skills tests (see Appendix B).  With two exceptions, regardless of the skill tested- from staged combat to academic studies to physical activity - the percent of times the halflings succeeded was higher than that of the dwarves.  This ranged from the success rate being approximately 4% higher for tasks judged as  "easy" for the particular pair (averaged to 84% vs. 80%), to approximately 1% higher for the tasks judged as "hard" for the particular pair  (6% vs 5%).  This was roughly constant across task types and persisted in an anti-magic shell.  There were two noticeable exceptions: (1) in stonework - in this case the dwarves who were untrained in stone work performed as well as the halflings at the advanced apprentice level halflings, and the trained dwarves did noticeably better than that, and (2) even the dwarves who had no combat training were able to use leather and chain mail armor, and axes and hammers with none of the usual difficulties associated with lack of training in wearing armor or using specific weapons (as opposed to general combat training).  The magi consulted were unable to find anything to contradict the dwarven claims of no formal training in those areas.

Next we conducted a large number of resiliency tests (see Appendix C).  No differences were noted except in one area. The "Terror Test" using exposures to the various royal Scarecrows found a significant difference, with the halfling member of the pair being much less likely to be paralyzed into inaction (the overall chance of being rooted by horror was found to be around 40% for the dwarfs and only 31% for the halflings).    This met with strong objection from a portion of the committee and a back up sample was obtained (albeit with less stringent matching) and subjected to the terror causing illusion spell of the third circle.  It confirmed the initial findings and a consultation with the oracle confirmed the integrity of the operational plan.

At this juncture we note that two members were expelled from our assemblage for hypothesizing that the differences in favor of the halflings were simply due to mythological innate "Luck" and "Bravery".  We have no place in our body for those who ascribe to such fables.  We have requested that the Royal Society of Magi and Spiritualists investigate for possible outside interference in our experiments and for the possibility that some entities are able to void the standard anti-magic fields.


[Edit: It should be noted that no such differences occurred in previous studies that examined across the different hair colors of high elves, eye colors of humans, skin tones of wood gnomes, dialects of wood elves, or national origins of half-orcs, all after matching on big 6, career, background, and training]


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 14, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> "Not impactful" is exactly what halflings are meant to be. They were designed as observers, and a good observer has a minimal impact on the system.
> 
> Adventurers, as always, are the exception.



then why are they one of the big common races if they are meant to be bit parts?


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## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Hussar said:


> To me that’s barely played and a waste of space. And note half orcs are likely getting the axe too.



When there's over 20 PC-playable species, getting played 4.7% of the time is pretty decent - above average, in fact - for a species not in the Big Three (Human, Half-Elf, and Elf) which between them take 30-40% of the pie.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Re: dwarves as the armor wearing race..kinda yeah, or do you think all the blacksmithing they do is to so they can make nifty metal decorations for their mines. (Also note: for all dwarves, their speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor the way it would be for other races, probably coincidence though)




Dwarven armor is supposed to be better qaulity, but that doesn't mean I've ever seen dwarves depicted as "the race that wears armor" because... humans and elves wear armor too. And Elven armor is also special and cool. They also blacksmith weapons and tools, but they aren't the only weapon or tool using race. 

But, aha, they don't reduce speed by wearing armor! That's different. But, hmmm, looking at the rules, most people don't have their speed reduced by wearing armor. My half-elf paladin wearing full plate never had his speed reduced. So where does this rule apply? Digging into it, your speed is reduced by 10 ft if you don't have the proper strength. AHA! So, it isn't that dwarves are particularly good with armor, it is that dwarves are stocky and strong and able to move well under heavy loads. THAT is something you could claim, but "they wear armor"... isn't.



Gammadoodler said:


> When you talk about a skill, anything that makes you better at that skill makes you better at that skill..full stop.




"being better at a specific skill" =/= "is [Blank]" 

An Owlin has a +2 dexterity, which helps them use daggers. That does not make Owlin "Dagger Masters" any more than it makes them "stealthy" Or maybe all Halflings are Duelists? After all, the rapier was a common dueling sword, and halflings are better with a rapier than... well, some races.



Gammadoodler said:


> The reason halflings have historically been chosen as rogues is that they have historically had features that allow them to function as better rogues than many other races. Or is your position that someone has been strong-arming players into choosing that race/class combination against the better interests for 6 of the 8 years in this edition (also bananas)?




I'm not particularly interested in a trip down 50 years of mechanics. Let's look at 5e, we can even say "5e when the PHB was published" 

Stout halflings got that dex and... that's about it for stealth abilities. This made them good as rogues... and fighters, and rangers, decent bards and barbarians, clerics, warlocks... You know, since Dexterity is kind of good for everyone, they could, in theory, have been anything. 

Now, yes, Lightfoots were very good rogues. As were wood elves, high elves, half-elves, humans, and Forest gnomes. 

But since I can keep making lists of everyone else, it seems like "halflings are the stealthy race" still is falling apart. You can make them stealthy, sure, but it doesn't seem to define their race in a way that isn't matched by (at a minimum) two of the other "core" races. Humans and Elves.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> That seems crazy to me. None of these animals are closely related, why would the anthropomorphic versions be?




Tropes. 

Really, that's the answer. Generally "beast men" in fantasy I've consumed are vastly different (though usually don't include reptile species) but all a related species. If it is generic enough, you can also cover ideas that aren't specifically listed, but that you can get "close enough" 

It also helps when you have players looking for "I want to be a beast character" to have all of them gathered together in one heading, instead of spread out among multiple places.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 14, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> then why are they one of the big common races if they are meant to be bit parts?



Presumably there are lots more halflings doing background things than there are tieflings or dragonborn or gith or tabaxi doing center-stage things.


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Presumably there are lots more halflings doing background things than there are tieflings or dragonborn or gith or tabaxi doing center-stage things.



Not even really.5e'sPHB base lore says haflings live in small communities and hold no land. 

That's the cristicism. Halflings are treated as a major race enough though their lore says they are minor players and do little and their mechanics are weak. 

It's like treating Hawkeye as the 4 most important MCU character.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Dwarven armor is supposed to be better qaulity, but that doesn't mean I've ever seen dwarves depicted as "the race that wears armor" because... humans and elves wear armor too. And Elven armor is also special and cool. They also blacksmith weapons and tools, but they aren't the only weapon or tool using race.



I think with Dwarves it's more that they're the species that _doesn't not_ wear armour.

Sure, some Humans, Elves, etc. wear armur some of the time.  But Dwarves wear armour in the shower! 

Just like Hobbits are the species that is never not stealthy, where only some members of other species are only stealthy some of the time.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 14, 2022)

Or treating Cap as the fourth most important MCU character despite his being waaay outside his weightclass when dealing with Thor, Tony, or anything Avengers level, and him only being the unquestioned lead in his first film.


----------



## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> It's like treating Hawkeye as the 4 most important MCU character.



Instead of 2nd where he belongs?


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Not even really.5e'sPHB base lore says haflings live in small communities and hold no land.
> 
> That's the cristicism. Halflings are treated as a major race enough though their lore says they are minor players and do little and their mechanics are weak.
> 
> It's like treating Hawkeye as the 4 most important MCU character.



Dear Athe, don't say that this is again about the utterly inconsequential common/uncommon races division in the PHB? It doesn't matter. I literally didn't for years know that it was a thing, I merely wondered why the races were not in alphabetical order, until someone here complained about the horrible injustice of their favourite race being labelled as "uncommon."

But sure, they should just put the races in alphabetical order in the next printing. Happy?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Sure, you'd probably miss your attack on a 2. But you'd get a chance to reroll a 1, which gives you an extra chance to roll and maybe even get a crit.




You seem to be confusing the possibility of something happening with it being meaningful. As we've already established, re-rolling a 1 and getting a chance to hit is about a 3% increase in your chance to hit. Re-rolling into a crit is, as Max has helpfully pointed out, a 1/400 chance, or a 0.25% chance. 

Now, I don't know about you, but in a game where the smallest bonus is a 5% increase, a 3% increase doesn't feel very meaningful. It feels like it doesn't really portray luck in any way. You could rename the ability any number of things and it would be the exact same.



Faolyn said:


> No. This is an example of a plot contrivance in a comic, which _clearly _does not actually follow D&D rules any more than D&D novels did. Now, I haven't read this comic, but I'm willing to bet that they also have people killing evenly-matched monsters with single, well-placed blows rather than the multiple attacks that it usually takes a real character. Heck, even your example seems to indicate that a falling stalactite, which is weak enough to break under the weight of a falling halfling and which _maybe _would do 4d10 damage if the dragon failed a Dex save (or whatever amount of damage 4e would say), is enough to kill a dragon capable of causing a TPK. I should think that alone would be enough to tell you that this comic isn't following D&D rules. If the dragon is so badly injured that 4d10 damage is enough to kill it, then it's weak enough that it would be killed by the party before it could TPK them. Especially since that halfling up there doesn't look even slightly injured.
> 
> A D&D comic that actually followed D&D rules would be more like this:
> 
> ...




You know, it would be hilarious if this didn't happen so often. 

Me: The rules don't accurately portray the narrative of halfling luck. This is an example of what halfling luck is like, according to the narratives associated with DnD
You: That doesn't follow the rules of the games at all! That's just a plot contrivance! No serious DnD media follows the rules!

Yes, thank you for identifying the problem accurately. All supernatural luck is a plot contrivance. Now, since we are on the same page, you will probably soon make a sarcastic attack about how a "dues ex machina" ability would be incredibly broken and bad for the game. I agree! This is partially why I've never liked any game that tries to put in a supernaturally lucky group, because you really can't. 

But, now we are in agreement that the rules don't accurately portray luck, so any halfling character sitting at a table that follows the rules isn't actually terribly lucky.



Faolyn said:


> These are all traits. You are confusing traits with narration. They are different things.
> 
> Unlike other races, _all _halflings have advantage on saving throws to avoid being frightened.
> Unlike other races, _all _halflings can reroll 1s, and can do so every time a 1 is rolled.
> ...




I'm not confusing anything. I know what I've been talking about, it is everyone else who seems to think I'm talking about something else. I mean, why else would I keep insising that the narration is the part I'm talking about if I wanted to talk about the mechanics. 

Also, really? You know how easy that list is to break apart? Like, for example, if you follow the RAW basic rules, no one can move through anyone else's space. But if you do the variant rule, then everyone can move through the space of a small or larger creature with a check. It then becomes that halflings just auto-succeed the check against medium or bigger creatures. 

But, you know what? When asked, "moving through larger creature's spaces" wasn't held up as defining the halflings. What was held up was 

Halflings are Stealthy
Halflings are Lucky
Halflings are Brave

You can go back and re-read the post I responded to if you don't believe me. It wasn't "halflings are one of the only races in the game that allow you to roll fear checks with advantage." Because they were talking narrative, not mechanics. But as soon as I confronted the narrative... we got dragged into talking about mechanics and how these mechanics are so impactful and shape the narrative. Except... they don't.  



Faolyn said:


> I can't think of a single race in D&D's history that has a trait that allows them to alter the narrative of the game. So why are you singling out halflings?




Because that's what supernatural luck means and they are the only race in DnD's history to claim they have supernatural luck?



Faolyn said:


> So again, your problem is with the name of the trait, not with the trait. Rename all their traits, if they bother you so much.




Will that stop people from claiming that halflings are braver than all the other races in the narrative of DnD? All I have to do is change the names of the traits at my own table. 

Man, if I knew it was so simple I... oh. Wait. Did that. Huh, if that fixes everything how did this conversation even happen?



Faolyn said:


> They likely named it that because it's an interesting name, not because they expected that people would seriously think that it means that all halflings must be braver about everything than everyone else.




And yet, people seriously think and have argued with me for a dozen pages that halflings are braver than everyone else. So, whether they seriously thought it would happen or not, it did happen.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Dear Athe, don't say that this is again about the utterly inconsequential common/uncommon races division in the PHB? It doesn't matter. I literally didn't for years know that it was a thing, I merely wondered why the races were not in alphabetical order, until someone here complained about the horrible injustice of their favourite race being labelled as "uncommon."
> 
> But sure, they should just put the races in alphabetical order in the next printing. Happy?



Nope.

Because Orcs and Goblins should be in the PHB because they are more impactful in most D&D settings than Halflings and offer more mechanical variation than them as well.

*ORCS AND GOBLINS FOR THE PLAYERS HANDBOOK 2024!*


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 14, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Why compare halflings to monks, druids, and clerics? Compare a halfling monk to a non-halfling monk.




Because the entire point is people keep claiming that "halflings are braver than the other races" Then they equate bravery with "passes a fear saving throw". Which is ridiculous. No one goes around saying that Clerics are an especially brave class compared to fighters. No one claims that druids are braver than warlocks. 

So why are halflings braver than everyone else based on their ability to pass a single saving throw type?


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Nope.
> 
> Because Orcs and Goblins should be in the PHB because they are more impactful in most D&D settings than Halflings and offer more mechanical variation than them as well.
> 
> *ORCS AND GOBLINS FOR THE PLAYERS HANDBOOK 2024!*



You don't need to remove halflings for that, unless you have vendetta against halflings. Now removing half-orcs for orcs might make certain sense, though we had a separate thread about that and some people disagreed.


----------



## Vaalingrade (Jul 14, 2022)

Admittedly, that bit made more sense back when saving throws made sense instead of being for every ability for symmetry.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So why are halflings braver than everyone else based on their ability to pass a single saving throw type?



Why does increased chance to pass fear checks make you brave? That sure is a mystery!   

Next: Does increased chance to resist charm magic make elves more resistant to charm magic? Discuss!


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## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> You don't need to remove halflings for that, unless you have vendetta against halflings. Now removing half-orcs for orcs might make certain sense, though we had a separate thread about that and some people disagreed.



I'm not suggesting removing anything.

To me the idea race line up for a D&D PHB is

Aasimar
Dragonbon
Dwarf
Elf
Gnome
Goblin
Halfling
Half Elf
Half Orc
Human
Orc
Tiefling
Warforged
13 races 13 classes


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm not suggesting removing anything.
> 
> To me the idea race line up for a D&D PHB is
> 
> ...



Yeah, that seems fine to me. But then I'm not sure what you think complaining about halflings accomplishes.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yeah, that seems fine to me. But then I'm not sure what you think complaining about halflings accomplishes.



The point would be raising the halfling Fantasy factor up to the other races and tying them to settings directly.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 14, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The point would be raising the halfling Fantasy factor up to the other races and tying them to settings directly.



What does this mean? I think a big part of appeal of halflings to a lot of people is that they _aren't _super fantastical or a big deal in the setting.


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Tropes.
> 
> Really, that's the answer. Generally "beast men" in fantasy I've consumed are vastly different (though usually don't include reptile species) but all a related species. If it is generic enough, you can also cover ideas that aren't specifically listed, but that you can get "close enough"



We definitely haven’t consumed the same media then. Certainly it’s not the case in D&D that all “beast folk” are closely related


Chaosmancer said:


> It also helps when you have players looking for "I want to be a beast character" to have all of them gathered together in one heading, instead of spread out among multiple places.



I get wanting to have a single mechanical construct that can be used to represent various anthropomorphic animals, perhaps with customizable stats to create the particular species you want. But having them all be one “race” lore-wise? Nonsense. You can’t honestly think D&D would be better off if Yuan-Ti, Gnolls, Slaadi, Kenku, Kuo-Toa, and Tabaxi were all one race that shared the same lore. So much of the richness of the setting(s) would be lost!


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## Charlaquin (Jul 14, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Or treating Cap as the fourth most important MCU character despite his being waaay outside his weightclass when dealing with Thor, Tony, or anything Avengers level, and him only being the unquestioned lead in his first film.



He literally is though…


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 14, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> What does this mean? I think a big part of appeal of halflings to a lot of people is that they _aren't _super fantastical or a big deal in the setting.



Because


Humans exist if you don't what to be fantastical
Playing a PC means you are actively being a big deal.
Any race can be a peasant
Halfling being a mundane, redundant, hard mode race is a bad idea as an incusion in the PHB.

If there is only one PHB and it's for creation of the most important displays of PC archtypes, then the halfling if included shouldnt be singled out as a "special case" race in both lore and mechanics.


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## Krachek (Jul 14, 2022)

I got it!
Save the halfling, save the world!


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Because
> 
> 
> Humans exist if you don't what to be fantastical
> ...



Right, so, you don't get halflings. That's fine, but the fault doesn't lie with the halflings. They're physical and metaphorical "little people". That's the appeal. Sure, a PC might become a hero like Bilbo or Frodo did, but the basic tone of the species makes it different than for humans.


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## Minigiant (Jul 15, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right, so, you don't get halflings. That's fine, but the fault doesn't lie in the halflings. They're physical and metaphorical "little people". That's the appeal. Sure, a PC might become a hero like Bilbo or Frodo did, but the basic tone of the species makes it different than for humans.



No I get Halfling. They aren't little people. Halfling are little humans.


Tolkien created hobbits as a small version of rural humans. D&D shaved off the name and made them a bit more magical and a few fantastical racial traits.

Then 5e cut out half those traits, dilluted the rest, and made Halfling back into "humans but smaller and all peasants"


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

Hey, my 5e Halfling had the Noble Background!  So he can't be a peasant!


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Because
> 
> 
> Humans exist if you don't what to be fantastical
> ...



The thing is that the tone of _D&D humans_ is that they are in _D&D universes_ a big deal. A very significant plurality of D&D adventurers are humans to the point that _both_ "classic" human and variant human are more popular than any other PC race. And what was, as of the most recent stats, the second most popular adventuring race behind humans? _Half-elves_ - in other words half-humans. Humans utterly dominate the ranks of adventurers. Human kingdoms are also a significant plurality of kingdoms in most settings and humans are normally a plurality of inhabitants. And going back to the half-elves point, humans are _the_ sexy race of D&D, ready willing and able to breed with almost anyone.

Because of the way humans are set up humans are as a species in D&D are about as boosted as in naughty word Yeah Humanity stories. They are the Obvious Protagonist faction. And anyone of any species in almost any D&D setting who discounts someone because they are human or who thinks that humans will be a pushover is deserving of a Darwin Award.

So of your points

D&D humans _are_ fantastical and emphasise how fantastical humans can be. They're the dominant species in most D&D settings and despite all the fantastical around them they are normally both the action stars and the porn stars for all races. So if you want to actively de-emphasise the fantastical you (ironically) need to be other than human. Human is not fit for purpose.
A low level PC is not a big deal. And a high level PC being a human is unsurprising to anyone. If you are going to meet a great and powerful wizard and they turn out to be a human that will surprise no one. A halfling? Will be a surprise.
Any race can be a peasant - but PCs although they might have been peasants are adventurers. PC humans will almost all be treated as adventurers. The halfling will look like e.g. Ed Sheeran in a collection of other pop stars
D&D is a game about power fantasies and because of it D&D humans are a power fantasy race that are obviously seen as one. Being the race that looks the part of the archetypal hero makes it a poor choice for emphasising that they are unlikely heroes.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You seem to be confusing the possibility of something happening with it being meaningful. As we've already established, re-rolling a 1 and getting a chance to hit is about a 3% increase in your chance to hit. Re-rolling into a crit is, as Max has helpfully pointed out, a 1/400 chance, or a 0.25% chance.



"We" haven't established anything about 3%. MaxPerson has pointed out that the chances of rolling two 1s in a row is very, very slim. But you're ignoring that because they can reroll the first 1, they have a second chance to succeed.

I'm not going to do the math here, but being able to reroll a crit failure is good. Especially since this reroll can give you the opportunity to spend inspiration.

Also, I went back and checked as as far as I can see, the only person claiming that there's a 3% increase is you. I have no idea where that number came from, other than you making up some nonsense about humans passing a death save 45% of the time and halflings passing it 47%, or something like that. Your numbers don't work, whatever the specific details are. But here's another thing you're ignoring. You make 1 death save a turn, and have to make three successes before you make three failures. Let's say both a human and a halfling have to make them, and both roll 1s. Well, the human has now made two failures, and is at great risk of death: one more failure or an injury spell death. They could very easily die in the next round, unless they immediately get help.

But the halfling gets to reroll and, we'll say they roll a 2. A terrible roll in your book, but guess what? This only counts as a _single _failure. They get _two _more chances, which means more chances to be stabilized and more chances to succeed.



Chaosmancer said:


> You know, it would be hilarious if this didn't happen so often.
> 
> Me: The rules don't accurately portray the narrative of halfling luck. This is an example of what halfling luck is like, according to the narratives associated with DnD
> You: That doesn't follow the rules of the games at all! That's just a plot contrivance! No serious DnD media follows the rules!



Well, yes. You're showing something that is not a D&D game written by someone who almost certainly didn't turn a real game into a comic and for I know doesn't even play D&D in the first place, and expecting that to mean something about D&D. What did you think was going to happen?



Chaosmancer said:


> Yes, thank you for identifying the problem accurately. All supernatural luck is a plot contrivance. Now, since we are on the same page, you will probably soon make a sarcastic attack about how a "dues ex machina" ability would be incredibly broken and bad for the game. I agree! This is partially why I've never liked any game that tries to put in a supernaturally lucky group, because you really can't.



Good things halflings aren't supernaturally lucky, then. They're not reality warpers and have never been treated as such in the game. They just get to reroll 1s.




Chaosmancer said:


> But, now we are in agreement that the rules don't accurately portray luck, so any halfling character sitting at a table that follows the rules isn't actually terribly lucky.



They get to reroll 1s by using a trait called Lucky. You're the only one here who thinks that this should mean something other than what it says.



Chaosmancer said:


> I'm not confusing anything. I know what I've been talking about, it is everyone else who seems to think I'm talking about something else. I mean, why else would I keep insising that the narration is the part I'm talking about if I wanted to talk about the mechanics.



I have no idea. You seem to think that it's not your job to narrate the game or to come up with moments of luck for your halfling PCs.



Chaosmancer said:


> Also, really? You know how easy that list is to break apart? Like, for example, if you follow the RAW basic rules, no one can move through anyone else's space. But if you do the variant rule, then everyone can move through the space of a small or larger creature with a check. It then becomes that halflings just auto-succeed the check against medium or bigger creatures.



Yes. They have a rules exception. They don't need to roll to do this thing. You haven't broken the list apart. They can automatically do something that other creatures can't do without effort. Just like creatures with darkvision can easily see in the dark where other creatures can't.



Chaosmancer said:


> But, you know what? When asked, "moving through larger creature's spaces" wasn't held up as defining the halflings. What was held up was



So? Probably because it didn't have a memorable name.



Chaosmancer said:


> Halflings are Stealthy
> Halflings are Lucky
> Halflings are Brave
> 
> You can go back and re-read the post I responded to if you don't believe me. It wasn't "halflings are one of the only races in the game that allow you to roll fear checks with advantage." Because they were talking narrative, not mechanics. But as soon as I confronted the narrative... we got dragged into talking about mechanics and how these mechanics are so impactful and shape the narrative. Except... they don't.



Halflings _are _Lucky and Brave, because they have traits called Lucky and Brave and those words are adjectives. You're the only one insisting that traits = narrative.



Chaosmancer said:


> Because that's what supernatural luck means and they are the only race in DnD's history to claim they have supernatural luck?



Except they don't claim to have supernatural luck. Go back and read their entry in the PHB or in Mordenkainen's. Nowhere is the idea of supernatural luck presented. Luckiness, sure, but not supernatural luck. 

In fact, here's the beginning paragraphs from Mordy's:



> Anyone who has spent time around halflings, and particularly halfling adventurers, has likely witnessed the storied "luck of the halflings" in action. When a halfling is in mortal danger, it seems as though an unseen force intervenes. If a halfling falls off a cliff, her britches will snag on a root or a sharp outcrop of rock. If a halfling is forced by pirates to walk the plank, he will catch a piece of flotsam and use it to stay afloat until he is rescued.
> 
> Halflings believe in the power of luck, and they abide by a great number of superstitions that they believe bring good or ill fortune. They attribute their unusual gift to the favor of Yondalla, believing that, now and then, the divine will of the goddess tips the balance of fate in their favor (or gives it a hearty shove when the occasion warrants).




So what we see here is a halfling who fell off a cliff and managed to get caught by a root. Maybe the halfling rolled a 1 on their Athletics check, rerolled, and got a success. Or maybe they rolled well to begin with and called it luck, because the rest of the section talk about superstition meaning halflings will attribute supernatural forces to natural events. Where a human might pass off their own ability to climb of a cliff as physical strength, a halfling credits it to luck.

But in either case, there's nothing _supernatural _about it. And I don't know why you keep insisting that it is.



Chaosmancer said:


> Will that stop people from claiming that halflings are braver than all the other races in the narrative of DnD? All I have to do is change the names of the traits at my own table.



Halflings have a trait called Brave. This means that they have advantage where others don't. Why do you not understand this?


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Not even really.5e'sPHB base lore says haflings live in small communities and hold no land.
> 
> That's the cristicism. Halflings are treated as a major race enough though their lore says they are minor players and do little and their mechanics are weak.
> 
> It's like treating Hawkeye as the 4 most important MCU character.



They (and I) are talking about how common they are, not how important they are. The rulers of a nation is more important than the thousands of peasants who work the fields, but there are more peasants than there are rulers.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They (and I) are talking about how common they are, not how important they are. The rulers of a nation is more important than the thousands of peasants who work the fields, but there are more peasants than there are rulers.



What I am saying is the 5e PHB lore says there aren't many halflings at all. It defaults them into them into living in a few small villages and small enclaves. There could be more human nobles than total halfings in a setting.

The lore goes out its way to make them invisible physically, socially, and economically. That's why this thread exists. It's hard to incorporate what the game purposely hides.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The lore goes out its way to make them invisible physically, socially, and economically.



Yes, that is intentional.



Minigiant said:


> That's why this thread exists.



It exists because you're missing the point of the halflings?


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 15, 2022)

When it comes to troubles, I think my main difficulty with the halfling is, its size. To think that a small person is somehow no longer a human, concerns me. There are human ethnicities today who are on threshold between Medium and Small, and individual adults who are Small. All of these sizes are humanity.

If the halfling are truly nonhuman, such as being a magical being who is inherently lucky − then the problem is, this a gnome.

I enjoy the river-nomad culture of the halflings in my setting. This is their indigenous culture, tho many halflings naturalize among other cultures.

I treat these halflings as strictly a human ethnicity, where all the "race" options are cultural ones. Even the luck is a religious value (roughly comparable to a background feat choice), and is part of the indigenous spiritual heritage. I havent seen a player play a halfling. If one did, that would be fine. If one wanted human race features for their halfling character, that would be fine too.


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## Irlo (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> What I am saying is the 5e PHB lore says there aren't many halflings at all. It defaults them into them into living in a few small villages and small enclaves. There could be more human nobles than total halfings in a setting.



Does it say there are not many halflings? Or that their villages and nomadic communities are few in number? By the default lore, they're well-integrated into dwarven, elven, and human communities. It seems to me they're wide-spread and numerous. 

From the PHB:


> Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples.
> 
> Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome.
> 
> Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. ... Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings’ hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why does increased chance to pass fear checks make you brave? That sure is a mystery!
> 
> Next: Does increased chance to resist charm magic make elves more resistant to charm magic? Discuss!




So, you would contend that a character who fails against dragon fear, but keeps fighting despite shaking in terror, is not brave?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> We definitely haven’t consumed the same media then. Certainly it’s not the case in D&D that all “beast folk” are closely related




Oh yeah, I know it isn't the case in DnD. But I'm so used to the trope that it feels weird not to combine them.



Charlaquin said:


> I get wanting to have a single mechanical construct that can be used to represent various anthropomorphic animals, perhaps with customizable stats to create the particular species you want. But having them all be one “race” lore-wise? Nonsense. You can’t honestly think D&D would be better off if Yuan-Ti, Gnolls, Slaadi, Kenku, Kuo-Toa, and Tabaxi were all one race that shared the same lore. So much of the richness of the setting(s) would be lost!




Well... no. 

Yuan-ti are VERY different in my games, that's why I didn't include them in my list. 
Slaadi will never be playable in my games, they are abominations. 
I don't even use Kuo-Toa, like... ever. I keep forgetting they even exist. They aren't even a consideration for me. 

Now, I could see having Gnolls, Kenku and Tabaxi sharing a common ancestry. I pretty much have discarded the Kenku's inability to speak except by copying, because it is such a pain to even attempt to role-play. If you can do it, great, but no one I play with is good enough to do it, and they always give up within two or three sessions. And like... Tabaxi are just cat people, unless you are playing in the Forgotten Realms, which I don't. So, Cat-people, Raven-People, and Hyena-people could all be the same "people", perhaps altered by the primal spirits to be closer to a specific animal type. Or descended from awakened animals that were created by ancient druidic rites. 

I mean, otherwise I have to explain how Raven-People have nothing to do with Hawk-People, who are completely unrelated to Owl-People... which seems weird when I can just make "Bird People" and have them all just exhibit different types of birds. It isn't like the Tabaxi don't already cover Leopard-People, Panther-People, and Lynx-People.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> "We" haven't established anything about 3%. MaxPerson has pointed out that the chances of rolling two 1s in a row is very, very slim. But you're ignoring that because they can reroll the first 1, they have a second chance to succeed.
> 
> I'm not going to do the math here, but being able to reroll a crit failure is good. Especially since this reroll can give you the opportunity to spend inspiration.
> 
> ...




So, you aren't going to do the math. You don't understand my math. But you know my math is wrong.

Wow, if I have ever seen a more perfect example of why debating people on the internet is a massive pain in the butt.

But, you know what, I'm in the trenches, so why not waste more of my time.

Is 45% nonsense? Every number on a d20 is a 5% chance. You succeed on a death saving throw when you roll a 10 or higher. Therefore to fail a death saving throw, you need to roll a 9 or lower. 9 x 5 = 45%

Basic algebra? NONSENSE!

But, it gets more nonsensical. See, Halflings ALSO fail on a 9 or lower, now I may have reversed my math the last time, but calculating luck is pretty easy. See, it only activates when you roll a 1. That's 5% of the time. Then, you multiply that by the chance of success. I reversed it last time and multiplied by the chance of failure, so 47.25% isn't accurate. Instead, it is 5*55%= 2.75% you then subtract this from the original chance of failure so, it is actually 42.25%! . So, a human succeeds 55% if the time, and the Halfling succeeds 57.75% of the time.

The 3% is assuming a success rate of 60%

But, you are correct, the 5% of the time that a halfling might roll 1 one on their death save is basically prevented. Huzzah and hooray! Our supernaturally lucky character who was beaten to death and left bleeding in an alleyway is going to bleed out slower and have a slightly less slim chance of recovering.



Faolyn said:


> Well, yes. You're showing something that is not a D&D game written by someone who almost certainly didn't turn a real game into a comic and for I know doesn't even play D&D in the first place, and expecting that to mean something about D&D. What did you think was going to happen?




I mean, obviously an officially licensed DnD comic with officially licensed and written characters (The halfling is Bree Three-Hands is a Level 7 Rogue Thief) couldn't possibly have anything to do with DnD, right?

I mean, the author is John Rogers, who helped right the 4e Manual of Planes, he probably has never even heard of DnD?!

You know, maybe, the more I think about this. Maybe I picked an officially licensed DnD product to talk about DnD because I thought it might connect to DnD. Crazy thought, I know. It is almost like I expect the media surrounding the game to be somehow connected to the game.



Faolyn said:


> Good things halflings aren't supernaturally lucky, then. They're not reality warpers and have never been treated as such in the game. They just get to reroll 1s.
> 
> They get to reroll 1s by using a trait called Lucky. You're the only one here who thinks that this should mean something other than what it says.
> 
> I have no idea. You seem to think that it's not your job to narrate the game or to come up with moments of luck for your halfling PCs.




If halflings aren't supernaturally lucky, then why are they supposedly defined by their good luck? Why is it that DnD comics, shows and books have often depicted them as "reality warpers" as you want to put it?

Also... yeah, if it isn't my job as the DM to narrate the Elf PC being aloof, or the Dwarf PC being stubborn, or decide when the Dragonborn PC has flames licking from their jaws, why is it my job to make sure to bend the world to narrate halflings being lucky? I've already got Maxperson saying that I must be a Bad Faith DM because I don't go out of my way to describe lucky events happening to the halfling over and above what happens to the rest of the party. But I don't have to narrate the racial traits of the other party members. They get to do that. They get to decide when their elfness or dwarfness or goliathness comes into play. But if I as the DM don't enforce halfling luck... it barely exists.



Faolyn said:


> Yes. They have a rules exception. They don't need to roll to do this thing. You haven't broken the list apart. They can automatically do something that other creatures can't do without effort. Just like creatures with darkvision can easily see in the dark where other creatures can't.
> 
> So? Probably because it didn't have a memorable name.




Or... maybe because it isn't defining? Maybe "everyone can do this if they try" makes it not something that feels unique about the halfling?



Faolyn said:


> Halflings _are _Lucky and Brave, because they have traits called Lucky and Brave and those words are adjectives. You're the only one insisting that traits = narrative.




Okay, fine. Give me a scenario where a halfling is brave where a human level 10 paladin can't be brave?

In fact, I'll be more fair. Give me a scenario where a halfling is brave, where a human can't be, without mentioning dice rolls.

Because, again, I've only been talking about the narrative impact. I've been doing that from the very beginning. If your just angry because you think I'm saying these mechanical traits are weak or something, then just stop, because I'm not discussing that. Because, shockingly, the narrative does matter. This isn't a board game, it is a role-playing game. So the narrative impact matters. And unless you are saying that you cannot be brave unless you pass a saving throw against magically induced fear, then halflings are not uniquely brave. Because "is more likely to resist magical fear" isn't how we define bravery.



Faolyn said:


> Except they don't claim to have supernatural luck. Go back and read their entry in the PHB or in Mordenkainen's. Nowhere is the idea of supernatural luck presented. Luckiness, sure, but not supernatural luck.
> 
> In fact, here's the beginning paragraphs from Mordy's:
> 
> ...




Right, it isn't like Mordenkainen's goes on to say anything like "When a halfling trips, slides down a hillside, and lands on a nugget of gold, that's Yondalla turning bad luck into good." (pg 103)

Or that Yondallam who is credited as the source of the halflings luck, was usually given the Protection domain (in both 3rd and 2nd edition) which would strongly imply that halfling luck is literally divine intervention to protect her children.

Or that one of the writers for DnD (Mike Mearls) referred to it as "cosmic luck" and said that it was gifted to them from the Goddess 


Man, I just have no idea why I might have gotten the idea that Halflings are supernaturally lucky? I mean, the fact that their lucky is divinely inspired is just normal statistics and physics, right?



Faolyn said:


> Halflings have a trait called Brave. This means that they have advantage where others don't. Why do you not understand this?




Why does no one seem to understand that feeling fear and being shaken by fear doesn't make you a coward? How is this a hard concept? I've literally taught it to 7 year olds in picture books about monsters under the bed. But somehow, this idea that halflings are brave because they can succeed on a save just refuses to bend to the actual definition of bravery.


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well... no.
> 
> Yuan-ti are VERY different in my games, that's why I didn't include them in my list.
> Slaadi will never be playable in my games, they are abominations.
> I don't even use Kuo-Toa, like... ever. I keep forgetting they even exist. They aren't even a consideration for me.



Right, so where you draw the line is arbitrary.


Chaosmancer said:


> Now, I could see having Gnolls, Kenku and Tabaxi sharing a common ancestry. I pretty much have discarded the Kenku's inability to speak except by copying, because it is such a pain to even attempt to role-play. If you can do it, great, but no one I play with is good enough to do it, and they always give up within two or three sessions. And like... Tabaxi are just cat people, unless you are playing in the Forgotten Realms, which I don't. So, Cat-people, Raven-People, and Hyena-people could all be the same "people", perhaps altered by the primal spirits to be closer to a specific animal type. Or descended from awakened animals that were created by ancient druidic rites.



How boring.


Chaosmancer said:


> I mean, otherwise I have to explain how Raven-People have nothing to do with Hawk-People, who are completely unrelated to Owl-People... which seems weird when I can just make "Bird People" and have them all just exhibit different types of birds.



Again, why would that need any explanation, any more so than humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and gnomes not being related does?


Chaosmancer said:


> It isn't like the Tabaxi don't already cover Leopard-People, Panther-People, and Lynx-People.



Not really. They’re one cat-like humanoid species with brown to orange fur and spots or stripes. They kind of resemble leopards or jaguars in some ways, but they aren’t. They’re Tabaxi.


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## Shades of Eternity (Jul 15, 2022)

alrighty another halfling concept.

This guy.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> "We" haven't established anything about 3%. MaxPerson has pointed out that the chances of rolling two 1s in a row is very, very slim. But you're ignoring that because they can reroll the first 1, they have a second chance to succeed.



It is about a 3% greater chance. Calculate the mean result of a d20 roll, it’s 10.5. Now do the same, but replace the 1 with 10.5, to account for the reroll on a 1. You get a new mean of 10.975. That’s an increase of +0.475, or 2.375%.

Now, that only tells you the increase to the average roll, which isn’t the whole story. Like with advantage exact increase on any given roll will depend on what number you need to roll on the d20 to succeed. But calling it “about a 3% boost” is in the right ballpark, same as we say advantage is “about +5 on the roll”.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Right, so where you draw the line is arbitrary.




No. I mean, I guess it is arbitrary that I don't do anything with Kuo-Toa, but Yuan-Ti being formerly, maybe human before devouring the flesh and blood of one of the world serpents to save their people from extinction, then procceeding to develop a culture of ritual cannabalism to try and reform the dead god within their own flesh as thanks for perserving their people from catastrophe is not arbitrary at all. 

I just didn't feel like typing all their lore. 

And Slaadi are Abominations from the Far Realms. In actuality, I've changed them significantly into an Empire bent on finding magic to fuel their horrid transformations and power their civilization to help them fight against the other Far Realm threats like the Illithid Hive Mind and the Existence that is the Deep Father. They aren't a playable race, so I didn't include them



Charlaquin said:


> How boring.




Thank you for insulting me, may I have another? Can't get too many internet people insulting me for my preferences. I like anime too, if you need more ammo.



Charlaquin said:


> Again, why would that need any explanation, any more so than humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and gnomes not being related does?




Who says I've never explained why dwarves, humans, elves and gnomes aren't related? 

Dwarves were forged by Moradin as a betrothal gift to his future wife. 

Elves are escaped hunting prey from the Feywild, whose gods are the great heroes who led them to freedom. 

Gnomes were once part of the Slaadi, til Garl Glittergold found magic, accidentally created the Gnomes, and fled to a beautiful world, where the forged their souls so that this material plane with its infinite wonder compared to the black endless void they once knew was their heaven. 

Humans escaped from a dying world and don't know their origins anymore. 

I explain where the races come from all the time.



Charlaquin said:


> Not really. They’re one cat-like humanoid species with brown to orange fur and spots or stripes. They kind of resemble leopards or jaguars in some ways, but they aren’t. They’re Tabaxi.




I know they aren't exactly the same as leopards and jaguars, but they can be trivially reskinned by literally just adjusting their fur color and head shape, things that never actually matter in the game.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Dwarven armor is supposed to be better qaulity, but that doesn't mean I've ever seen dwarves depicted as "the race that wears armor" because... humans and elves wear armor too. And Elven armor is also special and cool. They also blacksmith weapons and tools, but they aren't the only weapon or tool using race.
> 
> But, aha, they don't reduce speed by wearing armor! That's different. But, hmmm, looking at the rules, most people don't have their speed reduced by wearing armor. My half-elf paladin wearing full plate never had his speed reduced. So where does this rule apply? Digging into it, your speed is reduced by 10 ft if you don't have the proper strength. AHA! So, it isn't that dwarves are particularly good with armor, it is that dwarves are stocky and strong and able to move well under heavy loads. THAT is something you could claim, but "they wear armor"... isn't.
> 
> ...



So now we're going with..if you aren't the _only_ race with a benefit, that benefit is not noticeable for your race. Is this the Highlander school of racial characteristics? And we're including humans as a measuring stick??

You hold up humans and go "look, they can do it to, so your race thing must not be very distinctive". You do this without acknowledging that Humans can be the stealthy race, the perceptive race, the tough race, the educated race, etc. (Almost like their hallmark is adaptability and variety rather than any one specialization). 

Let's take your argument to its natural conclusion, 

Humans can get "observant", elves aren't perceptive anymore
Humans can get "skilled" or "prodigy" dwarves aren't crafters and half-elves are not skillful, half orcs aren't menacing.
Humans can get "magic initiate" elves and gnomes are no longer magical
Humans can get "eldritch adept" no race with darvision is associated with the dark anymore
Humans can get one of the armor fests or "weapon master" no race has any tradition of arms or armor
We could go on, or we could step back and realize that:

One race being good at/known for a thing does not mean that other races can't be good at/known for that thing, and,
Humans are poor references for racial distinctiveness, and probably shouldn't be used that way.
Circling over to elven craft goods. If you consider the fancy boots and cloaks they make , and that the one type of armor they make is medium armor (no stealthy penalty y'all).. where might you guess one of their focuses is as a race? Wait..and a +2 to dex..and a subrace with stealth mechanics..hmmm.. now that is interesting.

Now let's circle back to dwarves and read the speed thing again..

_"Your speed cannot be reduced by heavy armor" (PHB)_

If my dwarf has an 8 strength, as your stereotypical "stocky strong" guy does, do they move slower in heavy plate? Referring above..that would be a negative. 

Do other 8 strength characters take a speed penalty for wearing heavy armor?

_"If the  Armor table shows “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the Strength column for an armor type, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a  Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score." (PHB)_

8<13<15... so I guess they do take that penalty and move slower.

Is an 8 strength dwarf stronger than other 8 strength characters? 

_"Strength: the quality or state of being physically strong" (Dictionary)_

..and.. 8 strength=8 strength..sooo..no, they are not.

Hmm..equal strength scores..strength equals being strong..one race can wear the armor better than the other..the one who wears the armor gets smith's tools proficiency and potentially an armor proficiency..smith's tools are used to make armor..and armor proficiency helps you wear armor..

Yep. Guess dwarves are just stronger than their strength score somehow..no other way to explain it. 

It's like 1+1= potato.

When comparing race mechanics, we compare race mechanics to each other and think about how they impact races' reputations relative to each other. Advantages provided by one race are compared to advantages provided by others. If your racial feature is better, it stands to reason that it's something your race is good at and perhaps known for. A particular character may or may not be a good exemplar of that reputation depending on whether you lean into or away from those features. 

To turn it around..

During the last great halfling thread (or maybe the one before), you made the case that gnomes are great illusionists. How do the mechanics support this? Well one gnomes subrace..one..can cast the minor illusion cantrip. When I say halflings are stealthy..The amount of extrapolation I am engaging in is the same as what you have done for gnomes. It is directly symmetrical.

I have no issue with accepting that gnomes are known for being illusionists despite the paucity of mechanical support for such a contention. Why are you fighting back so hard on halflings being known for being stealthy?


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## Charlaquin (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No. I mean, I guess it is arbitrary that I don't do anything with Kuo-Toa, but Yuan-Ti being formerly, maybe human before devouring the flesh and blood of one of the world serpents to save their people from extinction, then procceeding to develop a culture of ritual cannabalism to try and reform the dead god within their own flesh as thanks for perserving their people from catastrophe is not arbitrary at all.
> 
> I just didn't feel like typing all their lore.
> 
> And Slaadi are Abominations from the Far Realms. In actuality, I've changed them significantly into an Empire bent on finding magic to fuel their horrid transformations and power their civilization to help them fight against the other Far Realm threats like the Illithid Hive Mind and the Existence that is the Deep Father. They aren't a playable race, so I didn't include them



Right, but there’s no reason any animal people shouldn’t have just as deep and complex lore. It’s arbitrary that you decide certain animal-people deserve unique lore and others should just be lumped together.


Chaosmancer said:


> Thank you for insulting me, may I have another? Can't get too many internet people insulting me for my preferences. I like anime too, if you need more ammo.



I wasn’t calling _you_ boring, I was saying having gnolls, kenku, and Tabaxi all be the same race with the same lore is boring.


Chaosmancer said:


> Who says I've never explained why dwarves, humans, elves and gnomes aren't related?
> 
> Dwarves were forged by Moradin as a betrothal gift to his future wife.
> 
> ...



Great, so why not explain where various animal people come from too?


Chaosmancer said:


> I know they aren't exactly the same as leopards and jaguars, but they can be trivially reskinned by literally just adjusting their fur color and head shape, things that never actually matter in the game.



Any race can be trivially reskinned, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve just as full and rich lore as any other.


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## Mecheon (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I mean, otherwise I have to explain how Raven-People have nothing to do with Hawk-People, who are completely unrelated to Owl-People... which seems weird when I can just make "Bird People" and have them all just exhibit different types of birds. It isn't like the Tabaxi don't already cover Leopard-People, Panther-People, and Lynx-People.



I mean… Not really. 

As Mecheon, animal nerd that I am, if you had a raven and a hawk and an owl sharing the same details I’d be making Words about it. Ravens are not anywhere close to raptors, and the traits we associate with hawks are far from those of owls.

Frankly Tabaxi shouldn’t be able to represent lynxes. I hard-cap them at jungle and desert associated felidae. I honestly wouldn’t even give them jaguar despite their history as that burst of speed doesn’t fit jaguars at all. Merging these together just loses their individual flavour 

I mean, strewth, I’ve been arguing we expand bakemono into at least 3 seperate races because it’s lacking “turn into a teapot” or “control ghostly fire” traits to actually properly represent tanuki or kitsune


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> When it comes to troubles, I think my main difficulty with the halfling is, its size. To think that a small person is somehow no longer a human, concerns me. There are human ethnicities today who are on threshold between Medium and Small, and individual adults who are Small. All of these sizes are humanity.
> 
> If the halfling are truly nonhuman, such as being a magical being who is inherently lucky − then the problem is, this a gnome.
> 
> ...



Perhaps my Google-fu is weak. The closest human ethnicity I could find with dimensions even approaching those of a halfling had an average adult height of a little over 4ft, and average adult weight of 100-120 lbs.

So a little more than 33% taller than and 3 times as heavy as a PHB halfling.

This seems like a bad comparison and maybe even insulting to the peoples you are trying to include. And that's without even getting into things like the role diet plays in human growth.


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## Azzy (Jul 15, 2022)

Heh, make halflings twee with large ears and give them extra-large boomerangs and you pretty much have Black Desert's (a Korean MMORPG) Shai. Actuall, aside from the aesthetics, Shai are pretty much halflings—integrated into human and other people's societies with a rare village to themselves here and there.





Seriously, though. Some people enjoy playing halflings—whether they're rustic little people, wandering travelers, or semi-nomadic dinosaur-riding pastoralists—that's more than enough reason for them to exist.


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## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> What I am saying is the 5e PHB lore says there aren't many halflings at all. It defaults them into them into living in a few small villages and small enclaves. There could be more human nobles than total halfings in a setting.
> 
> The lore goes out its way to make them invisible physically, socially, and economically. That's why this thread exists. It's hard to incorporate what the game purposely hides.



There could also be more human nobles than total elves as well, and elves also generally stay away from other people.

And, no it doesn't default them into living in a "few" small villages. It says, "_Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. [...] Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings' hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home._"

Nothing in the PHB's writeup suggests that only live in a _few_ places, and it straight-out says that they openly live among others.


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## Yaarel (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Perhaps my Google-fu is weak. The closest human ethnicity I could find with dimensions even approaching those of a halfling had an average adult height of a little over 4ft, and average adult weight of 100-120 lbs.
> 
> So a little more than 33% taller than and 3 times as heavy as a PHB halfling.
> 
> This seems like a bad comparison and maybe even insulting to the peoples you are trying to include. And that's without even getting into things like the role diet plays in human growth.



The threshold between Small and Medium is something like 4 feet. The threshold between Medium and Large is something like 8 feet. The threshold between Large and Huge is something like 16 feet. The rules of 5e tend to handwaive the specific heights, and refer more vaguely to how much space one occupies. The ballparks for the heights of various size categories show up indirectly in the descriptions of various bipedal races and monsters.

Regarding reallife human ethnicities, for example, various ethnicities described as "pygmy" (from a Greek exonym) are significantly shorter than 5 feet, and because of height being a bellcurve, many individuals are less than 4 feet. In D&D terms, these adult humans are Small. Consider also, prehistoric humans such as Floresiensis, who are unambiguously in the Small category, in this case adapting to insular dwarfism.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Fair enough, but at least I think this helps highlight why the issue exists.



What issue, though? What is the actual issue, and is it a general issue or a “some players that overthink their hobbies as a secondary hobby don’t prefer the way this thing is” issue?

 (To be clear, the above description is being applied to everyone here, not to people I disagree with or anything like that. We come here to overthink our hobbies as a hobby. That is what this place is. All hobbies have such places.)


Chaosmancer said:


> This is why, for me, I've been adopting a position of consolidating the races, not mechanically at least, but narratively. So, Goliath and Firbolg are related and both "giant-kin".
> 
> The one that gives me the biggest headache is trying to do a "Beast Folk" race because it would include
> 
> ...



Why? Seems easy enough to me. I don’t see the point in doing it, but I can’t fathom what is hard about. 


Vaalingrade said:


> Shifters are supposed to be diet lycanthropes, not beast men.



Eh, in meta origin sure, but they’re more “the people from which lycanthropes come, and are a corruption of”. Which is beastfolk, really. 

And yeah of course, because even “playable theriomorph” is going to be a beastfolk. Like…they’re humanoids with the traits of a particular beast. That’s a beastfolk.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> The threshold between Small and Medium is something like 4 feet. The threshold between Medium and Large is something like 8 feet. The threshold between Large and Huge is something like 16 feet. The rules of 5e tend to handwaive the specific heights, and refer more vaguely to how much space one occupies. The ballparks for the heights of various size categories show up indirectly in the descriptions of various bipedal races and monsters.
> 
> Regarding reallife human ethnicities, for example, various ethnicities described as "pygmy" (from a Greek exonym) are significantly shorter than 5 feet, and because of height being a bellcurve, many individuals are less than 4 feet. In D&D terms, these adult humans are Small. Consider also, prehistoric humans such as Floresiensis, who are unambiguously in the Small category, in this case adapting to insular dwarfism.



In 5e at least, halflings are around 3 feet tall and 40 lbs and size small.

In 5e a dwarf is between 4 and 5 feet tall, average about 150 lbs are sized medium.

In real life, pygmies, (in some of the shorter statured tribes) average a little over 4ft tall at adulthood and between 100 and 120 lbs. They reach 5e halfling size, on average, when they are about 8 years old before they hit puberty.

You are saying this group of people is the same size as their grade-school children. (And again this is ignoring nutrition impacts on human growth and development)

In 5e parlance, pygmies would be medium. This is a bad basis from which to make your argument.


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## Irlo (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know, maybe, the more I think about this. Maybe I picked an officially licensed DnD product to talk about DnD because I thought it might connect to DnD. Crazy thought, I know. It is almost like I expect the media surrounding the game to be somehow connected to the game.



Up to this point, I truly thought you were talking about the narrative aspects of the games we play — that is, how we as players and DMs present the adventures of our characters — rather than the narratives presented by authors in the media surrounding the game. 

I can’t comment much, I guess, since I have almost no exposure to D&D novels and comics. But I will say that it’s no surprise to me that there’s a disconnect between comic book narratives and in-game mechanics and narratives.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> "They are brave because we say that they are brave" doesn't really help though, does it?



I mean, yes, it does. Especially if you accurately quote what I actually said, and include the rest of the position you’re trying to debunk, rather than “paraphrasing” half of my position in order to “refute” the weakest possible version thereof. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Orcs, gnolls, dwarves, and dragonborn are all described as some variation of "fearless" but they aren't trotted out as being particularly fearless. Especially because, to keep repeating myself, nearly all adventurers are brave. My elf ranger is brave, my half-orc samurai is brave, my gnome cleric is brave, my tielfing artificer... isn't brave but he is vicious, my human barbarian is brave, my half-elf paladin is brave.
> 
> How do I know they are brave? Do they have the Brave Trait? No. they are brave because they went out and fought monsters that would rip them limb from limb to protect the innocent who could not protect themselves. They delved deep into caves and ruins, seeking what was lost. They are brave because of what they choose to do.
> 
> The only way people seem to have to claim halflings are more brave than the other races... is that they have advantage on the save against fear. But, as established, FAILING that check does not mean your character is not brave. So... halflings are brave because we say they are, and that is not represented in any possible way at the table, because they are just as brave as everyone else sitting at the table.



None of that changes the fact that halflings are described as especially brave, and have a trait to support that which makes it easier for them to fight through fear. Which is what bravery is.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> That seems crazy to me. None of these animals are closely related, why would the anthropomorphic versions be?



I assume one would make something like the 4e hengeyokai, which are mechanically a race, but thematically a class of creatures that despite little genetic relation have very strong historical and cultural ties due to having a large degree of simultaneous evolution. 

Why you would do that….idk.


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## Yaarel (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> In 5e at least, halflings are around 3 feet tall and 40 lbs and size small.
> 
> In 5e a dwarf is between 4 and 5 feet tall, average about 150 lbs are sized medium.
> 
> In real life, pygmies, (in some of the shorter statured tribes) average a little over 4ft tall at adulthood and average between 100 and 120 lbs at adulthood. They reach 5e halfling size, on average, when they are about 8 years old before they hit puberty.



Yup.

Notice. The AVERAGE can be a bit above 4 feet for these human ethnicities. The bellcurve includes adults who are less than 4 feet.

Some of the shorter humans are the same size as some of the taller halflings.

Moreover, there are prehistoric humans who are the same average size as halflings.

Small humans exist.

Note the insular dwarfism is a naturally occurring adaptation for many species. It is different from impaired growth. These smaller groups are healthy.


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## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Wow, if I have ever seen a more perfect example of why debating people on the internet is a massive pain in the butt.



Yes, yes it is.



Chaosmancer said:


> But, you know what, I'm in the trenches, so why not waste more of my time.
> 
> Is 45% nonsense? Every number on a d20 is a 5% chance. You succeed on a death saving throw when you roll a 10 or higher. Therefore to fail a death saving throw, you need to roll a 9 or lower. 9 x 5 = 45%
> 
> Basic algebra? NONSENSE!



Yes, this all nonsense because it has nothing to do your premise: that the narration you provide for the halflings in your game doesn't include magical luck, so therefore, halflings are a terrible PC race.

Whether or not halflings are 3% more lucky or 45% more lucky or even 100% more lucky is completely irrelevant because you refuse to understand that the trait is a passive trait that lets them reroll 1s and not a narrative trait that allows the player to rewrite reality so they can be super-lucky all the time. And because death saving throws are just one type of roll that they can use their Lucky with.



Chaosmancer said:


> I mean, obviously an officially licensed DnD comic with officially licensed and written characters (The halfling is Bree Three-Hands is a Level 7 Rogue Thief) couldn't possibly have anything to do with DnD, right?
> 
> I mean, the author is John Rogers, who helped right the 4e Manual of Planes, he probably has never even heard of DnD?!



Well, I just checked, and that comic seems to have come out in 2010-2012, so he had never heard of _5th edition._ Oh and, 4e halflings _didn't _have Lucky as a trait. As far as I can tell, they only had a power called "second chance" which allowed them to reroll _an attack _roll once per encounter. 

So your example had nothing to do with 5e halflings who have the Lucky trait. 

Also, I just read the comic you posted that screenshot from (issue 0). That was pure writer's fiat there, not a thing to do with any sort of mechanics. As evidence by a black dragon's breath weapon getting blocked by a single shield and then the dragon getting killed by a single blow to the head. I don't think is how breath weapons worked in 4e, and one rock shouldn't be enough damage to take down a dragon, as I already said.







Chaosmancer said:


> If halflings aren't supernaturally lucky, then why are they supposedly defined by their good luck? Why is it that DnD comics, shows and books have often depicted them as "reality warpers" as you want to put it?



I already answered this question before: because comics, shows, and books don't actually use D&D mechanics, because D&D mechanics don't tell a good story. You want the Heroes to slay the BBEG at the end, not get killed because they rolled badly or because they forgot that it was immune to one damage type or weak against another. Or worse, because you want the Heroes to have an epic battle and instead they do something completely off the rails that turns the final battle into a farce. You want a sneaky thief to kill someone with a single blow from behind, not just do some extra damage and then have to engage in combat for a few more rounds. You want an archer to shoot an arrow into the monster's eyes because it looks cool, while in the game they can't do that because D&D doesn't have a called shot system. You want to have scenes where the cleric truly speaks with their god and perform miracles beyond mere spells and not have to wait until they reach a high enough level to cast _commune_ or use the Divine Intervention trait. You want to have a scene where a young, fresh-faced druid wildshapes into a bird even though druids of that level can't. You want to have casters use spells in creative ways that the rules don't normally allow. 

A D&D-based comic, novel, or show is based on the game's worlds, not on their mechanics. 

_And _I also answered this a second way as well. Halflings believe in luck. They credit good things to good luck and bad things to bad luck. So if something good happens to or near a halfling, it must be because of halfling luck.



Chaosmancer said:


> Also... yeah, if it isn't my job as the DM to narrate the Elf PC being aloof, or the Dwarf PC being stubborn, or decide when the Dragonborn PC has flames licking from their jaws, why is it my job to make sure to bend the world to narrate halflings being lucky? I've already got Maxperson saying that I must be a Bad Faith DM because I don't go out of my way to describe lucky events happening to the halfling over and above what happens to the rest of the party. But I don't have to narrate the racial traits of the other party members. They get to do that. They get to decide when their elfness or dwarfness or goliathness comes into play. But if I as the DM don't enforce halfling luck... it barely exists.



You honestly can't tell the difference between narrating an elf PC being aloof and a halfling PC being lucky? OK then. Here goes: if you narrate an elf PC being aloof, you are taking over the character from the player and telling the player what their character is doing. That's not cool.

If you narrate a halfling as being lucky, then you are modifying the world around them The world that you, the DM, _already are in complete control of._ 



Chaosmancer said:


> Or... maybe because it isn't defining? Maybe "everyone can do this if they try" makes it not something that feels unique about the halfling?



A bird can fly. In order to fly, a human has to go through the effort to get into an airplane or similar machine. That doesn't diminish a bird's natural ability to fly.



Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, fine. Give me a scenario where a halfling is brave where a human level 10 paladin can't be brave?



Nope. Because human paladins _also _have an ability to resist the frightened condition. That doesn't make halflings less special, because all halflings can resist being frightened and only the very, very few humans who become 10th-level paladins get the same ability.



Chaosmancer said:


> In fact, I'll be more fair. Give me a scenario where a halfling is brave, where a human can't be, without mentioning dice rolls.



Sure: an NPC halfling and an NPC human walk into a haunted house. The ghosts in the house say "Get out! GET OUT!" The DM decides that the human runs away screaming and the halfling doesn't.

Now why is it that you refuse to understand that Brave is a passive, mechanical trait and _not _a narrative trait? Am I not getting through to you, or are you just trolling?



Chaosmancer said:


> Because, again, I've only been talking about the narrative impact. I've been doing that from the very beginning.



And again, you've been talking about the wrong thing. Because it is not a narrative trait. It makes as much sense as complaining that dwarfs aren't good at determining the origin of woodwork.



Chaosmancer said:


> If your just angry because you think I'm saying these mechanical traits are weak or something, then just stop, because I'm not discussing that. Because, shockingly, the narrative does matter. This isn't a board game, it is a role-playing game. So the narrative impact matters. And unless you are saying that you cannot be brave unless you pass a saving throw against magically induced fear, then halflings are not uniquely brave. Because "is more likely to resist magical fear" isn't how we define bravery.



The narrative matters.

Traits are not the narrative.

Traits don't control the narrative.

Traits don't determine the narrative.

All traits do is help to maybe nudge the narrative in certain directions. Instead of saying rolling a 1 when using Perform and then saying "I failed miserably when I tried to sing a song to woo the bartender," the halfling can roll a 1, reroll, get another number, and then base their narrative off of _that _number instead. Because they're Lucky in a way that lets them reroll 1s. 

The narrative, however, is entirely up to the player and DM. The Lucky trait only ensured that the first roll isn't a natural 1.



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, it isn't like Mordenkainen's goes on to say anything like "When a halfling trips, slides down a hillside, and lands on a nugget of gold, that's Yondalla turning bad luck into good." (pg 103) [...] Or that Yondallam who is credited as the source of the halflings luck, was usually given the Protection domain (in both 3rd and 2nd edition) which would strongly imply that halfling luck is literally divine intervention to protect her children. [...] Or that one of the writers for DnD (Mike Mearls) referred to it as "cosmic luck" and said that it was gifted to them from the Goddess



Sure. And that's something that's up to the DM to include. Or something that never actually happens in real life but people believe it does. Or it only happens to NPCs. It's not something that needs to be on the character sheet.

I've even given you suggestions on how to include the luck by doing minor things that favor the halfling but don't affect them mechanically or financially, and you've poo-poohed them.



Chaosmancer said:


> Why does no one seem to understand that feeling fear and being shaken by fear doesn't make you a coward? How is this a hard concept? I've literally taught it to 7 year olds in picture books about monsters under the bed. But somehow, this idea that halflings are brave because they can succeed on a save just refuses to bend to the actual definition of bravery.



the only person who's said that is you, so I don't know what your problem is. 

Both a human child and a halfling child may quake in fear from the monster under a bed, but if that monster exists and produces an effect that inflicts the frightened condition, then the halfling is less likely to succumb to it. Because their trait doesn't affect fear, it affects the frightened condition.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Yup.
> 
> Notice. The AVERAGE can be a bit above 4 feet for these human ethnicities. The bellcurve includes adults who are less than 4 feet.
> 
> ...



I haven't yet dug up distributions on height and weight, but I rather suspect that if an average halfling is the same average height and weight of grade school children, the adults at that same size would be in the tail-iest, tail-end of the distribution.. such that we are no longer talking about a "representative" sample of that group's population. 

I agree that small humans can exist. Halfling-sized ones, not as an active population on Earth in the last 50,000 years (and the height for those skeletons you mentioned was still bigger than the average halfling in D&D). 

It's just a bad look, especially if you are invoking non-extinct people groups who do not fit the classification you are trying to ascribe to them and aren't even really that close.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Because their trait doesn't affect fear, it affects the frightened condition.



Right. Which makes sense, because bravery isn’t lack of fear, it’s the ability to master your fear, and keep doing what you need to do. It’s easier for halflings to do that, because they are a little more brave than a human with the same personality and upbringing otherwise.


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I haven't yet dug up distributions on height and weight, but I rather suspect that if an average halfling is the same average height and weight of grade school children, the adults at that same size would be in the tail-iest, tail-end of the distribution.. such that we are no longer talking about a "representative" sample of that group's population.
> 
> I agree that small humans can exist. Halfling-sized ones, not as an active population on Earth in the last 50,000 years (and the height for those skeletons you mentioned was still bigger than the average halfling in D&D).
> 
> It's just a bad look, especially if you are invoking non-extinct people groups who do not fit the classification you are trying to ascribe to them and aren't even really that close.



Heh, actually I did. The 5e Players handbook has halflings be shorter than I remembered, from 2' 9" to about 3' 3". Notably, the highest human height is about 6' 4", which seems short for an upper limit. Likewise, the lower limit of 4' 10" is too tall, and implies that reallife pygmy ethnicities who can be much shorter are not "humans". Humanity includes its rarer members. The rules need to reflect this, and now do, when a player can choose whatever bodytype one wants for ones character.

To be fair, I also have the Forgotten Realms setting in mind. These are not called out in the Players Handbook, but exist within its default setting. For example, the tallfellow halflings are 4 feet and taller, but still count as Small because of a lean and light stature.

As such, the 4 feet as a rough threshold between Small and Medium applies, and the taller halflings are the same height as human pygmy ethnicities.

In sum, let both human and halflings include both Medium and Small individuals, players choice, while understanding frequency. But this also means that halflings are defacto a human ethnicity.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> See, the human fails 45% of time (anything lower than a 10) and the halfling fails 47.25% of the time (Anything lower than a 10, with a reroll). Sure, the halfling is very unlikely to roll a 1... but that isn't failure. Failure is failing the roll.



You might want to recheck that math.  It's impossible for the halfling to fail more often if he has a reroll as some of those rerolls will be successes.


Chaosmancer said:


> Really? So, when my Fighter reaches level 3 and gains proficiency in the Arcana skill, he has become 10% luckier than he was before? Because, succeeding on the action = Luck.



No.  Let's say a normal race will succeed 50 times out of every 100 attempts at something.  And halflings, due to their luck kicking in(the re-roll = luck) succeed 52.5 times out of every 100 attempts at something.  They succeeded more often due to luck.  Success =/= luck.  Success due explicitly to luck = luck.


Chaosmancer said:


> Actually, the adventurers and PCs being brave matters a lot. In fact, it could be the only thing that does matter. Because who does your character get compared to? The other PCs. I'm reminded of the Worf effect. I'm sure you've heard about it. Is Worf a bad-ass warrior? Sure, we are told he is, but if you watch the show you see him... lose. Constantly. He could fold the vast majority of humans on Earth into a pretzel, but that doesn't really matter because we never see him do it. He's the guy that always loses the fight, so it doesn't matter how much you tell us he is a great warrior.



Compared to other adventurers, the halfling is objectively braver, because brave adventurer + bravery mechanic > brave adventurer all by itself.  There's nothing a human adventurer can roleplay as being brave that a halfling cannot, but the halfling will fail fewer fear saves and spend less time cowering and running from the enemy.


Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, the common peasants are running in fear... but your companions aren't. Most fear effects don't include "cowering", in fact, I think only a single fear effect in the game changes your stated actions at all. So the halfling will in fact not be cowering less than his companions, because his companions will generally not be cowering.



Every single ability that gives the frightened condition, and there are a lot, will cause the adventurers who fail the save to cower in fear.  You are literally quaking in your boots so badly you have disadvantage on all ability checks and attack rolls.  So your "brave" adventurer can't get a grip on his fear.  He cannot be brave enough to stand against it and move forward.  That little halfling, though, will be able to a lot more often.




Chaosmancer said:


> And, again, if we are going to measure bravery as "succeeds on saving throws vs fear" then the Monk, Druid and Cleric are even braver than most halflings. Being high wisdom classes. Some Ranger's too. Because, they are going to succeed on those fear saves, so they must be even braver. Except, again, we don't define bravery by whether or not you feel magical fear.



All classes that halfling can also be.  


Chaosmancer said:


> It is not your position that a DM who goes out of their way to narrate the halfling as being luckier than his companions is a bad DM.



The halfling IS luckier than his companions, assuming none of them took the Lucky feat anyway.


Chaosmancer said:


> If I don't go out of my way to describe lucky things happening to halfling because of their luck...



If you don't go out of your way to narrate the results of the halflings actions as RAW says?


Chaosmancer said:


> That is a level of care for the race that no other race gets.



Quite literally every race gets to have their actions narrated according to what they have done. Halflings get nothing special in that regard.


Chaosmancer said:


> To roll this back. Let's take your example of climbing that wall (which shouldn't be a roll, but that is neither here nor there)
> 
> So the halfling declares an action to climb the wall and rolls a... 5! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't. Maybe the halfling is searching a room and rolls a.... 15! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't.



Amazing!   You've picked numbers where the halflings luck doesn't kick in and then said, "See, the halfling isn't lucky!!!"  How about you go back to the halfling rolling a 1 and then re-rolling into a success, which is by RAW an action with a narration that the DM is required to narrate as lucky?


Chaosmancer said:


> In fact, I have seen a halfling character go an entire campaign without rolling a 1 on a d20 check. There is, after all, only a 5% chance of rolling a 1. So, in that situation... is the halfling lucky? No. Their "luck" never manifests...



Your campaigns must be pretty short. An entire campaign where the halfling never rolled a 1 on anything seems pretty unlikely unless it ended at level 2 or 3. With all pf those attacks, saves and ability checks the halfling PC makes, never rolling a 1 extremely unlikely for any campaign of any significant amount of time.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, they don't get that narration of being lucky. Or they succeeded, and the DM attributes it to their luck, where for any other character it would be because of their skill.



No. This is wrong.  For any other character it would be a failure because they rolled a 1 and didn't get a re-roll.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So now we're going with..if you aren't the _only_ race with a benefit, that benefit is not noticeable for your race. Is this the Highlander school of racial characteristics? And we're including humans as a measuring stick??




What do you mean "So now we are going with"? Have you actually forgotten the start of this conversation? Here, let me remind you The Trouble with Halflings

"So halflings have to figure out what makes them unique." To which you responded "Like bravery stealthiness, and luck?"

So... this entire time it has been about their *unique* characteristics. I mean, I know it was a whole three days ago, but why are you acting shocked that I haven't forgotten the premise?



Gammadoodler said:


> You hold up humans and go "look, they can do it to, so your race thing must not be very distinctive". You do this without acknowledging that Humans can be the stealthy race, the perceptive race, the tough race, the educated race, etc. (Almost like their hallmark is adaptability and variety rather than any one specialization).
> 
> Let's take your argument to its natural conclusion,
> 
> ...




Right, it isn't like in the lore that inspired Mithril armor it stopped a troll's spear or anything. It was all about being stealthy, not impenetrable. Oh.. wait, that wasn't true. 

Also, yes, I brought up that humans can wear armor. The horror! It is almost like everyone wears armor? And it isn't special to dwarves? Which was my point? I mean, only three classes in the entire game don't get some form of armor, and only three more don't get medium armor. So "wears armor" is pretty common for just about every single race in the game. 

But sure, go on a diatribe about how since humans can be anything no one can be unique, I'm sure that's the correct response to "dwarves aren't known for wearing armor, because everyone wears armor"



Gammadoodler said:


> Now let's circle back to dwarves and read the speed thing again..
> 
> _"Your speed cannot be reduced by heavy armor" (PHB)_
> 
> ...




Right, because we can definetly find somewhere that it says that Dwarves can wear armor because they are good at making armor. And therefore Dwarves are the armored race. No other race does armor like them... except for every race. Because I've never seen a single person put on heavy armor without the strength to back it up, so it has literally never once come up. 

And since dwarves are unique in their ability to wear armor, then halflings are unique in their ability to be stealthy, because that was your original claim.



Gammadoodler said:


> When comparing race mechanics, we compare race mechanics to each other and think about how they impact races' reputations relative to each other. Advantages provided by one race are compared to advantages provided by others. If your racial feature is better, it stands to reason that it's something your race is good at and perhaps known for. A particular character may or may not be a good exemplar of that reputation depending on whether you lean into or away from those features.
> 
> To turn it around..
> 
> ...




And now we are bringing up something from... a year ago? I don't even know when this was anymore. So yeah, can't win the argument we are having now, so you are trying to bring up old things I said that no one is going to have time look into, and make me argue that instead of defending your own claim. 

You said halflings were uniquely stealthy. We have since narrowed that down. Stout, Lotusden, Ghostwise, Mark of Hospitality, and Mark of Healing halflings are not particularly stealthy beyond their bonus to dexterity. Lightfoot halflings can be argued to be particularly stealthy. 

We then hit a crossroads, down one road we say that halflings are uniquely stealthy because of their dexterity bonus. The same as the other 17 or so races that get dexterity bonuses would therefore be uniquely stealthy. The other road is that halflings are not uniquely stealthy, lightfoots may be, but halflings as a whole are not uniquely stealthy. 


As for why I am pushing back on this? Because this subject comes up fairly often. And every time it is the same thing. Halflings are declared to have their place because they are small, they are stealthy, they are brave and they are lucky. 

And then you look at something like the Goblin. The goblin is small. The goblin can bonus action hide, making it quite noticeably stealthy. The goblin adventurer would be brave. And the less said about luck the better. And suddenly you realize... well, what else is there to halflings? There is more to goblins after all, they have more lore and deeper roots in fantasy than almost any other fantasy race in existence. They are equal to elves and dwarves, if not greater in terms of their culture impact. 

But people love halflings, they want to keep playing halflings... and yet they refuse to even consider the possibility that there may be a problem. They just repeat the mantra. Small, stealthy, lucky, brave. Like it is some sort of magical chant that fixes everything. I'm not against halflings, but they are fading as a concept, because people can't let go of them long enough to wonder if they might need something more. 

You want me to talk about gnomes? Gnomes are doing fine in terms of the lore. People may not like them, but they are very recognizable, and they offer something interesting to any setting that chooses to use them. Decry that all you want, in the most recent gnome thread I listed multiple books and stories that used them. But I haven't come across halflings nearly as often. Outside of tolkien I can only think of three things, two webcomics and the comic I linked earlier, all deeply rooted in DnD. Most... altering halflings to be something else. 

So yeah, I'm pushing back. Your mantra isn't working, it isn't convincing, and you can't seem to even back it up beyond restating it.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Right, but there’s no reason any animal people shouldn’t have just as deep and complex lore. It’s arbitrary that you decide certain animal-people deserve unique lore and others should just be lumped together.




... huh? You realize I just haven't actually written the lore yet, right? This is a half-baked concept I've had on the back burner for a few years. I was just using it as an example, because you seemed confused why anyone would try and consolidate races.



Charlaquin said:


> I wasn’t calling _you_ boring, I was saying having gnolls, kenku, and Tabaxi all be the same race with the same lore is boring.




First of all, you quoted quite a bit and only said "how boring" which, you know, isn't exactly specifying,

Secondly... why is it boring to have a single source for similar creatures? All Demons come from the same source, is that boring?



Charlaquin said:


> Great, so why not explain where various animal people come from too?




... I will, when I get around to writing it? Did you really take my "this is something I want to do, but I haven't done it yet" as "here is my complete and total final version of this idea"? Why would you assume that?



Charlaquin said:


> Any race can be trivially reskinned, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve just as full and rich lore as any other.




Right... but if I'm doing a cat race, and the leopard and the jaguar and the panther are incredibly closely related, to the point where most people mix them up ... why would I make three deep dive lore's instead of one that allows someone to look like a jaguar, a panther, or a leopard? 

At this point I don't even understand how my trying to help you understand why people try and do this has made you so upset, you seem to think that I must absolutely make every single concept a unique race with unique lore that is compelling... but you realize that is hundreds upon hundreds of races, right?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> I mean… Not really.
> 
> As Mecheon, animal nerd that I am, if you had a raven and a hawk and an owl sharing the same details I’d be making Words about it. Ravens are not anywhere close to raptors, and the traits we associate with hawks are far from those of owls.
> 
> ...




Sure, but at some point I've got to draw the line. A Snowy Owl is different from a Barn Owl, but I'm not going to make two separate races for both of them. Because then I have to do one for the Great Horned Owl.

People can complain about this if they want, but seriously it would be madness to try and make unique animal races for every single animal. And I haven't even decided how I want to do this yet, it is just a concept.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Because the entire point is people keep claiming that "halflings are braver than the other races"



Right.  The key word there is.........................................races.  Not classes.  Races.  Comparing halflings to a class is an exercise in failure, because it's a completely worthless comparison.  Once you bring classes into the mix, you have to compare halflings of that class to other races of that class.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> What issue, though? What is the actual issue, and is it a general issue or a “some players that overthink their hobbies as a secondary hobby don’t prefer the way this thing is” issue?




The issue of having too many races occupying the same niche? The thing I was talking about?



doctorbadwolf said:


> Why? Seems easy enough to me. I don’t see the point in doing it, but I can’t fathom what is hard about.




Okay, good for you? I've been struggling with whether I can get away with having all of them under the same header with the different mechanics, or if I need to blend some of the mechanics between them

I've been struggling with whether to make it solely mammalian, mammalian and avian, or mammalian, avian and reptilian. 

I've been struggling with if I want to include Lizardfolk at all, since they don't really add anything to my games that I find valuable enough to keep. 

I've been struggling with how to incorporate three completely different concepts of "Cat Person" and how I may try to balance them while still making them seem like they are the same race of people. 

I'm glad you can't fathom how this might be difficult, but I'm putting quite a bit of thought into whenever I return to the idea. I don't think I want to just flatten it and remove all the unique lore and mechanics, but I don't want to make it a confused mess either. 




doctorbadwolf said:


> I mean, yes, it does. Especially if you accurately quote what I actually said, and include the rest of the position you’re trying to debunk, rather than “paraphrasing” half of my position in order to “refute” the weakest possible version thereof.




But you aren't even addressing my point, so the rest of your position doesn't apply. You know, I even explained it, again, in the mulitple paragraphs below this statement. Yes, halflings have a trait that make them less likely to be frightened than other races. 

Is getting frightened mean that you are not brave? If you are scared, does that mean you cannot possibly be brave? Is bravery only defined by a lack of fear? 

No. 



doctorbadwolf said:


> None of that changes the fact that halflings are described as especially brave, and have a trait to support that which makes it easier for them to fight through fear. Which is what bravery is.




Right here you say it. Bravery is "fighting through fear". Every adventurer does this. Even the ones that don't have a trait that makes it easier to ignore fear. 

Saying a halfling having advantage makes them braver than the other characters doesn't make any narrative sense. That isn't what bravery is.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> No I get Halfling. They aren't little people. Halfling are little humans.
> 
> 
> Tolkien created hobbits as a small version of rural humans. D&D shaved off the name and made them a bit more magical and a few fantastical racial traits.
> ...



They were magical in Middle Earth, too.  They could walk silently though areas bigger folks couldn't, and disappear into hiding with an extraordinary ease.  Further, they were resistant to the powers of darkness in a way that no human was.  That was how Bilbo and Frodo could use the ring for so long before they finally started falling victim to it.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I've already got Maxperson saying that I must be a Bad Faith DM because I don't go out of my way to describe lucky events happening to the halfling over and above what happens to the rest of the party.



Nope! A bad faith DM is one that refuses to narrate the results of an action as RAW and the social contract dictate.  I said nothing about going above and beyond that.

If a wood elf hides in light obscurement, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows him hiding in light obscurement.  If a dragonborn breathes fire on someone, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows him breathing fire on the enemy. If a half-orc crits an enemy, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows the attack to be more savage than normal. If a halfling gets lucky on a skill check, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows the halfling to be lucky.

I'm not saying that the halfling should get something extra, or be treated in a special way. I'm saying the DM is obligated to narrate the results of the halflings actions in accordance with RAW and if the DM refuses, ruining a significant aspect of who the halfling PC is in the process, that DM is acting in bad faith with his refusal to follow RAW.


----------



## Azzy (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right... but if I'm doing a cat race, and the leopard and the jaguar and the panther are incredibly closely related, to the point where most people mix them up ... why would I make three deep dive lore's instead of one that allows someone to look like a jaguar, a panther, or a leopard?



Nitpick. "Panther" isn't a specific species of big cat like leopard or jaguar. It refers big cats in general or often specifically to leopards and jaguars (especially in the sense of "black panthers"), and (sometimes) cougars.  So seeing panther separate from leopards and jaguars is a bit confusing.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Yes, yes it is.
> 
> 
> Yes, this all nonsense because it has nothing to do your premise: that the narration you provide for the halflings in your game doesn't include magical luck, so therefore, halflings are a terrible PC race.




Yep, I figured as much. You have no idea what I am actually arguing. 

Please, find where I said halflings are a terrible PC race in this thread? I'd love to see it. 

What I actually said is "saying halflings are lucky is a terrible unique mechanic, because at the table that doesn't manifest" 

People then dogpiled on, insisting that re-rolling those one's is super impactful and definetly lucky. And they couldn't believe that it wouldn't change the game. So, I showed the math, acknowledged that the mechanics were fine, but the narrative was nothing like it was supposed to be... 

And now I get accused of abandoning my own point, because I addressed the points of others. And this is why I didn't want to post my homebrew question back on these forums. I knew I'd get sucked into a discussion like this, and I'd be suffering through these ridiculous arguments again, because I just can't help myself.



Faolyn said:


> Well, I just checked, and that comic seems to have come out in 2010-2012, so he had never heard of _5th edition._ Oh and, 4e halflings _didn't _have Lucky as a trait. As far as I can tell, they only had a power called "second chance" which allowed them to reroll _an attack _roll once per encounter.
> 
> So your example had nothing to do with 5e halflings who have the Lucky trait.
> 
> ...




Right, DnD comics can't show the narrative of DnD doesn't match the mechanics of DnD because the comics don't match the mechanics of DnD. 

I mean, stopping a breath weapon with a shield is ridiculous right? It isn't like it is one of the most iconic things in fantasy art, to the point that there is a feat called "Shield Master" meant to emulate that narrative. 

And, we all know halflings weren't created before 5th edition, so seeing their narratives from before then is pointless. I mean, re-rolling an attack roll once per fight is nothing at all like re-rolling when you roll a 1, right?



Faolyn said:


> I already answered this question before: because comics, shows, and books don't actually use D&D mechanics, because D&D mechanics don't tell a good story. You want the Heroes to slay the BBEG at the end, not get killed because they rolled badly or because they forgot that it was immune to one damage type or weak against another. Or worse, because you want the Heroes to have an epic battle and instead they do something completely off the rails that turns the final battle into a farce. You want a sneaky thief to kill someone with a single blow from behind, not just do some extra damage and then have to engage in combat for a few more rounds. You want an archer to shoot an arrow into the monster's eyes because it looks cool, while in the game they can't do that because D&D doesn't have a called shot system. You want to have scenes where the cleric truly speaks with their god and perform miracles beyond mere spells and not have to wait until they reach a high enough level to cast _commune_ or use the Divine Intervention trait. You want to have a scene where a young, fresh-faced druid wildshapes into a bird even though druids of that level can't. You want to have casters use spells in creative ways that the rules don't normally allow.
> 
> A D&D-based comic, novel, or show is based on the game's worlds, not on their mechanics.
> 
> _And _I also answered this a second way as well. Halflings believe in luck. They credit good things to good luck and bad things to bad luck. So if something good happens to or near a halfling, it must be because of halfling luck.




So, you might say, that the depiction of the narrative of halfling luck isn't represented by the mechanics. Weird, that sounds like what I was saying. Only you seem to think this supports halflings being lucky in the game, like they are said to be in the narratives. Whereas myself, I would say that sounds like this shows that halflings being lucky like they are said to be isn't present at the table, because the mechanics don't support the narrative.



Faolyn said:


> You honestly can't tell the difference between narrating an elf PC being aloof and a halfling PC being lucky? OK then. Here goes: if you narrate an elf PC being aloof, you are taking over the character from the player and telling the player what their character is doing. That's not cool.
> 
> If you narrate a halfling as being lucky, then you are modifying the world around them The world that you, the DM, _already are in complete control of._




So, you might say, that you as the DM have to twist the game world to make a hallfing appear lucky, like they are supposed to in the narrative. Something you don't have to do for any other race, because no other race requires you to alter and modify the game world as part of their narrative. 

If only someone had made that point before, and then had people decry him as making no sense , because that isn't how it works. Maybe accused him of being Bad Faith because he didn't narrate the halflings luck by modifying the world around them. 

Oh wait. That was me. I made those points.



Faolyn said:


> Sure: an NPC halfling and an NPC human walk into a haunted house. The ghosts in the house say "Get out! GET OUT!" The DM decides that the human runs away screaming and the halfling doesn't.
> 
> Now why is it that you refuse to understand that Brave is a passive, mechanical trait and _not _a narrative trait? Am I not getting through to you, or are you just trolling?




Okay, counter scenario. The NPC Human and Halfling walk into the haunted house. The Ghosts scream "Get out! GET OUT!" and DM decides that neither of them run away screaming. You know, sort of like the vast multitude of human characters that have been notably not frightened by ghosts. 

Now, see, you misunderstand, because you seem to refuse to accept the words I type out. I fully get that the trait halflings have is passive and is mechanical and has no narrative weight. That's why I keep pointing out that in the narrative, halflings aren't particularly braver than the other races. Especially when you put them in an adventuring party who are going to respond to ghosts by drawing their weapons and readying their spells, instead of running away screaming. 

I'm not trying to say that this is a bad mechanical trait. I'm saying that the narrative is flawed. Deeply flawed since it seems to completely misunderstand what bravery even is, and presents lack of fear as bravery. Which is what I have been saying, over and over and over and over again.



Faolyn said:


> And again, you've been talking about the wrong thing. Because it is not a narrative trait. It makes as much sense as complaining that dwarfs aren't good at determining the origin of woodwork.
> 
> 
> The narrative matters.
> ...




You know, then maybe when I started talking about the narrative, everyone shouldn't have jumped up and said "BUT THE TRAITS!!! THE TRAITS PROVE IT!!!" Since the traits seem to have nothing to do with the narrative, which is what I am trying to talk about.



Faolyn said:


> Sure. And that's something that's up to the DM to include. Or something that never actually happens in real life but people believe it does. Or it only happens to NPCs. It's not something that needs to be on the character sheet.
> 
> I've even given you suggestions on how to include the luck by doing minor things that favor the halfling but don't affect them mechanically or financially, and you've poo-poohed them.




No, I said those examples proved my point. And then you started talking about death saves. 

But yeah, the lore and everything else says it is supernatural, so I'm wrong to think of it as supernatural, because it is up to the DM if it is supernatural. And around and around we go, because you can never admit that I might actually have a point and not just be insane.



Faolyn said:


> the only person who's said that is you, so I don't know what your problem is.
> 
> Both a human child and a halfling child may quake in fear from the monster under a bed, but if that monster exists and produces an effect that inflicts the frightened condition, then the halfling is less likely to succumb to it. Because their trait doesn't affect fear, it affects the frightened condition.




Yes, it is abundantly clear that you don't understand my position. As I keep explaining it to you and you keep missing the point. You keep telling me the mechanical traits don't effect the narrative, then act like that addresses my points about the narrative. 

So, once more. Yes, I understand how the mechanics of the game work. They aren't what I am directly trying to address. I'm trying to address the narrative that people claim is there, and that people refer to the mechanical traits to defend, even when those traits do not support the narrative. I'm not attacking the mechanical traits, heck, I'm not even attacking halflings.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Compared to other adventurers, the halfling is objectively braver, because brave adventurer + bravery mechanic > brave adventurer all by itself.  There's nothing a human adventurer can roleplay as being brave that a halfling cannot, but the halfling will fail fewer fear saves and spend less time cowering and running from the enemy.
> 
> Every single ability that gives the frightened condition, and there are a lot, will cause the adventurers who fail the save to cower in fear.  You are literally quaking in your boots so badly you have disadvantage on all ability checks and attack rolls.  So your "brave" adventurer can't get a grip on his fear.  He cannot be brave enough to stand against it and move forward.  That little halfling, though, will be able to a lot more often.




Right, so a misunderstanding of what cowering is. Cowering is "crouching down in fear." Covering yourself with your hands, hiding, that sort of thing. Quaking and not being able to step forward isn't cowering. 

I also just love the insult of putting brave in quotation marks. Doesn't matter that he is still fighting despite his fear, doesn't matter that he isn't running, because they aren't running away because of the fear, since they can't move forward, they are "not brave enough". 

And this is exactly the problem. By defining bravery as beating the frightened condition, you have warped what it means to be brave. And personally, I reject that model of bravery that says a person who is temporarily overcome by fear cannot be brave. 



Maxperson said:


> If you don't go out of your way to narrate the results of the halflings actions as RAW says?
> 
> 
> Quite literally every race gets to have their actions narrated according to what they have done. Halflings get nothing special in that regard.




No, because once again, I'm talking about the narrative when the halfling isn't taking actions. So, unless RAW has something to say about narrating non-actions, you are missing the point again. 

Actions =/= Non-Actions 



Maxperson said:


> Amazing!   You've picked numbers where the halflings luck doesn't kick in and then said, "See, the halfling isn't lucky!!!"  How about you go back to the halfling rolling a 1 and then re-rolling into a success, which is by RAW an action with a narration that the DM is required to narrate as lucky?




And you are missing the point. Because, as I've said, UNLESS THEY ROLL A ONE there is nothing lucky to narrate. And if they roll a one and fail anyways? There is nothing lucky to narrate. 

So, if the halfling is supposed to feel lucky ALL THE TIME then the DM will have to narrate luck EVEN WHEN THE HALFLING DOESN'T ACT. 



Maxperson said:


> Your campaigns must be pretty short. An entire campaign where the halfling never rolled a 1 on anything seems pretty unlikely unless it ended at level 2 or 3. With all pf those attacks, saves and ability checks the halfling PC makes, never rolling a 1 extremely unlikely for any campaign of any significant amount of time.




Level 12. But yeah, see, the funny thing about statistics is that even things you think are unlikely, happen. Because some people are lucky. Which tends to affect things at the table. 



Maxperson said:


> No. This is wrong.  For any other character it would be a failure because they rolled a 1 and didn't get a re-roll.




Still not understanding my actual position. 



Maxperson said:


> Right.  The key word there is.........................................races.  Not classes.  Races.  Comparing halflings to a class is an exercise in failure, because it's a completely worthless comparison.  Once you bring classes into the mix, you have to compare halflings of that class to other races of that class.




Why? Do halfling PC's not have classes? No wonder people say that they unremarkable. 






Maxperson said:


> Nope! A bad faith DM is one that refuses to narrate the results of an action as RAW and the social contract dictate.  I said nothing about going above and beyond that.
> 
> If a wood elf hides in light obscurement, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows him hiding in light obscurement.  If a dragonborn breathes fire on someone, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows him breathing fire on the enemy. If a half-orc crits an enemy, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows the attack to be more savage than normal. If a halfling gets lucky on a skill check, the DM is obligated to describe the result of that action in a way that shows the halfling to be lucky.
> 
> I'm not saying that the halfling should get something extra, or be treated in a special way. I'm saying the DM is obligated to narrate the results of the halflings actions in accordance with RAW and if the DM refuses, ruining a significant aspect of who the halfling PC is in the process, that DM is acting in bad faith with his refusal to follow RAW.




In other words, you never understood my position and what I was talking about. Which is why I pushed you on it, yet you still seem to not have gotten what I was talking about


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## R_Chance (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Right.  The key word there is.........................................races.  Not classes.  Races.  Comparing halflings to a class is an exercise in failure, because it's a completely worthless comparison.  Once you bring classes into the mix, you have to compare halflings of that class to other races of that class.



Ack! Now you've done it... you dissed race as class. The Basic D&D crowd will descend on this thread with pitchforks and torches!


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## lingual (Jul 15, 2022)

Halflings are that apex where narrative and mechanics mesh perfectly.


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

So should we not look to a race's traits to tell us more about who they are as a people?  This seems to fly in the face of race design.

Way back in AD&D, Elves were given a +1 to use longswords, short swords, and bows.  These are traditional elven weapons.  We were told that all Elves receive training with these weapons at some point.  Thus, this was indicative of Elven culture, where every child was given some combat training, even if they chose a life path that made such training irrelevant, such as being a Cleric or Wizard.

We were told that Elves were almost immune to sleep and charm effects- in 2nd edition, we were told that these were side effects of the dreamlike trance an Elf could enter in lieu of sleep, the Reverie.

Over time, these traits morphed and changed, to fit the mechanics of the edition- in one edition, Elves became totally immune to sleep, but only got a +2 bonus on saves versus charm.  In another, they gain advantage on saves vs. sleep and charm due to their "Fey Ancestry".

So we see the existence of some traits remains constant, even if their expression and explanation can change.

Now let's look to Halflings.  The original Halflings weren't lucky, but instead were plucky.  They seemed rather ordinary, but the race produced the occasional scamp and rogue.  They were naturally very good at thieving pursuits, despite the fact their race didn't really have thieves in their own culture.

They were resistant to magic and had fairly fantastic thieving bonuses overall.

It was 3rd edition that gave us the concept of Halflings who were resistant to fear and slightly luckier than other races- the fear resistance surely doesn't come from Tolkien.  Hobbits could be frightful or brave, just like anyone else.  For every Samwise Gamgee, there was some country bumpkin who was terrified of fireworks.

Lucky was similarly up to debate from the source material- if you read The Hobbit, Bilbo sure seems lucky, finding a magic ring and escaping misadventure after misadventure.  But once you find out what The One Ring is, well, not so lucky now?

3e Halflings, and their descendants, the 4e Halflings, were a redesign of the race.  And yes, they were a little fear resistance (perhaps having acquired this trait from the Kender), and they were a wee bit luckier than other folk, having a small bonus to all saving throws (which later turned into the 4e Halfling's ability to force rerolls).

And they were stealthier, partly due to their size, but also in that they were more agile than Gnomes, and had a +2 on Climb, Jump, and Move Silently checks.

5e attempts to bring some sort of parity here, by creating a "greatest hits" Halfling that is also definitely not-Tolkienish.  The art shows them as being very different, and they retain some of the abilities of their 3e kin (if being far less handsome than the balloon-headed monstrosities in the PHB).

So they retain some resistance to magical fear (the primary source of the frightened condition, though there are exceptions, like Battlemasters)- perhaps we could better say they are resistant to extraordinary fear.

They lost a big chunk of their ability to hide since the 5e team decided that Small size didn't need to grant a bonus (outside of theoretically giving you more options for things to hide behind), but to point at their stealthiness, there was at least one subrace that got a minor stealth benefit.

They kept their ability to reroll dice, but it was much more limited now, only protecting them from the worst of failures.  5% of the time you trigger some kind of pseudo-advantage.  Not great, but it's still something no other race can do, a unique little ribbon ability all their own.

We can look at these traits and suppose that they point to something about the nature of Halflings in the narrative, despite the fact that their impact is low on many games.

But again, most of the PHB race design is ultra conservative.  Dwarves can wear armor they are not strong enough to wear without penalty- but how often is someone going to put heavier armor on a weak Dwarf?  They maintain some sort of preference for certain weapons, and some resistance to poison, but some things are lost as well- we have no traits that point at their greed, their undying hatred of foes, or their ability to hold grudges (all things that no doubt the design team felt were negatives).

So if you want to argue that Halflings no longer have a place because their traits are weak, and non-indicative of personality or heritage, I could point to several other races guilty of the same problem.

The answer isn't to cut them from the PHB, because people expect them to be there, the answer is to rewrite these traits to have relevance to what it means to *be *a Halfling.  Or any other race that is similarly lacking.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Also, I just read the comic you posted that screenshot from (issue 0). That was pure writer's fiat there, not a thing to do with any sort of mechanics. As evidence by a black dragon's breath weapon getting blocked by a single shield and then the dragon getting killed by a single blow to the head. I don't think is how breath weapons worked in 4e, and one rock shouldn't be enough damage to take down a dragon, as I already said.



On a point of information here in 4e shields gave you a +2 to your reflex defence as well as AC - and the black dragon's breath weapon was an attack vs reflex. So yes you could block its attack on you by putting your shield in the way (which I find entirely appropriate). But one shotting a dragon didn't happen.


Faolyn said:


> A D&D-based comic, novel, or show is based on the game's worlds, not on their mechanics.



And Fell's Five very much was. It was an excellent D&D series that ended too soon.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Is 45% nonsense? Every number on a d20 is a 5% chance. You succeed on a death saving throw when you roll a 10 or higher. Therefore to fail a death saving throw, you need to roll a 9 or lower. 9 x 5 = 45%



Correct.


Chaosmancer said:


> But, it gets more nonsensical. See, Halflings ALSO fail on a 9 or lower, now I may have reversed my math the last time, but calculating luck is pretty easy. See, it only activates when you roll a 1. That's 5% of the time. Then, you multiply that by the chance of success. I reversed it last time and multiplied by the chance of failure, so 47.25% isn't accurate. Instead, it is 5*55%= 2.75% you then subtract this from the original chance of failure so, it is actually 42.25%! . So, a human succeeds 55% if the time, and the Halfling succeeds 57.75% of the time.



This is why a flat bonus works better, in that the odds of Luck turning a fail into a success would be the same regardless of what the DC is. 

When rerolling only natural '1's, if the Hobbit fails on a roll of 2 or less the odds of success increase by nearly half as half the failures are rerolled; while if the Hobbit fails on a roll of 17 or less only a very small minority of the failures are rerolled and even then with a poor chance of success.

Turn Luck into a flat +4 or +5 bonus on the roll and this wonky math goes away.  Luck would then mean a Hobbit could never crit-fail a death save, for example.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why does no one seem to understand that feeling fear and being shaken by fear doesn't make you a coward?



In reality this might be true, but for game mechanics purposes mechanical 'Fear' effects IMO _should_ make you a coward; either barely able to fight on (translates as big minuses on to-hit rolls and commensurately higher chance of fumbling), frozen in fear and unable to fight on, or (my favourite) fleeing screaming in terror heedless of all other hazards.


Chaosmancer said:


> How is this a hard concept? I've literally taught it to 7 year olds in picture books about monsters under the bed. But somehow, this idea that halflings are brave because they can succeed on a save just refuses to bend to the actual definition of bravery.



Like many other terms, "brave" in gamespeak doesn't necessarily directly map to "brave" in common usage.


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## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> What issue, though? What is the actual issue, and is it a general issue or a “some players that *overthink their hobbies *as a secondary hobby don’t prefer the way this thing is” issue?
> 
> (To be clear, the above description is being applied to everyone here, not to people I disagree with or anything like that. We come here to *overthink our hobbies *as a hobby. That is what this place is. All hobbies have such places.)



Except in this thread we're overthinking our hobbits...


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is your personal bias talking. A lot of people care about them, they're doing OK in popularity polls. And what's craziest about this is that you'd want to remove _both _halflings and gnomes. Like sure, they're similar so I'd understand removing one, but removing both would be like removing elves and half-elves.
> 
> When choosing a selection of "basic races" in PHB, they should aim for set in which most people can find _something _they like, so I would see an argument for removing _either _halflings or gnomes (as people who like one are likely be pretty OK with playing the other in a pinch) for something like warforged or tabaxi, but removing both would be removing an entire broad archetype and that's a bad move.



No, it really isn't.  I'm using the numbers that everyone is looking at.  1 in 20 characters.  That means that 95% of characters made AREN'T halflings.  If I was going to get rid of both and not replace them, sure, I'd agree with you.  But, I have repeatedly stated that I would replace them with stuff that fills a similar niche - an anthropomorphic race with small size fits the bill pretty well.  And Warforged certainly cover the gnome techno niche.  Note, the "tabaxi" thing I never said.  That was someone else.  

But, by the same token, if elves and half-elves were scraping the bottom of the barrel?  Yup, you bet I would eject them.  Why are we keeping stuff that no one actually plays?  And, yes, less than 5% is no-one.  Especially when the two new races, neither of which is in the SRD, neither of which has any real traction in the history of the game, are both doubling the numbers we see from either gnomes or halflings.  

It's crazy to me to keep trying to make something popular when it has obviously failed to gain any popularity over forty years of the game.  Halflings and gnomes have had their chance.  Let's get some fresh ideas into the game.


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## kt24rpgirl (Jul 15, 2022)

Only feels right to me for a Tolkien game.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I wonder if Ebberron is the setting in less than 5% of tables.  If so, does that mean it's hardly played and we should cut it? (I could swear I read something like less than 5% is cuttable...).



I'm sorry.  Is Eberron in the core books?  Is it appearing in EVERY SINGLE setting and supplement for 5e?  No?  Then, well, that's not really my argument then is it?


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## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Heh, actually I did. The 5e Players handbook has halflings be shorter than I remembered, from 2' 9" to about 3' 3".



Yeah, that goes back all the way to 1e and IMO it's a mistake.  Hobbits should be more in the 3'3" to 3'9" range* with Gnomes in the 2'6" to 3' range.  1e - and every edition since - mixed them up.

* - which is vaguely where they are as depicted in the LotR movies.


Yaarel said:


> Notably, the highest human height is about 6' 4", which seems short for an upper limit. Likewise, the lower limit of 4' 10" is too tall, and implies that reallife pygmy ethnicities who can be much shorter are not "humans". Humanity includes its rarer members. The rules need to reflect this, and now do, when a player can choose whatever bodytype one wants for ones character.



The other option (and how I do it) is to allow a narrow-ish chooseable range for height and force a roll for anything more exotic.  You wanna play a Human the size of Shaq?  Get out yer dice and hope for the best...but be aware you're bound to your roll whatever it gives you.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 15, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> then why are they one of the big common races if they are meant to be bit parts?



"Common races?" You mean "listed out of alphabetical order in the PHB"? That's so not going to be a thing in the next edition of the PHB. It's just going to be _Lineages - here are some examples and rules for inventing your ow_n.


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## Hussar (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> _Not _including sub-races, there are 50 or so official races. There are countless 3pp and homebrew races.
> 
> If halflings and/or gnomes appear in a quarter of all tables, that's an _amazingly high number._



No, it really isn't.  It's a spectacularly failed number considering that halflings are one of the 4 FREE races in the SRD.  When tieflings and dragonborn both outperform them by a fairly large margin, that's pretty clear that no one is the right description.


Faolyn said:


> Secondly, how much space is actually spent in those supplements "throwing them a bone" that you desperately need to reclaim? And if nobody cares about these supplements, then why do you care that there are halflings or gnomes in them?



Sorry, you misread what I said.  The bones that are in the supplements are the things that no one actually cares about.  It's the "halfling villages" that are found around Saltmarsh - zero detail, not even shown on the map.  Just a single line buried in a random table.  That's the kind of bone that no one actually cares about.  The supplements are obviously very popular.  Sorry, I was unclear there.



Faolyn said:


> Halflings have two different dragonmarks _and _a bunch of dino-riders _and _organized crime. Warforged don't actually have all that much going on for them in the wider world. They're _cooler_ than most other races, because they're robots, but unless the DM is going to run a warforged-rights campaign, they're not actually all that _important_. Eberron halflings actually have an impact on the world around them.
> 
> 
> I think the same could be said about Spelljammer, and that's getting an update very soon.



But, Birthright isn't.  When it does, THEN you have a point.  But, there hasn't been so much as a whisper about Birthright, like, ever.  So, I'm not really sure why you're bringing it up.  Personally, I'm not all that wedded to war forged anyway, so, pick a different option.  My point is, let's drop the bottom of the list races and try something new instead of retreading the same boring old crap over and over again that no one actually plays.


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## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Hussar said:


> I'm sorry.  Is Eberron in the core books?  Is it appearing in EVERY SINGLE setting and supplement for 5e?



It would be if you got your wish and Halflings were replaced with Warforged; as Warforged are very much an Eberron-only thing....


----------



## Hussar (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm not suggesting removing anything.
> 
> To me the idea race line up for a D&D PHB is
> 
> ...



I could live with this list, except I'd drop the halfling and gnome off of it and put them in with the other "off brand" playable race stats either in a section of the Monster Manual or the DMG.  Take your pick.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Hussar said:


> No, it really isn't.  It's a spectacularly failed number considering that halflings are one of the 4 FREE races in the SRD.



Which would be relevant were most tables only using the SRD as their source material.  The sales figures of the core books would suggest this is not the case. 


Hussar said:


> But, Birthright isn't.  When it does, THEN you have a point.  But, there hasn't been so much as a whisper about Birthright, like, ever.



Which seems odd, given that every time they do a setting survey Birthright seems to get a fair bit of support.


Hussar said:


> So, I'm not really sure why you're bringing it up.  Personally, I'm not all that wedded to war forged anyway, so, pick a different option.  My point is, let's drop the bottom of the list races and try something new instead of retreading the same boring old crap over and over again that no one actually plays.



4.7% of all characters being Halflings isn't exactly no-one.

I completely agree with dropping some species off the PC-playable list - there's a few dozen too many as it stands right now - but Halflings (as Hobbits) would survive that process were I in charge.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 15, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Which would be relevant were most tables only using the SRD as their source material.  The sales figures of the core books would suggest this is not the case.
> 
> Which seems odd, given that every time they do a setting survey Birthright seems to get a fair bit of support.
> 
> ...



your right on the first one.

every setting gets some support do we have the figures to tell if it even matters?

why should halfing get to be a phb small race? goblins are more popular, kobolds have something going on, halflings are more likely to function on pure luck mechanics and the fact they are in the phb, take them out the book drop them in supplements and remove the busted luck stuff and they would drop like a stone in the number of players as they are pure mechanical gimmick.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Moreover, there are prehistoric humans who are the same average size as halflings.



Yes, Homo Floresiensis are colloquially often called "Hobbits."

I'm sure if fantasy world had evolution, genetics and related taxonomy, halflings, dwarves, goliaths, and probably elves orcs and many others would be part of genus Homo, and thus technically humans. But the game is written by Homo Sapiens for Homo Sapiens, living in a world where there are no other species of Homo, and the world "human" is usually used to refer to Homo Sapiens. So I'm not sure that this is really a problem...


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 15, 2022)

Hussar said:


> No, it really isn't.  I'm using the numbers that everyone is looking at.  1 in 20 characters.  That means that 95% of characters made AREN'T halflings.



So what? 95% of characters aren't of any one race! Fiveish percent is decent for non-human, non-elf species. Dwarves are around that too. 



Hussar said:


> If I was going to get rid of both and not replace them, sure, I'd agree with you.  But, I have repeatedly stated that I would replace them with stuff that fills a similar niche - an anthropomorphic race with small size fits the bill pretty well.  And Warforged certainly cover the gnome techno niche.



Those are not similar niches! Kobolds are not acceptable halfling replacements, and warforged most definitely are not acceptable gnome replacements!



Hussar said:


> But, by the same token, if elves and half-elves were scraping the bottom of the barrel?  Yup, you bet I would eject them.



But if say 4% played each it would actually be 8% that want to play elfy things. How the species are divided is pretty much arbitrary, so you can't just stare the popularity of each variant in isolation. In newer books they seem to be doing away with subraces, so we have things like Astral Elves (or something) so in future where elves are further subdivided your logic would indeed lead to eliminating them all! 



Hussar said:


> Why are we keeping stuff that no one actually plays?  And, yes, less than 5% is no-one.



In a game with over forty species it is not. 



Hussar said:


> It's crazy to me to keep trying to make something popular when it has obviously failed to gain any popularity over forty years of the game.  Halflings and gnomes have had their chance.  Let's get some fresh ideas into the game.




It is crazy to me have a bizarre vendetta against imaginary little people and twist statistics concoct arbitrary mathematical requirements to justify getting rid of them.


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## Cadence (Jul 15, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Heh, actually I did. The 5e Players handbook has halflings be shorter than I remembered, from 2' 9" to about 3' 3". Notably, the highest human height is about 6' 4", which seems short for an upper limit. Likewise, the lower limit of 4' 10" is too tall, and implies that reallife pygmy ethnicities who can be much shorter are not "humans". Humanity includes its rarer members. The rules need to reflect this, and now do, when a player can choose whatever bodytype one wants for ones character.




The highest human height in the table is 6'4".  That's the table with only 19 different human heights in it that is explicitly designed to give the players something to use if they don't want to just pick their height.  It doesn't say that that's the range they actually take - which seems clear from the description of humans where it says they can be "well over 6' tall".   (It should certainly be criticized for not using similar language on the other end of the distribution where the "barely 5'" is clearly exclusionary).

One website gives the the 5th percentile of heights for women in the US/Europe from 1998-2003 as 4'11" and the 95th percentile for men as 6'2", for example.  A random table containing only 19 values that spreads out to just past the 5th and 95th percentiles doesn't feel that far off.  It would be better to use a table catching the rest of the world population - but a group comprising 0.00625% of the worlds population at one tail of the height distribution, for example, won't appear at all unless one uses a much finer grain.

If the complaint is that it misses some of humanity with descriptors that would be statistical extrema, then does the given range need to go from 21.5in (54.6cm) a to 8' 11" (2.7m) and 4.7lb (2.13kg) up to 1,400 lbs (635kg).   If the goal is to describe the entire range of humanity (which we certainly should allow the players to partake in!!), should the given descriptions and random tables mention that humanity certainly includes those with tails (at least 40 cases), conjoined twins (1 in 200k), those with ovotestes (1 in 20k), and those with polydactyly (1 in 1k), etc...   Where are you drawing your line as to which parts of human variability should be included and excluded from the default descriptions?  How many pages do we get for describing humans?

If the complaint is that overlapping distributions make things the same species, then I assume hill and stone giants are human as well, with fire, ice, cloud, and storm ones being genasi or something if we find some other group in the middle in some setting?


----------



## Oofta (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> "Common races?" You mean "listed out of alphabetical order in the PHB"? That's so not going to be a thing in the next edition of the PHB. It's just going to be _Lineages - here are some examples and rules for inventing your ow_n.




Maybe you missed the sidebar in the PHB (or I'm missing something).

*UNCOMMON RACES*​The dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don’t exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans.​


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 15, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Maybe you missed the sidebar in the PHB (or I'm missing something).
> 
> *UNCOMMON RACES*​The dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don’t exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans.​



That's the _old_ PHB. It won't be in the 2024 version.

(Not that anyone pays attention to that stuff anyway, player characters are inherently uncommon.)


----------



## Cadence (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> That's the _old_ PHB. It won't be in the 2024 version.
> 
> (Not that anyone pays attention to that stuff anyway, player characters are inherently uncommon.)




"Old" is the strangest spelling for current I've ever seen 

The ability for DMs to toggle certain races/classes/pantheons on and off and produce a reformatted, arranged, indexed PDF rulebook to go with their campaign would be the dream.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 15, 2022)

Cadence said:


> current



What's this thread about then? Building a time machine to go back in time to remove halflings from the "current" PHB?

In theory, the Monster Manual is "current" too, but the stat blocks in it are no longer consistent with WotC standard.


----------



## Oofta (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> That's the _old_ PHB. It won't be in the 2024 version.
> 
> (Not that anyone pays attention to that stuff anyway, player characters are inherently uncommon.)



So now you're clairvoyant and know what will be in the PHB?


----------



## Oofta (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> What's this thread about then? Building a time machine to go back in time to remove halflings from the "current" PHB?
> 
> In theory, the Monster Manual is "current" too, but the stat blocks in it are no longer consistent with WotC standard.



They've changed the format a bit.  Whether all monsters follow MotM from now on probably depends on feedback they receive.


----------



## Vaalingrade (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> What's this thread about then?



The ongoing grudge some have to bear against halflings?


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 15, 2022)

Oofta said:


> So now you're clairvoyant and know what will be in the PHB?



I's easy enough to see which way the wind is blowing. As WotC tries to be more representative of more cultures (and thus appeal to a larger audience worldwide) it makes no sense to give special status to a select Western Tolkienesque group of races (elf, dwarf, halfling). Such things are a matter for individual settings, not setting-neutral core rules.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 15, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> The ongoing grudge some have to bear against halflings?



A halfling stole my Birthday present!


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## Azzy (Jul 15, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And, yes, less than 5% is no-one.



4.7% of how many million? That's not no-one.


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> A halfling stole my Birthday present!



Was it a shiny gold ring, by chance?


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Because human paladins _also _have an ability to resist the frightened condition. That doesn't make halflings less special, because all halflings can resist being frightened and only the very, very few humans who become 10th-level paladins get the same ability.



Lol right!? Like…um, so, the average halfling farmer is just as naturally as resistant to being scared to the point of changed behavior as a holy knight so powerful they can perform miracles and fight things the farmer would be immediately squished by. That’s _incredible. _


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## lingual (Jul 15, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> What's this thread about then? Building a time machine to go back in time to remove halflings from the "current" PHB?
> 
> In theory, the Monster Manual is "current" too, but the stat blocks in it are no longer consistent with WotC standard.



Still around 2500 posts more of this to come.  But yeah.  Basically about an errata to cut out some pages from the Players Handbook.  And then take those pages and glue them to the Monster Manual.  Something like that.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Azzy said:


> 4.7% of how many million? That's not no-one.



Yeah, suggesting that just under 5% is “no one” is completely bonkers. Assuming that percentage applies to the entire player base, that’s 2.35 _million people._ That’s a lot of people.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 15, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yeah, suggesting that just under 5% is “no one” is completely bonkers. Assuming that percentage applies to the entire player base, that’s 2.35 _million people._ That’s a lot of people.



Might explain why they feel halfling luck is basically irrelevant: “you only roll a 1 5% of the time! That’s basically never!”


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 15, 2022)

Humans get a natural penalty to math, so it's not their fault, it's the designer.


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 15, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Lol right!? Like…um, so, the average halfling farmer is just as naturally as resistant to being scared to the point of changed behavior as a holy knight so powerful they can perform miracles and fight things the farmer would be immediately squished by. That’s _incredible. _



Paladins are flat out immune, to be fair.


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 15, 2022)

I think Halflings could definitely use a buff, I've been thinking of making them get a 20 whenever they roll a 1, but I'd prefer most races to have more of an impact anyway.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 15, 2022)

I let my _nir _halflings affect other people's luck. Once per encounter, they can say 'oh, you thought you rolled this? It's actually this'. They change the number on the die, but don't trigger crits.


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## Cadence (Jul 15, 2022)

Could just make every other race unlucky.  Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20.  If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.


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## Oofta (Jul 15, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Could just make every other race unlucky.  Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20.  If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.



I once cursed a PC with luck. They rerolled 1s, got extra benefits on 20s.  Problem is, they were lucky because they were stealing everyone else's luck.  So when everyone else rolled a 1, something bad happened while 20s no longer benefitted.

When it started to escalate,  the curse got removed quickly.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The issue of having too many races occupying the same niche? The thing I was talking about?



Read it again. I didn’t just ask what the issue is, that part is rhetorical. I primarily asked whether it’s a general issue that actually needs wotc to do anything at all, or just a thing you personally dislike. 

Far as I can tell, it does not matter on any level whether halflings and gnomes fill the same niche. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, good for you? I've been struggling with whether I can get away with having all of them under the same header with the different mechanics, or if I need to blend some of the mechanics between them
> 
> I've been struggling with whether to make it solely mammalian, mammalian and avian, or mammalian, avian and reptilian.
> 
> ...



Seriously? They’re all felines. They’re like the thunder cats. They are already basically the same as the many kinds of elves. 

As for the rest…they’re all beast folk. mechanically, either way that you’ve mentioned would work fine.  


Chaosmancer said:


> I'm glad you can't fathom how this might be difficult, but I'm putting quite a bit of thought into whenever I return to the idea. I don't think I want to just flatten it and remove all the unique lore and mechanics, but I don't want to make it a confused mess either.



I mean this with respect, but it seems like you are choosing difficulty, or just having difficulty choosing. You’ve mentioned at least 2 solid approaches. The first (umbrella, no shared mechanics) is obviously easier, but you could give them all a ribbon related to communicated with beasts related to thier beast type, and a version of keen senses, to give them all some unifying mechanic. 


Chaosmancer said:


> But you aren't even addressing my point, so the rest of your position doesn't apply.



Yes, I did. 


Chaosmancer said:


> You know, I even explained it, again, in the mulitple paragraphs below this statement. Yes, halflings have a trait that make them less likely to be frightened than other races.
> 
> Is getting frightened mean that you are not brave? If you are scared, does that mean you cannot possibly be brave? Is bravery only defined by a lack of fear?
> 
> No.



No one is claiming any of that. The trait doesn’t claim any of that. It isn’t implied about the world by anything in any D&D book. It’s entirely an idea that you have invented for the purpose of an argument. 

Halflings are especially brave because they are described as such. Narrative description is the primary means by which races are clarified and distinguished. 
They then have a trait that makes them mechanically have an easier time not being made so afraid that they can’t function properly. It is completely absurd to claim that that doesn’t make them brave. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Right here you say it. Bravery is "fighting through fear". Every adventurer does this. Even the ones that don't have a trait that makes it easier to ignore fear.
> 
> Saying a halfling having advantage makes them braver than the other characters doesn't make any narrative sense. That isn't what bravery is.



Yes it is, though! Lol come on! 

Halflings have an easier time fighting through fear. Because they’re braver than other races. Bravery isn’t binary, some people are more brave than other people who are also brave.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, so a misunderstanding of what cowering is. Cowering is "crouching down in fear." Covering yourself with your hands, hiding, that sort of thing. Quaking and not being able to step forward isn't cowering.
> 
> I also just love the insult of putting brave in quotation marks. Doesn't matter that he is still fighting despite his fear, doesn't matter that he isn't running, because they aren't running away because of the fear, since they can't move forward, they are "not brave enough".
> 
> And this is exactly the problem. By defining bravery as beating the frightened condition, you have warped what it means to be brave. And personally, I reject that model of bravery that says a person who is temporarily overcome by fear cannot be brave.



No.  When you are brave, you advance and do what needs to be done despite being afraid.  A frightened individual in D&D literally cannot do that. I can find no definition of bravery that involves falling victim to fear to such a great degree that you literally cannot move forward towards it at all.  So yes, "brave."


Chaosmancer said:


> No, because once again, I'm talking about the narrative when the halfling isn't taking actions. So, unless RAW has something to say about narrating non-actions, you are missing the point again.



So you're inventing things and ignoring the fact that there is literally nothing that a halfling can re-roll with the luck ability that doesn't involve an action of some sort on the part of the halfling.  And before you say, "But actions are only in combat," they aren't.  There are actions in D&D like, "I climb the wall" or "I resist the vampire's gaze," and then there are Actions in combat like, "I take the attack action."  All of those are actions in D&D that by RAW get narrated in the fiction as luck if the luck re-reroll is successful.


Chaosmancer said:


> And you are missing the point. Because, as I've said, UNLESS THEY ROLL A ONE there is nothing lucky to narrate. And if they roll a one and fail anyways? There is nothing lucky to narrate.



So what.  They don't have to be lucky on more rolls than that in order to be lucky.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, if the halfling is supposed to feel lucky ALL THE TIME then the DM will have to narrate luck EVEN WHEN THE HALFLING DOESN'T ACT.



They aren't supposed to feel or be lucky "ALL THE TIME."  We know that from the lore.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why? Do halfling PC's not have classes? No wonder people say that they unremarkable.



Why when comparing a lucky race to other races do we compare races and not classes? 


Chaosmancer said:


> In other words, you never understood my position and what I was talking about. Which is why I pushed you on it, yet you still seem to not have gotten what I was talking about



Your position doesn't matter to what I just said, though.  You've claimed that halflings are not luckier than other races.  I've proven that to be objectively wrong. You've claimed that they aren't braver than other races.  I've also proven that to be objectively wrong.  You've claimed that halfling luck doesn't appear in the fiction.  I've shown that to be untrue unless the DM is acting in bad faith.

1. halflings as a race are objectively luckier than other races as evidenced by their luck re-roll.  Your lucky friend who never used it is not a counter example, as one halfling is not the race.
2. RAW requires the DM to narrate successful luck re-rolls as being lucky in the fiction.  Failing to do so is a violation of both RAW and the social contract, as the social contract requires the DM not to go out of his way to screw over character concepts.  It's an act of bad faith.
3. The brave ability makes halfling PCs braver than non-halflings, because they will fail fewer saves that impose the frightened condition.  Other PCs can be brave.  Halflings get all of that PLUS more saves.  They are objectively braver as a PC race than the other PC races.
4. Class is irrelevant, since whatever class another PC is, halflings can also be that class and get all the same bonuses provided, making race the determiner as to which race is braver.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

R_Chance said:


> Ack! Now you've done it... you dissed race as class. The Basic D&D crowd will descend on this thread with pitchforks and torches!


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Could just make every other race unlucky.  Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20.  If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.



1 in 2000 chance of lighning or meteor strike  . That environment would be harsh.

Halflings would either avoid everyone else like the plague to avoid collateral damage, or they'd be worshipped like gods as roving luck totems, preventing calamity by there merest presence.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In reality this might be true, but for game mechanics purposes mechanical 'Fear' effects IMO _should_ make you a coward; either barely able to fight on (translates as big minuses on to-hit rolls and commensurately higher chance of fumbling), frozen in fear and unable to fight on, or (my favourite) fleeing screaming in terror heedless of all other hazards.
> 
> Like many other terms, "brave" in gamespeak doesn't necessarily directly map to "brave" in common usage.




I will agree that the way the term is used in the mechanics doesn't translate to the common usage, that is a big part of the problem. 

I disagree that mechanical fear effects* should* make you a coward, and I will go as far as to say that mechanical fear effects *cannot* make the character a coward. There are far far too many instances of people in real life, who face horrors, who find themselves barely able to function, frozen, or forced to retreat by that horror... who turn around and face it again. 

I have never once seen a Player character who was not forced to fall back due to fear, doing so. They always choose to keep fighting. I have never seen a player character, whose character was forced to flee because of a fear effect, not turn around and re-enter the fight after that effect was over. 

If we translate those actions from the mechanics to the narrative... we would call those people Brave. Just as we call many, many people in real-life brave for the same thing. And the halflings supposed narrative in this respect constantly forces people to make a decision. To maintain the halfling story of being "especially brave" everyone else needs to stop being brave, which I disagree with.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> The ongoing grudge some have to bear against halflings?




You know, I'm aware that Hussar's proposal is very extreme, and out of line with what most people want. I get that. 

But this constant drum beating that everyone who isn't worshiping halflings as some perfect race means they hold a grudge  makes it hard to have an actual conversation of the issues people have with them. Some of us don't have a grudge, some of us aren't trying to remove them from the game, some of us are just trying to talk about the problems we've run into with this race. 

So, can you stop? This is already hair-tearingly frustrating enough without you lending to the narrative that all of us with concerns and discussion points are somehow holding a grudge against halflings.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

lingual said:


> Still around 2500 posts more of this to come.  But yeah.  Basically about an errata to cut out some pages from the Players Handbook.  And then take those pages and glue them to the Monster Manual.  Something like that.




Literally one person. One person in this thread is making that proposal. Maybe two, I don't remember if Minigiant is making it this time or not. So maybe you have two people. 

Me? I'm not making that claim. That is not my goal. So, can you not paint with such a broad brush? It makes it hard to actually get any meaningful conversation done.


----------



## lingual (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I will agree that the way the term is used in the mechanics doesn't translate to the common usage, that is a big part of the problem.
> 
> I disagree that mechanical fear effects* should* make you a coward, and I will go as far as to say that mechanical fear effects *cannot* make the character a coward. There are far far too many instances of people in real life, who face horrors, who find themselves barely able to function, frozen, or forced to retreat by that horror... who turn around and face it again.
> 
> ...



I wouldn't get too much into the philosophical meaning of fear, bravery, etc.

The game has a condition that makes people scared.  Halflings get some resistance against that.  They don't get all jittery when scared.   If some game calls that "bravery" - I'm not gonna quibble about it.   DMs, players, etc. are free to call it something else.  No one's gonna enforce the name of the mechanic.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know, I'm aware that Hussar's proposal is very extreme, and out of line with what most people want. I get that.
> 
> But this constant drum beating that everyone who isn't worshiping halflings as some perfect race means they hold a grudge  makes it hard to have an actual conversation of the issues people have with them. Some of us don't have a grudge, some of us aren't trying to remove them from the game, some of us are just trying to talk about the problems we've run into with this race.




What posts show them being worshipped as a perfect race... or is that hyperbole?

It feels like some of the objections arise when the standards cited list criteria that seem only to be applied in some places and not others.  :::shrugs:::


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> They were magical in Middle Earth, too.  They could walk silently though areas bigger folks couldn't, and disappear into hiding with an extraordinary ease.  Further, they were resistant to the powers of darkness in a way that no human was.  That was how Bilbo and Frodo could use the ring for so long before they finally started falling victim to it.



The WotC legal department requires me to remind you that those were hobbits, which are different and legally distinct from halflings.


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## bedir than (Jul 15, 2022)

There's a rather simple reason Halfling won't be replaced

The most popular fantasy stories of all time feature them as heroes.
For all the love people here give CR it is two orders of magnitude less significant than Tolkien. There's a new series coming out this fall and next year. It is expected to be more popular than Wheel of Time, currently the most watched fantasy show of the modern era 

Eliminating the ability to tell similar stories from the most popular fantasy game would be an immense marketing failure


----------



## Umbran (Jul 15, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> The ongoing grudge some have to bear against halflings?




*Mod Note:*
It is unclear what constructive result you wanted to get from this comment.  If you wanted a destructive result... well, that's when you get red text, now isn't it?

If you think the discussion doesn't come from a valid basis, by all means, recuse yourself from it.  Don't worry, the rest of these folks can get along without your input.


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> The WotC legal department requires me to remind you that those were hobbits, which are different and legally distinct from halflings.



The Tolkien family would like me to remind you that Tolkien sometimes referred to hobbits as halflings in the books.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Read it again. I didn’t just ask what the issue is, that part is rhetorical. I primarily asked whether it’s a general issue that actually needs wotc to do anything at all, or just a thing you personally dislike.
> 
> Far as I can tell, it does not matter on any level whether halflings and gnomes fill the same niche.




Maybe you need to go and read again, because you clearly have no idea what the conversation was about. 

Charlaquin was asking "why is this a thing, why do people act like this" and I tried to explain it. In the course of that, I used an example of a race concept I am trying to work on, and that partially has the issue I was talking about. 

So... no, I don't expect WotC to do anything about my homebrew race I'm trying to make. Then it wouldn't be homebrew. 

If you are asking "is overdesigning multiple races into the same niche a concern WotC should have" ummm.... yes? It seems like a design problem is something the design team should be aware of and consider. Whether they consider they haven't run into an issue yet or not is up to them. But, personally, I would note that there are quite a few races that have effectively died on the vine, because they are either too specific to a setting, or redundant with other options. For Example, Feral Tieflings and Hellfire Tieflings. No one uses them, no one thinks about them, because the Archedevil variants have completely overtaken them and given people what they wanted with the Tieflings. 

Are gnomes and halflings filling the same niche to a level it is a problem? Probably not. 

Are gnomes, halflings, goblins, Kobolds, fairies, Aasimar, Changelings, Dhampir, Genasi, Harengon, Hexblood, Kenku, Owling, Reborn, Tabaxi, Tortle and Yuan-Ti are starting to crowd into a single niche starting to become a problem? That's more likely, isn't it.  




doctorbadwolf said:


> Seriously? They’re all felines. They’re like the thunder cats. They are already basically the same as the many kinds of elves.
> 
> As for the rest…they’re all beast folk. mechanically, either way that you’ve mentioned would work fine.




Right, because obviously my concerns are purely mechanical, and can therefore be dismissed.



doctorbadwolf said:


> I mean this with respect, but it seems like you are choosing difficulty, or just having difficulty choosing. You’ve mentioned at least 2 solid approaches. The first (umbrella, no shared mechanics) is obviously easier, but you could give them all a ribbon related to communicated with beasts related to thier beast type, and a version of keen senses, to give them all some unifying mechanic.




Yeah, almost like deciding which way to go is difficult. Kind of like it is easy to look at someone else saying "I'm struggling with this" and saying "I don't see why, this is easy"  without anyone asking for their opinion.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes, I did.
> 
> No one is claiming any of that. The trait doesn’t claim any of that. It isn’t implied about the world by anything in any D&D book. It’s entirely an idea that you have invented for the purpose of an argument.
> 
> ...




So, do you have Maxperson blocked? He responded that my non-halfling (to use his formating) "Brave" adventurer would spend more time (to quote) Cowering and running away in fear than the halflings, so the halfling is braver, because they will make those saves. 

So, yes, it seems someone is making those claims. 

Now, was he making those claims before I pointed out the problem? No, I wasn't talking to him when I laid out the problem. Because it is a problem I've seen and talked to people about before trying to bring it up in this forum. And instead of discussing the narrative, everyone just keeps pointing to the trait and trying to explain to me how mechanics work. 

And the thing is, you keep making the same assumption time and time again. You keep assuming that succeeding the check is because of bravery. You keep making bravery a binary state. Are you frightened or not? But, as we all know, being frightened does not prevent you from being brave. I keep repeating this, but everyone keeps just saying " but the trait is called bravery and it allows brave halflings to fight through and not be affected by fear because they are brave" But not suffering from fear IS NOT BRAVERY. 

You know who else isn't afraid? Frenzy Barbarian while they are raging. They charge, screaming blood and froth and are so blinded by fury they cannot be afraid. Are they brave? Is being enraged to the point of seeing red a sign of bravery? 

Real life, you know who else isn't affected by fear? People drunk or high. They get enough drugs in them, and they aren't affected by fear either. Is that bravery? 

No. Because "not affected by fear" =/= Bravery. That isn't what the term means, that isn't why we use it, that isn't the concept. But because they keep using that narrative and tying it to this mechanic... that's the message people are getting. The bravery = "not being affected by fear" and that is a problem in my opinion, because it ignores what bravery actually is.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, do you have Maxperson blocked? He responded that my non-halfling (to use his formating) "Brave" adventurer would spend more time (to quote) Cowering and running away in fear than the halflings, so the halfling is braver, because they will make those saves.



I didn't say running away.  I said not advancing on the danger.  Your "brave" PC is literally too scared to go up to the danger and confront his fear.  He's staying back shaking too hard to even attack straight(disadvantage).

I've also said that bravery is often confronting your fear and advancing to do what needs to be done anyway.  PCs can be afraid and show bravery.  That's represented through roleplay when the PC and/or player is afraid of a given monster, but stays to fight anyway. It's not represented by failing a save, being frightened, and then attacking mostly ineffectually from far away.  You're describing the guy in the movie who is so terrified that he throws something at the slasher or monster without looking and misses badly, or occasionally gets lucky and hits.  That's not brave.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> No.  When you are brave, you advance and do what needs to be done despite being afraid.  A frightened individual in D&D literally cannot do that. I can find no definition of bravery that involves falling victim to fear to such a great degree that you literally cannot move forward towards it at all.  So yes, "brave."




So, six seconds of being frozen in terror, and you are no longer brave. Or maybe twelve seconds. 

I disagree, full throatedly and without reservation. You simply don't understand what bravery is, if you think a bare few seconds of terror can remove it from a person.



Maxperson said:


> So you're inventing things and ignoring the fact that there is literally nothing that a halfling can re-roll with the luck ability that doesn't involve an action of some sort on the part of the halfling.  And before you say, "But actions are only in combat," they aren't.  There are actions in D&D like, "I climb the wall" or "I resist the vampire's gaze," and then there are Actions in combat like, "I take the attack action."  All of those are actions in D&D that by RAW get narrated in the fiction as luck if the luck re-reroll is successful.
> 
> So what.  They don't have to be lucky on more rolls than that in order to be lucky.
> 
> They aren't supposed to feel or be lucky "ALL THE TIME."  We know that from the lore.




So now my position that I've held this entire time and been trying to discuss this entire time is "inventing" things and "ignoring" the mechanics. The mechanics that I keep reminding people, are not what I'm trying to talk about. 

So, to reiterate my position again. If a halfling is supposed to be supernaturally lucky, to the point they are depicted in fiction, then they need to be lucky when not acting. Not every second of every day, but an example in the text of the dnd rulebooks is walking down a hill, tripping, and landing on a gold nugget. Now, I don't know about your games Max, but I don't have people roll to walk. I also follow the RAW rules and don't have them roll to climb a wall or a tree or a cliffside. 

Now, maybe for you the 3% of the time you re-roll into a success feels very impactful. But, as I stated, in my experience, the halfling doesn't feel lucky in play, not to the point where their defining trait is their luck. To fix this, and have them feel lucky to the player, every few sessions I would have to take narrative control and force the halfling's luck into the narrative, even when the halfling doesn't roll. Say, for example, there is an ambush and the enemies first arrow misses the halfling because they are in full plate with a shield. With any character I would describe the arrow shattering on their armor, but for the halfling, would I need to make it about the halfling's luck? Because, in traditional literature, not getting shot during an ambush is considered lucky. As is getting shot, and not actually getting hurt, like the bible or silver flask in the chest pocket. So, while a normal character might get downed and then roll a 20 and spring back to their feet in a show of grit and determination, if the halfling does it, was it halfling luck? 

This is what I am talking about. The narrative of "supernaturally lucky" insists on being forced into the world, and if the DM doesn't do that, then the halfling doesn't actually feel lucky. They feel like any other character in the game.



Maxperson said:


> Your position doesn't matter to what I just said, though.  You've claimed that halflings are not luckier than other races.  I've proven that to be objectively wrong. You've claimed that they aren't braver than other races.  I've also proven that to be objectively wrong.  You've claimed that halfling luck doesn't appear in the fiction.  I've shown that to be untrue unless the DM is acting in bad faith.
> 
> 1. halflings as a race are objectively luckier than other races as evidenced by their luck re-roll.  Your lucky friend who never used it is not a counter example, as one halfling is not the race.
> 2. RAW requires the DM to narrate successful luck re-rolls as being lucky in the fiction.  Failing to do so is a violation of both RAW and the social contract, as the social contract requires the DM not to go out of his way to screw over character concepts.  It's an act of bad faith.
> ...




So, you've come in to argue against my position, by first stating my position doesn't matter. 

I had an earlier post, I think with Faolyn, where I said something to the effect of, you are confusing a mechanic existing, to it being meaningful. 

Sure, the halfling is 3% more likely to succeed on something, assuming their die and rolling surface is perfectly balanced and aligned. Of course, if it isn't, then they aren't. That is a true, objective mechanic. It isn't meaningfully impactful. A 3% difference is a literal margin of error. And, actually, yes, if a player who doesn't roll a 1 plays a halfling... they are not lucky enough to have that halfling narrative of being supernaturally lucky. The player's luck overrides your objectively true mechanic, and buries it away where no one is going to notice it. 

Failing the frightend condition does not make you a coward. Succeeding on the frightened condition does not make you brave. The inability of people to understand this boggles me.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

lingual said:


> I wouldn't get too much into the philosophical meaning of fear, bravery, etc.
> 
> The game has a condition that makes people scared.  Halflings get some resistance against that.  They don't get all jittery when scared.   If some game calls that "bravery" - I'm not gonna quibble about it.   DMs, players, etc. are free to call it something else.  No one's gonna enforce the name of the mechanic.




But that is literally what I've been trying to discuss. Because I've seen it have effects on people's games.


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## AnotherGuy (Jul 15, 2022)

The only way a halfling can be considered brave, is if their name is Matt Murdock.
I don't make the rules. If you have an issue with it, take it up with Frank.


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## Cadence (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No. Because "not affected by fear" =/= Bravery. That isn't what the term means, that isn't why we use it, that isn't the concept. But because they keep using that narrative and tying it to this mechanic... that's the message people are getting. The bravery = "not being affected by fear" and that is a problem in my opinion, because it ignores what bravery actually is.




Standing up to fear is at least a part of being brave in the general dictionary definition.

OED under *brave* has:




*Courage* in the OED includes:




-----

In popular usage, the first google response to "bravery vs. fear" just now was:




This looks pretty close to what being able to save against the frightened effect in 5e:


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I didn't say running away.  I said not advancing on the danger.  Your "brave" PC is literally too scared to go up to the danger and confront his fear.  He's staying back shaking too hard to even attack straight(disadvantage).
> 
> I've also said that bravery is often confronting your fear and advancing to do what needs to be done anyway.  PCs can be afraid and show bravery.  That's represented through roleplay when the PC and/or player is afraid of a given monster, but stays to fight anyway. It's not represented by failing a save, being frightened, and then attacking mostly ineffectually from far away.  You're describing the guy in the movie who is so terrified that he throws something at the slasher or monster without looking and misses badly, or occasionally gets lucky and hits.  That's not brave.




You realize this is almost literally describing soldiers who flinch on the battlefield and miss a shot as not being brave, right? Like... you are literally making my point for me about why calling succeeding on these saves bravery is bad for the narrative of the game.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You realize this is almost literally describing soldiers who flinch on the battlefield and miss a shot as not being brave, right? Like... you are literally making my point for me about why calling succeeding on these saves bravery is bad for the narrative of the game.



Or alternatively, that the soldiers with them who do not flinch away from danger and shoot effectively are more brave than the soldier who flinched away.

Almost like there's a range of capability rather than a toggle.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, six seconds of being frozen in terror, and you are no longer brave. Or maybe twelve seconds.



During that time period? No.  Bravery is something that comes and goes.  Nobody is constantly brave, since there's nothing to be constantly brave against.

The soldier that advances under machine fire to save a wounded comrade is brave.  That same soldier later shopping for Cornflakes at the local supermarket is not brave right then.  He's shopping.


Chaosmancer said:


> So now my position that I've held this entire time and been trying to discuss this entire time is "inventing" things and "ignoring" the mechanics. The mechanics that I keep reminding people, are not what I'm trying to talk about.



Your position is apparently tilting at windmills.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, to reiterate my position again. If a halfling is supposed to be supernaturally lucky, to the point they are depicted in fiction, then they need to be lucky when not acting. Not every second of every day, but an example in the text of the dnd rulebooks is walking down a hill, tripping, and landing on a gold nugget. Now, I don't know about your games Max, but I don't have people roll to walk. I also follow the RAW rules and don't have them roll to climb a wall or a tree or a cliffside.



No, they don't need to be lucky when not acting, though I wouldn't be against it if the DM decided to add extras.  He doesn't have to, though.  The feat is sufficient for an individual halfling to be luck in the fiction.

You're reading waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into the lore right up than is actually there.  There's nothing in this paragraph that implies that halfling luck is common place and they go around tripping into nuggets every few feet. It's simply stating that when luck does happen, they credit Yondalla with it.

"To the halflings, Yondalla is responsible for the spring in their step and the bubbly excitement they feel from knowing that luck is on their side. When a pumpkin grows to enormous size or a garden yields twice as many carrots as usual, credit goes to Yondalla. When a halfling trips, slides down a hillside, and lands on a nugget of gold, that's Yondalla turning bad luck into good."


Chaosmancer said:


> Now, maybe for you the 3% of the time you re-roll into a success feels very impactful. But, as I stated, in my experience, the halfling doesn't feel lucky in play, not to the point where their defining trait is their luck. To fix this, and have them feel lucky to the player, every few sessions I would have to take narrative control and force the halfling's luck into the narrative, even when the halfling doesn't roll. Say, for example, there is an ambush and the enemies first arrow misses the halfling because they are in full plate with a shield. *With any character I would describe the arrow shattering on their armor, but for the halfling, would I need to make it about the halfling's luck?*



No, but you could make it about their luck.  That's entirely up to you. It's not needed, but could be very fun for the player.


Chaosmancer said:


> This is what I am talking about. The narrative of "supernaturally lucky" insists on being forced into the world, and if the DM doesn't do that, then the halfling doesn't actually feel lucky. They feel like any other character in the game.



Feel is incredibly subjective.  Perhaps you don't feel lucky when you get luck via the halfling luck re-roll, but I do.  The DM isn't required to do anything more than narrate the luck that happens from the racial ability.


Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, the halfling is 3% more likely to succeed on something, assuming their die and rolling surface is perfectly balanced and aligned. Of course, if it isn't, then they aren't. That is a true, objective mechanic. It isn't meaningfully impactful. A 3% difference is a literal margin of error.



You keep saying that, but it's not accurate.  If the margin is 50% for a normal PC, then you will see percentages ranging from 47%-53%, because that's the margin of error for 50%.  However, the halfling is at 53%, so his margin of error is 50%-56%, which is objectively higher the normal PC.  It's also only really for polls and such were you have margins of error.  There's no error with halfling luck. The halfling really is 3% better.


Chaosmancer said:


> And, actually, yes, if a player who doesn't roll a 1 plays a halfling... they are not lucky enough to have that halfling narrative of being supernaturally lucky. The player's luck overrides your objectively true mechanic, and buries it away where no one is going to notice it.



How does the player's experience remove the luck from the halfling race? This is a racial bonus, not a PC individual one.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You realize this is almost literally describing soldiers who flinch on the battlefield and miss a shot as not being brave, right?



No.  No it's not even close to that.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> The Tolkien family would like me to remind you that Tolkien sometimes referred to hobbits as halflings in the books.



True.  Just don’t say so too loudly or halflings will be removed from D&D by order of Tolkien’s estate.


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> The WotC legal department requires me to remind you that those were hobbits, which are different and legally distinct from halflings.


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

AnotherGuy said:


> The only way a halfling can be considered brave, is if their name is Matt Murdock.
> I don't make the rules. If you have an issue with it, take it up with Frank.



What if said Halfling is a member of the Green Lantern Corps?


----------



## billd91 (Jul 15, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> True.  Just don’t say so too loudly or halflings will be removed from D&D by order of Tolkien’s estate.



That was resolved *decades* ago. It's why they're called halflings in D&D and not Hobbits (and why ents are treants and balrogs are balor).


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That was resolved *decades* ago. It's why they're called halflings in D&D and not Hobbits (and why ents are treants and balrogs are balor).



And rangers are.....doh!


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 15, 2022)

EDIT: Wrong thread.


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## billd91 (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> And rangers are.....doh!



Sufficiently generically named or with enough prior art to ease on by. Same with elves, dwarves, dragons, goblins, and even orcs.
Yes, Saul Zaentz even tried to suppress dragons from TSR's games.


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't think mechanical representation of _cultures _is a good idea. It would be highly unrealistic* and would easily come across as offensive due many fantasy cultures being analogous to real cultures.
> 
> (* People from the same culture are unlikely to reliably always share same skills/traits, aside perhaps the language.)



This is a mixed bag.  The racial mechanics should represent racial traits.  That said, some racial traits can and would influence culture.  The halfling trait of bravery would very heavily influence their culture, as would a racial luck trait.  The various halfling cultures might represent those traits differently, with one perhaps only allowing their council(chosen anew each month) to include those who can prove that they've been lucky 3+ in the prior 30 days, while another might engage in games of chance weekly to show off their luck.


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Sufficiently generically named or with enough prior art to ease on by. Same with elves, dwarves, dragons, goblins, and even orcs.
> Yes, Saul Zaentz even tried to suppress dragons from TSR's games.



I know. 

That was smartassery, not a serious post by me.


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## James Gasik (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> This is a mixed bag.  The racial mechanics should represent racial traits.  That said, some racial traits can and would influence culture.  The halfling trait of bravery would very heavily influence their culture, as would a racial luck trait.  The various halfling cultures might represent those traits differently, with one perhaps only allowing their council(chosen anew each month) to include those who can prove that they've been lucky 3+ in the prior 30 days, while another might engage in games of chance weekly to show off their luck.



Things like racial weapons or proficiencies, however, are reflective of culture, not racial traits.  Unless every Mountain Dwarf is born knowing how to wear Medium Armor.

Though perhaps Dwarves have a racial memory?


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Things like racial weapons or proficiencies, however, are reflective of culture, not racial traits.  Unless every Mountain Dwarf is born knowing how to wear Medium Armor.
> 
> Though perhaps Dwarves have a racial memory?



It's possible, but I see what you mean.  I've always dismissed proficiency racial bonuses for the most part.  They just don't mean much to me when I roleplay a PC of a given race.  Not nearly as much as darkvision, blindsight, bravery, luck or whatever other inherent traits are present. I wouldn't mind all racial traits being inherent, rather than learned.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 15, 2022)

Currently running a 2E Dragonlance gamE and one player is playing a perfect Kender.

It really is a joy for all when you get someone who knows how to play one correctly and not at all antagonisticly.


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## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Hussar said:


> No, it really isn't.  It's a spectacularly failed number considering that halflings are one of the 4 FREE races in the SRD.  When tieflings and dragonborn both outperform them by a fairly large margin, that's pretty clear that no one is the right description.



It's a significantly large number. Between borrowing friend's books or getting them to read/copypaste the stats to you, finding the stats online (Roll20 has the all of the PHB races, minus a few subraces, freely available; D&D Beyond seems to have them all, but I only checked a few), and outright piracy, I'd be surprised if _anyone _was using only the SRD.



Hussar said:


> Sorry, you misread what I said.  The bones that are in the supplements are the things that no one actually cares about.  It's the "halfling villages" that are found around Saltmarsh - zero detail, not even shown on the map.  Just a single line buried in a random table.  That's the kind of bone that no one actually cares about.  The supplements are obviously very popular.  Sorry, I was unclear there.



How much detail does a halfling village really need? I took a quick look and the book also mentions but fails to go into any detail that I could find (it was a quick look) about human villages and a wood elf enclave. It seems to me that:

(A) that one sentence doesn't take anything away from the adventure and doesn't take up so much room that other "more interesting" things were left out.

(B) that one sentence adds some color to the world, making it contain more than just boring humans as the friendlies.

(C) that one sentence means that if the players are looking for a village to restock at or to spend the night, there are lots of them around so the DM can just say "Sure! You almost missed it because it was small, but the plumes of smoke you see over the next hill lead you to a tiny village populated by halflings," without having to refer to the map to find out if they were close to one.

(D) removing that one line or changing it so they were human villages wouldn't make the adventure better or more interesting in any way. 

You had me thinking that these sourcebooks were wasting precious pages on something pointless, when all you were talking about is a single line that you are free to ignore!



Hussar said:


> But, Birthright isn't.  When it does, THEN you have a point.  But, there hasn't been so much as a whisper about Birthright, like, ever.  So, I'm not really sure why you're bringing it up.  Personally, I'm not all that wedded to war forged anyway, so, pick a different option.  My point is, let's drop the bottom of the list races and try something new instead of retreading the same boring old crap over and over again that no one actually plays.



Except that you can _add _those races to the next PHB _without _taking anything away. 

As I mentioned before, the Level Up main book is 650 pages. A lot of those pages are dedicated to things that aren't in o5e, like maneuvers and strongholds. The current o5e PHB is only about 300 or so pages long. The 6e PHB could contain every single race that's currently in 5e, even the ones that are setting-dependant like warforged, reborn, and vedalken, and still be a _lot _shorter than the current LU Adventurer's Guide.

And 400,000 people is not "no one." Please stop saying that. You are diminishing the interests of nearly half a million people because you don't like their choice, when their choice doesn't affect you at all.


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## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yep, I figured as much. You have no idea what I am actually arguing.
> 
> Please, find where I said halflings are a terrible PC race in this thread? I'd love to see it.



You mean every single one of your posts? Because no matter what your words are, that's what you're actually saying. Your _intent _is very clear.



Chaosmancer said:


> People then dogpiled on, insisting that re-rolling those one's is super impactful and definetly lucky. And they couldn't believe that it wouldn't change the game. So, I showed the math, acknowledged that the mechanics were fine, but the narrative was nothing like it was supposed to be...
> 
> And now I get accused of abandoning my own point, because I addressed the points of others. And this is why I didn't want to post my homebrew question back on these forums. I knew I'd get sucked into a discussion like this, and I'd be suffering through these ridiculous arguments again, because I just can't help myself.



Because you are taking one example and saying that proves your entire point while ignoring everything else people have said.




Chaosmancer said:


> Right, DnD comics can't show the narrative of DnD doesn't match the mechanics of DnD because the comics don't match the mechanics of DnD.
> I mean, stopping a breath weapon with a shield is ridiculous right? It isn't like it is one of the most iconic things in fantasy art, to the point that there is a feat called "Shield Master" meant to emulate that narrative.



And now you're getting it! Stopping a breath weapon is narratively appropriate, but not part of the _mechanics_. 

Halfling luck is narratively appropriate, but not part of the mechanics.

The narrative is up to the player and DM. If you want halflings in your game to be lucky, then you, as the player or DM, need to add that to the narrative.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, we all know halflings weren't created before 5th edition, so seeing their narratives from before then is pointless. I mean, re-rolling an attack roll once per fight is nothing at all like re-rolling when you roll a 1, right?



If you're trying to claim that a comic proves that halflings are supposed to be lucky because it's a D&D comic, then having that comic be written for an edition that didn't have halfling luck in it fails to prove your point. It's like using the original AD&D comics produced by TSR to prove that elves can't be paladins in a WotC-era game.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, you might say, that the depiction of the narrative of halfling luck isn't represented by the mechanics. Weird, that sounds like what I was saying. Only you seem to think this supports halflings being lucky in the game, like they are said to be in the narratives. Whereas myself, I would say that sounds like this shows that halflings being lucky like they are said to be isn't present at the table, because the mechanics don't support the narrative.



*EVERYONE HAS BEEN SAYING THAT THE LUCK ISN'T SUPPORTED BY THE MECHANICS IN THE WAY THAT YOU THINK IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE.*

If _you _only include things at your table that are supported by the narrative, that's a you problem. Plenty of DMs are willing to include things that aren't written on your sheets and require a die roll.



Chaosmancer said:


> Now, see, you misunderstand, because you seem to refuse to accept the words I type out. I fully get that the trait halflings have is passive and is mechanical and has no narrative weight. That's why I keep pointing out that in the narrative, halflings aren't particularly braver than the other races. Especially when you put them in an adventuring party who are going to respond to ghosts by drawing their weapons and readying their spells, instead of running away screaming.



And you're _still _not getting it.

The narrative is that halflings are luckier and braver than humans. Thus, NPC halflings are always going to be luckier and braver than NPC humans, because they're controlled by the DM how can just declare that to be so. For a PC race, being luckier and braver is represented by a trait that lets you reroll 1s and a trait that gives advantage on saving throws against being frightened. 

For the narration to continue with the PCs, the players have to be willing to show that their human characters are shaking with fear but willing to go ahead anyway while their halfling characters are just strolling in, unaffected. And for the DM to have lucky breaks happen to the halfling (or to credit good rolls to halfling luck) and not have the same breaks (and not have good rolls be the result of luck) to the non-halflings.

If the players and DM are not willing to do that, it's not the game's fault. Its the fault of the players and DM.



Chaosmancer said:


> I'm not trying to say that this is a bad mechanical trait. I'm saying that the narrative is flawed. Deeply flawed since it seems to completely misunderstand what bravery even is, and presents lack of fear as bravery. Which is what I have been saying, over and over and over and over again.



It's a freakin' _name._ Get over it. It's not trying to present anything but a mechanic.

This is on the level of claiming that Mask of the Wild is badly named because there's no actual masks involved.



Chaosmancer said:


> You know, then maybe when I started talking about the narrative, everyone shouldn't have jumped up and said "BUT THE TRAITS!!! THE TRAITS PROVE IT!!!" Since the traits seem to have nothing to do with the narrative, which is what I am trying to talk about.



Maybe then you shouldn't have spent so much time trying to disprove that the traits are actually lucky or brave because of only being 3% better or that paladins have the same abilities as halflings and spent more time saying "I'm not talking about the traits." Which, you know, _you never actually did_. Instead, you tried over and over again to prove that the traits are mechanically bad.

Because, as _I _have brought up, and I'm sure others have as well, the narration is entirely up to the players and DM.



Chaosmancer said:


> No, I said those examples proved my point. And then you started talking about death saves.
> 
> But yeah, the lore and everything else says it is supernatural, so I'm wrong to think of it as supernatural, because it is up to the DM if it is supernatural. And around and around we go, because you can never admit that I might actually have a point and not just be insane.



The lore doesn't say it's supernatural. The lore says that maybe the gods were involved, or at the least, halflings have a god of luck--which would make sense, since they're a people who put great stock in luck. 

More to the point: there's nothing that says halflings stop being lucky in an _antimagic field_, which says that it's not supernatural.



Chaosmancer said:


> Yes, it is abundantly clear that you don't understand my position. As I keep explaining it to you and you keep missing the point. You keep telling me the mechanical traits don't effect the narrative, then act like that addresses my points about the narrative.
> 
> So, once more. Yes, I understand how the mechanics of the game work. They aren't what I am directly trying to address. I'm trying to address the narrative that people claim is there, and that people refer to the mechanical traits to defend, even when those traits do not support the narrative. I'm not attacking the mechanical traits, heck, I'm not even attacking halflings.



You could have fooled me, considering _everything you've said about them._ 

If truly the only thing you care about is the narrative, then work on your narrative skills.

And as I said, I've given you examples of how to include lucky moments in your game that don't unduly reward the halfling PC and don't punish non-halflings, and you have consistently ignored or mocked them.

-The halfling manages to grab, completely at random, the best apple in the bushel.
- A cart whizzes by, splashing mud all around, but the halfling doesn't get dirty.
-At a carnival, the halfling wins the best prize (equivalent in value to a giant stuffed toy) at a game everyone would swear is rigged.
-At the inn, the cook just happens to have one more serving of the halfling's favorite desert.
-The halfling falls into a river. When they emerge, there's a big ol' fish caught in their shirt, just in time for dinner.
-The PCs want an audience with the local magistrate. You, the DM, had decided that they were going to get that audience, but you narrate it as if the magistrate is particularly interested in hearing news or lore from the halfling's hometown and that's why they granted the audience.
-The halfling fails a climbing roll and falls. You, the DM, know that any damage taken is going to be healed up anyway before the players next get into combat and the fall isn't nearly enough to kill the halfling. So luckily, there's a haycart right under the halfling and they don't take damage; they just have a sore butt for a while.

And so on. It's not up to the game to provide these through mechanics. It's up to you as the DM to come up with these ideas.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> On a point of information here in 4e shields gave you a +2 to your reflex defence as well as AC - and the black dragon's breath weapon was an attack vs reflex. So yes you could block its attack on you by putting your shield in the way (which I find entirely appropriate). But one shotting a dragon didn't happen.



Yeah, but look at that breath weapon. Unless 4e dragons were _very _different than the way they've been in every other edition, that shield shouldn't have been able to block the entire thing. Everyone around that person should also be affected.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Or alternatively, that the soldiers with them who do not flinch away from danger and shoot effectively are more brave than the soldier who flinched away.
> 
> Almost like there's a range of capability rather than a toggle.




So, do you often find people talking about how some soldiers are braver than others? Cause.. I don't. People tend to think anyone who marches to war with their life on the line is pretty brave.


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, do you often find people talking about how some soldiers are braver than others? Cause.. I don't. People tend to think anyone who marches to war with their life on the line is pretty brave.



That's why all soldiers are given a participatory Medal of Honor if they go to war.


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## Minigiant (Jul 15, 2022)

Guys.

The problem isn't that halflimgs are brave or lucky.

It's that the mechanics used for bravery and luck in 5e are terrible and make the halflimgs outlook look silly or nonsensical if you don't fully buy into the concept of the race and their place in a setting.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> That's why all soldiers are given a participatory Medal of Honor if they go to war.



Flawlessly executed.


----------



## Twiggly the Gnome (Jul 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> What if said Halfling is a member of the Green Lantern Corps?




Reminds me of why they started saying Green Lanterns have "the ability to overcome great fear", instead of saying they are fearless. One writer took it way too literally, and said that the ring alters a new GLC recruit's brain so that they are incapable of experiencing fear.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> No.  No it's not even close to that.




Really? Because a trained warrior (DnD martial character or soldier) having a few seconds of fear (two to three rounds equals 12 to 18 seconds) but still fires their martial weapon (a bow or a rifle) while fighting for the lives and the lives of their squad, but missing because of the fear (disadvantage).... That really sounds kind of close to exactly the situation at the table. The situation you described as a teenager in a slasher fic running away screaming while throwing anything at hand at the big scary monster and being ineffective. 

So, I'm sure you can find some difference between them that I'm missing? 



Maxperson said:


> During that time period? No.  Bravery is something that comes and goes.  Nobody is constantly brave, since there's nothing to be constantly brave against.
> 
> The soldier that advances under machine fire to save a wounded comrade is brave.  That same soldier later shopping for Cornflakes at the local supermarket is not brave right then.  He's shopping.




Right, because clearly shopping in the grocery store is the type of thing I'm talking about when discussing combat with your life on the line. Silly me. Sure, maybe a brave person isn't actively being brave when they go shopping, kind of weird to make that sort of distinction though, I mean... you'd imagine they would be brave if the supermarket suddenly broke out into gunfire, so... why make it some sort of bizarre toggle? Oh, right, so that you can defend saying that falling under the frightened condition doesn't make you brave. I guess falling under the sleep condition means you aren't intelligent too, right? 

Again, the knots you tie yourself into only strengthen my point that this narrative is doing the game a huge disservice.



Maxperson said:


> No, they don't need to be lucky when not acting, though I wouldn't be against it if the DM decided to add extras.  He doesn't have to, though.  The feat is sufficient for an individual halfling to be luck in the fiction.
> 
> You're reading waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into the lore right up than is actually there.  There's nothing in this paragraph that implies that halfling luck is common place and they go around tripping into nuggets every few feet. It's simply stating that when luck does happen, they credit Yondalla with it.
> 
> "To the halflings, Yondalla is responsible for the spring in their step and the bubbly excitement they feel from knowing that luck is on their side. When a pumpkin grows to enormous size or a garden yields twice as many carrots as usual, credit goes to Yondalla. When a halfling trips, slides down a hillside, and lands on a nugget of gold, that's Yondalla turning bad luck into good."




Yeah, it doesn't happen every few feet. I shouldn't have... oh wait, never did claim that. Weird. It is almost like you are strawmanning my actual position. 

After all, it isn't just the lore in mordenkainen's, it is dungeons and dragons novels and comics and everything else that have constantly told us that halflings have incredible luck, passively, that good things just happen to them without them needing to act. Something which the mechanics do not allow for at all, and something that forcing into the narrative would not help the narrative of the table. In fact, it could legitimately cause problems to do so, if mishandled. 

Which is why I've been pushing back on it, which, now that you actually understand what I'm talking about, maybe the discussion can move forward without you calling me a Bad Faith DM. 



Maxperson said:


> You keep saying that, but it's not accurate.  If the margin is 50% for a normal PC, then you will see percentages ranging from 47%-53%, because that's the margin of error for 50%.  However, the halfling is at 53%, so his margin of error is 50%-56%, which is objectively higher the normal PC.  It's also only really for polls and such were you have margins of error.  There's no error with halfling luck. The halfling really is 3% better.




You literally are quoting me back at me, and not understanding the point. 

If a PC is successful 53% of the time... does anyone notice? Does any go "wow, you are just really lucky!" Not in my experience. But 53% is the high end of their potential successes. 

What if an average halfling was successful 53% of the time... does anyone notice? Welll... no. They didn't notice it for the random PC, so why would they notice it for the halfling. Sure, the halfling might be 3% more successful than average... but that isn't a meaningful impact, because people are bad at noticing statistics and probabilities over long stretches of the game. 

You can harp on about how they are objectively better, but if no one notices, then it doesn't affect the table, and it doesn't lead to them being seen as incredibly lucky. Which will then cause the player to potentially be dissatisfied, they took the halfling because the halfling is supposed to be the "lucky" race, but they aren't feeling very lucky. Their character is in fact, seeming to be completely average. So they might go and talk their DM, who may feel like they need to start narrating extra lucky things happening to the player, that never happen to anyone else, to let the halfling feel lucky, like the game says they should. 

Are we following the line of logic? Because I've only laid this out in every post for the last four days. I know I'm getting frustrated and short with people, but it is taking me multiple days of repeating myself to even get back to where I started, and it is incredibly frustrating.



Maxperson said:


> How does the player's experience remove the luck from the halfling race? This is a racial bonus, not a PC individual one.




Unless you have 100 halfling players sitting at the table, I think the individual player's experience is going to outweigh whatever the race's bonus is writ large across the community.


----------



## billd91 (Jul 15, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> That's why all soldiers are given a participatory Medal of Honor if they go to war.



_cough_ _cough_ campaign ribbons _cough_
Ahem... excuse me. Got some fruit salad caught in my throat.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 15, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You mean every single one of your posts? Because no matter what your words are, that's what you're actually saying. Your _intent _is very clear.




Ah wonderful, a mind reader. Always fun to discuss things with them. You know what card I picked up to? 

How about, instead of telling me what my intent is, you listen to what I say my intent it.



Faolyn said:


> Because you are taking one example and saying that proves your entire point while ignoring everything else people have said.




Most people haven't even addressed my point, instead explaining the mechanics of the game to me. So yes, people who aren't making arguments in regards to my point aren't getting those arguments seriously addressed. I provided one example, because it was easy to find and post. That doesn't mean it is literally the only example that exists. But I don't feel like trying to track down 50 years of novels and comics to try and lay out every single example.



Faolyn said:


> And now you're getting it! Stopping a breath weapon is narratively appropriate, but not part of the _mechanics_.
> 
> Halfling luck is narratively appropriate, but not part of the mechanics.
> 
> The narrative is up to the player and DM. If you want halflings in your game to be lucky, then you, as the player or DM, need to add that to the narrative.




WOW, it is almost like I said that exact same thing, and was talking about that exact thing! Now, can we discuss my actual points about how that can be problematic and how that is a burden on the DM that no other race imposes? Or do you want to do another round of telling me how the lucky mechanics work before telling me that they aren't the narrative, and if you want the narrative then you need to add that in extra? I mean, I've only gone around three times, what's a dozen more.




Faolyn said:


> If you're trying to claim that a comic proves that halflings are supposed to be lucky because it's a D&D comic, then having that comic be written for an edition that didn't have halfling luck in it fails to prove your point. It's like using the original AD&D comics produced by TSR to prove that elves can't be paladins in a WotC-era game.




I was showing a narrative example of halfling luck. One that has appeared in multiple media. You are obsessing over the exact example and not seeing it as AN EXAMPLE. 

Like, honestly, do you think halflings have been depicted as unusually lucky in only a single comic in all of DnD history?



Faolyn said:


> And you're _still _not getting it.
> 
> The narrative is that halflings are luckier and braver than humans. Thus, NPC halflings are always going to be luckier and braver than NPC humans, because they're controlled by the DM how can just declare that to be so. For a PC race, being luckier and braver is represented by a trait that lets you reroll 1s and a trait that gives advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
> 
> ...




And here it is again. If the narrative isn't working, it is the fault of the players and the DM, it can't be that the narrative is flawed. 

So, my human knight has to be willing to scared of ghosts to show-off how brave the halfling rogue is? Because my roleplaying needs to be dictated by other people's racial choices? As a DM, if the human players aren't acting properly scared, should I tell them that their characters would absolutely be scared by the situation, because they aren't halflings? I believe that you said that was bad to do if I was forcing an elf to aloof, but forcing a human to be scared so the halfling can be brave is fine? 

Because I don't care about the NPCs, their narrative is completely at my discretion as the DM, but the players are going to be paying attention to the other players. And the halfling can't feel incredibly brave if everyone is incredibly brave. 

And on the luck, you are literally advocating for the thing I refered to as the problem. Having good fortune befall the halfling while making sure good fortune does not befall the other players. This is a limitation on the DM's narration that only exists when we start talking about halflings. And sure, the halfling finding an extra copper in the road isn't going to ruin the game, but halfling luck is supposed to be consistent, meaning it isn't just going to be one time finding a copper, it is going to be likely something every other gaming session, and eventually, that adds up to special treatment. Which is not something we should be advocating for happening, and can be a problem in the game when it happens.

You are literally sitting here, telling me that the solution is to engage in the behavior I'm calling out as a problem.



Faolyn said:


> It's a freakin' _name._ Get over it. It's not trying to present anything but a mechanic.
> 
> This is on the level of claiming that Mask of the Wild is badly named because there's no actual masks involved.




And when you are dealing with narrative structures, NAMES MATTER. How else would I end up in a discussion where you are borderline advocating for people to change how they role-play their characters based on one person's racial choice?

Mask of the Wild doesn't describe a personality trait that the majority of the adventuring party has. It is a poetic name, but it isn't used as a descriptor. Bravery is different. You would think the very fact this conversation is happening might be enough to wonder if the name is poorly chosen for the narrative at the table. After all, if the dragonborn's breath weapon was called "flatulence" then it doesn't matter if the mechanics don't change, the name has made them a joke.



Faolyn said:


> The lore doesn't say it's supernatural. The lore says that maybe the gods were involved, or at the least, halflings have a god of luck--which would make sense, since they're a people who put great stock in luck.
> 
> More to the point: there's nothing that says halflings stop being lucky in an _antimagic field_, which says that it's not supernatural.




Right, because anti-magic fields are known not to have obvious and clear problems. 

Hey, have you ever run up a 16 story building in nothing but your bare feet in six seconds? Completely not a supernatural feat, because Monks can do that in an anti-magic field. 

And obviously curing grievous wounds that were bleeding profusely with a single touch is not supernatural. Paladins can do that in an anti-magic field. 

Hey, ever get so angry that the ghosts of your ancestors show up and stop arrows from hitting your friends? What a tuesday, completely not a supernatural effect, because barbarians can do that in an anti-magic field. 



Faolyn said:


> You could have fooled me, considering _everything you've said about them._
> 
> If truly the only thing you care about is the narrative, then work on your narrative skills.
> 
> ...




Right, I just need to be more skilled and do the thing I'm calling out as a problem, because that's the solution to the problem. 

I mean, I'm sure that after a session of the halfling falling and taking no damage (which everyone else knows they would have taken) and the session before that the halfling being the only one not splashed with mud, the players will be overjoyed that they are able to continue the quest solely because the local magistrate is interested in the halfling. You can't possibly have hurt feelings or feelings of resentment as one player consistently gets special treatment. I mean, it isn't like it is affecting the mechanics after all. And we all know everyone only plays for the mechanics, not the story.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Really? Because a trained warrior (DnD martial character or soldier) having a few seconds of fear (two to three rounds equals 12 to 18 seconds) but still fires their martial weapon (a bow or a rifle) while fighting for the lives and the lives of their squad, but missing because of the fear (disadvantage).... That really sounds kind of close to exactly the situation at the table. The situation you described as a teenager in a slasher fic running away screaming while throwing anything at hand at the big scary monster and being ineffective.
> 
> So, I'm sure you can find some difference between them that I'm missing?



Sure.   You're missing that the soldier who missed because he flinched just rolled low and the flinch was the narration for why he missed.  That soldier was not suffering from a supernatural frightened condition that prevents him from moving towards the source of fear.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right, because clearly shopping in the grocery store is the type of thing I'm talking about when discussing combat with your life on the line. Silly me. Sure, maybe a brave person isn't actively being brave when they go shopping, kind of weird to make that sort of distinction though, I mean... you'd imagine they would be brave if the supermarket suddenly broke out into gunfire, so... why make it some sort of bizarre toggle?



Once you understand that bravery isn't a constant thing, it's easier to understand how a PC can be brave one round, but not the next due to a form of mind control.


Chaosmancer said:


> Yeah, it doesn't happen every few feet. I shouldn't have... oh wait, never did claim that. Weird. It is almost like you are strawmanning my actual position.



I decided to be nice and not call you out for all of your Strawmen.  Do you really want to go down this road?


Chaosmancer said:


> After all, it isn't just the lore in mordenkainen's, it is dungeons and dragons novels and comics and everything else that have constantly told us that halflings have incredible luck, passively, that good things just happen to them without them needing to act. Something which the mechanics do not allow for at all, and something that forcing into the narrative would not help the narrative of the table. In fact, it could legitimately cause problems to do so, if mishandled.



The novels and comics aren't relevant to this discussion. They are not D&D. D&D is the game with the rules, mechanics and such, not a medium that is tied to the power of plot.  In books and comics, fully healthy dragons can die by accident when a rock fall on them.  In D&D they can't.


Chaosmancer said:


> Which is why I've been pushing back on it, which, now that you actually understand what I'm talking about, maybe the discussion can move forward without you calling me a Bad Faith DM.



If you're looking to inherently flawed sources for how things should happen in the game, you should probably reconsider your position.


Chaosmancer said:


> If a PC is successful 53% of the time... does anyone notice? Does any go "wow, you are just really lucky!" Not in my experience. But 53% is the high end of their potential successes.



Depends.  When it comes to something like a +1 to hit helping you hit one additional time every 5-10 combats, no, you aren't going to notice that 5%.  Nothing is around to tell you which hit is extra or in which combat it happened.  When it comes to re-rolling a 1 due to halfling luck, you'd have to be brain dead not to notice that 1 turn into a success.  You just rolled both numbers!  So yes, you'll notice it all 3% of the time.


Chaosmancer said:


> Are we following the line of logic? Because I've only laid this out in every post for the last four days. I know I'm getting frustrated and short with people, but it is taking me multiple days of repeating myself to even get back to where I started, and it is incredibly frustrating.



I get it, and I've been trying to be nice and calm with my discussions with you, rather then being as contentions as our interactions used to be.  That's why I decided not to call out any strawmen and just respond to what you are saying.


----------



## lingual (Jul 15, 2022)

Stories, movies, comics, etc.  do not rely on randomness and dice rolls.   You can't really expect a game system to replicate that.  That's up to the DM.  In some media, the cute things (like halflings) never die.


----------



## Stormonu (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Guys.
> 
> The problem isn't that halflimgs are brave or lucky.
> 
> It's that the mechanics used for bravery and luck in 5e are terrible and make the halflimgs outlook look silly or nonsensical if you don't fully buy into the concept of the race and their place in a setting.



Yeah, it's a case the mechanics aren't as strong as some would like.  But, that's an issue with bounded accuracy.  For example, with halfling bravery your choices range from + PB to save vs. fear condition, advantage or immunity.  I'd probably have gone with immunity (it is just one condition, and elves get it to sleep), but a lot of DMs would have likely balked at how many creatures that shut down ("Immune to Dragon fear?  Not in my game, ya kender!!!!")


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> why should halfing get to be a phb small race? goblins are more popular, kobolds have something going on,



Goblins and Kobolds are IMO monsters, not PC species; and thus deserve no space in the PH.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Guys.
> 
> The problem isn't that halflimgs are brave or lucky.
> 
> It's that the mechanics used for bravery and luck in 5e are terrible and make the halflimgs outlook look silly or nonsensical if you don't fully buy into the concept of the race and their place in a setting.



Two things I can't stand when I get online to go pretend to be a drunken gnomish martial artist with my friends..

1.Silliness
2.Nonsense

D&D is not a game to be trifled with.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Two things I can't stand when I get online to go pretend to be a drunken gnomish martial artist with my friends..
> 
> 1.Silliness
> 2.Nonsense
> ...



The gnome's silly powers are strong.

No one with gonna mess with the buff clown.

This is why wizards are eccentric. They become powerful enough to stop caring about must and stop fighting the arcane madness.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Ah wonderful, a mind reader. Always fun to discuss things with them. You know what card I picked up to?
> 
> How about, instead of telling me what my intent is, you listen to what I say my intent it.



I don't need to read your mind when I read your posts.



Chaosmancer said:


> Most people haven't even addressed my point, instead explaining the mechanics of the game to me. So yes, people who aren't making arguments in regards to my point aren't getting those arguments seriously addressed. I provided one example, because it was easy to find and post. That doesn't mean it is literally the only example that exists. But I don't feel like trying to track down 50 years of novels and comics to try and lay out every single example.



If they're not addressing your point, why are you even answering it? Why not just say "I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about this other thing?" 

Instead, when people have said "Lucky does this thing," you then go on to talk about how it's not not a good rule.



Chaosmancer said:


> WOW, it is almost like I said that exact same thing, and was talking about that exact thing! Now, can we discuss my actual points about how that can be problematic and how that is a burden on the DM that no other race imposes? Or do you want to do another round of telling me how the lucky mechanics work before telling me that they aren't the narrative, and if you want the narrative then you need to add that in extra? I mean, I've only gone around three times, what's a dozen more.



If roleplaying a halfling's luck is a burden, then why are you DMing? It's not like it's something you'd have to do multiple times a session. But presumably you do specific RP moments with each of your players based on their backgrounds, right? So why wouldn't you occasionally do a bit of halfling luck when you RP with with a halfling player?

Or do you _not _RP anything with any character that isn't covered by a mechanic?



Chaosmancer said:


> And here it is again. If the narrative isn't working, it is the fault of the players and the DM, it can't be that the narrative is flawed.



Well, no, because the narrative is up to the DM and players. The _game_ covers the mechanics.



> DM: The goblin attacks and rolls a 17. That hits, so it does 5 damage.
> 
> Player: I attack the goblin and roll a 15. That hits, so I do 7 damage.




And so on. That's what the game does. It's up to the DM and players to actually make those mechanics sound interesting. 



> DM: The goblin swings its serrated, filthy blade at you and rolls a 17. You can feel it shred your skin as it hits for 5 damage.
> 
> Player: Ouch! Man, I hope I don't catch something from that. I hit it with my mace as hard as I can. I roll a 15, and I know that hits. I do 7 crushing-its-face-in damage.
> 
> DM: The goblin reels back a step, badly wounded by the force of your blow.




At most, you can expect D&D to have suggestions on how to do the latter, but it's up to you guys to actually do it. Unless you think the books to have "d100 Halfling Luck Effect" tables?



Chaosmancer said:


> So, my human knight has to be willing to scared of ghosts to show-off how brave the halfling rogue is? Because my roleplaying needs to be dictated by other people's racial choices? As a DM, if the human players aren't acting properly scared, should I tell them that their characters would absolutely be scared by the situation, because they aren't halflings? I believe that you said that was bad to do if I was forcing an elf to aloof, but forcing a human to be scared so the halfling can be brave is fine?



First off, you are once again forgetting there's a difference between being afraid and being subjected to the frightened condition. They're _not _the same thing.

Secondly, there is *NO ALOOF CONDITION. *You are once again confusing a role-playing choice with a game mechanic. A person can role-play being aloof or surly or even afraid with zero mechanical support for that. 

Thirdly, are the human and halfling PCs team players? Do you want to work together to improve the game's _narrative? _If so, then _yes_, RP your character as being frightened but willing to press on (because you made your save against being frightened) while the halfling continues on without a care in the world (because they also made their saving throw, but are "braver" than humans are). This isn't forcing the human to be scared; this is two players working together to RP racial differences. 

I know that when _I _encounter an effect that puts the frightened condition on me and save against it, I at least try to roleplay being unnerved by it, even if I suffer no mechanical penalties. I do the same when I DM as well: if a PC saves against being frightened, I often tell them that they can feel the fear trying to grab them but they are able to push the worst of it aside. And my players are more than happy to RP that, and have done so even when I _haven't _said that. I had a player who decided that their character was going to have a full-fledged panic attack because one of their powers backfired (nat 1 on an attack roll) in a way that reminded them of a past trauma they had written into their background. The character wasn't being subjected to the frightened condition; the player RP'd being afraid.

So what is this? You want halflings to be "brave" because of the narrative, but you don't want the narrative to actually reflect the mechanics because then it isn't fair to the other players because it somehow forces them to be less brave, and you don't want to put out any extra effort to make the narrative more interesting. This is why I say it's obvious you just don't like halflings, because _nothing _is going to make you happy here.



Chaosmancer said:


> Because I don't care about the NPCs, their narrative is completely at my discretion as the DM, but the players are going to be paying attention to the other players. And the halfling can't feel incredibly brave if everyone is incredibly brave.



And why not? The other players are brave because they overcame their fears. The halfling is brave because they didn't have the fear to begin with.

And _again, _being afraid is not the same as the frightened condition!



Chaosmancer said:


> And on the luck, you are literally advocating for the thing I refered to as the problem. Having good fortune befall the halfling while making sure good fortune does not befall the other players. This is a limitation on the DM's narration that only exists when we start talking about halflings. And sure, the halfling finding an extra copper in the road isn't going to ruin the game, but halfling luck is supposed to be consistent, meaning it isn't just going to be one time finding a copper, it is going to be likely something every other gaming session, and eventually, that adds up to special treatment. Which is not something we should be advocating for happening, and can be a problem in the game when it happens.
> 
> You are literally sitting here, telling me that the solution is to engage in the behavior I'm calling out as a problem.



Except that you are refusing to actually understand the solution.

Halfling luck--lowercase _l_-luck--isn't "supposed" to be consistent. It just happens. It's not a mechanic that says the halfling finds a copper on the ground 1/short rest. You can throw it into the game whenever you want to. You can encourage the player to invent their own lucky finds, within some guidelines. You can _also _provide RP moments that emphasize the elfiness of your elf PCs, the dwarfiness of your dwarf PCs, and the humaness of your human PCs at the _same time_. 

If you actually cared about the narrative, you'd do this.



Chaosmancer said:


> And when you are dealing with narrative structures, NAMES MATTER. How else would I end up in a discussion where you are borderline advocating for people to change how they role-play their characters based on one person's racial choice?



I'm only suggesting this because _you _are overly concerned with the name of a trait. Literally nobody in my game that has three halflings, a tiefling, and a half-orc cares one whit about the trait's name or what it means because _they _are capable of looking past the name. Above, when I talked about the PC having a panic attack? That was one of the halflings (who either chose not to reroll that nat 1 or rolled a second nat 1, can't remember because it was several years ago), because the player is aware of the difference between fear and the frightened condition and who chose to RP it.



Chaosmancer said:


> Mask of the Wild doesn't describe a personality trait that the majority of the adventuring party has. It is a poetic name, but it isn't used as a descriptor. Bravery is different. You would think the very fact this conversation is happening might be enough to wonder if the name is poorly chosen for the narrative at the table. After all, if the dragonborn's breath weapon was called "flatulence" then it doesn't matter if the mechanics don't change, the name has made them a joke.



Neither Bravery nor Lucky are personality traits. They are the names of traits. You are confusing them with lowercase-b brave and lowercase-l lucky.



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, I just need to be more skilled and do the thing I'm calling out as a problem, because that's the solution to the problem.
> 
> I mean, I'm sure that after a session of the halfling falling and taking no damage (which everyone else knows they would have taken) and the session before that the halfling being the only one not splashed with mud, the players will be overjoyed that they are able to continue the quest solely because the local magistrate is interested in the halfling. You can't possibly have hurt feelings or feelings of resentment as one player consistently gets special treatment. I mean, it isn't like it is affecting the mechanics after all. And we all know everyone only plays for the mechanics, not the story.



If you choose to not have a discussion with your players about the nature of halfling luck and the forms it might take, that's your problem, not the game's and not mine.


----------



## Stormonu (Jul 15, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Goblins and Kobolds are IMO monsters, not PC species; and thus deserve no space in the PH.



Maybe that's the only fair way to do races - put humans in the PHB and every other race is in the MM, and the DM can specify which ones fit their campaign world.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Maybe that's the only fair way to do races - put humans in the PHB and every other race is in the MM, and the DM can specify which ones fit their campaign world.



You don't think humans are monsters?


----------



## Stormonu (Jul 15, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You don't think humans are monsters?



Trick question, but you gotta hang the rest of the PHB off something.  As often as the "humans in funny suits" gets trotted out, All non-humans in the MM seems an easy out.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I will agree that the way the term is used in the mechanics doesn't translate to the common usage, that is a big part of the problem.
> 
> I disagree that mechanical fear effects* should* make you a coward, and I will go as far as to say that mechanical fear effects *cannot* make the character a coward. There are far far too many instances of people in real life, who face horrors, who find themselves barely able to function, frozen, or forced to retreat by that horror... who turn around and face it again.



That "turn around and face it again" piece maps directly to the fear-causing effect wearing off and the player making an in-character choice shortly thereafter.


Chaosmancer said:


> I have never once seen a Player character who was not forced to fall back due to fear, doing so. They always choose to keep fighting.



If there is in fact a choice.  Having someone in your face means you have to keep fighting if you can, fear or not, out of simple self-preservation.

And I've seen loads of characters fall back or bail out on a fight, whether fear effects are involved or not, again out of self-preservation.


Chaosmancer said:


> I have never seen a player character, whose character was forced to flee because of a fear effect, not turn around and re-enter the fight after that effect was over.



A character who flees is pretty much always, where possible, going to return to the party once the fear subsides (unless said character has the wisdom of a shoe); as the party provides safety in numbers.  If the party is still involved in combat, whether or not said character rejoins the fighting (if still ongoing) is another question: I've at times seen wise characters hold off rejoining the fray until whatever caused their fear is dealt with, so as not to risk running away again and perhaps getting lost or running itno a hazard e.g. off a cliff or into quicksand.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The gnome's silly powers are strong.
> 
> No one with gonna mess with the buff clown.
> 
> This is why wizards are eccentric. They become powerful enough to stop caring about must and stop fighting the arcane madness.



He was pretty strong for a monk but we had a mystic in the party. My monk was mostly there to hold his beer..which was agreeable for my character.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 15, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Trick question, but you gotta hang the rest of the PHB off something.  As often as the "humans in funny suits" gets trotted out, All non-humans in the MM seems an easy out.



I suppose..
At least the elves would be where they belong.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Things like racial weapons or proficiencies, however, are reflective of culture, not racial traits.  Unless every Mountain Dwarf is born knowing how to wear Medium Armor.



Not quite.

They are in fact born already wearing the Medium Armour.

Dwarven women are hella tough!


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## Maxperson (Jul 15, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not quite.
> 
> They are in fact born already wearing the Medium Armour.
> 
> Dwarven women are hella tough!



And I thought being born with a silver spoon was hard on the mother!


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 15, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Maybe that's the only fair way to do races - put humans in the PHB and every other race is in the MM, and the DM can specify which ones fit their campaign world.



Ya know, there's days when I could almost get behind that: a Humans-only game without any other PC-playable species.

I'm used to Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits and kinda like all three, but I guess I could live without them and all the others if it came to that.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> /snip
> In a game with over forty species it is not.




But, there aren't really forty species.  There are like 5-8 species and then everyone else.



Crimson Longinus said:


> It is crazy to me have a bizarre vendetta against imaginary little people and twist statistics concoct arbitrary mathematical requirements to justify getting rid of them.



Please stop trying to ascribe motives. It's rude and very much against board rules.  

For the THOUSANDTH TIME.  I DO NOT HATE HALFLINGS OR GNOMES.  I HAVE PLAYED AND CONTINUE TO PLAY BOTH.  

But, I also don't let my personal preferences try to dictate to other people.  Just because I might like gnomes (I can take or leave halflings to be honest) doesn't mean that they must be included in the core of the game.  I'm just being realistic.  Gnomes barely get played and halflings only get played because they are given every possible advantage and are still barely played.  So, instead of insisting that my personal preferences are somehow proof of why halflings should be in the game, I instead would rather the game actually reflect what players want to play.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Azzy said:


> 4.7% of how many million? That's not no-one.



Yes, it really is.  4.7% five years ago, before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.  

Does anyone think that in the past five years, halflings have become MORE commonly played?

Sorry, yes, I feel no shame in ignoring 1 in 20 players in favor of improving the game by actually including things that more people will want to play.  In the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have both proven that new races are very popular - with Goliaths also in the running despite not even being included in the PHB.  Hell, Genasi are being played as often.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Maybe you need to go and read again, because you clearly have no idea what the conversation was about.
> 
> Charlaquin was asking "why is this a thing, why do people act like this" and I tried to explain it. In the course of that, I used an example of a race concept I am trying to work on, and that partially has the issue I was talking about.
> 
> So... no, I don't expect WotC to do anything about my homebrew race I'm trying to make. Then it wouldn't be homebrew.



Except you’re also making very general statements about how the game is written. 


Chaosmancer said:


> If you are asking "is overdesigning multiple races into the same niche a concern WotC should have" ummm.... yes? It seems like a design problem is something the design team should be aware of and consider.



It isn’t a design problem. It’s a thing you don’t personally prefer, and nothing more than that. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Whether they consider they haven't run into an issue yet or not is up to them. But, personally, I would note that there are quite a few races that have effectively died on the vine, because they are either too specific to a setting, or redundant with other options. For Example, Feral Tieflings and Hellfire Tieflings. No one uses them, no one thinks about them, because the Archedevil variants have completely overtaken them and given people what they wanted with the Tieflings.
> 
> Are gnomes and halflings filling the same niche to a level it is a problem? Probably not.
> 
> Are gnomes, halflings, goblins, Kobolds, fairies, Aasimar, Changelings, Dhampir, Genasi, Harengon, Hexblood, Kenku, Owling, Reborn, Tabaxi, Tortle and Yuan-Ti are starting to crowd into a single niche starting to become a problem? That's more likely, isn't it.



No. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Right, because obviously my concerns are purely mechanical, and can therefore be dismissed.



Directly and unmistakeably not what I said. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Yeah, almost like deciding which way to go is difficult. Kind of like it is easy to look at someone else saying "I'm struggling with this" and saying "I don't see why, this is easy"  without anyone asking for their opinion.



But it’s not like, difficult on a design level. Choosing between Paladin and Fighter levels to portray my swashbuckler rogue’s training as a swordsman was also difficult. That doesn’t mean I’d come across a design issue. 


Chaosmancer said:


> So, do you have Maxperson blocked? He responded that my non-halfling (to use his formating) "Brave" adventurer would spend more time (to quote) Cowering and running away in fear than the halflings, so the halfling is braver, because they will make those saves.
> 
> So, yes, it seems someone is making those claims.
> 
> ...



Youre completely misrepresenting both what I’ve said, and what Maxperson has said.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Maybe that's the only fair way to do races - put humans in the PHB and every other race is in the MM, and the DM can specify which ones fit their campaign world.



Nah, put humans in the MM as well.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You realize this is almost literally describing soldiers who flinch on the battlefield and miss a shot as not being brave, right? Like... you are literally making my point for me about why calling succeeding on these saves bravery is bad for the narrative of the game.



Why is it so hard for you to acknowledge that someone who has an easier time not freezing in combat, on a consistent basis, with or without any training at all, is _more brave_ than someone who has difficulty in that situation?


----------



## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> /snip
> 
> And 400,000 people is not "no one." Please stop saying that. You are diminishing the interests of nearly half a million people because you don't like their choice, when their choice doesn't affect you at all.



Ah, but their choice DOES affect me.

Because halflings and gnomes are in the PHB, that means that every single setting guide, adventure, and supplement MUST include both of them, regardless of whether or not they fit.  You absolutely must include material for both races in every (or nearly every, I'm sure there are exceptions) book no matter what.

I'm diminishing the interests of half a million people in the face of TWENTY TIMES more people.  Ok, the math of that is off, but, you get the point.  

Again, I'm not advocating at all to remove them from the game.  I'm simply shunting them to another book so they don't clutter up the game with a bunch of material that is so rarely used.  They are in the same category as polearm tables.  They just aren't needed in the PHB.  And, you keep pointing to Level Up. Why?  Do you honestly think that the revised game is going to be more complex than currently?  Hey, The World's Largest Dungeon is about a thousand pages, so, I guess every future module should be a thousand pages too.    Why are you repeatedly pointing a book from another company?  Do you really think they're going to double or triple the size of the PHB?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 16, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Sure.   You're missing that the soldier who missed because he flinched just rolled low and the flinch was the narration for why he missed.  That soldier was not suffering from a supernatural frightened condition that prevents him from moving towards the source of fear.




So, you are going to just change the narrative. "Fear" from artillery, or gunfire, or whatever else isn't supernatural, because we don't have supernatural things in our world. So you can dismiss the entire thing because it isn't MAGICAL fear. 

Well, we don't define bravery against MAGICAL fear anyways, since magic isn't real in this world, so back to the drawing board I guess.



Maxperson said:


> Once you understand that bravery isn't a constant thing, it's easier to understand how a PC can be brave one round, but not the next due to a form of mind control.




And now you can't be brave if you are mind controlled, because nothing says "define my character's personality" like removing control over that character. 

How about, instead of twisting ourselves in knots, we just say "Halflings aren't braver than other races" and figure out a better way to represent the mechanics? Like that halfling's fear response doesn't cause them to shake, a halfling's hands are always steady, no matter what. Give them immunity to disadvantage caused by the fear condition.

Mechanics stay in place, and we don't have to jump through a dozen hoops to make human adventurers cowards so your 3 ft tall halfling can be called brave. 



Maxperson said:


> The novels and comics aren't relevant to this discussion. They are not D&D. D&D is the game with the rules, mechanics and such, not a medium that is tied to the power of plot.  In books and comics, fully healthy dragons can die by accident when a rock fall on them.  In D&D they can't.




Right. Nothing in DnD is pulled from comics and novels. Invisiblility Rings? Small plucky farmers? Dragons? All of them came from the mechanics of the game, nothing at all to do with novels. How could I possibly get the idea that storytelling might be involved in a game about telling a story anyways? It's a ludicrous idea. Pure numbers and math this game is.



Maxperson said:


> If you're looking to inherently flawed sources for how things should happen in the game, you should probably reconsider your position.
> 
> Depends.  When it comes to something like a +1 to hit helping you hit one additional time every 5-10 combats, no, you aren't going to notice that 5%.  Nothing is around to tell you which hit is extra or in which combat it happened.  When it comes to re-rolling a 1 due to halfling luck, you'd have to be brain dead not to notice that 1 turn into a success.  You just rolled both numbers!  So yes, you'll notice it all 3% of the time.




Right, braindead is it. I mean, how could you not notice and care about the single time it happens in a game, and you end up failing anyways. Because, you know, that happened. Clearly, a character defining moment of luck to see there single time using an ability not change a thing. 

And yes, I know you said someone would have to be braindead not to notice them taking the 1 and rolling a success, but you still aren't getting how rare that is to actually happen. Maybe your players roll a lot of 1's, but many of mine don't and the ones that do, don't play halflings. So, even if it does happen once or twice a campaign... it still isn't that impactful. I mean, it could happen on their roll against getting drunk. A scene no one will really care about by the end of the campaign. Did they notice it? Sure. Did it matter? No, it didn't matter.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Ya know, there's days when I could almost get behind that: a Humans-only game without any other PC-playable species.
> 
> I'm used to Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits and kinda like all three, but I guess I could live without them and all the others if it came to that.



Wow, I get absolutely dogpiled for suggesting that the two LEAST PLAYED races (whatever they are) get shunted to the MM, and that's heretical.  But, dumping all but the most played race in the Monster Manual is the solution?  Seriously?

Note, for those keeping score.  The ONLY reason I'm suggesting gnomes and halflings is because those two races HAPPEN to be at the bottom of the barrel of the PHB races.  If it was elves and dwarves?  Punt them.  Whatever are the two LEAST PLAYED races gets cut every ten years as the new PHB comes out in favor of trying something that might get more traction with players.  That's what I'm suggesting.

That way the PHB actually reflects what players want to play, rather than what some people want to force everyone else to play.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Because halflings and gnomes are in the PHB, that means that every single setting guide, adventure, and supplement MUST include both of them, regardless of whether or not they fit.  You absolutely must include material for both races in every (or nearly every, I'm sure there are exceptions) book no matter what.



This feels like a reason to have either no races in the PHB or just humans if one wants creativity in the various worlds, so that a standard flotilla of races aren't forced into every book and setting  no matter what.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And yes, I know you said someone would have to be braindead not to notice them taking the 1 and rolling a success, but you still aren't getting how rare that is to actually happen. Maybe your players roll a lot of 1's, but many of mine don't and the ones that do, don't play halflings. So, even if it does happen once or twice a campaign... it still isn't that impactful. I mean, it could happen on their roll against getting drunk. A scene no one will really care about by the end of the campaign. Did they notice it? Sure. Did it matter? No, it didn't matter.



Your characters don't roll 1's 5% of the time, or they don't roll dice very often?

Also, as far as the relationship of bravery and fear, any comment on the definitions and quotes in








						The Trouble with Halflings
					

Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.   Picture courtesy of Pixabay. So What's the Problem? Halflings, derived from hobbits, have been a curious nod to Tolkien's influence on...




					www.enworld.org


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 16, 2022)

Can't we have degrees of bravery?  Brave?  Braver?  Bravest?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't need to read your mind when I read your posts.




Clearly. Because when I say "I'm not attacking halflings as a concept" you clearly read and understood that, which is why you accused me of attacking halflings as a concept.



Faolyn said:


> If they're not addressing your point, why are you even answering it? Why not just say "I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about this other thing?"
> 
> Instead, when people have said "Lucky does this thing," you then go on to talk about how it's not not a good rule.




Because I try and be polite and not ignore people's arguments. Which is a mistake, obviously, but I do try.



Faolyn said:


> If roleplaying a halfling's luck is a burden, then why are you DMing? It's not like it's something you'd have to do multiple times a session. But presumably you do specific RP moments with each of your players based on their backgrounds, right? So why wouldn't you occasionally do a bit of halfling luck when you RP with with a halfling player?
> 
> Or do you _not _RP anything with any character that isn't covered by a mechanic?




Well, I'd be DMing because I'm the DM. If I wasn't the DM, I wouldn't be DMing. Kind of simple like that. 

But, let's talk about this, because you bring up an interesting point. Do I RP things about character's backgrounds? Yes. If a character has a background as a sailor, I try and find a way to weave that in. If their backstory includes a loving family, I try to make reference to that, and encourage them to engage with that story. If they are a noble, their bloodline will likely come up. If they had a teacher of the arcane arts, they will likely encounter them.

Now, here's the part that might blow your mind. Halfling characters pick backgrounds too. They also might have an arcane master, or a mercenary past, or were part of a secret society. So those hooks will come up, and will add to the story. But, do you know what isn't a hook that typically plays into their background? "I'm just lucky" 

Unless a player is leaning HARD into the silliness of extreme luck... it never actually is part of their backstory or their class or the story they are trying to tell with their character. The only reason they care about it, is because they wanted to reroll 1's. Now, you will probably ask me "then what's the problem?!" But, you see, it was players like that who didn't want to lean into the halfling luck that led me to realizing that if the DM doesn't lean into it... it doesn't appear in the story. For the trait that makes halflings unique among the other races... it never comes up, unless the DM pushes it to come up. Unlike all of the other racial traits, it is entirely passive, entirely in the background, and the DM has to force it to matter outside of the rare time they re-roll a 1. Which, to me, signals that... it isn't a good narrative trait. It puts the burden for the player's concept entirely in the hands of the DM, and so any player that does want those moments of luck, is going to have to entreat their DM to include them, which is not like any other trait in the game.



Faolyn said:


> Well, no, because the narrative is up to the DM and players. The _game_ covers the mechanics.
> 
> 
> And so on. That's what the game does. It's up to the DM and players to actually make those mechanics sound interesting.




So fluff is an illusion? There is no narrative structures at all in DnD?

Weird... so where did the idea that goblins are servants of Magbuliyet come from? Because, that's not a mechanic, and me and my players certainly didn't create it, did I just forget creating that? Or creating the idea that hobgoblins work in tight military units? Or that hags enjoy spreading misery and ugliness? 

Dang, how much stuff did I just forget that I made?



Faolyn said:


> First off, you are once again forgetting there's a difference between being afraid and being subjected to the frightened condition. They're _not _the same thing.




Really? Then how did your post here "For the narration to continue with the PCs, the players have to be willing to show that their human characters are shaking with fear but willing to go ahead anyway while their halfling characters are just strolling in, unaffected." make any sense? Is the human character under a condition or just afraid? You didn't mention, you just said they have to be willing to show they are shaking with fear. 

So, if you didn't mean they were shaking with fear because they were afraid, then what did you mean?



Faolyn said:


> Secondly, there is *NO ALOOF CONDITION. *You are once again confusing a role-playing choice with a game mechanic. A person can role-play being aloof or surly or even afraid with zero mechanical support for that.




So, being aloof is role-playing decision. Being afraid is a role-playing decision. Being Brave is a mechanical trait that has nothing to do with role-play. 

... And you can't seem to graps why I see that as a problem. Oh wait, let me guess, "anyone can choose to be brave, halflings just have a mechanical trait". Yeah, one that ties in with their, according to the post that started this off, unique role as the race that is brave. So, bravery is a role-playing trait that anyone can have... and a mechanical thing that differentiates halflings as unique amongst the races, and I can't possibly have been in a multi-page debate with Maxperson over calling characters "not brave" because they don't have that trait.



Faolyn said:


> Thirdly, are the human and halfling PCs team players? Do you want to work together to improve the game's _narrative? _If so, then _yes_, RP your character as being frightened but willing to press on (because you made your save against being frightened) while the halfling continues on without a care in the world (because they also made their saving throw, but are "braver" than humans are). This isn't forcing the human to be scared; this is two players working together to RP racial differences.
> 
> I know that when _I _encounter an effect that puts the frightened condition on me and save against it, I at least try to roleplay being unnerved by it, even if I suffer no mechanical penalties. I do the same when I DM as well: if a PC saves against being frightened, I often tell them that they can feel the fear trying to grab them but they are able to push the worst of it aside. And my players are more than happy to RP that, and have done so even when I _haven't _said that. I had a player who decided that their character was going to have a full-fledged panic attack because one of their powers backfired (nat 1 on an attack roll) in a way that reminded them of a past trauma they had written into their background. The character wasn't being subjected to the frightened condition; the player RP'd being afraid.




So, again, I need to alter my role-playing to support the halfing, because if I role-played my character the way I wanted to, the halfling wouldn't feel special. I need to be a "team player" in that regard. 

Tell me, what other race in the game determines how the people who don't pick it are supposed to role-play their characters.



Faolyn said:


> So what is this? You want halflings to be "brave" because of the narrative, but you don't want the narrative to actually reflect the mechanics because then it isn't fair to the other players because it somehow forces them to be less brave, and you don't want to put out any extra effort to make the narrative more interesting. This is why I say it's obvious you just don't like halflings, because _nothing _is going to make you happy here.




Again, you show that you haven't actually paid attention to what I am saying. Because you immediately get it wrong with the first point. 

I don't want halflings to be brave. Adventurers are brave. It is a role-playing trait. If halflings need to keep some sort of mechanic against the frightened condition, there are better ways to do it. But this narrative of "the halfling is the brave race" hurts the game. It is either ignored in the narrative, or other players need to bend to the halflings story and ignore their own. And, I'm sorry, I didn't play a human knight because I was interested in the story of a halfling warlock. If I wanted to worry about RPing a halfling warlock, I'd have played one. 




Faolyn said:


> And why not? The other players are brave because they overcame their fears. The halfling is brave because they didn't have the fear to begin with.
> 
> And _again, _being afraid is not the same as the frightened condition!




And resisting supernatural mind-altering effects isn't overcoming your fears. Or maybe I decided that my Knight has no fears to begin with. Am I not allowed to do that?



Faolyn said:


> Except that you are refusing to actually understand the solution.
> 
> Halfling luck--lowercase _l_-luck--isn't "supposed" to be consistent. It just happens. It's not a mechanic that says the halfling finds a copper on the ground 1/short rest. You can throw it into the game whenever you want to. You can encourage the player to invent their own lucky finds, within some guidelines. You can _also _provide RP moments that emphasize the elfiness of your elf PCs, the dwarfiness of your dwarf PCs, and the humaness of your human PCs at the _same time_.
> 
> If you actually cared about the narrative, you'd do this.




Right, if I actually cared about the narrative, I'd give the halfling special treatment, regardless of how that made the other players feel. I mean, it isn't required that I even do it, I could totally ignore the halflings luck and not engage with it. Or I can tell the player that they can come up with their own things that happen. I mean, you know my groups, so you know how that will go.  



Faolyn said:


> I'm only suggesting this because _you _are overly concerned with the name of a trait. Literally nobody in my game that has three halflings, a tiefling, and a half-orc cares one whit about the trait's name or what it means because _they _are capable of looking past the name. Above, when I talked about the PC having a panic attack? That was one of the halflings (who either chose not to reroll that nat 1 or rolled a second nat 1, can't remember because it was several years ago), because the player is aware of the difference between fear and the frightened condition and who chose to RP it.




Looking past the name... it is re-roll against a disadvantage on attacks. It carries no more weight than the poison resistance that does the exact same thing. 

It is when we start caring about roleplaying that this starts becoming an issue. Now, I'm glad you've never run into any problems with this. But since dueling anecdotes doesn't get us anywhere, perhaps you shouldn't brush off my concerns as nonsense because I "clearly don't understand" when it took multiple days to even get you to engage in the conversation I've been trying to have.



Faolyn said:


> Neither Bravery nor Lucky are personality traits. They are the names of traits. You are confusing them with lowercase-b brave and lowercase-l lucky.




Do you think naming something after a personality trait, then claiming it is defining for an entire race of people, might be the problem? I mean, call me crazy, but if you made a new race and gave them a mechanical trait that allowed them to take the help action as a bonus action and called it "Loving" then maybe people might think that it... has something to do with being loving? Especially as the race is billed as a race full of loving people. And that being loving is defining for their entire race. And that other players might look at that and go... "well... my character is loving" and wonder why this personality trait is being treated as a mechanical thing that is now attributed to this single race. 

I mean, you'll note. No elf in the game has an "aloof" or "whimsical" trait. No Dwarf has "grumpy" or "stubborn" as a trait. Might be a reason for that.



Faolyn said:


> If you choose to not have a discussion with your players about the nature of halfling luck and the forms it might take, that's your problem, not the game's and not mine.




So, now it can't be a problem because DMs should talk to their players and set expectations for it before the game. It is amazing the lengths people will go to to ignore something.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 16, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Your characters don't roll 1's 5% of the time, or they don't roll dice very often?
> 
> Also, as far as the relationship of bravery and fear, any comment on the definitions and quotes in
> 
> ...




I'm sure, in aggregate, all of my players over all of my games, have rolled 1's close to 5% of the time. 

However, that doesn't mean that a specific player, in a specific game has ever rolled a 1. And in fact, I've had a lot of players who during a campaign, rarely or never rolled 1's. I have another player who rolls 1's more often than he rolls above a 10. But he doesn't play halflings. 


As for your definitions, I saw that before. However, I didn't want to get further bogged down in how "moving forward despite fear" is not literally moving in a specific forward direction. That phrase is often metaphorical, like choosing to more forward with your life. Equating it to the same thing as not being able to literally take a step forward isn't helpful. 

Also, note one of those synonyms of "brave" Intrepid. Wonder where I've heard that used... Intrepid Adventurers? 





I wonder if that is a common term used for all adventurers, along the lines of Brave Adventurers. Because, you know, all Adventurers are brave or intrepid or courageous. It is kind of the point. Which is why having one race that is "the brave race" doesn't work in the context of the party.


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## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Cadence said:


> This feels like a reason to have either no races in the PHB or just humans if one wants creativity in the various worlds, so that a standard flotilla of races aren't forced into every book and setting  no matter what.



No, not at all.

After all, the other races actually ARE being played.  And being played more regularly by considerably more people.  So, it makes sense that the setting guides and whatnot feature these races regularly.  If, say (and I'm picking a totally random number here, not meant as a actual real number) 10% of players play a given race, then having that particular race show up in adventures and in player facing books like Tasha's makes a lot of sense.  You are speaking to a larger segment of the audience.

But, halflings, and especially gnomes, don't actually do that.  Despite featuring in books, despite being part of the SRD, despite having the backing of Grandpappy Tolkien himself, halflings are and always have been scraping the bottom of the barrel.  And gnomes are even less relevant.

My point is that the PHB should be relevant to the most number of players it can be given size restraints.  So, if a race (and I don't actually care which race - if humans were scraping the bottom of the barrel, I'd be just as quick to give them the heave) is not actually being played, and other races ARE, then those other, more played races, should be what is featured in the PHB regardless of whether or not I personally like them.  This has never, ever been about personal preference.  If it was, I'd be advocating booting elves LONG before any other race.  But, no, it's about making the PHB relevant to the most number of players.  Like I said earlier, it was great that we had polearm descriptions, but, since most players are never actually going to use a polearm, then maybe we don't need pages of polearm descriptions in the PHB.


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## James Gasik (Jul 16, 2022)

Some might argue adventurers are also foolhardy.


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## bedir than (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.



No, the Dex bonus wasn't the primary reason to play halflings. There are other races that get Dex bonuses.

Story remains the most common reason for players to play things. That's why there was no post-Tasha's explosion of Mountain Dwarves.


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## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Some might argue adventurers are also foolhardy.



“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea – any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”

or

“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”


----------



## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> . I have another player who rolls 1's more often than he rolls above a 10. But he doesn't play halflings.




You should video the one player every time they roll.  Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.




Chaosmancer said:


> I wonder if that is a common term used for all adventurers, along the lines of Brave Adventurers. Because, you know, all Adventurers are brave or intrepid or courageous. It is kind of the point. Which is why having one race that is "the brave race" doesn't work in the context of the party.



For better or worse, it feels like the authors of the PhB use it more sparingly. The Heroism Spell make one brave or the Bard exhot his companions to bravery and heroism.  The fighter sample fighter is described as courageous while the rogue, cleric, and wizard are skulking, fervent, and flamboyant respectively.  It is the dwarfs courage (along with endurance) that makes them a match for larger folk.  Similarly it is the barbarians courage in the face of danger that makes them perfectly suited for adventuring. etc...    Do any of those usages have a point if all adventurers are equally brave?


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you are going to just change the narrative. "Fear" from artillery, or gunfire, or whatever else isn't supernatural, because we don't have supernatural things in our world. So you can dismiss the entire thing because it isn't MAGICAL fear.



It isn't the same kind of fear that you get in the game, because you can choose to ignore it.  5e fear is impossible to ignore unless you make your save.


Chaosmancer said:


> And now you can't be brave if you are mind controlled, because nothing says "define my character's personality" like removing control over that character.



That's what mind control spells do.  Your character didn't get to choose to be frightened.  His mind was controlled in some manner and it was forced on him.


Chaosmancer said:


> "Halflings aren't braver than other races"



Because they objectively are.  I'm not going to say they aren't when they are.


Chaosmancer said:


> and figure out a better way to represent the mechanics? Like that halfling's fear response doesn't cause them to shake, a halfling's hands are always steady, no matter what. Give them immunity to disadvantage caused by the fear condition.



See, now THIS is constructive.  Halflings are objectively braver than other races as it stands, but the current mechanic may not be the best way to represent it.  Personally I prefer the Kender immunity to fear, but maybe give them 3 points a day and they can expend one to automatically make any save against a fear type ability if immunity is too much.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right. Nothing in DnD is pulled from comics and novels. Invisiblility Rings? Small plucky farmers? Dragons? All of them came from the mechanics of the game, nothing at all to do with novels. How could I possibly get the idea that storytelling might be involved in a game about telling a story anyways? It's a ludicrous idea. Pure numbers and math this game is.



It doesn't matter what is pulled from where.  Novels and comics just aren't going to be the game and vice versa.  Or can you show me where in 5e the mechanics of a rock falling on a big ole healthy dragon will kill it, rather than just irritating it a little bit.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right, braindead is it. I mean, how could you not notice and care about the single time it happens in a game, and you end up failing anyways. Because, you know, that happened. Clearly, a character defining moment of luck to see there single time using an ability not change a thing.
> 
> And yes, I know you said someone would have to be braindead not to notice them taking the 1 and rolling a success, but you still aren't getting how rare that is to actually happen. Maybe your players roll a lot of 1's, but many of mine don't and the ones that do, don't play halflings. So, even if it does happen once or twice a campaign... it still isn't that impactful. I mean, it could happen on their roll against getting drunk. A scene no one will really care about by the end of the campaign. Did they notice it? Sure. Did it matter? No, it didn't matter.



It happens 1 roll in 20 on average, so unless you're rolling only a couple times a session, you're going to hit those ones fairly regularly.  I've been playing the game since 1983 and I've yet to meet anyone who can go an entire campaign and not roll a good number of 1s.  Maybe they all play at your table.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> However, that doesn't mean that a specific player, in a specific game has ever rolled a 1. And in fact, I've had a lot of players who during a campaign, rarely or never rolled 1's. I have another player who rolls 1's more often than he rolls above a 10. But he doesn't play halflings.



That seems................................short sighted.  If I rolled that badly that consistently, halfling with the lucky feat would be my go to.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)




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## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

Cadence said:


> You should video the one player every time they roll.  Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.



Weird luck happens.  I played in a weekly game for many years and the DM called for rolls at the beginning of the session as a sort of luck roll.  For close to a year my very first roll would be a 1.  At first nobody really noticed, but after 5 or 6 weeks in a row, we started watching my first roll.  I picked different d20s.  I used other people's d20s.  It didn't matter.  It got to the point where I'd sit down and people would say, "Time for X to roll a 1!" Fortunately a 1 was fate and fate could be good or bad in that game, and I had good luck a lot more than bad. I don't remember when that streak stopped, but once it was broken it was shattered and my first rolls of the night would be as varied as anyone else's.


----------



## Cadence (Jul 16, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Weird luck happens.  I played in a weekly game for many years and the DM called for rolls at the beginning of the session as a sort of luck roll.  For close to a year my very first roll would be a 1.  At first nobody really noticed, but after 5 or 6 weeks in a row, we started watching my first roll.  I picked different d20s.  I used other people's d20s.  It didn't matter.  It got to the point where I'd sit down and people would say, "Time for X to roll a 1!" Fortunately a 1 was fate and fate could be good or bad in that game, and I had good luck a lot more than bad. I don't remember when that streak stopped, but once it was broken it was shattered and my first rolls of the night would be as varied as anyone else's.




Coincidences happen all the time in retrospect (like noticing several session starting ones in a row in the past), it's when it's called out (like you did) and keeps happening that makes it cool I think.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Yes, it really is.  4.7% five years ago, before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.
> 
> Does anyone think that in the past five years, halflings have become MORE commonly played?
> 
> Sorry, yes, I feel no shame in ignoring 1 in 20 players in favor of improving the game by actually including things that more people will want to play.  In the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have both proven that new races are very popular - with Goliaths also in the running despite not even being included in the PHB.  Hell, Genasi are being played as often.



I wonder how much of the popularity of things like Goliaths and Genasi is due to the newness factor, i.e. players taking out the Cool New Thing for a test drive?


----------



## Azzy (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Yes, it really is.  4.7% five years ago, before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.



Pftt. Damn, like there's been nothing but Dex bonuses going for halflings all this time. Nothing on the roleplaying front at all that have attracted halfling players.



Hussar said:


> Does anyone think that in the past five years, halflings have become MORE commonly played?



Who knows? But even if the percentage stays the same, the total number of halfling players have grown as the player population has grown.


Hussar said:


> Sorry, yes, I feel no shame in ignoring 1 in 20 players in favor of improving the game by actually including things that more people will want to play.



Thankfully, WotC doesn't feel the same in ignoring such players.



Hussar said:


> In the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have both proven that new races are very popular -



Yes, and they didn't have to remove anything to add them. Win-win.



Hussar said:


> with Goliaths also in the running despite not even being included in the PHB.  Hell, Genasi are being played as often.



Whoo, that means incentivized sales for sourcebooks, then.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I wonder how much of the popularity of things like Goliaths and Genasi is due to the newness factor, i.e. players taking out the Cool New Thing for a test drive?



Genasi have been around for 20 years.  I'd think the newness factor was over.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 16, 2022)

Yeah ditching Halflings and Gnomes might lead some to suddenly say 5e "doesn't feel like D&D", and then they'd have to immediately kill the edition, take 2 years doing a crowdsourced playtest, only to announce a "greatest hits" edition that ignores a good chunk of the playtest data....wait, what year is this?


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## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Ah, but their choice DOES affect me.
> 
> Because halflings and gnomes are in the PHB, that means that every single setting guide, adventure, and supplement MUST include both of them, regardless of whether or not they fit.  You absolutely must include material for both races in every (or nearly every, I'm sure there are exceptions) book no matter what.



Setting guides I'll give you - core species should be covered there even if only to explain why they don't appear in that setting if such is the case.

Adventures?  There's nothing anywhere says I even have to mention any specific species in any adventure if I don't want to, no matter what that species and-or adventure might be.

Supplements?  Variable.  If any species-based rules are changing due to a supplement then yes, every PC-playable species must be mentioned as to how and-or if the changes affect them.  But a supplement book full of magic items or new spells or geographical maps can ignore species entirely if so desired.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Wow, I get absolutely dogpiled for suggesting that the two LEAST PLAYED races (whatever they are) get shunted to the MM, and that's heretical.  But, dumping all but the most played race in the Monster Manual is the solution?  Seriously?



It's A solution.  Maybe not the best one, but I could live with it as I've always been somewhat Human-o-centric in my games anyway.


Hussar said:


> Note, for those keeping score.  The ONLY reason I'm suggesting gnomes and halflings is because those two races HAPPEN to be at the bottom of the barrel of the PHB races.  If it was elves and dwarves?  Punt them.  Whatever are the two LEAST PLAYED races gets cut every ten years as the new PHB comes out in favor of trying something that might get more traction with players.  That's what I'm suggesting.



So, a football-like promotion/relegation system then.

Right, then: everyone play Hobbits this season so we can keep them in the First Division! 


Hussar said:


> That way the PHB actually reflects what players want to play, rather than what some people want to force everyone else to play.



Which opens up the question, should the PH be leading or following in such respects?


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I wonder if that is a common term used for all adventurers, along the lines of Brave Adventurers. Because, you know, all Adventurers are brave or intrepid or courageous. It is kind of the point. Which is why having one race that is "the brave race" doesn't work in the context of the party.



Sure it does.  When Fear is a mechanical condition the game can impose, having a species less likely to be affected by that condition is an advantage to the party.  Same goes for Poison or Sleep or Charm, all of which have in the past have had (and still have?) specific species that were less likely to be affected.

It also, I suppose, depends how badly the Fear condition affects characters when it hits.  If they can mostly keep going as normal it's not a big deal.  If it means they drop everything and flee in blind terror it's a very big deal indeed, as fleeing in blind terror can send you over a cliff or into other hazards and can also very easily get you lost - you eventually snap out of the fear but have no idea where you've run to or how you got there.

My style tends more toward the blind-terror side, which means any item that grants Fearless is highly sought after. (that said, nobody ever wants to play Cavaliers who come with Fearless as a built-in class ability right from 1st level)


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## Faolyn (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Ah, but their choice DOES affect me.
> 
> Because halflings and gnomes are in the PHB, that means that every single setting guide, adventure, and supplement MUST include both of them, regardless of whether or not they fit.  You absolutely must include material for both races in every (or nearly every, I'm sure there are exceptions) book no matter what.



Except that as you pointed out, they got a single sentence in an adventure. The end. And you treated it like it was an enormous waste of space.

How did that sentence affect you? How would even a paragraph or a whole page actually affect you? If you don't hate halflings, like you claim, then their mere presence shouldn't actually bother you. 

So either you _do _hate them but for some reason want to pretend you don't, or you _don't _hate them and therefore shouldn't be upset that some villagers are halflings. Which is it?



Hussar said:


> I'm diminishing the interests of half a million people in the face of TWENTY TIMES more people.  Ok, the math of that is off, but, you get the point.



But you haven't actually said _how _these interests are diminished. How many people are really pulling their hair out in frustration because there's a halfling in the book? Seriously.



Hussar said:


> Again, I'm not advocating at all to remove them from the game.  I'm simply shunting them to another book so they don't clutter up the game with a bunch of material that is so rarely used.  They are in the same category as polearm tables.  They just aren't needed in the PHB.  And, you keep pointing to Level Up. Why?  Do you honestly think that the revised game is going to be more complex than currently?  Hey, The World's Largest Dungeon is about a thousand pages, so, I guess every future module should be a thousand pages too.    Why are you repeatedly pointing a book from another company?  Do you really think they're going to double or triple the size of the PHB?



Give me a reason why they _couldn't?_ Especially considering they are opening up more and more to digital sales where the size of the book doesn't matter. And who said anything about doubling or tripling? They could add all the current races in another forty or fifty pages. 

I'm bringing up Level Up to show you that published, dead-tree D&D-derived books can in fact be more than 300 pages in length without problems.

Unlike twelve types of polearms, different races actually do fit different niches. I doubt that there's anyone who's mad for bec de corbins, but there _are _people who adore halflings, just like there are people who adore elves or orcs or tabaxi or whatever. The mere fact that you are not one of those people doesn't mean that those people don't exist. I play with not one but _two _people who will nearly always play tabaxi/anthro races. I knew a guy in college who would only ever play halflings, unless he was allowed to play a kender. 

And 400k people is not rarely used. It's a sizable fraction, considering that it only counts people who made a character on D&DBeyond.



Hussar said:


> But, there aren't really forty species. There are like 5-8 species and then everyone else.



Aarakocra, aasimar (fallen, protector, scourge), bugbear, centaur, changeling, dhampir, dragonborn (base, chromatic, draconblood, gem, metallic, ravenite), dwarf (duergar, hill, mountain), elf (drow, eladrin, high, pallid, sea, shadar-kai, wood), fairy, firbolg, genasi (air, earth, fire, water), gith (githyanki, githzerai), gnome (deep, forest, rock), goblin (base, dankwood), goliath, grung, half-elf (base, elf subrace-descent), half-orc, halfling (ghostwise, lightfoot, lotusden, stout), harengon, hexblood, hobgoblin (base, fey), human (base, variant), kalashtar, kenku, kobold, leonin, locathah, minotaur, orc, owlin, reborn, satyr, shifter (beasthide, longtooth, swiftstride, wildhunt), tabaxi, tiefling (base, Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Dispater, Fierna, Glasya, Levistus, Mammon, Mephistopheles, varaint, Zariel), tortle, triton, veldaken, verdan, warforged, yuai-ti.

If my count is correct, that's 42 races and 55 sub-races.

In the games I'm playing in or running, we have: tiefling (2), tabaxi (2), half-elf (3), warforged (2), kenku, githzerai, firbolg, gnome, leonin, changeling, kalashtar, earth genasi, shifter, half-orc (2), reborn, dhampir, halfling *(3)*, homebrew caliban (2).

Maybe your games don't have a wide variety of races in them. I don't know. But as you can see, mine, and probably a lot of other games as well, _do._


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## Charlaquin (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I wonder how much of the popularity of things like Goliaths and Genasi is due to the newness factor, i.e. players taking out the Cool New Thing for a test drive?



Neither Goliaths nor Genasi are new. They’ve been around for decades.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Except that as you pointed out, they got a single sentence in an adventure. The end. And you treated it like it was an enormous waste of space.
> 
> How did that sentence affect you? How would even a paragraph or a whole page actually affect you? If you don't hate halflings, like you claim, then their mere presence shouldn't actually bother you.
> 
> ...



If we extrapolate you the greater community, but halve both the percentage from the ddb data and the number of players from the wotc numbers, we get 2.35% of 25 million players. That’s over half a million players. Use 4.7, and it tops a million. 

And we don’t know wotc’s data for race usage, but we do know that they consider halflings quite popular. 


Faolyn said:


> Aarakocra, aasimar (fallen, protector, scourge), bugbear, centaur, changeling, dhampir, dragonborn (base, chromatic, draconblood, gem, metallic, ravenite), dwarf (duergar, hill, mountain), elf (drow, eladrin, high, pallid, sea, shadar-kai, wood), fairy, firbolg, genasi (air, earth, fire, water), gith (githyanki, githzerai), gnome (deep, forest, rock), goblin (base, dankwood), goliath, grung, half-elf (base, elf subrace-descent), half-orc, halfling (ghostwise, lightfoot, lotusden, stout), harengon, hexblood, hobgoblin (base, fey), human (base, variant), kalashtar, kenku, kobold, leonin, locathah, minotaur, orc, owlin, reborn, satyr, shifter (beasthide, longtooth, swiftstride, wildhunt), tabaxi, tiefling (base, Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Dispater, Fierna, Glasya, Levistus, Mammon, Mephistopheles, varaint, Zariel), tortle, triton, veldaken, verdan, warforged, yuai-ti.
> 
> If my count is correct, that's 42 races and 55 sub-races.
> 
> ...



Halflings show up a lot at my table, as do gnomes. 

IMO, the need to worry about “redundant niche representation” or whatever with the small races is precisely the same as the need to worry about humans, elves, and dwarves, filling the same niche.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Hey so, does Powerful Build mean that human adventurers are weaklings? 

Or is it just “bravery” that for some obscure reason has to be a binary?


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## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Hey so, does Powerful Build mean that human adventurers are weaklings?
> 
> Or is it just “bravery” that for some obscure reason has to be a binary?



You have it backwards.  Human adventurers are strong, therefore the goliath race isn't any stronger than any other race.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You have it backwards.  Human adventurers are strong, therefore the goliath race isn't any stronger than any other race.



Well it seems to change back and forth, so I’m sure you can understand my confusion. 

It’s just so strange to me. This argument and the whole “put them in the MM” argument. I saw a person whose posts I only see when I click a button say (I assume with a straight face!?) that people were being forced to play halflings and gnomes!?

Like, friends, I actively dislike the Gith, I’m ambivalent toward D&D dwarves, and I think the game would be better if the cleric went away and the Druid expanded to cover other kinds of priests, but I don’t advocate for any of those things going away, being radically rewritten, or being shunted off into secondary supplements. 



Minigiant said:


> Guys.
> 
> The problem isn't that halflimgs are brave or lucky.
> 
> It's that the mechanics used for bravery and luck in 5e are terrible and make the halflimgs outlook look silly or nonsensical if you don't fully buy into the concept of the race and their place in a setting.



Not really. They’re brave so they have a feature that means they’ll save against fear more than others. Which supports them being brave. They are lucky an so they don’t tend to have x


James Gasik said:


> Can't we have degrees of bravery?  Brave?  Braver?  Bravest?



No! Binaries always! Or never! 





Faolyn said:


> I *doubt that there's anyone who's mad for bec de corbins*, but there _are _people who adore halflings, just like there are people who adore elves or orcs or tabaxi or whatever.



The hells you say! There are dozens of us! Dozens!


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## Hussar (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Setting guides I'll give you - core species should be covered there even if only to explain why they don't appear in that setting if such is the case.
> 
> Adventures?  There's nothing anywhere says I even have to mention any specific species in any adventure if I don't want to, no matter what that species and-or adventure might be.
> 
> Supplements?  Variable.  If any species-based rules are changing due to a supplement then yes, every PC-playable species must be mentioned as to how and-or if the changes affect them.  But a supplement book full of magic items or new spells or geographical maps can ignore species entirely if so desired.



But, the point is, they don't.  They don't ignore the core races when a new book comes out.  EVERY book.  Every adventure.  Every supplement MUST include all the PHB races, no matter what.  There might be a couple of odd exceptions here or there - I think that Greek inspired setting might not and the MtG settings don't - but, the point still remains.  Ever since D&D was released, we had to include the PHB races in every setting even if we had to totally mutate the races - cannibal halflings, kender that are the antithesis of PHB halflings, tinker gnomes that in no way actually resembled PHB gnomes at all - in order to do so.  

Funny how we don't completely rewrite elves or dwarves in most settings.  Wonder why that is?


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## Faolyn (Jul 16, 2022)

You know what? Never mind. Not worth it.


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## Maxperson (Jul 16, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> It’s just so strange to me. This argument and the whole “put them in the MM” argument. I saw a person whose posts I only see when I click a button say (I assume with a straight face!?) that people were being forced to play halflings and gnomes!?



Wow! I missed that entirely. Was it explained just how people were being forced to play halflings and gnomes?


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## lingual (Jul 16, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Wow, I get absolutely dogpiled for suggesting that the two LEAST PLAYED races (whatever they are) get shunted to the MM, and that's heretical.  But, dumping all but the most played race in the Monster Manual is the solution?  Seriously?
> 
> Note, for those keeping score.  The ONLY reason I'm suggesting gnomes and halflings is because those two races HAPPEN to be at the bottom of the barrel of the PHB races.  If it was elves and dwarves?  Punt them.  Whatever are the two LEAST PLAYED races gets cut every ten years as the new PHB comes out in favor of trying something that might get more traction with players.  That's what I'm suggesting.
> 
> That way the PHB actually reflects what players want to play, rather than what some people want to force everyone else to play.



I don't think dogpile is accurate.  Some people just disagree with you.  You claim they are wrong and they claim you are wrong.  It's just a difference of opinion and I don't think you should get offended.  If you are tired of trying to convince people, then stop.   You can personally remove the halfling from your players handbook.  Or don't buy supplements, etc. that have halfling content if such content displeases you.  There are plenty of books, etc. that don't feature halflings.   The game isn't suited to any one customer's tastes.   I'm pretty sure WOTC actually has a better handle of their demographics than any of us.   None of us here for their prime target audience.   It would be impossible to make a game that completely satisfied the people on this forum.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Goblins and Kobolds are IMO monsters, not PC species; and thus deserve no space in the PH.



they are bearly monsters anymore.


bedir than said:


> No, the Dex bonus wasn't the primary reason to play halflings. There are other races that get Dex bonuses.
> 
> Story remains the most common reason for players to play things. That's why there was no post-Tasha's explosion of Mountain Dwarves.



or because they think they look cool.


Azzy said:


> Pftt. Damn, like there's been nothing but Dex bonuses going for halflings all this time. Nothing on the roleplaying front at all that have attracted halfling players.



they have cottagecore and remaking Tolkiens work which is not nothing.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

It might be worth citing this, from the introduction to Call of the Netherdeep:


> This adventure begins in Xhorhas, where most humans are nomads; most elves are drow who live aboveground; dwarves and halflings are rare; and goblinoids, orcs, lizardfolk, kobolds, and other creatures sometimes seen as “monstrous” elsewhere are more populous than gnomes and dragonborn.



I.e., the Common Races for Call of the Netherdeep PCs are: drow, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, humans, lizardfolk and kobolds. Dwarves, halflings, gnomes and dragonborn are explicitly rare.

My players chose to play: two orcs, a half orc/half eladrin, a satyr, a firbolg and a pallid elf.


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## Umbran (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> So either you _do _hate them but for some reason want to pretend you don't, or you _don't _hate them and therefore shouldn't be upset that some villagers are halflings. Which is it?




*Mod Note:*
Please stop making this discussion personal.  In doing so, you are essentially ensuring that the opposition will dig in to defend themselves.  You have set this up now to be an ego conflict, rather than about the actual topic.

So, again, please stop.  We aren't here for your ego conflicts.


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## Minigiant (Jul 16, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Not really. They’re brave so they have a feature that means they’ll save against fear more than others. Which supports them being brave. They are lucky an so they don’t tend to have x



My point is power and fantastic impact.

Brave and Lucky as so weak they might as well be ribbon abilities.

Because of this and an anti-adventurous base culture means many DMs and World builders struggle to integrate halfling into their worlds.

Which then begs the question *should halflings remain in the outsider gray area or be altered for easier use?*


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> ...
> 
> Unlike twelve types of polearms, different races actually do fit different niches. I doubt that there's anyone who's mad for bec de corbins,



Well if I'm playing a kenku with a polearm _obviously_ we have a gap in the polearm list.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is power and fantastic impact.
> 
> Brave and Lucky as so weak they might as well be ribbon abilities.



Whilst brave is worthless (on a par with elemental resistances - also worthless), Lucky is popular because its fun, not powerful. Although it's not as weak as "5%" appears. If your chance of success is very high, you may be in the situation where you can only fail on a 1, in which case Lucky makes success almost certain. If you can only fail on a 1 or 2, Lucky halves the chance of failing. It's more a case of protection from bad luck than it is good luck. And the more times you throw the dice (e.g. lots of attack rolls) the more likely it is to come up. You don't see people complaining critical hits are worthless do you? Lucky is a reverse critical.


Minigiant said:


> Because of this and an anti-adventurous base culture means many DMs and World builders struggle to integrate halfling into their worlds.



There is no need for them to be integrated into anything. They are in the book to be player characters, not socio-economic building blocks.


Minigiant said:


> Which then begs the question *should halflings remain in the outsider gray area or be altered for easier use?*



What's the difference between altering them and creating a new race?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 16, 2022)

Lucky is a good trait in a sense that you actually always notice when it helps you, unlike some static bonus that would be just baked in the maths. Getting to reroll a bad result _feels _nice, even if it in the long run wouldn't be super impactful.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 16, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Whilst brave is worthless, Lucky is popular because its fun, not powerful. Although it's not as weak as "5%" appears. If your chance of success is very high, you may be in the situation where you can only fail on a 1, in which case Lucky makes success almost certain. If you can only fail on a 1 or 2, Lucky halves the chance of failing. It's more a case of protection from bad luck than it is good luck. And the more times you throw the dice (e.g. lots of attack rolls) the more likely it is to come up. You don't see people complaining critical hits are worthless do you? Lucky is a reverse critical.



Critical hits have guaranteed effects. You Roll a 20, autosuceed, and deal bonus damage.

Lucky is not auto success. You rol a 1l, reroll to a 6, womp womp still fail.  Lucky is* worse* because of bounded accuracy because a reroll unto anything under an 9 is a still likely a fail. It takes a 1 in 20 to trigger then a 12 in 20 to work. That's 3%.

*It takes 33 1d20 rolls for Lucky to trigger AND turn a failure to success.*



Paul Farquhar said:


> There is no need for them to be integrated into anything. There are in the book to be player characters, not socio-economic building blocks.



The races in the PHB are meant to be found as NPCs.

And PC integration in the setting is a major part of player engagement. I find that player with attachments to the setting tend to be more engaged and least likely to tune out. Taking race out the picture takes it out as an option.



Paul Farquhar said:


> What's the difference between altering them and creating a new race?



Altering is adjusting the sliders.
Creating a new race is creating new sliders.

We need to turn Halfling up to 11. It's currently at a 3 when every other race is at 7 minimum.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is power and fantastic impact.
> 
> Brave and Lucky as so weak they might as well be ribbon abilities.



Neither are especially weak. Lucky especially is great. 


Minigiant said:


> Because of this and an anti-adventurous base culture



What. Are you joking? I’ve literally disapproved this claim in past discussions with you. They PHB explicitly gives them a culture that helps create adventurers. Whole communities of halflings live nomadically, per the phb. It’s _*common *_young adults to go on walkabout, basically. _They teach their kids using the stories of the adventuresome members of the community._

Not only is all that in direct conflict with you claim, but even if they did have an “anti-adventure culture” (which they demonstrably do not), that wouldn’t mean anything to thier place as a PC race. Many settings don’t assume that adventurers are common at all! Many stories start with all or some party members being _reluctant adventurers._


Minigiant said:


> means many DMs and World builders struggle to integrate halfling into their worlds.



Okay, other than 3 people here on enworld, I have never seen _anyone_ talk about struggling with this. 


Minigiant said:


> Which then begs the question *should halflings remain in the outsider gray area or be altered for easier use?*



None of that is true, so the question is nonsensical, as it assumes the above incorrect assertions.


----------



## DarkCrisis (Jul 16, 2022)

4th Ed dropped Gnomes as a core race.  Sure 6th Ed could do it again.

Halflings are to tied to the Tolkien-ness of the game and will never be dropped.  Like Dwarves and Elves.


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## jasper (Jul 16, 2022)

IMC some halfling have taken over parts of cities. So you have building built only to welcome small people.  Some bars will have one table of the talls. Near the door. And with not good service.
Kenders are the only race which survive due to author, mom, and dm said so. With their borrowing problem, any kender travelling outside kender lands would be shot on sight and the adventuring group fined for the number of arrows used to kill it.


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## James Gasik (Jul 16, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> 4th Ed dropped Gnomes as a core race.  Sure 6th Ed could do it again.
> 
> Halflings are to tied to the Tolkien-ness of the game and will never be dropped.  Like Dwarves and Elves.



They did remove Gnomes, but they were quick to bring them back because there was a lot of hubbub about it.  *Gnomes*.  Just let that sink in.  The 4e developers straight up explained that the Gnome's lore and niche was weak and poorly defined, which is why they were not in the PHB.

And a lot of people got upset about it.  I don't think they will ever remove a race from a PHB again, in fact, that's why they made the fact that every race that was ever in a PHB would be in the 5e PHB a selling point for 5e.  Most D&D fans don't like losing their sacred cows, even if they don't ever use them!


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## Irlo (Jul 16, 2022)

On reflection, most of these objections and problems cited in the article (and in the responses to the article) just don't resonate with me. It's take a lot more effort and contrivances to integrate goblin and kobold PCs into a game sensibly than halflings. I really don't have any difficulties with halflings or ghomes, and they've both been well-represented in my games over the last 30 years. Halfings might be derived from Tolkien, but they're not hobbits any more and most of that baggage is gone. 

I do admit to having an aversion to the traditional "monsters" as PCs. I'll work with players who want to use them, but I don't like them much.


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## James Gasik (Jul 16, 2022)

Having run a campaign once where the main continent was primarily settled by Halflings instead of Humans, I really don't see a problem with making them a central part of a campaign world or setting.  Have them if you want or don't, the same is true for any race, even Humans.

Heck, I remember those old ads in Dragon magazine about Talisanta, where the biggest selling point (among many) as the proclamation, "NO ELVES".  Seemed odd to me, but apparently a lot of people liked the setting, so there you go.

https://futurolog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/ad-no-elves.jpg


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Irlo said:


> On reflection, most of these objections and problems cited in the article (and in the responses to the article) just don't resonate with me. It's take a lot more effort and contrivances to integrate goblin and kobold PCs into a game sensibly than halflings. I really don't have any difficulties with halflings or ghomes, and they've both been well-represented in my games over the last 30 years. Halfings might be derived from Tolkien, but they're not hobbits any more and most of that baggage is gone.
> 
> I do admit to having an aversion to the traditional "monsters" as PCs. I'll work with players who want to use them, but I don't like them much.



dude halfling are horrible to use outside of shire rip-offs, goblins and kobold have ease of Ideas and a whole lot of blank space it is not hard to make a kobold nati0pon as it is just a nation ruled by dragons as pampered demi gods.


James Gasik said:


> Having run a campaign once where the main continent was primarily settled by Halflings instead of Humans, I really don't see a problem with making them a central part of a campaign world or setting.  Have them if you want or don't, the same is true for any race, even Humans.
> 
> Heck, I remember those old ads in Dragon magazine about Talisanta, where the biggest selling point (among many) as the proclamation, "NO ELVES".  Seemed odd to me, but apparently a lot of people liked the setting, so there you go.
> 
> https://futurolog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/ad-no-elves.jpg



a lot of people have had elf main players and they were super big back in the day so wanting a break from them made a whole lot more sense back then.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Wow! I missed that entirely. Was it explained just how people were being forced to play halflings and gnomes?



No, I think it was just the usual wild hyperbole that comes up.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 16, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Having run a campaign once where the main continent was primarily settled by Halflings instead of Humans, I really don't see a problem with making them a central part of a campaign world or setting.  Have them if you want or don't, the same is true for any race, even Humans.
> 
> Heck, I remember those old ads in Dragon magazine about Talisanta, where the biggest selling point (among many) as the proclamation, "NO ELVES".  Seemed odd to me, but apparently a lot of people liked the setting, so there you go.
> 
> https://futurolog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/ad-no-elves.jpg



My Islands World setting has no humans, or high elves. I’ve considered ditching elves, too, frankly.


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## Irlo (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> dude halfling are horrible to use outside of shire rip-offs,



Dude, that's not my experience.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Dude, that's not my experience.



okay then start putting your experience here so we have something new to think about?


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> It takes 33 1d20 rolls for Lucky to trigger AND turn a failure to success.



And how many times does a player roll a D20 in a typical session? A lot more than 33!


Minigiant said:


> The races in the PHB are meant to be found as NPCs.



The races in the PHB are intended to be player characters. The clue is in the name. The stuff for world building is in the DMG.

Which I'm pretty sure encourages world builders to use whichever races they like.


Minigiant said:


> And PC integration in the setting is a major part of player engagement. I find that player with attachments to the setting tend to be more engaged and least likely to tune out. Taking race out the picture takes it out as an option.



The player characters can't engage with people who look different to them?!

That's not an attitude I'm familiar with. But whatever, just tell players they have to select from the races you have decided are important in your world. Which doesn't have to include halflings if you don't like them, altered or otherwise.


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## Oofta (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay then start putting your experience here so we have something new to think about?



Umm ... people have. I put how I use them in the first page or so.


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## Faolyn (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> dude halfling are horrible to use outside of shire rip-offs, goblins and kobold have ease of Ideas and a whole lot of blank space it is not hard to make a kobold nati0pon as it is just a nation ruled by dragons as pampered demi gods.



Goblins and kobolds have several decades of being bad guys, though, which means that you need to do a _lot_ of worldbuilding and have player buy-in if you want to turn them into something other than evil monsters. Even the idea of a kobold nation ruled by dragons has kind of an evil feel to it, because traditionally the good-aligned dragons don't rule nations.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Goblins and kobolds have several decades of being bad guys, though, which means that you need to do a _lot_ of worldbuilding and have player buy-in if you want to turn them into something other than evil monsters. Even the idea of a kobold nation ruled by dragons has kind of an evil feel to it, because traditionally the good-aligned dragons don't rule nations.



That worldbuilding has already been done if you use Eberron, or Wildemount, or Ravnica.

But there is no particular reason why you need to limit the number of short people. Or have any short people at all if you don't like them.

There is no trouble _with halflings _(or gnomes, or whatever someone's pet hate happens to be), the trouble is with the idea that some races have to be core and some do not.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Umm ... people have. I put how I use them in the first page or so.



yes but we have already had your, I have not seen this other guy posting before thus new ideas might be present on how to make the halfling menace palatable to me.


Faolyn said:


> Goblins and kobolds have several decades of being bad guys, though, which means that you need to do a _lot_ of worldbuilding and have player buy-in if you want to turn them into something other than evil monsters. Even the idea of a kobold nation ruled by dragons has kind of an evil feel to it, because traditionally the good-aligned dragons don't rule nations.



the same was true of elves if you went to the right area, plus we live in a post-WoW world it is not exactly uncommon for goblins to be seen as most people by now, then add in the people who "adopt" them and things get different fast.

why would the good dragons not rule a nation, they are stronger and live longer than humans, they are far more able to engage in nation set-up than most founders of nations.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> yes but we have already had your, I have not seen this other guy posting before thus new ideas might be present on how to make the halfling menace palatable to me.



I don't think other people can answer what would make halflings palatable to you.

Personally I like my halflings as kendery wanderers rather than hobbity homebodies, though it depends on the setting which fits better. And perhaps it is neither, or perhaps it is both.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> why would the good dragons not rule a nation



I can think of a couple of examples where the do: The Radiant Citadel, Ank'Harel, and Stryxhaven. Okay, the last one isn't technically a nation, but it is ruled by good dragons.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 16, 2022)

I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't think other people can answer what would make halflings palatable to you.
> 
> Personally I like my halflings as kendery wanderers rather than hobbity homebodies, though it depends on the setting which fits better. And perhaps it is neither, or perhaps it is both.



I have to see what others have done as I know of nothing inside of me which would make halflings palatable without losing their halflingness, no single human can generate all possible ideas.


Paul Farquhar said:


> I can think of a couple of examples where the do: The Radiant Citadel, Ank'Harel, and Stryxhaven. Okay, the last one isn't technically a nation, but it is ruled by good dragons.



if you are given great power what point is there if you just sit on gold and sleep all day, to whom much is given much is demanded.
so it is not without precedence good good.


Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.



I would like to expand my pallet and seeing if someone can make something I hate enjoyable to me is interesting, a Vietnamese restaurant made me turn from hate to love on coffee, so why not see if halfling can become something more?


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## Faolyn (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> the same was true of elves if you went to the right area, plus we live in a post-WoW world it is not exactly uncommon for goblins to be seen as most people by now, then add in the people who "adopt" them and things get different fast.
> 
> why would the good dragons not rule a nation, they are stronger and live longer than humans, they are far more able to engage in nation set-up than most founders of nations.



You are correct--for perhaps 6e. But as goblins and kobolds are written _now_ (or rather, as they were last written about in Volo's), they generally more bad guys than neutral or good guys. Likewise, good dragons are rarely shown as the rulers of anything, while evil dragons are not uncommonly shown as tyrannical dictators with armies of evil marauders. And this will likely be the case as long as alignments are still used. Even if alignment is continued to be downgraded to only "typically" something, most gamers are still going to treat them as being pretty evil. Especially if 6e writes about them the way they were written about in Volo's, where they basically had few or no redeeming features.



Paul Farquhar said:


> That worldbuilding has already been done if you use Eberron, or Wildemount, or Ravnica.



While I can't speak for Wildemount or Ravnica because it's been a long time since I've read those books, in Eberron, which famously says any creature can be any alignment, the goblin nation of Darguun is still a pretty evil place--it's the only place where slavery is legal, for instance, and it treats their slaves "like cattle."



Paul Farquhar said:


> But there is no particular reason why you need to limit the number of short people. Or have any short people at all if you don't like them.
> 
> There is no trouble _with halflings _(or gnomes, or whatever someone's pet hate happens to be), the trouble is with the idea that some races have to be core and some do not.



I would have no problem with having halflings, gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and even more in a 6e PHB.


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## Minigiant (Jul 16, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Okay, other than 3 people here on enworld, I have never seen _anyone_ talk about struggling with this.



There was a whole topic on this.

And there are many LOTR and D&D clones in several media that keep humans, elves, and dwarves but omit, replace, or diminish halflings.


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## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> We need to turn Halfling up to 11.



I think that's already been done.  He was called Ronnie James Dio.


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## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> dude halfling are horrible to use outside of shire rip-offs, goblins and kobold have ease of Ideas and a whole lot of blank space it is not hard to make a kobold nati0pon as it is just* a nation ruled by dragons as pampered demi gods.*



Isn't that exactly the sort of nation - boatloads of Kobolds ruled by Dragons - PC adventurers are on principle supposed to go to war against?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Isn't that exactly the sort of nation - boatloads of Kobolds ruled by Dragons - PC adventurers are on principle supposed to go to war against?



Why?


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## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Personally I like my halflings as kendery wanderers ...



I'm not sure if Kendery Wanderers should be used for a football club or a band.


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## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why?



Dragons are (usually) the enemy.  Those who serve Dragons are thus also (usually) the enemy.  And Kobolds in general are pretty nasty little things to begin with. (in case it's not obvious, I quite happily subscribe to the idea of species having baked-in alignment tendencies; and Kobolds in my game trend pretty sharply toward Evil)

Also, what would otherwise be the point of Gates of Firestorm Peak?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Dragons are (usually) the enemy.  Those who serve Dragons are thus also (usually) the enemy.  And Kobolds in general are pretty nasty little things to begin with. (in case it's not obvious, I quite happily subscribe to the idea of species having baked-in alignment tendencies; and Kobolds in my game trend pretty sharply toward Evil)



I'd say that it is the people who want to attack kobolds just due their species that are evil in this scenario. But that's fine, dragons are rich, and the adventurers gotta eat, so murdering some kobolds and dragons for loot makes sense. 



Lanefan said:


> Also, what would otherwise be the point of Gates of Firestorm Peak?



I don't know what that is.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 16, 2022)

Re: Gates of Firestorm Peak


Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't know what that is.



It's something I completely misremembered the title of: I was thinking of *Dragon Mountain*, a big box-set late-2e-era megadungeon that has Kobolds (in massive numbers!) and Dragons as the main foes.

Gates of Firestorm Peak is a different and unrelated module.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You are correct--for perhaps 6e. But as goblins and kobolds are written _now_ (or rather, as they were last written about in Volo's), they generally more bad guys than neutral or good guys.



time change have you not been looking?


Faolyn said:


> Likewise, good dragons are rarely shown as the rulers of anything, while evil dragons are not uncommonly shown as tyrannical dictators with armies of evil marauders. And this will likely be the case as long as alignments are still used. Even if alignment is continued to be downgraded to only "typically" something, most gamers are still going to treat them as being pretty evil. Especially if 6e writes about them the way they were written about in Volo's, where they basically had few or no redeeming features.



why is it the forces of good are reactive, always just sitting in apathy the great flaw of all good guys?
people will kill anything if the fight is winnable and the loot good.


Faolyn said:


> While I can't speak for Wildemount or Ravnica because it's been a long time since I've read those books, in Eberron, which famously says any creature can be any alignment, the goblin nation of Darguun is still a pretty evil place--it's the only place where slavery is legal, for instance, and it treats their slaves "like cattle."



you act as if everywhere in ebberon is not a dystopia it is dungeon punk and like all punk genres were born of cyberpunk which is just techno hell.


Lanefan said:


> Dragons are (usually) the enemy.  Those who serve Dragons are thus also (usually) the enemy.  And Kobolds in general are pretty nasty little things to begin with. (in case it's not obvious, I quite happily subscribe to the idea of species having baked-in alignment tendencies; and Kobolds in my game trend pretty sharply toward Evil)
> 
> Also, what would otherwise be the point of Gates of Firestorm Peak?



what makes them evil as they usually are just sat in abandoned mines being odd?


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Isn't that exactly the sort of nation - boatloads of Kobolds ruled by Dragons - PC adventurers are on principle supposed to go to war against?



given that if you remove dragons and kobolds from it I have described most nations in the great histories of both our world and most fictional ones, logically no as no one is so stupid to declare war on everyone.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 16, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> time change have you not been looking?



Err, yes. I have. They're changing, but it's not like what's been written already has changed.



Mind of tempest said:


> why is it the forces of good are reactive, always just sitting in apathy the great flaw of all good guys?
> people will kill anything if the fight is winnable and the loot good.



Generally, Good tries to make things better for everyone so nobody turns to evil in the first place. But how are you going to be proactive for Good in a way that (a) is interesting to the party, and (b) doesn't devolve into killing things because they looked like they might do something evil (which isn't Good)?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 16, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Err, yes. I have. They're changing, but it's not like what's been written already has changed.
> 
> 
> Generally, Good tries to make things better for everyone so nobody turns to evil in the first place. But how are you going to be proactive for Good in a way that (a) is interesting to the party, and (b) doesn't devolve into killing things because they looked like they might do something evil (which isn't Good)?



it need not always be relevant to the party but I hate to be a lone candle as those are so easy to snuff out, background stuff is needed always.

if killing is evil by the laws of flesh all life is guilty of the gravest crimes.


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## Mecheon (Jul 16, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Isn't that exactly the sort of nation - boatloads of Kobolds ruled by Dragons - PC adventurers are on principle supposed to go to war against?



Most people nowadays would determine if the dragon was ruling them well and, if not, kill the dragon and free the kobolds.

Folks love kobolds, they’re seen as the most underdog of underdogs


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## Minigiant (Jul 17, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Most people nowadays would determine if the dragon was ruling them well and, if not, kill the dragon and free the kobolds.
> 
> Folks love kobolds, they’re seen as the most underdog of underdogs



Kobolds really took up that "underdog with secret power".

Every kobold is a secret genius, an inventor prodigy, a leader waiting for an army, or has the heart of a dragon.

C'mon NPC kobolds just happen to die before hitting their potential.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Cadence said:


> You should video the one player every time they roll.  Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.




He's self-concious about it, so I won't be making it worse by videoing him (plus we tend to play at his house, where he has small kids) 

But we were once playing a game with a much heavier re-roll mechanic. He spent Five re-rolls.... and all of them were 1's. Rolling 1 six times in a row? And that was just the worse time, his luck is normally very bad, it is... very noticeable.



Cadence said:


> For better or worse, it feels like the authors of the PhB use it more sparingly. The Heroism Spell make one brave or the Bard exhot his companions to bravery and heroism.  The fighter sample fighter is described as courageous while the rogue, cleric, and wizard are skulking, fervent, and flamboyant respectively.  It is the dwarfs courage (along with endurance) that makes them a match for larger folk.  Similarly it is the barbarians courage in the face of danger that makes them perfectly suited for adventuring. etc...    Do any of those usages have a point if all adventurers are equally brave?




I would say the dwarves don't, because they run into the same issue as the halflings, but I find the fighter and barbarian very much less because it isn't required, or I guess, it isn't their defining trait. Courage isn't the first thing I think of when I think of barbarians, rage is. And even their rage is often reflavored into mystic trances or a hyper-bullet time. Some fighters are courageous, some are cynical, there is no weight to that description. 

I also don't mind the heroism spell, because it is the name of a spell. Someone named it that, in-universe, and that makes perfect sense. It doesn't carry any expectation for role-playing, just like you could cast Barkskin and cover yourself in scales, or plates of force magic, or a bunch of other things without really altering anything.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And that was just the worse time, his luck is normally very bad, it is... very noticeable.



This is not a thing. "Bad luck" is not a quality that people in the real world can have, in a sense that they would actually have different random odds than others. Your friend has the exact same likelihood of dice roll results in the future than everyone else.


----------



## lingual (Jul 17, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.




Should broccoli be in the produce section?  Standing shoulder to shoulder with carrots and celery?   Do halflings eat broccoli?


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 17, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.



Resisting urge to tell you to cover the broccoli in cheese, as if that somehow makes broccoli good rather than just masking the fact you're eating broccoli...


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> It isn't the same kind of fear that you get in the game, because you can choose to ignore it.  5e fear is impossible to ignore unless you make your save.
> 
> That's what mind control spells do.  Your character didn't get to choose to be frightened.  His mind was controlled in some manner and it was forced on him.




So, you can quote me some rule that says you can't ignore your fear and attack anyways? Sure, you'll have disadvantage because of the physiological signs of fear, but no real-life person can ignore those either. You can't just be startled by something and decide "Nah, I'm not going to have a fight or flight response to this, brain, no adrenaline please." So, I don't see a meaningful difference.  

Here's an interesting question as well, let's say something like a Banshee floats through the wall parallel to the parties path, with their horrifying visage, and floats out of sight into the wall on the others side. Like a spooky ghost cat crossing their path. The character is frightened. Do they have disadvantage on anything? No, because the Banshee isn't in line of sight. Can the character move deeper into the structure? I'd say yes, because while they cannot move closer to the source of their fear, their fear is off to the left, and the path goes forward. They aren't moving closer to the creature, so they can continue just fine. At this point, they are frightened... but ignoring it and moving on. 

So, I think you seem to be confused. Because Phobias, extreme fears that are the most prominent exampe similar to the frightened condition, can't just be ignored. A person cannot just decide to ignore their phobia. Just go watch a Dr. Phil episode where he terrorizes some poor person with a phobia under the guise of "helping" them. These sort of physiological responses can't be ignored. But, if the source of the fear isn't in sight, then the player can also just ignore the effects of the condition. Therefore... this seems to map pretty well to real-life situations that I am using. 



Maxperson said:


> See, now THIS is constructive.  Halflings are objectively braver than other races as it stands, but the current mechanic may not be the best way to represent it.  Personally I prefer the Kender immunity to fear, but maybe give them 3 points a day and they can expend one to automatically make any save against a fear type ability if immunity is too much.




This is something we could have discussed ages ago if I didn't have to keep repeating my argument til people understood it. 

Personally, I'd remove this idea of it being bravery, because like I've said, this harms the narrative of the game. Instead I'd call it something like "unshakeable" and say they cannot have disadvantage on attacks or skills due to the frightened condition. It isn't full immunity, because the movement restriction is still in place, but it removes the biggest teeth from the frightened condition. 

And now it is all about how they respond to fear, and that can be used for interesting world-building. 



Maxperson said:


> It doesn't matter what is pulled from where.  Novels and comics just aren't going to be the game and vice versa.  Or can you show me where in 5e the mechanics of a rock falling on a big ole healthy dragon will kill it, rather than just irritating it a little bit.




Where do warlocks come from? Why is it Paladin's can heal with a touch of their hand? Why does a Medusa's gaze turn you to stone? Why can Minotaurs always navigate a labyrinth? Why do hydra's grow new heads unless they are burned by fire? Why do Genie's offer wishes? Why does bardic magic work by playing an instrument? 

I find it so disingenuous to continually get told that stories from literature don't matter in DnD, that the only thing that matters are the mechanics. You don't really believe that. You can't believe that and be able to truthfully answer the above questions. Heck, halflings only exist because of a novel. 

So, no, I think it does matter to pull up DnD literature, and point to what it says halfling luck is like, then point to the game and say "this is nothing like that" and discuss how this is a potential problem. Because the narrative does matter. That's why you will never find a demon immune to radiant damage, because it would break the narrative of what those things mean, even though mechanically, radiant damage is no different from lightning damage. 

I don't think we should continue defining halflings by being lucky, because I think if we actually made the narrative match the game, they wouldn't be, and if we made the game match the narrative, it would be detrimental for the game. It can still be a trope for them, if people want to keep the lore, but if we change the ability and remove luck from their abilities, I think it would make for a better way forward for the game. Because without mechanical weight, it becomes a question of "are they really?", while right now, there is no question. 



Maxperson said:


> That seems................................short sighted.  If I rolled that badly that consistently, halfling with the lucky feat would be my go to.




He doesn't care for the stories halflings can tell. He prefers changelings and elves and he even played an old human paladin once. Calling him short-sighted because he is preferencing the stories he wants over the mechanics seems a bit rude to me.


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## Faolyn (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> it need not always be relevant to the party but I hate to be a lone candle as those are so easy to snuff out, background stuff is needed always.
> 
> if killing is evil by the laws of flesh all life is guilty of the gravest crimes.



There's a difference between killing someone who is doing something evil and killing someone who who hasn't done anything wrong because you're being proactive about being Good.


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## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

lingual said:


> Do halflings eat broccoli?



Yes, but only from elevensies until sundown


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Sure it does.  When Fear is a mechanical condition the game can impose, having a species less likely to be affected by that condition is an advantage to the party.  Same goes for Poison or Sleep or Charm, all of which have in the past have had (and still have?) specific species that were less likely to be affected.
> 
> It also, I suppose, depends how badly the Fear condition affects characters when it hits.  If they can mostly keep going as normal it's not a big deal.  If it means they drop everything and flee in blind terror it's a very big deal indeed, as fleeing in blind terror can send you over a cliff or into other hazards and can also very easily get you lost - you eventually snap out of the fear but have no idea where you've run to or how you got there.
> 
> My style tends more toward the blind-terror side, which means any item that grants Fearless is highly sought after. (that said, nobody ever wants to play Cavaliers who come with Fearless as a built-in class ability right from 1st level)




Sure, but I know you specifically don't play 5e, so your homebrew rules for fear (because that isn't how 5e handles frightened) don't really change anything. 

Additionally, I still stand by my original point on this, saving against the frightened condition =/= bravery. And so having a race that is "the brave one" is sort of like looking at a line-up of guys who are all 6'2" to 6"5' and looking for "the tall one". Even if you find one who is a little taller than the rest.... they are all tall It is a pointless description.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> They did remove Gnomes, but they were quick to bring them back because there was a lot of hubbub about it.  *Gnomes*.  Just let that sink in.  The 4e developers straight up explained that the Gnome's lore and niche was weak and poorly defined, which is why they were not in the PHB.
> 
> And a lot of people got upset about it.  I don't think they will ever remove a race from a PHB again, in fact, that's why they made the fact that every race that was ever in a PHB would be in the 5e PHB a selling point for 5e.  Most D&D fans don't like losing their sacred cows, even if they don't ever use them!




You know, this is one of the reasons I kind of wish Hussar just didn't post. Because... he's the only one talking about kicking halflings out of the PHB. Everyone else is talking about rewriting them. 

But everyone else is sitting around nodding to themselves that writing halflings out of PHB is bad and they will never do it. 

I really think it would help this conversation if people recognized that there is a single poster talking about removing them, and everyone else is talking about re-writing them, which is something that WoTC has done multiple times. Heck, one of the earlier posts pointed out that some of these halfling traits weren't even a thing until 3rd edition. So, clearly WoTC has no qualms about doing a rewrite.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Irlo said:


> On reflection, most of these objections and problems cited in the article (and in the responses to the article) just don't resonate with me. It's take a lot more effort and contrivances to integrate goblin and kobold PCs into a game sensibly than halflings. I really don't have any difficulties with halflings or ghomes, and they've both been well-represented in my games over the last 30 years. Halfings might be derived from Tolkien, but they're not hobbits any more and most of that baggage is gone.
> 
> I do admit to having an aversion to the traditional "monsters" as PCs. I'll work with players who want to use them, but I don't like them much.




I can say that your aversion makes sense to me, because I've never had an issue integrating these monster races. Heck, I actually have a world I built for a long-form story (don't want to call it a novel since it is a web-format) where the only races are Humans, Gnolls and Goblins, and it works incredibly well. 

Kobolds I have had a harder time with, but I've finally found a way to integrate them with drakes, dragonborn and dragons, so that works for me.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> why would the good dragons not rule a nation, they are stronger and live longer than humans, they are far more able to engage in nation set-up than most founders of nations.




Yeah, this is one of those conceits that is super easy to discard, because, you know... Good Dragons would totally end up as rulers of nations. Mostly because the benevolent, ancient, super powerful, super-wise creature is going to be begged to be in charge, especially in a world as dangerous as a DnD world.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.




I don't like sweet potatoes. Turns out that was because the "family recipe" called for the potatoes to be about 50% sugar by weight. Someone showed me a different recipe for sweet potatos that didn't do that. Turns out, sweet potatoes are pretty good. Not something I want all the time, but quite good.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I can't speak for Wildemount or Ravnica because it's been a long time since I've read those books, in Eberron, which famously says any creature can be any alignment, the goblin nation of Darguun is still a pretty evil place--it's the only place where slavery is legal, for instance, and it treats their slaves "like cattle."




Just popping in to say, as far as I am aware, the Dhakani (the true goblins unaffected by the curse) don't have slaves. That puts goblinoids in Eberron in effectively 50/50 spot, which considering the Church of the Silver Flame once almost did a genocide, isn't too bad for an entire race of people. Especially when the evil 50% is canonically cursed.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is not a thing. "Bad luck" is not a quality that people in the real world can have, in a sense that they would actually have different random odds than others. Your friend has the exact same likelihood of dice roll results in the future than everyone else.




If things were objectively measured across the infinity of time? Sure. 

But statistically someone has to be rolling worse at dice than someone else. 6d6 showing up 6/6/6/6/6/6 has the exact same likelihood as 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 2/3/4/1/5/6 after all.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Funny how we don't completely rewrite elves or dwarves in most settings.  Wonder why that is?



First we absolutely _do_ rewrite elves. And add subrace after subrace to the point the race means just about nothing.

Second dwarves are little more popular than halflings. If we look at the 2019 subrace breakdown then we find that 3.4% of characters are lightfoot halflings and another 1.3% stout halflings. If "no one" plays halflings then twice nowt is still nowt - and  no one plays either hill dwarfs or mountain dwarfs. So let's kick both of them out of the PHB because, despite the oodles of lore they are given  by your standards "no one" plays them.  4.7% Half Orcs - or almost exactly as popular as halflings. 

Who knows what halflings would have been if we had been force-fed them as much as we have dwarfs. Instead they get a place in the PHB and as mentioned about two lines in some adventures. And yet halflings are almost as popular as dwarfs. 

But I'm pretty sure that the only reason to throw halflings and gnomes out of the PHB is that roughly half of halfling concepts could easily be gnome concepts if halflings weren't there and roughly three quarters of gnome concepts could easily be be halfling concepts if gnomes weren't already there (especially now the mad engineers get a class so there's no need to add a ridiculous race). The insistance on cutting the bottom two _especially when a lot of the concepts that they can fulfil overlap_ looks like a serious case of motivated reasoning, deliberately looking at where the halflings are and then setting the bar just over their heads.

Can you give a non-arbitrary reason why the bottom two _must_ be removed together. And why this is somehow better than removing the bottom one or the bottom four. There's an obvious reason to remove the bottom one, especially when concepts overlap. Because that way you don't get interference. And you don't get silliness by splitting a race into subraces and then removing all the subraces because they break about evenly, dwarf-style.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If things were objectively measured across the infinity of time? Sure.
> 
> But statistically someone has to be rolling worse at dice than someone else. 6d6 showing up 6/6/6/6/6/6 has the exact same likelihood as 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 2/3/4/1/5/6 after all.



Yes, but that is just a record of history, not property of the person affecting their "luck." Your friend will in the future have just the same odds than everyone else


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## Irlo (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> yes but we have already had your, I have not seen this other guy posting before thus new ideas might be present on how to make the halfling menace palatable to me.



I don't have ground-shaking new ideas to convince you. It's pretty unimportant to me to convince you. These things are just a matter of taste. Your initial response read as extremely dismissive of my taste, and I responded to that. If that wasn't your intent, we can move on.

I lean pretty heavily into the lore provided in the PHB, that halflings are well-integrated and welcome in a variety of communitites. I lean away from any notion of a shire (that is, an isolated pocket of exclusively halflings) -- that just doesn't interest me. Yes, there are settlements nearly exclusively occupited by halflings, but they're near and interact with other nearby settlements. 

My favorite halfling community that I've used in a few campaigns as a DM is focused on shepherding goats on a mountainside. A dragon lives within the mountain, demanding tribute from towns in the region and terrorizing them, but it protects the halfling shepherds on its mountain from local kobolds and trolls. Working together, the dragon and the halflings make and market an eldritch cheese veined with strange molds that enhance elvish reveries (trance).

I've played two halfling characters in recent years. One was a rogue with an urban background -- no-nonsense dungeon delver, there to do a job, get paid, and get out. The other was a rustic folk hero who slayed a rampaging boar and was himself nearly killed. When he awoke, he found he was a paladin blessed by Yollanda and went out to intercept trouble before it could come to his village.

Is any of that palatable?


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## Irlo (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I find it so disingenuous to continually get told that stories from literature don't matter in DnD, that the only thing that matters are the mechanics. You don't really believe that. You can't believe that and be able to truthfully answer the above questions. Heck, halflings only exist because of a novel.
> 
> So, no, I think it does matter to pull up DnD literature, and point to what it says halfling luck is like, then point to the game and say "this is nothing like that" and discuss how this is a potential problem. Because the narrative does matter. That's why you will never find a demon immune to radiant damage, because it would break the narrative of what those things mean, even though mechanically, radiant damage is no different from lightning damage.



I'll not be disingenous. Narratives matter. D&D wouldn't be much of a game without them.

But the narratives that matter are the narratives in our games, at our tables. If the narratives of D&D-branded comics and literature or D&D-adjacent fiction or works that inspired D&D from the beginning do not match the narratives of my game, _it really doesn't matter._ To me. I see that it matters to you. Just as it doesn't matter to me if the narratives in your games don't match the narratives in mine.

The idea that it's a potential problem just doesn't resonate with me. I'm not dismissing your experience. I understand what you're saying. It just is not my experience.


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## Irlo (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I can say that your aversion makes sense to me, because I've never had an issue integrating these monster races. Heck, I actually have a world I built for a long-form story (don't want to call it a novel since it is a web-format) where the only races are Humans, Gnolls and Goblins, and it works incredibly well.
> 
> Kobolds I have had a harder time with, but I've finally found a way to integrate them with drakes, dragonborn and dragons, so that works for me.



Yes, my aversion is just a matter of taste. As a DM, I can easily integrate kobolds and goblins into the game world. I use them all the time, but I don't like using them as PC races. It don't want my adventuring parties to be travelling menageries. (Yes, it's arbitrary for me to enjoy dwarf-elf-human-halfling parties and to not enjoy kobold-goblin-changling-aaracokra parties. For those who do enjoy that, go for it!) When I DM, my players don't generally ask for the non-traditional D&D races. If they do, I work with them despite my aversion. As a player, my enjoyment of the game is diminished when the other PCs are a strange collection of oddities. I briefly played in one game with a wide range of odd characters, and I enjoyed it despite that. I played an unsophisticated human who knew he was surrounded by weirdos but tried to be cosmopolitan about it.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know, this is one of the reasons I kind of wish Hussar just didn't post. Because... he's the only one talking about kicking halflings out of the PHB. Everyone else is talking about rewriting them.



Me? I just wish people would actually take the argument at face value instead of ascribing all sorts of motives and assumptions to what I'm saying.  All I said was that the least popular two races be removed from the PHB and shunted to a different book, in favor of two new options which hopefully would gain more traction with gamers.

At no point have I ever said a single negative thing about how halflings are written.  I certainly don't hate them.  Why would I?  I haven't seen a halfling played in about ten years or so.  The last gnome I saw was in 4e.  Why on earth would I have any feelings at all about this?  

But, apparently, I'm doing the equivalent of eating puppies without ketchup.  

To be fair though, the argument isn't totally off base.  If you rewrite halflings to 11 (as has been suggested), are they actually halflings anymore?  Kender were written as the anti-halfling.  They weren't just dialing halflings to 11, they were _replacing _halflings.  Kender are now seen as halflings, but, that's because over time, D&D has just kept chipping away at the halfling archetype and replaced them with kender - physically and culturally in the game.  In 3e, Lidda would be completely unrecognizable as a halfling to a D&D player in 1982.  

My point is, I don't think it will matter to be honest.  You can't put lipstick on a pig.  FIFTY years and halflings are just not very popular.  I'm sorry, but, that's true.  They're the "also ran" race.  And the only reason they have stuck on is nostalgia and Tolkien.

So, sure, rewrite them all you like.  It won't matter.  Ten years from now, when the next PHB revision comes out, we're going to be having this exact same conversation with people clenching on to their favorite halfling in the face of overwhelming evidence that halflings are irrelevant to the rest of the hobby.


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## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Given the sheer amount of races available, I would say that any one race is irrelevant to the hobby at large, with the exception of humans, which are, IMO, the most boring and bland of races.

I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world?  They aren't the most magical.  They don't have special abilities.  They aren't long lived.  They're just...there.

Oh we're told they're the most prevalent and ambitious, etc.,etc., but their mechanics certainly don't reflect anything other than a minor buff to all stats which really doesn't matter.

The only reason V Humans are on the map is because Feats aren't exactly balanced compared to racial abilities.

I bet if we had Strongheart Halflings, we wouldn't even be having this conversation!


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> First we absolutely _do_ rewrite elves. And add subrace after subrace to the point the race means just about nothing.
> 
> Second dwarves are little more popular than halflings. If we look at the 2019 subrace breakdown then we find that 3.4% of characters are lightfoot halflings and another 1.3% stout halflings. If "no one" plays halflings then twice nowt is still nowt - and  no one plays either hill dwarfs or mountain dwarfs. So let's kick both of them out of the PHB because, despite the oodles of lore they are given  by your standards "no one" plays them.  4.7% Half Orcs - or almost exactly as popular as halflings.



Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot.  I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens.  After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.



Neonchameleon said:


> Who knows what halflings would have been if we had been force-fed them as much as we have dwarfs. Instead they get a place in the PHB and as mentioned about two lines in some adventures. And yet halflings are almost as popular as dwarfs.
> 
> But I'm pretty sure that the only reason to throw halflings and gnomes out of the PHB is that roughly half of halfling concepts could easily be gnome concepts if halflings weren't there and roughly three quarters of gnome concepts could easily be be halfling concepts if gnomes weren't already there (especially now the mad engineers get a class so there's no need to add a ridiculous race). The insistance on cutting the bottom two _especially when a lot of the concepts that they can fulfil overlap_ looks like a serious case of motivated reasoning, deliberately looking at where the halflings are and then setting the bar just over their heads.
> 
> Can you give a non-arbitrary reason why the bottom two _must_ be removed together. And why this is somehow better than removing the bottom one or the bottom four. There's an obvious reason to remove the bottom one, especially when concepts overlap. Because that way you don't get interference. And you don't get silliness by splitting a race into subraces and then removing all the subraces because they break about evenly, dwarf-style.



Nope.  It's purely arbitrary.  I picked two because two is a nice number for experimenting with new race options.  We got two new races in 4e (carried over into 5e) that have proven very popular, so, just carrying on with that number.  Could be one. Could be 4.  You seem to think that I care which races are removed.  I really, really don't.

My argument has ALWAYS been the bottom two.  Mostly because 2 is what was added and that seemed to work fantastically well.  Three or four is probably a bit too much because it would impact too many other things.  But, remember, I've always argued for REPLACE, not remove.  Drop the bottom two and ADD two new options to make sure that niche's are covered.  Kobolds largely cover both the tech/clockwork aspect of gnomes and the sneaky/size schtick for halflings, so, I could easily see kobolds replacing both nicely.  Which leaves room for a new option, like, say, goliaths, since big PC's are a niche that it wouldn't hurt to cover.

But again, I'm not wedded to any particular option.  I did mention a small/medium fey anthro race.  Someone mentioned Hengiyokai - they'd actually be a pretty cool concept that fills pretty much all the niche's for gnomes and halflings as well.  Again, I'm not terribly picky.  Whatever works is whatever works.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Given the sheer amount of races available, I would say that any one race is irrelevant to the hobby at large, with the exception of humans, which are, IMO, the most boring and bland of races.
> 
> I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world?  They aren't the most magical.  They don't have special abilities.  They aren't long lived.  They're just...there.
> 
> ...



Heh, if we're going by personal anecdotes, I haven't had a human PC in a game in a few years now.  And, honestly, even going back all the way to 1e, I was often the only human PC or maybe one of two.  Most of the PC's were demi-humans or various other options.  So, I dunno who's playing all these humans, other than me (typically), but, someone apparently is.


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## MGibster (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> In 3e, Lidda would be completely unrecognizable as a halfling to a D&D player in 1982.



With that obscenely large, grotesque head of hers, I bet they'd think she was a sidekick to the mindflayer or perhaps a monster in her own right.  



Hussar said:


> Me? I just wish people would actually take the argument at face value instead of ascribing all sorts of motives and assumptions to what I'm saying. All I said was that the least popular two races be removed from the PHB and shunted to a different book, in favor of two new options which hopefully would gain more traction with gamers.



I'm not a fan of dragonborn, but, a lot of people are, so it makes sense for them to stay in the PHB.  I'm kind of with you on halfing and gnomes even if I like the former.


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## MGibster (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world? They aren't the most magical. They don't have special abilities. They aren't long lived. They're just...there.



They're typically the baseline all other races/species are measured against in RPGs.  Just once, I'd like to see human beings as the nasty brutish race that's bigger and stronger than everyone else.


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## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Or actually have the proper Con bonus, we're persistence hunters you know!  But for some reason, D&D animals always seem to have excellent Con scores compared to humans...


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Heh, if we're going by personal anecdotes, I haven't had a human PC in a game in a few years now.  And, honestly, even going back all the way to 1e, I was often the only human PC or maybe one of two.  Most of the PC's were demi-humans or various other options.  So, I dunno who's playing all these humans, other than me (typically), but, someone apparently is.



It think it's an artefact of people using D&D beyond to test things, rather than people actually playing them. Humans make a convenient baseline. I've seen a couple of vuman PCs, but no standard humans.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2022)

MGibster said:


> With that obscenely large, grotesque head of hers, I bet they'd think she was a sidekick to the mindflayer or perhaps a monster in her own right.
> 
> 
> I'm not a fan of dragonborn, but, a lot of people are, so it makes sense for them to stay in the PHB.  I'm kind of with you on halfing and gnomes even if I like the former.



Big head?  Lidda?  I never thought that.






Seems a pretty normal head to me. 

But, yeah, this has nothing to do with personal preference for me.  I honestly don't really have much of an opinion either way on halflings or gnomes.  I've seen them both done very well.  Then again, that's true for just about any race I've seen played.  For me, it's about making the PHB relevant to what is actually getting played.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know, this is one of the reasons I kind of wish Hussar just didn't post. Because... he's the only one talking about kicking halflings out of the PHB.



I don't think it would be a bad idea to remove halflings from the PHB. Not because I don't like them, I do. But it might stop people whining about them and wanting to change them if they weren't in the core rules, and therefore obvious they don't have to have them.


Chaosmancer said:


> Everyone else is talking about rewriting them.



I think changing a thing because _some_ people don't like it is a good way to end up with something that no one likes.


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## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Yeah, I mean, contrast and compare Fighter debates.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Just popping in to say, as far as I am aware, the Dhakani (the true goblins unaffected by the curse) don't have slaves. That puts goblinoids in Eberron in effectively 50/50 spot, which considering the Church of the Silver Flame once almost did a genocide, isn't too bad for an entire race of people. Especially when the evil 50% is canonically cursed.



Indeed. Exploring Eberron makes it pretty clear that the Dhakani are no more inherently evil than anyone else, and in fact paid a high price for protecting the world from chaos.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I don't have ground-shaking new ideas to convince you. It's pretty unimportant to me to convince you. These things are just a matter of taste. Your initial response read as extremely dismissive of my taste, and I responded to that. If that wasn't your intent, we can move on.
> 
> I lean pretty heavily into the lore provided in the PHB, that halflings are well-integrated and welcome in a variety of communitites. I lean away from any notion of a shire (that is, an isolated pocket of exclusively halflings) -- that just doesn't interest me. Yes, there are settlements nearly exclusively occupited by halflings, but they're near and interact with other nearby settlements.
> 
> ...



but what makes them anything other than oddly not tall humans.


James Gasik said:


> Given the sheer amount of races available, I would say that any one race is irrelevant to the hobby at large, with the exception of humans, which are, IMO, the most boring and bland of races.
> 
> I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world?  They aren't the most magical.  They don't have special abilities.  They aren't long lived.  They're just...there.
> 
> ...



they are a grounding agent they provide some familiarity to the whole thing and thus are always needed.


Hussar said:


> Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot.  I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens.  After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.
> 
> 
> Nope.  It's purely arbitrary.  I picked two because two is a nice number for experimenting with new race options.  We got two new races in 4e (carried over into 5e) that have proven very popular, so, just carrying on with that number.  Could be one. Could be 4.  You seem to think that I care which races are removed.  I really, really don't.
> ...



that would need for goliath to have lore which at present they do not.


----------



## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but what makes them anything other than oddly not tall humans.
> 
> they are a grounding agent they provide some familiarity to the whole thing and thus are always needed.
> 
> that would need for goliath to have lore which at present they do not.



There's enough Goliath lore. You were linked and responded to the post with the lore 

Not liking it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Jul 17, 2022)

37 pages of how to make halflings fit your game world, or what makes a halfling a halfling, or something like that. 

And my only takeaway is that tieflings only have devilish heritage. No demonic ones. No daemonic ones. That's just weird.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> There's enough Goliath lore. You were linked and responded to the post with the lore
> 
> Not liking it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.



Lore is only lore if it's more than 30 years old.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 17, 2022)

DrunkonDuty said:


> And my only takeaway is that tieflings only have devilish heritage. No demonic ones. No daemonic ones. That's just weird.



I think 5.5e/50e will give tiefliengs an official abyssal and daemon options.


----------



## MGibster (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Big head? Lidda? I never thought that.



I got her confused with the 5th edition halfing.


----------



## Twiggly the Gnome (Jul 17, 2022)

DrunkonDuty said:


> And my only takeaway is that tieflings only have devilish heritage. No demonic ones. No daemonic ones. That's just weird.



That's an artifact of the dumbing down they got in 4E, so that they'd uniformly look like high school sports mascots.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> There's enough Goliath lore. You were linked and responded to the post with the lore
> 
> Not liking it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.



what link to goliath lore?


Twiggly the Gnome said:


> That's an artifact of the dumbing down they got in 4E, so that they'd uniformly look like high school sports mascots.



give how ugly demons are I do not want to see a demon teifling.


----------



## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> what link to goliath lore?
> 
> give how ugly demons are I do not want to see a demon teifling.



Here it is again








						The Goliath Race for Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Fifth Edition (5e) - D&D Beyond
					

At the highest mountain peaks — far above the slopes where trees grow and where the air is thin and the frigid winds howl — dwell the reclusive goliaths. Few folk can claim to have seen a goliath, and fewer still can claim friendship with them. Goliaths wander a bleak realm of...




					www.dndbeyond.com


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Here it is again
> 
> 
> 
> ...



that is just the ho to build a character, what is their cosmological place? who if any do they worship? why are they so big in a resource-poor environment? what ways can I use them as a big part of my setting?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I'll not be disingenous. Narratives matter. D&D wouldn't be much of a game without them.
> 
> But the narratives that matter are the narratives in our games, at our tables. If the narratives of D&D-branded comics and literature or D&D-adjacent fiction or works that inspired D&D from the beginning do not match the narratives of my game, _it really doesn't matter._ To me. I see that it matters to you. Just as it doesn't matter to me if the narratives in your games don't match the narratives in mine.
> 
> The idea that it's a potential problem just doesn't resonate with me. I'm not dismissing your experience. I understand what you're saying. It just is not my experience.




Right, but here's the thing. Those outside media help inform the narrative people want at the table. The stories of rogues and thieves in comics and books and such have helped us when we decide that the narrative at our table involves a rogue with a heart of gold. If I was playing Shadow Run, the official Shadowrun lore about how the world changed and what it meant for society would affect how I integrate a character into that society. Sure, you can always ignore it and just do what you want at your table, but there is a reason lore matters. 

And the lore for the halflings gives them supernatural luck. It is the reason when why asked "what makes a halfling unique" the answer was "they are lucky" not "They re-roll 1's when they roll a d20". Because it is the narrative, not the mechanics, that people tend to attach to. Sure, we all love mechanics, and the mechanics for halflings are solid enough to be fine. But when we translate what we are told the story is, what the story we want to see is, to the game table to have the narrative at our table... they don't mesh naturally. 

I could play a stalwart human knight, scion of his noble family, off on a quest to earn the favor of his Lady with no problem. There are few mechanics even involved in that, and all of those are options I can either grab, or work naturally into the story. But if you want to play a halfling warlock who constantly escapes unscathed due to his tremendous luck... you can't. The game can't support it. And the game shouldn't support it. That's why we have to keep having this caveat that halfling luck "isn't perfect" because the game cannot allow that narrative to actually happen... but that is the narrative that seems to happen in the stories, it is the narrative that we are told should work for a halfling. And frankly... it is a narrative I think would be better served by making it not a mechanic. Because 97% of the halfling's actual luck in the game isn't mechanical and must be narrated in, and if we remove that mechanical pressure to make them lucky, then the stories can be a choice, without feeling like you are cheating the player out of the story they want.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I think changing a thing because _some_ people don't like it is a good way to end up with something that no one likes.




Sure, but never changing anything leads to stagnation. And since people are generally resistant to change it will always be "some" people who don't like the thing and want it changed and never "all" people.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I think 5.5e/50e will give tiefliengs an official abyssal and daemon options.




5e did have Abyssal options, with the random spell table. The idea was terrible and dropped. Still have the Feral, and Winged versions from the SCAG which was basically demonic options.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is just the ho to build a character, what is their cosmological place? who if any do they worship? why are they so big in a resource-poor environment? what ways can I use them as a big part of my setting?




I ended up playing with the Giant-Kin and rune magic concepts. Goliaths and Firbolgs are proto-giants, who must prove themselves to receive the proper runic rituals to become true giants. It is a little awkward for the Firbolg, but I'm looking into expanding and changing Giant lore anyways.


----------



## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is just the ho to build a character, what is their cosmological place? who if any do they worship? why are they so big in a resource-poor environment? what ways can I use them as a big part of my setting?




I don't know how this isn't lore.

Every day brings a new challenge to a goliath. Food, water, and shelter are rare in the uppermost mountain reaches. A single mistake can bring doom to an entire tribe, while an individual’s heroic effort can ensure the entire group’s survival.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I don't know how this isn't lore.
> 
> Every day brings a new challenge to a goliath. Food, water, and shelter are rare in the uppermost mountain reaches. A single mistake can bring doom to an entire tribe, while an individual’s heroic effort can ensure the entire group’s survival.



that is the life of the wilderness, not for example where they are from nor why they do not just move to the lowlands for better food.


Chaosmancer said:


> I ended up playing with the Giant-Kin and rune magic concepts. Goliaths and Firbolgs are proto-giants, who must prove themselves to receive the proper runic rituals to become true giants. It is a little awkward for the Firbolg, but I'm looking into expanding and changing Giant lore anyways.



giant lore has always been lacking it feels never quite baked in.


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 17, 2022)

Regarding sizes, I have each increase in size have ability requirements.

Both Strength and Constitution must be at least the following score in order to qualify for the higher size:

*Str-Con: Size
29:* (Extra Gargantuan)
*25:* Gargantuan
*21:* Huge
*19:* Large
*15:* Heavyweight (Medium) (Powerful Build)
*11:* Lightweight (Medium)
*7:* Small
*3:* Tiny
−*:* (Extra Tiny)

For example, a halfling with Strength 8 and Constitution 15 would still only be Small size. It is also possible for a halfling to have Strength 15 and Constitution 15, but ignore the possibility of a size increase, thus remain Small size. Such halflings are notably stronger and tougher than one would expect for their size.


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## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is the life of the wilderness, not for example where they are from nor why they do not just move to the lowlands for better food.
> 
> giant lore has always been lacking it feels never quite baked in.



If they only lore you'll accept as lore is for a race that's had a dedicated book you'll never accept a new race as having enough lore.

The only lore that matters is what impacts gameplay.

Cosmology doesn't matter at a vast majority of tables because they are either homebrew or never travel the planes.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

The best reference to Goliath lore is still 3.5's Races of Stone, which has a great deal.  

You can also find some here: Goliaths


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The best reference to Goliath lore is still 3.5's Races of Stone, which has a great deal.
> 
> You can also find some here: Goliaths



Very true, and it’s a much better writeup than 5e’s, IMO. 

Still, in our games we flip the whole “leave the injured to die” nonsense to a fiercely communal culture wherein hoarding is theft and theft is one of the worst crimes you can commit, and those who can contribute meaningfully on the move are taken by a couple hunters down to dwarven holds or human settlements or whatever. 

In one setting there are a handful of clans that do things the canon way, and they tend to have shorter more brutal lives than the other clans as a result, and are often viewed as dangerous fools by most other Goliaths.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> If they only lore you'll accept as lore is for a race that's had a dedicated book you'll never accept a new race as having enough lore.
> 
> The only lore that matters is what impacts gameplay.
> 
> Cosmology doesn't matter at a vast majority of tables because they are either homebrew or never travel the planes.



it helps with placing them or do you think the copy-paste nature of a lot of non human or monstrus races was odd?


James Gasik said:


> The best reference to Goliath lore is still 3.5's Races of Stone, which has a great deal.
> 
> You can also find some here: Goliaths



thank you it is better than nothing origin still needs work and someone to explain how they relate to giants.


----------



## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> it helps with placing them or do you think the copy-paste nature of a lot of non human or monstrus races was odd?



I have never noticed this at the table while playing the game.
My players interact with the creatures and peoples through play. When they meet a family of goliaths in a rough land the characters learn a bit about that land and the habits of that family. When they meet a goliath coffee roaster with two axebeaks that draw a cart, they interact with that character, who worships the god of rivers, mountains and life in my world.

What does it matter what planar beings they are connected to?

This is similar to the complaints about halflings. What they are as a peoples doesn't necessarily mean that's what they are as individuals. The most common complaint, so often thrown here, is "why would they ever adventure?" Because that's what that one person does!

It matters not that most are agrarian homebodies. Because my halfling, Kellamon Sqoques joined his friends on a journey. I'm telling his story, not the story of an ur-Halfling.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I have never noticed this at the table while playing the game.
> My players interact with the creatures and peoples through play. When they meet a family of goliaths in a rough land the characters learn a bit about that land and the habits of that family. When they meet a goliath coffee roaster with two axebeaks that draw a cart, they interact with that character, who worships the god of rivers, mountains and life in my world.
> 
> What does it matter what planar beings they are connected to?
> ...



there is a difference between knowing individuals and knowing cosmic stuff, just because you do not care for or feel you need it does not mean I should not.


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## Faolyn (Jul 17, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't think it would be a bad idea to remove halflings from the PHB. Not because I don't like them, I do. But it might stop people whining about them and wanting to change them if they weren't in the core rules, and therefore obvious they don't have to have them.



A problem that I see with that is that it's highly unlikely that D&D is going to have a brand new "default" setting for 6e. They'll almost certainly stick with the Realms, _maybe _with Greyhawk. Even if the settings aren't "officially" default like the Realms isn't the "official" setting of 5e, there's a chance that 6e will stick with the 5e trend of setting non-world books in those settings ("Volo's Guide to..." "Mordenkainen's Tome of..."). And halflings have a role in those settings, whether people like it or not; they weren't just added on. Which means that halflings will still be seen as "default," only players won't have the luxury of having their stats conveniently placed in the PHB. And that also means that every setting book published would have to have halfling stats _reprinted over and over again_ because there's no guarantee that a player will have bought every single book put out for that setting.

Removing halflings from the PHB _may _actually have the effect of making them show up more often. At least now, people can ignore them.


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## bedir than (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> there is a difference between knowing individuals and knowing cosmic stuff, just because you do not care for or feel you need it does not mean I should not.



I'm not saying you should not care about it.

I'm saying that having a minimal amount of lore requirement that includes cosmology, a unique pantheon, and racial specific cultural traits means that there are only like 6 six acceptable races now.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> it helps with placing them or do you think the copy-paste nature of a lot of non human or monstrus races was odd?
> 
> thank you it is better than nothing origin still needs work and someone to explain how they relate to giants.



Honestly, they aren't.  Or at least, they weren't, when they were first created.  They live in similar areas, and they have a legend of some members of their people being enslaved by Frost Giants, but the only connection is that Gol-kaa, their language, uses the same alphabet as Giantish.

The only real link between Goliaths and Giants noted in Races of Stone is the Feral Gargun, a half-breed creature that is descended from Goliaths and Giants (presumably giant-kin like Fomorians, Ogres, or Trolls), who are more bestial and savage.


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## Faolyn (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I'm not saying you should not care about it.
> 
> I'm saying that having a minimal amount of lore requirement that includes cosmology, a unique pantheon, and racial specific cultural traits means that there are only like 6 six acceptable races now.



I don't think a cosmology/pantheon is necessary. That's world lore, not race lore.

IMO, each race should be given _several _cultures. Generic ones, at the least, to indicate how the race works and to give players ideas. For halflings, it could be (very generic examples): "shire farmers" who live in small villages and help to feed the big cities; "nomadic traders" who travel everywhere and know everyone, at least a little, and who are a font of knowledge about far-off places; and "street rats" who live in the cities of humans, often in "Halfling-towns," and often while engaging in less-than-legal, or outright _illegal_, activities.


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## Maxperson (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you can quote me some rule that says you can't ignore your fear and attack anyways? Sure, you'll have disadvantage because of the physiological signs of fear, but no real-life person can ignore those either. You can't just be startled by something and decide "Nah, I'm not going to have a fight or flight response to this, brain, no adrenaline please." So, I don't see a meaningful difference.



You can't ignore the fear.  The rules are both the frightened condition, which does not let you ignore it and the cause of the condition, which only lets you ignore it if you make the save.  You can attack anyway, but again it's akin to the guy in the horror flick shooting over the top of the thing he's hiding behind and hoping he's going to hit. Firing a bow at the thing you are terrified of and hoping you get a lucky shot isn't brave.  Brave is turning and moving towards it despite the feat and attacking anyway.  You get to see that in horror movies when the frightened hero turns and faces the fear, attacking forward despite being afraid.


Chaosmancer said:


> Here's an interesting question as well, let's say something like a Banshee floats through the wall parallel to the parties path, with their horrifying visage, and floats out of sight into the wall on the others side. Like a spooky ghost cat crossing their path. The character is frightened. Do they have disadvantage on anything? No, because the Banshee isn't in line of sight. Can the character move deeper into the structure? I'd say yes, because while they cannot move closer to the source of their fear, their fear is off to the left, and the path goes forward. They aren't moving closer to the creature, so they can continue just fine. At this point, they are frightened... but ignoring it and moving on.



Two things.  First, they have no disadvantage because they aren't really frightened anymore, even though the condition is still on them.  They are only suffering the effects of the condition(being scared) while they can see the source of their terror.  So no, they aren't ignoring it, because if said banshee spent 60 feet of movement moving 5 feet through a wall back and forth, they would be scared every time the bashee came back into sight.  Same if the banshee comes back 2 rounds later and they haven't successfully made a save yet. 

It can only count as ignoring the fear if you can ignore it(and you can't) while the thing causing the fear is in sight.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, I think you seem to be confused. Because Phobias, extreme fears that are the most prominent exampe similar to the frightened condition, can't just be ignored. A person cannot just decide to ignore their phobia. Just go watch a Dr. Phil episode where he terrorizes some poor person with a phobia under the guise of "helping" them. These sort of physiological responses can't be ignored. But, if the source of the fear isn't in sight, then the player can also just ignore the effects of the condition. Therefore... this seems to map pretty well to real-life situations that I am using.



As someone who has arachnaphobia, acrophobia and claustrophobia and , I can tell you that they can be controlled(within reason). 

I have had times when startled by a spider and jumped halfway across the room.  Once I have distance, though, I know the capabilities of spiders and can walk up to them and get close. If I absolutely had to, I could touch one.  The whole time, though, I have the willies and still occasionally shudder involuntarily.  Same with heights.  I can use a ladder to climb onto the roof when.  When climb back down onto the ladder, it's more risky and I generally have to pause and steel myself, then move more slowly than is necessary to get back onto the ladder.


Chaosmancer said:


> This is something we could have discussed ages ago if I didn't have to keep repeating my argument til people understood it.



That's a real shame.  This line of discussion is so much better than the other.


Chaosmancer said:


> Personally, I'd remove this idea of it being bravery, because like I've said, this harms the narrative of the game. Instead I'd call it something like "unshakeable" and say they cannot have disadvantage on attacks or skills due to the frightened condition. It isn't full immunity, because the movement restriction is still in place, but it removes the biggest teeth from the frightened condition.



That's a good start, but I don't think the mechanic matches up entirely with the name.  Someone who is unshakeable is also going to be able to advance on something causing the frightened condition.  I'd actually rather see a limited immunity, like the 3x day auto save vs. frightened, or if that's too much, ignoring the requirement to not be able to move towards the source of fear and keep the disadvantage.  Or drop disadvantage and impose a flat -2.


Chaosmancer said:


> Where do warlocks come from? Why is it Paladin's can heal with a touch of their hand? Why does a Medusa's gaze turn you to stone? Why can Minotaurs always navigate a labyrinth? Why do hydra's grow new heads unless they are burned by fire? Why do Genie's offer wishes? Why does bardic magic work by playing an instrument?
> 
> I find it so disingenuous to continually get told that stories from literature don't matter in DnD, that the only thing that matters are the mechanics. You don't really believe that. You can't believe that and be able to truthfully answer the above questions. Heck, halflings only exist because of a novel.
> 
> So, no, I think it does matter to pull up DnD literature, and point to what it says halfling luck is like, then point to the game and say "this is nothing like that" and discuss how this is a potential problem. Because the narrative does matter. That's why you will never find a demon immune to radiant damage, because it would break the narrative of what those things mean, even though mechanically, radiant damage is no different from lightning damage.



I'm not arguing that inspiration isn't drawn in both directions.  The D&D movie, TV shows, and comics all draw inspiration from D&D.  D&D in turn draws inspiration from myths, fantasy books, movies, etc.  Drawing such inspiration, though, doesn't make one into the other. 

No matter how much inspiration was drawn by that comic to add in a dragon and halfling luck, the healthy dragon dying from a falling rock isn't something that is in D&D the game.  It was a simple power of plot device for the comic book medium and has no bearing whatsoever on how a DM should run halfling luck in D&D.


Chaosmancer said:


> He doesn't care for the stories halflings can tell. He prefers changelings and elves and he even played an old human paladin once. Calling him short-sighted because he is preferencing the stories he wants over the mechanics seems a bit rude to me.



Fair enough.  He should probably still take the lucky feat, which matches changelings, elves and even an old human paladin.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, but I know you specifically don't play 5e, so your homebrew rules for fear (because that isn't how 5e handles frightened) don't really change anything.
> 
> Additionally, I still stand by my original point on this, saving against the frightened condition =/= bravery. And so having a race that is "the brave one" is sort of like looking at a line-up of guys who are all 6'2" to 6"5' and looking for "the tall one". Even if you find one who is a little taller than the rest.... they are all tall It is a pointless description.



Again, it's not "brave" it's "braver."  That applies to height.  If you have a race that averages 7 feet tall and no other race gets taller than an average of 6'2", then that race is taller than other races, even though there are other races that are tall.  Halflings as a race are braver than any other race out there.


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## Maxperson (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If things were objectively measured across the infinity of time? Sure.
> 
> But statistically someone has to be rolling worse at dice than someone else. 6d6 showing up 6/6/6/6/6/6 has the exact same likelihood as 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 2/3/4/1/5/6 after all.



Except that's not exactly how it works.  Because 3/3/3/1/5/6, 1/1/4/4/5/6, 6/6/4/2/2/1, and so on all have the same chance to show up as 2/3/4/1/5/6, 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 6/6/6/6/6/6.  That means that while there is only one combination that equals 6 and one combination that equals 36, there are a whole lot of combinations of 6d6 that equal 21, making 21 much more likely to show up when rolling 6d6.

You aren't going to get a perfect average from players when they roll, but over time it will be for the vast majority of players, somewhat near average.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 17, 2022)

Maybe halflings and gnomes aren't among the most popular PC races, but they are iconic for the new players. They aren't too strange or exotic.

Maybe halflings become more popular in the next years because some adults have found a new idea as gifts for the children of the family, OC art, or customited miniatures (or action figures) with the scanned faces of these children. Then using halflings with the faces of the sons or nephews. 

Or a 3PP creates a magitek exosuit and these are used by gnomes and halflings in a way close to the "iron spider armor" from Marvel studios, and the players start to create the halfling version of Peter Parker's clones, or some "module" about "monster allies", and the halfling becomes the rider of a (subrace) mini-dragon. 

Halflings and gnomes are perfect as main characters if Hasbro wants an animated production more focused into the comedy than the epic fantasy and action. 

Maybe some halfling started being other humanoid race in a previous life, but after the death the resurecction spell was too expensive, and choosing the halfling race as option in the reincarnation spell was safer than random.


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## Lanefan (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Given the sheer amount of races available, I would say that any one race is irrelevant to the hobby at large, with the exception of humans, which are, IMO, the most boring and bland of races.
> 
> I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world?  They aren't the most magical.  They don't have special abilities.  They aren't long lived.  They're just...there.
> 
> Oh we're told they're the most prevalent and ambitious, etc.,etc., but their mechanics certainly don't reflect anything other than a minor buff to all stats which really doesn't matter.



Humans do have one thing going for them that no other species in the game can claim, and it's this: every player at every table has - one hopes - at least a vague idea as to how to play one.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot.  I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens.



Probably not as long as we replace half-orcs with either half-orcs, goliaths, minotaurs, or some other physically powerful and imposing race (probably orcs) while at the same time keeping half elves in the game.

Halflings are the only race in the game that emphasises being mundane and _not_ being a badass by the standards of the world. There is precisely no replacement for this in any other race I can think of in D&D.


Hussar said:


> After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.



When have I ever said that? I've after all suggested that gnomes should be made a subrace of halflings.

What I have said, will say, and will repeat is that _halflings should not be removed from the PHB because there is no race that covers their niches nearly as well as they do in the whole of D&D - and the more you load a race down with Kewl Powerz the worse they get at it._


Hussar said:


> Nope.  It's purely arbitrary.



Thank you for admitting that you are posting masses of comments saying that halflings should be removed based on your entirely and completely arbitrary threshold. And that you have nothing but an arbitrary standard set by you to want a race removed.


Hussar said:


> I picked two because two is a nice number for experimenting with new race options.  We got two new races in 4e (carried over into 5e) that have proven very popular, so, just carrying on with that number.



So we should have two in and none out because that proved popular.


Hussar said:


> Could be one. Could be 4.  You seem to think that I care which races are removed.  I really, really don't.



Actions speak louder than words. You have made literally dozens of posts saying that halflings should be removed. Which means that for some reason you believe that this is worth posting. Why do you bother to post if you don't care?


Hussar said:


> My argument has ALWAYS been the bottom two.  Mostly because 2 is what was added and that seemed to work fantastically well.



_Even this very comment shows this claim to be a falsehood._

You have openly said in this comment "Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot." If it's actually two races getting the boot that you care about and half-orcs are one of them then using your own logic halflings should be safe unless you somehow are saying that halflings should be booted and the far less popular and more easily replaceable gnomes should be kept.


Hussar said:


> Three or four is probably a bit too much because it would impact too many other things.



OK. So gnomes and half-orcs. Three would be too many. So why, in defiance of your own arguments, do you want to gratuitously boot halflings?


Hussar said:


> But, remember, I've always argued for REPLACE, not remove.  Drop the bottom two and ADD two new options to make sure that niche's are covered.  Kobolds largely cover both the tech/clockwork aspect of gnomes and the sneaky/size schtick for halflings, so, I could easily see kobolds replacing both nicely.  Which leaves room for a new option, like, say, goliaths, since big PC's are a niche that it wouldn't hurt to cover.



And here is the second problem (beyond the two most obviously on the chopping block being gnomes and half-orcs). _There is not one single race in D&D that covers the halfling "easy to overlook harmless everyman" schtick nearly as well as halflings._ Kobolds and goblins alike are seen as hostile rather than harmless.


Hussar said:


> But again, I'm not wedded to any particular option.  I did mention a small/medium fey anthro race.  Someone mentioned Hengiyokai - they'd actually be a pretty cool concept that fills pretty much all the niche's for gnomes and halflings as well.  Again, I'm not terribly picky.  Whatever works is whatever works.



Find me a _less_ exotic and more easily dismissed option than halflings. Humans don't qualify because humans are known as badasses in D&D and a plurality of countries in most D&D settings are human dominated. As for the Hengiyokai, please. You are trying to replace a race known for being mundane with a race of natural shapeshifters. Not. Even. Close. For that matter fey is a problem for a halfling replacement - it's too exotic to cover the niche halflings have complete dominance of.

What works is halflings. You claim to be not picky and "whatever works" while failing to offer a replacement for halflings. You also claim that two races should be removed - and there are gnomes, which are far less popular than halflings and halflings could cover most of already - and half-orcs which we both think are leaving. So if three is too many and half-orcs are probably leaving do you agree that by your own logic halflings should stay?


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot.  I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens.  After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.



If they're to be replaced with full Orcs, which other than moving Orcs from "monster" to "kindred", it ends up as pretty much the same thing in a way.

Replacing Hobbits with, say, Dragonborn isn't nearly as close a match.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Heh, if we're going by personal anecdotes, I haven't had a human PC in a game in a few years now.  And, honestly, even going back all the way to 1e, I was often the only human PC or maybe one of two.  Most of the PC's were demi-humans or various other options.  So, I dunno who's playing all these humans, other than me (typically), but, someone apparently is.



In my current game there's no Human PCs; the previous party I was running was nearly all Human.  These things come and go.


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## Irlo (Jul 17, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, but here's the thing. Those outside media help inform the narrative people want at the table.
> ....
> And the lore for the halflings gives them supernatural luck.



I understand completely what you're saying. It doesn't resonate for me because in my experience it doesn't matter. No player in any game I've been in has come to the table with the idea that halflings are supernaturally lucky, beyond the Lucky trait described in the PHB.  Halfling lore in D&D-adjacent fiction is not consistent either with other fictions or with the in-game narratives at various tables, and I wouldn't expect it to be.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 17, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Big head?  Lidda?  I never thought that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Absent context, if someone put that picture in front of me and asked me what it is, I'd say "Elf" without a second thought.

Then on second look I'd notice the ears, while pointed, resemble neither the sails nor antennae that Elven ears have these days become, and so I'd modify my statement to "Half-Elf" and stop there.

There is nothing at all in that picture that says either "Hobbit" or "Halfling".


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## Lanefan (Jul 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't think a cosmology/pantheon is necessary. That's world lore, not race lore.



It's both, if each species has its own pantheon (which I've always kinda taken to be the default).

And as a pantheon comes to both define and be defined by its followers, it's hard to build a cultural lore without taking it into consideration.


----------



## Irlo (Jul 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but what makes them anything other than oddly not tall humans.



Not much. Halflings in my games are very human-like. A little more adaptable, more accepting, and more accepted by others without needing to be overtly assimilated into the larger society. The adventurous ones are seen to be pluckier and than their larger neighbors.


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## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Humans do have one thing going for them that no other species in the game can claim, and it's this: every player at every table has - one hopes - at least a vague idea as to how to play one.



This is true, but it doesn't really alter the fact that humans are mechanically uninspired and bland as a playable race.  But hey, at least they *have *mechanics now, right?  As opposed to "dual class if you have really good rolls and xp on a drip feed" or "hey you can theoretically get to some super high level most people have never even seen", lol!


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## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Probably not as long as we replace half-orcs with either half-orcs, goliaths, minotaurs, or some other physically powerful and imposing race (probably orcs) while at the same time keeping half elves in the game.
> 
> Halflings are the only race in the game that emphasises being mundane and _not_ being a badass by the standards of the world. There is precisely no replacement for this in any other race I can think of in D&D.



You mean, besides Humans, right?


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> You mean, besides Humans, right?



No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Absent context, if someone put that picture in front of me and asked me what it is, I'd say "Elf" without a second thought.
> 
> Then on second look I'd notice the ears, while pointed, resemble neither the sails nor antennae that Elven ears have these days become, and so I'd modify my statement to "Half-Elf" and stop there.
> 
> There is nothing at all in that picture that says either "Hobbit" or "Halfling".



This is a consistent problem with Lidda's art.  The best pictures they produced of her don't have other characters nearby to give you a height comparison.  The ones that do...kind of skimp on her.

But anything is better than Mialee's art (the iconic Elf Wizard) which is usually just...._shudders_.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 17, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.



Interesting.  So because we can compared them to legendary figures, they are badass, even if the race mechanics are completely blah?

Seems like we just need better Halfling heroes in the zeitgeist and all problems are solved!


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 17, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Interesting.  So because we can compared them to legendary figures, they are badass, even if the race mechanics are completely blah?



Yes. Badass human heroes are not surprising, they're the expectation.



James Gasik said:


> Seems like we just need better Halfling heroes in the zeitgeist and all problems are solved!



I don't even know what the problem is! But it is not that halflings are not badass enough, because their point is not to be badasses. Granted, some people think that it is a problem, as they don't get that halflings being overlooked and metaphorically small_ is_ the point!


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I have never noticed this at the table while playing the game.
> My players interact with the creatures and peoples through play. When they meet a family of goliaths in a rough land the characters learn a bit about that land and the habits of that family. When they meet a goliath coffee roaster with two axebeaks that draw a cart, they interact with that character, who worships the god of rivers, mountains and life in my world.
> 
> What does it matter what planar beings they are connected to?
> ...




Would you say there are some differences between a woman from France and a Woman from Vietnam? 

Sure, the individual matters for the immediate story, but the context that individual comes from informs what that story is. I have a player currently playing a Kobold who went and demanded of his Dragon Mistress that he be given command of half the tribe and be recognized as her equal, because he's that awesome. He fled for his life (Yes, obviously he should have died but "my character died in my backstory" doesn't work for 99% of backstory concepts) and is set on revenge against her. This story doesn't work nearly as well without the context that Kobolds are seen as disposable minions and servants by dragons.

So, "where do goliaths come from and what do they believe" helps inform what that family is doing and if they are traditional or not. It helps inform whether or not that Coffee trader is bizarrely out of place, or perfectly normal. If Goliaths don't believe in money, then a Goliath who is a trader may not accept coin, or maybe they do and that is strange and leads to questions.

The same thing could happen if you run into an elf with a massive, full beard. Most people are going to pause and go "wait... what?" because elves are almost always clean-shaven. It is a very easy way to signal "something is strange here" by knowing that the individual is going against the common path.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You can't ignore the fear.  The rules are both the frightened condition, which does not let you ignore it and the cause of the condition, which only lets you ignore it if you make the save.  You can attack anyway, but again it's akin to the guy in the horror flick shooting over the top of the thing he's hiding behind and hoping he's going to hit. Firing a bow at the thing you are terrified of and hoping you get a lucky shot isn't brave.  Brave is turning and moving towards it despite the feat and attacking anyway.  You get to see that in horror movies when the frightened hero turns and faces the fear, attacking forward despite being afraid.
> 
> 
> Two things.  First, they have no disadvantage because they aren't really frightened anymore, even though the condition is still on them.  They are only suffering the effects of the condition(being scared) while they can see the source of their terror. So no, they aren't ignoring it, because if said banshee spent 60 feet of movement moving 5 feet through a wall back and forth, they would be scared every time the bashee came back into sight.  Same if the banshee comes back 2 rounds later and they haven't successfully made a save yet.
> ...




So, continuing to fight despite fear isn't bravery. Only charging forward is bravery. You can't ignore fear if you are frightened, because acting in spite of fear isn't ignoring it. Still being under the condition of fear isn't still being afraid, because the condition isn't doing anything. Just like you aren't charmed anymore if the creature that charmed you isn't in the room making charisma checks at you, right? 

You just have to narrow it down so that only a single course of action is bravery, just because of halflings. And yet people are baffled why I think halflings being shoved into this "we are braver" space is bad for the narrative of the game. This sort of twisting of a concept as fundamental as bravery is just wrong, on top of the fact that is makes no sense. 



Maxperson said:


> As someone who has arachnaphobia, acrophobia and claustrophobia and , I can tell you that they can be controlled(within reason).
> 
> I have had times when startled by a spider and jumped halfway across the room.  Once I have distance, though, I know the capabilities of spiders and can walk up to them and get close. If I absolutely had to, I could touch one.  The whole time, though, I have the willies and still occasionally shudder involuntarily.  Same with heights.  I can use a ladder to climb onto the roof when.  When climb back down onto the ladder, it's more risky and I generally have to pause and steel myself, then move more slowly than is necessary to get back onto the ladder.




So, you have an involuntary physical response. Something you can't control. Then, after a few moments, maybe about 6 to 12 seconds after that response, you can act in spite of the fear. 

I wonder if you could represent that as taking a turn or two and making a wisdom saving throw. You know, like the game already does.



Maxperson said:


> That's a good start, but I don't think the mechanic matches up entirely with the name.  Someone who is unshakeable is also going to be able to advance on something causing the frightened condition.  I'd actually rather see a limited immunity, like the 3x day auto save vs. frightened, or if that's too much, ignoring the requirement to not be able to move towards the source of fear and keep the disadvantage.  Or drop disadvantage and impose a flat -2.




Flat negatives aren't great as a design space, they end up stacking too much. Better to limit them when you can. 

I made the name as a bit of a pun, "unshakeable" because they do not shake when frightened. Personally, I think the idea of X times per day is leaning into it being a magical ability, so I don't like that. You could give them straight immunity, but the problem I have with that is that roleplaying a truly "fearless" individual is not only an incredible challenge as a player, but it encourages behavior which would be massively detrimental to the group as a whole. You could see that in some of the references to Kender, where being without fear made them charge into danger, which caused problems for the other party members. 

Personally, if you must absolutely be able to move forward, I'd say ignore the disadvantage and treat moving toward the source of the frightened condition as difficult terrain. But while I know some people see the "not being able to advance" as the "best" part of fear, that is usually in response to spells which casters use to protect themselves, it doesn't matter as much for melee, the disadvantage is the toothier part of the ability in general.



Maxperson said:


> I'm not arguing that inspiration isn't drawn in both directions.  The D&D movie, TV shows, and comics all draw inspiration from D&D.  D&D in turn draws inspiration from myths, fantasy books, movies, etc.  Drawing such inspiration, though, doesn't make one into the other.
> 
> No matter how much inspiration was drawn by that comic to add in a dragon and halfling luck, the healthy dragon dying from a falling rock isn't something that is in D&D the game.  It was a simple power of plot device for the comic book medium and has no bearing whatsoever on how a DM should run halfling luck in D&D.




So, depictions of halfling luck written by people for a DnD setting, shouldn't inform how we think about halfling luck in a DnD setting? Because I'm not saying one medium is the same as the other, and while people are obsessing over dragons being immune to falling spikes, they are ignoring the part that actually matters. 

Let's say the dragon had 50 hp left. That's enough that a critical from a thrown boulder can kill it. Then people can be happy that a rock killed a dragon. 

Now, what happened? 

The halfling finds a gemstone while circling the fight. The halfling ignores the fight, and goes for the gemstone. The halfling pries free the gemstone, only to fall off the statue and hit an stalactite. This stalactite then falls and kills the dragon, that the halfling was unaware of, right before it killed the human fighter. 

This is not uncommon in the trope of the small, lucky person. Knocking out or defeating a powerful enemy that they were not aware of by accident is a very common outcome. The monster is about to stab the helpless main character, the lucky sidekick opens a door and smashes the monster in the face, being completely unaware of what is happening, allowing everyone to escape. This happens again and again and again. This is the trope halfling luck is pulling on in the narrative. This is not something that happens in the game at the table, and it isn't something we would WANT to happen at the table. No mechanical ability that allowed the halfling to immediately interrupt and/or defeat an enemy with 50 or less hp by accident would be acceptable to anyone. 

This isn't about how comics and books are different than the game, this is about how the tropes and narratives are presented and how they are integrated into the game. 



Maxperson said:


> Fair enough.  He should probably still take the lucky feat, which matches changelings, elves and even an old human paladin.




He did for a while, burnt through the entire feat in a single combat. Started thinking it really wasn't worth it since he still failed every time he used lucky. 

Can we be done judging my friend about how he should build characters? I guarantee that after Seven years of thinking about and struggling with it, he's thought about it more than you have from your armchair. 



Maxperson said:


> Except that's not exactly how it works.  Because 3/3/3/1/5/6, 1/1/4/4/5/6, 6/6/4/2/2/1, and so on all have the same chance to show up as 2/3/4/1/5/6, 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 6/6/6/6/6/6.  That means that while there is only one combination that equals 6 and one combination that equals 36, there are a whole lot of combinations of 6d6 that equal 21, making 21 much more likely to show up when rolling 6d6.
> 
> You aren't going to get a perfect average from players when they roll, but over time it will be for the vast majority of players, somewhat near average.




If I was talking about adding those numbers together, you would be correct. But I wasn't. So you aren't correct, you are misunderstanding my post. 

Yes, the average player will get 21 more often than note. But, statistically, someone has rolled 2/3/4/1/5/6 on 6d6. This means that, statistically, someone has rolled 1/1/1/1/1/1 on 6d6. Expand this out, over the course of someone's life, they will roll a distinct and unique set of numbers on all dice. That set of numbers is 100% unique to them, and statistically, someone's set of numbers will have more low numbers than other peoples. 

Trying to dismiss someone's set of numbers because "luck isn't real" ignores that someone, somewhere, at some time, has to be the person who is at the bottom end of the bell curve. Otherwise it wouldn't be a bell curve, it would be a straight line.  



Maxperson said:


> Again, it's not "brave" it's "braver."  That applies to height.  If you have a race that averages 7 feet tall and no other race gets taller than an average of 6'2", then that race is taller than other races, even though there are other races that are tall.  Halflings as a race are braver than any other race out there.




But again, if you are playing a race whose supposed to be uniquely tall, and everyone else is tall, then you aren't uniquely tall. No one is going to comment on your character being tall, because everyone in the party is tall. You won't need special treatment for being tall, because everyone will need that treatment for being tall. 

Halflings as a race could possibly be braver in an objective sense, but once they are in a party full of people who are incredibly brave... then it is kind of not worth mentioning, because they aren't braver than everyone else in a way that makes them notable. You get told of the terrifying monster of the woods, and you shouting "I'm not scared" doesn't matter, because no one else is scared either. You aren't braver in the narrative, because you cannot possibly be braver in the narrative. Which means it is kind of a waste to say that you are.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 17, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.




Every player character in the game is a bad-ass. It is a bit weird to constantly try and say "but no one expects ME to be a bad-ass". Of course they do. 

Look, why is a halfling not a badass? Because they are small, right? No one expects small creatures to be dangerous. 

Well, except goblins. They are vicious and able to wipe out a town, and they are small. 
And Kobolds, incredibly dangerous depsite being small. 
Plus you can't discount gnomes, because magic makes even a small creature dangerous, and kobolds and goblins are also known for having spellcasters
And fairies and Pixies can be quite dangerous despite being tiny. 
Derro are small and super dangerous. 
There are also devils and demons that are small. 
Mephits are small or tiny, those things are incredibly dangerous. 
Can't forget many tiny creatures like stirges are incredibly dangerous, despite being very small. 
ectectectectectectectect

And, of course, this is a world where adventurers exist, and halfling adventurers are known. I mean, Mordenkainen's states that halfling retired adventurers come back to their homes. Mearls even talked about those adventurers leaving powerful magic items behind to defend their homes. 

So... why would anyone look at a halfling in leather armor, carrying a well-used weapon, and standing beside a group of adventurers and think "Well, I never expected to see a halfling adventurer, those don't really exist. I mean, halflings aren't badasses like every other race in the entire world." Of course they've heard of halfling adventurers before!


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 17, 2022)

I don't know why I'm doing this, but...

@Chaosmancer, _please _understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things. 

A character who is afraid of something can move towards the source of their fear. This is being brave.

A character who is subjected to the Frightened condition _can't _move towards the source of their fear. This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency.

If Bob the human fighter comes across an otherwise completely normal mouse that for whatever reason has the ability to cause people to make a Wisdom save or be Frightened, it doesn't mean that Bob isn't brave if he fails his roll. It means that in this instance, Bob can't approach that mouse and will have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while he can see the mouse. Bob can't _choose _to be brave and approach anyway, because the rules of the game say he can't. If he breaks those rules, then he's cheating.

If Bob happens to be musophobic and sees a normal mouse, he's afraid. However, because he's afraid and not Frightened, he can _choose _to be brave and approach the mouse, and this doesn't break the rules. He will suffer no penalties while fighting even if the mouse is right there in front of him, watching his every move with its beady little eyes, no matter how terrified he is, because he's afraid, not Frightened. 

(This is an example. Please do not try to bring up anything as to why this mouse can or cannot inflict the Frightened condition.)

And also, _please _understand that there is a difference between a game, which has specific rules as to how things must work, and any other form of media, which _does not._ It doesn't matter how halflings are shown to be lucky in a comic. The _game _has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way, while media mostly has to concern itself with telling a good story.

The comic you posted from _would not be good _if all the main characters got horribly eaten a dragon in the first book, because the point of that comic was to follow these heroes around while they go around doing hero stuff and making quips. _And _that combat also had a page count limit, which means that didn't have space show a combat that is as involved and that takes as long as real D&D combat can, unless that combat was the main point of the issue--which it was not. The point of that issue was to get the characters together. Combat was secondary. The writer brought in a dragon to show how dangerous the world can be and to establish some character traits, and then killed it off so they could move on the next plot point.

Likewise, a book or movie can show a character being as brave or as cowardly as the writer wants because that's what's needed for the script that they are writing, because the writer has full control over the characters they create. And a game book can set up basic expectations for the races. But the DM doesn't write the PC's actions and can't force the players to adhere to any particular tropes or to act in any particular way (except when the PCs are under the effects of a condition, but even then, the forced actions have to conform to the rules).


----------



## Oofta (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't know why I'm doing this, but...
> 
> @Chaosmancer, _please _understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.
> 
> ...




While I'm staying out of this for the most part (it's the same arguments we've heard many, many times), I do have a question.

Is Bob a loxodon?  If so, would they have disadvantage on the fear caused by a mouse?


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I made the name as a bit of a pun, "unshakeable" because they do not shake when frightened.



That...............................went right over my head. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Personally, I think the idea of X times per day is leaning into it being a magical ability, so I don't like that.



It's not magical so much as it's meta.  The X per day is player knowledge, not PC knowlege.  The halfling doesn't make a conscious effort to use it, nor is it aware of how many uses are left.  All the halfling knows is that he gets scared less often. It could be both I suppose, if the lore were something like, "The halfling gods blessed halflings to be less capable of being scared." or something, but it doesn't have to be.


Chaosmancer said:


> You could give them straight immunity, but the problem I have with that is that roleplaying a truly "fearless" individual is not only an incredible challenge as a player, but it encourages behavior which would be massively detrimental to the group as a whole. You could see that in some of the references to Kender, where being without fear made them charge into danger, which caused problems for the other party members.



Yeah, but I think that's just one way to play them and with the right lore, folks wouldn't be so prone to that.  Being fearless just means that you don't fear things, not that you don't understand dangers and treat danger with respect.  Lore about halflings understand and respecting dangers, even if they aren't afraid will encourage people to play that way.


Chaosmancer said:


> Personally, if you must absolutely be able to move forward, I'd say ignore the disadvantage and treat moving toward the source of the frightened condition as difficult terrain. But while I know some people see the "not being able to advance" as the "best" part of fear, that is usually in response to spells which casters use to protect themselves, it doesn't matter as much for melee, the disadvantage is the toothier part of the ability in general.



That's actually a really good idea.  I like it.  Not quite immune, but still affected and acting in a brave manner.  I'm okay with casters having a hard time against one race when it comes to fear effects.  Nothing should be perfect and D&D is very much an exceptions based system.  


Chaosmancer said:


> So, depictions of halfling luck written by people for a DnD setting, shouldn't inform how we think about halfling luck in a DnD setting? Because I'm not saying one medium is the same as the other, and while people are obsessing over dragons being immune to falling spikes, they are ignoring the part that actually matters.



The depictions in the comics are not written for a D&D setting or even for D&D.  They are written for comic book consumers.  Only D&D game books are written for D&D.


Chaosmancer said:


> Let's say the dragon had 50 hp left. That's enough that a critical from a thrown boulder can kill it. Then people can be happy that a rock killed a dragon.
> 
> Now, what happened?
> 
> ...



It's a comic book/movie/TV show trope, though, not a D&D trope.  D&D isn't played that way and isn't, nor should it be, played that way.  It's fine for the comic book halfling to accidentally kill a very, VERY hurt dragon like that.  It's not okay for it to happen in D&D unless the group has agreed to play that way and enjoys it.  Typical play is for an attack to hurt the dragon, even if that attack is directed at a stalactite to try and drop it on the dragon to kill it.  There will be deliberation in the act and the possibility of failure.

Nobody is obligated to describe halfling luck in that manner, nor is a player entitled to expect that it will happen that way in game play.


Chaosmancer said:


> If I was talking about adding those numbers together, you would be correct. But I wasn't. So you aren't correct, you are misunderstanding my post.
> 
> Yes, the average player will get 21 more often than note. But, statistically, someone has rolled 2/3/4/1/5/6 on 6d6. This means that, statistically, someone has rolled 1/1/1/1/1/1 on 6d6. Expand this out, over the course of someone's life, they will roll a distinct and unique set of numbers on all dice. That set of numbers is 100% unique to them, and statistically, someone's set of numbers will have more low numbers than other peoples.
> 
> Trying to dismiss someone's set of numbers because "luck isn't real" ignores that someone, somewhere, at some time, has to be the person who is at the bottom end of the bell curve. Otherwise it wouldn't be a bell curve, it would be a straight line.



Sure, but few enough people are at those extremes that it doesn't really matter.  You don't design or play a game like D&D around extremes.


Chaosmancer said:


> But again, if you are playing a race whose supposed to be uniquely tall, and everyone else is tall, then you aren't uniquely tall. No one is going to comment on your character being tall, because everyone in the party is tall. You won't need special treatment for being tall, because everyone will need that treatment for being tall.



Of course they are uniquely tall.  No other race is 7 feet on average.  Other races being tall at 6 feet doesn't prevent 7 feet from being unique to that race.


Chaosmancer said:


> Halflings as a race could possibly be braver in an objective sense, but once they are in a party full of people who are incredibly brave... then it is kind of not worth mentioning, because they aren't braver than everyone else in a way that makes them notable.



I don't see how you can even say something like that.

Human fighter cannot advance towards the enemy and is attacking at disadvantage due to be scared out of his mind.

Halfling fighter waltzes right up to the enemy and attacks without disadvantage due to his increased bravery over the human.

That seems to me to be both worth mentioning and a notable difference.


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## bedir than (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Would you say there are some differences between a woman from France and a Woman from Vietnam?
> 
> Sure, the individual matters for the immediate story, but the context that individual comes from informs what that story is. I have a player currently playing a Kobold who went and demanded of his Dragon Mistress that he be given command of half the tribe and be recognized as her equal, because he's that awesome. He fled for his life (Yes, obviously he should have died but "my character died in my backstory" doesn't work for 99% of backstory concepts) and is set on revenge against her. This story doesn't work nearly as well without the context that Kobolds are seen as disposable minions and servants by dragons.
> 
> ...



There is lore about where goliaths come from and what they believe. The complaint was that they don't have a creation myth, pantheon and cosmology


----------



## Hussar (Jul 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Absent context, if someone put that picture in front of me and asked me what it is, I'd say "Elf" without a second thought.
> 
> Then on second look I'd notice the ears, while pointed, resemble neither the sails nor antennae that Elven ears have these days become, and so I'd modify my statement to "Half-Elf" and stop there.
> 
> There is nothing at all in that picture that says either "Hobbit" or "Halfling".




True. 

But this is what halflings look like in DnD and have done so for more than twenty years. 

The fact that most people don’t seem to realize this to me is telling of how little people actually care about halflings in the game. 

If we modified elves to the point where you couldn’t tell them from dwarves, people would lose their poop. But halflings being indistinguishable from elves or humans is perfectly fine.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 18, 2022)

@Neonchameleon. I would argue that halflings have not worked. That either the niche they fill just isn’t compelling or they are not compelling in selling that niche. I’m not sure which. 

But it is pretty clear to me that they are just not compelling enough to be played. To me, that’s the bottom line. They are and always have scraping the bottom of the barrel. No amount of “fixing” will change that. They just are not very popular. 

So replace them with something to get some fresh air into the game. 

But yup it’s absolutely true that my choice of two is purely arbitrary. Of course it is. Not even sure why that’s an issue. 

My point has always been - make the phb reflect what is actually being played rather than what we want others to play.


----------



## Oofta (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> True.
> 
> But this is what halflings look like in DnD and have done so for more than twenty years.
> 
> ...



Or they just accept that other than size they don't really have a unique look.

It's odd that you equate nitpicking artwork with people "not caring". I don't care for the artwork they have for them in 5E, it has nothing to do with how much I like halflings.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> While I'm staying out of this for the most part (it's the same arguments we've heard many, many times), I do have a question.
> 
> Is Bob a loxodon?  If so, would they have disadvantage on the fear caused by a mouse?
> 
> View attachment 254127



<pushes up glasses> 

I'm sure you know this,  but Loxodons have:

_Loxodon Serenity. 
You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened._

So...no...they would not.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> My point has always been - make the phb reflect what is actually being played rather than what we want others to play.



AFAIK, that's already the case with the halflings. Races that are more popular them but not already in PHB do not exist in my knowledge. Granted, the genasi marginally beat the gnomes.


----------



## Oofta (Jul 18, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> <pushes up glasses>
> 
> I'm sure you know this,  but Loxodons have:
> 
> ...



You have to read between the lines. If you read it all the correct way it's quite obvious.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> You have to read between the lines. If you read it all the correct way it's quite obvious.



Yeah yeah. Just rules lawyerin'.


----------



## MGibster (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, but never changing anything leads to stagnation. And since people are generally resistant to change it will always be "some" people who don't like the thing and want it changed and never "all" people.



And tastes change.  Even Disney changes their rides ones in a while to keep attracting contemporary audiences.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Or they just accept that other than size they don't really have a unique look.
> 
> It's odd that you equate nitpicking artwork with people "not caring". I don't care for the artwork they have for them in 5E, it has nothing to do with how much I like halflings.



You're missing my point.

When I pointed out the last time that halflings do not look like this:






((An image I'd point out that several people in this thread held up as an excellent example of a halfling))

and have not looked like that for over twenty years, I got absolutely dogpiled for hating on halflings.  My point is, nobody actually cares about what halflings actually are in the PHB.  They only play the halflings that exist in their mind canon.   Which means that any argument over what halflings are in the game has to first get over the hurdle of people's mind canon where people absolutely cannot let go of their own idiosyncratic image of what halflings are in the game and what halflings actually mean to gamers in general.  Which is, largely, very little.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 18, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> AFAIK, that's already the case with the halflings. Races that are more popular them but not already in PHB do not exist in my knowledge. Granted, the genasi marginally beat the gnomes.



Again, it's missing my point.  The fact that despite having every possible advantage - being in the SRD, being promoted in the artwork, appearing in modules and having material specifically written for halfling characters (racial feats, magic items, appearances in setting guides), halflings have never, ever been anything else but the bottom of the barrel.

It's all down to interpretation. You look at the 5% and think, "Wow, that's okay.  They're being played.  They have a place".  I look at 5% and think, "What's the point of having something so irrelevant in the PHB?  Particularly in light of the fact that newly added races have both FAR surpassed virtually anything else in the PHB other than elves and humans."  

We're really not going to agree here because we're looking at the same numbers and coming to very different conclusions.   I'm not saying you're wrong.  But, I do disagree with your interpretation.  Which is fine.  We're all allowed to have different opinions, even strongly held ones.  Personally, and this is absolutely my own bias coming out, I'd rather D&D abandoned Tolkien entirely.  It's about time that the PHB draws from material other than Tolkien.  Dragonborn and Tieflings prove that non-Tolkien races can be very popular.  So, why are we stuck with the Fellowship of the Rings, fifty years later?

@Neonchameleon and others talk about the "everyman" niche.  Well, to me, that's already covered with humans.  Humans are, by definition, the "everyman".  They have no magical abilities.  They aren't blessed with god given luck powers.  They are 100% completely organic.    Free range if you will.  So, why do we need an "everyman" niche race when we already have one?  And, of course, the argument of combining halflings and gnomes contradicts the whole "everyman" niche that halflings are supposed to inhabit since gnomes are very much not an "everyman" niche character.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Again, it's missing my point.  The fact that despite having every possible advantage - being in the SRD, being promoted in the artwork, appearing in modules and having material specifically written for halfling characters (racial feats, magic items, appearances in setting guides), halflings have never, ever been anything else but the bottom of the barrel.



If halflings are the bottom of the barrel, then they aren't doing anything but maybe taking up a paragraph's worth of space in a book, which shouldn't have any negative affect on anyone. And if they're removed in favor of a new-to-the-PHB race there, then that other race would likely _also _maybe get a paragraph's worth of space and would be just as unused by the books as you say halflings are. After all, how much lore and attention do tieflings get in the books? Not all that much, and they're supposedly very popular. All they've gotten is a bunch of subraces.

But if halflings re taking up _lots _of room (which _would _affect you and crowd out other races), then that means that they have a lot of lore, are well-supported, _*and more popular than you think. *_And in that case, you're wrong that "nobody ever plays them."

(Oh, and the picture you posted of what's-her-name from 3e is _not _how halflings have looked in 5e. Other than the fact that 5e halflings wear shoes, all the pictures of them look very much like the image you claim that halflings don't look like anymore. Go look at MtF.)


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> True.
> 
> But this is what halflings look like in DnD and have done so for more than twenty years.
> 
> The fact that most people don’t seem to realize this to me is telling of how little people actually care about halflings in the game.



Where what it tells me is that the designers have for some reason - beyond just the Tolkein estate lawsuits - completely removed Halflings from the Hobbit roots that made them what they were, but not really given them any roots anywhere else.  Never mind that given how big D&D has become these days the Tolkein trustees would probably now be quite happy to license Hobbits into D&D.

It's not that players don't care about Halflings (Hobbits), it's that the designers don't care.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> You're missing my point.
> 
> When I pointed out the last time that halflings do not look like this:
> 
> ...



Except Halflings, as Hobbits, *do* look like this; WotC's art department be damned.


Hussar said:


> I got absolutely dogpiled for hating on halflings.  My point is, nobody actually cares about what halflings actually are in the PHB.  They only play the halflings that exist in their mind canon.   Which means that any argument over what halflings are in the game has to first get over the hurdle of people's mind canon where people absolutely cannot let go of their own idiosyncratic image of what halflings are in the game and what halflings actually mean to gamers in general.



OK, let's take your own logic and apply it here.

You've said several times upthread that ideally the selection of species in the PHB should reflect what's generally being played.

Why can't the same apply to art?  Why can't we push for having the art of the game at least somewhat reflect what's being generally imagined - which in the case of Halflings is far closer to this guy than to Lidda.


Hussar said:


> Which is, largely, very little.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> If halflings are the bottom of the barrel, then they aren't doing anything but maybe taking up a paragraph's worth of space in a book, which shouldn't have any negative affect on anyone. And if they're removed in favor of a new-to-the-PHB race there, then that other race would likely _also _maybe get a paragraph's worth of space and would be just as unused by the books as you say halflings are. After all, how much lore and attention do tieflings get in the books? Not all that much, and they're supposedly very popular. All they've gotten is a bunch of subraces.



They're only bottom of the barrel because they're one of the few races that are small enough to fit inside of it.  Poor guys.


----------



## billd91 (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> and have not looked like that for over twenty years, I got absolutely dogpiled for hating on halflings. My point is, nobody actually cares about what halflings actually are in the PHB. They only play the halflings that exist in their mind canon.



Not entirely.


			
				Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes said:
			
		

> Halflings in the world of Greyhawk live in underground burrows or small cottages in the grasslands or hills. They are lightly covered with hair over most of their bodies, especially on the backs of their hands and the tops of their feet, and they rarely wear shoes. The three subraces are the hairfeet, which are the most numerous; the tallfellows, which are the tallest and least athletic of the halflings, somewhat resembling elves; and the stouts, which are more akin to dwarves in temperament and stature than the other two.



Looks like D&D has retained some backward compatibility with that halfling image outside of “mind canon”.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If they're to be replaced with full Orcs, which other than moving Orcs from "monster" to "kindred", it ends up as pretty much the same thing in a way.
> 
> Replacing Hobbits with, say, Dragonborn isn't nearly as close a match.



It ain’t gonna happen, anyway. It’s just a really weird idea that some folks are really stuck on for some reason. 

Half-orcs aren’t going anywhere, nor are halflings or gnomes.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Except Halflings, as Hobbits, *do* look like this; WotC's art department be damned.



Everyone knows what halflings _really _look like (furry feet and all), and know that all WotC images are lies to avoid being sued by the Tolkien estate.

That even applies to Larien - check out BG3.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> A problem that I see with that is that it's highly unlikely that D&D is going to have a brand new "default" setting for 6e. They'll almost certainly stick with the Realms, _maybe _with Greyhawk. Even if the settings aren't "officially" default like the Realms isn't the "official" setting of 5e, there's a chance that 6e will stick with the 5e trend of setting non-world books in those settings ("Volo's Guide to..." "Mordenkainen's Tome of..."). And halflings have a role in those settings, whether people like it or not; they weren't just added on. Which means that halflings will still be seen as "default," only players won't have the luxury of having their stats conveniently placed in the PHB. And that also means that every setting book published would have to have halfling stats _reprinted over and over again_ because there's no guarantee that a player will have bought every single book put out for that setting.
> 
> Removing halflings from the PHB _may _actually have the effect of making them show up more often. At least now, people can ignore them.



In fact I expect there to be a lot _more _lineages in the next edition of the PHB. A lineage block occupies less space than the old race blocks for a start! They need to continue to support the traditional  tolkienesque settings, whilst also better supporting more diverse settings.

We have had hints that a classic setting is going to be released alongside the 2024 core rules. I expect the new version of the rules to be setting-neutral, with most of the lore moved to the setting book.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't know why I'm doing this, but...
> 
> @Chaosmancer, _please _understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.
> 
> ...




_head desk_

Yes, I understand that fear and the frightened condition are not necessarily the same thing. Someone can be scared (ie experience fear) without being under the effects of the frightened condition. I understand that, in fact, it underlines my entire point. 

Because being brave is about fear. As you literally said, to quote you right here "A character who is afraid of something can move towards the source of their fear. *This is being brave.*"  (emphasis mine_

The frightened condition supersedes this. Following the mechanical rules of the frightened condition has no bearing on whether or not you are brave. 

The halfling ability is about the frightened condition. It isn't about fear. Therefore, since it isn't about fear, it can't be about being brave. Because it is only about the frightened condition, and to again quote you "This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency." 

So, since this is all true, halflings are not braver than other races. They can't be, because the frightened condition which is a game effect with specific rules that override player agency, is the ONLY thing that the halfing ability interacts with. And since the frightened condition has no bearing on whether or not someone is brave, this mechanical ability of the halflings also has no bearing on whether or not someone is brave. 

You are literally laying out, in precise detail, my entire point. Describing halflings as "the brave race" because of this ability to interact with the frightened condition misstates what bravery is, because bravery has nothing to do with the frightened condition. Failing a save and falling under the mechanical effects of the frightened condition, has zero bearing on whether or not the character is brave. This is why I've proposed changing the name of the ability, and pushing for people not to describe halflings as exceptionally brave, because it doesn't work and comes from conflation.




Faolyn said:


> And also, _please _understand that there is a difference between a game, which has specific rules as to how things must work, and any other form of media, which _does not._ It doesn't matter how halflings are shown to be lucky in a comic. The _game _has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way, while media mostly has to concern itself with telling a good story.
> 
> The comic you posted from _would not be good _if all the main characters got horribly eaten a dragon in the first book, because the point of that comic was to follow these heroes around while they go around doing hero stuff and making quips. _And _that combat also had a page count limit, which means that didn't have space show a combat that is as involved and that takes as long as real D&D combat can, unless that combat was the main point of the issue--which it was not. The point of that issue was to get the characters together. Combat was secondary. The writer brought in a dragon to show how dangerous the world can be and to establish some character traits, and then killed it off so they could move on the next plot point.




And once again. I understand that comic books and games are different media. I understand that games have rules and comic book rules are different. I understand that you can have plot contrivances in a comic book, that you can't have in a game. 

Supernatural luck is a plot contrivance. It always is a plot contrivance. It is nothing but a plot contrivance. It is literally the ability for things to work out for the sake of the plot. 

So, since you can't have plot contrivances as mechanics in a game (at least not in a game designed in the way Dungeons and Dragons is designed) then supernatural luck is out of place. Halflings are repeatedly stated, by players, by DMs, and by the sourcebooks themselves to be supernaturally lucky. In the video I posted before Mearls talks about how a kingdom couldn't invade a halfling village, because the cartographer 20 years ago made a mistake and didn't mark where the village was on a map. This is, from the creative lead of the design of the game, how halfling luck works. It is a plot contrivance. It is literally the ability to alter the narrative to suit them, not actively, but passively. 

And so, since this is a tabletop game where the game has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way... halfling luck as we are told it must work by the narratives and lore of the game doesn't fit. It would be a bad rule. It would be a bad game design. I'm not talking about the lucky mechanic which affects the d20, that doesn't matter in this discussion, except that it is trying (and failing) to represent this supernatural luck of plot contrivances. I'm talking about what we have been told is true by the people who make the game. 

And so, I have put forth, that since it is bad game design to have a race that has "plot contrivance" as a racial power, that we should move away from it. Because it is doing us no favors, and instead, putting a burden on the DM to include plot contrivances when dealing with halflings, otherwise they are violating the "halfling fantasy". 

But, again, I do understand that when I sit down to play a game, I'm not reading a comic book. And when I'm writing a novel, I'm not playing a game. Because those things are different.



Faolyn said:


> Likewise, a book or movie can show a character being as brave or as cowardly as the writer wants because that's what's needed for the script that they are writing, because the writer has full control over the characters they create. And a game book can set up basic expectations for the races. But the DM doesn't write the PC's actions and can't force the players to adhere to any particular tropes or to act in any particular way (except when the PCs are under the effects of a condition, but even then, the forced actions have to conform to the rules).




And because the DM can't force players to act certain ways, and the game has rules to keep things fair, I think the game setting up the basic expectation that "halflings are unusually brave and supernaturally lucky" is bad for the game. Those traits work great for a book or a movie, because the writer has perfect and full control over the characters they create, but that isn't true for a game.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> It's not magical so much as it's meta.  The X per day is player knowledge, not PC knowlege.  The halfling doesn't make a conscious effort to use it, nor is it aware of how many uses are left.  All the halfling knows is that he gets scared less often. It could be both I suppose, if the lore were something like, "The halfling gods blessed halflings to be less capable of being scared." or something, but it doesn't have to be.




Could work, it is more of a feel thing on giving it charges.



Maxperson said:


> Yeah, but I think that's just one way to play them and with the right lore, folks wouldn't be so prone to that.  Being fearless just means that you don't fear things, not that you don't understand dangers and treat danger with respect.  Lore about halflings understand and respecting dangers, even if they aren't afraid will encourage people to play that way.




And "with the right lore" Kender aren't a menace. You can never trust that "the right lore" will prevent people from taking advantage of something and abusing it to the detriment of the party. Sometimes it is because they are just jerk players, but there is no reason to give them an opening when it is much easier to create similar effects without the potential abuse.



Maxperson said:


> That's actually a really good idea.  I like it.  Not quite immune, but still affected and acting in a brave manner.  I'm okay with casters having a hard time against one race when it comes to fear effects.  Nothing should be perfect and D&D is very much an exceptions based system.




_thumbs up_



Maxperson said:


> The depictions in the comics are not written for a D&D setting or even for D&D.  They are written for comic book consumers.  Only D&D game books are written for D&D.




A DnD comic, set in a DnD setting, with character sheets for the DnD characters depicted. Yeah, look, I understand that comics and games are different things. I don't roll a d20 when I open up a comic. And no one is drawing panel art when we sit down to play DnD. 

But, you know, at some point the lore is supposed to be the lore. And the depictions of what happens are supposed to match what happens. And this comic did a really good job of that, repeatedly. They even cover deep lore for Kruthiks in 4e (the era the comic was written in) but I'm supposed to accept that they had no idea what halfling luck was supposed to look like and completely messed it up, so bad to the point that it isn't even recognizable as the same thing? While calling it out as halfling luck, a thing halflings are supposedly uniquely known for since 2nd edition? Come on. Halflings are depicted as supernaturally lucky, they are depicted as having plot contrivances all the time in the narrative, in the lore, even in the game books. This shouldn't be such a divisive claim.



Maxperson said:


> It's a comic book/movie/TV show trope, though, not a D&D trope.  D&D isn't played that way and isn't, nor should it be, played that way.  It's fine for the comic book halfling to accidentally kill a very, VERY hurt dragon like that.  It's not okay for it to happen in D&D unless the group has agreed to play that way and enjoys it.  Typical play is for an attack to hurt the dragon, even if that attack is directed at a stalactite to try and drop it on the dragon to kill it.  There will be deliberation in the act and the possibility of failure.
> 
> Nobody is obligated to describe halfling luck in that manner, nor is a player entitled to expect that it will happen that way in game play.




Except that it is a DnD trope. It came from DnD. Okay, "supernatural luck" didn't, but halflings HAVING supernatural luck is a DnD trope. So players DO have that expectation.



Maxperson said:


> Sure, but few enough people are at those extremes that it doesn't really matter.  You don't design or play a game like D&D around extremes.




You are right, you don't design the game for that. But it good to remember those extremes when someone starts berating you on the internet that "bad luck" doesn't exist and implying that you and your friend are superstitious and silly. You know, that whole thing that you jumped on to start talking with me about.



Maxperson said:


> Of course they are uniquely tall.  No other race is 7 feet on average.  Other races being tall at 6 feet doesn't prevent 7 feet from being unique to that race.




So, in a group of tall people, how does the tall person feel like they are special for being tall?



Maxperson said:


> I don't see how you can even say something like that.
> 
> Human fighter cannot advance towards the enemy and is attacking at disadvantage due to be scared out of his mind.
> 
> ...




Why is it you always assume that the halfling passes do to their advantage? Advantage isn't immunity. If it is a DC 19 and they have a +1 wisdom, it is likely that NEITHER fighter advances. 

Why is it that walking forward is the only sign of bravery you can ever acknowledge? If my human fighter is a longbow using Arcane Archer, then they are never going to advance forward to the enemy no matter what their frightened status is.

Why is it that you can only acknowledge bravery in terms of the frightened condition, when it has nothing to do with bravery? 

It probably seems worth mentioning to you, because you have these fundamental assumptions that, to me, make no sense.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

bedir than said:


> There is lore about where goliaths come from and what they believe. The complaint was that they don't have a creation myth, pantheon and cosmology




Um... isn't "where they come from" a creation myth? Or do you literally mean "they live in the mountains" because that doesn't count for what we were talking about. 

And yeah, it is really bizarre that the Goliaths seem to have no contact with religion. Especially considering they are part of the Forgotten Realms. That seems more like it was an oversight than a choice.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Of course they are uniquely tall. No other race is 7 feet on average.



Fir Bolg. Minotaur.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... isn't "where they come from" a creation myth? Or do you literally mean "they live in the mountains" because that doesn't count for what we were talking about.
> 
> And yeah, it is really bizarre that the Goliaths seem to have no contact with religion. Especially considering they are part of the Forgotten Realms. That seems more like it was an oversight than a choice.



They are giants. The ordning is their creation myth.

Although culturally atheistic is more interesting in a world where there is a god on every street corner.

I think the most detailed recent source on goliaths in the Forgotten Realms is _Rime of the Frostmaiden_. Out of the two goliath settlements detailed, only one has any places of worship mentioned: a pair of rune carved stones called The Shine of Mind and Spirit and the Shrine of Strength and Honour. Neither is associated with a specific deity, and suggests a spiritual life focused on personal perfection rather than an external force.


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## James Gasik (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... isn't "where they come from" a creation myth? Or do you literally mean "they live in the mountains" because that doesn't count for what we were talking about.
> 
> And yeah, it is really bizarre that the Goliaths seem to have no contact with religion. Especially considering they are part of the Forgotten Realms. That seems more like it was an oversight than a choice.



When presented in Races of Stone, they had their own pantheon of Gods.  The problem was, they were made setting-agnostic, and since Forgotten Realms is the only place they can live at the moment (being the only "kitchen sink" setting even remotely developed), they have to put up with a setting already bloated with Gods, which has no room for their own.  They probably worship *Iallanis *of the Giant Pantheon, since most of the other Giant Gods are jerks and only like their own particular Giant kind.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 18, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> since Forgotten Realms is the only place they can live at the moment



They have a presence in Exandria, and a section in the Wildemount setting book. Were they would worship the Exandrian pantheon, like everyone else.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> _thumbs up_



__


Chaosmancer said:


> A DnD comic, set in a DnD setting, with character sheets for the DnD characters depicted. Yeah, look, I understand that comics and games are different things. I don't roll a d20 when I open up a comic. And no one is drawing panel art when we sit down to play DnD.
> 
> But, you know, at some point the lore is supposed to be the lore. And the depictions of what happens are supposed to match what happens. And this comic did a really good job of that, repeatedly. They even cover deep lore for Kruthiks in 4e (the era the comic was written in) but I'm supposed to accept that they had no idea what halfling luck was supposed to look like and completely messed it up, so bad to the point that it isn't even recognizable as the same thing? While calling it out as halfling luck, a thing halflings are supposedly uniquely known for since 2nd edition? Come on. Halflings are depicted as supernaturally lucky, they are depicted as having plot contrivances all the time in the narrative, in the lore, even in the game books. This shouldn't be such a divisive claim.
> 
> ...



I doubt that more than a very small percentage(single digits) of D&D players even read that comic.  Any expectations players would have comes from the halfling ability.  And while at some point the lore is supposed to be the lore, it's only supposed to vaguely be the lore. Those mediums suffer from the power of plot which supersedes D&D limitations.  Using that medium to set your expectation for what happens in a D&D game is an exercise in frustration. It's just not going to match up unless you go to the DM first and get him on board with making it happen.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, in a group of tall people, how does the tall person feel like they are special for being tall?



14.5% of men are 6 feet tall.  0.000038% are 7 feet tall. That's how the 7 foot tall person feels special in a group of 6 foot tall people.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why is it you always assume that the halfling passes do to their advantage? Advantage isn't immunity. If it is a DC 19 and they have a +1 wisdom, it is likely that NEITHER fighter advances.



I don't.  I assume he makes it a lot more often than those without advantage.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why is it that walking forward is the only sign of bravery you can ever acknowledge? If my human fighter is a longbow using Arcane Archer, then they are never going to advance forward to the enemy no matter what their frightened status is.



He's also not going to have the steady aim of a brave person overcoming and ignoring his fear.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why is it that you can only acknowledge bravery in terms of the frightened condition, when it has nothing to do with bravery?



1. It does.  2. I have acknowledged other types of bravery. Several times.  It's just that the halfling has his ability AND all those other kinds, making him *braver.*


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Fir Bolg. Minotaur.



We're talking a hypothetical tallest race at 7 feet tall, not actual D&D races.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, since this is all true, halflings are not braver than other races. They can't be, because the frightened condition which is a game effect with specific rules that override player agency, is the ONLY thing that the halfing ability interacts with. And since the frightened condition has no bearing on whether or not someone is brave, this mechanical ability of the halflings also has no bearing on whether or not someone is brave.



OK, let me try this a different way.

Within the world of the game, halflings are considered to be braver than other races because they can face down terrifying things (i.e., things that cause the Frightened condition) far more easily than anyone else can.

Why is this? Because nobody in the game world knows the difference between being afraid and being Frightened, because _nobody in the game has read the PHB. _And _that _is why halflings are braver than anyone else. Nobody in the game world has the meta-knowledge that we players have. 



Chaosmancer said:


> So, since you can't have plot contrivances as mechanics in a game (at least not in a game designed in the way Dungeons and Dragons is designed) then supernatural luck is out of place. Halflings are repeatedly stated, by players, by DMs, and by the sourcebooks themselves to be supernaturally lucky. In the video I posted before Mearls talks about how a kingdom couldn't invade a halfling village, because the cartographer 20 years ago made a mistake and didn't mark where the village was on a map. This is, from the creative lead of the design of the game, how halfling luck works. It is a plot contrivance. It is literally the ability to alter the narrative to suit them, not actively, but passively.



Yes, and this is something that affected NPCs. Unless the PCs were the cartographer, there is _nothing wrong _with saying that halfling luck manifested itself by a mismarked map. Because this is an NPC thing, it means that it doesn't have to affect the PCs in any way, shape, or form beyond being able to reroll 1s.

There is also nothing wrong with saying that this is an example of the world counting the hits and ignoring the misses and chalking up this saved village to halfling luck and never even _knowing _that there were fifty other halfling villages that got destroyed in various ways.



Chaosmancer said:


> And so, I have put forth, that since it is bad game design to have a race that has "plot contrivance" as a racial power, that we should move away from it. Because it is doing us no favors, and instead, putting a burden on the DM to include plot contrivances when dealing with halflings, otherwise they are violating the "halfling fantasy".



Except that pretty much _every _race has plot contrivance as a racial power (or racial limitation). Why are humans the most common race? Because the game designers said so. Why _aren't_ most elves super-high-leveled fighter/mages? Because the game designers said so. Why are halflings lucky? Because the game designers said so.

And because nobody actually expects that halfling PCs are going to be able to pull out amazing moments of supernatural luck.


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## AnotherGuy (Jul 18, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> What if said Halfling is a member of the Green Lantern Corps?



Well then you would also be right.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 18, 2022)

I guess they mean the halflings really aren't willing to face higher risks but they aren't shocked by the fear easily, they are more ready to reaction fastly before a menace. Maybe it is thanks their faith, their hope to be helped by the Heaven, or at least a glorious fate in the afterlife if their sacrifice was worth.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 18, 2022)

@Hussar I find it pretty sus that 5% is deemed "failure that no one plays" yet a bit over 7% is "very popular." This really doesn't seem like an unbiased assessment to me. Elves and humans with their over 20% are "very popular," I'd place both dragonborn with their 7,2% and halflings with their 4,7% to the same tier of "somewhat popular" where they are alongside with most of the PHB races, such as dwarves at 6.6%. Placing the dividing line in middle of this group so that you can declare the one you like to be a smashing success and one you dislike to be an abject failure is very transparent and is not going to convince anyone.


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 18, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Hussar I find it pretty sus that 5% is deemed "failure that no one plays" yet a bit over 7% is "very popular." This really doesn't seem like an unbiased assessment to me. Elves and humans with their over 20% are "very popular," I'd place both dragonborn with their 7,2% and halflings with their 4,7% to the same tier of "somewhat popular" where they are alongside with most of the PHB races, such as dwarves at 6.6%. Placing the dividing line in middle of this group so that you can declare the one you like to be a smashing success and one you dislike to be an abject failure is very transparent and is not going to convince anyone.



When ballparking these kinds of ratios, I love the curve of magnitude. (Like the golden ratio, but metric base 10.) It is great for relative ranking.

Rounding the numbers of the magnitudes:
100
79
63
50
40
32
25
20 human, elf
16
13
10
7.9
6.3 dragonborn, dwarf
5.0
4.0 halfling
3.2
2.5
2.0
1.6
1.3
1.0


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## Oofta (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> You're missing my point.
> 
> When I pointed out the last time that halflings do not look like this:
> 
> ...



I enjoy playing halflings and I have two in my current campaign. Most people simply don't care about the art.  Pick just about any race and you can find art I'm not going to like or that don't fit the current image for just about any species.  The image you show isn't from a WOTC publication, it's like showing a picture of a Keebler elf to show how far elves are from the description.

I don't care for the art style of halflings in the PHB, but I also think the image of the elf on guard in the PHB is terrible. Occasional bad art has nothing to do with the race as presented by rules and lore.


----------



## MGibster (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> My point is, nobody actually cares about what halflings actually are in the PHB. They only play the halflings that exist in their mind canon.



To a large extent, I feel as though this is true for all the races in D&D.  Especially humans!  But seriously, for the most part, I feel as though most players could swap their fighter's race from human to elf, halfling, or gnome and they'd pretty much all be played the same way.


----------



## bedir than (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... isn't "where they come from" a creation myth? Or do you literally mean "they live in the mountains" because that doesn't count for what we were talking about.
> 
> And yeah, it is really bizarre that the Goliaths seem to have no contact with religion. Especially considering they are part of the Forgotten Realms. That seems more like it was an oversight than a choice.



Considering the person I specifically replied to has used where a race lives and creation myths as separate ideas, yes, I was replying to them


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## James Gasik (Jul 18, 2022)

That may be true, but there are also players who dive into the lore of another race, to create "lore-friendly" names, figure out where their people live, and try to inject some of that culture into their play.

At least, I've seen it happen.

But with humans, their culture is usually so generic, just some variation of real-world human cultures, that, at least in my experience, human PC's are just regular people.

Only a few settings have given us unique enough Human cultures embraced by players to make characters that really stand out.

The argument is that Halflings are in the same boat, or that their "culture" is just Tolkien, but at least in D&D, I rarely see anyone playing Bilbo Baggins.

It's far more common to see a cunning thief raised on the streets or a doughty warrior who tackles things several times their size on a regular basis, punishing anyone who makes the mistake of underestimating them!


----------



## Raunalyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Me? I just wish people would actually take the argument at face value instead of ascribing all sorts of motives and assumptions to what I'm saying.  All I said was that the least popular two races be removed from the PHB and shunted to a different book, in favor of two new options which hopefully would gain more traction with gamers.




Good advice...perhaps you should learn to follow it?


----------



## Horwath (Jul 18, 2022)

If we have only 4 core races:
Humans,
Elves,
Dwarves,
Orcs,

I would not mind.

If you are half elf/orc/dwarf just use either statistics and describe how much you look closer to one race over other.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> They are giants. The ordning is their creation myth.




Is this another "the mother of giants slept around" bit of the lore? Because I don't remember the Goliaths being mentioned as part of the Ordning. I know classically the Firbolg rejected the Ordning, but I don't remember ever seeing where the Goliaths fit into that stucture (other than being lesser than everyone else, because they are shorter than everyone else)


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I doubt that more than a very small percentage(single digits) of D&D players even read that comic.  Any expectations players would have comes from the halfling ability.  And while at some point the lore is supposed to be the lore, it's only supposed to vaguely be the lore. Those mediums suffer from the power of plot which supersedes D&D limitations.  Using that medium to set your expectation for what happens in a D&D game is an exercise in frustration. It's just not going to match up unless you go to the DM first and get him on board with making it happen.




And only a very small percentage of DnD players ever read any of the DnD novels. And only a small percentage of DnD players ever purchased the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. Saying "but it wasn't super popular and everyone didn't buy it" is indicative of nothing at all. 

Additionally, it was AN EXAMPLE. Singular. One. But, it isn't the ONLY example. Again, I've quoted the creators of the game. I've quoted the rule books. I know that this was true in the novels. Sure, only a small proportion of DnD players have ever read Dragonlance (where Kender are halflings) and Forgotten Realms novels, but the fact that this is a consistent through line in multiple novels, by multiple authors and supported by the game designers and supported by the fluff in the rulebooks.... kind of looks to me like that is the lore of the game. 

And then, you are right. It doesn't match up to the game, and it can be frustrating unless you have your DM force it into the game. Which is THE ENTIRE REASON I've talked about stopping with claiming halflings are unique because of their supernatural luck. Because the game can't support that narrative, so it is just a source of frustration and a burden of extra work on the DM.



Maxperson said:


> 14.5% of men are 6 feet tall.  0.000038% are 7 feet tall. That's how the 7 foot tall person feels special in a group of 6 foot tall people.




"Statistically I'm rarer than you, so my narrative of being tall shines through despite the fact that you are all tall as well." 

Yeah. Doesn't work. They aren't going to bring up population statistics and claim to be special because they are rare. They want to feel like they are taller than everyone else. But in a world designed for people who are 5 ft something, the people who are 6'3" are getting the same "I am tall" story beats as someone who is 7'2"



Maxperson said:


> I don't.  I assume he makes it a lot more often than those without advantage.




Except you literally do. Every single time you give an example, you declare the halfling is unaffected. You have been treating advantage like immunity.



Maxperson said:


> He's also not going to have the steady aim of a brave person overcoming and ignoring his fear.




And here we go again. Why is being afraid and shaking mean that you are not brave? You said you could be brave taking 6 to 12 seconds to steady yourself before descending a ladder, why is a man firing his weapon at a threat despite being afraid less brave than you descending a ladder?



Maxperson said:


> 1. It does.  2. I have acknowledged other types of bravery. Several times.  It's just that the halfling has his ability AND all those other kinds, making him *braver.*




No it doesn't. Falling under the frightened condition has nothing at all to do with how brave you are.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It's far more common to see a cunning thief raised on the streets or a doughty warrior who tackles things several times their size on a regular basis, punishing anyone who makes the mistake of underestimating them!



My favorite halfling that I've seen played was one a buddy of mine played years ago during 3.5. She was a halfling fighter/whirling dervish.  A pocket Cuisinart played with both a well done wide eyed innocence and a hard determination to see those who do wrong her and her friends see justice.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And only a very small percentage of DnD players ever read any of the DnD novels. And only a small percentage of DnD players ever purchased the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. Saying "but it wasn't super popular and everyone didn't buy it" is indicative of nothing at all.



I'll wager(and I would win) that the number of D&D players who bought the Sword Coast Adventure Guide is orders of magnitude greater than those who purchased the comic book in question.

And it wasn't, "Everyone didn't buy it," it's "Almost no one buys it."


Chaosmancer said:


> Additionally, it was AN EXAMPLE. Singular. One. But, it isn't the ONLY example. Again, I've quoted the creators of the game. I've quoted the rule books. I know that this was true in the novels. Sure, only a small proportion of DnD players have ever read Dragonlance (where Kender are halflings) and Forgotten Realms novels, but the fact that this is a consistent through line in multiple novels, by multiple authors and supported by the game designers and supported by the fluff in the rulebooks.... kind of looks to me like that is the lore of the game.



I read the books and the power of plot was great.  Sturm, a high level knight with 80+ hit points was killed with a single spear thrust.  Fizban somehow failed to cast featherfall in time and only got feathers. Dragons never made their saves vs. the dragon orbs.  And more stuff that just plain doesn't match up to D&D.


Chaosmancer said:


> And then, you are right. It doesn't match up to the game, and it can be frustrating unless you have your DM force it into the game. Which is THE ENTIRE REASON I've talked about stopping with claiming halflings are unique because of their supernatural luck. Because the game can't support that narrative, so it is just a source of frustration and a burden of extra work on the DM.



I would never be frustrated by the DM not allowing me to kill high level knights with a single spear thrust just because I read it in a book.  I know that the novel and comic mediums do things differently and that I shouldn't expect those things to match up with the game.


Chaosmancer said:


> "Statistically I'm rarer than you, so my narrative of being tall shines through despite the fact that you are all tall as well."
> 
> Yeah. Doesn't work. They aren't going to bring up population statistics and claim to be special because they are rare. They want to feel like they are taller than everyone else. But in a world designed for people who are 5 ft something, the people who are 6'3" are getting the same "I am tall" story beats as someone who is 7'2"



Special = rare is sort of how it works.  Gold isn't special because it's all over the ground.  Platinum isn't special because every grocery store has a ton of it. Rubies aren't special because they crunch underfoot as we walk outside.

And no.  People who are 6'3" are not getting the same story.  Perhaps you aren't a basketball fan, but the 7'+ crowd gets a LOT more talk than the shorter folks when it comes to mentioning height.  You hear...

"Man! That Steph Curry is an amazing athlete.  Did you see what he did to the Pistons the other night! It was unbelievable." and you almost never hear a thing about him being 6'2"

And..

"Man! Did you see Shaq move last night against the Celtics?  He scored 50 points! And he's 7'1" on top of it!" and you hear about his height a lott.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> OK, let me try this a different way.
> 
> Within the world of the game, halflings are considered to be braver than other races because they can face down terrifying things (i.e., things that cause the Frightened condition) far more easily than anyone else can.
> 
> Why is this? Because nobody in the game world knows the difference between being afraid and being Frightened, because _nobody in the game has read the PHB. _And _that _is why halflings are braver than anyone else. Nobody in the game world has the meta-knowledge that we players have.




So, you have completely abandoned your own statements that fear and the frightened condition aren't the same thing, to now claim that they are the same thing. 

But fine, let's consider the game world. Most halflings are not adventurers. Most halflings stay at their homes and live quiet lives with no conflict. So, the vast majority of halflings never face down anything that is terrifying, so why wouldn't people know that halflings can do so far more easily than the other races? 

Additionally, we the players DO have the meta-knowledge, and with the meta-knowledge, we know that halflings aren't braver than everyone else. Discounting that would be like saying that no one knows the true face of a changeling, it is a complete mystery... except it isn't. We know exactly what changelings look like in their natural form. Even though the wider world of DnD NPCs have no idea because they have never seen a changeling, that knowledge is something we have and part of the game. 

And finally, since the condition is hidden as a mechanic from the people of the game world, and wisdom saves and D20's are hidden because of the game world... how would anyone know the difference between the human farmer who rolled a natural 19 and faced down a dragon, and the halfling who rolled advantage and got a 19 to do the same thing? They wouldn't be perceived as the halfling being braver than the human. They did the exact same thing. But since halflings face far fewer threats than humans, per the lore of the game, humans would roll saves against fear more often, and therefore succeed more often.



Faolyn said:


> Yes, and this is something that affected NPCs. Unless the PCs were the cartographer, there is _nothing wrong _with saying that halfling luck manifested itself by a mismarked map. Because this is an NPC thing, it means that it doesn't have to affect the PCs in any way, shape, or form beyond being able to reroll 1s.
> 
> There is also nothing wrong with saying that this is an example of the world counting the hits and ignoring the misses and chalking up this saved village to halfling luck and never even _knowing _that there were fifty other halfling villages that got destroyed in various ways.




Right, nothing wrong with it except reinforcing in the player's mind that they have supernatural luck that should prevent bad things from happening to them. Because that is the narrative of halflings, a narrative that fails to be delivered unless they ask their DM to enforce it upon the world, so they can have the "halfling experience" they wanted when they picked the race.



Faolyn said:


> Except that pretty much _every _race has plot contrivance as a racial power (or racial limitation). Why are humans the most common race? Because the game designers said so. Why _aren't_ most elves super-high-leveled fighter/mages? Because the game designers said so. Why are halflings lucky? Because the game designers said so.
> 
> And because nobody actually expects that halfling PCs are going to be able to pull out amazing moments of supernatural luck.




Why wouldn't people who are constantly told in various media, in the game rulebooks, and by the designers of the game that halflings have amazing moments of supernatural luck not expect amazing moments of supernatural luck? 

But, as to your other points. 

1) Humans may or may not be the most common race, but since most people are human they default to human. This happens even when they intend not to, so it is likely to happen no matter what the game designers say, unless the players go out of their way to change it. 

2) Most elves probably are very powerful mage-fighters. Player character elves aren't because that would disrupt the balance of the game. It isn't exactly difficult to explain to someone that starting as a 16th level Bladesinger isn't going to work when the rest of the party is starting at level 2. There is a disconnect between the game and the lore, but it is an easily understood and accepted disconnect, especially since the game doesn't give elves any mechanical bonuses to the number of class levels they have. 

Neither situation is anything like halfling luck, which is (in theory) supported in the lore and in the mechanics, and presented as a core defining feature of the race. They even have had racial feats, paragon classes (in other editions) and prestige classes (in other editions) that revolve around them being supernaturally lucky.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I'll wager(and I would win) that the number of D&D players who bought the Sword Coast Adventure Guide is orders of magnitude greater than those who purchased the comic book in question.
> 
> And it wasn't, "Everyone didn't buy it," it's "Almost no one buys it."




So, you have the publication data and know how well it sold? You are aware of exactly how popular it was, where all it was published, and how widely spread it was? Well, I should say is, since it is still being sold and is rated quite highly, so people who look for other DnD comics are likely to find it. 

Funny thing is, I know this was during 4th edition, an edition I'm fairly certain you've said repeatedly you don't know much about because you avoided it. So... you would have no idea if it was published or advertised anywhere or how widely spread it was. I mean, it was popular enough to get a definitive hardback edition. Which isn't common for comics at all.



Maxperson said:


> I read the books and the power of plot was great.  Sturm, a high level knight with 80+ hit points was killed with a single spear thrust.  Fizban somehow failed to cast featherfall in time and only got feathers. Dragons never made their saves vs. the dragon orbs.  And more stuff that just plain doesn't match up to D&D.
> 
> I would never be frustrated by the DM not allowing me to kill high level knights with a single spear thrust just because I read it in a book.  I know that the novel and comic mediums do things differently and that I shouldn't expect those things to match up with the game.




Did first edition DnD have charts for the movement of Kyrnn's moons and how they affect magic? Yep, looks like they did. Quite a lot of rules about the movements of the moons and how they affect the wizards. Does that match up the novels? Again, yes, yes it does. 

So, that matched up from the novels. You know, I read a Forgotten Realms book with this crazy thing called Spellfire, it ate spells and all sorts of crazy effects. Surely that didn't have rules? Oh wait, yeah it did. Even based closely on the narrative of the book I remember reading. 

So, sure, I'm positive Sturm being killed by a single spear thrust was impossible under the 1st edition rules. But other story conceits seem to make it through as full rules and sub-systems. So, sometimes the books match the game and sometimes they don't. What makes halfling supernatural luck, mentioned by the designers of 5e as existing in 5e... not exist in 5e?



Maxperson said:


> Special = rare is sort of how it works.  Gold isn't special because it's all over the ground.  Platinum isn't special because every grocery store has a ton of it. Rubies aren't special because they crunch underfoot as we walk outside.
> 
> And no.  People who are 6'3" are not getting the same story.  Perhaps you aren't a basketball fan, but the 7'+ crowd gets a LOT more talk than the shorter folks when it comes to mentioning height.  You hear...
> 
> ...




So halflings can't be special at all, because they aren't rare. 

And, no, I'm not a basketball fan, and we also aren't talking about basketball, we are talking about DnD. You might think this is a silly thing that has never come up, but I did have a game where multiple people picked a "tall" race to try and be the tallest person in the party. And it ended up coming up multiple times that they were all tall, and no one player (despite being objectively taller) was somehow unique in being particularly tall. 

Which is the exact same thing with halfling "bravery" it doesn't matter if you can prove that defeat the mechanical condition more often than other races, because int a group full of brave adventurers, being a brave adventurer doesn't make you unique and special. It makes you part of the crowd.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you have the publication data and know how well it sold? You are aware of exactly how popular it was, where all it was published, and how widely spread it was? Well, I should say is, since it is still being sold and is rated quite highly, so people who look for other DnD comics are likely to find it.
> 
> Funny thing is, I know this was during 4th edition, an edition I'm fairly certain you've said repeatedly you don't know much about because you avoided it. So... you would have no idea if it was published or advertised anywhere or how widely spread it was. I mean, it was popular enough to get a definitive hardback edition. Which isn't common for comics at all.



Hmm. I assumed that since this was a 5e discussion that it was a 5e comic book. Are you telling me that this comic that's supposed to upset 5e players because the comic lore doesn't match game lore isn't even from 5e and therefore has about as much relevance as the ant that just walked past my pool outside?  4e halflings are not 5e halflings.


Chaosmancer said:


> Did first edition DnD have charts for the movement of Kyrnn's moons and how they affect magic? Yep, looks like they did. Quite a lot of rules about the movements of the moons and how they affect the wizards. Does that match up the novels? Again, yes, yes it does.



Awesome. So we have a crap shoot where some stuff kinda sorta matches up, and some where it's absurdly different.  Hell, even your example here isn't a perfect match up.  The books didn't specifically say HOW the moons affected wizards.  The Dragonlance D&D rules invented that whole cloth.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, that matched up from the novels. You know, I read a Forgotten Realms book with this crazy thing called Spellfire, it ate spells and all sorts of crazy effects. Surely that didn't have rules? Oh wait, yeah it did. Even based closely on the narrative of the book I remember reading.



The Spellfire from the books was a LOT more powerful than the D&D version.  So no great match up there, either.  I read a lot of the FR novels from back in the day.


Chaosmancer said:


> What makes halfling supernatural luck, mentioned by the designers of 5e as existing in 5e... not exist in 5e?



What makes the 4e comic book not match up to 5e?  Well, different editions for one.  Different mediums for two. Vastly different strengths for three.  Horrible, horrible match up. 


Chaosmancer said:


> So halflings can't be special at all, because they aren't rare.



The racial ability is, though.  I can't recall a single other race with Bravery as a racial ability.  Can you?


Chaosmancer said:


> And, no, I'm not a basketball fan, and we also aren't talking about basketball, we are talking about DnD. You might think this is a silly thing that has never come up, but I did have a game where multiple people picked a "tall" race to try and be the tallest person in the party. And it ended up coming up multiple times that they were all tall, and no one player (despite being objectively taller) was somehow unique in being particularly tall.



Cool.  I have a friend who has an amazing Middle Earth game that he runs using his own system.  There have been times where my Dunedain was by far the tallest one in the group, since Dunedain are known as the "tall men."  And then there have been times where I've been in a group of Dunedain and we were all tall.  None of that meant that the Dunedain aren't taller than other human cultures.

Another example.  The entire group is halflings, so are all very brave!  Being a halfling in a group of all halflings doesn't mean that the race isn't braver than other races.


Chaosmancer said:


> Which is the exact same thing with halfling "bravery" it doesn't matter if you can prove that defeat the mechanical condition more often than other races, because int a group full of brave adventurers, being a brave adventurer doesn't make you unique and special. It makes you part of the crowd.



Being in a "crowd" of 3-5 other brave people doesn't mean that the halfling race isn't braver than the other races.  It just doesn't work that way.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> @Neonchameleon and others talk about the "everyman" niche.  Well, to me, that's already covered with humans.  Humans are, by definition, the "everyman".  They have no magical abilities.  They aren't blessed with god given luck powers.  They are 100% completely organic.    Free range if you will.  So, why do we need an "everyman" niche race when we already have one?



Except as has been explained to you repeatedly _it isn't_. Humans in D&D are a race of badasses. They are _the_ archetypal adventurer race and _the_ race that rules the majority of countries in D&D and _the_ race that mates with everyone; humans are and should be taken by all other species as sexy badasses.  If you want to play an unlikely hero then selecting your race as human undermines the theme of your character because of just how powerful humans are in most settings. Selecting halfling emphasises it because they _aren't_. 


Hussar said:


> And, of course, the argument of combining halflings and gnomes contradicts the whole "everyman" niche that halflings are supposed to inhabit since gnomes are very much not an "everyman" niche character.



Believe it or not (a) a race can do more than one thing and not all characters emphasise the unique thing of the races. Making rock gnomes into a subrace of halflings wouldn't leave them completely unchanged. A "halfling rock gnome" wouldn't lean into the wacky nature of the rock gnome so much as it would the craftsman nature.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> @Neonchameleon. I would argue that halflings have not worked. That either the niche they fill just isn’t compelling or they are not compelling in selling that niche. I’m not sure which.



You missed two words in that sentence.  They are not compelling enough to be played _by you_. They are compelling enough to be played _by the groups I play with_ and, more influentially _by Critical Role_.


Hussar said:


> But it is pretty clear to me that they are just not compelling enough to be played. To me, that’s the bottom line. They are and always have scraping the bottom of the barrel. No amount of “fixing” will change that. They just are not very popular.



They are somewhere around 5% of all characters. That's a small niche but it is a definite niche of characters that are being played.


Hussar said:


> So replace them with something to get some fresh air into the game.
> 
> But yup it’s absolutely true that my choice of two is purely arbitrary. Of course it is. Not even sure why that’s an issue.



Because you said that two was what you wanted. The claim is that you pick two because two is what allows you to remove halflings. And that your goal is not to remove individual races but to remove halflings because you personally dislike them.

The issue at that point becomes that your goal is nakedly obvious. When it becomes clear that there are two races with a better case for removal than halflings, after swearing blind that it has always been two races, you admit that it is entirely arbitrary


Hussar said:


> My point has always been - make the phb reflect what is actually being played rather than what we want others to play.



Please stop changing what your point "has always been". We have memories. You were advocating mixing things up by removing two races. When it was pointed out that the two races would mean half-orcs and gnomes it suddenly becomes not the bottom two but "make the PHB reflect what is actually being played". You are moving the goalposts here.

As you do not even respect your own arguments there is no point continuing this. Goodbye


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you have completely abandoned your own statements that fear and the frightened condition aren't the same thing, to now claim that they are the same thing.



Not even slightly. There is no conceivable way you could have gotten that from what I wrote. You _have _to be deliberately misconstruing what I wrote. You _have _to be. There is no possible way you could truly think that "has same ability to be afraid or not afraid of mundane things as everyone else, plus has bonus to avoid being Frightened" means "being afraid and being Frightened are the same thing."

Which means I'm just going to skip to...



Chaosmancer said:


> 2) Most elves probably are very powerful mage-fighters. *Player character elves aren't because that would disrupt the balance of the game.* It isn't exactly difficult to explain to someone that starting as a 16th level Bladesinger isn't going to work when the rest of the party is starting at level 2. There is a disconnect between the game and the lore, but it is an easily understood and accepted disconnect, especially since the game doesn't give elves any mechanical bonuses to the number of class levels they have.



DING DING DING! You have your answer here! Giving player character halflings supernatural luck would disrupt the balance of the game. 

"It isn't exactly difficult to explain to someone that giving one character constant miracles isn't going to work out when the rest of the party doesn't." _You _didn't even want to have halflings find copper pieces or not get splashed by mud because it wasn't fair. 

Media and D&D alike keep presenting elves as having decades to centuries to perfect their fighting and magic skills. Elf, when it was a class, was a fighter/mage combo. _Everything _points to elves being fighter/mages and that even a mere century-old elf--the equivalent of an 18-year-old human--should far outstrip humans in their capabilities. And attempts by media and to come up with logical reasons why elves _aren't _all nigh-godlike in their abilities range from non-answers (elves just... don't bother to reach high levels) to rather poor attempts at psychology (they don't feel the need to rush like humans--which doesn't make sense in a world where monster attacks are a very common threat) to meta-reasons (level limits) to the downright silly (they grow up proportionally slowly, so a 30-year-old elf is still in diapers).

Instead, elves get free weapon proficiencies and most of them get a cantrip or low-level spell(s) to represent that they are built to be fighter/mages. If you're OK with that--if this is _truly _an "easily understood and accepted disconnect"--then you should also be able to accept that halflings get to reroll 1s to represent that, as a race, they are built to be lucky.


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## Faolyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, you have the publication data and know how well it sold? You are aware of exactly how popular it was, where all it was published, and how widely spread it was? Well, I should say is, since it is still being sold and is rated quite highly, so people who look for other DnD comics are likely to find it.



According to Wikipedia, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide was listed as #18 in hardcover nonfiction bestsellers by Publisher's Weekly of the week ending with November 16, 2015, and it appears to have sold nearly 8,000 copies in its first week. While I don't know many copies are still being sold, Amazon lists the book as currently being #13 in Puzzle & Game Reference books, #38 in Dungeons & Dragons books, and #35 in Activity Books, all of which suggests that it's still being sold in decent numbers.

This site, Comichron, actually lists the number of copies of various comics sold during months. In its first month, August '10, the D&D comic (cover price: $1) sold 23,657 copies. (For comparison, Red Robin which I really liked, sold over 34,000.) That's pretty good, but the next available data was for November--apparently it didn't sell in September or October--and the price had been raised to $3.99 and the number of copies sold had dropped to 15,462, while Red Robin was selling over 31,000 copies. In December, the D&D comic had dropped again, to 11,623 copies. It continues to drop in sale for the remainder of its existence. In July of '11, the hardcover of D&D: Shadowplague sold only a little more than 500 copies.


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## Lanefan (Jul 18, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> That may be true, but there are also players who dive into the lore of another race, to create "lore-friendly" names, figure out where their people live, and try to inject some of that culture into their play.
> 
> At least, I've seen it happen.
> 
> But with humans, their culture is usually so generic, just some variation of real-world human cultures, that, at least in my experience, human PC's are just regular people.



Yet even there a player can, with relative ease, come up with a "lore-friendly" name and inject some of that character's faux-Earth culture into play.

If I've got a character named Asgeir Bronnisdottir who usually fights with axe and shield as a shieldmaiden and who in her spare time likes drinking mead and boasting of her accomplishments in battle, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what culture she's from. 

Ditto if I've a character named Marcus Publio Vestalis, faithful Cleric to Mars and whose family home is a villa in the hills and who has in his background a few years of service in the 4th Legion.


James Gasik said:


> Only a few settings have given us unique enough Human cultures embraced by players to make characters that really stand out.



Yes, the setting does need to support these cultures; but even absent that it's trivially easy to add them in if-when desired.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> According to Wikipedia, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide was listed as #18 in hardcover nonfiction bestsellers by Publisher's Weekly of the week ending with November 16, 2015, and it appears to have sold nearly 8,000 copies in its first week. While I don't know many copies are still being sold, Amazon lists the book as currently being #13 in Puzzle & Game Reference books, #38 in Dungeons & Dragons books, and #35 in Activity Books, all of which suggests that it's still being sold in decent numbers.
> 
> This site, Comichron, actually lists the number of copies of various comics sold during months. In its first month, August '10, the D&D comic (cover price: $1) sold 23,657 copies. (For comparison, Red Robin which I really liked, sold over 34,000.) That's pretty good, but the next available data was for November--apparently it didn't sell in September or October--and the price had been raised to $3.99 and the number of copies sold had dropped to 15,462, while Red Robin was selling over 31,000 copies. In December, the D&D comic had dropped again, to 11,623 copies. It continues to drop in sale for the remainder of its existence. In July of '11, the hardcover of D&D: Shadowplague sold only a little more than 500 copies.



Right, and comics only stay around for a month, so the November numbers would be for a different comic book.  Given the 50 million D&D players(as of 2020) and the popularity of the FR, if less than a million total Sword Coast Adventure Guides have sold I will be shocked.  It's probably greater.  A million+ vs 23,657.


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## Faolyn (Jul 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Right, and comics only stay around for a month, so the November numbers would be for a different comic book.  Given the 50 million D&D players(as of 2020) and the popularity of the FR, if less than a million total Sword Coast Adventure Guides have sold I will be shocked.  It's probably greater.  A million+ vs 23,657.



Yeah, the November numbers suggest that over 8,000 people didn't like issue #0 enough to pay an extra three bucks for issue #1. All comics go down in sales as time goes by, so that's to be expected, but that seemed like a pretty steep drop to me. Personally, I just read the first couple of issues and... it was a decent enough comic, the characters had definite personalities beyond their race/class, their quips were amusing enough, but it didn't really make me _eager _to keep reading. I'm not saying it's bad, because it _wasn't_, but I have to assume that probably a lot of those 8,000 people felt the same way. It felt like a tie-in. As a comparison, I really, _really _like the series Injustice, which is _also _a tie-in (to a video game I have zero interest in playing, unlike D&D) and that comic kept me on the edge of my seat, even during my second or third readings.

I'm sure _somebody _has the numbers as to how many SCAGs have been sold in total so far. I just find can't them, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's sold a million copies so far.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Yeah, the November numbers suggest that over 8,000 people didn't like issue #0 enough to pay an extra three bucks for issue #1. All comics go down in sales as time goes by, so that's to be expected, but that seemed like a pretty steep drop to me. Personally, I just read the first couple of issues and... it was a decent enough comic, the characters had definite personalities beyond their race/class, their quips were amusing enough, but it didn't really make me _eager _to keep reading. I'm not saying it's bad, because it _wasn't_, but I have to assume that probably a lot of those 8,000 people felt the same way. It felt like a tie-in. As a comparison, I really, _really _like the series Injustice, which is _also _a tie-in (to a video game I have zero interest in playing, unlike D&D) and that comic kept me on the edge of my seat, even during my second or third readings.
> 
> I'm sure _somebody _has the numbers as to how many SCAGs have been sold in total so far. I just find can't them, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's sold a million copies so far.



I have the numbers. Exactly 69,420 copies were sold.

Trust me. This is true. There is nothing significant about that number.


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 18, 2022)

Sus


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## Starfox (Jul 19, 2022)

What I did for my homebrew was mash all the small races (except kobolds) into one race, the Hobs. Goblins, halflings, gnomes - all hobs. Hobs tend to fall into different archetypes depending on life experiences, so a hob born in a "goblin" tribe thinks of itself as a goblin.


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## lingual (Jul 19, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> When ballparking these kinds of ratios, I love the curve of magnitude. (Like the golden ratio, but metric base 10.) It is great for relative ranking.
> 
> Rounding the numbers of the magnitudes:
> 100
> ...



So everything below 6.3 should be relegated to splat books or the Dungeon Masters Guide or the Monster Manual.  So players will have a harder time finding them.  That's the only objective take on this I can see.


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## Yaarel (Jul 19, 2022)

lingual said:


> So everything below 6.3 should be relegated to splat books or the Dungeon Masters Guide or the Monster Manual.  So players will have a harder time finding them.  That's the only objective take on this I can see.



Organizing thresholds by order of magnitude, helps decide what content is "core" and what content is "supplemental". First try reach to widest public, then try accommodate the many niches.

By the way a majority of 63% out of 100, is a big deal. Something like 79% is a defining majority. Something like 40% is a significant majority. Even 10% can change a culture.


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## Maxperson (Jul 19, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I have the numbers. Exactly 69,420 copies were sold.
> 
> Trust me. This is true. There is nothing significant about that number.



Where are those numbers from?  It seems really unlikely that only 1 out of every 720 D&D players has purchased SCAG.


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## Faolyn (Jul 19, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Where are those numbers from?  It seems really unlikely that only 1 out of every 720 D&D players has purchased SCAG.



It's 69 and 420. It's a joke.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

MGibster said:


> To a large extent, I feel as though this is true for all the races in D&D.  Especially humans!  But seriously, for the most part, I feel as though most players could swap their fighter's race from human to elf, halfling, or gnome and they'd pretty much all be played the same way.



Well, now this?  This I agree with.  Race, so often, just doesn't really matter for a lot of players.

Although, that being said, I generally find, and maybe this is just me, that when players move away from the sort of bog standard PHB races, then race matters a lot more.  So, when someone plays a kobold, you KNOW they are a kobold.  Or an orc.  Or a minotaur.  Or, in my current campaign, a dream of an aboleth that has come to life.  

It's largely the standard PHB races which are almost always interchangeable.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 19, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Hmm. I assumed that since this was a 5e discussion that it was a 5e comic book. Are you telling me that this comic that's supposed to upset 5e players because the comic lore doesn't match game lore isn't even from 5e and therefore has about as much relevance as the ant that just walked past my pool outside?  4e halflings are not 5e halflings.




Are you seriously trying to argue that halfling lore is not halfling lore, because it is coming from an older edition? Seriously? 

Come on Max. Halflings haven't drastically changed since second edition, their mechanics have changed, but their portrayals have not. The narrative has not. Heck, Mearls interview and the rulebooks I've referenced are 5e material, and you couldn't tell the difference between 4e and 5e material when it came to halfling lore. Because they were the same thing.



Maxperson said:


> Awesome. So we have a crap shoot where some stuff kinda sorta matches up, and some where it's absurdly different.  Hell, even your example here isn't a perfect match up.  The books didn't specifically say HOW the moons affected wizards.  The Dragonlance D&D rules invented that whole cloth.
> 
> The Spellfire from the books was a LOT more powerful than the D&D version.  So no great match up there, either.  I read a lot of the FR novels from back in the day.
> 
> What makes the 4e comic book not match up to 5e?  Well, different editions for one.  Different mediums for two. Vastly different strengths for three.  Horrible, horrible match up.




"Is not a perfect match" =/= "has no relevance" 

Come on. When Wulgar rages or does something super strong, because he is a barbarian, the fact that a barbarian in the game can't drag a massive boat from the water doesn't mean that Wulfgar is not representing the Barbarian story of raging and being very strong. You are just nitpicking exact details instead of facing the actual argument. And frankly, the only reason I can think of is that you know as well as I do that the story of halflings in DnD is a story about them having supernatural luck. You just aren't happy I see that as a problem.



Maxperson said:


> The racial ability is, though.  I can't recall a single other race with Bravery as a racial ability.  Can you?




An ability called brave? No. The ability to have advantage on saving throws against magical fear? Yes, there are at least seven. If you just want "is likely to pass saving throws against magical fear" then I can add at least one more. IF you are fine counting spells, then two more on top of that. 

Huh, makes them seem even less rare when you have seven other races (10 if you want to be broad) who can do the... well, most of them actually do it better, because they apply to multiple conditions. And all of them also can act brave when there isn't a mechanical contest at play as well.



Maxperson said:


> Cool.  I have a friend who has an amazing Middle Earth game that he runs using his own system.  There have been times where my Dunedain was by far the tallest one in the group, since Dunedain are known as the "tall men."  And then there have been times where I've been in a group of Dunedain and we were all tall.  None of that meant that the Dunedain aren't taller than other human cultures.
> 
> Another example.  The entire group is halflings, so are all very brave!  Being a halfling in a group of all halflings doesn't mean that the race isn't braver than other races.




And being a halfling in a group of brave humans doesn't mean you are special for being brave. Being a halfling in a group with a loxodon, a Githzerai and a Kalashatar doesn't even give you the excuse of "but I am better at saves against frightened" that you keep trying to use. 

So... again, halflings are not uniquely brave. Not in the narrative (where everyone is brave) and not mechanically. 

Heck, you bring up LoTR, this logic is saying that because they are halflings (because halflings were derived from hobbits) Merry and Pippin are braver than Aargorn and Gimli. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't work.



Maxperson said:


> Being in a "crowd" of 3-5 other brave people doesn't mean that the halfling race isn't braver than the other races.  It just doesn't work that way.




But if you spend the entire game surrounded by brave people, you being brave doesn't make a difference. Because they are brave too. You can't claim that you are especially brave because of your race when everyone is brave.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Hussar I find it pretty sus that 5% is deemed "failure that no one plays" yet a bit over 7% is "very popular." This really doesn't seem like an unbiased assessment to me. Elves and humans with their over 20% are "very popular," I'd place both dragonborn with their 7,2% and halflings with their 4,7% to the same tier of "somewhat popular" where they are alongside with most of the PHB races, such as dwarves at 6.6%. Placing the dividing line in middle of this group so that you can declare the one you like to be a smashing success and one you dislike to be an abject failure is very transparent and is not going to convince anyone.



Well, you can find it "sus" all you like, but, I've repeatedly stated that you are wrong.  Who says I like dwarves?  Have I ever, once, led you to believe I like dwarves?  You keep ascribing motives here that just aren't there.  It doesn't matter to me one whit what the bottom two (or three or four even) races are.  They are at the bottom, and in this case, have ALWAYS been at the bottom.  It's not like there was this heyday back some time when halflings were fantastically popular.  They have always been at the bottom of the barrel.

So, why not try something new?  If it fail?  It fails.  It very well might fail.  But, insisting on keeping material that has failed for fifty years to gain any real traction in the hobby, or, at least, I feel that it has never gained any real traction, isn't going to suddenly succeed next year or the year after that.  No. It's just going to sit at the bottom of the list, year after year after year, only appearing because WotC doesn't dare to change it because they'll get absolutely pilloried for it.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> If halflings are the bottom of the barrel, then they aren't doing anything but maybe taking up a paragraph's worth of space in a book, which shouldn't have any negative affect on anyone. And if they're removed in favor of a new-to-the-PHB race there, then that other race would likely _also _maybe get a paragraph's worth of space and would be just as unused by the books as you say halflings are. After all, how much lore and attention do tieflings get in the books? Not all that much, and they're supposedly very popular. All they've gotten is a bunch of subraces.
> 
> But if halflings re taking up _lots _of room (which _would _affect you and crowd out other races), then that means that they have a lot of lore, are well-supported, _*and more popular than you think. *_And in that case, you're wrong that "nobody ever plays them."
> 
> (Oh, and the picture you posted of what's-her-name from 3e is _not _how halflings have looked in 5e. Other than the fact that 5e halflings wear shoes, all the pictures of them look very much like the image you claim that halflings don't look like anymore. Go look at MtF.)



Really, I think it's kinda the same issue as high level play.  WotC doesn't really make any high level play options because no one plays high level games.  But, no one plays high level games because WotC doesn't really support high level play.  So, halfling players get thrown a bone in every single setting and supplement, same as high level play gets thrown a bone.  But, no real support.  

Sorry, though, what is MtF?  Not up on my acronyms.

My point though about the halfling images is that they most certainly DO NOT look like hobbits.  Like, at all.  And haven't done so in decades.  But, people still insist that halflings=hobbits, because that's their head canon.


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## Faolyn (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Really, I think it's kinda the same issue as high level play.  WotC doesn't really make any high level play options because no one plays high level games.  But, no one plays high level games because WotC doesn't really support high level play.  So, halfling players get thrown a bone in every single setting and supplement, same as high level play gets thrown a bone.  But, no real support.



But just like high level games, some people do play halflings. And a lot of people _do _play both high-level games and halflings. When I go on r/dndnext, I frequently see people talking about how they played a character from level 1 all the way to 20 in addition to all the people who make level 20 characters for 1-shots. And likewise, I see people talking about their halflings. Maybe not gigantically vast numbers, but a lot of people.

But honestly, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that there's no support and nobody plays halflings if they're literally in every single setting and supplement. That in and off itself _proves _that they're used in the game. And they are: they're about as common as dwarfs.



Hussar said:


> Sorry, though, what is MtF?  Not up on my acronyms.



Shoulda been MToF: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.



Hussar said:


> My point though about the halfling images is that they most certainly DO NOT look like hobbits.  Like, at all.  And haven't done so in decades.  But, people still insist that halflings=hobbits, because that's their head canon.



Well, so what? People can imagine that halflings look anything they want them to look like. It doesn't actually mean anything about the race. I mean, people drew, and continue to draw, elves with very long, nearly-perpendicular anime-style ears instead of the smaller, more Vulcan-like ears that WotC commonly paints them with. That doesn't mean that people are only playing head-cannon elves. D&D isn't an unmoddable video game where you're stuck with the appearance they give you. You can make your character look like anything.


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## Maxperson (Jul 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Are you seriously trying to argue that halfling lore is not halfling lore, because it is coming from an older edition? Seriously?



Yes. Halfling lore for each edition is *different*.


Chaosmancer said:


> Come on Max. Halflings haven't drastically changed since second edition, their mechanics have changed, but their portrayals have not. The narrative has not. Heck, Mearls interview and the rulebooks I've referenced are 5e material, and you couldn't tell the difference between 4e and 5e material when it came to halfling lore. Because they were the same thing.



The mechanics ARE lore when it comes to mechanics for in-fiction things, the lore matches the mechanics and vice versa.


Chaosmancer said:


> "Is not a perfect match" =/= "has no relevance"



Any relevance that comic offers is curiosity only. Halfling luck isn't going to increase, not be expected to increased, based on a minor comic book.


Chaosmancer said:


> Come on. When Wulgar rages or does something super strong, because he is a barbarian, the fact that a barbarian in the game can't drag a massive boat from the water doesn't mean that Wulfgar is not representing the Barbarian story of raging and being very strong. You are just nitpicking exact details instead of facing the actual argument. And frankly, the only reason I can think of is that you know as well as I do that the story of halflings in DnD is a story about them having supernatural luck. You just aren't happy I see that as a problem.



Sure, but Wulfgar doesn't rage like the mechanics show.  He has the power of plot which invalidates the crazy stuff that he does.  Same with halfling luck. That it touches on something that the game does doesn't make it something that players can or will expect to show up in the game.


Chaosmancer said:


> An ability called brave? No. The ability to have advantage on saving throws against magical fear? Yes, there are at least seven. If you just want "is likely to pass saving throws against magical fear" then I can add at least one more. IF you are fine counting spells, then two more on top of that.



Cool. Then no race is as brave as the halflings.  The loxodon are peaceful, which while it has similar mechanics to the halfling ability, isn't bravery because the lore is different.


Chaosmancer said:


> Huh, makes them seem even less rare when you have seven other races (10 if you want to be broad) who can do the... well, most of them actually do it better, because they apply to multiple conditions. And all of them also can act brave when there isn't a mechanical contest at play as well.



Not at all.  How many of the seven have the lore "bravery" attached to the mechanic?


Chaosmancer said:


> So... again, halflings are not uniquely brave. Not in the narrative (where everyone is brave) and not mechanically.



As far as I know, as I haven't gone through all the races, they are still uniquely brave*r*.


Chaosmancer said:


> Heck, you bring up LoTR, this logic is saying that because they are halflings (because halflings were derived from hobbits) Merry and Pippin are braver than Aargorn and Gimli. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't work.



That wasn't me. 


Chaosmancer said:


> But if you spend the entire game surrounded by brave people, you being brave doesn't make a difference. Because they are brave too. You can't claim that you are especially brave because of your race when everyone is brave.



Look. All I'm claiming is that as a race, halflings are braver than other races.  This is fact.  I don't give two shakes of a fairy tail what happens in an adventuring group as that has zero bearing on a racial ability.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Not even slightly. There is no conceivable way you could have gotten that from what I wrote. You _have _to be deliberately misconstruing what I wrote. You _have _to be. There is no possible way you could truly think that "has same ability to be afraid or not afraid of mundane things as everyone else, plus has bonus to avoid being Frightened" means "being afraid and being Frightened are the same thing."




Well, let's see, how could I have gotten that idea? What did you say two posts ago? 

"*Chaosmancer, please understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.

A character who is afraid of something can move towards the source of their fear. This is being brave.

A character who is subjected to the Frightened condition can't move towards the source of their fear. This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency*."

Hmmm, so in this post, which again was just two posts ago, you said that fear and frightened condition are different. Moving towards fear is what makes someone brave, and that the frightened condition doesn't involve being brave or not being brave. And notably, I agreed with you. 

Now, what did you say in your last post?

"*Within the world of the game, halflings are considered to be braver than other races because they can face down terrifying things (i.e., things that cause the Frightened condition) far more easily than anyone else can.

Why is this? Because nobody in the game world knows the difference between being afraid and being Frightened, because nobody in the game has read the PHB. And that is why halflings are braver than anyone else. Nobody in the game world has the meta-knowledge that we players have.*" 

Well, wait a minute. In this post, which was your response immediately after the text I posted above, you say that halflings are considered brave because they overcome the frightened condition. But didn't you say "*This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency*." So, how are halflings brave for doing a thing that you said isn't about being brave? 

I mean, I must be trolling you right? That's the only way you contradticting yourself and me calling you on it can be explained, is if I am a malicious actor. You said things I agreed with, then undercut those things by trying to hide in the narrative where the mechanics that you said don't matter can't be seen. I called you on it. You can't have it both ways. Either we as players are told halflings are brave because of how they interact with the frightened condition, and therefore the frightened condition becomes an arbiter of bravery, or it doesn't and being told they are brave makes no sense, because their ability can't make them brave. You can't have it both ways.



Faolyn said:


> DING DING DING! You have your answer here! Giving player character halflings supernatural luck would disrupt the balance of the game.




My god, you seriously never read a single thing I post, do you? 

Here's a refresher course




Chaosmancer said:


> So, since you can't have plot contrivances as mechanics in a game (at least not in a game designed in the way Dungeons and Dragons is designed) then supernatural luck is out of place. Halflings are repeatedly stated, by players, by DMs, and by the sourcebooks themselves to be supernaturally lucky. In the video I posted before Mearls talks about how a kingdom couldn't invade a halfling village, because the cartographer 20 years ago made a mistake and didn't mark where the village was on a map. This is, from the creative lead of the design of the game, how halfling luck works. It is a plot contrivance. It is literally the ability to alter the narrative to suit them, not actively, but passively.
> 
> *And so, since this is a tabletop game where the game has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way... halfling luck as we are told it must work by the narratives and lore of the game doesn't fit. It would be a bad rule. It would be a bad game design*. I'm not talking about the lucky mechanic which affects the d20, that doesn't matter in this discussion, except that it is trying (and failing) to represent this supernatural luck of plot contrivances. I'm talking about what we have been told is true by the people who make the game.
> 
> And so, I have put forth, that since it is bad game design to have a race that has "plot contrivance" as a racial power, that we should move away from it. Because it is doing us no favors, and instead, putting a burden on the DM to include plot contrivances when dealing with halflings, otherwise they are violating the "halfling fantasy".







Chaosmancer said:


> This is not uncommon in the trope of the small, lucky person. Knocking out or defeating a powerful enemy that they were not aware of by accident is a very common outcome. The monster is about to stab the helpless main character, the lucky sidekick opens a door and smashes the monster in the face, being completely unaware of what is happening, allowing everyone to escape. This happens again and again and again. *This is the trope halfling luck is pulling on in the narrative. This is not something that happens in the game at the table, and it isn't something we would WANT to happen at the table. No mechanical ability that allowed the halfling to immediately interrupt and/or defeat an enemy with 50 or less hp by accident would be acceptable to anyone.*
> 
> This isn't about how comics and books are different than the game, this is about how the tropes and narratives are presented and how they are integrated into the game.







Chaosmancer said:


> *I don't think we should continue defining halflings by being lucky, because I think if we actually made the narrative match the game, they wouldn't be, and if we made the game match the narrative, it would be detrimental for the game. *It can still be a trope for them, if people want to keep the lore, but if we change the ability and remove luck from their abilities, I think it would make for a better way forward for the game. Because without mechanical weight, it becomes a question of "are they really?", while right now, there is no question.





Honestly, you caught me Faolyn! What a devastating blow to my argument that halfling luck would disrupt the game and be a bad rule to point out that halfling luck would disrupt the game and be a bad rule. How could I not have seen it in the multiple times I said the exact same thing! This changes everything, I mean, if the narrative properly presented would be detrimental to the game then someone might suggest that narrative is problematic and should be changed! Luckily, you were here to point out my exact argument to me. Again!!

So, this is the point where I accuse you of trolling me, right? Of maliciously misconstruing my points? Or maybe you plan on telling me that my arguments don't mean what I think they mean. 





Faolyn said:


> Media and D&D alike keep presenting elves as having decades to centuries to perfect their fighting and magic skills. Elf, when it was a class, was a fighter/mage combo. _Everything _points to elves being fighter/mages and that even a mere century-old elf--the equivalent of an 18-year-old human--should far outstrip humans in their capabilities. And attempts by media and to come up with logical reasons why elves _aren't _all nigh-godlike in their abilities range from non-answers (elves just... don't bother to reach high levels) to rather poor attempts at psychology (they don't feel the need to rush like humans--which doesn't make sense in a world where monster attacks are a very common threat) to meta-reasons (level limits) to the downright silly (they grow up proportionally slowly, so a 30-year-old elf is still in diapers).
> 
> Instead, elves get free weapon proficiencies and most of them get a cantrip or low-level spell(s) to represent that they are built to be fighter/mages. If you're OK with that--if this is _truly _an "easily understood and accepted disconnect"--then you should also be able to accept that halflings get to reroll 1s to represent that, as a race, they are built to be lucky.




I do accept that they gave them the re-roll 1's ability to represent the narrative of supernatural luck. Because that's bloody obvious. My point is that the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game, and not in a way that is as easily understood as "why can't my character be 18 levels higher than everyone else's" And it not being allowed isn't as easily accepted as "You can't be 18 levels stronger than everyone else, because it would be bad for the entire party to have that big of a strength disparity." Because it doesn't seem that hard to do at first, it seems like you could just have a character avoid getting splashed with mud, or to find an extra copper on the streets, but when you sit at a table, and know that one person is getting special treatment, it isn't fun. 

Here's a non-DnD example, to get my point across. I played in the playtest for Warhammer 40K: Wrath and Glory at a convention. It did it two years in a row. The first year was great, and it felt amazing. The second year was horrific, if it had been my first experience, I might never want to give the system a try again. Part of this was the GM, who gushed over the space marine character. See, Wrath and Glory was different because the rules allowed for everyone to play at the same table, even if their characters were different "tiers". So a lowly guardsmen could get a few extra tiers and cool stories, and be able to fight alongside a space marine. But, after whoevers turn it was before the space marine, the GM would start gushing over how what we had done was fine, but NOW we were going to see something really cool, because the Space Marine was going to go. Yeah, the Comissar had done a good job with her chain sword but NOW the space marine was going to match her with nothing but a dagger.

It didn't affect gameplay. The GM never gave the space marine character anything special. All they did was talk about how amazing the space marine was and how much better they were than us. Because we were cool, but we weren't a SPACE MARINE. 

If one player is constantly getting benefits? If the DM is constantly going out of their way to make sure good things happen to one character, while the others are inconvenienced or miss out? People resent that. A lot. But the halfling player may not realize it, because they don't see it as special treatment, they see it as their narrative due, because that's just how halflings are. Everyone knows bringing a level 19 character to play a level 1 game is bad. Not everyone is going to realize giving the halfling player special treatment is equally as bad for the table unless the entire group is on board with it.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> But just like high level games, some people do play halflings. And a lot of people _do _play both high-level games and halflings. When I go on r/dndnext, I frequently see people talking about how they played a character from level 1 all the way to 20 in addition to all the people who make level 20 characters for 1-shots. And likewise, I see people talking about their halflings. Maybe not gigantically vast numbers, but a lot of people.
> 
> But honestly, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that there's no support and nobody plays halflings if they're literally in every single setting and supplement. That in and off itself _proves _that they're used in the game. And they are: they're about as common as dwarfs.
> 
> ...



And, hey, I frequently see lots of posts on Reddit about playing all sorts of other races.  Guess what, confirmation bias works both ways.   

But, again, you're not quite reading what I'm writing.  I never said that there was no support.  Nor did I say that no one plays halflings.  both statements are easily disproven.  What I DID say was that so few people play halflings that they could be removed and it would make virtually no difference to the broader hobby because the broader hobby doesn't play halflings.  But, because halflings are in the Core and especially in the SRD, every single supplement has to include a bone or two for halfling players because those are supposed to be one of the most commonly played races -that's why they are the Core 4 SRD races.  

But they aren't. 

Which is why I'm saying that it's time (and frankly long past time) that the PHB actually reflects what is being played.  Which means opening up the PHB to some new ideas and see if they might gain a bit more traction with players in the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have.  Which might mean that a couple of iterations down the line, the PHB line up of player races might be entirely different than it is now, or it might be very similar to what it is now, or it might be somewhere in between.

But, staying the course just makes the PHB less and less relevant as time goes on.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 19, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Yes. Halfling lore for each edition is *different*.
> 
> The mechanics ARE lore when it comes to mechanics for in-fiction things, the lore matches the mechanics and vice versa.




No Max. Different mechanics don't mean different lore. Halflings have been depicted as supernaturally lucky in AT A MINIMUM 3rd, 4th and 5th edition, and problably in 2nd edition, since that is where most DnD lore tracks back to. But 3rd edition was still over twenty years ago, so that's plenty of time to call out the trope.



Maxperson said:


> Any relevance that comic offers is curiosity only. Halfling luck isn't going to increase, not be expected to increased, based on a minor comic book.




It doesn't need to increase, because the narrative is ALREADY THERE. the comic book was an example of the narrative that ALREADY EXISTS. Not the mechanics, the narrative.



Maxperson said:


> Sure, but Wulfgar doesn't rage like the mechanics show.  He has the power of plot which invalidates the crazy stuff that he does.  Same with halfling luck. That it touches on something that the game does doesn't make it something that players can or will expect to show up in the game.




Right, how could anyone expect that their super strong barbarian, who we say is super strong, would do something a super strong barbarian could do. That's just silly. You just seriously don't get how people's expectations work, if you believe this.



Maxperson said:


> Cool. Then no race is as brave as the halflings.  The loxodon are peaceful, which while it has similar mechanics to the halfling ability, isn't bravery because the lore is different.
> 
> Not at all.  How many of the seven have the lore "bravery" attached to the mechanic?
> 
> ...




So now it is that they are braver not because they have advantage on saving throws against the frightened condition, but because they have an ability called bravery. You care nothing for how that impacts the game, you care nothing about if it makes sense. Halflings are brave because they are brave and have an ability called Bravery. 

And since this is now the level of discourse. I'm done. I will not be responding to you again in this thread.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, let's see, how could I have gotten that idea? What did you say two posts ago?



I compared out-of-character information (that fear and Frightened are different things) with in-character information (that halflings are believed by people in the world to be braver because they don't know that fear and Frightened are different things).

However, this entire post of yours _did _prove that there is zero point in talking to you. You are willfully misunderstanding and possibly out-right trolling, and I'm tired of explaining the same things over and over again. So goodbye.


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## Faolyn (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And, hey, I frequently see lots of posts on Reddit about playing all sorts of other races.  Guess what, confirmation bias works both ways.
> 
> But, again, you're not quite reading what I'm writing.  I never said that there was no support.  Nor did I say that no one plays halflings.  both statements are easily disproven.  What I DID say was that so few people play halflings that they could be removed and it would make virtually no difference to the broader hobby because the broader hobby doesn't play halflings.  But, because halflings are in the Core and especially in the SRD, every single supplement has to include a bone or two for halfling players because those are supposed to be one of the most commonly played races -that's why they are the Core 4 SRD races.
> 
> ...



This is _literally _just your opinion, though: that they're not being played, that they're bottom of the barrel, that nobody cares about them. It is not an opinion that has any facts backing it up, though, and it goes against known facts, which is that hundreds of thousands of people play them and that they are in, by your own admission, every single setting and source book.

It is _far _more likely that the 6e PHB will contain more races than it currently does. As someone else pointed out, lineages take up less space than races do, and there's nothing that prevents the 6e PHB from adding twenty or forty pages to its length to accommodate them all, which means that there's going to be plenty of opportunity for new races to gain traction while _still _keeping the halflings for all those people who like them. And those people who don't like them can continue to not play them, like they've always done.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Oh hey @Faolyn I absolutely agree that this is just my opinion. Sorry if I gave any impression to the contrary.


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## bedir than (Jul 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> lineages take up less space than races do,



Aren't there only 3 lineages?


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Is this another "the mother of giants slept around" bit of the lore? Because I don't remember the Goliaths being mentioned as part of the Ordning. I know classically the Firbolg rejected the Ordning, but I don't remember ever seeing where the Goliaths fit into that stucture (other than being lesser than everyone else, because they are shorter than everyone else)




I think there is a brief mention of goliaths alongside ogres and trolls under "and the Allfather also made..." in one of the AL adventures, and that's it. Veberg and other small giants can presumably be lumped into this "odds and sods" category too.

Rejecting the giant gods would certainly be consistent with the goliath culture as presented in RotFM. One might hypothesise that goliaths and firbolg where once one people, with the firbolg settling in the forests and developing an affinity with nature, and the goliaths settling in the mountains and developing an affinity for stone.

But WotC seem to have a giant-focused sourcebook in the works, I expect goliaths to feature prominently.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 19, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Aren't there only 3 lineages?



Current count stands at about 30.


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## Maxperson (Jul 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No Max. Different mechanics don't mean different lore.



That isn't what I said.  I said that each edition has different halfling lore.  This is a fact.  I also said that mechanics and lore match, so mechanics are lore.  This is also fact. Those are two different statements, both of which are facts.


Chaosmancer said:


> Halflings have been depicted as supernaturally lucky in AT A MINIMUM 3rd, 4th and 5th edition, and problably in 2nd edition, since that is where most DnD lore tracks back to. But 3rd edition was still over twenty years ago, so that's plenty of time to call out the trope.



No.  Not 1e or 2e.  Not one mention of luck in the 2e halfling write-up.  Further, there's not one mention of luck in the 3e halfling write-up, either.  It mentions a daring that other races can't match(bravery), and a +1 to saves because they are capable(skill) at avoiding mishap, but no luck or fortune at all.


Chaosmancer said:


> It doesn't need to increase, because the narrative is ALREADY THERE. the comic book was an example of the narrative that ALREADY EXISTS. Not the mechanics, the narrative.



Not it's not.  A bit of luck every once in a while isn't the same as what that comic portrayed.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right, how could anyone expect that their super strong barbarian, who we say is super strong, would do something a super strong barbarian could do. That's just silly. You just seriously don't get how people's expectations work, if you believe this.



Tell you what.  Next time you rage go ask your DM if you can suddenly drag a massive boat out of the water. I'll bet you will rightly be told no. Raging doesn't increase your strength in 5e by even a single point, nor would it increase it by that much if it did.  You get advantage on the strength you had before you started raging, but that doesn't add any extra pounds of lift.


Chaosmancer said:


> So now it is that they are braver not because they have advantage on saving throws against the frightened condition, but because they have an ability called bravery. You care nothing for how that impacts the game, you care nothing about if it makes sense. Halflings are brave because they are brave and have an ability called Bravery.



:sigh: An ability called bravery that gives them advantage on saves.  The lore informs the mechanic and vice versa.  Halflings are braver because they have a mechanic that gives them advantage on saves that is called bravery.  Loxodon are not braver even though they have a similar mechanic, rather they are calmer because they have a mechanic that gives them advantage on saves.


Chaosmancer said:


> And since this is now the level of discourse. I'm done. I will not be responding to you again in this thread.



Alrighty.  But you could at least get my arguments right before you claim they are at some low level of discourse and stop responding.  It's okay not to want to continue discussion, but it should at least be for the right reasons and not fiction you made up.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> This is _literally _just your opinion, though: that they're not being played, that they're bottom of the barrel, that nobody cares about them. It is not an opinion that has any facts backing it up, though, and it goes against known facts, which is that hundreds of thousands of people play them and that they are in, by your own admission, every single setting and source book.
> 
> It is _far _more likely that the 6e PHB will contain more races than it currently does. As someone else pointed out, lineages take up less space than races do, and there's nothing that prevents the 6e PHB from adding twenty or forty pages to its length to accommodate them all, which means that there's going to be plenty of opportunity for new races to gain traction while _still _keeping the halflings for all those people who like them. And those people who don't like them can continue to not play them, like they've always done.



To be 100% @Faolyn, I do think you're probably right.  This is the most likely course for the next release of the PHB.  A couple of more races to round things out and maybe a streamlined race presentation to save space.  

I would note though, just to be 100% clear, people not playing halflings isn't because they don't like them - at least, that hasn't been my experience.  I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything negative about halflings, like, ever.  Maybe kender I suppose, but, PHB halflings?  Naw.  The problem IME, is that they are just completely overlooked by players who are looking for something that fills that niche but isn't so bland.  At least, that's how it seems to me.  Like I said, I've seen lots of kobold and goblin and now an owl kin  PC's since the release of 5e, but, virtually no halflings.  Again, not because anyone dislikes halflings, but, instead because it appears that other options appeal more.


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Well, now this?  This I agree with.  Race, so often, just doesn't really matter for a lot of players.
> 
> Although, that being said, I generally find, and maybe this is just me, that when players move away from the sort of bog standard PHB races, then race matters a lot more.  So, when someone plays a kobold, you KNOW they are a kobold.  Or an orc.  Or a minotaur.  Or, in my current campaign, a dream of an aboleth that has come to life.
> 
> It's largely the standard PHB races which are almost always interchangeable.



No one forgets my centaur is a centaur. The elves are only elfin when a racial feature gets applied (so for the high elf, never, for the sea elves, in the water)


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## Cadence (Jul 19, 2022)

jmartkdr2 said:


> No one forgets my centaur is a centaur. The elves are only elfin when a racial feature gets applied (so for the high elf, never, for the sea elves, in the water)



I am now picturing a pair of centaurs, one who never remembers to duck going inside, and another who just dumps about anywhere like a horse.

I'm hoping neither of those is why .   Why does your centaur stick out?


----------



## bedir than (Jul 19, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Current count stands at about 30.



Lineages and races are similar but different in D&D.


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## Morrus (Jul 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, let's see, how could I have gotten that idea? What did you say two posts ago?
> 
> "*Chaosmancer, please understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.
> 
> ...



This exchange is getting far too acrimonious to the point of parody. @Chaosmancer and @Faolyn please refrain from responding to each other further in this thread. Thanks.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 19, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Lineages and races are similar but different in D&D.



Lineages are the soft replacement for races, and at the current count WotC have published 40 (after I did a recount). 3 in VGR, 3 In FToD, 1 in Strixhaven and 33 in Monsters of the Multiverse (reprinting 2 from WBtW).


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## bedir than (Jul 19, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Lineages are the soft replacement for races, and at the current count WotC have published 40 (after I did a recount). 3 in VGR, 3 In FToD, 1 in Strixhaven and 33 in Monsters of the Multiverse (reprinting 2 from WBtW).



Lineages, by RAW, are the 3 in VGR. it's the only reference to lineages, and these are the only templates to overlay on a previous racial choice.

Any assumed changes to the core presentation of race in the core books towards lineages is unsupported


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 19, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I am now picturing a pair of centaurs, one who never remembers to duck going inside, and another who just dumps about anywhere like a horse.
> 
> I'm hoping neither of those is why .   Why does your centaur stick out?



Her size is often a factor (she’s a rune knight which helps) even in really basic situations like “where does she sleep?” And the fact that climbing is more difficult is mentioned often even though it doesn’t actually hinder her in any meaningful way. 

Basically her non-humanoid shape is discussed because it would affect so many minor things.

The other races  in that game that are constantly mentioned are the warforged and the mousefolk.


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## Lanefan (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> So, why not try something new?  If it fail?  It fails.  It very well might fail.  But, insisting on keeping *material that has failed for fifty years to gain any real traction in the hobby*, or, at least, I feel that it has never gained any real traction, isn't going to suddenly succeed next year or the year after that.  No. It's just going to sit at the bottom of the list, year after year after year, only appearing because WotC doesn't dare to change it because they'll get absolutely pilloried for it.



The bolded statement, I think, is where you're losing your audience. 

Hobbits/Halflings haven't failed.  Sure they're not Elves or Humans (the top tier), but they're still holding their own in the second tier in the now-very-crowded field of playable species.  And this is in spite of the WotC era designers doing them no favours whatsoever.

A little more love from the 3e-4e-5e designers and they might even be top-tier by now.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 19, 2022)

The halflings are perfect for the trope of fantasy friendly little nPCs but as PC race/lineage are too typecasted into rogues and other possible stealth classes. And when there is an abuse of a trope this becomes more boring than an episode of Spiderman in the middle of the dessert. Even gnomes have got a better flexibility because they can be rogues, but also good illusionists, bards or artificers.

My suggestion is to add the option of variant subraces, where some racial trait can be replaced with other for other clclasses.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 19, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> The halflings are perfect for the trope of fantasy friendly little nPCs but as PC race/lineage are too typecasted into rogues and other possible stealth classes. And when there is an abuse of a trope this becomes more boring than an episode of Spiderman in the middle of the dessert. Even gnomes have got a better flexibility because they can be rogues, but also good illusionists, bards or artificers.
> 
> My suggestion is to add the option of variant subraces, where some racial trait can be replaced with other for other clclasses.



the problem is changing the halfling loses the things people like about the halfling it is a paradox.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 19, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> The halflings are perfect for the trope of fantasy friendly little nPCs but as PC race/lineage are too typecasted into rogues and other possible stealth classes. And when there is an abuse of a trope this becomes more boring than an episode of Spiderman in the middle of the dessert. Even gnomes have got a better flexibility because they can be rogues, but also good illusionists, bards or artificers.
> 
> My suggestion is to add the option of variant subraces, where some racial trait can be replaced with other for other clclasses.



I'm not sure what the basis is for either the assessment of typecasting for halflings or the flexibility of gnomes.

It's also a bit of a strange thing to go "and other stealth classes" as if that doesn't..like.. actually include other classes (Ranger and Shadow Monk come to mind).

Lastly it's strange to cast gnomes as bards. Gnomes aren't traditionally charismatic, do not have any socially relevant racial features, and don't seem to have any particular interest in other people from a lore perspective. Halflings are a way better fit for bards than gnomes are.

Which would put us at Rogues (and other stealth classes like Rangers and some monks) and Bards for halflings vs. Rogues, Illusionists (and presumably other wizards) and Artificers for gnomes. Seems balanced to me.


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## Oofta (Jul 19, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> The halflings are perfect for the trope of fantasy friendly little nPCs but as PC race/lineage are too typecasted into rogues and other possible stealth classes. And when there is an abuse of a trope this becomes more boring than an episode of Spiderman in the middle of the dessert. Even gnomes have got a better flexibility because they can be rogues, but also good illusionists, bards or artificers.
> 
> My suggestion is to add the option of variant subraces, where some racial trait can be replaced with other for other clclasses.



Tell that to Boomer my Lightfoot halfling sorcerer or Doya my ghostwise halfling monk.  

I think they work fine for other classes.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 19, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Tell that to Boomer my Lightfoot halfling sorcerer or Doya my ghostwise halfling monk.
> 
> I think they work fine for other classes.



monk is a dex class so that does not disprove his point, boomer still stands as a counterpoint.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 19, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> monk is a dex class so that does not disprove his point, boomer still stands as a counterpoint.



So are fighters (to some extent at least). Sooo, that narrows his point down to 4 classes, of which only 1 was listed.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> The bolded statement, I think, is where you're losing your audience.
> 
> Hobbits/Halflings haven't failed. Sure they're not Elves or Humans (the top tier), but they're still holding their own in the second tier in the now-very-crowded field of playable species. And this is in spite of the WotC era designers doing them no favours whatsoever.
> 
> A little more love from the 3e-4e-5e designers and they might even be top-tier by now.




But what about 1e-2e?

It’s not like halflings were rocking the world even then. Still bottom of the barrel.


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## Oofta (Jul 19, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> monk is a dex class so that does not disprove his point, boomer still stands as a counterpoint.



So rogue, monk, ranger, fighter are the  "only" options while bard, sorcerer, warlock are decent. 

Yeah, so few choices.


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## James Gasik (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> But what about 1e-2e?
> 
> It’s not like halflings we’re rocking the world even then. Still bottom of the barrel.



They were probably the best Thieves, with the highest amount of racial modifiers to the thieving abilities, plus the "shorty bonus" to saving throws, and a few other neat tricks depending on their exact heritage- possible infravision or the ability to sense depth underground.  Plus they had an incredible, if rarely discussed, ability to surprise foes, shared with Elves.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Oh hey @Faolyn I absolutely agree that this is just my opinion. Sorry if I gave any impression to the contrary.



Well, you kind of are when you keep saying that they're "bottom of the barrel" as if it were a fact.


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## lingual (Jul 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> So rogue, monk, ranger, fighter are the  "only" options while bard, sorcerer, warlock are decent.
> 
> Yeah, so few choices.



And I would say most players are not into optimizing.  If they want to play a halfling wizard, they are going to do it.   They optimize after the fact.


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

lingual said:


> And I would say most players are not into optimizing.  If they want to play a halfling wizard, they are going to do it.   They optimize after the fact.



Especially after Tasha's and reassigning ASIs.  But even before that I've even seen a halfling barbarian because people like to play interesting characters.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

I made a Tabaxi Transmutation Wizard before Tasha's.  It was a little rough at first, but it was probably one of my cooler characters.


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## Hussar (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> They were probably the best Thieves, with the highest amount of racial modifiers to the thieving abilities, plus the "shorty bonus" to saving throws, and a few other neat tricks depending on their exact heritage- possible infravision or the ability to sense depth underground.  Plus they had an incredible, if rarely discussed, ability to surprise foes, shared with Elves.



And yet, STILL they were barely being played.  No competition from masses of other playable races, best choice for one of the most common classes in the game, and they were still not very popular.  I think you're not really helping the case here.


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## Hussar (Jul 20, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, you kind of are when you keep saying that they're "bottom of the barrel" as if it were a fact.



What PHB race are they more popular than than gnomes?  What PHB race have they ever been more popular than than gnomes?


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## Lanefan (Jul 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I do accept that they gave them the re-roll 1's ability to represent the narrative of supernatural luck. Because that's bloody obvious. My point is that the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game, and not in a way that is as easily understood as "why can't my character be 18 levels higher than everyone else's" And it not being allowed isn't as easily accepted as "You can't be 18 levels stronger than everyone else, because it would be bad for the entire party to have that big of a strength disparity." Because it doesn't seem that hard to do at first, it seems like you could just have a character avoid getting splashed with mud, or to find an extra copper on the streets, but when you sit at a table, and know that one person is getting special treatment, it isn't fun.



If the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game* and thus IYO Halflings shouldn't get it, what do you propose giving them instead as their main niche benefit that no other species has?

* - to me this is an open question answerable almost only on a table-by-table basis; as where one DM might make it work really well another might butcher it, leading to a perception of favouritism whether valid or not.


Chaosmancer said:


> If one player is constantly getting benefits? If the DM is constantly going out of their way to make sure good things happen to one character, while the others are inconvenienced or miss out? People resent that. A lot. But the halfling player may not realize it, because they don't see it as special treatment, they see it as their narrative due, because that's just how halflings are. Everyone knows bringing a level 19 character to play a level 1 game is bad. Not everyone is going to realize giving the halfling player special treatment is equally as bad for the table unless the entire group is on board with it.



What you're ignoring (or forgetting) here is that at one time there were some species-based penalties against Halflings which this luck benefit was supposed to - in balance terms - cancel out.  Over time, though, those penalties (e.g. Strength -2) kinda went away, leaving just the luck benefit.


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## Lanefan (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> What PHB race are they more popular than than gnomes?  What PHB race have they ever been more popular than than gnomes?



In 1e they beat Half-Orcs sideways when it came to popularity.  IME it went:

Human
--- significant drop
Elf
Half-Elf
--- not-as-significant drop
Dwarf
Hobbit
--- significant drop
Gnome
Half-Orc

Now, with that said, I've got the numbers as to what's been played here over a 40-year run covering numerous campaigns and over 1300 characters... (checks records) ...dammit, only by class, not by species.  Compiling species data will take a little while; stay tuned.


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## Azzy (Jul 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game*



Jut to nitpick... Isn't the concept of luck inherently supernatural?


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## Lanefan (Jul 20, 2022)

Azzy said:


> Jut to nitpick... Isn't the concept of luck inherently supernatural?



Yeah, yeah, OK.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 20, 2022)

Y'know what?  I totally forgot about half orcs @Lanefan.  totally slipped my mind.  Then again half orcs aren't in 2e and were almost always evil in 1e, so that would likely explain their lack of presence.


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## lingual (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Y'know what?  I totally forgot about half orcs @Lanefan.  totally slipped my mind.  Then again half orcs aren't in 2e and were almost always evil in 1e, so that would likely explain their lack of presence.



There was no alignment requirement for them to be evil.


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## Faolyn (Jul 20, 2022)

--


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## Faolyn (Jul 20, 2022)

lingual said:


> There was no alignment requirement for them to be evil.



Have you actually read their description in the AD&D books?

Even if they weren't required by game law to be evil, practically nothing that was ever written about them ever supported the idea that they could be good or neutral en masse. Just about every single thing written about orcs is negative--their appearance, their life style, their habits, their behaviors, their religion, even the way they create or build was described only in negative terms.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 20, 2022)

I love the idea of a halfling monk, something like Krilin from Dragon Ball, but I miss something like a ki martial maneuver creating an effect as "jump". 

WotC could create (female) halfling sorcerers as a wink to the maho-shojo/magical girl subgenre.


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## Hussar (Jul 20, 2022)

I'd also point out that half orcs were strongly encouraged to be assassins as well.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 20, 2022)

Azzy said:


> Jut to nitpick... Isn't the concept of luck inherently supernatural?



In a broad sense it is. Or otherwise it is a meta power.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And yet, STILL they were barely being played.  No competition from masses of other playable races, best choice for one of the most common classes in the game, and they were still not very popular.  I think you're not really helping the case here.



Are you sure that that's not just anecdotal evidence on your part?  I remember a lot of Halfling characters in the AD&D era, myself.  If you have some hard data though (no idea where you'd get any), please share?


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 20, 2022)

I think there is a tendency for some people not to realise that "the people I play D&D with" do not form a representative sample of "all the people who play D&D".


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 20, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I think there is a tendency for some people not to realise that "the people I play D&D with" do not form a representative sample of "all the people who play D&D".



this is likely true.


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## Lanefan (Jul 20, 2022)

Welp, @Hussar , that'll teach me to post from memory before checking my numbers.

Ran the numbers on our games' overall breakdown by species played.  Turns out Humans are/were way more dominant than I remembered, then Elf, then Dwarf, then everyone else.  Results (first number is actual, second is % of total, sorry for the lousy formatting)

572 --- 43.20 --- Human
199 --- 15.03 --- Elf
129 --- 9.74 --- Dwarf
96 --- 7.25 --- PartElf
81 --- 6.12 --- Hobbit
61 --- 4.61 --- Gnome
56 --- 4.23 --- PartOrc
39 --- 2.95 --- Barbarian (tough magic-hating subspecies of Human)
91 --- 6.87 --- Other (grab-bag of all sorts of oddities: genetic disasters e.g. Part-Ogre; characters who permanently changed species e.g. via reincarnation; one-off wonders through lucky die rolls in char-gen e.g. Dryad, Centaur, etc.)

1324 --- 100.00 --- Total
Time period covered: 1981-present day.

There's been some quite discernable and interesting trends over the years.  Elves was very popular early, then few were seen for a long time, and lately they've made a comeback.  PartOrcs were nearly unheard of until recently but over the last ten years they've taken off.  Hobbits had a real run in the 1990s for some reason.  Humans have been dominant throughout.

One real statistical oddity concerning Hobbits in my current campaign: there have been three characters able to continue their adventuring careers after reincarnation and somewhat incredibly all three of them changed from another species to Hobbit in the process; the odds of rolling Hobbit on that table are only about 6%. (these count as "Other" above)  As two of those three are now long-timers, it makes the Hobbit presence seem more significant in play than the raw numbers above would suggest.

And that raises another perception-clouder: some species tend on average to last longer in play than others, and that varies greatly by campaign/game.  For these I only have easily-compiled data for my own three major campaigns (which combined represent about half the total above) in terms of sessions-played per character: in the first, PartElf averaged the longest but there wasn't much variance between all eight listed above; in the second Gnomes absolutely crushed everyone else with an average career length nearly double that of any other species; and in the third (i.e. current) it's Hobbits nearly doubling the next-closest.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

When I played AD&D, most people didn't really understand the game.  Not that they didn't understand the rules (well, most of the time, at least), but that the actual...."meta", for lack of a better term, wasn't grokked.

It took awhile before someone realized that two-weapon fighting was flat out busted.  Or that longswords were a superior weapon choice.  Or that, really, your choice of weapon didn't matter at all, as the ways characters did damage was due to multiple attacks and high static damage.

I saw a lot of Fighters specialized in some very wonky weapons, as people looked at the weapon list and somehow assumed every weapon was somehow viable.  I saw a guy specialize in *whips* once, and he was very confused why his character wasn't effective!

The value of a given race wasn't really seen either.  Most people played humans because they didn't want to run into level limits, _despite the fact that high level play was incredibly rare_!  It was simply the very *idea *that a game could progress to a point where your Elf could no longer progress as a Fighter made gamers turn up their noses a the idea.

By 2e, level caps were raised, and most groups didn't really even worry about them much.   They either used rules like "single-classed demihumans have their cap increased by 2", or "exceptional ability scores raised the cap", or even "you earned half xp past your limit".  Oh and the use of _wish _to raise one's limit was popular as well.*

*Some of these rules were in the books, presented as core or optional, mind, but whether or not any rule was on the table was something you had to find out for yourself upon bellying up to a new table.

Multiclassing was vaguely understood- players felt that the slow advancement of the first few levels would remain constant, when in actuality, all that happened is that your Fighter/Thief might be a level or so behind a single classed character- punishing at low levels, but at higher levels, it didn't matter much.  You just had to put some thought into your hit point totals, and how your table calculated them.

Had a guy play an Ogre Mage once out of the Complete Book of Humanoids.  Everyone kept telling him that his character would be the worst, because he earned half xp to pay for all his bennies.  By 6th level, the jeers had turned into grumblings about how much more powerful the Ogre Mage was compared to their own characters.

There's a lot more, but the reason I'm being so long winded is that the value of Gnomes and Halflings was often overlooked.  Most games, a -1 Strength isn't going to matter much.  The difference between 18 Strength and 16 (the maximum a Halfling is allowed to have at start) is +1 to hit and damage.  Weapon choice wasn't a big deal either- oh, I have to use a long sword in two hands?  I can't use shields as a Thief anyways!

Those saving throw bonuses against poison and magic were worth their weight in gold as the game progressed, and the racial benefits for a Halfling Thief were equal to about half a level of Thief on their own (and given how Dex bonuses scaled, that +1 Dex could be worth an ENTIRE level at the top end!).

Gnomes had a few advantages that most players didn't even notice, like not having any limits on Strength at all!  You could legally (in 2e) have a Gnome with 18/00 Strength as a Fighter, and they had a few interesting multiclassed options to work with besides.  No other race in the PHB could be a multiclassed specialist mage (the absolute spell power of a Cleric/Illusionist is something to behold), and no other race could be a Cleric/Thief (a strange combination I've never seen in play, but one that sounds like a great support character).

So ultimately, there were few reasons not to play a shorty in AD&D, and a lot of reasons to do so, but what held them back was player perception.  People thought Gnomes were weird, Halflings were weak, and Dwarves were...uh....beardy?


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## bedir than (Jul 20, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> WotC could create (female) halfling sorcerers as a wink to the maho-shojo/magical girl subgenre.



WotC doesn't really make heroes.

That's our job. We play the heroes


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 20, 2022)

bedir than said:


> WotC doesn't really make heroes.
> 
> That's our job. We play the heroes



honestly, a magical girl class is not the worst idea anyone ever had.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 20, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> I love the idea of a halfling monk, something like Krilin from Dragon Ball, but I miss something like a ki martial maneuver creating an effect as "jump".
> 
> WotC could create (female) halfling sorcerers as a wink to the maho-shojo/magical girl subgenre.



Good idea, except seems more like a gnome to me.


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## Hussar (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Are you sure that that's not just anecdotal evidence on your part?  I remember a lot of Halfling characters in the AD&D era, myself.  If you have some hard data though (no idea where you'd get any), please share?



No, that's fair.  It is largely anecdotal.

Although, again, I would point out that in 2e, only gnomes and halflings didn't get a Complete Race book.  Or, rather, they shared a single book while everyone else got the full treatment.  So, it does suggest that halflings and gnomes weren't overly popular.  

But, funnily enough, @Lanefan's numbers seem to line up pretty much exactly with the larger numbers we've seen from other sources.  At least, close enough anyway.  The actual numbers might be different, but, the ranking seems pretty much the same.  So, yeah, when I say that halflings are scraping the bottom of the PHB barrel, it's not exactly something I'm pulling out of thin air here.  

And, again, it's always been like this.  Heck, go ALLL the way back to the Dieties and Demigods.  Humans get a bajillion gods, elves get 4, dwarves, halflings and gnomes each get 1.  Even all the way back in the 70's, the game has always been that way.  Look at A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity - 9 pregen characters, one halfling - the thief unsurprisingly.  G1 Against the Giants - 9 pregens, no halflings at all.  I6 Dwellers of the Forbidden City - 20 pregen characters, no halflings.  

I don't really think it's a huge stretch to make the claim that halflings were not a really popular option.  If they were, wouldn't they be a bit more common to find in tournament modules?  

Do I have hard evidence? Oh, absolutely not.  I freely admit I'm searching the chicken entrails here.  But, I've yet to see any evidence that even remotely supports the idea that halfllings were ever a popular choice.


----------



## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> No, that's fair.  It is largely anecdotal.
> 
> Although, again, I would point out that in 2e, only gnomes and halflings didn't get a Complete Race book.  Or, rather, they shared a single book while everyone else got the full treatment.  So, it does suggest that halflings and gnomes weren't overly popular.
> 
> ...




I've had one or more halflings in probably about 2/3s of my home games for at least the last couple of editions.  Personal experience in our own groups for this is pretty meaningless as a metric.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 20, 2022)

Yes, gnomes are better than halflings to be "magical heroes". 

In the TTRPG we create the heroes, but D&D is becoming a multimedia franchise, and this means selling merchadising based in "iconic characters".

I wonder about a new class, a martial adept as the swordsage or the warblade from 3.5 Tome of Battle could be used by little-size PCs. 

Are very expensive a couple of magic boots with "jump" spell-like effect?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 20, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Yes, gnomes are better than halflings to be "magical heroes".
> 
> In the TTRPG we create the heroes, but D&D is becoming a multimedia franchise, and this means selling merchadising based in "iconic characters".
> 
> ...



the mythical arcane half caster would fit them well but no one fixed RP side of that as that is what is really stopping it.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> No, that's fair.  It is largely anecdotal.
> 
> Although, again, I would point out that in 2e, only gnomes and halflings didn't get a Complete Race book.  Or, rather, they shared a single book while everyone else got the full treatment.  So, it does suggest that halflings and gnomes weren't overly popular.
> 
> ...



The other Gnome and Halfling gods were printed in Monstrous Mythology, for some reason.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 20, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> honestly, a magical girl class is not the worst idea anyone ever had.



What would be the tentpoles for this? Mostly a genre(?) blindspot to me, but what little I'm aware of would seem to be covered by a lot of the fey and celestial based spellcasting subclasses. I'm curious what the current gaps are that aren't being covered thematically thus far.


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## billd91 (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The other Gnome and Halfling gods were printed in Monstrous Mythology, for some reason.



Along with the other demi-human gods including elves and dwarves. So it's not like the halflings and gnomes were the recipient of "special" treatment in this particular book.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> What would be the tentpoles for this? Mostly a genre(?) blindspot to me, but what little I'm aware of would seem to be covered by a lot of the fey and celestial based spellcasting subclasses. I'm curious what the current gaps are that aren't being covered thematically thus far.



The more I think about it, I think Warlock is mostly a good fit here, though you'd probably want Hex Warrior and a Chain Pact Familiar (this varies, but many magical girls do have a pretty useful familiar).  Basically you want a mix of divine and arcane spells, a decently tough chassis, some melee, some ranged, and big finisher spells that can't be spammed.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game* and thus IYO Halflings shouldn't get it, what do you propose giving them instead as their main niche benefit that no other species has?
> 
> * - to me this is an open question answerable almost only on a table-by-table basis; as where one DM might make it work really well another might butcher it, leading to a perception of favouritism whether valid or not.




Well, my first thought was just a re-flavor, something like "focused" or "attention to detail" because the halflings always pay attention to the small things other people miss, and keeping the re-roll mechanic the same. It isn't unique, but it isn't a meta-game concept masquerading as a mechanic either. You could reflavor the bravery I'd cut and put it here instead too, call it "boldness" where a halfling always pushes through instead of hesitating when things go wrong, which can turn an imminent failure into a success. 

Actually, if you take the Boldness idea and the Unshakeable idea, then you have a race that really does feel like it treats fear and fear of failure specifically differently than the other races, while not trying to co-opt a narrative from others.

Or you could go a completely different route. I don't know what that route would be, because it would depend on re-writing the halfling lore from the ground up. You would make very different mechanics for acrobatic, bat-riding halflings than you would for the traveling diplomat and story-collector halflings.



Lanefan said:


> What you're ignoring (or forgetting) here is that at one time there were some species-based penalties against Halflings which this luck benefit was supposed to - in balance terms - cancel out.  Over time, though, those penalties (e.g. Strength -2) kinda went away, leaving just the luck benefit.




I'm not really ignoring or forgetting it. Halflings have no specific penalties that other small races don't get. Heck, getting -2 strength is no worse than the elf getting -2 Con and being unable to be resurrected. It should all be part of the power budget of the mechanics


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The other Gnome and Halfling gods were printed in Monstrous Mythology, for some reason.



Because gnomes are monsters, grrr!!!


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## Maxperson (Jul 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Tell that to Boomer my Lightfoot halfling sorcerer or Doya my ghostwise halfling monk.



OK Boomer!


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## Doctor Futurity (Jul 20, 2022)

Purely my own take, but I feel that both halflings and gnomes got boosts in the 00's and onward due to the Lord of the Rings movie popularizing halflings and the World of Warcraft MMO making gnomes crazy, weird and distinctly playable in concept, leading to a shift in the way other games and media portrayed gnomes (though arguably the WoW gnomes are just riffing on tinker gnomes, so ymmv). Prior to that, my own anecdotal experience was I never saw anyone play either as a character, and I only used gnomes as NPCs on rare occasion, though mostly in Spelljammer games where they were common.

I did play a gnome PC once, in 2E, when the DM let me run my high-STR gnome fighter with a halberd. His name was Rick Kochet. Yes indeed! He lasted several game sessions.


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> OK Boomer!



Sure.  Tell that to the guy that likes to blow things up.  With a smile on his face of course.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 20, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> What would be the tentpoles for this? Mostly a genre(?) blindspot to me, but what little I'm aware of would seem to be covered by a lot of the fey and celestial based spellcasting subclasses. I'm curious what the current gaps are that aren't being covered thematically thus far.




Weirdly? You'd want to have a lot of unarmed capabilities. The most of the biggest Magical Girl series feature the characters punching each other or kicking each other far more than using magic. 

Transformation sequences could be done like the Aasimar power-ups. But a "genre true" version would be untenable as it would mean they aren't effective at all while untransformed, which is a bad design space for a game meant for resource attrition. 

Celestial Warlock Aasimar would be my first re-skin. I wouldn't do pact of the chain, because most "familiars" are just mascots and lore expositions, I'd probably go Blade and allow for a reskin of their weapon into opera gloves or something. 

I wish there was a way to mesh bard into there so I could make Hibiki, but the inspiration mechanic is actually a good thing to, very common trope to have the other girls yelling support at the one fighting.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Weirdly? You'd want to have a lot of unarmed capabilities. The most of the biggest Magical Girl series feature the characters punching each other or kicking each other far more than using magic.
> 
> Transformation sequences could be done like the Aasimar power-ups. But a "genre true" version would be untenable as it would mean they aren't effective at all while untransformed, which is a bad design space for a game meant for resource attrition.
> 
> ...



Glamour Bard with the unarmed fighting style? Maybe a dash of hexblade or something else for armor proficiency.


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## Faolyn (Jul 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> What PHB race are they more popular than than gnomes?  What PHB race have they ever been more popular than than gnomes?



OK, I'm going to retry this one.

First, it's up to you to prove your claim (that they've been unpopular since 1e). That's how this works.

Secondly, on that pie chart from '19 of the most popular races on D&DBeyond, if you actually add up all the percentages, you get an even 91%. Not 100%. What this means is that every race chart isn't on that list are played by a fraction of percent each.

Halfings (and remember, halflings are as popular as half-orcs, and lightfoot halflings are as popular as hill dwarfs and nearly as popular as mountain dwarfs) _are _on the chart. If they were "bottom of the barrel," then they would have been unpopular enough to have been lumped in with the Other races.

Now, you can say "but they're in the OGL so they're free!" but aasimar were in the DMG (free to play) and aarakocra, genasi, goliaths, and deep gnomes were all from the free Elemental Evil Player's Companion (also free), and halflings outperform all of them as well. And as I previously said, probably next to nobody is limited to the OGL races these days, because the stats are so easy to find online (assuming you can't get a friend to tell you the stats) even without pirating the books. It's super-easy to google "<race> D&D stats" and find the info, often with guides as to how "good" each trait is.

And by your own admission, they're in every book and supplement, which means they're supported.

So you need to prove they're unpopular, and you can't use percentage of players or lack of support as evidence.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The other Gnome and Halfling gods were printed in Monstrous Mythology, for some reason.



look a may not particularly like the present short races but that is just insulting plus what else would the page count be wasted on anyway?


Gammadoodler said:


> What would be the tentpoles for this? Mostly a genre(?) blindspot to me, but what little I'm aware of would seem to be covered by a lot of the fey and celestial based spellcasting subclasses. I'm curious what the current gaps are that aren't being covered thematically thus far.



honestly, it is fairly odd as I have seen the most frilly lich GOO locks in the world as one option but caster is the most common, magical girl warriors would be closer to paladins than anything else.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 20, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> honestly, it is fairly odd as I have seen the most frilly lich GOO locks in the world as one option but caster is the most common, magical girl warriors would be closer to paladins than anything else.




Oooh, Paladin makes a ton of sense. Especially for one's like Symphogear, where everyone was in mech-armor and using weapons (Yes, mech-armor wearing magical girls, based on the power of singing. Symphogear is awesome)


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Oooh, Paladin makes a ton of sense. Especially for one's like Symphogear, where everyone was in mech-armor and using weapons (Yes, mech-armor wearing magical girls, based on the power of singing. Symphogear is awesome)



yeah, that is logically under the magical girl warrior sub-genre, do not ask me how I know I just do as I lack logical reasons of why I know.


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## Azzy (Jul 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The other Gnome and Halfling gods were printed in Monstrous Mythology, for some reason.



Actually (—I know how that sounds), they were first presented in a Dragon magazine article, and the made official in the 1e Unearthed Arcana.


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## Azzy (Jul 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Oooh, Paladin makes a ton of sense. Especially for one's like Symphogear, where everyone was in mech-armor and using weapons (Yes, mech-armor wearing magical girls, based on the power of singing. Symphogear is awesome)



I just couldn't get into it.


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## James Gasik (Jul 20, 2022)

Azzy said:


> Actually (—I know how that sounds), they were first presented in a Dragon magazine article, and the made official in the 1e Unearthed Arcana.



Oh yeah, I know, but I can never remember what's in what issue of Dragon.  Monstrous Mythology I can at least point to.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 21, 2022)

Azzy said:


> I just couldn't get into it.




That's fair. I have a high tolerance for "sub-optimal tropes" so I have an easy time looking past the flaws.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 21, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> So you need to prove they're unpopular, and you can't use percentage of players or lack of support as evidence.



LOL. 

I don't have to "prove" anything, for one.  Because the goalposts for proof are just going to go skating ever further higher.  Your argument is that halflings and gnomes are perfectly fine because... they are played and have support.  But, I can't use percentage of players or lack of support (both of which are at least circumstantially established) to show that this is false.  So, if I can't use the fact that low percentages of players are actually playing the races, and I can't use the fact that they barely appear in places where all the other races appear  like in playable characters for modules, NPC's in adventures, mythology in the early days of the game, what can I use?

Look, I absolutely agree that I don't have any hard evidence here.  I freely admit that.  I freely admit that I'm looking at the same numbers you are and interpreting them in the opposite direction.  You look at 5% and think, "wow, that's really successful".  I look at 5% and think, "Wow, that's a pretty sad failure and wouldn't it be nice to get some new ideas in there that might bump that number upwards?"  We're just not going to agree here.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 21, 2022)

The trouble with halflings...

...is that dwarven comedians trying to compete with halfling skits are half-a-laugh-a-lings?


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## Maxperson (Jul 21, 2022)

Quickleaf said:


> The trouble with halflings...
> 
> ...is that dwarven comedians trying to compete with halfling skits are half-a-laugh-a-lings?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Jul 21, 2022)

Good grief, 46 pages. Popular topic.

I like my halflings as hobbits, because Tolkien was my introduction to fantasy. But the next best ones are the cannibalistic ones from Dark Sun.


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## James Gasik (Jul 21, 2022)

I actually liked 3e/4e Halflings better, because in my mind, Hobbits is only one way to interpret Halflings in the game.  And yeah, Dark Sun's iteration might be problematic in 2022 but is sure was memorable!

More memorable than Spelljammer's furry arctic Halflings were, at least.


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## Faolyn (Jul 21, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Look, I absolutely agree that I don't have any hard evidence here.  I freely admit that.  I freely admit that I'm looking at the same numbers you are and interpreting them in the opposite direction.  You look at 5% and think, "wow, that's really successful".  I look at 5% and think, "Wow, that's a pretty sad failure and wouldn't it be nice to get some new ideas in there that might bump that number upwards?"  We're just not going to agree here.



D&D Beyond has a homebrew section for races. Each page has 20 races, and there are 2,530 pages. There are literally over *50,000 *different race options available to people who use that site, not including all the many, many _hundreds_ of races from 3pp books and various websites that haven't been uploaded to it.

Halflings are, going by the numbers on D&D Beyond from 2019, are the _*7th most popular race out of over 50,000 races*. _

Humans (22.8%)
Elves (11.2%) (Edit: high and wood only; drow didn't make it on this chart)
Half-Elves (9.1%)
Tieflings (7.5%)
Dragonborn (7.2%)
Dwarfs (6.6%)
Halflings and Half-Orcs (tied for 4.7%)
Goliaths (3.9%)
Genasi (water, air, and fire only, 3.4%; earth genasi didn't make it on this chart)
Gnomes (rock and deep only, 3.1%; forest gnomes didn't make it on this chart)
Aarakocra (2.8%)
Changelings (1.4%)
Tabaxi (1.2%)

How on _earth _do you think that being the 7th most popular race is "bottom of the barrel"? They're not even the least popular race using only the PHB!

What can you use to support your claim? Well, since you can't use number of people who play them and you can't use lack of support, maybe you need to reevaluate your claim here and stop saying that it's a _fact _that they've been unpopular from the start.


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## Minigiant (Jul 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> How on _earth _do you think that being the 7th most popular race is "bottom of the barrel"? They're not even the least popular race using only the PHB!



7th is technically the lowest 3rd of the only "required books" that has player races.

And considering Halfling is one of the least outlawed, banned,, or prejudiced races in official and close to official settings. *7th is kinda bad.*

It's kinda like a off-season favorite missing the playoffs.


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## Faolyn (Jul 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> 7th is technically the lowest 3rd of the only "required books" that has player races.
> 
> And considering Halfling is one of the least outlawed, banned,, or prejudiced races in official and close to official settings. *7th is kinda bad.*
> 
> It's kinda like a off-season favorite missing the playoffs.



It's not. They're still 7th out of over 50,000 races. They're 7th out of dozens of official races and hundreds of published 3pp races, too. 

If there were literally _only _the options in the PHB for what race you could play, yeah, that would be bad. But there's a lot more than just the PHB and they have proven that they are better than a lot of them. Also, I'd say that saying a lot of people play races _specifically _because they're outlawed or suffer bigotry, because they enjoy writing angsty backgrounds for their characters (I assume you mean being banned in-character, not DMs forbidding them from the game). If a setting came up where halflings were the outlaws, you can bet they'd skyrocket in that setting.

Forest gnomes and drow (forgot about them when I wrote up my totals, both also in the PHB, didn't even make it to the D&DB chart. _That's _bottom of the barrel. Whereas both halfling PHB subraces performed very well, and lightfoots were more popular than hill dwarfs. If you're going to get rid of an underperforming race, ditch the forest gnomes and drow and make all gnomes into tinkerers. 

Of course, this was 2019, but that was 2-3 years after Volo's came out, and yet no _goblinoids _made it to the chart, even though goliaths and aasimar did. And I don't recall anyone complaining about goblin stats the same way they complained about orcs and kobolds. Goblinoids are, by this chart, less popular than halflings. But we're to expect that they would be hugely popular if they replaced halflings?


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 22, 2022)

On Beyond at least, I think you need a subscription to use a HB race that's not yours or from someone in the same campaign as you.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 22, 2022)

Zubatcarteira said:


> On Beyond at least, I think you need a subscription to use a HB race that's not yours or from someone in the same campaign as you.



There are other free races outside the PHB - definitely including the Aaracokra, the Genasi, and the Goliath. So that's 7th of 12. Which is ... mediocre.


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## Minigiant (Jul 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> It's not. They're still 7th out of over 50,000 races. They're 7th out of dozens of official races and hundreds of published 3pp races, too.



50,000 races that aren't all played in multiple tables and aren't all seriously balance or appropriate at multiple tables?

With the PHB and DMG, the books everyone is supposed to use, Halflings are 7th despite being in the PHB, featured heavily in official and 3rd party art and materials, AND rarely banned. 

It's tied with Half Orcs, a race that moderately gets banned, has a shaky history, and main reason for use mechanically was an exclusivity to STR the race doesn't even have anymore.

Any race with that hard a push should be top 4. It's tied for 7th. 

It suggest that if halflings were not promoted that hard, they'd be less popular than Gnomes or VGTE/MOTM's "Exotic" Races.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> 50,000 races that aren't all played in multiple tables and aren't all seriously balance or appropriate at multiple tables?
> 
> With the PHB and DMG, the books everyone is supposed to use, Halflings are 7th despite being in the PHB, featured heavily in official and 3rd party art and materials, AND rarely banned.
> 
> ...



Let me remind everyone that the top 4 races in D&D in 2020 were the Human, Half-Elf, Tiefling, and Dragonborn. And _none_ of half-elves, tieflings, and dragonborn get huge pushes. All the settings produced by WotC are "classic" settings of course.

Even _elves_ and _dwarves_ don't make it into the top 5 as of 2020 and they are pushed to the moon. (The fifth race? Half-orcs. Surprised me too).

So. Your literal claim is that any race with as hard a push as halflings get should be two places ahead of both elves and dwarves as of 2020, which is the most recent data we have. Is this in some backwards universe where having a push at all is deemed to be harmful and the less the push the better they do? Or are you somehow claiming in defiance of just about all the evidence that halflings are pushed harder than both elves and dwarves?


Minigiant said:


> It suggest that if halflings were not promoted that hard, they'd be less popular than Gnomes or VGTE/MOTM's "Exotic" Races.



What makes you claim that halflings are promoted harder than gnomes? The only place I see them getting a harder push is that they are a couple of pages earlier in the PHB in the "common races" section. To which I'd comment that with the 2020 data every single uncommon race in the PHB except gnome beats every single common race in the PHB except human.

Why are you setting impossible standards for the halfling and saying that with their push they should be meeting standards that even elves don't despite a vastly bigger push?


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 22, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Let me remind everyone that the top 4 races in D&D in 2020 were the Human, Half-Elf, Tiefling, and Dragonborn. And _none_ of half-elves, tieflings, and dragonborn get huge pushes. All the settings produced by WotC are "classic" settings of course.
> 
> Even _elves_ and _dwarves_ don't make it into the top 5 as of 2020 and they are pushed to the moon. (The fifth race? Half-orcs. Surprised me too).
> 
> So. Your literal claim is that any race with as hard a push as halflings get should be two places ahead of both elves and dwarves as of 2020, which is the most recent data we have. Is this in some backwards universe where having a push at all is deemed to be harmful and the less the push the better they do? Or are you somehow claiming in defiance of just about all the evidence that halflings are pushed harder than both elves and dwarves?



I've long said in this thread that halflings, dwarves, and elves have poor racial mechanic design.

Halfling just suffer from being harder to fit in stories and settings as well.


Neonchameleon said:


> What makes you claim that halflings are promoted harder than gnomes? The only place I see them getting a harder push is that they are a couple of pages earlier in the PHB in the "common races" section. To which I'd comment that with the 2020 data every single uncommon race in the PHB except gnome beats every single common race in the PHB except human.
> 
> Why are you setting impossible standards for the halfling and saying that with their push they should be meeting standards that even elves don't despite a vastly bigger push?



Halflings are nudged further forward in the PHB. They are one of the races used for starter characters in the basic pregens. Halflings are usually displayed as a starter player option in licensed games and earlier encountered than many other races. Halflings are often given more spotlight in official settings than gnomes.

And I lack the stats but I think halflings having more official art than gnomes is a safe bet.


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## Faolyn (Jul 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> 50,000 races that aren't all played in multiple tables and aren't all seriously balance or appropriate at multiple tables?
> 
> With the PHB and DMG, the books everyone is supposed to use, Halflings are 7th despite being in the PHB, featured heavily in official and 3rd party art and materials, AND rarely banned.
> 
> ...



Yes, out of 50,000 options, because they're all available. The chart was for all the races played on D&DB, and 9% of people played races that weren't on that main list. Even if you ignored all the homebrew, even if none of those 9% of people played a homebrew race, there's still tons of other official races. Halflings beat them all out. 

But it's weird to say "if halflings weren't promoted, they'd be less popular than gnomes." If halflings are being promoted, then that suggests that enough people like them to want them to stick around.


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## Oofta (Jul 22, 2022)

Personally I think we should drop elves.  After all every elf I've ever played dies before they get to 3rd level*.  Since they always die for me, why bother letting anyone else play them?

_*I thought I had broken the curse with a half elf that made it to 3rd.  Then he died.  Apparently it was the first PC the DM had ever killed. _


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 22, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> There are other free races outside the PHB - definitely including the Aaracokra, the Genasi, and the Goliath. So that's 7th of 12. Which is ... mediocre.



There's also the DMG Aasimar, and the Aquisition's Incorporated Verdan was added recently as well. So, 7/13, or 7/14, which is perfectly average, ig.

Some options will be middle of the road, although if they want to substitute Halflings for something more popular, I think Tabaxi or Changeling would do a lot better.


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## Minigiant (Jul 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Yes, out of 50,000 options, because they're all available. The chart was for all the races played on D&DB, and 9% of people played races that weren't on that main list. Even if you ignored all the homebrew, even if none of those 9% of people played a homebrew race, there's still tons of other official races. Halflings beat them all out.
> 
> But it's weird to say "if halflings weren't promoted, they'd be less popular than gnomes." If halflings are being promoted, then that suggests that enough people like them to want them to stick around.



Yes,but if its promoted and gets in 7th behind unpromoted races that means its legacy support and offical bias cannot match with the superior mechanical or narrative design of some less supported races.

It all kinda supports my theory that 5e heavily push classical themes and mechanics to attract fans of older editions but fans of new editions became the vast majority or at least plurality of 5e fans. And the "legacy races" ended up suffering as newer fans were not fans of the narratives and mechanics of those races as much.

That's why the top 4 are Human, Half-Elf, Tiefling, and Dragonborn. 2 new school races and 2 "synergizes with any class or background" races. Then the promoted and borderline OP dwarf and the promoted and "so many subclasses it can do anything and Free cantrip" elf. 

Clearly old school is less popular than new school or adaptive.


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## Faolyn (Jul 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Yes,but if its promoted and gets in 7th behind unpromoted races that means its legacy support and offical bias cannot match with the superior mechanical or narrative design of some less supported races.



Except that elves and dwarfs are standard fantasy races everywhere, and dragonborn and tieflings have an intrinsic coolness to them. Considering how plain halflings can be, the fact that they're 7th place is completely understandable.


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## Lanefan (Jul 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Personally I think we should drop elves.  After all every elf I've ever played dies before they get to 3rd level*.  Since they always die for me, why bother letting anyone else play them?
> 
> _*I thought I had broken the curse with a half elf that made it to 3rd.  Then he died.  Apparently it was the first PC the DM had ever killed. _



Suggestion on how to break this curse: next time the opportunity presents, bring an Elf into an established party where it'll start at a level higher than 3rd.


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## James Gasik (Jul 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Suggestion on how to break this curse: next time the opportunity presents, bring an Elf into an established party where it'll start at a level higher than 3rd.



Then you find out the DM has reintroduced level drain to the game because "newfangled modern D&D has no teeth" and you get drained to level 0 and rise as a Spectre or something...


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Let me remind everyone that the top 4 races in D&D in 2020 were the Human, Half-Elf, Tiefling, and Dragonborn. And _none_ of half-elves, tieflings, and dragonborn get huge pushes. All the settings produced by WotC are "classic" settings of course.
> 
> Even _elves_ and _dwarves_ don't make it into the top 5 as of 2020 and they are pushed to the moon. (The fifth race? Half-orcs. Surprised me too).
> 
> ...



From where I am standing half elves are known as one of the most op races from the player's handbook so a lot of people pick it as it is an elf but with better stuff.


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## Oofta (Jul 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Suggestion on how to break this curse: next time the opportunity presents, bring an Elf into an established party where it'll start at a level higher than 3rd.



I _have_ considered it, I'm currently playing ToA and there's a pretty high likelihood of PC death.  Including in our current session because we left on a cliff hanger*.  But ... the last time I tried playing an elf (wood elf monk because 45 feet of movement sounded fun) not only did the PC die in the last combat of the first game, the DM also decided to cancel the campaign after that session.  That, and other than elves my PCs tend to have a quite high survival rate.

I'm afraid it's escalating and if I try to play an elf my PC will die in the first combat and then the DM will just keel over dead.  

_*My monk did jump onto the back of a dragon so the rogue could get sneak attack, so I may deserve this one.  It will either be heroic or just heroically stupid.  If I had any ki points left after I jumped it may not have been quite as stupid.  _


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 22, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> From where I am standing half elves are known as one of the most op races from the player's handbook so a lot of people pick it as it is an elf but with better stuff.



And from where I'm standing, especially post-Tasha's half elves aren't _remotely_ OP. About the only thing they get going for them is a flexible stat spread, and even that's been overtaken by allowing floating bonuses. So all their extra +1 means is a +1 in your third best stat. And the normal elf stat spread is good; Dex as one of your top two stats is normal while the other high elf +1s are Int and Wis - which is a good combination for anyone that looks elven with the basic exception of bards and warlocks.

Meanwhile as well as the +1 to their third best stat when up against a regular elves half elves get two skills vs perception. In exchange High Elves get the language, high elf weapon training and, most importantly, a cantrip. Which is both awesome and the best ones are pretty useful (any melee rogue loves booming and/or greenflame blade, and Minor Illusion, Message, Mage Hand, Shape Water, and Move Earth are all awesome utility). And wood elves get speed, weapon training (very useful for both clerics and druids), and to hide better. I can't honestly say half elves are notably stronger.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> And from where I'm standing, especially post-Tasha's half elves aren't _remotely_ OP. About the only thing they get going for them is a flexible stat spread, and even that's been overtaken by allowing floating bonuses. So all their extra +1 means is a +1 in your third best stat. And the normal elf stat spread is good; Dex as one of your top two stats is normal while the other high elf +1s are Int and Wis - which is a good combination for anyone that looks elven with the basic exception of bards and warlocks.
> 
> Meanwhile as well as the +1 to their third best stat when up against a regular elves half elves get two skills vs perception. In exchange High Elves get the language, high elf weapon training and, most importantly, a cantrip. Which is both awesome and the best ones are pretty useful (any melee rogue loves booming and/or greenflame blade, and Minor Illusion, Message, Mage Hand, Shape Water, and Move Earth are all awesome utility). And wood elves get speed, weapon training (very useful for both clerics and druids), and to hide better. I can't honestly say half elves are notably stronger.



I believe the only data we have is pre-Tasha's so while likely true it is not applicable here.
The other thing that half-elf has is the "I want to care more about who my parents are than who my character really is" which is somehow a stereotype with the new school of players.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halfling just suffer from being harder to fit in stories and settings as well.



I've seen this assertion a few times. It doesn't make a lick of sense. 

Assuming you're affiliated with the "humans but smaller" crowd, then they are exactly as hard to fit as humans are.

Assuming you aren't, then what is it that makes them more incompatible than say dwarves, kobolds, goblins, or gnomes, elves, etc. ?

The crap-all lore they have is "farmers and traders who like to eat and have a good time". We're not talking about families making whoopee with angels and devils. There are no mer-people or sky people. It's just like common people. 

How the heck are we getting to "common people are hard to integrate into settings or stories"?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I've seen this assertion a few times. It doesn't make a lick of sense.
> 
> Assuming you're affiliated with the "humans but smaller" crowd, then they are exactly as hard to fit as humans are.
> 
> ...



so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?


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## bedir than (Jul 22, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?



The assertion is that they are hard to fit into settings. By saying that they're basically humans you are admitting that they are not hard to fit in.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

bedir than said:


> The assertion is that they are hard to fit into settings. By saying that they're basically humans you are admitting that they are not hard to fit in.



the hard to fit in, there is nothing gained or subtracted by their presence or none presence they are nothing.

teiflings add a connection to hellish things but are terrible if you want something disconnected from that.

halflings are basically irrelevant not having is no loss for a setting or a gain.

they are hard to fit as they are entirely unnoticeable which is not a setting trait on its own.


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## bedir than (Jul 22, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> the hard to fit in, there is nothing gained or subtracted by their presence or none presence they are nothing.
> 
> teiflings add a connection to hellish things but are terrible if you want something disconnected from that.
> 
> ...



The overlooked peoples is always a valid trope


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

bedir than said:


> The overlooked peoples is always a valid trope



true but it needs things to connect to it for it to work, the halflings lack the other half, they are overlooked why?


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 22, 2022)

It is wild that people complain that halflings are just small humans, yet seem to be fine with dwarves who are just a bit shorter than average bearded humans.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is wild that people complain that halflings are just small humans, yet seem to be fine with dwarves who are just a bit shorter than average bearded humans.



they are also known for building great underground strongholds, Mastercraft works and digging till they hit demons so they have more uses in setting than a bloke who is short and fundamentally unremarkable, true it is not much but 5% is more than you think and more importantly if you wish to discuss that I would recommend making a thread about dwarves.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 22, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I've seen this assertion a few times. It doesn't make a lick of sense.
> 
> Assuming you're affiliated with the "humans but smaller" crowd, then they are exactly as hard to fit as humans are.
> 
> ...




Well, I'd say you need to tackle it in two separate questions. 

1) Why are halflings hard to fit into the story of adventure?

And to this, we can acknowledge the trope that halflings cling to the hardest, which is the reluctant adventurer. They don't WANT to go on adventures. Now, this isn't to say that we don't deal with this all the time, because it is also one of the most common tropes in literature. But, it makes them harder to push out the door, so to speak, because you can't just assume they wanted to leave home. 

This is where the follow-up halfling trope of "fancy feet" comes in, which is a direct contradiction to the earlier halfling lore, and I think a clear sign that this was a problem for DMs. Essentially, Fancy Feet says that Halflings DO want to leave home, and you have a completely legitimate reason to send them on adventures, ignore that earlier part about them not wanting to go on adventures. Which... leads to a contradiction that could be interesting, except "wants to stay home" is the default state of most people. So if halflings were more homebodies than "dwarves who seal themselves in their mountain homes" or "elves that never leave the forest" then they were extreme in a way that can cause that problem again. 


2) Why are halflings hard to fit into the world?

And this is where I think I can say @bedir than absolutely points out the problem. Halflings are "the forgotten folk" in a lot of their descriptions. 

Halfling homes, which are incredibly important to them as we pointed out in #1, are both everywhere and nowhere. They are all over human kingdoms, but the lore says that no one knows where a given halfling village is. What do halflings do in your setting? Nothing. Per the lore halflings never go out and do anything important. 

Now, this may sound like it is a really easy thing to work into the world, after all they are just there. But that's like saying it is very easy to include the white of the canvas in your painting. The thing you have to do is nothing, and as you do nothing, it becomes easy to write in such a way as to squeeze the halfling out of existence. 

I worked in Kobolds in my world by considering how they related to dragons and the things I'm doing with dragons. 

I worked Goblins into my world by considering how goblins work as a species, leading to very cool stories and a very interesting life cycle. 

But to put in halflings, per the lore, I have to do nothing. They just exist. They never do anything, they aren't involved in any meta plots in the setting, they don't have any deep history to explore, they don't have any connections to any interesting threats. They just... are there. 

And that is really hard to actually make feel like they are part of the setting instead of just... tacked on to the end.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 22, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, I'd say you need to tackle it in two separate questions.
> 
> 1) Why are halflings hard to fit into the story of adventure?
> 
> ...



so halfling could be just Thanos dusted in most settings and it might be years before anyone in the setting noticed?
do they even trade?
they feel like the absence of a people, which could be cool but would require both a radical redesign and massive talent to pull off?


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## Cadence (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so halfling could be just Thanos dusted in most settings and it might be years before anyone in the setting noticed?
> do they even trade?
> they feel like the absence of a people, which could be cool but would require both a radical redesign and massive talent to pull off?



I have a hard time believing that most people in most campaign settings show up until particularly needed...  (this is the game where villages and towns pop into existence only when the party decides to go see what's in some group of hexes, right?)


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I have a hard time believing that most people in most campaign settings show up until particularly needed...  (this is the game where villages and towns pop into existence only when the party decides to go see what's in some group of hexes, right?)



okay, so what do the halflings do that is remotely different from anyone else that makes them matter in your setting?


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?



PHB: Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome.

So, this particular halfling shopkeeper in this mostly human city has contacts with other halfling merchants in the Dwarven Citadel, so if you want a reliable supply of diamond dust for your greater restoration spell, she's the one you want to go to. None of the human merchants will have what you're looking for most of the time.

It's easy to fit halflings into a setting and to finda reason why a halfling merchant might be more interesting than a  human one.


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## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?



Since the typical gamer is a human, they know what a human shopkeeper will do.

Since a halfling _isn't_ a human, you can actually have them do something inhuman, if you want them to, and it makes sense in-context.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 23, 2022)

I kinda feel 'small humans' is underselling it. Being small humans is actually a big deal! (Pun intended.) I'd imagine world seemed rather different to homo floresiensis than it does to us. Imagine an entire culture of humans that are half the size of usual, interacting with the world of the big people. Imagine if most people and things around you were twice the size they're now. Wouldn't it feel pretty different? Or imagine as human visiting a halfling village, where everything is half the usual size. Or mixed settlements, where halflings are living in the rafters of humans houses or some houses have some floors that are divided in two height wise. To me all this is cool, so halflings are cool.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

_You follow the directions given to you, finding yourself in an odd, seemingly forgotten corner of the trade district.  The buildings are solidly built, but seem a little dusty, and there is little foot traffic.  A man sits, perched on an old crate, his hat brim covering his eyes as he takes an early afternoon nap, and he only barely seems to notice your passing.

There it is, a simple, nondescript shop.  It has no name, and the wooden sign hanging above the door simply has a carving showing a mortar and pestle.  You enter, and a small bell attached to the door rings, announcing your arrival.

The scent of strange herbs tickles your nose as you look around the apothecary's shop.  You hear a young sounding voice from the back, stating that they will be right with you.

What you first mistook for a small girl comes out from the back of the shop.  She carefully moves a crate behind the counter, then stands on it, when you realize she's no child at all, but a Halfling.  Though her features are still youthful,  you can see a touch of grey in her hair.  She puts on a pair of spectacles a little too large for her face and smiles.  "Well, as I live and breathe, custom!  How can I be of service to you?"

You explain that you heard that your sources told you that this shop deals in...exotic goods as well as medicines.  The shopkeeper smiles at you.  "It's true, though you can understand why I don't advertise."

You remark that you weren't expecting her to be a Halfling, and she just smiles.  "Oh because other races have a monopoly on Wizardry, I suppose?"

You quickly backpedal, hoping you hadn't offended her, but she laughs.  "No one expects a Halfling to be anything other than a farmer or perhaps a knight of the cross-trade, my boy.  And that's just fine by me."_


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I believe the only data we have is pre-Tasha's so while likely true it is not applicable here.
> The other thing that half-elf has is the "I want to care more about who my parents are than who my character really is" which is somehow a stereotype with the new school of players.



So what you're saying is that half-elves better fit the tropes that people now want to play than elves do.


Mind of tempest said:


> so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?



From this school of thought comes the idea that we should kick almost 100% of elves whose story is not about being really old out. Because that's about the only thing they do better than humans.

Syndrome was talking out of his hat when he said that "When everyone is super then no one is". But when every background NPC is explicitly deliberately interesting and, worse yet, interesting because of their race you are spending a ridiculous amount of time forcing people to look at your worldbuilding rather than getting on with things as you describe each new race.

And when you make an NPC a halfling you are in general providing one piece of information that you are not providing when you make them human. You are essentially telling the players that this is almost certainly _not_ a retired adventurer who took an arrow to the knee. They may be interesting in other ways (and probably are). And because halfling conveys information that human doesn't it's in some ways actively superior to human as a choice so human _doesn't_ fill the role just as well.


Mind of tempest said:


> true but it needs things to connect to it for it to work, the halflings lack the other half, they are overlooked why?



*Is the notion of metaphor alien to you? Halflings are overlooked because they are small and because other than in exceptionally rare cases they do not try not to be overlooked. Partly because it is a defence mechanism. Halflings are so easily overlooked that mechanically lightfoot halflings can hide behind normal sized people despite them being only one size category larger.

It is a metaphor made manifest. And a metaphor that works. It does not need a deeper reason.*


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## Hussar (Jul 23, 2022)

Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))

If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks?  Who is carrying their goods from A to B?  How do the merchants in Human City A have any ties to Dwarven City B when halflings don't leave any of their locations by and large?  

At least Kender had the idea of wanderlust and it would make sense, but, halflings?  They don't travel.  They are famous for not traveling or getting involved in adventure.  That's the main point of the race, isn't it?  So, exactly how are they maintaining these trade networks between locations?  

And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so halfling could be just Thanos dusted in most settings and it might be years before anyone in the setting noticed?
> do they even trade?
> they feel like the absence of a people, which could be cool but would require both a radical redesign and massive talent to pull off?



This last bit is a strange argument. Is the world, our world richer or poorer if a creature most people are unaware of goes extinct? 

That said, per what little lore there is, halflings are embedded within their communities, communities for which, they care very deeply. Communities they work to make better and protect.


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))
> 
> If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks?
> 
> And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?



That's not the lore. I won't bother to quote the PHB again. Everyone can read it for themselves.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))
> 
> If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks?  Who is carrying their goods from A to B?  How do the merchants in Human City A have any ties to Dwarven City B when halflings don't leave any of their locations by and large?
> 
> ...



I could answer this, but at some point I'd have to start making comparisons to gnomes and protections from gnolls. If that starts heaven knows what other silent-letter monstrosities may come about..not willing to risk it. Refer to previous threads.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, I'd say you need to tackle it in two separate questions.
> 
> 1) Why are halflings hard to fit into the story of adventure?
> 
> ...



The simplest way to respond to your concerns regarding point number 1 is to acknowledge that neither players, nor character races are monolithic. Otherwise, a million drow ranger PCs would have died in the womb or egg or mold.. or however drow procreate..and no players would be playing enthusiastically adventurous halflings. Adventurers who are a bit of a contradiction is kind of the way its expected to work.

As for point 2, to put halflings in the lore requires the same amount of effort as any other common race. They may not make empires, and they may be pretty content, but they still _do stuff. _They care for and contribute to their communities, some of which are isolated, and some of which are embedded within a mixed-race environment. So instead of thinking in terms of empires and armies, think in terms of social capital. What things would a race that feels more keenly for their homes than the other races bring to their homes.

Humans make plans and money, Elves make art and arrows, Dwarves make weapons and armor, Halflings make friends and lunch.


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## Hussar (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> That's not the lore. I won't bother to quote the PHB again. Everyone can read it for themselves.



Really?

I'm looking at the 5e PHB right now.  Let's quote shall we?



			
				From the opening paragraph said:
			
		

> *The comforts of home are the goals of most halflings’ lives: a place to settle in peace and quiet, far from marauding monsters and clashing armies; a blazing fire and a generous meal; fine drink and fine conversation*. Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples. *But even these wanderers love peace, food, hearth, and home, though home might be a wagon jostling along a dirt road or a raft floating downriver*.




And this:



> *Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves.* They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires.
> 
> Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings’ hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. *Some halfling communities travel as a way of life,* driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.




So, at best, a minority of halflings are nomadic, but, most of them stay at home and don't travel.  So, again, my question stands - how you go from a race described as being stay-at-homes with little interest in gold or anything other than simple comfort to "This is a race defined by trade between various factions"?


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## Hussar (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Humans make plans and money, Elves make art and arrows, Dwarves make weapons and armor, Halflings make friends and lunch.



Which, frankly, is the heart of the issue.  "Makes friends and lunch" isn't exactly driving conflict. 

The point about whether a world is poorer if something that almost no one has heard of disappears is a good point.  But, here's the thing.  Halflings aren't supposed to be something that almost no one has heard of.  Halflings are supposed to be common.  Found in many communities all over the setting.  You should be finding halflings as often as you find every other race.  More often than most of the other races actually - they are supposed to be as commonly found as dwarves or elves at the very least.

If you pull elves out of most settings, you would have to massively rewrite the setting - Forgotten Realms without Myth Dranor or Drizz't would be a very different setting.  Pull dwarves out of most settings and it would massively rewrite the setting - no dwarves in Forgotten Realms means no Duergar and much of the Underdark ceases to exist. 

Pull halflings out of Forgotten Realms and... nothing happens.

Even Dragonlance, which is probably the setting most famous for it's halflings, (or kender to be exact) shows how little Kender actually matter.  Of the 14 War of the Lance Modules, guess how many actually take place in Kenderhome.  Go ahead, I'll wait.  Right.  Zero.  First four modules are nothing but dwarves and elves.  They travel to virtually every corner of Ansalon and even beyond, and not once do they go anywhere near Kenderhome.  The fate of Kenderhome is basically a footnote in one of the novels.

These claims that halflings play a key role in D&D are really lacking in any sort of support.  At best, in any setting, they're an afterthought.  Most of the time, they're barely even acknowledged.  But, hey, this is one of the four most expected races to play in the game?  Really?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Which, frankly, is the heart of the issue.  "Makes friends and lunch" isn't exactly driving conflict.
> 
> The point about whether a world is poorer if something that almost no one has heard of disappears is a good point.  But, here's the thing.  Halflings aren't supposed to be something that almost no one has heard of.  Halflings are supposed to be common.  Found in many communities all over the setting.  You should be finding halflings as often as you find every other race.  More often than most of the other races actually - they are supposed to be as commonly found as dwarves or elves at the very least.
> 
> ...



Ennhh, I don't have a particular need for a race to drive conflict. That's what characters are for.

I confess, I am unfamiliar with the lore in the D&D novels, so I'm happy to take you at you word with respect to how much has been done with them in the novels (although that does rather undercut your earlier contention about how hard halflings have been pushed without seeing an impact).

On the other hand, though, I think you cam point to something like Eberron for how halflings can be integrated.


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## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> So, at best, a minority of halflings are nomadic, but, most of them stay at home and don't travel.  So, again, my question stands - how you go from a race described as being stay-at-homes with little interest in gold or anything other than simple comfort to "This is a race defined by trade between various factions"?



Because they have very nice, comfortable wagons and ships is how.


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> So, at best, a minority of halflings are nomadic, but, most of them stay at home and don't travel.  So, again, my question stands - how you go from a race described as being stay-at-homes with little interest in gold or anything other than simple comfort to "This is a race defined by trade between various factions"?



You're miscontruing my statements. No one -- well, not I, anyway -- defined any race by trade between various factions. I gave an example of how a halfling merchant might be more interesting in one respect than a human one. 

By the lore, some halflings live among other races. By the lore, some halflings travel as a way of life. 

Do the majority of dwarves or humans travel on trade routes? No. Does that mean dwarves and humans don't engage in trade? 

Halflings are interested in more than simple comforts of home:


> They love discovering new things, even simple things, such as an exotic food or an unfamiliar style of clothing.



Do they discover those things by staying at home in their isolationist hidden burrows?

Take a wider look at the lore beyond what you've chosen to emphasize with bold text and you won't find halflings so difficult to incorporate into the game. 

They're not hobbits anymore.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> do they even trade?



Of course. How do they get fine cheeses, pipeweed, beer, wine, etd?


Hussar said:


> So, at best, a minority of halflings are nomadic, but, most of them stay at home and don't travel.



At best a small minority of humans travel, and yet we have trade. 

You quoted the part about using wagons and canoes, and then just kind of ignored it?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I have a hard time believing that most people in most campaign settings show up until particularly needed...  (this is the game where villages and towns pop into existence only when the party decides to go see what's in some group of hexes, right?)




Sure, but does that make for good setting design to avoid thinking about it until the moment it is needed? 

I'm not saying you can't do that, but that isn't setting design, that is setting avante-garde.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I kinda feel 'small humans' is underselling it. Being small humans is actually a big deal! (Pun intended.) I'd imagine world seemed rather different to homo floresiensis than it does to us. Imagine an entire culture of humans that are half the size of usual, interacting with the world of the big people. Imagine if most people and things around you were twice the size they're now. Wouldn't it feel pretty different? Or imagine as human visiting a halfling village, where everything is half the usual size. Or mixed settlements, where halflings are living in the rafters of humans houses or some houses have some floors that are divided in two height wise. To me all this is cool, so halflings are cool.




Okay, but this is also true for Goblins, Kobolds, Gnomes, Owlin, Fairies, and a bunch of others. 

I agree that being a small race is an interesting outlook on the world. The other small races give you that PLUS MORE. So if that is all halflings give you, then they are 100% replaced by every other small race


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> The simplest way to respond to your concerns regarding point number 1 is to acknowledge that neither players, nor character races are monolithic. Otherwise, a million drow ranger PCs would have died in the womb or egg or mold.. or however drow procreate..and no players would be playing enthusiastically adventurous halflings. Adventurers who are a bit of a contradiction is kind of the way its expected to work.




Right, but here's the thing. 

A dwarf can go on an adventure for dwarf reasons. An Elf can go on an adventure for elf reasons. An Orc can go on adventure for Orc reasons. 

A halfling has to go on adventure for non-halfling reasons. They were originally written as home-bodies who never want to leave their homes, and then had to be retconned into occassionally leaving their homes. You can say that adventurers break the mold, and you are 100% correct. But having a race that neccessitates you not being like the stereotype of your race to even play the game is something people trip over a lot. And there is no reason for it from a game design perspective. It is just lore getting in the way of the game the lore was designed to support.



Gammadoodler said:


> As for point 2, to put halflings in the lore requires the same amount of effort as any other common race. They may not make empires, and they may be pretty content, but they still _do stuff. _They care for and contribute to their communities, some of which are isolated, and some of which are embedded within a mixed-race environment. So instead of thinking in terms of empires and armies, think in terms of social capital. What things would a race that feels more keenly for their homes than the other races bring to their homes.
> 
> Humans make plans and money, Elves make art and arrows, Dwarves make weapons and armor, Halflings make friends and lunch.




I make friends and lunch. The elves make friends and lunch. The dwarves make friends and lunch. How do I know? Because all races eat and all races have the concept of friendship. 

When I make a community in a game, if I don't explicitly make it a bad or damaged community, then the people in that community care for and contribute to their community. I don't often make communities where that isn't true, because then they aren't really communities. 

And your last question makes no sense. What CAN they bring to their homes if they NEVER LEAVE their homes. I recently went to a family reunion. I met people from my extended family. But none of the people I met are the people who never leave their homes. They are the people who traveled. You can't bring anything home unless you leave, and even if you do leave and bring back, say, a ceramic plate from a foreign country.... so what? It is cool, but when I'm designing a world, I don't design individual families and their stories. I don't care what is in a specific farm families basement, I care about what is the history of why that farm is there and whose in charge of that land, because that's what actually shapes the world so I know what is going on on a macro level. 

I get the little things matter in stories about families, in stories about little things, and in real life stories of our own lives. But no one cares what the Western Settlers had in their breastpocket. They care that the Western Settlers went west and established control of the United States over land that formally belonged to the native people, and led to massive social and geopolitical change. Who the specific farmer who set up a mile from the Mississippi was doesn't matter to telling the larger story. 

And that's the thing that gets so frustrating. The art of world-building is telling the larger story, but people keep insisting that it somehow matters to have people that are never talked about in the context of that story, because those people love their families. I'm glad they love their families, I'm sure they have touching stories about their lives that would be very compelling, but when compiling a history of the world, they don't actually matter.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> They were originally written as home-bodies who never want to leave their homes, and then had to be retconned into occassionally leaving their homes



This is basically your foundation to the idea that halflings don't belong in the game. But it rests on the idea of somehow calling the original inspirations for the halfling a retcon. Halflings from the very start went out on adventures -- they went there and back again.


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## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> This is basically your foundation to the idea that halflings don't belong in the game. But it rests on the idea of somehow calling the original inspirations for the halfling a retcon. Halflings from the very start went out on adventures -- they went there and back again.




The official 5elore of the race says



> Halflings usually set out on the adventurer’s path to defend their communities, support their friends, or explore a wide and wonder-filled world. For them, adventuring is less a career than an opportunity or sometimes a necessity.




2 of the 3 reasons a halfling adventures requires and outside push.  Meaning a halfling wouldn't naturally go adventure and come back unless they had the third reason:  It literally says a normal halfling doesn't see adventuring as a career.

Without wonderlust, a halfling will quit adventuring one the first attacking bad guy is dead or their buddies retire.

Once Evil Dan is dead and Sam the Human retire on his adventuring gold, John the Halfling will likely retire too if he is very halflingy.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 23, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Tell that to Boomer my Lightfoot halfling sorcerer or Doya my ghostwise halfling monk.
> 
> I think they work fine for other classes.



Halfling Fighters and Paladins are a staple, IME. 


Hussar said:


> And yet, STILL they were barely being played.  No competition from masses of other playable races, best choice for one of the most common classes in the game, and they were still not very popular.  I think you're not really helping the case here.



Prove it. 


Minigiant said:


> 50,000 races that aren't all played in multiple tables and aren't all seriously balance or appropriate at multiple tables?
> 
> With the PHB and DMG, the books everyone is supposed to use, Halflings are 7th despite being in the PHB, featured heavily in official and 3rd party art and materials, AND rarely banned.
> 
> It's tied with Half Orcs, a race that moderately gets banned, has a shaky history, and main reason for use mechanically was an exclusivity to STR the race doesn't even have anymore.



You…know that the data people are using is from before Tasha’s, yes? We have no idea what impact it has had on the popularity of different races. 


Minigiant said:


> Any race with that hard a push should be top 4. It's tied for 7th.
> 
> It suggest that if halflings were not promoted that hard, they'd be less popular than Gnomes or VGTE/MOTM's "Exotic" Races.



It suggests no such thing.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, but here's the thing.
> 
> A dwarf can go on an adventure for dwarf reasons. An Elf can go on an adventure for elf reasons. An Orc can go on adventure for Orc reasons.
> 
> ...



Point 1, you go adventuring for character reasons. Halflings aren't somehow immune from,  "goblins killed my grandma" or "I got bored" or a host of other perfectly valid, perfectly halfling(or not) reasons.

Point 2, do you really not see how these were intended to point out the some of the more heightened aspects of the 'common' D&D races? And do you really not read the ways in which halflings value friendship more than the other races (in the same way that dwarves value craftsmanship more than other races, or elves value artistry)? Or is this one of those things where it's inconvenient to your argument, so you chose obtuseness instead?

As far as the things you can bring your home without leaving it..hmm let's think. Taverns, orphanages, meeting halls, bowling alleys, gardens, playgrounds, festivals, fairs, picnics, galleries, hospitals, choirs, carolers, schools, theatres, bakeries, I could go on... You know, like, a lot of the stuff that can make communities nice places to live. 

While the humans are trying to make a buck, the dwarves are sharpening their axes, and the elves are gazing absently into the middle distance, halflings are there to make sure kids get taken care of, the beers are cold, and someone's playing music in the town square.

Nothing in your final two paragraphs was relevant or responsive to my post, so I'm ignoring them.


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## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so halfling could be just Thanos dusted in most settings and it might be years before anyone in the setting noticed?



Given that several of the major long-standing PCs in my current setting are Hobbits, I suspect were I to Thanos-snap them all out of existence I'd be punted from the DM chair posthaste.


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## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?



In LotR The Shire is very difficult to find but Southfarthing Leaf still got out into the world somehow.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Since the typical gamer is a human, they know what a human shopkeeper will do.
> 
> Since a halfling _isn't_ a human, you can actually have them do something inhuman, if you want them to, and it makes sense in-context.



but they lack almost any no humanness they are literally just a short person.


James Gasik said:


> _You follow the directions given to you, finding yourself in an odd, seemingly forgotten corner of the trade district.  The buildings are solidly built, but seem a little dusty, and there is little foot traffic.  A man sits, perched on an old crate, his hat brim covering his eyes as he takes an early afternoon nap, and he only barely seems to notice your passing.
> 
> There it is, a simple, nondescript shop.  It has no name, and the wooden sign hanging above the door simply has a carving showing a mortar and pestle.  You enter, and a small bell attached to the door rings, announcing your arrival.
> 
> ...



I do not expect halflings at all.


Neonchameleon said:


> So what you're saying is that half-elves better fit the tropes that people now want to play than elves do.



no, they are just one of those people who love star-crossed lovers and detailed family histories yet have not figured out that any race can do it.


Neonchameleon said:


> From this school of thought comes the idea that we should kick almost 100% of elves whose story is not about being really old out. Because that's about the only thing they do better than humans.



I do not see your point, really good in one area means you can explore it but does not necessitate it, also you could play a young elf of very old parents thus they have to deal with people very out of sync with everything besides can is not should.
my point is halfling offer nothing at all different from humans in any way that can make things interesting so why have them?


Neonchameleon said:


> And when you make an NPC a halfling you are in general providing one piece of information that you are not providing when you make them human. You are essentially telling the players that this is almost certainly _not_ a retired adventurer who took an arrow to the knee. They may be interesting in other ways (and probably are). And because halfling conveys information that human doesn't it's in some ways actively superior to human as a choice so human _doesn't_ fill the role just as well.



an uninteresting short shopkeeper whose life can at best be a list of happy moments does not add anything as those have no relevance to a story who can be safely robbed as they are fundamentally a nobody.


Neonchameleon said:


> *Is the notion of metaphor alien to you? Halflings are overlooked because they are small and because other than in exceptionally rare cases they do not try not to be overlooked. Partly because it is a defence mechanism. Halflings are so easily overlooked that mechanically lightfoot halflings can hide behind normal sized people despite them being only one size category larger.
> 
> It is a metaphor made manifest. And a metaphor that works. It does not need a deeper reason.*



everyone is overlooked regardless of height it does not work as a defence mechanism against sapient foes, it only works on large predators if you are fast or too small to eat thus it is pointless for the small and overlooked get crushed under the boots of others to pretend otherwise is to believe in five side triangle or married bachelors the ontologically illegal the impossible to conceive off.


Gammadoodler said:


> This last bit is a strange argument. Is the world, our world richer or poorer if a creature most people are unaware of goes extinct?
> 
> That said, per what little lore there is, halflings are embedded within their communities, communities for which, they care very deeply. Communities they work to make better and protect.



the richness of the world does not depend on our awareness only on if the life form is necessary to the wider world, given how halflings are described their absence would take years to even notice.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Ennhh, I don't have a particular need for a race to drive conflict. That's what characters are for.
> 
> I confess, I am unfamiliar with the lore in the D&D novels, so I'm happy to take you at you word with respect to how much has been done with them in the novels (although that does rather undercut your earlier contention about how hard halflings have been pushed without seeing an impact).
> 
> On the other hand, though, I think you cam point to something like Eberron for how halflings can be integrated.



story setting conflict is a great source of party tension and thus RP, happy little thief number 7 million is not reliant nor adds anything more than perhaps the first couple of times, I could give the roll of the halfling in Eberron and then delete halfling with no trouble what so ever.


bedir than said:


> This is basically your foundation to the idea that halflings don't belong in the game. But it rests on the idea of somehow calling the original inspirations for the halfling a retcon. Halflings from the very start went out on adventures -- they went there and back again.



by being coerced the point of them in the lord of the rings setting is to be nobodies which is fine in a book but in a setting of high adventure not so much.


Gammadoodler said:


> Point 1, you go adventuring for character reasons. Halflings aren't somehow immune from,  "goblins killed my grandma" or "I got bored" or a host of other perfectly valid, perfectly halfling(or not) reasons.
> 
> Point 2, do you really not see how these were intended to point out the some of the more heightened aspects of the 'common' D&D races? And do you really not read the ways in which halflings value friendship more than the other races (in the same way that dwarves value craftsmanship more than other races, or elves value artistry)? Or is this one of those things where it's inconvenient to your argument, so you chose obtuseness instead?
> 
> ...



the point is halflings have no things that make them what to adventure that no one else has, they lack a reason all their own.

the second point, those are all fine but not relevant to the game, those would be great in a city builder or farm games but not in a game of quests, killing and doing things that few people ever could.

thirdly if wanted to do those things I literally could, but I won't because community is the largest joke mythical thing I ever heard of, but those are things within my reach thus not the point of having a fantasy game about.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, but this is also true for Goblins, Kobolds, Gnomes, Owlin, Fairies, and a bunch of others.
> 
> I agree that being a small race is an interesting outlook on the world. The other small races give you that PLUS MORE. So if that is all halflings give you, then they are 100% replaced by every other small race



 I certainly agree that in D&D there are too many races with overlapping concepts and I would for example combine halflings and gnomes. But I also don't think that PLUS MORE is always desired and may undermine other parts of the concept. I don't think goliaths would be better it they had wings and could shoot magic lasers from their eyes, even though that would be PLUS MORE. And I think being a small owl person certainly would focus the attention to being and owl rather than on being small. Halflings being rather similar to humans focuses the attention to most obvious difference, the size.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I certainly agree that in D&D there are too many races with overlapping concepts and I would for example combine halflings and gnomes. But I also don't think that PLUS MORE is always desired and may undermine other parts of the concept. I don't think goliaths would be better it they had wings and could shoot magic lasers from their eyes, even though that would be PLUS MORE. And I think being a small owl person certainly would focus the attention to being and owl rather than on being small. Halflings being rather similar to humans focuses the attention to most obvious difference, the size.



size is the problem it needs something else as they are so bland it hurts, I agree to many things can over crowed a race conceptionally but having literally one point is insufficent to build more than a cult following.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> size is the problem it needs something else as they are so bland it hurts, I agree to many things can over crowed a race conceptionally but having literally one point is insufficent to build more than a cult following.



I heard some guy wrote a couple of somewhat popular books with such bland creatures as protagonists. I think they even made some films about them...   

Seriously, this "halflings are boring" is just an opinion. People, stop repeating it like it was a fact; it isn't. That you don't get them doesn't mean that there is anything objectively wrong with them.


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## Paul Farquhar (Jul 23, 2022)

Hussar said:


> This is a race defined by...



Am I the only person who finds the assertion that "a race can be defined by [insert single factor here]" makes them extremely uncomfortable?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I heard some guy wrote a couple of somewhat popular books with such bland creatures as protagonists. I think they even made some films about them...
> 
> Seriously, this "halflings are boring" is just an opinion. People, stop repeating it like it was a fact; it isn't. That you don't get them doesn't mean that there is anything objectively wrong with them.



look just becuse they work in Tolkien's books does not mean they work in all contexts.


Paul Farquhar said:


> Am I the only person who finds the assertion that "a race can be defined by [insert single factor here]" makes them extremely uncomfortable?



it does make my hairs stand on end, but honestly, you can get used to anything.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

If you are a person who thinks Halflings are boring and bland, you're entitled to that opinion.  And it's probably folly to think you could be convinced otherwise.

However, I think you're missing an important point when it comes to creating *characters* in a setting.  Where they come from, what their backgrounds are, is not the most interesting thing about them.  It's where they are going.

Even the Ur (and outdated) examples of Tolkien point this out.  Bilbo was a middle aged rich guy who loved maps, smoking, and eating.  He was a confirmed bachelor who lived in a great big house.  By Halfling standards, he was extremely well off.  He didn't have to work or hold down a job, nor did he have a family to support.

Gandalf conspired to change all that, because he felt Bilbo had more potential than to be a rich idiot with no day job.  And through adversity and hardship, he saw more of the world than any other Hobbit ever had, found hidden depths within himself, and was able to retire again, satisfied that he'd lived a live well lived.

Frodo was the adopted ward of said rich idiot (I'm getting a Batman/Robin vibe now, lol), and he was all set to become Bilbo 2.0, had not the One Ring entered his life.  The adversity and hardships Bilbo faced were nothing compared to what Frodo had to deal with, and in the end, it left him scarred and broken.  He was never a great hero, but he too had become much more than he had started out as (and in some ways, less, too).

Samwise Gamgee was an assistant groundskeeper.  He had simple dreams and simple desires, but he was strong and unbelievably loyal to his friends.  By the end of his story, he *was* a hero, he had proven to be the bravest of all his kind, and he went from a simple guy who loved plants to a noted and celebrated historian.

In all three cases, their origins ultimately were a small part of their stories, the trajectory of which brought out their hidden greatness.

And that's what, to me, Halflings represent.  Hidden gems.  Diamonds in the rough.  Untapped potential.  You look at them and say "what can a Halfling do?".  And then they go out and prove the answer is, literally, *anything*.

To merely dismiss them as "boring and uninspired" strikes me as lacking in imagination.  They are the quintessential Hero from humble beginnings.  Luke Skywalker, strongly evoking the literary "Hero's Journey" starts off as what?  A farm boy who dreams of adventure, but for a singular chain of events, would probably never amounted more than just another man trying to eke out an existence on a harsh world.

All any character, of any race, needs, is that push, to drive them to become more.  And Halflings have all the tools they need to survive adversity.  A little bit of luck in dark places, the ability to hold their ground against supernatural terrors where others may falter- these abilities might not seem exciting, but racial abilities don't have to be- your character is not their race, their class, their ability scores, their feats, or their equipment.  At some point, they are infused with a spark of life that makes them more than the sum of their parts.

And I still find those traits more interesting than "I can make a club in an hour" or "I can hold my breath good!".


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## Oofta (Jul 23, 2022)

I agree with @James Gasik on this one.  Halflings make interesting PCs _because_ everyone expects them to be boring nobodies.  Nobody is surprised by a dwarven fighter or an tiefling warlock.  They're a dime a dozen.  But that little guy that you barely even notice being a hero of the realms?  That's a story to be told!

Besides a lot of people identify with the kid that people overlook, that doesn't particularly stand out.  No they're not the smart and good looking elf, the brash jock half orc.  Nope, they're the quiet ones.  Maybe the ones that play Cubicles and Computers on weekends.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> This is basically your foundation to the idea that halflings don't belong in the game. But it rests on the idea of somehow calling the original inspirations for the halfling a retcon. Halflings from the very start went out on adventures -- they went there and back again.




Right the single, exceptional odd-ball went there then back again. When forced to by a divine wizard and 12 dwarves. 

So, Bilbo went on an adventure, we can even say he counts. Frodo, Sam, Pippen and Merry were chased by great evil and had no choice in the matter, in fact, they basically had this thrust upon them by Bilbo and Gandalf. 

And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right the single, exceptional odd-ball went there then back again. When forced to by a divine wizard and 12 dwarves.
> 
> So, Bilbo went on an adventure, we can even say he counts. Frodo, Sam, Pippen and Merry were chased by great evil and had no choice in the matter, in fact, they basically had this thrust upon them by Bilbo and Gandalf.
> 
> And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.



What about the Tooks, mentioned regularly as wanderers and weirdos?

Also, why does an entire peoples need to adventure?
Insisting that every individual must adventure or it's not a valid race is like insisting that not every horse goes on adventures so they don't belong in D&D. That's horrible world building


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.



You can say the same for 99% of the population of Waterdeep, regardless of race. It's not as if non-halfling races have "full-time professional adventurer" baked into the lore.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Point 1, you go adventuring for character reasons. Halflings aren't somehow immune from,  "goblins killed my grandma" or "I got bored" or a host of other perfectly valid, perfectly halfling(or not) reasons.




I never said they were. But any character can go on an adventure because goblins killed their grandmother. 

It is a very dwarvish thing to go out on an adventure to reclaim the hammer used to forge your ancestral clan's magical axe, to repair it and restore your honor. 

It is a very elvish thing to go out into the world to expand upon your practice of bladesinging. 

Halflings don't really have "halfling" reasons to go on adventures. The closest we get is that they enjoy exoctic spices, but that makes them merchants, not adventurers. They'd be more likely to hire an adventuring party to go into the deep desert to find the spices than they would go themselves. 

I'm not saying "haflling adventurers are impossible!" because they clearly aren't, but none of their adventuring hooks seem tied into their essential halflingness, and many of them are IN SPITE of their halflingness.



Gammadoodler said:


> Point 2, do you really not see how these were intended to point out the some of the more heightened aspects of the 'common' D&D races? And do you really not read the ways in which halflings value friendship more than the other races (in the same way that dwarves value craftsmanship more than other races, or elves value artistry)? Or is this one of those things where it's inconvenient to your argument, so you chose obtuseness instead?




How do they value friendship more than the other races? Dwarves will literally go to war for their friends. Befriend a dwarf and you may well have the aid of their entire clan. How are halflings more than that? What kind of examples do we bring? 

Now, follow that up, how does that help us world-build? Halfings make great friends of the people who did the important things doesn't help us do anything with them on the world stage.



Gammadoodler said:


> As far as the things you can bring your home without leaving it..hmm let's think. Taverns, orphanages, meeting halls, bowling alleys, gardens, playgrounds, festivals, fairs, picnics, galleries, hospitals, choirs, carolers, schools, theatres, bakeries, I could go on... You know, like, a lot of the stuff that can make communities nice places to live.
> 
> While the humans are trying to make a buck, the dwarves are sharpening their axes, and the elves are gazing absently into the middle distance, halflings are there to make sure kids get taken care of, the beers are cold, and someone's playing music in the town square.




Really? "Never have I seen this building before, a tah-vern you call it? Fascinating, no one has ever done this before" has said no one in DnD ever. 

This is literally the problem. You are either saying that halflings are the only reason things like taverns and bakeries and town halls exist, or you are somehow trying to claim that the fact halflings would appreciate these things makes them somehow viable on the world stage. When I am writing the history of the continent, the fact that the town of hobknob has a town hall is just a fact, because of course they do. The fact that halfling towns are nice doesn't matter, every town that I want to be nice is nice. "Is a nice town" doesn't help me in world-building.



Gammadoodler said:


> Nothing in your final two paragraphs was relevant or responsive to my post, so I'm ignoring them.




That seems to be because of this blockage we seem to have between the point being made and people's understanding of it. Lawrence Woolweaver was a nice man. That does nothing to tell us anything about the world and his place in it. But that's what you guys keep insisting for the halflings, "they are nice, and they love their community, isn't that enough?" No, it isn't. Because that is the default state of a group of people. That is the baseline we start from, so having that being the endpoint makes them practically invisible, which makes them hard to utilize.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Halflings don't really have "halfling" reasons to go on adventures. The closest we get is that they enjoy exoctic spices, but that makes them merchants, not adventurers. They'd be more likely to hire an adventuring party to go into the deep desert to find the spices than they would go themselves.



Except in a world where the exotic is trying to bite you, claw you, fireball you -- merchants are quite often adventures (also true for the real world merchants who travelled the Silk Road or sailed for 7 months)


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I certainly agree that in D&D there are too many races with overlapping concepts and I would for example combine halflings and gnomes. But I also don't think that PLUS MORE is always desired and may undermine other parts of the concept. I don't think goliaths would be better it they had wings and could shoot magic lasers from their eyes, even though that would be PLUS MORE. And I think being a small owl person certainly would focus the attention to being and owl rather than on being small. Halflings being rather similar to humans focuses the attention to most obvious difference, the size.




What do goblins have that is the equivalent of wings and magic lasers they shoot from their eyes? 

Yes, if we go hyperbole and EXXXXTRRRRREEEEEMMMEEEE!!!!!!!! Then it gets ridiculous and bad. But here is a counter example. I've made a new race called the digitus. They are medium humanoids that are exactly like humans in every way... except that they have six fingers on each hand. By removing everything else, it really focuses the attention to their obvious difference, the six fingers, right? 

Well... no. Sure, that's interesting, but it doesn't really give us anything to hook into, they are just humans with six fingers. 

Combining halflings and gnomes would work (really, it benefits the halflings far more than the gnomes) but if talking about the halfling in the context of DnD by themselves, the fact that they are small isn't enough anymore. The other races take being small and do something with it. Halflings are just small.


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> This is literally the problem. You are either saying that halflings are the only reason things like taverns and bakeries and town halls exist, or you are somehow trying to claim that the fact halflings would appreciate these things makes them somehow viable on the world stage. When I am writing the history of the continent, the fact that the town of hobknob has a town hall is just a fact, because of course they do. The fact that halfling towns are nice doesn't matter, every town that I want to be nice is nice. "Is a nice town" doesn't help me in world-building.



This points to the difference between us, I think. I don't need everyone to be "viable on the world stage" (if I understand what you mean by that) or big players in the history of the continent to easily incorporate them into a setting. The real world is full of supposedly inconsequential communities full of inconsequential people, but those people have real stories and real lives and more impact on history that is writ large in the books. The wide sweep of history, in my games, is not generally relevant to my players. 

Why ignore the bits of halfling lore that indicate they love discovery of new things (not just exotice spices), that they are welcomed and valued by others, that some travel as a way of life? Why insist that enjoying the comforts of home means they literally never leave that home?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> If you are a person who thinks Halflings are boring and bland, you're entitled to that opinion.  And it's probably folly to think you could be convinced otherwise.
> 
> However, I think you're missing an important point when it comes to creating *characters* in a setting.  Where they come from, what their backgrounds are, is not the most interesting thing about them.  It's where they are going.
> 
> ...




But anyone can go out and do literally anything. Anyone can start from humble beginnings. Luke Skywalker wasn't a halfling. Pug of Crydee wasn't a halfling, he was a kitchen boy.  And heck, both of them were far more humble than a rich bachelor who never had to work a day in his life because he inherited his wealth and could spend his days on maps as a hobby. 

This is why we keep saying "they are just humans" because... that's all they are here. Humans are the one DnD race that isn't defined, they don't have anything particular going for them except some unspecified drive as a racial trait. But the individual human, the *character* can be anything. And many of them do come from humble backgrounds. 

Heck, I wrote a half-elf who came from a humble background. He was left with his father, as his mother was a flighty elf who didn't really want to raise her son. He lived in Neverwinter, grew up during the calamity, joined the town guard, he was just a normal every day person who happened to be a 40 year old man who grew up in Neverwinter during hard times. 

What special abilities did he have from his heritage? A bit more skill than normal, which led to him being a successful detective. That's it. Half-elves don't get special powers either. His mother never even came into the story, DM didn't end up doing anything with it. What did come up was him loving his home city and his wife, a half-orc. 


Look, I get it. "Everyone underestimates halflings" seems appealing. But Giants underestimate everyone shorter than 10 ft tall. Dragons underestimate everyone period. Demons underestimate all mortals. We aren't playing a game where the greatest threats tend to be the mob boss who kicks around the little kid thinking nothing will come of it. Every mortal is underestimated by the immortal evils of the world. And that means that "short and underestimated" isn't enough. They make for great characters in stories, I get that. But when you lay out the tapestry of the world... they don't offer anything.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> What about the Tooks, mentioned regularly as wanderers and weirdos?
> 
> Also, why does an entire peoples need to adventure?
> Insisting that every individual must adventure or it's not a valid race is like insisting that not every horse goes on adventures so they don't belong in D&D. That's horrible world building




Do we ever encounter a single Took in the story? Seriously, I think the Tooks had a reputation, sure, but the only Took I can think of was Merry or Pippin, so... they were forced on an adventure, just like the Baggins and the Gamgees. 

And I'm not saying "every single person must be an adventurer!!" That is obviously stupid. But that is also the entire point. There is an elven seamstress who has never left her home, loves her family and good food, and works to make her community better. She has all the traits of a halfling, but she's an elf. Because the entire thing is "halflings are ordinary people" but by pure logic, every race has ordinary people. For every dwarf that goes on an adventure and expands their horizons, there are a hundred that don't. So, what makes halflings special in having ordinary people? Well, the answer is that they are all ordinary, so then... you need exceptions to make adventurers... just like you have with every other race. And you end up just circling in on yourself. 

But, to be more specific, there are races in DnD that never go out and adventure. Berbalangs come to mind, they never go out on adventures... they also aren't an option to pick to build an adventurer, because they never go out on adventures.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> You can say the same for 99% of the population of Waterdeep, regardless of race. It's not as if non-halfling races have "full-time professional adventurer" baked into the lore.




Exactly my point


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Heck, I wrote a half-elf who came from a humble background. He was left with his father, as his mother was a flighty elf who didn't really want to raise her son. He lived in Neverwinter, grew up during the calamity, joined the town guard, he was just a normal every day person who happened to be a 40 year old man who grew up in Neverwinter during hard times.
> 
> What special abilities did he have from his heritage? A bit more skill than normal, which led to him being a successful detective. That's it. Half-elves don't get special powers either. His mother never even came into the story, DM didn't end up doing anything with it. What did come up was him loving his home city and his wife, a half-orc.



Sounds like a fun character. But if half-elves were erased from your world, you could make this character literally any other race. How the half-elves are represented in the broad tapestry of world history isn't as important as how this character is in the world. (IMO).


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Except in a world where the exotic is trying to bite you, claw you, fireball you -- merchants are quite often adventures (also true for the real world merchants who travelled the Silk Road or sailed for 7 months)




They can be, but they are also quest givers. Or do you have the majority of your merchants strap on armor and follow the party? And halflings aren't known for mercantilism. That could be something to hang off of, if halflings were the race known to be merchants. But they aren't. To the point that I once had people arguing with me that Halflings wouldn't even use coins. 

So, do we want to lean into Halflings being the race of merchants and dealers?


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Exactly my point



I thought your point was that halflings aren't a viable PC race because they don't go on adventures.


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> They can be, but they are also quest givers. Or do you have the majority of your merchants strap on armor and follow the party? And halflings aren't known for mercantilism. That could be something to hang off of, if halflings were the race known to be merchants. But they aren't. To the point that I once had people arguing with me that Halflings wouldn't even use coins.
> 
> So, do we want to lean into Halflings being the race of merchants and dealers?



Why would there be a RACE of merchants?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> If you are a person who thinks Halflings are boring and bland, you're entitled to that opinion.  And it's probably folly to think you could be convinced otherwise.
> 
> However, I think you're missing an important point when it comes to creating *characters* in a setting.  Where they come from, what their backgrounds are, is not the most interesting thing about them.  It's where they are going.
> 
> ...



one can not make a whole race of the hero's journey it does not work in dnd as fundamentally is build differently from lord of the rings it does not work here.

besides they would just get killed at world spawn as what little background they have they do not have a powerful god watching out for them.


Irlo said:


> This points to the difference between us, I think. I don't need everyone to be "viable on the world stage" (if I understand what you mean by that) or big players in the history of the continent to easily incorporate them into a setting. The real world is full of supposedly inconsequential communities full of inconsequential people, but those people have real stories and real lives and more impact on history that is writ large in the books. The wide sweep of history, in my games, is not generally relevant to my players.
> 
> Why ignore the bits of halfling lore that indicate they love discovery of new things (not just exotice spices), that they are welcomed and valued by others, that some travel as a way of life? Why insist that enjoying the comforts of home means they literally never leave that home?



okay if they are fundamentally irrelevant why are they always in the phb when they would more fittingly be placeable in a supplement like the other inconsequential races as to be in the phb is to be the star of the show?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Why would there be a RACE of merchants?



who knows but it is crazy common Proud Merchant Race - TV Tropes


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> one can not make a whole race of the hero's journey it does not work in dnd as fundamentally is build differently from lord of the rings it does not work here.



D&D 5e halflings are not hobbits.


Mind of tempest said:


> besides they would just get killed at world spawn as what little background they have they do not have a powerful god watching out for them.



I don't know what "world spawn" means. But, Yondalla.


Mind of tempest said:


> okay if they are fundamentally irrelevant why are they always in the phb when they would more fittingly be placeable in a supplement like the other inconsequential races as to be in the phb is to be the star of the show?



Because they're well-liked and expected by players, who might have strong feelings about their exclusion? Because characters, not races, are the stars of the show? WotC has conducted a lot of surveys. Even if relatively small numbers of players chose to play halfling characters, those that do might have strong preferences for inclusion while others have low preferences or no opinion about exlcusion.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> This points to the difference between us, I think. I don't need everyone to be "viable on the world stage" (if I understand what you mean by that) or big players in the history of the continent to easily incorporate them into a setting. The real world is full of supposedly inconsequential communities full of inconsequential people, but those people have real stories and real lives and more impact on history that is writ large in the books. The wide sweep of history, in my games, is not generally relevant to my players.
> 
> Why ignore the bits of halfling lore that indicate they love discovery of new things (not just exotice spices), that they are welcomed and valued by others, that some travel as a way of life? Why insist that enjoying the comforts of home means they literally never leave that home?




Because this is what people constantly tell us is the draw of halflings, combined with the fact that many people have expressed it is the problem with halflings. 

I wouldn't say that halflings loving the comfots of home mean they never leave home, but their exaggerated trait that makes them clearly not human is their love of comforts. And they are just like the famous novel series Hobbits, and Hobbits.... never wanted to leave home. 

But, rolling back a bit, why is it they need to be viable on the world stage? Well, it goes back to the purpose of world-building. If I asked you what is going on with the races of Eberron, where do they fit, what could you say? Quite a lot. You have the elves, what they believe and how their island nation is cut off from the world. You have the humans scattered throughout the different kingdoms. You have the gnomes running information across the world. All of this matters because it gives people a snapshot of the place of the races in the world. The orcs live in the Demon Marshes and fight ancient evils with the old ways. Great, that tells me something about them and how they fit into the world, and gives me some general clues of what to expect. 

Now, take a generic fantasy world. You need to explain it to a new player, to get them excited to pick a race and play the game. They know nothing of fantasy. Well, there are a lot of racial options, even just focusing on the PHB you have seven distinct options and you'll probably want to include Aasimar to counter tieflings as a "this goes both ways" sort of thing. So you start explaining everything. And then you get to halflings, and... they are just people. They don't have any special stories. They don't really have any land. They don't really have anything that drives them except a love of comfort and family. And the other part of that is, as a person whose been looking at these other options, I'd immediately ask "Wait, so no one else loves their family?" Well... of course they do. 

So you end up with this blank space... just like humans. Because that's what humans are in DnD, they are the blank space. You have a town and don't know who lives there? Humans. Because they are us, ordinary people with no special abilities or powers. And that is the problem, is because humans fill in the blank space, and the halfling traits are largely universal... there isn't much to tell a new player. They've never done anything, they just... exist. And they feels boring and lazy to build, and it will come across as boring and lazy to most other people, except for those so dyed in fantasy that "isn't special" is what draws them to the race. Which is fine, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem for the rest of us.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Sounds like a fun character. But if half-elves were erased from your world, you could make this character literally any other race. How the half-elves are represented in the broad tapestry of world history isn't as important as how this character is in the world. (IMO).




Sure, I could have done him with any other race. That's the point. Frankly, I picked half-elf because he was a paladin. 

And it wasn't "my world" the DM was running in the Forgotten Realms. But yes, Half-elves being a combination of elves and humans don't have a strong identity separate from humans and elves. You could erase them entirely and nothing changes, because all the story is in humans and elves. 

Now, erase either humans or elves from the Forgotten Realms. Does it even function?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I thought your point was that halflings aren't a viable PC race because they don't go on adventures.




No. 

My point is that halflings are hard to build stories around and world-build with. Part of this is that 99% of every other race is exactly like the steroetypical halfling. They stay at home, love their family and community, and don't want anything to do with facing death every single day. They are... ordinary people. 

So if 99% of every other race is ordinary people, and halflings are the race of ordinary people... then 99% of halflings is in every single race. 



Irlo said:


> Why would there be a RACE of merchants?




Why wouldn't there be? Dwarves are known to be miners and blacksmiths, why not have a race known to travel around buying and selling things?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> D&D 5e halflings are not hobbits.



tell that to the other defenders.


Irlo said:


> I don't know what "world spawn" means. But, Yondalla.



okay, world spawn is when the reality is created and all the gods drop their stuff in to watch what happens.
yondalla did not make them she found them, any amount of basic realism and they die long before they are found by her.


Irlo said:


> D&D 5e halflings are not hobbits.
> 
> I don't know what "world spawn" means. But, Yondalla.
> 
> Because they're well-liked and expected by players, who might have strong feelings about their exclusion? Because characters, not races, are the stars of the show? WotC has conducted a lot of surveys. Even if relatively small numbers of players chose to play halfling characters, those that do might have strong preferences for inclusion while others have low preferences or no opinion about exlcusion.



people will complain about literally everything, I could give them a million dollars and they would ask for more so frankly I do not care about what they think as if halfling makes them cheer then they have no taste.
I was not saying bad them just why should they be phb if they do not matter in any way other than by blind tradition?
a race's backstory and place helps inspire the characters and if they want to make a nobody any race could do it fine.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> They can be, but they are also quest givers. Or do you have the majority of your merchants strap on armor and follow the party? And halflings aren't known for mercantilism. That could be something to hang off of, if halflings were the race known to be merchants. But they aren't. To the point that I once had people arguing with me that Halflings wouldn't even use coins.
> 
> So, do we want to lean into Halflings being the race of merchants and dealers?



They use wagons and canoes to travel regularly per the PHB. It's easier to see a natural role the halfling merchant than any other race.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Luke Skywalker, strongly evoking the literary "Hero's Journey" starts off as what? A farm boy who dreams of adventure, but for a singular chain of events, would probably never amounted more than just another man trying to eke out an existence on a harsh world.



He’s even short!


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But yes, Half-elves being a combination of elves and humans don't have a strong identity separate from humans and elves. You could erase them entirely and nothing changes, because all the story is in humans and elves.



This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the tales of people in two cultures. While their stories are from both of their cultures, their stories are also unique.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> They use wagons and canoes to travel regularly per the PHB. It's easier to see a natural role the halfling merchant than any other race.



that would compromise what people do like about halflings we would never hear the end of it.


bedir than said:


> This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the tales of people in two cultures. While their stories are from both of their cultures, their stories are also unique.



look this might be my null-culture ness talking but I doubt it really matters people everywhere and nearly every when are nearly identical only the details differ and details die off every minute of every day from the way our world is built.


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## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Point 1, you go adventuring for character reasons. Halflings aren't somehow immune from,  "goblins killed my grandma" or "I got bored" or a host of other perfectly valid, perfectly halfling(or not) reasons.



There are also plenty of halfling reasons to go adventuring. The idea that there are elf, dwarf and orc reasons, but not halfling reasons is wrong.

Halfling reason #1: I want to discover new recipes.  I'll bet that there are many of them waiting to be rediscovered in ancient tombs. The ancients liked to eat, too!

Halfling reason #2: I want to test my luck against dangerous monsters. If I come back, I was luckier than they were.  If not, I wasn't.

Halfling reason #3: I'm bored.

Halfling reason #4: I'm curious about what's out there to discover.

Halfling reason #5: I received a vision from my god.

Halfling reason #6: I want to go out and make many new and strange friends!

Halfling reason #7: My name is Indigo Furtoeya, you killed my father, prepare to die!

Halfling reason #8: I'm one of the halfling bad apples and got sent out of the village.

Halfling reason #9: I have halfling wanderlust.


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## Irlo (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> people will complain about literally everything, I could give them a million dollars and they would ask for more so frankly I do not care about what they think as if halfling makes them cheer then they have no taste.



EDIT: 
Since you don't care what people think, I'll leave you be.


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## bedir than (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> look this might be my null-culture ness talking but I doubt it really matters people everywhere and nearly every when are nearly identical only the details differ and details die off every minute of every day from the way our world is built.



If I were to accept this, it would mean that there need be no races in D&D, or even classes, or backgrounds, or really anything, because all stories are the same


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I never said they were. But any character can go on an adventure because goblins killed their grandmother.
> 
> It is a very dwarvish thing to go out on an adventure to reclaim the hammer used to forge your ancestral clan's magical axe, to repair it and restore your honor.
> 
> ...



So, we agree that there are plenty of reasons for halflings to be adventurers. Cool. Problem solved.  Time to retire point 1.

They value friends more in the same way that dwarves values craftsmanship more and elves value art more. When given a choice between

a pile of gold,
a master crafted weapon,
a chance for self expression, and
the friends we met along the way
The halfings are the ones most likely to choose the last option.

As for how that helps you in worldbuilding. Having a race interested in the public good is a good thing. It forces you to think about more than dungeons and castles. It gives you a starting place for factions that have reasons for doing things beyond "more power" or "my god told me to do it". They can be viable on the world stage in the same way that Doctors Without Borders, the Girl Scouts, and the Peace Corps are viable on the world stage.

I'm not saying that halflings are the only ones that can do this. In the same way, I assume, that you aren't saying that dwarves are the only ones that make hammers. But a race more motivated to pursue it is likely to be better at it. Halfling taverns may not be the only taverns, but they should be the best taverns. Similarly with the other institutions noted.

As for the remainder of your post, it seems we disagree on the comparative baseline states of characters in the world.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

Even if "halflings are just humans, but smaller", that makes their success and adventures twice as incredible, no?  Because they have greater odds to overcome.

I would consider Willow Ufgood a Halfling- if he was just a human, I don't think his adventure would be as amazing.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> There are also plenty of halfling reasons to go adventuring. The idea that there are elf, dwarf and orc reasons, but not halfling reasons is wrong.
> 
> Halfling reason #1: I want to discover new recipes.  I'll bet that there are many of them waiting to be rediscovered in ancient tombs. The ancients liked to eat, too!
> 
> ...



1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.
2 that is called being too dumb to live.
3 litterally anything else would also work.
4 every player race has that
5 ditto
6ditto
7 ditto
8most groups bad evil characters
9 that get bred out of you fast in a world of dragons and giants.


Irlo said:


> "Gods drop their stuff in to watch what happens." "Basic realism." Okay?



just because it is fantasy does not mean it has no grounding as without it their would be only an unplayable game, and a weak, small non-magic race of apathetic little weaklings never get found by a god they just get eaten.


Irlo said:


> Very dismissive of you. If we give you a million dollars and remove the halflings from the PHB, will you still ask for more?



well, I might ask for more but no from you as I know how my bread would be buttered and I would see it as an absolute win.


bedir than said:


> If I were to accept this, it would mean that there need be no races in D&D, or even classes, or backgrounds, or really anything, because all stories are the same



given humans can never build a society underground dwarves would still have a role, there are what only 8 stories and honestly that might be pushing it.
your final point is countered by that fact you can change my mind, I went from hating the idea of short races to only disliking the execution which is change is it not?


Gammadoodler said:


> So, we agree that there are plenty of reasons for halflings to be adventurers. Cool. Problem solved.  Time to retire point 1.
> 
> They value friends more in the same way that dwarves values craftsmanship more and elves value art more. When given a choice between
> 
> ...



Halflings do not found faction as they basically care only about them and thiers they are sloth and apathy personified good has to be active and halflings are reactionary by nature.
also, all your faction examples are likely to die off with the century so enduring good is not a trait they have and they are either ineffective or currupt or both so not really good.


James Gasik said:


> Even if "halflings are just humans, but smaller", that makes their success and adventures twice as incredible, no?  Because they have greater odds to overcome.
> 
> I would consider Willow Ufgood a Halfling- if he was just a human, I don't think his adventure would be as amazing.



after a certain point odds do not matter what is the difference between a billion to one or a trillion to one to most people?
who is this willow person?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> Halflings do not found faction as they basically care only about them and thiers they are sloth and apathy personified good has to be active and halflings are reactionary by nature.
> also, all your faction examples are likely to die off with the century so enduring good is not a trait they have and they are either ineffective or currupt or both so not really good.



1. False. 

2. Even assuming you're right about the future trajectories of these organizations, it neither cancels out the good they have done nor has any reflection on analogous fantasy organizations.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> 1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.
> 2 that is called being too dumb to live.
> 3 litterally anything else would also work.
> 4 every player race has that
> ...


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> 1. False.
> 
> 2. Even assuming you're right about the future trajectories of these organizations, it neither cancels out the good they have done nor has any reflection on analogous fantasy organizations.



1 name a halfling faction? not a village, an organisation with goals.
2 fair point.


James Gasik said:


>



okay other than being portrayed by a man with dwarfism how is that a halfling he seems well like any other man just suffering from a genetic disorder.


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## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but they lack almost any no humanness they are literally just a short person.



But they _can _have inhumanness if the player/DM wants them to have it, _because _they're not human.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> But they _can _have inhumanness if the player/DM wants them to have it, _because _they're not human.



okay but it should really be added in as baseline, as removing is far easier than make something work.
second point what inhumanness define some options here?


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## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> 1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.
> 2 that is called being too dumb to live.



You say that like players don't often come up with silly or stupid reasons to adventure and don't often play characters who are too dumb to live.



Mind of tempest said:


> 9 that get bred out of you fast in a world of dragons and giants.



Or gets bred right back into you in a world with _beneficent _dragons and giants.

And by this logic, nobody would ever leave their home, regardless of race, because it would be too dangerous. Instead, we have _adventurers_, who are unusual in their willingness to do so. Halfling adventurers are therefore no different than elf adventurers, human adventurers, hobgoblin adventurers, etc.



Mind of tempest said:


> okay but it should really be added in as baseline, as removing is far easier than make something work.
> second point what inhumanness define some options here?



They're not human, so they're inhumanity is already a baseline.

And what do you mean, what inhumanness? Do you play elves and dwarfs as being exactly like humans and expect them to have all the same likes, dislikes, social mores, and quirks that humans do? If not, then also don't play a halfling exactly like a human. If you do, then don't complain that halflings are just like humans.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You say that like players don't often come up with silly or stupid reasons to adventure and don't often play characters who are too dumb to live.



whilst that does reflect the player base, a race should not be built entirely around being silly it rarely works out.


Faolyn said:


> Or gets bred right back into you in a world with _beneficent _dragons and giants.
> 
> And by this logic, nobody would ever leave their home, regardless of race, because it would be too dangerous. Instead, we have _adventurers_, who are unusual in their willingness to do so. Halfling adventurers are therefore no different than elf adventurers, human adventurers, hobgoblin adventurers, etc.



aside from what the stat blocks say what do the dragons and giants do that is good? at best your their well looked after serf, not a free person.

no logically over time the horror of the world gets brutally killed by warmongering lunatics as they did on earth and true all adventures are nuts but the halflings do not have the traits needed to get to the point they can build communities, they could be remade to but then they would stop being halflings in most ways that matter.


Faolyn said:


> They're not human, so they're inhumanity is already a baseline.
> 
> And what do you mean, what inhumanness? Do you play elves and dwarfs as being exactly like humans and expect them to have all the same likes, dislikes, social mores, and quirks that humans do? If not, then also don't play a halfling exactly like a human. If you do, then don't complain that halflings are just like humans.



given being human is learned not born I do not believe inhumanity as a baseline, the point is they lack well anything inhuman.

no, I do not play elves and dwarves as exact humans but given they have more to work with than halfling who the base inspiration is a metaphor for the average guy so they have almost no inhumanity by design.

show me their inhumanity?


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## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What do goblins have that is the equivalent of wings and magic lasers they shoot from their eyes?
> 
> Yes, if we go hyperbole and EXXXXTRRRRREEEEEMMMEEEE!!!!!!!! Then it gets ridiculous and bad. But here is a counter example. I've made a new race called the digitus. They are medium humanoids that are exactly like humans in every way... except that they have six fingers on each hand. By removing everything else, it really focuses the attention to their obvious difference, the six fingers, right?



And on the inevitable differences such would produce between they and most other species.

Most notably, their entire arithmetic/numeric/math system would almost certainly be base-12 rather than base-10; as would everything in their society that spins off of that.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And on the inevitable differences such would produce between they and most other species.
> 
> Most notably, their entire arithmetic/numeric/math system would almost certainly be base-12 rather than base-10; as would everything in their society that spins off of that.



given my grandma uses a very basic version of base 12 and I use base ten it does not seem utterly alien, it would still need more as a race to get people to pick it.


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## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> My point is that halflings are hard to build stories around and world-build with.



For you, perhaps.  When it comes to building stories and-or worlds I've never had any more problem with Hobbits than with any other species.  Less, perhaps, in one world-building regard: I can stick a community of Hobbits on any random piece of spare farmland on the map, where Elves generally want a forest (also usually easy) and Dwarves want mountains (not always so easy).  I can also make sailors out of Hobbits, not so much for Dwarves or Gnomes.

As for stories, the rationale behind any story arc be rooted in the lore of any species; and while I usually use Human lore/history I could just as easily use Dwarf or Hobbit lore as the underpinning (or Elf, but that's been done to death).

The species that have no real lore or history to call their own are Part-Elves and Part-Orcs, and thus they can (and do) present story and world-building issues; but I don't hear any strident calls for their removal.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

"Being silly" is in the eye of the beholder (no, not you, Xanathar!  Man he has such a big ego).  I might find a race of birdmen who can only speak in prerecorded sound bites to be silly.  Or turtle people.  Or Orcs who have super speed only so long as they are headed towards someone they don't like at the moment.

I think a lot of people play Halflings because they are grounded and relatable in a world of gonzo fantasy.  They aren't giant robot men, or gorilla-armed Bugbears, or even mystical snake people- they don't stand out, and, it would seem, they have less going on for them than the bland, boring regular Humans.

But as it turns out, that's a lie.  Their abilities may not be exciting as being born knowing how to cast _firebolt _or able to wear armor, or fly through the air, but they are just as capable of greatness as anyone else.  They're underdogs in a world of fantasy, and some people like the underdog.

I mean people like to play Fighters, don't they?  : )


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What do goblins have that is the equivalent of wings and magic lasers they shoot from their eyes?



They're "monsters." Even if that wouldn't mean "evil" these days, they're still creepy darkness gremlins, probably widely distrusted. It is pretty much the opposite vibe that the halflings have.


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## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay, world spawn is when the reality is created and all the gods drop their stuff in to watch what happens.
> yondalla did not make them she found them, any amount of basic realism and they die long before they are found by her.



In my lore Hobbits and Orcs arose almost simultaneously, long after most other species and both as ve-ery ancient massive-scale Hobgoblin breeding experiments gone wrong.  Hobbits came from trying to cross Humans with Dwarves, while Orcs were - to quote my own world guide - "a horribly failed attempt to build a better Hobgoblin".  Gruumsh took in the Orcs as his own, while Mimosa* took the Hobbits as hers.

* - my pantheon's very vague equivalent to Yondalla.


Mind of tempest said:


> people will complain about literally everything, I could give them a million dollars and they would ask for more so frankly I do not care about what they think as if halfling makes them cheer then they have no taste.



Er...OK...you just go on thinking that; meanwhile our cheerful little Hobbits will carry on - after, of course, relieving you of anything of value you might be carrying...


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> whilst that does reflect the player base, a race should not be built entirely around being silly it rarely works out.



Race, schmace - I build the entire world on the assumption that silly things will be done, and in this I'm rarely disappointed.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For you, perhaps.  When it comes to building stories and-or worlds I've never had any more problem with Hobbits than with any other species.  Less, perhaps, in one world-building regard: I can stick a community of Hobbits on any random piece of spare farmland on the map, where Elves generally want a forest (also usually easy) and Dwarves want mountains (not always so easy).  I can also make sailors out of Hobbits, not so much for Dwarves or Gnomes.
> 
> As for stories, the rationale behind any story arc be rooted in the lore of any species; and while I usually use Human lore/history I could just as easily use Dwarf or Hobbit lore as the underpinning (or Elf, but that's been done to death).
> 
> The species that have no real lore or history to call their own are Part-Elves and Part-Orcs, and thus they can (and do) present story and world-building issues; but I don't hear any strident calls for their removal.



okay, but what do they do other than be short humans? hells they are less than human as they build no nation or anything big scale, a world of halflings is just agrarian forever.


James Gasik said:


> "Being silly" is in the eye of the beholder (no, not you, Xanathar!  Man he has such a big ego).  I might find a race of birdmen who can only speak in prerecorded sound bites to be silly.  Or turtle people.  Or Orcs who have super speed only so long as they are headed towards someone they don't like at the moment.
> 
> I think a lot of people play Halflings because they are grounded and relatable in a world of gonzo fantasy.  They aren't giant robot men, or gorilla-armed Bugbears, or even mystical snake people- they don't stand out, and, it would seem, they have less going on for them than the bland, boring regular Humans.
> 
> ...



no kenku are impractical to play as not being able to speak or be creative is horrible to play and drives them to extinction they also need a better explanation of what they were?

look the grounded and relatable one in dnd is the human, this is not lord of the rings where humans are all larger than life.
I am not saying they have to be gonzo just more than short presents who do not do anything, plus who made anthropomorphic animals gonzo its so old I have no idea where it came from as a concept.

one can not have a race of underdogs, no more than you can have a nation of kings it breaks the laws of nature, only individuals can be underdogs, at most a sub-culture.


Lanefan said:


> In my lore Hobbits and Orcs arose almost simultaneously, long after most other species and both as ve-ery ancient massive-scale Hobgoblin breeding experiments gone wrong.  Hobbits came from trying to cross Humans with Dwarves, while Orcs were - to quote my own world guide - "a horribly failed attempt to build a better Hobgoblin".  Gruumsh took in the Orcs as his own, while Mimosa* took the Hobbits as hers.
> 
> * - my pantheon's very vague equivalent to Yondalla.
> 
> Er...OK...you just go on thinking that; meanwhile our cheerful little Hobbits will carry on - after, of course, relieving you of anything of value you might be carrying...



so you cross humans with dwarves and get an apathetic nobody who sits around and smokes and eats all day, that defies hybrid vigour which is common in most half-entites.
why did they keep making more after the first time?


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

It's not that Halflings are underdogs, it's that people tend to see them as such, in and out of universe.

And what's so relatable about humans?  The fact that we are humans? Forgive me if I find that extremely boring in a fantasy game.  Look, I can roleplay being myself in a fantasy world!  It's like the last 10 years of anime combined!  

They're the most boring, bland race imaginable.  No special abilities to speak of, they can't see in the dark, they don't do *anything *special of note, and the only reason they have a strong place in a setting is because the game developers say so.  It would be trivial to point at other races that should be more successful than humans.

+1 to all stats is really kind of meh, since few characters are going to be able to get mileage out of that.  Unless you want to talk about Variant Humans, who lean on an optional game element that, depending on who you talk to, can be seen as busted and unbalanced.

It'd be like making a race that starts off with a free magic item at level 1, lol.


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## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

I thought the whole question was not about Halfling PCs but Halflimgs NPCs.

Because PCs are all weirdos.

But Halfling NPCs and Halfling enemies...


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It's not that Halflings are underdogs, it's that people tend to see them as such, in and out of universe.
> 
> And what's so relatable about humans?  The fact that we are humans? Forgive me if I find that extremely boring in a fantasy game.  Look, I can roleplay being myself in a fantasy world!  It's like the last 10 years of anime combined!
> 
> ...



personally, I assume humans thrive out of a mix of being largely adaptable and the shire verity of gods who have an interest in seeing them prosper, I assume humans have no creation copy right as the other races do.

on distancing otherworld fantasy anime or isakai we are in complete agreement.


Minigiant said:


> I thought the whole question was not about Halfling PCs but Halflimgs NPCs.
> 
> Because PCs are all weirdos.
> 
> But Halfling NPCs and Halfling enemies...



Halflings can't be enemies, they would have to be more than total slackers for them to even grow the drive to be antagonistic.


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## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> whilst that does reflect the player base, a race should not be built entirely around being silly it rarely works out.



So wait, a race where a few members go forth and adventure for the same reasons that a few members of other races adventure is silly? 

That makes no sense. It's like saying humans are a joke race because some humans go adventuring for silly races.



Minigiant said:


> aside from what the stat blocks say what do the dragons and giants do that is good? at best your their well looked after serf, not a free person.



That's up to the DM. If you choose to not have good-aligned giants or dragons do good things, that's on you, not the game.



Minigiant said:


> no logically over time the horror of the world gets brutally killed by warmongering lunatics as they did on earth and true all adventures are nuts but the halflings do not have the traits needed to get to the point they can build communities, they could be remade to but then they would stop being halflings in most ways that matter.



Humans don't have the traits needed to build communities. So I guess they don't make sense to you either? 



Minigiant said:


> given being human is learned not born I do not believe inhumanity as a baseline, the point is they lack well anything inhuman.



What? Human is a race, not a culture, class, or skill. You're not making sense.



Minigiant said:


> no, I do not play elves and dwarves as exact humans but given they have more to work with than halfling who the base inspiration is a metaphor for the average guy so they have almost no inhumanity by design.
> 
> show me their inhumanity?



Sure. Halflings are one of only two races to create cities, mint coins, grow and drink tea, and engage in wide-spread agriculture and aquaculture, whereas humans are stuck in small villages at best, use hacksilver for money, and rely on small-scale agriculture, hunting, and gathering.

Oh, wait, that's in my world. Because I spent a few minutes thinking about halflings and took their known traits, and made them interesting and different from humans.

If you don't have them be different in your world, that's on you.


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## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> Halflings can't be enemies, they would have to be more than total slackers for them to even grow the drive to be antagonistic



Halflimgs can be enemies.

The probl is they duck as them

I have a criminal organization in my setting with one of the head families being Halflings. The gang founder was best friends with a halfing and the two families are partners in crime.

But halflings enemies are #$&@.

They die before Lucky procs.
PCs don't use fear effects often.
And hiding within human spaces scream 2 for 1 Fireball Special.

And roleplay, they are just another crime family. But weaker.


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## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflimgs can be enemies.
> 
> The probl is they duck as them
> 
> ...



I would just not be beholden to the rules for PC's when I build Halfling enemies.  I'd give them a lucky power that directly applies to combat if I wanted (call it "Lucky Escape", in the case of a recurring nemesis), and give them advantage on Wisdom and Charisma saves...call it, "Resist Corruption".

In 5e, player rules =/= monster rules.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

For an example of what I mean, let's look at a PC race, then a monster who belongs to that race:




And then...




As you can see, the Iron Shadow doesn't have Martial Training or Saving Face at all!


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> So wait, a race where a few members go forth and adventure for the same reasons that a few members of other races adventure is silly?
> 
> That makes no sense. It's like saying humans are a joke race because some humans go adventuring for silly races.



name a *unique* *halfling-based* motivation that is not based on humour for adventure?
not saying a silly reason makes a silly race but if only silly options exist for that race then clearly the race is humour based.


Faolyn said:


> That's up to the DM. If you choose to not have good-aligned giants or dragons do good things, that's on you, not the game.



that was not my point, I meant what have the dragons and giants done that is good for non selfish reasons? I can't find any.


Faolyn said:


> Humans don't have the traits needed to build communities. So I guess they don't make sense to you either?



no humans are well known for brutally changing their environment to their life style and are known for being rather hard to kill off, it would be a struggle but we might get to the point of building cities, halflings not so much as they are not even built well for anything.



Faolyn said:


> What? Human is a race, not a culture, class, or skill. You're not making sense.



what most people mean by being human is taught you learn it, if you do not you can end up very odd do you not know of feral children? I was discussing the nature of humanity and thus inhumanity by proxy.


Faolyn said:


> Sure. Halflings are one of only two races to create cities, mint coins, grow and drink tea, and engage in wide-spread agriculture and aquaculture, whereas humans are stuck in small villages at best, use hacksilver for money, and rely on small-scale agriculture, hunting, and gathering.
> 
> Oh, wait, that's in my world. Because I spent a few minutes thinking about halflings and took their known traits, and made them interesting and different from humans.



so in order to make halfling impactful and powerful, you a) made humans suck and b) removed the nature of halflingness replacing them with a form of a human who happens to be short, this is a counterpoint to halflings just being short humans how?

Do you assume I have a world?


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I would just not be beholden to the rules for PC's when I build Halfling enemies.  I'd give them a lucky power that directly applies to combat if I wanted (call it "Lucky Escape", in the case of a recurring nemesis), and give them advantage on Wisdom and Charisma saves...call it, "Resist Corruption".
> 
> In 5e, player rules =/= monster rules.



Oh I changed it after the party stomped out the first group of halfling gangsters.

I gave them luck points and other stuff.
*
didn't help*

What makes halfling good PCs is exactly what makes them bad enemies.
Halflings are good at stuff only PCs deal with often (fear, multiple saves, hiding in groups, poison) and weak at stuff monsters use (high damage, high speed, AOE)


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Oh I changed it after the party stomped out the first group of halfling gangsters.
> 
> I gave them luck points and other stuff.
> 
> ...



Wouldn't that follow for most PC races?


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Wouldn't that follow for most PC races?



that is an interesting question?


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 23, 2022)

I mean, what makes a Human a better enemy?  Heavy weapons?  I could take this guy here, make him a Halfling, and he...loses some speed.  That's it.




In fact, to my amusement, he's even already *Brave*!


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> 1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.



For a race that's literally braver than just about any other?  Of course it is!  For some at least.  The rest don't become adventurers.


Mind of tempest said:


> 2 that is called being too dumb to live.



So an adventurer.


Mind of tempest said:


> 3 litterally anything else would also work.



But it's racially hafling. 


Mind of tempest said:


> 4 every player race has that



But it's racially halfling. The other races don't have it as a *racial* trait.


Mind of tempest said:


> 5 ditto



Ditto.


Mind of tempest said:


> 6ditto



Ditto.


Mind of tempest said:


> 7 ditto



Okay.  You got me here.  I just wanted to make a Princess Bride joke and slipped that one in.


Mind of tempest said:


> 8most groups bad evil characters



But my example was.................................racially halfling.


Mind of tempest said:


> 9 that get bred out of you fast in a world of dragons and giants.



Not if you're a halfling with..................................that racial trait.

I mean, when you get down to it any race has individuals that can go adventuring for reasons that are racial to dwarves, halflings, ogres, orcs, elves, or whatever.  We're talking about these because they are *RACIAL* and appear far more often among halflings that other races.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Wouldn't that follow for most PC races?



Dwarves, dragonborn, elves, and tirflings make great enemies on a racial standpoint as their racials still translate as NPCs and enemies.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> name a *unique* *halfling-based* motivation that is not based on humour for adventure?



Racial wanderlust. And since most gaming worlds don't have natural selection (which doesn't select against individuals, anyway), at least not as a driving cause of evolution, there's no reason to assume that going forth and wandering is any more dangerous to a halfling--who can learn to fight or cast spells as well as anyone--than it would be to a human.

Remember: the gods created halflings to have wanderlust. They didn't evolve with it.



Mind of tempest said:


> that was not my point, I meant what have the dragons and giants done that is good for non selfish reasons? I can't find any.



If they have a Good alignment, then they do Good things for non-selfish reasons.



Mind of tempest said:


> no humans are well known for brutally changing their environment to their life style and are known for being rather hard to kill off, it would be a struggle but we might get to the point of building cities, halflings not so much as they are not even built well for anything.



Halflings don't build huge cities. They build hidden, mostly-underground warrens. Halflings are excellantly suited for suited for such an environment.



Mind of tempest said:


> what most people mean by being human is taught you learn it, if you do not you can end up very odd do you not know of feral children? I was discussing the nature of humanity and thus inhumanity by proxy.



Most cases of feral children are myths (particularly in the cases of children raised by animals) or the result of extreme abuse, and usually a combination of both. Those are outliers. And humans are, quite frankly, born to be human.



Mind of tempest said:


> so in order to make halfling impactful and powerful, you a) made humans suck and b) removed the nature of halflingness replacing them with a form of a human who happens to be short, this is a counterpoint to halflings just being short humans how?



So because the humans don't have big cities and have a lower level of technology, they must suck? Wow.

Anyway, you wanted to know what made them different than humans. That's how. Is it somehow better if the humans have the big cities and all the other races are low-tech? It certainly seems less imaginative to me.



Mind of tempest said:


> Do you assume I have a world?



If you run a game, you have a world.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> For a race that's literally braver than just about any other?  Of course it is!  For some at least.  The rest don't become adventurers.



you rarely find things that are particularly edible in a goblin fort that is not in the surrounding area and is also not made of goblins but eating people is evil so that makes it irrelevant.


Maxperson said:


> So an adventurer.



there is a legal difference between something risky and being too dumb to live.


Maxperson said:


> But it's racially hafling.



bored is not a racial trait, it is a state of mind normally solvable in a way that is not high-risk high reward.


Maxperson said:


> But it's racially halfling. The other races don't have it as a *racial* trait.
> 
> Ditto.
> 
> Ditto.



when have any of those been halfling racial traits?


Maxperson said:


> But my example was.................................racially halfling.



evil play characters get vetoed a lot so unreliable.


Maxperson said:


> Not if you're a halfling with..................................that racial trait.



wanderlust without large groups and a lot of metal coating you does not work well in a land where everything is out to kill you, magic would help but a magic halfling is just a gnome.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I mean, what makes a Human a better enemy?  Heavy weapons?  I could take this guy here, make him a Halfling, and he...loses some speed.  That's it.
> 
> View attachment 254991
> In fact, to my amusement, he's even already *Brave*!


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 23, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I mean, what makes a Human a better enemy?  Heavy weapons?  I could take this guy here, make him a Halfling, and he...loses some speed.  That's it.
> 
> View attachment 254991
> In fact, to my amusement, he's even already *Brave*!



Humans are better because halflings mechanically are a downgrade.

If you use custom halfling stuff, you then also open up Vuman feats which then are greater upgrades.

That's the issue. Lorewise and mechanically, halflings as Non-PCs are just Human peasant Non-PCs but weaker and smaller.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Racial wanderlust. And since most gaming worlds don't have natural selection (which doesn't select against individuals, anyway), at least not as a driving cause of evolution, there's no reason to assume that going forth and wandering is any more dangerous to a halfling--who can learn to fight or cast spells as well as anyone--than it would be to a human.
> 
> Remember: the gods created halflings to have wanderlust. They didn't evolve with it.



a) if we stop having natural selection nature would have to be built in a fashion that is unrecognisable to us.
b) they literally were not made by any known god they were found it says so in both MtoF and the super old book on halflings and gnomes so your point fails unless you want to go to 4e for some reason.


Faolyn said:


> If they have a Good alignment, then they do Good things for non-selfish reasons.



I am not arguing that, I am arguing the distinct lack of them having *examples* of good behaviour.


Faolyn said:


> Halflings don't build huge cities. They build hidden, mostly-underground warrens. Halflings are excellantly suited for suited for such an environment.



so why not make them rabbit people then?


Faolyn said:


> Most cases of feral children are myths (particularly in the cases of children raised by animals) or the result of extreme abuse, and usually a combination of both. Those are outliers. And humans are, quite frankly, born to be human.



fair but an outlier does not make something untrue, the fastest man alive is an outlier does not stop them from being a viable example.


Faolyn said:


> So because the humans don't have big cities and have a lower level of technology, they must suck? Wow.
> 
> Anyway, you wanted to know what made them different than humans. That's how. Is it somehow better if the humans have the big cities and all the other races are low-tech? It certainly seems less imaginative to me.



first literally yes, personally I consider anything less than a type 9 civilization an example of sucking and given a type three is galactic I have a very low opinion of all human societies but there are degrees of sucking and not even having one city is very sucky indeed.

secondly, you made them different from humans but switched roll with humanity, not showing their non-human traits thus your example is not a counter to the basic point that halflings are just short humans, why have halflings when I could just add the option to be short for humans?


Faolyn said:


> If you run a game, you have a world.



ah but there lies the problem I do not run games.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> a) if we stop having natural selection nature would have to be built in a fashion that is unrecognisable to us.



You mean like a world filled with vicious, intelligent carnivores that regularly break the laws of physics and that don't have nearly enough prey animals to feed on?



Mind of tempest said:


> b) they literally were not made by any known god they were found it says so in both MtoF and the super old book on halflings and gnomes so your point fails unless you want to go to 4e for some reason.



So? Are you claiming that, unlike every other race in D&D, they are unique in that they evolved?



Mind of tempest said:


> I am not arguing that, I am arguing the distinct lack of them having *examples* of good behaviour.



So there are no good-aligned creatures in your world?



Mind of tempest said:


> so why not make them rabbit people then?



Because they hadn't. If you want to have harenegons in your setting instead of halflings, go ahead.



Mind of tempest said:


> fair but an outlier does not make something untrue, the fastest man alive is an outlier does not stop them from being a viable example.



But it does mean you can't complain that an entire race isn't as fast as the fastest person, or that the presence of feral children somehow means that halflings are humans, or whatever your point was.



Mind of tempest said:


> first literally yes, personally I consider anything less than a type 9 civilization an example of sucking and given a type three is galactic I have a very low opinion of all human societies but there are degrees of sucking and not even having one city is very sucky indeed.



Well, that's definitely a you problem then. Why do you even play D&D? There are no galactic civilizations in it, even when you bring Spelljammer into account.



Mind of tempest said:


> secondly, you made them different from humans but switched roll with humanity, not showing their non-human traits thus your example is not a counter to the basic point that halflings are just short humans, why have halflings when I could just add the option to be short for humans?



Because I didn't want a "race of short humans." I wanted a race of halflings. I wanted a world where humans existed but weren't dominant, or at least don't have huge cities, and I didn't want elves, orcs, or tieflings to have large cities either. And dwarfs live underground so nobody cares about their cities.

You seem to be comparing my halflings to some platonic standard of D&D humanity, as if all game races must be treated identically or somehow "better" than the standard. and that's not how things work. Halflings aren't humans, and one world's humans aren't always going to be like another world's humans.



Mind of tempest said:


> ah but there lies the problem I do not run games.



So then what's your problem? You're not even running your own game or building your own worlds, so why are you complaining about the worldbuilding.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Humans are better because halflings mechanically are a downgrade.
> 
> If you use custom halfling stuff, you then also open up Vuman feats which then are greater upgrades.
> 
> That's the issue. Lorewise and mechanically, halflings as Non-PCs are just Human peasant Non-PCs but weaker and smaller.



Except for not having to spend a feat on being Lucky and Brave and Sneaky or being Poison-Resistant.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> you rarely find things that are particularly edible in a goblin fort that is not in the surrounding area and is also not made of goblins but eating people is evil so that makes it irrelevant.



You rarely find an ancient goblin tomb, either.  But that's not really the point.  The point is that these recipes are out there and many of them would be taken down in books buried with people of various races. Hell, even goblins like veggies with their meat and would have some stuff that tasted good.


Mind of tempest said:


> there is a legal difference between something risky and being too dumb to live.



Show me that law.  I'm curious to see how the local government wrote it down and what the penalty for being too dumb to live is.


Mind of tempest said:


> bored is not a racial trait, it is a state of mind normally solvable in a way that is not high-risk high reward.



It's a racial trait for halflings who seem to have built in ADHD.


Mind of tempest said:


> when have any of those been halfling racial traits?



Okay, #5 isn't a racial trait, but their racial closeness with their gods makes it more likely than most traces that a halfling adventurer would have that reason for going out.

#4 and #6 are absolutely racial.

The racial write up has an entire section entitled "Friendly to a Fault" and halfling curiosity is legendary.


Mind of tempest said:


> evil play characters get vetoed a lot so unreliable.



This depends on the table.  I've been at tables were there was no evil and at tables where evil was just fine.  Probably 35/65 in favor if evil being allowed.  Individual table rules, though, have no bearing on whether or not it's a valid racial reason for adventuring.


Mind of tempest said:


> wanderlust without large groups and a lot of metal coating you does not work well in a land where everything is out to kill you, magic would help but a magic halfling is just a gnome.



Everything isn't out to kill you.  PC adventurers encounter an very abnormally high number of monsters.  If the PC adventurer monster encounter rate was typical of the rest of the world at large, everyone and everything would be dead.  There would be no civilization, because monsters would have eaten it long ago.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Do we ever encounter a single Took in the story? Seriously, I think the Tooks had a reputation, sure, but the only Took I can think of was Merry or Pippin, so... they were forced on an adventure, just like the Baggins and the Gamgees.



It was Pippin, otherwise known as Peregrine Took.  He also was not forced onto the adventure.  He immediately insisted on joining Frodo and Sam when he found out that they were leaving the Shire.  Merry was his cousin, so there was probably tookish blood in him as well.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Why would there be a RACE of merchants?



The Mercane from Spelljammer were/are a race of merchants.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 23, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You rarely find an ancient goblin tomb, either.  But that's not really the point.  The point is that these recipes are out there and many of them would be taken down in books buried with people of various races. Hell, even goblins like veggies with their meat and would have some stuff that tasted good.



my point is they would simply go to cities as a tourist or trader as that is simply more practical.


Maxperson said:


> Show me that law.  I'm curious to see how the local government wrote it down and what the penalty for being too dumb to live is.



it would be under psychology rather than true law but the point still stands.


Maxperson said:


> It's a racial trait for halflings who seem to have built in ADHD.
> 
> Okay, #5 isn't a racial trait, but their racial closeness with their gods makes it more likely than most traces that a halfling adventurer would have that reason for going out.



no that is gnomes.

orcs also have this perhaps they are secretly a lost kind of orc?


Maxperson said:


> Everything isn't out to kill you.  PC adventurers encounter an very abnormally high number of monsters.  If the PC adventurer monster encounter rate was typical of the rest of the world at large, everyone and everything would be dead.  There would be no civilization, because monsters would have eaten it long ago.



that depends on the world-building and you know it.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> 1 name a halfling faction? not a village, an organisation with goals.
> 2 fair point.
> 
> okay other than being portrayed by a man with dwarfism how is that a halfling he seems well like any other man just suffering from a genetic disorder.



The *Alliance of Belt Watchers* was a military organization in Damara in the Bloodstone Lands in 1359 DR. It was a group of three races who formed an interesting pact. The Alliance gathered all the dwarves and the halflings of the Barony of Bloodstone, later joined also by the centaurs.

*Arvoreen's Marchers* was a knightly order of Arvoreen dedicated to the protection of Tethyr and the elimination of the lands' monsters. They were highly respected amongst both the Hin and Tethyrians alike. The Marchers consisted of primarily halfling paladins, though there were some gnomes within their ranks.

The *Kneebreakers* were a vigilante organization in Damara in 1359 DR. The Kneebreakers were a group of young halflings riding war-pigs in search of a thrill in their peaceful existence. They were a group of able warriors who had no problem with retreating if the situation went wrong.

*The Twelve Short Adventurers* was a popular circus troupe that traveled across the Sea of Swords and throughout the Nelanther Isles, hosting lavish and imaginative performances to thunderous applause, sometime before 1372 DR.

The *warders* were a loose military order based in or around the halfling cities of Luiren. A particularly large troop of warders found in Beluir was composed of 400 halflings who were all elite specialists with the sling.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> name a *unique* *halfling-based* motivation that is not based on humour for adventure?



There are no unique motivations.  For any race.  There are motivations that halflings adventurers will have in much higher rates than other races, though.  Those are the racial traits I mentioned.  It's the same with every other race.  Their traits will have their adventurers with certain motivations that occur in higher frequencies than other races, and those will correspond with their racial traits.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> my point is they would simply go to cities as a tourist or trader as that is simply more practical.



Most would, yes.  Some would become adventurers and go further and farther in search of those recipes.


Mind of tempest said:


> it would be under psychology rather than true law but the point still stands.



Not really.  Halflings are not human, despite appearances and arguments in this thread.  Their psychology is not our psychology.


Mind of tempest said:


> no that is gnomes.



Gnomes are tinkerers.  Halflings flit around from one idea to the next as their curiosity and innocence pulls them in different directions.  Eventually some will get bored.


Mind of tempest said:


> orcs also have this perhaps they are secretly a lost kind of orc?



Sure.


Mind of tempest said:


> that depends on the world-building and you know it.



No.  It's the default.  The DM would have to world build a setting that currently does not exist in D&D that made monsters so numerous that every man, woman and child was encounters 5-7 of them on an adventuring daily basis, and then wipe out the world due to it.

As the default of D&D currently stands, monsters are not that prevalent and it's only the PCs and special NPCs that the DM sets up, that hit so many of them.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 23, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> my point is they would simply go to cities as a tourist or trader as that is simply more practical.



Well, maybe that's why they adventure. They want to visit far-off lands, meet exotic people, and kill them and take their stuff.



Mind of tempest said:


> it would be under psychology rather than true law but the point still stands.



It's not a psychological law, either. There's no psychological or biological law of being "smart enough to live."



Mind of tempest said:


> that depends on the world-building and you know it.



If you have a world where everything is literally out to kill you, you'd _still _have halfling adventurers, because not all of them are willing to hang around at home and wait to be eaten.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> look the grounded and relatable one in dnd is the human, this is not lord of the rings where humans are all larger than life.



Your 5th edition PCs _aren't_ larger than life? The majority of them _aren't _capable of magic from level one or at least level 2? The raging barbarians _can't_ shrug off blows that would fell a normal man? The fighter and rogue are both faster than life (action surge, cunning action) from level 2 while the druid can turn into animals.

D&D PCs are, pretty much without exception, larger than life from at least level 2 onwards. Notoriously Dragon Magazine printed something in 1977 claiming that Gandalf was only a fifth level magic user - and D&D full casters are a lot more magical and a lot larger than life oD&D casters. D&D characters are not only larger than life, they are larger than the lives of the Lord of the Rings main characters.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Your 5th edition PCs _aren't_ larger than life? The majority of them _aren't _capable of magic from level one or at least level 2? The raging barbarians _can't_ shrug off blows that would fell a normal man? The fighter and rogue are both faster than life (action surge, cunning action) from level 2 while the druid can turn into animals.
> 
> D&D PCs are, pretty much without exception, larger than life from at least level 2 onwards. Notoriously Dragon Magazine printed something in 1977 claiming that Gandalf was only a fifth level magic user - and D&D full casters are a lot more magical and a lot larger than life oD&D casters. D&D characters are not only larger than life, they are larger than the lives of the Lord of the Rings main characters.



I mean on the collective not the individual, plus if everyone is then no one is.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I mean on the collective not the individual, plus if everyone is then no one is.



Right. And halfling adventurers are different from halfling NPCs because they are larger than life.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflimgs can be enemies.
> 
> The probl is they duck as them
> 
> ...



The problem isn't with halflings. It's your tactics when running a crime family. Essentially you are doing the equivalent of saying "wizards suck" and then presenting as evidence that a wizard got beaten up in melee when they attacked using Greenflame Blade (and weren't a bladesinger). Which ... yes a wizard will. That doesn't mean that the wizard sucks.

First the "2 for 1 fireball special" - are your PCs such murderous bastards that they will kill innocent people and depopulate entire towns? Sounds like they are the criminals then and it should be the Guard dealing with them. If the Lightfoot Halfling ability to hide behind larger creatures is used properly then they go into a non-criminal crowd and you lose them in a way you don't lose other criminals. So either you can fireball the _entire market_ or you can hope to get lucky. And of course the halfling is moving at full speed through the bustling market - being able to move through the squares of anyone medium sized or larger whether hostile or not. Halflings in dense urban environments can easily get away in ways other races can't. It's a subtler package but for a crime family in an urban environment it rivals the goblin's ability to hide as a minor action.

And then there's the halfling burglar and assassin. Halflings (and for that matter goblins) being small can squeeze through tiny spaces - and tiny is the lowest size class in D&D 5e. And for that matter halflings can climb as well as almost any other race (realistically, of course, they should be able to outclimb most people because they have about the same strength and a much better power to weight ratio. (Square-cube relationships come into play).

This of course has an impact on halfling hideouts and halflings as smugglers. They can get through tiny gaps. If you're not a halfling, kobold, goblin, fairy, or size or shape changer or otherwise inherently small or smaller you're not getting in there.

Oh, and finally there's the lucky (or, more accurately _not unlucky_ trait). Things just don't go wrong for the halfling organisation quite as much as for anyone else - they are protected against natural 1s. Surely you don't think that luck only matters when the PCs are on the scene.

So you have a criminal organisation that can (a) get where humans, elves, dwarfs, half-elves, half-orcs, tieflings, and dragonborn can't, (b) get away where humans and the other PHB races (even including gnomes this time) can't, and (c) the members of which aren't taken as major threats or considered hostile by many. And who don't get fate dumping on their plans as much as other people. And yet you couldn't think of one single way that they might be one of the more effective criminal organisations in a town or any area of crime they might come to dominate. I'm afraid that that's completely on you.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay, but what do they do other than be short humans?



What else do they need to do?

Or flip it around: what do Humans do other than just be tall Hobbits?


Mind of tempest said:


> so you cross humans with dwarves and get an apathetic nobody who sits around and smokes and eats all day, that defies hybrid vigour which is common in most half-entites.
> why did they keep making more after the first time?



They didn't.  The ones they did make started reproducing on their own, and away we went.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> The problem isn't with halflings. It's your tactics when running a crime family. Essentially you are doing the equivalent of saying "wizards suck" and then presenting as evidence that a wizard got beaten up in melee when they attacked using Greenflame Blade (and weren't a bladesinger). Which ... yes a wizard will. That doesn't mean that the wizard sucks.
> 
> First the "2 for 1 fireball special" - are your PCs such murderous bastards that they will kill innocent people and depopulate entire towns? Sounds like they are the criminals then and it should be the Guard dealing with them. If the Lightfoot Halfling ability to hide behind larger creatures is used properly then they go into a non-criminal crowd and you lose them in a way you don't lose other criminals. So either you can fireball the _entire market_ or you can hope to get lucky. And of course the halfling is moving at full speed through the bustling market - being able to move through the squares of anyone medium sized or larger whether hostile or not. Halflings in dense urban environments can easily get away in ways other races can't. It's a subtler package but for a crime family in an urban environment it rivals the goblin's ability to hide as a minor action.
> 
> ...



You're  bit overthinking the premise.

My point is that halfling racial traits are mostly hard to use as NPCs and enemies and sometimes negative for enemies.


*Ability Score Increase DEX+2.* OK. This is good. DEX is a great stat and boost offence defense and utility.
*Small Size.* Mosy negative. Restricts NPC weapon choices. Keeps with finding hiding spots but with "Hide as a bonus Action" you can only do it once.
*Speed Down.* Pure Negative.
*Lucky.*Takes 20 rolls to trigger. NPCs without names and not solos don't get 20 rolls.
Change to *Luck Point* Okay Decent. Allows a reroll of a hit or reroll vs a AOE

*Brave.*Mostly useless. PCs don't use fear often and not every class has access to it.
Change to *Wisdom Saving Throw Bonus* Much better.

*Halfling Nimbleness *Again mostly useless for NPCs
Change to* Hide as Bonus Action *Okay Good stuff.

*Ability Score Increase CHA +1.* If the halfling isn't a spellcaster, they mostly won't be able to use this. CHA saving throws are rare.
*Naturally Stealthy.* Firecall Bait. Use of this typiclly requires crowding with other medium sized allies. Good for PCs as monsters don't all have AOE. But bad for monsters as PCs often have AOE.
*Ability Score Increase CON +1.* Ok. Nice. Adds a few HPs.
*Stout Resilience. *Poison is already a bad resist as PCs tend to shy away from it as many monsters are immune. But a resist is a resist.

*For Mooks* Pretty bad. Halfling traits don't translate well to throwaways. The AC and HP boosts will be negligible. Small limits their weapon use and forces the DM to make them TWF.
*For Elites and Solos.* Mostly a wash unless it's a caster. Bigger spotlight lets Lucky and Brave trigger better. You might actually get to use nimbleness on a Halfling grand assassin. or master thief.
*For Humaniod Race Swaps:* Goes from Very Bad to Very Good the more CR the monster has. Again by PHB and DMG rules, it takes time or special setups for Halfling traits to trigger.
*For Custom Race Traits:* Same as above. You need high levels to translate Luck, Bravery, and Nimbleness into single encounter factors. If you go too hardon nimbleness, you start copying goblins though.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

But, uh, I already pointed out that monster design really doesn't have to take PC rules into account at all.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You're  bit overthinking the premise.
> 
> My point is that halfling racial traits are mostly hard to use as NPCs and enemies and sometimes negative for enemies.
> 
> ...



If I'm not mistaken, the point @Neonchameleon  was making is that, like most any enemy, halflings would employ tactics and prefer environments suited to their advantages. If you are playing them suboptimally, they will perform suboptimally.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> If I'm not mistaken, the point @Neonchameleon  was making is that, like most any enemy, halflings would employ tactics and prefer environments suited to their advantages. If you are playing them suboptimally, they will perform suboptimally.



My point is that the halfling doesn't synergize with how NPCs and Enemy Monsters play.

That's what the whole thread is about sorta kinda.

It takes a lot of work to optimize, synergize, or integrate halflings for Non-PC play and it comes at the expense of the other races.

The halfling race is not designed for one scene use. In order to make a halfling's halflingness shine in a single scene, you need to steal from another race or play high level.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> It's not a psychological law, either. There's no psychological or biological law of being "smart enough to live."



All you need to do is look at the TikTok tide pod challenge and similar things to see that.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is that the halfling doesn't synergize with how NPCs and Enemy Monsters play.
> 
> That's what the whole thread is about sorta kinda.
> 
> ...



1. That is almost nothing like what this whole thread is about.

2. Basically nothing in your post related to their racial traits indicated any understanding for how those traits could interact with the physical environment of the world around them. As baddies, you play them like Tuckers Kobolds. In an urban environment, they'd do better than most of the small races when used that way.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You're  bit overthinking the premise.
> 
> My point is that halfling racial traits are mostly hard to use as NPCs and enemies and sometimes negative for enemies.
> 
> ...



Yep.  Good stuff.


Minigiant said:


> *Small Size.* Mosy negative. Restricts NPC weapon choices. Keeps with finding hiding spots but with "Hide as a bonus Action" you can only do it once.



Once a round is better than no times a round.  It's pretty good.


Minigiant said:


> *Speed Down.* Pure Negative.



Sure, but this is minor.


Minigiant said:


> *Lucky.*Takes 20 rolls to trigger. NPCs without names and not solos don't get 20 rolls.



This is not true.  Since it can trigger on the very first roll it doesn't require 20 rolls to trigger.  It only averages once out of 20 rolls.  Nothing says that it won't happen on the first or third roll.


Minigiant said:


> *Brave.*Mostly useless. PCs don't use fear often and not every class has access to it.



Not everything in an NPC block has to be useful.  I'll give examples.

Looking at the Deva, it has commune and detect evil and good.  Mostly useless spells in an encounter.  It's immune to exhaustion, but PCs don't generally cause NPCs to become exhausted.  

Randomly going to F, I see that faerie dragons have the mostly useless ability to use telepathy with one another.  Only useful if in multiples and even then it's of extraordinarily limited use as I'm not going to have telepathic conversations with myself.

And so on.  Lots and lots and lots of NPCs and monsters have useless or nearly useless abilities.  Why should halflings be different?


Minigiant said:


> *Halfling Nimbleness *Again mostly useless for NPCs



You're kidding, right?  The ability to move through hostile creature to get to better tactical position is pretty good.


Minigiant said:


> *Ability Score Increase CHA +1.* If the halfling isn't a spellcaster, they mostly won't be able to use this. CHA saving throws are rare.



When I'm describing an NPCs I will inform the players if an NPC is unusually charismatic.  It affects their roleplay, so this is a very important feature for NPCs.


Minigiant said:


> *Naturally Stealthy.* Firecall Bait. Use of this typiclly requires crowding with other medium sized allies. Good for PCs as monsters don't all have AOE. But bad for monsters as PCs often have AOE.



If PCs are around then AOE can hit them as well.  Further, if the halfling is a rogue, which many are, this becomes a very good damage dealing ability.


Minigiant said:


> *Ability Score Increase CON +1.* Ok. Nice. Adds a few HPs.



Yep.


Minigiant said:


> *Stout Resilience. *Poison is already a bad resist as PCs tend to shy away from it as many monsters are immune. But a resist is a resist.



It's decent.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is that the halfling doesn't synergize with how NPCs and Enemy Monsters play.



Yes. Yes they do.  You just have to prepare for it. If you randomly match a halfling up to some other monster, chances are it won't mesh well.  That's true for most monsters, though.


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 24, 2022)

Bandit halflings, I imagine them pretending to be children asking for money, then they shank you when you got your guard down.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> 1. That is almost nothing like what this whole thread is about.



Isn't it.

Isn't the point of the point of the thread that lorewise Halfling NPCs are sort of redundant with Rural Human NPCs. And that some settings attempt to differentiate them by either making them annoying (Kender) or boxing humans out that realm (Hobbits).

Then mechanically, halfling traits dont trigger enough to create memories in the short time PCs interact with them. This means DMs are forced to fudge or set up contrived instances for halfling traits to shine. Outside of their houses being small (even though their ceilings tend to be high to accommodate the big folk)



Gammadoodler said:


> 2. Basically nothing in your post related to their racial traits indicated any understanding for how those traits could interact with the physical environment of the world around them. As baddies, you play them like Tuckers Kobolds. In an urban environment, they'd do better than most of the small races when used that way.



5e Halflings wouldn't have Tucker Kobolds because 5e lore designs them for comfort and relying on the big folk for defense.

The point is not that Halflings can't be made into interesting PCs, NPCs, and enemies.
The point is the 5e mechanics and lore don't lean to them being interesting NPCs and monsters and llow them to easily integrate them into the setting. So you are forced to change halflings away from the 5e defaults.

So *How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?*


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You're  bit overthinking the premise.



If putting literally two minutes of thought into how a concept that you personally brought up is "overthinking the premise" then I'm glad I do not play in your campaign world.


Minigiant said:


> My point is that halfling racial traits are mostly hard to use as NPCs and enemies and sometimes negative for enemies.



And as @James Gasik points out _you do not have to use the racial traits for PC races for all NPCs._ So this is pretty much irrelevant.


Minigiant said:


> *Small Size.* Mosy negative. Restricts NPC weapon choices. Keeps with finding hiding spots but with "Hide as a bonus Action" you can only do it once.



Mostly _positive_. It gives the halflings ways to do things that normal people can't. Like not crawl in small spaces or squeeze through tiny ones. It only fractionally lowers their damage - but as NPCs go this makes them more interesting and leads to a whole lot of easy ways for them to cause shenanigans.


Minigiant said:


> *Speed Down.* Pure Negative.



Mostly irrelevant. You only really need it in a foot race - and either halflings have failed or they should be taking shortcuts. A positive as far as it makes for the necessity for them to behave like halflings while not mattering much 90% of the time. Only technically a negative - and a definite positive in their own environments.


Minigiant said:


> *Halfling Nimbleness *Again mostly useless for NPCs



Except NPCs in some of the right environments for halflings. It adds to the overall effect where halflings can struggle a bit outside their favourite environments but can be really impressive inside them. Take them on in their homes and you'd better be small because small is a _huge_ advantage. Take them on in bustling towns and cities and once again they will go where you can't or  go effortlessly where you struggle to go.


Minigiant said:


> *Stout Resilience. *Poison is already a bad resist as PCs tend to shy away from it as many monsters are immune. But a resist is a resist.



And spot how you cherry-picked the less popular halfling subrace.


Minigiant said:


> *For Mooks* Pretty bad.



Fine. Mooks shouldn't be caring about a whole collection of special rules and as far as I know no one's mooks use all the racial rules. Halfling mooks are small and nimble. This is all they need.


Minigiant said:


> *For Elites and Solos.* Mostly a wash



In other words they are fine. You just insist on using player-facing rules in a way they weren't intended to be used. Once again this isn't a problem with the halfling race.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflimgs can be enemies.
> 
> The probl is they duck as them
> 
> ...



I’m sorry but that’s on you. 

PCs feat halfling enemies in my game almost as much as gnome enemies.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Yes. Yes they do. You just have to prepare for it. If you randomly match a halfling up to some other monster, chances are it won't mesh well. That's true for most monsters, though.




Of course.

But that is my point.
You more or less have to discard 5e's default lore and mechanics to do so.

It's not halflings that are hard to integrate. It's the base Hallfling lore, PHB mechanics, and DMG mechanics that are.
It's all weak, redundant, or too rare to display.

5e base halfling are* not* Tucker's Halflings nor 4e style Ninja-Knights.



Neonchameleon said:


> And as @James Gasik points out _you do not have to use the racial traits for PC races for all NPCs._ So this is pretty much irrelevant.



Exactly. The 5e base stuff is near unusable.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Isn't it.
> 
> Isn't the point of the point of the thread that lorewise Halfling NPCs are sort of redundant with Rural Human NPCs. And that some settings attempt to differentiate them by either making them annoying (Kender) or boxing humans out that realm (Hobbits).
> 
> ...



You gotta pick a thing you're talking about. Because until this moment your interactions with @Neonchameleon  were related to halflings as enemies. It was a discussion based, near as I can tell, purely on mechanics, which hasn't been the point of this thread.

5e lore, as far as I'm aware says nothing with respect to how halfling antagonists should work. If you choose to play them smoking contentedly in otherwise empty, easily accessible, "hideouts", that makes them incompetent, not "halfling". Maybe consider having them invest some level of effort toward self-preservation for themselves and their criminal associates.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You gotta pick a thing you're talking about. Because until this moment your interactions with @Neonchameleon  were related to halflings as enemies. It was a discussion based, near as I can tell, purely on mechanics, which hasn't been the point of this thread.
> 
> 5e lore, as far as I'm aware says nothing with respect to how halfling antagonists should work. If you choose to play them smoking contentedly in otherwise empty, easily accessible, "hideouts", that makes them incompetent, not "halfling". Maybe consider having them invest some level of effort toward self-preservation for themselves and their criminal associates.




I'm talking bout both.

The 5e base lore makes halflings both not desire leadership positions and clout, empathize rustic comfort, and mostly defer to the big races to handle major economic, government, and war affairs.

This means as NPCs, their areas would not have many ammentiies, lores, services, and luxuries as other races fr an adventuring party. The dwarves would have great smiths for armor and weapon upgrades and fine mercs. The elves would have arcane and druidic knowledge, fine armors, blades, and bows. The gnomes would have experimental  gadgets,illusion lore, beasts, and magical items. Even a dragonborn quarter would have a nice picking of mercenaries to cover your back in the quest against EVAL!

But the halfling village is just a human village but smaller. The innkeeper, the mayor, and the barkeep might be ex-badasses but that's it.

As for as enemies, halfling are so lowkey, comfortable, and reliant on the other races that they wont tailor their areas enough to take extreme advantage of their features. Not on their own. They wouldn't run the organization and allow their other races in the group tailor it to to their own traits as long as the halflings are accommodated and feel comfortable. 

The 5e base halfling lore prevents hallings from maxmizing their niche mechanics.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I mean, what makes a Human a better enemy?  Heavy weapons?  I could take this guy here, make him a Halfling, and he...loses some speed.  That's it.
> 
> View attachment 254991
> In fact, to my amusement, he's even already *Brave*!



Not only that, but he gains the ability to nat1 very rarely, is 3 foot tall (use the cover rules, folks.), probably can hide behind bigger allies, or if not sneaky could easily be riding an armored mastiff, etc. 

Use him like you would any human, and yeah he’s just a slightly slower human that almost never wiffs hard at a crucial moment. Use him like a 3 foot tall fearless warrior who knows how to fight bigger enemies, and he will shine.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> 5e Halflings wouldn't have Tucker Kobolds because 5e lore designs them for comfort and relying on the big folk for defense.



Can we talk about _actual_ 5e halflings with reference to the 5e halfling lore and not whatever you appear to have invented to justify your dislike of halflings. To quote the actual 5e lore:
_Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened._​
There is nothing in that about how halflings are designed for comfort and rely on big folk for defence. Instead they just don't like fighting - but can explicitly display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened. I'd say that "remarkable ferocity when their community is threatened" is a pretty succinct summary of Tucker's Kobolds.


Minigiant said:


> The point is not that Halflings can't be made into interesting PCs, NPCs, and enemies.
> The point is the 5e mechanics and lore don't lean to them being interesting NPCs and monsters and llow them to easily integrate them into the setting. So you are forced to change halflings away from the 5e defaults.
> 
> So *How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?*



If we are dealing with _actual_ 5e lore rather than whatever you think it is then it is trivial to integrate halflings into the campaign world. To quote the PHB again:
Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention.​...​Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires.​​​Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings’ hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.​
I do not know how you have any problem saying "there are villages of halflings and in almost any multiracial town or city there are significant numbers of halflings going about their business". There is precisely zero problem integrating this into any world in which there are NPCs. I don't see where the problem is here.

OK. So some basics for my halflings that might make it easier for you.

All halfling dwellings contain at least twice as many halflings as humans would expect by looking at the outside, and more normally four times as many halflings. They by default live in large extended families.
Halflings aren't more likely to be thieves than most other races. They are just normally used to living with effectively a dozen siblings that will borrow their stuff the way siblings do and can treat their adventuring companions the same way. This works both ways; halflings will offer to lend almost anything to their companions or get surprised that they bothered to ask and take a "you're family" approach to them too.
Every halfling dwelling has at least some area that you can't get to without squeezing _as a halfling_ and all these entrances can be blocked off. This makes attacking halfling buildings that you can't burn down more trouble than it's worth (even goblins are going to suffer badly trying to attack it because the halflings will mug them while they are squeezing)
Every halfling is trained with and carries a sling with half a dozen bullets at just about all times. (OK, so this harks back to older edition lore). It's small, light, and cheap so it's practical (more practical than any other weapon except a belt knife which almost everyone carries anyway). This of course doesn't require special rules as every PC class is trained with slings. But halflings are better with slings than most and suffer precisely no disadvantages with them.
Rural halfling buildings are built making heavy use of the _Mold Earth_ cantrip. The halflings take away the top layer, use Move Earth, hold a trampling party, set the supports, then hold another trampling party before moving the topsoil and plants back. The purpose of the trampling party is to make sure the earth is no longer loose packed (well, that and it's an excuse for another party). This makes halfling homes almost impossible to see from any direction except the door - and in hostile locations they disguise their doors as well. People can and do ride through halfling villages without knowing they are there. Big folk don't do this because it's much harder to create a much taller stable structure that isn't obvious while gnomes tend to use more flash and illusion and less physical work in their concealment.
_Hostile_ rural environments also have boltholes built in in scattered locations the same way. The halflings know where they are.
Urban halfling buildings match whatever the local style is and prosperous halflings like to have a more or less bigfolk sized reception room, dining room, and drawing room. Urban halfling buildings are also frequently conversions from ones built for bigfolk - but outside the rooms intended for bigfolk have extra floors between the original floors, and the custom-built ones give that impression.
Halfling artisans have in their way as strong a reputation as dwarf, elf, or gnome artisans. When you want the very best you go to dwarves or elves. When you want experimental or flashy you go to gnomes. And when you want reliably good quality at reasonable prices you go to the practical halflings - but that's not normally what adventurers want.
There is precisely _no_ problem integrating halflings with a setting unless you think the only purpose of a setting is to serve up themed rides to adventurers and no attempt at seeing who does what in the wider world should be done. Just as urban halfling criminal organisations are extremely effective and work well with halfling advantages.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> This is not true. Since it can trigger on the very first roll it doesn't require 20 rolls to trigger. It only averages once out of 20 rolls. Nothing says that it won't happen on the first or third roll.



I have been in _numerous _games where characters have gotten several nat 1s in a row. Or rolled two 1s when rolling with advantage.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The 5e base halfling lore prevents hallings from maxmizing their niche mechanics.



You know that races in D&D dont have genetic imperatives to behave a certain way always unless they’re a PC, right?

Beyond that, the base lore in the phb literally explicitly says they aren’t all bucolic farmers in little hidden villages. That is one of 3 or 4 different common types of halfling communities. 

The rest of your argument is just based in assumptions I can’t even really parse the underlying reasoning of. How did you conclude that halflings wouldn’t optimized their environment to ensure their safety, while engaging in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities? That’s a _wild_ idea.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Can we talk about _actual_ 5e halflings with reference to the 5e halfling lore and not whatever you appear to have invented to justify your dislike of halflings. To quote the actual 5e lore:
> _Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened._
> There is nothing in that about how halflings are designed for comfort and rely on big folk for defence. Instead they just don't like fighting - but can explicitly display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened. I'd say that "remarkable ferocity when their community is threatened" is a pretty succinct summary of Tucker's Kobolds.






> Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires.
> 
> (snip)
> *AFFABLE AND POSITIVE
> ...




These kinda make me feel that halfling don't put a ton of stock in defense, mgic, technology, and goverance and rely on other races for it.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it.   

But it doesn't speak Tucker's Kobolds to me at all.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm talking bout both.
> 
> The 5e base lore makes halflings both not desire leadership positions and clout, empathize rustic comfort,



You appear to be inventing things here. _Nothing_ says that halflings empathize [sic] _rustic_ comfort. Comfort, yes. But there's no exclusive rusticity. Which means that urban halflings arelikely to run things like bath houses.


Minigiant said:


> and mostly defer to the big races to handle major economic, government, and war affairs.
> 
> This means as NPCs, their areas would not have many ammentiies, lores, services, and luxuries as other races fr an adventuring party.



So a race _that emphasises comfort_ will not have many ammenitiies [sic] or luxuries as other races?


Minigiant said:


> The dwarves would have great smiths for armor and weapon upgrades and fine mercs. The elves would have arcane and druidic knowledge, fine armors, blades, and bows. The gnomes would have experimental  gadgets,illusion lore, beasts, and magical items. Even a dragonborn quarter would have a nice picking of mercenaries to cover your back in the quest against EVAL!



Meanwhile the race that emphasises comfort will have things like great masseurs, good bathhouses, and food. If you are in town as an adventurer with gold overflowing your pockets then for preference you study in the elven quarter, shop in the dwarf and gnome quarter, try and hire mercenaries in the dragonborn sixteenth - and _stay and spend your nights in the halfling quarter because they care about comfort. _That's unless your attitude to comfort is being kowtowed to.

And when you want a runner in a city you by default choose a halfling over any other race because they can get through the crowds. And when you choose a guide you want one who is practical and socially minded so again the halfling is by default preferable.


Minigiant said:


> But the halfling village is just a human village but smaller. The innkeeper, the mayor, and the barkeep might be ex-badasses but that's it.



Correct me if I'm wrong but what you're saying here is that _humans_ suck as a D&D race. If "just a human village" is a problem then you might want to work on your humans.


Minigiant said:


> As for as enemies, halfling are so lowkey, comfortable, and reliant on the other races that they wont tailor their areas enough to take extreme advantage of their features.



This is entirely an invention of yours. If we look at what 5e actually says about halflings it says that (a) they are practical and (b) can display remarkable ferocity when those they care about are threatened.  And I can not see one single mention of them being actually reliant on other races - this appears to be entirely an invention of yours.


Minigiant said:


> Not on their own. They wouldn't run the organization and allow their other races in the group tailor it to to their own traits as long as the halflings are accommodated and feel comfortable.



As long as they did


Minigiant said:


> The 5e base halfling lore prevents hallings from maxmizing their niche mechanics.



No. The 5e base halfling lore is fine. The @Minigiant lore is the problem.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You know that races in D&D dont have genetic imperatives to behave a certain way always unless they’re a PC, right?
> 
> Beyond that, the base lore in the phb literally explicitly says they aren’t all bucolic farmers in little hidden villages. That is one of 3 or 4 different common types of halfling communities.
> 
> The rest of your argument is just based in assumptions I can’t even really parse the underlying reasoning of. How did you conclude that halflings wouldn’t optimized their environment to ensure their safety, while engaging in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities? That’s a _wild_ idea.



They don't engage in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities.

The base lore of 5e says they "are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention."

I'm sure the racial communities they move into do most of the heavy lifting for economic, diplomacy, science, and war.

5e even took out the Halfling weapon proficiency and specialties.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> These kinda make me feel that halfling don't put a ton of stock in defense



Once again this is the @Minigiant lore. When I explicitly wrote that every halfling carries a ranged weapon at all times and all halfling homes have areas that keep the bigger races out you took from that that halflings don't put a ton of stock in defense. They put stock in defense - they just do it in a low key, practical, and effective way.


Minigiant said:


> , mgic,



I literally wrote that every rural halfling home was built with the help of magic, It's just low key and practical magic, saving the big stuff for big stuff.


Minigiant said:


> technology



The halfling trampling party is literal technology used to supplement the limitations of magic. Halflings use technology where it works.


Minigiant said:


> , and goverance



Governance is a matter of scale and size. Again halflings _will get on with it and not make a big song and dance about it unless the song and dance is the excuse for a party._ The militia and the trampling party are all part of governance.


Minigiant said:


> and rely on other races for it.



Me: They do these things themselves
You: They rely on other races for all the categories they do themselves
Me:???


Minigiant said:


> Maybe I'm reading too much into it.



No. You're reading your version of halflings that exist only inside your head.


Minigiant said:


> But it doesn't speak Tucker's Kobolds to me at all.



What halflings don't have is _viciousness_ of kobolds. That doesn't make them not dangerous. That if anything makes them twice as dangerous as you fight through these houses they know like the back of their hand and have set up to be able to defend as they are practical. And they, unlike kobolds don't want to see you suffer. They want to put you out of their and your misery. They won't torture. They won't gloat. They'll treat your demise if you are stupid enough to attack as an unpleasant but necessary job they want to do as soon as possible.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> They don't engage in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities.



They _prefer not to_. So do I. Nothing says they don't. @Minigiant halflings are not 5e halflings.


Minigiant said:


> The base lore of 5e says they "are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention."
> 
> I'm sure the racial communities they move into do most of the heavy lifting for economic, diplomacy, science, and war.



Once again this is @Minigiant lore that actively contradicts 5e lore. Halflings _explicitly make themselves valuable._ Which means they do their fair share of the heavy lifting.


Minigiant said:


> 5e even took out the Halfling weapon proficiency and specialties.



3.X took out the halfling weapon proficiency because everyone became proficient in slings. As for the halfling's +1 bonus with ranged weapons and slings that they had in 3.5 this went because it was entirely unnecessary. 5e halflings are better than 3.5 halflings with slings and thrown weapons because they get to use dexterity to damage not strength.  With halflings no longer getting a penalty they no longer need the bonus.

Halflings are in 5e a race that is notably good with slings in a game where everyone can use slings.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

bedir than said:


> They use wagons and canoes to travel regularly per the PHB. It's easier to see a natural role the halfling merchant than any other race.




Okay, let's lean into making halflings a proud merchant race then. That's a fine direction to take them that isn't where they currently are. This plays into their stories of being friendly and gregarious, and could even be an extension of their farming tradition, where they raise livestock and make produce, then go out and sell it. They could be the premier trading race of the world, connecting various groups. This is an interesting direction to go. 

It does have some weirdness if we continue with the halfling rogue/thief route. But I could see Halflings have "friendly rivalries". Like the Gnomes of Zilargo have the penchant for pranking each other, maybe halflings have a penchant for breaking into each others stores and businesses. Rarely to actually steal anything, but in a "it takes a thief to catch a thief" way where they secure a place, break in, and leave a note or a tray of cookies or something equally snarky. 

What's wrong with rewriting halflings to follow something like this? 




bedir than said:


> This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the tales of people in two cultures. While their stories are from both of their cultures, their stories are also unique.




Are they unique in that they are a blend of the two cultures? Yes. 

Are they unique in that they can exist without those two cultures? No. 

The entire point of having a race of people caught between two cultures is that the two cultures matter the most, not that there is a third unique culture that they are a part of. So, it is not a surprise that a half-elf half-human raised in a human city with no elf influence ends up being basically a human. That is expected for the exactly what half-elf stories are like.


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## bedir than (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> That's a fine direction to take them that isn't where they currently are.



Except that it's based right in the PHB


Chaosmancer said:


> The entire point of having a race of people caught between two cultures is that the two cultures matter the most, not that there is a third unique culture that they are a part of.



No, there's the third unique culture. All of my conversations with people in two cultures have talked about them being in a third. Whether that's due to immigration as told in Kamala Khan, or my pro wrestling buddy who told me he was too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids, so he had a very narrow choices of friends.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So, we agree that there are plenty of reasons for halflings to be adventurers. Cool. Problem solved.  Time to retire point 1.




No? Point #1 has nothing to do with "can halflings be adventurers" and is all about "Do halflings have unique reasons to be adventurers" 

Take Maxperson's list above. Of that list, points #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 can be the story of any Tom, Dick or Harry.  #2 is a bit weird, most people wouldn't think about it being their luck, instead of their mettle or their skill, so I might give him that one, but all the rest are bog standard adventuring plots. Getting a vision from God? That is literally any divine or pious character regardless of race, that isn't a "halfling" reason. 

The only "halfling" reason is the wanderlust, which as I said, was added in specifically because they realized that writing a race of people who never leave home for adventures... makes it really hard to make them adventurers.



Gammadoodler said:


> They value friends more in the same way that dwarves values craftsmanship more and elves value art more. When given a choice between
> 
> a pile of gold,
> a master crafted weapon,
> ...




That really isn't unique to them. The bonds between people being more important than material goods is a common trope of basically all of fantasy.



Gammadoodler said:


> As for how that helps you in worldbuilding. Having a race interested in the public good is a good thing. It forces you to think about more than dungeons and castles. It gives you a starting place for factions that have reasons for doing things beyond "more power" or "my god told me to do it". They can be viable on the world stage in the same way that Doctors Without Borders, the Girl Scouts, and the Peace Corps are viable on the world stage.
> 
> I'm not saying that halflings are the only ones that can do this. In the same way, I assume, that you aren't saying that dwarves are the only ones that make hammers. But a race more motivated to pursue it is likely to be better at it. Halfling taverns may not be the only taverns, but they should be the best taverns. Similarly with the other institutions noted.
> 
> As for the remainder of your post, it seems we disagree on the comparative baseline states of characters in the world.




Maybe I'm just too much of an optimist, but isn't every good-guy organization in it for the public good? All of my gods care about the good of their people, and their edicts and commands are for the public good. The knightly orders who go out and protect the people, whose members might seek more personal power are doing it for the public good. 

Any organization just doing things to power is... evil? They are almost certainly villains. And I don't have very many of them tied to the races directly, because they are self-serving and so take anyone. 

Is this a genre thing? Do you tend to do more gritty dark fantasy were everything is terrible? I'm just not getting how halflings caring about other people is supposed to make the world any different than all the other races caring about other people. I don't tend to build dark worlds where the kingdom is ruled by a tyrant and the nobles are corrupt and exploiting the peasants, and the guilds only care about their own power. I tend to find those worlds difficult, because who wants to go out and save a world like that? I much prefer a pretty nice world, where things generally are good.... except when it is threatened by [insert threat here] where something like a tyrant king is notable, not just Tuesday. But this post is really making me feel like your world-building is much grimmer and darker, which is why you see halflings as providing a source for such basic things as a group of healers who isn't beholden to a nation.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Even if "halflings are just humans, but smaller", that makes their success and adventures twice as incredible, no?  Because they have greater odds to overcome.
> 
> I would consider Willow Ufgood a Halfling- if he was just a human, I don't think his adventure would be as amazing.




No, I don't think it makes there adventures twice as incredible. Being short doesn't give you greater odds to overcome in DnD. Much like guns, magic is a great equalizer.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Take Maxperson's list above. Of that list, points #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 can be the story of any Tom, Dick or Harry.  #2 is a bit weird, most people wouldn't think about it being their luck, instead of their mettle or their skill, so I might give him that one, but all the rest are bog standard adventuring plots. Getting a vision from God? That is literally any divine or pious character regardless of race, that isn't a "halfling" reason.



The thing is, no race has any unique reason to adventure.  What racial abilities that influence adventuring are, are just increase numbers with that particular story.  So yes, Tom the Dwarf might go adventuring because he wants to find recipes, but he's going to be a rarity among dwarven adventurers.  There are going to be many, MANY more halfling adventurers wandering the world looking for recipes.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And on the inevitable differences such would produce between they and most other species.
> 
> Most notably, their entire arithmetic/numeric/math system would almost certainly be base-12 rather than base-10; as would everything in their society that spins off of that.




Didn't say it was impossible, but would you find a race whose only difference s having six fingers and a base 12 math system engaging to play? I certainly wouldn't, it isn't a distinction that actually make a difference in the game in any way. 




Lanefan said:


> For you, perhaps.




Yes. For me and for every other person who has struggled with this. Why do people think this is somehow a counter-argument? "Well, the only people who have trouble are those who have trouble!"... Yes? And? 

Well, usually the "and" is followed by them explaining how they haven't had trouble, usually by engaging in something that the people who do have trouble don't engage in or don't find interesting.




Lanefan said:


> When it comes to building stories and-or worlds I've never had any more problem with Hobbits than with any other species.  Less, perhaps, in one world-building regard: I can stick a community of Hobbits on any random piece of spare farmland on the map, where Elves generally want a forest (also usually easy) and Dwarves want mountains (not always so easy).  I can also make sailors out of Hobbits, not so much for Dwarves or Gnomes.
> 
> As for stories, the rationale behind any story arc be rooted in the lore of any species; and while I usually use Human lore/history I could just as easily use Dwarf or Hobbit lore as the underpinning (or Elf, but that's been done to death).
> 
> The species that have no real lore or history to call their own are Part-Elves and Part-Orcs, and thus they can (and do) present story and world-building issues; but I don't hear any strident calls for their removal.




You don't hear strident calls from me to remove halflings either. Please, find a single time of me saying we should remove them in this thread. You won't. Because I haven't said that. Have other people? Sure, but much of their frustration and desire to remove the race is because any attempt to change the race is met with vehement disapproval. So, they say, if they can't change it they want to get rid of it. 

As for the rest, I know this has worked for you for decades, but "I stick them on random spare farms" is not world-building in my eyes. You'd do just as well to take a bag of d6's, upend them on the map, and have every six be a halfling settlement. It doesn't mean anything. 

And you mention that you use Hobbit lore, but as we who have trouble have said, we find hobbit lore utterly lacking in anything to build off of. Any attempts to expand hobbit lore are met with vehement denials and recriminations, so... how is "I use the lore you don't" help us find ways to use it that actually work for us? 

Honestly, your post seems to be mostly "I don't have this problem" Which I'm happy for you, but it doesn't help those of us who DO have this problem.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> They don't engage in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities.



Yes, they do. It’s literally common for them to spend part of their life as adventurers, just as a start. 


Minigiant said:


> The base lore of 5e says they "are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention."



Why do you insist this is some sort of absolute imperative to avoid conflict and risk. 

Like…it literally doesn’t say that. 


Minigiant said:


> I'm sure the racial communities they move into do most of the heavy lifting for economic, diplomacy, science, and war.



That’s a wild conclusion seemingly based on your own biases, not on what’s in the books. 


Minigiant said:


> 5e even took out the Halfling weapon proficiency and specialties.



Okay?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> "Being silly" is in the eye of the beholder (no, not you, Xanathar!  Man he has such a big ego).  I might find a race of birdmen who can only speak in prerecorded sound bites to be silly.  Or turtle people.  Or Orcs who have super speed only so long as they are headed towards someone they don't like at the moment.
> 
> I think a lot of people play Halflings because they are grounded and relatable in a world of gonzo fantasy.  They aren't giant robot men, or gorilla-armed Bugbears, or even mystical snake people- they don't stand out, and, it would seem, they have less going on for them than the bland, boring regular Humans.
> 
> ...




How is a level 1 halfling Wizard any more of an underdog than a level 1 Half-elf Wizard? Using Tasha's rules so that they both have a 16 intelligence, how is one of them the underdog? 

Because they are short? 

That is, frankly, a stupid reason to assume someone is an underdog. Want to know why? Because any party of level 1 adventurers who know the score are going to balk at facing a tribe of Grung. Grung are short, why aren't they the underdogs? 

Seriously, people make this claim that halflings are the ultimate underdog, but back it up with nothing except the monsters and people of DnD being too stupid to know better. Being small in DnD does not make you weak or helpless or an underdog. Volo's Guide had the Booyahg Booyahg Booyahg, a Goblin that is a CR 6 caster with access to Cone of Cold. 

In a world where magic exists, no race is the underdog because of their size. 




James Gasik said:


> It's not that Halflings are underdogs, it's that people tend to see them as such, in and out of universe.




Out of universe obviously, but I can't for the life of me figure out why.



James Gasik said:


> And what's so relatable about humans?  The fact that we are humans? Forgive me if I find that extremely boring in a fantasy game.  Look, I can roleplay being myself in a fantasy world!  It's like the last 10 years of anime combined!
> 
> They're the most boring, bland race imaginable.  No special abilities to speak of, they can't see in the dark, they don't do *anything *special of note, and the only reason they have a strong place in a setting is because the game developers say so.  It would be trivial to point at other races that should be more successful than humans.
> 
> ...




And you are kind of getting why I say that humans fill the everyman niche. They don't get any special powers. They are only successful because the game is written by humans. That's why we like putting the humans as the everyman and then want something else from the races like halflings.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> They're "monsters." Even if that wouldn't mean "evil" these days, they're still creepy darkness gremlins, probably widely distrusted. It is pretty much the opposite vibe that the halflings have.




So.... no different than the orcs, half-orcs, minotaurs, Kenku, Tieflings, Lizardfolk, Kobolds, centuars... I could go on but I don't see "widely distrusted or often an enemy" as the equivalent of wings and shooting magical lazers out of their eyes. Heck, I have humans who are enemies, creepy and distrusted. They are called cultists. Does that make humans super cool and unique just like half the playable races in the game?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Except that it's based right in the PHB




Them traveling using common modes of transportation? Yes. 

Them being the mercantile race of the world? No, that isn't based right in the PHB. So, since you responded to the idea with "but here's this piece of PHB lore" I decided to ask about expanding on it. 



bedir than said:


> No, there's the third unique culture. All of my conversations with people in two cultures have talked about them being in a third. Whether that's due to immigration as told in Kamala Khan, or my pro wrestling buddy who told me he was too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids, so he had a very narrow choices of friends.




Well I don't know your buddy and I'm not familiar with Kamala Khan, but since you mention immigration and pro wrestling those don't seem to be cultures writ large and seem to be more sub-cultures within a larger culture. A sort of "finding your place" like someone could get into DnD as a "third culture". But that still doesn't seem to make the two cultures they came with which is the conflict at the core of their story (talking from a literary point of view) not matter. 

Again, you have to remember, my comment was in response to someone saying my half-elf was "basically a human" and that since my half-elf could be any race (or just human) then all half-elves lacked a culture. Well... a half-elf is also a half-human, so being seen as human would be... kind of the point? The entire point of choosing to place yourself between two worlds is to interact with those two worlds, this character just happened to find his place in one of those worlds. Are we going to say that never happens?


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> They don't engage in inherently dangerous and conflict prone activities.



Neither do a lot of other races.



Minigiant said:


> The base lore of 5e says they "are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention."
> 
> I'm sure the racial communities they move into do most of the heavy lifting for economic, diplomacy, science, and war.



And you're basing that on what, exactly?



Minigiant said:


> 5e even took out the Halfling weapon proficiency and specialties.



Because slings are a simple weapon usable by nearly everyone.


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> So *How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?*



As adventurers; also in general the rural ones are very good farmers, the urban ones (and some rural ones) are very good cooks, the far-southern ones are sailors, and there are many who fall outside/beyond these very rough guidelines.  Societally their main ethos is live and let live: leave them alone and they'll leave you alone, but if you piss 'em off you might be in for a rude surprise on learning how tough and bloody-minded they can be when put to it.  Further, NPC Hobbits get the same to-hit bonus to thrown missiles as do PC Hobbits.

Their homelands are usually-isolated shires, but just like any other kindred species they can and do live anywhere people will accept them; and acceptance is usually pretty easy to come by if you can cook like a typical Hobbit can.   Their known homelands have historical reasons for being where they are.

They have their own pantheon of a half-dozen deities or so, one of whom is unique among all in my game: a pacifist god to whose Clerics *all* weapon use is banned. (I'm interested to see how it goes if anyone ever tries playing one of these, so far no-one has)

In play they can be any class except Ranger - despite their inherent toughness the living-rough woodsy lifestyle just doesn't suit them. (this probably won't last forever; next campaign I'll likely open Ranger up for them while shutting down the arcane-caster classes, as Hobbit arcanists are proving to be a balance headache even to me who doesn't much care about balance)  Thief, Assassin, or Cleric best suits them, and there are no level caps other than those imposed on everyone by some classes (e.g. Assassin caps at 15th no matter what you are).  They also make good Bards - and overly-stupendous mages, hence my issue above.


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Didn't say it was impossible, but would you find a race whose only difference s having six fingers and a base 12 math system engaging to play? I certainly wouldn't, it isn't a distinction that actually make a difference in the game in any way.



In the game I play in we're regularly dealing with just this, in that much of the world's history comes from ancient Hobgoblins and their doings; and those guys had six-fingered hands.  Which means, every now and then we find ourselves having to decipher base-6 or base-12 numbers.  It also means I've seen firsthand in play what differences using a non-base-10 number system can make to a fantasy society; and yes, it's quite interesting (if at times also bloody frustrating!). 


Chaosmancer said:


> You don't hear strident calls from me to remove halflings either. Please, find a single time of me saying we should remove them in this thread. You won't. Because I haven't said that. Have other people? Sure, but much of their frustration and desire to remove the race is because any attempt to change the race is met with vehement disapproval. So, they say, if they can't change it they want to get rid of it.
> 
> As for the rest, I know this has worked for you for decades, but "I stick them on random spare farms" is not world-building in my eyes. You'd do just as well to take a bag of d6's, upend them on the map, and have every six be a halfling settlement. It doesn't mean anything.



Thanks, but I put a bit more thought into my world-building than that. 

In my current setting, among the kindred species Humans are pretty dominant while Dwarves, Elves*, and Hobbits have small often-isolated countries or city-states, and Gnomes don't even have that: the entire species are scattered wanderers as their one big homeland was wiped out several centuries back.  That said, by overall area there's more wild land than there is settled so it can be argued nobody really has all that much.

* - Elves, however, are expanding rapidly and aggressively and pushing all before them.  It's a long story, still being told. 


Chaosmancer said:


> And you mention that you use Hobbit lore, but as we who have trouble have said, we find hobbit lore utterly lacking in anything to build off of. Any attempts to expand hobbit lore are met with vehement denials and recriminations, so... how is "I use the lore you don't" help us find ways to use it that actually work for us?



I think some people in this thread have tried doing exactly this.  Example: the idea of using them as underdogs, as the "little guys", as someone to cheer for when they make good - but this gets rejected on the claim underdogs are boring.  No.  They're only boring if-when they stay underdogs and can't rise above that; but adventuring Hobbits potentially can and do rise above that, against the odds, and that's what makes them fun: seeing if that potential can be made real.

A Dwarf or an Elf becoming a big-shot adventurer is kind of so-what  Those guys live long enough they could each have ten adventuring careers in their lives - ho hum, I've made 10th-level for the fifth century in a row.

A Human becoming a big-shot adventurer is noteworthy, but Humans have various cultural advantages to get them started - they're good at almost everything, they fight each other a lot thus many of them become warriors, etc.

But a Hobbit becoming a big-shot adventurer?  That's worth celebrating.  Their culture fights aginst it, their stature fights against it, often their ethos and outlook fight against it - the odds are against them and yet some make it to the top anyway.  Bravo!   This is what I mean by their being underdogs.

And that's just one idea on how to use/view them.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> as Hobbit arcanists are proving to be a balance headache even to me who doesn't much care about balance)



Why?  What about them makes them better wizards than say an elf or human?


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Why?  What about them makes them better wizards than say an elf or human?



One of the main drawbacks of mages is supposed to be a lack of hit points, but Hobbits in my game usually end up with stupendous Con scores due to racial adjusts and thus negate this drawback with trivial ease.  Sure they roll a smaller die than other classes but the Con bonus (which other species don't generally get except for lucky individuals) quickly makes up for it.

Taking this Con adjust away from Hobbits would gut them for most other classes, thus not a viable option.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

So there is no innate "Halfling" reason to go adventuring.  This concept boggles me, because there are lots of races that have no innate reason to go adventuring.  I'll go to my current favorite target to pick on, the Lizardfolk.

Cracking open my Volo's Guide, I see we open with a warning: "If you're considering taking a scaled one on an adventure, remember this important fact.  The strange, inhuman glint in it's eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak."  -Tordek, dwarf fighter and adventurer (hey Tordek, glad to see you're still around, 2 editions later!).

Then it goes on to accentuate that they live in dismal swamps that may be hundreds of miles away from civilization, and that their way of thinking is alien to us warm blooded folks.  It then goes on to say "some lizardfolk make an effort to understand and, in their own manner, befriend people of other races.  Such lizardfolk make faithful and skilled allies."  Hm, let's go back to that.

The next section really tries to drive home the alien minds thing, in case we somehow missed it.  They have limited emotions, basically: fear, aggression, and pleasure.  In fact, they don't experience fear at all (despite not being Brave, heh)!  

We're next told that lizardfolk assess everyone and everything in terms of utility, and have little use for art and beauty.  And this fun gem, "Lizardfolk see little need to plan more than a season or so into the future....Lizardfolk have no interest in developing writing, making long-term plans, or cultivating other methods to progress beyond their simple existence as hunters and gatherers".  Starting to notice a trend here.

We're also told that lizardfolk see other races as weak, soft, and, at best deserving of pity.  Oh and previously, they mention that lizardfolk only stop from turning  dwarf into steak because he might be useful, and that tends to upset other non-lizardfolk.

So in summary, lizardfolk have no innate reason to adventure based on their race and culture, and many reasons not to.  Even if you're one of the small segment of weirdos that does travel to civilized lands, and make an effort, why on earth anyone would give your lizardfolk the time of day is beyond me, when it's quite clear that you are a sociopathic Darwinist who thinks nothing about eating sentient humanoids.

But this does bring up the real answer to all of this: adventurers are *not *the norm in 5e.  Few take up the mantle, and those who do are often considered dangerous troublemakers and radicals by society at large- there may be a need for mercenaries who will kill monsters out there, but you wouldn't let one marry your daughter!

Many no doubt think that adventurers cause more problems than they solve, by riling up monsters and plundering the dead in order to overburden the economy with the excess wealth they acquire (and rarely sit still long enough to be fairly taxed!).  So the average Halfling isn't an adventurer.  Neither is the average (just about any other race)!

I mean, look at Tieflings.  In D&D, Evil is a real, defined force.  Everyone knows evil gods exist, that there are demons and devils and Hells to go if you're wicked, and that the good gods are real, and they have Heavens for the righteous (that there are evil people at all in this reality makes zero sense to me, but eh, whatever).

So then there's this guy.  Thanks to the Retcon of Asmodeus, almost every Tiefling is readily identifiable as such.  They got horns, tails, hooves!  They are literally part fiend!

The average person should be making the sign of Pelor (or Lathander, or Pholtus) upon seeing one, and avoiding them like the plague...but nope! In fact, despite some possible emo backstories, Tieflings are a popular race found in many adventuring groups, and since, by default, they're running around with +2 Charisma, you should like them better than Joe Human!

D&D races don't make a whole lot of sense.  Their reasons for existing don't make sense.  Their reasons for adventuring often make less sense.

*That is not why races exist in D&D.*  Races exist in D&D so players and DM's can make their game worlds more vibrant, with more options than the same-old, same-old.  And if you *do *decide to have Dragonborn or Tabaxi in your campaign, it is up to you and your players to figure out how that works- not the blurbs of lore the WotC staff wrote down.

If you're creative, it's trivial to make any race an all-star in the setting.  But it's going to, ultimately, only matter if your players like playing that race.  You could crow about how great Dwarves are, for example, and how advanced their culture is, but if all your players turn up their noses at grubby bearded drunkards with bad attitudes (...sounds more like Wolverine if you ask me) to go play Devil babes or totally hot Angel dudes, it doesn't really matter.

If a guy wants to play a Halfling, let him be.  I don't care if 20% of players like them or 1%- they have just as much a right to exist as Firbolgs and, yes, even Hannibal Lecter lizardfolk.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> The thing is, no race has any unique reason to adventure.  What racial abilities that influence adventuring are, are just increase numbers with that particular story.  So yes, Tom the Dwarf might go adventuring because he wants to find recipes, but he's going to be a rarity among dwarven adventurers.  There are going to be many, MANY more halfling adventurers wandering the world looking for recipes.



Actually.

Half elves and halforcs has a racial reason to become adventurers as many of them have an outsider mentality within the 2 races of their heritage. Adventurer is a classic outside of normal society career.

Dwarves in their clannishness might need money to restore or regain a clan's property.

Though halflings do have unique reasons to adventure as well.


----------



## Crimson Longinus (Jul 24, 2022)

I totally get if people want to make non-human races more alien and unique. It just seems like obvious special pleading to complain that halflings are especially lacking in this area. Most D&D races are pretty much humans with some small distinguishing thing that can mostly be ignored and often is. "A miner with drinking problem," "has green skin" or "a big lad" aren't really anything super alien. Hell, even elves are generally just played as "better than thou pretty people," granted, there their crazy lifespan could be imagined to matter, but in practice it rarely does.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> So there is no innate "Halfling" reason to go adventuring.  This concept boggles me, because there are lots of races that have no innate reason to go adventuring.  I'll go to my current favorite target to pick on, the Lizardfolk.
> 
> Cracking open my Volo's Guide, I see we open with a warning: "If you're considering taking a scaled one on an adventure, remember this important fact.  The strange, inhuman glint in it's eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak."  -Tordek, dwarf fighter and adventurer (hey Tordek, glad to see you're still around, 2 editions later!).
> 
> ...



lizardfolk are not made as standard player characters and are opponents first thus this is not surprising, in contrast with the halfling who has been in the phb for literally every edition and are the fourth classic demihuman and yet they lack it as well, they are made to be on the player's side but they seem more like one note extras than anything else.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Cracking open my Volo's Guide, I see we open with a warning: "If you're considering taking a scaled one on an adventure, remember this important fact. The strange, inhuman glint in it's eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak." -Tordek, dwarf fighter and adventurer (hey Tordek, glad to see you're still around, 2 editions later!).



Yet U2 _Danger at Dunwater_ (1982) is all about making a peaceful alliance with lizardfolk, with a Star Trek style message: lizard people are also people.

What you are quoting is probably one of the reasons Volo's has been discontinued, and replaced with: 


> Gifted by the gods with remarkable physical defenses and a mystical connection to the natural world, lizardfolk can survive with just their wits in situations that would be deadly for other folk.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I totally get if people want to make non-human races more alien and unique. It just seems like obvious special pleading to complain that halflings are especially lacking in this area. Most D&D races are pretty much humans with some small distinguishing thing that can mostly be ignored and often are. "A miner with drinking problem," "has green skin" or "a big lad" aren't really anything super alien. Hell, even elves are generally just played as "better than thou pretty people," granted, there their crazy lifespan could be imagined to matter, but in practice it rarely does.



I tend to roleplay races more alien and more attune to a shared genetic and cutural mentality created by their age, religions, and uniqueness of their minds. I only play humans and half-humans like humans.

A dwarf is mentally advers to new things and people and have massive trust issues.

That is possibly why why I see in the Halfling lore is different from what other see.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I tend to roleplay races more alien and more attune to a shared genetic and cutural mentality created by their age, religions, and uniqueness of their minds. I only play humans and half-humans like humans.
> 
> A dwarf is mentally advers to new things and people and have massive trust issues.



That sounds very... humanlike to me. I know plenty of people who are adverse to new things and have massive trust issues. Not all humans are dwarflike - but the traits you list as dwarflike are all appropriate for some but not all humans.

So too with halflings. Not all humans are halflinglike but the traits listed for halflings are appropriate for some humans. Yet somehow you, despite entirely humanlike dwarfs only pick on halflings.


Minigiant said:


> That is possibly why why I see in the Halfling lore is different from what other see.



Because you make it up and flanderise halflings? Then you find that @Minigiant halflings, which can't even work out how to use their size and gregariousness to be good criminals, suck. The problem isn't with halflings as written. It's that you change the lore and the race to make them suck then declare that under your _actively changed_ lore they suck.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> That sounds very... humanlike to me. I know plenty of people who are adverse to new things and have massive trust issues. Not all humans are dwarflike - but the traits you list as dwarflike are all appropriate for some but not all humans.
> 
> So too with halflings. Not all humans are halflinglike but the traits listed for halflings are appropriate for some humans. Yet somehow you, despite entirely humanlike dwarfs only pick on halflings.



You aren't going far enough with it.
Dwarves don't even trust swords to me. Why would dwards prefer axes and hammers when spears would be better for tunnel and underground fighting.
Because dwarves needed tools first and they trust weaponized tools before even getting to swords and spears.

I see races so flanderized that if they were human you'd ponder if they suffer mental illness.

The elf wizard I play treats the young races as children, makes week long plans, and records data in 7 forms (including basketweave and pottery). Yes a spare copy of my spellbook is 47 clay pots. I'm working on the tea set.



Neonchameleon said:


> Because you make it up and flanderise halflings? Then you find that @Minigiant halflings, which can't even work out how to use their size and gregariousness to be good criminals, suck. The problem isn't with halflings as written. It's that you change the lore and the race to make them suck then declare that under your _actively changed_ lore they suck.



Isn't the point of nonhuman NPCs to be a bit flanderized? 
Halflings aren't human. They don't have human brains.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You aren't going far enough with it.
> Dwarves don't even trust swords to me. Why would dwards prefer axes and hammers when spears would be better for tunnel and underground fighting.
> Because dwarves needed tools first and they trust weaponized tools before even getting to swords and spears.
> 
> ...



See, this is very different from anything else in the thread. Like, a whole different thread. Had you lead with this folk wouldn’t be reacting so negatively to your arguments. 

We would still disagree, but more mildly. 

That said, halflings are more like humans than even half-elves, by default, but they certainly aren’t the same as humans. They’re less risk averse ( due to bravery, curiosity, and better luck at avoiding catastrophic failure), more communal, more prone to cross-species empathy, more curious, and just the lack of desire to control others or take what others have is a huge difference. 


However, at the same time, there is no reason they wouldn’t have crime families, they just aren’t as likely to be brutally ruthless, or to go in for the darkest aspects of organized crime. See, The Boramar Clan in Sharn, Eberron, and various Thieves Guilds and the like all over the multiverse.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You aren't going far enough with it.
> Dwarves don't even trust swords to me. Why would dwards prefer axes and hammers when spears would be better for tunnel and underground fighting.
> Because dwarves needed tools first and they trust weaponized tools before even getting to swords and spears.



Oh, so we're not actually talking about dwarfs. We're now talking about @Minigiant dwarfs that bear only a passing physical resemblance to actual D&D dwarfs. And dwarfs use axes and hammers because spears would be a terrible weapon underground under a lot of circumstances.

First spears are a pretty terrible weapon for _carrying_ in close underground tunnels. They are let's say five foot long. (That's a short spear but dwarfs are a short race). That means that that's a five foot straight line you need at all points to get through the tunnel - and manually dug tunnels are frequently small because it's hard work. If you try carrying a spear on your back in tight tunnels you will get stuck regularly - so you have to carry a spear in your hand. Meanwhile the _one handed_ hammers and axes (dwarves don't get greataxe or maul proficiency) that dwarfs carry are things you can wear on your belt. So you can go through the tunnels with hands free and not getting stuck. This gap gets even bigger when kobolds counter-tunnel so the dwarfs would be squeezing and scrambling. Oh, and hammers and axes are in D&D shorter than the equivalent swords; a longsword would be a tripping hazard and really gets in the way if you need to crawl.

Second spears are a pretty terrible weapon for _fighting_ in close underground tunnels. Not only are they a pain to transport you need there to be a significant amount of space. You need to be able to line up the butt of the spear with the point of the spear with your foe. This requires at a minimum five feet for the spear plus about two feet for your foe. In any sort of tight and twisting corridor that's made narrow because excavation is work the spear is going to run into real problems each time there's a corner. And if you're fighting spear and shield one handed you hold the spear half way along for balance - it's frequently going to hit the back wall. Spears are a really bad weapon in any tunnel that's e.g. been built following a seam of ore. Or been built knowing that the other side uses spears.

Third there is precisely nothing saying martially inclined dwarfs can't use swords every bit as well as human fighters can't. What dwarf weapon proficiency says is that _there are no dwarfs without martial training_. It doesn't say what the best do. It doesn't say what the military units do. It says what the militia do. And something about what the noncombatants would do in other races; every dwarf fights. The spear is a specialist weapon underground, more akin to the pike in the real world.

Oh, and dwarfs are _miners_. Of course they are slow to trust. Get something wrong in the mines and you can bring the mine down on top of people. Gnomes can be happy go lucky underground folk (or whatever they are as it's never been settled) but bringing a mine down is a catastrophe and they need to make sure everything works, both on their kit and of their crew.

So. Rather than being Darwin-Award stupid dwarfs are a race that adapts effectively to their environment.


Minigiant said:


> I see races so flanderized that if they were human you'd ponder if they suffer mental illness.



That sounds like your dwarfs tbh.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

I never had a Halfling crime family, but during a Living Forgotten Realms module set in Waterdeep, I did run afoul of an all-Halfling street gang.  The Green Gang I think they called themselves (and now I'm wondering if that was a Power Puff Girls reference).

I did, however, once have a Gnomish crime family.  Player came to me with his Gnome Thief/Illusionist and said he thought it would be cool if he had a backstory where he was running from an arranged marriage.  So I created the prettiest, nicest seeming Gnome lass you could imagine (secretly crazy and obsessive over her beau), and her three, very annoyed elder brothers who wanted to make the Gnome's life miserable.

One a Fighter, one a Thief, and one an Illusionist.  The Thief was hands off and refused to actually fight the party directly, using traps and minions (his favorite stunt was to send the party notes in scroll tubes- said tubes were willed with an inhaled paralysis powder, just to mess with the opener).

The Fighter ended up the most memorable, as, due to exceptional strength and a bastard sword, he dished out enough damage to make the party's Fighter nope the hell out of their  fight!


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> That said, halflings are more like humans than even half-elves, by default, but they certainly aren’t the same as humans. They’re less risk averse ( due to bravery, curiosity, and better luck at avoiding catastrophic failure), more communal, more prone to cross-species empathy, more curious, and just the lack of desire to control others or take what others have is a huge difference.
> 
> 
> However, at the same time, there is no reason they wouldn’t have crime families, they just aren’t as likely to be brutally ruthless, or to go in for the darkest aspects of organized crime. See, The Boramar Clan in Sharn, Eberron, and various Thieves Guilds and the like all over the multiverse.




I didn't say halflings would not have crime families. They love family.

What I said is that halfling traits and their base lore in this edition would not nudge them into adapting their hideout completely to their racial benefit. Like you said "less risk averse ( due to bravery, curiosity, and better luck at avoiding catastrophic failure), more communal, more prone to cross-species empathy, more curious, and just the lack of desire to control others or take what others have"

Meaning they would be a bit lackadaisical in design, cater to their human gangster allies, and end up fighting straight up. They, to me, would never make a Tucker's Kobolds base outside of a doomsday, death, or post-apoc setting. And thus halflings would fight straight up.

And after 3 session of seeing PCs fighting the Brownboys, halflings stink at fighting straight up. Even after I customized them in the second session. I'm biased though as I run races a bit more flanderized AND ran halfling enemies.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Actually.
> 
> Half elves and halforcs has a racial reason to become adventurers as many of them have an outsider mentality within the 2 races of their heritage. Adventurer is a classic outside of normal society career.



Except that halflings, dwarves, humans, tabaxi, all other races here can also  have an outsider mentality that sends them adventuring.  Those two races just have it in greater numbers, just like halflings have more recipe hunters and adventurers out to test their luck.


Minigiant said:


> Dwarves in their clannishness might need money to restore or regain a clan's property.



Except that halflings, half-elves, humans, tabaxi, all other races can need money to restore or regain a clan(family) property.


Minigiant said:


> Though halflings do have unique reasons to adventure as well.



There are no unique reasons that I can think of for any race.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Well, I could think of a few unique reasons.  A Kenku who wants to break the curse that robbed their race of it's wings is one.  But by and large, that's an exception, most races are motivated by the same things as everyone else: ambition, survival, greed, revenge, etc..


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Well, I could think of a few unique reasons.  A Kenku who wants to break the curse that robbed their race of it's wings is one.  But by and large, that's an exception, most races are motivated by the same things as everyone else: ambition, survival, greed, revenge, etc..



honestly what were the kenku before they lost their wings anyway? were they tengu or something else?


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> honestly what were the kenku before they lost their wings anyway? were they tengu or something else?



There's a *lot *of avian races in the game's history.  My personal take is probably these guys:


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## bedir than (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I didn't say halflings would not have crime families. They love family.
> 
> What I said is that halfling traits and their base lore in this edition would not nudge them into adapting their hideout completely to their racial benefit. Like you said "less risk averse ( due to bravery, curiosity, and better luck at avoiding catastrophic failure), more communal, more prone to cross-species empathy, more curious, and just the lack of desire to control others or take what others have"
> 
> ...



Why would you separate lore and mechanics as if mechanics aren't part of lore?


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I never had a Halfling crime family, but during a Living Forgotten Realms module set in Waterdeep, I did run afoul of an all-Halfling street gang.  The Green Gang I think they called themselves (and now I'm wondering if that was a Power Puff Girls reference).
> 
> I did, however, once have a Gnomish crime family.  Player came to me with his Gnome Thief/Illusionist and said he thought it would be cool if he had a backstory where he was running from an arranged marriage.  So I created the prettiest, nicest seeming Gnome lass you could imagine (secretly crazy and obsessive over her beau), and her three, very annoyed elder brothers who wanted to make the Gnome's life miserable.
> 
> ...



Was it this one?

"The *Shard Shunners* were a gang of halfling wererats operating in Waterdeep in the late 15th century DR. Their name came from their refusal to deal in silver, called shards in Waterdeep, because of their wererat nature.

The Shard Shunners committed petty crimes around the city. Around 1492 DR, they were pickpocketing patrons at the Endshift Tavern in the Field Ward as retribution for a disagreement between the tavern owner and one of their members."


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> There's a *lot *of avian races in the game's history.  My personal take is probably these guys:
> 
> View attachment 255083



That's a good one.  I would either go with some sort of raven race or create a race based on this bird.

"Lyrebirds work their magic *by attempting to mimic all the sounds around it*. They're best known for copying other bird calls, and they're so good at doing this that sometimes even non-imposturous birds in their general vicinity find themselves confused or fooled."


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> There's a *lot *of avian races in the game's history.  My personal take is probably these guys:
> 
> View attachment 255083



I would prefer something mythic for kenku, another normal people screwed over by the gods for dumb reasons is overdone in dnd, plus tengu work as great foes for monks who would want to kill the for a better reason than petty spite.


Maxperson said:


> Was it this one?
> 
> "The *Shard Shunners* were a gang of halfling wererats operating in Waterdeep in the late 15th century DR. Their name came from their refusal to deal in silver, called shards in Waterdeep, because of their wererat nature.
> 
> The Shard Shunners committed petty crimes around the city. Around 1492 DR, they were pickpocketing patrons at the Endshift Tavern in the Field Ward as retribution for a disagreement between the tavern owner and one of their members."



but they added the wererat to make the evil seem more comprehensible and it makes it less their flat as it is a curse that makes you evil, if halflings have evil it would be greed, sloth and gluttony based.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Well, I could think of a few unique reasons.  A Kenku who wants to break the curse that robbed their race of it's wings is one.  But by and large, that's an exception, most races are motivated by the same things as everyone else: ambition, survival, greed, revenge, etc..



Yes.  That's much more unique, but other races(or at least populations of them) that have been cursed, so they would produce some members who seek to break it.  There would certainly be far fewer of these sorts of adventurers and you might never meet one.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Was it this one?
> 
> "The *Shard Shunners* were a gang of halfling wererats operating in Waterdeep in the late 15th century DR. Their name came from their refusal to deal in silver, called shards in Waterdeep, because of their wererat nature.
> 
> The Shard Shunners committed petty crimes around the city. Around 1492 DR, they were pickpocketing patrons at the Endshift Tavern in the Field Ward as retribution for a disagreement between the tavern owner and one of their members."



No they weren't wererats.  I'd have to find the adventure, if I remember right, you're hauling a wagon down a busy street, and these guys run up and start swiping your cargo, then if they got off the map, they "melted into the crowd".


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> One of the main drawbacks of mages is supposed to be a lack of hit points, but Hobbits in my game usually end up with stupendous Con scores due to racial adjusts and thus negate this drawback with trivial ease.  Sure they roll a smaller die than other classes but the Con bonus (which other species don't generally get except for lucky individuals) quickly makes up for it.
> 
> Taking this Con adjust away from Hobbits would gut them for most other classes, thus not a viable option.



They _might_ get better hit points, but (arcane) spellcasters still don't wear armor and thus will still get killed very easily.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

@James Gasik, nicely put! 

And of course, it all depends on the player and DM actually playing their character exactly like the books say they should be played. And how often does that happen? There's a lizardfolk NPC in a game I'm in who is a friendly, eager-to-please, actually-not-cannibalistic ship's cook who likes cooking with his "special" mushrooms. I don't know if the DM didn't read the lizardfolk description or just didn't care, _and it doesn't matter._ He's a fun NPC and makes the game more fun. (I _wish _I could do NPCs as well as this DM.) The books provide a guideline, not a straightjacket, for how a race is played.

There are people who might say "but then why not make him a human," to which I again agree with what you said, James--having these nonhumans, even if they're _just _treated as humans in masks, can make the world feel more vibrant and more fantastical. And it's not hard to make them be more than just humans in masks.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> honestly what were the kenku before they lost their wings anyway? were they tengu or something else?



They were hawk-people with arms and wings.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> No they weren't wererats.  I'd have to find the adventure, if I remember right, you're hauling a wagon down a busy street, and these guys run up and start swiping your cargo, then if they got off the map, they "melted into the crowd".



The FR Wiki says they were wererats.









						Shard Shunners
					

The Shard Shunners were a gang of halfling wererats operating in Waterdeep in the late 15th century DR. Their name came from their refusal to deal in silver, called shards in Waterdeep, because of their wererat nature. The Shard Shunners committed petty crimes around the city. Around 1492 DR...




					forgottenrealms.fandom.com


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They were hawk-people with arms and wings.
> 
> View attachment 255089



that my by dumb luck work but it could be far better, plus I like my tengu idea more.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No? Point #1 has nothing to do with "can halflings be adventurers" and is all about "Do halflings have unique reasons to be adventurers"
> 
> Take Maxperson's list above. Of that list, points #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 can be the story of any Tom, Dick or Harry.  #2 is a bit weird, most people wouldn't think about it being their luck, instead of their mettle or their skill, so I might give him that one, but all the rest are bog standard adventuring plots. Getting a vision from God? That is literally any divine or pious character regardless of race, that isn't a "halfling" reason.
> 
> ...



Is every smith a dwarf? Is every archer an elf? Is every illusionist a gnome?

I literally do not understand how it is that hard to grasp..

In the same way other races  can be the best at and/or most well known for something without being the only ones who do it..

so..can..halflings.

It's not a "grimness" thing. It's a "read what the phb says and take it for face value" thing.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Is every smith a dwarf? Is every archer an elf? Is every illusionist a gnome?
> 
> I literally do not understand how it is that hard to grasp..
> 
> ...



but what is it that halflings do better than anybody else? aside from being irrelevant on the macro scale.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> The FR Wiki says they were wererats.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No, not the Shard Runners, the gang I ran into in an LFR mod, all Halflings who were trying to rob us.  I think they called themselves "The Green Gang", but I'm trying to figure out which adventure it was.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but what is it that halflings do better than anybody else? aside from being irrelevant on the macro scale.



What do Humans do better than anyone else?  Or Tieflings?  Or Tortles?


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> No, not the Shard Runners, the gang I ran into in an LFR mod, all Halflings who were trying to rob us.  I think they called themselves "The Green Gang", but I'm trying to figure out which adventure it was.



Ah, sorry.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> but what is it that halflings do better than anybody else? aside from being irrelevant on the macro scale.



Do you want lore or mechanics? Lorewise, they integrate better into societies (presumably by making friends) better than any other race.

Mechanically, they avoid catastrophe better than any other race.

That said, it's a silly question.

(Also, macro relevance is 100% campaign-specific which means 100% gm-dependent for every race)


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> What do Humans do better than anyone else?  Or Tieflings?  Or Tortles?



humans are grounded, they ground the setting in the familiar more than anything else.

tieflings are more aesthetic than all others, plus are very good at being irrationally hated outcasts.

being tmnt.


Gammadoodler said:


> Do you want lore or mechanics? Lorewise, they integrate better into societies (presumably by making friends) better than any other race.
> 
> Mechanically, they avoid catastrophe better than any other race.
> 
> That said, it's a silly question.



so they are basically just an endless group of mindlessly nice people? that is terrible for stories.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> humans are grounded, they ground the setting in the familiar more than anything else.
> 
> tieflings are more aesthetic than all others, plus are very good at being irrationally hated outcasts.
> 
> ...



..and I'm being accused of being "too grim"


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> ..and I'm being accused of being "too grim"



I am out of the loop why are you considered too grim?


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They _might_ get better hit points, but (arcane) spellcasters still don't wear armor and thus will still get killed very easily.



Yeah.  Even during those times that I rolled a 16 con for my wizards, I still found it very easy to be knocked out or killed.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> The FR Wiki says they were wererats.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think he was saying that group wasn't them and he would have to look up what the group he encountered was called.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I think he was saying that group wasn't them and he would have to look up what the group he encountered was called.



But sadly, I've gone over all the LFR mods set in Waterdeep I have access to, so I guess I'll never know.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> But sadly, I've gone over all the LFR mods set in Waterdeep I have access to, so I guess I'll never know.



That sucks!  I hate half remembering something and then never finding out the rest.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I am out of the loop why are you considered too grim?



It was toward the end of the post I'd originally replied to, which, in fairness, was quite long.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> That sucks!  I hate half remembering something and then never finding out the rest.



gods that is with the top ten of mundane banes of life.


Gammadoodler said:


> It was toward the end of the post I'd originally replied to, which, in fairness, was quite long.



a link, please?


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Indeed, Oldmanitis (or Oldpersonitis, if you prefer) is a terrifying ailment that affects older gamers, where you can tell people the tale of the time your 2nd level Paladin killed a Vrock in great detail, 30 years later, but about last week....uh, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah right!  Darn Halflings, always stealing from my garden, darned whippersnappers!


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> gods that is with the top ten of mundane banes of life.
> 
> a link, please?



Link


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In the game I play in we're regularly dealing with just this, in that much of the world's history comes from ancient Hobgoblins and their doings; and those guys had six-fingered hands.  Which means, every now and then we find ourselves having to decipher base-6 or base-12 numbers.  It also means I've seen firsthand in play what differences using a non-base-10 number system can make to a fantasy society; and yes, it's quite interesting (if at times also bloody frustrating!).




Is having six-fingered hands the only thing that makes ancient hobgoblins different from everyone else?



Lanefan said:


> Thanks, but I put a bit more thought into my world-building than that.
> 
> In my current setting, among the kindred species Humans are pretty dominant while Dwarves, Elves*, and Hobbits have small often-isolated countries or city-states, and Gnomes don't even have that: the entire species are scattered wanderers as their one big homeland was wiped out several centuries back.  That said, by overall area there's more wild land than there is settled so it can be argued nobody really has all that much.
> 
> * - Elves, however, are expanding rapidly and aggressively and pushing all before them.  It's a long story, still being told.




If you did more world-building than that, it wasn't present in your post. And in this post all you've added is that hobbits have small, isolated countries and/or city-states, just like dwarves. Which, again, doesn't tell me anything. And many of your previous posts have described hobbits as... just about the same as everyone else. They are good chefs, that's about all I can recall from your descriptions that could be unique to them.



Lanefan said:


> I think some people in this thread have tried doing exactly this.  Example: the idea of using them as underdogs, as the "little guys", as someone to cheer for when they make good - but this gets rejected on the claim underdogs are boring.  No.  They're only boring if-when they stay underdogs and can't rise above that; but adventuring Hobbits potentially can and do rise above that, against the odds, and that's what makes them fun: seeing if that potential can be made real.
> 
> A Dwarf or an Elf becoming a big-shot adventurer is kind of so-what  Those guys live long enough they could each have ten adventuring careers in their lives - ho hum, I've made 10th-level for the fifth century in a row.
> 
> ...




Who is the underdog in a street fight, the 200 lb ripped man with a biker chain, or the 90 lb girl with a shotgun? 

Magic exists. Everyone, even goblins, use magic. Halflings have access to magic, not just "halflings can be wizards" but they have gods so they have paladins and clerics. Halflings also have no unique penalties in fighting with 29 out of 37 weapons (78%), they have no penalties to wearing armor or using shields. The common guard in the MM using a spear, shield and armor? A halfling can use that exact same equipment if they needed to. 

I don't reject halflings being underdogs because it is boring, I don't reject it because they can never rise above it, I reject it because the premise is fundamentally nonsensical. If goblins with rusted equipment can terrorize a human village while being short, then halflings being short does not make them underdogs.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> So there is no innate "Halfling" reason to go adventuring.  This concept boggles me, because there are lots of races that have no innate reason to go adventuring.  I'll go to my current favorite target to pick on, the Lizardfolk.
> 
> Cracking open my Volo's Guide, I see we open with a warning: "If you're considering taking a scaled one on an adventure, remember this important fact.  The strange, inhuman glint in it's eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak."  -Tordek, dwarf fighter and adventurer (hey Tordek, glad to see you're still around, 2 editions later!).
> 
> ...




Yes, you have helped lay out some of the reasons Lizardfolk need  a rewrite if they are going to be a common PC race. This and the fact that "savage humanoid" is such an overstocked area of the game for enemies is part of why I've wondered about writing them out and not using them. Especially since their deep lore involves utterly rejecting the idea of intelligence and venerating stupidity. I hate that for my games, so I need to either completely rewrite them, or eject them. And since I have yet to think of a good reason to have them, I lean towards the latter. 

Now, if we are done with the "whataboutism" can we go back to considering that halflings might need a rewrite as well?



James Gasik said:


> Many no doubt think that adventurers cause more problems than they solve, by riling up monsters and plundering the dead in order to overburden the economy with the excess wealth they acquire (and rarely sit still long enough to be fairly taxed!).  So the average Halfling isn't an adventurer.  Neither is the average (just about any other race)!
> 
> I mean, look at Tieflings.  In D&D, Evil is a real, defined force.  Everyone knows evil gods exist, that there are demons and devils and Hells to go if you're wicked, and that the good gods are real, and they have Heavens for the righteous (that there are evil people at all in this reality makes zero sense to me, but eh, whatever).
> 
> ...




And some games focus on them being rejected for their devilish heritage, and others focus on the fact that tieflings have existed for centuries and it is pretty commonly known that they didn't do anything evil themselves, and that they don't want to write a story about how an entire race is punished for "the sins of the father" 

Does that make sense? Well, considering we'd think it is pretty heinous to execute the great-grandchildren of Nazi war criminals.... yes, I'd say that makes a lot of sense. 

Now, if we are done with the second round of "whataboutism" can we go back to considering halflings and how we can address them?



James Gasik said:


> D&D races don't make a whole lot of sense.  Their reasons for existing don't make sense.  Their reasons for adventuring often make less sense.
> 
> *That is not why races exist in D&D.*  Races exist in D&D so players and DM's can make their game worlds more vibrant, with more options than the same-old, same-old.  And if you *do *decide to have Dragonborn or Tabaxi in your campaign, it is up to you and your players to figure out how that works- not the blurbs of lore the WotC staff wrote down.




And halflings fail to make the game world more vibrant and exciting. So they are failing their reason to exist. So we might want to fix that.



James Gasik said:


> If you're creative, it's trivial to make any race an all-star in the setting.  But it's going to, ultimately, only matter if your players like playing that race.  You could crow about how great Dwarves are, for example, and how advanced their culture is, but if all your players turn up their noses at grubby bearded drunkards with bad attitudes (...sounds more like Wolverine if you ask me) to go play Devil babes or totally hot Angel dudes, it doesn't really matter.




"If you are creative" is just a cop-out, in my opinion. It tells us that those of us complaining and trying to fix the thing are just bad at being creative, which is insulting without giving anything to the conversation. 

Halflings do not give us the tools that many other races do to help make them interesting. That says nothing about our lack of creativity, it says something about how halflings were written. And blaming us and saying there isn't a problem doesn't help address how halflings are written.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Why would you separate lore and mechanics as if mechanics aren't part of lore?



I'm doing the opposite.

Neither the lore nor mechanics suggest a halfling crime family would set up their base to maximize their own stealth and bravery.

It's the opposite. Because halfling are fearless, lucky, carefree, and gregarious with other races, their base would look like a standard one... made for medium sized creatures so their friends would feel comfortable. And it would be barely hidden. Everyone would know where the hideout is ecause it would be an inn, restaurant, or tavern.


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## jasper (Jul 24, 2022)

Too short to get on the regular rides at Six Flags.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Is every smith a dwarf? Is every archer an elf? Is every illusionist a gnome?
> 
> I literally do not understand how it is that hard to grasp..
> 
> ...




So the halflings are best and most well known for being good, kind, caring folk? Do you not see how that could be a problem? The same way a race that is best known for being evil tortures is a problem, a race that is best known for being kind caring folk who care about their neighbors is a problem. Because it makes morality a racial trait. 

And that is the line I see your posts dancing on, that halflings are just morally better than everyone else. And that is not something I'm interested in.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

I do apologize if my attempt to compare Halflings to other races comes off as "whataboutism", that wasn't the intent so much as to point out that Halflings, in my opinion, do not have any significant flaws that aren't present in most races.  Further, that some races are a lot worse in this regard than Halflings.

You say you can't find ways to use Halflings; several of us have pointed out how we use or have used Halflings in this thread.

My very first post in this thread was how I changed the lore of Halflings in my current game, for example.  Now if you want to not make any changes, and use something as-is in a game, and you're having problems with that, by all means, dispense with it.

But the fact that others have found ways to make Halflings work in our games, I think, shows that this is far from a universal problem.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> so they are basically just an endless group of mindlessly nice people? that is terrible for stories.



Except that you're not really telling stories with RPGs. You're not writing a novel. You're playing a game where the plot and goal can be changed on the players' whims.

And they're not an endless group of mindlessly nice people. That is a racial _tendency._ There are plenty of not-nice or even outright evil halflings.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And halflings fail to make the game world more vibrant and exciting.



For you. They fail to do so for you.



Chaosmancer said:


> So they are failing their reason to exist. So we might want to fix that.



Then do that! This is completely a "you problem." Consider the insane amount of text you've written in this thread. Had you spent one tenth of that effort to write fleshed out halflings that work for you, you'd be done by now!


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## bedir than (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm doing the opposite.
> 
> Neither the lore nor mechanics suggest a halfling crime family would set up their base to maximize their own stealth and bravery.
> 
> It's the opposite. Because halfling are fearless, lucky, carefree, and gregarious with other races, their base would look like a standard one... made for medium sized creatures so their friends would feel comfortable. And it would be barely hidden. Everyone would know where the hideout is ecause it would be an inn, restaurant, or tavern.



Except the mechanics absolutely do


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm doing the opposite.
> 
> Neither the lore nor mechanics suggest a halfling crime family would set up their base to maximize their own stealth and bravery.
> 
> It's the opposite. Because halfling are fearless, lucky, carefree, and gregarious with other races, their base would look like a standard one... made for medium sized creatures so their friends would feel comfortable. And it would be barely hidden. Everyone would know where the hideout is ecause it would be an inn, restaurant, or tavern.



Halflings are not _stupid._ A halfling crime family _would _keep hidden because they don't want to go to jail or get killed. However, they would pull of heists and schemes that most everyone else would consider too audacious to try--and they'd be more likely to succeed, or at least not fail catastrophically. 

Their base _would_ likely be comfortable, yes, but it would be _well-_hidden, because halflings are good at stealth.


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## Minigiant (Jul 24, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Except the mechanics absolutely do






Faolyn said:


> Halflings are not _stupid._ A halfling crime family _would _keep hidden because they don't want to go to jail or get killed. However, they would pull of heists and schemes that most everyone else would consider too audacious to try--and they'd be more likely to succeed, or at least not fail catastrophically.
> 
> Their base _would_ likely be comfortable, yes, but it would be _well-_hidden, because halflings are good at stealth.



Halflings would totally pay off the cops. They'd get free drinks and product. The guard and nobles would be their buddies. Halfling love their friends. The illegal deals would be hard to find but the hangout would be well known.

The clean cops who threaten to ruin things would learn about how halflings blend in the crowd and have "accidents".


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## Azzy (Jul 24, 2022)

Some of you never played in Eberron and it shows. Tsk.


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## Irlo (Jul 24, 2022)

*Integrating Halflings into the Game World*

Many halfings have established communitites many predominently human, dwarven, and elven citites and towns all across the realms. Additionally, several nomadic communities make long circuits of major regions, stopping at each permanent halfling settlement along the way. Often, as many as 10-20% of the wanderers chose to sojourn in those settlements, while a like number of settled halflings join the travellers. In this way, family ties are maintained and expanded, halflings young and old can see the world, and new discoveries are shared -- delicious foods, jaunty fashions, excellent stories. Occassionally, non-halfling join the caravans for short or long periods. It's slow travelling, but as halfings carry their homey comforts on the road, it's a pleasant road indeed.

Because of the good relations halflings maintain with the dominant peoples in their communities, the nomadic communities are free to cross borders even between nations with strained or hostile relations. Some might try to take advantage of that, but the halfings steadfastly decline to engage in espionage and smuggling which would undermine trust and potentially cut of their contacts with their kin in other lands.

*Halflings in History and on the World Stage*

Halfling are notably absent from the written histories of the realms. One might think for that reason that their contributions have been insignificant. In fact, one prominent historian has speculated that _the entire Halflling race_ could be erased from the world with no discernable repurcussions.

A single example among many:

The histories tell of the strained relations between Dwarf City and Human Nation and the eventual bridging of that schism to form a consequential alliance of Dwarf and Human to fend off a coordinated hobgoblin and dark elf incursion -- a major event in world history. It was a longstanding feud, centuries old, caused by a broken treaty during a time of political turmoil in Human Nation B and maintained by the long memory of Dwarves and their lack of understanding of political turmoil that could disrupt good-faith agreements among nations, but the alliance that followed was even longer lasting.

The histories say that when the Human lands were pressed hard by initial waves of hobgoblin mauraders, their Dwarven neighbors overcame their grudge to send to a force against the invaders, briefly turning the tide and giving a populous Human town time to evacuate, saving many Human lives at the expense of Dwarven ones. What the histories _don't _say is that the Dwarves weren't there to defend the Humans at all but rather to defend the Halfling community that was nestled among them, at the behest of the Halfllings dwelling in Dwarf City. Nevertheless, the Humans returned the favor in a later skirmish, and the seeds of the alliance were formed.

For those who deem the entire Halfling race inconsequential on the world stage, I can only point to a famous bardic production, performed seasonally across the realms, about the disappearance of one inconsequential man and the ripple effect of that disappearance on family, friends, and community. Imagine now the removal from history of the entire Halfling people. The world that remained, if there was one, would be unrecognizable.


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Is having six-fingered hands the only thing that makes ancient hobgoblins different from everyone else?



That, and their world-changing (and cosmos-changing!) technology combined with divine magic, and their post-modern civilizations, etc., all of which ended ages ago but still now and then has influence today.

Every time we see anything in the shape of a hexagon now we immediately think Hobgoblin influence, and are usually right. 


Chaosmancer said:


> If you did more world-building than that, it wasn't present in your post. And in this post all you've added is that hobbits have small, isolated countries and/or city-states, just like dwarves. Which, again, doesn't tell me anything. And many of your previous posts have described hobbits as... just about the same as everyone else. They are good chefs, that's about all I can recall from your descriptions that could be unique to them.



Question, though: why must they be unique?

I should note I only have one other shortie in my games, that being Gnomes, thus Hobbits' stature makes them somewhat unusual in itself. (Dwarves are a bit taller, then Elves, then Humans)  I should also note we somewhat base on a Tolkein foundation more than does mainstream D&D, though by no means slavishly so - my ten-word campaign summary in that other thread consists of "JRR Tolkein, may I introduce you to Xena, Warrior Princess".  Hobbits have their place in such a setting.

Mechanically, they have innate nimbleness and toughness to an extent no other playable species does.  They alone also get big bonuses with thrown or fired missiles; all of this coming at cost of a) some Strength and Wisdom (even though they make excellent Clerics they have to fight a small Wisdom penalty to do so), b) a ban on use of weapons over a certain size, and c) and a few soft guidelines on one's backstory.  Now of course none of this applies to 5e, but I've no reason to care about that.


Chaosmancer said:


> Who is the underdog in a street fight, the 200 lb ripped man with a biker chain, or the 90 lb girl with a shotgun?



Dunno.  Is the gun loaded?  Can his chain reach her or the gun, or is he still at range?  Etc.


Chaosmancer said:


> Magic exists. Everyone, even goblins, use magic. Halflings have access to magic, not just "halflings can be wizards" but they have gods so they have paladins and clerics. Halflings also have no unique penalties in fighting with 29 out of 37 weapons (78%), they have no penalties to wearing armor or using shields. The common guard in the MM using a spear, shield and armor? A halfling can use that exact same equipment if they needed to.



Magic exists, yes, but while individual members of many species can learn how to access and-or use it there's very few species* wherein the great majority of members are taught this.  Arcanist Goblins are unheard of+, divine-magic Goblins exist but are very uncommon.

* - in my games Drow and Githi are perhaps the only two.
+ - to use arcane magic requires a certain degree of Intelligence which falls either at or above the species maximum for Goblins.

What we're also running up against here is the ongoing trend, seen most clearly in 5e, to make species mechanically more similar and to remove penalties of any kind.  I don't subscribe for a second to the idea that a Hobbit should be on average as strong as a Goliath; and I expect - and demand - that averaging to carry over to PCs of each type.  On the respective bell-curve for the species, a Strength-14 Hobbit and a Strength-17 Goliath should be the same - considerably stronger than average but still well below the species maximum.

Result: Goliaths are strong and thus tend toward classes and occupations requiring lots of muscle, Hobbits are nimble and thus trend toward classes and occupations requiring dexterity.

Another differentiator that's been lost is different species' ability (or lack of) to access magic, either arcane or divine.  Now it's pretty much the same for everyone, meaning any advantage gained by species that could over those that could not has been erased.

In short: the notion that all species should be more or less equally able to be all classes is IMO fundamentally flawed, and is a great contributor to the same-ness that is making Hobbits (and no doubt some other species) seem dull.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Except that you're not really telling stories with RPGs. You're not writing a novel. You're playing a game where the plot and goal can be changed on the players' whims.
> 
> And they're not an endless group of mindlessly nice people. That is a racial _tendency._ There are plenty of not-nice or even outright evil halflings.



I am well aware the medium of rpg does not work like a book but still, plots and characters are there and things still have to hook people in so it is not a complete departure.
okay in what ways are halfling evil in what ways does it manifest that feel distinctly halfling?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So the halflings are best and most well known for being good, kind, caring folk? Do you not see how that could be a problem? The same way a race that is best known for being evil tortures is a problem, a race that is best known for being kind caring folk who care about their neighbors is a problem. Because it makes morality a racial trait.
> 
> And that is the line I see your posts dancing on, that halflings are just morally better than everyone else. And that is not something I'm interested in.



I don't see it as any more problematic than any other racial trait. Better craftsmen, more perceptive, more ambitious, they all have issues.


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## Maxperson (Jul 24, 2022)

jasper said:


> Too short to get on the regular rides at Six Flags.



@Minigiant listed a bunch of traits that he said made halflings not worth playing as an NPC.  I disagreed with that list, but had he included this massive flaw, I'd have agreed that no halfling is worth playing...........................................................ever.


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So the halflings are best and most well known for being good, kind, caring folk? Do you not see how that could be a problem? The same way a race that is best known for being evil tortures is a problem, a race that is best known for being kind caring folk who care about their neighbors is a problem. Because it makes morality a racial trait.
> 
> And that is the line I see your posts dancing on, that halflings are just morally better than everyone else. And that is not something I'm interested in.



A species having a general trend toward a way of life and-or a way of thinking is fine with me, as long as it's just a trend and not a hard rule.  As a society on the whole Elves trend chaotic.  Dwarves trend lawful.  Hobbits trend Good.  Humans are all over ther place.  And a PC of any of those species can still be whatever its player wants it to be.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflings would totally pay off the cops. They'd get free drinks and product. The guard and nobles would be their buddies. Halfling love their friends. The illegal deals would be hard to find but the hangout would be well known.
> 
> The clean cops who threaten to ruin things would learn about how halflings blend in the crowd and have "accidents".



Well, the public part of the hangout would be well known. But finding the space where the actual deals go down, where people are trained, and where illegal/stolen goods are kept--that would be _very _difficult.


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## Lanefan (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, the public part of the hangout would be well known. But finding the space where the actual deals go down, where people are trained, and where illegal/stolen goods are kept--that would be _very _difficult.



And even if you could find it, it would probably be designed such that anyone bigger than a typical Hobbit simply couldn't fit through the doors and passages.


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## Faolyn (Jul 24, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I am well aware the medium of rpg does not work like a book but still, plots and characters are there and things still have to hook people in so it is not a complete departure.
> okay in what ways are halfling evil in what ways does it manifest that feel distinctly halfling?



In what ways are humans, elves, and dwarfs uniquely evil?

And I don't mean drow or duegar, because we're not talking about Always Evil races here (or races that were once upon a time written as Always Evil). I mean, what would make a wood elf or mountain dwarf evil that is totally unique to them?

If you can't think of anything specific to such a being that no other race would share, then why demand that halflings be so unique?

_I _had a BBEG halfling who was a cultist of Vecna and who was posing as a charismatic tent preacher, trying to convert people into worshipping "The Undying King." He even brought people back to life! (Well, all the townsfolk thought they were alive...) He had a whole town wrapped around his fingers because he was good at what he did. The players hated him. Having this charismatic tent preacher be a different race, the game would have had a different feel.

I also had a greenhag whose preferred illusory form was halfling-shaped. In fact, she was the hook for the cultist, because she wanted the PCs to retrieve her daughter, who had decided to go off with the preacher.


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## Irlo (Jul 24, 2022)

jasper said:


> Too short to get on the regular rides at Six Flags.



But they can sneak onto them anyway.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> In what ways are humans, elves, and dwarfs uniquely evil?
> 
> And I don't mean drow or duegar, because we're not talking about Always Evil races here (or races that were once upon a time written as Always Evil). I mean, what would make a wood elf or mountain dwarf evil that is totally unique to them?
> 
> ...



I used the word distinct because I wished to avoid this conversation, I did not mean evil only halflings could do but the type of evil they are well suited for both mechanically and thematically.


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## FrozenNorth (Jul 24, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, let's lean into making halflings a proud merchant race then. That's a fine direction to take them that isn't where they currently are. This plays into their stories of being friendly and gregarious, and could even be an extension of their farming tradition, where they raise livestock and make produce, then go out and sell it. They could be the premier trading race of the world, connecting various groups. This is an interesting direction to go.



If you are doing this, make them the +2 Cha race.  That eliminates the redundancy of two +2 Dex races among core.  It also would suggest bard and sorcerer as main classes for them which works with their lore.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 24, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I'd argue that the larger reason is that most of their race-based resources are invested in developing increasingly obscure brands of elves.
> 
> _Lead Designer: ok everyone. We now have forest elves, underground elves, shadow elves, sea elves, and snob elves.. what's next?
> 
> ...



Sneak Peek: Play as the Immortal Astral Elf From Spelljammer: Adventures in Space!

C'mon WOTC, it was a joke not a suggestion.


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## Faolyn (Jul 25, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I used the word distinct because I wished to avoid this conversation, I did not mean evil only halflings could do but the type of evil they are well suited for both mechanically and thematically.



They can be very evil thieves and assassins. Nobody would expect them to poison the tea or cake which they prepared quite lovingly for you. They'd be good at sneaking up on passersby, garotting them, and stealing their belongings. I mean, since halflings were built to be the thief race, it's pretty obvious that they'd be excellent thieves, and not _just _the type that opens locks and listens at doors for the rest of the party. They could be actual criminals. 

And before you say that they don't want lots of expensive belongings, remember, that's a racial _tendency_, and there are always outliers.

And you misunderstood my question. I asked about what sort of evil elves and dwarves are particularly suited for.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I do apologize if my attempt to compare Halflings to other races comes off as "whataboutism", that wasn't the intent so much as to point out that Halflings, in my opinion, do not have any significant flaws that aren't present in most races.  Further, that some races are a lot worse in this regard than Halflings.




... That is literally what "whataboutism" is. 

And yes, I think there are significant flaws in multiple races that should be addressed. That also includes discussing halflings. Responding to that with "but other things are worse" doesn't change the fact that I want to change halflings as well, and in fact just distracts from the discussion.



James Gasik said:


> You say you can't find ways to use Halflings; several of us have pointed out how we use or have used Halflings in this thread.
> 
> My very first post in this thread was how I changed the lore of Halflings in my current game, for example.  Now if you want to not make any changes, and use something as-is in a game, and you're having problems with that, by all means, dispense with it.




Many people's uses of halflings have been... I'm not sure the most charitable way to put it, but to me most of them are just ignoring the problem. I don't remember your specific examples, but many of them have done some variation of "I don't change anything and just put them in my game" which, you know... doesn't fix any of the issues we bring up. It is basically just telling us to ignore the problems we are having and then we won't have problems, which is far from helpful. 

A lot of others seem to go forward with assumptions which I just find to be blatantly untrue or unhelpful. Such as them somehow being the underdog race. Or that somehow they are the unexpected hero race, because there is nothing special about them. Or that they are the race that cares about their friends. None of which feels like a good design space, which is why I push back on it. I'm not just looking for people to just tell me what to do and me bobblehead along, I'm trying to discuss a good design going forward, which means ideas need to be challenged.



James Gasik said:


> But the fact that others have found ways to make Halflings work in our games, I think, shows that this is far from a universal problem.




And since I never claimed it was a universal problem, I don't know what you think this proves?


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> For you. They fail to do so for you.




Yes. And then other people have said their entire point of halflings are to be boring and unremarkable, which doesn't say "more vibrant and exciting." to me. So I'd say they've failed to do it for them too.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Then do that! This is completely a "you problem." Consider the insane amount of text you've written in this thread. Had you spent one tenth of that effort to write fleshed out halflings that work for you, you'd be done by now!




Ah, the most helpful way to have a discussion. 

"Don't talk to other people! If you had just spent your time fixing it yourself you'd be done. You are just wasting everyone's time trying to get a discussion going" 

Wonderful advice, I'll be sure to spread it to every thread we ever have, discussion is useless, just work by yourself because that is the only way to get things done.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> That, and their world-changing (and cosmos-changing!) technology combined with divine magic, and their post-modern civilizations, etc., all of which ended ages ago but still now and then has influence today.
> 
> Every time we see anything in the shape of a hexagon now we immediately think Hobgoblin influence, and are usually right.




So, nothing at all like my example.



Lanefan said:


> Question, though: why must they be unique?
> 
> I should note I only have one other shortie in my games, that being Gnomes, thus Hobbits' stature makes them somewhat unusual in itself. (Dwarves are a bit taller, then Elves, then Humans)  I should also note we somewhat base on a Tolkein foundation more than does mainstream D&D, though by no means slavishly so - my ten-word campaign summary in that other thread consists of "JRR Tolkein, may I introduce you to Xena, Warrior Princess".  Hobbits have their place in such a setting.
> 
> Mechanically, they have innate nimbleness and toughness to an extent no other playable species does.  They alone also get big bonuses with thrown or fired missiles; all of this coming at cost of a) some Strength and Wisdom (even though they make excellent Clerics they have to fight a small Wisdom penalty to do so), b) a ban on use of weapons over a certain size, and c) and a few soft guidelines on one's backstory.  Now of course none of this applies to 5e, but I've no reason to care about that.




Right, none of this applies to 5e, the thing we are discussing. In 5e the halflings don't have unique nimbleness and toughness. They don't get bonuses to thrown or fired missiles. They have no penalities strength or wisdom. They have no bans on weapons. 

And most games are not based in Tolkien. 

So, why must they have something unique? Because if they don't have something as a hook, then what's the point of having them? I know for you, being hobbits from Tolkien is a hook, but for me and other players I know? That isn't worth anything. We don't dislike Tolkien, but there is far more to fantasy we want to emulate. There are tropes we don't have, and just "is short" isn't enough for us to latch onto and say "Oh, this will make an interesting character." And if it is... there are currently 17 other short races who ALSO have something else unique about them. 

And it doesn't have to be the most unique and special idea ever, but it has to be something that we can utilize.



Lanefan said:


> Dunno.  Is the gun loaded?  Can his chain reach her or the gun, or is he still at range?  Etc.




Really? I'd think the answers are rather obvious.



Lanefan said:


> Magic exists, yes, but while individual members of many species can learn how to access and-or use it there's very few species* wherein the great majority of members are taught this.  Arcanist Goblins are unheard of+, divine-magic Goblins exist but are very uncommon.
> 
> * - in my games Drow and Githi are perhaps the only two.
> + - to use arcane magic requires a certain degree of Intelligence which falls either at or above the species maximum for Goblins.
> ...




Which, again, has nothing to do with 5e which is what is being discussed. And I think this is rather telling, because allowing equal access to all classes has highlighted that the halflings didn't actually have anything special. And many of the restrictions from older editions were set aside because people didn't like them. I don't want to be penalized for playing the character I want to play, just because someone wants to try and make a reality simulator, 

If halflings/hobbits can't survive being in a modern game, then that's not a detriment to the game in my opinion.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I don't see it as any more problematic than any other racial trait. Better craftsmen, more perceptive, more ambitious, they all have issues.




Because morality is not a racial trait.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> If you are doing this, make them the +2 Cha race.  That eliminates the redundancy of two +2 Dex races among core.  It also would suggest bard and sorcerer as main classes for them which works with their lore.




I use Tasha's, no racial modifiers. But I do agree with the lore direction being notable.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, none of this applies to 5e, the thing we are discussing.



You might be discussing 5e.  I'm discussing Hobbits, which are sadly now called Halflings.


Chaosmancer said:


> In 5e the halflings don't have unique nimbleness and toughness. They don't get bonuses to thrown or fired missiles. They have no penalities strength or wisdom. They have no bans on weapons.



Which tells me the problem doesn't lie with the species itself but with the edition design that has taken away all that made them unique-unusual-interesting.

Al I can say there is, looking to earlier editions for inspiration, Houserules Are Your Friend.


Chaosmancer said:


> Which, again, has nothing to do with 5e which is what is being discussed. And I think this is rather telling, because allowing equal access to all classes has highlighted that the halflings didn't actually have anything special.



Seems a bit circular from here - the edition design strips away everything that made them special leading to complaints that they aren't special enough.


Chaosmancer said:


> And many of the restrictions from older editions were set aside because people didn't like them. I don't want to be penalized for playing the character I want to play, just because someone wants to try and make a reality simulator,



 On a broad level, I'm sad to say, it's thinking like this which got us into this mess.

Of course people don't like restrictions - but never once do they complain about the corresponding benefits in other areas that balance those restrictions out.

As for "playing the character you want to play", sorry, but just because there's (round numbers) 30 species and 20 classes doesn't necessarily mean that all 600 species-class combinations have to be - or should be - designed as being equally viable; and I posit that doing so would make the game a lesser thing.

Unless all species are made mechanically the same (or very close) a player's choice of either species or class - either one - should IMO strongly influence the choice of the other.


Chaosmancer said:


> If halflings/hobbits can't survive being in a modern game, then that's not a detriment to the game in my opinion.



Where in my view the detriment is the monster species that are taking their place.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I didn't say halflings would not have crime families. They love family.
> 
> What I said is that halfling traits and their base lore in this edition would not nudge them into adapting their hideout completely to their racial benefit. Like you said "less risk averse ( due to bravery, curiosity, and better luck at avoiding catastrophic failure), more communal, more prone to cross-species empathy, more curious, and just the lack of desire to control others or take what others have"



Please extrapolate your reasoning that takes you from the above, to the next paragraph. 


Minigiant said:


> Meaning they would be a bit lackadaisical in design, cater to their human gangster allies, and end up fighting straight up. They, to me, would never make a Tucker's Kobolds base outside of a doomsday, death, or post-apoc setting. And thus halflings would fight straight up.
> 
> And after 3 session of seeing PCs fighting the Brownboys, halflings stink at fighting straight up. Even after I customized them in the second session. I'm biased though as I run races a bit more flanderized AND ran halfling enemies.



That does not follow. At all. There is an unexplained jump that apperently seems obviously true to you, but makes no sense on any level to me.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Because morality is not a racial trait.



It's all margins. As a people they care incrementally more about people and incrementally less about other pursuits.

As a result they have incrementally better relationships and are incrementally worse at other pursuits.

At the end of the day, it's a worldbuilding lever you can use that is explicit within the existing lore. It's a bummer you don't like it, but it's there.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Halflings would totally pay off the cops. They'd get free drinks and product. The guard and nobles would be their buddies. Halfling love their friends. The illegal deals would be hard to find but the hangout would be well known.
> 
> The clean cops who threaten to ruin things would learn about how halflings blend in the crowd and have "accidents".



That’s fine as your idiosyncratic take. It doesn’t follow directly from what the lore actually says, though.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 25, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They can be very evil thieves and assassins. Nobody would expect them to poison the tea or cake which they prepared quite lovingly for you. They'd be good at sneaking up on passersby, garotting them, and stealing their belongings. I mean, since halflings were built to be the thief race, it's pretty obvious that they'd be excellent thieves, and not _just _the type that opens locks and listens at doors for the rest of the party. They could be actual criminals.
> 
> And before you say that they don't want lots of expensive belongings, remember, that's a racial _tendency_, and there are always outliers.
> 
> And you misunderstood my question. I asked about what sort of evil elves and dwarves are particularly suited for.



I mean big evil all they do is small, they are bit parts the race.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Please extrapolate your reasoning that takes you from the above, to the next paragraph.
> 
> That does not follow. At all. There is an unexplained jump that apperently seems obviously true to you, but makes no sense on any level to me.



What I mean is the lore says the halflings don't get into the large organizations like nobility or major governance.

So a halfing crime family is more like to join a more powerful human, dwarf, or elf crime family and defer logistics and operations to them.

The Crime Boss will likely not be a halfling. Many underbosses might.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> What I mean is the lore says the halflings don't get into the large organizations like nobility or major governance.
> 
> So a halfing crime family is more like to join a more powerful human, dwarf, or elf crime family and defer logistics and operations to them.
> 
> The Crime Boss will likely not be a halfling. Many underbosses might.



Even assuming you're right about the scale to which a halfling crime family may grow, the idea that they'd outsource "operations and logistics" to such a degree that it would endanger themselves is ridiculous for a couple reasons.

1. Halflings are practical and care about their communities, which logically would even include the criminal ones they are members of. A failure to implement practical measures to protect the community goes against existing lore.

2. Non-halfling crime families are like businesses. Incorporating halflings into it is something they would do if they expect to reap the benefits of halflings operating it. A halfling branch of the family that does not act like halflings is dead weight. Your dwarven Dons should be deeply suspicious and critical of a halfling branch of their family that fights straight up, just like they'd be suspicious and critical of a dwarven branch that fights unarmored, unarmed and turns on all the lights..


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> What I mean is the lore says the halflings don't get into the large organizations like nobility or major governance.



No, it doesn’t. It talks about tendencies. Halflings do all the things humans do, just with different frequency and _some_ different motivations. 


Minigiant said:


> So a halfing crime family is more like to join a more powerful human, dwarf, or elf crime family and defer logistics and operations to them.



More or less likely =\= won’t happen. 


Minigiant said:


> The Crime Boss will likely not be a halfling. Many underbosses might.



Except a halfling makes an excellent Don, and the focus on family, cooperation, diplomacy, and taking care of eachother makes up for any tendency that works against it. 

Also, in answer to another claim you’ve made, halflings wouldn’t shy away from making full use of their unique nature in operations and defense. They’d also make full use of thier non-halfling underling’s unique nature.


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## Azzy (Jul 25, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Except a halfling makes an excellent Don, and the focus on family, cooperation, diplomacy, and taking care of eachother makes up for any tendency that works against it.
> 
> Also, in answer to another claim you’ve made, halflings wouldn’t shy away from making full use of their unique nature in operations and defense. They’d also make full use of thier non-halfling underling’s unique nature.



The Boromar Clan from Eberron is a great example of a halfling crime syndicate.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> You might be discussing 5e.  I'm discussing Hobbits, which are sadly now called Halflings.
> 
> Which tells me the problem doesn't lie with the species itself but with the edition design that has taken away all that made them unique-unusual-interesting.
> 
> ...




IF the only thing that made you special was that other people weren't allowed to play rogues and you weren't allowed to be a wizard, then you aren't really special. 

Also, yes, clearly the lore and design that doesn't make them feel special doesn't make them feel special, and discussing ways to change that with people is a way to address what we do want. I'm not particularly interested in giving them dwarven toughness, that seems to be a bit unfair to dwarves. I'm not really sure what we could want from "nimbleness" because that is a such a broad and oversaturated area it could be anything. And bonuses to throwing things is just... weird. So your 2e or 1e version of the race also doesn't seem to fit into a modern design. But it is difficult to discuss with you how we could even change things, because you often don't even know what rules have changed. I'm not trying to be dismissive, but I've noticed this a lot where you will say "it works fine for me, becuase I'm not using the rules you are" which... isn't helpful.



Lanefan said:


> On a broad level, I'm sad to say, it's thinking like this which got us into this mess.
> 
> Of course people don't like restrictions - but never once do they complain about the corresponding benefits in other areas that balance those restrictions out.
> 
> ...




I fundamentally disagree. Nothing about your race determines whether you can worship the gods or worship nature (cleric or druid). Nothing about your race determines if you can devote yourself zealously to a cause, hone your body and mind, or break with the norms of society for the left handed path or for the wilds of the world (Paladin, Monk, Rogue, or Ranger). Nothing about your race determines if you can learn how to fight, or if you throw yourself into fights with a supernatural fury (Fighter or Barbarian). Nothing about your race determines if you can study magic, study engineering, study music, make deals with otherworldly entities or be born with magical powers (Wizard, Artificer, Bard, Warlock or Sorcerer) 

Allowing the combinations doesn't make the game lesser, because it tells people that any combination of things is possible and supported.

I actually had experience with the opposite some time ago. Some friends desperately wanted to play pathfinder to do a specific genre of game. I agreed and tried building a character. I had an idea of what I wanted, and picked the race that fit and noticed they mentioned an ability that worked with a specific class, so I started building the character. Only, one of my friends pointed out that despite having an ability directly linked with the class, the race had a restriction that completely ruined any attempt to use that class, and it was completely nonviable. I could have gone forward with it anyways, played that nerfed character, but I didn't I made something that worked. And you know what? I'm still being constantly overshadowed by people who knew the system better and built something better. If I'd gone with my original idea? It'd have been a joke and if I didn't quit, I'd have rerolled a new character. 

Needlessly limiting race/class combos or setting restrictions where only certain things are viable, is bad game design for a Tabletop RPG in my opinion. All it does is funnel people into making the same decisions, and punish those who don't.



Lanefan said:


> Where in my view the detriment is the monster species that are taking their place.




Where in my view I see that as nothing but a positive.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> It's all margins. As a people they care incrementally more about people and incrementally less about other pursuits.
> 
> As a result they have incrementally better relationships and are incrementally worse at other pursuits.
> 
> At the end of the day, it's a worldbuilding lever you can use that is explicit within the existing lore. It's a bummer you don't like it, but it's there.




And what does "incrementally" even mean in this context? Because, again, the further you push "care more about other people" the more you are just saying "is a good person". And again, putting halflings out as the kindest, nicest, goodest race is not a good design space. Because Morality is not a racial trait. 

Honestly, this isn't even a factor of "you just don't like it" it is literally putting halflings on a pedestal. They are too good and pure to care more about X than they care about other people and making them comfortable. Maybe this is just me having that mid-western/Southern influence, but that is just what good people do. And having halflings be the goodest of boys requires then making all the other races look worse. "Why don't those humans care about their fellow man instead of profit." Isn't a story I'm interested in (as a writ-large racial story), but becomes inevitable when you make halflings the race that cares more about their fellow man than profit. Because that means no one else cares as much as halflings do.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> What I mean is the lore says the halflings don't get into the large organizations like nobility or major governance.
> 
> So a halfing crime family is more like to join a more powerful human, dwarf, or elf crime family and defer logistics and operations to them.
> 
> The Crime Boss will likely not be a halfling. Many underbosses might.



This is once again more @Minigiant lore that appears to be a ridiculous extrapolation from 5e lore.

You're talking "major governance" like that's what's needed for a crime family. The FBI currently estimates that the Mafia are about 3000 strong and were 5000 strong at their peak in the 1960s (with the population of the US having doubled since then). Counting the associates that's about 50,000 people either in the Mafia or as Mafia associates. Or the total Mafia across the United States of America _at its peak_ was the size of one large town.

A crime family is not "major governance". Even if it was halflings and crime families alike treasure the bonds of family - after all you can _trust_ family. Which means that if you can you keep the leadership in the family. I mean sure you might set up a patsy who enjoys thinking they are the boss so if anyone takes the fall they do.

Why do you do this? Why do you insist on inventing arrant nonsense about Halflings and then claiming that the arrant nonsense you have invented is a problem? And why do you think that your own house rules and your own invented fluff making halflings bad shows anything other than the problem is with the way you use them?

On second thoughts never mind. Goodbye


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And what does "incrementally" even mean in this context? Because, again, the further you push "care more about other people" the more you are just saying "is a good person". And again, putting halflings out as the kindest, nicest, goodest race is not a good design space. Because Morality is not a racial trait.
> 
> Honestly, this isn't even a factor of "you just don't like it" it is literally putting halflings on a pedestal. They are too good and pure to care more about X than they care about other people and making them comfortable. Maybe this is just me having that mid-western/Southern influence, but that is just what good people do. And having halflings be the goodest of boys requires then making all the other races look worse. "Why don't those humans care about their fellow man instead of profit." Isn't a story I'm interested in (as a writ-large racial story), but becomes inevitable when you make halflings the race that cares more about their fellow man than profit. Because that means no one else cares as much as halflings do.



Incrementally here is meant to express that they invest some amount more in time and energy investing in people than other races do.

It does not mean that halflings are the only ones doing so. It's the same way dwarves being Incrementally better crafters reflects that they have invested more time and energy getting better at crafting than other races have while acknowledging that other races do craft stuff.

Time and energy are finite resources. Investments in one area mean sacrifices in another. Halflings are not the best crafters, or empire builders, or mages. Their time and energy is spent elsewhere.

From a worldbuilding perspective, which was where this all started, all that is required is to plot out the incrementally different results of their incremental time and energy expenditure, the same way you would with every other race.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 25, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I mean big evil all they do is small, they are bit parts the race.



This is a problem because ....?

There are after all many many more bit parts than big bads. Halflings not throwing their weight around like divas but instead getting on with their lives and by getting on with their lives making the actual situation clear is refreshing.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> No, it doesn’t. It talks about tendencies. Halflings do all the things humans do, just with different frequency and _some_ different motivations.



Sure, there are exceptions 

But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.


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## Faolyn (Jul 25, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I mean big evil all they do is small, they are bit parts the race.



You don't think assassinating a noble or member of royalty is big? How do you define "big evil"? Only cosmic evil?

And again, what sort of evil would elves and dwarfs do that is unique to them? You keep ignoring this question.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Sure, there are exceptions
> 
> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



Immediately..and I mean _immediately_ after it says they don't have kings or nobles, it says..

_"..instead looking to *family* elders to guide them."_

Who do you think the crime bosses are in a crime *family*?


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## Faolyn (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Sure, there are exceptions
> 
> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



That doesn't follow. They would still have managers and owners. The local pub has one. There's someone who runs the library. There's someone who is the head of the merchant caravans. And there would be They're not chaotic anarchists (don't forget: they're nearly always listed as being _Lawful _in alignment). A halfling crime boss would be more like an owner or manager than a king. They would be the _head of the family._ It would just be a crime family. 

_And_ that is, again, a racial tendency. Just because halfling society as a whole doesn't have kings doesn't mean that there aren't halflings with dreams of becoming one, either for good or for ill.


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## Azzy (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Sure, there are exceptions
> 
> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



Does not follow.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Sure, there are exceptions
> 
> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



That is a leap, not a direct logical conclusion from the statements in the books.

Edit to add: a don isn’t a noble or a king.


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## Lanefan (Jul 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> IF the only thing that made you special was that other people weren't allowed to play rogues and you weren't allowed to be a wizard, then you aren't really special.
> 
> Also, yes, clearly the lore and design that doesn't make them feel special doesn't make them feel special, and discussing ways to change that with people is a way to address what we do want. I'm not particularly interested in giving them dwarven toughness, that seems to be a bit unfair to dwarves. I'm not really sure what we could want from "nimbleness" because that is a such a broad and oversaturated area it could be anything. And bonuses to throwing things is just... weird. So your 2e or 1e version of the race also doesn't seem to fit into a modern design. But it is difficult to discuss with you how we could even change things, because you often don't even know what rules have changed. I'm not trying to be dismissive, but I've noticed this a lot where you will say "it works fine for me, becuase I'm not using the rules you are" which... isn't helpful.



It's helpful in that it allows me to look at these things from a broader perspective than just within 5e and bring that perspective to these discussions.

That, and to me the rules of any edition exist only as a foundation on which to kitbash the bespoke system best suited to a given DM's own table.  Which means, if you don't like the way 5e mechanically does its Hobbits, kitbash them until you do like it.  WotC ain't gonna fix 'em for you.

And...how is bonuses to throwing things any weirder than various other abilities some creatures get?


Chaosmancer said:


> I fundamentally disagree. Nothing about your race determines whether you can worship the gods or worship nature (cleric or druid). Nothing about your race determines if you can devote yourself zealously to a cause, hone your body and mind, or break with the norms of society for the left handed path or for the wilds of the world (Paladin, Monk, Rogue, or Ranger). Nothing about your race determines if you can learn how to fight, or if you throw yourself into fights with a supernatural fury (Fighter or Barbarian). Nothing about your race determines if you can study magic, study engineering, study music, make deals with otherworldly entities or be born with magical powers (Wizard, Artificer, Bard, Warlock or Sorcerer)



Where I think a character's species *should* have a lot to say abut many of these things.  Yes, any species can _try_ almost any of these things (I still like the idea of some species being flat-out unable to be certain classes e.g. no Dwarf Wizards) but some species will be better suited for some types of activities and-or classes simply by what they are, and in some cases your species will fight you if you want to play it as a particular class.  Otherwise you might as well get rid of all the PC-playable species except Humans, as there's no good reason to keep the rest.


Chaosmancer said:


> Allowing the combinations doesn't make the game lesser, because it tells people that any combination of things is possible and supported.



My point is that not all of those combinations of things should be equal.


Chaosmancer said:


> I actually had experience with the opposite some time ago. Some friends desperately wanted to play pathfinder to do a specific genre of game. I agreed and tried building a character. I had an idea of what I wanted, and picked the race that fit and noticed they mentioned an ability that worked with a specific class, so I started building the character. Only, one of my friends pointed out that despite having an ability directly linked with the class, the race had a restriction that completely ruined any attempt to use that class, and it was completely nonviable. I could have gone forward with it anyways, played that nerfed character, but I didn't I made something that worked. And you know what? I'm still being constantly overshadowed by people who knew the system better and built something better. If I'd gone with my original idea? It'd have been a joke and if I didn't quit, I'd have rerolled a new character.



Missing some restriction until it's too late in a heavy system like PF is perfectly understandable.   That said, were it me; on hitting that speed bump I'd have asked myself whether the species or the class was more important to my concept (but see below), and on the fly changed the one that was not.


Chaosmancer said:


> Needlessly limiting race/class combos or setting restrictions where only certain things are viable, is bad game design for a Tabletop RPG in my opinion. All it does is funnel people into making the same decisions, and punish those who don't.



This is something I don't mind, within reason.  I don't see making the non-standard decision as punishment, though; I see it as an intentional decision to play against type and see how it goes.  Sometimes it works out hella well.  Other times it doesn't; and the same can be said for characters who didn't go down a non-standard path.

Then again, and this is probably worth noting as it seems a different approach than yours, I rarely if ever start the roll-up process with anything more than a vague idea of what I want to end up with, as I know the odds of the dice giving me what I want are sometimes slim.  Going in to the char-gen process with a character concept already fully-formed is IMO a recipe for disappointment.


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## Lanefan (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



You're the DM at your table.  You're not married to the lore in the books as written.

If Hobbits in your setting have kings and nobles, then so be it.  No harm done; carry on.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Immediately..and I mean _immediately_ after it says they don't have kings or nobles, it says..
> 
> _"..instead looking to *family* elders to guide them."_
> 
> Who do you think the crime bosses are in a crime *family*?



Like I keep saying.

Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.

But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> You're the DM at your table.  You're not married to the lore in the books as written.
> 
> If Hobbits in your setting have kings and nobles, then so be it.  No harm done; carry on.



My Halflings at my table aren't 5e style Halflings, Lender, or Hobbits.

All I am saying is base lore 5e Halflings would be Paulie, Chris, or Vito. Not Tony. Maybe not even Silvio.


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## bedir than (Jul 25, 2022)

I'm going to interrupt this broadcast to point out that for a race with "little to no lore" there a tens of thousands of words explaining Halfling lore in this thread


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Like I keep saying.
> 
> Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.
> 
> But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.



So..

They have crime families, which are run by members of the family, but they cannot be 'major' because halflings are not governed by nobles or kings
This organization would be successful enough that a "major" organization wants to work with them, but not successful enough to be 'major' themselves.
They will integrate into some other races' "major" organization (reasons unknown) which, I guess are led by nobles and kings, since that seems to a primary qualifications to reach "majority"
Once integrated, the community-minded, practical, noble-eschewing halfling crime family will abandon any and all of their racial advantages and family leadership which made them successful in the first place in order to work "better" with the new noble-led partner organization.
Wu-wu-wu-wu--wut?

This is is logical to you??


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Like I keep saying.
> 
> Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.
> 
> But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.



Yes. They. Would. 

The Mafia is a crime family, and a major crime organization.


----------



## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So..
> 
> They have crime families, which are run by members of the family, but they cannot be 'major' because halflings are not governed by nobles or kings
> This organization would be successful enough that a "major" organization wants to work with them, but not successful enough to be 'major' themselves.
> ...





> Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires




I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.

"They rarely build _criminal_ kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires _silent hideout _They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling _crimelords and kingpins_ instead looking to _crime_ family elders to guide them."

You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs".  But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.
> 
> "They rarely build _criminal_ kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires _silent hideout _They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling _crimelords and kingpins_ instead looking to _crime_ family elders to guide them."
> 
> You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs".  But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.



That is an incredible leap. 

It certainly doesn’t have any bearing on a broader discussion of the halfling in D&D .


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.
> 
> "They rarely build _criminal_ kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires _silent hideout _They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling _crimelords and kingpins_ instead looking to _crime_ family elders to guide them."
> 
> You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs".  But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.



Let's say this is a valid way to apply the lore. The hobbyist crime family is a curious one to me, but let's go with it.

So you have these single-family home-sized crime families..with little ambition to grow.

They somehow catch the attention of some serious criminal organizations, dwarves and stuff..despite the limited criminal scope or ambition these halflings display.

The big organization's criminal kingpin makes the hobbyist halflings an offer.

Our halfling hobbyists jump at the chance to work for this kingpin, despite having no previous ambitions and racial resistance to kingpin rulership.

Either with or without directions from the kingpin, they abandon all practical precautions they'd utilized before this criminal merger.

They conduct operations without using any of their halfling racial features..

*And therefore, halflings make bad enemies.*

So all I really disagree with here is your assumptions, logic, and conclusion, but otherwise..yeah, seems legit.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.
> 
> "They rarely build _criminal_ kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires _silent hideout _They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling _crimelords and kingpins_ instead looking to _crime_ family elders to guide them."
> 
> You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs".  But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.



Why do you keep thinking that racial tendencies is the same as racial absolutes?

Edit: A halfling shire doesn't _need _an absolute ruler like a king because halflings generally don't lead the kind of lives that require any one halfling to decide that they could rule everyone better than halflings could rule themselves. They get along well with each other and, within the borders of a halfling town, rarely get up to the kind of crimes or face the kind of dangers that require an absolute ruler to dictate what to do. And don't forget that even though halflings may not have royalty, their towns _would _likely have mayors or magistrates, probably even democratically elected ones.

A halfling crime family or other criminal organization--which would likely be formed _outside _of a halfling town--isn't like a normal halfling organization. Such an organization _does _need a leader or oligarchy. And there's is _nothing _in established D&D lore that suggests that halflings couldn't have a absolute ruler in those circumstances.

And actually, halflings may have actual, original-meaning dictators--someone who is elected to a position of absolute power for the duration of a crisis and then steps down when that crisis is over. Halflings are, for the most part, well-intentioned enough that few would abuse this temporary power. And fewer would continue to obey the dictator when the crisis has passed.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why do you keep thinking that racial tendencies is the same as racial absolutes?



Where am I saying absolutes?

Note: My quote is _literally_ the PHB description of haflings with the legal titles replaced with underworld titles.

If you don't like it.* Congratulations!* You agree with me that the 5e Halfling lore is trash.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> That is an incredible leap.
> 
> It certainly doesn’t have any bearing on a broader discussion of the halfling in D&D .




"They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them."

to

"They rarely build *underworld* kingdoms of their own or even hold much *underworld* land beyond their quiet *under*shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling *underworld* nobility or *underworld* royalty, instead looking to *underworld* family elders to guide them *in the* *underworld*."


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## Faolyn (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Where am I saying absolutes?
> 
> Note: My quote is _literally_ the PHB description of haflings with the legal titles replaced with underworld titles.
> 
> If you don't like it.* Congratulations!* You agree with me that the 5e Halfling lore is trash.



I don't agree with you. Because you are taking this tendency as if it were 100% true all the time. You are refusing to accept that not every halfling acts in exactly this way.

And you _still _haven't given examples of evils that are unique to elves or dwarfs that are based on their racial proclivities.

Edit: "They *rarely *build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They *typically *don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them."

Rare and typically aren't "always." _A few _halflings build kingdoms; _some _recognize nobility.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> If you don't like it.* Congratulations!* You agree with me that the 5e Halfling lore is trash.



So here's an interesting bit. I actually would agree with you that the lore is bad.

But..it's bad because (imho) it's unimaginative..

..not because it causes any kind of weird pervasive "setting incompatibility" nonsense you and others have described.

It's a disappointment not a problem.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Incrementally here is meant to express that they invest some amount more in time and energy investing in people than other races do.
> 
> It does not mean that halflings are the only ones doing so. It's the same way dwarves being Incrementally better crafters reflects that they have invested more time and energy getting better at crafting than other races have while acknowledging that other races do craft stuff.
> 
> ...




But Dwarves don't invest "incrementally more" time and energy into crafting. They invest a lot more. It is a foundational pillar of being a dwarf. It is a religious duty to their creator God. This isn't incremental, this is fundamental. Your example makes me think about saying that Catholics who tithe give an "incremental" amount of money to the church. No, they give 10% of their livelihood to the church and see it as a divine duty to do so. That is vastly different from someone who puts a fiver in the collection plate because the church needs a slush fund to host a bake sale. 

And this is I think why your examples just aren't resonating with me. Because you seem to think that only a minor difference is enough. And I know you are talking about building out a little here, fast forward in time with how those little bits go, but that's not how I've built any other race. For Dwarves I started with it is their divine duty to craft objects in the name of Moradin. And built their society around that. To do the same for halflings they would have to see being kind to others as a religious duty... but all followers of gods of good, healing, protection, ect see being kind to others as a religious duty. It is universal, it is literally written int various celestial beings. Which then makes you look towards halflings being celestial beings, which is ridiculous. Especially for a race that is also being talked about as running crime families and murder operations like the Mafia. It doesn't work.


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## Irlo (Jul 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Like I keep saying.
> 
> Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.
> 
> But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.



At best we might agree that, based on the lore, halflings would _rarely_ run major crime organizations. I wouldn't want more than one halfling-run crime organization in a  campaign anyway, so _rarely_ is enough for me.

Those that they do run, would likely be run by family elders.

If I were to use this idea, I'd probably set it up in a city that was less welcoming of halflings than usual, with the criminal organization preying discretely on others while protecting the halfling neighborhoods from both crime and persecution.


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## Minigiant (Jul 25, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't agree with you. Because you are taking this tendency as if it were 100% true all the time. You are refusing to accept that not every halfling acts in exactly this way.
> 
> And you _still _haven't given examples of evils that are unique to elves or dwarfs that are based on their racial proclivities.



I absolutely have not. I've frequently said that PC halflings often act different than their race in many ways. And the lore says "rarely". Meaning that there aresituations where halfling would rise out of the comfort of being background players and act on the world.

But those situations are rare.

I wasn't talking about other races but

Dwarves: Dwarves are traditionalist. Andwent they do break tradition, they get harsher and twisted do what has to happen for them to do so (see duergar). A Dwarven crime org would not adapt to the times and could be strangled by their clannishness, greed, and rules..

Elves. Elves physically are quick but mentally move slow. You could cross them and it might be your son that pays the price. Also it takes longer for elves to advance because of their opinion of children and how backstabby they get when they go evil (see Drow)

Dragonborn: "Chromatic dragons gone be selfless and turn on each other" but smaller.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 25, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> It's helpful in that it allows me to look at these things from a broader perspective than just within 5e and bring that perspective to these discussions.
> 
> That, and to me the rules of any edition exist only as a foundation on which to kitbash the bespoke system best suited to a given DM's own table.  Which means, if you don't like the way 5e mechanically does its Hobbits, kitbash them until you do like it.  WotC ain't gonna fix 'em for you.




_sigh_ 

Firstly, I would think it is obvious from the fact that since I've been discussing changing them, and have done multiple homebrew things in this thread, that saying "just kitbash them" is kind of pointless. What do you think I'm having the discussions I'm having for? Why do you think I'm talking about changing halflings except to change halflings? 

As for "WoTC won't fix it" well... what do you think happens when 6e is released and Halfling lore is unchanged? And then 7e, and then 8e. If I just fixed it myself and never interacted with the larger community about why it NEEDED to be fixed, then no one is going to put pressure on changing it, and then the next person in line is going to look at the game, and potentiall be dissatisfied. They might even involve themselves in discussions about how this isn't working, while people tell them that if they don't like it, they can just change it themselves. Which then gets repeated for the next person. And the next person. 

It seems to me that instead of shutting up and sitting alone in my room rewriting the game lore, it might be useful to push on the gears a little and talk to other people about why the game lore needs rewritten, so that the conversation might be heard and down the line someone actually bothers to change it.



Lanefan said:


> And...how is bonuses to throwing things any weirder than various other abilities some creatures get?




Because it should then apply to all ranged attacks. And no one gets bonuses to all of a single type of attack, because that doesn't really make sense. The only counter-example might be the upcoming Giff, if they get a boost to strength based melee attacks, but that will be a first.



Lanefan said:


> Where I think a character's species *should* have a lot to say abut many of these things.  Yes, any species can _try_ almost any of these things (I still like the idea of some species being flat-out unable to be certain classes e.g. no Dwarf Wizards) but some species will be better suited for some types of activities and-or classes simply by what they are, and in some cases your species will fight you if you want to play it as a particular class.  Otherwise you might as well get rid of all the PC-playable species except Humans, as there's no good reason to keep the rest.
> 
> My point is that not all of those combinations of things should be equal.




I disagree. Both in that I find plenty of value in fantasy races without limiting their capabilities and denying them access to sections of the game, and that those combinations should not be equal. There is no reason that a dwarven wizard cannot exist, and no reason that a dwarven wizard cannot be as good as an Elven or Tiefling Wizard.



Lanefan said:


> Missing some restriction until it's too late in a heavy system like PF is perfectly understandable.   That said, were it me; on hitting that speed bump I'd have asked myself whether the species or the class was more important to my concept (but see below), and on the fly changed the one that was not.
> 
> This is something I don't mind, within reason.  I don't see making the non-standard decision as punishment, though; I see it as an intentional decision to play against type and see how it goes.  Sometimes it works out hella well.  Other times it doesn't; and the same can be said for characters who didn't go down a non-standard path.
> 
> Then again, and this is probably worth noting as it seems a different approach than yours, I rarely if ever start the roll-up process with anything more than a vague idea of what I want to end up with, as I know the odds of the dice giving me what I want are sometimes slim.  Going in to the char-gen process with a character concept already fully-formed is IMO a recipe for disappointment.




I disagree. The few times I've gone into a game with "let's see what I randomly get" I've gotten character's I have no interest in. And with no interest in them, I can't role-play them or enjoy the game. I tried making a bard not too long ago, but all the bard options left me cold and therefore I didn't try and make a bard and went with a different class. Because I want to approach the game with excitement, not with "eh, I guess this is what I'm doing." 

And the inevitable response always seems to be "that's a you problem" but.. yeah, that's the point. If I don't want to play a bard, any attempt to force me to play one is going to be resisted. But if there is an interesting race that is now restricted where their only good options involve playing a bard.... well, now I can't play that race. Because someone decided that arbitrary limitations are interesting.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But Dwarves don't invest "incrementally more" time and energy into crafting. They invest a lot more. It is a foundational pillar of being a dwarf. It is a religious duty to their creator God. This isn't incremental, this is fundamental. Your example makes me think about saying that Catholics who tithe give an "incremental" amount of money to the church. No, they give 10% of their livelihood to the church and see it as a divine duty to do so. That is vastly different from someone who puts a fiver in the collection plate because the church needs a slush fund to host a bake sale.
> 
> And this is I think why your examples just aren't resonating with me. Because you seem to think that only a minor difference is enough. And I know you are talking about building out a little here, fast forward in time with how those little bits go, but that's not how I've built any other race. For Dwarves I started with it is their divine duty to craft objects in the name of Moradin. And built their society around that. To do the same for halflings they would have to see being kind to others as a religious duty... but all followers of gods of good, healing, protection, ect see being kind to others as a religious duty. It is universal, it is literally written int various celestial beings. Which then makes you look towards halflings being celestial beings, which is ridiculous. Especially for a race that is also being talked about as running crime families and murder operations like the Mafia. It doesn't work.



More is more. We're comparing pie charts here.

What do your Dwarves do when there is a conflict between their divine duty to craft, and counseling a friend through relationship difficulties? What do they do when there is a choice between opening a new mithril mine shaft and building a theater? When they are choosing a profession, would they rather be a blacksmith or a social worker?

You can go through this same set of questions with each race substituting in say magic-type stuff for elves, and anything else-type stuff for humans.

At an individual level, sure some, maybe even most Elves, Dwarves, and Humans will make the "people-first" choice, but for halflings it will be a lot more.

It doesn't make them angels. You could make the argument that putting people first in this way is short-sighted and ignores the possible benefits of technology or magic or abstract economic growth. You can also make the argument that by focusing so completely in their own communities, they are failing the broader world around them.

It's just a different way of allocating resources.


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## Azzy (Jul 25, 2022)

I want halfling hippie communes to be a thing now.


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## Zubatcarteira (Jul 25, 2022)

It always amazes me how specific these discussions get.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 25, 2022)

Azzy said:


> I want halfling hippie communes to be a thing now.



Wouldn't have to change much. Maybe have them say "dude" and "groovy" a little more often?


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## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I absolutely have not. I've frequently said that PC halflings often act different than their race in many ways. And the lore says "rarely". Meaning that there aresituations where halfling would rise out of the comfort of being background players and act on the world.



_Rarely _doesn't mean "that only halfling in the world that happens to be a PC."

You know how _couple_ means two and _a few _means three? Well, by this one source, _rarely _means about 20%. And in AD&D, a creature with a frequency of _rare _meant about 11% (for use in encounter tables). I'm not saying that either of these are exactly correct, but it's universally understood that rare means "more than a 1-4 times."



Minigiant said:


> But those situations are rare.
> 
> I wasn't talking about other races but



Apologies; I confused you with @Mind of tempest. Who also hasn't answered that question.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> "They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them."
> 
> to
> 
> "They rarely build *underworld* kingdoms of their own or even hold much *underworld* land beyond their quiet *under*shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling *underworld* nobility or *underworld* royalty, instead looking to *underworld* family elders to guide them *in the* *underworld*."



Crime bosses are not royalty or nobility. 

Nothing in the paragraph you keep quoting says that halflings wouldn’t run important and powerful organizations of any kind.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> More is more. We're comparing pie charts here.




This seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. This is like saying that compared to a person with $100 someone with $1,000 and someone with $3.5 trillion are basically the same. No, more isn't just more. There are degrees of "more"



Gammadoodler said:


> What do your Dwarves do when there is a conflict between their divine duty to craft, and counseling a friend through relationship difficulties?




Why is that a conflict? Dwarves aren't slaves who never do anything else but craft. They can take a break to talk to someone. Maybe they'd wait until they quenched the steel or something, which would see rude to a non-dwarf but a dwarf would totally get that. And most dwarves live with other dwarves, so they rarely have to learn about how non-dwarves would react. 

Of course, there is also the complete possibility of working and talking! Something that is 100% possible.



Gammadoodler said:


> What do they do when there is a choice between opening a new mithril mine shaft and building a theater?




Why is this a choice? Is something wrong with the old theater? Does it have to be now and not in a year or two, which for dwarves with hundreds of years of life isn't that long. 

What about halflings choosing between a new tavern or a new theater? What decision do they make?



Gammadoodler said:


> When they are choosing a profession, would they rather be a blacksmith or a social worker?




Well... first of all, social workers don't exist in DnD. I suppose they could, but most societies in DnD aren't advanced enough to have government employees whose job is to make sure other people are taken care of. The closest you tend to get is a priest. 

And, if we consider priests.... a dwarven priest is a blasksmith, so that's not even a choice. They are the same thing.



Gammadoodler said:


> You can go through this same set of questions with each race substituting in say magic-type stuff for elves, and anything else-type stuff for humans.
> 
> At an individual level, sure some, maybe even most Elves, Dwarves, and Humans will make the "people-first" choice, but for halflings it will be a lot more.




But these aren't "people first" choices. Or if they are, they seem utterly contrived. Dwarves have theaters, and having theaters doesn't mean you can't have mines. They aren't in competition. Talking to your friends doesn't mean you can't also have important work you do. Social Workers don't even exist in DnD, its the clergy, and clergy people can do more than just social work.



Gammadoodler said:


> It doesn't make them angels. You could make the argument that putting people first in this way is short-sighted and ignores the possible benefits of technology or magic or abstract economic growth. You can also make the argument that by focusing so completely in their own communities, they are failing the broader world around them.
> 
> It's just a different way of allocating resources.




Why does caring about people mean you are ignoring technology or magic? Do you think Social Workers in our world cannot use technology? Of course they can. They in fact even develop technology for social work. Again, you make no sense to me. Nothing you are saying computes. Somehow halflings are the only ones who build theaters, because art and history isn't important to anyone else, but they also always stop to help a friend... which anyone else would do... and maybe they aren't perfect because economic growth is a thing, despite theaters being you know... economic and encouraging economic growth. 

And at the end of the day, it still comes back to the same insane idea. Halflings are just nicer than everyone else. They just care more about other people than everyone else. Which... is kind of a gross way to make them "unique" because again... morality isn't a racial trait. Being nice and kind and caring about other people isn't a racial trait.


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## lingual (Jul 26, 2022)

Azzy said:


> I want halfling hippie communes to be a thing now.



There is pipe-weed.
Now I kind of want to play a hippie halfling...maybe a druid of some sort


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## Maxperson (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Sure, there are exceptions
> 
> But the 5e lore says halflings don't have kings and nobles. That would include knows and nobles of the underworld. Therefore you wouldn't except halflings to be dons and crimeboss or having empires unless the setting is heavy on subverting tropes like Dark Sun or Eberron.



You're making a False Equivalence here.  A mafia Don =/= Noble.  A mafia Don = CEO of crime business. Made man = other chief under the CEO.  Nothing in the lore implies that halflings can't or won't run businesses.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jul 26, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You're making a False Equivalence here.  A mafia Don =/= Noble.  A mafia Don = CEO of crime business. Made man = other chief under the CEO.  Nothing in the lore implies that halflings can't or won't run businesses.



Yep. Not only that, “rarely” literally means sometimes, just not frequently. So…why wouldn’t some of those exceptions be exactly the matronly halfling assassin who starts a criminal empire and shadow network for mysterious reasons, the street kid who earns a name and through cleverness and daring and luck rises to become the heir to the head of the city’s most powerful criminal organization?


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## Maxperson (Jul 26, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yep. Not only that, “rarely” literally means sometimes, just not frequently. So…why wouldn’t some of those exceptions be exactly the matronly halfling assassin who starts a criminal empire and shadow network for mysterious reasons, the street kid who earns a name and through cleverness and daring and luck rises to become the heir to the head of the city’s most powerful criminal organization?



It doesn't even say rarely.  It says that they typically don't recognize nobility or kings, which just means usually, which means more often than not. If 4 out of 10 halfling populations have nobility and kings, they typically do not have nobility and kings.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> This seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. This is like saying that compared to a person with $100 someone with $1,000 and someone with $3.5 trillion are basically the same. No, more isn't just more. There are degrees of "more"
> 
> 
> 
> ...




So what you're getting to is that your Dwarves have unlimited time, resources and attention. There is no circumstance in which they would have any priorities which compete, no time where a sacrifice must be made...

..and nicer, more people-focused halflings are unvelievable??

It's basic economics man. When you run out of resources, you have to stop making or buying stuff. If you do not have time to do something, you cannot do it. If you invest your attention in one thing, you are not investing it in another..This is how resource allocation has worked kind of everywhere since kind of always.

In that light, Dwarves are going to prooritize hammers and helmets. Halflings are going to prioritize bread and circuses. Dwarves can still have circuses and halflings can still have hammers. But those circuses and hammers will be fewer and worse.

As far as niceness/morality being a racial trait, call it cultural instead (which honestly just makes sense considering things like racial weapon proficiencies). You don't think it's reasonable for the people in one culture to be nicer on average than people in another?

Not that long ago you pointed toward a Southern/Midwestern mindset coloring how you view your fantasy characters likely behaviors. Why would you think geography would have any bearing on your personal worldview? Do you think its substantially different than what I'm suggesting for halflings (which BTW, is consistent with what is printed in the PHB).


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## Lanefan (Jul 26, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What about halflings choosing between a new tavern or a new theater? What decision do they make?



Easy - they do both!  They build the new theater and then put the new tavern in it, so you can have a drink while watching the show. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Well... first of all, social workers don't exist in DnD. I suppose they could, but most societies in DnD aren't advanced enough to have government employees whose job is to make sure other people are taken care of. The closest you tend to get is a priest.
> 
> And, if we consider priests.... a dwarven priest is a blasksmith, so that's not even a choice. They are the same thing.



This assumes the only Dwarven deity is Moradin (who among other things is their god of smithing), which hasn't been the case since 1e.  A Dwarf could be a priest to a Dwarven deity and yet still not know a smith's hammer from a shoehorn.


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## Minigiant (Jul 26, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You're making a False Equivalence here.  A mafia Don =/= Noble.  A mafia Don = CEO of crime business. Made man = other chief under the CEO.  Nothing in the lore implies that halflings can't or won't run businesses.



I'm not making equivalence of dons to kings.

My main premise is that the base lore lore states that halflings rarely venture out of the local level and typically not out of halflinh affairs.

It is hard to make a large enterprise when you rarely own land, rarely create kingdoms, stay out of global politics, avoid interstate diplomacy, stay out the limelight, avoid being noticed, defer to other races for planar affairs, and typical only go to the family level for halfling leadership. 

The 5e lore predispose halflings to "sidekicks"

The 5e lore goes out its way to push the idea that halflings *don't act* unless in defence, obligation to a friend or friendly race, or wonderlust.

This is because halflimg is written to support the beloved idea of an unexpected unsuspected underdog while being a race available and promoted to a world changing active adventurer. 

Hence my point that halfling can be local crime but rarely Intercity international or interplanal crime. Because halflings are unnoticed and family level. The crimeboss running schemes in 4 towns wouldn't be a halfling most level. The organization would hire halflings but would likely be mostly another race.


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## lingual (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm not making equivalence of dons to kings.
> 
> My main premise is that the base lore lore states that halflings rarely venture out of the local level and typically not out of halflinh affairs.
> 
> ...



People of most races are rarely international crime lords or great warriors, etc.

You probably would never find a imperial army.of halflings too.  But that has no bearing on them as PCs.  PCs are exceptional by definition already and don't have to confirm to stereotypes.

I'm not even sure what this argument is about at this point so I may be totally off base here on what you are trying to argue.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm not making equivalence of dons to kings.
> 
> My main premise is that the base lore lore states that halflings rarely venture out of the local level and typically not out of halflinh affairs.
> 
> ...



Ennh.. I'd argue that most crime families aren't founded with the intent to get huge. 

It's just a family business that grows with the family and the business. People marry in have kids, kids marry, etc. At some point the family becomes one of the local businesses folks go to for a job. Jobs get bigger, "family work" becomes more attractive, etc. 

Scale starts being a problem only when you start to get in competition with other criminal enterprises or have to deal with more aggressive law enforcement. Maybe you can argue that halflings don't have the level of ruthlessness necessary to compete in that environment, but they are noted for being practical and ferocious in defense of their family. 

It doesn't seem like that big of a stretch for such an organization to gain considerable influence almost by accident.


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## Maxperson (Jul 26, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'm not making equivalence of dons to kings.



No.  You made it to noble, which they aren't.  They're heads of a business.


Minigiant said:


> My main premise is that the base lore lore states that halflings rarely venture out of the local level and typically not out of halflinh affairs.



The lore says there are halfling adventurers and that bad apples get sent out into the world.  That means many halflings wander out of the local level. Why wouldn't some of them create an organized underworld organization? Nothing in the lore suggests that they wouldn't.


Minigiant said:


> It is hard to make a large enterprise when you rarely own land, rarely create kingdoms, stay out of global politics, avoid interstate diplomacy, stay out the limelight, avoid being noticed, defer to other races for planar affairs, and typical only go to the family level for halfling leadership.



A large enterprise isn't anywhere near the same as creating a kingdom or getting into global politics, etc. Further, a mafia is also on the family level.  That's literally what they were.  Crime families.


Minigiant said:


> The 5e lore predispose halflings to "sidekicks"



Adventurers are not "sidekicks."  The 5e lore predisposes them to being adventurers. Hell, they have a god of adventure. It's an important enough aspect of their society that they have a god for it.


Minigiant said:


> The 5e lore goes out its way to push the idea that halflings *don't act* unless in defence, obligation to a friend or friendly race, or wonderlust.



And yet they have a god of war and vigilance.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> So what you're getting to is that your Dwarves have unlimited time, resources and attention. There is no circumstance in which they would have any priorities which compete, no time where a sacrifice must be made...
> 
> ..and nicer, more people-focused halflings are unvelievable??




No. I'm not saying that. Like, in any way shape or form.



Gammadoodler said:


> It's basic economics man. When you run out of resources, you have to stop making or buying stuff. If you do not have time to do something, you cannot do it. If you invest your attention in one thing, you are not investing it in another..This is how resource allocation has worked kind of everywhere since kind of always.
> 
> In that light, Dwarves are going to prioritize hammers and helmets. Halflings are going to prioritize bread and circuses. Dwarves can still have circuses and halflings can still have hammers. But those circuses and hammers will be fewer and worse.




Funny thing about economies, we have one. And interestingly, since about the dawn of writing, it has been able to support industry AND circuses. I mean, I'm not exactly an expert, but I'm pretty sure the greeks had metallurgy, theater, writing, farming and construction. They must have had unlimited time, resources and attention!

Or... they didn't have unlimited resources, and had to allocate them. See, dwarves dig a new mine and start mining ore. That takes time, yes, but the dwarves who built the tunnel aren't mining the ore. They need to do something else, like maybe take that stone and build houses. And dwarves build houses, while building mines and dwarven construction lasts. You don't have to rebuild very often, so after you've spent a few decades building everything else... you build a theater. Now, maybe it wasn't the first thing they built, but kind of funny thing, dwarves live a long time. Like, a couple hundred years minimum. And they build to last, so every building they build, unless damaged by outside forces lasts... a couple hundred years. That is, to put it mildly, a lot of time. And, with that time not building buildings that have already been built, those dwarven engineers have the attention to put on other buildings. 

Honestly, you act like dwarves make helmets and hammers that they need to replace every month. And that they are so busy making mines that they never use all that stone they quarried to make buildings. Why do you think Dwarve's get Masonry tools except to indicate that they use masonry to make buildings out of stone? And all a theater is, is a building. And since dwarves are not only incredibly tied to their clans, but to their history, just like the Greeks and shakespeare, they'd have oral poetry and plays tying to that history. Which would need a theater. 

This isn't 3-D chess with the economy, it the basics.



Gammadoodler said:


> As far as niceness/morality being a racial trait, call it cultural instead (which honestly just makes sense considering things like racial weapon proficiencies). You don't think it's reasonable for the people in one culture to be nicer on average than people in another?
> 
> Not that long ago you pointed toward a Southern/Midwestern mindset coloring how you view your fantasy characters likely behaviors. Why would you think geography would have any bearing on your personal worldview? Do you think its substantially different than what I'm suggesting for halflings (which BTW, is consistent with what is printed in the PHB).




Just make it a cultural traits that all halflings share, regardless of where they live. How is that any different?

And, real quick, I want to bring up something that I often see in these discussions. There is a difference between IRL Stereotypes and this sort of presentation in game texts. See, IRL, being Southern/Midwestern US is stereotypically associated with being polite and nice to people. Same with being Canadian. But, I have met utter assholes (and am related to more than one) because as we all know, stereotypes aren't all true. 

But, see, when a game text says something like "halflings are all X" then we generally accept it as a true fact. Because the game is a simplified version of reality, and the nuance isn't present. But also, these aren't humans, so we are forced to confront the fact that all of them being X could very well be true. And that is what is significantly different. 

And actually, hmm, let me break this off. 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Thinking about our discussion, I think I do have to thank you @Gammadoodler , because you've really highlighted my biggest problem with halflings. Something I don't know if I fully realized, but which perfectly explains why so much of this bothers me. 

Halflings are Mary Sues. 

Every single trait they have, every single "flaw" they have, is built around them being idealized. The issue isn't really that they are just short humans, because they are idealized humans. Think about it. 

_Halflings are short because they are the underdog, that way their inevitable victory is more rewarding because they had to overcome a challenge. But they are incredibly good at fighting because they are always underestimated and they are incredibly brave. Oh, you're brave? Well, the halfling is braver than you. And they are lucky too, so everything just tends to go their way, and they are just the nicest and kindest people you've ever met. Very caring and humble. See, they don't have that greed and ambition that the other races have, they are just simple, good folk who care about other folk and build their communities. Oh, you are a kind good person too? Well, halflings are just kinder and more better than you. Really, that's their biggest flaw, they just care too much about other people, and so they don't look at the big picture. Their hearts are just too big for those little bodies._ 

They are like every single hallmark small town ever written. 

And no, before I get accused of it, I don't have some deep-seated hatred of nice people, or want my world super grim-dark where kindness doesn't exist. That's not the point. The point is when you take an entire race of people and just make them better than everyone else, it is boring and it irritates people because we know that this idea of being innately better than others just isn't true. This was the problem with the elves for the longest time. They were the race of "I'm just better than you". They were stronger than you, prettier than you, wiser than you, smarter than you. That's where elven arrogance comes from, from the audience basically going "yeah, elves think that, but they aren't right". And sure, maybe halflings aren't the prettiest or the most intelligent, but they are that idyllic pastoral, hallmark fantasy perfection. And that means it is far too easy for the message to come across as "Humans are adaptable and ambitious, dwarves are gruff and focused on craftsmanship, elves are ethereal and magical, and halflings are just better people than you are." 

And that is a problem. And before you end up declaring me wrong, what was the first flaw you came up with for halflings in this discussion? Your first response to me saying they were too good and too caring and too kind? 



Gammadoodler said:


> It doesn't make them angels. *You could make the argument that putting people first in this way is short-sighted and ignores the possible benefits of technology or magic or abstract economic growth.* You can also make the argument that by focusing so completely in their own communities, they are failing the broader world around them.




That they simply care too much for other people. That classic "non-flaw" from every job interview, "I think my biggest weakness is that I simply care too much."


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 26, 2022)

lingual said:


> People of most races are rarely international crime lords or great warriors, etc.
> 
> You probably would never find a imperial army.of halflings too.  But that has no bearing on them as PCs.  PCs are exceptional by definition already and don't have to confirm to stereotypes.
> 
> I'm not even sure what this argument is about at this point so I may be totally off base here on what you are trying to argue.




No, I really think you hit the nail on the head. The thing that supposedly defines halflings is the thing that defines the vast majority of people of the other races. It is literally that they are unremarkable commoners, which every single race has, because otherwise the PCs wouldn't be the PCs


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No. I'm not saying that. Like, in any way shape or form.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



1. You absolutely are saying that your Dwarves get to do everything at maximum quality with zero sacrifices. Your Dwarves get a mining tradition, a theatrical tradition, a crafting tradition, a martial tradition. You know, they live a long time, they probably have a magical tradition, a gardening tradition, and a culinary tradition too. They get to do everything. Your Dwarves have zero flaws (and halflings are Mary Sues..the hypocrisy is strong with this one)

2. We do have an economy, and you know what the biggest point of conflict has *always* been, resource allocation. This is true at both the macro and micro levels. How much money goes to NASA vs. how much goes to the Department of Education vs. How much goes to the Department of Health and Human Services. In our homes, how much do we spend on housing vs. food vs. video games vs the charities we support. 

You have a household budget, right? And a job, some hobbies? Have you noticed that you can't buy everything you want? Or that when you're working at your job, you aren't participating in your hobbies? Have you ever noticed that someone who spends less time at work can spend more time on their hobbies/family? Or that people who spend less on video games can spend more on miniatures (holding income equal)?

I like that you brought up the Greeks. You know that there are some very different resource allocation choices made between city states..see Sparta vs. Athens. They were known for different things as a result. Athens had marginally more boats and theater, Sparta had more elite warriors. I wonder I there could be any parallels we could learn from here?

And then there's the rest of your post...you know..the part where you spill so much digital ink putting words in my mouth and misinterpreting them. 

Let's be clear, in the same way that say Canadians as a nationality are seen as nicer without every individual being an angel, Halflings as a race/culture can be nicer/kinder without every individual being an angel. Maybe, like Canada, they might invest more resources, as a culture in programs or institutions that benefit their people than some of the other races/culture. 

Anything about Mary Sue-ism is just nonsense. Your problem with halflings is bias. You are willing to extend unlimited benefits and extrapolation to other races that you are not willing to extend to halflings. And you are willing to spill thousands of words to justify this behavior(inadequately). You just don't like them.

That's fine, you don't have to, but it's not a problem for the game or any setting. It's a problem specifically for you. 

This will probably be the last reply to you on this topic. I don't have the energy to continue to respond to long-winded baseless accusations/manifestos. Have a great day though.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> 1. You absolutely are saying that your Dwarves get to do everything at maximum quality with zero sacrifices. Your Dwarves get a mining tradition, a theatrical tradition, a crafting tradition, a martial tradition. You know, they live a long time, they probably have a magical tradition, a gardening tradition, and a culinary tradition too. They get to do everything. Your Dwarves have zero flaws (and halflings are Mary Sues..the hypocrisy is strong with this one)
> 
> 2. We do have an economy, and you know what the biggest point of conflict has *always* been, resource allocation. This is true at both the macro and micro levels. How much money goes to NASA vs. how much goes to the Department of Education vs. How much goes to the Department of Health and Human Services. In our homes, how much do we spend on housing vs. food vs. video games vs the charities we support.
> 
> ...



Given that dwarves would mine and craft regardless of pay you seem to be conflicting the small-scale stuff of household budgets with the city scale at the smallest, as the entertainers are not working the mines.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> Given that dwarves would mine and craft regardless of pay you seem to be conflicting the small-scale stuff of household budgets with the city scale at the smallest, as the entertainers are not working the mines.



It's all resource constraints. Housholds have budgets. Businesses have budgets. Cities have budgets. Nations have budgets.

Pretty much anywhere resources are limited, folks will have choices to make regarding how they use those resources. These choices reflect the priorities of the people/groups who make them.

Resources include time, attention, materials, etc. They are *always* limited.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> It's all resource constraints. Housholds have budgets. Businesses have budgets. Cities have budgets. Nations have budgets.
> 
> Pretty much anywhere resources are limited, folks will have choices to make regarding how they use those resources. These choices reflect the priorities of the people/groups who make them.
> 
> Resources include time, attention, materials, etc. They are *always* limited.



it is not quite as simple, it does not run on command and conquer economy, for starters both mining and theatre are businesses and once built a theatre can stay in operation for a great deal of time, the globe is four hundred years old and still in use in our would so what might be a choice one year may not matter in ten and when you have lives in the three hundreds that adds up rapidly plus you do not need a theatre for performances to be put on.

 you act as if dwarves never trade or interact with the outside world other than in war or adventure.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> it is not quite as simple, it does not run on command and conquer economy, for starters both mining and theatre are businesses and once built a theatre can stay in operation for a great deal of time, the globe is four hundred years old and still in use in our would so what might be a choice one year may not matter in ten and when you have lives in the three hundreds that adds up rapidly plus you do not need a theatre for performances to be put on.
> 
> you act as if dwarves never trade or interact with the outside world other than in war or adventure.



No..I'm not. The question was..if they *have* to make the choice, what do they choose?

If I give you 1 acre of land on which you can build a 1 acre mine or a 1 acre theater, you don't get to build both. If you have 2 workers who can put in 40 hours a week on construction each, you have 80 dwarf-hours you can put toward construction for that week. If the mine and the theater both require 80 dwarf hours per week to build, one thing will have to get built before the other. The choice they make for how these resources get spent is a reflection of their values.

I'm not saying there are no theaters in dwarftown. I'm saying that dwarves as a society would build fewer theaters and those theaters would likely be worse, because theatre, in general, is lower on the Dwarven priority list.

This isn't anything radical. It works exactly the same way in the real world. If people care more about a thing, more resources get allocated to that thing.


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## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> No..I'm not. The question was..if they *have* to make the choice, what do they choose?
> 
> If I give you 1 acre of land on which you can build a 1 acre mine or a 1 acre theater, you don't get to build both. If you have 2 workers who can put in 40 hours a week on construction each, you have 80 dwarf-hours you can put toward construction for that week. If the mine and the theater both require 80 dwarf hours per week to build, one thing will have to get built before the other. The choice they make for how these resources get spent is a reflection of their values.
> 
> ...



Well, theoretically, you _can _have both a mine and the theater in the same acre--by thinking three-dimensionally. Dwarfs, who mine, would be more likely to think in 3D since dungeons, mines, caverns, and dwarfhalls all have multiple levels. 

But anyway, dwarfs may very well put theaters lower on the list in terms of importance than a mine, but that's because they might not have a big theater culture anyway. They may have smaller stages in their really nice taverns, however. Dwarfs enjoy drinking in a nice environment after a long day of mining, and probably enjoy a bit of entertainment while they drink.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> No..I'm not. The question was..if they *have* to make the choice, what do they choose?
> 
> If I give you 1 acre of land on which you can build a 1 acre mine or a 1 acre theater, you don't get to build both. If you have 2 workers who can put in 40 hours a week on construction each, you have 80 dwarf-hours you can put toward construction for that week. If the mine and the theater both require 80 dwarf hours per week to build, one thing will have to get built before the other. The choice they make for how these resources get spent is a reflection of their values.
> 
> ...



that is not how city construction works as your working in a vacuum and land good for mining and good for a theatre have completely separate traits, yo tend to in most places of the world have fewer theatres than mine as you only need many when you have truly massive cites.

white room theory does not work on city construction in a realist situation, you are literally thinking like a video game, the city could stand for centuries thus mines dry up and at some point, a theatre could be built no culture is static ever.
also, they are dwarves building things properly is basically morally good in their eyes to make something badly is an insult to dwarfdom.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, theoretically, you _can _have both a mine and the theater in the same acre--by thinking three-dimensionally. Dwarfs, who mine, would be more likely to think in 3D since dungeons, mines, caverns, and dwarfhalls all have multiple levels.
> 
> But anyway, dwarfs may very well put theaters lower on the list in terms of importance than a mine, but that's because they might not have a big theater culture anyway. They may have smaller stages in their really nice taverns, however. Dwarfs enjoy drinking in a nice environment after a long day of mining, and probably enjoy a bit of entertainment while they drink.



I take your point, but the thrust of the idea is that space is limited. It is a resource that is expended. 

I have no problem with the idea of a troupe of merry dwarven actors putting on the battle of the four armies (or whatever) on in their taverns. 

My argument is that the races/cultures that value theatre (or magic, or welfare, or information) more would devote comparatively more resources and thereby be better at those things.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is not how city construction works as your working in a vacuum and land good for mining and good for a theatre have completely separate traits, yo tend to in most places of the world have fewer theatres than mine as you only need many when you have truly massive cites.
> 
> white room theory does not work on city construction in a realist situation, you are literally thinking like a video game, the city could stand for centuries thus mines dry up and at some point, a theatre could be built no culture is static ever.
> also, they are dwarves building things properly is basically morally good in their eyes to make something badly is an insult to dwarfdom.



Cities are built and rebuilt all the time. 

The stuff that lasts is the stuff people care about (or is too expensive to demolish and replace). 

On average a population will only have as many theaters, craft halls, mines, gardens, and taverns as the population is willing/able to support through patronage and employment. 

Holding resources equal, populations will have differing proportions of those institutions based on what the populations are willing and able to support.

Basic supply and demand.


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## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I take your point, but the thrust of the idea is that space is limited. It is a resource that is expended.
> 
> I have no problem with the idea of a troupe of merry dwarven actors putting on the battle of the four armies (or whatever) on in their taverns.
> 
> My argument is that the races/cultures that value theatre (or magic, or welfare, or information) more would devote comparatively more resources and thereby be better at those things.



Well, D&D worlds rarely seem to run out of resources, especially when you consider magical assistance and nudges by elementals, gods, and other such entities. 

Another thing to remember is that D&D worlds are _old_, and many things in it, especially those created by non-humans, were built to last. So there may not be many dwarfs building theaters _now_, but that's because there were theaters built hundreds or even thousands of years ago still in operation.

And, well, not _every _dwarf is a miner. There are going to be plenty of dwarfs who do the other jobs. Plus, of course, dwarfs can always hire non-dwarfs to make those less essential things for them while they do the mining and smithing.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, D&D worlds rarely seem to run out of resources, especially when you consider magical assistance and nudges by elementals, gods, and other such entities.
> 
> Another thing to remember is that D&D worlds are _old_, and many things in it, especially those created by non-humans, were built to last. So there may not be many dwarfs building theaters _now_, but that's because there were theaters built hundreds or even thousands of years ago still in operation.
> 
> And, well, not _every _dwarf is a miner. There are going to be plenty of dwarfs who do the other jobs. Plus, of course, dwarfs can always hire non-dwarfs to make those less essential things for them while they do the mining and smithing.



Time is a resource. For mortals, even fantasy ones, its always running out.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, D&D worlds rarely seem to run out of resources, especially when you consider magical assistance and nudges by elementals, gods, and other such entities.
> 
> Another thing to remember is that D&D worlds are _old_, and many things in it, especially those created by non-humans, were built to last. So there may not be many dwarfs building theaters _now_, but that's because there were theaters built hundreds or even thousands of years ago still in operation.
> 
> And, well, not _every _dwarf is a miner. There are going to be plenty of dwarfs who do the other jobs. Plus, of course, dwarfs can always hire non-dwarfs to make those less essential things for them while they do the mining and smithing.



It is true, the world never seems to run out of wealth to be found, or raw materials.  Heck, I once posed this question to my DM:

"So a lot of spells require a sacrifice of diamond dust.  Does this mean that the game world will one day run out of diamonds, and those spells will stop functioning?"


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

I can't believe how difficult it has been to get folks to agree that you have to make choices and those choices have consequences.

Theater or mine.. hah jokes on you, all my mines are theaters. 

Acting or mining..hah jokes on you, all miners are also actors and the whole time they are mining, they are also acting and enjoying the other miner/actors' performances.

Work or hobby or charity..hah jokes on you..everyone who works, works at a charity which is also their hobby..

Is this the moment I come over to the pro-simulation crowd?


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## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It is true, the world never seems to run out of wealth to be found, or raw materials.  Heck, I once posed this question to my DM:
> 
> "So a lot of spells require a sacrifice of diamond dust.  Does this mean that the game world will one day run out of diamonds, and those spells will stop functioning?"



In 2e, there was actually a dwarf cleric spell that regrew gemstones and metals. It took literally decades to accomplish, but it worked. 

I imagine, though, that new ores and gems are constantly being created by various gods or grow out of tiny portals to the Plane of Earth.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I take your point, but the thrust of the idea is that space is limited. It is a resource that is expended.
> 
> I have no problem with the idea of a troupe of merry dwarven actors putting on the battle of the four armies (or whatever) on in their taverns.
> 
> My argument is that the races/cultures that value theatre (or magic, or welfare, or information) more would devote comparatively more resources and thereby be better at those things.



your not wrong in the general sense but you are assuming a far more entropic universe than even our own thus your math is flawed.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I can't believe how difficult it has been to get folks to agree that you have to make choices and those choices have consequences.
> 
> Theater or mine.. hah jokes on you, all my mines are theaters.
> 
> ...



you are thinking like a person, not a group.
cites have the ability to do things at once, the guy who owns the mines might use them to pay for the theatre's construction.

yes choices matter but you have over simplified to insanity for your point to truly work ,cultures and civilisations are complex


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> your not wrong in the general sense but you are assuming a far more entropic universe than even our own thus your math is flawed.



Nah I'm just holding all outside variables beyond 'racial preference' equal to illustrate the general impact of those racial preferences. 

Because that is how you make fair comparisons.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> you are thinking like a person, not a group.
> cites have the ability to do things at once, the guy who owns the mines might use them to pay for the theatre's construction.
> 
> yes choices matter but you have over simplified to insanity for your point to truly work ,cultures and civilisations are complex



Do cities get to spend the burn the same lump of coal twice? Can they spend the same hour twice? Is 100% of the workforce of a city able to mine and play the banjo at the same time?

Insofar as things get done at once, it is also a resource allocation.. its just a distribution of the total expendable effort used for getting things done.

70% mining, 30% theater is different from
60% mining 40% theater is different from
30% mining 70% theater.

Unless you are saying that cities get to spend more than 100% of their resources by virtue of "complexity", then the point remains.

Resource scarcity is equally applicable at the city level.


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## Sorcerers Apprentice (Jul 26, 2022)

Sauron had trouble with halflings. He didn't know what to make of them so he tried to pretend they didn't exist. Look where that got him.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> 1. You absolutely are saying that your Dwarves get to do everything at maximum quality with zero sacrifices. Your Dwarves get a mining tradition, a theatrical tradition, a crafting tradition, a martial tradition. You know, they live a long time, they probably have a magical tradition, a gardening tradition, and a culinary tradition too. They get to do everything. Your Dwarves have zero flaws (and halflings are Mary Sues..the hypocrisy is strong with this one)




Okay, here's a fun challenge. Go to ancient Greece, heck, we'll say go to Athens in Ancient Greece. 

Do they have a mining tradition? The Mines of Laurion say yes, Athenians had a mining operation. They weren't in an ore-rich area, but they had it. 

Do they have a Theatrical Tradition? Obviously yes. Athenian plays and play wrights are literally world famous

Do they have a crafting tradition? Considering we have statuary, pots, and more from Athens, yes, they did have a crafting tradition. 

Do they have a Martial Tradition? Athens had armies, so not an unfair assessment. Now, they weren't like the Spartans for sure, but they did defeat the Spartans, so... that has to count for something, right? 

Did they have culinary traditions? Considering that they have a "national food" I'd say that's a yes. 

Gardening Tradition? Athens had gardens as depicited in many artworks. Oh right, they had an art tradition as well. 

And philosophy, religion, maritime trade, ship building... 

Now, if a single human city-state can have all that... why can't Dwarves? Now, maybe when you say "tradition" you mean something far more intense and time consuming than the thing existing. But your posts keep acting like dwarves don't have theaters at all, like them building one is somehow a shocking break in character. Dwarves have an entire society, complete with all the bells and whistles.



Gammadoodler said:


> 2. We do have an economy, and you know what the biggest point of conflict has *always* been, resource allocation. This is true at both the macro and micro levels. How much money goes to NASA vs. how much goes to the Department of Education vs. How much goes to the Department of Health and Human Services. In our homes, how much do we spend on housing vs. food vs. video games vs the charities we support.
> 
> You have a household budget, right? And a job, some hobbies? Have you noticed that you can't buy everything you want? Or that when you're working at your job, you aren't participating in your hobbies? Have you ever noticed that someone who spends less time at work can spend more time on their hobbies/family? Or that people who spend less on video games can spend more on miniatures (holding income equal)?




So do not have NASA and a Department of Education and a Department of Health and Human Services? 

Again, if you mean "this is the greatest achievement of this people known world-wide" then sure, the dwarves aren't known world-wide for their amazing playwrights. But they do have playwrights, they do have theaters, they do have bakeries. Because they are a functioning society, not a partial society.



Gammadoodler said:


> I like that you brought up the Greeks. You know that there are some very different resource allocation choices made between city states..see Sparta vs. Athens. They were known for different things as a result. Athens had marginally more boats and theater, Sparta had more elite warriors. I wonder I there could be any parallels we could learn from here?




That having slaves do all your work allows for dedicating training for warriors? But that still doesn't make you the best, since Athen's armies defeated and subjugated Sparta while the slave revolts finished the job? 

"Resource Allocation" aren't magic words that make sections of society vanish because funds are limited. Especially since dwarves not only have a lot of time (and therefore more resources) but also because they are rich, with that whole schtick of them pulling wealth from the earth. Which is still more resources. And they work together, you know, clans?



Gammadoodler said:


> And then there's the rest of your post...you know..the part where you spill so much digital ink putting words in my mouth and misinterpreting them.
> 
> Let's be clear, in the same way that say Canadians as a nationality are seen as nicer without every individual being an angel, Halflings as a race/culture can be nicer/kinder without every individual being an angel. Maybe, like Canada, they might invest more resources, as a culture in programs or institutions that benefit their people than some of the other races/culture.
> 
> Anything about Mary Sue-ism is just nonsense. Your problem with halflings is bias. You are willing to extend unlimited benefits and extrapolation to other races that you are not willing to extend to halflings. And you are willing to spill thousands of words to justify this behavior(inadequately). You just don't like them.




And instead of trying to disprove my claims or rebut them, you get offended, claim I just have a bias and hate halflings, and leave the conversation. 

You know, shockingly, I've found that "You are wrong, you just hate them, I'm done talking" has never once made me rethink my position. What with the whole, giving me absolutely no reason to question my assertions and logic. I just don't wake up and go "Wait! What if I was wrong about the thing I came to a conclusion on?" Usually you need some sort of... counter-evidence.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Do cities get to spend the burn the same lump of coal twice? Can they spend the same hour twice? Is 100% of the workforce of a city able to mine and play the banjo at the same time?
> 
> Insofar as things get done at once, it is also a resource allocation.. its just a distribution of the total expendable effort used for getting things done.
> 
> ...




Let's try a different tack. Since you want to make this about resource allocation. 

The Law of Diminishing Returns. 

If I run a business, and I have 1 employee, my workforce is X. If I hire a second employee, I have increased my workforce by 100% and doubled my productivity. If I hire a third employee, I have only increased my work force by 50% and only increased my productivity by 50%. You can't just add more people and increase things infinitely.

So, yes, in theory 70% mining 30% theater is different from 30% mining 70% theater, but how many people can you fit in the mine? The mine shaft and the ore in it is a finite resource, and at a certain point you are just being ineffiencent by having more people trying to mine the same ore. So those people go to do other jobs. And sure, maybe only 30% of those jobs are theater, but that's still 30% of the entire population doing theater. 


And you asked a question that I think has a different answer than you meant. Can a city spend the same hour twice? Well... kind of yes. Because if one person can spend one hour doing one thing, then a city with 10 thousand people can do ten thousand things in a single hour. And do to the law of diminishing returns, not all those work hours can be put towards the same thing, in fact, they often get allocated to other things. And dwarves would value things like theaters, because they value history and the stories of their clans, which are ripe material for playwrights. Historical accounts produced as plays is an entire genre!


If your entire point is that halflings put on better plays than Dwarves.... maybe they put on plays other people like more. But dwarves have plays, and they build better theaters than halflings, because dwarves are the best at building things. And are halflings the best at plays? I'd say no, that's probably elves, because elves have a focus on art, and theater is about art, not community. But, I'd also say, dwarves probably hate Elvish plays, because they don't have the same values as elves, and dwarves would say that dwarvish plays are the absolute best plays, because they are dwarvish. And since art is entirely subjective... they'd be right to say so. 

And there are so many dwarven working hours that they are still going to have all of the fundamental parts of society, because they are a functioning society. Whether or not they are "the best in the world" at it is a completely different question.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I take your point, but the thrust of the idea is that space is limited. It is a resource that is expended.
> 
> I have no problem with the idea of a troupe of merry dwarven actors putting on the battle of the four armies (or whatever) on in their taverns.
> 
> My argument is that the races/cultures that value theatre (or magic, or welfare, or information) more would devote comparatively more resources and thereby be better at those things.



Also, theaters and other sources of entertainment are good for morale, and dwarfs with low morale don't mine as well and are likely to be taken by a fey mood.  So entertainment _would _be important for dwarfs.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 26, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, here's a fun challenge. Go to ancient Greece, heck, we'll say go to Athens in Ancient Greece.
> 
> Do they have a mining tradition? The Mines of Laurion say yes, Athenians had a mining operation. They weren't in an ore-rich area, but they had it.
> 
> ...



Fortunately I can respond to this one without a lot of effort.

It is silly to present counter-evidence when someone isn't actually reading what you write.


Gammadoodler said:


> Incrementally here is meant to express that they invest some amount more in time and energy investing in people than other races do.
> 
> It does not mean that halflings are the only ones doing so. It's the same way dwarves being Incrementally better crafters reflects that they have invested more time and energy getting better at crafting than other races have while acknowledging that other races do craft stuff.
> 
> ...



I haven't once said that Dwarves would lack theaters. I have said...over..and over..and over..and over again that the races (e.g. halflings or elves or basically anyone perhaps) who invest more resources in it, would have more and/or be better at it. And that this would apply to any other field a race devotes more resources to than other races.

Since you've acknowledged that your dwarven playwrights probably aren't the best, I think we're in agreement. Hooray!


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 26, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Fortunately I can respond to this one without a lot of effort.
> 
> It is silly to present counter-evidence when someone isn't actually reading what you write.
> 
> ...



given dwarven pride in their crafts, I suspect they would make very good plays by their own standards.


----------



## Irlo (Jul 26, 2022)

I’m thinking that having a dwarven community that shunned performance art as a frivolous distraction from less ephemeral pursuits would be an interesting way to highlight their societal difference from humans. The dwarves focus on what endures. 

On the other hand, maybe dwarven opera would rock!


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 26, 2022)

I like the Discworld take on dwarf opera, which goes on for _days._


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Fortunately I can respond to this one without a lot of effort.
> 
> It is silly to present counter-evidence when someone isn't actually reading what you write.




Well, that's one way for me to win an argument I suppose.



Gammadoodler said:


> I haven't once said that Dwarves would lack theaters. I have said...over..and over..and over..and over again that the races (e.g. halflings or elves or basically anyone perhaps) who invest more resources in it, would have more and/or be better at it. And that this would apply to any other field a race devotes more resources to than other races.
> 
> Since you've acknowledged that your dwarven playwrights probably aren't the best, I think we're in agreement. Hooray!




Great, so we are back where we started. Because I never said dwarves would be the best at these things. But they would have them. And since you wanted to define haflings, how was it? 



Gammadoodler said:


> As for how that helps you in worldbuilding. *Having a race interested in the public good is a good thing.* It forces you to think about more than dungeons and castles. It gives you a starting place for factions that have reasons for doing things beyond "more power" or "my god told me to do it". They can be viable on the world stage in the same way that Doctors Without Borders, the Girl Scouts, and the Peace Corps are viable on the world stage.
> 
> I'm not saying that halflings are the only ones that can do this. In the same way, I assume, that you aren't saying that dwarves are the only ones that make hammers. But a race more motivated to pursue it is likely to be better at it. Halfling taverns may not be the only taverns, but they should be the best taverns. Similarly with the other institutions noted.




Now, I acknowledge, your second paragraph said that halflings aren't the only one, but it still highlights the entire problem, yet again. What is it halflings do? "_They care about the public good_". Okay, but everyone does that, you literally acknowledge it? "_But halflings care about the public good MORE than the other races do._" But... what does that mean, how does it matter to anything? "_Well, they build theaters and are nice to people_".  Like everyone else? "_Well, would your dwarf help his friend who's having a bad break-up?_" .... Yes? Why wouldn't he? Just because he isn't a halfling?

The only thing you seem able to provide is that halflings love their neighbors more than other races. Which is a moral factor, and a hallmark mary sue factor, and I'm still not seeing how this makes them interesting.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, that's one way for me to win an argument I suppose.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The only thing I've provided is exactly what the text of the phb says are their strengths and how you might worldbuild for a race that prioritizes things differently. 

You've willfully ignored how this could apply. Your loss.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Well, D&D worlds rarely seem to run out of resources, especially when you consider magical assistance and nudges by elementals, gods, and other such entities.
> 
> Another thing to remember is that D&D worlds are _old_, and many things in it, especially those created by non-humans, were built to last. So there may not be many dwarfs building theaters _now_, but that's because there were theaters built hundreds or even thousands of years ago still in operation.
> 
> And, well, not _every _dwarf is a miner. There are going to be plenty of dwarfs who do the other jobs. Plus, of course, dwarfs can always hire non-dwarfs to make those less essential things for them while they do the mining and smithing.



With limited space, theaters built thousands of years ago would have been torn down and/or converted into other things.  Dwarven cites we see in settings and official adventurs are not unlimited in space, even with gods, magic, etc.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It is true, the world never seems to run out of wealth to be found, or raw materials.  Heck, I once posed this question to my DM:
> 
> "So a lot of spells require a sacrifice of diamond dust.  Does this mean that the game world will one day run out of diamonds, and those spells will stop functioning?"



Yes and no. 

If these words are anything like Earth, there are metric craptons of diamonds.  There are just over a quadrillion tons of diamonds in the earth.  It would takes many times longer than most fantasy worlds have been around to go through that much diamond.  After that are the other planets in the system reachable via spelljamming and all of those diamonds. After that there is trade with places like the elemental plane of earth and other planes with diamonds, which being infinite, can supply an infinite number of worlds with infinite diamonds.  So even if a particular world runs out of diamonds eventually

So while a world might eventually run out of diamonds itself, the spellcasters could still get more.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, here's a fun challenge. Go to ancient Greece, heck, we'll say go to Athens in Ancient Greece.
> 
> Do they have a mining tradition? The Mines of Laurion say yes, Athenians had a mining operation. They weren't in an ore-rich area, but they had it.
> 
> ...



Compare Athens, Rome, Tenochtitlan, Gath, Babylon and  Tehran and you will see different amounts of all of those, because priorities and resources differed.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 27, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> With limited space, theaters built thousands of years ago would have been torn down and/or converted into other things.  Dwarven cites we see in settings and official adventurs are not unlimited in space, even with gods, magic, etc.



Maybe, but I'm thinking this more reflects a lack of interest or willingness on the part of the mapper to show such things (and then have to write about them) than it shows that dwarfs don't do theater.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Maybe, but I'm thinking this more reflects a lack of interest or willingness on the part of the mapper to show such things (and then have to write about them) than it shows that dwarfs don't do theater.



Nah. Infinite space and resources for all races would be really, really dull.  And unrealistic even in a fantasy society.  The gods and magic just don't do THAT much for the races.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 27, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> If these words are anything like Earth, there are metric craptons of diamonds.  There are just over a quadrillion tons of diamonds in the earth.  It would takes many times longer than most fantasy worlds have been around to go through that much diamond.  After that are the other planets in the system reachable via spelljamming and all of those diamonds. After that there is trade with places like the elemental plane of earth and other planes with diamonds, which being infinite, can supply an infinite number of worlds with infinite diamonds.  So even if a particular world runs out of diamonds eventually
> 
> So while a world might eventually run out of diamonds itself, the spellcasters could still get more.



Well remember, diamonds are very valuable in D&D worlds.  Their value on our world is certainly debatable.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Well remember, diamonds are very valuable in D&D worlds.  Their value on our world is certainly debatable.



Heh.  Value.  Now THAT'S an argument I want to try on a DM some day.  

DM: "Do you have 5000g worth of diamonds?"
Me: "Yeah. I value these chips very highly!"

Diamonds would be worth varying amounts depending on culture and scarcity, so since value is subjective...


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 27, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Nah. Infinite space and resources for all races would be really, really dull.  And unrealistic even in a fantasy society.  The gods and magic just don't do THAT much for the races.



I'm not saying infinite space and resources. I'm saying that the people who create the adventure locales don't think of everything that would logically go into such a place, or else they make the areas of the map generic enough that you can stick whatever you want in them. 
Like, I just did a search and found numerous maps of dwarf cities, and the artists rarely take things like sewage or garbage into consideration--but I think we can all agree that a dwarf city would have _something _to take care of those issues. So likely there's one or more theaters in any given dwarf city of sufficient size, age, and wealth, but there's no point in sticking it on the map because the writers didn't come up with an adventure that goes there and the chance that the PCs will decide to go visit a dwarf theater is fairly slim.


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## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I'm not saying infinite space and resources. I'm saying that the people who create the adventure locales don't think of everything that would logically go into such a place, or else they make the areas of the map generic enough that you can stick whatever you want in them.
> Like, I just did a search and found numerous maps of dwarf cities, and the artists rarely take things like sewage or garbage into consideration--but I think we can all agree that a dwarf city would have _something _to take care of those issues. So likely there's one or more theaters in any given dwarf city of sufficient size, age, and wealth, but there's no point in sticking it on the map because the writers didn't come up with an adventure that goes there and the chance that the PCs will decide to go visit a dwarf theater is fairly slim.



That makes sense.  But where a dwarven city might have one or two theaters, a similarly sized halfling city would have a half dozen to a dozen.  And where there would be a dozen dwarven mines, there might be one or two in the halfling city. Priorities.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> The only thing I've provided is exactly what the text of the phb says are their strengths and how you might worldbuild for a race that prioritizes things differently.
> 
> You've willfully ignored how this could apply. Your loss.




So... you have no responses to my criticisms of what the PHB says. You have no responses to my criticisms of why worldbuilding using the model of "they are just morally superior" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

You just want to blame me for "ignoring" the things I'm arguing against. Like that somehow makes sense. "I gave him an idea, and he said it was a bad idea. He clearly just doesn't want to do anything to make it work." Is, again, a very common but really poor defense. 

So, I guess I shall either retreat to fixing it myself (after I get done going through the spells, classes, feats and the crafting system I need to vet), or wait for someone to be willing to engage with the idea that "they are just better people" isn't a good way to build a race.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 27, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It is true, the world never seems to run out of wealth to be found, or raw materials.  Heck, I once posed this question to my DM:
> 
> "So a lot of spells require a sacrifice of diamond dust.  Does this mean that the game world will one day run out of diamonds, and those spells will stop functioning?"



DM: "Not at all.  The sacrificed diamond dust is collected by the gods, who use it to make more diamonds which they then plant in the ground for mortals to (maybe) find."


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 27, 2022)

Dwarves are 25% mining, 10% theater, 30% beer brewing, and 35% beer drinking.

That's on work days.  On holidays it becomes 0-0-0-100.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So... you have no responses to my criticisms of what the PHB says. You have no responses to my criticisms of why worldbuilding using the model of "they are just morally superior" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
> 
> You just want to blame me for "ignoring" the things I'm arguing against. Like that somehow makes sense. "I gave him an idea, and he said it was a bad idea. He clearly just doesn't want to do anything to make it work." Is, again, a very common but really poor defense.
> 
> So, I guess I shall either retreat to fixing it myself (after I get done going through the spells, classes, feats and the crafting system I need to vet), or wait for someone to be willing to engage with the idea that "they are just better people" isn't a good way to build a race.



You know it's interesting, I don't recall ever making a case for moral superiority. I do recall making a case that they'd put more value on institutions/activities that serve people. Like it's more of a priority for them than say magic or mining or money. And the end result is they'd have more and/or better civic institutions. 

But, from what you've posted and in defiance of all reason and real world experience, all races must have exactly equal and equivalent civic institutions. Anything else is Mary Suism and bad storytelling. 

Whatever. I'm done. Not like you're reading the posts you respond to anyway.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> DM: "Not at all.  The sacrificed diamond dust is collected by the gods, who use it to make more diamonds which they then plant in the ground for mortals to (maybe) find."



That kind of work is too mundane for gods.  They'd just create diamond fairies and be done with it.


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## Maxperson (Jul 27, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Dwarves are 25% mining, 10% theater***, 30% beer brewing, and 35% beer drinking.
> 
> That's on work days.  On holidays it becomes 0-0-0-100.



*dwarven theater, otherwise known as brawling pits, are constructed inside bars(dwarves don't soft coat it by calling them "taverns").


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 27, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> *dwarven theater, otherwise known as brawling pits, are constructed inside bars(dwarves don't soft coat it by calling them "taverns").



Would it be more or less dwarven if they were called "saloons"?


----------



## Yaarel (Jul 27, 2022)

I have been rummaging online 2e Monstrous Compendiums.

The brownie is a kind of faerie folk, a gnome-like house sprite resembling a Tiny elf. In the reallife folkbelief, a brownie is the influential presence of a home itself, where humans live: the spirit of a place.

The 2e brownie lives near but separately from humans, in small burrows or abandoned buildings. I suppose this is for modesty. But I think the uncomfortable voyeurism is funny. Going to the bathroom, bathing, intimacy, are all normal activities of a home. The house is aware.



Anyway, the creature description explicitly says:

"Brownies are small, benign humanoids who may be very distantly related to halflings."

The creature description makes the claim uncertain. But it is the first sentence. D&D officially associates the halfling as a kind of Fey, and part of a family of races that include house sprites.

I am impressed that the 2e authors seem to be aware of the reallife connection.

brownie → house sprite → hob → hobbit → halfling



In the same sense that there is a "goblinoid" family of races, there can also be a "gnomic" family of races. The halfling is one of these, and has "Fey ancestry", whence the luck.


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## Yaarel (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Would it be more or less dwarven if they were called "saloons"?



Probably more.

The term "saloon" (from French salon) cognates Norse salr, a Nordic longhouse.

In the sense that a saloon is a great central room, with small rooms off from it, it might feel dwarven.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You know it's interesting, I don't recall ever making a case for moral superiority. I do recall making a case that they'd put more value on institutions/activities that serve people. Like it's more of a priority for them than say magic or mining or money. And the end result is they'd have more and/or better civic institutions.
> 
> But, from what you've posted and in defiance of all reason and real world experience, all races must have exactly equal and equivalent civic institutions. Anything else is Mary Suism and bad storytelling.
> 
> Whatever. I'm done. Not like you're reading the posts you respond to anyway.




Accusations of not reading? That's BINGO! I got a BINGO! Wonder what I will win?

Sarcasm aside. How else would you like to define "care more about institution's that help people than money". I mean, to me, sitting in a capitalist society... that's kind of morality tale 101 "The greedy business owner cares more about people than what is good for the community and is stood up to by the little people who care about the place they live in". This is a story framework that is incredibly common and, wait for, a morality tale about the value of people over money. 


You may have never directly stated "I think they are morally superior" and hey, I never accused you of directly stating it. But I don't see how you can not see it in the statements being made. I never said you advocated for mary suism, but your posts helped highlight it for me. And instead of trying to refute my conclusion, you just double down that I'm putting words in your mouth. The only words those being the ones you actually did literally say about halflings flaw being that they care too much. 

And I know you will ignore all this, you'll accuse me of every bad faith action under the sun and complain about how I'm a terrible person, but it is really not a stretch to assume that the people famous for building buildings would build a theater. Dwarves build, it is a thing they do. And would they have use for a theater? Yes, not for the avant-garde production of the Little Dwarven Matchgirl, but for the dramatic reading of the Oration of Kings which lays out the history of the Clans and their struggles? Heck yes Dwarves are into that stuff. Is it good theater? Well, it is good Dwarven theater. It isn't like art isn't subjective. And it fits into their aesthetic and their values to do something like that. Just like them being a tight-knit clan and caring about the clan means they probably have grandmothers who bake or cook for their grandchildren. It is kind of fair to assume they have functioning societies and family units. Now maybe it is grandma's special moonshine instead of grandma's special chocolate chip cookies, but that's a detail, not the key component.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 27, 2022)

Morality is not inherently tied to what you do.

"I help people because it makes me look better"
is different from..

"I help people because it gives me physical pleasure (or a failure to do so causes me physical pain)"
is different from..

"I help people because I'm afraid God will smite me if i don't"
is different from..

"I help people because its a way I can control them"
is different from..

"I help people because I'll get a reward"
is different from..

"I help people because I never learned there was another option"
is different from..

"I help _my_ people because I think _my_ people are worthwhile and deserving of help even if I don't get anything out of it"
is different from..

"I help _all_ people because I think _all_ people are worthwhile and deserving of help even if I don't get anything out of it"

Maybe they're hedonists and thats how they get off. Maybe they use help as a form of currency. Maybe it's a form of governance. Maybe they are just a little nicer. It can be any, some, all, or none of these.

From a worldbuilding perspective, you can use all kinds of motivations as the underlying reason for halfling helpfulness (or Dwarven crafting, Elven spellcasting, etc.) and arrive at a whole spectrum of "morality" underpinning that society.

No matter the road you take, you still wind up with a civilization that prioritizes helping people over doing other things.


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## Faolyn (Jul 27, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Anyway, the creature description explicitly says:
> 
> "Brownies are small, benign humanoids who may be very distantly related to halflings."
> 
> ...



AD&D didn't have monster types, though--except, perhaps, for humanoids, which was a term used for any non-human human-shaped being that wasn't a demi-human (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling). So basically, they lumped brownies in with orcs, goblins, and kobolds. And more importantly, brownies (and nixies, pixies, and sprites as well) could be charmed by the AD&D _charm person _spell.

While the writers almost certainly realized that the real-world mythology and literature made them related, AD&D rules didn't care about that.


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## Lanefan (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> AD&D didn't have monster types, though--except, perhaps, for humanoids, which was a term used for any non-human human-shaped being that wasn't a demi-human (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling). So basically, they lumped brownies in with orcs, goblins, and kobolds. And more importantly, brownies (and nixies, pixies, and sprites as well) could be charmed by the AD&D _charm person _spell.



1e largely didn't need creature types other than to define these things:
--- kindred species (i.e. those which are PC-playable)
--- persons (for what can be hit with a _charm person_ or _hold person_ spell)
--- humanoids (for what a Ranger's damage bonus applies against)
--- animals (for what can be hit with all the various Druidic animal-affecting spells)
--- undead (obvious)

I'm not sure the further codifying of creatures into types really adds very much, though I suppose it's necessary now that Rangers can pick a type to get their bonus against.


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## Yaarel (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> AD&D didn't have monster types, though--except, perhaps, for humanoids, which was a term used for any non-human human-shaped being that wasn't a demi-human (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling). So basically, they lumped brownies in with orcs, goblins, and kobolds. And more importantly, brownies (and nixies, pixies, and sprites as well) could be charmed by the AD&D _charm person _spell.
> 
> While the writers almost certainly realized that the real-world mythology and literature made them related, AD&D rules didn't care about that.



Yeah, this is the "Tolkien-ization" of reallife folkbeliefs. As if, every concept is somehow some kind of "exotic" human ethnicity.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 27, 2022)

On the other hand,

What if halflings (as a group, individuals may vary) help people solely out of the goodness in their hearts. Is this actually a worldbuilding problem?

Do campaign worlds exist where there are zero good organizations made up of groups of people with goodness in their hearts?

If not, what are those organizations doing? Are they helping people? Is it a problem if fractionally more halflings also do those things or do them more frequently/passionately? Is it a problem if halflings lead some or even most of these efforts?

Would it mean these halflings have no flaws? That they would be immune to substance abuse, infidelity, egotism, narcissism, ignorance, insecurity, laziness, loneliness, jealousy, pettiness, spitefulness, etc. etc. etc.

It would not. Not being greedy does not make you good. Even if it did, being good does not make you perfect.


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## Faolyn (Jul 27, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm not sure the further codifying of creatures into types really adds very much, though I suppose it's necessary now that Rangers can pick a type to get their bonus against.



It simplifies things. In Ye Olden Days, if you had a weapon that did extra damage to "dragons," you had to actually figure out what counts as a dragon. Are wyverns or hydras dragons? Chimeras have a dragon head--does that count? _Probably _not, but some tables may say otherwise. In 2e, _charm person _affected dryads but didn't say anything about satyrs. 

So, for things like that, creature types are great.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> On the other hand,
> 
> What if halflings (as a group, individuals may vary) help people solely out of the goodness in their hearts. Is this actually a worldbuilding problem?
> 
> ...



settings with zero good guy organisations are any edge or really grom setting they have been done for years.

but making the halflings the most good people have two problems, 
a) that makes them closer to the definition of good, and as far as I am concerned that is giving a definition which in a game of fundamentally multiple distinct goods saying one is better than the others will make a correct moral stance which can get controversial fast.
b) a bunch of apathetic stay out of sight and do no great things good, says good is both impotent and apathetic which does not work in a game of heroic fantasy nor has good connotations.


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## James Gasik (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> AD&D didn't have monster types, though--except, perhaps, for humanoids, which was a term used for any non-human human-shaped being that wasn't a demi-human (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling). So basically, they lumped brownies in with orcs, goblins, and kobolds. And more importantly, brownies (and nixies, pixies, and sprites as well) could be charmed by the AD&D _charm person _spell.
> 
> While the writers almost certainly realized that the real-world mythology and literature made them related, AD&D rules didn't care about that.



Unless we count "giant-class humanoids" for the 1e Ranger, but even that list is fairly arbitrary, including some rather odd creatures.  I remember a Dungeon adventure actually bothering to point out that Tasloi were on that list, which was a real head-scratcher.


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## Irlo (Jul 27, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> b) a bunch of apathetic stay out of sight and do no great things good, says good is both impotent and apathetic which does not work in a game of heroic fantasy nor has good connotations.



I believe you’re mistaken to categorize halflings as apathetic. They’re hard working and care deeply about many things. Not about gold and glory and ostentation, but they care. 

You’ll have more success integrating them into a campaign if you drop the “impotent and apathetic” descriptors.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 27, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Unless we count "giant-class humanoids" for the 1e Ranger, but even that list is fairly arbitrary, including some rather odd creatures.  I remember a Dungeon adventure actually bothering to point out that Tasloi were on that list, which was a real head-scratcher.



you can have a no-eyed big-eyed spider and that is in real-life fantasy taxonomy would be nuts.


Irlo said:


> I believe you’re mistaken to categorize halflings as apathetic. They’re hard working and care deeply about many things. Not about gold and glory and ostentation, but they care.
> 
> You’ll have more success integrating them into a campaign if you drop the “impotent and apathetic” descriptors.



they care about their survival and their families, but they do not act on a larger scale, sure individuals do but so does many races, it does not make them care about the big stuff, what do they sacrifice that a thousand other families who send sons and daughters to fight armies of undead or demon do?
yes, close-knit caring communities are a good thing but halflings know no sense of duty for an obvious example or responsibility.
they are innocent but innocent is not good.
they sit and make merry and eat, if I wanted to make dark halflings I would already have a name: eloi culturally dead, happy by merely existing and can only live by hiding or the grace of others acting as a bulwark against the thousand terrors of the world.

I will admit halflings still have empathy and an understanding of labour but that does not make someone good merely more than a pet or livestock.
why have the mind flayers not tried domesticating people like that? the witcher did it in one of the video game expansions.


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## Irlo (Jul 27, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> they sit and make merry and eat, if I wanted to make dark halflings I would already have a name: eloi culturally dead, happy by merely existing and can only live by hiding or the grace of others acting as a bulwark against the thousand terrors of the world.



You don’t need to make eloi. You’ve already chosen to characterize halflings like that. 

You said early in the thread that your hatred of halflings is absolute. I should have taken you at your word. There’s nothing wrong with a halfling-free game world if that’s what you want, but if you want to use them there are ideas in this thread that might help.


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## Faolyn (Jul 27, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> you can have a no-eyed big-eyed spider and that is in real-life fantasy taxonomy would be nuts.



?



Mind of tempest said:


> they care about their survival and their families, but they do not act on a larger scale, sure individuals do but so does many races, it does not make them care about the big stuff, what do they sacrifice that a thousand other families who send sons and daughters to fight armies of undead or demon do?
> yes, close-knit caring communities are a good thing but halflings know no sense of duty for an obvious example or responsibility.
> they are innocent but innocent is not good.
> they sit and make merry and eat, if I wanted to make dark halflings I would already have a name: eloi culturally dead, happy by merely existing and can only live by hiding or the grace of others acting as a bulwark against the thousand terrors of the world.



Well, the real question here is, do they _need _to act on a larger scale? The vast, _vast _majority of things that occur in any setting are not things that affect the entire world.

But let's say that there is an invasion of undead and demons. Halflings don't _have _to join the armies of humans as ground troops. They can be spies, scouts, saboteurs, and guerilla warriors. And, well, they can be support. They can feed and heal and be quartermasters to all those armies of humans, elves, and dwarfs that fight against the armies of undead and fiends. Those jobs may not be as sexy as solider, but they're just as important, or even more so.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 27, 2022)

Okay, so now we have an entirely new argument. Let's take a llok




Gammadoodler said:


> Morality is not inherently tied to what you do.
> 
> "I help people because it makes me look better"
> is different from..
> ...




Okay, so I guess the first question is "Are these different?". Looking at them... yes, looks like they are all at least a little different, some more extreme than others. 

Second Question, since you had previously stated that this was all "from the PHB" which of these is the halfling from the PHB? Well, from them constantly being described as friendly and all that, it seems obvious that the last one is the PHB halfling. Which is the most morally upstanding of them. After all, they don't derive physical pleasure from it, they don't control people via manipulation, their god's don't punish them for failure to render aid, they are fairly explicitly called out as not getting rewards. So, the most moral version is the PHB version, which supports my point as to what the PHB version is. 

Okay, but there is a third question. Can I rewrite halflings to have one of these other traits? Maybe I rewrite halflings to have a wide base of these traits? Well.... sort of. 

I can't write them to gain physical hedonistic pleasure from helping people, because that would be creepy and stalkerish and banned from tables. That's just a bad route. 

They do it because they don't know any better? That's... bizarre, and breaks down the moment they interact and trade with other races. 

The Gods? I mean, I could write one god who does that, but it would be really bizarre to have a god that agressive about it instead of just making it a normal ideal. Corellon doesn't punish you for making bad art, they just encourage good art. So, could do it, but it would be really bizarre. 

Helping just "My" people has some racist overtones to me. Not a fan of it, just like I'm not a fan of the elven arrogance that "their" people are the superior people. Sure, I could write a racist halfling, but I'm looking for their general state, not exceptions. 

Which just leaves "I help for rewards", "I help because it makes me look good" and "I help to manipulate people" which is all... just taking the baseline of morally superior halflings and making them morally inferior. Again, sure, I can write the exception, I can say that some halflings help others just to make them feel indebted and to manipulate them for their own ends, but if I say all halflings do that... then I've just inverted the problem. 


Well, okay, since these don't work individually, what if I take all the ones that aren't biological pleasure or the god's decree and combine them? 

"Some people help others because they think all people deserve help. Some people help others because that is how they were raised. Some people help others for rewards or accolades. Some people help people to manipulate them." Wait... aren't I just... describing all the reasons people help other people? We've circled back around to being just generic. I could maybe say that all halflings help other people, for a variety of reasons good or ill, but all of these are the exact same reasons that every other race would help people. And let's take a moment and think about the halfling that helps people because they want a reward or they think it will make them look good. What if they look at a situation, and they realize they won't get what they want out of it? Helping this person can't get them a reward, which is the reason they would help them so... wouldn't they just not help them? Or what about a halfling who realizes you don't need to help people, and then just... decides to stop helping people. Aren't we then going to have halflings that don't help other people? Making them even more just like everyone else? 


At the end of the day, you laid out some great reasons a CHARACTER might choose to help someone. But they aren't solid foundations for making an entire race of people help others, because you either end up with disgusting things like them doing it for physical pleasure (again, ew, this would be SO creepy to try and convey), a race deeply rooted in a morality (good or evil) or just... exactly how you treat every other race. 


So, since we just did this big long thing. Let's take a step back. We are already willing to rewrite halfling biology to make them physically dependent on helping other people. So... what if we rewrote halflings with a focus OTHER than helping people? Could we do something with that instead? Seems like a far less fraught and dangerous path, with far more interesting outcomes.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 27, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> On the other hand,
> 
> What if halflings (as a group, individuals may vary) help people solely out of the goodness in their hearts. Is this actually a worldbuilding problem?
> 
> ...




Ah, I should have scrolled down before posting my last reply. Apologies. 

Good organizations exist. They exist to do good and they exist made up of people with goodness in their hearts. They go out and help people in a variety of ways. 

Are making halflings the goodest of good people who always want to help a problem? In so much that this is their defining feature? Yes. Not because halflings can't be good, or because good people can't be flawed, but because it puts halflings on a pedestal. I may not like alignment, but I recognize that the key defining thing DnD has used to differentiate good and evil is a simple question of selfishness versus helping other people. 

Dwarves care about crafting, and that is something we have decided is inherent to dwarfness and their crafting of tools or buildings can be done to help people, or not to help people. Elves are deeply into magic, and that magic can be used to help people, or not to help people. Humans are ambitious and driven, and that drive can be used to help people, or not to help people. 

But if halflings help people, if that is their defining trait.... helping people can't be used to not help people. And so, unlike the other major races who can use their defining traits in different ways, halflings are directed towards a single path. They will always help people, and that makes them better than other people. Sure, a halfling might be a drunk who cheats on his wife, but he'll always help those in need, while a human who is a drunk who cheats on his wife probably doesn't. Halflings always have one of the most redemptive traits we give out. Caring for other people. 

And that is why it is a world-building problem. Not because good people can't exist. Not because good people can't be flawed. But because saying that has a race you are predisposed to good is a bad thing to do in world-building. This isn't about halflings being fractionally more likely to be part of good organizations (which again, hilarious that this is our route for the most well-known thief and mafia race in the game) but is about defining the race based on a trait that is inherently selfless and good.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> ?



these guys Spider, No-eyed Big-eyed Wolf | Encyclopedia.com


Faolyn said:


> Well, the real question here is, do they _need _to act on a larger scale? The vast, _vast _majority of things that occur in any setting are not things that affect the entire world.
> 
> But let's say that there is an invasion of undead and demons. Halflings don't _have _to join the armies of humans as ground troops. They can be spies, scouts, saboteurs, and guerilla warriors. And, well, they can be support. They can feed and heal and be quartermasters to all those armies of humans, elves, and dwarfs that fight against the armies of undead and fiends. Those jobs may not be as sexy as solider, but they're just as important, or even more so.



true they _could_, but I _could_ grow a third eye gain enlightenment and become a benevolent demiurge, could is not the same as will, why would they feed others a hundred miles away? they would not know about them nor care as mysteriously evil just avoids them according to Mtof.
they simply do not do much they are bit parts so why are they a major race other than blind tradition?
halflings do not do much of anything as they do not organise beyond the local level they at best would be runners or suppliers if they are even able to be found.
halflings are like a tree falling a Forrest without anyone around, would anyone know they happen?


Irlo said:


> You don’t need to make eloi. You’ve already chosen to characterize halflings like that.
> 
> You said early in the thread that your hatred of halflings is absolute. I should have taken you at your word. There’s nothing wrong with a halfling-free game world if that’s what you want, but if you want to use them there are ideas in this thread that might help.



it is more the point both are based on the countryside arcadia one being a dark take on it, hence the words "to make dark halflings" it was a suggestion on how to make them fit a grim setting without just enslaving them.

you are correct I am the one guy in this thread who does honestly hate halflings *but* I am willing to hear people out and I have changed my mind before but the arguments for halflings are just insulting for the type of media we work with and no makes them have any real importance in the world.


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## Faolyn (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> true they _could_, but I _could_ grow a third eye gain enlightenment and become a benevolent demiurge, could is not the same as will, why would they feed others a hundred miles away? they would not know about them nor care as mysteriously evil just avoids them according to Mtof.



Why would they be hundreds of miles away? If there's a world-shaking event going on, it would be shaking their world as well. You think invading demons and armies of undead are just going to ignore halfling towns? At the very least, they'd want to defend their own settlements. And if halflings are believers in helping others, then they'd be supporting the war effort. Soldiers who are alive and fed because of halfling help are going to want to defend halfling homes.

Plus, lots of them live in human cities. Which, you know, the BBEGs tend to want to destroy or conquor.



Mind of tempest said:


> they simply do not do much they are bit parts so why are they a major race other than blind tradition?



Because lots of people are able to think of ways to use them well. It literally took me five seconds to realize what part halflings could play in a major event of any size if they weren't front-line fighters. I'm sure you can spend five minutes coming up with ideas on your own. If you don't think they have any real importance, it's entirely because you have decided that.



Mind of tempest said:


> halflings do not do much of anything as they do not organise beyond the local level they at best would be runners or suppliers if they are even able to be found.
> halflings are like a tree falling a Forrest without anyone around, would anyone know they happen?
> 
> it is more the point both are based on the countryside arcadia one being a dark take on it, hence the words "to make dark halflings" it was a suggestion on how to make them fit a grim setting without just enslaving them.



To quote a thing I've heard about Changeling: the Dreaming: they are the light which causes the shadows. You use them to show how dark the rest of the world is in comparison. And to quote Isaac Asimov on why he didn't like dystopias (or utopias): you can't make a symphony on just one note. And If you don't have anything good in a grim setting, then it's just dark edgy angsty boringness. As some people put it, a pizza cutter: all edge and no point. If everything sucks all the time, why play in it? And I say this as someone who likes running horror and likes Ravenloft, where you literally _can't _defeat the Dark Powers. 

You have small moments of goodness and triumph, and it makes fighting the darkness more satisfying. And halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Would it be more or less dwarven if they were called "saloons"?



That would depend on if they were the kind of dwarves that head for the hills or not.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You have small moments of goodness and triumph, and it makes fighting the darkness more satisfying. And halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph.




Not because I feel like re-engaging with you Faolyn, but because I want to make it clear I'm not just reading Gammanoodler, but everyone else as well. Here is again, the same problem. 

"halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph." What does that make the adventurers? Think about the statement and take it literally for a moment. "Halflings are the light of good in a dark world". Which means to illustrate that, you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human, because those races are not *definitionally *moments of good and triumph. 

I honestly wonder how many people have forgotten what the narrative point of phrases like "glimmers of light in the darkness" means. It didn't mean that halflings were the good people who made the darkness bearable. It was meant to apply to all good, common folk doing good works in their small ways. Hobbits were literally supposed to represent the common everyday englishman, not be avatars for good throughout the world. 

I honestly feel like you cheapen the idea of small acts of good in a dark world, by shoving them into a race and saying "these people do that all the time, that's their entire point!" The powerful thing about those small acts is that they come from unexpected places, they are unusual because the other people in the same situation don't do that. And having halflings ALWAYS do it, ruins the entire message.


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## Irlo (Jul 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> "halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph." What does that make the adventurers? Think about the statement and take it literally for a moment. "Halflings are the light of good in a dark world". Which means to illustrate that, you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human, because those races are not *definitionally *moments of good and triumph.
> 
> I honestly wonder how many people have forgotten what the narrative point of phrases like "glimmers of light in the darkness" means. It didn't mean that halflings were the good people who made the darkness bearable. It was meant to apply to all good, common folk doing good works in their small ways. Hobbits were literally supposed to represent the common everyday englishman, not be avatars for good throughout the world.
> 
> I honestly feel like you cheapen the idea of small acts of good in a dark world, by shoving them into a race and saying "these people do that all the time, that's their entire point!" The powerful thing about those small acts is that they come from unexpected places, they are unusual because the other people in the same situation don't do that. And having halflings ALWAYS do it, ruins the entire message.



Or, one could _not _take it literally and _not _conclude that halflings are celestial avatars and the exclusive and source of small moments of good and triumph all the time and without exception. I don't understand what leads you there. That's okay, I guess. After so many pages in this thread, I'm pretty sure I won't get it.

What does it make the adventurers? Maybe they're bombastic epic sweeping moments of good and triumph. Maybe they're scoundrels scraping by on whatever they can drag out of the tombs in the hills. Or anything else the players want them to be?


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> It simplifies things. In Ye Olden Days, if you had a weapon that did extra damage to "dragons," you had to actually figure out what counts as a dragon. Are wyverns or hydras dragons? Chimeras have a dragon head--does that count? _Probably _not, but some tables may say otherwise. In 2e, _charm person _affected dryads but didn't say anything about satyrs.



Rulings, not rules. 

At one table a wyvern might count as a Dragon, at another not so.  Ditto charm vs a satyr.  As long as each DM is consistent and sticks to their own established precedent within a campaign, all is good.


Faolyn said:


> So, for things like that, creature types are great.



Until-unless there's disagreement with the categorizations, as in what prompted this thread.


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> "halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph." *What does that make the adventurers*?



In my experience?  They're ongoing and variable-sized moments of chaos and anarchy.


Chaosmancer said:


> Think about the statement and take it literally for a moment. "Halflings are the light of good in a dark world". Which means to illustrate that, you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human, because those races are not *definitionally *moments of good and triumph.



With them, it's just some individuals.  With Hobbits, it's more broad-based.  Simple. 


Chaosmancer said:


> I honestly wonder how many people have forgotten what the narrative point of phrases like "glimmers of light in the darkness" means. It didn't mean that halflings were the good people who made the darkness bearable.



But it could, should one choose to read it that way.


Chaosmancer said:


> It was meant to apply to all good, common folk doing good works in their small ways. Hobbits were literally supposed to represent the common everyday englishman, not be avatars for good throughout the world.
> 
> I honestly feel like you cheapen the idea of small acts of good in a dark world, by shoving them into a race and saying "these people do that all the time, that's their entire point!" The powerful thing about those small acts is that they come from unexpected places, they are unusual because the other people in the same situation don't do that. And having halflings ALWAYS do it, ruins the entire message.



Individuals of other species are the points of light.  Hobbits are the background glow that ever so slightly keeps the darkness at bay.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my experience?  They're ongoing and variable-sized moments of chaos and anarchy.



then why do you defend them so much that would make them unpalatable?


Lanefan said:


> But it could, should one choose to read it that way.



look I get the death of the author but this leads to my next point.


Lanefan said:


> With them, it's just some individuals.  With Hobbits, it's more broad-based.  Simple.
> 
> Individuals of other species are the points of light.  Hobbits are the background glow that ever so slightly keeps the darkness at bay.



so by you definition halflings are just better than other people, they are better at being good and we should all just be like them?



Irlo said:


> Or, one could _not _take it literally and _not _conclude that halflings are celestial avatars and the exclusive and source of small moments of good and triumph all the time and without exception. I don't understand what leads you there. That's okay, I guess. After so many pages in this thread, I'm pretty sure I won't get it.



a) this is dnd literal embodiment of good are an option.
b) then what are halflings gimmicks?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why would they be hundreds of miles away? If there's a world-shaking event going on, it would be shaking their world as well. You think invading demons and armies of undead are just going to ignore halfling towns? At the very least, they'd want to defend their own settlements. And if halflings are believers in helping others, then they'd be supporting the war effort. Soldiers who are alive and fed because of halfling help are going to want to defend halfling homes.



why would they defend their homes they survive by hiding they would flee that is literally how they are meant to live, if they are not forced to flee they would be next to worthless as their food would be smashed as the point of demons and undead is they do not resupply on food thus their line can burn it all to the ground.


Faolyn said:


> Plus, lots of them live in human cities. Which, you know, the BBEGs tend to want to destroy or conquor.




a) that is the most unrealistic thing about the halfling-human relationship the humans would drive them to extinction for food and resources.
b) they would flee and end up as refugees.


Faolyn said:


> Because lots of people are able to think of ways to use them well. It literally took me five seconds to realize what part halflings could play in a major event of any size if they weren't front-line fighters. I'm sure you can spend five minutes coming up with ideas on your own. If you don't think they have any real importance, it's entirely because you have decided that.



that is a fair point but my counter is 
c) can't do that without removing the basic idea of halflings beyond being on the side of good and being small and gnomes are that technically.
d) how much do you know about basic war logistics?
e) given that say FR can't seem to go six months without a near end of the world this would not be a stable situation supply lines would run out fast thus halflings would have mostly been pushed away.
f)I know exactly what idea based on and it sickens me at any attempt to rehabilitate it.


Faolyn said:


> To quote a thing I've heard about Changeling: the Dreaming: they are the light which causes the shadows. You use them to show how dark the rest of the world is in comparison. And to quote Isaac Asimov on why he didn't like dystopias (or utopias): you can't make a symphony on just one note. And If you don't have anything good in a grim setting, then it's just dark edgy angsty boringness. As some people put it, a pizza cutter: all edge and no point. If everything sucks all the time, why play in it? And I say this as someone who likes running horror and likes Ravenloft, where you literally _can't _defeat the Dark Powers.
> 
> You have small moments of goodness and triumph, and it makes fighting the darkness more satisfying. And halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph.



_look your basic point on setting design I agree_ with but halflings are not better people than elves or dwarves why should they get to be the light? what makes them better than the rest of us? they are defined as being average and the average person is not good not evil but not good. _so what makes them so deserving to be the great good light what is so good about them?_


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> then why do you defend them so much that would make them unpalatable?



Defend what?  Characters?  All characters are ongoing moments of chaos and anarchy, not just hobbits. 


Mind of tempest said:


> so by you definition halflings are just better than other people, they are better at being good and we should all just be like them?



One can aspire so; and by no means are all individual Hobbits better than other people.  It's more a national-average sort of thing - Hobbits trend good while Dwarves trend lawful, Elves trend chaotic, etc.

Hell, someone has to be the goodly species; and as people seem to think Hobbits need a defining aspect, maybe this is it.


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> why would they defend their homes they survive by hiding they would flee that is literally how they are meant to live, if they are not forced to flee they would be next to worthless as their food would be smashed as the point of demons and undead is they do not resupply on food thus their line can burn it all to the ground.



Fleeing would be an option but realistically they'd try defense first unless the foes were clearly overwhelming.  And someone fighting on home turf nearly always has an advantage.


Mind of tempest said:


> a) that is the most unrealistic thing about the halfling-human relationship the humans would drive them to extinction for food and resources.



This assumes there's enough Humans to need all those resources.  A typical D&D setting (other than FR) just doesn't have that degree of Human population and there's generally assumed to be enough basic resources to go around; FR _is_ overpopulated in some regions and yes, there your concerns are valid.


Mind of tempest said:


> b) they would flee and end up as refugees.



Or end up as slaves, or serfs, etc. if it came to that, but I rather doubt it would.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Defend what?  Characters?  All characters are ongoing moments of chaos and anarchy, not just hobbits.



given that I spend most of my characters trying to avoid my parties killing each other I will believe you here.


Lanefan said:


> One can aspire so; and by no means are all individual Hobbits better than other people.  It's more a national-average sort of thing - Hobbits trend good while Dwarves trend lawful, Elves trend chaotic, etc.
> 
> Hell, someone has to be the goodly species; and as people seem to think Hobbits need a defining aspect, maybe this is it.



the problem with the goodly species is it defines what good is which is controversial, tables burn over what is good then you factor in how fast real-world groups would behave it is the dumbest idea I ever heard it would be a bad idea.
plus how are halfling more good than others they would more likely to be true neutral.


Lanefan said:


> Fleeing would be an option but realistically they'd try defense first unless the foes were clearly overwhelming.  And someone fighting on home turf nearly always has an advantage.



they are armies who do eat, sleep, resupply or need light why would they defend they are literally not built for it.


Lanefan said:


> This assumes there's enough Humans to need all those resources.  A typical D&D setting (other than FR) just doesn't have that degree of Human population and there's generally assumed to be enough basic resources to go around; FR _is_ overpopulated in some regions and yes, there your concerns are valid.



Halflings are smaller weaker and live in the same environment it is not malice but the rules of nature and biology.



Lanefan said:


> Or end up as slaves, or serfs, etc. if it came to that, but I rather doubt it would.



being eaten is also a possibility.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> given that I spend most of my characters trying to avoid my parties killing each other I will believe you here.
> 
> the problem with the goodly species is it defines what good is which is controversial, tables burn over what is good then you factor in how fast real-world groups would behave it is the dumbest idea I ever heard it would be a bad idea.
> plus how are halfling more good than others they would more likely to be true neutral.
> ...



Motivations are internal to characters. You don't have to say "these are the good boys". You just describe what they do, which on average would be things you think are good. Players and other forces within the setting can interpret the motives however they like.

And reasonable people often disagree about _*how*_ to "be good". Halfling can easily employ the "give a fish" brand of goodness on a grand scale, without ever "teaching how to fish" or vice versa. Such a disagreement can occur between factions in the setting or between PCs at the table without compromising either party's "goodness".

As far as what any race would "likely" be, that is defined between the rulebook and the DM. The rulebooks say what the designers' expectations are for them and the DM interprets how that fits in the setting they are using and adjusts as necessary. At the end of the day, it comes more down to the DMs personal set of values than anything else.

Halflings are smaller, not weaker. There is nothing implicit or explicit within the PHB that suggests they'd fight poorly and a fair amount within the PHP to suggest the contrary.

Edit: The funny thing is, the way you describe halflings is actually more similar to the PHB description for elves.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Motivations are internal to characters. You don't have to say "these are the good boys". You just describe what they do, which on average would be things you think are good. Players and other forces within the setting can interpret the motives however they like.
> 
> And reasonable people often disagree about _*how*_ to "be good". Halfling can easily employ the "give a fish" brand of goodness on a grand scale, without ever "teaching how to fish" or vice versa. Such a disagreement can occur between factions in the setting or between PCs at the table without compromising either party's "goodness".
> 
> ...



look trying to make the most morally good races is just a bad idea conceptionally and unworkable.

less carrying capacity is legally weaker plus less leverage.

they can't use the really big damaging weapons and are not known for strategy, tactic or literally anything beyond being peaceful villagers who go places sometimes, thus they would suck in war.

of course, they have a lot in common with elves both are idealised ideas of humanity thus both are just like us without the bad stuff.


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## James Gasik (Jul 28, 2022)

Oh yes, because the difference between a 20 Strength Halfling Fighter and a 20 Strength Elf Fighter, one wielding a longsword in two hands for d10+5 and the other wielding a greatsword for 2d6+5, is just light years of difference!  A whole point and a half of damage!

Or maybe the Halfling just takes Dueling Fighting Style and uses the thing in one hand for d8+7, losing half a point of damage and can use a shield....


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> look trying to make the most morally good races is just a bad idea conceptionally and unworkable.
> 
> less carrying capacity is legally weaker plus less leverage.
> 
> ...



We can have bests in all kinds of activities except good behavior? That's silly.

Small races do not have less carrying capacity in 5e, tiny races do. (Note that this means that halflings are stronger on a pound for pound basis than most medium-sized races).

The difficulty with heavy weapons mostly just "forces" them into using one handed weapons (and shields presumably). It mostly a limit on versatility rather than effectiveness. Grappling is an issue, and the heavy trait on the longbow hurts, but this is consistent across all small races. On the other hand, the fact that they are small gives them access to mounts that medium sized creatures can't use (e.g. medium sized flyers or burrowers). And they can fit in spaces that larger creatures can't. This is mostly a wash on an even playing field. On home turf, the advantages for halflings would be huge.

They are known for being cooperative and ferocious (when threatened). Lucky, Bravery, Halfling Nimbleness and *all* the PHB subclass features are combat-relevant, even moreso in a war scenario than in normal D&D encounters as critical failures can be more impactful, frightened can be impactful, poison can be impactful, and it is much more likely for there to be a bunch of medium-sized or larger creatures to get through and/or hide behind on the way to high value targets.

Seriously, Halfling Nimbleness, by itself would completely change how an army would have to organize itself to fight against it. There would be no front line. Flanks could and would be happening everywhere.

On a normal battlefield, halfling would be dangerous. In a war for their homeland, halflings would be terrifying.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Rulings, not rules.
> 
> At one table a wyvern might count as a Dragon, at another not so.  Ditto charm vs a satyr.  As long as each DM is consistent and sticks to their own established precedent within a campaign, all is good.



This.  Back in 1e we counted humans, demihumans, orcs, goblins, etc., but not giants or fey creatures.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my experience?  They're ongoing and variable-sized moments of chaos and anarchy.



Pretty sure that they are just small sized.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Oh yes, because the difference between a 20 Strength Halfling Fighter and a 20 Strength Elf Fighter, one wielding a longsword in two hands for d10+5 and the other wielding a greatsword for 2d6+5, is just light years of difference!  A whole point and a half of damage!
> 
> Or maybe the Halfling just takes Dueling Fighting Style and uses the thing in one hand for d8+7, losing half a point of damage and can use a shield....



your mechanical point stands but all small races have it thus not a true defence of halflings.


Gammadoodler said:


> We can have bests in all kinds of activities except good behavior? That's silly.
> 
> Small races do not have less carrying capacity in 5e, tiny races do. (Note that this means that halflings are stronger on a pound for pound basis than most medium-sized races).
> 
> ...



halfling villages are not hard to sigie you just burn all the food and move on.

since when have they been described as ferocious, most are simple civilians and do not know battle tactics luck will not teach you how to fight.

a world with magic changes battle lines far more and honestly, most foes have magic.


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## Irlo (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> halfling villages are not hard to sigie you just burn all the food and move on.



No one lays siege to villages, halfling or otherwise. Halflings do live along other people though, in cities that might be subjected to a siege. I don’t understand your point here. 


Mind of tempest said:


> since when have they been described as ferocious, most are simple civilians and do not know battle tactics luck will not teach you how to fight.



The PHB notes their ferocity defending friends, family, and communities. You might find your animosity to halflings fading a bit if you read the text and don’t dismiss half of it.

Most humans and dwarves are simple civilians too.



Mind of tempest said:


> a world with magic changes battle lines far more and honestly, most foes have magic.



Halflings have magic too.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> your mechanical point stands but all small races have it thus not a true defence of halflings.
> 
> halfling villages are not hard to sigie you just burn all the food and move on.
> 
> ...



So to be clear halflings are not weaker.

_Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable *ferocity* when their friends, families, or communities are threatened. (PHB)_

And sure, magic does change battlefield tactics quite a bit with widely varying degrees of impact. That said, most _racial magic features_ (mostly cantrips) are typically locked behind a subrace, and they're kind of a nothingburger from a battlefield perspective. Single target damage, tiny aoes, save for zero damage, super minor buffs and debuffs. They aren't bad, but they certainly aren't transformative. Not in the way that resource-free "ignore the army standing between you and the back line; focus fire anyone you can reach" would be.

Higher level stuff, sure maybe we get there, but then it becomes class levels, resource costs etc. It becomes an exercise in quantum wargaming.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> halfling villages are not hard to sigie you just burn all the food and move on.



If anyone is going to have large stores of food inside the village, it's going to be halflings.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 28, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Or, one could _not _take it literally and _not _conclude that halflings are celestial avatars and the exclusive and source of small moments of good and triumph all the time and without exception. I don't understand what leads you there. That's okay, I guess. After so many pages in this thread, I'm pretty sure I won't get it.
> 
> What does it make the adventurers? Maybe they're bombastic epic sweeping moments of good and triumph. Maybe they're scoundrels scraping by on whatever they can drag out of the tombs in the hills. Or anything else the players want them to be?




If you can't see Faolyn's post, the thing that led me to them being the source of small moments of good and triumph was this line: "*And halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph.*" They don't have to be exclusive for it to be a problem. Unicorns aren't exclusively the only good-aligned, horned, horse-like Celestial. But they are by definition good-aligned, horned, horse-like celestials, and so they have all of those traits. If Halflings are, by definition, good then we have run face-first into the same exact problem you get when you make goblins, by defintion, evil. 

And, I think it is starkly telling that people will go forth and say things like "Halflings are by definition small moments of good and truimph" or "Halflings are the race that care about other people more than the other races" and it is only when someone points out what that means if taken at face value that they then back-pedal and say that you are taking their points too literally, and halflings aren't like, perfect. And that's their counter-argument. Not that their initial post was wrong, they believe that, but that you taking what they said and applying to the same degree you apply racial traits to other races, is wrong and extreme and only done because you hate halflings. 

(Tangent: Pfft, and isn't that hilarious for the Mary Sue angle. Everyone who doesn't like halflings are evil villains who just hate them because they are [insert reasoning here]. Seriously, I can't even make this up to this degree. 

_Sigh_ Laughing over, let me be clear. No, I don't think that anyone has flat out called me an evil villain. I've just been repeatedly attacked via ad hominems and told that this is all a me problem, because halflings are fine, I'm the one who has the problem)


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> With them, it's just some individuals.  With Hobbits, it's more broad-based.  Simple.
> 
> But it could, should one choose to read it that way.
> 
> Individuals of other species are the points of light.  Hobbits are the background glow that ever so slightly keeps the darkness at bay.




And, here it is again. "Chaosmancer? Why do you keep insisting halflings are treated like some sort of celestial, perfect beings?" 

No, I do not think that halflings as a race should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are fine with racial alignments. But I am not. I'm not fine with races that are born inherently evil, and I'm not fine with races born inherently good. I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time." 

I find the very idea repugnant.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And, here it is again. "Chaosmancer? Why do you keep insisting halflings are treated like some sort of celestial, perfect beings?"
> 
> No, I do not think that halflings as a race should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are fine with racial alignments. But I am not. I'm not fine with races that are born inherently evil, and I'm not fine with races born inherently good. I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time."
> 
> I find the very idea repugnant.



Racial alignments are not and have never been absolute.  Even demons in 1e/2e could be other than CE.  In editions 3e and beyond, they just described a general belief, which many of the race did not hold to.  Hell, Orcs in 3e could be 51% CE and 49% LG by RAW if the DM wanted.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Irlo said:


> No one lays siege to villages, halfling or otherwise. Halflings do live along other people though, in cities that might be subjected to a siege. I don’t understand your point here.
> 
> The PHB notes their ferocity defending friends, family, and communities. You might find your animosity to halflings fading a bit if you read the text and don’t dismiss half of it.
> 
> ...



they sack villages for food and materials for the Warmachine do you not know war?

I have read the text and honestly, it sounds like something added in over the years because they could not make halflings work as a major race.

true most humans and dwarves civilians are but humans are known for armies and warrior classes and dwarves build giant fortresses as they have a near biological need to so both would be much harder to fight.


Gammadoodler said:


> So to be clear halflings are not weaker.
> 
> _Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable *ferocity* when their friends, families, or communities are threatened. (PHB)_
> 
> ...



most high-level halflings are dex based so even when we add in the exceptions they are still on average weaker than humans and strength includes leverage which humans have.

given how common hobgoblin war wizards are the basic battle lines of a fantasy world are loose so the halfling loses their advantage as everyone trains for the loose formation.


Maxperson said:


> If anyone is going to have large stores of food inside the village, it's going to be halflings.



given how much they eat I doubt it besides food stores are stolen or burned in war.


Chaosmancer said:


> And, here it is again. "Chaosmancer? Why do you keep insisting halflings are treated like some sort of celestial, perfect beings?"
> 
> No, I do not think that halflings as a race should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are fine with racial alignments. But I am not. I'm not fine with races that are born inherently evil, and I'm not fine with races born inherently good. I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time."
> 
> I find the very idea repugnant.



how would wholesomeness fight evil it would be subverted like everything else, also what is wholesomeness?


Maxperson said:


> Racial alignments are not and have never been absolute.  Even demons in 1e/2e could be other than CE.  In editions 3e and beyond, they just described a general belief, which many of the race did not hold to.  Hell, Orcs in 3e could be 51% CE and 49% LG by RAW if the DM wanted.



this is true but defining the halfling as the good guy race is in direct violation of this.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

I looked at wholesome terns out of body that means it could be subverted into evil fairly fast.
give moral wholesome has the synonym of "pure" clearly it is insanity, like pure air or pure steel.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Dwarves are: determined and *loyal*, *true to their word* and decisive in action, sometimes to the point of stubbornness. Many dwarves have a *strong sense of justice *

Without being problematic.

Hallings are: easily moved to pity and *hate to see any living thing suffer*. They are *generous*, happily sharing what they have even in lean times. 

And they:  work readily with others, and they are *loyal* _to their friends_, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened.

But are problematic...

What??


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Dwarves are: determined and *loyal*, *true to their word* and decisive in action, sometimes to the point of stubbornness. Many dwarves have a *strong sense of justice *
> 
> Without being problematic.
> 
> ...



that is not the argument made nor opposed.

beside halflings are bland like a generic good two shoes childrens show character.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> they sack villages for food and materials for the Warmachine do you not know war?



If they can find them.  Halfling villages are notoriously hard to find.

"Although halflings aren't reclusive by nature, they are adept at finding out-of-the-way places to settle in. It takes a combination of luck and persistence for an ordinary traveler to find such a place , and often that's not enough. For those who subscribe to the idea that Yondalla actively shields her worshipers from harm, this phenomenon is easily explained-she looks out for their homes just as she protects their lives. Whatever the reason, travelers might look for a halfling village, but they fail to notice a narrow path that cuts through the underbrush, or they find themselves traveling in circles and getting no closer to their goal. Rangers who have encountered halflings or lived among them know of this effect, and they learn to trust their other senses and their instincts rather than relying on sight."


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> most high-level halflings are dex based so even when we add in the exceptions they are still on average weaker than humans and strength includes leverage which humans have.
> 
> given how common hobgoblin war wizards are the basic battle lines of a fantasy world are loose so the halfling loses their advantage as everyone trains for the loose formation.



This is pure quantum wargaming. The parameters will change as needed to reach the conclusion you desire.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> If they can find them.  Halfling villages are notoriously hard to find.
> 
> "Although halflings aren't reclusive by nature, they are adept at finding out-of-the-way places to settle in. It takes a combination of luck and persistence for an ordinary traveler to find such a place , and often that's not enough. For those who subscribe to the idea that Yondalla actively shields her worshipers from harm, this phenomenon is easily explained-she looks out for their homes just as she protects their lives. Whatever the reason, travelers might look for a halfling village, but they fail to notice a narrow path that cuts through the underbrush, or they find themselves traveling in circles and getting no closer to their goal. Rangers who have encountered halflings or lived among them know of this effect, and they learn to trust their other senses and their instincts rather than relying on sight."



a) that is the dumbest copout lore I have seen they know halflings should die out but give them miracle hiding ability.
b) most things are easy to find if you are a demon army you just want everything to die or be corrupted and you can't hide if you burn everything around it.
c) the lore would work so much better for gnomes what with the illusion magic.


Gammadoodler said:


> This is pure quantum wargaming. The parameters will change as needed to reach the conclusion you desire.



no the stats of high level halflings were clear, they are a lot of rogues.


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If Halflings are, by definition, good then we have run face-first into the same exact problem you get when you make goblins, by defintion, evil.



Assuming one sees the making of Goblins evil* as a problem.  I don't.

* - as a trend, similar to Dwarves = Lawful, Elves = Chaotic, Hobbits = Good, etc.  Individuals may vary widely.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> a) that is the dumbest copout lore I have seen they know halflings should die out but give them miracle hiding ability.



It doesn't give them a miracle hiding ability. It gives possible reasons for the DM to choose which include miracles.  However, war machines do not travel through out of the way places or they starve to death before finding anything.  They travel down main highways and seige/sack major towns and cities.  

Halflings on the other hand make their villages in out of the way places and are naturally stealthy, which means that war machines simply don't find them and on the off chance that they do locate the small track to the village, they pass it by since it's simply not worth the effort to go find.

There are miracle possibilities and that perfectly normal and logical possibility, all for the DM to choose.


Mind of tempest said:


> b) most things are easy to find if you are a demon army you just want everything to die or be corrupted and you can't hide if you burn everything around it.



Even demon armies don't bother with out of the way places.  It's a waste of their time and allows the major population centers time to prepare defenses and counter offensives.


Mind of tempest said:


> c) the lore would work so much better for gnomes what with the illusion magic.



Except that illusions are one of the things NOT mentioned there!


Mind of tempest said:


> no the stats of high level halflings were clear, they are a lot of rogues.



And clerics and fighters.  They would also have arcane casters for sure among them.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is not the argument made nor opposed.
> 
> beside halflings are bland like a generic good two shoes childrens show character.



Sure it is.. it goes like this..


It's a bad idea/problematic for any race to be good
Halflings are good
Therefore..

Halflings are problematic. 

If we hold the first premise to be true (not sure I would, but lets go with it), and we can demonstrate that Dwarves are also good, then Dwarves should also be problematic, which so far does not seem to be the case.
---
"Bland" here is code for "its not for me". It's fine that you dont like it, but it's not an extensible argument for a systemic problem.


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And, here it is again. "Chaosmancer? Why do you keep insisting halflings are treated like some sort of celestial, perfect beings?"
> 
> No, I do not think that halflings as a race should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are fine with racial alignments.



As general tendencies, yes.  It's one of the better ways IMO of quickly differentiating the species and how they generally tend to approach things as a society.  If nothing else, these general tendencies would be reflected how their means and methods of governance evolves over time e.g. Elves trend a bit more anarchistic, Dwarves more bureaucratic, Hobbits more parliamentary, Goblins more might-makes-right.

Needless to say - but I suspect I'd better say it again anyway - a deep-seated societal trend does not mean everyone in that society follows said trend.  There's always going to be rebels, free-thinkers, status-quo deniers, apple-cart upsetters, etc. within any society the members of which have enough intelligence to be able to think for themselves.  And given enough time and influence, maybe these sorts end up changing the whole society a little...or a lot.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> c) the lore would work so much better for gnomes what with the illusion magic.



With the "amazing" ability one subrace has, to make a 5 ft cubic illusion that last for 1 minute?


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Assuming one sees the making of Goblins evil* as a problem.  I don't.
> 
> * - as a trend, similar to Dwarves = Lawful, Elves = Chaotic, Hobbits = Good, etc.  Individuals may vary widely.



we butcher thousands for gold and power we would be far worse than them, besides what makes something biologically evil?
do you want to be the one marching into the goblin warren and ending all the youths as always evil is hard to stomach when they are so much like us?


Lanefan said:


> Assuming one sees the making of Goblins evil* as a problem.  I don't.
> 
> * - as a trend, similar to Dwarves = Lawful, Elves = Chaotic, Hobbits = Good, etc.  Individuals may vary widely.



what makes an elf chaotic? why should the hobbits get to be the paragons of good if they are utterly inconsequential?
also on the cosmological scale, it should be called stasis rather than law as there is no cosmic order.


Gammadoodler said:


> Sure it is.. it goes like this..
> 
> 
> It's a bad idea/problematic for any race to be good
> ...



the formula is generated wrong, it is defining halflings as the good races, not good members but where evil is basically unheard of as it defines as good is to be halfling like, which does not work as halflings are just "merry england" which is neither sustainable in dnd world nor a thing which is good.

bland is not the same as not for me I enjoy many bland things, halflings are more the absence of ideas than a culture they are a short fuzzy footed void in the world.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> With the "amazing" ability one subrace has, to make a 5 ft cubic illusion that last for 1 minute?



You could have 1440 of them hiding nearby continuously hiding the beginning of the path.


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## Faolyn (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> why would they defend their homes they survive by hiding they would flee that is literally how they are meant to live, if they are not forced to flee they would be next to worthless as their food would be smashed as the point of demons and undead is they do not resupply on food thus their line can burn it all to the ground.



What? Why _wouldn't _they defend their homes? 

They are not "meant" to live by fleeing. As has been pointed out to you, they literally have a god of defense and warfare (Avoreen). They also have a god of stealth, adventure, and bravery (Brandobaris). Halflings are _meant to stand and fight for what's theirs._



Mind of tempest said:


> a) that is the most unrealistic thing about the halfling-human relationship the humans would drive them to extinction for food and resources.
> b) they would flee and end up as refugees.



Neither of these compute. See below for reasons.



Mind of tempest said:


> that is a fair point but my counter is
> c) can't do that without removing the basic idea of halflings beyond being on the side of good and being small and gnomes are that technically.



Except that you don't seem to understand what the basic idea of halflings actually is. You've made up your own idea that has little in common with how halflings have actually been depicted.



Mind of tempest said:


> d) how much do you know about basic war logistics?



At this point, I'm willing to bet more than you, at least when it comes to fantasy worlds. You seem to forget that magic is a thing.



Mind of tempest said:


> e) given that say FR can't seem to go six months without a near end of the world this would not be a stable situation supply lines would run out fast thus halflings would have mostly been pushed away.



Shockingly, not every setting is the Realms, and even more shockingly, there are actually decades or longer between major cataclysmic events in the Realms. And even _more _shockingly, halflings warriors and spellcasters exist and are _equally _as powerful as the warriors and spellcasters of every other race. 

And since both their gods and their write-ups agree that halflings are the type to go out and adventure, it's quite likely that there are a significantly large number of halflings with class levels. There may even be more, proportionately speaking, retired halfling adventurers per halfling town than any other race! You really think they're going to let themselves get pushed away?



Mind of tempest said:


> f)I know exactly what idea based on and it sickens me at any attempt to rehabilitate it.



Good for you, because I have no idea what sickened you about what I wrote. The idea that halflings may be guerilla fighters? Because that's a concept that has been in use for thousands of years and likely predates conventional war, so if you thought I was referring to any specific war, you're wrong.



Mind of tempest said:


> _look your basic point on setting design I agree_ with but halflings are not better people than elves or dwarves why should they get to be the light? what makes them better than the rest of us? they are defined as being average and the average person is not good not evil but not good. _so what makes them so deserving to be the great good light what is so good about them?_



Who says that they have to be better than anyone? Do you not play or allow humans because they are no better than the average person?


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> With the "amazing" ability one subrace has, to make a 5 ft cubic illusion that last for 1 minute?



a culture well-known since its formulation to be associated with illusion ideas, which would mean that hiding would be a logical reason to generate such a cultural obsession.


Lanefan said:


> As general tendencies, yes.  It's one of the better ways IMO of quickly differentiating the species and how they generally tend to approach things as a society.  If nothing else, these general tendencies would be reflected how their means and methods of governance evolves over time e.g. Elves trend a bit more anarchistic, Dwarves more bureaucratic, Hobbits more parliamentary, Goblins more might-makes-right.
> 
> Needless to say - but I suspect I'd better say it again anyway - a deep-seated societal trend does not mean everyone in that society follows said trend.  There's always going to be rebels, free-thinkers, status-quo deniers, apple-cart upsetters, etc. within any society the members of which have enough intelligence to be able to think for themselves.  And given enough time and influence, maybe these sorts end up changing the whole society a little...or a lot.



okay if halflings are the good race define the nature of goodness and how halflings relate to it? I am itching for the answer to the great question.


Maxperson said:


> It doesn't give them a miracle hiding ability. It gives possible reasons for the DM to choose which include miracles.  However, war machines do not travel through out of the way places or they starve to death before finding anything.  They travel down main highways and seige/sack major towns and cities.
> 
> Halflings on the other hand make their villages in out of the way places and are naturally stealthy, which means that war machines simply don't find them and on the off chance that they do locate the small track to the village, they pass it by since it's simply not worth the effort to go find.
> 
> ...



given that demons literally would spread over a planet to destroy it or corrupt it and demon army is one of my stated adversaries it is not implausible in the scenario set up, plus a village needs water hard to hide a river and wells suck for crops.

they are also known for being braver and lack of fear not good traits for a people who survive by hiding.

halflings have no magic tradition to speak of in any setting, their fighters are literally putable and the less said about clerics the better.


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## James Gasik (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> your mechanical point stands but all small races have it thus not a true defence of halflings.
> 
> halfling villages are not hard to sigie you just burn all the food and move on.
> 
> ...



You said "they can't use the really big damaging weapons and are not known for strategy, tactic or literally anything beyond being peaceful villagers who go places sometimes, thus they would suck in war."  Wasn't that a slight against Halflings?

Then I pointed out that's not really the case, and you're like "well that doesn't defend Halflings"?


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## Faolyn (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> that is not the argument made nor opposed.
> 
> beside halflings are bland like a generic good two shoes childrens show character.



And _that _is the fault of the DM who plays them as bland goody two-shows.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Gnomes Vs. Halflings..watch how easy this is.


Mind of tempest said:


> a culture well-known since its formulation to be associated with *stealth* ideas, which would mean that hiding would be a logical reason to generate such a cultural obsession



Changed exactly one word, still true. Works the same.


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## Lanefan (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> okay if halflings are the good race define the nature of goodness and how halflings relate to it? I am itching for the answer to the great question.



In general, as a society they tend to be kind to each other and to try their best to be kind to those in the greater world, even if said kindness is not returned.  Their communities are places of peace and safety for those seeking such.  They do not hunt or kill for sport, they do not have societal ambition of conquest or pillage, they measure personal success by deeds rather than wealth, yet while they will never fire the first shot in a war they are more than capable of firing the last one in defense of their homes and-or those who they love; peacefulness does not mean lack of ferocity if-when provoked.

Good enough?


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## James Gasik (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> a culture well-known since its formulation to be associated with illusion ideas, which would mean that hiding would be a logical reason to generate such a cultural obsession.
> 
> okay if halflings are the good race define the nature of goodness and how halflings relate to it? I am itching for the answer to the great question.
> 
> ...



I'm sorry, in any setting?  Even if we ignore their pantheon of Gods, which would include Clerics and Specialty Priests, or 1e's Halfling Druids, there's also Dark Sun's Halflings, who have a shamanic tradition, and Eberron's Halflings, who have a magic tradition by dearth of the Mark of Healing- House Jolasco are the premier healers in the setting, not to mention the Mark of Hospitality.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

And we're just about full circle. 

We finally got to the logistics of a quantum army (presumably made up of gnolls), vs. isolated halfling villages. 

If we can incorporate some significant discussion about Tolkien's legacy and merit, and more discussion about halflings just being humans, I think we'll have covered all the bases.


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## Maxperson (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> given that demons literally would spread over a planet to destroy it or corrupt it and demon army is one of my stated adversaries it is not implausible in the scenario set up, plus a village needs water hard to hide a river and wells suck for crops.



This is only a given if there are infinite demons, which there aren't if it's only an army.  An army of demons wouldn't do that, because not even they are that stupid.  Doing that = major loss very quickly as the other races respond and destroy them.


Mind of tempest said:


> they are also known for being braver and lack of fear not good traits for a people who survive by hiding.



A lack of fear =/= lack of pragmatism or desire to get into fights.  They can be braver and still want to be out of the way of armies.


Mind of tempest said:


> halflings have no magic tradition to speak of in any setting, their fighters are literally putable and the less said about clerics the better.



1) They don't need a magic tradition to have arcane casters.  Elves have a magic tradition, so they racially have LOTS of arcane casters.  Halflings don't, so they have a normal amount. 

2) Putable means right to be sold at a specific price, so I don't know what that means in the context of halfling fighters. I do know that they have a good number of them and with their racial dex bonus, would be very good at it.

3. They have lots of gods and are close to them, so they have a strong tradition for clergy.  Are are you just anti-cleric in general?


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> You could have 1440 of them hiding nearby continuously hiding the beginning of the path.



That's true. You could. And it only takes  1 of these half-mile-long single file lines of, _specifically_, forest gnomes to accomplish this incredible feat..assuming the entrance to the path is no more than 5 feat on a side.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> What? Why _wouldn't _they defend their homes?
> 
> They are not "meant" to live by fleeing. As has been pointed out to you, they literally have a god of defense and warfare (Avoreen). They also have a god of stealth, adventure, and bravery (Brandobaris). Halflings are _meant to stand and fight for what's theirs._



halflings are defined by being a stand-in for ordinary people many flee and given how utterly unbuilt for combat with the bigger folk of the world they would be muscled out fairly fast.


James Gasik said:


> You said "they can't use the really big damaging weapons and are not known for strategy, tactic or literally anything beyond being peaceful villagers who go places sometimes, thus they would suck in war."  Wasn't that a slight against Halflings?
> 
> Then I pointed out that's not really the case, and you're like "well that doesn't defend Halflings"?
> 
> View attachment 255582



my point was the only tactical advantage of halflings was negated ten thousand years ago when an elf or something discovered the fireball spell and made line infantry obsolete thus, against better armed and battle-harded or ruthless opponents halflings would be crushed utterly.


Faolyn said:


> At this point, I'm willing to bet more than you, at least when it comes to fantasy worlds. You seem to forget that magic is a thing.



given how fast magic lets you get to the city buster it would get ugly fast what with people able to make a mustard gas spell and all.


Faolyn said:


> Shockingly, not every setting is the Realms, and even more shockingly, there are actually decades or longer between major cataclysmic events in the Realms. And even _more _shockingly, halflings warriors and spellcasters exist and are _equally _as powerful as the warriors and spellcasters of every other race.



fair point, my only question is stats on how many warrirs and casters?


Faolyn said:


> And since both their gods and their write-ups agree that halflings are the type to go out and adventure, it's quite likely that there are a significantly large number of halflings with class levels. There may even be more, proportionately speaking, retired halfling adventurers per halfling town than any other race! You really think they're going to let themselves get pushed away?
> 
> Who says that they have to be better than anyone? Do you not play or allow humans because they are no better than the average person?



where does it says they are likely to be adventures?
you can be a level 20 wizard all you like but you got to sleep and bounded accuracy is a cruel ruler.

to be the good guy race infers they are morally better than everyone else.


Faolyn said:


> Good for you, because I have no idea what sickened you about what I wrote. The idea that halflings may be guerilla fighters? Because that's a concept that has been in use for thousands of years and likely predates conventional war, so if you thought I was referring to any specific war, you're wrong.



I have no strong feelings about guerilla fighters, ask yourself what tolkien based his hobbits on and you will find an answer.


Faolyn said:


> And _that _is the fault of the DM who plays them as bland goody two-shows.



what cultural depth do they have to pull on they are made to be small and harmless, it is bland like Saturday morning cartoon super villains are just generic evil with no reasons for it.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> Halflings are smaller weaker and live in the same environment it is not malice but the rules of nature and biology.



Homo sapiens was smaller and weaker (although possibly slightly taller) and lived in the same environment as Homo Neanderthalensis. Yet _homo sapiens won_. 

Why? Several reasons, the three most notable seem to have been that humans lived in larger groups and worked together better, that humans were better with ranged weapons, and that humans were better able to adapt to a changing climate.

Mysteriously halflings are smaller and weaker than humans and live in the same environment - but live in large groups that work well together, are good with ranged weapons (dex bonus - and sling and thrown weapon bonuses in historical editions) and tend to be depicted as being fairly enduring. The only time I'm aware of in recorded history we've had two humanoid species go to war with each other long term (over the course literally of 100,000 years) it was the one more like halflings that won. So much for your understanding of "the rules of nature and biology".


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## bedir than (Jul 28, 2022)

All I know is that my all Halfling party would kick a fantasy medieval standing army's ass.

Because my Halflings are heroes. And your standing army are conscripts with no cause worth fighting for.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Homo sapiens was smaller and weaker (although possibly slightly taller) and lived in the same environment as Homo Neanderthalensis. Yet _homo sapiens won_.
> 
> Why? Several reasons, the three most notable seem to have been that humans lived in larger groups and worked together better, that humans were better with ranged weapons, and that humans were better able to adapt to a changing climate.
> 
> Mysteriously halflings are smaller and weaker than humans and live in the same environment - but live in large groups that work well together, are good with ranged weapons (dex bonus - and sling and thrown weapon bonuses in historical editions) and tend to be depicted as being fairly enduring. The only time I'm aware of in recorded history we've had two humanoid species go to war with each other long term (over the course literally of 100,000 years) it was the one more like halflings that won. So much for your understanding of "the rules of nature and biology".



a) homo sapiens were taller
b) environmental factors played a part, the world got warmer and neanderthals are built for the cold.
c) they did not so much die out as merge into homo sapiens.
it would be more comparable to compare the two as elves and dwarves
homo floresiensis would be more comparable and they are more dead than dodos.

slings are terrible against heavy armour which humans are good at making who livin larger groups and are far better against the million types of large predators who also want the food and resources


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> All I know is that my all Halfling party would kick a fantasy medieval standing army's ass.
> 
> Because my Halflings are heroes. And your standing army are conscripts with no cause worth fighting for.



two words bounded accuracy, followed by the question what type of nation is raising the army?


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> they sack villages for food and materials for the Warmachine do you not know war?



If they can (a) find them and (b) get into them.  As I've mentioned my halfling villages have the halflings dwell in holes made largely by move earth. They are hard to find (and yes, that's a cantrip). And they have areas that even halflings have to squeeze to get into - so bigger folks are going to not be able to. 

What this means is that the only way into a hobbit hole (if you can find it) for most races is by _digging_. Something that can be done but takes a lot of time compared to just beating the door down or burning things. And burning the fields won't get the stores.


Mind of tempest said:


> given how common hobgoblin war wizards are the basic battle lines of a fantasy world are loose so the halfling loses their advantage as everyone trains for the loose formation.



This is absolutely wrong. In skirmishers vs skirmishers ranged weapons let you support the rest of your allies in a way melee weapons don't - and ranged weapons are controlled by dexterity. Halflings of course have a dex bonus. 

Skirmishers vs skirmishers therefore is good for halflings. It's also good for elves - but the crippling weakness elves have is they have long lifespans and don't breed fast so every casualty suffered in a war takes decades to replace.


Mind of tempest said:


> how would wholesomeness fight evil it would be subverted like everything else, also what is wholesomeness?



By working together, protecting their own, and healing the injured.


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## Crimson Longinus (Jul 28, 2022)

Do you guys remember how foxes went extinct because wolves exist? Yeah, me neither.

Also, the standards demanded are utterly absurd. D&D lore in most part doesn't make terribly much sense. You can certainly endlessly nit-pick pretty much any part of it, but there really isn't objectively anything any more wrong with the halfling lore than with the rest of it.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> slings are terrible against heavy armour which humans are good at making



Are slings more terrible than arrows? There's more force behind them, but D&D seems unable to tell a sling from a slingshot.


Mind of tempest said:


> who livin larger groups



Do they? Is your average rural human village larger than your average halfling village? Cities are historically major outliers.


Mind of tempest said:


> and are far better against the million types of large predators who also want the food and resources



How so? Humans can't retreat where halflings can - and ranged weapons are king - which halflings are better with than most humans.


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## bedir than (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> two words bounded accuracy, followed by the question what type of nation is raising the army?



I'm unconcerned with the type of nations, because if you insist on the level of "realism" you require of the Halflings my Halflings will win. Because they are heroes and a realistic standing army of those ages dies of disease quickly


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## Faolyn (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> halflings are defined by being a stand-in for ordinary people many flee and given how utterly unbuilt for combat with the bigger folk of the world they would be muscled out fairly fast.



No, they're not defined by being a stand-in for ordinary people. Players tend to view them that way, but they that is not how they are designed. Nor are they "unbuilt" for combat. They have always had combat bonuses, except in 5e where slings are a simple weapon nearly everyone knows how to use. 



Mind of tempest said:


> my point was the only tactical advantage of halflings was negated ten thousand years ago when an elf or something discovered the fireball spell and made line infantry obsolete thus, against better armed and battle-harded or ruthless opponents halflings would be crushed utterly.



So there are no armies in any D&D worlds anywhere? Wow, I did not know that.



Mind of tempest said:


> fair point, my only question is stats on how many warrirs and casters?



As many as the DM wants there to be.



Mind of tempest said:


> where does it says they are likely to be adventures?



Have you not read anything that has actually been written about halflings? They are curious and driven by wanderlust. By definition any halfling who decides to go wandering around is going to gain at _least _a level or two in _something_.



Mind of tempest said:


> you can be a level 20 wizard all you like but you got to sleep and bounded accuracy is a cruel ruler.



I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Unless you believe halfling towns would have no defense or night watch, and you believe that a level 20 wizard wouldn't protect their home town with as much magic as they could?



Mind of tempest said:


> to be the good guy race infers they are morally better than everyone else.



No, it _implies _that they might be nicer than everyone else. Or that they might be more willing to lay down their own lives in protection of others. And really, that's not even the case because elves and dwarfs are _also _supposed to be good guy races. And halflings were traditionally _lawful _good, so anything you have to say about dwarfs re: alignment is equally true for halflings.



Mind of tempest said:


> I have no strong feelings about guerilla fighters, ask yourself what tolkien based his hobbits on and you will find an answer.



I really don't care _what _he based his hobbits on. I don't play strictly-Tolkienesque halflings, and neither, honestly, do most people who aren't actively playing in Middle-Earth.

So does this mean your actual problem is not with halflings but with Tolkien?



Mind of tempest said:


> what cultural depth do they have to pull on they are made to be small and harmless, it is bland like Saturday morning cartoon super villains are just generic evil with no reasons for it.



Well, they got a chapter in Mordenkainen's for 5e, a section in _Races of the Wild_ for 3.5, and half of the _Complete Book of Halflings and Gnomes _back in 2e, as well as numerous articles in Dragon magazine, plus cultural write-ups in most setting books. And dozens of blogs, videos, and articles published online. So maybe actually read some of that stuff and find out for yourself.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 28, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> Do you guys remember how foxes went extinct because wolves exist? Yeah, me neither.
> 
> Also, the standards demanded are utterly absurd. D&D lore in most part doesn't make terribly much sense. You can certainly endlessly nit-pick pretty much any part of it, but there really isn't objectively anything any more wrong with the halfling lore than with the rest of it.



that has to do with niche partition they do not compete much, sapient species are a less well-known area as all other have been inter breed with till there was no difference, or died off thus it is unknown but give how willing we are to fight over areas of fertile land there is a high likely who of competition then you add in nomadic raiders and it would likely get ugly fast.


Neonchameleon said:


> Are slings more terrible than arrows? There's more force behind them, but D&D seems unable to tell a sling from a slingshot.
> 
> Do they? Is your average rural human village larger than your average halfling village? Cities are historically major outliers.
> 
> How so? Humans can't retreat where halflings can - and ranged weapons are king - which halflings are better with than most humans.



war slings are on average less accurate and worse at armour penetration.

you have forgotten towns and humans stated drive to dominate to rule that halfling all lack.

longbows are beyond them, crossbows are technically too complex for them to build given their lack of industry and large-scale civilization to make the specialised part or the tools for those parts.
also humans have magic and many nations have an arcane and divine tradition which changes the game very fast.


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## Gammadoodler (Jul 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> my point was the only tactical advantage of halflings was negated ten thousand years ago when an elf or something discovered the fireball spell and made line infantry obsolete thus, against better armed and battle-harded or ruthless opponents halflings would be crushed utterly



Most D&D AoE spellcasting isn't particularly fit for purpose at "Armies scale". The ranges aren't long enough, the areas are too small, the spell slots too few, and most would deal friendly fire once armies had closed ranks.

Until you get to 8th level spellcasting, no AoE damage spell has a range longer than an American football field (or football pitch if you're outside the U.S.). Most of them have half that or less.

There aren't a lot of significant battlefields I'm aware of bounded by so small an area.

Then add in targeting limitations like "a point you can see" and it gets even harder to use.

Real world line infantry was still a thing up through the 20th century. The number of spells in D&D that come close to 20th century weaponry is really small, really high level, and not really that close.


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## James Gasik (Jul 28, 2022)

I don't really see how humans have a stronger magical tradition than halflings.  Sure, maybe, long ago, you couldn't be a halfling wizard, but seeing as how this is the edition that made Mountain Dwarf wizards popular, I think anyone is equally likely to have magical powers in 5e.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Racial alignments are not and have never been absolute.  Even demons in 1e/2e could be other than CE.  In editions 3e and beyond, they just described a general belief, which many of the race did not hold to.  Hell, Orcs in 3e could be 51% CE and 49% LG by RAW if the DM wanted.




If this had anything to do with my point, it would matter. 

It doesn't, so it doesn't matter.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> As general tendencies, yes.  It's one of the better ways IMO of quickly differentiating the species and how they generally tend to approach things as a society.  If nothing else, these general tendencies would be reflected how their means and methods of governance evolves over time e.g. Elves trend a bit more anarchistic, Dwarves more bureaucratic, Hobbits more parliamentary, Goblins more might-makes-right.
> 
> Needless to say - but I suspect I'd better say it again anyway - a deep-seated societal trend does not mean everyone in that society follows said trend.  There's always going to be rebels, free-thinkers, status-quo deniers, apple-cart upsetters, etc. within any society the members of which have enough intelligence to be able to think for themselves.  And given enough time and influence, maybe these sorts end up changing the whole society a little...or a lot.




Well, one thing to be quick about, elves aren't really anarchistic in... any meaningful way. The most classive depictions of elves include elven nobiltiy and royalty. Frankly, I've never seen the "elves are free spirits who don't believe in laws" in any way shape or form in most fantasy literature. 

But also, I notice you never used the words "good", "lawful" or "chaotic". You say dwarves are very bureaucratic. Okay, I could see that. And halflings are... parliamentarian? Frankly, I don't see the difference between the two. Because all governments have bureacracies to one degree or another, and this just seems to mean that dwarves have a massive system of laws and "proper ways" while halflings have an elected government of representatives... but dwarven bureacracy likely is headed by either a council of elected members (same as the halflings) or a king (same as literally every fantasy race ever). But you can't describe a governmental system by saying "well these people are Good, so therefore they will have X system of government" because there is no definitively "good" form of government. You have to base it off of other factors. 

And, secondly, "not everyone is X alignment" is kind of pointless to the discussion. The point being brought is that one of the single most defining traits of halflings, the thing that sets them apart from every other race, is their goodness. That they are literally defined by being good. To then turn around and say that no all halfings are good 1) makes me wonder why we just claimed they are definitionally good 2) Doesn't make a difference. 

Defining all Drow as "evil elves" doesn't suddenly become better just because you can say "but not all drow are evil, Driz'zt was a good guy". You are still trying to define drow by being evil elves. And that still doesn't work, because if they aren't all evil... then what defines them? Now, for Drow, various communities have done a lot of different work, but I want to swing this back around to halflings. 

1) Defining them as "The Good Race" is a problem, both because it undercuts the other races (who are not the good race) and because defining a race by its alignment is problematic
2) Following this up by saying that racial alignments are not universal, and instead personal defeats the entire point of trying to define a race by alignment to begin with, because you can no longer even attempt to define them that way, or suddenly non-good or non-evil versions of those races no longer are those races, but must be something else. 

All you have basically said here, is the same as "all hot dogs are definitionally served on buns, except the hot dogs you don't serve on buns" which is saying nothing.


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## Maxperson (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If this had anything to do with my point, it would matter.
> 
> It doesn't, so it doesn't matter.



Then perhaps you should rephrase your post very differently, because as written my response was directly on point.  Whatever point you think you were making is hidden very expertly.

"No, I do not think that *halflings as a race* should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are *fine with racial alignments*. But I am not. I'm not fine with* races that are born inherently evil,* and I'm not fine with *races born inherently good*. I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "*and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time*.""

My response was directly applicable to the bold portions which were the core of that post.  No PC race of any sort has EVER been the bold, and not even fiends/angels, the most inherently aligned races have been 100% their alignment.


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## Irlo (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If you can't see Faolyn's post, the thing that led me to them being the source of small moments of good and triumph was this line: "*And halflings are, by definition, small moments of good and triumph.*"



I can see the post. That post was made in the context of a conversation. I am paraphrasing and I'm likely to misrepresent someone's particular point, but here I'm speaking for myself and not trying to justify anyone else's arguments. Someone suggested that because halflings don't act in big ways with kingdoms and armies that they couldn't be considered good, because their good actions were so small that they were inconsequential (impotent, I think the word was). Another perspective, provided in part by @Faolyn, is that small acts of kindness and goodness are, in fact, consequential.

When halflings as a community contribute to the greater good, they tend to do so in those small ways that are easy to overlook but are nonetheless meaningful. When other communities, humans and dwarves as examples, contribute to the greater good, they tend to do so in big, sweeping ways, with righteous armies and crafting arcane portals to deny demon armies access to our world.

You inferred from this that if halflings were represented this way, then _no one else_ could be shown to contribute in small ways.



> Think about the statement and take it literally for a moment. "Halflings are the light of good in a dark world". Which means to illustrate that, you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human, because those races are not *definitionally *moments of good and triumph.




That's an unnecessary inference. By holding up dwarves as explemars of metalworkers and subterrainean architects, you do not imply that non-dwarves can't be blacksmiths and miners. If I say "Vulcans are the veritable definition of a logical alien species," it doesn't mean that humans in Star Trek can't use logic.

If the idea of halfling communities contributing small and meaningful moments of good to the world doesn't help you in your mission to find a way to integrate them into your world, that's fine and understandable.

But if the reason it doesn't help you is because of those unnecessary inferences, then perhaps you could abandon those inferences and interpret the ideas charitably in a way that doesn't lead immediately to absurdity. Then, maybe you'd find those ideas useful.



Chaosmancer said:


> They don't have to be exclusive for it to be a problem. Unicorns aren't exclusively the only good-aligned, horned, horse-like Celestial. But they are by definition good-aligned, horned, horse-like celestials, and so they have all of those traits. If Halflings are, by definition, good then we have run face-first into the same exact problem you get when you make goblins, by defintion, evil.



Halfling individuals are not by definition good-aligned. I don't think anyone made that argument -- I could be wrong about that, but that's not what I've inferred from any posts here. I think people are using the description of halfling communities in the PHB to propose that they tend to contribute the small but meaningful good things to the world. That is an aspect of the community to set them apart from others in the game world.

If I'm wrong and that _is _what people are arguing -- well, I suggest simply ignoring that, since it's not useful to you, and looking at it with an interpretation that _might_ be useful to you.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, I think it is starkly telling that people will go forth and say things like "Halflings are by definition small moments of good and truimph" or "Halflings are the race that care about other people more than the other races" and it is only when someone points out what that means if taken at face value that they then back-pedal and say that you are taking their points too literally, and halflings aren't like, perfect. And that's their counter-argument.



It's not back-pedalling. It's clarifying that what you inferred from the ideas are not what the writers intended.


Chaosmancer said:


> Not that their initial post was wrong, they believe that, but that you taking what they said and applying to the same degree you apply racial traits to other races, is wrong and extreme and only done because you hate halflings.



I'm not sure I understand what you mean here about applying racial traits. Regardless, I don't think you hate halflings. It's got to be frustrating for you to feel like your arguments are being dismissed like that.


Chaosmancer said:


> (Tangent: Pfft, and isn't that hilarious for the Mary Sue angle. Everyone who doesn't like halflings are evil villains who just hate them because they are [insert reasoning here]. Seriously, I can't even make this up to this degree.



Did that happen? If it didn't, then yes, you did make that up.


Chaosmancer said:


> _Sigh_ Laughing over, let me be clear. No, I don't think that anyone has flat out called me an evil villain. I've just been repeatedly attacked via ad hominems and told that this is all a me problem, because halflings are fine, I'm the one who has the problem)



Well, it's true that's it's _your_ problem, but it's abolutely not a _you-problem_. That is, there's nothing wrong with you, but you are having a problem integrating halflings into your game world in a way that satisfies you. Some other people don't have that problem. There have been some ideas floated around about how to make halflings distinct and interesting throughout this thread. Some people are trying to engage I'm sorry you've been attacked. I haven't read every post in this thread.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Then perhaps you should rephrase your post very differently, because as written my response was directly on point.  Whatever point you think you were making is hidden very expertly.
> 
> "No, I do not think that *halflings as a race* should be the background glow of the universe, fighting off the darkness by their sheer wholesome and good existence. Again, this is bad racial design in my opinion. I know you are old-school Lanefan, I suspect you are *fine with racial alignments*. But I am not. I'm not fine with* races that are born inherently evil,* and I'm not fine with *races born inherently good*. I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "*and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time*.""
> 
> My response was directly applicable to the bold portions which were the core of that post.  No PC race of any sort has EVER been the bold, and not even fiends/angels, the most inherently aligned races have been 100% their alignment.




Well, it is quite simple. 

Firstly, three of those bolded parts are meant to apply to Lanefan and his games. That's why I said "I know you are old-school Lanefan". And he does seem to push for racial alignments. 

Secondly, I never said they are absolute, so responding with "but they aren't absolute" doesn't apply to my response. 

Thirdly, as I clarified in the discussion I was having with Lanefan, which you have butted into, the original point we were responding to is that halflings are definitionally moments of goodness and truimph. Now, I know you love your definitions Max. So, please feel free to tell me how something can be "definitionally" one way, but only occassionally and not absolutely. 

Fourth and finally, whether or not it is absolute makes no difference. Designing a race that has a "strong tendency" to be better and more morally upstanding than everyone else is still just as gross, with the added benefit of being a cop-out from the original point and eventually saying nothing at all about the race. I reject racial alignments, whether they apply 100% of the time, 95% of the time, 75% percent of the time or 50% of the time. It is all gross, it is all repugnant, and I see no value in it.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Firstly, three of those bolded parts are meant to apply to Lanefan and his games. That's why I said "I know you are old-school Lanefan". And he does seem to push for racial alignments.



Sure, but I think that even he wouldn't have an issue with the odd CG or even LE halfling village, because alignments in races have never been absolute.


Chaosmancer said:


> Secondly, I never said they are absolute, so responding with "but they aren't absolute" doesn't apply to my response.



I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "*and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time*.

The bolded is an absolute.  Note the "all born" and "all the time."  That leaves zero room for anything else.


Chaosmancer said:


> Thirdly, as I clarified in the discussion I was having with Lanefan, which you have butted into, the original point we were responding to is that halflings are definitionally moments of goodness and truimph. Now, I know you love your definitions Max. So, please feel free to tell me how something can be "definitionally" one way, but only occassionally and not absolutely.



I've done it already.  Twice and now a third time.  The race is predominantly(51%+) moments of goodness and triumph(whatever that means), but significant portions of it don't have to be.


Chaosmancer said:


> Fourth and finally, whether or not it is absolute makes no difference. Designing a race that has a "strong tendency" to be better and more morally upstanding than everyone else is still just as gross, with the added benefit of being a cop-out from the original point and eventually saying nothing at all about the race.



This is assuming a whole lot.  Where is it said that LG is better and more morally upstanding to every other alignment? 


Chaosmancer said:


> I reject racial alignments, whether they apply 100% of the time, 95% of the time, 75% percent of the time or 50% of the time. It is all gross, it is all repugnant, and I see no value in it.



You're entitled to your opinions.  Nobody is requiring you to use alignments, racial or otherwise. It helps for you to be accurate when you disparage it, though.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I can see the post. That post was made in the context of a conversation. I am paraphrasing and I'm likely to misrepresent someone's particular point, but here I'm speaking for myself and not trying to justify anyone else's arguments. Someone suggested that because halflings don't act in big ways with kingdoms and armies that they couldn't be considered good, because their good actions were so small that they were inconsequential (impotent, I think the word was). Another perspective, provided in part by @Faolyn, is that small acts of kindness and goodness are, in fact, consequential.
> 
> When halflings as a community contribute to the greater good, they tend to do so in those small ways that are easy to overlook but are nonetheless meaningful. When other communities, humans and dwarves as examples, contribute to the greater good, they tend to do so in big, sweeping ways, with righteous armies and crafting arcane portals to deny demon armies access to our world.




Well, this is part of the problem where multiple conversations happen at once. I tend to not fully agree with Mind of Tempest's claims. I see where they are coming from, if you want to have a race that is the "Good Race" in a game where paladins are the ultimate expression of Good, going out and smiting evil, then it is a problem that halflings don't do that. 

However, I don't think that having a "Good race" is acceptable at all. I also find the ways that halflings fit into the world to be problematic, but I haven't even gotten through the conversation of what a halfling even is. The closest we've come here recently is that halflings are small people who are good. I don't feel the need to argue about armies and wars and fighting, because we have yet to get to a point where halflings are even defined enough to exist in the game beyond bland statements of moral superiority.

However, Faolyn's comment drew me up short, because it was in-line with exactly what Gammanoodler had been saying, but put in terms that I thought truly highlighted the problem.



Irlo said:


> You inferred from this that if halflings were represented this way, then _no one else_ could be shown to contribute in small ways.




No, this is a misrepresentation of my point. 

My point is that if halflings are "the small acts of kindness" race, as in that defines them as a race, then it cheapens and undercuts that behavior from everyone else. The exact same way I pointed out that halflings being "the brave race" cheapens and undercuts any other member of the party being brave. 

For example, if you have a game where you go to a halfling town, and the halflings are more than happy to provide you free lodging, cook you dinner, and help you and then later in the game the party is defeated in wakes up in the home of a goliath woman who has taken them in, fed them and cared for them... well, she's not especially good, she's just like the entire village of halflings who would do the same thing. Unless we want to say that while halflings would do that as just part of being halflings, it is "_unusual_" for a goliath to be this kind to strangers. Which... leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This doesn't happen by letting anyone be this good, it happens when you say "these people in particular are this way" to make them unique from everyone else.



Irlo said:


> That's an unnecessary inference. By holding up dwarves as explemars of metalworkers and subterrainean architects, you do not imply that non-dwarves can't be blacksmiths and miners. If I say "Vulcans are the veritable definition of a logical alien species," it doesn't mean that humans in Star Trek can't use logic.
> 
> If the idea of halfling communities contributing small and meaningful moments of good to the world doesn't help you in your mission to find a way to integrate them into your world, that's fine and understandable.
> 
> But if the reason it doesn't help you is because of those unnecessary inferences, then perhaps you could abandon those inferences and interpret the ideas charitably in a way that doesn't lead immediately to absurdity. Then, maybe you'd find those ideas useful.




So, it is an unneccessary inference to take the thing said as meaning what it says? 

See, we don't say "Dwarves are the smiths of the world", which would imply that no one else does smith-work. Instead we say "Dwarves are the best smiths" and then we go further by pointing out that this is do to dedicating an extremely long life to honing their craft. Which even further allows us to consider that if other people learned dwarven smithing techniques, they'd be just as good. Additionally, it is more than just smithings. Dwarves are master craftsmen. They are the best, in theory, at Jewelery work, stone work, it is a broad skill set that we build their culture around. They are good at metal and stone work, so they are good at mining to get the materials they use for metal and stonework, and since they are good at stonework, they live in mountains, because they can shape the mountains.

However, the equivalent for halflings seems to be having them care about other people. You don't start with a skill, you start with a personality trait. Then they start building on ideas of "well since halflings care about other people, they'd do X, and since they would do X they would be the best at that." But... this falls apart. There aren't any special halfling techniques to running an inn. It's just... caring about people. And if you say that caring about people is what makes them special, if you say that is something you can build an entire unique society around... well... how do you explain humans being social creatures that care about each other? Because we do. We are hard-wired to care about other humans and their opinions. So either you have to boost halfling's "caring" beyond the scope of the reasonable into pure celestial spirit levels of wholesomeness... or you have to downplay the fundamental truth that societies only work because people care about each other. And that is made only worse when you go as far as to say that "halflings are the light of the world" because now you are saying that they are so good, that they are the best things in the world.



Irlo said:


> Halfling individuals are not by definition good-aligned. I don't think anyone made that argument -- I could be wrong about that, but that's not what I've inferred from any posts here. I think people are using the description of halfling communities in the PHB to propose that they tend to contribute the small but meaningful good things to the world. That is an aspect of the community to set them apart from others in the game world.
> 
> If I'm wrong and that _is _what people are arguing -- well, I suggest simply ignoring that, since it's not useful to you, and looking at it with an interpretation that _might_ be useful to you.




Well... neither interpretation is useful to me. Every good community contributes small but meaningful good things to the world. This is the thing that just does not compute. Not every single human is out there with a sword smiting evil, or slinging spells to fight abominations. The vast majority of humans are normal everyday people living their lives and doing the best they can. Why is a halfling community just flat out better and more caring than a human community? Because halflings care and humans don't? That doesn't work. 

And this is the fundamental problem I keep running into in this discussion, no matter how many times it happens. Halflings are "the everyman" the "simple folk just living their lives" and that is supposed to make them special.... but everyone is the everyman simple folk just living their lives. There is no race that doesn't have those sorts of people, because those sorts of people are the people the PCs are supposed to go and protect. 

It isn't that I hate the idea of having an normal people who just live their lives, it is that I do that for every single race. If that is the only thing halflings can be, then they have no value. And inevitably, this complaint has someone "challenge" me by asking "well, what is the point of dwarves, if other races can have smiths"? And that misses the point. Because dwarves aren't "just smiths". They aren't the best designed race of all time, but they have far more going on than that. They have a connection to stonework, building, mining, a clan structure, a unique living environment, biological differences. I've read a story where Dwarves weren't smiths, but they were still dwarves. You can take it away and dwarves are still dwarves. But if you take away halflings being "everyday people"... there isn't anything left that has solid value for the table. There are things left, but as I've pointed out, luck and bravery aren't good for the table, and short is something that we can get from a dozen other places.



Irlo said:


> Did that happen? If it didn't, then yes, you did make that up.




It was a reference to how one of the defining traits of a mary sue is that everyone who doesn't like them is bad and evil and wrong, because everyone who is good and right loves them. It just amused me that it seemed to almost incidentally apply here. Because I've been told repeatedly that my complaints are "just because you don't like them" and while I haven't been accused of it this thread, I was accused of the "all edge, no point" grim-dark world thing before when I mentioned that halflings being 'the good people" wasn't a good design.



Irlo said:


> Well, it's true that's it's _your_ problem, but it's abolutely not a _you-problem_. That is, there's nothing wrong with you, but you are having a problem integrating halflings into your game world in a way that satisfies you. Some other people don't have that problem. There have been some ideas floated around about how to make halflings distinct and interesting throughout this thread. Some people are trying to engage I'm sorry you've been attacked. I haven't read every post in this thread.




Thanks


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Sure, but I think that even he wouldn't have an issue with the odd CG or even LE halfling village, because alignments in races have never been absolute.
> 
> I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "*and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time*.
> 
> ...




Not arguing with you over this, I shouldn't have even responded the last time. You are willfully misunderstanding and I'm not dealing with it.



Maxperson said:


> This is assuming a whole lot.  Where is it said that LG is better and more morally upstanding to every other alignment?




Where has anyone said LG? Everyone has said "good". Surely you wouldn't try and argue that being neutral or evil is better or more morally upstanding that being good, right?



Maxperson said:


> You're entitled to your opinions.  Nobody is requiring you to use alignments, racial or otherwise. It helps for you to be accurate when you disparage it, though.




Being accurate has never helped me in the past, why should I bother? Generally, people (at least four in this thread alone) just block me and ignore me. Being more precise in my language does nothing but get you arguing minutia that misses the forest because you want to argue leaf shape. 

I'm not interested.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Where has anyone said LG? Everyone has said "good". Surely you wouldn't try and argue that being neutral or evil is better or more morally upstanding that being good, right?



We're talking about halflings.  They were LG in AD&D.  3e made them neutral.  No idea about 4e. 5e places them back at mostly LG.  So when people are talking "good" for halflings, it's LG.


Chaosmancer said:


> Being accurate has never helped me in the past, why should I bother? Generally, people (at least four in this thread alone) just block me and ignore me. Being more precise in my language does nothing but get you arguing minutia that misses the forest because you want to argue leaf shape.
> 
> I'm not interested.



So you just willingly choose to be inaccurate? How does that make things better?


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 29, 2022)

But are Dwarves the best smiths?  Nothing in their stat block proves this.  It's an informed ability, much like most races lore.  

I would say, personally, that Halflings are the best at building communities.  Not cities- that's apparently Human's hat, somehow.  But Halflings are a race that's very concerned with putting the community first.

Not all Halflings- there's some real jerks out there, mostly the Rogue adventurer types.  If you've read Bob Salvatore's books, you know Regis is a selfish jerk ass who only cares about being comfortable- the other side of Bilbo's coin, I guess.

Olive Ruskettle from another D&D book line is an opportunist and a con artist, but she does care about her (few) close friends.

So every race is going to have it's ne'er do wells.  Halflings know that what affects your neighbor, affects you, so they work with their community so that everyone prospers.  But they are also keenly aware of the adage that "good fences make for good neighbors".

I see Halflings as being outwardly civil towards their neighbors, while holding their true derision inside (kind of like "Minnesota Nice" in action).  But even if they hate their neighbor Bob, who is always borrowing stuff and never giving it back, if Bob's house is attacked by bandits, a Halfling's response will be "Ma, get me the crossbow, it's time to kill some varmints" and run to Bob's rescue in their nightshirt.


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## Irlo (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, this is part of the problem where multiple conversations happen at once.



Yes, there's a lot going on here!


Chaosmancer said:


> No, this is a misrepresentation of my point.





Chaosmancer said:


> So, it is an unneccessary inference to take the thing said as meaning what it says?



I included a direct quote from you:


> Think about the statement and take it literally for a moment. "Halflings are the light of good in a dark world". *Which means to illustrate that, you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human,* because those races are not *definitionally *moments of good and triumph.




You are telling me my inferences from that those exact words do not represent what you meant by them. What did I infer? I inferred that you meant what you said: _That you aren't going to show a dwarven character being good and kind, or an elf, or a human. _  I have been corrected. You didn't mean exactly what you said. Words have shades of meaning and different usages. A statement can use a turn of phrase that's not literal. Most important, comments are in the context of the on-going conversation, and that context changes their meanings.

So yes, I maintain that you made an unneccesary inference. It's not a crazy idea.




Chaosmancer said:


> Well... neither interpretation is useful to me.



Sincere question - have you found _anything_ useful in this thread?


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> We're talking about halflings.  They were LG in AD&D.  3e made them neutral.  No idea about 4e. 5e places them back at mostly LG.  So when people are talking "good" for halflings, it's LG.



So the race that is iconic for its Rogues tends towards Lawful Good?  This is part of why people feel that halflings are poorly written.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 29, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> So the race that is iconic for its Rogues tends towards Lawful Good?  This is part of why people feel that halflings are poorly written.



I don't see a problem.  First, Rogue =/= evil, thief, or troublemaker. Second, just because most are LG, doesn't mean that there aren't many thousands that aren't.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Jul 29, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> But are Dwarves the best smiths?  Nothing in their stat block proves this.  It's an informed ability, much like most races lore.
> 
> I would say, personally, that Halflings are the best at building communities.  Not cities- that's apparently Human's hat, somehow.  But Halflings are a race that's very concerned with putting the community first.
> 
> ...



One potential way to explain this would be as a result of the combination of family leadership structures guiding how children are raised and halfling luck. 

They've have suffered fewer critical fails during leadership transitions and so the real jerk-asses have had less opportunity to be a bad influence.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> We're talking about halflings.  They were LG in AD&D.  3e made them neutral.  No idea about 4e. 5e places them back at mostly LG.  So when people are talking "good" for halflings, it's LG.




So, are you just putting words in people's mouths or can you quote someone in this thread who said halflings are lawful good? Because you are making an accusation to my point, but it is based on what other people "clearly said". So, quote @Faolyn or @Gammadoodler or @Lanefan saying "halflings are lawful good" or acknowledge that you are putting words in people's mouths so you can make false accusations at me.



Maxperson said:


> So you just willingly choose to be inaccurate? How does that make things better?




Because I notice you haven't called out Faolyn for making the inaccurate statement I was responding to. Because it doesn't matter how precisely I word my response, because you will come in and tell me I'm wrong, because you know what they really meant, because obviously they couldn't really mean what they say. Or, I word it so precisely that no one can argue the point... so I'm being pedantic. 

I can't win for losing, so why bother playing the game? Until you come in with your demands that I be ultra-lawyer precise in all my responses, it never matters.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 29, 2022)

Irlo said:


> So yes, I maintain that you made an unneccesary inference. It's not a crazy idea.




No, it isn't a crazy idea. But it sure is awfully funny that I'm the only one who is misnterpreting seven different posters, because clearly they didn't mean what they said, especially when they tell me they are quoting the book that I'm responding to. And even more especially when I respond with "and that's the problem" to their explanations. 

It is also incredibly interesting how no one is interested in discussing the points I'm making, instead choosing to say that my points are irrelevant because I don't understand the conversation or are making "unnecessary inferences"



Irlo said:


> Sincere question - have you found _anything_ useful in this thread?




The merchant race idea was good. I've got some thoughts on how to integrate that, but I'd probably still go with the idea of combining halflings and gnomes, because if I'm going to have to rewrite things, I'm just as good rewriting Snirvfelbin that I have trouble utilizing to cover this idea than rewriting a dozen halfling subraces. 

I think I will try and find time to list them all out and mix and match what works in the coming months. Maybe utilize some of the rewrites for the abilities I came up with a dozen pages ago. Also, it has highlighted what the actual problem is, so that always makes it easier ti fix.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 29, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> So the race that is iconic for its Rogues tends towards Lawful Good?  This is part of why people feel that halflings are poorly written.



Bilbo was a "burglar." He didn't steal things (except for that ring); he scouted and reported back. If it were a more traditional D&D game, he'd be listening at doors and picking locks so the rest of the party could go to the next room in the dungeon.


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## Lanefan (Jul 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, quote @Faolyn or @Gammadoodler or @Lanefan saying "halflings are lawful good"



Not guilty, y'r honour.

While 1e might have had them as trending LG by RAW, I've always had them trend NG so as to fit between Dwarves (LG/LN) and Elves (CG).


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## James Gasik (Jul 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not guilty, y'r honour.
> 
> While 1e might have had them as trending LG by RAW, I've always had them trend NG so as to fit between Dwarves (LG/LN) and Elves (CG).



Isn't that why Gnomes were NG?


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 29, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Bilbo was a "burglar." He didn't steal things (except for that ring); he scouted and reported back. If it were a more traditional D&D game, he'd be listening at doors and picking locks so the rest of the party could go to the next room in the dungeon.



I agree that Bilbo wasn’t a Rogue.  I disagree that he was a scout though, I’d say he was a commoner or a noble.

I was pointing out that many, many, many halfling PCs, both in published fiction and in actual games, tend to be Rogues, despite this being at antipodes with their characterization as Lawful Good.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 29, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Isn't that why Gnomes were NG?



---shrug--- maybe?  

I have Gnomes more toward CN, but they're a pretty minor thing in my current setting thus I give them little if any thought most of the time.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 29, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I agree that Bilbo wasn’t a Rogue.  I disagree that he was a scout though, I’d say he was a commoner or a noble.
> 
> I was pointing out that many, many, many halfling PCs, both in published fiction and in actual games, tend to be Rogues, despite this being at antipodes with their characterization as Lawful Good.



Though I won't go in depth with it here, I think a compelling argument can be made that Bilbo in particular is very much LG - though with perhaps more emphasis on the 'G' than the 'L' - and though he might not start out as a Rogue he certainly becomes one along the way.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> ---shrug--- maybe?
> 
> I have Gnomes more toward CN, but they're a pretty minor thing in my current setting thus I give them little if any thought most of the time.



Seems legit, most people don't think much about Gnomes.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Though I won't go in depth with it here, I think a compelling argument can be made that Bilbo in particular is very much LG - though with perhaps more emphasis on the 'G' than the 'L' - and though he might not start out as a Rogue he certainly becomes one along the way.



To answer this we would need to answer “What is a Rogue?”.  My feeling is that the answer depends of the edition you play.  I don’t think Bilbo would meet the criteria of a 5e Rogue.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 29, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Sure, but I think that even he wouldn't have an issue with the odd CG or even LE halfling village, because alignments in races have never been absolute.
> 
> I am not fine taking one of the most powerful and compelling tropes in fiction, one of the most hopeful things we can state about the universe and the world we live in, and devalue it by saying "*and here is a group of people all born who do exactly that all the time*.
> 
> ...



@Maxperson please explain to me in what way halflings are good and triumph in the slightest?


Lanefan said:


> Not guilty, y'r honour.
> 
> While 1e might have had them as trending LG by RAW, I've always had them trend NG so as to fit between Dwarves (LG/LN) and Elves (CG).



how are they neutral good?
this is neutral good.


with the obvious companion line no power does not mean no resposability.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, are you just putting words in people's mouths or can you quote someone in this thread who said halflings are lawful good? Because you are making an accusation to my point, but it is based on what other people "clearly said". So, quote @Faolyn or @Gammadoodler or @Lanefan saying "halflings are lawful good" or acknowledge that you are putting words in people's mouths so you can make false accusations at me.



I'll do neither one.  Good for halflings = LG unless they are homebrewing them.  Since nobody said they were homebrewing halfling alignment, in a discussion the assumption defaults to the default of good = LG. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Because I notice you haven't called out Faolyn for making the inaccurate statement I was responding to. Because it doesn't matter how precisely I word my response, because you will come in and tell me I'm wrong, because you know what they really meant, because obviously they couldn't really mean what they say. Or, I word it so precisely that no one can argue the point... so I'm being pedantic.



If that's what you want to think.  I think if you are in a discussion and have the choice to be accurate or inaccurate, you don't deliberately go with inaccurate because you assume people are going to be jerks.  You can't have a discussion that way.


----------



## Lanefan (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I'll do neither one.  Good for halflings = LG unless they are homebrewing them.  Since nobody said they were homebrewing halfling alignment,



Er...I did.  They trend NG in my game rather than LG.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> @Maxperson please explain to me in what way halflings are good and triumph in the slightest?



They're good because they're predominantly LG.  I suppose they can triumph via luck or skill.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Er...I did.  They trend NG in my game rather than LG.



Fair enough.  I must have missed the post where you stated that.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> To answer this we would need to answer “What is a Rogue?”.  My feeling is that the answer depends of the edition you play.  I don’t think Bilbo would meet the criteria of a 5e Rogue.



Bilbo was the inspiration for the 1st edition Thief, but is best described as LG or NG.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Bilbo was the inspiration for the 1st edition Thief, but is best described as LG or NG.



Ironic since Thieves couldn't be Lawful Good.  Well other than Dr. van Richten.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I was pointing out that many, many, many halfling PCs, both in published fiction and in actual games, tend to be Rogues, despite this being at antipodes with their characterization as Lawful Good.



Again, mostly LG means that thousands of non-LG halflings, including the many published rogues, fit right into the halfling lore without any issue whatsoever. You're inventing a problem here where there isn't one.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> To answer this we would need to answer “What is a Rogue?”.  My feeling is that the answer depends of the edition you play.  I don’t think Bilbo would meet the criteria of a 5e Rogue.



Let's see.

"Signaling for her companions to wait, a halfling creeps forward through the dungeon hall. She presses an ear to the door, then pulls out a set of tools and picks the lock in the blink of an eye. Then she disappears into the shadows as her fighter friend moves forward to kick the door open."

Bilbo crept around through dungeons and disappeared into shadows.  He didn't pick locks, but that isn't a requirement to be a rogue.

"Rogues rely on skill, stealth, and their foes' vulnerabilities to get the upper hand in any situation. They have a knack for finding the solution to just about any problem, demonstrating a resourcefulness and versatility that is the cornerstone of any successful adventuring party."

Bilbo relied on skill, stealth and his foes vulnerabilities.  He had a knack for finding solutions to just about any problem he came across and demonstrated a resourcefulness and versatility that was the cornerstone to the success of his party.

Biblo very much meets the criteria for a 5e rogue, even if he didn't have sneak attack.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Biblo very much meets the criteria for a 5e rogue, even if he didn't have sneak attack.



When he is fighting the spiders in Mirkwood he attacks them from hidden, making him more effective. So you could argue that he has sneak attack. He just prefers not to use violence if possible.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> They're good because they're predominantly LG.  I suppose they can triumph via luck or skill.



alignment is a box, I meant behaviours and deeds?


Maxperson said:


> Again, mostly LG means that thousands of non-LG halflings, including the many published rogues, fit right into the halfling lore without any issue whatsoever. You're inventing a problem here where there isn't one.



given that they are the sneaky guy their lore and what they are used for being in conflict is not good design but give one correction is kender I will grasp the reluctance.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> alignment is a box, I meant behaviours and deeds?



Halflings easily warm to creatures of other races that don't try to do them harm, in large part due to the lack of guile that goes along with their innocent nature. *Appearance doesn't matter; what counts is a creature's fundamental character, and if the halflings are convinced of a creature's good intentions, they respond well. Halflings would welcome an orc with a good heart into their company and treat it as politely they would as an elf visitor.*"

They(most of them) are filled with goodness and innocence and look for that in others, regardless of race or appearance.


Mind of tempest said:


> given that they are the sneaky guy their lore and what they are used for being in conflict is not good design



The lore about being sneaky isn't good design for being the sneaky guy?


Mind of tempest said:


> but give one correction is kender I will grasp the reluctance.



I don't understand how Kender differ from halflings outside of kleptomania being fearless instead of brave.  In the context of being the sneaky guy, though, Kender and Halflings are the same.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> When he is fighting the spiders in Mirkwood he attacks them from hidden, making him more effective. So you could argue that he has sneak attack. He just prefers not to use violence if possible.



That could be sneak attack, or it could just be the result of spiders being defenseless against someone who is both invisible and using a very powerful magical elven blade to stab them in the head.  Anyone might be able to do that in Middle Earth, or it could be sneak attack.  I think either interpretation is valid.


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## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

Given that Sting is effective against Shelob, I'm going to say it's probably a Bane weapon of some kind...


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## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Given that Sting is effective against Shelob, I'm going to say it's probably a Bane weapon of some kind...



The elven weapons, many, if not most of which were forged by the dwarven smiths of old, were very effective against everything, but especially creatures of darkness like orcs, wraiths, evil spawn of Ungoliant, etc.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> The elven weapons, many, if not most of which were forged by the dwarven smiths of old, were very effective against everything, but especially creatures of darkness like orcs, wraiths, evil spawn of Ungoliant, etc.



Ah, so Sting is an old school Holy weapon, then.


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## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Ah, so Sting is an old school Holy weapon, then.



That's closer, but still not a direct match-up.  And actually it's an elven blade, not dwarven, so not as good.  Still powerful, though, being made by an ancient Noldo smith.

"Sting was like Glamdring and Orcrist in that "being the work of Elvish smiths in the Elder Days these swords shone with a cold light, if any Orcs were near at hand." But only Sting was definitively described as glowing blue, or glittering with blue flame at its edges.

As fitting of a blade of Gondolin, Sting could easily cut the webs of Ungoliant's offspring such as Shelob and the spiders of Mirkwood."


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Halflings easily warm to creatures of other races that don't try to do them harm, in large part due to the lack of guile that goes along with their innocent nature. *Appearance doesn't matter; what counts is a creature's fundamental character, and if the halflings are convinced of a creature's good intentions, they respond well. Halflings would welcome an orc with a good heart into their company and treat it as politely they would as an elf visitor.*"
> 
> They(most of them) are filled with goodness and innocence and look for that in others, regardless of race or appearance.
> 
> ...



define goodness? 
innocence an absence of guilt or knowledge psychopaths have no guilt and sharks do not know truly what they do.
absences such as innocence is a character trait, not a trait a people can have without losing it really fast nor does it make one good.

being sneaky and being brave tend to be opposites in human thought.


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## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> define goodness?



No. There's no point.


Mind of tempest said:


> innocence an absence of guilt or knowledge psychopaths have no guilt and sharks do not know truly what they do.



Innocence is not an absence of guilt.  It's a purity in this context.


Mind of tempest said:


> being sneaky and being brave tend to be opposites in human thought.



No.  This is false.  Frodo and Sam were exceedingly brave to take the One Ring to Mordor.  They would just have been stupid, not more brave if they had walked up to the front door instead of being sneaky about it.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

So Odysseus wasn't brave?  Man don't tell him that.  He once murdered half the people at a party because they were putting the moves on his wife!


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> No. There's no point.



no, it is simply impossible for anyone to describe good hence making a "the good guy" race impossible, it is like describing colour to a creature without eyes.


Maxperson said:


> Innocence is not an absence of guilt.  It's a purity in this context.



pure of what then? give your image you know pure does not have to be good, what is the quote "pure, unadulterated ego" or was it "_Believe me, my heart is exceptionally pure. Pure *evil* to the core."_


Maxperson said:


> No.  This is false.  Frodo and Sam were exceedingly brave to take the One Ring to Mordor.  They would just have been stupid, not more brave if they had walked up to the front door instead of being sneaky about it.



brave or ignorant of what they were agreeing to do?


James Gasik said:


> So Odysseus wasn't brave?  Man don't tell him that.  He once murdered half the people at a party because they were putting the moves on his wife!



I believe him a coward, but I would not try to take his wife, my morals may be beyond comprehension but I do have them.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> pure of what then? give your image you know pure does not have to be good, what is the quote "pure, unadulterated ego" or was it "_Believe me, my heart is exceptionally pure. Pure *evil* to the core."_



Again. Context is they key to understanding.  In the context used, purity = good.  "Pure of what" doesn't matter.  Insert whatever you feel equates to goodness.


Mind of tempest said:


> brave or ignorant of what they were agreeing to do?



Brave.  There can be no other way to look at it.  They were chased by Nazgul all the way from the Shire to Rivendell.  They knew what they were getting into at the very least on that scale, even if not about the ring growing more powerful the closer they got to Sauron.  They were well aware of the latter fact before they entered Mordor and went anyway.  They were not ignorant.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> no, it is simply impossible for anyone to describe good hence making a "the good guy" race impossible, it is like describing colour to a creature without eyes.
> 
> pure of what then? give your image you know pure does not have to be good, what is the quote "pure, unadulterated ego" or was it "_Believe me, my heart is exceptionally pure. Pure *evil* to the core."_
> 
> ...



I guess you would also call Simo Hayha, Carlos Hathcock, or Navy SEALs cowards too, for using stealth, subterfuge, ranged sniping, and ambush tactics?


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 30, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I guess you would also call Simo Hayha, Carlos Hathcock, or Navy SEALs cowards too, for using stealth, subterfuge, ranged sniping, and ambush tactics?



yes, it is a viable and practical idea but cowardly.


Maxperson said:


> Again. Context is they key to understanding.  In the context used, purity = good.  "Pure of what" doesn't matter.  Insert whatever you feel equates to goodness.
> 
> Brave.  There can be no other way to look at it.  They were chased by Nazgul all the way from the Shire to Rivendell.  They knew what they were getting into at the very least on that scale, even if not about the ring growing more powerful the closer they got to Sauron.  They were well aware of the latter fact before they entered Mordor and went anyway.  They were not ignorant.



I do not equate any one thing with goodness as I do fundamentally know why we have for a thousand years struggled to articulate it.
besides if they are good and innocent and as you said inoccent means pure and that is good you have waste words and descriptions for just saying good twice.

I see non of that as brave it reads very differently to me.


James Gasik said:


> I guess you would also call Simo Hayha, Carlos Hathcock, or Navy SEALs cowards too, for using stealth, subterfuge, ranged sniping, and ambush tactics?



Yes I do, I just accept the pragmatism of modern war but I will still call it cowardly, necessary has nothing to do with whether I believe something is brave.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I'll do neither one.  Good for halflings = LG unless they are homebrewing them.  Since nobody said they were homebrewing halfling alignment, in a discussion the assumption defaults to the default of good = LG.




Right, so you are putting words in people's mouths so that you can use that interpretation to smear my point. Because clearly you know what they meant, even if they never said it.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I do not equate any one thing with goodness as I do fundamentally know why we have for a thousand years struggled to articulate it.
> besides if they are good and innocent and as you said inoccent means pure and that is good you have waste words and descriptions for just saying good twice.



People say the same thing differently all the time in natural language.


Mind of tempest said:


> I see non of that as brave it reads very differently to me.



If what they did wasn't brave, bravery doesn't exist.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, so you are putting words in people's mouths so that you can use that interpretation to smear my point. Because clearly you know what they meant, even if they never said it.



Um, no.  @Lanefan has since clarified that his halflings are NG. That's a fine homebrew for them.  Absent such clarifications, the default "good" for halflings is LG.  Using the default in the absence of such clarification is how discussion works when talking about book halflings and book halfling lore, and is not putting words in anyone's mouth.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

A lot of this discussion has revolved around the PHB's Halfling lore, but there are other sources of 5e lore as well.  So let's take a look at what may very well be the game's "default setting".


----------



## Mind of tempest (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> People say the same thing differently all the time in natural language.
> 
> If what they did wasn't brave, bravery doesn't exist.



the good good race is redundant you must accept?

it is not brave to do one's duty it is like saying one's heart is brave for beating.


Maxperson said:


> Um, no.  @Lanefan has since clarified that his halflings are NG. That's a fine homebrew for them.  Absent such clarifications, the default "good" for halflings is LG.  Using the default in the absence of such clarification is how discussion works when talking about book halflings and book halfling lore, and is not putting words in anyone's mouth.



what makes them lawful good anyway?


James Gasik said:


> A lot of this discussion has revolved around the PHB's Halfling lore, but there are other sources of 5e lore as well.  So let's take a look at what may very well be the game's "default setting".
> 
> View attachment 255795
> View attachment 255796
> View attachment 255797



so generic mild good folk of two with few differences that could not just be characters?


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Again, mostly LG means that thousands of non-LG halflings, including the many published rogues, fit right into the halfling lore without any issue whatsoever. You're inventing a problem here where there isn't one.



And you’re ignoring a problem where there is one.  If I describe a race as mostly LG, give them descriptors that correlate as mostly LG, then there is a disconnect if the typical example from the race is not LG.

Could there be non-LG members of that race?  Sure, but it is kind of if you took the lore of Dwarves and the archtypical dwarf was a CG warlock.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Jul 30, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Biblo very much meets the criteria for a 5e rogue, even if he didn't have sneak attack.



Due to bounded accuracy, any character can be skilled in any skill in 5e.  Not even a PC, any character.

Bilbo was a commoner or a noble.  Was he even trained in Stealth?  With a ring that allowed him to turn invisible, he had advantage on Stealth checks, so even with a small investment in Dex, he is pretty hard to spot.  Fortunately, his DM also gave him a magic weapon.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

That having been said, in my experience, most player characters are not stereotypes.  I've seen many Halflings, but never seen Bilbo Baggins or even Samwise.  Almost everyone wants to be "like this, but different".

Except with Dwarves, for some reason.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Due to bounded accuracy, any character can be skilled in any skill in 5e.  Not even a PC, any character.
> 
> Bilbo was a commoner or a noble.  Was he even trained in Stealth?  With a ring that allowed him to turn invisible, he had advantage on Stealth checks, so even with a small investment in Dex, he is pretty hard to spot.  Fortunately, his DM also gave him a magic weapon.



Tolkien actually says that all Hobbits are naturally sneaky, which is why, even though they are likely still around today, you've never noticed them.

"There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary, everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off."

Further, in The Hobbit, Bilbo shows off his stealthiness before he came into possession of The One Ring by sneaking up on the Trolls early in the story.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> the good good race is redundant you must accept?
> 
> it is not brave to do one's duty it is like saying one's heart is brave for beating.



1. They had no duty to go to Rivendell. 
2. They had no duty to take on the quest.  
3. Duty can be undertaken with cowardice or bravery.  Doing your duty does not prevent bravery, and in fact often requires it.


Mind of tempest said:


> what makes them lawful good anyway?



Their behavior. WotC feels that their behavior warrants LG in 5e.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Due to bounded accuracy, any character can be skilled in any skill in 5e.  Not even a PC, any character.



This is not true.  Any character can attempt any skill, but proficient = skilled in a way that non-proficient PCs and NPCs aren't, further expertise = even more skilled.


FrozenNorth said:


> Bilbo was a commoner or a noble.  Was he even trained in Stealth?



With expertise. Hobbits were so skilled at disappearing and stealthy movement that they rivaled even the elves.


FrozenNorth said:


> With a ring that allowed him to turn invisible, he had advantage on Stealth checks, so even with a small investment in Dex, he is pretty hard to spot.



And with his expertise in stealth, combined with a ring that not only made you invisible, but made you the best at what you were trying to be, in his case a burglar, he was a rogue's rogue by the time he hit the mountain.


FrozenNorth said:


> Fortunately, his DM also gave him a magic weapon.



Yep.  Combined with being a rogue's rogue, made him a very, very formidable rogue.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> And you’re ignoring a problem where there is one.  If I describe a race as mostly LG, give them descriptors that correlate as mostly LG, then there is a disconnect if the typical example from the race is not LG.



What I don't think you are seeing is that you are not looking at typical examples of halflings. You are looking at adventurers, which are already atypical members of the race.  It's not at all strong to think that they would be highly likely to stray from the LG alignment that most of the race is.


FrozenNorth said:


> Could there be non-LG members of that race?



They are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of that.  It's not a question of could.  There are craptons of them, including in every village.  All you need is a simple majority to be LG to fit the lore.


----------



## Faolyn (Jul 31, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> That having been said, in my experience, most player characters are not stereotypes.  I've seen many Halflings, but never seen Bilbo Baggins or even Samwise.  Almost everyone wants to be "like this, but different".
> 
> Except with Dwarves, for some reason.



See, now if _any _D&D race were to count as "bottom of the barrel," it would be dwarfs, because so few people bother to do anything _different _with them. They don't seem to inspire much creativity among the players, either in terms of build or personality.

(I do not think that any race should be considered "bottom of the barrel," however, and if everyone wants to play the same gruff dwarf stereotype, that's cool by me.)


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 31, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Um, no.  @Lanefan has since clarified that his halflings are NG. That's a fine homebrew for them.  Absent such clarifications, the default "good" for halflings is LG.  Using the default in the absence of such clarification is how discussion works when talking about book halflings and book halfling lore, and is not putting words in anyone's mouth.




So, again, you know what they meant, because clearly they meant LG even though they never said LG, because despite the fact we are talking about halflings over all editions and in a variety of settings not explicitly 5e, they must be using the 5e lore when they talk about them, and nothing else. 

Except one person already said they weren't doing that. So... your assumption was wrong. And since your entire refutation of my point involves your assumption being correct and everyone else meaning that halflings aren't good, but specifically lawful good... It seems like "I know they meant the lore in the books, because obviously they did, because obviously we are talking about 5e PHB halflings in that instance, not the other halflings we've discussed all thread" is a fairly clear example of putting words in other people's mouths.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> See, now if _any _D&D race were to count as "bottom of the barrel," it would be dwarfs, because so few people bother to do anything _different _with them. They don't seem to inspire much creativity among the players, either in terms of build or personality.
> 
> (I do not think that any race should be considered "bottom of the barrel," however, and if everyone wants to play the same gruff dwarf stereotype, that's cool by me.)



There's something about the Dwarven archetype that resonates with many people.  Gruff, stubborn bordering on indomitable, hard working, salt of the earth, actions speak louder than words, would give you the shirt off their back, and always, always has your six, even if they love to argue with you types.  

Chances are, you know someone like this in real life!

Now granted, there is no reason at all you couldn't play a Human this way, and this does lend itself well to "humans with r̶u̶b̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶e̶h̶e̶a̶d̶s̶ beards" problem a lot of races have, but it's one of the reasons why Dwarves are considered an iconic race.


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## Chaosmancer (Jul 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> See, now if _any _D&D race were to count as "bottom of the barrel," it would be dwarfs, because so few people bother to do anything _different _with them. They don't seem to inspire much creativity among the players, either in terms of build or personality.
> 
> (I do not think that any race should be considered "bottom of the barrel," however, and if everyone wants to play the same gruff dwarf stereotype, that's cool by me.)




Dwarves are probably played the most stereotypical of any race in the game. And that does seem to be in part because the stereotype is the lore, to a large degree. They present an interesting puzzle as a design concept.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 31, 2022)

When did "bottom of the barrel" because so few people play them become "bottom of the barrel" because people stick to one archetype and that's uncreative?

Bottom of the barrel only ever referred to the fact that throughout the entire history of the game, even in editions where you only had 4 races - Human, elf, dwarf and halfling, halflings STILL were the least played race in the game.  They've always been the least played race in the core of the game.  At no point in the history of the game were halflings ever a popular, widely played choice.  Human->elf->dwarf->halfling has always been the order of things.  Tack gnomes on after halfling and that's been the history of D&D.

Has nothing to do with creativity or how people play the game or liking this or not liking that.  It's just plain fact.  Halfling and then gnome.  

Going on 50 years now.  But, sure, we should keep on the same track because, y'know, trying anything different _cough*Tiefling, Dragonborn_ in the PHB couldn't possibly work.


----------



## Maxperson (Jul 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, again, you know what they meant, because clearly they meant LG even though they never said LG, because despite the fact we are talking about halflings over all editions and in a variety of settings not explicitly 5e, they must be using the 5e lore when they talk about them, and nothing else.



I don't care what they meant.  If we are talking halflings as written and someone says good without clarifying further, the default assumption is that they are referring to LG.  If they meant something different, it's their fault for not clarifying.  Not mine for assuming that in a talk about defaults, the default alignment was what was meant by good.


Chaosmancer said:


> Except one person already said they weren't doing that.



After I mentioned it.


Chaosmancer said:


> So... your assumption was wrong.



It actually wasn't.  Because the assumption I made about him specifically is that he wasn't running all halflings as one alignment and that he would be okay with villages of halflings that were neutral or even evil, since halfling alignment isn't an absolute.  He liked my post that said that.

His change to homebrew NG wasn't relevant to my point above, and it showed that even if he is old school with racial alignments, he wasn't treating all halflings has having to be one alignment as a race.


Chaosmancer said:


> And since your entire refutation of my point involves your assumption being correct and everyone else meaning that halflings aren't good, but specifically lawful good... It seems like "I know they meant the lore in the books, because obviously they did, because obviously we are talking about 5e PHB halflings in that instance, not the other halflings we've discussed all thread" is a fairly clear example of putting words in other people's mouths.



LG is just what they are by default in 1e, 2e and 5e. 3e had them as neutral for some reason and I have no idea what 4e did to them.  The actual type of good wasn't what was relevant to my point, though.  My point was that even as an old school DM with racial alignments, halflings in his game didn't have to be whatever alignment he used for the race.


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## Faolyn (Jul 31, 2022)

Hussar said:


> When did "bottom of the barrel" because so few people play them become "bottom of the barrel" because people stick to one archetype and that's uncreative?



Because--if you were going to consider any race to be the bottom--then if people are playing all sorts of different halflings, then that peopel are putting thought and effort into their characters. They're thinking of ways to make their halfling fun for them; they're thinking of their halfling's personality and life and origins. But if everyone[1] is playing the same sort of surly and/or alcoholic Scottish dwarf (that is most often a fighter, cleric, or maybe a wizard to take advantage on the armor proficiency), then it indicates that the dwarf isn't a race that people are thinking about and don't care all that much about as people. They just grab a dwarf off the rack and go. 

(Plus lightfoot halflings were equally as popular as hill dwarfs and nearly as popular as mountain dwarfs.)

--

[1] not literally everyone.


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## Hussar (Jul 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Because--if you were going to consider any race to be the bottom--then if people are playing all sorts of different halflings, then that peopel are putting thought and effort into their characters. They're thinking of ways to make their halfling fun for them; they're thinking of their halfling's personality and life and origins. But if everyone[1] is playing the same sort of surly and/or alcoholic Scottish dwarf (that is most often a fighter, cleric, or maybe a wizard to take advantage on the armor proficiency), then it indicates that the dwarf isn't a race that people are thinking about and don't care all that much about as people. They just grab a dwarf off the rack and go.
> 
> (Plus lightfoot halflings were equally as popular as hill dwarfs and nearly as popular as mountain dwarfs.)
> 
> ...



But, again, that's not what I meant and is adding a value judgement that is 100% your own.  

When I said bottom of the barrel, I mean exactly that.  Gnomes and halflings are the least played races in core D&D.  Thus, they are at the bottom of the barrel.  _How_ these characters are played, who is more creative, who is more interesting, is not my concern.  I don't really care how someone else plays something.  That's none of my business.  I'm not judging anyone's yum.

What I am judging though, is the fact that despite being the least played races in the history of the game, we absolutely MUST include gnomes and halflings in the PHB (note, I do NOT MEAN they should be removed from the game) because to do otherwise is unthinkable.  And, we MUST include SEPARATE gnomes and halflings because we're not allowed to change any of the lore or background in an attempt to make either or both races more attractive to players because to do otherwise is unthinkable.

But, please, do not attribute judging how other people play their characters to me.  I never even hinted at that.  Never even remotely suggested that.  I'm simply looking at the historical facts - gnomes and halflings have never been popular races to play.  They have always been the least popular races in the PHB.  When we added new races to the PHB, not only were the new races popular, they were more popular than quite a number of existing PHB races.  IMO, there is a very strong argument to be made in a revised race palette in the PHB.  But, as we've seen in this thread, that's going to go the same way as trying to add psionics or warlords to the game.  There is just not enough agreement here to make any compromise.


----------



## James Gasik (Jul 31, 2022)

Hussar said:


> But, again, that's not what I meant and is adding a value judgement that is 100% your own.
> 
> When I said bottom of the barrel, I mean exactly that.  Gnomes and halflings are the least played races in core D&D.  Thus, they are at the bottom of the barrel.  _How_ these characters are played, who is more creative, who is more interesting, is not my concern.  I don't really care how someone else plays something.  That's none of my business.  I'm not judging anyone's yum.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I remember the last Psionics thread.  Yikes.

So ok, here's the thing.  Could the game remove Gnomes and Halflings from the PHB?  Maybe. It would be odd to not have them around, since so many settings have them, or standins like Kender.  But whether these settings have them because they are in the PHB, or they are in the PHB because settings have them is a chicken or egg debate.

The question then becomes what to replace them with?  And how many players will look at this as a reason to see the "new D&D" as not being the kind of game they want to play?

The outcry about Gnomes not being in the 4e PHB wasn't about Gnomes, I don't think.  I think it became a rallying cry for people who didn't feel like they needed a new edition, and were upset that it wasn't like whatever kind of D&D they felt comfortable playing- lore changes like removing the Great Wheel, which really, only Planescape fans cared too much about, and adding Dragonborn to the PHB was the same way.

People need to feel that yes, this is in fact the game I love.  So a PHB with no Gnomes, or Halflings, but say, Kobolds or Goblins, will be a little scary.  What is this game?  What else has changed?  Why should I switch to this instead of my security blanket game?

We know, from a business standpoint, that WotC wants everyone on the bus.  So they aren't going to ditch these races because of that, no matter how popular or not they are.

I like Halflings, but I admit their default lore isn't exciting.  Of course, most races are in the same boat, so in my games, if I want Halflings or any race, I need to make lore that's more compelling.

And even if I do, that's no guarantee anyone will want to play a given race.  I think most people are, at best, happy with the idea of Halflings being around, more than really wanting to play one.  But it's not like they take up much space, either (lol).

I mean, let's be honest, the lore for Dragonborn is way worse.  The only reason they are popular is, well, dragons are cool for a larger cross section of people than Halflings, I suppose.  Until recently, it wasn't like their racials were all that.

And ultimately, that's how I look at this debate.  The reason to get rid of Halflings has nothing really to do with mechanics or lore- but popularity.  If you don't like 'em, and few people play 'em, why have them?

And the answer, sadly is, because nostalgia.  And nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool, and WotC knows it.  What I would prefer is WotC doing more with all the races, but they're not going to do that either, for the same reason.

There were people who griped that 3e Halflings weren't Hobbits anymore, for example.  "They just look like Kender!"  When you buy a product, chances are you're buying the brand.  And if the brand changes, you can end up with a New Coke situation on your hands.

Again though, sure, if you weren't worried about the market, you could remove less popular races.  But I don't see a real reason for it.  What are you going to replace them with?  Another couple kinds of Elves?  Monstrous races?

What race has a huge presence in established settings....or, if we want to be honest, the only setting that will matter, the Forgotten Realms, that's more popular, and plays well with others, that we can put in the PHB?

Orcs?  Not traditionally, but maybe in the new, kinder, gentler D&D we'll have Orc towns and Orc mayors, and Orc merchants in major cities, who can say?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 31, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> I don't care what they meant.  If we are talking halflings as written and someone says good without clarifying further, the default assumption is that they are referring to LG.  If they meant something different, it's their fault for not clarifying.  Not mine for assuming that in a talk about defaults, the default alignment was what was meant by good.




So... you don't care what they meant. So your response to me, criticizing my point, was based not on the point itself, not on what the other person meant, but on your own interpretation of what them and myself SHOULD have said. 

And if they didn't mean what you interpreted, well, that's on them, but I'm still wrong for correctly responding to what they actually said, becuase I should have ignored what they said and only responded to what they "obviously meant" because I should "assume the default" 

So, again. You put words in their mouth, then used the words you put their to attack my point, incorrectly, because they never said what you claimed. You just think they SHOULD have said it, because everyone should default to the lore you think everyone should default to, even when talking about hypotheticals not in the lore, like entirely new settings. 

And you wonder why I regret responding to you.



Maxperson said:


> LG is just what they are by default in 1e, 2e and 5e. 3e had them as neutral for some reason and I have no idea what 4e did to them.  The actual type of good wasn't what was relevant to my point, though.  My point was that even as an old school DM with racial alignments, halflings in his game didn't have to be whatever alignment he used for the race.




Which had nothing to do with the point being made, so your point is ignored because it does not apply. And I'm done with this tangent now.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Jul 31, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Yeah, I remember the last Psionics thread.  Yikes.
> 
> So ok, here's the thing.  Could the game remove Gnomes and Halflings from the PHB?  Maybe. It would be odd to not have them around, since so many settings have them, or standins like Kender.  But whether these settings have them because they are in the PHB, or they are in the PHB because settings have them is a chicken or egg debate.
> 
> ...




And most of this is why I'm more about rewriting them though. 

I will say though, yes, there are some people who will be upset that their "security blanket" game has changed, but I know there are also a sizable number of people who are craving something new and different and not old-skool fantasy. Goblins are wildly popular, as are Orcs. People would be excited to see those options in the PHB. I know I would be far more interested in a well-written, interesting story for goblins in the game than I would be to see a lot of other options. One of the things that has me massively excited for the Spelljammer book, to the point I pre-ordered it despite being fairly certain I'll never run spelljammer, is that there are PLAYABLE OOZES!!! I'm stoked for that. 

And I also think taking a hard look at some of the most entrenched races like the halflings and the dwarves also means we should be taking a stronger look at the stories of Dragonborn. Dragonborn lore as written.... utterly sucks. They just exist. I've taken the concept and rewritten it into my games, tying it into deep lore with my new take on dragons (previously it was because of elves, but that world is getting replaced by a new one). I want ALL the races to get looked at again and people to ask "is this really working as a story" 

I get that many of these "low effort" racial write-ups is to keep them generic, or keep them matching the older lore from the original editions. But I also feel like a lot of us newer players see a lot of this stuff, and it is all things we've seen over and over again in fantasy, and we want something different. Not that we need to utterly take things out of the game, but we can certainly rewrite them with new ideas that capture the changes in the fantasy field.


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## Hussar (Jul 31, 2022)

Yeah @James Gasik - I pretty much agree with everything you said.


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## Maxperson (Jul 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So... you don't care what they meant.



I don't care in the sense that what they meant was entirely irrelevant to what I said.


Chaosmancer said:


> So your response to me, criticizing my point, was based not on the point itself, not on what the other person meant, but on your own interpretation of what them and myself SHOULD have said.



No.  Re-read my last few posts.  You've missed a great deal if that's what you came away with.


Chaosmancer said:


> And if they didn't mean what you interpreted, well, that's on them, but I'm still wrong for correctly responding to what they actually said, becuase I should have ignored what they said and only responded to what they "obviously meant" because I should "assume the default"



I wasn't interpreting them at all. I was going by the default in a discussion about default halflings.


Chaosmancer said:


> So, again. You put words in their mouth



Nope!  Not even once.


Chaosmancer said:


> And you wonder why I regret responding to you.



I don't really. You almost always misinterpret what I say to an immense degree, and almost always negatively.  I don't wonder at all why you don't respond to me.  I just marvel that the reasons for why you regret responding are almost entirely of your own making.


----------



## ECMO3 (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> And you’re ignoring a problem where there is one.  If I describe a race as mostly LG, give them descriptors that correlate as mostly LG, then there is a disconnect if the typical example from the race is not LG.
> 
> Could there be non-LG members of that race?  Sure, but it is kind of if you took the lore of Dwarves and the archtypical dwarf was a CG warlock.



There is nothing in 5E that suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.

If you want to rules-lawyer it like this the archtypical halfling is a Lawful Good Rogue.

As far as Bilbbo, it has been about 40 years since I read The Hobbit, but unless I am mistaken he was hired by the Dwarves as a "Burglar"  which sounds like a Rogue to me.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

ECMO3 said:


> There is nothing in 5E that suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.
> 
> If you want to rules-lawyer it like this the archtypical halfling is a Lawful Good Rogue.



This is true. I just sort of accepted it when they made that argument, probably for the same reason they made it in the first place. It's the way it was done in prior editions.  No LG rogues/thieves. Old habits die hard.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> This is not true.  Any character can attempt any skill, but proficient = skilled in a way that non-proficient PCs and NPCs aren't, further expertise = even more skilled.



We are in agreement.  Unlike in certain previous editions, proficiency in Stealth isn’t locked to certain classes.  Any class can be proficient in Stealth, as can any NPC.


Maxperson said:


> With expertise. Hobbits were so skilled at disappearing and stealthy movement that they rivaled even the elves.



If that is the case, the necessary conclusion is that Hobbits aren’t halflings, since Stoutfoot halflings don’t get anything that helps with Stealth, nor do Eberron halflings, or Ghostwise halflings or Lotusden halflings.


Maxperson said:


> And with his expertise in stealth, combined with a ring that not only made you invisible, but made you the best at what you were trying to be, in his case a burglar, he was a rogue's rogue by the time he hit the mountain.



You’ve made the case that hobbits aren’t halflings, since most halflings aren’t particular good at Stealth.

Did we actually see any halflings demonstrate any expertise in hiding?  I haven’t read the Hobbit or LotR recently, but my recollection is that the only examples of successful hiding occur when Bilbo (or Frodo) is using the One Ring.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> We are in agreement.  Unlike in certain previous editions, proficiency in Stealth isn’t locked to certain classes.  Any class can be proficient in Stealth, as can any NPC.
> 
> If that is the case, the necessary conclusion is that Hobbits aren’t halflings, since Stoutfoot halflings don’t get anything that helps with Stealth, nor do Eberron halflings, or Ghostwise halflings or Lotusden halflings.
> 
> ...



They hide quite a lot. From Ringwraiths, is the first one IIRC, and Sam and Frodo do a lot of it in Mordor.


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## FrozenNorth (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> What I don't think you are seeing is that you are not looking at typical examples of halflings. You are looking at adventurers, which are already atypical members of the race.  It's not at all strong to think that they would be highly likely to stray from the LG alignment that most of the race is.



To me, this already feels like a walkback.  I point out that halfling lore doesn’t reflect the characters played, and the response is “well, adventurers aren’t supposed to be typical”.  Adventurers don’t HAVE to be typical of their race, but an important purpose of lore is to help you build adventurers.

Halflings are also pretty unique in regard to this disconnect.

Dwarves are described as having a strong martial tradition and being pious.  You see a lot of Dwarf Fighters, Clerics and Barbarians;
Wood Elves are very in tune with nature.  Cue lots of Wood Elf rangers and druids;
High Elves love magic.  Lots of High Elf Wizards;

Someone posted a table of races/classes from D&DBeyond.  I recall that the number of Halfling Rogues greatly dwarfed the number of other halfling classes.  Like to the extent that Halfling Rogues were two-to-three times more frequent than the next popular halfling class.


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## Hussar (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Someone posted a table of races/classes from D&DBeyond. I recall that the number of Halfling Rogues greatly dwarfed the number of other halfling classes. Like to the extent that Halfling Rogues were two-to-three times more frequent than the next popular halfling class.



It might help to think of halflings as kender, which, in a lot of ways, they are.  It's a bit weird because, as you say, the other races tend to flow organically into certain classes that fit pretty well with how the race is presented.  Dragonborn and half orcs and dwarves tend to be martial type characters - fighters, paladins, barbarians, that sort of thing.  Elves tend to go with wizards or rangers.  Tieflings obviously have a pretty strong warlock vibe.  Gnomes fit well with artificers, obviously, but, that suffers for not being core.  I wonder if artificers being in core in the rerelease (does anyone think artificers won't be included?)  might not give gnomes a serious boost.

But halflings funnel into rogues.  Dex race, hiding bonuses for some of the halflings, that sort of thing.  Mechanically it makes perfect sense.  But, again, there's a disconnect between how the race is presented - lovers of comfort and fine things, and how they tend to get played - sneaky rogue/scout types.  

It's a very good point I think.  For a race that is supposed to be grounded in community, wouldn't clerics make a lot more sense?  Or maybe druids?  Kinda/sorta?  Then again, in the early days of the game, halflings couldn't even BE clerics.  So, I don't think there's much push in that direction.


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## FrozenNorth (Aug 1, 2022)

ECMO3 said:


> There is nothing in 5E that suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.
> 
> If you want to rules-lawyer it like this the archtypical halfling is a Lawful Good Rogue.



Your wording in this response suggests that you don’t believe Rogues are typically LG, nor that Halfling Rogues are typically LG.



ECMO3 said:


> As far as Bilbbo, it has been about 40 years since I read The Hobbit, but unless I am mistaken he was hired by the Dwarves as a "Burglar"  which sounds like a Rogue to me.



The impression I got from the opening chapters of the Hobbit was that Gandalf was bamboozling the dwarves to take along a hobbit that had neither the inclination nor the expertise to be a burglar.

If anything, this kind of underscores that Bilbo is a terrible archetype to rest the “halfling rogue” on.


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## FrozenNorth (Aug 1, 2022)

Hussar said:


> It might help to think of halflings as kender, which, in a lot of ways, they are.  It's a bit weird because, as you say, the other races tend to flow organically into certain classes that fit pretty well with how the race is presented.



Good point.  And to build on it, why kender?  In Dragonlance, dwarves are traditionally dwarvish, elves are traditionally elvish, yet halflings have been changed into child-like kleptomaniacs with no understanding of personal property.

My suspicion is that even in 1984, the lore of the traditional halfling (comfort-loving homebody) didn’t really square with the way players played the race (scout or thief), some Weiss and Hickman changed the lore (they have mad thieving skills… because they don’t believe in property!).

Obviously, many people do not consider the Dragonlance lore to be an improvement, but it does suggest this disconnect has been a thing for decades.


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## lingual (Aug 1, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Going on 50 years now.  But, sure, we should keep on the same track because, y'know, trying anything different _cough*Tiefling, Dragonborn_ in the PHB couldn't possibly work.




I don't get it.  They are in the PHB.  I don't think anyone is clamoring to remove them.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> We are in agreement.  Unlike in certain previous editions, proficiency in Stealth isn’t locked to certain classes.  Any class can be proficient in Stealth, as can any NPC.



It goes even further than that. If feats are used any class can have expertise at any skill, including stealth.


FrozenNorth said:


> If that is the case, the necessary conclusion is that Hobbits aren’t halflings, since Stoutfoot halflings don’t get anything that helps with Stealth, nor do Eberron halflings, or Ghostwise halflings or Lotusden halflings.



No, D&D halflings are not hobbits. Gygax used hobbits for the inspiration, but altered them.  I personally would move them back towards hobbits, but I like Tolkien a lot so I'm REALLY biased there.


FrozenNorth said:


> You’ve made the case that hobbits aren’t halflings, since most halflings aren’t particular good at Stealth.



We don't actually know if this is true or not.  There are two subraces of halfling, one of which gets a stealth bonus that is good. Are the two subrace populations equal? More lightfoots? More stouts?  We don't know.  There could be more lightfoots than stouts and most halfling would be good at stealth.  Or maybe not.  


FrozenNorth said:


> Did we actually see any halflings demonstrate any expertise in hiding?  I haven’t read the Hobbit or LotR recently, but my recollection is that the only examples of successful hiding occur when Bilbo (or Frodo) is using the One Ring.



Either 2 or 4 hobbits hid from a nazgul in the forest.  The nazgul who are adept at finding targets. The LotR also mentions somewhere how incredibly gifted at stealth the hobbits are.


----------



## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> To me, this already feels like a walkback.  I point out that halfling lore doesn’t reflect the characters played, and the response is “well, adventurers aren’t supposed to be typical”.  Adventurers don’t HAVE to be typical of their race, but an important purpose of lore is to help you build adventurers.



Yes and no.  If a dwarven cleric went adventuring, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.  If a dwarven fighter went adventuring, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.  You see this a lot as they are a race that is prone to adventuring.  Halflings are not, so adventurers are atypical of their race.  

You can still use a lot of halfling lore in your adventurer, though, if that's what you want to do. You can draw on it for the reason the halfling is adventuring.  You can pick an atypical halfling reason, revenge for killing my father.  Or you can draw on the lore and use the wanderlust, being a bad apple, curiosity or more.


FrozenNorth said:


> Halflings are also pretty unique in regard to this disconnect.
> 
> Dwarves are described as having a strong martial tradition and being pious.  You see a lot of Dwarf Fighters, Clerics and Barbarians;
> Wood Elves are very in tune with nature.  Cue lots of Wood Elf rangers and druids;
> High Elves love magic.  Lots of High Elf Wizards;



Halflings are called out as being a good choice for a sneaky rogue and rogues are mentioned twice in the halfling write-up in Mordenkainen's.


FrozenNorth said:


> Someone posted a table of races/classes from D&DBeyond.  I recall that the number of Halfling Rogues greatly dwarfed the number of other halfling classes.  Like to the extent that Halfling Rogues were two-to-three times more frequent than the next popular halfling class.



That makes sense.  They have a history of being rogues, have a dex bonus of +2, have luck to re-roll those skill checks of 1, can move through enemy spaces to get to where they need to be, and I suspect most of those halflings were lightfoots to be able to hide behind party members.  It's a great race for that class.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> The impression I got from the opening chapters of the Hobbit was that Gandalf was bamboozling the dwarves to take along a hobbit that had neither the inclination nor the expertise to be a burglar.



No. Gandalf was a maiar(angel) and a powerful one at that.  Further, he was the wisest of all the Istari(maiar wizards) and saw things in others that even they might not know was there.  He chose Bilbo for his ability as a burgler.  Bilbo just took some convincing to step into that role is all.


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## Mind of tempest (Aug 1, 2022)

lingual said:


> I don't get it.  They are in the PHB.  I don't think anyone is clamoring to remove them.



the suggestion is that those two worked out so why not drop halflings and move someone else up?


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 1, 2022)

ECMO3 said:


> There is nothing in 5E that suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.
> 
> If you want to rules-lawyer it like this the archtypical halfling is a Lawful Good Rogue.
> 
> As far as Bilbbo, it has been about 40 years since I read The Hobbit, but unless I am mistaken he was hired by the Dwarves as a "Burglar"  which sounds like a Rogue to me.




Sure, nothing in 5e suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good. 

However "Thief who breaks the laws" or "Assassin" are not archetypes generally associated with Lawful Good, hence the disconnect between the expected halfling lore and the expected halfling archetype that they pointed out.


----------



## Lanefan (Aug 1, 2022)

Hussar said:


> But halflings funnel into rogues.  Dex race, hiding bonuses for some of the halflings, that sort of thing.  Mechanically it makes perfect sense.  But, again, there's a disconnect between how the race is presented - lovers of comfort and fine things, and how they tend to get played - sneaky rogue/scout types.



Their sneaky rogue-ness is how they acquire and-or can afford all those fine comfortable things.  No disconnect at all. 


Hussar said:


> It's a very good point I think.  For a race that is supposed to be grounded in community, wouldn't clerics make a lot more sense?  Or maybe druids?  Kinda/sorta?  Then again, in the early days of the game, halflings couldn't even BE clerics.  So, I don't think there's much push in that direction.



I agree they make good Clerics and-or Druids and long ago wiped out the no-Clerics restrictions for pretty much any species intelligent enough to develop its own religion.


----------



## Lanefan (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> The impression I got from the opening chapters of the Hobbit was that Gandalf was bamboozling the dwarves to take along a hobbit that had neither the inclination nor the expertise to be a burglar.



Inclination?  No.  Expertise?  Yes.  Gandalf had seen that in him - along with a strong streak of heroism - even though Bilbo himself had no idea of his own capabilities; and he was later proven right on both counts.

Gandalf's job was simply to get the ball rolling.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, nothing in 5e suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.
> 
> However "Thief who breaks the laws" or "Assassin" are not archetypes generally associated with Lawful Good, hence the disconnect between the expected halfling lore and the expected halfling archetype that they pointed out.



Where in the halfling lore does it say that they go around breaking laws and assassinating people?  I'm not seeing the disconnect between a LG halfling rogue and and the halfling lore.


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## Mind of tempest (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Where in the halfling lore does it say that they go around breaking laws and assassinating people?  I'm not seeing the disconnect between a LG halfling rogue and and the halfling lore.



well those are the two non magic options in the phb thus unless all halflings never make it past level 2 they end up as them somehow?


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> well those are the two non magic options in the phb thus unless all halflings never make it past level 2 they end up as them somehow?



Thief is just a name attached to skills useful for adventuring. I can pick the thief subclass and not go around breaking all kinds of laws.  Assassin is more problematic, but is easily avoided by the non-bad apple LG halflings.


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## James Gasik (Aug 1, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> We are in agreement.  Unlike in certain previous editions, proficiency in Stealth isn’t locked to certain classes.  Any class can be proficient in Stealth, as can any NPC.
> 
> If that is the case, the necessary conclusion is that Hobbits aren’t halflings, since Stoutfoot halflings don’t get anything that helps with Stealth, nor do Eberron halflings, or Ghostwise halflings or Lotusden halflings.
> 
> ...



In addition to Tolkien's own statements about Hobbit stealth, yes.  First, we have the scene where Bilbo sneaks up on the Trolls.  Second, there's the scene where Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry are hiding from Ringwraiths as they leave the Shire.


----------



## James Gasik (Aug 1, 2022)

Hussar said:


> It might help to think of halflings as kender, which, in a lot of ways, they are.  It's a bit weird because, as you say, the other races tend to flow organically into certain classes that fit pretty well with how the race is presented.  Dragonborn and half orcs and dwarves tend to be martial type characters - fighters, paladins, barbarians, that sort of thing.  Elves tend to go with wizards or rangers.  Tieflings obviously have a pretty strong warlock vibe.  Gnomes fit well with artificers, obviously, but, that suffers for not being core.  I wonder if artificers being in core in the rerelease (does anyone think artificers won't be included?)  might not give gnomes a serious boost.
> 
> But halflings funnel into rogues.  Dex race, hiding bonuses for some of the halflings, that sort of thing.  Mechanically it makes perfect sense.  But, again, there's a disconnect between how the race is presented - lovers of comfort and fine things, and how they tend to get played - sneaky rogue/scout types.
> 
> It's a very good point I think.  For a race that is supposed to be grounded in community, wouldn't clerics make a lot more sense?  Or maybe druids?  Kinda/sorta?  Then again, in the early days of the game, halflings couldn't even BE clerics.  So, I don't think there's much push in that direction.



As I recall, in 1e, they could be Druids though.


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## James Gasik (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Yes and no.  If a dwarven cleric went adventuring, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.  If a dwarven fighter went adventuring, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.  You see this a lot as they are a race that is prone to adventuring.  Halflings are not, so adventurers are atypical of their race.
> 
> You can still use a lot of halfling lore in your adventurer, though, if that's what you want to do. You can draw on it for the reason the halfling is adventuring.  You can pick an atypical halfling reason, revenge for killing my father.  Or you can draw on the lore and use the wanderlust, being a bad apple, curiosity or more.
> 
> ...



Well, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (I posted the excerpt upthread) says that Lightfoot Halflings are travelers who often visit other cities, so I'd say that would make them likely to be adventurers.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Thief is just a name attached to skills useful for adventuring. I can pick the thief subclass and not go around breaking all kinds of laws.  Assassin is more problematic, but is easily avoided by the non-bad apple LG halflings.



Hells bells, an “assassin” is just an asymmetrical warrior, at the end of the day. Imagining a LG halfling assassin should be pretty easy, IMO. 

Certainly, every assassin I’ve played has been some manner of “Good”.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Hells bells, an “assassin” is just an asymmetrical warrior, at the end of the day. Imagining a LG halfling assassin should be pretty easy, IMO.



That's why I said "more problematic" and not impossible.  The abilities are more weighted towards infiltration and death strikes to vital spots than the other rogue subclasses, which makes it a bit harder to work around LG.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Certainly, every assassin I’ve played has been some manner of “Good”.



I could see NG and CG much more easily than LG for an assassin.  I did have a CE Drow Assassin/Shadowdancer in 3e once. Talk about nasty.


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## James Gasik (Aug 1, 2022)

It was like my examples before of snipers like Carlos Hathcock or Simo Hayha- one could certainly argue they were "assassins", but certainly not Evil.  In fact, since Simo was simply defending his country from invaders, and sought no praise or glory, simply wanting to return to his normal life, if someone wanted to claim he was Lawful Good, I sure wouldn't argue the topic.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It was like my examples before of snipers like Carlos Hathcock or Simo Hayha- one could certainly argue they were "assassins", but certainly not Evil.  In fact, since Simo was simply defending his country from invaders, and sought no praise or glory, simply wanting to return to his normal life, if someone wanted to claim he was Lawful Good, I sure wouldn't argue the topic.



I wouldn't argue either, mostly because I don't give to shakes of a rat's tail about alignment on the player side of things.  They'll roleplay their character how they envision it and the world will respond.  They can write down LG, NG, AB, 123 or whatever on their sheet.


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## ECMO3 (Aug 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, nothing in 5e suggests a Rogue can't be Lawful Good.
> 
> However "Thief who breaks the laws" or "Assassin" are not archetypes generally associated with Lawful Good, hence the disconnect between the expected halfling lore and the expected halfling archetype that they pointed out.




I don't think that is true though.  If you are talking about halflings in particular a Lawful-Good Burglar, like Bilbo, IS the archetype.

To break this in to two parts- first "good" -  If killing people is inherently evil then so are many of the Lawful Good archetypes. Think of all the killing Paladins and Clerics of Tyr engage in!   If we are going to accept such characters as "good" then we need to assume that killing itself, as an assassin specializes, is not inherently evil.

As far as lawful, certainly "Thief" and "Assasin" include a thematic bias towards lawbreaking, however there are plenty of state-sanctioned "Lawful" assasins in the D&D lore and the assasins guilds themselves are emblematic of a "lawful" persuit.  So even here it is not ironclad and these are only two of the available Rogue subclasses.

Other subclasses do not have any baggage and the class itself has nothing tied to lawbreaking or evil in terms of mechanics.  Masterminds, inquisotor and swashbuckler have no subclass abilities or thematics tied to breaking the law and such thematics are pretty thin on Arcane Trickster and Phantom.

Suggesting the Halfling Rogue Archetype can not be lawful good because one subclass "thief" is not inherently lawful is like suggesting the Asimar Cleric archetype can't be Lawful Good because one subclass "Death Cleric" engages in Necromancy and that is tied to evil.


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 1, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Where in the halfling lore does it say that they go around breaking laws and assassinating people?  I'm not seeing the disconnect between a LG halfling rogue and and the halfling lore.




Nowhere in the halfling lore. Those refer to the classes. 

You know, Thief which "You hone your skills in the *larcenous arts. Burglars, bandits, cutpurses, and other criminals typically follow this archetype*, but so do rogues who prefer to think of themselves as professional treasure seekers, explorers, delvers, and investigators."

Now, granted there are the other archetypes, the "professional treasure seekers" "explorers" "delvers" and "investigators", however the archetype is named THIEF not explorer or treasure seeker. So I'm going to guess it is more common to find criminals amongst them. 

And then the Assassin which says "You focus your training on the *grim art of death*. Those who adhere to this archetype are diverse—*hired killers, spies, bounty hunters, *and even specially anointed priests trained to exterminate the enemies of their deity." 

Again, there is wiggle room, you could be a priest trained in the art of murdering people for god, but the first part is about being a hired killer and the archetype is named ASSASSIN not "bounty hunter" or "priest" 

And of course all Rogues get thieves cant, examples of which involve "such as whether an area is dangerous or *the territory of a thieves' guild*, *whether loot is nearby*, or *whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.*"

All of which HEAVILY implies that they will be breaking the laws. Again, you totally can have Rogues who are Lawful Good, but the common archetype of the rogue, like Han Solo, isn't a law abiding citizen who is strongly in favor of the laws. The rogue in fact seems very geared towards _breaking the law_, which is not something typically associated with *Lawful *people. So it is strange that a race so heavily associated with the class doesn't fit the archetype.


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## ECMO3 (Aug 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Nowhere in the halfling lore. Those refer to the classes.
> 
> You know, Thief which "You hone your skills in the *larcenous arts. Burglars, bandits, cutpurses, and other criminals typically follow this archetype*, but so do rogues who prefer to think of themselves as professional treasure seekers, explorers, delvers, and investigators."
> 
> ...



That is only two of the Rogue subclasses and I will point out most classes focus on the art of killing people.  

Also bounty hunters are typically working for the law and spies are both good and evil depending on whos side you are on.


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 1, 2022)

ECMO3 said:


> I don't think that is true though.  If you are talking about halflings in particular a Lawful-Good Burglar, like Bilbo, IS the archetype.




Sure, a liar and a cheat. Totally the proto-typical LG character.



ECMO3 said:


> To break this in to two parts- first "good" -  If killing people is inherently evil then so are many of the Lawful Good archetypes. Think of all the killing Paladins and Clerics of Tyr engage in!   If we are going to accept such characters as "good" then we need to assume that killing itself, as an assassin specializes, is not inherently evil.




This does nothing to address the point. Well, it highlights why alignment debates are a waste of time, but it certainly doesn't apply to this.



ECMO3 said:


> As far as lawful, certainly "Thief" and "Assasin" include a thematic bias towards lawbreaking, however there are plenty of state-sanctioned "Lawful" assasins in the D&D lore and the assasins guilds themselves are emblematic of a "lawful" persuit.  So even here it is not ironclad and these are only two of the available Rogue subclasses.




Sorry, what was that first point? ".._.certainly "Thief" and "Assasin" include a thematic bias towards lawbreaking,._.." 

Ah great, so we can once more see exactly what the point was. That it seems rather weird that a race people want to be heavily LG is associated with a class that has a thematic bias towards breaking the law. Don't need state sanctioned assassin's guilds, because the thematic bias is still there. Also, the idea of a thieve's guild and an adventurer's guild doesn't make those people inherently lawful, so I don't know why an assassin's guild somehow makes hired murder a "lawful" pursuit, unless it is specifically state-sanctioned, which would get into some heavy questions such as "does the state sanctioned assassin's guild allow you to purchase the assassination of state leaders" all of which has nothing to do with the point, which is the italics pointed out above. That theives and assassins have a thematic bias towards lawbreaking, which makes them odd fits for a race with a thematic bias towards following the law. 

And Rogue's as a whole have a thematic bias towards law-breaking, hence why their iconic archetypes are theives, assassins, "masterminds", "tricksters" ... you know, people not bound by societies laws?



ECMO3 said:


> Other subclasses do not have any baggage and the class itself has nothing tied to lawbreaking or evil in terms of mechanics.  Masterminds, inquisotor and swashbuckler have no subclass abilities or thematics tied to breaking the law and such thematics are pretty thin on Arcane Trickster and Phantom.




Trickster archetypes are all about breaking laws and causing upheavals in society, that's the entire point of the Trickster. It may not be the point of the subclass, but you don't have "lawful" tricksters in mythology. 

Masterminds are heavily themed towards Moriarty, you know, the CRIMINAL Mastermind archetype. I mean, it literally says "Your focus is on people and on the influence and secrets they have. Many spies, courtiers, and* schemers *follow this archetype, *leading lives of intrigue*. *Words are your weapons as often as knives or poison*, and secrets and favors are some of your favorite treasures." They are clearly leaning on that archetype. 

Now, I'll agree, the Inquisitive was designed to be Holmes, a far more lawful stereotype. But the Swashbuckler is also the PIRATE archetype. And Pirates aren't exactly known for their law-abiding natures, more for their criminal natures. 

Once more. Can you possibly play a Lawful Good Rogue? Of course you can. If I had to rank Rogues, Paladins and Fighters on who is most likely to be LAwful Good, would I rank the rogue the lowest? In a heartbeat. The entire class is built on the idea of rule-breaking and non-lawful behavior. And that thematic dissonance is still there, no matter how much you try and argue that it is possible to have an LG rogue.



ECMO3 said:


> Suggesting the Halfling Rogue Archetype can not be lawful good because one subclass "thief" is not inherently lawful is like suggesting the Asimar Cleric archetype can't be Lawful Good because one subclass "Death Cleric" engages in Necromancy and that is tied to evil.




And that isn't at all what was being said. What was being said was that there is a strange dissonance in taking a race tied towards being LG and associating it with one of the least lawful archetypical classes in the game. For a more succinct example, it would be like saying Aasimar are most commonly Warlocks. Sure, Celestial Warlocks exist, but the thematic arena of the Warlock leads itself far more to deals with fiends and other dark powers, which would be really weird for a race so closely tied to the divine.


----------



## Hussar (Aug 1, 2022)

Just cogitating a bit about how the race-class combos may strongly influence things.

Back in the day, dwarves were fighters with a couple of changes.  Elves were fighter/MU's.  Humans were a bit of everything, although, not allowed to be more than one thing at a time (Sure, 1e introduced dual classing rules, but, unless you were using some pretty seriously generous character generation, that wasn't likely on the table and was very punishing in any case) and halflings were rogues.  Then came 1e.  And now, you expanded quite a lot for elves - you could be an elven pretty much anything a human could be, dwarves got expanded into clerics although, still pretty much just fighters and halflings... could be rogues.  Extremely limited in anything else.  Even fighter, most commonly played class in the game, they were limited to what, 6th level?  Something like that.

It wouldn't be until 3e that halflings could be anything that anyone else could be, and I wonder if that hadn't solidified a way of thinking about halflings that has sort of pervaded.  Even in 3e, with the punishing effects of a strength penalty, and less damage with weapons, you generally didn't see a lot of halfling fighters and whatnot.  Some, sure, I don't deny that at all.  But, not a lot of them.

And I think that this mentality has really kept on.  Since halflings for a very large chunk of the history of the game couldn't be wizards, couldn't be clerics, realistically couldn't be fighters (or could only be very limited fighters) I wonder if that might explain why halflings aren't played that often.  Would generally explain why dwarves don't get played as often as, say, elves - they can be more things, but, still couldn't be MU's until 3e (and even then you saw lots of opinion that dwarves should never be wizards - an attitude that has since changed) and not very good clerics because of level limits.

I also wonder if there is any correlation between those who see more halflings being played and those who ejected (or greatly reduced) racial level limitations.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know, Thief which "You hone your skills in the *larcenous arts. Burglars, bandits, cutpurses, and other criminals typically follow this archetype*, but so do rogues who prefer to think of themselves as professional treasure seekers, explorers, delvers, and investigators."
> 
> Now, granted there are the other archetypes, the "professional treasure seekers" "explorers" "delvers" and "investigators", however the archetype is named THIEF not explorer or treasure seeker. So I'm going to guess it is more common to find criminals amongst them.



The name isn't really relevant here.  Thief includes the other archetypes that halflings will fill.  Except for those bad apples mentioned that would become the bolded archetypes. All alignments, including LG are supported by this subclass.


Chaosmancer said:


> And then the Assassin which says "You focus your training on the *grim art of death*. Those who adhere to this archetype are diverse—*hired killers, spies, bounty hunters, *and even specially anointed priests trained to exterminate the enemies of their deity."



Yeah.  As I mentioned, this is more problematic to fit with LG, but also not relevant.  Halflings outside of those bad apples, the LG adventuring rogues, simply pick other subclasses.


Chaosmancer said:


> Again, there is wiggle room, you could be a priest trained in the art of murdering people for god, but the first part is about being a hired killer and the archetype is named ASSASSIN not "bounty hunter" or "priest"



That priest would in my opinion probably be NG.  The good alignment most likely to engage in "the ends justify the means" activities.


Chaosmancer said:


> And of course all Rogues get thieves cant, examples of which involve "such as whether an area is dangerous or *the territory of a thieves' guild*, *whether loot is nearby*, or *whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.*"



This is a nothing burger.  It doesn't make you a true thief or lawbreaker, nor of an alignment other than LG.


Chaosmancer said:


> All of which HEAVILY implies that they will be breaking the laws.



Except it ALSO heavily implies that you will simply be an adventurer that doesn't break laws.  Which way you go will depend.............................................on alignment.  The LG halflings simply won't be lawbreakers or assassins.


Chaosmancer said:


> Again, you totally can have Rogues who are Lawful Good, but the common archetype of the rogue, like Han Solo, isn't a law abiding citizen who is strongly in favor of the laws. The rogue in fact seems very geared towards _breaking the law_, which is not something typically associated with *Lawful *people. So it is strange that a race so heavily associated with the class doesn't fit the archetype.



That should be *A*(not the) common archetype is like Han Solo. Look at Indiana Jones.  He's also a rogue, but one who stands against Nazis, rescues damsels in distress and saves archeological pieces from criminals.  He is another common archetype of rogue.


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## Maxperson (Aug 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, a liar and a cheat. Totally the proto-typical LG character.



LG people can do both and still be LG.  The thing with Bilbo was that both of those things were out of character for him and were in large part due to the influence of the ring. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Sorry, what was that first point? ".._.certainly "Thief" and "Assasin" include a thematic bias towards lawbreaking,._.."
> 
> Ah great, so we can once more see exactly what the point was. That it seems rather weird that a race people want to be heavily LG is associated with a class that has a thematic bias towards breaking the law. Don't need state sanctioned assassin's guilds, because the thematic bias is still there. Also, the idea of a thieve's guild and an adventurer's guild doesn't make those people inherently lawful, so I don't know why an assassin's guild somehow makes hired murder a "lawful" pursuit, unless it is specifically state-sanctioned, which would get into some heavy questions such as "does the state sanctioned assassin's guild allow you to purchase the assassination of state leaders" all of which has nothing to do with the point, which is the italics pointed out above. That theives and assassins have a thematic bias towards lawbreaking, which makes them odd fits for a race with a thematic bias towards following the law.



Except that yet again, the thief also has a thematic bias that has nothing to do with lawbreaking that is every bit as strong as the one you are trying to foist onto halflings.


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## James Gasik (Aug 2, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> LG people can do both and still be LG.  The thing with Bilbo was that both of those things were out of character for him and were in large part due to the influence of the ring.
> 
> Except that yet again, the thief also has a thematic bias that has nothing to do with lawbreaking that is every bit as strong as the one you are trying to foist onto halflings.



Yeah I mean, you could play a Thief as a locksmith, duly licensed by the government.  You could ask why a locksmith would have Sneak Attack...but you could say the same for a few other Rogue subclasses, lol.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 2, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> That's why I said "more problematic" and not impossible.  The abilities are more weighted towards infiltration and death strikes to vital spots than the other rogue subclasses, which makes it a bit harder to work around LG.
> 
> I could see NG and CG much more easily than LG for an assassin.  I did have a CE Drow Assassin/Shadowdancer in 3e once. Talk about nasty.



Oh I think the actual Assassin, as such, but particularly the politically or religiously motivated Assassin, is the easiest one to make LG. Once you’re killing for money, LG gets rough. 

But basically put some halflings in the position of needing to regularly fend off threats from neighboring groups, and it’s easy to imagine the quiet disappearances of leaders who threaten the halflings and their allies. 

But yeah you do have to avoid thinking of them as “contract killers”, and instead view them as history and modern politics use the term, which is essentially a weapon of asymmetrical warfare.


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## Lanefan (Aug 2, 2022)

Hussar said:


> I also wonder if there is any correlation between those who see more halflings being played and those who ejected (or greatly reduced) racial level limitations.



Good point; although as it also applies to the other non-Human species of 1e I wonder if the flip-side rings more true - that simply fewer Humans are-were played in games that had greatly reduced or outright removed demi-Human level limits.

In my own games, which have no demi-Human level limits other than a few species simply can't be a few classes, it has made no appreciable difference; over the long run 40+% of all characters have been Human.


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## Lazvon (Aug 2, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> In addition to Tolkien's own statements about Hobbit stealth, yes.  First, we have the scene where Bilbo sneaks up on the Trolls.  Second, there's the scene where Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry are hiding from Ringwraiths as they leave the Shire.



3rd we have Sam, Merry, and Pippin spying for quite a while on arguably some of the highest level characters who were assembled for the council to form the Fellowship of the Ring…


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## Hussar (Aug 2, 2022)

Would you really put Sam, Merry or Pippin as rogues though? Not really what comes to mind. The only rogue really is Bilbo and even that’s a stretch. 

It’s not unreasonable to say that there is a pretty big disconnect between the archetypal halflings of Tolkien and the halflings of DnD.


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 2, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> The name isn't really relevant here.  Thief includes the other archetypes that halflings will fill.  Except for those bad apples mentioned that would become the bolded archetypes. All alignments, including LG are supported by this subclass.
> 
> Yeah.  As I mentioned, this is more problematic to fit with LG, but also not relevant.  Halflings outside of those bad apples, the LG adventuring rogues, simply pick other subclasses.
> 
> ...




Yes, the name does matter Max. Because while the "thief" can be a stand-in for many things. It is also, mainly, supposed to be A THIEF. And I love how you keep refering to "bad apple" halflings, like that has any bearing on the point that was made and the objection to it in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't. 

I also don't get how you think "they'd just pick other subclasses" has any relevance, when, again, the Rogue is the most lawless class in the game. Sure, Indy is a rogue, and he punches Nazi's. And he totally takes those relics he found, alone in the Jungle, to the proper authorities, right? He definetly had government permission to go to ancient sites of cultural importance and wasn't just cutting his way through jungles with little regard to the law, right? 

There is a reason Rogues were called "Thieves" in the early game. There is a reason that the PHB calls out that most rogues live up to the worst stereotypes of the class. It is because, other than the warlock, the Rogue, as a class, is the most likely to break the law out of every single class in the game. It is a stereotype, just like the Druid being a hippy and the wizard being a nerd. The Rogue is a criminal. Are their non-criminal rogues? Yes, I've acknowledged that REPEATEDLY, but they are not exactly known for being law-abiding citizens with a respect for personal property, now are they? And that is the point that was made. The stereotype vs the expected combo. 



Maxperson said:


> LG people can do both and still be LG.  The thing with Bilbo was that both of those things were out of character for him and were in large part due to the influence of the ring.




Uh huh, sure the ring corrupted him within minutes of him getting it. It isn't like he lasted literal decades holding on to it.  And obviously when Bilbo was being used as the example in 1e LG Paladins could lie and cheat, because that was perfectly allowed.

Then again, I don't really care about Bilbo's alignment.




Maxperson said:


> Except that yet again, the thief also has a thematic bias that has nothing to do with lawbreaking that is every bit as strong as the one you are trying to foist onto halflings.




The thief does not have two different thematic biases. That isn't how this works. And I'm foisting nothing off on halflings. Pay attention to the actual arguments please, not your made up ones.


----------



## Maxperson (Aug 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yes, the name does matter Max. Because while the "thief" can be a stand-in for many things. It is also, mainly, supposed to be A THIEF. And I love how you keep refering to "bad apple" halflings, like that has any bearing on the point that was made and the objection to it in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't.



The bad apples are my point.  Bad halflings exist in the lore and leave the village.  They will both become thieves and fit the lore, so even if you trying and twist thief into a bunch of lawbreakers who only lawbreak, halflings still fit it.  The reality is, though, that thieves are every bit as much NOT lawbreakers as they are lawbreakers.  And when it comes to adventurers, far more will be of the non-lawbreaking kind than lawbreaking.


Chaosmancer said:


> I also don't get how you think "they'd just pick other subclasses" has any relevance, when, again, the Rogue is the most lawless class in the game.



Not many laws in the middle of nature, so druids are even more lawless.  As are rascally anti-civilization barbarians.  It also doesn't matter.  Not one bit. Even if 90% of rogues were lawless, the other 10% could be LG halflings and fit the lore.  

You're placing waaaaaaaay too much importance on what you feel the rogue class is, while ignoring that it doesn't matter because there is enough space within the rogue to allow every halfling rogue in existence to be LG.


Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, Indy is a rogue, and he punches Nazi's. And he totally takes those relics he found, alone in the Jungle, to the proper authorities, right? He definetly had government permission to go to ancient sites of cultural importance and wasn't just cutting his way through jungles with little regard to the law, right?



You did see the government put the Ark away, right?  And wanted to recover the Cross of Coronado to return it to the museum.  


Chaosmancer said:


> There is a reason Rogues were called "Thieves" in the early game. There is a reason that the PHB calls out that most rogues live up to the worst stereotypes of the class. It is because, other than the warlock, the Rogue, as a class, is the most likely to break the law out of every single class in the game. It is a stereotype, just like the Druid being a hippy and the wizard being a nerd. The Rogue is a criminal. Are their non-criminal rogues? Yes, I've acknowledged that REPEATEDLY, but they are not exactly known for being law-abiding citizens with a respect for personal property, now are they? And that is the point that was made. The stereotype vs the expected combo.



There's a reason that none of that is relevant to halflings which can easily, within both halfling AND rogue lore, be LG rogues.


Chaosmancer said:


> The thief does not have two different thematic biases. That isn't how this works. And I'm foisting nothing off on halflings. Pay attention to the actual arguments please, not your made up ones.



It does, and IS how it works.  You even quoted it.

"Burglars, bandits, cutpurses, and other criminals typically follow this archetype, but so do rogues who prefer to think of themselves as professional* treasure seekers, explorers, delvers, and investigators.*"

Let's see.  Three that fit the criminal not LG archetype, and FOUR(that's more than three) that have no such bias and can all be LG.


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## Faolyn (Aug 2, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Would you really put Sam, Merry or Pippin as rogues though? Not really what comes to mind. The only rogue really is Bilbo and even that’s a stretch.
> 
> It’s not unreasonable to say that there is a pretty big disconnect between the archetypal halflings of Tolkien and the halflings of DnD.



Rogue/thief has always been sort of an "everything else" class, which is why Van RIchten was a thief back in 2e. They're not warriors and they're not spellcasters, so they have to be rogues. They _could _be statted up as an Expert sidekick in 5e... but Experts get a bunch of rogue abilities. They just don't have sneak attack. And even if Sam, Merry, or Pippen have sneak attack, it doesn't mean they have to _use _it. 

But yes, there's a difference between a D&D halfling and a Tolkienesque hobbit.


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## James Gasik (Aug 2, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Would you really put Sam, Merry or Pippin as rogues though? Not really what comes to mind. The only rogue really is Bilbo and even that’s a stretch.
> 
> It’s not unreasonable to say that there is a pretty big disconnect between the archetypal halflings of Tolkien and the halflings of DnD.



No, they aren't Rogues.  It just goes to show that while Hobbits are naturally gifted with stealth that borders on magical, Halflings are not so talented.  Likely because when WotC made the PHB, they didn't want race to be as important as class, and so they were quite conservative with their design.  

Granted, even if they had given them such an ability, like say, the ability to use non-detection or invisibility innately, there's a certain subset of D&D players who would reject magical Halflings outright, so it's probably for the best.  If you want super stealthy Halflings, you have to go get that fantasy on your own, the game won't give it to you, sadly.


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## Crimson Longinus (Aug 2, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> They just don't have sneak attack. And even if Sam, Merry, or Pippen have sneak attack, it doesn't mean they have to _use _it.



I'm _pretty sure_ Merry has sneak attack...


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## James Gasik (Aug 2, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm _pretty sure_ Merry has sneak attack...



Well maybe he *is* a Rogue.  Though I think he and Pippin multiclass later.


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## Irlo (Aug 2, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm _pretty sure_ Merry has sneak attack...



It looks to me like he rolled a one and managed to get a crit on the re-roll.


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 2, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> The bad apples are my point.  Bad halflings exist in the lore and leave the village.  They will both become thieves and fit the lore, so even if you trying and twist thief into a bunch of lawbreakers who only lawbreak, halflings still fit it.  The reality is, though, that thieves are every bit as much NOT lawbreakers as they are lawbreakers.  And when it comes to adventurers, far more will be of the non-lawbreaking kind than lawbreaking.




So, the stereotypical halfling is the bad apple, law-breaker banished from their village? That's what halflings are most well known for? 

Because, well, you spilled a lot of digital ink saying that they aren't best known for that. That they are best known for being good, honest citizens. 

This isn't some sort of gotcha "it must be 100% one way" Max. This is literally "Most common stereotype 1 doesn't match with most common stereotype A" You are acting like the fact you can prove criminal halflings exist, or law-abiding rogues exist, that this prevents there from being a dissonance. But you are wrong, because exceptions do not break the stereotypes.



Maxperson said:


> Not many laws in the middle of nature, so druids are even more lawless.  As are rascally anti-civilization barbarians.  It also doesn't matter.  Not one bit. Even if 90% of rogues were lawless, the other 10% could be LG halflings and fit the lore.
> 
> You're placing waaaaaaaay too much importance on what you feel the rogue class is, while ignoring that it doesn't matter because there is enough space within the rogue to allow every halfling rogue in existence to be LG.




And still completely missing the point I see. Are Druids none for their law-breaking tendencies? Nope, because they don't have laws in the first place to break. What about barbarians! They follow their own laws, which aren't civilizations laws. And in fact, they pretty much NEVER break those laws. It is a common trope.

Do LG halfling rogues exist? Entirely pointless to the point being made! Which is that Stereotype 1 (Rogues are criminals that steal things) does not match with Stereotype A (Halflings are good honest folk who just want to help). If 90% of all rogues are criminals that break the law, then it is utterly insane that the exception being LG Halfling Rogues is also the most common rogue race combo. Which is literally the point brought up.



Maxperson said:


> You did see the government put the Ark away, right?  And wanted to recover the Cross of Coronado to return it to the museum.




Uh huh. And how often did he talk to a government other than the United States about things like going to cultural heritages sites and smashing them to pieces?



Maxperson said:


> There's a reason that none of that is relevant to halflings which can easily, within both halfling AND rogue lore, be LG rogues.




Right. The exact dissonance which was being called out. That you refuse to acknowledge, because it doesn't exist, except that it obviously exists because you have to square the circle to make it fit.



Maxperson said:


> It does, and IS how it works.  You even quoted it.
> 
> "Burglars, bandits, cutpurses, and other criminals typically follow this archetype, but so do rogues who prefer to think of themselves as professional* treasure seekers, explorers, delvers, and investigators.*"
> 
> Let's see.  Three that fit the criminal not LG archetype, and FOUR(that's more than three) that have no such bias and can all be LG.




The bias is towards criminal activity. Other things exist. But those other things are not the bias. That's why it is called a bias, not a reality or an unmutable law. And you can't have a bias towards two opposing things. That is the non-existance of a bias, because a bias leans one way. Not both ways. You can't have a bias towards hot and towards cold. That is nonsense.

It is not in any way controversial to say that the stereotypical rogue is a criminal. Why are you fighting so stupidly hard to deny this? No one is saying that rogues cannot possibly be anything other than criminals. Just that the stereotypical rogue that there is a bias to in the class descriptions and peoples conceptions of them, are criminals.


----------



## Maxperson (Aug 2, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Rogue/thief has always been sort of an "everything else" class, which is why Van RIchten was a thief back in 2e. They're not warriors and they're not spellcasters, so they have to be rogues. They _could _be statted up as an Expert sidekick in 5e... but Experts get a bunch of rogue abilities. They just don't have sneak attack. And even if Sam, Merry, or Pippen have sneak attack, it doesn't mean they have to _use _it.
> 
> But yes, there's a difference between a D&D halfling and a Tolkienesque hobbit.



The Witch King got hit by a sneak attack by one of those hobbits.


----------



## Maxperson (Aug 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, the stereotypical halfling is the bad apple, law-breaker banished from their village? That's what halflings are most well known for?
> 
> Because, well, you spilled a lot of digital ink saying that they aren't best known for that. That they are best known for being good, honest citizens.
> 
> This isn't some sort of gotcha "it must be 100% one way" Max. This is literally "Most common stereotype 1 doesn't match with most common stereotype A" You are acting like the fact you can prove criminal halflings exist, or law-abiding rogues exist, that this prevents there from being a dissonance. But you are wrong, because exceptions do not break the stereotypes.



Nor do stereotypes.  As badly as you want to ignore it, there is a LG rogue stereotype that Indiana Jones is modeled after.  I've seen it in other movies, read it in books, etc.

So it's a fact that the most common halfling stereotype matches a popular rogue stereotype and the existence of other popular rogue stereotypes does nothing to change that.


Chaosmancer said:


> And still completely missing the point I see. Are Druids none for their law-breaking tendencies? Nope, because they don't have laws in the first place to break. What about barbarians! They follow their own laws, which aren't civilizations laws. And in fact, they pretty much NEVER break those laws. It is a common trope.



Do you have any idea how many trappings of civilization have been destroyed by druids? How many bear animal companions have been illegally taken into taverns and used in fights?  How many time they've changed into a bear and attacked someone in town? How many times some lord or official is damaging nature lawfully and been attacked by druids?


Chaosmancer said:


> If 90% of all rogues are criminals that break the law



They aren't.


Chaosmancer said:


> Uh huh. And how often did he talk to a government other than the United States about things like going to cultural heritages sites and smashing them to pieces?



Does it matter.  LG is a general behavior, not some perfect following of all laws and rules.  A person doesn't have to do everything in a LG manner to be LG.


Chaosmancer said:


> Right. The exact dissonance which was being called out. That you refuse to acknowledge, because it doesn't exist, except that it obviously exists because you have to square the circle to make it fit.



You can't say "right" and then say that there's a "dissonance."  I was saying that the lore matches up just fine, because there's plenty of room for both lores to fit together seamlessly.


Chaosmancer said:


> The bias is towards criminal activity. Other things exist. But those other things are not the bias. That's why it is called a bias, not a reality or an unmutable law. And you can't have a bias towards two opposing things. That is the non-existance of a bias, because a bias leans one way. Not both ways. You can't have a bias towards hot and towards cold. That is nonsense.



Right. There is no bias.  The thief was designed to fit both criminals and non-criminals equally. 


Chaosmancer said:


> It is not in any way controversial to say that the stereotypical rogue is a criminal.



There is no *THE* stereotypical rogue. There are several different major rogue stereotypes.  One of them is criminal, yes.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Aug 2, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Do you have any idea how many trappings of civilization have been destroyed by druids? How many bear animal companions have been illegally taken into taverns and used in fights?  How many time they've changed into a bear and attacked someone in town? How many times some lord or official is damaging nature lawfully and been attacked by druids?




No, and neither do you




Maxperson said:


> Nor do stereotypes.  As badly as you want to ignore it, there is a LG rogue stereotype that Indiana Jones is modeled after.  I've seen it in other movies, read it in books, etc.
> 
> So it's a fact that the most common halfling stereotype matches a popular rogue stereotype and the existence of other popular rogue stereotypes does nothing to change that.







Maxperson said:


> They aren't.
> 
> Does it matter.  LG is a general behavior, not some perfect following of all laws and rules.  A person doesn't have to do everything in a LG manner to be LG.
> 
> ...





Whatever, you are just proving, once again, there is no point in talking to you. You must deny the literal most common stereotype in the game, because to do otherwise might possibly maybe, mean that someone other than you has a point. 

The Criminal Rogue who steals things isn't the rogue stereotype. No idea why literally every person making a joke about stock rogues says this, why the class literally used to be called "thieves" and their most iconic abilities involves stabbing someone from behind, stealing, and breaking into treasures chests. It must be a fever dream. Clearly the entire class called "thieves" wasn't built on the concept of criminal behavior.


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## Maxperson (Aug 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, and neither do you



I know it's a freaking huge number.  And since you're going to play that game, you have no idea how many rogues are of the stereotype that you are championing, so that leaves us in the same boat.


----------



## Faolyn (Aug 2, 2022)

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm _pretty sure_ Merry has sneak attack...



I should watch the movies again.


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## Hussar (Aug 2, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I should watch the movies again.



Now this I agree with.


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## Lazvon (Aug 2, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Would you really put Sam, Merry or Pippin as rogues though? Not really what comes to mind. The only rogue really is Bilbo and even that’s a stretch.
> 
> It’s not unreasonable to say that there is a pretty big disconnect between the archetypal halflings of Tolkien and the halflings of DnD.




I wouldn’t say Rogues except for that sneak attack that someone else just posted… but then we will start arguing about whether there were vital organs for him to actually attack or not…

Actually also, (been 30-years since I read the books, so maybe this was movie only) they were stealing fireworks successfully… stealing all the food from the farmer for the third time and even “caught” still getting away in the corn field…

Oh yeah, Sam outside the window listening to Gandalf… GM clearly made him recheck his sneak since it had been a while and he rolled a Crit 1 and snapped a twig. Otherwise, sneaky enough to spy on Gandalf for the whole conversation… that heard “nothing other than… everything”.

That said, my point was, seems innate to me and not nearly as “practiced” as a class would indicate. Especially in Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam’s cases.

Lastly yes on watching the movies. Some of the CGI isn’t the best… but man they hold up. Extended release watching in half parts last weekend. Awesome. Got through first third of Two Towers.


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## Hussar (Aug 2, 2022)

Yoinking some farmer's mushrooms isn't exactly what most people have in mind when they think of the rogue class, I think.  

Basically though, the point is fairly well made.  The pairing of the rogue class with halflings is a bit of an odd duck.  So odd that they rewrote halflings as kender in order to make the race actually fit.


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## Gammadoodler (Aug 2, 2022)

Halfling adventurers, who are good at doing rogue things, wind up as rogues. Seems pretty straightforward, you take the job you're good at.

Excessive concern over the 'thematic implications' of one class association like this seems kind of silly given that like 90% (or more) of D&D rules content is spent detailing how to kill other creatures or otherwise ruin their lives.

Edit: response to moderation.


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## Umbran (Aug 2, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Pearl-clutching ...




*Mod Note:*
Can we not go the route of snark, please? Thanks.


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## Hussar (Aug 3, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Halfling adventurers, who are good at doing rogue things, wind up as rogues. Seems pretty straightforward, you take the job you're good at.
> 
> Excessive concern over the 'thematic implications' of one class association like this seems kind of silly given that like 90% (or more) of D&D rules content is spent detailing how to kill other creatures or otherwise ruin their lives.
> 
> Edit: response to moderation.




Again it’s a bit chicken and egg though. Halflings are good rogues because they were designed that way mechanically. They were designed that way because of Tolkien even though pretty much nothing such halflings as a people lends itself to being thieves or rogues. 

Like I said that’s why kender are the way they are - the anti-hobbit. 

It would be interesting to see race play stats from DnD Beyond post Tasha’s and floating racial stat bumps. Suddenly halflings don’t make the best rogues. I wonder if the change has had any impact.


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## James Gasik (Aug 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Again it’s a bit chicken and egg though. Halflings are good rogues because they were designed that way mechanically. They were designed that way because of Tolkien even though pretty much nothing such halflings as a people lends itself to being thieves or rogues.
> 
> Like I said that’s why kender are the way they are - the anti-hobbit.
> 
> It would be interesting to see race play stats from DnD Beyond post Tasha’s and floating racial stat bumps. Suddenly halflings don’t make the best rogues. I wonder if the change has had any impact.



Probably, yes.  Especially now post Mordenkainen's, when more races, like Aasimar have the option to be Small if that suits your concept.  I once made a Goblin Cleric, not because of their racials, but because they were the smallest available race- I decided I would solve my mobility issues* by occupying the Fighter's backpack, lol.

*Playing as a healing Cleric, I've found that it can be sometimes hard to get close to an ally to deliver a real healing spell, so I've tried a few options to counter this.  The Goblin was fun, but that was my last AL game.  I also played an Orc Cleric to take advantage of the fact that "moving closer to an enemy" usually also means "moving closer to a wounded ally", lol.


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## Hussar (Aug 3, 2022)

See, that was the point I was making earlier about halflings and to a large degree gnomes.  Both are molded around a really specific archetype which does make them somewhat less broadly appealing.  Even something like a half-orc works as pretty much any fighter type and not a terrible cleric either.  Sure, you don't get that Wis bonus, but, that Strength and Con bonus both work pretty well for a lot of cleric builds.  Granted, no one is going to accuse you of optimizing for playing a half-orc bard, but, there are a number of options that they do lean into pretty well.  Dragonborn fill kinda the same niche.  Again, any fighter type is fine.  Clerics work as well.  So, even though Dragonborn have pretty much zero lore in 5e, they still get played a lot because they have a pretty broad appeal and especially the fact that they appeal to the most popular classes in the game.  

I mean, sure, rogues are still one of the most popular classes in the game.  No question there. But, when you combine all the fighter types, suddenly I think you get a much better picture of why halflings struggle to find a place in the game.  You've got a race that's tied to a class that is quite popular, fair enough, but, it's still only one class compared to a range of classes (fighter types 4, wizard types 3, clerics (which, let's be fair here, cleric just as a class has a BUNCH of different types) 2 and then rogues 1 class)

Honestly, I think if we want to expand halflings, the best approach would be to make them more broadly appealing to more classes.  Sure, dex fighters work, but, that tends to be a more specific build and there's nothing really to suggest halfling over, say, elf which also gets the dex based stuff, plus weapon proficiencies and possibly spells and that speed penalty hurts.  

I'm not sure how to fix this to be honest.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Aug 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> See, that was the point I was making earlier about halflings and to a large degree gnomes.  Both are molded around a really specific archetype which does make them somewhat less broadly appealing.  Even something like a half-orc works as pretty much any fighter type and not a terrible cleric either.  Sure, you don't get that Wis bonus, but, that Strength and Con bonus both work pretty well for a lot of cleric builds.  Granted, no one is going to accuse you of optimizing for playing a half-orc bard, but, there are a number of options that they do lean into pretty well.  Dragonborn fill kinda the same niche.  Again, any fighter type is fine.  Clerics work as well.  So, even though Dragonborn have pretty much zero lore in 5e, they still get played a lot because they have a pretty broad appeal and especially the fact that they appeal to the most popular classes in the game.
> 
> I mean, sure, rogues are still one of the most popular classes in the game.  No question there. But, when you combine all the fighter types, suddenly I think you get a much better picture of why halflings struggle to find a place in the game.  You've got a race that's tied to a class that is quite popular, fair enough, but, it's still only one class compared to a range of classes (fighter types 4, wizard types 3, clerics (which, let's be fair here, cleric just as a class has a BUNCH of different types) 2 and then rogues 1 class)
> 
> ...



I think at that point we're talking more about mechanics than lore.

I do think halflings could use a  it of a bump on that front now that Tasha's has flattened the dex-based playing field, though I don't think elves are really the issue (outside of their lore vampirism). The weapons proficiencies are mostly an irrelevance on a martial class, the charm resistance is equivalent to Bravery with a less common effect. With elves, it mostly comes down to darkvision and Perception proficiency, which are good but not game breaking (imho).

The "problem" post-Tasha's, from a mechanical perspective, is gnomes. They are already small, have darkvision, and Gnome Cunning is waaay stronger than any of the halfling features.

What kind of mechanical bump would do it..not sure, maybe a bonus to mounted combat, maybe an ability to use acrobatics for combat maneuvers, getting under folks' feet. Maybe pack tactics or something similar. Lots of potential flavor that could be translated into mechanics.

I don't think the problem is insurmountable.


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## Hussar (Aug 3, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> What kind of mechanical bump would do it..not sure, maybe a bonus to mounted combat, maybe an ability to use acrobatics for combat maneuvers, getting under folks' feet. Maybe pack tactics or something similar. Lots of potential flavor that could be translated into mechanics.
> 
> I don't think the problem is insurmountable.



Oh, I actually agree.  Surprisingly maybe, but, I do agree.  Where I might disagree isn't that the problem is insurmountable, but, rather that I question whether it's worth it.  

I mean, if we give halflings pack tactics and dark vision,  then, well, why not just go all the way and make them kobolds?  There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two at that point.


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## James Gasik (Aug 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Oh, I actually agree.  Surprisingly maybe, but, I do agree.  Where I might disagree isn't that the problem is insurmountable, but, rather that I question whether it's worth it.
> 
> I mean, if we give halflings pack tactics and dark vision,  then, well, why not just go all the way and make them kobolds?  There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two at that point.



Because unfortunately, Pack Tactics was deemed too good, and Kobolds are losing it.


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## Chaosmancer (Aug 3, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I think at that point we're talking more about mechanics than lore.
> 
> I do think halflings could use a  it of a bump on that front now that Tasha's has flattened the dex-based playing field, though I don't think elves are really the issue (outside of their lore vampirism). The weapons proficiencies are mostly an irrelevance on a martial class, the charm resistance is equivalent to Bravery with a less common effect. With elves, it mostly comes down to darkvision and Perception proficiency, which are good but not game breaking (imho).
> 
> ...




I mean, giving them a skill proficiency seems like the obvious answer. Maybe alongside a tool.


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## Gammadoodler (Aug 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Oh, I actually agree.  Surprisingly maybe, but, I do agree.  Where I might disagree isn't that the problem is insurmountable, but, rather that I question whether it's worth it.
> 
> I mean, if we give halflings pack tactics and dark vision,  then, well, why not just go all the way and make them kobolds?  There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two at that point.



One of the reasons I did not mention darkvision even if it seems like more races have it than not.

As to whether it's worth it, we probably disagree. While I don't share the opinion some folks have around here that there is something fundamentally wrong with the pseudo-hobbit lore that currently exists, I do find it exceptionally and unnecessarily boring, especially considering the mechanics of the bace race.

Sure, a lucky, brave, sociable race can live quietly in isolated pastoral communities, or mixed peacably within other populations and be perfectly cromulent within a D&D setting. It just leaves most of the meat on the bone.

Instead of continuing to pay homage to an IP they can't directly reference, they could devote a little bit of creative energy toward thinking through how a racially lucky, brave, sociable race might live (though that might mean we have to wait a little bit for the next subrace of elf).

Personally I'm partial to politically neutral nomadic city-states that behave like giant circuses moving from nation to nation trading in exotic goods and lore. Mechanically, you throw a couple cool abilities related to acrobatics and/or some of the social skills their way (at some appropriate level of combat applicability) and call it a day.

On the other hand, maybe what we need is yet another race that allows us to explore what other fantasy creatures might share pelvic compatibility with fantasy humans..

Have we done oozes yet?

I don't know man.


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## Gammadoodler (Aug 3, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I mean, giving them a skill proficiency seems like the obvious answer. Maybe alongside a tool.



Yeah, or put some more juice into how their luck works, especially in such a way that it gives players more agency in how it gets used.


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## Minigiant (Aug 3, 2022)

I keep saying give them luck points.

Give halflings the lore ability to change luck.

In my Klassico setting, the goddess of luck, Lady Luck, blessed the halfling race "because she thought it was funny" and to pissed of the Fairy Queen by making humaniod leprechauns.

Halflings have a culture of suspersition about luck and can activate luck by being reckless or carefree. Halfling shires don't get attacked or are easy to defend because the conflux of lucky short bastards ensures that no one ever randomly attacks them and when attacked, the halflings either get lucky shots or "their allies show up just in time".

However luck swings back and halfling communities unususll encounter a tradegy every 3 or so generations.

Humans, elves, dwarves keep halfling around because they are litterally walking lucky charms in large numbers. However every 70-100 years, expect a orc horde or aspiring dark lord walking into your county.

Halfling don't have kingdoms and don't belief in nobility because of this. Too many halflings in one place means "Golden Age then Dark Age". There are stories and legend of halfling kingdom that was a heavenly city-state that got absolutely obliterated and lost to history.

The family unit is big enough to pull in luck but small enough to not invite disaster. Halfling shires stay small. Halfling adventurers and travelers is a social defense to keep numbers down. If too many halfling are born, the elders encourage the rowdiest ones to seek wonders or set up new towns. They keep up ties with the nobles of other races to offer a noble a caravan of 100-200 halflings to ensure a good harvest or nice prospecting of resources. 

"Oh you setting up mining town? Who be taking care of the towny stuff? You need bakers, brewers, tailors, and cobblers and such. Well we got a bunch of sons and daughters..."


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## Mortilupo (Oct 16, 2022)

D&D should retire both the halfling and Gnome (Which are Fey).


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## Mortilupo (Oct 16, 2022)

talien said:


> Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.
> 
> View attachment 252463
> Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​So What's the Problem?​Halflings, derived from hobbits, have been a curious nod to Tolkien's influence on fantasy. While dwarves and elves have deep mythological roots, hobbits are more modern inventions. And their inclusion was very much a response to the adventurous life that the agrarian homebodies considered an aberration. In short, most hobbits didn't want to be adventurers, and Bilbo, Frodo, and the others were forever changed by their experiences, such that it was difficult for them to reintegrate when they returned home. You don't hear much about elves and dwarves having difficulty returning home after being adventurers, and for good reason. Tolkien was making a point about the human condition and the nature of war by using hobbits as proxies.
> ...



Kender are a Gnomish sub-race.


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## bedir than (Oct 16, 2022)

The Rings of Power take on halflings was excellent. Harfoots were similar, but different from Hobbits. They were a great example of how a race is a template not a mold. There's variety in the subraces and the individuals.

Raise a glass to the caravan-ing halfings that chomp on raw snails and apples.


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## Mecheon (Oct 16, 2022)

Mortilupo said:


> Kender are a Gnomish sub-race.



Don't taint my gnomes with such blasphomy


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## Hussar (Oct 17, 2022)

Mortilupo said:


> D&D should retire both the halfling and Gnome (Which are Fey).



I'm going to back away from this comment very, very slowly.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 17, 2022)

Maybe Paramount produces a D&D cartoon with little demihumans and then halflings and gnomes become very popular among children thanks a couple of funny characters. Tyrion Lannister, from "Game of Thrones", is a good example of how a writter can create an really interesting gnome-like character. And Critical Role showed other types of gnomes characters.


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## doctorhook (Oct 17, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Maybe Paramount produces a D&D cartoon with little demihumans and then halflings and gnomes become very popular among children thanks a couple of funny characters. Tyrion Lannister, from "Game of Thrones", is a good example of how a writter can create an really interesting gnome-like character. And Critical Role showed other types of gnomes characters.
> 
> View attachment 264169



…This comment offended me in a couple of ways.


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## Cadence (Oct 17, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Maybe Paramount produces a D&D cartoon with little demihumans and then halflings and gnomes become very popular among children thanks a couple of funny characters. Tyrion Lannister, from "Game of Thrones", is a good example of how a writter can create an really interesting gnome-like character. And Critical Role showed other types of gnomes characters.
> 
> View attachment 264169




It feels like linking achondroplasia or any other real part of the human condition to fantasy races has issues.  See, for example,  Dinklage's character addressing this in the movie Elf.

(I'm also not seeing the connection with any of the games traits that distinguish gnomes from humans except height, and even then his 4'5" and 110 pounds is a lot larger than the  "Gnomes average slightly over 3 feet tall and weigh 40 to 45 pounds.")


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 17, 2022)

I am sorry very much if my post has caused unintentionally any inconvenience (really I was mocking Tywing because this was blinded by his anti-geek prejudices and he couldn't guess what was happen to him), but I wanted to show the character of Tirion Lannister as an example of somebody is more you can watch at first sight. Everybody can agree Tirion was the "little ugly duckling" of the saga, but also one of the brightest minds in all Westeros.

I meant the little humanoids from fantasy fiction may be interesting characters in the hands of the right storyteller. In the past there were typecasted into "stealth" classes as rogue or bard, but the change of rules want to fix this allowing more flexibility to create your PC.

* Halflings are perfect for a D&D farming simulation videogame.


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Cadence said:


> (I'm also not seeing the connection with any of the games traits that distinguish gnomes from humans except height, and even then his 4'5" and 110 pounds is a lot larger than the "Gnomes average slightly over 3 feet tall and weigh 40 to 45 pounds."




Make halflings a fantasy race instead of just very small humans who don't have the mechanics of actual very small humans (AKA little children)


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Make halflings a fantasy race instead of just very small humans who don't have the mechanics of actual very small humans (AKA little children)



Doesn't the fact that they don't have the mechanics of little children already make them a fantasy race?


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## Cadence (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Doesn't the fact that they don't have the mechanics of little children already make them a fantasy race?




Imagine how nice hiking trips as a family would be if you could just hand your four year old 45+ lbs. of gear (and possibly a lot more)  without slowing them down!

Of course the average adult being able to happily have a 150 lb pack would already make those overnighters on the trail a lot easier (and let one avoid that high cost ultra-light camping equipment).


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Doesn't the fact that they don't have the mechanics of little children already make them a fantasy race?



Not really because there's no real mechanics for little children. 

They are short and light in a game where being short or light have almost no mechanical significance. Their shortness or lightweight means nothing really. There is little otherness of fantasy in their height or weight in the mechanics nor story.

It's halflings being small and lucky that distinguishes them. Dwarves are also short but qualify as medium so dwarves ended up needing significant mechanical features to pull fantasy. 

With the next edition or half edition likely allowing small size humans, halflings will end up leaning more and more to luck and possibly naturally agility or stealth.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Not really because there's no real mechanics for little children.
> 
> They are short and light in a game where being short or light have almost no mechanical significance. Their shortness or lightweight means nothing really. There is little otherness of fantasy in their height or weight in the mechanics nor story.
> 
> ...



Meh.  There are only so many ways to distinguish between the different races.  I figured out a small cultural niche default for my halflings, if a DM can't figure out it out then perhaps they shouldn't be part of that world.  It's not like there's much of anything to distinguish the majority of playable races in the first place.


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Meh.  There are only so many ways to distinguish between the different races.  I figured out a small cultural niche default for my halflings, if a DM can't figure out it out then perhaps they shouldn't be part of that world.  It's not like there's much of anything to distinguish the majority of playable races in the first place.




I disagree with that. There are tons of ways to distinguish races. D&D just has been in a sort of tunnel vision of the ideas for a long time. 

A cultural or cosmetic niche doesn't automatically infer a large amount of fantasy. A race of purple-eyed humans who like sailing is technically fantasy but barely invokes fantasy.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I disagree with that. There are tons of ways to distinguish races. D&D just has been in a sort of tunnel vision of the ideas for a long time.
> 
> A cultural or cosmetic niche doesn't automatically infer a large amount of fantasy. A race of purple-eyed humans who like sailing is technically fantasy but barely invokes fantasy.




Tons of ways? Really?  We used to have dwarves that were strong and sturdy but gruff and a bit surly.  We can't have that now because that dwarf PC can't optimize for all possible class options and obviously any penalty is a naughty bad thing.   If you establish a default culture, people nitpick it.  If you give them exclusive bonuses accusations of typecasting abound.

I don't think there is a great way of distinguishing races for every campaign in existence, there are simply too many races to give them truly unique feel.  Nowadays everybody has to be special and unique with no built in limitations.  Just like everyone else.  So if you think there's ways of making them unique without also limiting without stepping on someone's toes please feel free to provide an example.


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## bedir than (Oct 17, 2022)

Every player character is proficient in daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, and light crossbows (at a minimum). This doesn't mean every encountered humanoid is proficient at least six weapons.
Why would we ever think that every other feature is consistent for 100% of a group?


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Tons of ways? Really?  We used to have dwarves that were strong and sturdy but gruff and a bit surly.  We can't have that now because that dwarf PC can't optimize for all possible class options and obviously any penalty is a naughty bad thing.   If you establish a default culture, people nitpick it.  If you give them exclusive bonuses accusations of typecasting abound.
> 
> I don't think there is a great way of distinguishing races for every campaign in existence, there are simply too many races to give them truly unique feel.  Nowadays everybody has to be special and unique with no built in limitations.  Just like everyone else.  So if you think there's ways of making them unique without also limiting without stepping on someone's toes please feel free to provide an example.



Literally dozens of races.

I can design 12 unique races that are different from current D&D races.

I mean there isn't an official playable plant race in the current edition. And only 2 constructs. Then there is my name.

The question is not if you can make distinguishable races but if the community will accept them.


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Tons of ways? Really?  We used to have dwarves that were strong and sturdy but gruff and a bit surly.  We can't have that now because that dwarf PC can't optimize for all possible class options and obviously any penalty is a naughty bad thing.   If you establish a default culture, people nitpick it.  If you give them exclusive bonuses accusations of typecasting abound.



How does "can play in any class" mean you can't be a strong, sturdy, gruff, or surly dwarf? You can certainly put your ASIs in to Strength and Con, and Charisma in D&D means force of personality, wittiness, and ability to influence others, all of which dwarfs have always had in spades; it doesn't mean prettiness, politeness, or sweetness. Giving dwarfs a penalty to Charisma never made any sense when compared to how dwarfs have always been shown in all forms of media.


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## Cadence (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> How does "can play in any class" mean you can't be a strong, sturdy, gruff, or surly dwarf? You can certainly put your ASIs in to Strength and Con, and Charisma in D&D means force of personality, wittiness, and ability to influence others, all of which dwarfs have always had in spades; it doesn't mean prettiness, politeness, or sweetness. Giving dwarfs a penalty to Charisma never made any sense when compared to how dwarfs have always been shown in all forms of media.


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## billd91 (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> How does "can play in any class" mean you can't be a strong, sturdy, gruff, or surly dwarf? You can certainly put your ASIs in to Strength and Con, and Charisma in D&D means force of personality, wittiness, and ability to influence others, all of which dwarfs have always had in spades; it doesn't mean prettiness, politeness, or sweetness. Giving dwarfs a penalty to Charisma never made any sense when compared to how dwarfs have always been shown in all forms of media.



That may have quite a bit to do with the drift in what Charisma represents in D&D. Back in 1e, it was a measure of a character's physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism. It didn't really track exactly the same as it does in 5e as confidence, eloquence, and leadership. It certainly didn't indicate anything related to being able to project your personality with actual magical force. That didn't come around until 3e.
Gruff and surly don't really scream magnetic or persuasive. So dwarves were penalized with respect to non-dwarves in the game mechanics of the time.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Literally dozens of races.
> 
> I can design 12 unique races that are different from current D&D races.
> 
> ...




I can state "I can make the most amazing thing evah!" but the proof is in the pudding.  I agree that I could make a dozen different unique races but the reality is that WOTC _is_ constrained by social norms and expectations.  Things that I don't find particularly bad (like my aforementioned dwarves not making optimized wizards) is going the way of the dodo bird.

So given those constraints ... what would you do?  Other than making cannibal vegetarians a possibility?


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> How does "can play in any class" mean you can't be a strong, sturdy, gruff, or surly dwarf? You can certainly put your ASIs in to Strength and Con, and Charisma in D&D means force of personality, wittiness, and ability to influence others, all of which dwarfs have always had in spades; it doesn't mean prettiness, politeness, or sweetness. Giving dwarfs a penalty to Charisma never made any sense when compared to how dwarfs have always been shown in all forms of media.




While I don't particularly agree with the change in direction given with XGtE, I don't have a huge issue with it either.  But in the playtests they're going even further ... there is no default.  Dwarves used to have common identifying factors including stat bonuses and much of the color is being washed out to just more generic and bland.

I'll still make characters as unique as I can no matter what race I play, races are becoming more and more generic.  Different races where every race can optimize for every class is not an inherently better thing as races are just becoming more and more humans with rubber masks.


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I can state "I can make the most amazing thing evah!" but the proof is in the pudding.  I agree that I could make a dozen different unique races but the reality is that WOTC _is_ constrained by social norms and expectations.  Things that I don't find particularly bad (like my aforementioned dwarves not making optimized wizards) is going the way of the dodo bird.
> 
> So given those constraints ... what would you do?  Other than making cannibal vegetarians a possibility?




My more kitchen sinky setting has

Rose-Cactus people who can shoot 1d4 thorns at their foes.
Goopmen who create new Goopmen by boiling the bones and flesh of their food or enemies in soup.
Guys with eyes on the back of their heads
Stone constructs who could be programed to have multiple personalities
A plant-insect-lizard symbiotic 
Minigiants. Humainods with natural earth magic allowing them to throw boulders like giants and lift large items.
Warcats. Large talking housecats devoted to the War god who were naturally violent and selfish.
Coldmen. Frosty the Snowmen with axe-shovels

I'm sure WOTC could make similar races.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> (like my aforementioned dwarves not making optimized wizards) is going the way of the dodo bird.



Gods forbid their dwarven wizard doesn’t have that 16 in INT at 1st level rather than maybe try to play into their superior CON score and HP or AC with dwarven toughness or armour training or whatever other subrace bonuses they have.


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That may have quite a bit to do with the drift in what Charisma represents in D&D. Back in 1e, it was a measure of a character's physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism. It didn't really track exactly the same as it does in 5e as confidence, eloquence, and leadership. It certainly didn't indicate anything related to being able to project your personality with actual magical force. That didn't come around until 3e.
> Gruff and surly don't really scream magnetic or persuasive. So dwarves were penalized with respect to non-dwarves in the game mechanics of the time.



But the physical attractiveness part of Charisma was gone by 2e--in fact, 2e specifically described it as being about leadership and not about attractiveness (although 3e brought appearance back into it). And even in 1e, it determined your number of henchmen and thus was clearly about leadership--and Comliness further removed appearance from 1e. 3e and on may have made Charisma the go-to skill for innate casters (but even 1e made it important for bards), but it doesn't mean that Charisma is innately magical.

And honestly, both gruff and surly can be both magnetic or persuasive. Think of how many TV and movie characters there are who are gruff, surly, and likable despite or even _because _of their gruff surliness. They don't persuade you with a silver tongue; they persuade you by calling you an idiot until you see their point.

And anyway, not having a penalty to Charisma doesn't mean that you can't play a dwarf as gruff or surly. It just means you don't suffer _at most _a -2 penalty on Charisma rolls simply because you're a dwarf.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My more kitchen sinky setting has
> 
> Rose-Cactus people who can shoot 1d4 thorns at their foes.
> Goopmen who create new Goopmen by boiling the bones and flesh of their food or enemies in soup.
> Guys with eyes on the back of their heads



What does that mean, other than being the plot point of a really, really old TV show episode (Dick Van Dyke?) I watched long ago when I was home sick with the flue?


Minigiant said:


> Stone constructs who could be programed to have multiple personalities
> 
> A plant-insect-lizard symbiotic
> Minigiants. Humainods with natural earth magic allowing them to throw boulders like giants and lift large items.



So ... goliaths?


Minigiant said:


> Warcats. Large talking housecats devoted to the War god who were naturally violent and selfish.



Aka Tabaxi?


Minigiant said:


> Coldmen. Frosty the Snowmen with axe-shovels
> 
> 
> I'm sure WOTC could make similar races.




So you listed some.  But there's not really much there saying how they're unique or what you do to make them feel different.  I mean we have tabaxi, dragonborn, elephant people, hippo people, 200 versions of elves and counting.  Coming up with something different is not hard.  Coming up with features that make them feel different is the difficulty.

I don't see a rose cactus person being any more unique or special than a halfling, just a different with little or no fantasy or mythical backing.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> But the physical attractiveness part of Charisma was gone by 2e--in fact, 2e specifically described it as being about leadership and not about attractiveness (although 3e brought appearance back into it). And even in 1e, it determined your number of henchmen and thus was clearly about leadership--and Comliness further removed appearance from 1e. 3e and on may have made Charisma the go-to skill for innate casters (but even 1e made it important for bards), but it doesn't mean that Charisma is innately magical.
> 
> And honestly, both gruff and surly can be both magnetic or persuasive. Think of how many TV and movie characters there are who are gruff, surly, and likable despite or even _because _of their gruff surliness. They don't persuade you with a silver tongue; they persuade you by calling you an idiot until you see their point.
> 
> And anyway, not having a penalty to Charisma doesn't mean that you can't play a dwarf as gruff or surly. It just means you don't suffer _at most _a -2 penalty on Charisma rolls simply because you're a dwarf.




It's not about playing a gruff individual dwarf though.  It's about the stereotypical dwarf being gruff so that you can either have fun playing up the trope or you play one that is not gruff and it stands out from the crowd as something different.


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> While I don't particularly agree with the change in direction given with XGtE, I don't have a huge issue with it either.  But in the playtests they're going even further ... there is no default.  Dwarves used to have common identifying factors including stat bonuses and much of the color is being washed out to just more generic and bland.
> 
> I'll still make characters as unique as I can no matter what race I play, races are becoming more and more generic.  Different races where every race can optimize for every class is not an inherently better thing as races are just becoming more and more humans with rubber masks.



Dwarfs still have common identifying factors in One. In fact, they've been given a _hugely _flavorful bonus: stonecunning is now tremorsense, which is both unique to them _and _is far more useful, mechanically, then just getting a bonus to know the history of stonework--which is something that is totally useless if you have a DM who themself doesn't know and can't improvise the history of whatever piece of stonework the dwarf is looking at.

I don't even like One all that much (I've got Level Up, thenk yew), but even I have to admit that is a _cool _racial ability. 

A +2 to a stat, by comparison, is boring. Does it matter if you get that bonus because of your race or because you hit 4th level and put the bonus into it?


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## Cruentus (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> But the physical attractiveness part of Charisma was gone by 2e--in fact, 2e specifically described it as being about leadership and not about attractiveness (although 3e brought appearance back into it). And even in 1e, it determined your number of henchmen and thus was clearly about leadership--and Comliness further removed appearance from 1e. 3e and on may have made Charisma the go-to skill for innate casters (but even 1e made it important for bards), but it doesn't mean that Charisma is innately magical.



I feel like they needed to find something for Cha to do in the game, since it moved slowly away from hirelings, henchmen, and domain play at "named" level.  Cha didn't mean much once people stopped using Reaction Charts and such.  

We always played it as a combo of leadership and attractiveness.  The lower your score, the more you rubbed people the wrong way, or they didn't like the way you looked.  It certainly doesn't track exactly, because you can be "not attractive" and be a great leader, or "the most beautiful thing" and a terrible leader.  I prefer to keep it tied to Leadership myself.


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I don't see a rose cactus person being any more unique or special than a halfling, just a different with little or no fantasy or mythical backing.



Minigiant didn't tell you any of their abilities beyond the thorns thing or any of their society or culture. So how do you know that they're not unique or special?


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> It's not about playing a gruff individual dwarf though.  It's about the stereotypical dwarf being gruff so that you can either have fun playing up the trope or you play one that is not gruff and it stands out from the crowd as something different.



Exactly! And one who is "something different" shouldn't get a penalty to Charisma.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 17, 2022)

I wonder how many races, if you removed the name and all the similar identifying details from their racial template/trait list (like elves knowing elvish changed to a generic [species’ language] or the _elven_ in their weapon training) you could show to someone with general background knowledge of fantasy, and they’d be able to correctly identify their corresponding race?


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> What does that mean, other than being the plot point of a really, really old TV show episode (Dick Van Dyke?) I watched long ago when I was home sick with the flue?



They reroll checks associate with vision and have a culture of being very honest or very sneaky liars as they see everything.



Oofta said:


> So ... goliaths?



They can actually "throw" boulders. They are closer to a mix of the Psioinic Half-giant and Avatar's Earthbenders. 



Oofta said:


> Aka Tabaxi?



They are actually the size of housecats. Big housecats but not bigger that 3' tall.
It's based on the Capital One commercial where the evil overlord asked for kittens on his credit card and his minion said "WAR KITTENS!"

I HAD TO MAKE THAT INTO A RACE. I HAD TO.


Oofta said:


> I don't see a rose cactus person being any more unique or special than a halfling, just a different with little or no fantasy or mythical backing.




They don't eat food only needing 4 hours of sunlight and water, reproduce like flowering plants, and grow back limbs and thorns.
And technically the party can eat their flowers.

Imagine a culture of beings who can survive and reproduce just standing in one spot and being rained on. They just have philosophical conversation since their needs are easily meet and have no natural enemies. Natural druids.


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## Mind of tempest (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> While I don't particularly agree with the change in direction given with XGtE, I don't have a huge issue with it either.  But in the playtests they're going even further ... there is no default.  Dwarves used to have common identifying factors including stat bonuses and much of the color is being washed out to just more generic and bland.
> 
> I'll still make characters as unique as I can no matter what race I play, races are becoming more and more generic.  Different races where every race can optimize for every class is not an inherently better thing as races are just becoming more and more humans with rubber masks.



look part of the problem is dealing with the larger context of fantasy media which has changed since dnd was first made and secondly given that all dwarves tended to be near copies or rebelling against those copies they are going to have to change if only because generic badly riped of gimily stopped being interesting in the 1990's and it has been thirty years since then.


CreamCloud0 said:


> I wonder how many races, if you removed the name and all the similar identifying details from their racial template/trait list (like elves knowing elvish changed to a generic [species’ language] or the _elven_ in their weapon training) you could show to someone with general background knowledge of fantasy, and they’d be able to correctly identify their corresponding race?



very few the short ones might be easier as they less possible options, elves if defined by magic and litheness might get through if only because elves are stupid common.


Minigiant said:


> They reroll checks associate with vision and have a culture of being very honest or very sneaky liars as they see everything.
> 
> 
> They can actually "throw" boulders. They are closer to a mix of the Psioinic Half-giant and Avatar's Earthbenders.
> ...



plants need food just not for carbohydrates they still need vitamines and minerals from roots or other options.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Exactly! And one who is "something different" shouldn't get a penalty to Charisma.



No? They invest their good scores in CHA if they want to be good in CHA, or at least take the appropriate skill proficiencies,

Wanting to be charismatic dwarf doesn’t mean you’d suddenly of lost your original fundamental dwarven gruffness.


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## Minigiant (Oct 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> plants need food just not for carbohydrates they still need vitamines and minerals from roots or other options.



Kacthorn have to root once a week or eat dirt or poop periodically.


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## Lanefan (Oct 17, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Every player character is proficient in daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, and light crossbows (at a minimum).



Which is a bug, not a feature.  

This is something 1e had 95% right*: weapon proficiencies should be chosen by the player, bespoke to each character, from a list based on what its class(es) can get training in.  Grouping weapons into just a few big batches is far too generic for my liking.

* - the other 5% being the weapons-chooseable lists by class weren't always perfect, but that's easy enough to fix.


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## Cadence (Oct 17, 2022)

Oofta said:


> What does that mean, other than being the plot point of a really, really old TV show episode (Dick Van Dyke?) I watched long ago when I was home sick with the flue?




I got the DVD of that just to see that episode because I remembered it from my own childhood rerun watching.  (It showed up in a recent WandaVision episode too.)    That being said, I can't give it a thumbs up.



Spoiler: Comedy Genius Spoilers from Dick Van Dyke Season 2, Episode 21


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## Neonchameleon (Oct 17, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Which is a bug, not a feature.
> 
> This is something 1e had 95% right*: weapon proficiencies should be chosen by the player, bespoke to each character, from a list based on what its class(es) can get training in.  Grouping weapons into just a few big batches is far too generic for my liking.
> 
> * - the other 5% being the weapons-chooseable lists by class weren't always perfect, but that's easy enough to fix.



I'd say this was something 1e did far far worse than modern D&D. If you can wield a glaive-guisarme you shouldn't struggle to poke people with the pointy end of a halberd. The enforced incompetence for most weapons combined with the way that the loot tables were weighted to longswords and greatswords.

Is there merit in having bespoke weapons that reflect your character? Yes, absolutely. But if you do so you need signature/heirloom weapons rather than having your items found as loot. 1e managed to get the worst of both worlds, locking any sensible fighters into moderately sized swords built to one of two patterns. If you're getting random magic items then you need broad versatility; modern D&D manages to have few of the advantages of either approach but it beats the disadvantages of both.


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## Lanefan (Oct 17, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> I feel like they needed to find something for Cha to do in the game, since it moved slowly away from hirelings, henchmen, and domain play at "named" level.  Cha didn't mean much once people stopped using Reaction Charts and such.



Indeed.  Charisma is the runt among the stats in 1e.

I've tried to fix this by moving some spiritual-strength stuff into Cha (e.g. bonuses/penalties to turning undead) and eventually intend to move more toward this e.g. revlval-from-death rolls will become Cha-based instead of Con based as they're based on strength of spirit rather than body.


Cruentus said:


> We always played it as a combo of leadership and attractiveness.  The lower your score, the more you rubbed people the wrong way, or they didn't like the way you looked.  It certainly doesn't track exactly, because you can be "not attractive" and be a great leader, or "the most beautiful thing" and a terrible leader.  I prefer to keep it tied to Leadership myself.



We do it as a mix of attractiveness/appearance and persuasion, and up-front note that your score is an average of these factors; meaning that with an average Cha score improvements to one must correspondingly diminish the other.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 17, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Which is a bug, not a feature.
> 
> This is something 1e had 95% right*: weapon proficiencies should be chosen by the player, bespoke to each character, from a list based on what its class(es) can get training in.  Grouping weapons into just a few big batches is far too generic for my liking.
> 
> * - the other 5% being the weapons-chooseable lists by class weren't always perfect, but that's easy enough to fix.



I think racial weapon proficiencies are really good for flavour and there should be more of them, I remember my dwarven ranger with his battleaxe and warhammer that none of the other standard rangers had, but class weapon proficiencies are more often than not given out in huge swathes there’s alot of all or nothing rather than a few flavourful choices.

Racial weapon bonuses would also be nice too, everyone can use knives but perhaps halflings are more suited to them due to their relative size and so therefore hit more often and deal more damage with them as standard as a result.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Minigiant didn't tell you any of their abilities beyond the thorns thing or any of their society or culture. So how do you know that they're not unique or special?



If he wants to give details on anything other than cosmetic, he can do so. What he posted wasn't that much different other than in tone from what we have.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> I think racial weapon proficiencies are really good for flavour and there should be more of them, I remember my dwarven ranger with his battleaxe and warhammer that none of the other standard rangers had, but class weapon proficiencies are more often than not given out in huge swathes there’s alot of all or nothing rather than a few flavourful choices.
> 
> Racial weapon bonuses would also be nice too, everyone can use knives but perhaps halflings are more suited to them due to their relative size and so therefore hit more often and deal more damage with them as standard as a result.



I still miss halflings having special abilities when it comes to slings and thrown stones.  It reinforced that they weren't really big enough to use tall folk weapons like bows and because they're eminently practical.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> They reroll checks associate with vision and have a culture of being very honest or very sneaky liars as they see everything.
> 
> 
> They can actually "throw" boulders. They are closer to a mix of the Psioinic Half-giant and Avatar's Earthbenders.
> ...




I understand.  







Minigiant said:


> They don't eat food only needing 4 hours of sunlight and water, reproduce like flowering plants, and grow back limbs and thorns.
> And technically the party can eat their flowers.
> 
> Imagine a culture of beings who can survive and reproduce just standing in one spot and being rained on. They just have philosophical conversation since their needs are easily meet and have no natural enemies. Natural druids.




I'm not saying your races are bad, you've clearly put some thought into them.  Or seen a commercial anyway.   If you've figured out a way to integrate them into your campaign world to give them a story and feel that's great.  I just don't see any of those being much more evocative than halflings.  Which is fine, you can't please everyone.


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## Oofta (Oct 17, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> look part of the problem is dealing with the larger context of fantasy media which has changed since dnd was first made and secondly given that all dwarves tended to be near copies or rebelling against those copies they are going to have to change if only because generic badly riped of gimily stopped being interesting in the 1990's and it has been thirty years since then.



At a certain point trying to be edgy and different by inverting a trope becomes a trope in and of itself.

On a related (and off topic) note I only have minor issues with _PCs_ adjusting default abilities, I just kind of wish they would keep the default at the race level.  Associating it to background isn't really any better either since you can put the +2/+1 anywhere you want.  Just make it part of the ability score generation or get rid of it altogether.


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## Faolyn (Oct 17, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> No? They invest their good scores in CHA if they want to be good in CHA, or at least take the appropriate skill proficiencies,
> 
> Wanting to be charismatic dwarf doesn’t mean you’d suddenly of lost your original fundamental dwarven gruffness.



Why should you be penalized because people who aren't dwarfs think your species is gruff and surly? (And that's what it was, when they had a Charisma penalty when dealing with non-dwarfs--your race's stats was limited by in-game bigotry; it's like reverse-metagaming.) And why shouldn't a happy, friendly dwarf be as Charismatic as a happy, friendly human? 

And more specifically, why should you being gruff and surly mean you're not as good at playing music or lying--or at casting spells from certain spell lists? Why can a dwarf king, mine supervisor, or general never be as good at their jobs as a human can be?

And hey, maybe _everyone _should get a Charisma penalty when dealing with creatures of a different race. Sorry elves, humans just think you're weird and yeah, you're pretty, but it's an Uncanny Valley kind of pretty, so no 18 Charisma for you!


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## Bayushi_seikuro (Oct 17, 2022)

I'm pretty proud of my homebrew halflings in my Eternal Winter game.  The players really thought they were cool when they encountered them.

The setting was a post-apocalypse, 'impact winter' caused by Ymir's corpse ripping through planes and impacting this world.  Different cultures reacted in various ways:  the goblinoids and orcs really rose up in waves of pillaging, while the eladrin took in what survivors they could before they domed their cities off.  To fight back against the orcs, the wood elves turned to two otherworldly forces - some turned to strict carnivore and the eating of intelligent beings (and were worshippers of Yeegnoghu) and some turned to the Lady of Winter, still savage but trackless across snow.  The gnomes made warforged to help fight off hordes and allied with humans in a full retreat.

The halflings?  There are only about 200 halflings left because, largely, they held back the orc and elven hordes with the power of firearms.  The halflings, culturally, were a lot like Old West Americans, and kept their lore and magic hidden in their family cookbooks (their magic was consumable-based)  

The best was the mission where the PCs discovered this.  They were tasked to recover any halfling lore they could find, as well as the pistols and badge of the last Sheriff of the halfling people.  They found the enormous cookbook, full of lore and magic recipes (they liked the frost-resistance lemon cake) and then met the Sheriff... the Sheriff had become an intelligent wight and continued to serve his community, even though the citizens had turned into ghosts, repeating previous days over and over.  The players bartered - the artificer put the effect on the Sheriff's long rifle where he no longer needed ammo, and in exchange, the Sheriff passed over his revolvers and his badge of office to keep his people going.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why should you be penalized because people who aren't dwarfs think your species is gruff and surly? (And that's what it was, when they had a Charisma penalty when dealing with non-dwarfs--your race's stats was limited by in-game bigotry; it's like reverse-metagaming.) And why shouldn't a happy, friendly dwarf be as Charismatic as a happy, friendly human?
> 
> And more specifically, why should you being gruff and surly mean you're not as good at playing music or lying--or at casting spells from certain spell lists? Why can a dwarf king, mine supervisor, or general never be as good at their jobs as a human can be?
> 
> And hey, maybe _everyone _should get a Charisma penalty when dealing with creatures of a different race. Sorry elves, humans just think you're weird and yeah, you're pretty, but it's an Uncanny Valley kind of pretty, so no 18 Charisma for you!



But a dwarf can be just as good as a human as those things however the concept of DnD dwarves is that their culture is not that way inclined, they’re serious, they’re honest, they’re gruff, so they have a little further to go to match a human at those things on an even footing.

But the thing is, all that i really hear people saying when they complain ‘but why does _my character_ have to have the negatives every member of this race does’ is that they care more about bonuses or their own character than the fidelity to the setting and lore they’re putting them into, sure adventurers are special, but you’re not so special that you should defy the inherent nature and culture of your species ‘just because I want them to’.


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## Minigiant (Oct 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I'm not saying your races are bad, you've clearly put some thought into them. Or seen a commercial anyway.  If you've figured out a way to integrate them into your campaign world to give them a story and feel that's great. I just don't see any of those being much more evocative than halflings. Which is fine, you can't please everyone.



It's less that halflings are more evocative and more that their most of their elements are no longer unique. Thus weakening their otherness in fantasy.

And when some fans push for more normalcy and spurn attempts to find halfling metods of being fantastic, then it make sense why other fans see them as not as fantastic.


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> But a dwarf can be just as good as a human as those things however the concept of DnD dwarves is that their culture is not that way inclined, they’re serious, they’re honest, they’re gruff, so they have a little further to go to match a human at those things on an even footing.



Plenty of humans are serious, honest, and gruff while still being charismatic. 

And apparently, no dwarf could ever be as good a musician as a human, as intimidating as a human, or as persuasive as a human because all dwarfs are serious, honest, and gruff. It must be absolutely _exhausting _to be a friendly and cheerful dwarf, since they have to force themselves to act in that way. They must be like the opposite of a person with ASD, where instead of masking to appear normal they have to mask to appear abnormal.



CreamCloud0 said:


> But the thing is, all that i really hear people saying when they complain ‘but why does _my character_ have to have the negatives every member of this race does’ is that they care more about bonuses or their own character than the fidelity to the setting and lore they’re putting them into, sure adventurers are special, but you’re not so special that you should defy the inherent nature and culture of your species ‘just because I want them to’.



OR! It could be that people don't want to pigeonhole _entire races _as being gruff and surly. It's _lazy _to write it so that every member of any one race will have the exact same type of personality. Not even every member of a breed of animals that's been specifically bred to have a single temperament will actually have that temperament. With a self-aware, fully-sapient race? Heck no. The idea is ridiculous, and it's even more ridiculous to say "since dwarfs are surly, they get a penalty to a stat that's only tangentally related to surliness and will penalize them in things that have nothing to do with surliness."

If all you can "really hear" is that people are complaining about their character, maybe you need to listen a bit more.


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## James Gasik (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Plenty of humans are serious, honest, and gruff while still being charismatic.
> 
> And apparently, no dwarf could ever be as good a musician as a human, as intimidating as a human, or as persuasive as a human because all dwarfs are serious, honest, and gruff. It must be absolutely _exhausting _to be a friendly and cheerful dwarf, since they have to force themselves to act in that way. They must be like the opposite of a person with ASD, where instead of masking to appear normal they have to mask to appear abnormal.
> 
> ...



Indeed, Dwarves are fully capable of experiencing and displaying happiness and good cheer.  While _on average _members of _other races _perceive Dwarves as being more gruff, stubborn, and taciturn, this doesn't apply to other Dwarves.

Dwarves have a highly regimented and ordered society that emphasizes working together and placing the goods of the community first.  This is not something a race with lower than average communication skills would display, in fact, it's quite the opposite.  It's believed that it was these abilities; superior communication and teamwork, that allowed early man to surpass the Neanderthals.

As far as ability score penalties in themselves, they really don't matter as much as some seem to think.  Consider this, if an Orc has a -2 penalty to Intelligence, all that means is that most people aren't going to play an Orc Wizard.  Any Intelligence check they make is 5% less likely to succeed if they put the same amount of points in Intelligence as other characters.

It's not like there's some amazing benefit to being an Orc Wizard in the first place, so all this penalty does is ensure niche protection.  You could accomplish the same thing by going back to AD&D class limits and just saying Orcs can't be Wizards.

The same is true if Dwarves had a penalty to Charisma; people would be less inclined to be Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks.  And unless the benefits of being a Dwarf are really good (like the access to Medium armor that D&D One seems to be removing), I think you lose more than you gain; players will be less likely to have unique characters.

Not because the penalty is incredibly punishing (it's not) but it does put you at a slight advantage for no other reason than you wanted to express yourself and do something interesting!  Now sure, I get it, some people _like _the idea that certain races are more likely to be some classes instead of others, but again, I think that just saying "no arcane Dwarves in my game, please" is a much better way of doing things than "oh sure, you _could _be a Dwarven Bard, but here's this penalty.  Are you _absolutely sure _you wouldn't rather be a Human?"

Steering this back to Halflings, I think D&D is kind of at a crossroads. Racial traits are moving away from being indicative of any particular culture, and becoming more generic, with these elements moving to backgrounds.

But unless we have racial backgrounds like "Dwarven Noble" or "Halfling Sage", the only thing that's going to guide preferences and roleplaying is pop culture and a few paragraphs in the PHB.  Dwarves will start to use Swords and Bows instead of Axes, Hammers, and Crossbows.

Halflings won't even look twice at a sling, etc..

The races of D&D's future will have no real unique identity other than "this race is lucky, this race has innate magical powers, and this race can fly".  This is going to continue to be a problem for Halflings, in particular, as they will remain popular for some players, and not very popular for others, but almost nothing about them will tell us who and what they are; it's going to come down to if their racial abilities are more unique and fun compared to others, and what their art is going to look like.

Even though I can see the advantages to this for players, I think we might need to step back off that ledge, before we just have a table of possible special abilities you can pick for your character _ala carte_ and call that a race, taking away a vital component of the identity of races.  

In summation, I believe a race's mechanics should evoke a sense of what they are all about, just as much as the flavor text does.


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> Gods forbid their dwarven wizard doesn’t have that 16 in INT at 1st level rather than maybe try to play into their superior CON score and HP or AC with dwarven toughness or armour training or whatever other subrace bonuses they have.



Or, some people don't want to not be able to play a sickly dwarf.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Dwarfs still have common identifying factors in One. In fact, they've been given a _hugely _flavorful bonus: stonecunning is now tremorsense, which is both unique to them _and _is far more useful, mechanically, then just getting a bonus to know the history of stonework--which is something that is totally useless if you have a DM who themself doesn't know and can't improvise the history of whatever piece of stonework the dwarf is looking at.
> 
> I don't even like One all that much (I've got Level Up, thenk yew), but even I have to admit that is a _cool _racial ability.
> 
> A +2 to a stat, by comparison, is boring. Does it matter if you get that bonus because of your race or because you hit 4th level and put the bonus into it?




No no no, see you don't understand. They can't have a special and cool ability, becuase they are just funny looking humans now that they don't get +1 higher than any human can get. Giving them a special sort of ability doesn't change that at all. Neither does literally everything else about dwarves, because they were ruined forever. 

/heavy sarcasm

Honestly, the biggest limiting factor on people for "every race is the same" is the fact that we insist on the most generic and boring things (only humanoid body shape) and have pinned everything on the most boring of possible distinctions. 

You want different? 

Plasmoids and Thri-Kreen. Those are insanely different from the norm, the problem isn't "can we make fascinating races" it is "can we make fascinating races that don't unbalance the game" Because THAT'S the hard part. Balancing them against the standard human.


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## Cadence (Oct 18, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Or, some people don't want to not be able to play a sickly dwarf.



Has anyone on here ever run into. a DM that wouldn't let a player have their character take some extra weakness? (Say to decline to take an ASI or to put 6 somewhere instead of 8 as a low array score or to not be tough or lucky).  Unless the player was going to do a parody of someone with a disability I think I'd be fine with that.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> But a dwarf can be just as good as a human as those things however the concept of DnD dwarves is that their culture is not that way inclined, they’re serious, they’re honest, they’re gruff, so they have a little further to go to match a human at those things on an even footing.
> 
> But the thing is, all that i really hear people saying when they complain ‘but why does _my character_ have to have the negatives every member of this race does’ is that they care more about bonuses or their own character than the fidelity to the setting and lore they’re putting them into, sure adventurers are special, but you’re not so special that you should defy the inherent nature and culture of your species ‘just because I want them to’.




Why not? 

As a White Midwestern American man I should be into guns, hunting, cars and trucks. I should have a favorite football team and like grilling. I live in an area where camouflage can be considered formal wear and a lot of people live on farms and go hunting. I should think emotions are for sissies and real men drink beer and talk with their fists.

Guess how many of those traits apply to me? 

So why can't my fantasy character be as different from their culture as I am from mine? Why _*must*_ my character be caught up in tropes of their society like it is some sort of monolith. 

Why is it so important to you that *MY* character fit *YOUR *stereotypical culture to the point where I can't show that the society is far more complex than the three paragraphs you devoted to it? All dwarves are gruff and surly, and no dwarf has ever found music to be beautiful and moving and sought to explore that. A race of ARTISANS not appreciating the beauty of ART is nonsense. The typical excuse is that it isn't permanent, it is ephemeral and therefore less valuable. But you know what that would mean? That would mean that some dwarves would work to try and make non-ephemeral music. Because that makes far more sense. And maybe you don't think that makes sense, but this ISN'T YOUR CHARACTER.


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 18, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Has anyone on here ever run into. a DM that wouldn't let a player have their character take some extra weakness? (Say to decline to take an ASI or to put 6 somewhere instead of 8 as a low array score or to not be tough or lucky).  Unless the player was going to do a parody of someone with a disability I think I'd be fine with that.



I generally discourage that sort of thing, and I have seen DMs just say no to it. 

For me, I prefer character creation to have the same rules for everyone, because it helps to ensure that I can go hog wild running the game absolutely by the seat of my pants. 

But huge swaths of players also aren’t willing to accept “the DM can just fix it” answers, at least rhetorically. 

They also don’t care that D&D races aren’t ethnicities but species. They’re playing a humanoid sapient being, and it just feels gross to see the rules of the game say that their physically lazy nerd Minotaur librarian is still stronger than a human farmer because your race determines how strong you start out as. None of the counter arguments about math matter. 

Even the “16 at level 1” thing isn’t actually about the 16 for a lot of people, it’s that the lesser starting stat comes from their race.


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## Stormonu (Oct 18, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Has anyone on here ever run into. a DM that wouldn't let a player have their character take some extra weakness? (Say to decline to take an ASI or to put 6 somewhere instead of 8 as a low array score or to not be tough or lucky).  Unless the player was going to do a parody of someone with a disability I think I'd be fine with that.



Eh, I can't say I've stopped someone, but I certainly wouldn't let someone do something that dragged the entire party down because they couldn't pull their weight.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 18, 2022)

Maybe the halfling are too good farmers, and their way to defense in a zombie apocalypse is to create their own version of ("carnivoreproof") plant pokemons.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Plenty of humans are serious, honest, and gruff while still being charismatic.
> 
> And apparently, no dwarf could ever be as good a musician as a human, as intimidating as a human, or as persuasive as a human because all dwarfs are serious, honest, and gruff. It must be absolutely _exhausting _to be a friendly and cheerful dwarf, since they have to force themselves to act in that way. They must be like the opposite of a person with ASD, where instead of masking to appear normal they have to mask to appear abnormal.
> 
> ...



I think you're right in principle, but in my experience, I've never heard anyone make these complaints in an actual game when it didn't affect their personal PC.  The broad (and perfectly valid) issues you're describing tend to be made manifest on forums and the like,  but in game, there always seems to be a PC who doesn't like their stat penalty at the heart of it.  I'm glad to hear that isn't the case with you.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 18, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Has anyone on here ever run into. a DM that wouldn't let a player have their character take some extra weakness? (Say to decline to take an ASI or to put 6 somewhere instead of 8 as a low array score or to not be tough or lucky).  Unless the player was going to do a parody of someone with a disability I think I'd be fine with that.



Happens in every game I run.  We roll stats, and in practice most of the party has a demonstrably crappy stat _ somewhere_.


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## Lanefan (Oct 18, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Eh, I can't say I've stopped someone, but I certainly wouldn't let someone do something that dragged the entire party down because they couldn't pull their weight.



So players in your game are expected to optimize?

I ask because it sure sounds that way, when you state you "wouldn't let someone" play a character who isn't up to snuff.


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## Hussar (Oct 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> So players in your game are expected to optimize?
> 
> I ask because it sure sounds that way, when you state you "wouldn't let someone" play a character who isn't up to snuff.



There is a rather excluded middle here.

I would definitely have a word with a player who deliberately chose an 8 Int wizard.  I don't care that his highest stat is Int, but, dump statting your primary stat is probably going to be something of an issue.

Not optimized can mean a lot of things.


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## Lanefan (Oct 18, 2022)

Hussar said:


> There is a rather excluded middle here.
> 
> I would definitely have a word with a player who deliberately chose an 8 Int wizard.  I don't care that his highest stat is Int, but, dump statting your primary stat is probably going to be something of an issue.
> 
> Not optimized can mean a lot of things.



Fair point.  I get this.  (and in my game you couldn't be an Int-8 wizard anyway as all classes have minimum stat requirements; you can't even be a wizard with Int less than 9)

But note the series of posts I was replying to started with someone seeming to suggest they wouldn't allow a character to be weakened so as to put, say, a 6 in any stat, whether class-required or not.

I mean, if I want to play a Fighter who's a brutish ugly stinky son of a cuss but who will (and can!) beat you like a drum if you tell him so, why shouldn't I be allowed to drop a 5 into his Charisma?

Or - and perhaps more to the point - why shouldn't I be allowed to drop a 6 into Wisdom and play a happy-go-lucky airhead mage who always seems to attract trouble?


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 18, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Or, some people don't want to not be able to play a sickly dwarf.



So put your point buy or array’s 8 in con, and oh the horrors it gets bumped up to 10, a +0, my concept is forever ruined, but no hang on wait a minute, you’re still a sickly dwarf, it’s just that the most sickly dwarf is still in comparison 2 points more hardy than the most sickly human, or elf, or tiefling.

I feel like the person who cares so much to play the narrative of a sickly dwarf should also actually care about the narrative that even at their most sickly dwarves are still somewhat hardy, because that’s a defining trait of dwarves.


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> So put your point buy or array’s 8 in con, and oh the horrors it gets bumped up to 10, a +0, my concept is forever ruined, but no hang on wait a minute, you’re still a sickly dwarf, it’s just that the most sickly dwarf is still in comparison 2 points more hardy than the most sickly human, or elf, or tiefling.



Or, they can do as they please with their character in their game. 


CreamCloud0 said:


> I feel like the person who cares so much to play the narrative of a sickly dwarf should also actually care about the narrative that even at their most sickly dwarves are still somewhat hardy, because that’s a defining trait of dwarves.



Why? Why does your opinion on the topic matter to someone else playing the game how they want?


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Plenty of humans are serious, honest, and gruff while still being charismatic.
> 
> And apparently, no dwarf could ever be as good a musician as a human, as intimidating as a human, or as persuasive as a human because all dwarfs are serious, honest, and gruff. It must be absolutely _exhausting _to be a friendly and cheerful dwarf, since they have to force themselves to act in that way. They must be like the opposite of a person with ASD, where instead of masking to appear normal they have to mask to appear abnormal.



I never said that, stop putting words in my mouth


Faolyn said:


> OR! It could be that people don't want to pigeonhole _entire races _as being gruff and surly. It's _lazy _to write it so that every member of any one race will have the exact same type of personality. Not even every member of a breed of animals that's been specifically bred to have a single temperament will actually have that temperament. With a self-aware, fully-sapient race? Heck no. The idea is ridiculous, and it's even more ridiculous to say "since dwarfs are surly, they get a penalty to a stat that's only tangentally related to surliness and will penalize them in things that have nothing to do with surliness."
> 
> If all you can "really hear" is that people are complaining about their character, maybe you need to listen a bit more.



I’m not pigeonholing them, they can have different personalities BUT the surly serious dwarf is the baseline, you build off of that, it takes more effort to make a surly person friendly than one who was already amiable to begin with.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> But a dwarf can be just as good as a human as those things however the concept of DnD dwarves is that their culture is not that way inclined, they’re serious, they’re honest, they’re gruff, so they have a little further to go to match a human at those things on an even footing.



Beginning in 3e, this model tends to crumble under the weight of a large number of PC races.  Sure you can say that dwarves tend to be gruff and surly justifying a -2 penalty to Charisma, but it falls apart in a party with a goblin, bugbear and minotaur that inexplicably _don’t_ get the penalty despite being monsters.

Edit. Forgot lizardfolk that are explicitly described as being off-putting.


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## bedir than (Oct 18, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Edit. Forgot lizardfolk that are explicitly described as being off-putting



They eat raw flesh, sometimes of sapient creatures.


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> I never said that, stop putting words in my mouth



You did say that. If you think dwarfs should have a Charisma penalty because they're gruff and surly, then you're saying that any skill or ability that uses Charisma should likewise be penalized.

And you also said it's a bit harder for a dwarf to be not-gruff and surly. Which means a dwarf has to _work_ at being friendly and cheerful. Which--and I say this as someone who is autistic--is exhausting. You even say that below "it takes more effort to make a surly person friendly than one who was already amiable to begin with."

Unless the dwarf is _naturally _not gruff and surly, or is only friendly and cheerful among humans, and in both cases, they shouldn't t get a -2 to Charisma.

_And _that begs the question: _why _does being gruff and surly deserve a -2 to Charisma, and the resultant penalty to all skills and traits that are dependent on Charisma? Why does being gruff and surly mean you don't have a strong force of will or are a good leader?

Maybe we should have a list of personalities and you have to roll on it during chargen, and each personality type determines a _bonus or penalty to interactions made with NPCs._ Which makes a bit more sense than a blanket penalty to Charisma.



CreamCloud0 said:


> I’m not pigeonholing them, they can have different personalities BUT the surly serious dwarf is the baseline, you build off of that, it takes more effort to make a surly person friendly than one who was already amiable to begin with.



_Why _should the gruff and surly dwarf be the baseline?


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Beginning in 3e, this model tends to crumble under the weight of a large number of PC races.  Sure you can say that dwarves tend to be gruff and surly justifying a -2 penalty to Charisma, but it falls apart in a party with a goblin, bugbear and minotaur that inexplicably _don’t_ get the penalty despite being monsters.
> 
> Edit. Forgot lizardfolk that are explicitly described as being off-putting.



In AD&D, with The Complete Book of Humanoids, bugbears and bullywugs only got a *-1* to Charisma. But firbolgs got a -2.


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Has anyone on here ever run into. a DM that wouldn't let a player have their character take some extra weakness? (Say to decline to take an ASI or to put 6 somewhere instead of 8 as a low array score or to not be tough or lucky).  Unless the player was going to do a parody of someone with a disability I think I'd be fine with that.



Yes. One of the members of my group loves playing characters with lower stats--just so he doesn't succeed all the time--and one DM refused to let him lower his stats when he rolled really well because of that.


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## Oofta (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You did say that. If you think dwarfs should have a Charisma penalty because they're gruff and surly, then you're saying that any skill or ability that uses Charisma should likewise be penalized.
> 
> And you also said it's a bit harder for a dwarf to be not-gruff and surly. Which means a dwarf has to _work_ at being friendly and cheerful. Which--and I say this as someone who is autistic--is exhausting. You even say that below "it takes more effort to make a surly person friendly than one who was already amiable to begin with."
> 
> ...




Because people want a baseline to start from?  Because as humans we have a very difficult time portraying how a non-human species would think and act in a way that's easily quantifiable?  I admit there will always be a planet of hats issue describing a non-human intelligence, I'm just not sure there's a better option. Surly but doughty dwarves is an oversimplified trope, but at least it's something to hang your hat on.

If everyone is just a human with a rubber mask, why bother having anything other than humans?  On the other hand, D&D oversimplifies everything else under the sun, why is oversimplifying the difference between intelligent species like virtually all fiction (with exceptions here and there) an issue?  

If you're watching Star Trek you know that most Klingons are a warrior race with a deep sense of honor.  If you're watching Star Wars you know that [insert any species that shows up here] has effectively the exact same outlook, moral code, strengths and weaknesses as humans.  The former makes the occasional Klingon that doesn't follow pattern stand out, the latter is just showing how many costumes people can put on.


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Because people want a baseline to start from?  Because as humans we have a very difficult time portraying how a non-human species would think and act in a way that's easily quantifiable?  I admit there will always be a planet of hats issue describing a non-human intelligence, I'm just not sure there's a better option. Surly but doughty dwarves is an oversimplified trope, but at least it's something to hang your hat on.



OK, sure, but why does surly and gruff equal -2 Charisma?



Oofta said:


> If everyone is just a human with a rubber mask, why bother having anything other than humans?  On the other hand, D&D oversimplifies everything else under the sun, why is oversimplifying the difference between intelligent species like virtually all fiction (with exceptions here and there) an issue?
> 
> If you're watching Star Trek you know that most Klingons are a warrior race with a deep sense of honor.  If you're watching Star Wars you know that [insert any species that shows up here] has effectively the exact same outlook, moral code, strengths and weaknesses as humans.  The former makes the occasional Klingon that doesn't follow pattern stand out, the latter is just showing how many costumes people can put on.



To be fair, Star Trek is a TV show with a lot of room to explain the various species than Star Wars does. (I admit, I've only watched 8 of the 9 movies, plus Rogue One, and _none _of the TV shows or any of the books.)

But in Star Trek, a _lot _of the nonhumans are different than the stereotype. We've probably met more Klingons whose idea of honor is really just bravado than we've met truly honorable Klingons (and that's completely ignoring the pre-honor "a running man can slit a thousand throats in a single night" Klingons from TOS). Vulcans very quickly showed that they were less about logic and more about coming up with logical-sounding justifications for not-necessarily logical behavior, even as far back as TOS. Bajorans are spiritual, but we've seen Bajorans who are practically areligious and Bajorans who are fundamentalists. And look at how many Ferengi we've met who don't really care about profit.

So the stereotypes in Star Trek is really just stereotypes, about as meaningful and useful as saying "Oh, you're a Capricorn? Well, no wonder you act like that," not actual _facts _that can be justified by a stat penalty. It's useful for creating a background character who will appear in one episode, and not that useful for creating interesting reoccurring characters.

In Star Wars, however, we don't learn all that much about races. Or at least I didn't, based on what I've seen. Going just by the movies, I couldn't tell you a thing about Wookiees. Which is absolutely _fine _because it means I can treat Chewbacca as an individual and not as a walking stereotype or a subversion of that stereotype.


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 18, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Because people want a baseline to start from?  Because as humans we have a very difficult time portraying how a non-human species would think and act in a way that's easily quantifiable?  I admit there will always be a planet of hats issue describing a non-human intelligence, I'm just not sure there's a better option. Surly but doughty dwarves is an oversimplified trope, but at least it's something to hang your hat on.



Surly but doughty dwarves are _more_ of a rubber mask than dwarves with some physical differences, and some differences of basic perspective as a result, but capable of the same range of behavior as humans.


Oofta said:


> If everyone is just a human with a rubber mask, why bother having anything other than humans?  On the other hand, D&D oversimplifies everything else under the sun, why is oversimplifying the difference between intelligent species like virtually all fiction (with exceptions here and there) an issue?



Put simply, fiction isn't, generally, a roleplaying game. You aren't taking on a persona when you read Lord of The Rings. 

And make no mistake, other fiction is being examined in this light as well. I think roleplaying games have gotten hit first, insofar as they have been, because your character is, for many people, personal. 

Roleplaying games also tend to describe races in a way that is distinct. I'm not sure how to articulate the difference, but it very much "hits different" as the kids say.


Oofta said:


> If you're watching Star Trek you know that most Klingons are a warrior race with a deep sense of honor.  If you're watching Star Wars you know that [insert any species that shows up here] has effectively the exact same outlook, moral code, strengths and weaknesses as humans.  The former makes the occasional Klingon that doesn't follow pattern stand out, the latter is just showing how many costumes people can put on.



IMO that makes Klingons less good for roleplaying than Ithorians. 

But, it also isn't quite true. Star Wars species do differ from humans quite a bit, they just aren't as monolithic as Star Trek species, because Star Trek species often seem to be basically exactly the same person repeated over and over again. 

Neither are wholly monolithic, but Star Wars, IMO, treats sentient beings as sentient beings. If all dwarves act a certain way, and even one that acts differently is to some degree fighting their inborn nature and impulses, I'm not sure dwarves are as free of will as a human. I, like many others, have no interest in roleplaying a lack of free will.


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## Stormonu (Oct 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> So players in your game are expected to optimize?
> 
> I ask because it sure sounds that way, when you state you "wouldn't let someone" play a character who isn't up to snuff.



Not optimize, but if the party would be better off without another player's character around - or they're a millstone around the group's neck, that's a problem.

Example:  player wanted a mute druid.  Because of the muteness, they couldn't cast most of their spells.  That character either ought to be able to contribute via wildshape, select spells that don't require a verbal component or have some way of casting spells without using verbal components (_silent spell_ or somesuch).  Otherwise, they're going to be a big hinderance to the group.  And this was a character someone in my group actually wanted to play - they ended up relying a lot on wild shape, and I forgot what we did about spells - I think most were ones without verbal components.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 18, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Not optimize, but if the party would be better off without another player's character around - or they're a millstone around the group's neck, that's a problem.
> 
> Example:  player wanted a mute druid.  Because of the muteness, they couldn't cast most of their spells.  That character either ought to be able to contribute via wildshape, select spells that don't require a verbal component or have some way of casting spells without using verbal components (_silent spell_ or somesuch).  Otherwise, they're going to be a big hinderance to the group.  And this was a character someone in my group actually wanted to play - they ended up relying a lot on wild shape, and I forgot what we did about spells - I think most were ones without verbal components.



Sounds like it worked out.  There's a difference between wanting a glaring weakness and deciding to be a jerk.  Perhaps folks should stop assuming the latter and be a little more charitable?


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## Lanefan (Oct 18, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> You did say that. If you think dwarfs should have a Charisma penalty because they're gruff and surly, then you're saying that any skill or ability that uses Charisma should likewise be penalized.



Not the person who said it, but I agree with it.

On a broader scale, I strongly support the idea that some species are better (and in some cases, much better) suited for some classes and-or roles and less (or much less, or even outright can't be) suited for others, with Humans being the baseline equally suited to all.


Faolyn said:


> _And _that begs the question: _why _does being gruff and surly deserve a -2 to Charisma, and the resultant penalty to all skills and traits that are dependent on Charisma? Why does being gruff and surly mean you don't have a strong force of will or are a good leader?



Because species other than Dwarves don't quite get how you're trying to lead them, or tend to react more negatively to the way you approach conversation, or etc. etc.

The "other than Dwarves" piece is the key here; as stat bonuses and penalties use Humans as a baseline, what the game is mechanically comparing is how effective a typical Dwarf will be vs a typical Human.  This doesn't (or shouldn't!) apply when dealing with other Dwarves.


Faolyn said:


> _Why _should the gruff and surly dwarf be the baseline?



Dunno.  It could just as easily be Hobbits or Tieflings or Minotaurs that fill the "gruff and surly" niche, but somebody has to; and tradition gives that niche to Dwarves just like it gives happy-go-lucky to Elves and contented homebody to Hobbits.


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## Lanefan (Oct 18, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Not optimize, but if the party would be better off without another player's character around - or they're a millstone around the group's neck, that's a problem.



And the solution to that in-character problem can and IMO every time should be found in-character.  A few options, running the gamut from decent to nasty: The PCs try to address the weakness in the new character if possible (e.g. getting a _Heal_ cast to cure the Druid's mute-ness, below). The PCs turn down the new character's offer to join.  The PCs sneak off and leave the ineffective one behind in town.  The PCs make sure the ineffective one is front-and-centre in some dangerous situation then hang it out to dry.  The PCs slit the ineffective one's throat in the night.

I've seen all of these happen in play.  Been on the receiving end of a few, too. 


Stormonu said:


> Example:  player wanted a mute druid.  Because of the muteness, they couldn't cast most of their spells.  That character either ought to be able to contribute via wildshape, select spells that don't require a verbal component or have some way of casting spells without using verbal components (_silent spell_ or somesuch).  Otherwise, they're going to be a big hinderance to the group.  And this was a character someone in my group actually wanted to play - they ended up relying a lot on wild shape, and I forgot what we did about spells - I think most were ones without verbal components.


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## Stormonu (Oct 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And the solution to that in-character problem can and IMO every time should be found in-character.  A few options, running the gamut from decent to nasty: The PCs try to address the weakness in the new character if possible (e.g. getting a _Heal_ cast to cure the Druid's mute-ness, below). The PCs turn down the new character's offer to join.  The PCs sneak off and leave the ineffective one behind in town.  The PCs make sure the ineffective one is front-and-centre in some dangerous situation then hang it out to dry.  The PCs slit the ineffective one's throat in the night.
> 
> I've seen all of these happen in play.  Been on the receiving end of a few, too.



We play by different rules, I guess.  I want the players to be a team.  If the group had to resort to any of the methods above*, I'd rather just not allow the character at all in the first place.  I've got finite time and patience, and I'd rather not waste either my time or my group's time on something none of us enjoy in the first place.  In the example above, I worked with the player pre-game to sort out the in-game effects of being mute so that the player could enjoy it without either dragging the game down to a crawl or frustrating the other players.

* The _Heal_ could be an eventual goal, but not where the character is ineffective until it's been cast.


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## Faolyn (Oct 18, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not the person who said it, but I agree with it.
> 
> On a broader scale, I strongly support the idea that some species are better (and in some cases, much better) suited for some classes and-or roles and less (or much less, or even outright can't be) suited for others, with Humans being the baseline equally suited to all.
> 
> ...



So all species not only have stereotypes, but nearly all members of those species follow those stereotypes--and even those who subvert have the same penalties as the rest do (which means that, mechanically, they don't subvert the stereotype), and there is no way for species to learn how to communicate with each other fully or to see past those stereotypes. 

Yeah, no. That sounds _terrible_. 

Elves are happy-go-lucky? How does that mesh with the stereotype of elves as haughty and standofffish who look down at the shorter-lived races, all of which are also common elf stereotypes and all of which are far more deserving of a Charisma penalty than gruff and surly. Instead, many of them in 5e get a Charisma bonus--_including _the murderous drow. And in earlier editions, drow never got a Charisma penalty.

So what is it that Charisma is supposed to mean exactly? Are we saying Charisma is primarily appearance, so it doesn't matter that elves are snots and drow are outright evil because they're pretty and both of them are descendants of alien fey, but dwarfs are short and hairy and not too attractive so give them the penalty?


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## Hussar (Oct 19, 2022)

Oofta said:


> If everyone is just a human with a rubber mask, why bother having anything other than humans? On the other hand, D&D oversimplifies everything else under the sun, why is oversimplifying the difference between intelligent species like virtually all fiction (with exceptions here and there) an issue?



Why do you feel it is the job of the game and game designers to define your character?  Because that's essentially what you're saying.  You're saying that it's better that the game and the game designers tell everyone who plays this game that the expected way to play X race is to do it in this specific way and anything else is playing against type.

Wouldn't it be FAR better to let players decide that?


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Why do you feel it is the job of the game and game designers to define your character?  Because that's essentially what you're saying.  You're saying that it's better that the game and the game designers tell everyone who plays this game that the expected way to play X race is to do it in this specific way and anything else is playing against type.
> 
> Wouldn't it be FAR better to let players decide that?



Where do they decide that from?  What basis in fantasy or elsewhere should they use?  Do you expect every player to just create a whole personality and history out of nothing?  That's what those write-ups were for, so you have something to build from.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Where do they decide that from?



Their imaginations.



Micah Sweet said:


> What basis in fantasy or elsewhere should they use?



The setting book, the DM's input, their own interests, random tables, a character from a TV show that they want to emulate, a class/archetype combo you wanted to try... there's a billion ways to make your character and a billion ways to make a race.

Go with dwarfs. The book lore can be that they mine and craft and are clannish in nature. _You _can decide if your character is cheerful or surly or something else entirely.



Micah Sweet said:


> Do you expect every player to just create a whole personality and history out of nothing?  That's what those write-ups were for, so you have something to build from.



Er, kind of? I mean, that's what everyone does when they make their character anyway, right? Or you work with the DM and/or other players to make something up.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Their imaginations.
> 
> 
> The setting book, the DM's input, their own interests, random tables, a character from a TV show that they want to emulate, a class/archetype combo you wanted to try... there's a billion ways to make your character and a billion ways to make a race.
> ...



Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions?  They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?


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## Irlo (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Do you expect every player to just create a whole personality and history out of nothing?



We do it for human characters without the need for racial personality traits.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions?  They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?



I'm saying that insisting that all members of a race act in a specific way is pointless and unneeded, and that players are more than capable of deciding their PC's personality without a book.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I'm saying that insisting that all members of a race act in a specific way is pointless and unneeded, and that players are more than capable of deciding their PC's personality without a book.



Even Level Up has some amount of heritage write up.  Not as prescriptive as 5e, admittedly.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 19, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> I’m not pigeonholing them, they can have different personalities BUT the surly serious dwarf is the baseline, you build off of that, it takes more effort to make a surly person friendly than one who was already amiable to begin with.




It is also harder to  make someone naturally born with a gregarious attitude surly! Congrats, we both have reasons why Charisma might be affected. 

Now, do you think we can resolve Nature vs Nurture in a way that works out logically and makes everyone happy? Or can we just trust science on the "it's really complicated" angle and figure that it can be either/or?


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Even Level Up has some amount of heritage write up.  Not as prescriptive as 5e, admittedly.



With few exceptions, Level Up write-ups don't try to say that all members of a heritage have specific personality traits. And those few personality traits they _do _offer are generic: halflings are generally pleasant and orcs are passionate. The end.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not the person who said it, but I agree with it.
> 
> On a broader scale, I strongly support the idea that some species are better (and in some cases, much better) suited for some classes and-or roles and less (or much less, or even outright can't be) suited for others, with Humans being the baseline equally suited to all.




Why are Halflings less capable of having deep faith than humans? 

Why are dwarves less capable of speaking words of power than humans? 

Why is a Gnome's Oath to bring light and laughter to the world weaker and more fragile than a humans?



Lanefan said:


> Because species other than Dwarves don't quite get how you're trying to lead them, or tend to react more negatively to the way you approach conversation, or etc. etc.
> 
> The "other than Dwarves" piece is the key here; as stat bonuses and penalties use Humans as a baseline, what the game is mechanically comparing is how effective a typical Dwarf will be vs a typical Human.  This doesn't (or shouldn't!) apply when dealing with other Dwarves.




See, but that isn't how the game actually works or is actually presented. You don't get a bonus to strength when you enter a goblin village. You don't get a subtraction to your dexterity when you go into an Elven Temple. The stats are presented as objective, to a degree. An Ogre has a 19 strength, that is standard for an Ogre, to the point that it is a defined score for a magical item. 

It doesn't matter that they are weak for giants, or average for Ogres or incredibly strong for humans, the number is 19 and that doesn't change. So, any bonus or penalty to that number is equally objective. It isn't a penalty because I'm dealing with non-dwarves, it is a penalty in an objective sense, just like giving an Ogre a -3 strength and dropping them to 16 is objectively changing their strength, even though they are still subjectively in the same position relative to giants and human commoners.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Where do they decide that from?  What basis in fantasy or elsewhere should they use?  Do you expect every player to just create a whole personality and history out of nothing?  That's what those write-ups were for, so you have something to build from.




How does allowing someone to play a gregarious Dwarf, and not suffer a penalty to it, prevent someone else from going "I saw Lord of the Rings. I know dwarves are red-heads with axes who are gruff and tough." and make that their character? 

You are basically saying that if you don't punish people for thinking outside of the box, then no one will understand that the box exists. But... that's wrong. It is so wrong it is hard to put into words how completely wrong it is. It is so so so much harder to get people out of those tiny boxes, we don't need the game to reinforce them, people will reinforce them just fine on their own.


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## Oofta (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions?  They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?



Either you have some grounding and basis of a species identity or you don't. If everyone just makes everything up with no starting point I don't see the point. Just give up on the idea of predefined races and have build-a-race system with different options. 

Having defined races with defined characteristics gives me a starting point, a basis to build from. It doesn't totally identify any individual whether PC or NPC of course, that's not the point. But it gives the game concepts grounding something people can identify with across DMs and campaigns even when, especially when, that grounding is deviated from. 

Or just say the heck with it and hand out the rubber masks and have generic bland sameness for every species. 

Most DMs (and players) simply don't have the skills to do much better than what we already have and they shouldn't have to.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Either you have some grounding and basis of a species identity or you don't. If everyone just makes everything up with no starting point I don't see the point. Just give up on the idea of predefined races and have build-a-race system with different options.
> 
> Having defined races with defined characteristics gives me a starting point, a basis to build from. It doesn't totally identify any individual whether PC or NPC of course, that's not the point. But it gives the game concepts grounding something people can identify with across DMs and campaigns even when, especially when, that grounding is deviated from.
> 
> ...



There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> So all species not only have stereotypes, but nearly all members of those species follow those stereotypes--



Outright follow?  Now necessarily.  Trend toward?  Of course; as that's the point.


Faolyn said:


> and even those who subvert have the same penalties as the rest do (which means that, mechanically, they don't subvert the stereotype), and there is no way for species to learn how to communicate with each other fully or to see past those stereotypes.



Seeing past the stereotypes is one thing.  Somehow making average Hobbit strength the same as average Human strength, not so easy.

And even if individuals get past the stereotypes, on a broad level they still exist.


Faolyn said:


> Yeah, no. That sounds _terrible_.
> 
> Elves are happy-go-lucky? How does that mesh with the stereotype of elves as haughty and standofffish who look down at the shorter-lived races, all of which are also common elf stereotypes and all of which are far more deserving of a Charisma penalty than gruff and surly. Instead, many of them in 5e get a Charisma bonus--_including _the murderous drow. And in earlier editions, drow never got a Charisma penalty.



Elves (all types) tend to have the physical attractiveness side going for them.  And yes, snooty and-or haughty is another stereotype for Elves; though I tend to play mine more happy go lucky which is why that example leaped quickly to mind.


Faolyn said:


> So what is it that Charisma is supposed to mean exactly? Are we saying Charisma is primarily appearance, so it doesn't matter that elves are snots and drow are outright evil because they're pretty and both of them are descendants of alien fey, but dwarfs are short and hairy and not too attractive so give them the penalty?



Appearance is part of it.  Persuasiveness is another, whether used in a leadership role or not.  In my view, spiritual strength is a third.

A Cha 11 Elf is quite likely to be fairly attractive and rather boorish; while a Cha 11 Dwarf might be unattractive yet well-spoken.  A Cha 11 Human could be the perfect spy - as bland and boring and forgettable-in-a-crowd as it gets.


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> We play by different rules, I guess.  I want the players to be a team.



Quite different, in that I want the players to play what they want to play and how they want to play it, and it's not my problem if those characters are or are not a good team.  Eventually, in-character they figure it out, and if there's some rough patches along the way then so be it.


Stormonu said:


> If the group had to resort to any of the methods above*, I'd rather just not allow the character at all in the first place.  I've got finite time and patience, and I'd rather not waste either my time or my group's time on something none of us enjoy in the first place.



In a role-playing game, I take it as a given that sometimes other players are going to role-play something I-as-player (or I-as-DM) don't like.  But if I react as a player rather than as my character would, I'm flat-out doing it wrong.  And as a DM, it's not my place to police what players play, other than making sure the rules are followed.  As a DM my job is to provide the setting, lay down some adventure hooks (and have adventures ready behind each), and drop the puck; and if their characters want to ignore the puck and instead fight each other, then it's my duty to DM that and leave the adventures on the back burner until they've got it out of their systems.


Stormonu said:


> In the example above, I worked with the player pre-game to sort out the in-game effects of being mute so that the player could enjoy it without either dragging the game down to a crawl or frustrating the other players.
> 
> * The _Heal_ could be an eventual goal, but not where the character is ineffective until it's been cast.



So the front-line war-cleric PC I once DMed who started out with a phobia of wearing metal armour wouldn't fly, then?

Too bad, as that one went on to be one of the more successful and longer-serving characters in that game.


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Why do you feel it is the job of the game and game designers to define your character?  Because that's essentially what you're saying.



Not quite.

What's being said is that the designers should design some clear and specific strengths and weaknesses into each non-Human species.

It's then on the player to decide whether or not to play that species.


Hussar said:


> You're saying that it's better that the game and the game designers tell everyone who plays this game that the expected way to play X race is to do it in this specific way and anything else is playing against type.



In broad terms, yes; and if you want the generic species that comes with no expectations attached you play a Human.


Hussar said:


> Wouldn't it be FAR better to let players decide that?



They can and do, at the point where they look at all the pros and cons of each species during char-gen and decide which one to play.  If you want gruff, surly, strong and tough then play a Dwarf.  If you want nimble, weak, cheerful and tough then play a Hobbit.  If you want smart, attractive, spindly and haughty then play an Elf.  And remember these are merely trends, not absolutes.

The probems come - every damn time! - when players insist on strong AND tough AND nimble AND smart AND attractive and won't accept any corresponding drawbacks or penalties in order to get just two of those.


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Why are Halflings less capable of having deep faith than humans?



Because it's a Halfling.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why are dwarves less capable of speaking words of power than humans?



Because it's a Dwarf.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why is a Gnome's Oath to bring light and laughter to the world weaker and more fragile than a humans?



Because it's a Gnome.

Humans are the baseline, and all others are compared to them.

And you're also conveniently forgetting (pre-floating ASIs):

Why are Halflings more capable of nimbly running along balance beams than humans?
Why are Dwarves more resiilent than humans when it comes to taking damage?

Never mind the universal all-editions question:

Why do Gnomes even exist?


Chaosmancer said:


> See, but that isn't how the game actually works or is actually presented. You don't get a bonus to strength when you enter a goblin village.



No, but if Goblins were the baseline instead of Humans all Humans would have a pretty good strength bonus.


Chaosmancer said:


> You don't get a subtraction to your dexterity when you go into an Elven Temple.



Again, Elves aren't the baseline.  You might not get a dex penalty but odds are high you'll still be among the clumsiest in the room.

Same as if real-world me was to walk into a room full of NASA rocket scientists.  I wouldn't in fact be any less intelligent than I was outside but I'd sure as hell feel like I was.


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."



Not really, as one is simply a mechanical reflection of the other.

Further, on the meta balance level Dwarves need a penalty to something to cancel off their bonus to Strength and-or Con.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."



Fair enough.  I support ASIs being on background (if they need to exist at all).  I just think heritage write-ups are an important tool and should be kept.


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## Hussar (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions? They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?




There’s a considerable difference between a -2 cha and an actual race description.


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## Paul Farquhar (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions?  They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?



I wouldn't go so far as to say "no one" reads them, but I find players are more likely to go by what they have seen in movies, TV and video games.


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## Yora (Oct 19, 2022)

The older I get and the longer I'm playing fantasy RPGs, the more I am wondering why even bother with differentiating races in the first place.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Go with dwarfs. The book lore can be that they mine and craft and are clannish in nature. _You _can decide if your character is cheerful or surly or something else entirely.



Good point.  The dwarves in Snow White are recognizably dwarves: they are short, bearded, clannish, enjoy mining, and use mining weapons in combat.  They are also cheerful and enjoy whistling while they work.  It would be weird to me for a DM to say that Grumpy was the only “valid” dwarf.


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## Stormonu (Oct 19, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Fair enough.  I support ASIs being on background (if they need to exist at all).  I just think heritage write-ups are an important tool and should be kept.



I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level.  Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well.  5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 19, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level.  Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well.  5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.



I agree with that, but there are other ways of depicting size beyond a stat penalty.  Stats affect so much of what your character can accomplish in the game, you're always going to get pushback.


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## Mind of tempest (Oct 19, 2022)

Yora said:


> The older I get and the longer I'm playing fantasy RPGs, the more I am wondering why even bother with differentiating races in the first place.



everyone has to start somewhere plus there are two groups with many subgroups
people who want all races to be human who look different and people who want the races to be non-human.
I find the stat penalties dull as they are not interesting weaknesses they do not promote ideas but cull them.
I want weaknesses that builds ideas that are interesting not just making my character weak, sickly or stupid.


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## Cadence (Oct 19, 2022)

As a semi-aside.  If you're in a 3d6 world and randomly pick someone from a fantasy species with a +2 ASI and someone from a species with no ASI, the one without the bonus would have a higher score around 28% of the time and have a tie another 8%.  So, there is certainly a difference, but it hardly condemns everyone of the non-ASI species to be worse and certainly doesn't make everyone of the ASI species better on that stat.

(Which doesn't particularly argue that the ASI modifier based on race is good/bad, but some of the ways things were being phrased about its game world implications seemed off.)


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 19, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level.  Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well.  5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.



While I prefer ASI in race due to what they were originally meant to represent I kind of like the idea of class, race and background each giving a choice of stats to place the ASI in for that respective character build choice, it prevents everything being loaded onto one of C/R/B and implying the other two didn’t have any influence on your character’s abilities, it’s not total freedom to place your ASI where you want but i think it strikes a nice balance between build choice and thematic-mechanical consistency.

Class provides three choices because they’re more conceptually MAD and race and background could provide two choices each.

So you chose a rogue? Put your class ASI in one of DEX, INT or CHA, Half orc? Racial ASI in STR or CON, Outlander background? That one goes in DEX or WIS.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Outright follow?  Now necessarily.  Trend toward?  Of course; as that's the point.



If they _trend _to a certain personality, then their racial stats should _all _reflect that personality.



Lanefan said:


> Seeing past the stereotypes is one thing.  Somehow making average Hobbit strength the same as average Human strength, not so easy.



Ugh, this again.

A halfling with a -2 penalty to Strength is only 5% weaker than humans. An orc with a +2 bonus to Strength is only 5% stronger than humans. Neither of these actually do a good job of indicating that a halfling or orc is weaker or stronger than a human.

The fact that halflings get a penalty when using Heavy weapons and orcs can carry more than a human can does a _better _job showing those differences.

_And _the only time this matters is when it comes to player characters who are automatically exceptional. NPC halflings can be as weak as you want them to be. Why should _players _be forced to have a penalty?



Lanefan said:


> And even if individuals get past the stereotypes, on a broad level they still exist.
> 
> Elves (all types) tend to have the physical attractiveness side going for them.  And yes, snooty and-or haughty is another stereotype for Elves; though I tend to play mine more happy go lucky which is why that example leaped quickly to mind.



And _this _is the problem. You play elves as happy-go-lucky. Someone else plays elves as haughty. Why should they both have the same bonus or penalty?

_You _play dwarfs as naturally surly and gruff. I don't. Why should _my _dwarfs have a Charisma penalty because your do?



Lanefan said:


> Appearance is part of it.



So, short and hairy = unattractive. Gotcha.



Lanefan said:


> Persuasiveness is another, whether used in a leadership role or not.  In my view, spiritual strength is a third.



So honest, hard-working dwarfs aren't as persuasive or spiritually strong as sadistic, demon-worshiping drow are. Gotcha.



Lanefan said:


> A Cha 11 Elf is quite likely to be fairly attractive and rather boorish; while a Cha 11 Dwarf might be unattractive yet well-spoken.  A Cha 11 Human could be the perfect spy - as bland and boring and forgettable-in-a-crowd as it gets.



Charisma 11 is completely average. A Charisma 11 human wouldn't be a perfect spy at all, because in order to be bland and boring and forgettable, you would also have to be good at hiding your actions and reactions and appearance so that you don't stand out. And that means (in 5e, at least) having a high skill in the Deception skill and disguise kit, both of which are dependent on Charisma. And if Charisma is "spiritual strength", then a spy would also need a high Charisma to maintain a sense of self when infiltrating enemy organizations.

In the Planescape book "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil," there was a character named Farrow (a Mystaran shadow elf) who was a "perfect spy" with a Charisma of 10. He had a _ring of disguise _that he used to infiltrate the other factions, under the orders of Shemeshka of the Marauder, that let him take on other appearances so he could act as members of those factions. Possibly due to that Charisma of 10, and definitely due to the power that belief has in Sigil, his mind broke and he developed multiple personalities, one for each of the factions he was infiltrating, and his original personality was completely suppressed.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Nevermind


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because it's a Halfling.
> 
> Because it's a Dwarf.
> 
> Because it's a Gnome.



These are pretty terrible reasons.



Lanefan said:


> Humans are the baseline, and all others are compared to them.
> 
> And you're also conveniently forgetting (pre-floating ASIs):
> 
> ...



Which is why ASIs shouldn't be race-based in the first place.



Lanefan said:


> Never mind the universal all-editions question:
> 
> Why do Gnomes even exist?



Because tradition, back when races were limited to what classes they could take.



Lanefan said:


> No, but if Goblins were the baseline instead of Humans all Humans would have a pretty good strength bonus.
> 
> Again, Elves aren't the baseline.  You might not get a dex penalty but odds are high you'll still be among the clumsiest in the room.



In your world, not mine. Heck, my friends and I just did some worldbuilding and in that world, humans are a recently-added, invasive species. Elves _are _the baseline in that world.



Lanefan said:


> Same as if real-world me was to walk into a room full of NASA rocket scientists.  I wouldn't in fact be any less intelligent than I was outside but I'd sure as hell feel like I was.



Feeling something isn't the same as having a stat penalty to it.


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> These are pretty terrible reasons.
> 
> Which is why ASIs shouldn't be race-based in the first place.



What else do you base them on?  ASI's are intended to reflect what the character intrinsically is - what it has going for it and what it doesn't - before it ever thinks about adventuring


Faolyn said:


> Because tradition, back when races were limited to what classes they could take.



Yeah, OK, I'll concede that one. 


Faolyn said:


> In your world, not mine. Heck, my friends and I just did some worldbuilding and in that world, humans are a recently-added, invasive species. Elves _are _the baseline in that world.



Cool!  So then, if Elves are the baseline default, what are the ASI's for Humans?

And if the answer is "there aren't any", then what's the intrinsic physical difference between the two other than cosmetic appearance and how is that reflected mechanically across the entirety of the two species?

And before you say "PCs are extraordinary so blanket species adjustments shoulsn't apply to them", I'll just point out that's a pointless argument with me as I see PCs as being representative members of their species, only with a serious dash of bravery/foolhardiness tacked on. 


Faolyn said:


> Feeling something isn't the same as having a stat penalty to it.



Indeed; which is the point I was trying to make when someone said they'd feel smarter if they walked into a room full of Goblins.

In either case, I'm not the one with the penalty or bonus, they are.; as I'm a Human and thus represent the baseline.  NASA scientists (or ancient Hobgoblins in my setting, who were very high-tech) might as well have a +2 Int bonus while Goblins have a -[big number] Int penalty.


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## Mind of tempest (Oct 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> What else do you base them on?  ASI's are intended to reflect what the character intrinsically is - what it has going for it and what it doesn't - before it ever thinks about adventuring



I do not disagree that there should be a similarity between the pc race in both types of stat block but honestly, asi is the worse way as it is dull and I trie of blind tradition give me limitation that go somewhere.


Lanefan said:


> Cool!  So then, if Elves are the baseline default, what are the ASI's for Humans?
> 
> And if the answer is "there aren't any", then what's the intrinsic physical difference between the two other than cosmetic appearance and how is that reflected mechanically across the entirety of the two species?



stat wise there never should be elves never really wear built to be balanced they were a non-fallen humanity whose differences were never based on stats but more on magic and what they could do and how they existed, from elves point of view our flaws is being short-lived and brutal they likely think of use as less evil orcs.



Lanefan said:


> In either case, I'm not the one with the penalty or bonus, they are.; as I'm a Human and thus represent the baseline.  NASA scientists (or ancient Hobgoblins in my setting, who were very high-tech) might as well have a +2 Int bonus while Goblins have a -[big number] Int penalty.



you do not need something to be stats to feel it people have to belive much the same with out any stats, secondly, what makes a goblin stupid why should it where is stupid in the concept?


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## Lanefan (Oct 19, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> you do not need something to be stats to feel it people have to belive much the same with out any stats, secondly, what makes a goblin stupid why should it where is stupid in the concept?



Using the typical "monster" Goblin as an example here (IMO Goblins shouldn't be PC-playable):

Goblins are good with their hands and can build things.  They, along with most living creatures*, have an inherent sense of self preservation.  And yet for some reason they have yet to invent or adopt technology and-or ideas that would allow them to build solid defensible shelters such as castles, nor have they yet been able to grasp arcane casting which would help greatly with such endeavours.  Why?

I'll leave determination of the answer up to you.

* - adventurers, of course, being a notable exception here.


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## Faolyn (Oct 19, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> What else do you base them on?  ASI's are intended to reflect what the character intrinsically is - what it has going for it and what it doesn't - before it ever thinks about adventuring



Free-floating. Level Up attaches them to background, +1 fixed, +1 floating. I've seen people say to attach them to class as well, which also makes sense. 



Lanefan said:


> Yeah, OK, I'll concede that one.
> 
> Cool!  So then, if Elves are the baseline default, what are the ASI's for Humans?



Wherever they choose to put the +2/+1, or, in Level Up what their background says.



Lanefan said:


> And if the answer is "there aren't any", then what's the intrinsic physical difference between the two other than cosmetic appearance and how is that reflected mechanically across the entirety of the two species?



See all those traits that each race has? See how dwarfs get Dwarf Resilience and Stonecunning and elves get Fey Ancestry and Trance?

Those things. 

Which actually are useful and interesting in play. If you have a 15 Dexterity, how often has it _ever _mattered whether you got it by rolling the dice/assigning points or because of your race. And how often has it actually mattered that you rolled a 15 but your teammate rolled a 13 and added 2 because of their race? You both have a 15 in the same stat. 

In the 30-odd years _I've _been gaming and the three editions I've played with, it hasn't mattered to me even _once. _Has it mattered to you?

Of course, it barely matters unless everyone starts with the exact same stats and they're _only _different because of race. If one person is a dwarf with Dex 18 and another person is an elf with Dex 13 after the racial ASI, then it certainly seems silly to say that elves are more dexterous than dwarfs are.

In D&D, variant humans get a skill and a feat. In D&DOne, they also get free Inspiration. In Level Up, humans get a skill, can add an expertise die to a roll 1/rest, and get to pick a human heritage gift.



Lanefan said:


> And before you say "PCs are extraordinary so blanket species adjustments shoulsn't apply to them", I'll just point out that's a pointless argument with me as I see PCs as being representative members of their species, *only with a serious dash of bravery/foolhardiness tacked on*.



So, _extraordinary._ If _ordinary_ people don't have that level of bravery/foolhardiness, then PCs are _extraordinary _because they do.

Extraordinary =/= super-powered. Extraordinary = very unusual and special.



Lanefan said:


> Indeed; which is the point I was trying to make when someone said they'd feel smarter if they walked into a room full of Goblins.



"Feel" smarter is not the same as having a +2 Intelligence.



Lanefan said:


> In either case, I'm not the one with the penalty or bonus, they are.; as I'm a Human and thus represent the baseline.



If you're in a room with a bunch of goblins, _they _are the baseline. It literally doesn't matter if these are the only goblins in the world and everyone else in existence is a human.



Lanefan said:


> NASA scientists (or ancient Hobgoblins in my setting, who were very high-tech) might as well have a +2 Int bonus while Goblins have a -[big number] Int penalty.



Last I checked, all NASA scientists are human.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 19, 2022)

I find myself wondering where the line is between thread resuscitation and thread necromancy.


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## James Gasik (Oct 19, 2022)

At this point, it's really not about the value of Halflings as a race at all, so I call it thread mutation.


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## Oofta (Oct 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> At this point, it's really not about the value of Halflings as a race at all, so I call it thread mutation.



So ... mutant Frankenstein's monster thread?


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Either you have some grounding and basis of a species identity or you don't. If everyone just makes everything up with no starting point I don't see the point. Just give up on the idea of predefined races and have build-a-race system with different options.
> 
> Having defined races with defined characteristics gives me a starting point, a basis to build from. It doesn't totally identify any individual whether PC or NPC of course, that's not the point. But it gives the game concepts grounding something people can identify with across DMs and campaigns even when, especially when, that grounding is deviated from.
> 
> ...




You know what Oofta, you convinced me. We do need a starting point. So, what if we did something like this. 

*Height:* 4 -5 ft tall
*Lifespan:* 350 years
*Darkvision:* 60 ft
*Dwarven Resilience:* Advantage on Poison saves, Resistance to Poison damage
*Dwarven Toughness:* Your hp max increases by +1 now and every time you level
*Forgewise:* You have proficiency with two of the following Artisan Tools: Jeweler’s Tools, Mason’s Tools, Smith’s Tools, or Tinker’s Tools.
*Stonecunning:* prof times per day, you can gain Tremorsense out to 60 ft for 10 minutes while on stone surfaces. 

Wait. We do need some lore. They live underground, they are clannish and have a deep respect for tradition. 



Okay, now we have a starting point, a basis to build from, right?


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## Oofta (Oct 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You know what Oofta, you convinced me. We do need a starting point. So, what if we did something like this.
> 
> *Height:* 4 -5 ft tall
> *Lifespan:* 350 years
> ...



That is one option.  I think tremorsense will either be amazing or practically pointless depending on campaign.  Other than that, I still prefer have ability score modifiers at the race level because it gives typical species member a default so if _my_ dwarf is below average strength but extremely dextrous it stands out as being odd, not just "Oh, gee, another dextrous character" followed by a yawn.  

Since you can make the +2/+1 whatever you want no matter what you choose I'd just make it part of ability score generation or get rid of it entirely.  Oh, and I still like the split between mountain and hill dwarves.  Why is it that only elves get a dozen different subspecies but other races don't? 

P.S. If your going to disagree with me and paste in the playtest version just say you're doing it.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> The probems come - every damn time! - when players insist on strong AND tough AND nimble AND smart AND attractive and won't accept any corresponding drawbacks or penalties in order to get just two of those.




YEAH! I mean it isn't like rolling dice can possibly lead to someone rolling 18, 17, 15, 13, 12, 10 (the array I rolled on my first attempt, instead of having to do ten or so arrays) which would allow a character who is all those things. That is a very powerful array. Even if you wanted to do a +2/+1 and a -2/-1 I could end up with 16, 16, 15, 14, 14, 10 which is very much being strong AND tough AND nimble AND smart AND attractive and I STILL took those penalties for no reason. 

So, if this is so easily possible, how can it possibly be a problem to not want those negatives? They don't really prevent this after all. 



Lanefan said:


> Because it's a Halfling.
> 
> Because it's a Dwarf.
> 
> ...




So... no reason at all. Therefore changing that doesn't harm their concept in any way at all.



Lanefan said:


> And you're also conveniently forgetting (pre-floating ASIs):
> 
> Why are Halflings more capable of nimbly running along balance beams than humans?
> Why are Dwarves more resiilent than humans when it comes to taking damage?




Halfings are not more capable of nimbly running along a balance beam than humans. They are actually equal in that task. 

Dwarves are more resilient to damage because they have a trait that gives them more hp.



Lanefan said:


> No, but if Goblins were the baseline instead of Humans all Humans would have a pretty good strength bonus.




Would they? I don't think so.



Lanefan said:


> Again, Elves aren't the baseline.  You might not get a dex penalty but odds are high you'll still be among the clumsiest in the room.
> 
> Same as if real-world me was to walk into a room full of NASA rocket scientists.  I wouldn't in fact be any less intelligent than I was outside but I'd sure as hell feel like I was.




See, that last sentence? That's the ENTIRE point. Your intelligence doesn't actually change. And the numbers on the sheets are the objective measure. Sure, we all understand that humans are the baseline, but that doesn't make the numbers less objective. 

And, again, if you look at humans AS the baseline (in 5e which I know you don't play) then look at what that means, it is utterly ridiculous to try and claim that as a reason for any bonuses or penalties at all.


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## Faolyn (Oct 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> That is one option.  I think tremorsense will either be amazing or practically pointless depending on campaign.  Other than that, I still prefer have ability score modifiers at the race level because it gives typical species member a default so if _my_ dwarf is below average strength but extremely dextrous it stands out as being odd, not just "Oh, gee, another dextrous character" followed by a yawn.



But odd in comparison to _who?_ Unless there's bunches of other dwarfs in the party to compare it to, your character being better or worse than others of your race only affects you insomuch as you choose to have it affect them and it affects the rest of the party. Literally _nobody _in the party is going to care if you have a weak, dexterous dwarf unless you choose to make an issue or you're trying to play a Strength-based fighter and fail all the time and the rest of the group gets annoyed by that.

And who says dwarfs can't be dexterous? They're known for their craftwork; that requires nimble fingers. Because remember: Dexterity in D&D covers a _lot _of fine motor skills.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Using the typical "monster" Goblin as an example here (IMO Goblins shouldn't be PC-playable):
> 
> Goblins are good with their hands and can build things.  They, along with most living creatures*, have an inherent sense of self preservation.  And yet for some reason they have yet to invent or adopt technology and-or ideas that would allow them to build solid defensible shelters such as castles, nor have they yet been able to grasp arcane casting which would help greatly with such endeavours.  Why?
> 
> I'll leave determination of the answer up to you.




Because they can and do use arcane casting, and there is literally no reason they can't build solid defensible shelters. In actual fact, in bog standard DnD, unless they have slaves to do the work for them, who do you think are building all of the hobgoblins well-designed and well-built fortresses? It certainly wasn't the hobgoblins or the bugbears. 

So, in actual fact, they are fully capable and actually do use both things.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> That is one option.  I think tremorsense will either be amazing or practically pointless depending on campaign.  Other than that, I still prefer have ability score modifiers at the race level because it gives typical species member a default so if _my_ dwarf is below average strength but extremely dextrous it stands out as being odd, not just "Oh, gee, another dextrous character" followed by a yawn.




But... it doesn't. It literally does not give the races a default. What it has done in this most recent edition is give people the illusion that it still gives a default, when it really really really doesn't. 

And frankly, a dexterous dwarf isn't interesting or unique. They ARE just another dexterous character. I mean, seriously, that is the most boring character concept. It is like someone whose entire character concept revolves around being strong. Okay, your character is strong. Anything actually interesting about them?


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Because they can and do use arcane casting, and there is literally no reason they can't build solid defensible shelters. In actual fact, in bog standard DnD, unless they have slaves to do the work for them, who do you think are building all of the hobgoblins well-designed and well-built fortresses? It certainly wasn't the hobgoblins or the bugbears.
> 
> So, in actual fact, they are fully capable and actually do use both things.



I think a lot of goblinoid societies in traditional games, particularly hobgoblin ones, do in fact use slave labor.

Doesn't mean goblins couldn't do it, of course.


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## Lanefan (Oct 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Because they can and do use arcane casting, and there is literally no reason they can't build solid defensible shelters. In actual fact, in bog standard DnD, unless they have slaves to do the work for them, who do you think are building all of the hobgoblins well-designed and well-built fortresses? It certainly wasn't the hobgoblins or the bugbears.



Goblins are not Hobgoblins.  And yes; in the real world an elephant can help build a house by providing labour but that doesn't mean elephants can design, engineer, and build houses by themselves.

Same is true of standard Goblins and Kobolds.  They can provide labour to help other, smarter creatures build what those others have designed but other than the rarest of exceptions they can't design, engineer, and build anything similar on their own.


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## Hussar (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Goblins are not Hobgoblins.  And yes; in the real world an elephant can help build a house by providing labour but that doesn't mean elephants can design, engineer, and build houses by themselves.
> 
> Same is true of standard Goblins and Kobolds.  They can provide labour to help other, smarter creatures build what those others have designed but other than the rarest of exceptions they can't design, engineer, and build anything similar on their own.



That might be goblins and kobolds in your campaign, but, that's very much not how they are presented in D&D.  Goblins and kobolds are both builders and miners, very capable of doing both.  Both are described as being very capable of building traps and mechanical devices as well.  Never minding that goblins and kobolds are just as smart (on average) as humans. 

See, this is largely where things get really weird.  Neither goblins nor kobolds are described as being incapable of doing anything a human can do.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 20, 2022)

Cadence said:


> As a semi-aside.  If you're in a 3d6 world and randomly pick someone from a fantasy species with a +2 ASI and someone from a species with no ASI, the one without the bonus would have a higher score around 28% of the time and have a tie another 8%.  So, there is certainly a difference, but it hardly condemns everyone of the non-ASI species to be worse and certainly doesn't make everyone of the ASI species better on that stat.



If you enjoy the greater randomness of rolling your stats, one way to do it would be to have the players choose their race first, then have the number/type of dice rolled depend on the race.


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## Cadence (Oct 20, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> If you enjoy the greater randomness of rolling your stats, one way to do it would be to have the players choose their race first, then have the number/type of dice rolled depend on the race.



I'm not a fan of rolling stats  in general, but sometimes use it when thinking about the population at large.  

Your idea seems like a neat alternative to ASIs when rolling that puts a finger on the scales but doesn't limit the max or mins that are possible.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 20, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I'm not a fan of rolling stats  in general, but sometimes use it when thinking about the population at large.
> 
> Your idea seems like a neat alternative to ASIs when rolling that puts a finger on the scales but doesn't limit the max or mins that are possible.



I’m not a big fan of rolling either, but this is definitely something I’d try for a one-shot.


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## Oofta (Oct 20, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But... it doesn't. It literally does not give the races a default. What it has done in this most recent edition is give people the illusion that it still gives a default, when it really really really doesn't.
> 
> And frankly, a dexterous dwarf isn't interesting or unique. They ARE just another dexterous character. I mean, seriously, that is the most boring character concept. It is like someone whose entire character concept revolves around being strong. Okay, your character is strong. Anything actually interesting about them?




I've answered these questions multiple times now.  We have different preferences.  You don't seem to have a point any more other than borderline harassment.  Have a good one.


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## AnotherGuy (Oct 20, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> I find the stat penalties dull as they are not interesting weaknesses they do not promote ideas but cull them.
> I want weaknesses that builds ideas that are interesting not just making my character weak, sickly or stupid.



I'm thinking you can have both.
For instance, a halfling with decent to high STR can be off-putting for some.


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## Stormonu (Oct 20, 2022)

TBF, I'm less interested in ASIs than _abilities_ races get.  Sure, -1 STR to Halflings makes sense on some level, but their _Lucky_ ability is a far better trait for doing things that actually differentiate the races.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 20, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I’m not a big fan of rolling either, but this is definitely something I’d try for a one-shot.



Definitely an interesting idea. Seems like the challenge is either how to keep your potential results within the D&D sweet spot for PCs, or how ok you are willing to be with PCs being pretty significantly outside that sweet spot (e.g. on 3d8, there's a 1 in 15 chance you roll a 20 or above at chargen)


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## James Gasik (Oct 20, 2022)

Perhaps one way to do this (if you really wish to impose your will upon racial ability score tendencies*) it is use die rolling, but set priorities, so that, when playing a Dwarf, your first or second highest die roll result must be Constitution, and Charisma can't be your highest die roll result.  There is still the possibility for an 18 Charisma Dwarf, but it requires you to roll three 18's to get there; just as it is technically possible that you have a low Constitution, though you would need largely terrible rolls.

But no actual bonuses or penalties are granted from race, and you can use your ASI's (however they are derived, be it Background or Class) as you like.

So, as an example, I randomly rolled these numbers for a Dwarf character:

14, 17, 13, 17, 14, 12 (man my dice are on fire today!).

So a theoretical Dwarf character would have 17 in anything but Charisma, 17 Constitution, and a Charisma no higher than 14; still viable for any class, especially once you take an ASI into account.

*I don't feel the need to do this myself, but if my players expressed disdain that Goliaths aren't generally stronger than Halflings, this is what I'd suggest.


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## Faolyn (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Goblins are not Hobgoblins.  And yes; in the real world an elephant can help build a house by providing labour but that doesn't mean elephants can design, engineer, and build houses by themselves.
> 
> Same is true of standard Goblins and Kobolds.  They can provide labour to help other, smarter creatures build what those others have designed but other than the rarest of exceptions they can't design, engineer, and build anything similar on their own.



Elephants aren't capable of reading blueprints or using fine motor skills. Kobolds and goblins are.

Curiously, kobolds and goblins have traditionally shown to be _very good _at building traps and gadgets--kobolds especially, who literally have a god of traps. They just lack the resources to build fancy things because larger, more powerful creatures have claimed those resources first. Why did you decide to go against tradition when it comes to kobolds and goblins but adhere to tradition when it comes to PC races and their stats?


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 20, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Perhaps one way to do this (if you really wish to impose your will upon racial ability score tendencies*) it is use die rolling, but set priorities, so that, when playing a Dwarf, your first or second highest die roll result must be Constitution, and Charisma can't be your highest die roll result.  There is still the possibility for an 18 Charisma Dwarf, but it requires you to roll three 18's to get there; just as it is technically possible that you have a low Constitution, though you would need largely terrible rolls.
> 
> But no actual bonuses or penalties are granted from race, and you can use your ASI's (however they are derived, be it Background or Class) as you like.
> 
> ...



I think taking the die rolls out of the players' hands is maybe even worse than giving bonuses and penalties to the results. Maybe even worse than just rolling stats in order.

At least with bonuses and or penalties, you can still apply your strongest result to the most relevant attribute for your intended class.Needing to be "thrice lucky" to choose outside of a racial archetype seems pretty punishing (especially in the context of something like 5e where the attributes are poorly balanced against each other).


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## Mind of tempest (Oct 20, 2022)

AnotherGuy said:


> I'm thinking you can have both.
> For instance, a halfling with decent to high STR can be off-putting for some.



true but there is an equal number of people who care that they can play a 20-str halfling either for serious or pure humour.
personally, I want weaknesses but ones that are fun to deal with like humans being bad at night or elves with a weakness to iron(would it just be iron would it include steel, others in its elemental group?)


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## Lanefan (Oct 20, 2022)

Hussar said:


> That might be goblins and kobolds in your campaign, but, that's very much not how they are presented in D&D.  Goblins and kobolds are both builders and miners, very capable of doing both.  Both are described as being very capable of building traps and mechanical devices as well.  Never minding that goblins and kobolds are just as smart (on average) as humans.
> 
> See, this is largely where things get really weird.  Neither goblins nor kobolds are described as being incapable of doing anything a human can do.



For Goblins, I can see this as an outgrowth of having made them (grumble grumble) playable as PCs.  Are Kobolds also PC-playable these days?


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## Lanefan (Oct 20, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> If you enjoy the greater randomness of rolling your stats, one way to do it would be to have the players choose their race first, then have the number/type of dice rolled depend on the race.



Or, for added complexity (!), put each stat for each species on its own bell curve translated from the standard 3-18 curve.  

How this works: you roll your stats as normal.  You then select your species.  If it's not Human, you consult a chart which takes what you rolled and applies it to the bell curve for each stat for that species.  So, for standard Elves the Intelligence range is 6-18, so if you rolled a 3 it would become a 6, of you rolled a 12 it would become a 13, and if you rolled an 18 it wouldn't change.

This is how we've done it for ages, though in fairness we only have a few PC-playable species compared to 5e.  Yes it adds some time to char-gen (for non-Human characters) but we find the results are worth it.


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## Lanefan (Oct 20, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Elephants aren't capable of reading blueprints or using fine motor skills. Kobolds and goblins are.
> 
> Curiously, kobolds and goblins have traditionally shown to be _very good _at building traps and gadgets--kobolds especially, who literally have a god of traps. They just lack the resources to build fancy things because larger, more powerful creatures have claimed those resources first. Why did you* decide to go against tradition* when it comes to kobolds and goblins but adhere to tradition when it comes to PC races and their stats?



I didn't.  Traditional (as in, old school) Goblins and Kobolds can't usually read anything, and their languages don't have a written form.  Literacy just never made it to those cultures.


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## Faolyn (Oct 20, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> true but there is an equal number of people who care that they can play a 20-str halfling either for serious or pure humour.
> personally, I want weaknesses but ones that are fun to deal with like humans being bad at night or elves with a weakness to iron(would it just be iron would it include steel, others in its elemental group?)



This exactly! Give humans a penalty to Perception in the dark (which they technically already have), give some races (elves, orcs) no penalty in the dark, or a much smaller one, and give some races (goblinoids, dwarfs) a bonus in the dark--perhaps the ability to see color.

_That's_ useful and interesting and makes the races stand out.

But in all seriousness, I'd say just iron. It's a magical weakness, not a scientific one. Steel is iron + a pinch of carbon and maybe other elements, and carbon is organic. But at the same time, if elves aren't always shiny and good, iron weapons should be more common. Even if steel is commonly available, people are going to want weapons that are particularly useful against them.


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## Faolyn (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I didn't.  Traditional (as in, old school) Goblins and Kobolds can't usually read anything, and their languages don't have a written form.  Literacy just never made it to those cultures.



There's nothing in either of their 1e or 2e descriptions that say they can't read. Was that in a worldbook or a Dragon article or something?

In the real world, humans invented some sort of writing system as soon as it became necessary for them to keep track of things. I have a hard time believing that, in a world surrounded by tons of other races that have their own writing, that goblins and kobolds wouldn't either invent their own or adopt someone else's.

But in any case, that's your table's interpretation of goblins, not the canonical description.


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## Mecheon (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For Goblins, I can see this as an outgrowth of having made them (grumble grumble) playable as PCs. Are Kobolds also PC-playable these days?



Kobolds have had PC stats ever since 1988, and have been playable in every edition since

They were infamously one of the most powerful races to be in 3E, due to Dragonwrought kobolds having some Interesting interactions with the rules for age categories


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## Mind of tempest (Oct 20, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Or, for added complexity (!), put each stat for each species on its own bell curve translated from the standard 3-18 curve.
> 
> How this works: you roll your stats as normal.  You then select your species.  If it's not Human, you consult a chart which takes what you rolled and applies it to the bell curve for each stat for that species.  So, for standard Elves the Intelligence range is 6-18, so if you rolled a 3 it would become a 6, of you rolled a 12 it would become a 13, and if you rolled an 18 it wouldn't change.
> 
> This is how we've done it for ages, though in fairness we only have a few PC-playable species compared to 5e.  Yes it adds some time to char-gen (for non-Human characters) but we find the results are worth it.



look if goblins are that weak we would not be clearing them out they would have been pushed to extinction basic human behaviours are needed for the believability of setting and if we can't use it and it is a threat we tend to kill it fast.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Goblins are not Hobgoblins.




Um... yeah, I know. 

Hobgoblins rule between the three goblinoid races. Bugbears are lazy and strong and the hobs mostly let them do whatever they want, because trying to force them is a fight and the hobs don't want to bother unless it is important. 

Instead, the bugbears and hobgoblins force the goblins to be their slaves. And because you probably wouldn't catch a traditional hobgoblin dead doing manual labor, that means that unless you have a large slave population, when you see a Hobgoblin fort city like the one in the monster manual, it would have been built by goblins.



Lanefan said:


> And yes; in the real world an elephant can help build a house by providing labour but that doesn't mean elephants can design, engineer, and build houses by themselves.
> 
> Same is true of standard Goblins and Kobolds.  They can provide labour to help other, smarter creatures build what those others have designed but other than the rarest of exceptions they can't design, engineer, and build anything similar on their own.




Um... wrong? Completely? 

See, the problem is that when those races are encountered alone, they don't WANT to do all that work, and they don't CARE about having a well designed building. It isn't important to them. But that doesn't mean they CAN'T engineer. Both races are well known for traps and building things. Kobolds are rivals to GNOMES after all. They are incredibly mechanically able. 

The issue is that DnD rarely wants to give the monsters the appearance of actually being proficient in society. So despite Kobolds being able to engineer to the degree of making sprawling underground complexes with elaborate traps using counter-weights and pulleys and other engineering marvels, they sleep in a pile of dirty hay and eat with their hands and never build cities. They absolutely could though, because building a stone house is far less difficult than building some of the things Kobolds DO build


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## Minigiant (Oct 21, 2022)

A notticeable issue with D&D is that many fans prefer race mechanics that don't match the other game mechanics.

Some fans want rolling for stats to be a thing low STR small races. But then player can roll of 18 for STR on halfling, gnome, or goblin.

Some fans what only the classic races to be defined by civilization. But then it makes "nontraditional player races" vulnerable to hit and run 5MWD tactics if they are all too stupid, lazy, or evil to be engineers, smiths, or mages.

This is where a lot of the hobbitish halflings lose their uniqueness as they morph into just into a culture f short humans at those tables.


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## Hussar (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For Goblins, I can see this as an outgrowth of having made them (grumble grumble) playable as PCs.  Are Kobolds also PC-playable these days?



Only for the past thirty years or so.


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## AnotherGuy (Oct 21, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> true but there is an equal number of people who care that they can play a 20-str halfling either for serious or pure humour.
> personally, I want weaknesses but ones that are fun to deal with like humans being bad at night or elves with a weakness to iron(would it just be iron would it include steel, others in its elemental group?)



That is fair and I'm game for that. 
I believe the options to play to play both should be available, thus allowing the table to decide.


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## Paul Farquhar (Oct 21, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Only for the past thirty years or so.



Deekin sing the Doom Song now?


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I didn't.  Traditional (as in, old school) Goblins and Kobolds can't usually read anything, and their languages don't have a written form.  Literacy just never made it to those cultures.




Literacy has nothing to do with the ability to build impressive buildings. See: The existence of cities before the invention of writing in Mesopotamia


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 21, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Only for the past thirty years or so.



Inconsistently, and with gaps within editions.


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## Oofta (Oct 21, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Inconsistently, and with gaps within editions.



In addition, while there may have been supplements that had goblins here and there they've never been core races.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 21, 2022)

Kobolds can learn reading and writting, and this is possible when they are working for dragon patrons. Kobolds have got the potential to build a civilitation, but they can't because they aren't wellcome in any part, and they aren't enough responsible to keep the natural balance. Maybe later in a future reboot of "Council of Wyrms" the kobolds are allowed to live in Io's-blood islands, as dragons' thralls. Maybe in some part there are kobold tribes whose patron is a metalif or at least a no-evil dragon, learning to be civilized people, but Tiamat and Kurtulmak aren't happy with this at all. If they could, they would 

And D&D is not the same after the impact of World of Warcraft, where the greenskins hadn't to be so evil. WotC knows it and that it the reason no-evil geenskins PCs have to be allowed in the game. Other impact was World of Darkness where the PCs were the monsters, and since then some players like to play with members of "bad guys", and not only Drizzt's rip-off.


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## Zubatcarteira (Oct 21, 2022)

In 5e, the PC versions of Kobold and Goblin have respectively:


> You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic.
> 
> You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.



So, it's reasonable for them to know how to read and write in general. The standard Kobold and Goblin statblocks also list those languages, although the Monster Manual only mentions knowing how to speak them.


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## Lanefan (Oct 21, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> A notticeable issue with D&D is that many fans prefer race mechanics that don't match the other game mechanics.
> 
> Some fans want rolling for stats to be a thing low STR small races. But then player can roll of 18 for STR on halfling, gnome, or goblin.



And should then have it adjusted downward to whatever the species maximum is for those species, which won't be 18.


Minigiant said:


> Some fans what only the classic races to be defined by civilization. But then it makes "nontraditional player races" vulnerable to hit and run 5MWD tactics if they are all too stupid, lazy, or evil to be engineers, smiths, or mages.



Some fans - like me - want only the classic species to be PC-playable, returning the "nontraditional" ones to monster status.


Minigiant said:


> This is where a lot of the hobbitish halflings lose their uniqueness as they morph into just into a culture f short humans at those tables.



Yup.


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## Lanefan (Oct 21, 2022)

Zubatcarteira said:


> In 5e, the PC versions of Kobold and Goblin have respectively:
> 
> So, it's reasonable for them to know how to read and write in general. The standard Kobold and Goblin statblocks also list those languages, although the Monster Manual only mentions knowing how to speak them.



I'll concede this: if the PC versions can be literate then in the name of setting consistency they all can be literate.

What I won't concede is Kobold and Goblin being PC-playable in the first place.


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## Minigiant (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And should then have it adjusted downward to whatever the species maximum is for those species, which won't be 18.



Doesn't matter. D&D doesn't make ability scores matter enough in anything but combat.

Restricting the halfling or gnome to a maximum of 16 STRvis trivial in the scope of thing unless you playing a warrior. Which at that point you are limiting the class option of a race because most editions and tables don't get deep or fine in their mechanics. 

Hence all halflings PCs being the same players getting bored and...




Lanefan said:


> Some fans - like me - want only the classic species to be PC-playable, returning the "nontraditional" ones to monster status.



...fans calling for nontraditional races or exotic subraces or traditional races.

When you full the fantasy of the halflings, you raise the chance of players getting bored of it. Which raise the chance of fans moving to nontraditional races, which then makes fans bored of the nonfantastical halflings even fantasy. So only halfing lovers and fresh faces end up caring about base halflings within a setting that uses base halflings.


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## GungHo (Oct 21, 2022)

To bring this to the original question (which is a fantastic feature of this site.. all you gotta do is go to the top of the screen to get on track with the thesis), I do a lot of different things with halflings (and other ancestries) as we go from world to world (assuming the world has halflings).   In some they're the mean little jerks you get in Dark Sun, in some they're the lazy little jerks you get in Forgotten Realms, in others they're they oppressed little jerks you get in Golarion, in others they're big on flightless-bird cavalry.  The only real, consistent thing I have when I present them from world to world is that they look as described in the player guides.  The only role I really don't reserve for them is being little fools, because that makes me uncomfortable.  I do try to give them cultures which are not intended to be an expy of real world cultures, again, because that makes me uncomfortable, but I do not force players to be from those "default" cultures.  I do not limit them to "default" classes.  I do not tell them they can only go to level 5 in Gandalf.


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## Stormonu (Oct 21, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Doesn't matter. D&D doesn't make ability scores matter enough in anything but combat.
> 
> Restricting the halfling or gnome to a maximum of 16 STRvis trivial in the scope of thing unless you playing a warrior. Which at that point you are limiting the class option of a race because most editions and tables don't get deep or fine in their mechanics.



Eh, in that case the halfing just picks up a short sword or rapier and leans into DEX instead of Strength.


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## Lanefan (Oct 21, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Doesn't matter. D&D doesn't make ability scores matter enough in anything but combat.



OK, but if stats don't matter then why is it that every time the roll-vs-point buy-vs array debate comes up there's repeated howls along the lines of "Stats are way too important to leave to the whim of random roll".

Can't have it both ways - either they're importasnt or they're not; and if they're important then a -2 adjust on Hobbit strength will be meaningful.


Minigiant said:


> Restricting the halfling or gnome to a maximum of 16 STRvis trivial in the scope of thing unless you playing a warrior. Which at that point you are *limiting the class option of a race* because most editions and tables don't get deep or fine in their mechanics.



The bolded is exactly what I'm after: that most if not all non-Human species are better suited to some classes than others; and if you want to play against type you can but it's an uphill battle.

If you want all the class options equally open, play a Human.  That's what they're for.


Minigiant said:


> ...fans calling for nontraditional races or exotic subraces or traditional races.
> 
> When you full the fantasy of the halflings, you raise the chance of players getting bored of it. Which raise the chance of fans moving to nontraditional races, which then makes fans bored of the nonfantastical halflings even fantasy. So only halfing lovers and fresh faces end up caring about base halflings within a setting that uses base halflings.



And when those same fans inevitably get bored of the nontraditional species as well, then what?


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## Faolyn (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'll concede this: if the PC versions can be literate then in the name of setting consistency they all can be literate.
> 
> What I won't concede is Kobold and Goblin being PC-playable in the first place.





Lanefan said:


> Some fans - like me - want only the classic species to be PC-playable, returning the "nontraditional" ones to monster status.



That's fine for your table. But why should everyone else have to be limited that way?


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## Minigiant (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> OK, but if stats don't matter then why is it that every time the roll-vs-point buy-vs array debate comes up there's repeated howls along the lines of "Stats are way too important to leave to the whim of random roll".
> 
> Can't have it both ways - either they're importasnt or they're not; and if they're important then a -2 adjust on Hobbit strength will be meaningful.



The Stats don't/do matter issue is not universal. That's the core source of the problem. 

The difference between 18 STR and 16 STR for carrying and lifting is usually minor. The difference between 18 STR and 16 STR in weapons combat is significant. 

That's why the Orc vs Halflings strength argument go nowhere. Because if lifting it is insignificant but it can be defining in combat depending on edition.




Lanefan said:


> The bolded is exactly what I'm after: that most if not all non-Human species are better suited to some classes than others; and if you want to play against type you can but it's an uphill battle.
> 
> If you want all the class options equally open, play a Human. That's what they're for



That's a valid preference. However with the size and diversity of D&D today , it is not workable as a baseline.

This is how the halflings issues starts. The parts that halflings fans are attracted to about the class has preferences no longer compatible with the base preferences of most D&D fans. So it ends up either looking or feeling out of place of the world builders doesn't do extra work to incorporate halflings more naturally In setting for the general public.



Lanefan said:


> And when those same fans inevitably get bored of the nontraditional species as well, then what?



There's always more nontraditional races.


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## Minigiant (Oct 21, 2022)

Stormonu said:


> Eh, in that case the halfing just picks up a short sword or rapier and leans into DEX instead of Strength.



There an elf doing that too. And you can do it as a human.

That's my point. If the halflings has nothing unique, other more fantastical races will eat up it's niche and only those enamoured with it will keep caring.


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## Lanefan (Oct 21, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> That's fine for your table. But why should everyone else have to be limited that way?



Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).

IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.


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## Minigiant (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).
> 
> IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.



There could be this marvelous thing where the PCs, NPCs. and enemies can be of the same race.

I mean the only humaniods I've ever in fights with in real life are humans and sewer mutants.


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## Faolyn (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).
> 
> IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.



Why is this a bad thing? 

More specifically, why is it bad that "monsters aren't monsters any more"? All that means is that you, the DM, have to come up with a _reason _for them to be bad guys rather than just relying on them being goblins or whatever and saying "well, they're goblins so they only exist to be killed."


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## Mecheon (Oct 21, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> What I won't concede is Kobold and Goblin being PC-playable in the first place.



They've been PC playable as long as I've been alive. Its not a new thing. There was clearly demand for them to be playable, and its kept them showing up over time.

Plus, well, the greater RPG zeitgeist at the moment is VERY supportive of this, and D&D is nothing if not adherant to pop culture at the time. Pop culture wants playable orcs, goblins, and especially kobolds, so D&D provides. Mind, you do not want to know how many people I have seen who are way too horny for goblins



Lanefan said:


> Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).
> 
> IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.



'should be monsters' is. A statement. Because frankly I don't think anything 'should' be monsters, plus, well, if we're really talking early game they weren't necessarily designed to just be monsters given they had whole diplomacy and reaction stuff (Albeit most of the time it fell by the wayside, but the implication was always there that, hey, you could talk to a dude and maybe not fight)

Regardless, you're not only fighting the weight of D&D over time, you're fighting against the current general mood in RPG space. If folks didn't like these being playable, they wouldn't be requesting more and more


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## James Gasik (Oct 21, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Plus, well, the greater RPG zeitgeist at the moment is VERY supportive of this, and D&D is nothing if not adherant to pop culture at the time. Pop culture wants playable orcs, goblins, and especially kobolds, so D&D provides. Mind, you do not want to know how many people I have seen who are way too horny for goblins


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 21, 2022)

I think they should offer options for ASI, floating, fixed and fixed pros and cons, floating is just 2x+1, but can be put anywhere, fixed is the standard +2,+1/3x+1 set in predetermined stats and fixed P+C is +2,+2,-1/+2,+1,+1,-1 again in set stats, this allows for a choice of if you want the bonuses for playing to type or the benefit of having the freedom to put your stats anywhere you want them.

Part of the thing that causes issues about fixed ASI is that some are more required for certain classes/abilities/skills and that there aren’t alternative options, like there are only a small number of halfway decent finesse weapons, a halfling fighter is excluded from all the heavy weapons which are the stronger martial ones to use including the longbow, i’d rather a finesse weapon with STR 16 restriction than heavy because there’s at least a possibility of being able to use the prior as a halfling without disadvantage, I never played 4e but the choice of stat to use on saving throws which sounds like another great solution to this kind of problem, not forcing players into relying on certain stats, or they could offer alternative casting stats for classes, your WIS wizards or CON sorcerers.

More players IMO would most likely be much more agreeable to fixed ASI if they didn’t feel like they were penalised by other mechanics for not optimising.


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## James Gasik (Oct 21, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> More players IMO would most likely be much more agreeable to fixed ASI if they didn’t feel like they were penalised by other mechanics for not optimising.



This is really the crux of it.  The game is made in such a way that having a disadvantage in one place and an advantage somewhere else doesn't always balance out.

If Bob plays a Goliath Fighter and has a 16 Strength, and my Elf Fighter has a 15, he hits more, and does a little more damage, not a big deal.  But then if someone makes a Halfling Fighter and has a 13, then the gap starts becoming noticeable, and there's not a lot of opportunities to make your choice seem to be anything but a bad one; ideally, these things should balance out in some way.

For example, if Dexterity affected the hit chance of melee attacks and Strength the damage, being weaker but faster might seem advantageous to some players.

Instead the rules bend over backwards to make sure shorties have to use lower damage weapons, but then turn around and let them easily get Dexterity to damage, making Strength less important.  

Which often begs the question, who really cares if you have a 20 Strength Halfling?  He or she is still going to do less damage than a Goliath, who can use a heavy weapon without disadvantage.  And if we're talking one-handed weapons, the game really doesn't give the longsword all that many advantages over the rapier, so Strength vs. Dexterity comes down to "initiative, which save is better, who is better at stealth, and 1  point of AC by level 8" (and encumbrance, though how much that matters is based on the game, and of course, there's something to be said about not having to lug around heavy armor).

If we're talking skills, a 15 Charisma 5% less successful than a 17, and proficiency bonus ends up larger than ability bonus anyways, never mind if Expertise is on the table.

So really, the parts of the game where a penalty to an ability score even really matters (for the most part) is when you get to spellcasting or other daily use abilities that require saving throws; if you're going to use a spell slot that requires a saving throw, naturally you're going to want to have the best save DC you can get; nothing else really requires bleeding edge optimization.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> In addition, while there may have been supplements that had goblins here and there they've never been core races.




Do you mean core playable races or core races for the game? 

Because one of those I'd agree with you on. The other I have to question what the heck you are talking about.


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## Oofta (Oct 22, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Do you mean core playable races or core races for the game?
> 
> Because one of those I'd agree with you on. The other I have to question what the heck you are talking about.



People have stated that there were supplemental that had non standard races. I don't remember ever seeing any until 4E's every race under the sun.

I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm just saying I never saw them even at conventions or similar. I don't remember anybody even saying they were an option and I've played with a lot of different groups over the years.


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## Hussar (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> OK, but if stats don't matter then why is it that every time the roll-vs-point buy-vs array debate comes up there's repeated howls along the lines of "Stats are way too important to leave to the whim of random roll".



that's not really the argument.

The argument is that rolled stat characters are virtually always higher value than point buy.  The only reason to use die rolling is to have overpowered characters with no weaknesses.  The proof of this is nearly all die rolled characters have higher stats than point buy ones, to the point where, at least in 3e, a point buy character was considered unplayable by die rollers.


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## Hussar (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).
> 
> IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.



There's nothing in the game that "should" be monsters.


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## Faolyn (Oct 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> People have stated that there were supplemental that had non standard races. I don't remember ever seeing any until 4E's every race under the sun.
> 
> I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm just saying I never saw them even at conventions or similar. I don't remember anybody even saying they were an option and I've played with a lot of different groups over the years.



D&D had the whole Gazetteer line which allowed anything from "humanoids" (orcs, goblins, etc.) to fairies to werebeasts.

2e had the Complete Book of Humanoids.

3e had absolute tons of races across probably at least a dozen books, maybe more.


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## Hussar (Oct 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> People have stated that there were supplemental that had non standard races. I don't remember ever seeing any until 4E's every race under the sun.
> 
> I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm just saying I never saw them even at conventions or similar. I don't remember anybody even saying they were an option and I've played with a lot of different groups over the years.



Never played Eberron huh?

We had kobold PC's in my World's Largest Dungeon, and goblin PC's as well, campaign in 2004.  So, my anecdotal evidence is pretty different from your anedotal evidence.


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## Oofta (Oct 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> D&D had the whole Gazetteer line which allowed anything from "humanoids" (orcs, goblins, etc.) to fairies to werebeasts.
> 
> 2e had the Complete Book of Humanoids.
> 
> 3e had absolute tons of races across probably at least a dozen books, maybe more.



I don't doubt you.  I just never met anyone who used it or even discussed that it was an option. 

TSR published a lot of things whether they sold or not.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I don't doubt you.  I just never met anyone who used it or even discussed that it was an option.
> 
> TSR published a lot of things whether they sold or not.



<shrug> I've met plenty of people who used them.

Gygax famously had a balrog PC in one of his games.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There's always more nontraditional races.




Also just.. 

Look, the "traditional" races are (if you remove half-species) are: Elf, Dwarf, Human, Halfling, Gnome. You can add Half-Elf and Half-Orc if you want, but there is your list. That gets us between 5 and 7 options

Add in Non-traditional races? Already published in DnD we are looking at nearly *60* options. It is far far far harder to get bored with that many options than it is with the base "traditional" races. Especially since, the traditional races have the added problem of not being novel. If I want a story of an elven mage, I probably don't even have to play one, I can find multiple books featuring elven mages as the main character. But a Changeling Barbarian? Okay, that hasn't been done very often.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'll concede this: if the PC versions can be literate then in the name of setting consistency they all can be literate.
> 
> What I won't concede is Kobold and Goblin being PC-playable in the first place.




Again, Literacy has NOTHING to do with the ability to build complex structures. It doesn't matter if you concede them being literate, because that was a non-factor. 

And I've been discussing them as monsters, without even needing to address their PC versions.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Because otherwise what should be monsters aren't monsters any more, leading to a slow but endless loop where (A) designers come up with new forms of humanoid monsters as opponents for the PCs which leads to (B) over time those species become PC-playable and thus watered down which leads to (C) return to (A).
> 
> IMO in any design space this sort of loop is best stopped before it starts.




And by "slow" you mean literal decades right? Because the process to get orcs to be baseline as looks to be done in One DnD took, what? 40 years? 

I'm not terribly concerned by a "problem" where there is a 40 year cycle of what people are interested in.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Oofta said:


> People have stated that there were supplemental that had non standard races. I don't remember ever seeing any until 4E's every race under the sun.
> 
> I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm just saying I never saw them even at conventions or similar. I don't remember anybody even saying they were an option and I've played with a lot of different groups over the years.




Okay, so you mean as playable races. 

Because if you were trying to argue that the existence of goblins wasn't core to DnD, I'd honestly have questions for you. Because they have been the single most common enemy EVER in DnD.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

The hobbitish halfling has a basic fantasy problem.

Basically, the "hobbitish" halfling is "boring" because once you add more races, the aspects ofthe hobbitish halfling are easily copied.

Even with Traditional races: 

Gnomes allows you to be Small 
Elf allows you to be DEX based
Human allows you to be rural
Dwarf, elves, humans and all the other trad races except half orc are human colored with hornlessness,fanlessness, taillessness and humany skin.
Leaving just the Luck and Bravery which are low impact.

A successful TTRPG corparation is going to create more and more races to sel books and make money. And the halfling is one of the most vulnerable races to being overshadowed mechnaically and lorewise.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The hobbitish halfling has a basic fantasy problem.
> 
> Basically, the "hobbitish" halfling is "boring" because once you add more races, the aspects ofthe hobbitish halfling are easily copied.
> 
> ...



And yet, they’re still popular, after 40+ years of new races.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> And yet, they’re still popular, after 40+ years of new races.



I'd still say at least half of that popularity is due to always being in the PHB, rarely banned, and there only being one other small race in the PHB.

Like the point of the thread, halfling is popular despite being the least integrated core race in D&D. 
Orcs and goblins are more integrated in most D&D setting than Halflings.
Dragonborn, the baby of D&D PC races, more integration into D&D settings than Halflings despite a 40 year headstart. That's the problem.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There could be this marvelous thing where the PCs, NPCs. and enemies can be of the same race.



Which would be fine if those PCs, NPCs and enemies were all truly representative of said race and created using the same basic framework; but no, people want PCs to use different "build" mechanics and so forth.  Which usually means the PCs will be overpowered in comparison to what should be their peers.

That, and people get upset when a Human (for example) culture - even if not based on anything real-world or historical - is painted in a poor light.  With monster species which are clearly not real, however, this isn't (nearly as much of) an issue.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why is this a bad thing?
> 
> More specifically, why is it bad that "monsters aren't monsters any more"? All that means is that you, the DM, have to come up with a _reason _for them to be bad guys rather than just relying on them being goblins or whatever and saying "well, they're goblins so they only exist to be killed."



Yes, I can do that extra work if I want to.  If I want to.  Sometimes, I can't be bothered.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> This is really the crux of it.  The game is made in such a way that having a disadvantage in one place and an advantage somewhere else doesn't always balance out.
> 
> If Bob plays a Goliath Fighter and has a 16 Strength, and my Elf Fighter has a 15, he hits more, and does a little more damage, not a big deal.  But then if someone makes a Halfling Fighter and has a 13, then the gap starts becoming noticeable, and there's not a lot of opportunities to make your choice seem to be anything but a bad one; ideally, these things should balance out in some way.



And that's just it - if you want to play a Halfling, why would you make it a Fighter; and if you want to play a Fighter, why would you make it a Halfling?

The choice of species and class should, IMO, be combined; with some combinations viable (all combinations, for Humans) and some either not viable or not allowed.


James Gasik said:


> Instead the rules bend over backwards to make sure shorties have to use lower damage weapons, but then turn around and let them easily get Dexterity to damage, making Strength less important.



A design mistake, IMO.  Dex already has too much going for it.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

Hussar said:


> that's not really the argument.
> 
> The argument is that rolled stat characters are virtually always higher value than point buy.  The only reason to use die rolling is to have overpowered characters with no weaknesses.  The proof of this is nearly all die rolled characters have higher stats than point buy ones, to the point where, at least in 3e, a point buy character was considered unplayable by die rollers.



All that tells me is the default point buy value is probably set too low.

I seem to recall the average is about 1/4 point different - something like 12.00 (array) to 12.25 (4d6k3) with point-buy in there somewhere, close to array I think - but it's a while since I did all those calculations.



> There's nothing in the game that "should" be monsters.



Other than all the monsters, you mean?


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> I'd still say at least half of that popularity is due to always being in the PHB, rarely banned, and there only being one other small race in the PHB.
> 
> Like the point of the thread, halfling is popular despite being the least integrated core race in D&D.
> Orcs and goblins are more integrated in most D&D setting than Halflings.
> Dragonborn, the baby of D&D PC races, more integration into D&D settings than Halflings despite a 40 year headstart. That's the problem.



You’re still one of less than a half dozen people I’ve ever heard complain about this supposed problem, so idk about the idea it _is _a problem, at least so far as things wotc should worry about go.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> <shrug> I've met plenty of people who used them.
> 
> Gygax famously had a balrog PC in one of his games.



There is, note, rather a big difference between something showing up once as a once-in-a-lifetime oddity (the balrog) and something being core and thus chooseable by anyone.

I mean, even in my game there's the potential for strange creatures and oddities to become PCs; but that potential is gated behind some pretty long-odds die rolls so as to - specifically - keep such occurrences rare and unusual.

Over the years I've DMed Leprechaun, Centaur, Dryad, Drow, Gnoll, and other oddball-species PCs; and right now one of the characters in my game is 2/3 Hobbit, 1/3 Ent - go figure.  But such things are rare.  Intentionally so.  And they can be hard to play (e.g. every time the Centaur went into any town they had to make him invisible so he wouldn't freak out the locals) and this is also intentional.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Yes, I can do that extra work if I want to.  If I want to.  Sometimes, I can't be bothered.



Wow. So you'd rather just say "they're orcs, you can kill them," rather than "they're bandits who are orcs, you can kill them." Like, three extra words is too much effort?



Lanefan said:


> There is, note, rather a big difference between something showing up once as a once-in-a-lifetime oddity (the balrog) and something being core and thus chooseable by anyone.



Again, why is this a bad thing?


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 22, 2022)

Halflings are typecasted into rogue or other "stealth" classes, and WotC wanted to fix this changing the ASIs as part of the racial traits. 

My suggestion these to become more popular is a funny and family-friendly cartoon. If "my little pony" remake has could become more popular than Generation1, then... why not? Other idea is halflings as main characters in a D&D farm-simulation videogame, something like the D&D medieval fantasy version of Hanna-Barbera's Flintstones.

Gnome can be very fun in the hands of the right writter. A female spellcaster gnome could be a parody of the maho-shojo/magical girls from manganime.


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## James Gasik (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Which would be fine if those PCs, NPCs and enemies were all truly representative of said race and created using the same basic framework; but no, people want PCs to use different "build" mechanics and so forth.  Which usually means the PCs will be overpowered in comparison to what should be their peers.
> 
> That, and people get upset when a Human (for example) culture - even if not based on anything real-world or historical - is painted in a poor light.  With monster species which are clearly not real, however, this isn't (nearly as much of) an issue.



Sometimes it's the reverse, like how Monsters of the Multiverse took Pack Tactics away from Kobold PC's...


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And that's just it - if you want to play a Halfling, why would you make it a Fighter; and if you want to play a Fighter, why would you make it a Halfling?
> 
> The choice of species and class should, IMO, be combined; with some combinations viable (all combinations, for Humans) and some either not viable or not allowed.
> 
> A design mistake, IMO.  Dex already has too much going for it.



Well, the original Halfling class was basically a Fighter.  And the idea that Halflings shouldn't be Fighters is just weird to me; every race should have warriors, with each race having a unique take on it.  I would prefer if a game that allows you to play a Fighter of one race alongside one of a different race would each be equally viable, but in different ways.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> But such things are rare.  Intentionally so.  And they can be hard to play (e.g. every time the Centaur went into any town they had to make him invisible so he wouldn't freak out the locals) and this is also intentional.




Rare for the world doesn't mean it needs to be rare for this game. 

Remember, many of us don't have decades long campaigns set in a single world. If I played a Dragon in every single DnD game I am currently in, I'd be a dragon in 3 different worlds that are nothing alike and not connected in the slightest. And very likely if I made a Alseid for my next character, it would ALSO be in a completely unique and different world. 

And for many of us, the idea of die rolls gating us out of certain race choices is completely against the entire point of DnD. 


Also, on the Centaur... just why? I mean, I would get it in a game set in Ancient Greece, where Centaurs were notorious raiders and pillagers of the community. He would cause a panic because he is an known threat, just like an enemy soldier entering a border town. 

But, these are Fantasy worlds. To me, if Centaurs have lived close enough to humans for a thousand years, they are no longer some crazy thing that will cause people to fly into a panic. They are just a weird foreigner. I honestly feel too many "old school" style games try and make it like the entire world was created and inhabitated for thousands of years, and none of the races have met each other and they have rarely heard of each other. They try and act like all of these forces are completely hidden from the world. 

And I get it, you want something like Beowulf, where the big twist is that there are TWO monsters in the swamp, and the kingdom has no way of dealing with one monster, let alone two. But DnD doesn't work that way. There aren't just TWO trolls in the swamps. There is a clan of trolls in the swamps, multiple tribes of reptilian/amphibious people, likely a hag and a Dragon in the swamp. And that is just the intelligent threats, not to mention the living plants and the strange beasts, or the potential to find a connection to the Fey where dozens of creatures live, or undead lurking in the swamp.

I actually tried to run a game once where the players were in an Empire, and the only monsters were limited to distant borders, and there weren't very many of them. Just like these old style myths, right? They tore through that world so fast, I had to cancel the game and tell them I was out of ideas, because there was nothing left for them to encounter, unless they just went completely off map into things that I hadn't even considered... and I couldn't think of anything to place beyond the edges of the empire, they were already the edges! Now, this was early in my DMing career, and I might do a better job now, but part of me doing a better job is making sure that monsters are kind of sprinkled everywhere, and the same with allies. 

Because it is a world, full of different races of beings, so they shouldn't only exist in that one valley deep in the mountains where no one has ever been before.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Well, the original Halfling class was basically a Fighter.  And the idea that Halflings shouldn't be Fighters is just weird to me; every race should have warriors,



Sure, every species can have warriors.

However, the warriors of some species are simply going to, on average, be flat-out better than the warriors of some other species, simply due to the physical advantages provided by larger size and more muscle.  Put a Goliath warrior up against a Goblin warrior and, all other things being equal, in theory that Goblin better make sure his will is up to date.

It works this way if one uses the monster write-ups.  To me it only follows that it should thus also work this way if the two are PCs.


James Gasik said:


> with each race having a unique take on it.  I would prefer if a game that allows you to play a Fighter of one race alongside one of a different race would each be equally viable, but in different ways.



Hobbits used to be able to compensate for their physical weakness by being hella good with missile weapons, which seems to play right into what you're saying here.  But that's gone now.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 22, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Rare for the world doesn't mean it needs to be rare for this game.



If it's rare in the world it should perforce be rare in the game, otherwise it isn't rare at all.


Chaosmancer said:


> Remember, many of us don't have decades long campaigns set in a single world. If I played a Dragon in every single DnD game I am currently in, I'd be a dragon in 3 different worlds that are nothing alike and not connected in the slightest. And very likely if I made a Alseid for my next character, it would ALSO be in a completely unique and different world.
> 
> And for many of us, the idea of die rolls gating us out of certain race choices is completely against the entire point of DnD.



Die rolls should gate many things.  It's the only way of consistently enforcing a gradient of commonality between outright chooseable and banned.


Chaosmancer said:


> Also, on the Centaur... just why? I mean, I would get it in a game set in Ancient Greece, where Centaurs were notorious raiders and pillagers of the community. He would cause a panic because he is an known threat, just like an enemy soldier entering a border town.
> 
> But, these are Fantasy worlds. To me, if Centaurs have lived close enough to humans for a thousand years, they are no longer some crazy thing that will cause people to fly into a panic. They are just a weird foreigner. I honestly feel too many "old school" style games try and make it like the entire world was created and inhabitated for thousands of years, and none of the races have met each other and they have rarely heard of each other. They try and act like all of these forces are completely hidden from the world.



To some extent, yes.  I look at Middle Earth as an example here, where anyone more than a few hundred miles from The Shire only knows of Hobbits as legends if that; and the oldest species on the planet hasn't heard of them at all!  Further, species tend to live in their own mono-cultural enclaves, with minimal interaction other than trade.  That's what makes the town of Bree so unusual: two species share the town.

And yes, in some places Centaurs might live side-along with Humans and other species; but that doesn't mean anyone half a continent away would know a Centaur from a Catoblepas.  The core region of my current setting is in fact a faux-ancient-Greece but even there many don't know what a Centaur is as Centaurs only live on the islands and rarely if ever come to the mainland.


Chaosmancer said:


> And I get it, you want something like Beowulf, where the big twist is that there are TWO monsters in the swamp, and the kingdom has no way of dealing with one monster, let alone two. But DnD doesn't work that way. There aren't just TWO trolls in the swamps. There is a clan of trolls in the swamps, multiple tribes of reptilian/amphibious people, likely a hag and a Dragon in the swamp. And that is just the intelligent threats, not to mention the living plants and the strange beasts, or the potential to find a connection to the Fey where dozens of creatures live, or undead lurking in the swamp.
> 
> I actually tried to run a game once where the players were in an Empire, and the only monsters were limited to distant borders, and there weren't very many of them. Just like these old style myths, right? They tore through that world so fast, I had to cancel the game and tell them I was out of ideas, because there was nothing left for them to encounter, unless they just went completely off map into things that I hadn't even considered... and I couldn't think of anything to place beyond the edges of the empire, they were already the edges! Now, this was early in my DMing career, and I might do a better job now, but part of me doing a better job is making sure that monsters are kind of sprinkled everywhere, and the same with allies.
> 
> Because it is a world, full of different races of beings, so they shouldn't only exist in that one valley deep in the mountains where no one has ever been before.



It's a world full of different species, some of which are very rare and might only exist in one valley somewhere and many of which have little if anything to do with cultures/species not their own.  Again, look at Middle Earth as an example.

In my setting, Gibbering Mouthers are a good example of this: they live in one small area just west of the core region (and just north of the Centaurs' islands) and have never been seen anywhere else.  Describe one to a Viking just arrived from the far north and she'd think you were nuts.


----------



## Hussar (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my setting, Gibbering Mouthers are a good example of this: they live in one small area just west of the core region (and just north of the Centaurs' islands) and have never been seen anywhere else. Describe one to a Viking just arrived from the far north and she'd think you were nuts.



But the danger here is that you are conflating your version of D&D with actual D&D.  Gibbering Mouthers, for example, don't "live" anywhere.  They are Far Realms aberrations.  They don't have a habitat.  They don't have a biology.  They're Lovecraftian horrors from Beyond.  

So, it's equally likely that that Viking from the far north has encountered one as anyone else.

At least, in standard D&D that is.  

Middle Earth is an absolutely horrible example of world buildilng.  Tolkien was many things but he wasn't any sort of biologist nor geologist.  Middle Earth makes zero sense.  But, because that was the default for fantasy for decades, no one questions it.


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Sure, every species can have warriors.
> 
> However, the warriors of some species are simply going to, on average, be flat-out better than the warriors of some other species, simply due to the physical advantages provided by larger size and more muscle.  Put a Goliath warrior up against a Goblin warrior and, all other things being equal, in theory that Goblin better make sure his will is up to date.
> 
> ...



This kind of goes against one of D&D's premises though, where being smaller and weaker has nothing to do with your ability to defeat foes; otherwise, no one would ever be able to defeat an ogre or dragon.  If a human Fighter can defeat a Frost giant in combat and that doesn't suspend any disbelief, I think a Gnome taking out a Human shouldn't cause anyone to bat an eye.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 22, 2022)

The jerrens, the evil halflings from 3rd Book of Vile Darkness, can be a good example of small humanoids being a true nightmare for PCs and even for the rest of evil humanoids.

The halflings aren't the type of troops you would see in a battlefield, but if they are good carpenters they can build wood forts against the raids by gnolls, giants or kaijus. They can learn to ride flying monsters or megafaun, for example mammoths. And in their homes they could create tunnels for small humanoid to escape from bigger enemies, or at least to hide.

Some times I wanted to create a halfling PC but not the classic rogue but more a swashbuckler with (warblade's) ki martial maneuvers, like a smaller version of those tree-jumping wuxia heroes from Chinese animation. One of the ki maneuvers would be a jump to attack the head of taller enemies.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You’re still one of less than a half dozen people I’ve ever heard complain about this supposed problem, so idk about the idea it _is _a problem, at least so far as things wotc should worry about go.



It's not a problem for WOTC.

It's a problem for Halfling fans.


----------



## billd91 (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> It's not a problem for WOTC.
> 
> It's a problem for Halfling fans.



Well then why talk about anything? “Linear fighters, quadratic wizards” isn’t a WotC problem, it’s a problem for fans of a different class structure. Etc etc


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Well then why talk about anything? “Linear fighters, quadratic wizards” isn’t a WotC problem, it’s a problem for fans of a different class structure. Etc etc



There is a difference.

Halflings is not a problem for WOTC because WOTC provides other options for halflings key features. 

LFQW is a problem for WOTC *precisely* because WOTC *doesn't* provide other options for fighter key features.

Halflings players own the halfling problem because halfling aspects are redundant and easily replaced.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There is a difference.
> 
> Halflings is not a problem for WOTC because WOTC provides other options for halflings key features.
> 
> ...





Minigiant said:


> It's not a problem for WOTC.
> 
> It's a problem for Halfling fans.



I don’t see how. Nearly every halfling fan I have spoken to is happy with halflings. 

The new playtest halfling is mechanically disappointing, but it’s still lucky and brave.

Either way, they aren’t going anywhere.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I don’t see how. Nearly every halfling fan I have spoken to is happy with halflings.
> 
> The new playtest halfling is mechanically disappointing, but it’s still lucky and brave.
> 
> Either way, they aren’t going anywhere.



My point is that halfling fans want *other people* to be fans of halflings.

And other people are saying "Nah. Imma play a goblin or kobold or human".

The thread is about integrating halflings better into settings so people who aren't huge halfling fans would care about the race.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is that halfling fans want *other people* to be fans of halflings



Nah, there's been a huge advocacy to remove the halfling as a playable race in this thread.

I don't care if you're happy with halflings; I care that there are people here who want to destroy my happiness


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 22, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Nah, there's been a huge advocacy to remove the halfling as a playable race in this thread.
> 
> I don't care if you're happy with halflings; I care that there are people here who want to destroy my happiness



Well isn't that my point.

Halfling as a race isn't creating new fans of it because of its lore and mechanics. 

So eventually the fandom of other nontraditional races will grow larger than it. Or already have. And then those fans would advocate to replace halfling with their preferred races.

So halfling fans have to think of ways to make the race more integrated or interesting in fantasy settings.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If it's rare in the world it should perforce be rare in the game, otherwise it isn't rare at all.



That's artificial rareness. You could decide that there are three wizards in the entire world and two of them are in the party. Wizards would still be rare. 



Lanefan said:


> And yes, in some places Centaurs might live side-along with Humans and other species; but that doesn't mean anyone half a continent away would know a Centaur from a Catoblepas.  The core region of my current setting is in fact a faux-ancient-Greece but even there many don't know what a Centaur is as Centaurs only live on the islands and rarely if ever come to the mainland.



And there's absolutely no storytellers or artwork? No centaur travelers? No slave-traders who are selling a centaur captured from those island? Nobody with a menagerie of exotic peoples? 

This sort of thing only works if there's absolutely _no _communication whatsoever.



Lanefan said:


> It's a world full of different species, some of which are very rare and might only exist in one valley somewhere and many of which have little if anything to do with cultures/species not their own.  Again, look at Middle Earth as an example.



Or you could look at the real world, where many people were aware of things from far-off lands. What they knew was often wrong or greatly exaggerated, but they'd at least know the stories.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 22, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Sure, every species can have warriors.
> 
> However, the warriors of some species are simply going to, on average, be flat-out better than the warriors of some other species, simply due to the physical advantages provided by larger size and more muscle.  Put a Goliath warrior up against a Goblin warrior and, all other things being equal, in theory that Goblin better make sure his will is up to date.
> 
> It works this way if one uses the monster write-ups.  To me it only follows that it should thus also work this way if the two are PCs.




But that clearly misses a few rather blatant things. 

1) A human commoner is 10's in stats and 4 hp. The Kobold and Goblin commoners (if we count "Kobold" and "Goblin" statblocks as their commoners) have 5-7 hp and while they are physically weaker, they have a higher dex and they obviously use dex weapons. 

Even if you go to the human guard, which ups the hp to 11 and makes them physically stronger than the goblins, if you look at the actual damage output, the goblin is deadlier (+3 to hit and +1 damage versus +4 to hit and +2 damage) and the goblin is simply FAR more likely to win the fight due to the Nimble Escape bonus action allowing them to easily hide and slip away from the human during the fight. So, even with less hp, it is very difficult to say the goblin is significantly weaker. The main advantage the human has is based solely on equipment, and there is no reason goblins can't use better equipment than their statblock gives them.

2) Even in the above example, I've demonstrated a problem. Statblocks are HIGHLY variable. Human statblocks alone swing between humans having 4 hp and 229 hp, between having 10's in all stat to having 20's in any stat. Because stronger and more skilled individuals exist, making it difficult to just lay out a single line. If that "goblin" happens to be a goblin boss, then they have 21 hp and a multiattack. If they happen to be a Booyahg Booyahg Booyahg then they have 40 hp and an at-will attack that has a +6 to hit and does an average of 11 damage. Meaning they can one-shot that human trivially. 


If we are looking purely at combat stats, it doesn't matter if they don't have a high strength. It hasn't mattered for a long time. Hell, it doesn't even matter if they both decide to pick the fighter class, because the Goblin can go dex fighter and frankly will be evenly matched with the Goliath who went strength fighter, all other things being equal. 




Lanefan said:


> If it's rare in the world it should perforce be rare in the game, otherwise it isn't rare at all.




That isn't how that works. When discussing player choices they get to pick (assuming 6 players) 6 things that will be in the game. Are elves rare? Maybe they are, but the if the party has an elf the chance of an elf being in the party is 100%, even if they never meet another elf ever again. It doesn't matter if they are rare or common in the world, it matters what you encounter. Clerics and Sorcerers are supposedly incredibly rare in the worlds of DnD, but I've seen more clerics and sorcerers than I care to count. Because it isn't rare for a player to choose that class. 

To try and put it another way. The Minotaur in the original source material wasn't just rare, they were utterly unique. There was only a single one in the entire world. The chances of encountering them would be astronomically low from a pure statistical point of view. How common are minotaur's in fantasy? Pretty common actually, they show up a lot. Because everyone knows about them. 

And frankly, if you say that someone has to roll a 1d100 and get above a 90% to be allowed to play a sorcerer, do you know what the majority of tables will do? Just play the sorcerer anyways. You can't arbitrarily gate things like that. It doesn't work. They tried it with the stat prereqs for classes, and all it did was have people assign those stats as their minimum possible values and play those characters anyways.



Lanefan said:


> Die rolls should gate many things.  It's the only way of consistently enforcing a gradient of commonality between outright chooseable and banned.




No, no they shouldn't. The idea of having to roll a random number to determine if I'm allowed to play certain classes is insane. The community would reject those rules out of hand.



Lanefan said:


> To some extent, yes.  I look at Middle Earth as an example here, where anyone more than a few hundred miles from The Shire only knows of Hobbits as legends if that; and the oldest species on the planet hasn't heard of them at all!  Further, species tend to live in their own mono-cultural enclaves, with minimal interaction other than trade.  That's what makes the town of Bree so unusual: two species share the town.




And yet when Elrond calls a council on short notice, humans, elves, and dwarves all know where Rivendell is and get there with no difficulty. A few decades ago by the time of that meeting, the Battle of the Five Armies happened, where orcs, men, dwarves, and elves all fought outside of Laketown. A town that now has a thriving dwarven kingdom right beside it. 

Gondor and Rohan fight orcs nearly constantly, at least commonly enough that when the Fellowship reaches them, they aren't freaking out about something they had no idea existed suddenly attacking them.

So, is Bree really unusual? I think it would be harder to name a place in the LoTR series that DOESN'T have multiple species interacting. It is actually pretty dang common.



Lanefan said:


> And yes, in some places Centaurs might live side-along with Humans and other species; but that doesn't mean anyone half a continent away would know a Centaur from a Catoblepas.  The core region of my current setting is in fact a faux-ancient-Greece but even there many don't know what a Centaur is as Centaurs only live on the islands and rarely if ever come to the mainland.




But you have immediately CAUSED them to be isolated. "They all live on this island and rarely come to the mainland", yeah, of course they aren't going to be as well known away from the coasts. And this is the issue I was getting at. You can't really have it so that EVERY fantasy race that isn't halfing, dwarf, or elf is living on islands they never leave, or in a valley they never leave, or in a swamp they never leave, or in an isolated forest they never leave. 

It gets utterly samey and boring to have everyone be isolationists who never leave their lands and therefore no one knows about them. You have to mix it up, because anything sentient is going to be driven by desires, and those desires are going to find them searching for things.



Lanefan said:


> It's a world full of different species, some of which are very rare and might only exist in one valley somewhere and many of which have little if anything to do with cultures/species not their own.  Again, look at Middle Earth as an example.
> 
> In my setting, Gibbering Mouthers are a good example of this: they live in one small area just west of the core region (and just north of the Centaurs' islands) and have never been seen anywhere else.  Describe one to a Viking just arrived from the far north and she'd think you were nuts.




Middle Earth has

Humans
Elves
Dwarves
Hobbits
Orcs/Goblins
Sentient Spiders
Trolls
Sentient Eagles
Giants
Ents
Dragons

That's Eleven species?


Even a bog standard DnD world has

Humans
Elves
Dwarves
Halflings
Orcs
Goblins
Hobgoblins
Bugbears
Gnolls
Ogres
Trolls
Giants
Sentient Spider
Sentient Eagles
Sentient Elk
Treants
Lizardfolk
Merfolk
Sahaguin
Dragons 
Kobolds
Gnomes
Aboleth
Mind Flayers
Medusa
Minotaur
Centaur
Beholders
Bullywug
Koa-Toa
Yuan-ti
Naga
Ettin
Cyclops
Doppelganger/Changelings
Dryad
Gith
Grell
Grimlocks
Hags
Harpies
Jackalwere
Lamia
Kenku
Kraken
Manticore
Merrow
Myconid
Oni
Otyugh
Pixies
Sprites
Quagoth
Satyr
Thri-Kreen
Troglodytes
Unicorn
Yeti

That is 58 sentient species, and I skipped a lot of them, and also didn't talk about anything NON-Sentient. That is over 5 times more than Tolkiens Middle Earth. And again, this is the problem, You say "this is just like Middle-Earth" but you don't seem to realize that Middle Earth is far smaller and emptier than a DnD world. It just simply doesn't have the same number of things going on. So you can't make them the same without heavily cutting vast swathes of DnD.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> My point is that halfling fans want *other people* to be fans of halflings.
> 
> And other people are saying "Nah. Imma play a goblin or kobold or human".



Some. Others are playing halflings. 


Minigiant said:


> The thread is about integrating halflings better into settings so people who aren't huge halfling fans would care about the race.



It sure reads like a thread proposing a problem and inviting discussion on that subject.


----------



## billd91 (Oct 22, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There is a difference.
> 
> Halflings is not a problem for WOTC because WOTC provides other options for halflings key features.



Except for the key feature of *being a halfling*.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Except for the key feature of *being a halfling*.



You missing the key part. The people who want to be a halfling.

The problem isn't WOTC. The problem is solely on the Halfling Fan Club.
Which creates a thread proposing a problem and inviting discussion on that subject



doctorbadwolf said:


> It sure reads like a thread proposing a problem and inviting discussion on that subject.



Exactly.


----------



## Hussar (Oct 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Nah, there's been a huge advocacy to remove the halfling as a playable race in this thread.
> 
> I don't care if you're happy with halflings; I care that there are people here who want to destroy my happiness



That's not what was argued.  At least, AFAIR, no one ever argued that halflings shouldn't be a playable race.  

I did argue that halflings could get shunted out of the PHB to make space for races that I believe would gain more traction, but, that's not the same thing.  Putting them in the same sort of appendix type table as where a bunch of Monster Manual player stats are now would probably have zero impact on how commonly halflings are played while at the same time allowing for some new ideas to potentially gain a stronger following.  

Maybe.

But, by the same token, I know that's never going to happen.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> You missing the key part. The people who want to be a halfling.
> 
> The problem isn't WOTC. The problem is solely on the Halfling Fan Club.
> Which creates a thread proposing a problem and inviting discussion on that subject
> ...



Right. There isn’t a problem. People who don’t like the halfling are inventing one, and acting like it’s objectively some important issue.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Right. There isn’t a problem. People who don’t like the halfling are inventing one, and acting like it’s objectively some important issue.



No. There is a problem. It's not a "now" problem but a future one. 

Basically some Halfling fans fear that since halfling have few to no fantastic elements, have little mythological bias, and are mostly held up by LOTR and Dragonlance fandom,that if it doesn't get integrated into the settings of multiple tables... halflings will get kicked out the PHB and become a MM race.

Basically what happened to gnomes in 4e.

Or worse removed entirely since people don't even fight halflings often either and they make boring enemies using default D&D lore and mechanics.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> No. There is a problem. It's not a "now" problem but a future one.
> 
> Basically some Halfling fans fear that since halfling have few to no fantastic elements, have little mythological bias, and are mostly held up by LOTR and Dragonlance fandom,that if it doesn't get integrated into the settings of multiple tables... halflings will get kicked out the PHB and become a MM race.
> 
> ...



This isn't a "fear."
It's literally the *demand *that dozens have put into this very thread.

Reread it. Probably on incognito if you haven't seen the numerous calls to remove halflings from the game behind false claims of lack of lore.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> This isn't a "fear."
> It's literally the *demand *that dozens have put into this very thread.
> 
> Reread it. Probably on incognito if you haven't seen the numerous calls to remove halflings from the game behind false claims of lack of lore.



I see the demands. My point is halflings *will be* in the next edition's PHB despite the demands.

However, the edition after next.... I'm not giving them above 50% if halfling aren't integrated into settings better. As of now halfling is running purely on nostalgia and "always been there"ism.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> No. There is a problem. It's not a "now" problem but a future one.
> 
> Basically some Halfling fans fear that since halfling have few to no fantastic elements, have little mythological bias, and are mostly held up by LOTR and Dragonlance fandom,that if it doesn't get integrated into the settings of multiple tables... halflings will get kicked out the PHB and become a MM race.
> 
> ...



In 50 years, halflings will still be in the PHB. At most, discussions like this will lead to them being given a little more active mechanics and the next new setting that comes out might put them in the spotlight.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> In 50 years, halflings will still be in the PHB. At most, discussions like this will lead to them being given a little more active mechanics and the next new setting that comes out might put them in the spotlight.



At most?
If halflings don't get integrate into settings or have major mechanical change, it wont be beloved by D&D fans born today. And my godsons who were and will be born this year will say "LOTR? what's that?" and toss hobbit-like NPC-heavy halflings in the Monster Manual in 30-40 years.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> At most?
> If halflings don't get integrate into settings or have major mechanical change, it wont be beloved by D&D fans born today. And my godsons who were and will be born this year will say "LOTR? what's that?" and toss hobbit-like NPC-heavy halflings in the Monster Manual in 30-40 years.



Yes, the 2nd most popular streaming series of the year will no long be popular because it's faded from the most popular book and most popular movie to second. Correct.


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## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Yes, the 2nd most popular streaming series of the year will no long be popular because it's faded from the most popular book and most popular movie to second. Correct.



The children in my family are too young to watch it. Here not a now problem but a future one.

And does the show heavily feature hobbits?

That is besides the point that Modern D&D isn't LOTR with more monsters and this thread is start half because hobbits don't integrate with Modern D&D.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> And does the show heavily feature hobbits?



Yes, the new take on halfings through the harfoots is why I resurrected this conversation


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 23, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> At most?



Yes.


Minigiant said:


> If halflings don't get integrate into settings or have major mechanical change, it wont be beloved by D&D fans born today. And my godsons who were and will be born this year will say "LOTR? what's that?" and toss hobbit-like NPC-heavy halflings in the Monster Manual in 30-40 years.



If I thought either of us would remember this conversation in 50 years (or be alive) I’d absolutely bet you $500 that your prediction is completely wrong.

Halflings are integrated just fine. They don’t need to shape history to be part of the setting. They’re also not just popular with older fans. I’m seeing halfling character art by and for fans that were born after the LoTR movies were in theaters. I’ve seen middle schoolers argue about whether halflings should have hairy feet or about whether the 5e halfling art is good or a literal crime. They’re popular, including with kids. They’re fine.

You want a thread about how to do more of what you want from them in your games, I’ll happily participate.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 23, 2022)

Honestly the "should halflings exist" argument is missing the point I think. For me, I ended up finally subsuming them and blending them with gnomes, because it made for a better and more interesting fantasy race for me. My only issue with the "future" of halflings is hoping that they get more interesting things done with them. 

Which is actually something I argue for all the races. I want to standardize elves as being reicarnating, gender-fluid beings that do not sleep but instead revisit the memories of their past lives. That is awesome. I love the inclusion of dwarves having tremorsense, that works so well. 

I think the issue is more that there are people trying to drag DnD back to a conception of a low fantasy game. And, frankly, it isn't going to work and I think isn't doing anything but dragging out the natural progression of the game. I won't try and pretend that NO ONE wants a low fantasy games. There are a handful of games where people play as a collection of humans in armor who fight a single monster, probably summoned by a single magic-user who does nothing but summon the monster and then pulls a dagger to wildly slash at the men. But that just... isn't DnD to me. 

But that style of game is exactly what the "core fantasy" of a halfling relies on. You can't have this underdogs everyone underestimates in a game with high magic and mythical action. In a game where Cu Cuchulain takes on an entire army, is healed by his war god father, and is only killed by the combination of a spiritual assault, magical trickery and enchanted spears, you can't look at Cu Cuchulain's 3 ft tall partner who is just as deadly as him and say "nah, he isn't a threat". Clearly he is a threat, unless he ISN'T as terrifyingly deadly. And nobody who lives in a world of magic and is strong enough to be deadly to high level characters is stupid enough to think that appearance matters AT ALL. 

Like, stop and think about this for a moment. What do you think the point of myths like Odin disguising himself as an old man traveling alone or Pele disguising herself as a vaguely homeless woman are meant to do? Why would these Deities do this? The entire point of their actions was to cause their followers to respect "marginalized" people and not judge people based on appearance. Sure, you could try and stab that old man on the road, but you know three years ago someone tried that, turned out the old man was Odin, and he cursed all of those bandits to a fate worse than death, so you really want to roll those dice? Sure, the old woman asking for beer and cigarettes might be a vagrant you can kick out, but it could also be the volcano goddess and pissing her off could cause the entire island to be destroyed, so maybe just hand over a few cigarettes? 

It is an INCREDIBLY common fantasy trope that only the foolish or the ignorant judge people by their appearance. It is done over and over and over again and the people who fall for those tricks are never worthy of everything. Well, a fantasy world would be a place where those stories will have ACTUALLY happened, and will have ACTUAL historical evidence for them. And no one who gets to the "I'm a threat to the world" level of power is actually going to be stupid enough to think that size matters at all. Because to be a real threat they cannot be a fool and they cannot be ignorant. 

And without that "they are the underestimated underdog" halflings lose the only actually interesting story beat people keep trying to give them. So, they will need to evolve and change with the times. It just has to happen.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 23, 2022)

Gnomes and halflings are perfect for a D&D-like preschool-friendly cartoon, maybe set in a "domain of delight"(Witchlight). If the production is right, and Hasbro will can to sell toys for children and for adult collectors. 

Don't forget halflings and gnomes can be the riders of monster mounts, and this has got its own potential. 

My suggestion is some magic boots with "jump" spell-like effect, but the reload should work like the (ki) martial maneuvers from 3.5 "Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords".


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 23, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Goblin can go dex fighter and frankly will be evenly matched with the Goliath who went strength fighter, all other things being equal.



All other things being equal, the goblin wins because they have higher initiative and therefore attack first.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 23, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes.
> 
> If I thought either of us would remember this conversation in 50 years (or be alive) I’d absolutely bet you $500 that your prediction is completely wrong.
> 
> ...



All I am saying sis that the low fantasy hobbitish and kenderish halflings wont be the future of halflings. A tide turned around 3.0 to a super lucky, slightly shady, mini-ninja in the style of Lidda, Belkar, and Tomi,  Halflings will likely stay as a PHB race in D&D but it will lose more and more of its old school tropes as new generations play them.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> All I am saying sis that the low fantasy hobbitish and kenderish halflings wont be the future of halflings. A tide turned around 3.0 to a super lucky, slightly shady, mini-ninja in the style of Lidda, Belkar, and Tomi,  Halflings will likely stay as a PHB race in D&D but it will lose more and more of its old school tropes as new generations play them.



And again, I doubt it. 

I think they will look fairly different in the 2024 phb, and actually have some kind of active mechanic, but I also wouldn’t consider the 3e, 4e, and 5e, halfling to be meaningfully different takes.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 24, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> And again, I doubt it.
> 
> I think they will look fairly different in the 2024 phb, and actually have some kind of active mechanic, but I also wouldn’t consider the 3e, 4e, and 5e, halfling to be meaningfully different takes.



The 3e and especially 4e halfling inched noticeable away from hobbits and kenders to me. 

Or more accurately, it felt like the whole race defaulted to ninja versions of Bilbo and Frodo instead of those types being the weirdos who left to adventure. 5e revert back to classic halflings but just had a large "Ninja Baggins Potential" in populations.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> The 3e and especially 4e halfling inched noticeable away from hobbits and kenders to me.
> 
> Or more accurately, it felt like the whole race defaulted to ninja versions of Bilbo and Frodo instead of those types being the weirdos who left to adventure. 5e revert back to classic halflings but just had a large "Ninja Baggins Potential" in populations.



That....isn't a meaningful difference, though. It's a matter of whether Tooks or Proudfoots are more common in the populace.

4e tried too hard to give every race a culture, but mechanically they're still just stealthy lucky little guys. 3e IIRC only had the luck thing in fluff, and 5e tried to put stealth into one type of halfling, but they're all about as different as the subraces of halfling in 5e are from eachother.

edit: and the playtest halfling has proficiency in stealth, which is boring, but at least more to the point, and halfling stealthiness is literally as old as The Hobbit. 

regardless, any changes will be within the scope of the last 20 years of halflings.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 24, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> That....isn't a meaningful difference, though. It's a matter of whether Tooks or Proudfoots are more common in the populace.
> 
> 4e tried too hard to give every race a culture, but mechanically they're still just stealthy lucky little guys. 3e IIRC only had the luck thing in fluff, and 5e tried to put stealth into one type of halfling, but they're all about as different as the subraces of halfling in 5e are from eachother.
> 
> ...




Welll 3e nd 4e went heavy on the Tookishness and OneD&D is moving to a high percentage of it. It even cuts out the stout subrace. Halflings is heavily leaning to being more tan 50% Bilbo and most players go further.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Oct 24, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> Welll 3e nd 4e went heavy on the Tookishness and OneD&D is moving to a high percentage of it. It even cuts out the stout subrace. Halflings is heavily leaning to being more tan 50% Bilbo and most players go further.



Okay. 

You seem to see that as a problem, and I don’t. I’m sure we can just move on at this point. 

Again, a thread about how to get more of what you want from Halflinngs, I’ll happily participate. Heck, I did a whole thread spinning off from this one back when this one was fresh. I’d necro it, but man that first page has a lot of weird ideas like 7ft tall halflings being the new core or whatever.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 25, 2022)

Hussar said:


> that's not really the argument.
> 
> The argument is that rolled stat characters are virtually always higher value than point buy.  The only reason to use die rolling is to have overpowered characters with no weaknesses.  The proof of this is nearly all die rolled characters have higher stats than point buy ones, to the point where, at least in 3e, a point buy character was considered unplayable by die rollers.



My wife loves random rolls, to the point where she won't accept point buy as the baseline in campaign.  On the other hand, she's the only completely honest die-roller I know.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 25, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I don't doubt you.  I just never met anyone who used it or even discussed that it was an option.
> 
> TSR published a lot of things whether they sold or not.



Yes, and it was a glorious golden age of content.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 25, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Also just..
> 
> Look, the "traditional" races are (if you remove half-species) are: Elf, Dwarf, Human, Halfling, Gnome. You can add Half-Elf and Half-Orc if you want, but there is your list. That gets us between 5 and 7 options
> 
> Add in Non-traditional races? Already published in DnD we are looking at nearly *60* options. It is far far far harder to get bored with that many options than it is with the base "traditional" races. Especially since, the traditional races have the added problem of not being novel. If I want a story of an elven mage, I probably don't even have to play one, I can find multiple books featuring elven mages as the main character. But a Changeling Barbarian? Okay, that hasn't been done very often.



I don't play a character to live out the story I have planned for them.  I play one to try out an idea and see what happens.


----------



## billd91 (Oct 25, 2022)

Hussar said:


> that's not really the argument.
> 
> The argument is that rolled stat characters are virtually always higher value than point buy.  The only reason to use die rolling is to have overpowered characters with no weaknesses.  The proof of this is nearly all die rolled characters have higher stats than point buy ones, to the point where, at least in 3e, a point buy character was considered unplayable by die rollers.



Yeah, sure. Tell us why we don’t like die rolling rather than listen to us.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 25, 2022)

Minigiant said:


> There is a difference.
> 
> Halflings is not a problem for WOTC because WOTC provides other options for halflings key features.
> 
> ...



I'm not sure LFQW is a problem for WotC. They don't seem to address it much, at least not effectively.


----------



## Fifth Element (Oct 25, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I don't play a character to live out the story I have planned for them.  I play one to try out an idea and see what happens.



That's an incredibly uncharitable reading. Nothing in the post you responded to said anything about a pre-planned story. It just said story. And stories can be completely improvised.


----------



## Umbran (Oct 25, 2022)

Hussar said:


> The only reason ...




*Mod Note:*
Could you please try a little harder to avoid the absolute statements about why people who aren't you do things?  Thanks.



billd91 said:


> Yeah, sure. Tell us why we don’t like die rolling rather than listen to us.




There are ways to deal with this that won't escalate tensions, you know. Please try them next time.


----------



## Minigiant (Oct 25, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I'm not sure LFQW is a problem for WotC. They don't seem to address it much, at least not effectively.



That doesn't mean it's not a problem.

The problem wth LFQW for WOTC is they can't choose a solution as each of the 5 generations of D&D players has a different preferred solution.

It's more likely groups don't have halflings than martials.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 25, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I don't play a character to live out the story I have planned for them.  I play one to try out an idea and see what happens.




Okay. 

How is that harmed by having more options to try out? 

Remember, this was in response to Lanefan saying that we should be worried about the idea that other certain races are getting boring to people, because what will we do when these new races get boring. You don't play for a specific story, and that's great, but you can see how "trying out an idea" for 5 to 7 races is going to empty the things you feel like trying faster than having 60 races, right? 


This isn't trying to bash anyone's creativity or anything, but if I wanted to play a game, and that game had a set of three races and three classes, I will have tried all those options far far faster than a game with 30 races and twelve classes. It is pure, basic math. Which is why the "what will we do when bored of the new races" argument doesn't hold much weight with me. Because the "Core four" are only just now starting to lost their luster after decades. The new races are only just now getting a bunch of additional attention within the last decade. We are looking at potentially 50 years, and there is no reason to think that some of the old races won't cycle back in by that point.


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## Bohandas (Oct 26, 2022)

I would just remove them from the game. They're not really an essential or even significant part of any setting except for Dark Sun and possibly Eberron. They don't really contribute anything. And their characterization is all over the place.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 26, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> I would just remove them from the game. They're not really an essential or even significant part of any setting except for Dark Sun and possibly Eberron. They don't really contribute anything. And their characterization is all over the place.




I'd be fine if they were rewritten and modernized. I will even admit, the inclusion of Stealth proficiency is a victory in that regard, because it makes them ACTUALLY naturally stealthy like everyone thought they were. 

I also think the removal of the Stout Halfling is the for the better, since they were basically just half-dwarf Halflings and there is a better way to do that now.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'd be fine if they were rewritten and modernized. I will even admit, the inclusion of Stealth proficiency is a victory in that regard, because it makes them ACTUALLY naturally stealthy like everyone thought they were.
> 
> I also think the removal of the Stout Halfling is the for the better, since they were basically just half-dwarf Halflings and there is a better way to do that now.



What's the better way?  Level Up?  Because IMO it certainly isn't the 6e way.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> I would just remove them from the game. They're not really an essential or even significant part of any setting except for Dark Sun and possibly Eberron. They don't really contribute anything. And their characterization is all over the place.



Is any race "essential"? The version of elves and dwarves are also basically Tolkien's.

I just don't get why people are so ready to toss out something they don't personally find interesting.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 27, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Is any race "essential"? The version of elves and dwarves are also basically Tolkien's.
> 
> I just don't get why people are so ready to toss out something they don't personally find interesting.



Yeah.  Generally not a fan of removing content. I can see re-working it under the right circumstances.


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 27, 2022)

Oofta said:


> The version of elves and dwarves are also basically Tolkien's.\




Conversely, elves and dwarves (and to a lesser extent gnomes) are standard fantasy fare, and predated tolkien in one form or another, whereas halflings are not and did not


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## Faolyn (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Conversely, elves and dwarves (and to a lesser extent gnomes) are standard fantasy fare, and predated tolkien in one form or another, whereas halflings are not and did not



To be fair, the Munchkins from Oz are pretty similar to halflings. And there are lots of myths about various "little peoples," many of which are more human-like than fey-like.


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## Hussar (Oct 27, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Is any race "essential"? The version of elves and dwarves are also basically Tolkien's.
> 
> I just don't get why people are so ready to toss out something they don't personally find interesting.




Well I’d argue that a race that is popular with players is essential. Which is why I’ve argued that gnomes and halflings shouldn’t be in the PHB. Not enough players find them interesting enough to play. 

I’d rather the PHB actually reflect the game that is being played. 

Note, your mistake here is that you think this is because of a dislike of halflings. That’s always been the mistaken presumption. I have no particular feelings either way about halflings because I haven’t seen one played in about fifteen years.


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## Bohandas (Oct 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> To be fair, the Munchkins from Oz are pretty similar to halflings. And there are lots of myths about various "little peoples," many of which are more human-like than fey-like.



They're at least as distinct from each other as halflings are from gnomes. Munchkins, halflings, gnomes, oompa-loompas, dwarves, kender, these are all distinct - and of all of them them I think the halflings would be the most problematic to integrate into a setting. Tolkien barely integrated them into his own setting; They just sort of inexplicably show up at the very end of the Silmarillion. 

And they're saddled with all those horrible old illustrations from the 20th century that look like they were designed to cater to somebody's very specific fetishes.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 27, 2022)

Let's remember in the past editions the bards weren't one of most popular classes, but now in the 5th Ed they are walking meme-machines, 

The handicap of the halflings is these are too typecasted into rogues for a long time and all the PC lineages need enough flexibility to play different types of characters. When you abuse a trope this becomes boring.

Halflings may be very funny characters, but in the games there is a very thin line between funny and annoying. And also they have got potential for survival horror games where stealth is more important than strengh.


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 27, 2022)

Halflings/Hobbits are the main characters of two of the most influential classical DnD-esc fantasy movies/trilogies, if you tried to remove them there would be outcries at wizards for doing so because good or not halflings are a solid part of alot of people’s perception of a fantasy world.

The issue however is that halflings, the PHB halflings at any rate, are not exciting, too much of the things they get are passive or overly niche(you can move through the square of a larger creature or hide behind them, _wow incredible_) and not helping the issue is them being small size which brings a fair few disadvantages and barely any advantages.

The Lotusden Halfling is really what i think base halfling should be aiming for more, Timberwalk: ignores nonmagical difficult terrain and has disadvantage on being tracked through nature, Children of the Woods: druidcraft cantrip and 1/LR entangle and spike growth at 3rd and 5th, Mark of Hospitality halflings get 1/LR unseen servant and purify food and drink, plus extra spells on your list if you’re a spellcaster.

Personally I thought about them having a pseudo song of rest or bardic inspiration skill that occurs on short/long rests to play up their friendly homely nature even when you’re on the road, good food and good friends invigorates the soul.

People have mentioned halfling’s abilities shoehorning them into rogue and maybe they that’s somewhat true, but there’s a difference between abilities that are only useful being a rogue and abilities that allows you a touch of rogue no matter what class you choose to play and halflings shouldnt be cornered into being rogues all the time.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 27, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> What's the better way?  Level Up?  Because IMO it certainly isn't the 6e way.




Despite your attempts to shoe-horn it into every single possible conversation, no, I wasn't talking about Level Up. 

Yes, I was talking about the new rules from One DnD, which I actually think work really well overall, especially after having seen them in use.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 27, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> Halflings/Hobbits are the main characters of two of the most influential classical DnD-esc fantasy movies/trilogies, if you tried to remove them there would be outcries at wizards for doing so because good or not halflings are a solid part of alot of people’s perception of a fantasy world.




I think this is a bit misleading, and also kind of the problem. See, by saying that they are the main character of "the two most influential classical DnD-esc Fantasy Movies/Trilogies" you are first obfuscating that those trilogies are set in the same world, by the same author. 

Sure, you can try and argue that Hobbits are massively influential in eight of the greatest medieval style fantasy movies set in an alternate world... but considering those are ALL Lord of the Rings movies I'm referencing, that's heavily misleading. 

And actually here is something worth considering. Did some googling and some research. Halflings have never once shown up in a DnD movie or cartoon. I know we haven't had a lot of those yet, but none of the three movies produced so far have them, the dragonlance animated movie wouldn't have them (most people consider Kender and halfling fairly different) and the cartoon didn't have them. In fact, the only reference to halflings I can find for the cartoon is a guy called Hector the Halfling, who claimed to be a halfling, but was secretly something else. So, you claim that DnD fans would be upset because a world without halflings wouldn't fit their conception of fantasy... but a world without halflings HAS fit their conception of Dungeons and Dragons. 



I also think this deeply misses the current zeitgeist for Fantasy. Pure medieval style worlds of fantasy are in the vast minority of modern fantasy films. If you look at a list of "Top 50" or "Top 80" fantasy movies of all time, and take out LoTR, you get like... three other medieval fantasy movies? The thing is, halflings are just not very common AT ALL in fantasy once you move beyond Lord of the Rings. We, in this community, think they are a bigger deal because everyone CONSTANTLY lauds Tolkien as the high water mark of all Fantasy, the most definitive and important fantasy writer of all time. But Modern Fantasy novels look nothing like Tolkien's work.



CreamCloud0 said:


> The issue however is that halflings, the PHB halflings at any rate, are not exciting, too much of the things they get are passive or overly niche(you can move through the square of a larger creature or hide behind them, _wow incredible_) and not helping the issue is them being small size which brings a fair few disadvantages and barely any advantages.




Now this, I will agree with. And this is a problem.


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## Oofta (Oct 27, 2022)

Hussar said:


> ...
> Note, your mistake here is that you think this is because of a dislike of halflings. That’s always been the mistaken presumption. I have no particular feelings either way about halflings because I haven’t seen one played in about fifteen years.




Whereas I have 2 in my current campaign.


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## bedir than (Oct 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> If you look at a list of "Top 50" or "Top 80" fantasy movies of all time, and take out LoTR, you get like... three other medieval fantasy movies?



Ok, so ignoring SIX movies you still 21 medieval fantasy and the list didn't include Willow or several Arthurian movies. Plus I hadn't seen them all, so a couple I just ignored to give the benefit to your statement.

And when you look at fantasy TV shows you see most are still set in worlds where D&D fits - Wheel, Rings, Shadow and Bone, Carnival Row, Witcher, Willow, His Dark Materials.

Two of those series feature halflings


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## Cadence (Oct 27, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Ok, so ignoring SIX movies you still 21 medieval fantasy and the list didn't include Willow or several Arthurian movies. Plus I hadn't seen them all, so a couple I just ignored to give the benefit to your statement.
> 
> And when you look at fantasy TV shows you see most are still set in worlds where D&D fits - Wheel, Rings, Shadow and Bone, Carnival Row, Witcher, Willow, His Dark Materials.
> 
> Two of those series feature halflings



Now I kind of want a count of how many have the other races: Dwarves, Elves, Half-Orcs, Dragonborn, Tabaxi, Kobolds, etc...

(I'm assuming some wiki somewhere has the data anyway.)


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## CreamCloud0 (Oct 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I think this is a bit misleading, and also kind of the problem. See, by saying that they are the main character of "the two most influential classical DnD-esc Fantasy Movies/Trilogies" you are first obfuscating that those trilogies are set in the same world, by the same author.
> 
> Sure, you can try and argue that Hobbits are massively influential in eight of the greatest medieval style fantasy movies set in an alternate world... but considering those are ALL Lord of the Rings movies I'm referencing, that's heavily misleading.
> 
> ...



My point is more the fact that while yes, LotR is only one franchise in many, it is also one of the biggest mainstream examples and probably a fair few people’s first exposure to medieval fantasy, and first impressions like that tend to stick in people’s minds, it’s the quintessential campaign quest wrapped up in an easy and high quality viewing experience.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Despite your attempts to shoe-horn it into every single possible conversation, no, I wasn't talking about Level Up.
> 
> Yes, I was talking about the new rules from One DnD, which I actually think work really well overall, especially after having seen them in use.



The 6e rules give you "permission" to make your PC look like whatever you want, while forcing you to keep one set of heritage rules.  What exactly is good about that?  How does it "work well" for a player wanting to run a mixed-heritage PC?


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 27, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> Halflings/Hobbits are the main characters of two of the most influential classical DnD-esc fantasy movies/trilogies, if you tried to remove them there would be outcries at wizards for doing so because good or not halflings are a solid part of alot of people’s perception of a fantasy world.




They're a solid part of _one specific_ fantasy world. Saying that you can't have a fantasy world without halflings is a little bit like saying you can't have a space opera without wookies


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## Faolyn (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> They're at least as distinct from each other as halflings are from gnomes. Munchkins, halflings, gnomes, oompa-loompas, dwarves, kender, these are all distinct - and of all of them them I think the halflings would be the most problematic to integrate into a setting. Tolkien barely integrated them into his own setting; They just sort of inexplicably show up at the very end of the Silmarillion.



Distinct because of "race" or distinct because of culture? Because those are very different things.


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 27, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Distinct because of "race" or distinct because of culture? Because those are very different things.



Good point.  This is why I am having difficulties with orcs, because without ASIs and culture, they don't actually have much going for them.


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## Oofta (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> They're a solid part of _one specific_ fantasy world. Saying that you can't have a fantasy world without halflings is a little bit like saying you can't have a space opera without wookies



You don't have to have wookies.  Or space ships or energy rifles or any of the common tropes.  That doesn't mean that if we're playing a Star Wars RPG that we should get rid of wookies just because some people think they're boring.


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## Faolyn (Oct 27, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I think this is a bit misleading, and also kind of the problem. See, by saying that they are the main character of "the two most influential classical DnD-esc Fantasy Movies/Trilogies" you are first obfuscating that those trilogies are set in the same world, by the same author.



I don't think that's obfuscating much of anything. For many people, Tolkien is the primary influence on D&D. For many people, it's also their go-to idea of what D&D should look like. Which means that for a lot of people, the fact that both of those trilogies feature hobbits/halflings means that they're prominent. It does not matter, except for the absolute purists, that Tolkien was just _an _influence or that D&D very often doesn't look or feel like Middle-Earth.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 27, 2022)

Halflings, gnomes and small humanoids aren't easy to be adapted into action-live productions, because the dwarves from the real life have got different body proportions.

Halflings have been for a long time rip-off of Bilbo Bolson or Lidda (3.5 iconic hafling rogue), and that has been a wasted potential. The racial traits could be changed with optional variants, but really the most necessary step the creation of charismatic halflings characters, rightly designed, (avoiding being Mary Sue or like this) in the main media. 

Tolkien has been a great influence, and least for lots of players. 

Some players like to break stereotypes in the sense of "my character is not like the rest of her community, doesn't follow the standards social conventionalisms and she feels misunderstood, then she becomes adventurer to find her own path".


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## bedir than (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> They're a solid part of _one specific_ fantasy world. Saying that you can't have a fantasy world without halflings is a little bit like saying you can't have a space opera without wookies



Is anyone suggesting this?

What halfling fans are saying is that halflings help us tell stories that aren't available through other races without playing counter-type. We want to continue to tell those stories through a supported race. We are inspired by the tales of Willow and Frodo and Nori and Poppy and Samwise and even Tasselhoff.

We are suggesting that there are several different tales available with halflings. They aren't a monoculture and attempts to shoehorn halflings that way ignores their presentation in novels, shows and gaming.

We are also saying that they aren't the least popular race in the Player's Handbook, proven out by the numbers. And yet, because people despise them the halfing is the one suggested to be removed.

No one is asking you to play a halfling. And since I'm not at your table I won't ask to be one there. I'm suggesting that they not be eliminated from the Player's Handbook, because my stories deserve to be told.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 27, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> My point is more the fact that while yes, LotR is only one franchise in many, it is also one of the biggest mainstream examples and probably a fair few people’s first exposure to medieval fantasy, and first impressions like that tend to stick in people’s minds, it’s the quintessential campaign quest wrapped up in an easy and high quality viewing experience.



I think that was true 40 years ago.  I don’t think that is true now.  Definitely my kids’ (teenagers now) first exposure to fantasy were tv shows like “the Dragon Prince”, “Wakfu”, “School of Good and Evil”, “Avatar” that often have fantasy races but not halflings.


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## Faolyn (Oct 27, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I think that was true 40 years ago.  I don’t think that is true now.  Definitely my kids’ (teenagers now) first exposure to fantasy were tv shows like “the Dragon Prince”, “Wakfu”, “School of Good and Evil”, “Avatar” that often have fantasy races but not halflings.



Doesn't that mean, then, that halflings would be as exotic and new to them as non-Tolkienesque races are to older gamers?


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## bedir than (Oct 27, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I think that was true 40 years ago.  I don’t think that is true now.  Definitely my kids’ (teenagers now) first exposure to fantasy were tv shows like “the Dragon Prince”, “Wakfu”, “School of Good and Evil”, “Avatar” that often have fantasy races but not halflings.



More people watched Rings of Power in the past three months than watched all of those shows this year combined.
Willow comes out in one month. I expect that it will show numbers at least as good as Shadow and Bone, which means it will be a top 10 streaming program on release. None of what you mention are.


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## Bohandas (Oct 27, 2022)

Oofta said:


> You don't have to have wookies.  Or space ships or energy rifles or any of the common tropes.  That doesn't mean that if we're playing a Star Wars RPG that we should get rid of wookies just because some people think they're boring.




I did NOT say a Star Wars RPG. I said any space opera. The idea that we need halflings in a non-Middle Earth fantasy setting is equivalent to saying that we need wookies in a non-Star Wars space setting.

EDIT:
Or come to think of it, Star Wars is a fantasy setting in addition to being a space opera. So let me restate it this way, Saying that we need halflings in the D&D core rules because they're from an extremely popular fantasy setting, is no different from saying that we need wookies in the D&D core rules because they too are from an extremely popular fantasy setting.
Whereas in actual fact it would be lame and derivative to include those things because they're not only from those settings but also specific to them.


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## Oofta (Oct 27, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> I did NOT say a Star Wars RPG. I said any space opera. The idea that we need halflings in a non-Middle Earth fantasy setting is equivalent to saying that we need wookies in a non-Star Wars space setting.
> 
> EDIT:
> Or come to think of it, Star Wars is a fantasy setting in addition to being a space opera. So let me restate it this way, Saying that we need halflings in the D&D core rules because they're from an extremely popular fantasy setting, is no different from saying that we need wookies in the D&D core rules because they too are from an extremely popular fantasy setting.
> Whereas in actual fact it would be lame and derivative to include those things because they're not only from those settings but also specific to them.



Halflings are just as iconic to D&D as wookies are to Star Wars.


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 27, 2022)

bedir than said:


> What halfling fans are saying is that halflings help us tell stories that aren't available through other races without playing counter-type. We want to continue to tell those stories through a supported race. We are inspired by the tales of Willow and Frodo and Nori and Poppy and Samwise and even Tasselhoff.




Tasselhoff was a kender


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## Oofta (Oct 27, 2022)

To update my last response: after half a century D&D is it's own genre. They are just as much a part of that lore as wookies are to Star Wars.

I don't understand why we would limit D&D lore to non D&D sources.


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## Lanefan (Oct 27, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Well I’d argue that a race that is popular with players is essential. Which is why I’ve argued that gnomes and halflings shouldn’t be in the PHB.



So, the species that are popular should be included so they can become more popular.


Hussar said:


> Not enough players find them interesting enough to play.
> 
> I’d rather the PHB actually reflect the game that is being played.



On a much broader scale, that's just the sort of thinking that got us into this mess.

Rule says x-restriction exists, for a reason (let's say it's the rule about spellcasting being very easy to interrupt).  Players whine about it, and one by one each DM capitulates and makes casting easier.  Next edition, due to its perceived popularity that easier casting gets baked into the design...but without a corresponding drawback to keep casters in check.  Multiply this over all sorts of restrictive rules and the end result is a broken game.


Hussar said:


> Note, your mistake here is that you think this is because of a dislike of halflings. That’s always been the mistaken presumption. I have no particular feelings either way about halflings because I haven’t seen one played in about fifteen years.



Given that in 5e it appears various other species have crept up on Halflings and stolen their niche, this isn't surprising.

However, in my view it's those other invasive species that should go, leaving the Halflings' niche for Halflings.


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## FrozenNorth (Oct 27, 2022)

bedir than said:


> More people watched Rings of Power in the past three months than watched all of those shows this year combined.



Sure, and maybe Rings of Power will usher in a generation of gamers who want to play legally-distinct hobbits. My point is that before Rings of Power came out this month, the most recent Middle Earth movie was from 2014.

I entered the hobby when I was 10.  To those entering the hobby who are between 10 and 18, Battle of the Five Armies might as well be the movie “They live!”.  Sure, they might have read the books, but bookish kids who like fantasy in 2020 are more likely to be into Harry Potter than Tolkien.


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## Mecheon (Oct 27, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> However, in my view it's those other invasive species that should go, leaving the Halflings' niche for Halflings.



The 'invasive species' have been around for decades now, they're not going away. They're 1E content.

Should Halflings be removed? Of course not, they've a history and a place in the game. But the problem is, you can't give them the niche of "They're the Small Ones" and expect them to stand on their own. Being small isn't a stand-out enough niche on its own, and that's their problem

Even in a hypothetical world you take out all of the other small races, people are just going to say "Bring them back". Because those other ones have their own niches. Gnomes are the Mythological Small Folk crossed with the Tinker. Goblins are, well, Goblins, their archetype is that ingrained its just their name. Kobolds are Eternal Underdog with Trap Maker. These each add their own flavour to just being smalll.

Halflings need more meat to their potatoes, but taking out other options, well loved options, isn't going to help anything. That'll just annoy fans of those


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## Micah Sweet (Oct 27, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Sure, and maybe Rings of Power will usher in a generation of gamers who want to play legally-distinct hobbits. My point is that before Rings of Power came out this month, the most recent Middle Earth movie was from 2014.
> 
> I entered the hobby when I was 10.  To those entering the hobby who are between 10 and 18, Battle of the Five Armies might as well be the movie “They live!”.  Sure, they might have read the books, but bookish kids who like fantasy in 2020 are more likely to be into Harry Potter than Tolkien.



Nothing about 5e is like Harry Potter, to be fair.  Especially Strixhaven.


----------



## jasper (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Also just..
> 
> Look, the "traditional" races are (if you remove half-species) are: Elf, Dwarf, Human, Halfling, Gnome. You can add Half-Elf and Half-Orc if you want, but there is your list. That gets us between 5 and 7 options
> 
> Add in Non-traditional races? Already published in DnD we are looking at nearly *60* options. It is far far far harder to get bored with that many options than it is with the base "traditional" races. Especially since, the traditional races have the added problem of not being novel. If I want a story of an elven mage, I probably don't even have to play one, I can find multiple books featuring elven mages as the main character. But a Changeling Barbarian? Okay, that hasn't been done very often.



67 RACES 54 AL LEGAL Of those37 Darkvision 32 AL Legal and as of my count last night 13 Classes, subclass 116 and 106 Adventure League Legal. I have did the math but You could multiclass in all thirteen classes I think before 10th using standard array and ASI.


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## jasper (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Wow. So you'd rather just say "they're orcs, you can kill them," rather than "they're bandits who are orcs, you can kill them." Like, three extra words is too much effort?
> 
> 
> .....



Too Much effort.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Ok, so ignoring SIX movies you still 21 medieval fantasy and the list didn't include Willow or several Arthurian movies. Plus I hadn't seen them all, so a couple I just ignored to give the benefit to your statement.




Um, maybe a different list? 

The list I was seeing had multiple Harry Potter movies, BFG, The House with the Clock in the Walls, Mrs. Peregrines House for Children... 

Here, let me see if I can find the list again. 

Okay, here was the list I skimmed. https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-fantasy-movies-of-all-time/ . 

Now, instead of just claiming this is a bad list, let's look through it. 

Out of 84 movies, I find a total of 12 movies that are serious, medieval fantasy (Five of those are Tolkien, so almost HALF). To put that in context there are 9 Harry Potter movies alone. If I compare Serious, Medieval Fantasy movies to "Modern young kid discovers magic" , we are looking at, what? Twenty-Five? Double the amount. 

And even if we combine these two groups, we aren't even looking at HALF the list. Again, serious medieval fantasy movies like Tolkien aren't the end all, be all of Fantasy, and that means Tolkien isn't the end all be all of fantasy.



bedir than said:


> And when you look at fantasy TV shows you see most are still set in worlds where D&D fits - Wheel, Rings, Shadow and Bone, Carnival Row, Witcher, Willow, His Dark Materials.
> 
> Two of those series feature halflings




Now I'm not super familiar with these, but Carnival Row doesn't sound like it is Medieval Fantasy. Shadow and Bone I thought was set in the modern world, as it was a masquerade style story. Rings is just... Tolkien again. Which means your only other show showing halflings is Willow. Which is also one of the movies. Dark Materials is NOT a DnD style world at ALL. Like, not even close. 

So... Wheel of Time, Witcher, Willow and Rings of Power? FOUR shows? I can name more Fantasy TV shows in American Animation that don't conform to DnD than you were able to find here. 

Avatar the Last Air Bender
Centaurworld
Adventure Time
Over the Garden Wall
Star vs The Forces of Evil
Steven Universe
Thundercats
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Cuphead

So, again Tolkien =/= Fantasy for the majority of people. And other than Willow (a niche 40 year old movie) you haven't named a single property other than Tolkien that features halflings.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> My point is more the fact that while yes, LotR is only one franchise in many, it is also one of the biggest mainstream examples and probably a fair few people’s first exposure to medieval fantasy, and first impressions like that tend to stick in people’s minds, it’s the quintessential campaign quest wrapped up in an easy and high quality viewing experience.




But Medieval Fantasy =/= Fantasy for the majority of people. Tolkien is the best example of a Niche within a Niche. Meanwhile DnD is THE role-playing game. People who watch Legend of Korra want to use DnD to represent that setting. People who watched She-Ra and the Princesses Power want to use DnD to represent that setting. 

DnD could ditch Tolkien, but I'm really not sure that Tolkien could afford to be ditched by DnD. This is the ONLY place where I here about Tolkien with any regularity. And there are more quintessential quests, wrapped in other high quality viewing expeirences, which was even easier to sit and watch.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> The 6e rules give you "permission" to make your PC look like whatever you want, while forcing you to keep one set of heritage rules.  What exactly is good about that?  How does it "work well" for a player wanting to run a mixed-heritage PC?




It gives you the ability to make any combination, without having to make a super special version. I've seen more mixed race characters in a single game that allowed the 6D&D rules than I had in years of 5e play. People were able to make anything they wanted, in moments, and there was no need to homebrew a complex solution or work a system. 

It is simple. It works. And it opens the mixed-heritage options in a massive way compared to the old version, where there were like... 3?


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> You don't have to have wookies.  Or space ships or energy rifles or any of the common tropes.  That doesn't mean that if we're playing a Star Wars RPG that we should get rid of wookies just because some people think they're boring.




Sure, and halflings are 100% neccessary for the Lord of the Rings RPG. 

But if you are playing a generic sci-fi game and the massive, furry, mostly non-vocal.... Mookie isn't chosen very often, isn't it fair to say "We don't really need this for a generic Sci-Fi game, it is really just here because we are referencing Star Wars, and we don't need to keep referencing Star Wars in our game."


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't think that's obfuscating much of anything. For many people, Tolkien is the primary influence on D&D. For many people, it's also their go-to idea of what D&D should look like. Which means that for a lot of people, the fact that both of those trilogies feature hobbits/halflings means that they're prominent. It does not matter, except for the absolute purists, that Tolkien was just _an _influence or that D&D very often doesn't look or feel like Middle-Earth.




Okay, I can respect their opinions on that matter. 

Appendix N is more than Tolkien. Fantasy is more than Tolkien. Tolkien is absolutely NOT many peoples go-to idea of DnD because they were introduced to DnD from other sources that don't look or feel like Tolkien. 

But for some reason, we still have many many many people who whenever presented with a different type of fantasy say "But Tolkien said...." even thought Tolkien shouldn't matter to us in modern fantasy anymore than Malory or Spenser or Lewis. It was a foundational work, but it was written a hundred years ago (near about) and fantasy has not been stagnant in that time.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, and halflings are 100% neccessary for the Lord of the Rings RPG.
> 
> But if you are playing a generic sci-fi game and the massive, furry, mostly non-vocal.... Mookie isn't chosen very often, isn't it fair to say "We don't really need this for a generic Sci-Fi game, it is really just here because we are referencing Star Wars, and we don't need to keep referencing Star Wars in our game."



As I said.  D&D is it's own genre after 50 years. It's older than Star Wars. There's no reason that halflings have to exist in any other fantasy, they're part of D&D's brand.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> More people watched Rings of Power in the past three months than watched all of those shows this year combined.
> Willow comes out in one month. I expect that it will show numbers at least as good as Shadow and Bone, which means it will be a top 10 streaming program on release. None of what you mention are.




You realize that Avatar is over 15 years old right? In fact, here is an article for you









						‘Avatar: The Last Airbender,’ A 15 Year-Old Cartoon, Is Now Netflix’s Most Popular Show
					

What is Avatar: The Last Airbender, the most popular show on Netflix right now?




					www.forbes.com
				




When Avatar The Last Air Bender was put on Netflix, as a 15 year old cartoon, past its prime and most popular time, it became Netflix's most popular show. 

Wakfu is also about 15 years old.... and not even originally an english show. It is a french show based off an MMO

You are comparing a Triple AAA, live action, currently in its first season show, to a few 15 year old shows. Now, Dragon Prince is more recent, in fact it is on its fourth season. A season that is highly anticipated by fans. I've seen just as many ads for it as for Rings of Power. And you are limiting the viewing to only this year. 

Now, sure, Rings of Power is popular. But saying it is potentially more popular than a near two decade old show... isn't exactly the slam dunk you think it is.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It gives you the ability to make any combination, without having to make a super special version. I've seen more mixed race characters in a single game that allowed the 6D&D rules than I had in years of 5e play. People were able to make anything they wanted, in moments, and there was no need to homebrew a complex solution or work a system.
> 
> It is simple. It works. And it opens the mixed-heritage options in a massive way compared to the old version, where there were like... 3?



Simple isn't a selling point to me on its own.  I know you're tired of hearing it, but Level Up's systems lets you make any mixed-heritage PC in a way that matters mechanically, which I find far more satisfying than 6e's cosmetic version.  To each their own.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> As I said.  D&D is it's own genre after 50 years. It's older than Star Wars. There's no reason that halflings have to exist in any other fantasy, they're part of D&D's brand.




Okay. Name me a DnD Brand Movie or TV show that has Halflings in it.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Simple isn't a selling point to me on its own.  I know you're tired of hearing it, but Level Up's systems lets you make any mixed-heritage PC in a way that matters mechanically, which I find far more satisfying than 6e's cosmetic version.  To each their own.




And how many Level Up legal races are there? Are there more than 50 that have been divided up into parts for the mixed-heritage system?


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And how many Level Up legal races are there? Are there more than 50 that have been divided up into parts for the mixed-heritage system?



Probably pretty close.  Lots of third party out there, and more coming. And anything I liked from 05e I've converted myself, so I have plenty.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay. Name me a DnD Brand Movie or TV show that has Halflings in it.



Why? It's not relevant to the history of the game or it's lore.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um, maybe a different list?
> 
> The list I was seeing had multiple Harry Potter movies, BFG, The House with the Clock in the Walls, Mrs. Peregrines House for Children...
> 
> ...



Yes, naming shows less popular


Chaosmancer said:


> You realize that Avatar is over 15 years old right? In fact, here is an article for you
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I said every single episode of every show you listed over the past year combined.
Pretending that the shows you listed are popular and proof that no one likes halflings is demonstrating a disconnect from popular fantasy


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Nothing about 5e is like Harry Potter, to be fair.  Especially Strixhaven.



Well may be it should be. The game already has random incongruous setting-specific stuff from one popular fantasy franchise, why not also have random setting specific stuff from another as well


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um, maybe a different list?
> 
> The list I was seeing had multiple Harry Potter movies, BFG, The House with the Clock in the Walls, Mrs. Peregrines House for Children...
> 
> ...



Oh, I did the same list. I just didn't care if it was "serious fantasy" or not. I cared if it fit D&D, because this is a D&D forum not a "serious fantasy" forum. 

And so I had more movies that fit, similar to me including Carnival Row and Shadow and Bone. Both fit D&D. Things that fit D&D should be able to be told in D&D. Which means halflings should be included.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, I can respect their opinions on that matter.
> 
> Appendix N is more than Tolkien. Fantasy is more than Tolkien. Tolkien is absolutely NOT many peoples go-to idea of DnD because they were introduced to DnD from other sources that don't look or feel like Tolkien.



Yeah, but how many times are people introduced to D&D in a vacuum? I know when I've explained D&D (book D&D, not a specific setting) to people, I've usually gone with "medieval fantasy," and _that _has very specific aesthetics that goes with it. And Tolkien is a strong part of that aesthetic, if only because of the way it's influenced other people. Which means even if you never use Tolkien to describe the setting, it'll eventually get back to him. Especially because of the movies--other than stuff by Tolkien, Howard, and Lovecraft, none of the other books got made into big, splashy movies (IIRC).


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Plus, Willow exists! Halfings aren't only Tolkien. We don't need to pretend


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 28, 2022)

Don't worry about halflings. If Hasbro's CEOs are conviced they can sell a lot of dolls of cute halfling heroines (anything like the shia class from "Black Desert" videogame) then cute small magical girls are promoted, and even they will be the main characters of their own cartoon serie.


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Yeah, but how many times are people introduced to D&D in a vacuum? I know when I've explained D&D (book D&D, not a specific setting) to people, I've usually gone with "medieval fantasy," and _that _has very specific aesthetics that goes with it. And Tolkien is a strong part of that aesthetic, if only because of the way it's influenced other people. Which means even if you never use Tolkien to describe the setting, it'll eventually get back to him. Especially because of the movies--other than stuff by Tolkien, Howard, and Lovecraft, none of the other books got made into big, splashy movies (IIRC).




There's also an assload of movies based on the legends of King Arthur

EDIT:
and if we're insisting on stuff based on novels there's at least two, _The Sword in the Stone_ and _Camelot_ based specifically on _The Once and Future King_


----------



## Hussar (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Halflings are just as iconic to D&D as wookies are to Star Wars.




Really? Name three DnD halflings. 

Everyone can name a wookie. 

Heck most people don’t even know what a DnD halfling actually looks like let alone be able to name one.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 28, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Really? Name three DnD halflings.
> 
> Everyone can name a wookie.
> 
> Heck most people don’t even know what a DnD halfling actually looks like let alone be able to name one.



Easy to name one Wookie. Name three.

Likewise, easy to name one D&D halfling - Regis (and two if you include kender).


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> When Avatar The Last Air Bender was put on Netflix, as a 15 year old cartoon, past its prime and most popular time, it became Netflix's most popular show.
> 
> Wakfu is also about 15 years old.... and not even originally an english show. It is a french show based off an MMO
> 
> ...



Technically, I was the one doing the comparing, not @bedir than .  The context is that those shows are the fantasy go-to of my children, who are now in their teens, moreso than Tolkien.

My point is that fantasy has gotten broader, which is a conclusion that you agree with.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Oct 28, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Easy to name one Wookie. Name three.
> 
> Likewise, easy to name one D&D halfling - Regis (and two if you include kender).



is holiday special and legends acceptable?


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Nothing about 5e is like Harry Potter, to be fair.  Especially Strixhaven.



Exactly!  Fantasy is getting broader, and so is D&D.  

There are more and more people for whom non-core races are central to their view of fantasy, and certain core races aren’t.


----------



## CreamCloud0 (Oct 28, 2022)

Without any of ‘get rid of them’ or ‘merge with gnomes’ or the like please, what would any of you do with halflings to give them more of their own niche and identity?

I laid out what I think they should be more of back in this post here


CreamCloud0 said:


> The Lotusden Halfling is really what i think base halfling should be aiming for more, Timberwalk: ignores nonmagical difficult terrain and has disadvantage on being tracked through nature, Children of the Woods: druidcraft cantrip and 1/LR entangle and spike growth at 3rd and 5th, Mark of Hospitality halflings get 1/LR unseen servant and purify food and drink, plus extra spells on your list if you’re a spellcaster.
> 
> Personally I thought about them having a pseudo song of rest or bardic inspiration skill that occurs on short/long rests to play up their friendly homely nature even when you’re on the road, good food and good friends invigorates the soul.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 28, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Don't worry about halflings. If Hasbro's CEOs are conviced they can sell a lot of dolls of cute halfling heroines (anything like the shia class from "Black Desert" videogame) then cute small magical girls are promoted, and even they will be the main characters of their own cartoon serie.



I’m pretty sure those are pixies.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Oct 28, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> I’m pretty sure those are pixies.



no it is a giant boomerang thus tiny female life form who scares me.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 28, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> Without any of ‘get rid of it’ or ‘merge with gnomes’ or the like please, what would any of you do with halflings to give them more of their own niche and identity?
> 
> I laid out what I think they should be more of back in this post here



The problem you run into is that anything you propose gets massive pushback from those who like halflings as they are.

I like what PF has done with halflings.  A race that has been repeatedly enslaved in its history, that is still involves in freeing their kinfolk and others. It explains a strong chaotic and anti-establishment bent, and gives them a reason to learn lockpicking and stealth.  Also creates some interesting roleplay hooks.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 28, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> is holiday special and legends acceptable?



It's not really necessary, but once you get past the well-known ones you have to do a bit of research. Same with D&D halflings. If you add in Bioware CRPGs you can add several in each category.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Really? Name three DnD halflings.
> 
> Everyone can name a wookie.
> 
> Heck most people don’t even know what a DnD halfling actually looks like let alone be able to name one.



Boomer, Spally Arnor, Nott and Regis are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The first ones are, of course from games I actually play.

Unless of course you mean from that 1 terrible D&D movie I saw years ago? Because there have been sooo many D&D movies that I get them confused.  When it comes to games, actual play streams and books, I can barely remember the names of the characters in the games I currently play.  I've only ever listened to 1 D&D actual play stream and read some of 1 D&D book series that wasn't Dragonlance and I only read the original trilogy for that.

D&D is different than Star Wars.  It still comes with it's own built in lore.


----------



## Hussar (Oct 28, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Easy to name one Wookie. Name three.
> 
> Likewise, easy to name one D&D halfling - Regis (and two if you include kender).




Who?

That’s honestly not snark. Who is Regis?


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 28, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Who?
> 
> That’s honestly not snark. Who is Regis?



One of Drizzt's companions.

You know, the famous drow?


----------



## CreamCloud0 (Oct 28, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> The problem you run into is that anything you propose gets massive pushback from those who like halflings as they are.
> 
> I like what PF has done with halflings.  A race that has been repeatedly enslaved in its history, that is still involves in freeing their kinfolk and others. It explains a strong chaotic and anti-establishment bent, and gives them a reason to learn lockpicking and stealth.  Also creates some interesting roleplay hooks.



Eh, I don’t think you’d have to entirely rewrite halflings to make them more distinct and ex-slave races who are primarily defined by their history as being slaves haven’t exactly had the best reception to my understanding.

I was mostly talking mechanically in my previous example so let me look at them from the societal angle now, to me halflings feel like a species that fit in everywhere with everyone, you can find a halfling or two in any city or settlement living there or just passing through even if they’re otherwise a monoculture, they’re friendly and typically value the simple things rather than having huge obtrusive ambitions so i can see them becoming merchants, farmers and innkeepers chatting away with the passerbys, i can also see a touch of druidic culture to them.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Probably pretty close.  Lots of third party out there, and more coming. And anything I liked from 05e I've converted myself, so I have plenty.




No, I wasn't talking about converting them. I wasn't talking about 3rd party resources. I was talking if I bought the Level Up book, opened it up, how many races are there that have been specifically worked into that system? 

Because if you want to go with 3rd party and personal conversions, then DnD 5e/One DnD has HUNDREDS of races. Not the 60 or so official ones I've been talking about.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Why? It's not relevant to the history of the game or it's lore.




So, halflings are key to DnD's brand. So key in fact that their inclusion in DnD products is completely irrelevant. 

There is a contradiction here, in saying that DnD's lore _*requires *_halflings, that they are _key _to the history of the game and a _vital part _of the brand identity. And also that they can be trivially excluded from DnD media projects because their inclusion is irrelevant. 

And this contradiction really highlights the issue for many of us, who have been saying that, no, halflings really are not key and vital to DnD's brand.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, halflings are key to DnD's brand. So key in fact that their inclusion in DnD products is completely irrelevant.
> 
> There is a contradiction here, in saying that DnD's lore _*requires *_halflings, that they are _key _to the history of the game and a _vital part _of the brand identity. And also that they can be trivially excluded from DnD media projects because their inclusion is irrelevant.
> 
> And this contradiction really highlights the issue for many of us, who have been saying that, no, halflings really are not key and vital to DnD's brand.



I never said they were key or vital. I said they're part of the lore. The fact that you have to stoop to such hyperbole doesn't strengthen your case.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Yes, naming shows less popular




Are you nuts? Like, I'm sorry, what? In what world is Avatar the Last Air Bender not popular? It is still be referenced to this day. Adventure Time was massive. 

Look, I get it. Tolkien's work has survived nearly 100 years, it was really good. And Peter Jackson's films rekindled the spark and made people care again. But you seem to not understand that the media landscape is far far different than it was, and Tolkien's work is far out numbered by the other popular fantasy works. 



bedir than said:


> I said every single episode of every show you listed over the past year combined.
> Pretending that the shows you listed are popular and proof that no one likes halflings is demonstrating a disconnect from popular fantasy




"over the past year combined" 

Yeah, THAT is the problem with your analysis. "This brand new show is getting more views than this show that is over 15 years old. Every single episode combined of this show that is over 15 years old combined got less views than the episodes of this brand new show no one has ever seen" 

Here, I'll give you a counter-point. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) got more theatrical showings than every single Tolkien movie combined this year. Does that mean that Sonic the Hedgehog is more popular than  Tolkien? Or is that because there hasn't been a theatrical release of a Tolkien product in the last eight years, so obviously theaters weren't showing those old movies compared to a new movie? 

And I'm not pretending those shows are popular. They ARE popular. What I was trying to demonstrate is that if the only things you can list that have halflings are Tolkien and Willow, and the only serious medieval fantasy shows you can list can be trivially outnumbered by popular fantasy works in a single niche market (American Animated TV shows) then claiming that those are the dominant force is a little misleading. 





bedir than said:


> Oh, I did the same list. I just didn't care if it was "serious fantasy" or not. I cared if it fit D&D, because this is a D&D forum not a "serious fantasy" forum.
> 
> And so I had more movies that fit, similar to me including Carnival Row and Shadow and Bone. Both fit D&D. Things that fit D&D should be able to be told in D&D. Which means halflings should be included.




Right, you clearly don't get it. 

I didn't include comedy movies set to make fun of medieval fantasy movies. They are a reaction, not a driving force. 

And I double checked, Carvinal Row was the one I thought it was. So, now we have a decision to make. You claim that these "fit DnD" and therefore should be included. Why they fit DnD I can't tell you, as those who insist on halflings generally insist on a western medieval world and that that is DnD. 

But, if you can just declare that a gaslight fantasy set in the industrial era "fits DnD" then I can declare that every single thing I've listed fits DnD. She-Ra fits DnD, Journey to the West fits DnD, Naruto fits DnD, Avatar the Last Airbender fits DnD, Cuphead fits DnD, Final Fantasy fits DnD, Blue Exorcist fits DnD. On and on and on and on. And you know what the VAST majority of those properties have in common? 

No halflings. 

So, again, this isn't about "should halflings exist". I'm not arguing that point. I'm arguing where does the preponderance of fantasy literature lie. Does the existence of Tolkien outweigh basically every other fantasy work ever created in the last 100 years or not? 

Me? I say it doesn't.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Plus, Willow exists! Halfings aren't only Tolkien. We don't need to pretend




Missed this, sorry. 

You now have 2 properties. One of which is heavily niche. 

I have over a hundred properties. 

We don't need to pretend.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Missed this, sorry.
> 
> You now have 2 properties. One of which is heavily niche.
> 
> ...



Yes, but I have properties that tens of millions watch.

You have properties that are niche.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Are you nuts? Like, I'm sorry, what? In what world is Avatar the Last Air Bender not popular? It is still be referenced to this day. Adventure Time was massive.



This type of gross misrepresentation doesn't lead to good debate. I've never made the claim you are asserting I made.

I'll have to bow out.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Yeah, but how many times are people introduced to D&D in a vacuum? I know when I've explained D&D (book D&D, not a specific setting) to people, I've usually gone with "medieval fantasy," and _that _has very specific aesthetics that goes with it. And Tolkien is a strong part of that aesthetic, if only because of the way it's influenced other people. Which means even if you never use Tolkien to describe the setting, it'll eventually get back to him. Especially because of the movies--other than stuff by Tolkien, Howard, and Lovecraft, none of the other books got made into big, splashy movies (IIRC).




Sure, DnD is classically medieval fantasy. I'm not denying that. But, again, let's look at those names. 

Tolkien? 1955 was the publication of Return of the King
Howard? Died in 1936, and most Conan stories written by other authors. 
Lovecraft? Died in 1937, so we can say that was when he wrote his last book. 

Also, weird how Noir Horror is part of Medieval Fantasy, isn't it? 

Now. Do you think that zero influential or good fantasy has been written since 1955? This is the thing we keep coming back to. By saying that people's conception of Fantasy is rooted in Tolkien and Howard, that THESE are the influences that fully encapsulate DnD, you are saying that Fantasy is stagnant, that no new good ideas have been written in DECADES to a CENTURY. 

This is false. 100% completely false. And it is so frustrating to see people continuously claim that these old writers, who are only known because old fans of DnD keep insisting they are the ONLY fantasy writers that matter, are held as the peak of the mountain. If you want Tolkien and Howard to be the be all end all of your fantasy, feel free. They wrote decent stuff. But I have entire bookcases full of people who wrote other things, of different takes on Fantasy. I've watched hundreds of hours of fantasy works that look nothing like those worlds. MY conception of fantasy is not limited to these authors, and in fact, I have never recommended them to anyone when introducing them to DnD. I think DnD needs to expand its scope, because our limitations on what we allow to be fantasy are getting to the point of almost fetishistic, and it is those who insist on those highly limited sources that then claim that halflings are vitally important, because half of their conception of DnD is rooted in a single author who used them as his protagonists.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> This type of gross misrepresentation doesn't lead to good debate. I've never made the claim you are asserting I made.
> 
> I'll have to bow out.



That seems to be a trend.


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 28, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Easy to name one Wookie. Name three.
> 
> Likewise, easy to name one D&D halfling - Regis (and two if you include kender).




I can name 2 wookies, Chewbacca and Lowbacca, off the top of my head

I can name one D&D halfling, Lidda, and she didn't really play any sort of important role in any setting or adventure, she was just there because they needed an example of a halfling


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Don't worry about halflings. If Hasbro's CEOs are conviced they can sell a lot of dolls of cute halfling heroines (anything like the shia class from "Black Desert" videogame) then cute small magical girls are promoted, and even they will be the main characters of their own cartoon serie.




Here is a thing though, why isn't she a Gnome? Magical, curious, connection to animals... seems like a gnome to me.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, I wasn't talking about converting them. I wasn't talking about 3rd party resources. I was talking if I bought the Level Up book, opened it up, how many races are there that have been specifically worked into that system?
> 
> Because if you want to go with 3rd party and personal conversions, then DnD 5e/One DnD has HUNDREDS of races. Not the 60 or so official ones I've been talking about.



Sure. You should absolutely use 3rd party and personal conversions.  I do all the time.


----------



## billd91 (Oct 28, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Really? Name three DnD halflings.
> 
> Everyone can name a wookie.
> 
> Heck most people don’t even know what a DnD halfling actually looks like let alone be able to name one.



Everyone can name one wookie because he's part of the most watched movie series in history. 
And probably a similar number of people can name a few halflings/hobbits from one of the widest read book series and watched movie adaptations in history.
But those are books and movies - not RPGs where players make their own characters.

But can you name any wookies from SWSE? How about any other Star Wars RPG edition? Not so easy if you don't pull one from the prior, inspirational material, is it? Same with halflings in D&D. We can all name their inspirational material - harder to name one from within the D&D game and descendent publications - though even some examples of those have appeared (Lidda, Regis, and I'll add Blodgett).


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I never said they were key or vital. I said they're part of the lore. The fact that you have to stoop to such hyperbole doesn't strengthen your case.




St. Sollars, the isekai'd texan Ed Sollars who TSR fired twice (hence his title of "twice-Martyred") is also "part of the lore" of DnD. DnD has a lot of lore, that doesn't mean that all if it is good or needs to be defended or even matters. 

And, I'm not actually going to hyperbole, because I am responding to the idea that removing halflings from DnD would irrevocably alter its brand. That means they have to be a key and vital part of the brand, not simply exist. If your point was just that "halflings exist in DnD"... so do thought devouring platypi and lion heads attached to five legs that spin around to walk. Existing is a low low bar.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Yes, but I have properties that tens of millions watch.
> 
> You have properties that are niche.




Tens of millions.... when? That's always the kicker, isn't it. 

Precise, day by day, numbers are hard to get for movies, and Netflix never tells everything. But, we can use this site to do some rough estimates. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Lord-of-the-Rings-The-Return-of-the-King-The#tab=box-office

Now, according to this, on the day of release the Return of the King was shown in 3,703 movie theaters around the country. And the Theaters reported about $19,614 per theater in the *first week*. Cost of a Theater ticket was, what, about 9 dollars back then? I'll round to 10 just in case they included concession sales in those numbers, which gets us about 1,961 people per theater. And I'll go ahead and round that up to 2,000 people. Feels about right for a massive release right? That would be about 100 showings per theater per week. 

Using those numbers, it would be a safe bet to say that in the first week, 7.4 million people watched Return of the King. 

This site: https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/avatar-last-airbender-neflix-popular

Tells us that 5.6 million people watched the finale of Avatar the Last Airbender. On the same day. During the same HOUR. 

Avatar in a single hour, nearly matched the numbers for Return of the King in a week. Then, when Avatar was put on Netflix, it was almost immediately the most popular kids show on Netflix. Now, that's hard to quantify, Netflix doesn't release its data, but Netflix has 70 million subscribers, so even if we are only looking at 15% of their user base (which is incredibly low for "the single most popular") then we are looking at.... 10.5 million people. 

So, yeah, your property has tens of millions of fans. So does ONE of mine. 

And the thing about "niche" is that every "niche" show or movie is yet another one on the pile. Maybe your one single franchise is more popular than one of the shows I've listed, but is it really accurate to imagine it is more popular than ALL of the shows I've listed combined? 

Tolkien =/= Fantasy. There is more to the genre than just that one guy and his four books. But Tolkien is pretty much the only source for halflings.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> St. Sollars, the isekai'd texan Ed Sollars who TSR fired twice (hence his title of "twice-Martyred") is also "part of the lore" of DnD. DnD has a lot of lore, that doesn't mean that all if it is good or needs to be defended or even matters.
> 
> And, I'm not actually going to hyperbole, because I am responding to the idea that removing halflings from DnD would irrevocably alter its brand. That means they have to be a key and vital part of the brand, not simply exist. If your point was just that "halflings exist in DnD"... so do thought devouring platypi and lion heads attached to five legs that spin around to walk. Existing is a low low bar.



Right. Everyone but you is running around screaming in panic because removing halflings would irrevocably alter the brand.  See? I can engage in exaggerated hyperbole as well!

But as fun as that little contest might be, I don't see the point. I think halflings fulfill an interesting niche in D&D and should remain.  They're not going anywhere so you'll just have to live with a race you don't care for.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Sure. You should absolutely use 3rd party and personal conversions.  I do all the time.




So, since you wouldn't answer the question, I looked it up. Seems Level Up only provides official support for nine races in their book. With 4 "options" per race, that is 36 options. And I'm sure the people who wrote it would say that that took them a bit of work. 


For WoTC to copy level up, since we are looking at (as @jasper corrected me) 67 official races, they would need to write 268 options. Seven Times the work that was put into Level Up. Seven times the balancing issues. And this isn't purely multiplicative, because the number of combos between 36 and the number of combos between 268 are many many orders of magnitude greater. 

So, this is why the One DnD solution is better. Because they aren't going to have an entire book's worth of options for racial combinations. They made a sane and logical decision that allowed the most possible options without taking on an impossible amount of work.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 28, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Right. Everyone but you is running around screaming in panic because removing halflings would irrevocably alter the brand.  See? I can engage in exaggerated hyperbole as well!
> 
> But as fun as that little contest might be, I don't see the point. I think halflings fulfill an interesting niche in D&D and should remain.  They're not going anywhere so you'll just have to live with a race you don't care for.




Yeah, I know you think "the underdog everyone underestimates because they forget magic is real" is the niche you think halflings belong in. I'm not trying to even have that conversation with you. 

But you made a claim that removing halflings would fundamentally alter DnD, because they are an iconic part of the brand. You then failed to support that, and instead want to just accuse me of hyperbole because you can't support your claim beyond "they exist" and "they have existed for a long time".


----------



## bedir than (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Tells us that 5.6 million people watched the finale of Avatar the Last Airbender. On the same day. During the same HOUR.



yes, tens of millions have watched Rings of Power. It has a billion viewing minutes last week. It was about an hour long.

It's done a billion viewing minutes a week, roughly for two months now.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, DnD is classically medieval fantasy. I'm not denying that. But, again, let's look at those names.
> 
> Tolkien? 1955 was the publication of Return of the King
> Howard? Died in 1936, and most Conan stories written by other authors.
> ...



I didn't say any of these things. Please actually respond to what I wrote instead of making a straw man, thank you.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> There's also an assload of movies based on the legends of King Arthur
> 
> EDIT:
> and if we're insisting on stuff based on novels there's at least two, _The Sword in the Stone_ and _Camelot_ based specifically on _The Once and Future King_



That is true. Of course, those are all human-only while LotR is kind of a go-to for multi-race fantasy settings.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 28, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Really? Name three DnD halflings.
> 
> Everyone can name a wookie.
> 
> Heck most people don’t even know what a DnD halfling actually looks like let alone be able to name one.



I can name three elves and dwarfs. _Total. _Drizzt, Alanik Ray, and Azreal Dak. And Dak isn't even a proper dwarf; he's a werebadger. 

I'm sure that there's a lot more named elves and dwarfs in D&D history. But since I don't care for most settings and don't read any D&D novels I don't bother to learn the names of setting-specific characters. And there's probably a lot of people who think like this. Maybe they run an official adventure but that doesn't mean they immerse themselves in the setting's lore.

For what it's worth, Critical Role apparently has a bunch of named halflings.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And this contradiction really highlights the issue for many of us, who have been saying that, no, *halflings really are not key and vital to DnD's brand*.



If the bolded is true, the obvious questions to ask are twofold:

1. How did we get to this sad state of affairs?
2. What must be done to reverse course, to get halflings back to their core-four status?


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, since you wouldn't answer the question, I looked it up. Seems Level Up only provides official support for nine races in their book. With 4 "options" per race, that is 36 options. And I'm sure the people who wrote it would say that that took them a bit of work.
> 
> 
> For WoTC to copy level up, since we are looking at (as @jasper corrected me) 67 official races, they would need to write 268 options. Seven Times the work that was put into Level Up. Seven times the balancing issues. And this isn't purely multiplicative, because the number of combos between 36 and the number of combos between 268 are many many orders of magnitude greater.
> ...



Better for WotC, perhaps.  I'm really more concerned about what's better for me, and other people who play the game and want a way to make a mixed-heritage character that isn't purely cosmetic.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Are you nuts? Like, I'm sorry, what? In what world is Avatar the Last Air Bender not popular?



My world, for one.

Say "Avatar" to me and I naturally assume you're talking about the James Cameron movie.

I don't even know what Avatar the Last Air Bender is, though I've heard the name a few times.


Chaosmancer said:


> Look, I get it. Tolkien's work has survived nearly 100 years, it was really good. And Peter Jackson's films rekindled the spark and made people care again. But you seem to not understand that the media landscape is far far different than it was, and Tolkien's work is far out numbered by the other popular fantasy works.



Outnumbered, yes.  Outshone?  Not so much, though there have been some truly valiant and worthy attempts over the years.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Here is a thing though, why isn't she a Gnome? Magical, curious, connection to animals... seems like a gnome to me.



You may be right, but it doesn't matter. I mean halflings, gnomes and other small-sized lineages can be promoted if Hasbro thinks they are perfect to sell toys and merchandising of cute little magical girls.


----------



## Mind of tempest (Oct 28, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> You may be right, but it doesn't matter. I mean halflings, gnomes and other small-sized lineages can be promoted if Hasbro thinks they are perfect to sell toys and merchandising of cute little magical girls.



there is a cure for this fire.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 28, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yeah, I know you think "the underdog everyone underestimates because they forget magic is real" is the niche you think halflings belong in. I'm not trying to even have that conversation with you.
> 
> But you made a claim that removing halflings would fundamentally alter DnD, because they are an iconic part of the brand. You then failed to support that, and instead want to just accuse me of hyperbole because you can't support your claim beyond "they exist" and "they have existed for a long time".




Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up? Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either. 

There is no "fantasy standards committee" that decides what races are allowed or not. It's all make believe fiction, stuff authors have pulled from lore (i.e. little people) and their imagination. If that fiction was written for a rulebook, fiction based on the game or just stories at the game table its all just stories we tell ourselves about impossible worlds.  Halflings are part of those stories for D&D and will continue to be a part.


----------



## Mecheon (Oct 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> 1. How did we get to this sad state of affairs?
> 2. What must be done to reverse course, to get halflings back to their core-four status?



1: Frankly, I'd argue halflings were never popular enough to really be part of the 'core four' even back in the day. They were just there because they were an option, and the query is, were they more or less popular than just, rolling a thief?
2: Halflings need somethign to them to make them appealing. Removing other options isn't the solution, you need to add something to them. Being small isn't enough, because dwarves are small as well, but have their own thing going on. Halfling's entire thing is they're just, small everymen, so as long as humans are in the game and also bumping into that everyman niche, halflings will be overshadowed

(I've been of the 'They're stealthy to an absurd degree' or 'They're obnoxiously resilient against corruption' drums personally)


Lanefan said:


> I don't even know what Avatar the Last Air Bender is, though I've heard the name a few times.



An exceedingly popular animated property from 2005 that also had a sequel series that was, fairly well received, and a terrible movie


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 29, 2022)

There's also Tildi Summerbee from Jodi Lynn Nye's _An Unexpected Apprentice.  _


Chris Claremont and George Lucas wrote a sequel series to Willow, the first book being called _Shadow Moon_, though I don't know if it's any good.  Halflings are apparently popular in Japan, though they are often called other things, like "Porklu" in _Wizardry Renaissance_, or the Pallum of _Dan Machi_ (aka, _Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?_).  The Pallum, like Kender, can interbreed with Humans apparently.

Early computer games based on D&D, had Hobbits and Halflings...or Bobbits, as they were called in Ultima.  And speaking of D&D Halflings, what about the infamous R̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ Bard, Olive Ruskettle, from the _Azure Bonds _novels?


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 29, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> You may be right, but it doesn't matter. I mean halflings, gnomes and other small-sized lineages can be promoted if Hasbro thinks they are perfect to sell toys and merchandising of cute little magical girls.



I have a sneaking suspicion that turning halflings into lolicons is _not _the way to go.


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 29, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I have a sneaking suspicion that turning halflings into lolicons is _not _the way to go.



It's a little late for that, unfortunately.


----------



## Hussar (Oct 29, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> One of Drizzt's companions.
> 
> You know, the famous drow?




I am blissful in my ignorance of never reading a novel featuring Drizz’t. Thus my question.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

bedir than said:


> yes, tens of millions have watched Rings of Power. It has a billion viewing minutes last week. It was about an hour long.
> 
> It's done a billion viewing minutes a week, roughly for two months now.




I thought it was a series? How is it only an hour long?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I didn't say any of these things. Please actually respond to what I wrote instead of making a straw man, thank you.




Obviously you didn't say that. That's the point I'm trying to make. No one thinks that no fantasy has been written since Tolkien. Yet, when we go to discuss what DnD should be what comes up as the definitive answer? 

Tolkien and Howard. 

What is a Ranger? Tolkien. What is a Barbarian? Howard. What Races should be included? Tolkien. How magical should people be? Tolkien *and *Howard. 

Any time we try and bring up something more modern in the fantasy genre, we are told that that "isn't DnD" and that we should do things more like... Tolkien or Howard. 

Eastern Influences? Nope, they don't count. 
World of Warcraft? Nope, doesn't count.
Animated content? Nope, doesn't count.  

The ONLY things brought up outside of Tolkien and Howard with regularity is Moorcock or Vance. ALSO multiple decades old. 


I know you personally are not making this claim right now, in this thread, but seriously, think about how often Tolkien, Howard, Moorcock and Vance come up compared to literally anything else on these forums.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I thought it was a series? How is it only an hour long?



each episode is about an hour long. each week they get about a billion minutes.

While you continue to insist that Tolkien isn't that popular more people are watching it than all of your shows combined. The second most popular fantasy right now is House of the Dragon, which is even less fantastical. The third most popular is Wheel of Time, which ended back in February. It still gets hundreds of millions of minutes of viewing a week.

Yes, anime is more popular than ever. It doesn't even chart.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 29, 2022)

I can understand the risk of the creation of too cute female halflings and gnomes, but that type of things happen even with the characters of "My Little Pony" or even "Transformers".

Not all lolita characters have to be always linked with dirty things. Maybe a player wants to create a gnome version of Sakura Cardcaptor and her intentions are totally innocent.

* The cultural influences of the new generations of D&D players aren't the same than ones from the old-school, and this is not wrong.

* If "House of Dragon" works although it was a GoT spin-off without previous book, then Paramount could dare to produce an action-live serie based in Birthright.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 29, 2022)

Hussar said:


> I am blissful in my ignorance of never reading a novel featuring Drizz’t. Thus my question.



You aren't going to know much about famous D&D anything if you don't read the fiction. But The Crystal Shard, in which Regis the halfling is a major protagonist, is one of the less excruciatingly bad.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Obviously you didn't say that. That's the point I'm trying to make. No one thinks that no fantasy has been written since Tolkien. Yet, when we go to discuss what DnD should be what comes up as the definitive answer?
> 
> Tolkien and Howard.



Part of the reason for that is that so much fantasy written since their day has been more or less derivative of one or both of them; so might as well go straight to the original rather than a derivation...and in the case of Tolkein, to the tales and myths he based his own works on.


Chaosmancer said:


> What is a Ranger? Tolkien. What is a Barbarian? Howard. What Races should be included? Tolkien. How magical should people be? Tolkien *and *Howard.
> 
> Any time we try and bring up something more modern in the fantasy genre, we are told that that "isn't DnD" and that we should do things more like... Tolkien or Howard.
> 
> ...



It seems odd to suggest D&D should be more like WoW given that WoW seems to be very much derived from D&D.


Chaosmancer said:


> The ONLY things brought up outside of Tolkien and Howard with regularity is Moorcock or Vance. ALSO multiple decades old.



And, more importantly, much more original in their work than are many fantasy authors since.  Note that this is not in any way intended as a slight against latter-day fantasy authors, but more as a pointing-out of how they are building their works on the same foundations as does D&D: a few highly-influential fantasy authors from the mid 20th century.

Now, a very good case can be made that there's some other pre-1974 fantasy authors who could be - and maybe should be - just as influential; but that's a whole other discussion for another time.

Further, anything written since about 1978 may well have D&D itself as an influence; which just makes the whole thing self-referential if D&D is then supposed to allow itself to be influenced in return.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 29, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> I can name 2 wookies, Chewbacca and Lowbacca, off the top of my head
> 
> I can name one D&D halfling, Lidda, and she didn't really play any sort of important role in any setting or adventure, she was just there because they needed an example of a halfling



I can name quite a few of each, but you have to be a geek of the appropriate media to know this stuff.

Wookiees: Black Krrsantan (Comics, Book of Boba Fett), Gungi (The Clone Wars), Zaalbar (KotOR), Hanharr (KotOR2).

D&D halflings: Regis, Tasslehoff Burrfoot (kender), Pawldo (Dalkwalker on Moonshae), Monteron, Alora (both Baldur's Gate), Mazzy Fentan (Baldur's Gate 2), Gatekeeper Raashid (Call of the Netherdeep), Nimsy Huddle (Rime of the Frostmaiden), Linzi (Pathfinder).


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 29, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up? Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either.




They're also sort of in the game _Dungeons of Dredmor_, where they're reimagined as evil flying potatoes that are covered in eyes


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 29, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> D&D halflings: Regis, Tasslehoff Burrfoot (kender), Pawldo (Dalkwalker on Moonshae), Monteron, Alora (both Baldur's Gate), Mazzy Fentan (Baldur's Gate 2), Gatekeeper Raashid (Call of the Netherdeep), Nimsy Huddle (Rime of the Frostmaiden), Linzi (Pathfinder).



Linzi is a gnome.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 29, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Linzi is a gnome.



No she isn't.


> Linzi is a chaotic good halfling bard.



Linzi

Jubilost Narthropple is the gnome.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Oct 29, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> the first book being called _Shadow Moon_, though I don't know if it's any good.



I've read it. It's not. Avoid.


----------



## Cadence (Oct 29, 2022)

MtG has only had Halflings in the  Forgotten Realms products (eight cards total) and four of them are named:





Spoiler: Link to the set of all eight.









						type:halfling is:paperart
					

8 Magic cards found where the card types include “halfling” and the cards have art that has been printed in paper




					scryfall.com
				







Mazzy has been fun to use to help a Voltron EDH deck (she's the only Halfling in it, and enchantments don't seem particularly on flavor for Halflings to me, but I guess they go with Paladins buffing folks): Mazzy Aura Smash (EDH / Commander)

The Halfling role in MtG has kind of been filled by *Kithkin* before, and I'm curious to see if they make a new type for the Hobbits in the upcoming LotR set or use Halfling.





						t:kithkin
					

61 Magic cards found where the card types include “kithkin”




					scryfall.com


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 29, 2022)

Cadence said:


> MtG has only had Halflings in the Forgotten Realms set (eight cards total) and four of them are named:
> 
> View attachment 265117View attachment 265118View attachment 265119View attachment 265120
> 
> ...



That having been said, I would say Kithkin totally count as an example of Halflings.  They're certainly not Gnomes, as Gnomes also exist in MtG.


----------



## Cadence (Oct 29, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> That having been said, I would say Kithkin totally count as an example of Halflings.



I think I like the Kithkin name better than Halfling.  In any case, it sounds like they were originally supposed to be Hobbit-esque, so feels like they should definitely count.




Quote from: Kithkin




James Gasik said:


> They're certainly not Gnomes, as Gnomes also exist in MtG.




For those wanting to see the MtG Gnomes...





						t:gnome is:paperart
					

18 Magic cards found where the card types include “gnome” and the cards have art that has been printed in paper




					scryfall.com
				




Looks like the MtG type includes both D&D Gnomes and Autognomes (all but one of them being the later, until the FR sets).


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 29, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I think I like the Kithkin name better than Halfling.  In any case, it sounds like they were originally supposed to be Hobbit-esque, so feels like they should definitely count.
> 
> View attachment 265128View attachment 265129
> Quote from: Kithkin
> ...



Huh.

I must have looked at that Amrou Kithkin card a thousand times or more and yet never once made the Hobbit connection.

Learn something every day.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If the bolded is true, the obvious questions to ask are twofold:
> 
> 1. How did we get to this sad state of affairs?
> 2. What must be done to reverse course, to get halflings back to their core-four status?




1) They were under-utilized and forced to remain as Tolkien envisioned them. Hidden people that few knew about and no one paid attention to. When you do that for decades, you tend to make them unimportant. 

2) Well, there are a few steps that can be taken. Making them more tied to the goings on of the settings, like elves, dwarves and humans would be a nice start. Changing some of their abilities to be more active. Doing more with their homes than "its a small farm". I mean I'm sure we could start a fifth thread asking for ideas, but I think the previous ones covered most of the ground.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Better for WotC, perhaps.  I'm really more concerned about what's better for me, and other people who play the game and want a way to make a mixed-heritage character that isn't purely cosmetic.




Well, you can tell them that you don't want any new classes, adventurers, monsters or really any content at all for the next year or two while they write thousands of racial chunks for your mixed-heritage character. 

However, I think people who play the game are better off with the plan of them making other content, and then if people really really really want to have mechanically mixed races, they can do it themselves or buy it from a 3pp.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> My world, for one.
> 
> Say "Avatar" to me and I naturally assume you're talking about the James Cameron movie.
> 
> I don't even know what Avatar the Last Air Bender is, though I've heard the name a few times.




Sorry, "I haven't heard of it" is really not a strong argument. Many people haven't heard of the Rig Veda, that doesn't mean it isn't a huge deal to hundreds of millions.



Lanefan said:


> Outnumbered, yes.  Outshone?  Not so much, though there have been some truly valiant and worthy attempts over the years.




Rose-tinted glasses are a powerful force indeed.


----------



## Cadence (Oct 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Huh.
> 
> I must have looked at that Amrou Kithkin card a thousand times or more and yet never once made the Hobbit connection.
> 
> Learn something every day.




Apparently there is a post somewhere that the feet our furry (although it's hard to see).
Some of the others look very Halfling and the ones from Shadowmoor look creepy (t:kithkin) .


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> You may be right, but it doesn't matter. I mean halflings, gnomes and other small-sized lineages can be promoted if Hasbro thinks they are perfect to sell toys and merchandising of cute little magical girls.




It does matter to a degree. Because if we are going to say that halflings and gnomes are indistinguishable, there becomes less and less reason to keep halflings as opposed to gnomes.



LuisCarlos17f said:


>




Yeaaaa..... 

For anyone not aware, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is NOT a cute show about cute magical girls. This thing is a dystopian horror about futility, obsession, and the pointless struggle against despair. It is DARK the more you dig into. It was created as a subversion of the magical girl genre. 

Though some people hold out hope that the newest movie might give a happy ending instead of continuing the downward spiral.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up?




No, I don't have fun responding to people's ideas and assertions, only to get gaslit and told I'm insane and making things up. It is vastly frustrating.



Oofta said:


> Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either.




The fact that you seem unable to tell the difference between the usage of Beholders in the game and the usage of halflings in the game really confusing to me. Beholders do things. Beholders have multiple additional versions of themselves. Beholders have an entire section devoted to them in the Spelljammer book, and they have been used as iconagraphy for the DnD brand. 

When was the last time a stylized halfling was put on the cover of a DnD brand product or used to promote a live stream? 

And again, if your only argument is "halflings exist in DnD, so we shouldn't remove them because they exist" then you are arguing to keep EVERYTHING in DnD, and that is a bad argument because there is a lot of crap in DnD we don't need to keep.



Oofta said:


> There is no "fantasy standards committee" that decides what races are allowed or not. It's all make believe fiction, stuff authors have pulled from lore (i.e. little people) and their imagination. If that fiction was written for a rulebook, fiction based on the game or just stories at the game table its all just stories we tell ourselves about impossible worlds.  Halflings are part of those stories for D&D and will continue to be a part.




Actually, there is a committee that decides what is and isn't allowed to be part of DnD, they are called "Wizards of the Coast". 

But sure, much like the dreaded Duck Bunny, the famous Spider Horse and the terrifying Blindheim halflings are a thing that exists and were made up for a fantasy world. However, just because they were made up for a story, doesn't mean we need to keep them.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, you can tell them that you don't want any new classes, adventurers, monsters or really any content at all for the next year or two while they write thousands of racial chunks for your mixed-heritage character.
> 
> However, I think people who play the game are better off with the plan of them making other content, and then if people really really really want to have mechanically mixed races, they can do it themselves or buy it from a 3pp.



I think people are better off you using Level Up's origin system, but that's just my opinion, which miraculously holds just as much weight as yours.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, I don't have fun responding to people's ideas and assertions, only to get gaslit and told I'm insane and making things up. It is vastly frustrating.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think we should keep everything in D&D, so people can pick and choose what they want for their game.  "Crap we don't need" is exceedingly subjective and personal, not the objective truth you are intimating.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

bedir than said:


> each episode is about an hour long. each week they get about a billion minutes.
> 
> While you continue to insist that Tolkien isn't that popular more people are watching it than all of your shows combined. The second most popular fantasy right now is House of the Dragon, which is even less fantastical. The third most popular is Wheel of Time, which ended back in February. It still gets hundreds of millions of minutes of viewing a week.
> 
> Yes, anime is more popular than ever. It doesn't even chart.




Okay, so I had to try and figure out where the heck you keep getting these numbers from. I finally found something that said that 1.253 billion watch minutes for the first two episodes on this article. The Rings of Power Ratings Are In, and They’re Good

And this article says that House of the Dragon got 781 million watch minutes Nielsen Streaming Top 10: ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘The Rings of Power’ Face Off for the First Time

Now, of course, you need to convert some of these numbers. For example, the first article says that those Rings of Power numbers translate to about 9.6 million people, over the three days of streaming. But hey, let's really drive those numbers and say that they are wrong and it is actually 20 million people. That's huge right? 

Ever heard of Crunchyroll? Crunchyroll - Wikipedia

Crunchyroll is a single site that caters to Anime. It isn't the only site, in fact they made a huge accquistion recently where they will begin showing some of the stuff from Funimation. 

You know how many users the site has? 120 million registered users. If we go back to the reported 9.6 million for Rings of Power, then we are looking at it having a mere 8% of "all of anime". Which one "doesn't chart?"

And you keep going on about watch minutes, because that's the thing that matters I guess. Well, here is a thing for you: 15+ Crunchyroll Statistics You Should Know in 2022

This? This states that EVERY MONTH 1.5 billion minutes of anime content are watched. And, if you scroll to read the actual fact instead of the blurb, you get this



> Not among the newest facts about Crunchyroll, but this still gives us a pretty good idea of the service’s reach and magnitude.* Several years ago*, it was reported that on average, *1.5 billion minutes of content were watched every month*. Now that anime’s popularity grew, that number probably grew much higher as well. We wouldn’t be surprised if it has even doubled by now!




I tried to highlight it, that 1.5 billion a month? That was information given "several years ago". So, we'll say, what? 5 years ago? The company is only 16 years old, so five years feels right. 

That would by 60 months, meaning that is 90 billion watch minutes. On a single streaming service. This does not include anime watched on television, on Netflix, on Hulu, on Funimation, on Youtube, ect ect ect

Again, you want to claim that Tolkien's work is more popular than all of anime? Really? 

Just another point of comparison. Watching all of the Peter Jackson Trilogies AND I'll just guess the twelve episodes of Rings of Power would take someone about 29 hours.  Watching the entirety of One Piece, and all the movies? 435.6 hours.  And that is just ONE of the "Big Three" from the early 2000's. 

Look, I get it, Tolkien has been popular for a long time. I won't deny that. But Tolkien isn't so big that it crowds out every other possible source of fantasy inspiration. It isn't THAT big in reality.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, I don't have fun responding to people's ideas and assertions, only to get gaslit and told I'm insane and making things up. It is vastly frustrating.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Yep, WOTC decides what stays in D&D.  Not you.  My point was that there is no consistency to fantasy, D&D has echoed and amplified many of Tolkien's ideas while also adding in many of their own.  

Take elves and dwarves.  Before Tolkien elves were largely fey tricksters, literal small folk similar to leprechauns and fairies.  Dwarves were in many ways similar, one main source for Tolkien was Norse mythology where the difference between elves and dwarves are fuzzy at best.  

So yes, Tolkien added orcs (goblins were also trickster fey) and hobbits as extensions of a wide variety of folklore.  But he also redefined elves and dwarves into the image we have today before that one of the most well known elves was Puck from a Midsummer's Night's dream.

So I think it's pointless to ignore half a century of lore.  If they don't do anything for you don't include them in campaigns you're run and don't play them.  I like having a race that are not the movers and shakers of the world.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Part of the reason for that is that so much fantasy written since their day has been more or less derivative of one or both of them; so might as well go straight to the original rather than a derivation...and in the case of Tolkein, to the tales and myths he based his own works on.




It is only as derivative of Tolkien and Howard as Tolkien and Howard were derivative of their predecessors. You might as well go read Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and the Nordic Sagas if you want to make a claim to reading the "originals" 

Tolkien and Howard weren't super special insightful writers who wrote something completely original.



Lanefan said:


> It seems odd to suggest D&D should be more like WoW given that WoW seems to be very much derived from D&D.




Why is that odd? WoW took aspects of DnD and made them popular, so why would it not make sense for DnD to look at the popular things in  WoW and see if they work for DnD? 

It is certainly no stranger than saying DnD should be more like Tolkien.



Lanefan said:


> And, more importantly, much more original in their work than are many fantasy authors since.  Note that this is not in any way intended as a slight against latter-day fantasy authors, but more as a pointing-out of how they are building their works on the same foundations as does D&D: a few highly-influential fantasy authors from the mid 20th century.
> 
> Now, a very good case can be made that there's some other pre-1974 fantasy authors who could be - and maybe should be - just as influential; but that's a whole other discussion for another time.
> 
> Further, anything written since about 1978 may well have D&D itself as an influence; which just makes the whole thing self-referential if D&D is then supposed to allow itself to be influenced in return.




Except it is actually entirely a slight against latter-day fantasy authors. You are trying to state that nothing written since 1974 is anything more than a derivation of later works, while at the same time ignoring that everything ever written builds and expands on earlier work. Meaning that all those "original" works were just derivative of their predecessors. 

And, shockingly, many people writing today aren't pulling from  Tolkien or Howard, but pulling from the same sources as Tolkien and Howard. Or, different sources. I certainly haven't seen a lot of egyptian mythology referenced in Tolkien or Howard, or much Journey to the West, or the Vedic texts. Yet I've read a lot of fantasy influenced by those things. 

It is just pure elitism to claim that Tolkien and Howard were the high-water mark and no one has written any fantasy worth talking about since them.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I think we should keep everything in D&D, so people can pick and choose what they want for their game.  "Crap we don't need" is exceedingly subjective and personal, not the objective truth you are intimating.




Yeah, no. There is a lot of chaff from DnD's history. It needs to be expelled, not weigh the game down. 

There can be discussions about how to determine that, but we can accept it to be true and then discuss what needs to be removed without stating that nothing should ever be removed.


----------



## James Gasik (Oct 29, 2022)

And, again, like I said waaaaaay upthread, if we're going to start excising unpopular races, there's a whole slew of ones less accessible and popular than Halflings and Gnomes.  I mean, what about H̶a̶l̶f̶-Orcs?

And let's not forget that, at various times, H̶a̶l̶f̶-Orcs and Gnomes were excised from the PHB, only to be brought back an edition later.  If you did kick Halflings out, I've no doubt there'd again be cries of dismay about how "D&D isn't D&D anymore!".


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Yep, WOTC decides what stays in D&D.  Not you.  My point was that there is no consistency to fantasy, D&D has echoed and amplified many of Tolkien's ideas while also adding in many of their own.
> 
> Take elves and dwarves.  Before Tolkien elves were largely fey tricksters, literal small folk similar to leprechauns and fairies.  Dwarves were in many ways similar, one main source for Tolkien was Norse mythology where the difference between elves and dwarves are fuzzy at best.
> 
> ...




I'm not trying to ignore a half a century of lore. I'm trying to include two to three decades of lore that people keep trying to ignore because it isn't the right lore. I'm trying to expand lore instead of letting it stagnate.

And sure, the elves were fey tricksters.... in parts of europe. But Tolkien took the Alfair which were NOT fey tricksters. He didn't invent elves, he highlighted a different version of them. And lo and behold, DnD elves aren't even Tolkien elves. Not even close. 

No, dwarves I'd give to Tolkien, he seems to have locked them in pretty sturdily. But, you know, a lot of people would like to do a bit more with dwarves than has traditionally be done. 


Remember, I have not advocated for DnD to delete halflings. I've argued they should be updated and modernized. Because you might like a race of people that don't effect the world, but the rest of us would like them to matter a bit more.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 29, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> And, again, like I said waaaaaay upthread, if we're going to start excising unpopular races, there's a whole slew of ones less accessible and popular than Halflings and Gnomes.  I mean, what about H̶a̶l̶f̶-Orcs?
> 
> And let's not forget that, at various times, H̶a̶l̶f̶-Orcs and Gnomes were excised from the PHB, only to be brought back an edition later.  If you did kick Halflings out, I've no doubt there'd again be cries of dismay about how "D&D isn't D&D anymore!".




And, notably, One DnD is removing half-orcs and making them just Orcs. Which is something I did years ago and has worked really well. 

And updating a race doesn't mean it needs to be removed.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yeah, no. There is a lot of chaff from DnD's history. It needs to be expelled, not weigh the game down.
> 
> There can be discussions about how to determine that, but we can accept it to be true and then discuss what needs to be removed without stating that nothing should ever be removed.



Short of explicit anti-inclusiveness (IRL) concerns, I don't see any aspects of the game we should all just accept need to be jettisoned.  And what counts in that category can in some cases be debated.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The fact that you seem unable to tell the difference between the usage of Beholders in the game and the usage of halflings in the game really confusing to me. Beholders do things. Beholders have multiple additional versions of themselves. Beholders have an entire section devoted to them in the Spelljammer book, and they have been used as iconagraphy for the DnD brand.



And Beholders find Halflings to be very tasty indeed, if properly seasoned of course.

Halflings feature prominently on the covers of many a Beholder cookbook. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Actually, there is a committee that decides what is and isn't allowed to be part of DnD, they are called "Wizards of the Coast".



And a bajillion subcommittees, each one consisting of the DM (and, sometimes, players) at any given table; all of whom are independent of the uber-committee at WotC.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It is only as derivative of Tolkien and Howard as Tolkien and Howard were derivative of their predecessors. You might as well go read Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and the Nordic Sagas if you want to make a claim to reading the "originals"
> 
> Tolkien and Howard weren't super special insightful writers who wrote something completely original.



Tolkein was insightful enough to coalesce his various sources into something big enough to become almost its own mythos, which is no small accomplishment.


Chaosmancer said:


> Why is that odd? WoW took aspects of DnD and made them popular, so why would it not make sense for DnD to look at the popular things in  WoW and see if they work for DnD?
> 
> It is certainly no stranger than saying DnD should be more like Tolkien.



You're missing my point, I think.

Tolkein cannot possibly have been influenced by D&D, if for no other reason than he died before the game was invented.  The influence only goes one way.

WoW, however, exists side-along with D&D; and if each is allowed to influence the other to any great extent it just becomes a self-referential loop.  WoW drew heavily from D&D, thus D&D IMO should be _very_ careful in drawing from WoW.


Chaosmancer said:


> Except it is actually entirely a slight against latter-day fantasy authors. You are trying to state that nothing written since 1974 is anything more than a derivation of later works, while at the same time ignoring that everything ever written builds and expands on earlier work. Meaning that all those "original" works were just derivative of their predecessors.



Anything written since 1974 could be (not necessarily _is_, but _could be_) derivative of and-or influenced by D&D*, and therefore D&D using these works as influences risks becoming self-referential, even if unintentionally.

* - never mind there's some books out there which are openly fore-worded as being novelizations of the author's D&D campaign(s)!


Chaosmancer said:


> And, shockingly, many people writing today aren't pulling from  Tolkien or Howard, but pulling from the same sources as Tolkien and Howard. Or, different sources. I certainly haven't seen a lot of egyptian mythology referenced in Tolkien or Howard, or much Journey to the West, or the Vedic texts. Yet I've read a lot of fantasy influenced by those things.
> 
> It is just pure elitism to claim that Tolkien and Howard were the high-water mark and no one has written any fantasy worth talking about since them.



Tolkein was *a* high-water mark.  There's been others, obviously, some of which are very recent indeed; but in most cases we can't know how much influence those recent ones took from D&D and thus how much influence they can reasonably be expected to provide in return.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yeah, no. There is a lot of chaff from DnD's history. It needs to be expelled, not weigh the game down.



Disagree.  Sure there's chaff, but whether you happen to like it or not it's still part of the game's history and has to be accepted as such.

Denial of history - bad though that history may be - is never the answer in any realm.


Chaosmancer said:


> There can be discussions about how to determine that, but *we can accept it to be true and then discuss what needs to be removed *without stating that nothing should ever be removed.



And if not everyone agrees with your blanket statement (bolded), then what?


----------



## Oofta (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm not trying to ignore a half a century of lore. I'm trying to include two to three decades of lore that people keep trying to ignore because it isn't the right lore. I'm trying to expand lore instead of letting it stagnate.
> 
> And sure, the elves were fey tricksters.... in parts of europe. But Tolkien took the Alfair which were NOT fey tricksters. He didn't invent elves, he highlighted a different version of them. And lo and behold, DnD elves aren't even Tolkien elves. Not even close.
> 
> ...




So you've elected yourself to decide what everyone else should play?  That the only important peoples in the world are warlike conquerors, the "movers and shakers"?  The people that wield power?  We have plenty of those.  Besides, who is this "we" that wants to take away an option to play the overlooked everyman?  Oh, and you need to make up your mind because depending on the post you want to either update them to something "modern" whatever that is or that they have no place because they don't appear very often in fiction outside of Tolkien and D&D.

Anyway, carry on.  Have fun tilting at windmills.  And halflings.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 29, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, so I had to try and figure out where the heck you keep getting these numbers from. I finally found something that said that 1.253 billion watch minutes for the first two episodes on this article. The Rings of Power Ratings Are In, and They’re Good
> 
> And this article says that House of the Dragon got 781 million watch minutes Nielsen Streaming Top 10: ‘House of the Dragon’ and ‘The Rings of Power’ Face Off for the First Time
> 
> ...



If you say that every registered user of Crunchyroll is someone actively watching anime then I'll just invent the fantastical position that everyone who watched 3 seconds of a Rings of Power trailer is a fan.

Both positions are wildly absurd and show a lack of knowledge about the breadth and popularity of the subject at hand.

There remains zero evidence that Tolkien is no longer popular or influential. There remains no evidence that D&D players are more influenced by anime than Tolkien.

There remains no evidence that halflings are the least popular player's handbook race.


----------



## bedir than (Oct 30, 2022)

Want some inspiration for halflings?

Hobbit/Lord of the Rings with their few different varieties (Fallohides, Stoors, Breelander)
Rings of Power's Harfoots
Willow
Kithkin
Kender
Denham Tracts
Goblin Slayer's Rhea

There's plenty out there. Plus the various ideas presented in this thread and others.

In my world all halflings bonded with canines, because that partnership helped them keep up with the bigger peoples. Az and his dog Sel founded a nation together. They inspired other pairings, but the origin of what is now an entire group of people (human, goliath and halfling as Kin) bonding together is because one halfling and one mastiff took to each other in a way that was magical.

Now there are various dogs for retrieving, pulling, swimming, tracking, ratting, etc and etc.

I pulled on a couple threads of typical halfling lore and emphasized it. There's no massive change, just tiny people finding a way to be recognized as equals.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Short of explicit anti-inclusiveness (IRL) concerns, I don't see any aspects of the game we should all just accept need to be jettisoned.  And what counts in that category can in some cases be debated.




So, except for things you think need to be jettisoned from the game you don't think anything should be jettisoned from the game. 

So, you agree with me that some things should be jettisoned from the game, your list simply stops at "anti-inclusive content". Which is fair, that is a good section of the list to have and I'm glad that is included in your idea of what should be taken out. 

My list simply also includes things that are badly made. There can be debate what is badly made, shocking no one ever, but that debate can happen with the acknowledgement that some things the game is better off without.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And Beholders find Halflings to be very tasty indeed, if properly seasoned of course.
> 
> Halflings feature prominently on the covers of many a Beholder cookbook.




Haha, it is funny because it entirely misses the point. 



Lanefan said:


> And a bajillion subcommittees, each one consisting of the DM (and, sometimes, players) at any given table; all of whom are independent of the uber-committee at WotC.




Uh-huh. Well, weirdly as a DM and player at multiple different tables I've never been directly involved in the writing process for the Player's Handbook. Done a few surveys but somehow they've never consulted me on writing actual lore. 

/s

Now, yes, obviously individual tables can do whatever it is individual tables want to do. But if you individual table wants to keep Hobbits exactly as they are in the game, then that doesn't mean that the rest of us need that for the book published by WoTC. 

And we can discuss the fact that halflings aren't utterly perfectly designed and try and improve upon them I would hope. Well, I really don't hope because it seems that even getting to the point of recognizing there is a problem means slogging through endless repititions of "it isn't a problem, you are a problem" 



Lanefan said:


> Tolkein was insightful enough to coalesce his various sources into something big enough to become almost its own mythos, which is no small accomplishment.




Sure it isn't a small accomplishment. 

I can name at least three, nope five authors, wait dang it, I ca go to seven authors... 

Well, let's suffice to say that he isn't the only author to have ever created enough lore to have his own mythos.



Lanefan said:


> You're missing my point, I think.
> 
> Tolkein cannot possibly have been influenced by D&D, if for no other reason than he died before the game was invented.  The influence only goes one way.
> 
> WoW, however, exists side-along with D&D; and if each is allowed to influence the other to any great extent it just becomes a self-referential loop.  WoW drew heavily from D&D, thus D&D IMO should be _very_ careful in drawing from WoW.




You keep saying "self-referential" like it is a bad thing. 

Was WoW inspired by DnD? Certainly. Leveling systems in just about every medium come exclusively from DnD. Elves and Orcs come from DnD. As do trolls. 

But WoW orcs aren't DnD orcs. WoW elves aren't DnD elves. WoW trolls aren't DnD trolls. WoW Draenei don't look like DnD anything. 

And since DnD takes from general fantasy, looking at the good ideas WoW had won't hurt DnD. It can't hurt DnD. i'm not saying mirror everything they ever do, but if they are doing good storytelling and interesting concepts, you can be inspired by that. DnD has already evolved past what it once was, it has changed, it will change again. You know those "bajillion subcommittees" you mentioned? They are all self-referential DnD content. They make new content, DnD takes the things they are doing and adapts, and then they make new content off of the things DnD made in response to them. 

This is how things are made. 



Lanefan said:


> Anything written since 1974 could be (not necessarily _is_, but _could be_) derivative of and-or influenced by D&D*, and therefore D&D using these works as influences risks becoming self-referential, even if unintentionally.
> 
> * - never mind there's some books out there which are openly fore-worded as being novelizations of the author's D&D campaign(s)!




Again, how is this in any way bad? You keep saying "self-referential" like it is always 100% bad. 

For an example I can trivially think of, the New Star Trek shows likely looked at the successes and popular decisions of modern Science Fiction shows which were inspired by Star Trek. Because of course they did. The writers would be idiots to _only _look at Star Trek material and not to take inspiration from works that came later and improved on Star Trek stories. 

There are many media companies that SHOULD be more self-referential. Thinking of Marvel and DC, they absolutely should be looking at some 3rd party superhero content and seeing how they can change, instead of always doing what they have always done for 70 years. 



Lanefan said:


> Tolkein was *a* high-water mark.  There's been others, obviously, some of which are very recent indeed; but in most cases we can't know how much influence those recent ones took from D&D and thus how much influence they can reasonably be expected to provide in return.




Who cares how much influence they took from DnD?! That doesn't matter. If they have good ideas then they are good ideas, this isn't genetics, you can't in-breed stories by taking in ideas from outside sources. 



Lanefan said:


> Disagree.  Sure there's chaff, but whether you happen to like it or not it's still part of the game's history and has to be accepted as such.
> 
> Denial of history - bad though that history may be - is never the answer in any realm.
> 
> And if not everyone agrees with your blanket statement (bolded), then what?




I'm not talking about a denial of history. I'm talking about getting rid of what doesn't work. 

I don't deny the history of transportation. But I also don't think going to work in an ox-drawn wagon is terribly useful, and I don't think we need to continue having Ox-drawn wagon making factories in the modern United States. We have other tools that work better. 

You may love your Spider-Horse DnD monster, and it is part of DnD's history for sure, but I see zero reason to look forward to it being published in a monster manual any time soon, because I think everyone will agree it isn't something we really need in the game anymore. I also don't need 100 different flavors of elf, seems excessive and pointless. That isn't denying history, that is simply saying we don't need those things anymore. We aren't denying history by not reprinting them. 


And if you think that 100% of every single thing ever published for DnD must be brought forward into each new edition of DnD,c ompletely unaltered... well, then you and I have very different and completely incompatible ideas of what DnD should look like, because there is a lot in DnD's history that I do not want to see republished, whether because it sucks or for other reasons.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Oofta said:


> So you've elected yourself to decide what everyone else should play?




Yep, you caught me red-handed. All hail King Chaosmancer, guy who wants to talk about improving the game. 

It is always amusing how "quite a few of us are having this problem, can we fix it" is always "So you have declared yourself the ruler of all fun and decider of everyting, but I say no, because I want the status quo"



Oofta said:


> That the only important peoples in the world are warlike conquerors, the "movers and shakers"?




Nope, strawman, that isn't what I said. You can be important WITHOUT being warlike conquerors. Unless you think Doctor's Without Borders or The Red Cross are completely unimportant to the larger world of Earth?



Oofta said:


> The people that wield power?




What do you mean by power? There is lots of different forms of power, and halflings even in official lore have a lot of it.



Oofta said:


> Besides, who is this "we" that wants to take away an option to play the overlooked everyman?




I'll get you a list of our membership at the next meeting. I'm sure it will be coming any day now. 

As for the option to play the "overlooked everyman". We've had this discussion. The fact of the matter is that you are wrong about humans, elves, and dwarves not having "everymen" in them. Not every human on the surface of Faerun is a great and powerful warrior, or a wise sage. A lot of them are what they were for our world. Every day men and women trying to get by. You don't need a race of "everymen" because that defeats the entire concept of "everymen" and is bizarre in the context of the game to have a race of "everymen" that are overlooked and underestimated... and still produce the same heroes and fight the same forces of darkness that every other race fights.



Oofta said:


> Oh, and you need to make up your mind because depending on the post you want to either update them to something "modern" whatever that is or that they have no place because they don't appear very often in fiction outside of Tolkien and D&D.




That is because I am forced into two different conversations. Those posts talking about them not appearing in fiction outside of DnD are in response to the idea that we can't change halflings because they are vital to the public's perception of Fantasy. Which is hilariously off-base, as I have been arguing. Halflings basically only appear in Tolkien, that's it. Fantasy is larger than Tolkien. They are not vital at all to the idea of Fantasy itself. 


If I could have a single conversation and not three, you may be less confused, but I've been consistent in my positions.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Well, it seems having fewer conversations will be easier than I thought, since Bedir than blocked me again. 

However, I saw one snipped before his post disappeared that I want to address. 

Yes, I think every registered user of an Anime streaming services watches anime. Just as I imagine every registered user of ENworld plays tabletop roleplaying games. It is sort of the entire point of the platform. I don't imagine we have many people on here who hate tabletop gaming and prefer American Football to be on this site as a registered user, it really isn't their kind of place. There is pretty much nothing on Crunchyroll EXCEPT anime, it bills itself on its access to anime titles and the creation of its own anime products. It would be really bizarre if the vast majority of its registered subscribers weren't registered so they could watch anime. It would be like joining a book club because you like painting. The two things don't really go together, so why join the book club instead of a painting club?


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, except for things you think need to be jettisoned from the game you don't think anything should be jettisoned from the game.
> 
> So, you agree with me that some things should be jettisoned from the game, your list simply stops at "anti-inclusive content". Which is fair, that is a good section of the list to have and I'm glad that is included in your idea of what should be taken out.
> 
> My list simply also includes things that are badly made. There can be debate what is badly made, shocking no one ever, but that debate can happen with the acknowledgement that some things the game is better off without.



My list stops where I stopped it.  "Badly made", like your other arguments, is personal subjective opinion dressed as objective truth.


----------



## Irlo (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You keep saying "self-referential" like it is a bad thing.
> 
> Was WoW inspired by DnD? Certainly. Leveling systems in just about every medium come exclusively from DnD. Elves and Orcs come from DnD. As do trolls.
> 
> ...



All this?


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Uh-huh. Well, weirdly as a DM and player at multiple different tables I've never been directly involved in the writing process for the Player's Handbook. Done a few surveys but somehow they've never consulted me on writing actual lore.



But your DM might have; or if you were the DM you've consulted yourself.


Chaosmancer said:


> /s
> 
> Now, yes, obviously individual tables can do whatever it is individual tables want to do. But if you individual table wants to keep Hobbits exactly as they are in the game, then that doesn't mean that the rest of us need that for the book published by WoTC.
> 
> And we can discuss the fact that halflings aren't utterly perfectly designed and try and improve upon them I would hope. Well, I really don't hope because it seems that even getting to the point of recognizing there is a problem means slogging through endless repititions of "it isn't a problem, you are a problem"



Thing is, what some consider a problem (they're the "everyman") others consider their best feature.


Chaosmancer said:


> You keep saying "self-referential" like it is a bad thing.



In this case, it is.  If two things draw their influences from each other, what results is a feedback loop - otherwise and elsewhere known as an echo chamber.


Chaosmancer said:


> Again, how is this in any way bad? You keep saying "self-referential" like it is always 100% bad.



It is, when considering what influences what.


Chaosmancer said:


> For an example I can trivially think of, the New Star Trek shows likely looked at the successes and popular decisions of modern Science Fiction shows which were inspired by Star Trek. Because of course they did. The writers would be idiots to _only _look at Star Trek material and not to take inspiration from works that came later and improved on Star Trek stories.
> 
> There are many media companies that SHOULD be more self-referential. Thinking of Marvel and DC, they absolutely should be looking at some 3rd party superhero content and seeing how they can change, instead of always doing what they have always done for 70 years.



DC should look at Marvel, for sure.  Marvel don't need to look at anyone, they're doing just fine as it is. 


Chaosmancer said:


> I'm not talking about a denial of history. I'm talking about getting rid of what doesn't work.
> 
> I don't deny the history of transportation. But I also don't think going to work in an ox-drawn wagon is terribly useful, and I don't think we need to continue having Ox-drawn wagon making factories in the modern United States. We have other tools that work better.



OK, but that's still no excuse to ban ox-drawn wagons from the roads; which in analogy seemed to be what you were trying to suggest.


Chaosmancer said:


> You may love your Spider-Horse DnD monster, and it is part of DnD's history for sure, but I see zero reason to look forward to it being published in a monster manual any time soon, because I think everyone will agree it isn't something we really need in the game anymore. I also don't need 100 different flavors of elf, seems excessive and pointless. That isn't denying history, that is simply saying we don't need those things anymore. We aren't denying history by not reprinting them.



It sounded from your earlier posts like you wanted to excise things from D&D history altogether.


Chaosmancer said:


> And if you think that 100% of every single thing ever published for DnD must be brought forward into each new edition of DnD,c ompletely unaltered... well, then you and I have very different and completely incompatible ideas of what DnD should look like, because there is a lot in DnD's history that I do not want to see republished, whether because it sucks or for other reasons.



There's a big difference between not republishing something and excising it from history.  That said, full backward-forward compatibility between all editions would sure be nice.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Oct 30, 2022)

Some D&D creatures from past editions may be really ridiculous, but always they can return in an article on April's Fool. And hiring the right designer the ridiculous spider-horse can be used to sell figures for collectors.

There is a really good marketing reason about halflings and gnomes shouldn't fall in the oblivion. If someday Hasbro wants to produce a family-friendly animated sitcom set in a D&D world (maybe in Witchlicht) then halflings and gnomes are the perfect choice, with the comingsoon ardlings. 

A true creator has to can find any possible use in all the things within reach.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 30, 2022)

Paul Farquhar said:


> No she isn't.
> 
> Linzi
> 
> Jubilost Narthropple is the gnome.



Ah, I thought Linzi was the iconic Pathfinder druid, whose name is apparently Lini.

You can see my confusion.


----------



## FrozenNorth (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, dwarves I'd give to Tolkien, he seems to have locked them in pretty sturdily. But, you know, a lot of people would like to do a bit more with dwarves than has traditionally be done.



My dwarves take more from Russia than Scotland.  They are stolid fatalists who see the value of enduring, despite the fact that their leaders are insane, the Underdark is trying to kill them, and most of their diet consists of fungi and fermented goat’s milk.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> My list stops where I stopped it.  "Badly made", like your other arguments, is personal subjective opinion dressed as objective truth.




No duh it is subjective. Why do you think I keep saying "and that can be discussed"? It is almost like, and stop me if I go to fast, I understand my opinion isn't the law of reality. 

However, just because my opinion isn't objectively true doesn't mean I need to sit around silently while other people say "this is the way it should be, because I like it this way" because THEY aren't objectively right either. This may shock you, but advocating for the status quo is STILL advocating for something you like. This seems to be the thing you guys don't get in these conversations, just because I acknowledge everyone can have their own tastes and opinions doesn't mean all conversation stops and we go with your version of things. Because "I pick no change" is still picking something you prefer over something you don't. 

This doesn't go "you aren't objectively right, end of conversation, I win". Nothing is perfect. Everything can be improved upon. But I have to spend so much energy just fighting the very notion that no one could possibly have found a real problem with halflings, and it is exhausting. By the way real =/=objective, so don't go trying to say that I'm twisting myself in knots here. But so few people are willing to actually engage in a proper discussion, instead they want to misreprent things and continue to act like nothing has changed in thirty years and everything they thought is true is forever true.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No duh it is subjective. Why do you think I keep saying "and that can be discussed"? It is almost like, and stop me if I go to fast, I understand my opinion isn't the law of reality.
> 
> However, just because my opinion isn't objectively true doesn't mean I need to sit around silently while other people say "this is the way it should be, because I like it this way" because THEY aren't objectively right either. This may shock you, but advocating for the status quo is STILL advocating for something you like. This seems to be the thing you guys don't get in these conversations, just because I acknowledge everyone can have their own tastes and opinions doesn't mean all conversation stops and we go with your version of things. Because "I pick no change" is still picking something you prefer over something you don't.
> 
> This doesn't go "you aren't objectively right, end of conversation, I win". Nothing is perfect. Everything can be improved upon. But I have to spend so much energy just fighting the very notion that no one could possibly have found a real problem with halflings, and it is exhausting. By the way real =/=objective, so don't go trying to say that I'm twisting myself in knots here. But so few people are willing to actually engage in a proper discussion, instead they want to misreprent things and continue to act like nothing has changed in thirty years and everything they thought is true is forever true.




Saying "I [don't] like"  or "I prefer" are subjective statements.  Saying something is "badly made" sounds like dressing up opinion as objective fact.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> But your DM might have; or if you were the DM you've consulted yourself.




Nope, I don't work for Wizards of the Coast and I don't know anyone who works for Wizards of the Coast. Any other interpretation is misunderstanding my point.



Lanefan said:


> Thing is, what some consider a problem (they're the "everyman") others consider their best feature.




I am aware. I disagree with these people, as I have laid out. I even put up good reasons for my disagreement.



Lanefan said:


> In this case, it is.  If two things draw their influences from each other, what results is a feedback loop - otherwise and elsewhere known as an echo chamber.
> 
> 
> It is, when considering what influences what.




It is impossible to have an artistic echo chamber if you pull from multiple media sources. 

Let's just follow the rabbit hole a bit, shall we? 

WoW was inspired by DnD, right? But what else was it inspired by? Well, it was inspired by Kung-Fu Panda. Which was inspired by Bruce Lee, and Kill Bill, and chinese mytholofy. So, what if DnD takes inspiration from WoW that was given to WoW by Kung-Fu Panda? WoW also has some pretty clear inspirations from some Christian Mythology. So does DnD. Would it bad to pass notes between the two things on better ways to use the same source material? 

Final Fantasy may have been partially inspired by DnD, but it also many times has pulled inspiration from Japanese culture and even Hinduism. So, if we are inspired to take things from Final Fantasy, we aren't just getting DnD, we are getting DnD with specific things added into the mix, and we can then even look at those things added into the mix and follow them back to THEIR sources. 

Even things that are purely American Fantasy can add elements that were not present in DnD, can give new takes on old ideas, and we shouldn't just ignore those. Because they can be better than what we have, 

And even if all of it is inspired by DnD, grabbing from WoW, Final Fantasy and American Fantasy Novels gives you three different sources. And all those things are likely going to be pulling from everything around them as well. Because no art exists in a vacuum. You can't make art that doesn't rely on something someone else made. Tolkien stole from other artists as well. Blatantly.



Lanefan said:


> DC should look at Marvel, for sure.  Marvel don't need to look at anyone, they're doing just fine as it is.




Marvel Live-Action Movies? Sure. Marvel animated shows suck compared to DC's. And even Marvel Live-Action Movies have deep flaws in them that people are starting to notice after all these decades of them, and there are solutions out there for them, if they are willing to look at other properties and see what works.



Lanefan said:


> OK, but that's still no excuse to ban ox-drawn wagons from the roads; which in analogy seemed to be what you were trying to suggest.




Um... we should absolutely ban ox-drawn wagons from the roads. It is illegal to go so far UNDER the speed limit for a reason. This has nothing to do with the analogy, just cold hard reality there.

But more to your point, if you want to keep your ox-drawn wagon, you have it. But we can update to cars in the production lines for other people. Because there is no need to keep telling them that this is the best form of transportation we can make. If people want the wagons, musuems exist, people have pictures of them, people will still have some sitting in their barns, but we don't need to keep making them.



Lanefan said:


> It sounded from your earlier posts like you wanted to excise things from D&D history altogether.




You can't excise things from DnD's history. That doesn't make sense. You'd have to delete the old books, and no one is saying that.

What you do is make better stuff for the current version of the game. You don't reprint the stuff from the history, you update it.



Lanefan said:


> There's a big difference between not republishing something and excising it from history.  That said, full backward-forward compatibility between all editions would sure be nice.




Yeah, I know there is a difference. That's why I advocated for one, and not the other. 

And sure, it would be nice, but it is also largely impossible to do in any official capacity. Too much changes, the fundamentals of the systems are incompatible.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> My dwarves take more from Russia than Scotland.  They are stolid fatalists who see the value of enduring, despite the fact that their leaders are insane, the Underdark is trying to kill them, and most of their diet consists of fungi and fermented goat’s milk.




That sounds awesome. 

Man, thinking about Russian-style Dwarven Literature makes me grin like a loon.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Saying "I [don't] like"  or "I prefer" are subjective statements.  Saying something is "badly made" sounds like dressing up opinion as objective fact.




I'm sure someone thought this was well-designed, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten published





However, in my completely subjective opinion (as objective opinions don't exist) this is badly designed and doesn't deserve to be brought forward into the newer editions of DnD. 

See, it is this strange thing that happens. If we can agree "some things are badly designed" even if that is purely a subjective judgement of something, then we can begin to discuss "is this thing badly designed?". Instead, you insist halflings are perfect and refuse to consider they could be improved, and the VERY IDEA that something in DnD's past COULD POSSIBLY have been badly designed has required me to make multiple posts and argue fervently that somethings are badly designed.


----------



## Oofta (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm sure someone thought this was well-designed, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten published
> 
> View attachment 265176
> 
> ...




Just trying to give you some advice.  Take it or leave it, I'm not discussing this topic with you any more.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No duh it is subjective. Why do you think I keep saying "and that can be discussed"? It is almost like, and stop me if I go to fast, I understand my opinion isn't the law of reality.
> 
> However, just because my opinion isn't objectively true doesn't mean I need to sit around silently while other people say "this is the way it should be, because I like it this way" because THEY aren't objectively right either. This may shock you, but advocating for the status quo is STILL advocating for something you like. This seems to be the thing you guys don't get in these conversations, just because I acknowledge everyone can have their own tastes and opinions doesn't mean all conversation stops and we go with your version of things. Because "I pick no change" is still picking something you prefer over something you don't.
> 
> This doesn't go "you aren't objectively right, end of conversation, I win". Nothing is perfect. Everything can be improved upon. But I have to spend so much energy just fighting the very notion that no one could possibly have found a real problem with halflings, and it is exhausting. By the way real =/=objective, so don't go trying to say that I'm twisting myself in knots here. But so few people are willing to actually engage in a proper discussion, instead they want to misreprent things and continue to act like nothing has changed in thirty years and everything they thought is true is forever true.



As @Oofta  mentioned above, your statements read like objective fact when they really aren't. If you didn't want people to call you out on that, I would suggest expressing your opinions as opinions.

A lot of things have changed in 30 years, that's actually objective.  In general, I prefer 5e's ruleset to the 1e game that DL was made for and that I grew up on (although I do like Level Up better, and there are a number of things in 1e I like over 5e, including their design philosophy).  I feel the 2e and 3e updates to DL worked hard to be additive rather then remove elements or add ones that were clearly stated as not being present.

5e is not doing this.  The design philosophy has shifted in just the last 2-3 years.  I strongly suspect that if Dragonlance had been released for 5e in, say, 2016, we would get a substantially different product than we are getting now, and likely one I would actually spend money on.  But of course that's speculation. 

The point is, people have different opinions on what game elements are or are not important, and what things should change or not change.  In my opinion, relatively little in any established setting should be changed, mostly just the anti-inclusive stuff I mentioned, and even that can be additive (witness the new Ravenloft handling of the Vistani.  They didn't actually remove the possibility of events happening as they did, but they did expand and enhance their culture so they weren't a bad stereotype).  It gives players and DMs options they should have front and center without being prescriptive.

I stand by my opinion that orcs as anything more than a one-of-a-kind oddity are unnecessary and IMO unwanted for DL.  A sidebar similar to Theros would be sufficient to deal with the issue to my satisfaction.  For other stuff added to the general game over time?  That can be a discussion I would be happy to engage in, but my answer is never going to be, "If it's in the PH, it's in every campaign setting".


----------



## Bohandas (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Yeaaaa.....
> 
> For anyone not aware, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is NOT a cute show about cute magical girls. This thing is a dystopian horror about futility, obsession, and the pointless struggle against despair. It is DARK the more you dig into. It was created as a subversion of the magical girl genre.




That's the one where the magical girl thing is like a ponzi scheme, right?



Spoiler



like, IIRC thet's the one where all the magical girls are destined, as a result of the way the magic works, to eventually become villains, and so they need more and more nagical girls to keep them in check (leading in turn to more and more villains in a vicious cycle), is that correct?


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm sure someone thought this was well-designed, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten published
> 
> View attachment 265176
> 
> However, in my completely subjective opinion (as objective opinions don't exist) this is badly designed and doesn't deserve to be brought forward into the newer editions of DnD.



While I have no idea what the D&D monster is, it's very clearly based on Buer, a demon and President of Hell and teacher of philosophy described in the real-world 16th century text, Pseudomonarchia Daemonun. So, blame Johann Weyer, the Dutch occultist, for the bad design, not WotC (that looks like the type of art put out in WotC D&D, not TSR D&D).


----------



## Oofta (Oct 30, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I have no idea what the D&D monster is, it's very clearly based on Buer, a demon and President of Hell and teacher of philosophy described in the real-world 16th century text, Pseudomonarchia Daemonun. So, blame Johann Weyer, the Dutch occultist, for the bad design, not WotC (that looks like the type of art put out in WotC D&D, not TSR D&D).
> 
> View attachment 265186



It's a Roving Mauler, published in the Tome of Magic in 2006.  Based on the Buer as you said.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 30, 2022)

Oofta said:


> It's a Roving Mauler, published in the Tome of Magic in 2006.  Based on the Buer as you said.



Ah, gotcha. I never bought that book, although I see that's the one with the Binder class I've heard good, or at least interesting, things about. Thanks for the reference.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um, maybe a different list?
> 
> The list I was seeing had multiple Harry Potter movies, BFG, The House with the Clock in the Walls, Mrs. Peregrines House for Children...
> 
> ...



Carnival row is basically steampunk D&D.

'Fantasy' makes for a poor genre descriptor as it covers most any non-earth stuff that doesn't fall into the sci-fi bucket and pretty much any earth stuff with any kind of magic at all.

It's basically "miscellaneous" by definition.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Just trying to give you some advice.  Take it or leave it, I'm not discussing this topic with you any more.




I always love how your advice seems to assume I'm a massive egotist who can't see past his own nose. Really endears me to your ideas to constantly be attacked every time you discuss things with me.


----------



## Lanefan (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm sure someone thought this was well-designed, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten published
> 
> View attachment 265176
> 
> ...



OK, that lion is cool.  Where did you find it?

Edit: @Faolyn and @Oofta answered above.  Thanks!


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> As @Oofta  mentioned above, your statements read like objective fact when they really aren't. If you didn't want people to call you out on that, I would suggest expressing your opinions as opinions.




Right, funny how that works. Can't discuss design, because that's only an opinion and not an "objective fact". So we simply won't discuss it (because you'll dismiss anything I couch in ephuemisms as not worth discussing) and you maintain the status quo just like you want. 

Or maybe you just want me to say something blatantly obvious like "it is my opinion". Man, I would have a lot less effort put into this thread if I simply regurgitated other people's opinions instead of reaching my own conclusions. Of course, if that was all I was doing, I'd credit that person, so you'd know it wasn't my opinion and you could discuss THEIR opinion instead. Sadly, I think for myself so 80% of my posts are actually my opinions and conclusions.



Micah Sweet said:


> A lot of things have changed in 30 years, that's actually objective.  In general, I prefer 5e's ruleset to the 1e game that DL was made for and that I grew up on (although I do like Level Up better, and there are a number of things in 1e I like over 5e, including their design philosophy).  I feel the 2e and 3e updates to DL worked hard to be additive rather then remove elements or add ones that were clearly stated as not being present.
> 
> 5e is not doing this.  The design philosophy has shifted in just the last 2-3 years.  I strongly suspect that if Dragonlance had been released for 5e in, say, 2016, we would get a substantially different product than we are getting now, and likely one I would actually spend money on.  But of course that's speculation.




Soooo....

Vague statement that things have changed. Kind of funny since we just came off a conversation of how we should continue focusing on a 90~ year old work as the focal point of all fantasy. 

Your general likes of various rule systems. Which doesn't really apply to specific lore. 

Dragonlance, for some unknown reason, as it has little to nothing to do with the conversation so far. 

Maybe there is a point?



Micah Sweet said:


> The point is, people have different opinions on what game elements are or are not important, and what things should change or not change.




Ah, here it is. The exact thing I said. "We can discuss it." 

You realize very few discussions happen when everyone agrees and is on the same page right? You are stating this like somehow after three threads worth of being told I'm wrong, I somehow don't understand that other people have opinions that may differ from mine. This isn't a revelation to me. I know.



Micah Sweet said:


> In my opinion, relatively little in any established setting should be changed, mostly just the anti-inclusive stuff I mentioned, and even that can be additive (witness the new Ravenloft handling of the Vistani.  They didn't actually remove the possibility of events happening as they did, but they did expand and enhance their culture so they weren't a bad stereotype).  It gives players and DMs options they should have front and center without being prescriptive.




Huh, why does not changing things give them "options they *should *have"? Why is that they SHOULD have halflings? That makes it sound like fantasy would be incomplete without Halflings. But, as we've established, the vast vast vast majority of Fantasy does not include child-sized, pastoral farming people who seclude themselves from the world and act exactly like humans. 

I mean, it is your opinion, but why? If it is just "because I like it that way" then, well, I'm glad you like things, but that isn't a strong defense. People like canoes carved from logs, but that didn't stop us from making OTHER kinds of water vessels, some of which are far superior than log canoes at things we consider important for water transportation.



Micah Sweet said:


> I stand by my opinion that orcs as anything more than a one-of-a-kind oddity are unnecessary and IMO unwanted for DL.




I don't care. We aren't discussing Dragonlance in the specific.



Micah Sweet said:


> For other stuff added to the general game over time?  That can be a discussion I would be happy to engage in, but my answer is never going to be, "If it's in the PH, it's in every campaign setting".




Okay? First of all, you seem completely UNhappy to engage in that conversation, considering how much effort I've put into trying to prevent it from derailing. Secondly, no one ever stated that we are going to include a by-law in DnD that states every single thing in the PHB MUST be included in every campaign setting. That has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. 

Now, many of us have recognized that things int he PHB are OFTEN included in campaign settings, because the PHB is the fundamental Core, and it would be strange is most campaign settings didn't include the fundamental core aspects of the game. This is important, because that means that if the things in the PHB are not top quality, then we are putting sub-par content into the majority of campaigns, but this is again not something we have been discussing, at all.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> That's the one where the magical girl thing is like a ponzi scheme, right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




You are pretty close to correct. Close enough that you have the correct show



Spoiler: Discussing Madoka, spoilers for plot



So, to go through the order a bit, here is what happens. A creature called a Kyubey finds a young pre-teen girl who is suffering. They offer to grant the girl one wish of their heart's desire, and in exchange they will gain magical powers and fight "Witches".  This is about all they are told.

The girl's soul is removed from her body and placed in a gem, leaving her ageless and nearly invincible (they aren't told about that part) and basically turns them into a Lich. The gem is the source of their magic, and since it is also their soul they die when it is destroyed or removed from their body. Using magic corrupts the gem, and only through the use of the "Grief Seeds" dropped by slain Witches, can the gem be purified. Despair and dark emotions also corrupt the gem, and can be "removed" by the use of a Grief Seed. 

If a gem is fully corrupted, the gem shatters, killing the girl and turning her into a Witch, who will then seek to kill and devour magical girls and humans to gain power. This is often caused by overwhelming despair, which becomes the Witches' default emotional state. (This is also not told to the girls). 

This does lead to more girls needed to fight more witches, which create more girls needed to fight more witches, but that isn't the "final goal" per se. 

The energy released by the "wavering emotions" of the girls and witches is utilized by the Kyubey in an attempt to stop entropy. They are emotionless beings and have no sense of morality, so the engine revving up is all good as far as they are concerned, despite the terrifying toll and emotional distress they are continuously inflicting and creating.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I have no idea what the D&D monster is, it's very clearly based on Buer, a demon and President of Hell and teacher of philosophy described in the real-world 16th century text, Pseudomonarchia Daemonun. So, blame Johann Weyer, the Dutch occultist, for the bad design, not WotC (that looks like the type of art put out in WotC D&D, not TSR D&D).
> 
> View attachment 265186




So... don't hold the people who looked at a bad design and copied it without a second thought responsible for their work? 

No thanks. You decided to use the design whole-sale, then it is your fault that the design was used whole-sale, you don't get to blame other people for your lack of desire to alter the design.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Carnival row is basically steampunk D&D.




But it isn't the medieval Fantasy that most people are associating with DnD's brand. 

Trust me, I'd love to have more DnD by Gaslight, it is an amazing and cool world to explore. But I'm not going to pretend that the people claiming that we have to keep halflings because Tolkien is too iconic to fantasy to not keep them actually want DnD by Gaslight. They don't.



Gammadoodler said:


> 'Fantasy' makes for a poor genre descriptor as it covers most any non-earth stuff that doesn't fall into the sci-fi bucket and pretty much any earth stuff with any kind of magic at all.
> 
> It's basically "miscellaneous" by definition.




Makes it really silly then to claim one or two authors as the be all, end all, and only high water marks that matter then, doesn't it? Seems like it would be incredibly silly to try and contain such a broad and diverse genre under that single umbrella.


----------



## Faolyn (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So... don't hold the people who looked at a bad design and copied it without a second thought responsible for their work?
> 
> No thanks. You decided to use the design whole-sale, then it is your fault that the design was used whole-sale, you don't get to blame other people for your lack of desire to alter the design.



Why is it bad design for you? 

More specifically, why is that bad design and things like beholders acceptable design?


----------



## Mecheon (Oct 30, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> WoW was inspired by DnD, right? But what else was it inspired by? Well, it was inspired by Kung-Fu Panda. Which was inspired by Bruce Lee, and Kill Bill, and chinese mytholofy. So, what if DnD takes inspiration from WoW that was given to WoW by Kung-Fu Panda? WoW also has some pretty clear inspirations from some Christian Mythology. So does DnD. Would it bad to pass notes between the two things on better ways to use the same source material?



Pandaren actually pre-date Kung-Fu Panda. They showed up proper in Frozen Throne with the whole founding of Orgrimmar quest, Chen's one of the heroes you can have


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 30, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why is it bad design for you?
> 
> More specifically, why is that bad design and things like beholders acceptable design?




It is a lion's head surrounded by five legs. The only form of locomotion it would have is spinning like a wheel. This is inherently silly looking. Additionally, as it is just a lion's head, the main form of attack would be to bite someone, however, it cannot bite someone. Since it can only move in a wheel motion, it cannot approach someone with the lion's face, the only way to face someone would be to spin on a leg. Therefore it is incredibly difficult to imagine it biting anyone. Therefore its main form of attack must be to trample people with the lion's paws. Which, again, makes for a rather silly visual. Finally, due to the various things I have mentioned above, this thing would often never see where it is going, or anyone behind it. It would be unable to turn its head except by rotating its entire body, giving it _maybe_ a 120 degree field of vision and massive, easily exploitable blindspots. 

All in all, it comes across as less dangerous than an actual lion, and something that could never actually exist, I can't even imagine how the thing eats without falling and being unable to get back up.


The beholder's main form of locomotion is flying. This inherently and immediately resolves dozens of problems. Additionally, multiple eyes and tentacle stalks are unnerving, especially with the inherent asymmetry of a massive eye in the center and tiny eyes surrounding it. This gives it the unnatural vibe you expect from a cosmic horror. Additionally, it is often portrayed with the eye beams, an integral part not only of the beholder's design but a massive spike in both threat and customization. You need only to come up with additional effects for the eyes, and you have made a new version of the beholder. I have seen multiple variations of the Beholder's design, all keeping the same key principles, and many of them are terrifying. Additionally, having a true 360 degrees of vision not only increases the threat level of the creature, but allows for unnerving conversations, especially as it looking at you is the same as it pointing a weapon in your direction. Finally, it seems like something which could actually exist, its form while using an unnatural logic does follow a logic that could allow it to exist and be a threat. 


I believe that answers the question fairly well?


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## Faolyn (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It is a lion's head surrounded by five legs. The only form of locomotion it would have is spinning like a wheel. This is inherently silly looking. Additionally, as it is just a lion's head, the main form of attack would be to bite someone, however, it cannot bite someone. Since it can only move in a wheel motion, it cannot approach someone with the lion's face, the only way to face someone would be to spin on a leg. Therefore it is incredibly difficult to imagine it biting anyone. Therefore its main form of attack must be to trample people with the lion's paws. Which, again, makes for a rather silly visual. Finally, due to the various things I have mentioned above, this thing would often never see where it is going, or anyone behind it. It would be unable to turn its head except by rotating its entire body, giving it _maybe_ a 120 degree field of vision and massive, easily exploitable blindspots.



That makes about as much sense as saying that a crab can't pinch someone because it can "only" move sideways.

And you didn't actually read the monster's entry. I looked it up. First, it has _two _heads, one on either side of its body, and All Around Vision. Secondly they don't have a bite attack. Instead, they have a claw attack, and have a special "Tumbling Attack" where they basically run over everyone in their path and do claw damage to them. It _also _has Fast Healing, Spell Resistance, Darkvision and low-light vision. And while the entry doesn't say so, I would assume it's not stiff and could actually bend its body fairly well. It doesn't do a _ton _of damage, but it's only CR 3.

It's honestly not any "sillier" than a lot of other D&D monsters are. At least it isn't a one-off like a piercer!



Chaosmancer said:


> All in all, it comes across as less dangerous than an actual lion, and something that could never actually exist, I can't even imagine how the thing eats without falling and being unable to get back up.
> 
> The beholder's main form of locomotion is flying. This inherently and immediately resolves dozens of problems. Additionally, multiple eyes and tentacle stalks are unnerving, especially with the inherent asymmetry of a massive eye in the center and tiny eyes surrounding it.



Hate to break it to you, but from an _artistic _perspective, that's a perfectly acceptable form of symmetry. It's not even occult balanced. It's got eyestalks up top and a big eye in the middle of a round body. I'll accept that you find it creepy, since creepiness is in the eye of the person looking at the beholder, but if you're looking for asymmetry, look at a flounder, or a fiddler crab.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But it isn't the medieval Fantasy that most people are associating with DnD's brand.
> 
> Trust me, I'd love to have more DnD by Gaslight, it is an amazing and cool world to explore. But I'm not going to pretend that the people claiming that we have to keep halflings because Tolkien is too iconic to fantasy to not keep them actually want DnD by Gaslight. They don't.
> 
> ...



"Iconic to DnD" seems like it could reasonably include "DnD by gaslight". I rather suspect that setting technology is one of the more insignificant elements that makes DnD what it is.

Yes it is difficult to make an "iconic or not iconic to general fantasy" case based on examples from the genre. Exceptions to D&D tropes abound, but can also be reasonably argued to belong to a different family of fantasy from DnD. Both sides are both right and wrong.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> That makes about as much sense as saying that a crab can't pinch someone because it can "only" move sideways.




Do... do I need to explain how arms and joints work? I didn't think I did, but if you think comparing a crab's arm to a head without a neck makes any sense.... do I need to explain that to you?



Faolyn said:


> And you didn't actually read the monster's entry.




You are right, because the design was so stupid I had no desire to look it up.



Faolyn said:


> I looked it up. First, it has _two _heads, one on either side of its body, and All Around Vision. Secondly they don't have a bite attack. Instead, they have a claw attack, and have a special "Tumbling Attack" where they basically run over everyone in their path and do claw damage to them. It _also _has Fast Healing, Spell Resistance, Darkvision and low-light vision.




So, I was right about them not being able to bite anything and that they have to roll over it with their feet? Sure, I was wrong about it having only one head (something impossible to know for how it is depicted) but the only thing that solves from my description is the vision issue. Every other thing I said is still 100% valid.

Also, how does darkvision, low-light vision, fast healing or spell resistance mean anything for their design? I can make up a dozen better creatures that have those traits AND reasonable ability to threaten people AND don't look this stupid.



Faolyn said:


> And while the entry doesn't say so, I would assume it's not stiff and could actually bend its body fairly well. It doesn't do a _ton _of damage, but it's only CR 3.




You can assume all you want. The direction of those legs, the way their joints work and face, and the lack of any actual body structure other than leg, hip, head, tells me it would be incredibly stiff. Notably, legs do not bend 90 degrees away from their joints without breaking. That is the point of joints.



Faolyn said:


> It's honestly not any "sillier" than a lot of other D&D monsters are. At least it isn't a one-off like a piercer!




Piercers actually make quite a bit of sense. They seem stupid because they cannot be allowed to operate properly in a DnD adventure. However, they are ambush hunters with perfect camoflauge and a massively deadly attack. With a 30 ft ceiling (not hard to assume in the underdark when Cathedral ceilings 50 ft high are fairly common for stalagmite formation) they deal an average of 10.5 damage. Which doesn't seem like enough, but can kill most humanoids pretty easily. Additionally, they are colony creatures who fight together, meaning that a large creature like a Giant Lizard (not uncommon in the underdark) with their 10x10 "shadow" could be hit by four of them, for 42 damage, which kills it twice over (You really only need two shots) 

Finally, they are the larval form of a far deadlier predator, which could trivially help them fend off and kill any creatures which survive their initial attack, and leave the scraps for the young to eat. As a colony creature, they are social to some degree and sharing food would be common. And with a 50 ft radius threat ranger, Ropers can cover large swathes of the piercers territory. 

Again, something that logically could exist, hunt and feed itself with methods that make a large degree of sense.



Faolyn said:


> Hate to break it to you, but from an _artistic _perspective, that's a perfectly acceptable form of symmetry. It's not even occult balanced. It's got eyestalks up top and a big eye in the middle of a round body. I'll accept that you find it creepy, since creepiness is in the eye of the person looking at the beholder, but if you're looking for asymmetry, look at a flounder, or a fiddler crab.




And yet, I wasn't talking about an _artistic_ symmetry at all. I was talking about a biological assymetry. There is a reason that many things supposed to be unnerving and wrong have only one, large, central eye. As a species that has evolved to recognize human facial designs, and having binocular vision like the overwhelming majority of animals on the planet (seriously, even most insects appear to have two eyes) seeing a creature with only a single eye is unnerving to a degree. We are somewhat used to it, because it has appeared so often in media, but it appears so often in media because it is effective.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> "Iconic to DnD" seems like it could reasonably include "DnD by gaslight". I rather suspect that setting technology is one of the more insignificant elements that makes DnD what it is.




You'd think, but I was just involved in a "no artificers in my DnD because technology doesn't fit MY setting" discussion yesterday. Many people have a highly specific and unwavering vision of DnD are western european medieval arthurian depictions and nothing else will work for them (while ignoring the many things that would be in a medieval european setting like guns and clockwork and the things that wouldn't be nearly so common like massive galleons)



Gammadoodler said:


> Yes it is difficult to make an "iconic or not iconic to general fantasy" case based on examples from the genre. Exceptions to D&D tropes abound, but can also be reasonably argued to belong to a different family of fantasy from DnD. Both sides are both right and wrong.




Uh huh. 

I'm sure that the people saying that DnD (the game with space aliens, massive robots, laser guns, medieval fantasy settings, far east fantasy settings, post-apocalyptic fantasy settings, gothic horror fantasy settings, dragons, giants, cthullu and psychic garbage monsters) is bigger than Tolkien are totally wrong, because things like sci-fi, gaslight, steampunk, and other mythologies are not "DnD"


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## Faolyn (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Do... do I need to explain how arms and joints work? I didn't think I did, but if you think comparing a crab's arm to a head without a neck makes any sense.... do I need to explain that to you?



Do _I _need to explain how a creature with jointed limbs work?



Chaosmancer said:


> You are right, because the design was so stupid I had no desire to look it up.



So you made a poor judgement based on incomplete data. That was not smart of you.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, I was right about them not being able to bite anything and that they have to roll over it with their feet? Sure, I was wrong about it having only one head (something impossible to know for how it is depicted) but the only thing that solves from my description is the vision issue. Every other thing I said is still 100% valid.
> 
> Also, how does darkvision, low-light vision, fast healing or spell resistance mean anything for their design? I can make up a dozen better creatures that have those traits AND reasonable ability to threaten people AND don't look this stupid.



You claimed it was weaker than a lion. It has abilities that make that not so.

And this creature looks no stupider than, quite frankly, most traditional D&D monsters, like chimeras. You're just not used to it.



Chaosmancer said:


> You can assume all you want. The direction of those legs, the way their joints work and face, and the lack of any actual body structure other than leg, hip, head, tells me it would be incredibly stiff. Notably, legs do not bend 90 degrees away from their joints without breaking. That is the point of joints.



You know the anatomy of a magical beast probably made by a Vestige to be a servitor? Do tell.



Chaosmancer said:


> And yet, I wasn't talking about an _artistic_ symmetry at all. I was talking about a biological assymetry. There is a reason that many things supposed to be unnerving and wrong have only one, large, central eye. As a species that has evolved to recognize human facial designs, and having binocular vision like the overwhelming majority of animals on the planet (seriously, even most insects appear to have two eyes) seeing a creature with only a single eye is unnerving to a degree. We are somewhat used to it, because it has appeared so often in media, but it appears so often in media because it is effective.



And it's not biologically asymmetric either. It actually displays perfect bilateral symmetry when seen from the front, and radial symmetry when seen from above.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 31, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Just trying to give you some advice.  Take it or leave it, I'm not discussing this topic with you any more.






Chaosmancer said:


> I always love how your advice seems to assume I'm a massive egotist who can't see past his own nose. Really endears me to your ideas to constantly be attacked every time you discuss things with me.



*Mod Note:*

The two of you seem to but heads most of the time you encounter each other in the same threads.  And when you do, you make it abundantly clear that you have a friction-filled past history with each other,

Perhaps it’s time for y’all to reduce _everyone’s_ headaches and just mutually ignore each other.


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You'd think, but I was just involved in a "no artificers in my DnD because technology doesn't fit MY setting" discussion yesterday. Many people have a highly specific and unwavering vision of DnD are western european medieval arthurian depictions and nothing else will work for them (while ignoring the many things that would be in a medieval european setting like guns and clockwork and the things that wouldn't be nearly so common like massive galleons)




Not just Arthurian, oldschool Arthurian. There's plenty of sporadic bits of higher technology in _The Once and Future King_ and _Seven Deadly Sins_


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> While I have no idea what the D&D monster is, it's very clearly based on Buer, a demon and President of Hell and teacher of philosophy described in the real-world 16th century text, Pseudomonarchia Daemonun. So, blame Johann Weyer, the Dutch occultist, for the bad design, not WotC (that looks like the type of art put out in WotC D&D, not TSR D&D).
> 
> View attachment 265186





Oofta said:


> It's a Roving Mauler, published in the Tome of Magic in 2006.  Based on the Buer as you said.



That entire section of the book was based on the _Pseudomonarchia Daemonun_. It's like they were trying to restart the satanic panic or something. Even if you don't fault the design per se it was at best a questionable business move.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> You'd think, but I was just involved in a "no artificers in my DnD because technology doesn't fit MY setting" discussion yesterday. Many people have a highly specific and unwavering vision of DnD are western european medieval arthurian depictions and nothing else will work for them (while ignoring the many things that would be in a medieval european setting like guns and clockwork and the things that wouldn't be nearly so common like massive galleons)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sure. D&d is mostly but not exclusively situated within a fairly narrow band of tropes.

Those that strictly adhere to settings within those bands aren't 100% wrong about D&D existing "iconically" within that band. Likewise, those that acknowledge that D&D and non-D&D content can exist iconically outside that narrow band are not 100% wrong either.

Iconic =/= monolithic


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## Lanefan (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It is a lion's head surrounded by five legs. The only form of locomotion it would have is spinning like a wheel. This is inherently silly looking. Additionally, as it is just a lion's head, the main form of attack would be to bite someone, however, it cannot bite someone. Since it can only move in a wheel motion, it cannot approach someone with the lion's face, the only way to face someone would be to spin on a leg. Therefore it is incredibly difficult to imagine it biting anyone. Therefore its main form of attack must be to trample people with the lion's paws.



Last I checked, lions' paws have great big claws in them.  Which means, depending how fast this thing can spin with its claws out, it might resemble a ten-inch-wide buzzsaw blade coming at you; and that's pretty damn cool!

Assuming it in fact uses its mouth(s) to eat, it would indeed need some means of lying down and standing back up again.  But it's a Demon, meaning all so-called rules of anatomy go flying out the window; so who knows how it eats (absorption through skin?) and-or whether those mouths are just there for show?


Chaosmancer said:


> All in all, it comes across as less dangerous than an actual lion, and something that could never actually exist,



Many D&D creatures could never actually exist, and that's part of the point of them.


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## Lanefan (Oct 31, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> That entire section of the book was based on the _Pseudomonarchia Daemonun_. It's like they were trying to restart the satanic panic or something. Even if you don't fault the design per se it was at best a questionable business move.



16 years later and no New Satanic Panic so far; I think they more than got away with it.


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> 16 years later and no New Satanic Panic so far; I think they more than got away with it.




They got lucky. D&D hadn't had it's big spike in popularity yet and all the religious nuts were still distracted by being angry at Harry Potter so it flew by under the radar.


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## Mecheon (Oct 31, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> They got lucky. D&D hadn't had it's big spike in popularity yet and all the religious nuts were still distracted by being angry at Harry Potter so it flew by under the radar.



Eh, it was the 00s. Wouldn't have rung anything, and using Pseudomonarchia as a source for stuff had been done by video games for yonks before then. Heck knows I've taken down Stolas in Castlevania around the same time


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Do _I _need to explain how a creature with jointed limbs work?




Considering my entire point is how those limbs can possibly move, I would say that would be a silly thing for you to do. You also seem to still think that comparing a neckless head to an arm made any sense what so ever.



Faolyn said:


> So you made a poor judgement based on incomplete data. That was not smart of you.




So I judged the design.... by the design.... and that wasn't smart? Weird, since literally the only thing you said that changed anything was the fact that it has TWO head's without necks, something that the artwork doesn't convey. Which... does seem like it should be relatively important, don't you think? You'd imagine that showing the creature in a profile that allowed for that knowledge to exist visually would be an important thing.



Faolyn said:


> You claimed it was weaker than a lion. It has abilities that make that not so.




Ah, I see. 

Here is artwork of a Nemean Lion





It has immunity to physical damage, resistance to magic, at-will spellcasting, a divine roar, destroys non-magical armor and is a CR 30 creature. 

Its design is far better, is that because of all the magical abilities I can't see? No. This thing just... looks like a lion. But if this thing was coming towards me, I'd be scared. Meanwhile if the "ravager" came towards me I'd either be laughing or wondering if someone drugged me. 

And I know, I know, you are going to claim that I mentioned the Beholder's eye beams, so clearly I must be taking monster abilities into account, so I should take the Ravager's regeneration into account. But, you seem to have forgotten exactly WHY I took the beholder's eye beams into account. 





Their eye beams ARE DEPICTED IN THE ARTWORK.



Faolyn said:


> And this creature looks no stupider than, quite frankly, most traditional D&D monsters, like chimeras. You're just not used to it.




So, first of all, yes it does look stupider than a chimera. The majority of chimera ever depicted as threats have a body plan that can work. Multiple heads on long necks on the body isn't a that hard to concieve of as being useful or dangerous. 

Secondly, if you were just going to say "no, the real reason is because you haven't been exposed to it enough to get used to it" then why even bother asking me why I thought it was a bad design? You clearly don't care what I think, because you haven't actually responded to an actual thing I brought up, except to look at the statblock and say "the design doesn't convey that it regenerates and it does deal damage" like that is some sort of checkmate.



Faolyn said:


> You know the anatomy of a magical beast probably made by a Vestige to be a servitor? Do tell.




I have, you just haven't been listening. I mean, you do realize that saying "it's a magical creature" doesn't resolve any of the problems with its design, right? The point of the art is to convey information. If it had no ligaments and its joints had 360 degrees of movement, then they shouldn't look exactly like lion legs, with prominent ligaments clearly visible, and legs only capable of bending in one direction.



Faolyn said:


> And it's not biologically asymmetric either. It actually displays perfect bilateral symmetry when seen from the front, and radial symmetry when seen from above.




Okay, are you just offended that I used the word symmetry? I've clearly explained why I used the phrasing I did. Twice. Are you actually going to address the fact that 99% of all creatures have only two eyes, making a prominently one-eyed creature which additionally has multiple eye tendrils, bizzarre and unnatural to conventional biology? Or do you want to just keep "well, actually" ing my use of a term to score cheap grammar points while ignoring the substance of my point? 

Because at this point I have made three posts responding to your question, you have addressed essentially none of my points or even acknowledged the majority of them, and instead have taken to just telling me what I believe. And frankly, it feels like this is queing up to be a "see how bellligerent and argumentative he is" style ending where you just act disgusted with me for not rolling over and agreeing with you. When, again, you asked for my reasonings, and I gave them.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Last I checked, lions' paws have great big claws in them.  Which means, depending how fast this thing can spin with its claws out, it might resemble a ten-inch-wide buzzsaw blade coming at you; and that's pretty damn cool!




And last I checked those claws are retractable because constantly slamming them into the ground would dull them. This is why despite dogs having larger claws, cat claws are the ones we worry about. Additionally, the point of a cat's claws are to act as hooks, grabbing the prey and holding on to it so they can kill it with their fangs. 

And this thing likely isn't move that fast. The design of it would prevent that fairly easily do to how lion legs are designed to move.

Also, if I wanted a living buzzsaw that was barreling towards the players, I would design something far better than this, in fact, I know of a monster that is simply just a better version of this. The initial design looks almost as silly, but modern reinterpretations of it make for a far more terrifying foe.



Lanefan said:


> Assuming it in fact uses its mouth(s) to eat, it would indeed need some means of lying down and standing back up again.  But it's a Demon, meaning all so-called rules of anatomy go flying out the window; so who knows how it eats (absorption through skin?) and-or whether those mouths are just there for show?




The heads being just for show does not make the design better.



Lanefan said:


> Many D&D creatures could never actually exist, and that's part of the point of them.




Except many of them COULD actually exist. Maybe not on Earth as we know it, but I did an entire aside on how Piercers actually make functional sense. Well designed monsters can make a lot of sense. And those specifically designed not to make sense (like the Gibbering Mouther) are absolutely still obvious in how they are terrifying.


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 31, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> My point is that before Rings of Power came out this month, the most recent Middle Earth movie was from 2014.



And in spite of that mess, the trilogy is still a significant influence on young nerds online, 20 years later, and the books are still selling so well every book store has multiple options for purchasing it, and people keep making successful video games and TTRPGs based on the property.


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> View attachment 265220




Did anyone else see this pic and immediately notice that it's not accurate? The victim is being hit by the eye rays AND the antimagic eye


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## bedir than (Oct 31, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> And in spite of that mess, the trilogy is still a significant influence on young nerds online, 20 years later, and the books are still selling so well every book store has multiple options for purchasing it, and people keep making successful video games and TTRPGs based on the property.



To include now two versions for 5e D&D, both among the top selling 3pp.


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... we should absolutely ban ox-drawn wagons from the roads. It is illegal to go so far UNDER the speed limit for a reason. This has nothing to do with the analogy, just cold hard reality there.



Honestly if it were up to me I wouldn't even allow bicycles on the street, for the same reason



Oofta said:


> Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up? Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either.




Beholders are original to D&D, and thus don't share the halfling's issue of being transparently derivative. They also have the rule of cool in their favor, which halflings don't.

Also, in addition to Big Trouble In Little China* there was also a beholder-like monster in the game _Master of Magic_, and the cacodemons and pain elementals from _Doom_ also resemble beholders



_(which is basically a D&D movie when you think about it; Lo Pan is basically a Ravenloft darklord*_, there's more than one raid on the enemy stronghold, and there's the previously mentioned beholder

**He has powerful influence over a small area which he is also bound to, and the thing that would allow him to escape is always just barely out of his grasp


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## Fifth Element (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Many people have a highly specific and unwavering vision of DnD are western european medieval arthurian depictions and nothing else will work for them (while ignoring the many things that would be in a medieval european setting like guns and clockwork and the things that wouldn't be nearly so common like massive galleons)



The problem here might be that you're ignoring the fact that "medieval Europe" covers a span of *a thousand years*, If someone does prefer Arthurian stories (which take place in the very early middle ages), it's absolutely appropriate to exclude firearms, which appeared what, 800 years later? Around the same time that clocks came to be?

"Medieval Europe" is far too imprecise a term to use as a descriptor here. "Arthurian" suggests a much narrower time period, which makes it far more useful for such descriptions. And would certainly exclude 14th-century technological innovations.


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## bedir than (Oct 31, 2022)

Halflings remain cool, interesting, beloved and popular.

It's weird to see such a strong hate for them, despite the fact that they are all of the above.

Why is there insistence that my fun is wrong?


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## doctorbadwolf (Oct 31, 2022)

bedir than said:


> To include now two versions for 5e D&D, both among the top selling 3pp.



Absolutely.


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## Faolyn (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So I judged the design.... by the design.... and that wasn't smart? Weird, since literally the only thing you said that changed anything was the fact that it has TWO head's without necks, something that the artwork doesn't convey. Which... does seem like it should be relatively important, don't you think? You'd imagine that showing the creature in a profile that allowed for that knowledge to exist visually would be an important thing.



No, it wasn't. Because you looked at the artwork, made a snap decision about its abilities--which was incorrect--and then failed to spend more than a few seconds imagining how to use a living wheel made out of lion. It sounds like you wasted an opportunity to possibly use something memorably different than the norm. 

I mean, if it doesn't fit in with _your _setting's feel, sure--I can see that. I wouldn't use this thing in _my _current D&D game, because my setting doesn't have monsters like that. My setting doesn't even have mind flayers or beholders in it (except for that one spectator that was summoned) because it doesn't fit the feel. That's perfectly understandable. But if my characters get to my setting's Feywild/divine realm mix, _heck yeah._ I can even see having these as the wheels on some godling's chariot, and when battle comes and the godling gets off their chariot, the wheels pop off and begin attacking on their own. 

But to just look at a monster, say "this looks dumb, therefore it is objectively bad," well, that's not only conflating your opinion with fact but is, as I said, a waste of a potentially interesting creature.


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## Oofta (Oct 31, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Halflings remain cool, interesting, beloved and popular.
> 
> It's weird to see such a strong hate for them, despite the fact that they are all of the above.
> 
> Why is there insistence that my fun is wrong?




Because long ago we had some stupid monsters.  Some, like the one based on medieval drawings drew inspiration from a real world source that just looks odd.  Others, like the duckbunny were joke monsters and even described as such in the descriptive text.  Because we had some bad designs, halflings are perforce bad design.  Guilt by association I guess.

The fact that these oddball monsters were never popular and only showed up in 1 supplement is meaningless. Beholders which are quite goofy on their own merit are perfectly fine because the person making the argument happens to like them.



Spoiler: Duckbunny



_You see a rabbit with the webbed feet of a duck, along with a duck's bill instead of a rabbit's snout. Why? WHY?!_

Apprentice wizards need to start somewhere. These little guys are made in practice by mages of a specific disposition who would like to create the next ubiquitous hybrid beast to haunt low-level adventurers. They do this instead of following their master's instructions on owlbear creation so it doesn't eat them — on the low chance that he doesn't botch the experiment and finish with a dead-in-a-minute, jiggling flesh ooze covered in feathers.

These aren't the only inane things to come out of a magic college. In about a mile around the grounds, expect to find: toadsalmon, cricketfinches, hummingcornsnakes, and octokittens (no claws, see, so they can't kill all those level 1 wizards).

Hey, you heard of my new band, Jiggling Flesh Ooze? Our demo track is entitled Feathers In A Pile.

*Combat*
Err, about that. One of these guys are a worthy challenge for a toddler. If your squalling teenage stone hatchet swinger feels the need to feast on the blood of screeching rabbitmallards (they may have bills, but still have the vocal cords of a bunny, and have you heard what they sound like when they're scared or in pain? like a little girl who dropped her ice cream. oh ho ho, chilling stuff) then you seriously need to send Tucker's Kobolds after him and his party because… just because, okay?



*Skills: *Duckbunnies have a +4 racial bonus to Swim checks, because why not.


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## Faolyn (Oct 31, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> That entire section of the book was based on the _Pseudomonarchia Daemonun_. It's like they were trying to restart the satanic panic or something. Even if you don't fault the design per se it was at best a questionable business move.



Heh, yeah. In looking that section over, I felt like it had a lot of potential as... well, I dunno, maybe a type of warlock invocation, but only if they scrubbed the names. Even if just to make it generic enough to work in any setting.


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## Bohandas (Oct 31, 2022)

The problem with the Buer-derived monster is that it's described as moving exactly the way you'd imagine it would. The thing is that that design _could_ work, if the legs hung under the head like a spider or a squid, it would look sillier but make more sense. But no, the flavor text describes it as actually cartwheeling.

It also shares the halflings' problem of (in other ways) not staying true to the source material while at the same time being clearly derived from a very specific and idiosyncratic source. As well as the fact that the deviation it makes is not particularly interesting or well thought out.

Admittedly my spider legs idea would also be a deviation from the source material, but at least it has some though behind it. The Tome of Magic took the names, physical descriptions, and symbols from the _Ars Goetia_/_Pseudomonarchia_/_Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis_ but replaced everything else in a very arbitrary way.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 31, 2022)

If there's one thing that never gets old and always gets resolved with perfect clarity on these boards, it's speculative physiology and biochemistry of fantasy creatures based on creature art.

You'd think it'd be difficult, what with how the concept of fantasy often openly admits and frequently demands the presence of the impossible. Yet somehow we have a 100% success rate at determining the viability and capabilities of these impossible creatures within their impossible habitats.

It truly is remarkable.


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## Lanefan (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And last I checked those claws are retractable because constantly slamming them into the ground would dull them. This is why despite dogs having larger claws, cat claws are the ones we worry about. Additionally, the point of a cat's claws are to act as hooks, grabbing the prey and holding on to it so they can kill it with their fangs.



My once-housecat (RIP), as evidenced by some scars I still bear, would beg to differ. 

Cats of nearly all types rake things with their claws as an attack method.  A Demon-cat would of course raise this to a dialled-to-eleven art form.


Chaosmancer said:


> And this thing likely isn't move that fast. The design of it would prevent that fairly easily do to how lion legs are designed to move.



If it was intended as a more mundane Prime Material creature of the woods or plains I'd agree with you completely.  But it's a Demon.  Forget the normal physics - none of that applies to Demons!

EDIT to add: it just occurred to me that the obvious use for the heads/mouths would be some sort of two-directional breath weapon...


Chaosmancer said:


> Except many of them COULD actually exist. Maybe not on Earth as we know it, but I did an entire aside on how Piercers actually make functional sense. Well designed monsters can make a lot of sense. And those specifically designed not to make sense (like the Gibbering Mouther) are absolutely still obvious in how they are terrifying.



I hadn't seen a Gibbering Mouther in play for ages until our PCs met and killed a few in last weekend's session.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 31, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Last I checked, lions' paws have great big claws in them. Which means, depending how fast this thing can spin with its claws out, it might resemble a ten-inch-wide buzzsaw blade coming at you; and that's pretty damn cool!
> 
> Assuming it in fact uses its mouth(s) to eat, it would indeed need some means of lying down and standing back up again. *But it's a Demon, meaning all so-called rules of anatomy go flying out the window*; so who knows how it eats (absorption through skin?) and-or whether those mouths are just there for show?



(Emphasis mine.)

With that in mind, there’s no guarantee those “knees” work like simple hinges.  They might be more like ball and socket joints, with a much broader range of motion than a typical knee.


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## Oofta (Oct 31, 2022)

I kind of like the idea that a demon's physical essence can be so chaotic that we can't make sense of it so our brain does it's best to make sense of it and it ends up looking like a pinwheel lion.


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## Gammadoodler (Oct 31, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I kind of like the idea that a demon's physical essence can be so chaotic that we can't make sense of it so our brain does it's best to make sense of it and it ends up looking like a pinwheel lion.



Every description starts with.."You're never gonna believe me..not really sure I believe me.."


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## Irlo (Oct 31, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I kind of like the idea that a demon's physical essence can be so chaotic that we can't make sense of it so our brain does it's best to make sense of it and it ends up looking like a pinwheel lion.



Yes!

I’m not fond of the buzzsaw lion, but we certainly don’t need another extra planar creature that happens to be bipedal and vaguely human-like  or some amped up animal.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 31, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Yes!
> 
> I’m not fond of the buzzsaw lion, but we certainly don’t need another extra planar creature that happens to be bipedal and vaguely human-like  or some amped up animal.



With cheese grater foreheads…


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Did anyone else see this pic and immediately notice that it's not accurate? The victim is being hit by the eye rays AND the antimagic eye




I noticed it, but as was established in Volo's, Beholder's central eyes are not limited to antimagic, they are just usually antimagic.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> The problem here might be that you're ignoring the fact that "medieval Europe" covers a span of *a thousand years*, If someone does prefer Arthurian stories (which take place in the very early middle ages), it's absolutely appropriate to exclude firearms, which appeared what, 800 years later? Around the same time that clocks came to be?
> 
> "Medieval Europe" is far too imprecise a term to use as a descriptor here. "Arthurian" suggests a much narrower time period, which makes it far more useful for such descriptions. And would certainly exclude 14th-century technological innovations.




I'm not ignoring that at all. In fact, it is kind of part of the point. 

And sure, you may be able to ignore firearms, because Europeans didn't gain access to them until the 1400's. Which does make it weird to have full plate since that ALSO didn't exist until the 1400's. You also have to figure that hand crossbows, rapiers and other weapons and armor were scattered throughout that time period.

It is also harder to reason why they wouldn't have clockwork, considering robots were made by the 1100's. Steam engines were also functional and existed by the time of the ancient greeks, well before the Romans, who then had thousands of years of supremacy before their collapse. The aforementioned Galleons were made in the 1700's, long after "arthurian" times.

The thing isn't what did and didn't exist in a specific century. I don't care about having a historically accurate game. What annoys me are people who declare that their style of game cannot accept certain influeces, because they only allow a specific flavor of thing, and then ignore the fact that their games ALSO have a bunch of things in them from various influences outside that specific flavor they claim to "only" allow, and are excluding things that could reasonably exist.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> No, it wasn't. Because you looked at the artwork, made a snap decision about its abilities--which was incorrect--and then failed to spend more than a few seconds imagining how to use a living wheel made out of lion. It sounds like you wasted an opportunity to possibly use something memorably different than the norm.
> 
> I mean, if it doesn't fit in with _your _setting's feel, sure--I can see that. I wouldn't use this thing in _my _current D&D game, because my setting doesn't have monsters like that. My setting doesn't even have mind flayers or beholders in it (except for that one spectator that was summoned) because it doesn't fit the feel. That's perfectly understandable. But if my characters get to my setting's Feywild/divine realm mix, _heck yeah._ I can even see having these as the wheels on some godling's chariot, and when battle comes and the godling gets off their chariot, the wheels pop off and begin attacking on their own.
> 
> But to just look at a monster, say "this looks dumb, therefore it is objectively bad," well, that's not only conflating your opinion with fact but is, as I said, a waste of a potentially interesting creature.




So... you literally have read nothing and cared nothing for the paragraphs I have written, have utterly dismissed my analysis as a "snap decision" and just wanted to berate me for "wasting my own time" 

Well, I certainly wasted time in thinking you had a serious interest in the answer to your own question and would give my answer a considered chance instead of declaring I am wrong because of things that had nothing to do with my answer.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Because long ago we had some stupid monsters.  Some, like the one based on medieval drawings drew inspiration from a real world source that just looks odd.  Others, like the duckbunny were joke monsters and even described as such in the descriptive text.  Because we had some bad designs, halflings are perforce bad design.  Guilt by association I guess.





I am not responding to this to respond to Oofta. I am responding to this because this was a misrepresentation of my argument, and since I seem to have trouble with people understanding what my actual argument is, I need to clarify, before I am further sucked down into the abyss of people not understanding my arguments and accusing me of things I never said. 


Because we had some bad designs, it is possible for DnD to have things that are badly designed. Because it is possible for DnD to have things that are badly designed, then it is possible that we have things which need to be redesigned or ejected from the game of DnD. Because it is possible that we have things in DnD which need to be redesigned or ejected from the game of DnD, then it is possible that one of those things is Halflings. 

I am not using these monsters as an argument to prove halflings are bad. I am using these monsters because it was argued that NOTHING from DnD's past except the anti-inclusive content should EVER be removed or changed from the game. This section of my discussions is far far more basic than anything about halflings, it is to show that there are things in DnD that can be improved upon and that improving or removing ANYTHING AT ALL is potentially an action that can be discussed.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> (Emphasis mine.)
> 
> With that in mind, there’s no guarantee those “knees” work like simple hinges.  They might be more like ball and socket joints, with a much broader range of motion than a typical knee.




The problem is that if it did have a ball and socket joint with that range of motion, it wouldn't have such obvious and prominent achille's tendons as depicted in the art. 

Look, I know that "it is a fantasy creature" is a big deal, but if you want to convince someone that something is an orange, you don't draw an apple. Those legs are not designed to rotate as ball and socket joints, the design is wrong for that conclusion. They could have done that. They didn't.


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## Oofta (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I am not responding to this to respond to Oofta. I am responding to this because this was a misrepresentation of my argument, and since I seem to have trouble with people understanding what my actual argument is, I need to clarify, before I am further sucked down into the abyss of people not understanding my arguments and accusing me of things I never said.
> 
> 
> Because we had some bad designs, it is possible for DnD to have things that are badly designed. Because it is possible for DnD to have things that are badly designed, then it is possible that we have things which need to be redesigned or ejected from the game of DnD. Because it is possible that we have things in DnD which need to be redesigned or ejected from the game of DnD, then it is possible that one of those things is Halflings.
> ...




There is no such thing as perfection.  There have been some odd design decisions in the past, things I don't agree with.   that doesn't mean that just because you believe something is poorly designed that everyone will agree with you.   I don't think that the halfling is poorly designed.  Feel free to disagree.

The reason I mentioned the duckbunny was because I thought you had mentioned it as poor design but I could be hallucinating. While it definitely shows up on a lot of lists of badly designed monsters, those lists miss the intent of the entry.  It's deliberately designed to be a joke.


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## Chaosmancer (Oct 31, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> My once-housecat (RIP), as evidenced by some scars I still bear, would beg to differ.
> 
> Cats of nearly all types rake things with their claws as an attack method.  A Demon-cat would of course raise this to a dialled-to-eleven art form.




_sigh_

Yes, cat's can rake. That is a possibility. That is  not what the claw's main purpose is. Why do you think so many felines pounce with both front paws extended and their claws fully extended when they go in for a kill? The purpose is to latch on and get the far more dangerous teeth into play. The fact that they can also swipe does not change this fact. 

Swiping with claws is a deterrent, to inflict pain and get a larger creature to back off. Swatting without the paws is for little creatures. Pouncing with the goal of hooking and going for the bite to kill is how felines hunt larger prey for the kill.



Lanefan said:


> If it was intended as a more mundane Prime Material creature of the woods or plains I'd agree with you completely.  But it's a Demon.  Forget the normal physics - none of that applies to Demons!




Then don't draw demons with prominent ligaments we are supposed to ignore. That is like drawing a creature with a crab claw and expecting us to reason that the crab claw seperates into fingers, because it is a demon. If you want it to have fingers, you need to draw that, not say "its a demon! No rules!" and make a bad design.



Lanefan said:


> EDIT to add: it just occurred to me that the obvious use for the heads/mouths would be some sort of two-directional breath weapon...
> 
> I hadn't seen a Gibbering Mouther in play for ages until our PCs met and killed a few in last weekend's session.




Sure, it could be used for a breath weapon. There is zero art of this thing using a breath weapon. So I did not just assume it had a breath weapon.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The problem is that if it did have a ball and socket joint with that range of motion, it wouldn't have such obvious and prominent achille's tendons as depicted in the art.
> 
> Look, I know that "it is a fantasy creature" is a big deal, but if you want to convince someone that something is an orange, you don't draw an apple. Those legs are not designed to rotate as ball and socket joints, the design is wrong for that conclusion. They could have done that. They didn't.



I know that.

But again, the creature’s anatomy may be variable.  Standard knee joint when cartwheeling, rapidly (or instantaneously) changing to a B&S joint _as needed_. We’re just seeing it in a single moment.

I think of all those creatures from Asian sci-fi/horror/fantasy with impossible anatomy, like Zeiram, or Lovecraftian horrors.


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## Faolyn (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So... you literally have read nothing and cared nothing for the paragraphs I have written, have utterly dismissed my analysis as a "snap decision" and just wanted to berate me for "wasting my own time"
> 
> Well, I certainly wasted time in thinking you had a serious interest in the answer to your own question and would give my answer a considered chance instead of declaring I am wrong because of things that had nothing to do with my answer.



I read your post. Do you think I was supposed to suddenly say "Wow, Chaosmancer was right all along!"?

I asked what was wrong with it. Your answer was that it looks dumb, therefore it was objectively bad, because you didn't seem to get that it was a fantastic beast that doesn't have to fit real-world biology and you apparently didn't try to think about it.


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## Lanefan (Oct 31, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The thing isn't what did and didn't exist in a specific century. I don't care about having a historically accurate game. What annoys me are people who declare that their style of game cannot accept certain influeces, because they only allow a specific flavor of thing, and then ignore the fact that their games ALSO have a bunch of things in them from various influences outside that specific flavor they claim to "only" allow, and are excluding things that could reasonably exist.



For my part, I'm quite up-front about having it that in my setting some things (e.g. sailing ships, armour, mapmaking) have been developed to a much "later" era than have other things (gunpowder, firearms, steam power); and that faux-cultures from widely different historical periods can and do exist at the same time, occasionally borrowing/stealing each others' tech.



> Then don't draw demons with prominent ligaments we are supposed to ignore. That is like drawing a creature with a crab claw and expecting us to reason that the crab claw seperates into fingers, because it is a demon. If you want it to have fingers, you need to draw that, not say "its a demon! No rules!" and make a bad design.



In Pirates III: At World's End there's a creature that, when first seen, looks and behaves like a smooth rounded stone maybe six or eight inches across.

It is in fact a small intelligent crab-like creature, as soon becomes evident in the film.

If I draw that creature as a stone, does that mean it's then not allowed to be designed as a crab?


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Then don't draw demons with prominent ligaments we are supposed to ignore. That is like drawing a creature with a crab claw and expecting us to reason that the crab claw seperates into fingers, because it is a demon. If you want it to have fingers, you need to draw that, not say "its a demon! No rules!" and make a bad design.



Or..you can quite reasonably argue that artists' depictions are not the same as photographs and that the reason there aren't any photographs is that the creatures are bound by our imaginations rather than any kind of physical reality. Imagination trumps art.


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## Zubatcarteira (Nov 1, 2022)

I'm thinking it spins sideways like a Beyblade, that'd destroy anything in its path.


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## James Gasik (Nov 1, 2022)

Zubatcarteira said:


> I'm thinking it spins sideways like a Beyblade, that'd destroy anything in its path.



The game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, has Buers as enemies.  The standard versions do move in a wheel-like fashion.  There's an advanced Buer Chariot which is four Buers acting as wheels to a cart.


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## Bohandas (Nov 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If it was intended as a more mundane Prime Material creature of the woods or plains I'd agree with you completely.  But it's a Demon.  Forget the normal physics - none of that applies to Demons!




The kicker is that it's actually not. It's based on a mythical demon but the roving mauler is actually a neutral aligned magical beast (refrence: Tome of Magic, page 86, column 2)


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I know that.
> 
> But again, the creature’s anatomy may be variable.  Standard knee joint when cartwheeling, rapidly (or instantaneously) changing to a B&S joint _as needed_. We’re just seeing it in a single moment.
> 
> I think of all those creatures from Asian sci-fi/horror/fantasy with impossible anatomy, like Zeiram, or Lovecraftian horrors.




The thing that bother me is if that was the intention, then they should have designed it in such a way to make that clear. If the intent was that it has shapeshifting legs, show that it has shapeshifting legs. Don't depict it "in a single moment" in such a way that makes it pure guesswork what you actually intended. 

I wasn't aware of Zeiram so I looked it up, and that is a FAR superior design. The initial design is simple and conceals the monster's true nature, which is perfect for a horror monster that is supposed to have a reveal. However, even in that version you can see hints of something strange. Then there was another shot which depicted in in closer to a "true form" for the final battle. 

But the best artwork that highlights what I'm talking about was actually this bit of fanart, which captures a moment that is exactly what you should do if you have a creature whose purpose is to have a strange anatomy and can only depict that quickly in a single pose 





And action shot, which shows a blend between the two forms I mentioned from the movie screenshots. Because if I only have a single still frame to work with, then I need to show it in action if I want people to understand what it can do. I don't show it in a way that makes it trivially easy to misunderstand what the creature is, to the point where other people have to come in and make up new reasons that supposedly get to "the truth" about the creature.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 1, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I read your post. Do you think I was supposed to suddenly say "Wow, Chaosmancer was right all along!"?




No, I expected that if you disagreed with my points, you would discuss them in a mature manner. Instead



Faolyn said:


> I asked what was wrong with it. Your answer was that it looks dumb, therefore it was objectively bad, because you didn't seem to get that it was a fantastic beast that doesn't have to fit real-world biology and you apparently didn't try to think about it.




You simplify my response into "it looks dumb" which I never said was the reason I disliked it, ignore all the reasons I actually gave for disliking it, put words into my mouth about "objectivity" that I never claimed, accuse me of ignorance AND of not thinking things through DESPITE my reasonings that I gave which clearly show I DID think it through to a large degree. 

So, congrats, you have shown that you just wanted to waste my time. After all, you have never once engaged a single criticism I gave except for the impossible to see second head, and instead have devolved to insult after insult to try and beat me down into silence.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For my part, I'm quite up-front about having it that in my setting some things (e.g. sailing ships, armour, mapmaking) have been developed to a much "later" era than have other things (gunpowder, firearms, steam power); and that faux-cultures from widely different historical periods can and do exist at the same time, occasionally borrowing/stealing each others' tech.




Which I appreciate. But it does lead to bizarre situations. Steam power was discovered incredibly early, because of course it was. All it takes is boiling a pot of water with a lid on top to realize steam power is a thing. And you have sewers, so you have pipes. Now, maybe you don't have locomotives, because the boiler engine took longer, but you have sailing ships that use large sails, waterwheels, and steam. It therefore could be conceived that SOMEONE has figured out you can use steam to move a wheel made of sails. And once you add magic to the list, then there are things that can be logically put forth as happening. 


I think what frustrates me is often running into DMs who don't realize that there are holes and inconsistencies already, and then react hostilely to a player who doesn't see a hole, but instead sees a thing that they can add to the story. And those DMs are often the same ones constantly telling us other DMs that our inspirations and the things we use to fill in those gaps are "not DnD" and therefore shouldn't count when discussing the game.



Lanefan said:


> In Pirates III: At World's End there's a creature that, when first seen, looks and behaves like a smooth rounded stone maybe six or eight inches across.
> 
> It is in fact a small intelligent crab-like creature, as soon becomes evident in the film.
> 
> If I draw that creature as a stone, does that mean it's then not allowed to be designed as a crab?




If you just draw a stone, and expect me to realize that it is really a crab, you've made a bad design decision. 

If instead, you do something like what was done for coin mimics





Where you show it as the disguised form AND as the mobile "true form" then you have made a good design decision. Because I don't have to guess what you mean by "this rock is a crab" I can see it. 

Again, if you only have a single still image, and you have important information to convey, then you need to convey that information in that image. Whether it is secret crabs, mimic coins, fungi people with tentacle heads, or shapeshifting legs, you need to make sure your design gives the viewer everything they need to know about the creature's body. And if you can't do that in a single image, then you need to make multiple images.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 1, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Or..you can quite reasonably argue that artists' depictions are not the same as photographs and that the reason there aren't any photographs is that the creatures are bound by our imaginations rather than any kind of physical reality. Imagination trumps art.




When discussing an artistic design, imagination does not trump art. 

I'm honestly flabbergasted by this entire squad of people telling me that the intent of the piece of art meant to tell us what this creature is was solely to make us read the text and imagine what the creature "really" looks like, because the art isn't supposed to do that, our imaginations are supposed to do that. 

I expect better from artists than for them to give me crap and expect me to turn it into gold. That, or I simply am too used to amazing artists who can seemingly do this impossible thing of making a well-designed art piece that depicts a creature in a compelling way. 

Art isn't bound to "physical reality" either. It is imagination given visual form.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 1, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Beholders are original to D&D, and thus don't share the halfling's issue of being transparently derivative. *They also have the rule of cool in their favor, which halflings don't.*



Oof. Hard opposite on that one. Beholders are one of the goofiest things in D&D, whereas halflings are cool. 


Oofta said:


> I kind of like the idea that a demon's physical essence can be so chaotic that we can't make sense of it so our brain does it's best to make sense of it and it ends up looking like a pinwheel lion.



That’s how I treat angels, too, and most gods. It’s only the spirits of the land, trees, river, sky, moon, the hunt, as well as most Fey, Jinn, and similar creatures, that can really be honestly contended with by a mortal mind. Well, insofar as mortal minds contend with _anything _honestly.

One Angel can be described as a wheel of eyes, while another looks like a man with lightning for a face and glowing skin and 6 sets of wings, once covering their face.

A Watcher might appear as a man with 5 heads (and one of them’s a lion!) and several sets of wings.

In all cases they’re nature is ineffable, but our minds try to interpret it into something vaguely sensible. Something describable.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> When discussing an artistic design, imagination does not trump art.
> 
> I'm honestly flabbergasted by this entire squad of people telling me that the intent of the piece of art meant to tell us what this creature is was solely to make us read the text and imagine what the creature "really" looks like, because the art isn't supposed to do that, our imaginations are supposed to do that.
> 
> ...



When I engage with a piece of rpg art of a creature that does not exist, I assume that art is inspirational not authoritative and is intended to complement the other descriptive material. 

One aspect of the consideration of how I should use the art would be to be aware of the stylistic inspirations for the art in question. Is it photo-realistic comic book cover art, is it tarot art, tribal art, religious or occult iconography, medieval tapestry, mosaic, etc? The less recognizably representational the style, and the more exotic the creature, the less weight the art carries. 

An image based on an engraving for an occult dictionary entry for a demon president of hell..doesn't carry a lot if weight for me.


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## James Gasik (Nov 1, 2022)

And then there's art that's misleading, like people who insist (due to some D&D Mandela effect) that Kobolds used to be dog-men, despite always having been stated to lay eggs, based on the way their language is stated to sound, and their pre-3e art.

Also, creatures native to other planes have no particular need to conform to any biological logic, and often don't.  Modrons are part machine and part biological, due to the nature of their plane of origin.  Archons can be simple spheres of light, animal-headed, or fully humanoid.  Indeed, as I recall, it used to be that certain extraplanar creatures, if encountered on the Prime Material, were not even in their actual bodies, but in temporary bodies composed of matter of the Prime, so that if they were destroyed, they simply reformed on their home Plane no worse for wear (though they may not be able to return any time soon).

In the Ethereal Plane, you can encounter something that looks like a skeletal platypus that can consume psionic ability, magical power, and Intelligence; despite it's weird appearance, it's certainly not undead!

So yeah, expecting a D&D critter to conform to any sort of logic is a bit suspect.  This is a game where a Gorgon is a bull with a metal hide that breathes a gas that turns people to stone, after all!


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 1, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> When I engage with a piece of rpg art of a creature that does not exist, I assume that art is inspirational not authoritative and is intended to complement the other descriptive material.
> 
> One aspect of the consideration of how I should use the art would be to be aware of the stylistic inspirations for the art in question. Is it photo-realistic comic book cover art, is it tarot art, tribal art, religious or occult iconography, medieval tapestry, mosaic, etc? The less recognizably representational the style, and the more exotic the creature, the less weight the art carries.
> 
> An image based on an engraving for an occult dictionary entry for a demon president of hell..doesn't carry a lot if weight for me.




So, before I can understand an artwork that is supposed to help me understand a monster, I need to first do research on the artists inspiration and find out where they found the creature that they are just copying. Then I can decide whether or not the art is supposed to be trusted to give me an accurate depiction of the creature. 

So, therefore I should absolutely discount the art of the Bullette and the Owlbear as holding any weight whatsoever, correct? They show me absolutely nothing of what those creatures look like, because the art for them was based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which was based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which was  based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which as based on a plastic toy. 

Or, and this may be a crazy idea, I can assume that an artist whose job it was to show me a creature and how it appears, did their job as an artist and showed me a creature and how it appears.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, before I can understand an artwork that is supposed to help me understand a monster, I need to first do research on the artists inspiration and find out where they found the creature that they are just copying. Then I can decide whether or not the art is supposed to be trusted to give me an accurate depiction of the creature.
> 
> So, therefore I should absolutely discount the art of the Bullette and the Owlbear as holding any weight whatsoever, correct? They show me absolutely nothing of what those creatures look like, because the art for them was based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which was based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which was  based on rpg art of a creature that does not exist, which as based on a plastic toy.
> 
> Or, and this may be a crazy idea, I can assume that an artist whose job it was to show me a creature and how it appears, did their job as an artist and showed me a creature and how it appears.



Is there anything in the post you are responding to that suggests that the art has zero weight?

If all the art was done as stained glass portraiture, or cartoon, or mosaic, would you suggest that artists have not "done their job" because they have not presented their assigned impossible creatures "how they really are"?

Do you judge portraiture, still lives, and landscapes by how closely the art resembles the subject?

Do you find it impossible to differentiate between more and less representational styles of art without doing any research?

Do you really think the only options are zero weight and whatever weighting you are using?

What I've suggested is that the art is there to provide fuel for the imagination, not to serve as evidence in a courtroom. And the amount of work your imagination may have to do depends on the art, the subject, and what you, the user, need to be satisfied.


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## Umbran (Nov 1, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, congrats, you have shown that you just wanted to waste my time. After all, you have never once engaged a single criticism I gave except for the impossible to see second head, and instead have devolved to insult after insult to try and beat me down into silence.




*Mod Note:*
Next time, just walk away.  Disengaging silently is probably more constructive than this - people on the internet generally do not learn from your anger.


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## billd91 (Nov 1, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> And then there's art that's misleading, like people who insist (due to some D&D Mandela effect) that Kobolds used to be dog-men, despite always having been stated to lay eggs, based on the way their language is stated to sound, and their pre-3e art.



*Was* the art misleading? Or was it part of the content, approved by the editors in multiple instances, that presented kobolds to the players/DMs in 1e? The art may not have underscored that the kobolds laid eggs, but, absent a text description of their heads/faces plus the art, it isn't really a Mandela effect that kobolds were seen as little dog-like humanoids. It's just an impression based on incomplete information, not a false memory.


----------



## James Gasik (Nov 1, 2022)

billd91 said:


> *Was* the art misleading? Or was it part of the content, approved by the editors in multiple instances, that presented kobolds to the players/DMs in 1e? The art may not have underscored that the kobolds laid eggs, but, absent a text description of their heads/faces plus the art, it isn't really a Mandela effect that kobolds were seen as little dog-like humanoids. It's just an impression based on incomplete information, not a false memory.



Oh maybe, it's just how conversations about kobolds seem to go.  Person A says: I miss when Kobolds were dog-people, not lizard-people!  Person B says: they were never really dog-people!  Person A insists they were, and when presented with the evidence to the contrary, starts to feel like they have slipped into another universe!


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## Cadence (Nov 1, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Oh maybe, it's just how conversations about kobolds seem to go.  Person A says: I miss when Kobolds were dog-people, not lizard-people!  Person B says: they were never really dog-people!  Person A insists they were, and when presented with the evidence to the contrary, starts to feel like they have slipped into another universe!



It feels like they were factually dog-like people in at least one semi-popular early version of the game...


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## James Gasik (Nov 1, 2022)

Cadence said:


> It feels like they were factually dog-like people in at least one semi-popular early version of the game...
> 
> View attachment 265413



Well actually, if we go back far enough, the tale becomes even more confusing...


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## Faolyn (Nov 1, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> So yeah, expecting a D&D critter to conform to any sort of logic is a bit suspect.  This is a game where a Gorgon is a bull with a metal hide that breathes a gas that turns people to stone, after all!







"AMong the manifold and divers sorts of Beasts which are bred in Africk, it is thought that the *_*Gorgon *_is brought forth in that Countrey. It is a fearful and terrible beast to behold, it it hath high and thick eye-lids, eyes not very great, but much like an Oxes or Bugils, but all flery-bloudy, which neither look directly forward; nor yet upwards, but continually down to the earth, and there∣fore are called in Greek, Catobleponta. From the crown of their head down to their nose they have a long hanging mane, which make them to look fearfully. It eateth deadly and poysonful herbs, and if at any time he see a Bull or other creature whereof he is afraid, he presently causeth his mane to stand upright, and being so lifted up, *opening his lips, and gaping wide, sendeth forth of his throat a certain sharp and horrible breath, which infecteth and poysoneth the air above his head, so that all living creatures which draw in the breath of that air are grievously afflicted thereby, losing both voyce and sight, they fall into lethal and deadly Convulsions.* It is bred in Hesperia and Lybia."



			The history of four-footed beasts and serpents describing at large their true and lively figure, their several names, conditions, kinds, virtues ... countries of their breed, their love and hatred to mankind, and the wonderful work by Edward Topsell 
		


The petrifaction bit is probably just because of Medusa and _those _gorgons. While the text doesn't say metal plates, it does say "scales like a dragon" and turning them into metal was probably just to make it more supernatural.


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## Bohandas (Nov 1, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Well actually, if we go back far enough, the tale becomes even more confusing...View attachment 265417
> View attachment 265418
> View attachment 265419




That's not confusing at all, that's the original meaning of the word, which was just a synonym for "goblin". There's a trend in fantasy literature and D&D in particular to take synonymous words for a type of monster (especially if that monster is only vaguely defined in the popular imagination or has a lot of variation to it) and make the different words apply to diffetent variations on the theme, rather than remaining synonymous. Compare the separation of "demon", "devil", and "fiend" (edit: and "ghoul" too, for that matter) into different (albeit sometimes overlapping) concepts. Or the existence of the Orcs, If I recall correctly, prior to tolkien "orc" was just a weird regional version of the word "ogre" rather than a seperate monster. And then there's the whole "gorgon" thing that we've also been discussing in this thread.


Now that I think of it, this sort of thing could actually solve the issue that I have with the halflings being an inconsistent mishmash of new ideas and derivative ideas. What we need is a seperate "hobbit" creature to soak up all the derivative ideas while the "halfling" race would retain the original ideas and both would be defined and the derivative ideas would be safely quarantined


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 1, 2022)

I imagined the kobolds in the 2nd Ed with a look close to the version of Capcom arcade. 

Maybe in their origin they were goblinoids but after experiments by dragons they became reptilian "dracotouched".


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 2, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Is there anything in the post you are responding to that suggests that the art has zero weight?




While I'm sure I can waste my time arguing with you about how you said "little weight" and that doesn't mean "zero weight", I really don't think that is constructive when it was clear what I have meant. 

Especially in light of the posts from multiple people about how the image depicted can't be trusted to be accurate, since it is a fantasy creature and therefore doesn't follow the rules. Additionally, we had that little aside about the angels and how some monsters are just "what our mortal minds can comprehend" and not what they actually look like. 

I have zero interest of litigating the difference between "little" and "zero" in this current environment.



Gammadoodler said:


> If all the art was done as stained glass portraiture, or cartoon, or mosaic, would you suggest that artists have not "done their job" because they have not presented their assigned impossible creatures "how they really are"?




Funny, it doesn't look like that art was created on stained glass. Also, cartoons DO depict how it looks, some worlds are cartoon worlds, not photo realistic worlds, and so if it does not show how that cartoon world actually looks, then it is a bad job. 

But frankly, this has nothing to do with the criticisms I have leveled against the design, and is just a pure sophistry that "well, if the art was done in a different medium or a different style, then it would be considered differently" Which is entirely pointless since I'm not discussing an art that has been done in a different medium or a different style, but the art I posted.



Gammadoodler said:


> Do you judge portraiture, still lives, and landscapes by how closely the art resembles the subject?




If someone draws a landscape of a hill that looks like an ocean, I'm going to say they did a bad job of portraying a hill. Now, maybe they are doing something symbolic, and you can find art that was made to make a land of rolling hills look like an ocean, using a visual metaphor, but that is clearly different than what I'm talking about. Because the visual metaphor is clear in their design and artistic choices. It isn't like they tried to make a land of rolling hills that looked like an ocean that really looked like a urban skyscraper. Which again, would be a failure of their artistic design. 

If the artist of the Ravager intended it to have shapeshifting legs without bones and tendons, then depicting it with bones and tendons UTTERLY FAILS THEIR DESIGN. I do not understand how this is such a contentious point of discussion.



Gammadoodler said:


> Do you find it impossible to differentiate between more and less representational styles of art without doing any research?




Do you?



Gammadoodler said:


> Do you really think the only options are zero weight and whatever weighting you are using?




Does it matter since I can't even get to the point of "the thing clearly looks like X"? Seriously, you all are jumping down my throat to insist things that you cannot see must be true, just to justify a bad design as not actually being bad. I do not understand it. The thing doesn't have shapeshifting legs, that is abundantly clear. If the artist wanted to depict shapeshifting legs, they should have done so, not relied on the observer to psychically understand that this fantasy creature actually looks differently than it was depicted.



Gammadoodler said:


> What I've suggested is that the art is there to provide fuel for the imagination, not to serve as evidence in a courtroom. And the amount of work your imagination may have to do depends on the art, the subject, and what you, the user, need to be satisfied.




And what I'm suggesting is that if you are supposed to look at the Mona Lisa and say "She is clearly supposed to be the King of Germany" then the artist did a bad job. You people are adding unsubstantiated "facts" to this creature solely to defend something that does not need to be defended. It doesn't hurt the game to admit that the Ravager was a bad design. I don't care that if I look at a cartoon illustration of a person it has been simplified from the photo of the person, because this isn't a cartoon design, this is much closer to a photo realistic design and so I don't need to consider "what if it was a cartoon and you had to interpret" or "what if it was a stained glass design instead". Because we have the art, we aren't guessing at what the art looks like, it is right there.


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## Faolyn (Nov 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And what I'm suggesting is that if you are supposed to look at the Mona Lisa and say "She is clearly supposed to be the King of Germany" then the artist did a bad job. You people are adding unsubstantiated "facts" to this creature solely to defend something that does not need to be defended. It doesn't hurt the game to admit that the Ravager was a bad design. I don't care that if I look at a cartoon illustration of a person it has been simplified from the photo of the person, because this isn't a cartoon design, this is much closer to a photo realistic design and so I don't need to consider "what if it was a cartoon and you had to interpret" or "what if it was a stained glass design instead". Because we have the art, we aren't guessing at what the art looks like, it is right there.



It also doesn't hurt _you _to admit that your opinion (that it's a bad design) is not an objective fact, and that clearly a lot of people here have managed to get some good ideas for it, which means that it's clearly not a bad design for _them._

You don't like the monster? Fine. So what? Don't use it in any of your games.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> While I'm sure I can waste my time arguing with you about how you said "little weight" and that doesn't mean "zero weight", I really don't think that is constructive when it was clear what I have meant.
> 
> Especially in light of the posts from multiple people about how the image depicted can't be trusted to be accurate, since it is a fantasy creature and therefore doesn't follow the rules. Additionally, we had that little aside about the angels and how some monsters are just "what our mortal minds can comprehend" and not what they actually look like.
> 
> ...



I find your expressed concern for your time curiously at odds with the verbosity of your response.

It's not a matter of litigating the difference between little and zero. It is the existence of a range of values rather than a binary set of outcomes. As I said in the post which you chose to reply to, the more fantastical the creature, the less representational the art, the more load you should expect to pick up with imagination and other descriptive material (and vice versa).


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## Lanefan (Nov 2, 2022)

I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.

Anyone got any ideas?


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## Bohandas (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?




It should breathe guns, guns that shoot knives


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## James Gasik (Nov 2, 2022)

How about a devastating roar that inflicts sonic damage and causes people to panic?  Or fire.  Fire is always good.


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## Lanefan (Nov 2, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> How about a devastating roar that inflicts sonic damage and causes people to panic?  Or fire.  Fire is always good.



OK, the damaging roar with a fear (or stun?) effect is a possibility.

Or. as it has two mouths, it sucks in all the sound on one side (giving a cone-shaped 'silence' effect) and blasts it out the other.


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## AnotherGuy (Nov 2, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> It should breathe guns, guns that shoot knives



Who brings a knife shooting breath weapon to a breath weapon gun fight?


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## Oofta (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> OK, the damaging roar with a fear (or stun?) effect is a possibility.
> 
> Or. as it has two mouths, it sucks in all the sound on one side (giving a cone-shaped 'silence' effect) and blasts it out the other.



Or it has one mouth that absorbs all sound in a cone and then expels it in a roar.  It works like an anti-verbal-component-magic-zone, kind of like a limited version of a beholders eye ray.


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## RoughCoronet0 (Nov 2, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> It should breathe guns, guns that shoot knives



How about a gun that shoots more guns that then shoots chainsaw bullets?!


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## EzekielRaiden (Nov 2, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> It should breathe guns, guns that shoot knives



Guns that shoot _shurikens and lightning._


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## Cadence (Nov 2, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Guns that shoot _shurikens and lightning._




Guns that shoot sharks with lasers on their heads!


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## James Gasik (Nov 2, 2022)

In a Vampire game, I had the players encounter a Son of Ether Mage (think retro-futurist mad scientist) who was a brain in a jar (he needed their help because the robots he used for his all purpose sensory organs/hands had gone rogue due to sunspot activity).  In payment, he offered them some of his strange inventions.  Among these was a heavily modified Desert Eagle that fired rather chunky bullets; in mid-flight, the bullet would split apart, revealing a tiny ninja robot with a sword, who would slash at it's intended victim before breaking into a zillion parts.  This allowed the weapon to deal lethal damage (important when fighting vampires) and be more effective against ballistic armors (the theory was, body armor that is bullet-resistant is probably not going to be sword-resistant).


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?



I mean, if it's made up of cat parts, i assume it's primary weapon is derision.

"Enemies All creatures this creature can see within 60 feat feel a crushing sense of inadequacy and disappointment with their contributions to society. Psychic damage + half movement speed on a failed Charisma save."


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 2, 2022)

Bullet with a gun that shoots guns that shoot bullets


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## RoughCoronet0 (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?



Second recommendation, buzzsaw hairballs.


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## Faolyn (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?



Beur is a demon of philosophy.

So, some sort of psychic scream.


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## Faolyn (Nov 2, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> It should breathe guns, guns that shoot knives


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 2, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> It also doesn't hurt _you _to admit that your opinion (that it's a bad design) is not an objective fact, and that clearly a lot of people here have managed to get some good ideas for it, which means that it's clearly not a bad design for _them._
> 
> You don't like the monster? Fine. So what? Don't use it in any of your games.




Why are you people so obsessed with a thing I never claimed? I have never once said my thoughts on the design are "objective". I have said that, _repeatedly_. If all I needed to do was not claim that my opinions, logic, thoughts, posts, emotions, ect are not objective to get you people to stop, then none of you would ever have responded to me because I've never claimed objectively unassailable facts. And in fact, this is the second time I've spoken to you specifically Faolyn in telling you I have not tried to claim some "objectivity" that you can rail against.

Yes, I know I said the words "it is a bad design" and somehow that made you think that I was speaking on high as the ultimate authority of all things objectively true, but that's you thrusting your ideas into my post, not my post itself. 

And sure, people have had some goods ideas for it. By adding in things that do not exist at all. I could argue that dinosaurs make wonderful artillery units by saying that I just believe that they have internal recoilless railguns in their shoulders, but if the artwork doesn't show railguns in their shoulders, it is a little hard for me to claim that the picture of the dinosaur led me to that conclusion. After all, there is nothing in the picture that supports that conclusion. And, in fact, evidence that leads to that conclusion being false.

And, as for your "so what" as I explained. This entire thing spawned out of a single idea. The idea that it is possible for DnD to have bad content. That's it, that's the "so what?". It is possible that not all DnD content ever created over the course of 50 years is good. Such a simple thing to try and establish.


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## Lanefan (Nov 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And sure, people have had some goods ideas for it. By adding in things that do not exist at all. I could argue that dinosaurs make wonderful artillery units by saying that I just believe that they have internal recoilless railguns in their shoulders, but if the artwork doesn't show railguns in their shoulders, it is a little hard for me to claim that the picture of the dinosaur led me to that conclusion. After all, there is nothing in the picture that supports that conclusion. And, in fact, evidence that leads to that conclusion being false.



You're the DM - you want 'em to have railguns in their shoulders?  Then - ##boom## - now they got railguns in their shoulders.

(says the player whose character still has the "frickin' laser beam" she once looted from the head of a shark...)


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 2, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I find your expressed concern for your time curiously at odds with the verbosity of your response.




When I write, I am verbose. That is why it is getting more and more frustrating to try and hold any sort of conversation on this forum. Because I will spent multiple hours making responses, with the thought that I will be able to hold an actual conversation.

Then I get buried in strawmen, false accusations, and people demanding that I be silent.

It is infuriating.



Gammadoodler said:


> It's not a matter of litigating the difference between little and zero. It is the existence of a range of values rather than a binary set of outcomes. As I said in the post which you chose to reply to, the more fantastical the creature, the less representational the art, the more load you should expect to pick up with imagination and other descriptive material (and vice versa).




Nothing about my post proposed a binary set of outcomes. You are making that up.

The creature being fantastical has nothing to do with the amount of "imagination" and "other descriptive material" I should be forced to consider before judging the art. Unicorns are intensely fantastical creatures, capable of flight, speech, magic, teleportation, having silver blood that grants immortality, unfailing senses that move beyond the physical, ect ect ect. Their design is a horse with a spiral horn. Not exactly something that needs a lot of explanation despite how intensely fantastical and magical they can be portrayed in media.

Also, again, this is not a "less representational" art style. I keep repeating it, you keep ignoring it. The art I posted is this one.





You will note, this is not a stained glass window.
This is not a cartoon.
This is not done in Crystal Cubism style.
It is not done in a mosaic style
It is not done in a futurism style.


So, since this is done in a rather realistic style, I don't need to assume that this is "less representational" because... it isn't. It just flatly isn't done in a style that demands intense interpretation of symbolic shapes, that is simplified to reduce detail, or made of a specific material like shards of glass or newspaper clippings. Your insistence that it must be treated as though it is is maddening, and if it continues I will just start insisting that we must treat it like a fully detailed, holographic 3-D model because that is just as accurate as treating it as a cartoon or a stained glass window.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I'm still stuck on what would be an appropriate breath weapon(s) for that buzzsaw lion-demon from a few pages back.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?




Fire is the easy one. Lions are creatures depicting royalty, power, and passion, so flames fit both symbolically and pallete wise. 

Going with radiant would match their associations with suns, as a lion head with mane has been used as a sun icon more than once.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 2, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> You're the DM - you want 'em to have railguns in their shoulders?  Then - ##boom## - now they got railguns in their shoulders.
> 
> (says the player whose character still has the "frickin' laser beam" she once looted from the head of a shark...)




All right, I didn't think I needed a visual aid, but let's try this from the top. 

This picture right here? 





If I said that this picture depicted the dreaded Cyber T-Rex with shoulder mounted cannons, I would be wrong. I would be wrong, because there are not shoulder mounted cannons on in this picture. 

I can add them, but I would be adding them. From the design of the picture, you cannot assume that there are shoulder mounted cannons. If your job was to bring someone a picture of a T-Rex with shoulder mounted cannons (a fantastical beast that does not exist) and you brought them this artwork, you have failed your job. Because this isn't a T-Rex with shoulder mounted cannons. 

This picture here?




This is a picture of a T-Rex, with shoulder mounted cannons. I can say that accurately, because the picture shows shoulder mounted cannons. If your job was to bring someone a picture of a T-Rex with shoulder mounted cannons, this would be a good job, because it has shoulder mounted cannons. 



So, whether or not I can add them as a DM has NOTHING to do with anything I have said. And with that in mind, let's look at the Ravager again. Right here





Now, if I am supposed to look and this and say "this is a monster whose legs lack bones and tendons" then this is a bad design. It is a bad design, because I can clearly see bones and tendons in the legs. This is not a design which indicates that the legs are amorphous, shape-changing, or lacking coherent structures. In fact, especially the left leg on the ground has clearly delineated tendons and a bone joint. 

Could I, in my infinite power as the DM decide that this picture is wrong and that the creature has some other traits? Of course I could. I could decide that this thing is actually a Goat head surrounded by tongues that are covered in thorns. However, that isn't what the picture shows. So, if I am going to discuss the picture, I need to stick to what the picture shows, which isn't a goat head surrounded by thorny tongues, but is a lion head, surrounded by lion legs, that have tendons and bones like normal lion legs.


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## Oofta (Nov 2, 2022)

So we're still arguing about a picture based on a real world illustration of the buer demon from the 16th-century grimoire Pseudomonarchia Daemonum? 

What does that have to do with halflings?


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## Yora (Nov 2, 2022)

I was curious how you could talk about halflings in D&D for 2,000 posts.
Turns out you can't.


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## Faolyn (Nov 2, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Why are you people so obsessed with a thing I never claimed? I have never once said my thoughts on the design are "objective". I have said that, _repeatedly_. If all I needed to do was not claim that my opinions, logic, thoughts, posts, emotions, ect are not objective to get you people to stop, then none of you would ever have responded to me because I've never claimed objectively unassailable facts. And in fact, this is the second time I've spoken to you specifically Faolyn in telling you I have not tried to claim some "objectivity" that you can rail against.



When you say, "this is a bad design," you are saying that objectively. 

If you truly thought your belief that it's poor design was subjective, then you would not have argued with people who had ideas about how to use it. You would have ignored them or said "well, I wouldn't use it anyway because I think it's dumb" But by saying that other people are using it wrong for adding things to it, or using it in a way you wouldn't (like my idea or making them the chariot wheels for a godling, which didn't add anything to them at all), then you _are _saying your beliefs are the objectively correct ones and everyone else is wrong.

And quite frankly, _lots _of DMs rarely or _never _use monsters straight out of the book, but instead change the stats and add and remove abilities as desired, so saying that adding things to a monster somehow invalidates the idea that the monster isn't bad is just... pointless. You'd be saying that a huge number of DMs are playing the game wrong, rather than playing the game the way the books actually suggest.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 3, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> When I write, I am verbose. That is why it is getting more and more frustrating to try and hold any sort of conversation on this forum. Because I will spent multiple hours making responses, with the thought that I will be able to hold an actual conversation.
> 
> Then I get buried in strawmen, false accusations, and people demanding that I be silent.
> 
> ...



If you are going to spend the time to indulge your tendency to be verbose, perhaps you could also spend the time to address the actual rather than assumed content of a post.

What has come across as binary in your posts has been your tendency to do things like replace "little weight" with "zero weight" and then act as if there is no meaningful difference in doing so.

I keep ignoring your particular opinions about the particular art because I don't feel a need to address them. I don't care that much about the particular art.

I do care about how the art is used and judged. And I find biomechanical plausibility and comprehensibility one of the more useless metrics by which to judge fantasy art, especially as the creature gets further and further from the human experience.

Your contraexamples so far, a unicorn which behaves mostly like a horse, and an owlbear which is and behaves mostly like a combination of owl and bear, are, to me, less fantastical by nature than a demon president of hell. I have never seen real demons with my naked eyes but have seen owls and bears and horses. As a result of this difference, I am more tolerant of elements in the art that seem nonsensical for "demon president" than I am for "owl+bear". And so I'm more willing to use my imagination to make sense of the nonsensical, rather than pissing on an artist for not doing their job.

(Fun story though: what in the unicorn art suggests any of the abilities you have noted? Looks like a white horse with a gold mane and a horn to me)

For the art style, it's basically an elevation. It tells you what the thing looks like from the front and that's it. It's like "art" you find in dictionaries (strange though that may seem). In the same way I would not use dictionary art to draw conclusions about creatures' nature or capabilities, so I would not use it here.

You are welcome to argue that this was a poor choice. It's your opinion. I'm inclined to call it a push given that is seem to be intended to directly reference an old timey illustration.

So again, in total, its a piece of dictionary art for a creature with zero real-world analogues. It just isn't that important to understanding how the thing "really" is.


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## bedir than (Nov 3, 2022)

Yora said:


> I was curious how you could talk about halflings in D&D for 2,000 posts.
> Turns out you can't.



I could, but not with the constant badgering from people who tell me my fun is wrong


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 3, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> When you say, "this is a bad design," you are saying that objectively.




No, I am not.



Faolyn said:


> If you truly thought your belief that it's poor design was subjective, then you would not have argued with people who had ideas about how to use it. You would have ignored them or said "well, I wouldn't use it anyway because I think it's dumb" But by saying that other people are using it wrong for adding things to it, or using it in a way you wouldn't (like my idea or making them the chariot wheels for a godling, which didn't add anything to them at all), then you _are _saying your beliefs are the objectively correct ones and everyone else is wrong.




Or, and hear me out here, I think I'm right, because I have reasons. And when asked to share those reasons, I did. And when I shared those reasons, you said I was wrong, and ignored my reasons.

If someone says Fortnight is a better game than Overwatch, that isn't an objective opinion. If they say it is better designed, that still isn't an objective opinion. *Because objective opinions do not exist*. However, if someone came up to them and asked "Well, why do you think that Fortnight is a better game".... wouldn't you expect them to answer? And they aren't going to answer "because I think it is good." I mean, they might, but that is an incredibly poor answer. They probably have based their opinion on more than that. They likely have reasons. 

And, if they gave a reason like "the gun are better balanced" and someone responded "Well, actually, if you hack the game and change the gun stats to unbalance them, it is really unbalanced" the person isn't going to be saying "well, your beliefs are valid" they are going to be saying "Why are we comparing the game as it is to a hacked version that you altered to unbalance it? That's a terrible comparison and doesn't address my reason at all!" 


I'm not reacting as someone who thinks they are the only person who could possibly see the truth. I'm reacting as a person who WAS ASKED THEIR REASONS and after given them was berated and their reasons ignored because people decided they wanted to alter the fundamental situation.



Faolyn said:


> And quite frankly, _lots _of DMs rarely or _never _use monsters straight out of the book, but instead change the stats and add and remove abilities as desired, so saying that adding things to a monster somehow invalidates the idea that the monster isn't bad is just... pointless. You'd be saying that a huge number of DMs are playing the game wrong, rather than playing the game the way the books actually suggest.




"The Oberoni Fallacy is an informal fallacy, occasionally seen in discussions of role-playing games, in which *an arguer puts forth that if a problematic rule can be fixed by the figure running the game, the problematic rule is not, in fact, problematic*."

How is "The problematic design can be fixed by the figure running the game, therefore the design is not problematic" not just a straight Oberoni Fallacy? I don't care if you alter the product, if you felt that it was only good if you altered it, it wasn't good in the first place.


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## Bohandas (Nov 3, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I do care about how the art is used and judged. And I find biomechanical plausibility and comprehensibility one of the more useless metrics by which to judge fantasy art, especially as the creature gets further and further from the human experience.




i think the real problem is that it's kind of in the middle in terms of plausibility and alienness. Sort of an uncanny valley thing, but inspiring amusement and bemusement rather than revulsion. 

As an example, to me it would seem less silly if instead of cartwheeling it flew around like Gamera. That's even less plausible, but somehow it also feels less silly.


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## James Gasik (Nov 3, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> i think the real problem is that it's kind of in the middle in terms of plausibility and alienness. Sort of an uncanny valley thing, but inspiring amusement and bemusement rather than revulsion.
> 
> As an example, to me it would seem less silly if instead of cartwheeling it flew around like Gamera. That's even less plausible, but somehow it also feels less silly.



Maybe it's a two-dimensional creature in a three-dimensional plane.  That'd make it a walking buzzsaw!


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 3, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> If you are going to spend the time to indulge your tendency to be verbose, perhaps you could also spend the time to address the actual rather than assumed content of a post.
> 
> What has come across as binary in your posts has been your tendency to do things like replace "little weight" with "zero weight" and then act as if there is no meaningful difference in doing so.




So, you saying "I give little weight to the art that was copied from a 16th century manual" is something that I should have just gone 'oh, you give it a vague amount of 'weight' that you feel is inconsequential" instead of just addressing the actual point which is that you believe any art based on an old manuscript from the middle ages shouldn't be taken seriously. Your point was that you were dismissing the idea that the art shows the creature, because of the source it was copied from. Which was also shown in the fact that you and others keep referring to it as an extraplanar fiend, when it isn't. The creature is a magical beast. Not a fiend. 

And really, you are basically taking a stance which would discount many many many pieces of artwork in the game. Which seems like a very poor stance.



Gammadoodler said:


> I keep ignoring your particular opinions about the particular art because I don't feel a need to address them. I don't care that much about the particular art.
> 
> I do care about how the art is used and judged. And I find biomechanical plausibility and comprehensibility one of the more useless metrics by which to judge fantasy art, especially as the creature gets further and further from the human experience.




So, you continuing to insist I consider how I would view the creature if it was on a stained glass window or a cartoon was... pointless. That wasn't even the point you cared about. Yet you kept bringing it up again and again. 

Weird to flex on yourself like that, but fine, you admit it wasn't a serious point of consideration.



Gammadoodler said:


> Your contraexamples so far, a unicorn which behaves mostly like a horse, and an owlbear which is and behaves mostly like a combination of owl and bear, are, to me, less fantastical by nature than a demon president of hell. I have never seen real demons with my naked eyes but have seen owls and bears and horses. As a result of this difference, I am more tolerant of elements in the art that seem nonsensical for "demon president" than I am for "owl+bear".* And so I'm more willing to use my imagination to make sense of the nonsensical, rather than pissing on an artist for not doing their job.*




"Use your imagination" being a stand in for ignoring what the artist drew and inserting your own reality in its place. 

I don't care about your tolerance level, your tolerance level has nothing to do with my points. You are fully within your rights to say "I don't care what it looks like" but saying that the design is good because you are just going to ignore the problems with the design and decide to make up solutions? That isn't a good faith look at the design. I could argue that owlbears are terribly designed because their bones are made of glass and they shatter with a single blow, but that isn't a true thing, that is just a thing I made up, and not a fair take on the Owlbear.



Gammadoodler said:


> (Fun story though: what in the unicorn art suggests any of the abilities you have noted? Looks like a white horse with a gold mane and a horn to me)




Nothing. They don't need to. My point was that unicorns as depicted in media are highly fantastic (true, as I listed abilities given to unicorns in media) and that it has nothing to do with their design, which, as you note is just a horse with a horn.



Gammadoodler said:


> For the art style, it's basically an elevation. It tells you what the thing looks like from the front and that's it. It's like "art" you find in dictionaries (strange though that may seem). In the same way I would not use dictionary art to draw conclusions about creatures' nature or capabilities, so I would not use it here.




So, you wouldn't be able to tell me anything at all about this creature in this dictionary? 





Because... I can say an awful lot authoritatively about that tiger from that picture alone. It is a bit small, but you can zoom in and even see fangs and whiskers. That there is a very good depiction of what a tiger looks like. Which makes sense, because as a picture in the dictionary, the entire goal is to present a picture that accurately shows a tiger. It would be incredibly bizarre to use a picture meant to inform to mislead.  



Gammadoodler said:


> So again, in total, its a piece of dictionary art for a creature with zero real-world analogues. It just isn't that important to understanding how the thing "really" is.




... 

You seem to have completely missed the entire point of art in a dictionary. Like, to an astounding degree. The entire point of an art piece in a dictionary is to attempt to show how the thing "really is". If it is not doing that job, it is bad art. I don't understand how you could completely dismiss art in a dictionary as not showing what the thing really looks like. I'm just utterly confused, because the very nature of a dictionary and its purpose runs counter to your point. It would be like saying the musical score in a movie isn't supposed to match the emotions of the movie. That is, in essence, the entire point of its inclusion.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 3, 2022)

I'll bite. The tiger in your dictionary art..based on the picture alone tell me..

How big is it?
What does it eat?
How fast is it?
What kinds of enviroments does it prefer?
When is it awake?
How flexible is it?
How high can it jump?
How well does it climb, fly, swim, and/or burrow?
Is it smart?
Is it aggressive?
Can it talk?
Does it live alone or in groups?
Is it dangerous to people.

What you know from that dictionary art is that it is a striped, cat-shaped creature...it's f-ing useless for drawing any conclusions beyond that.

There is no indication of scale, no context, no action...

buuuuuutt..

What accompanies  this dictionary art? The definition of "tiger", a "large, carnivorous feline"..we also get discussion of "tigerish", which discusses fierceness, cruelty, bloodthirstiness..

Perhaps...and I know I'm really reaching here..we might use the combination of art and other descriptive materials to reach some conclusions regarding the capabilities of a tiger.. and perhaps...the art, without being bad art, isn't really contributing that much to the assessment of those capabilities.


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## Lanefan (Nov 3, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> All right, I didn't think I needed a visual aid, but let's try this from the top.
> 
> This picture right here?
> 
> ...



No, but it's easy enough when describing the creature to your players to say "It kinda looks like this picture here, only with a couple of big ol' railguns mounted on its shoulders and pointing forward along each side of its head."

The picture, in other words, is in this case merely an aid to description rather than a replacement for it.  I look at the buzzsaw-lion art the same way - "Here's a vague representation you can look at and I'm about to tell you how what your characters see varies from that picture."


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## Faolyn (Nov 3, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, I am not.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And if you say that Fortnight is better than Overwatch, and someone else tells them that you're _wrong _because of X, Y, and Z... then that person is being objective here. That person is saying that their opinion is the correct one and yours is incorrect.

That is what you were doing. You were saying "this monster is badly designed" and literally fighting anyone who tried to say otherwise.



Chaosmancer said:


> How is "The problematic design can be fixed by the figure running the game, therefore the design is not problematic" not just a straight Oberoni Fallacy? I don't care if you alter the product, if you felt that it was only good if you altered it, it wasn't good in the first place.



Ever hear of the Argument From Fallacy?

But here you go--you are claiming that because people may choose to alter it (while ignoring that I wasn't altering its stats or biology at all, just using it as a domesticated or controlled beast instead of a wild one), it's a badly designed monster. You are fighting me because I disagreed with your opinion. 

So it's up to you: keep proving that you are trying to say that your opinion is the objectively correct one and that it's not good, or just shrug and admit that other people's opinions about the monster's design are as valid as yours.


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## Lanefan (Nov 3, 2022)

To get back to Hobbits (Halflings) for a sec:

I keep pretty detailed stats on my campaign, including how many sessions each individual character has appeared in.  There's been a few hundred player-characters come and go over the 14+ years this thing has been running, of which about 6% (13 of 213) were/are Hobbits.

Of the top 14 longest-serving characters in terms of sessions played, 5 of them are - wait for it - Hobbits!  The other nine are 4 Elves, 3 Humans, 1 Dwarf, and one mess who spent 2/3 of her career as an Elf then got reincarnated into a Hobbit and kept going.

For reference, the rough % played overall is about Human 40%, Elf 20%, Dwarf 10%, then various others each at less than 10%.

Conclusion: no trouble with Halflings (Hobbits) here!


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## Mind of tempest (Nov 3, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> To get back to Hobbits (Halflings) for a sec:
> 
> I keep pretty detailed stats on my campaign, including how many sessions each individual character has appeared in.  There's been a few hundred player-characters come and go over the 14+ years this thing has been running, of which about 6% (13 of 213) were/are Hobbits.
> 
> ...



do you know why your players pick halflings beyond just liking Tolkien?


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## Hussar (Nov 3, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> do you know why your players pick halflings beyond just liking Tolkien?




And to add another question, what races do you use in your game?


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## Cadence (Nov 3, 2022)

"Because it's Krynn, and Krynn doesn't have halflings, only Kender which are gnomes.  And since I saw there were no halflings allowed, and no good reason for not incuding them, I obviously needed to play one.... NOW!"


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## Lanefan (Nov 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And to add another question, what races do you use in your game?



Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc, Barbarian, and other; with "other" being a huge mish-mash of possibilities gated behind long-odds die rolling.

In terms of what players roll up, Hobbits aren't chosen any more than most other species: they're about on par with Part-Elf, Part-Orc, and Barbarian, with Dwarf just a shade higher.  All are well below Elf in popularity and Elf is in turn way below Human.  Gnome is by far the lowest, but that's somewhat intentional on my part - they're rare in the setting and thus playing one is gated behind die rolls.

Hobbits just tend to last longer.  In part this is due to sheer luck, and in part is due to their usually-high Con's tending to make them tough little buggers....yet for some reason this doesn't seem to help Dwarves very much, whose Con's trend even higher.


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## Yora (Nov 3, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Of the top 14 longest-serving characters in terms of sessions played, 5 of them are - wait for it - Hobbits!  The other nine are 4 Elves, 3 Humans, 1 Dwarf, and one mess who spent 2/3 of her career as an Elf then got reincarnated into a Hobbit and kept going.



Everything evolves into halflings.

They were the dominant species on Athas for a reason, and remain in control of the only remaining forests while everyone else has to survive in the desert.


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## Lanefan (Nov 3, 2022)

Yora said:


> Everything evolves into halflings.



In my game everything reincarnates into Hobbits...or gets made into Hobbits by other means.

I'm not kidding.  There's been four reincarnations in my current campaign, and desipte the odds of coming back as a Hobbit only being about 6%, three of them came back as Hobbits!  Previously they were Elf, Human, and Human. (the fourth was a Part-Orc who came back as an Elf, much to her immense dismay)

And yet another Hobbit was once generated by a misplaced Wish.  Party was outside a very tight opening into which none could fit and a character, who had recently picked up a wish from a luckblade and not realized it, half-jokingly said to the fighter "I wish you were smaller".  Poof - Human fighter turns into Hobbit fighter, and can now fit into the opening.

Now-Hobbit fighter swore revenge but, five in-game years later, has yet to exact such.


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## Faolyn (Nov 3, 2022)

Hussar said:


> And to add another question, what races do you use in your game?



To butt in, in one of my games, I have all the PHB races except dragonborn, and I have three halflings (well, one is half-halfling,-half-tiefling), one half-tiefling-half-elf, and a half-orc.


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## billd91 (Nov 3, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my game everything reincarnates into Hobbits...or gets made into Hobbits by other means.



That's funny. Around our games, it's gnomes. Limited number of cases, but reincarnates have been coming up all gnomes.


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## Lanefan (Nov 3, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> To butt in, in one of my games, I have all the PHB races except dragonborn, and I have three halflings (well, one is half-halfling,-half-tiefling), one half-tiefling-half-elf, and a half-orc.



So, 2.5 Halflings out of 5 characters.  Are those the only five characters the campaign has had?  If not, what's the Halfling proportion overall?

(and is a half-halfling a quarterling?)


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## Oofta (Nov 3, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> do you know why your players pick halflings beyond just liking Tolkien?




This is such an odd question to me.  Why does anyone pick any race?  You have the mechanical bits, in 5E lucky is nice feature that can come up fairly often with characters like monk that get a lot of attacks and of course the lucky feat helps the entire party.  Moving through larger creatures is also helpful.  My last halfling was ghostwise because I thought the telepathy was cool and of course people like lightfoot for hiding in the crowd.

But primarily it's just a role playing thing, much like every other race.  I've played halflings* because they happen to fit the image of a PC I want to play best.  Might as well ask why anyone plays any of the possible races.  But other than halflings being cheerful and the last person you'd expect to be a gung-ho adventurer it has little to do with Tolkien.

*_Most of my options to play are AL where any race is allowed._


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## Hussar (Nov 3, 2022)

Cadence said:


> "Because it's Krynn, and Krynn doesn't have halflings, only Kender which are gnomes. And since I saw there were no halflings allowed, and no good reason for not incuding them, I obviously needed to play one.... NOW!"




Heh. I see you’ve met my players.


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## Fifth Element (Nov 3, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> (and is a half-halfling a quarterling?)



Nope. It would be a three-quarterling. I called them treilings when I did a d20 thing that included them years ago.


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## Faolyn (Nov 3, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> So, 2.5 Halflings out of 5 characters.  Are those the only five characters the campaign has had?  If not, what's the Halfling proportion overall?
> 
> (and is a half-halfling a quarterling?)



One of the players chose to stop playing an orc (or half-orc, can't remember) and his next character was one of the halflings. We also had a player who was a gnome, but he dropped out for time-related reasons.

In my setting, "tiefling" is a thing that can happen to anyone when they reach maturity, kinda like Marvel mutants. They're also basically outcasts, thought of as being folklore-style changelings. Tieflings themselves can't breed. I gave people the option of playing as a regular tiefling or choosing to swap some racial abilities about to represent a tiefling with non-human parents. The halfling-tiefling was raised as a halfling and continues to be culturally a tiefling (although she hides her horns). The elf-tiefling was raised as an elf but left to join tiefling society (which is very nature/spirit-oriented) due to Evil Parent.

Edit: In case it matters, one of the halflings is a wizard (abjurer), one is a monk (sun soul), and the halfling-tiefling is a rogue (arcane trickster), although she nearly always plays either rogues or monks regardless of race.


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## James Gasik (Nov 3, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That's funny. Around our games, it's gnomes. Limited number of cases, but reincarnates have been coming up all gnomes.



This happened to me, the only time I've ever been _reincarnated_.  My human Fighter suddenly found himself unable to use his old weapons and armor.  I was pretty annoyed at the time; I'd died to save the party, and the only way they could bring me back was the party's Druid.  So for my efforts, I lost a level, -2 Strength (this was 3.0) and, of course, couldn't even wear my armor or shield (I had to use my Waraxe in two hands!).

I soldiered on though, and the DM apparently realized how woeful the situation was, as I was able to return to being a human *and* got to keep the Gnomish +2 Con out of the deal (I still had to make up the lost level though)!  Personally, I would have been happy to have my gear resized.

I don't mind playing a Gnome or a Halfling, as I've played both in the past, such as Royle Gladdenstone, the "world's strongest gnome" (2e Ftr/SpPriest of Flandal Steelskin with 19 Strength using a bastard sword two-handed!), all the way to Cade Emberhill (5e Halfling Ftr 7/Rogue 5), whose long and arduous quest for a lousy +1 shortbow took nearly half of his career (got to love Adventure League; you can get an Elven Oathbow in Tier 1, but not a dang shortbow!).

I'm not sure precisely what draws me to the race, I've played just about everything else at one time or another, though since I'm usually a DM, most of those careers have been short, with hardly any characters above 8th level to point at.  Being small and still able to kick monster tail does amuse me, however, though, which is probably why all but one of my shorties have been warriors.  The only exception is Sidri, a Svirfneblin Druid, who couldn't fight her way out of a cheap burlap sack, but never far from her loyal companion/mount/bodyguard, Pookie, a black bear who had the highest kill count in the campaign.

Now does it make sense for child-sized characters to be able to fight toe-to-toe with larger enemies?  As I pointed out earlier, this being D&D, where a human warrior can fight and win a melee battle with a small _kaiju_, I don't really see why not.  Especially when you do the math of a Halfling's strength-to-weight ratio.  Even in d20, where you had a -2 Strength, your carry capacity was 3/4 that of a human's, and almost all of your gear weighed half as much, meaning that Halflings were actually super strong for their size!

I know a lot of gamers like having Halflings and Gnomes around because it allows them to play "young" characters (at least in appearance) without the complications and unfortunate consequences of actually playing a underaged PC in a fun, fantastical, but also gritty and dangerous world.  And certainly, child heroes is a fantasy trope that some enjoy.

So the game, I think, would be lessened if Halflings and Gnomes weren't around.  Now the question of whether or not they belong in the PHB, well, with one exception, they always have been, so the game might not feel quite the same if they weren't.  I'd be ok with it as long as the supplement allowing them to be played was released in short order.  For a lot of DM's, Gnomes and Halflings are much more acceptable races than dragon-men, hobgoblins, or githyanki, yet all remain options for play.

Maybe Halflings have not been very iconic to D&D's official content in some time, but you still see them in other fantasy works with regularity, so I don't really see them going away.

Now something that I do, however, agree with, is that their lore and mechanics could use a reworking.  Halflings in 5e suffer a bit for being small, locking them out of heavy weapons (like, as I mentioned, a decent-sized bow), and while you can build your character for that not to be an issue, it can feel like the upsides are also quite negligible.  The current One D&D Halfling seems to be even weaker; no matter how much you like or dislike the ability to hide in a larger creature's shadow, replacing a flavorful ability with "stealth proficiency" seems to be kind of meh.

The case of the 4e Gnomes comes to mind here; they were excised from the PHB not because anyone had any real problem with them, but more because their identity as a race was just bizarre.  They were small creatures who live in homes dug into the earth, like Dwarves or Halflings.  They lived in the forest and were somewhat magical, like Elves.  They liked pranks and illusion magic.  Or sometimes strange inventions.  A lore overhaul was needed to make them unique, rather than just taking the traits of other races.

Halflings do suffer from this as well.  They are either small humans who live side by side among them, having adapted to city life...or nomads who move about in caravans or live near rivers...or pastoral bumpkins who prefer the easy life and avoid adventures like the plague!  I really miss how 3e and 4e tried to give Halflings a new identity, but 5e has doubled down on their hobbit-ness (while changing their art in...sometimes questionable ways...to make them look *less *hobbit-like!).  And they also tend to leech off of other races; stronghearts are too much like humans, tallfellows too much like elves, stouts too much like dwarves, ghostwise halflings too much like other elves, etc. etc..  

TLDR, since I know this went long: I don't want Halflings or Gnomes to go anywhere, but if they have to leave the PHB, don't let them be gone for long, and let's have the reason for that be that the developers want to take another stab at making them more interesting than "It looks like a Hobbit, but due to international copyright laws- it's not."


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## Bohandas (Nov 4, 2022)

Mind of tempest said:


> do you know why your players pick halflings beyond just liking Tolkien?




They're probably either chubby chasers or into feet



Spoiler



Like seriously, whenever I see somehing like this:



			https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODlhZmQwZWMtMDVhZi00MjlkLThhZDMtNTBjNDEyNDk0M2Q5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzkyOTg1MzE@._V1_.jpg
		


I immediately think of this:



			http://gunshowcomic.com/comics/20111118-pissworld.png


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I'll bite. The tiger in your dictionary art..based on the picture alone tell me..
> 
> How big is it?




You cannot tell that from this art alone, because there is nothing in there for scale.

Note: I never commented on how big or not a Roving Mauler was.


Gammadoodler said:


> What does it eat?




Meat, you can see the fangs and the other carnivorous features quite clearly. Also, since it is clearly a feline it would have the same dietary habits as most wild felines.



Gammadoodler said:


> How fast is it?




You cannot tell exact speed from a stationary image without perspective lines that would distort the image. However, as a quadrupedal mammal I can assume it is capable of reaching 10's of miles per hour. Even bears, which are far bulkier than the picture of the tiger, can reach 30 or more miles per hour. Additionally, with the triple "elbow" (I forget the term for this leg design) I can again draw parrallels to other creatures with that design, which are quite fast.





Gammadoodler said:


> What kinds of enviroments does it prefer?




I could not tell you the exact environment, but I can say that with the thinner coat (note how sleek it looks) that the creature would not prefer cold climates. Most mammals that live in cold climates are depicted with much more fur. Additionally, it lacks any of the traditional markers of a creature that lives in desert environments. So, while I can not detail exactly the environment it lives in, I can narrow the band significantly.



Gammadoodler said:


> When is it awake?




Impossible to tell from the picture alone. It is a feline, but felines can have multiple cycles. 

Note: I have never made a comment on when the Roving Mauler is awake.



Gammadoodler said:


> How flexible is it?




It is a feline, so as flexible as a feline. The shoulder joints on the front legs means they can't reach behind it, but they can sit and scratch their back with their hind legs. They have spinal column, so they have that flexibility, and you can see a great deal of their range of motion from the curl of the tail, the back legs being folded and the different positions of the front legs. 

I don't exactly know what scale of "flexible" we are dealing with, but they are less flexible than a contortionist or a snake, but more flexible than an elephant or a beetle.



Gammadoodler said:


> How high can it jump?




Considering the design of the back legs which allow for springs and it being a feline, quite high. At least a body length. However, with the low slung body it is better at distance jumping than high jumping.



Gammadoodler said:


> How well does it climb, fly, swim, and/or burrow?




It cannot fly, it lacks any wings or other ways to fly. 
It is bad at burrowing, the padded feet are not conducive to digging and the body shape is wrong for them to be able to burrow well. 
Swimming it difficult to tell from the picture alone, however, felines can swim so it is capable of it, as it is a feline. 
By the same logic, as a feline it is an excellent climber. Zooming in you can see the toes and as a feline you know the claws, so you know it would have a great grip. Also, the shape of the shoulders allows for "hugging" with the front limbs and "kicking" with the back limbs to climb.



Gammadoodler said:


> Is it smart?
> Is it aggressive?
> Can it talk?
> Does it live alone or in groups?




You cannot tell any of these from a picture.



Gammadoodler said:


> Is it dangerous to people.




If you were able to figure out the size, then the answer is obvious. It is a feline, and even small cats can do serious harm. Also, as a carnivore, it is a meat-eater, making it dangerous.



Gammadoodler said:


> What you know from that dictionary art is that it is a striped, cat-shaped creature...it's f-ing useless for drawing any conclusions beyond that.
> 
> There is no indication of scale, no context, no action...




_Looks back up at the list_

Well, sure it isn't good for the scale and it can't tell things that art cannot depict, like intelligence or whether it is diurnal or nocturnal, but I don't remember ever claiming that the art could tell me every possible detail of the creature. A picture is only worth a thousand words, not ten million. 

But you seriously discount how much "cat-shaped" alone can tell a person. Because cat-shaped creatures all tend to have similar features, since the "cat-shape" is the reason for those features.



Gammadoodler said:


> buuuuuutt..
> 
> What accompanies  this dictionary art? The definition of "tiger", a "large, carnivorous feline"..we also get discussion of "tigerish", which discusses fierceness, cruelty, bloodthirstiness..
> 
> Perhaps...and I know I'm really reaching here..we might use the combination of art and other descriptive materials to reach some conclusions regarding the capabilities of a tiger.. and perhaps...the art, without being bad art, isn't really contributing that much to the assessment of those capabilities.




The only thing from "large carnivorous feline" I couldn't get from the art alone is "large" 

Also, tigers are no fiercer, crueler or bloodthirsty than cats. Now, they can appear malicious, because felines play with their food, but again, I could have told you that was likely from it being a feline. 


Now, if your point is "more information can tell you more things" well, congrats, you have made a completely obvious point. However, you seem to think the picture tells us nothing at all, and you are wrong. The picture tells a lot. All you have to do is... look at it, and understand what it is telling you.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> No, but it's easy enough when describing the creature to your players to say "It kinda looks like this picture here, only with a couple of big ol' railguns mounted on its shoulders and pointing forward along each side of its head."
> 
> The picture, in other words, is in this case merely an aid to description rather than a replacement for it.  I look at the buzzsaw-lion art the same way - "Here's a vague representation you can look at and I'm about to tell you how what your characters see varies from that picture."




I don't see it that way. If the only way I can use the art is to alter it, because it is only a vague representation, then it has failed in its purpose. 

Think for a moment of all the other creatures whose artwork we have. Is Displacer beast art a "vague representation"? No. It isn't, it depicts everything about the creature's physicality that can be depicted. Same for Unicorns. Same for Bullettes. Same for froghemoths. I cannot think of  a single modern piece of Monster Manual art that we use that needs us to correct it for our players, because it is only a "vague representation".


----------



## Cadence (Nov 4, 2022)

How does one tell something lacks a way to fly from a picture?  Even in the real world it seems tricky.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 4, 2022)

Cadence said:


> How does one tell something lacks a way to fly?  Even in the real world it seems tricky...
> 
> View attachment 265632



Simple..you just say so with great confidence.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> And if you say that Fortnight is better than Overwatch, and someone else tells them that you're _wrong _because of X, Y, and Z... then that person is being objective here. That person is saying that their opinion is the correct one and yours is incorrect.
> 
> That is what you were doing. You were saying "this monster is badly designed" and literally fighting anyone who tried to say otherwise.




No, they wouldn't be objective. Because objective opinions do not exist. They are giving reasons, and that is WONDERFUL. By all the gods above and below I WISH I was dealing with someone who could give solid, backed-up reasons X, Y, and Z.

Because, again, you know why I have been "fighting" people who say the monster isn't badly designed? Because those people have claimed, in no particular order:

It isn't badly designed because I changed the design.
It isn't badly designed because it is a fantasy creature, and you can't have a badly designed fantasy creature, because they don't follow logical rules.
It isn't badly designed because art can't tell you much about a creature.
It isn't badly designed because the source material isn't reliable.

None of those reasons address anything I said. It would be like saying Overwatch is a better designed game because it was made by Blizzard. That has nothing to do with the design of the game, that is just who designed it. If people had reasons, I could discuss those reasons, and in fact I HAVE discussed reasons with people. See my discussion with Dannyalcatraz where I discussed how an action pose would have been a better choice if the creature was meant to be amorphous, and gave examples.

You however and Gammadoodler have not done that. You have attacked me, not my arguments, or made bizarre claims like how dictionary art cannot inform someone.



Faolyn said:


> Ever hear of the Argument From Fallacy?




Ever hear of the Fallacy Fallacy, oh wait, same one. Weird how that one can cut both ways,



Faolyn said:


> But here you go--you are claiming that because people may choose to alter it (while ignoring that I wasn't altering its stats or biology at all, just using it as a domesticated or controlled beast instead of a wild one), it's a badly designed monster. You are fighting me because I disagreed with your opinion.




How in the world is giving it shapeshifting legs not altering its biology?

Also, did I ever say word one in my discussion on why it was a bad design about its stats? Its stats don't matter. They could have any stats at all, and it wouldn't change how bad the design was, because a better designed monster with the same stats would be better.

Also, who cares about it being domesticated? I never said anything about domestication at any point in time. It has nothing to do with my point at all. It seems bizzare to bring up, and frankly, I don't even know what you are talking about. Is it the bizzarre "but they could be wheels" argument? You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with. At that point you could just make it an animated chariot, which is a superior design because it no longer has to do anything except be a wheel, which is what the creature was designed to look like.



Faolyn said:


> So it's up to you: keep proving that you are trying to say that your opinion is the objectively correct one and that it's not good, or just shrug and admit that other people's opinions about the monster's design are as valid as yours.




I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.


How many times do I have to repeat myself before you stop putting words in my mouth?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc, Barbarian, and other; with "other" being a huge mish-mash of possibilities gated behind long-odds die rolling.
> 
> In terms of what players roll up, Hobbits aren't chosen any more than most other species: they're about on par with Part-Elf, Part-Orc, and Barbarian, with Dwarf just a shade higher.  All are well below Elf in popularity and Elf is in turn way below Human.  Gnome is by far the lowest, but that's somewhat intentional on my part - they're rare in the setting and thus playing one is gated behind die rolls.
> 
> Hobbits just tend to last longer.  In part this is due to sheer luck, and in part is due to their usually-high Con's tending to make them tough little buggers....yet for some reason this doesn't seem to help Dwarves very much, whose Con's trend even higher.




This is... really telling when combined with your other post. 



Lanefan said:


> To get back to Hobbits (Halflings) for a sec:
> 
> I keep pretty detailed stats on my campaign, including how many sessions each individual character has appeared in.  There's been a few hundred player-characters come and go over the 14+ years this thing has been running, of which about 6% (13 of 213) were/are Hobbits.
> 
> ...





You essentially have 8 races (and I am hesitant to ask what is meant by "barbarian" as a race) 

If evenly distributed, each race would have 12.5% of the options chosen, or 26 - 27 played races. 

Instead, you have about 85 humans (40%), and if you add in Elf and Dwarf that accounts for 70% or 149 of the played characters. Hobbits make up the largest section of the 4th, but they are still half as popular as dwarves. 


Now, as for myself, the smallest set of races I have ever had was when I just had the player's handbook, which was 9 races. But at this point I have about 30 active races, as I umbrella certain groups. And while I haven't been keeping track like you have, the only reason I MIGHT have more than 25% of the players playing human is because I ran an all human campaign with a large group. But we have far far more diversity in our racial choices, and nowhere near 70% of them were dwarves, humans or elves. In fact, other than humans having a majority at a potential 25%, I'd argue most of the other races (elf, dwarf, half-elf, genasi, teifling, changeling, shifter, warforged, orc, half-orc) are seen about equally.

It would seem obvious you don't often have any issues with hobbits, because the majority of your players are either elf or human, with the occasional half-elf or the odd dwarf. This is not how many tables I have seen or heard about go.


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 4, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, they wouldn't be objective. Because objective opinions do not exist. They are giving reasons, and that is WONDERFUL. By all the gods above and below I WISH I was dealing with someone who could give solid, backed-up reasons X, Y, and Z.
> 
> Because, again, you know why I have been "fighting" people who say the monster isn't badly designed? Because those people have claimed, in no particular order:
> 
> ...



First off, you are misrepresenting what people have actually said.

Secondly, people only said anything akin to this once you said "this monster is bad design" and chastised anyone who said it wasn't.



Chaosmancer said:


> How in the world is giving it shapeshifting legs not altering its biology?



I never gave it shapeshifting legs.



Chaosmancer said:


> Also, did I ever say word one in my discussion on why it was a bad design about its stats? Its stats don't matter.



Then why complain that people altered them to make the monster cooler?



Chaosmancer said:


> They could have any stats at all, and it wouldn't change how bad the design was, because a better designed monster with the same stats would be better.
> 
> Also, who cares about it being domesticated? I never said anything about domestication at any point in time. It has nothing to do with my point at all. It seems bizzare to bring up, and frankly, I don't even know what you are talking about.



That much is clear. I pointed out that I made no changes to its presumed biology or stats, and the only thing I changed was whether or not it was a wild creature or not.



Chaosmancer said:


> Is it the bizzarre "but they could be wheels" argument? You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with.



First, here you go again--saying your opinion is the objective truth and anyone who has a different idea is wrong.

Secondly, it "reducing it to an inanimate object" is _not _what I said at all, _and, _in the right hands, is cool as all get out:




Dark Crystal, Skesis carriage, wheel made of giant pillbug.





Kill 6 Billion Demons, Juggernaut's cycle, wheel made of the shades of dead sinners.



Chaosmancer said:


> At that point you could just make it an animated chariot, which is a superior design because it no longer has to do anything except be a wheel, which is what the creature was designed to look like.



But to me, that's _less _cool.



Chaosmancer said:


> I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
> I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
> I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
> I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
> ...



*Then stop saying other people are wrong when they say the monster is perfectly well-designed to them.* (times 6)

You stated your opinion. If you admit your opinion is not objectively true, then that's it. You don't need to repeat it whenever anyone else has a different opinion. You don't need to tell people that their ideas of how to to use the monster are bad or only work if they change the monster. Because if objectively correct opinions do not exist, then everyone else's opinions are just as valid as yours.

If you _continue _to attack other people's ideas by saying things like "You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with," then that is proof that you think your opinion is more valid than mine.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 4, 2022)

Can't believe I'm doing this..here we go..


Gammadoodler said:


> How big is it?





Chaosmancer said:


> You cannot tell that from this art alone, because there is nothing in there for scale.
> 
> Note: I never commented on how big or not a Roving Mauler was.



And there is art where scale references are present that kind of art provides more information than art which does not. Do you think scale might be important information to have for a fantasy creature? 

If I say it's a teacup tiger or teacup roving mauler, does that change anything about how you assess the capabilities of the creature?


Gammadoodler said:


> What does it eat?





Chaosmancer said:


> Meat, you can see the fangs and the other carnivorous features quite clearly. Also, since it is clearly a feline it would have the same dietary habits as most wild felines.



Maybe you could in the original. At max zoom, I see a line for a mouth and a lot of pixellation. Even so, based on the art, how do you even know whether it is a wild or domestic creature?


Gammadoodler said:


> How fast is it?





Chaosmancer said:


> You cannot tell exact speed from a stationary image without perspective lines that would distort the image. However, as a quadrupedal mammal I can assume it is capable of reaching 10's of miles per hour. Even bears, which are far bulkier than the picture of the tiger, can reach 30 or more miles per hour. Additionally, with the triple "elbow" (I forget the term for this leg design) I can again draw parrallels to other creatures with that design, which are quite fast.



Sloths are quadrupedal mammals, so are porcupines, squirrels, corgis, guinea pigs, skunks, beavers, badgers, etc. Wide range of speeds in that group. But, who says the creature picture even runs on 4 legs?





Gammadoodler said:


> What kinds of enviroments does it prefer?





Chaosmancer said:


> I could not tell you the exact environment, but I can say that with the thinner coat (note how sleek it looks) that the creature would not prefer cold climates. Most mammals that live in cold climates are depicted with much more fur. Additionally, it lacks any of the traditional markers of a creature that lives in desert environments. So, while I can not detail exactly the environment it lives in, I can narrow the band significantly.















Sure you can..


Gammadoodler said:


> When is it awake?





Chaosmancer said:


> Impossible to tell from the picture alone. It is a feline, but felines can have multiple cycles.
> 
> Note: I have never made a comment on when the Roving Mauler is awake.



So there is art which could indicate a certain cycle for the creatures it depicts. That art provides more information than this art.


Gammadoodler said:


> How flexible is it?





Chaosmancer said:


> It is a feline, so as flexible as a feline. The shoulder joints on the front legs means they can't reach behind it, but they can sit and scratch their back with their hind legs. They have spinal column, so they have that flexibility, and you can see a great deal of their range of motion from the curl of the tail, the back legs being folded and the different positions of the front legs.
> 
> I don't exactly know what scale of "flexible" we are dealing with, but they are less flexible than a contortionist or a snake, but more flexible than an elephant or a beetle.



No shoulder joints are pictured. No spinal column is pictured. There is no indication of the range of postures the legs or tail could adopt.


Gammadoodler said:


> How high can it jump?





Chaosmancer said:


> Considering the design of the back legs which allow for springs and it being a feline, quite high. At least a body length. However, with the low slung body it is better at distance jumping than high jumping.



Wait, I don't see any musculature in this art..surely you don't mean to suggest that a tiger can jump without muscles?


Gammadoodler said:


> How well does it climb, fly, swim, and/or burrow?





Chaosmancer said:


> It cannot fly, it lacks any wings or other ways to fly.
> It is bad at burrowing, the padded feet are not conducive to digging and the body shape is wrong for them to be able to burrow well.
> Swimming it difficult to tell from the picture alone, however, felines can swim so it is capable of it, as it is a feline.
> By the same logic, as a feline it is an excellent climber. Zooming in you can see the toes and as a feline you know the claws, so you know it would have a great grip. Also, the shape of the shoulders allows for "hugging" with the front limbs and "kicking" with the back limbs to climb.



But a unicorn can fly without wings... foot structure is not pictured, shoulder joints are not pictured.


Gammadoodler said:


> Is it smart?
> Is it aggressive?
> Can it talk?
> Does it live alone or in groups?





Chaosmancer said:


> You cannot tell any of these from a picture.











Yeah..no way at all..for art to indicate any of these things..


Gammadoodler said:


> Is it dangerous to people.





Chaosmancer said:


> If you were able to figure out the size, then the answer is obvious. It is a feline, and even small cats can do serious harm. Also, as a carnivore, it is a meat-eater, making it dangerous.



But you can't figure out the size..so..the answer isn't obvious. Got it.


Chaosmancer said:


> _Looks back up at the list_
> 
> Well, sure it isn't good for the scale and it can't tell things that art cannot depict, like intelligence or whether it is diurnal or nocturnal, but I don't remember ever claiming that the art could tell me every possible detail of the creature. A picture is only worth a thousand words, not ten million.
> 
> But you seriously discount how much "cat-shaped" alone can tell a person. Because cat-shaped creatures all tend to have similar features, since the "cat-shape" is the reason for those features.





Chaosmancer said:


> The only thing from "large carnivorous feline" I couldn't get from the art alone is "large"
> 
> Also, tigers are no fiercer, crueler or bloodthirsty than cats. Now, they can appear malicious, because felines play with their food, but again, I could have told you that was likely from it being a feline.
> 
> ...



Ok let's recap.. of your responses, how many did not rely on prior knowledge of the capabilities of other felines? Almost none.

And the definition indicates that a tiger is a large carnivorous feline. So what incremental information does the dictionary art provide? 

Or..let's put  it another way, how many of your answers change if you don't have the art at all.

If the answer is "not many" or "not any", then maybe it's fair to say that the art carries "little weight".

Additionally, if you replaced the dictionary art with one of the other tiger images in this post, would you be able to provide any more or better answers to the questions.. If the answer is "yes", then you might say that the dictionary art carries "less weight" than other styles of illustration.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 4, 2022)

*Mod Note:*

@Chaosmancer @Faolyn

The two of you seem to be locked in a pretty intense disagreement.  Perhaps it’s time for both of you to voluntarily retreat to neutral territory and cool down.

EDIT: when I first posted this moderation note, I mistakenly tagged @Gammadoodler, who had nothing to do with the reported posts.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 4, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I don't see it that way. If the only way I can use the art is to alter it, because it is only a vague representation, then it has failed in its purpose.



Has it, though?

If it gives me more to work with than I had before, I don't see that as a failure but rather as a net positive.

It's WAY easier to describe a new creature by holding up a picture and saying "It looks much like this except for [elements A, B, and C]" than it is to try describing the creature all the way from A to Z with words only.


Chaosmancer said:


> Think for a moment of all the other creatures whose artwork we have. Is Displacer beast art a "vague representation"?



While it may well have improved since, the D-Beast art I'm familiar with is pretty vague, as is most of the art in the 1e monster books.  And that's kind of the benchmark I'm using here: art that gives a vague idea but leaves some room for malleability and alteration if one wants to describe the creature a bit differently.

The main place this comes up with the 1e art is colour.  Black and white art doesn't show the creature's colouring, so if for example I want Displacer Beasts to have orange skin then that's what they have, with nothing to gainsay my word.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 4, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> This is... really telling when combined with your other post.
> 
> You essentially have 8 races (and I am hesitant to ask what is meant by "barbarian" as a race)
> 
> If evenly distributed, each race would have 12.5% of the options chosen, or 26 - 27 played races.



Played characters, I think you mean. 


Chaosmancer said:


> Instead, you have about 85 humans (40%), and if you add in Elf and Dwarf that accounts for 70% or 149 of the played characters. Hobbits make up the largest section of the 4th, but they are still half as popular as dwarves.



Actually, not quite.  Here's the actual numbers:

84 Human
41 Elf
21 Dwarf
17 Part-Orc
14 Part-Elf
13 Hobbit
11 Barbarian
4 Gnome
8 other, including four reincarnated characters who changed species
=======
213 total

Barbarian is a sub-species of Human, distinct enough to have its own mechanics.  I've had them forever but they may or may not survive as a concept if-when I ever start another campaign.


Chaosmancer said:


> Now, as for myself, the smallest set of races I have ever had was when I just had the player's handbook, which was 9 races. But at this point I have about 30 active races, as I umbrella certain groups. And while I haven't been keeping track like you have, the only reason I MIGHT have more than 25% of the players playing human is because I ran an all human campaign with a large group. But we have far far more diversity in our racial choices, and nowhere near 70% of them were dwarves, humans or elves. In fact, other than humans having a majority at a potential 25%, I'd argue most of the other races (elf, dwarf, half-elf, genasi, teifling, changeling, shifter, warforged, orc, half-orc) are seen about equally.



For this and other reasons, I really do recommend erring on the side of keeping too many stats on one's games over the long run rather than too few. 


Chaosmancer said:


> It would seem obvious you don't often have any issues with hobbits, because the majority of your players are either elf or human, with the occasional half-elf or the odd dwarf.



Humans are a constant, and I'm a bit Gygaxian in that I do prefer a Human-centric game.  After that, I've found the other species tend to rise and fall in popularity over the years.  My other two big campaigns, for example, produced 225 PCs between them (and amazingly evenly split: 112 in one and 113 in the other) and of those only 7 were Part-Orc; but now they're more popular - mostly, I think, due to the stupendous success of one Part-Orc in the game I play in.  Elves, by contrast, were big in the middle campaign, even outnumbering Humans.


Chaosmancer said:


> This is not how many tables I have seen or heard about go.



Those tables are not this table.


----------



## Bohandas (Nov 4, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> View attachment 265654
> Kill 6 Billion Demons, Juggernaut's cycle, wheel made of the shades of dead sinners.




Does anyone know if that comic was in any way inspired by _Exalted_? From what I've seen of it (including the excerpt here) a lot of rhe characters seem to have the same kind of deranged run-on sentence names


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 4, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Does anyone know if that comic was in any way inspired by _Exalted_? From what I've seen of it (including the excerpt here) a lot of rhe characters seem to have the same kind of deranged run-on sentence names



I don't know; I haven't read Abbadon's tumblr or anything. I know there was a D&D joke in the alt text of one page (which involved a fight against a ton of mimics), so it's entirely possible that Exalted or other RPGs provided at least some inspiration.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Can't believe I'm doing this..here we go..
> 
> 
> And there is art where scale references are present that kind of art provides more information than art which does not. Do you think scale might be important information to have for a fantasy creature?
> ...




No, the size doesn't change anything about my assessment of the creature, because as I mentioned, size has nothing to do with any of my points. 

Additionally, if your only counter to "dictionary images provide a lot of information" is "Well, they don't provide ALL information" then... yeah, we know. No one assumes that a single image can convey every single piece of possible information. A lot =/= All



Gammadoodler said:


> Maybe you could in the original. At max zoom, I see a line for a mouth and a lot of pixellation. Even so, based on the art, how do you even know whether it is a wild or domestic creature?




I posted as big of an image as I could. 

And... you never asked about it being wild or domestic, and a "domestic" creature is just a wild creature socialized by humans. There are very little base structural differences between a "dog" and a "wild dog" or a "cat" and a "feral cat". They are the same animal, just differently socialized.



Gammadoodler said:


> Sloths are quadrupedal mammals, so are porcupines, squirrels, corgis, guinea pigs, skunks, beavers, badgers, etc. Wide range of speeds in that group. But, who says the creature picture even runs on 4 legs?
> View attachment 265638




While the picture of the kitty is cute, it is blatantly obvious from the structure of the legs that they are not bipedal. 

Secondly, Sloths are quadrupeds, but their limbs are clearly not designed for speed. Just with a quick glance you could tell the claws are not shaped for proper 4-legged running, and the fact that they tend to have far longer arms than hind legs makes a huge difference. 

As for porcupines, corgis, guinea pigs, skunks, beavers, and badgers you should note the size of their legs. They all have short, stumpy legs compared to their long body, which is also generally quite broad. Compare that to the long legs of the proportionally thinner tiger, and you can see why it is easy to assume the tiger is faster. Again, body shape matters for these things. 



Gammadoodler said:


> View attachment 265639
> View attachment 265640
> View attachment 265641
> View attachment 265644
> Sure you can..




"Lives in a place where it snows" =/= "Lives in the Arctic" which is a cold climate. 

"Lives in a cage with sand" =/= desert. Same with the picture of them on some mud flat. Not a desert. 

As for the jungle, I will note that it is not a desert, or a region of ice, so... not sure why you included it. 


Just to save us time and effort, here is a habitat map. 





Do you see the way it bends around where the name "china" is? A little bit north of that is the Gobi desert. Why do you suppose Tiger populations bent around that region for thousands of years? Long enough for speciation? 

Also note, that while they do get up north into Russia, that they are about as far north as Japan. Which for comparison is about as far North as the northern United States/Southern Canada. That means harsh winters, but not cold year round and likely quite warm summers as well.



Gammadoodler said:


> So there is art which could indicate a certain cycle for the creatures it depicts. That art provides more information than this art.




No, that art provides DIFFERENT information than this art. I have never claimed, and repeatedly refuted your assertion that dictionary art provides all possible information. 

Again A lot =/= All, just because you can find some information that is not included does not mean that they lack all information.



Gammadoodler said:


> No shoulder joints are pictured. No spinal column is pictured. There is no indication of the range of postures the legs or tail could adopt.




Um... They absolutely are showing the shoulder joints. Just because they didn't do an x-ray of them doesn't mean they aren't. Additionally, you know what a tail is right? A tail is an extension of the spinal column. The existence of a tail proves a spinal column. 

Now, if you want to claim I cannot know the exact degrees to which those limbs have range of motion, sure, I can't tell you the exact angled degrees of motion. However, considering what I can see, I can say with certainty that they do not have a 360 degree range of movement. It would be impossible.



Gammadoodler said:


> Wait, I don't see any musculature in this art..surely you don't mean to suggest that a tiger can jump without muscles?




This is just pettiness at this point. Muscle is beneath fur, skin and fat. If you could see the exact lines of muscle, the animal would be dead and shaved. And we don't need to see the muscles to know it has muscles. It is a mammal. There is not a single mammal, let alone a single vertabrate that lacks muscles.



Gammadoodler said:


> But a unicorn can fly without wings... foot structure is not pictured, shoulder joints are not pictured.




Some unicorns can, however this isn't a picture of a fantasy creature, so it, like every other creauture in the real world cannot fly without wings. 

And don't try and pull anything with sugar gliders or "flying snakes" either, those are creatures that glide, they do not fly. 

Foot is pictured well enough to see enough details, same as the shoulder joints.



Gammadoodler said:


> View attachment 265663
> View attachment 265664View attachment 265665
> Yeah..no way at all..for art to indicate any of these things..




A picture of a humanoid does not count for anything regarding intelligence. The assumptions of "human" are too forefront in a human mind. 

The picture of the beholder is amusing, but what if I told you that book was a picture book and it doesn't understand anything it is seeing, it just likes the colors? You cannot tell if it is actually intelligent or not from that picture, just that it can look inside of a book. 


As for the gnoll art, you could show a picture of a man being hit in the face with a leaping fish, or a fish eating a man's arm, that doesn't mean fish are aggressive. I can just as easily find art that wouldn't lead to any assumption of a gnoll beingagreeive. Here, I have some saved















Gammadoodler said:


> Ok let's recap.. of your responses, how many did not rely on prior knowledge of the capabilities of other felines? Almost none.
> 
> And the definition indicates that a tiger is a large carnivorous feline. So what incremental information does the dictionary art provide?
> 
> ...




So, since art of a feline shows a feline, just like the word feline... the art carries "little weight"? 

This is like saying a pciture of a tree carries little weight compared to the word tree. Right now, as you read "tree" you are conjuring an image of a tree. The word and the picture are linked. One does not have more weight than the other. 

Notably, you might have raised a child at some point, and had flashcards. These cards show a picture (usually of something the child can recognize) and then the associated word. We do this because the word without the context is meaningless to the child, who cannot recognize what these strange symbols mean. The art and the word are equal in this regard, because they convey the same information, which allows the child to associate the two. 

So, if your point is "words convey meaning too"... congrats, that doesn't take anything away from the meaning and information conveyed by the art. Just like having art that shows something different from something else conveys different information doesn't mean the first picture lacks all information.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 4, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Has it, though?
> 
> If it gives me more to work with than I had before, I don't see that as a failure but rather as a net positive.
> 
> It's WAY easier to describe a new creature by holding up a picture and saying "It looks much like this except for [elements A, B, and C]" than it is to try describing the creature all the way from A to Z with words only.




And it is even easier to hold up a picture and say "it looks like this" 

If the art is supposed to represent the creature, then it should represent the creature. Art supposed to represent a snake with rings has failed if I must hold up a picture of a snake and say "this, but with wings" because it is a picture of a snake, not a snake with wings, which it is supposed to be. 

Or, to give a non-art example, a bar of steel might give me more to work with than I had before, but it is still a terrible knife.



Lanefan said:


> While it may well have improved since, the D-Beast art I'm familiar with is pretty vague, as is most of the art in the 1e monster books.  And that's kind of the benchmark I'm using here: art that gives a vague idea but leaves some room for malleability and alteration if one wants to describe the creature a bit differently.
> 
> The main place this comes up with the 1e art is colour.  Black and white art doesn't show the creature's colouring, so if for example I want Displacer Beasts to have orange skin then that's what they have, with nothing to gainsay my word.




And notably, in the art I was using, it was colored, so I have the color to speak about. 

But, look at the two art pieces here









Both are clearly panther-like creatures, both have six legs, both have tentacles on the back with spiked ends. 

Sure, the bottom art is more representational, but the vast majority of the information you need is still in both.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 5, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Actually, not quite.  Here's the actual numbers:
> 
> 84 Human
> 41 Elf
> ...




Um... what do you mean not quite? 

I guessed 85 humans, you have 84. 
I said human + elf + dwarf would be 149 and  84+41+21 = 146
I said hobbits would were half (not fully accurate since I know that 6 is not half of 10, but it was close enough) and you show that the dwarf at 21 and the hobbit at 13... which is a little over half. 

Sure, I wasn't exact, but I was using percentages, and I was dang close. So, what was "not quite right" about my assessment?



Lanefan said:


> For this and other reasons, I really do recommend erring on the side of keeping too many stats on one's games over the long run rather than too few.




Eh, I really have no interest in trying to keep statistical records of my games.



Lanefan said:


> Humans are a constant, and I'm a bit Gygaxian in that I do prefer a Human-centric game.  After that, I've found the other species tend to rise and fall in popularity over the years.  My other two big campaigns, for example, produced 225 PCs between them (and amazingly evenly split: 112 in one and 113 in the other) and of those only 7 were Part-Orc; but now they're more popular - mostly, I think, due to the stupendous success of one Part-Orc in the game I play in.  Elves, by contrast, were big in the middle campaign, even outnumbering Humans.




Which, again, explains why you haven't really seen anything as an issue. Your games are largely human-centric. Many are not.



Lanefan said:


> Those tables are not this table.




And That table is not these tables. Obvious statements are obvious.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 5, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Um... what do you mean not quite?
> 
> I guessed 85 humans, you have 84.
> I said human + elf + dwarf would be 149 and  84+41+21 = 146
> ...



You seemed to think Hobbits were 4th, where they're in fact lower.


Chaosmancer said:


> Eh, I really have no interest in trying to keep statistical records of my games.



Well, then, guess that means you're stuck with using data from people like me, who do. 

At least it gives me something to back up the anecdotes: when I say "in my experience x-y-z has been the case" regarding what's been played in terms of species and-or class, I can prove it.  I've also got up to date numbers around character deaths, level losses, sessions played, and adventures per character for every character; and some five-years-old data on starting stats vs career length from a large sample (over 100 characters, maybe 150, I forget now).


Chaosmancer said:


> Which, again, explains why you haven't really seen anything as an issue. Your games are largely human-centric. Many are not.



No accounting for taste, I suppose.


----------



## James Gasik (Nov 5, 2022)

On the subject of Gnome characters, here's a fun pic I found on Facebook (A Gnome Cleric from Critical Role, I believe.  I don't really watch the show.)


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Nov 5, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> On the subject of Gnome characters, here's a fun pic I found on Facebook (A Gnome Cleric from Critical Role, I believe.  I don't really watch the show.)
> 
> View attachment 265810



An excellent moment from Pike Trickfoot, Cleric of Sarenrae/Raeie/The Everlight.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 5, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> No, the size doesn't change anything about my assessment of the creature, because as I mentioned, size has nothing to do with any of my points.
> 
> Additionally, if your only counter to "dictionary images provide a lot of information" is "Well, they don't provide ALL information" then... yeah, we know. No one assumes that a single image can convey every single piece of possible information. A lot =/= All
> 
> ...



Tl;dr

And with that we've reached
The very limit of my 
Participation


----------



## bedir than (Nov 5, 2022)

I'm still confused by people who insist that this doesn't belong in fantasy and D&D


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 5, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I'm still confused by people who insist that this doesn't belong in fantasy and D&D



Coz they're not killing everything in their path, that's why.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 5, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> You seemed to think Hobbits were 4th, where they're in fact lower.




That was because you said they were "about on par" with the others, so I figured you meant they were about equal, and gave the benefit of the doubt to increase their standing.



Lanefan said:


> Well, then, guess that means you're stuck with using data from people like me, who do.




Considering your table is far from the norm, that doesn't seem to hold as much weight as you think it does.



Lanefan said:


> At least it gives me something to back up the anecdotes: when I say "in my experience x-y-z has been the case" regarding what's been played in terms of species and-or class, I can prove it.  I've also got up to date numbers around character deaths, level losses, sessions played, and adventures per character for every character; and some five-years-old data on starting stats vs career length from a large sample (over 100 characters, maybe 150, I forget now).




Sure, but the thing is I don't play the game to record all this data. I don't keep campaign notes that track that this is the third time I've seen someone play an orc barbarian, because I don't care. 

The people who do care, like WoTC, have the data they need from other sources, they aren't going to poll me to see which characters were played eight years ago.



Lanefan said:


> No accounting for taste, I suppose.




No accounting for politeness either, I suppose.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 5, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> On the subject of Gnome characters, here's a fun pic I found on Facebook (A Gnome Cleric from Critical Role, I believe.  I don't really watch the show.)
> 
> View attachment 265810




Yep that is Pike from during the Battle of Whitestone. Awesome moment. 

The Animated version is real cool too. 



(There is a lot of context here that is missing. For example, the reason she is astral projecting via the power of her Goddess in "reality" is that Ashley was away recording and skyped in, so she was "astral projecting" since her character had been left behind due to her not being able to make it for a while. 

The rest is just flavor)


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 5, 2022)

It isn't about killing people. Why do people think it is all about murder? We keep telling you it isn't, but you keep insisting it must be all about murder and killing and pillaging and war.

Here's the thing about that video, it just shows a small group of people pulling a wagon. You know who else did that?





The American Pioneers.

So, do pioneers deserve to be in fantasy? Of course, just like soldiers deserve to be in fantasy and doctors deserve to be in fantasy and priests deserve to be in fantasy and scholars deserve to be in fantasy and on and on and on the list of professions goes.

But show that video to someone who doesn't know what it is showing, and their first question is going to be "who is that giant?" not "who are those fantastical little people?". Because the giant man looking like he is covered in swamp moss looks more fantastical than the people in farmers clothes with hay stuck in their hair.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Nov 5, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It isn't about killing people. Why do people think it is all about murder? We keep telling you it isn't, but you keep insisting it must be all about murder and killing and pillaging and war.
> 
> Here's the thing about that video, it just shows a small group of people pulling a wagon. You know who else did that?
> 
> ...



I wish doctors were allowed to be in D&D.  Magical healing really guts the concept, and I would vastly prefer a doctor to a cleric, druid or bard for any sci-fi or science fantasy-based games.


----------



## Cadence (Nov 5, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I wish doctors were allowed to be in D&D.  Magical healing really guts the concept, and I would vastly prefer a doctor to a cleric, druid or bard for any sci-fi or science fantasy-based games.




It would certainly encourage folks to make up lots of characters to have in reserve as they waited to see if their character died of infection or not during their weeks long recovery.


----------



## Oofta (Nov 5, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> It isn't about killing people. Why do people think it is all about murder? We keep telling you it isn't, but you keep insisting it must be all about murder and killing and pillaging and war.
> 
> Here's the thing about that video, it just shows a small group of people pulling a wagon. You know who else did that?
> 
> ...




Except every single playable race does something people do or have done. There's some cosmetic differences thrown in, but never anything that makes much of a difference. 

Which is why people are so confused and trying to find something, anything really, different about how halflings are somehow deficient but other races are not.


----------



## bedir than (Nov 5, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Coz they're not killing everything in their path, that's why.



And they still did fight, their way -- against mages


----------



## Erik Alt (Nov 5, 2022)

It seems this thread has long since stopped being about halflings.


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## James Gasik (Nov 5, 2022)

Erik Alt said:


> It seems this thread has long since stopped being about halflings.



There's really not much to say.  Some people want Hobbitses in the game.  Some people don't.  Some people want Halflings to be more than their origins, and some people don't care for them in any form.

Nobody's opinions are going to change, no matter how eloquently you explain your position, so naturally the debate circles around to "well, if you don't like Halflings, why do you like all/are you not hating on these other things that are way more problematic?"

Because there's really no point of debate; if you say "I hate Halflings and want them out of the PHB", that's not a discussion.  All you can get are people who agree with you or not.  Especially if your mind cannot be changed in the first place.

What did surprise me is how the thread died out, and came back to life months later spontaneously, only to repeat the same cycle.


----------



## bedir than (Nov 5, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> What did surprise me is how the thread died out, and came back to life months later spontaneously, only to repeat the same cycle.



I brought it back because the Harfoots were clearly non-Hobbit halflings.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 5, 2022)

bedir than said:


> I'm still confused by people who insist that this doesn't belong in fantasy and D&D




Perhaps the confusion lies in the fact that nearly no one ever actually argued that? 

Kinda like the automatic assumption that if you would like to see any change then you must hate halflings.


----------



## bedir than (Nov 5, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Perhaps the confusion lies in the fact that nearly no one ever actually argued that?
> 
> Kinda like the automatic assumption that if you would like to see any change then you must hate halflings.



Oh, but people have absolutely insisted that the current version of halfling is archaic, should be removed from D&D and is "no longer popular" despite the fact that they are part of the most popular fantasy show released in 2022


----------



## Bohandas (Nov 5, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> There's really not much to say.  Some people want Hobbitses in the game.  Some people don't.  Some people want Halflings to be more than their origins, and some people don't care for them in any form.
> 
> Nobody's opinions are going to change, no matter how eloquently you explain your position, so naturally the debate circles around to "well, if you don't like Halflings, why do you like all/are you not hating on these other things that are way more problematic?"
> 
> ...




That's the D&D revolving door afterlife for you


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> I wish doctors were allowed to be in D&D.  Magical healing really guts the concept, and I would vastly prefer a doctor to a cleric, druid or bard for any sci-fi or science fantasy-based games.




I mean, agreed that I like having doctors a little more. It is possible to mix in doctors with magical healing, and I've seen a few properties that do so.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Except every single playable race does something people do or have done. There's some cosmetic differences thrown in, but never anything that makes much of a difference.
> 
> Which is why people are so confused and trying to find something, anything really, different about how halflings are somehow deficient but other races are not.




And we've explained it again and again and again. And you just refuse to accept what the issues we have are and insist that you know what it _really _is that we are upset about. 

The thing is that I can find things that goblins do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done. 

I can find things that gnomes do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.

I can find things that dwarves do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.

I can find things that Elves do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.

I can find things that Orcs do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.


But when we look to halflings, there is nothing fantastical. And then we are told that that's the point, they aren't fantastical. Which leaves us scratching our heads because why would we want a fantasy race that isn't fantastical? It is like saying you can make up any possible plant you want to see, and picking short, suburbia grass.


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And we've explained it again and again and again. And you just refuse to accept what the issues we have are and insist that you know what it _really _is that we are upset about.
> 
> The thing is that I can find things that goblins do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.
> 
> ...



Like what? Because I literally can't think of a thing these races have done that humans haven't done.

Humans, in real-life, can build amazing contraptions like gnomes (look at any clockwork or Rube Goldburg device), can carve mountains into amazing sculptures and cities like dwarfs (check out any number of huge monuments, or the City of Petra, or the Pyramids), bend living trees into amazing sculptures like elves (living sculptures, tree shaping, bonzai), and... go to war and act like bandits like goblins and orcs. Assuming you're going for traditional, monstrous goblins and orcs, of course. Literally the only things that elves, dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, and orcs have done that humans haven't are things that involve magic or setting-specific supernatural beings.

If you can't find the fantastical among the halflings, it's because you're not looking in the right places. Halfling fantastical-ness lies in their general peacefulness (or at least lack of waging wars), their hominess, their cooking, their cheeriness, even in the face of disaster, their ability to get along with others, things like that.

In a D&D world, humans typically _don't _build amazing contraptions as well as the gnomes do, _don't _carve stone like the dwarfs do, and _don't _engage in tree-shaping like elves do. And they often don't even do as much banditry and (pointless) war as goblins and orcs do. 

Which means that humans _aren't _quite as good at cooking as halflings are, aren't as good at hospitality as halflings are, have a harder time staying in good cheer during bad times than halflings do, and are generally less congenial and accepting of others than halflings are. This doesn't even mean that game-humans are worse than real-humans are in these areas--there are going to be _really _good human chefs and humans who can smile in the worst of times, just like there are humans who are amazing stonemasons and humans that are great inventors. It just means that halflings are _better_. 

Sorry that's not flashy or combat-effective for you, but nobody said every racial stereotype has to be used with dice.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I mean, agreed that I like having doctors a little more. It is possible to mix in doctors with magical healing, and I've seen a few properties that do so.



How do you do it while allowing the doctors to be effective in 5e?


----------



## James Gasik (Nov 6, 2022)

Allow a Medicine check to force someone to spend a healing surge when dying; or grant a bonus to regular surge healing after a rest.  Maybe a check used to allow the spending of a healing surge to make a new saving throw against poison or disease?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Like what? Because I literally can't think of a thing these races have done that humans haven't done.
> 
> Humans, in real-life, can build amazing contraptions like gnomes (look at any clockwork or Rube Goldburg device), can carve mountains into amazing sculptures and cities like dwarfs (check out any number of huge monuments, or the City of Petra, or the Pyramids), bend living trees into amazing sculptures like elves (living sculptures, tree shaping, bonzai), and... go to war and act like bandits like goblins and orcs. Assuming you're going for traditional, monstrous goblins and orcs, of course. Literally the only things that elves, dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, and orcs have done that humans haven't are things that involve magic or setting-specific supernatural beings.




So, humans can meditate and relive memories of their past lives? Not like, one or two people, but every human as just a natural part of their existence can do this as easily as we fall asleep and dream? Elves do.

And, I like how we immediately cast aside magic like it doesn't matter for a fantasy race. Sure, it is magic, but it is still part of the gnomish identity to be able to speak with beasts and cast illusions. Some versions of rock gnomes or other inventor style gnomes are depicted with extreme cognitive abilities. For example, I have talked before about Cornie Fizzlesprocket from a fantasy series. One of the things that gets her in trouble is her ability, as a gnome, to literally count every second in the day. She has an internal clock so precise that she realizes the mind-affecting things she is being subjected to, because she has lost a full minute of time. I know it isn't a classiv DnD-ism, but that level of attention to detail, where you can just think "It has been 25,261 seconds since I woke up" is something that if any human is capable of it is rare. 

What about being able to touch a stone wall and sense any and all weaknesses in it? Heck, now Dwarves can SEE through stone with tremorsense. Not many humans how can just touch stone and then list off its properties. Dwarves have been shown to do that with stone and metal.

And no, I wouldn't go with traditional monster goblins and orcs. There have been quite better versions of them made. I'm currently enamored with the idea of orcs from MCDM who is making DnD 5e supplemental material. Their orcs have something called "Bloodfire" representing the typical passionate version of orcs, but tying it to a biological factor that their blood can literally burn in their veins as they fight. Goblins I am still enamored with the version from The Wandering Inn fantasy story, where it seems that they go through a multi-stage life cycle, growing from Goblins to hobgoblins to massive ogre like beings. 

No human I know of triples in size and gains the strength to uproot trees and crush stones when they hit their 40's.



Faolyn said:


> If you can't find the fantastical among the halflings, it's because you're not looking in the right places. Halfling fantastical-ness lies in their general peacefulness (or at least lack of waging wars), their hominess, their cooking, their cheeriness, even in the face of disaster, their ability to get along with others, things like that.




Right, how about this. How often have the Goliaths gone to war? The Firbolg? How bout a softball, surely something as violently aggressive as Trolls have waged wars right? Halflings are defined by peacefulness, and "lack of waging wars" is also pretty false. Especially considering that halflings have been depicted going to war to support humans. 

And the rest is just cooking and being nice. And I think considering some of the things I've listed for the other races it should be fairly self-explanatory why "cook good and nice" isn't really living up to the same standards.



Faolyn said:


> In a D&D world, humans typically _don't _build amazing contraptions as well as the gnomes do, _don't _carve stone like the dwarfs do, and _don't _engage in tree-shaping like elves do. And they often don't even do as much banditry and (pointless) war as goblins and orcs do.
> 
> Which means that humans _aren't _quite as good at cooking as halflings are, aren't as good at hospitality as halflings are, have a harder time staying in good cheer during bad times than halflings do, and are generally less congenial and accepting of others than halflings are. This doesn't even mean that game-humans are worse than real-humans are in these areas--there are going to be _really _good human chefs and humans who can smile in the worst of times, just like there are humans who are amazing stonemasons and humans that are great inventors. It just means that halflings are _better_.




And, again, "cooking and nice" isn't exactly what I'm looking for. Just like "shapes trees or carves stone" isn't what I'm looking for from dwarves and elves. 

And, if nothing has ever shown how badly DnD needed to rebrand orcs and goblins, it is that their only defining feature for DnD fans is "kills people and takes their stuff."



Faolyn said:


> Sorry that's not flashy or combat-effective for you, but nobody said every racial stereotype has to be used with dice.




Reincarnations and the ability to change gender overnight isn't combat-effective either. Yet somehow I seem to be satisfied with that for defining elves. It is almost as if, and I know I have only said this dozens upon dozens of times, it isn't about combat and war.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> How do you do it while allowing the doctors to be effective in 5e?




I mean, off the top of my head? 

If you have proficiency in medicine, add prof bonus to any direct magical healing. Expertise, add double prof bonus. 

Most of the properties I've read that allow for medical knowledge to be applicable show that in-depth knowledge of the body allows the mage to heal more, heal more energy effectively, or heal what otherwise could not be healed. In the series "How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom" it is known that "Light magic" (which is used for healing) cannot cure diseases, but then an individual who has been studying medicine under the isekai'd hero's direction and improving her medical knowledge ends up able to do just that, because she is able to recognize what parasites and viruses are, and that additional knowledge allows her to target that with her magic. 

In the series "Binding Words" it has allowed the protagonist to regrow limbs and reshape people's bodies, because instead of just throwing energy at the problem, he knows about bones, muscles, nerves, ect. 

Now, I've never done this in 5e, and I have no idea if it would be balanced in any manner, but it is just how I would translate these ideas from literature into DnD mechanics. I can't reduce the cost of a spell slot, but I can make magic more effective if you have medical knowledge. 

And then, well, most doctor's wouldn't actually serve adventurers. Adventurer's live lives too fast for a doctor's treatment. But they would still be a vital source of healing for a local community, and deal with things like surgeries that are not something in the life of an adventurer. Magical healing can do a lot, but it can't remove an iron arrowhead from your stomach, remove a damaged organ, or other major surgical needs. Not until you get to truly stupendous levels of magic.


----------



## Cadence (Nov 6, 2022)

The main character in the Black Company is their medic...


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## Hussar (Nov 6, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Oh, but people have absolutely insisted that the current version of halfling is archaic, should be removed from D&D and is "no longer popular" despite the fact that they are part of the most popular fantasy show released in 2022




No they really haven’t. 

The strongest argument is that halflings could get bumped to the monster manual while still having pc creation stats like many other humanoids to make room in the phb for something that might get more traction. 

No one in these threads has said halflings should not be in the game at all.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 6, 2022)

Cadence said:


> The main character in the Black Company is their medic...




A simple system I saw allowed you to spend 1 hp off your max to gain 1 hd worth of healing. But of book keeping but a neat system nonetheless.

And as usual everything is reset on a long rest.


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## Micah Sweet (Nov 6, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Allow a Medicine check to force someone to spend a healing surge when dying; or grant a bonus to regular surge healing after a rest.  Maybe a check used to allow the spending of a healing surge to make a new saving throw against poison or disease?



Do you mean hit dice?


----------



## James Gasik (Nov 6, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Do you mean hit dice?



Yes, lol.  I was just talking to a friend about 4e, got my wires crossed.


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, humans can meditate and relive memories of their past lives? Not like, one or two people, but every human as just a natural part of their existence can do this as easily as we fall asleep and dream? Elves do.



Some people in the real world _claim _they can. In a fantasy world, it may very well be possible. I see no reason to not give that ability to humans of a particular culture, or make a monk archetype based around it.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, I like how we immediately cast aside magic like it doesn't matter for a fantasy race.



Because it kind of doesn't. Every race can learn magic. There's nothing that an elf (or any other race) can do magically that a human can't do magically as well. 

Also, some halflings are innately telepathic or magical. In fact, four out of the six subraces of halflings have innate powers. If you choose to ignore the dragonmarked halflings, you're still left with two out of four subraces having innate powers (lotusden and ghostwise). So if magic matters for a fantasy race, then halflings are pretty magical in nature.



Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, it is magic, but it is still part of the gnomish identity to be able to speak with beasts and cast illusions. Some versions of rock gnomes or other inventor style gnomes are depicted with extreme cognitive abilities. For example, I have talked before about Cornie Fizzlesprocket from a fantasy series. One of the things that gets her in trouble is her ability, as a gnome, to literally count every second in the day. She has an internal clock so precise that she realizes the mind-affecting things she is being subjected to, because she has lost a full minute of time. I know it isn't a classiv DnD-ism, but that level of attention to detail, where you can just think "It has been 25,261 seconds since I woke up" is something that if any human is capable of it is rare.



Cornie Fizzlesprocket is from a web story. She is not a D&D character.



Chaosmancer said:


> What about being able to touch a stone wall and sense any and all weaknesses in it? Heck, now Dwarves can SEE through stone with tremorsense. Not many humans how can just touch stone and then list off its properties. Dwarves have been shown to do that with stone and metal.
> 
> And no, I wouldn't go with traditional monster goblins and orcs. There have been quite better versions of them made. I'm currently enamored with the idea of orcs from MCDM who is making DnD 5e supplemental material. Their orcs have something called "Bloodfire" representing the typical passionate version of orcs, but tying it to a biological factor that their blood can literally burn in their veins as they fight. Goblins I am still enamored with the version from The Wandering Inn fantasy story, where it seems that they go through a multi-stage life cycle, growing from Goblins to hobgoblins to massive ogre like beings.



And you're... citing what are basically someone's home brew orcs and goblins as if it's supposed to mean something when talking about official D&D depiction of races? Big deal. _I _can home brew super-mega-awesometastic halflings. Would that convince you?



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, how about this. How often have the Goliaths gone to war? The Firbolg? How bout a softball, surely something as violently aggressive as Trolls have waged wars right?
> Halflings are defined by peacefulness, and "lack of waging wars" is also pretty false. Especially considering that halflings have been depicted going to war to support humans.



Beats me. So what? None of these races have the types of organizations that allow for war, nor have they been given pages upon pages of text over the decades. Halflings actually have a god of war and have had a lot of ink spilled about them. But halflings rarely go to war. That says a lot about their character as a people.



Chaosmancer said:


> And the rest is just cooking and being nice. And I think considering some of the things I've listed for the other races it should be fairly self-explanatory why "cook good and nice" isn't really living up to the same standards.



Says who? You? Are you the sole arbiter of what makes a race unique and interesting? _I _think that they're cool.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, if nothing has ever shown how badly DnD needed to rebrand orcs and goblins, it is that their only defining feature for DnD fans is "kills people and takes their stuff."



This I will agree with.

But so far, they haven't, and you can't claim that D&D orcs and goblins are somehow capable of doing things that humans can't because you can point to Matt Colville's personal take on them.



Chaosmancer said:


> Reincarnations and the ability to change gender overnight isn't combat-effective either. Yet somehow I seem to be satisfied with that for defining elves. It is almost as if, and I know I have only said this dozens upon dozens of times, it isn't about combat and war.



So in that case, being the best, most cheerful hosts and chefs is equally as useful as whatever abilities elves and dwarfs are. Probably more useful, in fact, because you being able to change your gender over night doesn't affect me in anyway, but you being able to cook me a good breakfast _does._

So if "cooking and nice" aren't what you're looking for, and "combat and war" aren't what you're looking for, and halflings can learn magic just like every other race... what _are _you looking for?


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## Lanefan (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But when we look to halflings, there is nothing fantastical. And then we are told that that's the point, they aren't fantastical.



Neither are Humans, and yet they're front-and centre in the game and in the PH.


Chaosmancer said:


> Which leaves us scratching our heads because why would we want a fantasy race that isn't fantastical?



Some species are more fantastical than others.  It's a spectrum, not a binary.


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## Hussar (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Some people in the real world _claim _they can. In a fantasy world, it may very well be possible. I see no reason to not give that ability to humans of a particular culture, or make a monk archetype based around it.



The point being is that they actually don't though.  Humans don't remember past lives and never sleep.  That's something that is distinctly elven and serves to separate them from humans.  That you could give that power to a human doesn't invalidate elves any more than short humans invalidate halflings.

Humans don't live below ground, although, sure, they could.  Nor do they innately see through stone.  Again, you could certainly make a human that could see through stone and live underground, but, all you've done now is turn a human into a dwarf.

Which would be the point that's been made over and over again.  Halflings don't really have anything that makes them distinctly halfling.  Not being fantastical is what humans are.  

To me there are several very strong reasons why halflings are problematic:

1.  Many settings, while leaving elves and dwarves more or less alone, rewrite halflings in an attempt to make them different and attractive to players.  Whether it's the anti-hobbit kender, cannibal halflings, river trader halflings, dinosaur riding halflings or whatever, there have been so many very different takes on "halfling" that defining a halfling is actually pretty problematic.  I mean, you, yourself mention that there innately magical halflings - which runs exactly counter to what everyone has talked about as the core of being a halfling - that they aren't special.  That they aren't magical.  So, "define halfling" becomes a game of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping that something will eventually stick.

2.  Halflings never play much of a roll in any of the settings.  They are always the "and also" race.  They never really matter and removing them from the setting would pretty much have zero impact.  Even settings like Dragonlance where kender are actually a big thing, they don't actually DO anything in the setting.  It's the humans and the elves and the dwarves that fight back the dragonarmies.  The Kender are just kinda mentioned in a couple of paragraphs at the end.  In most settings they don't even play that much of a role.

3.  According to the information we have, and a fair bit of anecdotal information, halflings have never actually been very popular.  Again, they are the "also ran" race.  If they are in an adventure at all, it's a very, very minor role.  "Save the halfling town" hasn't been a plot in a module that I can think of (although, I'm sure it does exist somewhere).  Yet "Save the (Human/Elf/Dwarf) town has featured repeatedly.  According to what we've seen on D&D Beyond, they aren't played all that often.  Think of it this way.  If I told you that my 5 PC group was 3 humans and 2 elves, no one would bat an eye.  Heck 3 elves a dwarf and a human would be pretty standard.  When's the last time you had 3 halfling PC's at the same time?  And if you have, would you say that that's a regular occurrence at your table?


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## James Gasik (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> 2.  Halflings never play much of a roll in any of the settings.  They are always the "and also" race.  They never really matter and removing them from the setting would pretty much have zero impact.  Even settings like Dragonlance where kender are actually a big thing, they don't actually DO anything in the setting.  It's the humans and the elves and the dwarves that fight back the dragonarmies.  The Kender are just kinda mentioned in a couple of paragraphs at the end.  In most settings they don't even play that much of a role.



House Jorasco and House Ghallanda beg to differ, being two of the noble houses of Khorvaire.  Having access to the best healers and medics was huge during the Last War, and while the Ghallanda may not have a monopoly on the best inns and restaurants in the Five Nations, they set the gold standard for what is the best.  Both Houses are fantastically wealthy, and if you think their role as "support services" is minor, well, I don't know what to tell you, because a lot of things would simply grind to a halt without them.

Also, in the Forgotten Realms:

"Halflings underwent something of a cultural and philosophical change through the Hundred Years of Chaos. During this time, the typical halfling aversion to adventure for its own sake was overcome by a powerful sense of wanderlust. Halfling-run adventure companies became common in many major cities of Faerûn."

"Since then (The Spellplague), halflings were found in their greatest concentrations within the nation of Amn. Though formerly met with prejudice, halflings earned acceptance through their skill as merchants and business partners. Halflings could also be commonly found along the Sea of Fallen Stars, particularly human-dominated cities. In fact, human cities were often the most common place to find halflings, who frequently found ways to exploit the ever-changing climate of human societies, although dwarven cities were also accommodating."

So in another setting, we find that Halflings became very un-Hobbitlike, forming adventuring companies across the world.  They became great merchants, able to find a place for themselves in a highly competitive region, and have adapted to become natural city dwellers.

So what are you really looking for?  A setting where Halflings rule the world?  Because really, few races have that.  In most settings the Elves are in decline, the Dwarves are isolationists, and anyone who isn't a Human is a backwards savage or keeping to themselves to not draw attention to themselves.


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## Lanefan (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> 3.  According to the information we have, and a fair bit of anecdotal information, halflings have never actually been very popular.  Again, they are the "also ran" race.  If they are in an adventure at all, it's a very, very minor role.  "Save the halfling town" hasn't been a plot in a module that I can think of (although, I'm sure it does exist somewhere).  Yet "Save the (Human/Elf/Dwarf) town has featured repeatedly.  According to what we've seen on D&D Beyond, they aren't played all that often.  Think of it this way.  If I told you that my 5 PC group was 3 humans and 2 elves, no one would bat an eye.  Heck 3 elves a dwarf and a human would be pretty standard.  When's the last time you had 3 halfling PC's at the same time?  And if you have, would you say that that's a regular occurrence at your table?



In the few years just before covid hit, three PC Hobbits in the party was common and four wasn't unheard of. (a typical party was 6-9 characters including NPC adventurers)

Their lead Fighter, their Bard, and their Necromancer were all Hobbits; and a second Hobbit Necromancer cycled in and out on occasion.  Oh, and their main Thief, an adventuring NPC, was also a Hobbit...and now you've got me wondering if at any point _all five_ ever ran together in the same party... ::c_hecks game log_:: ...and sure enough, they did!  The very first adventure I happened to check, the starting party consisted of:

Hobbit Necromancer 1
Hobbit Necromancer 2 (yes there were two of them in the same party, run by different players)
Hobbit Fighter
Hobbit Bard
Hobbit Thief (NPC)
Elf Nature Cleric/MU
Elf Nature Cleric
Part-Orc Fighter
Human Ranger (NPC)

Four of the Hobbits came out of the previous adventure together, the second Necro joined at this point from a different adventure/party.  This lineup lasted for just the one adventure, after which the other Necro split off (and eventually formed yet another party around himself) and was replaced by an Elf MU; meanwhile the Hobbit Thief got petrified and wasn't de-stoned until some time later.  The remaining three (the F, N2, and B) stayed togehter for three or four more adventures, then covid hit and that group went on hold where it yet remains.


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## Hussar (Nov 6, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> /snip
> 
> So what are you really looking for?  A setting where Halflings rule the world?  Because really, few races have that.  In most settings the Elves are in decline, the Dwarves are isolationists, and anyone who isn't a Human is a backwards savage or keeping to themselves to not draw attention to themselves.



Ok, so, we've got a couple of paragraphs in, I'm assuming Sword Coast Adventures Guide?  Because, from all the actual adventures in the Sword Coast, Halflings don't play a role at all.  You don't go to halfling towns.  You don't meet halfling NPC's (or not many).  None of the major NPC's in most of the adventures are halflings.  So on and so forth.   Like I said, they're the "also ran" race most of the time.

They don't have to rule the world, but, oh, I dunno, actually matter to the setting would be nice.  As in, actually show them mattering in the setting by including them in adventures or sourcebooks?

....

Darnit, and we're just going back around in circles again.  No matter what evidence is presented, it's never enough.   The goalposts get shifted further and further back every time.


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## Hussar (Nov 6, 2022)

@Lanefan - weren't you just saying that halflings played like fourth or fifth place in your parties?  That they were largely outnumbered by many other races?

So, which is it?


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## CreamCloud0 (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Halflings don't really have anything that makes them distinctly halfling. Not being fantastical is what humans are.



I’d just like to comment on this piece here because humans in DnD are fantastical in their own way, while not explicitly magical humans are noted as being highly ambitious and adventurous, putting their hand to all things, humans contain a certain drive that pushes them to great feats, it’s one of those things that goes overlooked because it’s not explicitly listed in their stat blocks and not directly correlated to actually playing one as it’s just as easy to pick a dragonborn or a drow(_and are more likely to want to be because they’re ‘exciting’ and humans are ‘boring’ because nobody is a dragonborn in reality and so it’s different_) unless you’re rolling on race tables for your character and let’s be honest how many people actually do that beyond one shot characters?

Halflings fill the niche _realworld_ humans would have in a fantasy world who are used to lives of good food and comfort but also have their own spin on them, they’re unobtrusive in the world both in the sense they’re stealthy and that they don’t carve their lives into the environment but adapt to it, they’re noted as one of the most friendly races to a decent degree, and while this is just me speculating on the point my guess is that while halflings might partake in wars or have joined existing ones they probably have a lesser record of actually starting them


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## James Gasik (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Ok, so, we've got a couple of paragraphs in, I'm assuming Sword Coast Adventures Guide?  Because, from all the actual adventures in the Sword Coast, Halflings don't play a role at all.  You don't go to halfling towns.  You don't meet halfling NPC's (or not many).  None of the major NPC's in most of the adventures are halflings.  So on and so forth.   Like I said, they're the "also ran" race most of the time.
> 
> They don't have to rule the world, but, oh, I dunno, actually matter to the setting would be nice.  As in, actually show them mattering in the setting by including them in adventures or sourcebooks?
> 
> ...



Well of course they are included in sourcebooks; where do you think I got that information from?  See, the problem we keep having is you say "matter to the setting" and to that I respond, in what way?  Do the healers of House Jorasco not matter to Eberron?  Do the Halfling merchants not matter to Amn?  Do Halfling-led adventuring parties not make a difference in destroying monsters?

You seem to think that if every Halfling in all of D&D were Thanos-snapped out of existence there would be no repercussions, and I'm disinclined to follow that point of view.  Actually, if you want a race that matters *less *to most settings, let's look at Orcs, though you could include any of the goblinoids here, though there are settings where they do matter, such as Eberron and the 3rd party Kingdoms of Kalamar.

So Orcs.  They rarely produce anything.  Orc farmers and ranchers do exist in some settings, such as the Forgotten Realms, but often, they survive by hunting, gathering, and raiding.  Their contributions to the world's culture are pretty slender; basically they gave us some oddball Orcish weapons in the 3e era and that's about it.  You say, "ah, but they are a threat to the world's peace", and I say, well, yes, but they are usually defeated.  Armies, nations, and adventurers wipe them out by the thousands; their hordes are generally routed, so they are about as much of a threat as a plague of locusts descending on a kingdom every seven years.

Which would be more threatening if not for all those Halfling farmers, I imagine.  

But seriously, if all the Orcs everywhere just vanished, what would happen?  A spontaneous outbreak of peace?  I guess that matters to a setting, but it's not like there's any shortage of savage monsters to plague the world.  You still have Gnolls and Ogres and Trolls and Owlbears and, well, the list goes on.  Honestly, if any race matters less to a setting, it would be Humans.

I mean, think about it.  You could replace Humans in any setting with just about any other race.  Sure, they are the ambitious city builders and the movers and shakers, but *only because the setting says so*.  There's no reason Halflings or Dwarves or just about anyone could slot in just as easily.  Heck, in the Forgotten Realms, before the rise of Humans, the Elves were doing everything the Humans do in the present, having forced out the previous top dogs, the Dragons.  And the only reason Humans haven't followed suit isn't because they have some special ability or destiny- we just make settings human-centric.

The blandness of Humans, who are a race of non-specialists who generically fill any and all possible roles make them a much worse and less interesting race than even Halflings.  There's nothing interesting about D&D Humans.  I mean, what is their lore?  Individual Humans can rise to great heights of power in a short time compared to longer-lived races?  That's great, but without some kind of deus ex machina, a Human who conquers the world at 20th level is still going to die in less time than it takes an Elf to become a teenager.

Speaking of Elves, as a race often in decline, what impact do they have on the setting?  Sure you see Elven adventurers, but most of the time, they hang out in their secluded kingdoms and chill.  Their era of expansion and innovation has ended.  Oh sure, they have Elven lore and magic, but how long before all of that is obsolete?

Face it, most races are "also ran" races, and this is why your "evidence" isn't really conclusive to me.  I know Halflings tend to be overlooked, but a lot of text has been written about them, if you're willing to look for it.  So it's not like they are the "forgotten race".


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 6, 2022)

In the future animated serie of LEGO: Dungeons & Dragons halflings are perfect as sitcom characters, jelaous because gnomes are too popular thanks their talent to build with bricks, but also they halflings dare to get into troubles because they are freshers than the prince of Bel-air.

Halflings have got a great potential as a storytelling element in the hands of the right author.


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## FrozenNorth (Nov 6, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Oh, but people have absolutely insisted that the current version of halfling is archaic, should be removed from D&D and is "no longer popular" despite the fact that they are part of the most popular fantasy show released in 2022



Harry Potter Goblins were “part of the most popular fantasy series” for over a decade.  There was no clamour to play Harry Potter Goblins.


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## Oofta (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And we've explained it again and again and again. And you just refuse to accept what the issues we have are and insist that you know what it _really _is that we are upset about.
> 
> The thing is that I can find things that goblins do that humans have not done, or are a fantastical take on what humans have done.
> 
> ...




Such as?  In official source material, not setting specific or someone's homebrew. Because halflings have setting setting specific abilities and niches.  Generic assertions don't mean a lot.



Chaosmancer said:


> But when we look to halflings, there is nothing fantastical. And then we are told that that's the point, they aren't fantastical. Which leaves us scratching our heads because why would we want a fantasy race that isn't fantastical? It is like saying you can make up any possible plant you want to see, and picking short, suburbia grass.







Chaosmancer said:


> So, humans can meditate and relive memories of their past lives? Not like, one or two people, but every human as just a natural part of their existence can do this as easily as we fall asleep and dream? Elves do.




Millions, if not billions of people around the world believe in reincarnation.  There are many people throughout history that have claimed to be someone else in a previous life, even speaking a foreign language and claiming to have knowledge they should not have.  You may not believe them but that's not particularly relevant, especially when we represent human experience in a magical realm.

The "remembering past lives" and changing gender overnight only appears in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and I don't remember it ever appearing anywhere else.  Trance is just cosmetic fluff that doesn't really mean much. It's right up there with pointy ears. Changing gender came out of left field as far as I'm concerned since it's never been part of the lore previously.  Still not particularly defining.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, I like how we immediately cast aside magic like it doesn't matter for a fantasy race. Sure, it is magic, but it is still part of the gnomish identity to be able to speak with beasts and cast illusions. Some versions of rock gnomes or other inventor style gnomes are depicted with extreme cognitive abilities. For example, I have talked before about Cornie Fizzlesprocket from a fantasy series. One of the things that gets her in trouble is her ability, as a gnome, to literally count every second in the day. She has an internal clock so precise that she realizes the mind-affecting things she is being subjected to, because she has lost a full minute of time. I know it isn't a classiv DnD-ism, but that level of attention to detail, where you can just think "It has been 25,261 seconds since I woke up" is something that if any human is capable of it is rare.




In a world where any race can learn to cast powerful magic, it's really inconsequential.  In addition, extreme cognitive abilities are not a default assumption of the books. It's like saying every human has Batman's capabilities.  It just ain't so.



Chaosmancer said:


> What about being able to touch a stone wall and sense any and all weaknesses in it? Heck, now Dwarves can SEE through stone with tremorsense. Not many humans how can just touch stone and then list off its properties. Dwarves have been shown to do that with stone and metal.




Umm ... not yet.  They might be able to in the next edition depending on feedback but we haven't seen what, if anything, they're doing with halflings.



Chaosmancer said:


> And no, I wouldn't go with traditional monster goblins and orcs. There have been quite better versions of them made. I'm currently enamored with the idea of orcs from MCDM who is making DnD 5e supplemental material. Their orcs have something called "Bloodfire" representing the typical passionate version of orcs, but tying it to a biological factor that their blood can literally burn in their veins as they fight. Goblins I am still enamored with the version from The Wandering Inn fantasy story, where it seems that they go through a multi-stage life cycle, growing from Goblins to hobgoblins to massive ogre like beings.
> 
> No human I know of triples in size and gains the strength to uproot trees and crush stones when they hit their 40's.



So in your homebrew you've made them more interesting.  Kind of like how if halflings were so interesting on their own they wouldn't need special treatment.

But halflings already _are _different when it comes to strength.  Pound for pound, a halfling is far stronger than any human.  A halfling can have a 20 strength while being 3 foot tall and weighing around 40 pounds.  A truly strong human can carry roughly 50% their body weight, a halfling with the same strength can carry 750% of their body weigh.  Halflings have strength similar to ants.  Even an average weight halfling can carry 150 pounds, nearly 4 times their body weight.



Chaosmancer said:


> ....
> Reincarnations and the ability to change gender overnight isn't combat-effective either. Yet somehow I seem to be satisfied with that for defining elves. It is almost as if, and I know I have only said this dozens upon dozens of times, it isn't about combat and war.




But they still have to be "important" somehow, right?  They have to be leaders, people in power, build cities or they don't rise to your level of expectations?


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## bedir than (Nov 6, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Harry Potter Goblins were “part of the most popular fantasy series” for over a decade.  There was no clamour to play Harry Potter Goblins.



Well, see, this is where the word problematic would be used correctly - no one wanted to play Potter Goblins in D&D because Potter Goblins are racist caricatures of thieving Jewish bankers.

Also, Potter world isn't D&D, whereas Tolkien is explicitly one of the foundations of D&D


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> Darnit, and we're just going back around in circles again. No matter what evidence is presented, it's never enough. The goalposts get shifted further and further back every time.



Yes, it seems there are those who like halflings..and those who are:

"..so totally ok with halflings that they *only *require proof of:

fantasticality,
thematic appropriateness,
setting practicality,
lore quality,
distinctiveness from real life and D&D humanity
player popularity, *and*
publisher usage
..*that is asymmetric with those same characteristics for any other D&D race*
..to justify halflings' presence in the players' handbook"

With these, easily identified and fairly applied parameters why on earth might these two sides have difficulty agreeing on a shared playing field.

(tbh, the quoted section reads as at least a partial self-own..perhaps intentionally?)


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Some people in the real world _claim _they can. In a fantasy world, it may very well be possible. I see no reason to not give that ability to humans of a particular culture, or make a monk archetype based around it.




So, if you take a non-human trait, and declare it to be a human trait, then non-humans are just humans? That is your best argument? 

I guess in my next game I'll play a human who worships the human of humans and humans and appears like a human while fighting with a human and a human. Because if we can just alter the definitions of things to be human than why stop with just giving them all the traits of elves?



Faolyn said:


> Because it kind of doesn't. Every race can learn magic. There's nothing that an elf (or any other race) can do magically that a human can't do magically as well.
> 
> Also, some halflings are innately telepathic or magical. In fact, four out of the six subraces of halflings have innate powers. If you choose to ignore the dragonmarked halflings, you're still left with two out of four subraces having innate powers (lotusden and ghostwise). So if magic matters for a fantasy race, then halflings are pretty magical in nature.




Except that there is a difference between "anyone can study medicine" and "every single man, woman and child has an in-depth understanding of organ function and can diagnose illnesses with a glance". Innately magical people are different from humans in an important way. 

I do ignore the Dragonmarks, because 1) They are highly specific to Eberron and their exact context doesn't work outside of Eberron and 2) If trying to translate Dragonmarks from Eberron into something else, the best you would do is essentially an extended sorcererous family. 


I do want to discuss Ghostwise and Lotusden halflings a bit, because they are a bit fascinating. See, in every single discussion of halflings we have ever had they have only come up about twice. Once when I brought them up, and just now when you brought them up. Over three or four different threads, thousands of posts, only a very small number of times. And actually, many people like Oofta have declared that one of the defining things about halflings is that they are non-magical (which is why they can't be merged with the magical gnomes)

So, this becomes a bit of a conundrum, doesn't it? If we accept halflings as being "pretty magical" then what makes them different than Gnomes? In fact, a Lotusden Halfling and a Forest Gnome would seem to be highly similiar, if not identical, would they not? They would both be short humanoids, with human features, that have a deep connection to nature and specifically to forests, which can manifest in magical abilities. 

Therefore, do you break with the consensus of your peers and declare halflings magical, and therefore must explain how they are different from the Gnomes, or do you declare halflings majority non-magical, and therefore the rarely mentioned and often forgotten Ghostwise and Lotusden end up being exceptions, not the norm?



Faolyn said:


> Cornie Fizzlesprocket is from a web story. She is not a D&D character.




Never said she was a DnD character, and I acknowledged that the aspect was not 100% DnD. But she is a gnome, and therefore her traits fit gnomes. In fact, she is a pretty archetypical gnome in many ways.



Faolyn said:


> And you're... citing what are basically someone's home brew orcs and goblins as if it's supposed to mean something when talking about official D&D depiction of races? Big deal. _I _can home brew super-mega-awesometastic halflings. Would that convince you?




Could you homebrew "super-mega-awesometastic halflings" while keeping them non-magical, farming people who aren't very important and fade into the background? That has been the point of this discussion many times, and yet many people have declared that doing so would immediately make the race "not halflings" because halflings must fit within the very small sub-set of traits they have. If you have "super-mega-awesometastic halflings" that you have homebrewed, I'd love to hear them. In fact, that would greatly help my cause of rewriting halflings to improve them.

Meanwhile, and very interestingly, the "homebrew" you speak of doesn't seem to conflict with the innate orcishness or goblin-ness of those two races. There may be many reasons for that, but I think it is at least in part because those changes still speak to the traits of the races in question.



Faolyn said:


> Beats me. So what? None of these races have the types of organizations that allow for war, nor have they been given pages upon pages of text over the decades. Halflings actually have a god of war and have had a lot of ink spilled about them. But halflings rarely go to war. That says a lot about their character as a people.




So the lack of war on the part of the Goliath or Firbolg isn't because of their natural, in-born tendencies, but because they lack the type of organizations that go to war? Is it not strange then to say that Halflings don't go to war, considering they are practically symbiotic with humans who go to war constantly? Because halflings do participate in human wars. 

In fact, halflings have their own wars, such as the Hin ghostwars, and they have had their own homelands. Which they would have to defend in times of war. After all their War Goddess is a goddess of defense and vigilance. What you have actually noticed is that halflings do not go and conquer, which... why would they? Again, they are ALWAYS found in human settlements. So humans do the conquering, and halflings just occupy the lands the humans cleared. They don't have their own governments, they follow human governments, so if the humans go to war, then the halfling government has gone to war. 

I don't think this really speak a lot about their character as a people (or if it does, everyone will say it doesn't), it seems to speak much more about their relationship with humans. Especially considering the number of halfling criminals that can easily arise in various settings.



Faolyn said:


> Says who? You? Are you the sole arbiter of what makes a race unique and interesting? _I _think that they're cool.




I'm sorry your life has been such that you think "is nice" is a non-human trait on par with reincarnation. It isn't a matter of how "cool" it is that they are good chefs and nice. It is a matter that those are not traits that can be expanded into a non-human race. 

Now, being good cooks can be the result of some non-human traits, but it cannot be the non-human trait itself. It is a skill set, you need to have the initial traits that improves that skill set, and frankly, halflings lack those.



Faolyn said:


> This I will agree with.
> 
> But so far, they haven't, and you can't claim that D&D orcs and goblins are somehow capable of doing things that humans can't because you can point to Matt Colville's personal take on them.




It is almost funny to me that you want to insist I limit discussing a fantasy race to ONLY being DnD's take on that fantasy race. Meanwhile, halflings get constantly related back to Tolkien and the works based on Middle Earth, which isn't DnD. It almost feels like a double standard to say that we can't discuss the ease at which we can improve orcs and goblins to make them more fantastical and interesting, without changing their essential natures, while then declaring that since traditional DnD orcs and goblins are poorly done it is fine that halflings are poorly done.



Faolyn said:


> So in that case, being the best, most cheerful hosts and chefs is equally as useful as whatever abilities elves and dwarfs are. Probably more useful, in fact, because you being able to change your gender over night doesn't affect me in anyway, but you being able to cook me a good breakfast _does._




I don't think an entire race's identity needs to rest on what they can do for you as an outsider. The fact that halflings can provide you with useful services shouldn't define their existence, while looking at the elvish relationship to concepts like sex and gender which are completely outside of the human expierence is met with a "meh, it doesn't help ME in anyway" 

Seems like a bizarrely selfish view



Faolyn said:


> So if "cooking and nice" aren't what you're looking for, and "combat and war" aren't what you're looking for, and halflings can learn magic just like every other race... what _are _you looking for?




Something fantastical. You seem to have missed that I'm not talking about learning magic, I know halflings can learn magic just like everyone else. That doesn't address what I am speaking about. 

You need something that is fantastic, something that can define them, not as "useful skills humans can benefit from" but as having an existence outside of the normal human experience.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Neither are Humans, and yet they're front-and centre in the game and in the PH.




Yes, somehow in a game made by humans, where humans are the baseline, humans aren't fantastical creatures that are not human. I am sure the reason for that is a mystery, but shouldn't halflings not be human then?



Lanefan said:


> Some species are more fantastical than others.  It's a spectrum, not a binary.




And halflings are too far down the spectrum towards "just humans". We need to move them up the scale.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In the few years just before covid hit, three PC Hobbits in the party was common and four wasn't unheard of. (a typical party was 6-9 characters including NPC adventurers)
> 
> Their lead Fighter, their Bard, and their Necromancer were all Hobbits; and a second Hobbit Necromancer cycled in and out on occasion.  Oh, and their main Thief, an adventuring NPC, was also a Hobbit...and now you've got me wondering if at any point _all five_ ever ran together in the same party... ::c_hecks game log_:: ...and sure enough, they did!  The very first adventure I happened to check, the starting party consisted of:
> 
> ...




Wait, you just said in a previous post you've only had 13 hobbits ever. Out of 216 played characters. 

And now we are finding out that nearly half of them came from the same party, just before Covid hit? That offers a VERY different take on your previous numbers, you realize that right?


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> The point being is that they actually don't though.  Humans don't remember past lives and never sleep.  That's something that is distinctly elven and serves to separate them from humans.  That you could give that power to a human doesn't invalidate elves any more than short humans invalidate halflings.
> 
> Humans don't live below ground, although, sure, they could.  Nor do they innately see through stone.  Again, you could certainly make a human that could see through stone and live underground, but, all you've done now is turn a human into a dwarf.



Or, no, you've made humans that live underground (dwarfs don't see through stone--even with tremorsense). Humans who live underground are going to be different than dwarfs who live underground. Different cultures, different religions, different goals, different lifespans, different family structures, different dietary needs and preferences, different everything. When you get down to it, the only things humans and dwarfs should really have in common is that they're post sentient mammals who like beer.

A human who can remember past lives is still going to be different than an elf who can remember past lives for those exact same reasons.



Hussar said:


> Which would be the point that's been made over and over again.  Halflings don't really have anything that makes them distinctly halfling.  Not being fantastical is what humans are.



That's not the game's fault, though--that's _your _fault for not giving them a distinct culture in your setting.



Hussar said:


> To me there are several very strong reasons why halflings are problematic:
> 
> 1.  Many settings, while leaving elves and dwarves more or less alone, rewrite halflings in an attempt to make them different and attractive to players.  Whether it's the anti-hobbit kender, cannibal halflings, river trader halflings, dinosaur riding halflings or whatever, there have been so many very different takes on "halfling" that defining a halfling is actually pretty problematic.  I mean, you, yourself mention that there innately magical halflings - which runs exactly counter to what everyone has talked about as the core of being a halfling - that they aren't special.  That they aren't magical.  So, "define halfling" becomes a game of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping that something will eventually stick.



_Except... _In Dark Sun (cannibal halflings), the elves and dwarfs are also very different, what with elves being short-lived thieves and desert-runners and dwarfs being obsessive about crafts to the point of undeath if they fail to complete their goal. In Eberron (dino-riding halflings... plus hospitality halflings plus medical halflings plus mafia halflings), the elves and dwarfs are also very different, with elves worshiping undeath and dwarfs being in league with Lovecraftian entities--plus, of course, the Dragonmarks.

So the only holdout is Dragonlance, which only turned halflings into kender because their original game had a halfling with a _ring of invisibility_, and they felt it was too close to Tolkien--because apparently if one halfling has a _ring of invisibility_, the entire race is affected?--and so changed them. _Then _they were supposed to be feral streetwise hunters, but Roger Moore created Tasslehoff for a story and everyone decided that all kender were like that. 

I don't know what the river trader halflings are from, which suggests Nentir Vale because I don't know anything about that setting. Although I have them as river traders in my game, so clearly it's a fairly common idea.

So clearly, "many settings" don't leave elves and dwarfs alone.



Hussar said:


> 2.  Halflings never play much of a roll in any of the settings.  They are always the "and also" race.  They never really matter and removing them from the setting would pretty much have zero impact.  Even settings like Dragonlance where kender are actually a big thing, they don't actually DO anything in the setting.  It's the humans and the elves and the dwarves that fight back the dragonarmies.  The Kender are just kinda mentioned in a couple of paragraphs at the end.  In most settings they don't even play that much of a role.



That may be because elves and dwarfs are "sexier" than halflings are. That's not the fault of the halflings; that's the fault of the writers who think sexy = interesting.



Hussar said:


> 3.  According to the information we have, and a fair bit of anecdotal information, halflings have never actually been very popular.  Again, they are the "also ran" race.  If they are in an adventure at all, it's a very, very minor role.  "Save the halfling town" hasn't been a plot in a module that I can think of (although, I'm sure it does exist somewhere).  Yet "Save the (Human/Elf/Dwarf) town has featured repeatedly.  According to what we've seen on D&D Beyond, they aren't played all that often.  Think of it this way.  If I told you that my 5 PC group was 3 humans and 2 elves, no one would bat an eye.  Heck 3 elves a dwarf and a human would be pretty standard.  When's the last time you had 3 halfling PC's at the same time?  And if you have, would you say that that's a regular occurrence at your table?



See above, although "save the halfling town" has been a plot in _my _game--where halflings are also a dominant race, and one of only two races to have anything approaching industry and mint coins (the other race being dwarfs). Everyone else, including humans and elves, lives in tiny villages or wilderness tribes.

If you don't make halflings important in your game, then that's _your _fault, not the fault of the game.


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The blandness of Humans, who are a race of non-specialists who generically fill any and all possible roles make them a much worse and less interesting race than even Halflings.  There's nothing interesting about D&D Humans.  I mean, what is their lore?  Individual Humans can rise to great heights of power in a short time compared to longer-lived races?  That's great, but without some kind of deus ex machina, a Human who conquers the world at 20th level is still going to die in less time than it takes an Elf to become a teenager.



This, very much. In reality, a D&D setting should be totally ruled by long-lived races and undead, or by short-lived but very violence-capable races. So if humans aren't total warmongers in a setting, then they should be steamrolled by other races who can afford to engage in really long-term machinations to gain power.

Heh--my friends and I homebrewed a world and realized we had kind of left humans out when it came to adding races. We eventually decided that there was an asteroid strike and all of a sudden, humans appeared after that. They're a bit of a second-class citizen (not too much, because we didn't want to add baked-in bigotry in this setting), and some of them worship the wreckage of the crater from that strike, where all sorts of abominations emerge.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> I’d just like to comment on this piece here because humans in DnD are fantastical in their own way, while not explicitly magical humans are noted as being highly ambitious and adventurous, putting their hand to all things, humans contain a certain drive that pushes them to great feats, it’s one of those things that goes overlooked because it’s not explicitly listed in their stat blocks and not directly correlated to actually playing one as it’s just as easy to pick a dragonborn or a drow(_and are more likely to want to be because they’re ‘exciting’ and humans are ‘boring’ because nobody is a dragonborn in reality and so it’s different_) unless you’re rolling on race tables for your character and let’s be honest how many people actually do that beyond one shot characters?
> 
> Halflings fill the niche _realworld_ humans would have in a fantasy world who are used to lives of good food and comfort but also have their own spin on them, they’re unobtrusive in the world both in the sense they’re stealthy and that they don’t carve their lives into the environment but adapt to it, they’re noted as one of the most friendly races to a decent degree, and while this is just me speculating on the point my guess is that while halflings might partake in wars or have joined existing ones they probably have a lesser record of actually starting them




This is fairly nonsensical though. 

Firstly, being highly ambitious and adventurous isn't somehow fantastical in the context of humans. Humans have pushed and explored the edges of the world throughout our entire existence. Before the invention of sail boats or any way to preserve food, we had already traveled the majority of the globe. 

Just... stop and appreciate that for the moment. The Inuit people have lived in the arctic since the time of the Great Pyramids (approx. 3,000 BCE), and their ancestors likely crossed into that land over ten thousand years before that. And the Chon or the Puelche people lived as far as the tip of South America (records are hard to google). So it is fair to say humans spanned the entire globe by at a bare, bare minimum the time of Classical Greek culture. We know there are human remains in South America dating back to at least 8,000 BCE 

Humans have a drive that pushes them to achieve great feats. Period. 


But, also, not every single human in a DnD world is seeking glory and adventure. We have farmers, we have bakers, we have cobblers, we have people who just want to live a simple life. The idea that halflings represent "real-world" humans in their love of comfort and home is ludicrous. Humans fill that role. What is happening is you are overstating the racial character of humanity to try and make humans inhuman.


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

FrozenNorth said:


> Harry Potter Goblins were “part of the most popular fantasy series” for over a decade.  There was no clamour to play Harry Potter Goblins.



Is there a Harry Potter RPG where goblins are a playable race?


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Such as?  In official source material, not setting specific or someone's homebrew. Because halflings have setting setting specific abilities and niches.  Generic assertions don't mean a lot.




See my response to Faolyn where I answer this exact question



Oofta said:


> Millions, if not billions of people around the world believe in reincarnation.  There are many people throughout history that have claimed to be someone else in a previous life, even speaking a foreign language and claiming to have knowledge they should not have.  You may not believe them but that's not particularly relevant, especially when we represent human experience in a magical realm.




See my response to Faolyn, just because you can redefine human to include easily accessible reincarnation doesn't mean it is a fact of humans. 

Heck, think about this for a moment. No elf needs "evidence" of elves reincarnating. They trance, they visit their past lives. They don't need to prove it to other elves, it is a fact. They don't need special rituals, or speaking in tongues, or medicinal herbs and years of special training. They just live their natural lives.




Oofta said:


> The "remembering past lives" and changing gender overnight only appears in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and I don't remember it ever appearing anywhere else.  Trance is just cosmetic fluff that doesn't really mean much. It's right up there with pointy ears. Changing gender came out of left field as far as I'm concerned since it's never been part of the lore previously.  Still not particularly defining.




Really? So, you can completely dismiss utterly inhuman experiences because... you weren't following the changes in lore? That doesn't seem like a very compelling case.



Oofta said:


> In a world where any race can learn to cast powerful magic, it's really inconsequential.  In addition, extreme cognitive abilities are not a default assumption of the books. It's like saying every human has Batman's capabilities.  It just ain't so.




Extreme cognitive abilities ARE the default of gnomes. Yes, it would be like saying every human has Batman's capabilities, that is why it is a notable non-human feature. 

And, again, like I responded to Faolyn, innate magic that you are born with is different than magic you can learn. It does make a consequential difference.



Oofta said:


> Umm ... not yet.  They might be able to in the next edition depending on feedback but we haven't seen what, if anything, they're doing with halflings.




And yet, a lot of people saw that and went "Oh! That makes perfect sense for Dwarves, that's a very dwarvish ability." It fits into what we expect from them, because it is perfectly in line with their depictions. 

For Halflings they are finally giving them stealth proficiency, but that is a rather difficult sell to me on how that changes anything.



Oofta said:


> So in your homebrew you've made them more interesting.  Kind of like how if halflings were so interesting on their own they wouldn't need special treatment.




See my response to Faolyn



Oofta said:


> But halflings already _are _different when it comes to strength.  Pound for pound, a halfling is far stronger than any human.  A halfling can have a 20 strength while being 3 foot tall and weighing around 40 pounds.  A truly strong human can carry roughly 50% their body weight, a halfling with the same strength can carry 750% of their body weigh.  Halflings have strength similar to ants.  Even an average weight halfling can carry 150 pounds, nearly 4 times their body weight.




Now this could be an interesting angle to take... if it also wasn't true for every other short race in the game. This is true of gnomes, kobolds, goblins, literally every race that can be "small" this is true for. So it can't really be a defining feature of halflings.



Oofta said:


> But they still have to be "important" somehow, right?  They have to be leaders, people in power, build cities or they don't rise to your level of expectations?




No, as I have told you many, many, many, many times before that is not what I am saying. Stop trying to strawman me or ignore me, one of the two.


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## Lanefan (Nov 6, 2022)

Hussar said:


> @Lanefan - weren't you just saying that halflings played like fourth or fifth place in your parties?  That they were largely outnumbered by many other races?
> 
> So, which is it?



The "fourth or fifth" (actually 6th) place is from an aggregate of all PCs I've ever DMed.  The whack of Hobbits in that particular party is unusual, but as you asked if anyone had ever seen it...well... 

Also, worth noting that two of those five Hobbits are reincarnations that started as something else.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What is happening is you are overstating the racial character of humanity to try and make humans inhuman.



Either..this...

..or you are assuming that the language used in the PHB for racial characteristics is meant to describe the characteristics of the races included in the PHB...

I mean..who does that?


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## Yora (Nov 6, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Speaking of Elves, as a race often in decline, what impact do they have on the setting?  Sure you see Elven adventurers, but most of the time, they hang out in their secluded kingdoms and chill.  Their era of expansion and innovation has ended.  Oh sure, they have Elven lore and magic, but how long before all of that is obsolete?



A year ago I was reading through the whole original Forgotten Realms Grey Box and taking notes, and one of the most surprising things I found is that originally the setting wasn't just presented as human-dominant but almost human-exclusive.
Elves and dwarves are pretty much gone. Gnomes are only occasionally name checked in the Grey Box and other 1st edition sources in sections that go through the PHB races in alphabetical order but are otherwise nonexistent.
I think halflings might actually the most common nonhumans, though still more a footnote than having much of a presence.


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, if you take a non-human trait, and declare it to be a human trait, then non-humans are just humans? That is your best argument?



And again, you are strawmanning here.

I didn't say "take a non-human trait and declare it to be a human trait." Real humans in the real world claim to be reincarnations. It's a central tenet in some religions. It can be very true in a fantasy world.

...Unless you are claiming that D&D humans _have _to follow a particular religious model based on an Abrahamic-style reskinning of the Greco-Roman pantheon? Or that any D&D human religion that involves reincarnation is automatically false?



Chaosmancer said:


> I guess in my next game I'll play a human who worships the human of humans and humans and appears like a human while fighting with a human and a human. Because if we can just alter the definitions of things to be human than why stop with just giving them all the traits of elves?



"Divinity of Mankind" was a perfectly acceptable choice for a religion, as per the 2e Complete Priests Handbook. It even spawned a racist and sexist men's club in Lamordia. A party consisting only of humans is perfectly fine, and was considered the ideal in 1e. 

So I don't know what you're complaining about here.



Chaosmancer said:


> Except that there is a difference between "anyone can study medicine" and "every single man, woman and child has an in-depth understanding of organ function and can diagnose illnesses with a glance". Innately magical people are different from humans in an important way.



The ability of a high elf to cast a cantrip is the same as a studied wizard. Gotcha. 



Chaosmancer said:


> I do ignore the Dragonmarks, because 1) They are highly specific to Eberron and their exact context doesn't work outside of Eberron and 2) If trying to translate Dragonmarks from Eberron into something else, the best you would do is essentially an extended sorcererous family.
> 
> 
> I do want to discuss Ghostwise and Lotusden halflings a bit, because they are a bit fascinating. See, in every single discussion of halflings we have ever had they have only come up about twice. Once when I brought them up, and just now when you brought them up. Over three or four different threads, thousands of posts, only a very small number of times. And actually, many people like Oofta have declared that one of the defining things about halflings is that they are non-magical (which is why they can't be merged with the magical gnomes)
> ...



1. I don't care that Oofta said halflings are non-magical.

2. Probably ghostwise and lotusden halflings don't come more for the same reason pallid elves and shadar-kai don't come up more often: they're not in the PHB, and weren't historically common types of elves. Maybe they should be, but that's a discussion for another edition.

3. The difference between halflings and gnomes is both cultural and mechanical. If you care to get into fantastic DNA, there's probably a load of differences between them--probably more than the difference between humans and elves, since half-elves both exist and are fertile and "gnomelings" aren't really a thing. And sure, maybe an _individual, home-brew _setting doesn't need both races, but the game is not an individual, home-brew setting. The game is a toolset to allow people to take their own settings, or to use an official setting.



Chaosmancer said:


> Never said she was a DnD character, and I acknowledged that the aspect was not 100% DnD. But she is a gnome, and therefore her traits fit gnomes. In fact, she is a pretty archetypical gnome in many ways.



But she is not a _D&D_ gnome.

The original mythical gnome was an earth elemental. That is not a D&D gnome. Neither are garden gnomes, Warhammer gnomes, Discworld gnomes, Oz nomes, or the gnome in the 2015 slasher movie "Gnome Alone." 

D&D gnomes are _one type of gnome_. 

Therefore, claiming that a character from a non-D&D source is some sort of exemplar of D&D-gnomeness is utterly ridiculous and completely pointless.



Chaosmancer said:


> Could you homebrew "super-mega-awesometastic halflings" while keeping them non-magical, farming people who aren't very important and fade into the background? That has been the point of this discussion many times, and yet many people have declared that doing so would immediately make the race "not halflings" because halflings must fit within the very small sub-set of traits they have. If you have "super-mega-awesometastic halflings" that you have homebrewed, I'd love to hear them. In fact, that would greatly help my cause of rewriting halflings to improve them.



Why do they need to be non-magical farming people who aren't very important and fade into the background in order to be halflings? The halflings of Eberron are magical, don't farm that much, are politically important, and don't fade into the background. Are they not halflings?

Stop using the One True Halfling fallacy. Especially since you, in the past, have said that halflings that are too different from the norm don't count.



Chaosmancer said:


> So the lack of war on the part of the Goliath or Firbolg isn't because of their natural, in-born tendencies, but because they lack the type of organizations that go to war? Is it not strange then to say that Halflings don't go to war, considering they are practically symbiotic with humans who go to war constantly? Because halflings do participate in human wars.



To go to war, you need armies. Neither goliaths nor firbolgs have the types of communities that can fund armies (unless in your particular setting they do), so at most they can do skirmishes and raids.

Halflings have the types of communities that can fund (small) armies, but they are peaceful enough that, as a race, they choose not to. At most, they have militias to protect themselves from invaders.

_Some individual _halflings, and some _individual halfling communities_ choose to aid other people (humans) in wartime. 



Chaosmancer said:


> In fact, halflings have their own wars, such as the Hin ghostwars, and they have had their own homelands. Which they would have to defend in times of war. After all their War Goddess is a goddess of defense and vigilance. What you have actually noticed is that halflings do not go and conquer, which... why would they? Again, they are ALWAYS found in human settlements. So humans do the conquering, and halflings just occupy the lands the humans cleared. They don't have their own governments, they follow human governments, so if the humans go to war, then the halfling government has gone to war.



Always? Every single human settlement _must _feature halflings in it? 

_No _halfling village or town ever has a mayor or governor or council of elders?

And there's no possibility that the halflings were there first and the humans just took the land the halflings didn't need?

Uh-huh.

(Also, Avoreen is a male god.)



Chaosmancer said:


> I don't think this really speak a lot about their character as a people (or if it does, everyone will say it doesn't), it seems to speak much more about their relationship with humans. Especially considering the number of halfling criminals that can easily arise in various settings.



That's on you, then, if you don't think it speaks about their character.

Hmm, if halflings criminals "easily arise" in human societies, then what's going on in those societies that force halflings into the role of criminal? And do those halflings who live in human societies have a choice about whether or not they go to war or not?



Chaosmancer said:


> I'm sorry your life has been such that you think "is nice" is a non-human trait on par with reincarnation. It isn't a matter of how "cool" it is that they are good chefs and nice. It is a matter that those are not traits that can be expanded into a non-human race.
> 
> Now, being good cooks can be the result of some non-human traits, but it cannot be the non-human trait itself. It is a skill set, you need to have the initial traits that improves that skill set, and frankly, halflings lack those.



So? It's cultural, not mechanical. If your halflings lack those cultural traits, that's on you.



Chaosmancer said:


> It is almost funny to me that you want to insist I limit discussing a fantasy race to ONLY being DnD's take on that fantasy race. Meanwhile, halflings get constantly related back to Tolkien and the works based on Middle Earth, which isn't DnD. It almost feels like a double standard to say that we can't discuss the ease at which we can improve orcs and goblins to make them more fantastical and interesting, without changing their essential natures, while then declaring that since traditional DnD orcs and goblins are poorly done it is fine that halflings are poorly done.



Why is that funny? We're talking about D&D, not other settings or systems. You can't say "This non-D&D take on a non-halfling is cool, therefore halflings aren't cool." That makes no sense.

And yes, we _do _need to change the essential natures of goblins and orcs, because up until recently, their essential nature was "Always Evil, Kill On Sight." And there are players who want that to _remain _their essential nature, because they make for easy bad guys that way. When you take away the AEKoS nature of orcs and goblins, you basically have nothing left, culturally. Which means that in order to use them as _people_, they need to be changed a lot. And then a _lot _of people want to get rid of them as a PC race, accusing them as just being humans in rubber masks. 

Halflings, however, have never been AEKoS monsters--not even in Dark Sun, where they were perfectly playable and listed as Lawful *Neutral *in the Dark Sun MCAII, with the cannibals being listed as chaotic renagades. Which means that they (halflings in general) don't need to be revamped in order to be a playable people.

So your paragraph here is, in fact, entirely wrong.



Chaosmancer said:


> I don't think an entire race's identity needs to rest on what they can do for you as an outsider. The fact that halflings can provide you with useful services shouldn't define their existence, while looking at the elvish relationship to concepts like sex and gender which are completely outside of the human expierence is met with a "meh, it doesn't help ME in anyway"
> 
> Seems like a bizarrely selfish view



First, it's bizarre that you would assume that halflings can only provide these useful services for humans. Why wouldn't you assume they provide these useful services for each other?

But anyway, D&D is a humano-centric game. LIterally every single creature and object in the game is built to interact with humans in some way. Dragons hoard treasure _just _so humans can kill them and claim the treasure--they certainly don't use it for any other purpose. Mind flayers eat _human _brains. Mimics look like chests so that _human _adventurers will get lured in. Nearly every nonhuman race and monster speaks Common--the _human _language. Despite all logic to the contrary, nearly every setting as humans as the dominant species. For that matter, why are nearly all the PC races _*human*oid? _If elves predate humanity, humans should be elfoid. 

Why all this? Because D&D is a game that is played by humans. 



Chaosmancer said:


> Something fantastical. You seem to have missed that I'm not talking about learning magic, I know halflings can learn magic just like everyone else. That doesn't address what I am speaking about.
> 
> You need something that is fantastic, something that can define them, not as "useful skills humans can benefit from" but as having an existence outside of the normal human experience.



Why do _you _need something fantastic to define them? I sure don't. 

This is use, using the No True Scotsman fallacy, because I've done this before with you. Halflings aren't fantastical enough, they're not good. Halflings _are _fantastical? They're not proper halflings. _You _have said this.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Either..this...
> 
> ..or you are assuming that the language used in the PHB for racial characteristics is meant to describe the characteristics of the races included in the PHB...
> 
> I mean..who does that?




Well, considering I demonstrated fairly bluntly that real world humans have that drive and ambition, and that it isn't inhuman at all, something you would have had to have read to quote the very last sentence of my post.... 

Seems like trying to claim that humans aren't human because they have drive and ambition is... kind of trying to make up an extreme version. I mean it is possible that the language used in the PHB to describe humans, matching with real-world humans, is meant to be some extreme mythical version of inhuman humans, but that seems a bit silly to me comapred to them just... describing humans.


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## Oofta (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> ...
> 1. I don't care that Oofta said halflings are non-magical.



I can't remember ever having said that.    Then again I don't think a race needs to have magic to be "worthy".  Tieflings are the only race in the PHB where all of the subraces have magic so I don't know why it would be relevant one way or another.


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## Lanefan (Nov 6, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Wait, you just said in a previous post you've only had 13 hobbits ever. Out of 216 played characters.
> 
> And now we are finding out that nearly half of them came from the same party, just before Covid hit? That offers a VERY different take on your previous numbers, you realize that right?



Five of them did end up in the same party, yes; of which three are among the longest-serving characters in the game and the other two aren't all that far behind.

Call it a case, perhaps, of the cream rising to the top? 

Contrast this with the current party that only has one half-Hobbit (long story!), which counts as "other" on my charts.


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## Mecheon (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> Why do _you _need something fantastic to define them? I sure don't.



Because at the moment, Halflings are defined as "Humans, but small". That's their entire thing at the moment.

This is in contrast to the other playable races of "Humans", "Fey-descended mortal spirits who can relive past lives rather than dream", "Underground adapted workers tied to the very earth and stone", "Another fey descended group, who are either heavily into the nature side or tinkering", "Draconic empire-building humanoids", "People with the blood of demons/devils/etc running through their veins, leading to a distinct appearance","Children of a scorned god, made for fightin' an' orcin'.".

I also can't help but remember a few other posters saying, up-thread, rather than work on making halflings more distinctive as their own niche, we should just remove all of the other small races from the game so halflings are the only small ones. Which, yeah, nah, not liking that.

You wouldn't even need to go hard to give Halflings a thing. "Halflings are stupid-resistant to mental corruption" is well in LotR vibes given how hobbits handled the Ring. "Halflings are incredibly stealthy to the point of absurdity" is another one. You gotta lean into those hats so there's more to them rather than just 'Small human'


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## Faolyn (Nov 6, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Because at the moment, Halflings are defined as "Humans, but small". That's their entire thing at the moment.
> 
> This is in contrast to the other playable races of "Humans", "Fey-descended mortal spirits who can relive past lives rather than dream", "Underground adapted workers tied to the very earth and stone", "Another fey descended group, who are either heavily into the nature side or tinkering", "Draconic empire-building humanoids", "People with the blood of demons/devils/etc running through their veins, leading to a distinct appearance","Children of a scorned god, made for fightin' an' orcin'.".
> 
> ...



But they're not defined as humans, but small. They're defined as being lucky, as communal, peaceful, friendly, working well with others, etc., often to a degree beyond what humans are like.

"Stupid-resistant to mental corruption" would be cool, sure, but how do you model that in game? Resistance to charm? Elves already have that, as do some other races; halflings would be accused to being copycats. Remove resistance to charm from elves and give it to halflings? Sure, OK. _But. _Mental corruption is pretty much a RP thing--the BBEG tempts the player, the player _chooses _whether or not to go along with it. It's not a thing where you magically charm the PC and turn them into NPCs under the DM's control. So if you want to say halflings are "stupid-resistant to mental corruption," then you simply have to say that (almost) no NPC halflings have ever been tempted by the BBEG, but lots of elves, dwarfs, and humans _have _been.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> And again, you are strawmanning here.
> 
> I didn't say "take a non-human trait and declare it to be a human trait." Real humans in the real world claim to be reincarnations. It's a central tenet in some religions. It can be very true in a fantasy world.
> 
> ...Unless you are claiming that D&D humans _have _to follow a particular religious model based on an Abrahamic-style reskinning of the Greco-Roman pantheon? Or that any D&D human religion that involves reincarnation is automatically false?




Okay, then name all the people you knew in your past lives. Where are they now? Would you be able to call them up and have them post on this forum confirming that they are indeed the people you knew in your past life? 


You are trying to make my statement into something it isn't, and then claiming a strawman. An elf doesn't believe they are a reincarnation, they ARE a reincarnation. They don't need to claim it, they can go and speak to the people from their past lives memories and reminiscence about those times. They don't need special spiritual awareness, they just are. 

This has NOTHING to do with religion and I'd appreciate you not trying to make this into some anti-hindu or anti-buddhist statement. Those belief systems have nothing to do with the biological and mental reality elves are dealing with. Because even in the context of those religious beliefs, elves are dealing with something ENTIRELY different.



Faolyn said:


> "Divinity of Mankind" was a perfectly acceptable choice for a religion, as per the 2e Complete Priests Handbook. It even spawned a racist and sexist men's club in Lamordia. A party consisting only of humans is perfectly fine, and was considered the ideal in 1e.
> 
> So I don't know what you're complaining about here.




The fact that you are altering definitions of human to include whatever you feel like to descredit my points. Which you completely missed the sarcasm of me redefining shield and sword to be human. I thought at least that much would be obvious.



Faolyn said:


> The ability of a high elf to cast a cantrip is the same as a studied wizard. Gotcha.




No it isn't. And that ignores my point.



Faolyn said:


> 1. I don't care that Oofta said halflings are non-magical.




You really should. He absolutely doesn't want halflings to be magical. If you want magical halflings you really should care that him and others would want to remove that as an option.



Faolyn said:


> 2. Probably ghostwise and lotusden halflings don't come more for the same reason pallid elves and shadar-kai don't come up more often: they're not in the PHB, and weren't historically common types of elves. Maybe they should be, but that's a discussion for another edition.




Shadar-Kai don't come up because their history of recently being human is very confusing, since many people still imagine they are humans it is strange for them to think they are elves. 

Also, Pallid elves are not truly very different from other types of elves. They don't really need mentioning since they don't break the mold. However, in the assertion that all halflings are unremarkable and non-magical, magical halflings would break that mold and be quite notable.



Faolyn said:


> 3. The difference between halflings and gnomes is both cultural and mechanical. If you care to get into fantastic DNA, there's probably a load of differences between them--probably more than the difference between humans and elves, since half-elves both exist and are fertile and "gnomelings" aren't really a thing. And sure, maybe an _individual, home-brew _setting doesn't need both races, but the game is not an individual, home-brew setting. The game is a toolset to allow people to take their own settings, or to use an official setting.




Wow that is a whole lot of saying nothing. Everything after your first sentence is just pointing out that there isn't a distinct halfling/gnome mixed race option, which is true for 99% of all mixed race options, so not exactly breaking ground. 

Then, instead of actually PRESENTING evidence, you simply say that their differences are cultural and mechanical. Which, hey, I can give you mechanical, halfling mechanics are pretty forgettable after all and don't really add much useful flavor compared to gnome mechanics, but can you actually... give some examples of what makes a forest gnome culture completely and utterly different from a lotusden halfling culture? And then explain why cultural differences aren't enough to make them simply sub-races like Mountain Dwarves and Hill Dwarves who only really had cultural and mechanical differences? 

Or is this just a "I assert I'm right and don't provide any evidence" sort of discussion?



Faolyn said:


> But she is not a _D&D_ gnome.




Which, again, I acknowledged. Do I need to go ahead and pre-acknowledge it for the next post too? 

The point is, nothing I said about what she can do would be seen as unusual for a DnD gnome. In fact, it fits perfectly into DnD gnomes and no one bats an eye at it. I should know, I put it into my DnD gnomes and not a single player ever went "wait, gnomes can't do that!". In fact, they just accepted it as a fact of gnomish life.



Faolyn said:


> The original mythical gnome was an earth elemental. That is not a D&D gnome. Neither are garden gnomes, Warhammer gnomes, Discworld gnomes, Oz nomes, or the gnome in the 2015 slasher movie "Gnome Alone."
> 
> D&D gnomes are _one type of gnome_.
> 
> Therefore, claiming that a character from a non-D&D source is some sort of exemplar of D&D-gnomeness is utterly ridiculous and completely pointless.




Except that it isn't pointless. I'll agree with you that gnomes are no longer earth elementals, just like kobolds are no longer goblins. That isn't exactly a difficult point. Garden gnomes are a type of statuary, so also not relevant, just like garden dragon statues aren't dragons. 

As for the rest, what are their characteristics? What makes them different from other gnomes? I'm not familiar with them. Well, I think the Nomes of Oz do stick closer to their earth elemental roots, which is fine, and I would also not that Nomes not being Gnomes is the same as Porcs not being Orcs. Different names are different it turns out. 

Which leaves us with a slasher fic, probably based on garden gnome statuary, and then Discworld and Warhammer, both of which tend to have extreme deviations from normal fantasy. However, they are still called "gnomes" so there has to be a reason for that, right?



Faolyn said:


> Why do they need to be non-magical farming people who aren't very important and fade into the background in order to be halflings? The halflings of Eberron are magical, don't farm that much, are politically important, and don't fade into the background. Are they not halflings?
> 
> Stop using the One True Halfling fallacy. Especially since you, in the past, have said that halflings that are too different from the norm don't count.




So, I'm confused. 

See, for the last three threads I've been repeatedly berated about what the definition of a halfling is. It has been a major point of contention, because I want to change a few things about them, and I have been told that changing any of those factors would make them decidedly not halflings. 

However, now, you are berating me for sticking to the definition that I have had thrown at me over and over and over again. 


So, here, I'll just step back for a second. What is a halfling? Is a halfling just whatever you decide is a halfling, or is there some sort of definition for them? Because I'm not going to continue being yelled at for both using and not using the definition everyone else has. That way lies madness.



Faolyn said:


> To go to war, you need armies. Neither goliaths nor firbolgs have the types of communities that can fund armies (unless in your particular setting they do), so at most they can do skirmishes and raids.
> 
> Halflings have the types of communities that can fund (small) armies, but they are peaceful enough that, as a race, they choose not to. At most, they have militias to protect themselves from invaders.
> 
> _Some individual _halflings, and some _individual halfling communities_ choose to aid other people (humans) in wartime.




So, halflings go to war. Because any halfling community bigger than a small village is typically depicted as part of a human community. Much larger than that and they would need things like... kings, armies, you know all those things that you claim they can't have. 

In fact, other than the Talentas barbarian halflings of Eberron, is there a halfling location you know of that is bigger than a couple of villages? I'll put forth that human villages also typically only have militias and not armies, though it isn't because humans as a race are peaceful, but because they can't support armies with a village's worth of supplies. 

I really feel like I'm dealing with Schrodinger's halflings here, since suddenly we have halfling cities and maybe even small halfling countries, when previously they just had small villages. Where is all of this coming from?



Faolyn said:


> Always? Every single human settlement _must _feature halflings in it?




Ah, you got me, egg on my face. I'm sure there are human settlements without halflings. In fact, humans seem to exist just fine without halflings. 

How many halfling cities with zero humans can we name? Not countries, cities.



Faolyn said:


> _No _halfling village or town ever has a mayor or governor or council of elders?




Can they overrule the king who commands the land their village sits on? 

"Sorry, High King Etheril, the Halfling Mayor of Gallybrooke said you are not allowed to go to war, we must call it off"


So, if the human villages in the kingdom are considered to be going to war when the king declares war.... why aren't the halfling villages?



Faolyn said:


> And there's no possibility that the halflings were there first and the humans just took the land the halflings didn't need?




Sure, maybe thousands of years ago halflings lived in this land and then the humans came in, waging war and conquering, and the halfling were like "sure, you can have all the land surrounding us, we weren't using it anyways" 

Of course, that still doesn't change the fact that when the humans, in the future, wage war and conquer that the halflings tend to follow them, which was my point.



Faolyn said:


> (Also, Avoreen is a male god.)




_shrug_

Mixed them up with Gaerdal Ironhand



Faolyn said:


> That's on you, then, if you don't think it speaks about their character.
> 
> Hmm, if halflings criminals "easily arise" in human societies, then what's going on in those societies that force halflings into the role of criminal? And do those halflings who live in human societies have a choice about whether or not they go to war or not?




Shouldn't we know the answers to these questions instead of you having to answer me? Why is it that halflings turn to a life of crime so easily? Halflings live with humans constantly how do they interact with the humans and deal with their supposedly conflicting natures. Do human kingdoms make exceptions when they create peasant levies and ignore halflings? Why? How does this change the dynamic of the races? 

I can make up things, but if halflings are supposedly defined by their peacefulness and unwillingness to go to war (but not to kill things during adventures) then shouldn't this be a major thing discussed in the books?



Faolyn said:


> So? It's cultural, not mechanical. If your halflings lack those cultural traits, that's on you.




How is it on me? I didn't create halflings, you won't find my name listed in the PHB. Why is it my fault that halflings lack anything that can possibly define them besides just vague platitudes? 

And, again, if it is just cultural, why can't halflings be a sub-race of Gnomes, just like hill dwarves and mountain dwarves? It is all only cultural after all.



Faolyn said:


> Why is that funny? We're talking about D&D, not other settings or systems. You can't say "This non-D&D take on a non-halfling is cool, therefore halflings aren't cool." That makes no sense.
> 
> And yes, we _do _need to change the essential natures of goblins and orcs, because up until recently, their essential nature was "Always Evil, Kill On Sight." And there are players who want that to _remain _their essential nature, because they make for easy bad guys that way. When you take away the AEKoS nature of orcs and goblins, you basically have nothing left, culturally. Which means that in order to use them as _people_, they need to be changed a lot. And then a _lot _of people want to get rid of them as a PC race, accusing them as just being humans in rubber masks.
> 
> ...




So, I can't point to a better designed version of something to say that the other version is poorly done? Meanwhile, others are allowed to constantly harp on Tolkien like he was somehow involved in the writing of Dungeons and Dragons? 

And sure, halflings are "playable" but they aren't good. As we have been discussing, you don't even seem to have a consistent definition of what a halfling is, since they keep morphing every time you find another point of mine you don't like.



Faolyn said:


> First, it's bizarre that you would assume that halflings can only provide these useful services for humans. Why wouldn't you assume they provide these useful services for each other?
> 
> But anyway, D&D is a humano-centric game. LIterally every single creature and object in the game is built to interact with humans in some way. Dragons hoard treasure _just _so humans can kill them and claim the treasure--they certainly don't use it for any other purpose. Mind flayers eat _human _brains. Mimics look like chests so that _human _adventurers will get lured in. Nearly every nonhuman race and monster speaks Common--the _human _language. Despite all logic to the contrary, nearly every setting as humans as the dominant species. For that matter, why are nearly all the PC races _*human*oid? _If elves predate humanity, humans should be elfoid.
> 
> Why all this? Because D&D is a game that is played by humans.




To answer the first point, it is because halflings cooking for halflings isn't special. It would be like a human cooking for a human, kind of obvious. But, again, you decided to phrase it thusly, "So in that case, being the best, most cheerful hosts and chefs is equally as useful as whatever abilities elves and dwarfs are. Probably more useful, in fact, because you being able to change your gender over night doesn't affect me in anyway, but you being able to cook me a good breakfast _does."_

You were the one who decided that the elvish expierence of Gender doesn't matter, because it can't provide anything for humans (or other races, I guess). That wasn't me. That was your take away. You need to defend that, especially since...



Dragon's hoards are tied directly into their magic and their afterlife.
Mind Flayer's eat sentient brains, not just human brains.
Mimics look like treasure chests to lure in adventurers, adventurers are not solely human. Additionally, mimics can take on a variety of forms and adapt to what is most useful for their environment.

So... you were wrong about every single one of these

Yep, common is the human language. Took them long enough to acknowledge that. Luckily, languages are not defining. Whether or not you speak common holds no bearing on whether you are an elf, dwarf, or dragon. As for the rest, yes, it is a game played by humans. So therefore the only way that halflings should be defined as a race is how useful they are to humans? 

I'm going to say yikes to that, and recommend you take a different stance, because that is a very very poor way to define a race of people.




Faolyn said:


> Why do _you _need something fantastic to define them? I sure don't.




Why not? They are a fantasy race, if they aren't fantastical then what's the point? At that point they may as well just be humans.



Faolyn said:


> This is use, using the No True Scotsman fallacy, because I've done this before with you. Halflings aren't fantastical enough, they're not good. Halflings _are _fantastical? They're not proper halflings. _You _have said this.




No, other people have declared that halflings need to be non-fantastical. That is there definition. I want them to be more fantastical, and you seem to think my pointing out the cognitivie dissonance between people insisting they are non-fantastical and the existence of rarely discussed fantastical options is somehow me trying to gas light you. 

Your understanding of the situation would be aided if you stop assuming I am a malicious agent.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Five of them did end up in the same party, yes; of which three are among the longest-serving characters in the game and the other two aren't all that far behind.
> 
> Call it a case, perhaps, of the cream rising to the top?
> 
> Contrast this with the current party that only has one half-Hobbit (long story!), which counts as "other" on my charts.




Or, if half of your halflings ever ended up in a single group, created recently, that means that the other 8 were spread over how many decades? 

That is a major change to your data.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 6, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> You wouldn't even need to go hard to give Halflings a thing. "Halflings are stupid-resistant to mental corruption" is well in LotR vibes given how hobbits handled the Ring.




Like, for example, advantage on all Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence saving throws? Maybe call it something like [Halfling] Cunning




Mecheon said:


> "Halflings are incredibly stealthy to the point of absurdity" is another one. You gotta lean into those hats so there's more to them rather than just 'Small human'




Which is a bit difficult considering Goblins can hide as a bonus action, Deep Gnome now gets advantage on stealth checks. Be pretty difficult to actually make "very stealthy" a unique thing for halflings.


----------



## Irlo (Nov 7, 2022)

I participated in this thread early on and I want to avoid rehashing that part of the conversation.

For those who want halflings to change in future iterations of the game, I think we can safely say you'll get your wish. Halflings have been presented differently through the years up to now. That will continue going forward.

My fondness for halflings doesn't rely on a unique feature that sets them apart from 813 other playable races.  In the games I host and the ones I'm likely to play in, deep gnomes and kobolds and goblin PCs are non-existant. There's no niche competition there. What I like (and what many others like, I think) about halflings is the culture and their relations to other cultures in the setting ... whether that relation exists as written in a published setting, as detailed in a specific DM's homebrew, or in the imagination of the player. I'm not overly fond of Tolkien, and I don't attach LoTR Hobbit baggage to D&D halflings. D&D is it's own genre at this point, influenced by and influencing fantasy in various media.

That some published setting make big changes to halfling lore and their role in society is not to me an indication that the publishers are trying to make halflings more appealing to players but rather distinguishing their settings from others by tossing out the expectations. This is not limited to the presentation of halflings. Other races are often re-imagined to lend distinction to a setting.


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## bedir than (Nov 7, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Because at the moment, Halflings are defined as "Humans, but small". That's their entire thing at the moment.



This is just bait.

Under no reading of any version of any D&D writeup of the halfling has this been true.


----------



## Mecheon (Nov 7, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Under no reading of any version of any D&D writeup of the halfling has this been true.



"Trying to fit their origin as Hobbits in with later 3E attempts at making them more dramatic, not landing the approach on either, apparently deciding the Halfling's thing is 'mundanity' which deliberately counters with humans thing which is already mundanity, except also small" is a much longer way is saying "Basically humans, but small"

They never lean into much other stuff other than this which is the problem.


----------



## bedir than (Nov 7, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> "Trying to fit their origin as Hobbits in with later 3E attempts at making them more dramatic, not landing the approach on either, apparently deciding the Halfling's thing is 'mundanity' which deliberately counters with humans thing which is already mundanity, except also small" is a much longer way is saying "Basically humans, but small"
> 
> They never lean into much other stuff other than this which is the problem.



ignoring so many mechanics and lore elements is disingenuous


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## Mecheon (Nov 7, 2022)

bedir than said:


> ignoring so many mechanics and lore elements is disingenuous



Races aren't just mechanics, they're a wider group of things. The mechanics serve to make the idea of the race into reality, not the other way around.

Halflings being lucky doesn't come up in story as a thing for them. Yes they could lean into that as their thing but, it doesn't show up in the art. It doesn't show up in the little quibbles they write about them. Heck, there's more solid stuff about halflings riding dinosaurs than their is about them being "The Lucky Race"

You play an elf because you want to be like an elf from stories and the mechanics support that. You generally don't play an elf because you want the specific bonuses

Mechanically, halflings are fine. Their lore doesn't mesh well with it and they're notoriously underused and the ultimate "They're just here". Heck, tying over from the orc thread, I'd argue halflings have it way worse on the "Can you just replace it with humans and there'd be no problem" side we were arguing over there


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## Faolyn (Nov 7, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, then name all the people you knew in your past lives. Where are they now? Would you be able to call them up and have them post on this forum confirming that they are indeed the people you knew in your past life?



I don't belong to a religion that espouses reincarnation, nor do I personally believe in it.



Chaosmancer said:


> You are trying to make my statement into something it isn't, and then claiming a strawman. An elf doesn't believe they are a reincarnation, they ARE a reincarnation. They don't need to claim it, they can go and speak to the people from their past lives memories and reminiscence about those times. They don't need special spiritual awareness, they just are.
> 
> This has NOTHING to do with religion and I'd appreciate you not trying to make this into some anti-hindu or anti-buddhist statement. Those belief systems have nothing to do with the biological and mental reality elves are dealing with. Because even in the context of those religious beliefs, elves are dealing with something ENTIRELY different.



This is what I wrote:_ "...Unless you are claiming that *D&D humans *have to follow a particular religious model based on an Abrahamic-style reskinning of the Greco-Roman pantheon? Or that any *D&D human religion *that involves reincarnation is automatically false?"_

I take it by your lack of response to what I actually wrote and your attempt to deflect by saying I was being bigoted, that you _do _believe *humans in D&D *can't be reincarnated or have a religion that involves reincarnation.

_I _can imagine such a religion just fine. I'd have to go back and check but I'm pretty sure the main religion in the setting my friends and I built together involves reincarnation for _every _sentient race (I would not be the one DMing this world, so I don't know how the DM plans to handle such things mechanically). I can also imagine a religion for elves that _doesn't _involve reincarnation--i.e., the way elves were treated in all previous editions. In fact, the elves in my current setting don't reincarnation; they turn into nature spirits. I also don't use Correllon or Lolth.

I can also imagine a world where some humans get reincarnated and some go to an afterlife and some dissipate into nothingness. That MToF says that elves reincarnate literally means nothing beyond "here's our idea for elves, we're going to use it in our books."



Chaosmancer said:


> The fact that you are altering definitions of human to include whatever you feel like to descredit my points. Which you completely missed the sarcasm of me redefining shield and sword to be human. I thought at least that much would be obvious.



No, I just ignored it because it was dumb.



Chaosmancer said:


> You really should. He absolutely doesn't want halflings to be magical. If you want magical halflings you really should care that him and others would want to remove that as an option.



Oofta says otherwise.



Chaosmancer said:


> Shadar-Kai don't come up because their history of recently being human is very confusing, since many people still imagine they are humans it is strange for them to think they are elves.
> 
> Also, Pallid elves are not truly very different from other types of elves. They don't really need mentioning since they don't break the mold. However, in the assertion that all halflings are unremarkable and non-magical, magical halflings would break that mold and be quite notable.



And here's you missing _my _point.



Chaosmancer said:


> Wow that is a whole lot of saying nothing. Everything after your first sentence is just pointing out that there isn't a distinct halfling/gnome mixed race option, which is true for 99% of all mixed race options, so not exactly breaking ground.
> 
> Then, instead of actually PRESENTING evidence, you simply say that their differences are cultural and mechanical. Which, hey, I can give you mechanical, halfling mechanics are pretty forgettable after all and don't really add much useful flavor compared to gnome mechanics, but can you actually... give some examples of what makes a forest gnome culture completely and utterly different from a lotusden halfling culture? And then explain why cultural differences aren't enough to make them simply sub-races like Mountain Dwarves and Hill Dwarves who only really had cultural and mechanical differences?



You know what the cultural and mechanical differences are, because they're listed in the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW. It's not my job to read for you.



Chaosmancer said:


> The point is, nothing I said about what she can do would be seen as unusual for a DnD gnome. In fact, it fits perfectly into DnD gnomes and no one bats an eye at it. I should know, I put it into my DnD gnomes and not a single player ever went "wait, gnomes can't do that!". In fact, they just accepted it as a fact of gnomish life.



So? All that shows is that the person who wrote that probably based it on D&D.



Chaosmancer said:


> Except that it isn't pointless. I'll agree with you that gnomes are no longer earth elementals, just like kobolds are no longer goblins. That isn't exactly a difficult point. Garden gnomes are a type of statuary, so also not relevant, just like garden dragon statues aren't dragons.
> 
> As for the rest, what are their characteristics? What makes them different from other gnomes? I'm not familiar with them. Well, I think the Nomes of Oz do stick closer to their earth elemental roots, which is fine, and I would also not that Nomes not being Gnomes is the same as Porcs not being Orcs. Different names are different it turns out.
> 
> Which leaves us with a slasher fic, probably based on garden gnome statuary, and then Discworld and Warhammer, both of which tend to have extreme deviations from normal fantasy. However, they are still called "gnomes" so there has to be a reason for that, right?



Yes. The reason is that the writers chose that name.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, I'm confused.
> 
> See, for the last three threads I've been repeatedly berated about what the definition of a halfling is. It has been a major point of contention, because I want to change a few things about them, and I have been told that changing any of those factors would make them decidedly not halflings.
> 
> However, now, you are berating me for sticking to the definition that I have had thrown at me over and over and over again.



Who, precisely, has told you that "changing any of those factors would make them decidedly not halflings"? I ask because you repeatedly misrepresent people and what they say, and so I am inclined to believe that in reality, maybe _one _person has said that changing a halfling would make it a not-halfling, and you decided to claim that tons of people have said that.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, here, I'll just step back for a second. What is a halfling? Is a halfling just whatever you decide is a halfling, or is there some sort of definition for them? Because I'm not going to continue being yelled at for both using and not using the definition everyone else has. That way lies madness.



What type of halfling are you talking about? A D&D halfling? A Tolkien halfling? A halfling as presented from a different, non-D&D game?

Because each of those types of halflings are entities unto themselves, so if I'm talking about a D&D halfling, then I will point you at the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, halflings go to war. Because any halfling community bigger than a small village is typically depicted as part of a human community. Much larger than that and they would need things like... kings, armies, you know all those things that you claim they can't have.



Citation needed.



Chaosmancer said:


> In fact, other than the Talentas barbarian halflings of Eberron, is there a halfling location you know of that is bigger than a couple of villages? I'll put forth that human villages also typically only have militias and not armies, though it isn't because humans as a race are peaceful, but because they can't support armies with a village's worth of supplies.



The number of official settings I know and care about enough to comment are:

Ravenloft.

So, Delagia and Rivalis, in Darkon. I seem to recall a fan-brew halfling domain as well.

In my own game? Every major above-ground settlement.



Chaosmancer said:


> I really feel like I'm dealing with Schrodinger's halflings here, since suddenly we have halfling cities and maybe even small halfling countries, when previously they just had small villages. Where is all of this coming from?



Beats me. I said "communities" and "settlements." But here's you misrepresenting what I said to mean cities and countries, as well as failing to understand how big (or how small) an army actually needs to be in a setting where you can throw around _fireballs._



Chaosmancer said:


> Ah, you got me, egg on my face. I'm sure there are human settlements without halflings. In fact, humans seem to exist just fine without halflings.
> 
> How many halfling cities with zero humans can we name? Not countries, cities.



I dunno. Why don't you do some research and come up with a list?



Chaosmancer said:


> Can they overrule the king who commands the land their village sits on?
> 
> "Sorry, High King Etheril, the Halfling Mayor of Gallybrooke said you are not allowed to go to war, we must call it off"



Why would they? The halflings own the land, not the king.

Unless it's different in your setting, of course. Or you can find some bit of text in a D&D book somewhere that says that halflings always live on human lands.

Until you can find that bit of text, however, you are talking about something that _may _be true in, what, your personal setting? The Realms or Greyhawk maybe? Not something that's a universal fact in D&D.


Chaosmancer said:


> Shouldn't we know the answers to these questions instead of you having to answer me?



Why? Do you insist that the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life in every single setting?



Chaosmancer said:


> Why is it that halflings turn to a life of crime so easily? Halflings live with humans constantly how do they interact with the humans and deal with their supposedly conflicting natures. Do human kingdoms make exceptions when they create peasant levies and ignore halflings? Why? How does this change the dynamic of the races?
> 
> I can make up things, but if halflings are supposedly defined by their peacefulness and unwillingness to go to war (but not to kill things during adventures) then shouldn't this be a major thing discussed in the books?



It usually is. You seem to have missed those bits.

And, to quote Observer, "My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We only kill out of personal spite."



Chaosmancer said:


> How is it on me? I didn't create halflings, you won't find my name listed in the PHB. Why is it my fault that halflings lack anything that can possibly define them besides just vague platitudes?



I suppose you only use official settings rather than make your own, then.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, again, if it is just cultural, why can't halflings be a sub-race of Gnomes, just like hill dwarves and mountain dwarves? It is all only cultural after all.



Sure, if you want that to be the way for your setting, go ahead.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, I can't point to a better designed version of something to say that the other version is poorly done? Meanwhile, others are allowed to constantly harp on Tolkien like he was somehow involved in the writing of Dungeons and Dragons?



Way to dodge the questions again. You do that a lot, you know.



Chaosmancer said:


> And sure, halflings are "playable" but they aren't good. As we have been discussing, you don't even seem to have a consistent definition of what a halfling is, since they keep morphing every time you find another point of mine you don't like.



Opinion, not fact. We had this discussion before. And the players of the three halflings in my setting think they're plenty good.

Also, citation needed.



Chaosmancer said:


> To answer the first point, it is because halflings cooking for halflings isn't special. It would be like a human cooking for a human, kind of obvious. But, again, you decided to phrase it thusly, "So in that case, being the best, most cheerful hosts and chefs is equally as useful as whatever abilities elves and dwarfs are. Probably more useful, in fact, because you being able to change your gender over night doesn't affect me in anyway, but you being able to cook me a good breakfast _does."_
> 
> You were the one who decided that the elvish expierence of Gender doesn't matter, because it can't provide anything for humans (or other races, I guess). That wasn't me. That was your take away. You need to defend that, especially since...



And again, you misunderstand and misrepresent. You can change gender. That's great for your character. It literally doesn't matter for anyone else's character, though, except in the hands of a good roleplayer.



Chaosmancer said:


> Dragon's hoards are tied directly into their magic and their afterlife.



According to one book, published for this edition, which will probably be changed the next time they come up with a Draconomicon for another edition.



Chaosmancer said:


> Mind Flayer's eat sentient brains, not just human brains.



But mostly humans, as evidenced by basically every single time they've ever been used.



Chaosmancer said:


> Mimics look like treasure chests to lure in adventurers, adventurers are not solely human. Additionally, mimics can take on a variety of forms and adapt to what is most useful for their environment.



And how often have you seen mimics take the form of rocks or something like that?



Chaosmancer said:


> So... you were wrong about every single one of these



Nope.



Chaosmancer said:


> Yep, common is the human language. Took them long enough to acknowledge that. Luckily, languages are not defining. Whether or not you speak common holds no bearing on whether you are an elf, dwarf, or dragon. As for the rest, yes, it is a game played by humans. So therefore the only way that halflings should be defined as a race is how useful they are to humans?
> 
> I'm going to say yikes to that, and recommend you take a different stance, because that is a very very poor way to define a race of people.



<sigh> You really don't get the difference between in-game reasoning and out-of-game reasoning, do you.



Chaosmancer said:


> Why not? They are a fantasy race, if they aren't fantastical then what's the point? At that point they may as well just be humans.



Because sometimes, too much fantasticalness is boring.



Chaosmancer said:


> No, other people have declared that halflings need to be non-fantastical. That is there definition. I want them to be more fantastical, and you seem to think my pointing out the cognitivie dissonance between people insisting they are non-fantastical and the existence of rarely discussed fantastical options is somehow me trying to gas light you.
> 
> Your understanding of the situation would be aided if you stop assuming I am a malicious agent.



My understanding of your maliciousness on this point out be better if it weren't for every single one of your posts on the topic was filled with deliberate misinterpretations.


----------



## bedir than (Nov 7, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Races aren't just mechanics, they're a wider group of things. The mechanics serve to make the idea of the race into reality, not the other way around.
> 
> Halflings being lucky doesn't come up in story as a thing for them. Yes they could lean into that as their thing but, it doesn't show up in the art. It doesn't show up in the little quibbles they write about them. Heck, there's more solid stuff about halflings riding dinosaurs than their is about them being "The Lucky Race"
> 
> ...



As someone who regularly and frequently plays halflings across three editions I'm curious as to how I've been so incompetent as to play them with the lore that is designed and never once had any of the dozens I've played with think I've been a human.

As I said, lore and mechanics say that they aren't just human. I didn't say just mechanics, and behaving that way is unjust.

Saying that they don't lean on luck is to ignore the tales of halfling luck in the oh so many fictions that include halflings (scroll back I've mentioned many). Part of how they punch above their weight is that luck.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 7, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> But they're not defined as humans, but small. They're defined as being lucky, as communal, peaceful, friendly, working well with others, etc., often to a degree beyond what humans are like.
> 
> "Stupid-resistant to mental corruption" would be cool, sure, but how do you model that in game? Resistance to charm? Elves already have that, as do some other races; halflings would be accused to being copycats. Remove resistance to charm from elves and give it to halflings? Sure, OK. _But. _Mental corruption is pretty much a RP thing--the BBEG tempts the player, the player _chooses _whether or not to go along with it. It's not a thing where you magically charm the PC and turn them into NPCs under the DM's control. So if you want to say halflings are "stupid-resistant to mental corruption," then you simply have to say that (almost) no NPC halflings have ever been tempted by the BBEG, but lots of elves, dwarfs, and humans _have _been.



"Mental corruption" could also cover confusion effects, berserking or rage effects, stunning, hopelessness, maybe even some fear effects...along of course with charm, dominate, etc.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Nov 7, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> "Mental corruption" could also cover confusion effects, berserking or rage effects, stunning, hopelessness, maybe even some fear effects...along of course with charm, dominate, etc.



It would work great with strife (which along with fatigue replaces exhaustion) in Level Up.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 7, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Or, if half of your halflings ever ended up in a single group, created recently, that means that the other 8 were spread over how many decades?
> 
> That is a major change to your data.



For a short while they all ran in a single group, yes, over the 2018-19 winter.  The individual characters, however, mostly pre-date this by a lot.

Digging into the records...

Hobbit Necromancer 1 - created 2013, played until 2021
Hobbit Necromancer 2 - created 2012, played until 2020 (most-played character in the campaign)
Hobbit Bard - created 2011, played until 2020
Hobbit Fighter - created 2009 (as Elf), became Hobbit 2014, played until 2020
Hobbit Thief (NPC) - created 2017, became Hobbit 2018, played until 2020 - he's the only one that might qualify as "recent".

Note that none of these characters was played continuously every week through all those years; everyone has numerous characters and they cycle in and out of parties as the mood strikes.

The four that stopped in 2020 are technically on hold, all caught in the middle of a sea voyage to their (in theory) next adventure when covid hit.  The one that carried on into 2021 is also now on hold as it has got too far into everyone else's in-setting future and I have to catch all the others up.

Also, I should point out that the numbers I gave upthread including that 13 total (a number which doesn't include the two reincarnatees, noted above; they count under "other") is just for my current campaign, running since 2008.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 7, 2022)

I would like to compare it with some superheroes what aren't too popular in the begining, until the comic publisher calls the right screenwritter, and then this finds the right style, and the character earn more popularity.

Maybe in the next year Fortnite create a size-change potion, and then the PCs can become giants or halflings, and after of lots of games in the creative mode the halflings become popular as (noisy) gunslingers.

If you create with your imagination then you have to be enough openminded, and you can't reject the options. Don't close those doors but leave it for later, and then you may find the right space for them.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 7, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Well, considering I demonstrated fairly bluntly that real world humans have that drive and ambition, and that it isn't inhuman at all, something you would have had to have read to quote the very last sentence of my post....
> 
> Seems like trying to claim that humans aren't human because they have drive and ambition is... kind of trying to make up an extreme version. I mean it is possible that the language used in the PHB to describe humans, matching with real-world humans, is meant to be some extreme mythical version of inhuman humans, but that seems a bit silly to me comapred to them just... describing humans.



And yet they include a description of them rather than saying "just like every other human you know in real life but in fantasyland".. They had a  page count and an art budget on those pages for a race no player should need an introduction to (by your logic).

Just like they do for every other race in the PHB.

By your logic, they did so solely so you could ignore it and reference the history of the Inuit people, the 16th century spice trade, the War of the Roses, and all the rest of human history as a yardstick by which to measure the other races halflings, rather than use the descriptions and art they paid good money to have printed.

Sure. That makes more sense.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> I don't belong to a religion that espouses reincarnation, nor do I personally believe in it.




Oh, so.... it isn't true that all humans are reincarnations who can access their past lives as easily as deciding to sit down and think about it? It isn't just a biological fact about them that is, to use your favorite words, objectively true? 

So, in a case where it is biologically and objectively true, that would be... different from the human experience? So your entire argument is a pointless "but there's a religion that thinks it is true!" instead of dealing with the fact that elves experience something humans don't.



Faolyn said:


> This is what I wrote:_ "...Unless you are claiming that *D&D humans *have to follow a particular religious model based on an Abrahamic-style reskinning of the Greco-Roman pantheon? Or that any *D&D human religion *that involves reincarnation is automatically false?"_
> 
> I take it by your lack of response to what I actually wrote and your attempt to deflect by saying I was being bigoted, that you _do _believe *humans in D&D *can't be reincarnated or have a religion that involves reincarnation.
> 
> ...




And I can imagine a religion where humans worship stones and gain tremorsense. I can also imagine a religion where humans worship animals and develop animal traits. And I can imagine a religion where humans worship undeath and become immortals reliant on the feasting of blood. 

Somehow, that doesn't mean that humans and dwarves or humans and tabaxi or humans and vampires are identical in every way. That just means I can imagine a religion whose power alters humans into something not human. You want to force me down this path, because then everything is just humans and you are right and fantasy races basically serve no purpose. But it is a ridiculous point. Just because I can imagine a religion where humans grow fur and claws and tails doesn't mean that humans are naturally wolf people.



Faolyn said:


> Oofta says otherwise.




He said "I don't remember ever making that argument", and I don't particularly feel like trawling through hundreds of pages of posts to prove him wrong.



Faolyn said:


> And here's you missing _my _point.




Well, since you didn't clarify what point you think I missed...

No I didn't.

There, that should be a fine response.



Faolyn said:


> You know what the cultural and mechanical differences are, because they're listed in the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW. It's not my job to read for you.




And I have read them. The differences are minor to the point of non-existence on the cultural front. Gnomes are a bit more pranksterish and don't live on farms, that's about it. That is a cultural divide that can be easily overcome by saying that halflings are a subrace. After all, the cultural divide between Wood Elves and Drow is far larger than that. 

And mechanics are trivially easy to change, plus are the weakest thing to base a race off of. Additionally, there is a rather easy way to slide halflings into a gnome subrace. Mechanically speaking.



Faolyn said:


> So? All that shows is that the person who wrote that probably based it on D&D.




So if it is based on a DnD gnome, what's the problem with referencing it again? Based on DnD, so it should be able to be applied to DnD since you can't find the difference between them and a DnD gnome.



Faolyn said:


> Yes. The reason is that the writers chose that name.




Seriously? 

Well, guess I'll let you in on a writing secret. Kind of a big one, don't know if I'm supposed to share this without getting my writer's license revoked. When we name something like a race in writing? There is a reason for it. We don't just pick the name randomly out of a hat, but we name them intentionally. And, often, when we do so with a common name like gnome? It is because it calls back to that thing. 

So, no, I don't think  the reason is just "because that's what their name is" there are qualities between them that are shared in common.




Faolyn said:


> Who, precisely, has told you that "changing any of those factors would make them decidedly not halflings"? I ask because you repeatedly misrepresent people and what they say, and so I am inclined to believe that in reality, maybe _one _person has said that changing a halfling would make it a not-halfling, and you decided to claim that tons of people have said that.




Right, you want me to tell you _precisely_ who said it. So, I'll need to go back over a year and a half or so of discussion, reading every post. And then, if I find anything, it isn't like you will immediately accuse me of misrepresenting them and what they said. 

You won't, because you already have accused me of misrepresenting them and what they said. You have no evidence, you just want to believe I'm a malicious actor. Heck, we aren't even supposed to be discussing, but you had to start pulling me into another series of spaghetti posts so you can accuse me of wrong doing. 


So, instead, let us go to this place called imagination for a moment. Imagine I find evidence, and I lay it out, and I prove that I was told that some people believe that changing halflings in any meaningful way would destroy them as a concept. What would you do, assuming you believed my evidence? Well, you would either agree with the person that changing them shouldn't happen, or you would disagree. If you disagreed with them, you might say something along the lines of "Well, I don't think that" 

And, if you don't think that, then we could, I don't know... maybe discuss ways to change halflings? Instead of hurling insults and accusations we could.. do something productive? It would be nice for a change. 

So, instead of me trying to prove to you that I'm not a bald-faced liar and a troll and anything else you may want to call me, let's focus instead on a more basic question. Do you believe that halflings can be altered without getting rid of them? Maybe given magical powers or an origin? Or Not? Because that seems like a far more productive line of inquiry.



Faolyn said:


> What type of halfling are you talking about? A D&D halfling? A Tolkien halfling? A halfling as presented from a different, non-D&D game?
> 
> Because each of those types of halflings are entities unto themselves, so if I'm talking about a D&D halfling, then I will point you at the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW.




Right, so you aren't getting it. 

I was asking what makes a halfling a hafling. Because words have meaning, and that name supposedly has enough meaning to define the fantasy genre according to those who go "But Tolkien!!!!!", so it has to be fairly easy for you to define it. 

If instead you want to point me to things I have already read and discussed at length.... okay, cool. Halflings are two foot tall humans. Their most defining trait is being a Mary Sue that is some idealized perfect form of humanity. That's what the PHB and MTF tell me. Don't remember SCAG, don't care. And EGW says that they are dinosaur riding native people. They also run two mega-corps that are indistinguishable from the human ones except that they specialize in healing and running inns. If they aren't mask wearing "wild men" from the plains, then they are just two foot tall humans. 

So, since this is what those sources tell me, and you pointed to those sources, does that mean you agree? Or are you going to actually answer the question?



Faolyn said:


> Citation needed.




On what? 

The lack of kings? Seems to be an accepted fact.
That halflings live in Human lands? Accepted fact
That humans go to war? Accepted Fact
That when a government goes to war, their entire country goes to war? Kind of...just how it works right? It isn't like England went around with a survey asking the various towns and villages if they wanted to participate in the War of the Roses. England went to war, so they were all at war. 

I'm not sure what exactly confused you enough to require a citation.



Faolyn said:


> The number of official settings I know and care about enough to comment are:
> 
> Ravenloft.
> 
> ...




Wait, every city in your entire world is owned and operated by Halflings? Dang, no wonder you think so highly of them. Most of my cities are split between elves, humans, goliaths/firbolgs, there is a big Genasi city, Goblins/hobgoblins. It would certainly be a different take with every single city being owned and run by halflings.

But hey, let's see about these places in Ravenloft at least right? Bigger than a village, and first up is Delagia which according to this site: Darkon In-Depth

"Delagia is a small, unsophisticated halfling village with a striking architectural style.  Although a handful of large buildings line the shore, the majority of this fishing village sits atop Lake Korst, straddling the mouth of the Foaming River.  The halflings' homes are rounded huts perched atop wooden supports resting on the lakebed, resembling a cluster of beaver lodges." 

Is a small village.... welp. That gets discarded immediately then. But surely Rivalis is different right? 

Well, it does seem to be a city at least. One mostly inhabitated by goat herders and with log cabins and cottages... But hey, in all of DnD's myriad of worlds, we have a single halfling city. Progress right?



Faolyn said:


> Beats me. I said "communities" and "settlements." But here's you misrepresenting what I said to mean cities and countries, as well as failing to understand how big (or how small) an army actually needs to be in a setting where you can throw around _fireballs._




Oh, so it isn't schrodinger's halflings, it is schrodinger's army size. You can make it small enough that a small village can have an army. Well, sorry, that's not how it works. You can't really have an "army" of a hundred people, even if the setting has fireballs. 

And since you need a few hundred to typically be considered an army, you need more than a "community" you need a city. Minimum.



Faolyn said:


> I dunno. Why don't you do some research and come up with a list?




Why would I do your research for you? I'm doing plenty of fact checking of you already. Do your own research



Faolyn said:


> Why would they? The halflings own the land, not the king.
> 
> Unless it's different in your setting, of course. Or you can find some bit of text in a D&D book somewhere that says that halflings always live on human lands.
> 
> Until you can find that bit of text, however, you are talking about something that _may _be true in, what, your personal setting? The Realms or Greyhawk maybe? Not something that's a universal fact in D&D.




Except halflings living in human lands is ridiculously common in DnD. Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk. I mean, Rivalis that city you named is still in a land controlled by a human, and if Darkon went to war, Rivalis is part of that war. 

They don't ALWAYS live in human lands, sure. But when it is the most commonly stated fact about where halflings live is that they live in human lands, then it can kind of be assumed to be true most of the time. And if they live in human lands, they are subjects of the human rulers. I mean, unless you don't have kings controlling land via feudalism, which seems like a weird thing when DnD is chock full of Feudalism. 





Faolyn said:


> Why? Do you insist that the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life in every single setting?




Seems weird you jumped from "How do halflings live with humans" to "should the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life for every single setting" 

Because, you know, they DO spell out a lot of relations between most of the races. I can tell you quite a bit about how dwarves and elves interact with humans, but it seems that halflings are kind of... ignored. Which seems weird when you then want me to answer your questions, and then make it sound like answering those questions is pointless anyways and the books shouldn't bother. 

Were those questions important enough to answer or not?



Faolyn said:


> It usually is. You seem to have missed those bits.
> 
> And, to quote Observer, "My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We only kill out of personal spite."




No idea who Obsever is, but that isn't what a pacifist is. And, I've read the texts. Seems like if it should be in those texts it shouldn't be that deeply hidden and hard to figure out. You seem to have figured it out, after all, because you speak with absolute confidence, so what are the answers, since you know?



Faolyn said:


> I suppose you only use official settings rather than make your own, then.




Or, and this may be crazy so read carefully. When discussing the official content of the game, I focus on the official content of the game, not my creations. 

Crazy, I know. Usually when discussing official content you discuss all the fan-created unofficial content, but I've just got this crazy idea that that doesn't really address the points about official content if you focus on the unofficial content.



Faolyn said:


> Way to dodge the questions again. You do that a lot, you know.




_Looks up at all the questions I've repeatedly asked you to answer_

Projecting much?



Faolyn said:


> Opinion, not fact. We had this discussion before. And the players of the three halflings in my setting think they're plenty good.
> 
> Also, citation needed.




And the twelve players I'm currently running games for think they aren't good. We can throw numbers at each other all week long. My point was "playable" is a different standard than "good". 

They are playable, but that doesn't mean they are good.



Faolyn said:


> And again, you misunderstand and misrepresent. You can change gender. That's great for your character. It literally doesn't matter for anyone else's character, though, except in the hands of a good roleplayer.




Why do I care if it matters for anyone else's character? I'm not roleplaying a non-human so that other people get something from it. I'm playing the character I want, and exploring the concepts that they give me access to. I don't care about whether it gives something to someone else's character. What even is this argument? A race that can change gender is basically just human because changing your gender doesn't affect other players? This argument is nonsense.



Faolyn said:


> According to one book, published for this edition, which will probably be changed the next time they come up with a Draconomicon for another edition.




Really? I thought this edition was 5e, not 3.X? 

Or, maybe you need to do a little more research?



Faolyn said:


> But mostly humans, as evidenced by basically every single time they've ever been used.




Nope. Again, you should do some more research.



Faolyn said:


> And how often have you seen mimics take the form of rocks or something like that?




I've seen them take the form of a lot of things. I've seen doors, ceilings, floors, houses, caves, ships, bags. Chests are most common, but I've also seen chairs, lounges, stools, beds, tables, tea pots, cups.

A lot of things. Surprisingly, none of them being human exclusive items.



Faolyn said:


> Nope.




Still wrong about dragons
Still wrong about mindflayers
Still wrong about mimics

Um... yep.



Faolyn said:


> <sigh> You really don't get the difference between in-game reasoning and out-of-game reasoning, do you.




I do. But just because there is a Doylist explanation doesn't mean that the Watsonian explanation can suck.



Faolyn said:


> Because sometimes, too much fantasticalness is boring.




And too much mundanity is boring. Maybe make a point?



Faolyn said:


> My understanding of your maliciousness on this point out be better if it weren't for every single one of your posts on the topic was filled with deliberate misinterpretations.




Or maybe if you just... read my points. Since you seem to get them wrong very often. 

But, this is probably just a futile waste of a few hours of my time. Again.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For a short while they all ran in a single group, yes, over the 2018-19 winter.  The individual characters, however, mostly pre-date this by a lot.
> 
> Digging into the records...
> 
> ...




That does make a difference


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> And yet they include a description of them rather than saying "just like every other human you know in real life but in fantasyland".. They had a  page count and an art budget on those pages for a race no player should need an introduction to (by your logic).
> 
> Just like they do for every other race in the PHB.
> 
> ...




... 

They used the space to describe the races... to describe humans. Therefore, by your logic, humans are not human, because they wouldn't have spent the time and budget to describe humans if they were intending them to be human...

Weirdly, all the art for the human art budget looks...human. Am I supposed to see some inhuman features on those characters to let me know that humans aren't humans? 

Because, what I'm saying, is that the humans described in the PHB are... humans. That's how you would describe humanity. It isn't some fantasy inhuman version of humanity, it's... humanity. And so trying to argue that halflings are fulfilling the niche of humanity, because humans in DnD aren't human... makes zero sense. Humans in DnD are quintessentially human.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> ...
> 
> They used the space to describe the races... to describe humans. Therefore, by your logic, humans are not human, because they wouldn't have spent the time and budget to describe humans if they were intending them to be human...
> 
> ...



I mean pretty much yeah. If they are intended to be exactly the same as real world earth humans, then including a description would be a waste of time, space, and money.

That the description comes with a whole page of non-earth fantasy ethnicities would seem to lend further weight to the idea that D&D humans are not 1 for 1 analogues with Earth humans. 

Further further reinforcing that idea is the fact that D&D human share a magical setting with a whole host of speaking, dreaming, working, sentient non-human races. They do this rather than existing as functionally the only sentient game in town in a nonmagical setting.

But here's the hypocrisy of it all.

Someone brings up what the book says about humans, you go "Yeah yeah, sure but I know what humans are really like and the PHB doesnt cover all of it"..

Someone else says "Well halflings are this way to me", if it's not straight out of the PHB, you go.."THAT'S HOMEBREW..IT DOESN'T COUNT"


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Oh, so.... it isn't true that all humans are reincarnations who can access their past lives as easily as deciding to sit down and think about it? It isn't just a biological fact about them that is, to use your favorite words, objectively true?



It might be. It depends on the setting. Or do you think that we're required by law or something to use every bit of D&D lore, even if it doesn't make sense in context?



Chaosmancer said:


> And I can imagine a religion where humans worship stones and gain tremorsense. I can also imagine a religion where humans worship animals and develop animal traits. And I can imagine a religion where humans worship undeath and become immortals reliant on the feasting of blood.



I can 100% see both of those being possible, even probable.



Chaosmancer said:


> Somehow, that doesn't mean that humans and dwarves or humans and tabaxi or humans and vampires are identical in every way. That just means I can imagine a religion whose power alters humans into something not human. You want to force me down this path, because then everything is just humans and you are right and fantasy races basically serve no purpose. But it is a ridiculous point. Just because I can imagine a religion where humans grow fur and claws and tails doesn't mean that humans are naturally wolf people.



Shockingly enough, I never claimed that humans and dwarfs and tabaxi were identical. Nor did I say that I want to force you down that path. This is you misrepresenting what I said. Again.

What I _said _is that even if you refuse to accept it, is that halflings don't need to have fantastical powers to be unique and special. It doesn't matter if elves are the only people in the world who can reincarnate. That doesn't make halflings any less interesting to someone who bothers to spend more than a minute thinking about htem.



Chaosmancer said:


> He said "I don't remember ever making that argument", and I don't particularly feel like trawling through hundreds of pages of posts to prove him wrong.



Then I will take him to be correct until you can actually show me the money.



Chaosmancer said:


> And I have read them. The differences are minor to the point of non-existence on the cultural front. Gnomes are a bit more pranksterish and don't live on farms, that's about it. That is a cultural divide that can be easily overcome by saying that halflings are a subrace. After all, the cultural divide between Wood Elves and Drow is far larger than that.
> 
> And mechanics are trivially easy to change, plus are the weakest thing to base a race off of. Additionally, there is a rather easy way to slide halflings into a gnome subrace. Mechanically speaking.



It's amazing how easy _other _people have it at having unique gnomes and halflings when they don't rely on TSR/WotC spoon-feeding them the lore and make up their own.

You know, at the end of this rant of yours, you say that you wasted a "few hours" of time, presumably in this response to me. Maybe you should have spent those few hours coming up with interesting cultures instead.



Chaosmancer said:


> Seriously?
> 
> Well, guess I'll let you in on a writing secret. Kind of a big one, don't know if I'm supposed to share this without getting my writer's license revoked. When we name something like a race in writing? There is a reason for it. We don't just pick the name randomly out of a hat, but we name them intentionally. And, often, when we do so with a common name like gnome? It is because it calls back to that thing.



So when you think of "elf," do you think of





or do you think of





or do you think of





or do you think of





or do you think of




?

Because they're _all elves. _And they're all different, too. Literally the only thing they have in common are pointy ears.

The fact that there is a more universally accepted image of _gnome _is only because (a) that book by Rien Poorvliet and Wil Huygen from 1976 and (b) they haven't been used in a ton of other things, probably because they're not as sexy as elves are.



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, you want me to tell you _precisely_ who said it. So, I'll need to go back over a year and a half or so of discussion, reading every post. And then, if I find anything, it isn't like you will immediately accuse me of misrepresenting them and what they said.



Yup. Because you do, in fact, misrepresent and misunderstand people, blow everyone's responses out of proportion, and make straw man after straw man, over and over again. So I honestly do not believe you when you claim that multiple people have said that if you change anything about halflings they stop being halflings.



Chaosmancer said:


> You won't, because you already have accused me of misrepresenting them and what they said. You have no evidence, you just want to believe I'm a malicious actor. Heck, we aren't even supposed to be discussing, but you had to start pulling me into another series of spaghetti posts so you can accuse me of wrong doing.



You are free to block me or simply stop answering my posts.



Chaosmancer said:


> So, instead, let us go to this place called imagination for a moment. Imagine I find evidence, and I lay it out, and I prove that I was told that some people believe that changing halflings in any meaningful way would destroy them as a concept. What would you do, assuming you believed my evidence? Well, you would either agree with the person that changing them shouldn't happen, or you would disagree. If you disagreed with them, you might say something along the lines of "Well, I don't think that"



Let's say you find some people who did in fact say that you can't change halflings without making them not-halflings.

Why do _you _care what these people say? Why do you think _I _should care what they say?



Chaosmancer said:


> And, if you don't think that, then we could, I don't know... maybe discuss ways to change halflings? Instead of hurling insults and accusations we could.. do something productive? It would be nice for a change.



I have mentioned many ways to improve halflings. You have dismissed them all.

Remember me talking about how to RP luck and bravery in the game? You refused, you would _never _use those ideas because it somehow wasn't the right type of mechanics for you. Because for some reason you insisted that the only way a halfling can be lucky or brave is for everyone to be unlucky and cowardly. That starts at around page 16-17 of this thread.

So why don't _you _tell us some things that would make halflings better for _you_?



Chaosmancer said:


> So, instead of me trying to prove to you that I'm not a bald-faced liar and a troll and anything else you may want to call me, let's focus instead on a more basic question. Do you believe that halflings can be altered without getting rid of them? Maybe given magical powers or an origin? Or Not? Because that seems like a far more productive line of inquiry.



I have said on multiple occasions that halflings can be easily altered without getting rid of them. I don't think they need magical powers, though--I would prefer there be _fewer _magical races, not more.

In Level Up, one of the halfling gifts is "tuft feet," wherein their soles are so thick that they can even walk across an area affected by _spike growth_ and not be harmed. Another gift is "burrowing claws," which is just that. One of the halfling-oriented _cultures _gives the ability to cook food so well that you gain temp hp when you eat it. I made a halfling gift that gave them gods-given bonuses to their slings and thrown weapons.



Chaosmancer said:


> Right, so you aren't getting it.
> 
> I was asking what makes a halfling a hafling. Because words have meaning, and that name supposedly has enough meaning to define the fantasy genre according to those who go "But Tolkien!!!!!", so it has to be fairly easy for you to define it.



And again, citation needed. Because _nobody_, to my knowledge, claimed that the feral psionic cannibal halflings of Athas or the dino-riding mafia healer halflings of Eberron are not halflings. And that shows you can change halflings radically and people will still accept them as halflings.



Chaosmancer said:


> If instead you want to point me to things I have already read and discussed at length.... okay, cool. Halflings are two foot tall humans. Their most defining trait is being a Mary Sue that is some idealized perfect form of humanity. That's what the PHB and MTF tell me. Don't remember SCAG, don't care. And EGW says that they are dinosaur riding native people. They also run two mega-corps that are indistinguishable from the human ones except that they specialize in healing and running inns. If they aren't mask wearing "wild men" from the plains, then they are just two foot tall humans.
> 
> So, since this is what those sources tell me, and you pointed to those sources, does that mean you agree? Or are you going to actually answer the question?



I'm going to repeat what I said above. Instead of spending one or more hours writing a response to me, spend that time actually _thinking about the halflings._ Because it's clear you _don't_, if that's all you got out of them.



Chaosmancer said:


> On what?
> 
> The lack of kings? Seems to be an accepted fact.
> That halflings live in Human lands? Accepted fact



Nope.



Chaosmancer said:


> That humans go to war? Accepted Fact
> That when a government goes to war, their entire country goes to war? Kind of...just how it works right? It isn't like England went around with a survey asking the various towns and villages if they wanted to participate in the War of the Roses. England went to war, so they were all at war.



Except that it's not an accepted fact that halflings only or mostly live in human lands and go to war when humans do.



Chaosmancer said:


> Wait, every city in your entire world is owned and operated by Halflings? Dang, no wonder you think so highly of them. Most of my cities are split between elves, humans, goliaths/firbolgs, there is a big Genasi city, Goblins/hobgoblins. It would certainly be a different take with every single city being owned and run by halflings.



That's what happens when you don't make a generic world and decide to shake things up a bit by not using D&D stereotypes.

I will admit that it's only this _face _of the world, since my world is a cube. But one side is only ocean with a few islands, one side is the arctic wastes, one side is burning desert, and a fourth side is the divine realm. There's really only two sides that manage to have actual cities on them. But nobody knows that yet, so it might as well be the entire world.



Chaosmancer said:


> Oh, so it isn't schrodinger's halflings, it is schrodinger's army size. You can make it small enough that a small village can have an army. Well, sorry, that's not how it works. You can't really have an "army" of a hundred people, even if the setting has fireballs.
> 
> And since you need a few hundred to typically be considered an army, you need more than a "community" you need a city. Minimum.



The smallest army in the real world is the Swiss Guard, with about 135 members. I see no reason to not to assume that D&D armies don't need to have thousands upon thousands of people when they can have spellcasters and bound extraplanar creatures and allied dragons.



Chaosmancer said:


> Why would I do your research for you? I'm doing plenty of fact checking of you already. Do your own research



Why should I? I don't care how many halfling cities with zero humans in them there are. Because the answer is "as many as I need there to be in my world."



Chaosmancer said:


> Except halflings living in human lands is ridiculously common in DnD. Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk. I mean, Rivalis that city you named is still in a land controlled by a human, and if Darkon went to war, Rivalis is part of that war.



Well, then that's a trope that can be ignored as being boring now.



Chaosmancer said:


> They don't ALWAYS live in human lands, sure. But when it is the most commonly stated fact about where halflings live is that they live in human lands, then it can kind of be assumed to be true most of the time. And if they live in human lands, they are subjects of the human rulers. I mean, unless you don't have kings controlling land via feudalism, which seems like a weird thing when DnD is chock full of Feudalism.



I can't recall the last time I've seen actual feudalism in _any _D&D setting.



Chaosmancer said:


> Seems weird you jumped from "How do halflings live with humans" to "should the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life for every single setting"
> 
> Because, you know, they DO spell out a lot of relations between most of the races. I can tell you quite a bit about how dwarves and elves interact with humans, but it seems that halflings are kind of... ignored. Which seems weird when you then want me to answer your questions, and then make it sound like answering those questions is pointless anyways and the books shouldn't bother.
> 
> Were those questions important enough to answer or not?



So answer them, then. You don't _need _the books to spell that out. Make up your own stuff.



Chaosmancer said:


> No idea who Obsever is, but that isn't what a pacifist is.



MST3k. It's a joke.



Chaosmancer said:


> And, I've read the texts. Seems like if it should be in those texts it shouldn't be that deeply hidden and hard to figure out. You seem to have figured it out, after all, because you speak with absolute confidence, so what are the answers, since you know?



I've already told you the answers. They're generally peaceful and congenial. They don't usually wage wars.



Chaosmancer said:


> _Looks up at all the questions I've repeatedly asked you to answer_
> 
> Projecting much?



Except I've answered those questions probably a dozen times each.



Chaosmancer said:


> And the twelve players I'm currently running games for think they aren't good. We can throw numbers at each other all week long. My point was "playable" is a different standard than "good".
> 
> They are playable, but that doesn't mean they are good.



Then I guess dragonborn are playable but not good because everyone at _my _table hates them.



Chaosmancer said:


> Really? I thought this edition was 5e, not 3.X?
> 
> Or, maybe you need to do a little more research?



I'm sorry, where's the rule that says that any of these books are 100% true now and forever?



Chaosmancer said:


> And too much mundanity is boring. Maybe make a point?



In your opinion, of course. Or are you a



Chaosmancer said:


> Or maybe if you just... read my points. Since you seem to get them wrong very often.
> 
> But, this is probably just a futile waste of a few hours of my time. Again.



I'll make it simple for you: don't waste your time by replying to me.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 8, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> The smallest army in the real world is the Swiss Guard, with about 135 members. I see no reason to not to assume that D&D armies don't need to have thousands upon thousands of people when they can have spellcasters and bound extraplanar creatures and allied dragons.



Never mind that a single Dragon often *is* an army unto itself. 


Faolyn said:


> I can't recall the last time I've seen actual feudalism in _any _D&D setting.



I still have it in mine, in various regions.


----------



## Oofta (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> ...
> He said "I don't remember ever making that argument", and I don't particularly feel like trawling through hundreds of pages of posts to prove him wrong.
> ...




Since this is a weird point of contention with you, I used the search function to find what I actually said:


Oofta said:


> There's only so much design space available.  *I don't think you need obvious supernatural capabilities to make a race unique.  *Take lucky as an example.  You think it doesn't have much impact, but everyone at the table tends to cheer when one of our halfling PCs uses it.  It comes up _a lot_ if the player takes the feat to share their luck with everyone at the table.  Brave?  That primarily applies to standing up against a threat from something bigger and badder, which for halflings is most things.
> 
> In other words I think lucky (and brave) are just as impactful as being able to talk to small animals, probably mores so in games I've player.  YMMV.




I've also pointed out that the only race where every subspecies has magic is Tieflings.  High elves can cast cantrips, but wood elves don't have anything other than a better chance of hiding in natural environments.  To me it's not particularly defining in any case.  High elves learn cantrips when they're growing up just like most people are assumed to learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.  Wood elves are better at hiding in the woods because that's what their culture deems important.

As far as "proving me wrong", good grief.  I phrased my response in a way to be as non confrontational as I could.  You should try it sometime.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I mean pretty much yeah. If they are intended to be exactly the same as real world earth humans, then including a description would be a waste of time, space, and money.
> 
> That the description comes with a whole page of non-earth fantasy ethnicities would seem to lend further weight to the idea that D&D humans are not 1 for 1 analogues with Earth humans.
> 
> Further further reinforcing that idea is the fact that D&D human share a magical setting with a whole host of speaking, dreaming, working, sentient non-human races. They do this rather than existing as functionally the only sentient game in town in a nonmagical setting.




I truly am stunned that the fact that humans are real, and that I understand what a human is, should somehow mean that when something is referred to as human, and described, that I must assume it is non-human. 

No, just because they made up some ethnicities and didn't treat humans any differently than they treated the other races, that doesn't mean that humans in DnD are inhuman beings. This is the most bizarro argument I've ever heard. Humans are... human. That's the point. 



Gammadoodler said:


> But here's the hypocrisy of it all.
> 
> Someone brings up what the book says about humans, you go "Yeah yeah, sure but I know what humans are really like and the PHB doesnt cover all of it"..
> 
> Someone else says "Well halflings are this way to me", if it's not straight out of the PHB, you go.."THAT'S HOMEBREW..IT DOESN'T COUNT"




Because, and I know this seems to be a difficult point to get across. Humans are real. Right now, I can walk about 10 ft, and there is a whole room with them in it. I've been talking to humans all day. 

Just like how I can basically put in a squirrel into DnD without it really being homebrew, because squirrels exist, and they kind of can just be rats with climb speeds, because... I can reference what a squirrel is without any need for fantasy definitions. Because squirrels are real. They exist. I can go out and get one if I really really wanted to. 

Halflings, just because it seems to be needed to state this, are not real. They don't actually exist in the real world. So, unlike humans which are real and hopefully everyone at your table understands that and knows what a human is, we need halflings to be defined. Because they aren't real. 

And, therefore, since they need to be defined, if you have changed that definition to include things that are not part of their official definition, you have changed them. And this needs to be addressed, because while I want to change them, saying they don't need to be changed officially because you changed them is unhelpful. However, I can say that humans have three eyes and six arms and fly with the power of flatulence, and everyone knows immediately that that isn't true. That isn't what a human is. Because humans are real. It doesn't matter if you changed them to be that, because you can't change the definition of what a human is. 



And, the greater part of this, is that even if you want to solely focus on DnD and nothing else, ignore eveyrthing in the real world and just look solely at the depictions of humans in DnD... you are still wrong. Because we have plenty of humans who are commoners. Who lack ambitions. Who prefer spending time with their family. Because we didn't need to include that in the Human entry, because humans are real, we know them, and we have been telling stories about humans and what they want for tens of thousands of years.  So saying that these depictions are impossible, or are actually the realm of halflings, is ridiculous. This has been a human thing, and it is a human thing in DnD, and you need to stop insisting it isn't a human thing.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I truly am stunned that the fact that humans are real, and that I understand what a human is, should somehow mean that when something is referred to as human, and described, that I must assume it is non-human.
> 
> No, just because they made up some ethnicities and didn't treat humans any differently than they treated the other races, that doesn't mean that humans in DnD are inhuman beings. This is the most bizarro argument I've ever heard. Humans are... human. That's the point.
> 
> ...



I truly am stunned that someone would have difficuly parsing that differences may exist between..

..D&D humans..
..who are not real and whom we do not know

..and real humans
..who are real

If we confine ourselves to D&D, since this is the scope our fantasy races exist within which is distinctly different  from the world that we live in, we find that the authors have helpfully provided summaries of what we might expect from those races, what they value, how they behave etc.

Perhaps we should evaluate these descriptions as they are and symmetrically. By doing this, one might even think we were engaging in a good faith effort to compare and contrast equivalent texts.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Faolyn said:


> It might be. It depends on the setting. Or do you think that we're required by law or something to use every bit of D&D lore, even if it doesn't make sense in context?




I've triple checked my copy of the book. Still can't find where it says it is only true in a single setting and nowhere else. So, since it seems to be generic lore, I think that... yeah, you kind of have to accept it is generic lore. 

Can it be changed? Who cares! The point isn't "can we rewrite elves and make them different" the point is that elves aren't humans in rubber masks. They have traits that are non-human. *IF* a setting decides to change that, that's that settings problem, not mine. 



Faolyn said:


> I can 100% see both of those being possible, even probable.




And they still wouldn't mean that vampires and shifters are just humans. I don't care if it is possible, my entire point was that it is possible, but that it doesn't change what it means to be human that you can be altered to be non-human. 



Faolyn said:


> Shockingly enough, I never claimed that humans and dwarfs and tabaxi were identical. Nor did I say that I want to force you down that path. This is you misrepresenting what I said. Again.
> 
> What I _said _is that even if you refuse to accept it, is that halflings don't need to have fantastical powers to be unique and special. It doesn't matter if elves are the only people in the world who can reincarnate. That doesn't make halflings any less interesting to someone who bothers to spend more than a minute thinking about htem.




So, you now are fleeing your position that all races are just humans in rubber masks, and demanding to know what non-human traits that they have. Because (and since you want precise research so often) that was exactly what you demanded. Since you have forgotten, let's just repost that




Faolyn said:


> *Like what? Because I literally can't think of a thing these races have done that humans haven't done.*
> 
> Humans, in real-life, can build amazing contraptions like gnomes (look at any clockwork or Rube Goldburg device), can carve mountains into amazing sculptures and cities like dwarfs (check out any number of huge monuments, or the City of Petra, or the Pyramids), bend living trees into amazing sculptures like elves (living sculptures, tree shaping, bonzai), and... go to war and act like bandits like goblins and orcs. Assuming you're going for traditional, monstrous goblins and orcs, of course. Literally the only things that elves, dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, and orcs have done that humans haven't are things that involve magic or setting-specific supernatural beings.
> 
> If you can't find the fantastical among the halflings, it's because you're not looking in the right places. Halfling fantastical-ness lies in their general peacefulness (or at least lack of waging wars), their hominess, their cooking, their cheeriness, even in the face of disaster, their ability to get along with others, things like that.




So, now the argument has shifted. It is no longer about "what have these other races done" it is NOW "_That halflings don't need to have fantastical powers to be unique and special._"

So, completely different argument, and you want to claim that if I spent MORE THAN A MINUTE thinking about them, that I would be able to see how wonderful and unique and special they are. Funny how after, what? Probably in total a month of time arguing over multiple threads that have spanned a year and a half at least, that you somehow think I haven't given them more than a minute's thought. 

Do you understand how insulting that is? Just flat out, how insulting it is to be told that after hours and hours and hours of work, after trying to rework them time and time and time again, after discussing and being dragged through the mud time and time and time again, that I must not have thought about the subject for five minutes? 

How about, instead of insulting me, trying to dodge the point, and these ad hominem attacks you actually discuss what is so wonderful about halflings, without just taking it as "They are the nicest, kindest, friendliest people" Because I discussed how horrific and poorly thought out that argument is before. Spent "more than a minute" thinking about the implications of that for world building and decided that I prefer a better world than the one where that would be true. 

So, can you do it? Can you actually discuss halflings without insulting me and give me more than "they are super nice" that can define them? Or is it just more insults I have coming my way? 



Faolyn said:


> It's amazing how easy _other _people have it at having unique gnomes and halflings when they don't rely on TSR/WotC spoon-feeding them the lore and make up their own.
> 
> You know, at the end of this rant of yours, you say that you wasted a "few hours" of time, presumably in this response to me. Maybe you should have spent those few hours coming up with interesting cultures instead.




Wow, didn't even need to wait to post. Insults away. 

Tell me, what cultures have I made? Do you even know? What have I written about Yotun cooking habits? The societies of the Kith? The metaphyiscal nature of the Goblins and their relationship to the Primal Mother? How about the connection between the gnomes and the Slaad and the gnomish heaven? Do you have any idea what Mahendrapvarta is? The Arboreans? The Aspians? How are Kobolds and Dragonborn made? Why do elves worship spiders? 

Or do you assume because I advocate for changes to WoTC's lore that... well, why even ask, you think I'm spoon-fed lore and incapable of making up my own. Honestly, I'm tempted to break forum rules just to tell you what I think of that. I've spent years as a writer, I am fully capable of making my own lore. I also recognize that if I want to change Dungeons and Dragons, then me just making up things to keep to myself doesn't cut it. You'd think a community about creativity would understand that sharing ideas and discussion are valuable. But, no. Guess trying to discuss things and get a consensus that we need to change things going forward just shows that I can't possibly be creative enough to develop my own lore. 



Faolyn said:


> So when you think of "elf," do you think of
> 
> View attachment 266118
> 
> ...




Do you know that Faerie and Fairy are pretty different? In fact, Fairy is probably more accurate as Pixie. Because a lot of these concepts came from a time when cultures were much less integrated, and they had a lot of different things that were kind of the same. Sort of like Daemon and Demon. 

Rowling might have called Dobbi a House Elf, but they are more like a goblin or more specifically a traditional hobgoblin. Elves aren't house spirits. But they were Faeries, just like Brownies and Hobgoblins and Tomte and even Kobolds! 

So, yeah, surprise surprise, the term Elf was closely associate with Fairy, which would be Faerie, which like Daemon was used to describe a large, large grouping of disparate things. Often with conflicting names, lore, or purposes. However, if I google "Fantasy Elf" I get a pretty consistent view of what that means. And it isn't Keebler, and it isn't Santa. Now, sure, just "Elf" gets me a lot of pictures of Will Farrell, but that was the name of his movie after all. 

Now, you can use this as a "gotcha"! HAHA! There is no such thing as consistency because Keebler called their little gnomes elves and Santa exists! But, you know that there is a reason why we tend to use adjectives, right? I don't need to explain it to you? And, shockingly, even with your example there IS something beyond pointy ears they all share in common, in fact, I'd almost be able to bet on two things. 

Magic
Longevity

It isn't much, but we are dealing with a word that has been tied into dozens of meanings and was a synonym for Fairy and Daemon, so, you know, not bad to still have three points of similarity. 



Faolyn said:


> Yup. Because you do, in fact, misrepresent and misunderstand people, blow everyone's responses out of proportion, and make straw man after straw man, over and over again. So I honestly do not believe you when you claim that multiple people have said that if you change anything about halflings they stop being halflings.




Then why do you insist on these discussions? I was ignoring you, as we were told to do, and you had to jump back in and start attacking me. And you do nothing but insult me and accuse me misdeeds. 

Is the entire point just to drive me off the platform? Will you be satisfied if I disappear for another six months because I'm sick of this? You think I'm a liar and troll and refuse to believe anything I say. Fine. THEN STOP RESPONDING TO ME! Nothing I ever post will be good enough for you, so just go away. 



Faolyn said:


> You are free to block me or simply stop answering my posts.




I'm not blocking you because I am sick of having to log off of the site to even follow a thread's discussion because half of it is blocked posts. 

I'm responding to you because I consider it rude to ignore people. You spent time to respond to me, so I feel obligated to give that response a degree of respect and response back. But trust me, I'm getting sick and tired of this. 



Faolyn said:


> Let's say you find some people who did in fact say that you can't change halflings without making them not-halflings.
> 
> Why do _you _care what these people say? Why do you think _I _should care what they say?




I care because I was trying to have a discussion, and they shut down that discussion with this insistence. 

You should care because you accuse me of misdeeds, where all I was doing was pointing out the definition I was given that shut down the previous discussion. 

Neither of us need to care, if you want to change halflings, let's get to it. But you seemed to think my letting you know what I was told somehow means that I'm bound by other people's rules, and you seem to think their rules are my rules and that now I ust defend why other people refused to discuss changes with me because of their views. 



Faolyn said:


> I have mentioned many ways to improve halflings. You have dismissed them all.
> 
> Remember me talking about how to RP luck and bravery in the game? You refused, you would _never _use those ideas because it somehow wasn't the right type of mechanics for you. Because for some reason you insisted that the only way a halfling can be lucky or brave is for everyone to be unlucky and cowardly. That starts at around page 16-17 of this thread.
> 
> So why don't _you _tell us some things that would make halflings better for _you_?




Right, you gave ideas I found to be bad. I explained why I found them bad. How utterly monstrous of me. I should never discuss the merits of an idea. Why then, we might just... I don't know why that's bad actually. 

And I proposed a few things over the past year. Folding them into Gnomes works very well. Making them a mercantile races works very well. Saw someone who made them a race that partially existed on the ethereal plane, that was cool. Those are just the first three ideas that don't change them visually. 



Faolyn said:


> I have said on multiple occasions that halflings can be easily altered without getting rid of them. I don't think they need magical powers, though--I would prefer there be _fewer _magical races, not more.
> 
> In Level Up, one of the halfling gifts is "tuft feet," wherein their soles are so thick that they can even walk across an area affected by _spike growth_ and not be harmed. Another gift is "burrowing claws," which is just that. One of the halfling-oriented _cultures _gives the ability to cook food so well that you gain temp hp when you eat it. I made a halfling gift that gave them gods-given bonuses to their slings and thrown weapons.




The food thing doesn't work when you already have a system for magical food. We have the chef feat after all. 

Tuft feet is... okay? That is such a minor benefit, unless there are a lot of hazards that hurt people's feet through boots? The majority of things don't, and just being able to ignore damage from a single spell doesn't seem like much. Is there more to it than that?

The claws is... I mean, I guess you can make mole people, but that just feels like mole people to me. Is there more to it than that? 

Why should we give them bonuses to slings and thrown weapons? It feels like it would be a mechanical buff, but it doesn't seem to fulfill a lore purpose. I mean, elves and bows, dwarves and axes/hammers get by just fine without mechanical bonuses. I don't mind slings being a thing for halflings. Just need a why. 



Faolyn said:


> And again, citation needed. Because _nobody_, to my knowledge, claimed that the feral psionic cannibal halflings of Athas or the dino-riding mafia healer halflings of Eberron are not halflings. And that shows you can change halflings radically and people will still accept them as halflings.




You realize you are mixing the various Eberron halflings together, right? That the talentas halflings are not the same as the mafia halflings are not the same as the healing halflings are not the same as the hospitality halflings. You are presenting them like one single thing, and they aren't. 

As for the rest, I have no reason to do research you will dismiss as lies anyways. Most people talking about halflings have been ignoring those two versions, focusing on the pastoral tolkien halflings of forgotten realms and greyhawk. Don't believe me? Do your own digging. 



Faolyn said:


> I'm going to repeat what I said above. Instead of spending one or more hours writing a response to me, spend that time actually _thinking about the halflings._ Because it's clear you _don't_, if that's all you got out of them.




So, it wasn't an accidental insult the first time. You are just intentionally insulting me. 

Yeah, this is likely going to be the last time I respond to you, unless you drastically cut back on the insults and ad hominems. 



Faolyn said:


> Nope.




To which one? You quoted two questions. 



Faolyn said:


> Except that it's not an accepted fact that halflings only or mostly live in human lands and go to war when humans do.




It seems to be for the people who wrote the books, and everyone who disucssed it until you that they reside in large quantities in human lands. 

And, the second part is just logic. If they reside in human lands, they go to war when humans do. That's just how geopolitics works. 



Faolyn said:


> That's what happens when you don't make a generic world and decide to shake things up a bit by not using D&D stereotypes.
> 
> I will admit that it's only this _face _of the world, since my world is a cube. But one side is only ocean with a few islands, one side is the arctic wastes, one side is burning desert, and a fourth side is the divine realm. There's really only two sides that manage to have actual cities on them. But nobody knows that yet, so it might as well be the entire world.




Man, you really can't go more than a few paragraphs without being insulting and derisive. 

I'd ask you why you decided on halflings, but frankly, your attitude makes me really not care about anything you've designed. 



Faolyn said:


> The smallest army in the real world is the Swiss Guard, with about 135 members. I see no reason to not to assume that D&D armies don't need to have thousands upon thousands of people when they can have spellcasters and bound extraplanar creatures and allied dragons.




Uh huh. So, you think the Swiss Guard can go and conquer.... anything? Also, while it is the smallest army in the world, note that it isn't called "The Swiss Army", but "The Swiss Guard" because they defend the Vatican City. 

Also, really curious where these villages are getting bound extraplanar creatures and alliances with dragons from. You'd think you'd need something to like, pay a dragon with. OR powerful spellcasters. Not things you typically find in a small farming community. It is almost like, and this is a stretch, you'd need the resources of a city. 



Faolyn said:


> Why should I? I don't care how many halfling cities with zero humans in them there are. Because the answer is "as many as I need there to be in my world."




So, what is the point of buying books? You don't care if WoTC makes subpar products, because you can just fix it, right? 

Ever heard of the Oberoni Fallacy? Might benefit you to look it up. 



Faolyn said:


> Well, then that's a trope that can be ignored as being boring now.




Ah yes, we change things by ignoring them. That's ALWAYS worked out for the best. Different plan, change it, instead of ignoring it. Not just at your table, but at the product level. 



Faolyn said:


> I can't recall the last time I've seen actual feudalism in _any _D&D setting.




Might want to brush up on your DnD settings then, because it is ridiculously common. 



Faolyn said:


> So answer them, then. You don't _need _the books to spell that out. Make up your own stuff.




Oberoni Fallacy again. 



Faolyn said:


> I've already told you the answers. They're generally peaceful and congenial. They don't usually wage wars.




And that's it? The nice and peaceful people who have mafias, dinosaur riding warriors, psychic cannibal world conquerors. The nice and peaceful people who you then go around, murdering things and taking their stuff. 

Do you not see how this immediately falls apart? Not to mention how horrifically the rest of the world has to be to have a single group be "the nice people". It would be like defining dwarves by being "the drunk loud people". 



Faolyn said:


> Then I guess dragonborn are playable but not good because everyone at _my _table hates them.




Okay. I'd offer to discuss dragonborn with you and how you might want to improve them. However, you don't seem to think I'm capable of creating anything and that I'm a liar, so why should I bother? 



Faolyn said:


> I'm sorry, where's the rule that says that any of these books are 100% true now and forever?




True in a 3.X book. True in a 5e book. Now we have to have them 100% true now and forever? Is that what it would take for you to just admit you were wrong? 


Faolyn said:


> I'll make it simple for you: don't waste your time by replying to me.




Yeah, would have been more convenient to open with that, since I respond as I read. Esepcially on massive multi-break posts like that. 

BTW, hour and a half on this one.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Since this is a weird point of contention with you, I used the search function to find what I actually said:
> 
> 
> I've also pointed out that the only race where every subspecies has magic is Tieflings.  High elves can cast cantrips, but wood elves don't have anything other than a better chance of hiding in natural environments.  To me it's not particularly defining in any case.  High elves learn cantrips when they're growing up just like most people are assumed to learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.  Wood elves are better at hiding in the woods because that's what their culture deems important.
> ...




Did you just search this thread? Because I distinctly remember you arguing that the thing that makes halflings special is their underdog status that makes everyone underestimate them combined with their lack of magical abilities. That's why they can't be combined with gnomes, as you stated, because gnomes are magical and you want halflings to remain non-magical, because their lack of specialness makes them special, or something to that effect. 

Or are you know saying you don't agree with any of that and magical halflings are fine?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 8, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I truly am stunned that someone would have difficuly parsing that differences may exist between..
> 
> ..D&D humans..
> ..who are not real and whom we do not know
> ...




And under what possible reasoning should we assume that DnD humans are not humans? Have they been given a single trait that you cannot find in humanity? 

How then might we contend with the lore of the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, both of which have humans from Earth showing up in them and being... just like the other humans? I mean, the humans of ancient egypt were kidnapped and taken to the Forgotten Realms, have they somehow been depicted as different than the other humans of the Realms? The entire reason that Oerth is called Oerth is that it is a multiversal reflection of Earth, and the two have been traveled between repeatedly. HAve those travels ever discussed how humans in one are fundamentally incompatible with humans of the other? 

As far as I've seen? Humans are humans. Humans are not non-humans.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Then why do you insist on these discussions? I was ignoring you, as we were told to do, and you had to jump back in and start attacking me. And you do nothing but insult me and accuse me misdeeds.
> 
> Is the entire point just to drive me off the platform? Will you be satisfied if I disappear for another six months because I'm sick of this? You think I'm a liar and troll and refuse to believe anything I say. Fine. THEN STOP RESPONDING TO ME! Nothing I ever post will be good enough for you, so just go away.




*Mod Note:*
If this is an issue with the particular person, then it is time for you to use the Ignore feature.

If this is an issue with the discussion as a whole, it is time for you to take a break.

Any time you are so engaged that you _cannot_ let a dissenting post slide without comment, that's time you need to change your approach to the discussion in some way.  Because this here is not healthy.


----------



## Oofta (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Did you just search this thread? Because I distinctly remember you arguing that the thing that makes halflings special is their underdog status that makes everyone underestimate them combined with their lack of magical abilities. That's why they can't be combined with gnomes, as you stated, because gnomes are magical and you want halflings to remain non-magical, because their lack of specialness makes them special, or something to that effect.
> 
> Or are you know saying you don't agree with any of that and magical halflings are fine?




I think halflings are fine as they are, they don't need anything overtly supernatural. For that matter rock gnomes don't have anything overtly supernatural either. Not all gnomes have magical talent.  I have never stated that gnomes and halflings shouldn't be combined with gnomes for that reason.  I don't see a need or reason to combine halflings and gnomes any more than we need to combine any other race.  They have about as much in common as elves and dwarves do.  

Yes, part of why _I_ play halflings is because they're the underappreciated underdog. You seem to remember a lot of things that have never been said while also trying to make a contradiction out of two things that are pretty unrelated to each other.


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 8, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And under what possible reasoning should we assume that DnD humans are not humans? Have they been given a single trait that you cannot find in humanity?



I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.


They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
They can perform magic (at least some if them can)
They share the magical setting with a wide variety of fantasy races and creatures with a correspondingly wide variety of fantasy capabilities
Active tangible, provable deities
Death and the afterlife are much better understood (and death need not be permanent!)
Earth history is not a precondition baked into their existence as such
No War of the Roses 
No African slave trade
No French revolution
No Great Schism
No Rennaissance
No Dark Ages
No Enlightenment
No Industrial revolution
No Information Age
No Civil Right movement
No Boxer Rebellion
No Evolution
Entirely different creation myths
Etc.
Etc. 
Etc.

Your willingness to shrug all this stuff off and go "Nah, same as Earth humans in every possible way" is astounding to me.

BTW, if you feel compelled to address this post bullet by bullet, bringing in random scraps of Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun or whatever other setting lore across five editions, just don't. 

I will not read it, and it should not be necessary to address the broader point of how setting differences may impact racial characteristics, and then further how we can move forward discussing the racial characteristics included in the PHB on an even footing.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 8, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.
> 
> 
> They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
> ...



Not to me; and I'll admit this is the one (and I think only!) part of @Chaosmancer 's argument with which I somewhat agree.

Where Humans are the same as us is (assumed to be) in their physical selves.  The average in-setting Human is generally assumed to roughly fit within the same bell-curves of heights, weights, body types, physical capabilities, etc. as seen here on Earth and to (usually) have two arms, two legs, and one head.  Put another way, were any of us dropped into a D&D setting world we would in theory - ignoring external things such as clothing, gear, etc. - be able to blend into a crowd of other Humans and nobody bat an eyelid.  Flip side: a D&D-setting Human dressed in 21-century Earth fashion walking down a local street should in theory be neither less nor more noticeable than anyone else you pass by.

All of your bullet points speak to how those Humans relate to differences between the setting environment and real-Earth but none speak to what Humans in fact *are*; which is to say, the same as Earth Humans.


----------



## James Gasik (Nov 8, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.
> 
> 
> They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
> ...



I was just talking with some friends about a late 90's JRPG, Xenogears.  Basically, a gigantic spaceship, the _Eldridge_, crash lands on an unknown planet, and ten thousand years later, the protagonists are trying to deal with an ancient conspiracy and an even more ancient superweapon.  It is revealed later in the game that all of the "humans" in the game were actually created by a computer, and are not actually descended from survivors of the crash at all; they are part of a millennia-long project to rebuild the aforementioned superweapon, which is (in part) the explanation for why they have unusual abilities, including what passes for "magic" in the game. Further, even the game's "save points" are in-universe constructs that record the memories of humans, so that the puppet masters (well, some of them) can keep tabs on the great experiment.

If you were to create a Xenogears 5e game, the players would be humans...but at the same time, they also wouldn't.  This extends to D&D as well; not all Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halfings, Humans, etc. across the various campaign settings have the same origins.  What we call an "Elf" on Eberron might be mechanically similar to one from Greyhawk, or Krynn, but may not be related in the slightest.

Certainly, Corellon Larethian and the other members of the Seldarine are not worshipped on Krynn, so it seems very likely that the Elves of Krynn are not, in fact, the same race (who were created by Corellon, mind.  Or, for another example, Eberron doesn't even necessarily have Gods in the same way other settings do, and certainly has no Araushnee/Lolth, but definitely has Drow!).  This extends to Humans as well; there is no reason to suppose that a D&D Human is actually a member of _homo sapiens sapiens_, and they might be so genetically different that they cannot interbreed (assuming D&D has DNA at all)!  Now that's a plot twist I'd like to see in an _isekai_ story!

TLDR: what's in a name?  That which we call Humans might not be people like us at all!

-Though in all fairness, in the Forgotten Realms, at least, Humans are heavily implied to be from our Earth (or maybe the other way around!), due to ancient contact between Toril and our planet.


----------



## whizz (Nov 8, 2022)

I play halflings a lot - mechanically in the old AD&D 1st edition they were the best thieves so it made sense. I now play halflings a lot, usually a rogue or a bard, and play them as innocent (ish) individuals who fall into adventure rather than seek it out. Gnomes who can be similar I play as tricksters and curious beings who seek adventure (excitement). and OK so I could play a human like that but the 2 races in my game have a culture that they are brought up in - and its what they do.


----------



## Lanefan (Nov 8, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Certainly, Corellon Larethian and the other members of the Seldarine are not worshipped on Krynn, so it seems very likely that the Elves of Krynn are not, in fact, the same race (who were created by Corellon, mind.  Or, for another example, Eberron doesn't even necessarily have Gods in the same way other settings do, and certainly has no Araushnee/Lolth, but definitely has Drow!).



In my view they're still Elves and still very similar to other Elves elsewhere, even if more or less cut off from their pantheons.  The tricky bit might be explaining how they got to those worlds, but hey - an ancient history involving spacefaring Elves and lost technology can't be that hard to dream up, can it? 


James Gasik said:


> TLDR: what's in a name?



In this case, everything; as the name "Human" carries - quite rightly IMO - a massive weight of assumption with it.


James Gasik said:


> That which we call Humans might not be people like us at all!



Then after your plot-twist reveal (which is a cool idea,) they should be called something else.  Also, what would you call non-augmented ordinary Humans in the meantime, in order to differentiate?


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 9, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Not to me; and I'll admit this is the one (and I think only!) part of @Chaosmancer 's argument with which I somewhat agree.
> 
> Where Humans are the same as us is (assumed to be) in their physical selves.  The average in-setting Human is generally assumed to roughly fit within the same bell-curves of heights, weights, body types, physical capabilities, etc. as seen here on Earth and to (usually) have two arms, two legs, and one head.  Put another way, were any of us dropped into a D&D setting world we would in theory - ignoring external things such as clothing, gear, etc. - be able to blend into a crowd of other Humans and nobody bat an eyelid.  Flip side: a D&D-setting Human dressed in 21-century Earth fashion walking down a local street should in theory be neither less nor more noticeable than anyone else you pass by.
> 
> All of your bullet points speak to how those Humans relate to differences between the setting environment and real-Earth but none speak to what Humans in fact *are*; which is to say, the same as Earth Humans.



Anatomy just isn't that much of a distinguishing feature in a setting full of humanoid creatures where the anatomical differences are mostly undiscussed. Put a D&D Dwarf or Elf in 21st century garb, and I think the number of batted eyelids is comparable with the D&D Human.

On the flip flip side, even on real world Earth, if you transport a human from one place to another with very different cultural values, ways of life etc. and the locals can identify the outsider very quickly even if the outsider physically resembles the local population. I call this the "American, yes?" effect.

How much larger might such differences be once you take away all the shared context?


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 9, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.
> 
> 
> They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
> ...




Game of Thrones? Heck, Tolkien? Stormlight Archive? Avatar? How many settings would I need to go and bring up that feature literally all of the exact same points, yet feature humans? 

Yes, in a fantasy world, magic is real, monsters are real, and they had a different history. Yet, somehow, I imagine if I went to people and said "The people of the world of Westeros aren't human" or "the Men of Middle-Earth aren't Human" anywhere but this thread where you have staked this out as a position against me, I'd be laughed out of whatever discussion it is. 

Is the world different? Of course it is, I've never tried to claim that the worlds of DnD aren't different than our own. I've stated that humans are human. The humans of Westeros are human. The Humans of Middle-Earth are human. And nothing you stated about DnD humans would be "unnatural" about them. They are still pretty much the same. it isn't a matter of history, or religion. It is a matter of the essential nature of humanity.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 9, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I was just talking with some friends about a late 90's JRPG, Xenogears.  Basically, a gigantic spaceship, the _Eldridge_, crash lands on an unknown planet, and ten thousand years later, the protagonists are trying to deal with an ancient conspiracy and an even more ancient superweapon.  It is revealed later in the game that all of the "humans" in the game were actually created by a computer, and are not actually descended from survivors of the crash at all; they are part of a millennia-long project to rebuild the aforementioned superweapon, which is (in part) the explanation for why they have unusual abilities, including what passes for "magic" in the game. Further, even the game's "save points" are in-universe constructs that record the memories of humans, so that the puppet masters (well, some of them) can keep tabs on the great experiment.
> 
> If you were to create a Xenogears 5e game, the players would be humans...but at the same time, they also wouldn't.  This extends to D&D as well; not all Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halfings, Humans, etc. across the various campaign settings have the same origins.  What we call an "Elf" on Eberron might be mechanically similar to one from Greyhawk, or Krynn, but may not be related in the slightest.
> 
> ...




I think the big point you are missing though is that in Xenogears it is a _twist_. It isn't the norm or the expected. 

Sure, you can go forth with the twist that DnD humans are completely inhuman and not related to humans at all... but there is literally zero reason to think that would be the case. In fact, unless it was explicitly stated like it was for Xenogears, the assumption will be and should be that they are in fact... humans.


----------



## Faolyn (Nov 9, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my view they're still Elves and still very similar to other Elves elsewhere, even if more or less cut off from their pantheons.  The tricky bit might be explaining how they got to those worlds, but hey - an ancient history involving spacefaring Elves and lost technology can't be that hard to dream up, can it?
> 
> In this case, everything; as the name "Human" carries - quite rightly IMO - a massive weight of assumption with it.
> 
> Then after your plot-twist reveal (which is a cool idea,) they should be called something else.  Also, what would you call non-augmented ordinary Humans in the meantime, in order to differentiate?


----------



## Gammadoodler (Nov 9, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Game of Thrones? Heck, Tolkien? Stormlight Archive? Avatar? How many settings would I need to go and bring up that feature literally all of the exact same points, yet feature humans?
> 
> Yes, in a fantasy world, magic is real, monsters are real, and they had a different history. Yet, somehow, I imagine if I went to people and said "The people of the world of Westeros aren't human" or "the Men of Middle-Earth aren't Human" anywhere but this thread where you have staked this out as a position against me, I'd be laughed out of whatever discussion it is.
> 
> Is the world different? Of course it is, I've never tried to claim that the worlds of DnD aren't different than our own. I've stated that humans are human. The humans of Westeros are human. The Humans of Middle-Earth are human. And nothing you stated about DnD humans would be "unnatural" about them. They are still pretty much the same. it isn't a matter of history, or religion. It is a matter of the essential nature of humanity.



Except that I haven't said that humans are not human. I have said..repeatedly, that D&D Humans motivations, behaviors and values are consistent with those the PHB supplies.

There is no need whatsoever to graft on real world human nonsense. You can totally do so if you like, no one will stop you. But it is a personal preference not a universal truth.

In the same way, when others graft on their personal views of halflingness to that of the PHB, they are engaging in the exact same exercise of personal preference.

So you have choices.

You can discuss personal preferences, which should not be expected to have any impact beyond the individuals
You can discuss game material, where the amount of editorial intent is equal, and both sides have access to the same content. Such discussion is at least applicable to the broader game.
You can continue your exercise in hypocrisy where you bring your full set of personal preferences and understanding of humanity, treat it as universal truth that applies any and all fantasy settings, and then dismiss all others' personal preferences regarding halflings, limiting their discussion only to game materials, and then declare victory in your "good faith" discussion.
You can choose whichever one you want. #3 is a bad choice though.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 9, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Except that I haven't said that humans are not human. I have said..repeatedly, that D&D Humans motivations, behaviors and values are consistent with those the PHB supplies.
> 
> There is no need whatsoever to graft on real world human nonsense. You can totally do so if you like, no one will stop you. But it is a personal preference not a universal truth.
> 
> ...




Okay, what does DnD humans match the PHB description have ANYTHING to do with this? Because you seem to have forgotten that this was the post I responded to that you took umbrage with.




CreamCloud0 said:


> I’d just like to comment on this piece here because *humans in DnD are fantastical in their own way, while not explicitly magical humans are noted as being highly ambitious and adventurous, putting their hand to all things, humans contain a certain drive that pushes them to great feats*, it’s one of those things that goes overlooked because it’s not explicitly listed in their stat blocks and not directly correlated to actually playing one as it’s just as easy to pick a dragonborn or a drow(_and are more likely to want to be because they’re ‘exciting’ and humans are ‘boring’ because nobody is a dragonborn in reality and so it’s different_) unless you’re rolling on race tables for your character and let’s be honest how many people actually do that beyond one shot characters?
> 
> *Halflings fill the niche realworld humans would have in a fantasy world *who are used to lives of good food and comfort but also have their own spin on them, they’re unobtrusive in the world both in the sense they’re stealthy and that they don’t carve their lives into the environment but adapt to it, they’re noted as one of the most friendly races to a decent degree, and while this is just me speculating on the point my guess is that while halflings might partake in wars or have joined existing ones they probably have a lesser record of actually starting them




 A post which states, and I will quote again without the quote box in case you have CreamCloud0 blocked, which may have caused this entire thing, since you responded to me quoting them.

"...*humans in DnD are fantastical in their own way, while not explicitly magical humans are noted as being highly ambitious and adventurous, putting their hand to all things, humans contain a certain drive that pushes them to great feats*,.... *Halflings fill the niche realworld humans would have in a fantasy world* ..." 

In other words, the initial point was not "DnD humans do not match the PHB description." The initial point is that the PHB description and therefore DnD humans match with real world humans. And since DnD/PHB humans are real world humans, because Real World humans are "_noted as being highly ambitious and adventurous, putting their hand to all things, humans contain a certain drive that pushes them to great feats_"

And, despite that being true, they are also people who wish to live lives of good food and comfort. We don't need halflings to fill the role of Real World Humans, because DnD humans fill the role of Real World Humans.



So, no, I do not need to have a personal interpretation that DnD humans don't match the PHB. That is nonsense and nothing at all like what I was saying. It would be a misrepresentation of my entire argument. This is also not a hypocrisy. I am, as you wanted to put it, discussing the game material, just with the added understanding that every single thing in the PHB describes humanity as it exists on Earth, and we do not need to split off a section of human nature to have it in the halflings. Humans in the PHB can cover being ambitious AND loving their homes and their comforts and their families. You know, like real humans on the planet Earth. And I have additional evidence of every single human NPC ever written for Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, you may argue, if you wish, that the PHB does not describe humanity as we know it on Earth, that it somehow describes something beyond the human expeirence. You can argue that halflings are actually closer to what humans of Earth are and fulfill their role in the PHB. I'd be interested what role you think Humans in the PHB fill if it isn't the role of humans, but I'd kindly ask you to stop and actually pay attention to what I am arguing instead of declaring me a hypocrite because you have stuffed nonsense into my mouth and declared it my argument.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 9, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, what does DnD humans match the PHB description have ANYTHING to do with this? Because you seem to have forgotten that this was the post I responded to that you took umbrage with.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Their initial point was..this is how humans are described in the PHB, with an accurate summary of the PHB Human write-up

Your response was.. "yeah..but humans are also a lot of other things that are not described in the PHB" (you gave examples of wanting to live lives of good food and comfort..)

They also made the point that halflings are described a certain way in the PHB, and included an accurate summary of the PHB write-up for Halflings.

The extra-PHB characteristics you pulled in and ascribed to D&D Humans coincide with some of those from the PHB Hafling description.

Your conclusion was that by failing to bring in the non-PHB Human stuff that you brought in, they were failing to fully capture D&D Humans, making them "inhuman".

And this was all in service of an upstream conclusion that D&D Halflings are "too human" because they feature some extra-PHB human characteristics.

The fullness of my disagreement with you is that you claimed they were overstating human characteristics from the PHB, when, in fact, they were describing those characteristics accurately. We've since gone on to discuss the value of the PHB description and whether it makes sense for it to exclude the extra characteristics you brought in, and/or the many others that can come from an understanding of real world humanity.

If your ultimate contention is that D&D Humans aren't "human" if they fail to bring in all that extra stuff. And that Halflings are "too human" by having too many of those extra-PHB "human" characteristics, then your position is exactly as I have described.

The other part of this is..

Simultaneously, in other strands of conversation, when someone describes their experience or interpretations of halflings, your response has frequently been "well that's just your thing" accompanied by a dismissive "good for you" followed by a "but halflings need to be fixed in the game, not just your setting".

Thus the hypocrisy.


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## James Gasik (Nov 9, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> In my view they're still Elves and still very similar to other Elves elsewhere, even if more or less cut off from their pantheons.  The tricky bit might be explaining how they got to those worlds, but hey - an ancient history involving spacefaring Elves and lost technology can't be that hard to dream up, can it?
> 
> In this case, everything; as the name "Human" carries - quite rightly IMO - a massive weight of assumption with it.
> 
> Then after your plot-twist reveal (which is a cool idea,) they should be called something else.  Also, what would you call non-augmented ordinary Humans in the meantime, in order to differentiate?



This brings up an interesting point: what do people call Variant Humans, to differentiate?  In-universe, so to speak.  Is there some fundamental difference between Humans and Variant Humans?  Is one a sub-race of the other?  Are we not supposed to use both in the same game?  If a Human woman meets a dashing Variant Human man, and they have a child, would that child be a Half-Variant Human?

Ok, I'm slightly joking, but I think it speaks to my point.  We already have two different versions of Humans in D&D (pending the D&D ONE update?), and yet we call both Humans.  But despite being mechanically distinct from one another, there is no lore whatsoever that says either is anything but Human.  So one could say that we already have two separate races who are called Humans...


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## Oofta (Nov 9, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> This brings up an interesting point: what do people call Variant Humans, to differentiate?  In-universe, so to speak.  Is there some fundamental difference between Humans and Variant Humans?  Is one a sub-race of the other?  Are we not supposed to use both in the same game?  If a Human woman meets a dashing Variant Human man, and they have a child, would that child be a Half-Variant Human?
> 
> Ok, I'm slightly joking, but I think it speaks to my point.  We already have two different versions of Humans in D&D (pending the D&D ONE update?), and yet we call both Humans.  But despite being mechanically distinct from one another, there is no lore whatsoever that says either is anything but Human.  So one could say that we already have two separate races who are called Humans...




They're called variant humans because "This is an option for humans you can use if feats are allowed in your game" is just a tad too long.

I suspect it will go away with 1E since they're simplifying the choice between a +1 for 2 ability scores or a feat.  It will be interesting to see if they make any further restrictions because as  it sits right now, everybody gets a feat at first level and a human gets an extra one 1st level.  Means that a human PC could get a +4 to any ability score at 1st level.  But that's a topic for the other forum.


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## bedir than (Nov 9, 2022)

Oofta said:


> It will be interesting to see if they make any further restrictions because as it sits right now, everybody gets a feat at first level and a human gets an extra one 1st level. Means that a human PC could get a +4 to any ability score at 1st level. But that's a topic for the other forum.



This couldn't happen in game because the ASI Feat isn't available at first level


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 9, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Their initial point was..this is how humans are described in the PHB, with an accurate summary of the PHB Human write-up
> 
> Your response was.. "yeah..but humans are also a lot of other things that are not described in the PHB" (you gave examples of wanting to live lives of good food and comfort..)
> 
> ...





What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again. 

Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone". 

Now, is there an issue with Halflings? That can be discussed, it has been discussed, and opinions can vary. However, that has nothing to do with the current point, and I'm going to move on from that. 

Where your issue seems to lie is that you think I'm treating humans with a double standard. You seem to think that since I am "adding" to humans that other people should be allowed to add to halflings. However, this misses a few very key points. 

1) No one has any problems with humans as they are depicted. Humans are fine as is. 

2) Despite the fact that I am "saying it" in this thread, I'm not the one saying it in the community. WoTC is. TSR was. This is just the truth about humans. 

Let us take the Village of Hommlet, just because it is famous enough I can google the NPC list from work. 

#1 Prosperous Farm Cottage: Goodwife, Farmer, Two sons, 4 young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers, though the farmer and sons are part of the local militia if trouble arises. No interest in adventuring.
#3 Cottage: The woodcutter, his wfe and three young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring. 
#4 Well Kept Farm: Widow, 2 sons, their wives, 8 children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring. 
#6 Tannery: Tanner, wife, her brother, 3 children. They have no interest in adventuring. 

I can go on and on, this is a single module, a single town, but it is true across the decades and across the modules. Despite what the PHB says, humans in the game are often depicted as content with their lives, and have no ambitions to go adventuring to make fortunes or change the world. Yes, humans _*as a species *_have that drive, but in actuality many human NPCs, shopkeeps, farmers, millers, ect are not presented in that manner. And this isn't my opinion or my homebrew, this is official content. It isn't 5e content, because I'm away from my books, but I'm positive that if I cracked open Ghosts of Saltmarsh or Rime of the Frostmaiden or Descent to Avernus I'd find plenty of human NPCs who are also depicted as not having grand ambitions or a drive to commit great deeds. 


So, there is a major distinction here. One thing you are pointing to is homebrew, something that is not in official content. The other thing IS official content. It is not homebrew. Now, you can argue that these things are outside the description of humans in the PHB, but again, we don't need humanity explained to us. We know what humans are, so as long as it is something that fits into humanity, we don't need it in a description. 

The other thing you seem to take umbrage with is the settings. Which, we really need to clarify here. 

Darksun does have cannibal halflings. Its halflings are different. However, they are also not the mainstream version of halflings. We have generally been discussing the main version of halflings, not the Dark Sun specific halflings. They are also very difficult to integrate into non-Dark Sun settings. 

The Eberron Halflings can be different.... but the Talentas Halflings are not the only version of Eberron halflings. The other sections of halflings are described pretty much indistinguishably from humans, and in fact are called out specifically as having followed and adapted human customs and clothing. So... a subrace of halflings from Eberron, not all halflings from Eberron. And the majority of halfling subraces in Eberron fall into the same problem we've discussed for other halflings. 

So, yes, these two things exist, and they are official content. However, they are quickly overshadowed by the mainstream halfling depiction, the one in the main books, the PHB and MTF. I acknowledge that, but there is no hypocrisy in acknowledging that they exist, and that they are also not what I'm talking about. Just like when I'm talking about Elves I'm not discussing Avariel Elves who have wings, or Sea Elves who can breathe underwater. Those are exceptions to the mainstream. It isn't hypocritical to acknowledge they exist, and also acknowledge they are not what is being discussed. 




Now, do you have anything to add to the conversation that isn't accusing me of hypocrisy, accusing me of double standards, calling me a liar, or any of the other ad hominem attacks?


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 9, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again.
> 
> Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone".
> 
> ...



1. It is not an ad hominem attack to describe an argument as hypocritical.
2. It seems your position is that D&D humanity does encompass the PHB description and a bunch of other attributes you've observed from sources outside the PHB..exactly as I've described.
3. You acknowledge that there is official and unofficial content outside of the PHB which could have bearing on what it means to be a halfling, but have chosen to exclude those from discussion, choosing to focus on the "main" (let's call it PHB) halfling.
4. Your position remains that the PHB halfling is too humanlike based on its possession of human attributes you've assimilated from other sources.

So..100% exactly as I'd described previously?

Cool.


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## Lanefan (Nov 9, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> This brings up an interesting point: what do people call Variant Humans, to differentiate?  In-universe, so to speak.  Is there some fundamental difference between Humans and Variant Humans?  Is one a sub-race of the other?



I would assume so, yes.


James Gasik said:


> Are we not supposed to use both in the same game?  If a Human woman meets a dashing Variant Human man, and they have a child, would that child be a Half-Variant Human?



It certainly could be.  Same idea as a Part-Elf or Part-Orc, it's a Part-Variant.  And if it ever goes adventuring its mechanics are an average of Human and Variant.  That said, see below...


James Gasik said:


> Ok, I'm slightly joking, but I think it speaks to my point.  We already have two different versions of Humans in D&D (pending the D&D ONE update?), and yet we call both Humans.



Well, not quite; you call one Variant Human (which for convenience I'd shorten to just "Variant" in a heartbeat).

In my own game I have two different versions of Human, with the "Variant" usually called Barbarian both in-game and out.  For simplicity's sake I've long since had it that if a Barbarian and a Human have a child the child is fully one or the other, mostly dependent on the culture in which it is raised.  Same could be true if one didn't want to bother with separate mechanics for Part-Elves - a child of a Human-Elf pairing could be either an Elf or a Human depending which culture it (mostly) grows up in.


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## Lanefan (Nov 9, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again.
> 
> Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone".



If the fix works for the one house's water supply, why not apply that same fix to all houses? 

By the same token, a community issue with Halflings can be fixed by taking someone's homebrew solution and applying it either across the board (top-down) or one table at a time as said table's DM becomes aware of it (bottom-up).

And if a bottom-up fix becomes common enough and if history is any guide, sooner or later WotC will adopt that fix as part of the core game.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 10, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> 1. It is not an ad hominem attack to describe an argument as hypocritical.
> 2. It seems your position is that D&D humanity does encompass the PHB description and a bunch of other attributes you've observed from sources outside the PHB..exactly as I've described.
> 3. You acknowledge that there is official and unofficial content outside of the PHB which could have bearing on what it means to be a halfling, but have chosen to exclude those from discussion, choosing to focus on the "main" (let's call it PHB) halfling.
> 4. Your position remains that the PHB halfling is too humanlike based on its possession of human attributes you've assimilated from other sources.
> ...




So, DnD sources are now no longer valid, where before your complaint was that I used real world sources. So, I can only use the PHB to discuss how humans are depicted in the game? Why? 

Also, would you care to tell me what from the PHB Human description DOESN'T describe humanity from Earth? If they are so different there must be... differences. Right? 

I don't know what "unofficial" halfling content you are talking about. I also don't see how trying to keep the conversation to the points being discussed is somehow bad. Yes, my complaints about halflings don't apply to the single setting where they were the secret psychic cannibal masters of the world. It does apply to... every other setting and the generic books. It applies to the PHB. It applies to every 5e adventure printed for the last seven years. Because, notably, the last Dark Sun product was printed twelve years ago. The last DnD product that mentions halflings was released this year I would hope. 


And, again, as I keep saying. These "other sources" you refer to are... DnD products. Which DnD products? All of them. Every DnD product that has ever featured humans has included humans that act in the ways I've described. The Light of Xaryxis features humans who are content with their lives and have no grand designs or drive to adventure. This isn't some obscure bit of lore, this isn't some out-there source that has nothing to do with DnD, this is EVERY. SINGLE. PRODUCT. that features humans. 


So, in summary, you seem to want to call me a hypocrite (by the way, calling me a hypocrite isn't saying the argument is hypocritical, and you did the first. You made your entire "third option" all about me and my supposed bad faith logic, not the logic itself) because I have seen how humans are portrayed in DnD, and account for that using ALL humans in DnD, but when confronted with Dark Sun halflings I say "yes, those exist and they are different, but we are talking about the 95% of OTHER halflings". 

Yes, Darksun existed. It is so niche it hasn't been printed in twelve years, unlike Forgotten Realms which has been published continuously all edition. Maybe we should focus on the thing people actually see, and not the obscure product with the even more obscure race on the borders of the setting that rarely come into play. This isn't a hypocritical argument. I'm applying the exact same level of care to both races. One race which doesn't have a problem, no one has complained about, and has a distinctive quality that warps any and all discussion surrounding it, and the other race which people have said they have a problem with, identitified the problem, and tried to discuss.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 10, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> If the fix works for the one house's water supply, why not apply that same fix to all houses?
> 
> By the same token, a community issue with Halflings can be fixed by taking someone's homebrew solution and applying it either across the board (top-down) or one table at a time as said table's DM becomes aware of it (bottom-up).
> 
> And if a bottom-up fix becomes common enough and if history is any guide, sooner or later WotC will adopt that fix as part of the core game.




This would be great, but that isn't what has happened. Instead of "I've changed halflings like this, we could apply this more widely" it is one of the following

1) I changed halflings like this, so there is no problem because I have no problem. 

2) I changed halflings, you are either too lazy or too stupid to change them yourself, so you should be better instead of asking to be spoon-fed everything. 


Stance #1 is very much a "I don't have this problem, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist". Like we said, fixing something for your home doesn't fix it for the community. If people would present their homebrew as possible fixes and still be willing to discuss, it would be different. But invariably it is "there is no problem because I fixed it for me". 

Stance #2 is just insulting the other person. And is stubbornly persistent in these discussions about what kinds of community wide changes could be implemented. 

Oh, and we can get the "why do you hate my fun" argument in here as well, because while it isn't about having fixed the issue for them, it is a depiction of things as a zero-sum and therefor efforts to change things are only designed to attack other people's enjoyment because we are tyrants. Mostly an unrelated point, but it does slot in there.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 10, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, DnD sources are now no longer valid, where before your complaint was that I used real world sources. So, I can only use the PHB to discuss how humans are depicted in the game? Why?
> 
> Also, would you care to tell me what from the PHB Human description DOESN'T describe humanity from Earth? If they are so different there must be... differences. Right?
> 
> ...



The point has been from the very first, that the summaries of the PHB content for Humans and Halflings that were provided were accurate reflections of that content.

That you can draw parallels between the PHB Humans and Earth humanity is irrelevant to the content provided for the PHB Human. And your ability to draw those parallels certainly does not hint at a whole collection of otherwise unexpressed similarities.

Yet you continuously draw in those unexpressed similarities and then paint them as "base state" D&D humanity and then complain about how Halflings too closely resemble the "base state" humanity you have constructed for yourself.


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## Lanefan (Nov 10, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> This would be great, but that isn't what has happened.



And it won't happen, until...


Chaosmancer said:


> Instead of "I've changed halflings like this, we could apply this more widely" it is one of the following
> 
> 1) I changed halflings like this, so there is no problem because I have no problem.



...everyone else, or at least a majority of same, follows on with the same change(s) and also has no problem.

The disagreements, of course, arise in discussing just what those changes should be; and that's fair enough.  But it's not the least bit helpful to knock anyone's suggested change(s).


Chaosmancer said:


> 2) I changed halflings, you are either too lazy or too stupid to change them yourself, so you should be better instead of asking to be spoon-fed everything.



This follows on from the above, though, in that while it's not perhaps phrased as nicely as it could be, there's a valid point in there which says "If you think Halflings don't work you either gotta fix it yourself or follow someone else's fix, 'cause WotC ain't gonna do it.".


Chaosmancer said:


> Stance #1 is very much a "I don't have this problem, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist". Like we said, fixing something for your home doesn't fix it for the community.



If the community widely adopts that homebrew fix then yes it does.  And in between your quotes there's a couple of words missing; it should read "I don't have this problem *any more*, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist *for me now*"; with the strong and obvious implication being that the writer feels that if you made the same fix the problem would also go away for you, lather rinse repeat until the problem is fixed comminuty-wide.  Nothing wrong with saying that.


Chaosmancer said:


> If people would present their homebrew as possible fixes and still be willing to discuss, it would be different. But invariably it is "there is no problem because I fixed it for me".



If memory serves there's been quite a few such fixes presented - though maybe not fully in each case - throughout this thread.


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## Oofta (Nov 10, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And it won't happen, until...
> 
> ...everyone else, or at least a majority of same, follows on with the same change(s) and also has no problem.
> 
> ...




I think a problem with your logic (not that I disagree with what you're attempting, but good luck) is that it assumes that many or most people find halflings lacking.  Personally I think they're fine as they are.  I've come up with specific roles and how they fit in to my campaign, but I do that for all races.

But I don't think they're broken, so no fixes are needed.  Just being a short race means they will likely never be particularly popular no matter what is changed.


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## James Gasik (Nov 10, 2022)

What I will say about Small races is that they often aren't optimal, and won't likely be chosen by a player who is thinking about mechanical advantages; they'll be chosen by players who think they are fun.  This is especially true for the Halfling, as they are a "common" race (a lot of players seem to prefer playing something exotic, in my experience), and their racial traits aren't super exciting like resistances, free spells, abilities to fly, climb, or swim, teleportation, and so on tend to be.

This is one of the things that I really liked about Eberron as a setting; alongside fantastic, exotic races, all the PHB races still existed.  Why would you play one?  Because Dragonmarks (or a riding dinosaur, lol)!  

There's no way that Halflings can ever be as popular as Tieflings, because Tieflings are exotic, nearly have tragic backstories built-in, and have flashy special abilities; Halflings are many things, but flashy is not one of them.  And to change that, would fundamentally change what Halflings are, to the point that some people would reject them outright.

Heck, as of Monsters of the Multiverse, if you really like the idea of playing a Small character, for whatever reason, you can now play a Small Aasimar!  So what's better than a Halfling?  A Halfling who is part angel, I suppose.

This is why Eberron's example is so important; to make the common races interesting, you have to make them interesting _in the setting_.  The Gnomes of Eberron basically being the postal service, and thus, the spymasters and information brokers, was brilliant.  As was making Dwarves the bankers, and so on.  By giving races access to a unique ability that reinforced their role in the setting, a good reason to choose to play one can materialize.

It's not the job of the PHB to make races interesting, or give them a role in the campaign.  After all, the DM might decide "no dragon-men or elves" in their campaign, and if those races seem too interesting, then some players will chafe at not being allowed to play one.  One could argue that the 5e PHB (and 4e before it) fundamentally _failed_, because they had exciting, non-bland races in them; if the game tells me I can now play a Drow, Tiefling, or Dragon-Man, all of which sound cool, it's gong to be annoying when the DM starts going on about how "there is no place for these races in my game".  Cool races should be in supplemental materials, so there's no expectation that you should be entitled to play them.

Ok, I'm not being entirely serious about the PHB being a fail state, because of the race options, but I think there is something to this point of view.  I've certainly seen players sigh when they're told they can't play the shiny cool thing, and must settle for the "same old boring races".

I can certainly understand why a DM wouldn't want a party full of exotic weirdos running around their setting, but I think it's also the DM's job to make players excited for the roleplaying opportunities of playing any race in their custom setting (just as it's the job of the setting designer to do so for premade settings).


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 11, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> The point has been from the very first, that the summaries of the PHB content for Humans and Halflings that were provided were accurate reflections of that content.
> 
> That you can draw parallels between the PHB Humans and Earth humanity is irrelevant to the content provided for the PHB Human. And your ability to draw those parallels certainly does not hint at a whole collection of otherwise unexpressed similarities.
> 
> Yet you continuously draw in those unexpressed similarities and then paint them as "base state" D&D humanity and then complain about how Halflings too closely resemble the "base state" humanity you have constructed for yourself.




I have not written the humans presented in Hommlet, or Saltmarsh, or Ten Towns, or any of the dozens and dozens of adventures we could reference. 

This is where your argument keeps failing. I'm talking about how humanity is depicted in DnD. Does it go beyond the PHB? Yes, because humanity has been depicted rather consistently in DnD and has more than just the PHB to reference. Is it limited to a single setting? No, in fact, this depiction of humanity in DnD cuts across every single setting ever created for DnD. Birthright? They are are presented in this manner. Darksun? Same. Forgotten Realms? Same. Unlike with the halflings which is a single setting changing them, humans are consistent across every.  Single. Setting.

So, is this my personal ability to draw parallels? No. This is how the writers of Dungeons and Dragons material have consistently depicted humanity. These are not "otherwise unexpressed" similarities, these are directly written into the bones of DnD from the earliest editions to now. This is not my personal constructed version, this is just the reality of DnD.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 11, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I have not written the humans presented in Hommlet, or Saltmarsh, or Ten Towns, or any of the dozens and dozens of adventures we could reference.
> 
> This is where your argument keeps failing. I'm talking about how humanity is depicted in DnD. Does it go beyond the PHB? Yes, because humanity has been depicted rather consistently in DnD and has more than just the PHB to reference. Is it limited to a single setting? No, in fact, this depiction of humanity in DnD cuts across every single setting ever created for DnD. Birthright? They are are presented in this manner. Darksun? Same. Forgotten Realms? Same. Unlike with the halflings which is a single setting changing them, humans are consistent across every.  Single. Setting.
> 
> So, is this my personal ability to draw parallels? No. This is how the writers of Dungeons and Dragons material have consistently depicted humanity. These are not "otherwise unexpressed" similarities, these are directly written into the bones of DnD from the earliest editions to now. This is not my personal constructed version, this is just the reality of DnD.



The poster you replied to accurately captured the substance of the PHB content for both humans and halflings. That content indicates significant differences in cultures, values, and behavior. Full stop.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 11, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> And it won't happen, until...
> 
> ...everyone else, or at least a majority of same, follows on with the same change(s) and also has no problem.
> 
> The disagreements, of course, arise in discussing just what those changes should be; and that's fair enough.  But it's not the least bit helpful to knock anyone's suggested change(s).




But that hasn't been happening. We haven't been discussing people's changes. We haven't gotten that chance. Especially since any time we try to discuss those changes when they come up, people start telling us that since it is their personal changes it doesn't matter what anyone else wants to do, and that this is just their version that shows the issue doesn't exist. 

What you are describing would be great. It isn't what has happened in over a year and half of various halfling threads. 



Lanefan said:


> This follows on from the above, though, in that while it's not perhaps phrased as nicely as it could be, there's a valid point in there which says "If you think Halflings don't work you either gotta fix it yourself or follow someone else's fix, 'cause WotC ain't gonna do it.".




The Oberoni Fallacy is not a valid point. And, I'm sorry, but accusations being leveled at us aren't "not phrased as nicely as they could be" they are insults and personal attacks. 

WoTC has changed in the past, they can change in the future, claiming they can never change so we should never push for change is historically inaccurate. 



Lanefan said:


> If the community widely adopts that homebrew fix then yes it does.  And in between your quotes there's a couple of words missing; it should read "I don't have this problem *any more*, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist *for me now*"; with the strong and obvious implication being that the writer feels that if you made the same fix the problem would also go away for you, lather rinse repeat until the problem is fixed comminuty-wide.  Nothing wrong with saying that.




Yes, if you add words that change the meaning of what people say, they say something different. I didn't pick my phrasing randomly. If they were presenting it as only a solution for them, then I wouldn't be attacked and criticized for pointing out it was only a solution for them. Yet this entire line of quotes stems directly from exactly that, people criticizing me for "dismissing" their homebrew as only being a solution for them. 

My only disagreement with you is thus that the reality of the discussion doesn't match your version.


----------



## Chaosmancer (Nov 11, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> *It's not the job of the PHB to make races interesting,* or give them a role in the campaign.  After all, the DM might decide "no dragon-men or elves" in their campaign, and if those races seem too interesting, then some players will chafe at not being allowed to play one.  One could argue that the 5e PHB (and 4e before it) fundamentally _failed_, because they had exciting, non-bland races in them; if the game tells me I can now play a Drow, Tiefling, or Dragon-Man, all of which sound cool, it's gong to be annoying when the DM starts going on about how "there is no place for these races in my game".  Cool races should be in supplemental materials, so there's no expectation that you should be entitled to play them.
> 
> Ok, I'm not being entirely serious about the PHB being a fail state, because of the race options, but I think there is something to this point of view.  I've certainly seen players sigh when they're told they can't play the shiny cool thing, and must settle for the "same old boring races".
> 
> I can certainly understand why a DM wouldn't want a party full of exotic weirdos running around their setting, but I think it's also the DM's job to make players excited for the roleplaying opportunities of playing any race in their custom setting (just as it's the job of the setting designer to do so for premade settings).




There are a lot of different angles to unpack here, and I think this is a good discussion. 

For me, that first sentence I quoted feels fundamentally wrong. Because if it isn't the job of the PHB to make races interesting, then the only other published, official material that could do so are the setting books. However, you are not required to have the setting books to play DnD. Which means that we then look at one of two scenarios

1) It is the job of the GM to make races interesting
2) Races are not required to be interesting. 

#1 is problematic to me. It falls into the Oberoni Fallacy and basically says that the role of the GM is to rewrite the weakest parts of the rules. Which is not the job of the GM, because why else would a GM spend money on the books? Now, maybe if none of the races were interesting, there would be some weight to the argument, but some of them are interesting, and this means that you have a unbalanced set of options. 

#2 just reads wrong to me. Of course the races should be interesting, why else even have them existing? 


I also think you fundamentally nail a problem, but misidentify the source of the problem. Now, maybe I am not seeing which side of the fence you land on, because you go back and forth a little bit on this. But you (jokingly) point out that the PHB "fails" because they included very interesting races, that then the DMs will remove from the game. And that is a problem because players want to play the interesting races. 

Fundamentally though, that is not something to lay at the feet of WoTC, but at the DM's feet. If they are changing the baseline and the players are not happy about the changes to the baseline, then they have a self-created problem. You end up saying that you understand why DMs wouldn't want "a party full of exotic weirdos", but I think this gets back into what I discussed before. Fantasy is weirder these days. Dragonmen and Devilkin are not "exoctic weirdos" for a lot of us, but expected baselines. So, from the perspective of many players and GMs, the party that consists of these individuals isn't full of "exoctic weirdos" but just a normal party. 


But I think the biggest thing where we seem to agree is that you state: "_I think it's also the DM's job to make players excited for the roleplaying opportunities of playing any race in their custom setting (just as it's the job of the setting designer to do so for premade settings)._" 

If a DM is changing the baselines, then it is their job to make people excited for those changes. But it is also the job of the designer to do so for premade settings. And as much as there seems to be an idea that the PHB lacks any setting information at all... it doesn't. The PHB is the setting material for the GM that does not buy a setting book, so it is the job of the PHB's designers to make players excited for the roleplaying opportunities of ALL the races in that setting, and you seem to acknowledge that the Halfling certainly seems less interesting than quite a few of the other options, which is why people discuss changes.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 11, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> The poster you replied to accurately captured the substance of the PHB content for both humans and halflings. That content indicates significant differences in cultures, values, and behavior. Full stop.




But they did not accurately capture the depiction of humans in Dungeons and Dragons, which depict significant similarities in cultures, values and behavior with Halflings. 

Full Stop.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 11, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> But they did not accurately capture the depiction of humans in Dungeons and Dragons, which depict significant similarities in cultures, values and behavior with Halflings.
> 
> Full Stop.



You realize, of course, that this means that it is your opinion that the *PHB does not accurately captur*e "humans in Dungeons and Dragons"

You also realize of course, *you have now staked your claim as the single arbiter for what it means to be human and halfling across all editions and settings of D&D*, D&D designers, DMs, and rulebooks be damned.

So, all anyone has to do to participate in a discussion with you on the topic of racial characteristics is to:

Read every published D&D product to date
Interpret the fullness of those published texts to form a single simultaneous understanding of "what it means" to be a particular D&D race
This exercise must include a systematic review of all NPC statblocks, whereby participants must:
Independently assess how representative of the race each statblock really is.
Determine the personal philisophical underpinnings "implicit"  in NPC statblocks where such motivations may include as much detail as "does not want to be an adventurer"
Apply some kind of formula I assume?

This analysis must apply some amount of weight to PHB content (but not that much, lest it spoil the conclusions)

Compare and contrast their synthesized conclusions and idiosyncratic interpretations, materials weighting etc. with yours.

You know, it seems like a really reasonable set of demands..

It certainly make more sense than like, just reading the most current rulebook and taking it for face value..

But, as tempting as it is..I'm afraid I'm going to pass.


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## Faolyn (Nov 11, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You realize, of course, that this means that it is your opinion that the *PHB does not accurately captur*e "humans in Dungeons and Dragons"
> 
> You also realize of course, *you have now staked your claim as the single arbiter for what it means to be human and halfling across all editions and settings of D&D*, D&D designers and rulebooks be damned.
> 
> ...



I think you forgot PROFIT!!!! as one of those steps.


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## Lanefan (Nov 11, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> The Oberoni Fallacy is not a valid point. And, I'm sorry, but accusations being leveled at us aren't "not phrased as nicely as they could be" they are insults and personal attacks.
> 
> WoTC has changed in the past, they can change in the future, claiming they can never change so we should never push for change is historically inaccurate.



The 48-year history of TSR/WotC shows they very much tend to _follow_ play trends and preferences rather than _set_ them.

Many tables dropped xp-for-gp in 1e.  Result: 2e took it out.  It never came back.
Many tables made spellcasting easier in 1e-2e.  Result: 3e made casting easier across the board.  It's become even easier since.
Many tables sped up hit point recovery through rest in 1e-2e-3e.  Result: 4e made it crazy fast.  It's still crazy fast.

I could go on at great length, but you get the point.

Hence, if you want Hobbits fixed - and it seems many here do - my solution is to fix them yourself and encourage everyone else to do the same.  Then maybe by 7e that general fix-'em trend will get reflected in their "official" design as WotC once again plays catch-up.


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## Oofta (Nov 11, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You realize, of course, that this means that it is your opinion that the *PHB does not accurately captur*e "humans in Dungeons and Dragons"
> 
> You also realize of course, *you have now staked your claim as the single arbiter for what it means to be human and halfling across all editions and settings of D&D*, D&D designers, DMs, and rulebooks be damned.
> 
> ...



Hey now, we had a "Full Stop" dangit.  Much like "dibs" it must be honored. So say we all!


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> You realize, of course, that this means that it is your opinion that the *PHB does not accurately captur*e "humans in Dungeons and Dragons"
> 
> You also realize of course, *you have now staked your claim as the single arbiter for what it means to be human and halfling across all editions and settings of D&D*, D&D designers, DMs, and rulebooks be damned.
> 
> ...




Why do you always do this? Why do you think that because I express a well-researched and well-founded opinion I must be "I AM THE SINGLE ARBITER OF TRUTH ACROSS ALL THINGS!!!!" about it? Like, you realize that instead of trying to make this position sound like it is insane, implying I must somehow require everyone to have read all of DnD and reference some weighted formula, you could just... give examples of why I'm wrong about humans. 

I mean, despite your cussing and theatrics, I'm not discounting the Designers of DnD at all, nor am I discounting the rulebooks. I am in fact referencing those materials. So, since I'm referencing those materials, instead of just trying to make the PHB the only possible thing that can define DnD (which would also apply and discount Dark Sun Halflings) you could reference some official world where DnD humans aren't as I describe. 

Except... you can't. Can you? See, this is the trick about your whole show here. You have never once actually said I am wrong about humans. You declared that the PHB was accurately described, but you've never provided evidence that the settings 100% follow the PHB and have no humans who are kind, content, small-time villagers who don't want anything to do with adventure. You declare my position ridiculous... but you don't actually refute my position.

And before you once more start in on Dungeon Masters, I again must remind you, Dungeon Masters do not write official DnD content for WoTC. Just because little Timmy made a world where every human grows spikes and breathes fire, doesn't mean that is official DnD content from WoTC. 

So, how about it? Instead of writhing around trying to make me seem unreasonable or out-of-touch or trolling or whichever flavor you have today, can you actually disprove what I am saying about humanity in DnD? Do you have a counter-argument, or is it just more attacks attempting to discredit me?


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> The 48-year history of TSR/WotC shows they very much tend to _follow_ play trends and preferences rather than _set_ them.
> 
> Many tables dropped xp-for-gp in 1e.  Result: 2e took it out.  It never came back.
> Many tables made spellcasting easier in 1e-2e.  Result: 3e made casting easier across the board.  It's become even easier since.
> ...




So... exactly what I am advocating for is what I should do? 

Mind-blowing how I can spend so many hours and so much digital ink, and have someone tell me that the best solution is to do exactly what I've been telling people we should do. I honestly wonder what it is about this forum that makes it so impossible for me to communicate with people. I have been online for years, and part of a few online communities, and this is one of the few where I am consistently confronted by people confidently explaining that instead of doing what I am doing, or advocating what I am advocating for, I should do what I am doing, or advocate what I am advocating for. 

If it wasn't for those other sites, I've honestly considered trying some sort of therapy just to make sure I'm not delusional when I type. Because I cannot understand how it keeps happening.


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## James Gasik (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> There are a lot of different angles to unpack here, and I think this is a good discussion.
> 
> For me, that first sentence I quoted feels fundamentally wrong. Because if it isn't the job of the PHB to make races interesting, then the only other published, official material that could do so are the setting books. However, you are not required to have the setting books to play DnD. Which means that we then look at one of two scenarios
> 
> ...



Most of the time, the PHB includes those races that are common archetypes of fantasy, easily recognizable to new players.  If I drag a person off the street into a D&D game, who has never played or has any experience of it, it's likely going to be very easy for them to grasp what an Elf is, or a Dwarf, or even a Halfling.

Dragon-men, Devilfolk, and much stranger things, like living robots and edgy pirates of the Astral Sea?  Probably not so much.  Even the other branches of the elven family did not get into the PHB until 5e.

The game started with Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings.  1e gave us Half-Elves, Half-Orcs and Gnomes, 2e took away the Half-Orcs, and 3e brought them back.  Then 4e decided to remove Gnomes, but give us Eladrin, Dragonborn, and Tieflings.  You could argue that Eladrin were just a new take on Elves, but Dragonborn and Tieflings were a surprise to people new to 4e.  It's not like they were a new idea; AD&D had several dragon humanoid races, like Half-Dragons (in Dragon magazine), the Draconians of Krynn, and the Dray of Athas.  Tieflings had been created for the Planescape setting.

But why here, why now?  It was a sea change, and not one welcomed by all D&D fans.  Official WotC sanctioned gaming allowed people to play any race, in any setting.  Thanks to Living Forgotten Realms, suddenly Warforged, Psionic Crystal-Men, and Hamadryads were now rubbing elbows with Dwarves and Elves.

Campaigns where the "classic" races all had a place and role were suddenly being forced to accept all these strange newcomers, and the lore needed to be changed to adjust for that fact.  Sometimes, this was an easy fix; it's not hard to imagine using reskinned Warforged as sentient constructs. Sometimes it was heavy handed, like dropping an entire nation of Dragonborn onto the map from another dimension.

People who wanted to continue to play in older settings, either official, or ones of their own design, often had little use for these interlopers.  But players wanted to play them, because they were new and interesting.  Precisely why we got new races in the PHB, really.  WotC broadcast their intent loud and clear, "Come play the new D&D, it's more exciting and lets you play whatever you want!".

As to where I stand?  Personally, I don't mind new races.  But they need not to overshadow the old.  I noticed a lot of attention was put into integrating the newcomers, and as a result, not much was being said about the old guard that hadn't been said a thousand times before.

This has done a disservice to these races, I think.  The PHB should be home to races that fit into almost any classic setting.  Adding newcomers, that will instantly attract notice for being more colorful and exotic, and not just "humans but with pointy ears", when they might not fit another's idea of fantasy is going to lead to some strife.  I mean, I've seen it, maybe others haven't.

"Who wants to play D&D?"

"Ooh, me!  Totally me!  I have this awesome idea for a guy who is Half-Aasimar and Half-Tiefling."

"Aasimars and Tieflings have no place in my game."

"But, but, I mean, Tieflings are in the PHB, why not?"

"Vague and non-negotiable reasons, that's why.  You can play an Elf."

"A drow elf?"

"No!"

Now, sure, these conversations could happen even with the the classic races.  There's always going to be a DM who says "No Elves!" or "Humans only!".  In my own campaigns, while I have a soft spot for the classic races, and always give them a place, I know damn well my players are going to want to play whatever strange races I add.  I always have mixed feelings about that, because I realize I didn't do anything new to make the standard races interesting.

Even the time the campaign was set on a large island, and the main culture was a Halfling kingdom, nobody really wanted to play a Halfling.  Though they did get very tired of fighting Halfling opponents, lol (this being in the 4e "Second Chance" era).

I do think it's integral that if you want a race to be played, you have to make it interesting.  A place needs to be made for them in the setting, and people need to have reasons to choose them over something with intriguing lore and cool abilities; all races need to be equal.  

And if this isn't the DM's job, then whose is it?


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 12, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> There's no way that Halflings can ever be as popular as Tieflings, because Tieflings are exotic, nearly have tragic backstories built-in, and have flashy special abilities; Halflings are many things, but flashy is not one of them.  And to change that, would fundamentally change what Halflings are, to the point that some people would reject them outright.



I think it could be done, actually. The halfling shouldn’t be flashy like fireball is flashy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be flashy and cool. 

Why couldn’t a race be good at throwing things, and thus use thrown weapons at a d6 damage die, and slings at d8? 

Or find a way to make that Lightfoots stealth stand out more by being straight up invisibility PB/LR when you become hidden? 

Or look at kender, and their taunt. 

I think if we comb all editions halflings for ideas, and look to hobbits and what makes them interesting during an adventure scene, there is plenty to work with.


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## James Gasik (Nov 12, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I think it could be done, actually. The halfling shouldn’t be flashy like fireball is flashy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be flashy and cool.
> 
> Why couldn’t a race be good at throwing things, and thus use thrown weapons at a d6 damage die, and slings at d8?
> 
> ...



Maybe, but I put mechanics like that on the "neat, but not super amazing" pile, like Bugbears having extra reach, or Goliaths being able to lift more.  I'm not sure what mechanics people really think are flashy, I mean, I liked Orcs being able to bonus action move towards trouble, and apparently that wasn't seen as good as "big crits and not dying at this time".  

Flight, free spells, teleportation, or doing things that are normally locked to a class, like bonus action stealth, these seem pretty popular, but again, I'm not the one to ask; I once played a Goblin simply because they were (at the time) the smallest available race, lol (I had the idea to play a Cleric who could be carried in the Fighter's backpack).

You could give Halflings a little more pizazz I suppose, like being able to literally become invisible if you take your eyes off of them, but given that the PHB is sort of the introduction to the game, maybe it's not the place for inventive abilities.  Plus, you do have to be careful when bucking tradition; like it or not, D&D has a particular way of doing things, and if you start to deviate, you get cries of dismay from the fans.  It's a Catch-22, really.

Throw out sacred cows and innovate?  "It's not D&D!"

Keep things the same way?  "The PHB races are boring!"


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## Clint_L (Nov 12, 2022)

So, I sponsor the D&D Club at my school, and I just went through all the campaigns from the last year or so and here are the numbers of each race that teenagers chose:

Human: 20

Halfling : 7

Dragonborne: 6
Elf: 6
Goliath: 6

Half-Elf: 5

Aasimar: 4
Dwarf: 4
Tiefling: 4

Genasi: 3
Goblin: 3
Half-Orc: 3

Tabaxi: 2

Aarakocra: 1
Fairy: 1
Gnome: 1
Kobold: 1
Lizardfolk: 1
Tortle: 1

In this sample, Halflings, and indeed all the "traditional" D&D races, are very well represented.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 12, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Maybe, but I put mechanics like that on the "neat, but not super amazing" pile, like Bugbears having extra reach, or Goliaths being able to lift more.  I'm not sure what mechanics people really think are flashy, I mean, I liked Orcs being able to bonus action move towards trouble, and apparently that wasn't seen as good as "big crits and not dying at this time".
> 
> Flight, free spells, teleportation, or doing things that are normally locked to a class, like bonus action stealth, these seem pretty popular, but again, I'm not the one to ask; I once played a Goblin simply because they were (at the time) the smallest available race, lol (I had the idea to play a Cleric who could be carried in the Fighter's backpack).
> 
> ...



I don’t think that Halflinngs disappearing is an innovation or break from tradition, though. Nor would bonus action stealth. 

I do think that halflings just aren’t going to get spells or flight or teleportation, but stuff like higher damage with thrown weapons is very similar to natural weapons, and people seem to like those.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

I'm going to break this up, because a lot of your ideas don't flow together in terms of the topic at hand. .



James Gasik said:


> Most of the time, the PHB includes those races that are common archetypes of fantasy, easily recognizable to new players.  If I drag a person off the street into a D&D game, who has never played or has any experience of it, it's likely going to be very easy for them to grasp what an Elf is, or a Dwarf, or even a Halfling.
> 
> Dragon-men, Devilfolk, and much stranger things, like living robots and edgy pirates of the Astral Sea?  Probably not so much.  Even the other branches of the elven family did not get into the PHB until 5e.




So, I don't really disagree here. The PHB includes races that are common archetypes. But. well, "Dragon Man" or "Devil Blood" is a concept most people are going to grok quickly. Living Robots is even easier, because they hit the trifecta of Fantasy, Sci-Fi and modern concern. 

I think it would be equally hard to describe to a random street person what a dwarf is compared to a Devilkin, ie Tiefling. The concept is super simple, and most people get the idea of horned evil spirits. Most people get Dragons, and so a dragon man makes sense. They are slightly more unusual in terms of how commonly they might be seen, but they aren't exactly the weirdest things



James Gasik said:


> The game started with Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings.  1e gave us Half-Elves, Half-Orcs and Gnomes, 2e took away the Half-Orcs, and 3e brought them back.  Then 4e decided to remove Gnomes, but give us Eladrin, Dragonborn, and Tieflings.  You could argue that Eladrin were just a new take on Elves, but Dragonborn and Tieflings were a surprise to people new to 4e.  It's not like they were a new idea; AD&D had several dragon humanoid races, like Half-Dragons (in Dragon magazine), the Draconians of Krynn, and the Dray of Athas.  Tieflings had been created for the Planescape setting.




I do want to focus here. Yes, the game started with Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings. And you accurately describe the PHB. However, I think you are REALLY underselling how early the concepts we are talking about with "dragon-men" and "devilkin" being a thing. 

Cambions are the children of Devils and Humans, and could be seen as the proto-type before Tieflings, who were the descendants of Devils (and other outsiders) and humans. They are mostly different from Cambions solely in power. And cambions trace back to 1983. Even if we only accept playable Tielfings, like you say they were a key feature of Planescape in 1994. Similar story with Dragonborn. The Half-Dragon concept comes as early as 1994 again it looks like, with additional things like Dragon-kin as well. 

Now, to lay this out as a timeline, remember, the first edition of DnD was published in 1974. 

So, yes, Dwarves and elves and Halflings all appeared by 1974, but by 1983 about 10 years later, we have the children of mortals and devils. Then about 10 years after that, we get tieflings, half-dragons, dragonkin, Draconians. A lot of these concepts. 

So, from the beginning of the game, until the first time these ideas hit the official content is about 20 years. 

Then, in 4e, we get them in the PHB. And that is in 2008. Which was again, about 10 years afterwards. Maybe 20 if you want to count from Cambions instead of Tielfings. So it was fast to a degree, but... not really? Especially for Tielfings this was a really steady move. The concept existed 10 years after the game starts, gets playable ten years after that, gets in the PHB ten years after that. 

But here is the thing I've never understood about this argument. If we decided to count from the very first time a race became playable until now, we would have something like this

Core Four, Gnomes, half-orcs, ect -> 1974 - 2022 -> 48 years
Tiefling and Dragon man-> 1994 - 2022 -> 28 years

Is three decades really still so "new" and "unusual"? Like, sure, they have only been in the PHB for 14 years, but... it has been 14 years. This is like saying that Youtube is new and unusual (2005) or Reddit (2005) or the iPhone (2007) 

Like, sure, they are "newer" to the PHB than the ones that have been around for 5 decades, but it allows feels weird to state that they are the new and exotic option when for people who started playing DnD in their teen years when these concepts first appeared, they are in their 40's now. We are looking down the barrel of these races being in the PHB for half of DnD's editions here soon.



James Gasik said:


> But why here, why now?  It was a sea change, and not one welcomed by all D&D fans.  Official WotC sanctioned gaming allowed people to play any race, in any setting.  Thanks to Living Forgotten Realms, suddenly Warforged, Psionic Crystal-Men, and Hamadryads were now rubbing elbows with Dwarves and Elves.
> 
> Campaigns where the "classic" races all had a place and role were suddenly being forced to accept all these strange newcomers, and the lore needed to be changed to adjust for that fact.  Sometimes, this was an easy fix; it's not hard to imagine using reskinned Warforged as sentient constructs. Sometimes it was heavy handed, like dropping an entire nation of Dragonborn onto the map from another dimension.
> 
> People who wanted to continue to play in older settings, either official, or ones of their own design, often had little use for these interlopers.  But players wanted to play them, because they were new and interesting.  Precisely why we got new races in the PHB, really.  WotC broadcast their intent loud and clear, "Come play the new D&D, it's more exciting and lets you play whatever you want!".




Which brings me to this. Yes, a decade and a half ago this happened. And? 

I don't want to sound dismissive, I honestly don't, for the people who lived through this it was a big deal. But it has been 14 years since 4th edition. We have had entire media empires rise and fall in that time. Is this really still a concern for people? Are people still just learning about Dragonborn being put in the Forgotten Realms over a decade ago? If you haven't adjusted yet, then that seems more likely that you never wanted to adjust than anything else. 

But this does lead us into points I agree with.



James Gasik said:


> As to where I stand?  Personally, I don't mind new races.  But they need not to overshadow the old.  I noticed a lot of attention was put into integrating the newcomers, and as a result, not much was being said about the old guard that hadn't been said a thousand times before.
> 
> This has done a disservice to these races, I think.




I agree that this has been a disservice to those older races. They haven't been updated much while the "newcomers" have been getting a lot of glow-ups and work to fit them in. 

But... doesn't this just mean that we should look into giving more attention to those old guard, and finding new things to say about them? New concepts to work into them? We've identified a potential problem. The new races got a lot of attention while the old races didn't. Great, but if that is the problem, how is ignoring the old races and continuing to not change them a solution? That seems like it would just make the problem worse

Really, if I accept everything you say above this as 100% true and we identify this as the problem, then the solution would seem to be to give them the attention and changes they've been lacking. If you have been gardening and you let your old south garden fall to weeds and lack upkeep because you've been focusing on your north garden, and you don't like that people have been complimenting your north garden more than your south, you don't leave the south garden to continue falling to weeds and refuse to upkeep it while you cover the north garden with a tarp and refuse to let people see it. 

So, if we agree to this point, why is there such a disconnect?



James Gasik said:


> The PHB should be home to races that fit into almost any classic setting.  Adding newcomers, that will instantly attract notice for being more colorful and exotic, and not just "humans but with pointy ears", when they might not fit another's idea of fantasy is going to lead to some strife.  I mean, I've seen it, maybe others haven't.
> 
> "Who wants to play D&D?"
> 
> ...




How is this WoTC's responsibility to fix? They published a race. The player wants to use that race. The DM refuses because.... they don't like it? You seem to be presenting this as some sort of inherent problem, especially with the phrasing "_Now, sure, these conversations could happen even with the the classic races._" but there is absolutely nothing about Dragonborn or Tielflings that make them inherently more likely to be banned. 

There are a lot of DMs who ban them, but that almost feels more like them resisting changing and adapting for the last 14 years. It isn't Apple's responsibility to offer non-smart phones because there are people who don't like smart phones. WoTC has offered these races, they have been popular for decades, if a specific DM doesn't like them and bans them, then that is on that DM to resolve. 

And, you seem to acknowledge that as the issue here to a degree, " _In my own campaigns, while I have a soft spot for the classic races, and always give them a place, I know damn well my players are going to want to play whatever strange races I add.  I always have mixed feelings about that, because I realize I didn't do anything new to make the standard races interesting._" 

You always put elves, dwarves and halflings into your games. But you have mixed feelings about players picking the newer and exciting options, because you didn't do anything to make the standard options exciting. You've identified the problem. Again. The standard races are less exciting, and you haven't made them more exciting. So... why isn't the solution to make them more exciting? That seems to be obvious, right? That is the issue, so that is what should be fixed.



James Gasik said:


> I do think it's integral that if you want a race to be played, you have to make it interesting.  A place needs to be made for them in the setting, and people need to have reasons to choose them over something with intriguing lore and cool abilities; all races need to be equal.
> 
> And if this isn't the DM's job, then whose is it?




But here is where we come to a cross roads. And one that, I think, should be really obvious. 

It is a DM's job to fix this *for homebrew campaign worlds*.
It is WoTC's job to fix this *for official settings*.

Again, if the DM is going in and changing things, then they have "voided the warranty" so to speak, and they are responsible for fixing everything that they changed. It would be silly to design a sword dragon that could be wielded by a Titan and then complain to WoTC when it is unbalanced. They didn't make it, so they don't need to be responsible for it. If you change things so that all Dragons are demonic in nature, but then that causes problems for your world-building, that isn't WoTC's problem, because you altered their initial design. 

However, if the initial design is flawed? If the initial design has problems? THEN that is WoTC's responsibility. They made that. They are in charge of that. So if something straight out of the PHB isn't as interesting as the entry two pages later, then WoTC needs to solve that problem. Because things should be made as good as possible, as interesting as possible, and as coherent as possible in the product we buy. We shouldn't be required to change it ourselves.


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## Lanefan (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So... exactly what I am advocating for is what I should do?
> 
> Mind-blowing how I can spend so many hours and so much digital ink, and have someone tell me that the best solution is to do exactly what I've been telling people we should do. I honestly wonder what it is about this forum that makes it so impossible for me to communicate with people. I have been online for years, and part of a few online communities, and this is one of the few where I am consistently confronted by people confidently explaining that instead of doing what I am doing, or advocating what I am advocating for, I should do what I am doing, or advocate what I am advocating for.
> 
> If it wasn't for those other sites, I've honestly considered trying some sort of therapy just to make sure I'm not delusional when I type. Because I cannot understand how it keeps happening.



I can understand it, when trying to square the above with the below:



			
				Chaosmancer said:
			
		

> But here is where we come to a cross roads. And one that, I think, should be really obvious.
> 
> It is a DM's job to fix this *for homebrew campaign worlds*.
> It is WoTC's job to fix this *for official settings*.
> ...



Why don't these two quotes square with each other?

Simple.  Because even if the flawed design is WotC's doing, _they're not going to fix it_ until we all fix it ourselves individually first, and in the process quite literally show them both a) what needs doing and b) how it's done.  Therefore, advocating for them to proactively fix it - which you seem to be doing in the second quoted piece just above - is just an exercise in shouting at the wind.

As for "voiding the warranty", as a charter member of the Kitbashers Union(TM) it should go without saying that I have no problem with this whatsoever.


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## James Gasik (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm going to break this up, because a lot of your ideas don't flow together in terms of the topic at hand. .
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As to making races interesting, I really try.  I mean, in previous campaign world I made, I had "Common" Halflings, who lived in a dreary, cold part of the region and had thrived there where the other races basically had failed to do so, but they had run afoul of Will o' Wisps, who, being magical, intelligent, and really hard to fight, had forced the Halflings to basically become their servants (possessing useful things like hands).  In retrospect, maybe using the word "Common" was the problem (I wanted to differentiate them from a Halfling subrace I'd made).  Or maybe it was that said subrace was cooler, since I definitely got someone wanting to play one.

(Game mechanics are for Pathfinder 1e)


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## Bohandas (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> ...
> 
> They used the space to describe the races... to describe humans. Therefore, by your logic, humans are not human




Biology works sufficiently different in D&D that I think you could make a strong argument that that's the case. And even more so once that you consider that a significant percentage of this population isn't even fully "human" regardless, often containing traces of one or more of the clades of magical creatures posessing the ability to hybridize with anything, especially dragons, fiends, and celestials*. 

There's also the matter of obviously superhuman exploits such as wading through lava and surviving, or continuing to fight at full force right until the moment they are knocked unconscious despite having already suffered injuries that should have killed a normal person several times over


*although almost anything with an associated half-(whatever) template will have a half-human example for that template (at least in 3e/3.5e), raising the argument that humans' actual niche in D&D is not "mundanity" or "relatability" but rather "the ones who shag everything"


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> I can understand it, when trying to square the above with the below:
> 
> Why don't these two quotes square with each other?
> 
> ...




They square with each other because of the Oberoni Fallacy. 

Yes, WoTC is unlikely to fix it until we go around and start looking at changing it and discussing why it needs to be changed. Silence means everything is working well after all. But, when asked "whose responsibility is it to change this material" it cannot be left at "You must fix the game that you purchased." There is a distinctive difference between the actions that should be taken, and the end result. 

The end result should be changes from WoTC, not changes at individual tables. That is why saying "just fix it yourself" isn't the end goal, in my mind, of the discussion. Sure, I can fix it, but that doesn't mean the problem is solved, that just means I'm no longer dealing with the original material that was a problem. One of these is a means to an end, the other is the end. 

As for you being part of the Kitbashers Union, sure, I don't think there is a problem with it. In fact, I homebrew quite a bit myself. But I don't expect WoTC to be responsible for my homebrew, and I imagine you don't expect WoTC to be responsible for your homebrew. WoTC is responsible for official products however, not me and not you. 

I sometimes think about it in terms of cars. If Ford puts out a car with a bad part, it isn't the responsibility of the consumers to replace that part. But if a consumer buys and installs a bad part into their Ford, it isn't Ford's responsibility that you messed up your car. And if Ford is putting out a bad design, yes, someone needs to make a better design and show them that and advocate for the new design, but it doesn't end with them making the new design, it ends with Ford adopting the new design.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> As to making races interesting, I really try.  I mean, in previous campaign world I made, I had "Common" Halflings, who lived in a dreary, cold part of the region and had thrived there where the other races basically had failed to do so, but they had run afoul of Will o' Wisps, who, being magical, intelligent, and really hard to fight, had forced the Halflings to basically become their servants (possessing useful things like hands).  In retrospect, maybe using the word "Common" was the problem (I wanted to differentiate them from a Halfling subrace I'd made).  Or maybe it was that said subrace was cooler, since I definitely got someone wanting to play one.
> 
> (Game mechanics are for Pathfinder 1e)
> 
> ...




Yeah, the name "common halfling" really doesn't sell this well. 

This is a super cool idea though, and I was thinking about halflings dealing with the ethereal. I actually wonder about making a connection between halflings and spirits of the dead like Will-o-Wisps. The Ghostwise open the door to this, but there is a lot of fertile ground here. 

Maybe "Moor Walker" Halflings? I honestly really like this idea and it could be really cool to play with.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Biology works sufficiently different in D&D that I think you could make a strong argument that that's the case. And even more so once that you consider that a significant percentage of this population isn't even fully "human" regardless, often containing traces of one or more of the clades of magical creatures posessing the ability to hybridize with anything, especially dragons, fiends, and celestials*.
> 
> There's also the matter of obviously superhuman exploits such as wading through lava and surviving, or continuing to fight at full force right until the moment they are knocked unconscious despite having already suffered injuries that should have killed a normal person several times over
> 
> ...




Oh, I fully agree that the humans TRUE super power seems to be that they will sleep with anything. Heck, it is amusing to me to consider that this might be literally true, since Humanity is easily able to find just about anything sexually attractive. 

But, beyond the biology, you really have to consider how much of this is just a factor of the non-simulationist rules and the exploits of great heroes. Beowulf supposedly held his breath for 8 or more hours after all. And remember, while Lava swimming is something some people can survive, at 10d10 damage (average of 55) most people won't be able to survive it. The majority of NPCs will have less than 55 health. 

So, are ALL humans capable of this feat? Not even close. The vast majority will die. Additionally, the lava damage is too low for how dangerous lava really is, but this is true for all hazards in the game. And it is also true of all creatures in the game. Elephant's have 76 hp, and could therefore all survive at least 6 seconds of lava, which is unrealistic, but is just the nature of the game, not the nature of the elephants of DnD.


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## Lanefan (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> They square with each other because of the Oberoni Fallacy.
> 
> Yes, WoTC is unlikely to fix it until we go around and start looking at changing it and discussing why it needs to be changed. Silence means everything is working well after all. But, when asked "whose responsibility is it to change this material" it cannot be left at "You must fix the game that you purchased." There is a distinctive difference between the actions that should be taken, and the end result.
> 
> The end result should be changes from WoTC, not changes at individual tables. That is why saying "just fix it yourself" isn't the end goal, in my mind, of the discussion. Sure, I can fix it, but that doesn't mean the problem is solved, that just means I'm no longer dealing with the original material that was a problem. One of these is a means to an end, the other is the end.



"Just fix it yourself" isn't the end goal, but it's step-one towards the end goal of getting them fixed overall; a goal that will not be reached without that first step.  So, what I'm saying is take that first step in hopes that the end goal will eventually come.


Chaosmancer said:


> I sometimes think about it in terms of cars. If Ford puts out a car with a bad part, it isn't the responsibility of the consumers to replace that part. But if a consumer buys and installs a bad part into their Ford, it isn't Ford's responsibility that you messed up your car. And if Ford is putting out a bad design, yes, someone needs to make a better design and show them that and advocate for the new design, but it doesn't end with them making the new design, it ends with Ford adopting the new design.



Ah, there's the difference.  I don't look at an RPG book (or set of books) as being the finished car.  I look at them as being a collection of partly-to-mostly-assembled parts that I can and must finish putting together myself before hitting the road, modifying as I go along to make the car what I want it to be.

And every now and then Ford (or in this case WotC) look at the overall patterns of modifications being made and eventually change the root product to suit.


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## Irlo (Nov 12, 2022)

Nothing that WotC can do to halflings will be considered a "fix" by everyone involved, especially people like me that don't think they need fixing. It's still worth discussing ideas for changes, but I can't cut through the clutter on this thread to find what specific changes are on the table for consideration.

Subraces leave ample ground for developing halfings to suit every taste without drastically changing the baseline.


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## Oofta (Nov 12, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Nothing that WotC can do to halflings will be considered a "fix" by everyone involved, especially people like me that don't think they need fixing. It's still worth discussing ideas for changes, but I can't cut through the clutter on this thread to find what specific changes are on the table for consideration.
> 
> Subraces leave ample ground for developing halfings to suit every taste without drastically changing the baseline.



There have been precious few actual suggestions, especially lately. Like you I think halflings are fine as they are.  A short race will never be particularly popular, for a lot of people bigger will always be better.  So judging popularity doesn't really mean all that much.

If I were to add anything, I like the idea of halflings getting some sort of a bonus to slings and/or throwing stones.  But like every other race (except tiefling) they don't need anything inherently supernatural beyond what they already have with lucky.


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## bedir than (Nov 12, 2022)

Oofta said:


> There have been precious few actual suggestions, especially lately. Like you I think halflings are fine as they are.  A short race will never be particularly popular, for a lot of people bigger will always be better.  So judging popularity doesn't really mean all that much.
> 
> If I were to add anything, I like the idea of halflings getting some sort of a bonus to slings and/or throwing stones.  But like every other race (except tiefling) they don't need anything inherently supernatural beyond what they already have with lucky.



Someone mentioned something like Respite, a minor version of Song of Rest. I'd like that.

Hurling: Most halflings spend time throwing things throughout their lives. Their short range on thrown weapons is doubled.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 12, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> "Just fix it yourself" isn't the end goal, but it's step-one towards the end goal of getting them fixed overall; a goal that will not be reached without that first step.  So, what I'm saying is take that first step in hopes that the end goal will eventually come.




Sure, you need to take the first step. But you can't stop after the first step, or you won't take the second. And many people have been saying that the first step is the last step.



Lanefan said:


> Ah, there's the difference.  I don't look at an RPG book (or set of books) as being the finished car.  I look at them as being a collection of partly-to-mostly-assembled parts that I can and must finish putting together myself before hitting the road, modifying as I go along to make the car what I want it to be.
> 
> And every now and then Ford (or in this case WotC) look at the overall patterns of modifications being made and eventually change the root product to suit.




The thing is though, DnD has to be a complete product. It doesn't have to be a "perfect for everyone" product, but it has to be complete. People like you and me, we can take DnD as a toolset to build anything out of. We can do that because we have the drive, the creative spark, and the experience to do so. 

But, despite my constantly trying to encourage others, many many people either can't or feel they they can't and therefore don't, make their own products. And if they are only going to have the baseline product, then it needs to be a complete product that works without needing any changes.


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## Lanefan (Nov 12, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Sure, you need to take the first step. But you can't stop after the first step, or you won't take the second. And many people have been saying that the first step is the last step.



Well, it is, at the individual-table level.  It's the only thing we can do, other than maybe discuss our various fixes (if any) in places like this.


Chaosmancer said:


> The thing is though, DnD has to be a complete product. It doesn't have to be a "perfect for everyone" product, but it has to be complete. People like you and me, we can take DnD as a toolset to build anything out of. We can do that because we have the drive, the creative spark, and the experience to do so.
> 
> But, despite my constantly trying to encourage others, many many people either can't or feel they they can't and therefore don't, make their own products. And if they are only going to have the baseline product, then it needs to be a complete product that works without needing any changes.



Ideally, this would be true.  In practice, while the complete product works well enough to play straight out of the tin (and in one way or another always has) it never seems to work quite as well as it could were it given some tweaking; never mind that what works for one table might not work for another and so the tweaks done will be different.

It's only when a huge number of tables make more or less the same tweak (e.g. the dropping of xp-for-gp in 1e) that the designers eventually make the main game follow suit.

One change I'm half-surprised didn't come with 5e, given the number of tables that seem to have done it independently, is to go to a s.p.-based game/setting economy rather than g.p.-based.  Personally I'm fine with g.p.-based and have kept it, but going to s.p.-based is a common houserule.  Wonder if they'll go this route with 5.5e?


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## James Gasik (Nov 12, 2022)

The other problem with giving Halflings a buff to thrown weapons is that it would have to be incredible; throwing weapons just suck in 5e.  Oh sure, you can buff them with Fighting Styles, but that's something few characters get access to.  I mean, imagine you wanted to make a thrown weapon Rogue.  Seems like a classic choice, but it's really terrible.

Ditto for that other famous Halfling weapon, the Sling, which D&D has traditionally treated rather badly, given the weapon's history.  There was a brief, shining moment in 4e where you could easily get a magical weapon and enjoy being able to throw it multiple times in a turn and not have to recover it after use.  The rest of the time, building a specialist in thrown weapons has been largely terrible.

Even the 2e dart specialist required you to carry around a ton of darts to be viable, and you'd spend quite a bit of time getting your darts back after battle.  And the only reason the build was good had nothing really to do with darts being a good ranged weapon, and more to do with being able to throw five of them in a round!


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## Micah Sweet (Nov 12, 2022)

Irlo said:


> Nothing that WotC can do to halflings will be considered a "fix" by everyone involved, especially people like me that don't think they need fixing. It's still worth discussing ideas for changes, but I can't cut through the clutter on this thread to find what specific changes are on the table for consideration.
> 
> Subraces leave ample ground for developing halfings to suit every taste without drastically changing the baseline.



Except subraces no longer exist in WotC D&D.


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## Micah Sweet (Nov 12, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Someone mentioned something like Respite, a minor version of Song of Rest. I'd like that.
> 
> Hurling: Most halflings spend time throwing things throughout their lives. Their short range on thrown weapons is doubled.



Wouldn't that be cultural though?  I thought cultural stuff was no longer allowed in WotC D&D.  I suppose you could say the halfling gods give them throwing proficiency (like the giff), but to me that's no more satisfying an explanation for halflings.


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## Oofta (Nov 12, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> The other problem with giving Halflings a buff to thrown weapons is that it would have to be incredible; throwing weapons just suck in 5e.  Oh sure, you can buff them with Fighting Styles, but that's something few characters get access to.  I mean, imagine you wanted to make a thrown weapon Rogue.  Seems like a classic choice, but it's really terrible.
> 
> Ditto for that other famous Halfling weapon, the Sling, which D&D has traditionally treated rather badly, given the weapon's history.  There was a brief, shining moment in 4e where you could easily get a magical weapon and enjoy being able to throw it multiple times in a turn and not have to recover it after use.  The rest of the time, building a specialist in thrown weapons has been largely terrible.
> 
> Even the 2e dart specialist required you to carry around a ton of darts to be viable, and you'd spend quite a bit of time getting your darts back after battle.  And the only reason the build was good had nothing really to do with darts being a good ranged weapon, and more to do with being able to throw five of them in a round!




In a previous edition that is lost to the fog of time I seem to remember halflings getting things like an ability to ricochet sling stones and the ability to throw stones without a sling.  Or maybe I just dreamed it?


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## James Gasik (Nov 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> In a previous edition that is lost to the fog of time I seem to remember halflings getting things like an ability to ricochet sling stones and the ability to throw stones without a sling.  Or maybe I just dreamed it?



I mean you can always throw a rock as an improvised weapon.  As for ricochet shot, sounds like a 3e Feat (very niche, probably has 3-4 prerequisite Feats to be obnoxious).


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## bedir than (Nov 13, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Wouldn't that be cultural though?  I thought cultural stuff was no longer allowed in WotC D&D.  I suppose you could say the halfling gods give them throwing proficiency (like the giff), but to me that's no more satisfying an explanation for halflings.



I'd broaden thrown weapons (and slings) to say that some cultures use daggers, others clubs, a few use javelins others axes.

So the specific is cultural, but not the general trait


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## bedir than (Nov 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> In a previous edition that is lost to the fog of time I seem to remember halflings getting things like an ability to ricochet sling stones and the ability to throw stones without a sling.  Or maybe I just dreamed it?



IIRC this was Complete Book of Halflings and Gnomes


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## Irlo (Nov 13, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Except subraces no longer exist in WotC D&D.



I’m behind the times and unlikely to adopt another set of changes in D&D rules that aren’t of my own devising. I just don’t have it in me.


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## bedir than (Nov 13, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> Except subraces no longer exist in WotC D&D.



One D&D has subraces for elves and the weird celestials and dragonborn. Current D&D has more subraces, sure


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## Micah Sweet (Nov 13, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I’m behind the times and unlikely to adopt another set of changes in D&D rules that aren’t of my own devising. I just don’t have it in me.



Couldn't agree more.  6e is not for me either.


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## Micah Sweet (Nov 13, 2022)

bedir than said:


> One D&D has subraces for elves and the weird celestials and dragonborn. Current D&D has more subraces, sure



One D&D has separate races for subraces with physical differences, like the drow.


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## Clint_L (Nov 13, 2022)

Most of these suggestions seem to rely on very specific beliefs about Halfings, mostly derived from Tolkien. But I'm not running a campaign set on Middle Earth. I think that racial features should be minimal and confined to physical characteristics or maybe magical abilities, with an eye to balance. There absolutely should not be race-based skills in the PHB because every D&D world is its own thing, and what might be true in my world might not be true in yours. Leave all that stuff to the DM and player.

I like the Tolkien stereotype that Hobbits are big into food. I think it's entertaining. So I keep that for some Halflings in my world, but it certainly isn't automatically true of all of them, and if a player wants their Halfling to be a skinny vegan, well then more power to 'em. I don't need WotC prescribing what Halfing culture must be, though if they want to offer a few examples from different settings, well, it's always good to share ideas.


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## bedir than (Nov 13, 2022)

Micah Sweet said:


> One D&D has separate races for subraces with physical differences, like the drow.



This is untrue


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## James Gasik (Nov 13, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> Most of these suggestions seem to rely on very specific beliefs about Halfings, mostly derived from Tolkien. But I'm not running a campaign set on Middle Earth. I think that racial features should be minimal and confined to physical characteristics or maybe magical abilities, with an eye to balance. There absolutely should not be race-based skills in the PHB because every D&D world is its own thing, and what might be true in my world might not be true in yours. Leave all that stuff to the DM and player.
> 
> I like the Tolkien stereotype that Hobbits are big into food. I think it's entertaining. So I keep that for some Halflings in my world, but it certainly isn't automatically true of all of them, and if a player wants their Halfling to be a skinny vegan, well then more power to 'em. I don't need WotC prescribing what Halfing culture must be, though if they want to offer a few examples from different settings, well, it's always good to share ideas.



Fantasy Craft had an interesting idea that you could craft consumable meals, that granted a temporary buff when you ate them.  And their Halflings could eat two such meals a day, as I recall.


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## Scribe (Nov 13, 2022)

talien said:


> And their inclusion was very much a response to the adventurous life that the agrarian homebodies considered an aberration. In short, most hobbits didn't want to be adventurers, and Bilbo, Frodo, and the others were forever changed by their experiences, such that it was difficult for them to reintegrate when they returned home. You don't hear much about elves and dwarves having difficulty returning home after being adventurers, and for good reason. Tolkien was making a point about the human condition and the nature of war by using hobbits as proxies.






talien said:


> In *The Lord of the Rings, *they are proxies for farmers and other folk who were thrust into the industrialized nightmare of mass warfare. In both cases, hobbits were a positioned in contrast to the violent lifestyle of adventurers who live and die by the sword.




These 2 segments, are enough for me. Its the point to me of what Halflings (as stand in's for Hobbits) should be.



talien said:


> Part of the issue with kender is that they aren't thieves, per se, but have a child-like curiosity that causes them to "borrow" things without understanding that borrowing said things without permission is tantamount to stealing in most cultures.




I know I'm in (here anyway) a dramatic minority, but I also have zero issue with Kender, so sue me.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 13, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> Most of these suggestions seem to rely on very specific beliefs about Halfings, mostly derived from Tolkien. But I'm not running a campaign set on Middle Earth. I think that racial features should be minimal and confined to physical characteristics or maybe magical abilities, with an eye to balance. There absolutely should not be race-based skills in the PHB because every D&D world is its own thing, and what might be true in my world might not be true in yours. Leave all that stuff to the DM and player.
> 
> I like the Tolkien stereotype that Hobbits are big into food. I think it's entertaining. So I keep that for some Halflings in my world, but it certainly isn't automatically true of all of them, and if a player wants their Halfling to be a skinny vegan, well then more power to 'em. I don't need WotC prescribing what Halfing culture must be, though if they want to offer a few examples from different settings, well, it's always good to share ideas.




I think this is a big point for me. Tolkien's Hobbits are very specific to Middle Earth, and he wrote them consistently to be the stand-ins for pastoral englishmen. If you aren't running a campaign in Middle Earth, they just don't fit well. 

Like, @Scribe just points out that part of the thing Tolkien wanted was that Bilbo and Frodo were scarred by their experiences and had a hard time integrating back into society. Which fits when you are alluding to the horrors of the World Wars, but it actually is rather awkward to try to do for DnD. 

Firstly, because DnD is a much more violent "setting". You can actually count very very few times that Bilbo or Frodo drew their weapons and fought. Most of the time they were in a dangerous situation they didn't fight, and they rarely killed. You might be able to find something like six times per each of them that they actually engaged in combat. For a DnD character that is a single day's worth of conflict. Secondly, most players don't want to engage with the idea of their characters having or developing PTSD or even dealing with their character's retirement very much. Which goes into the Third Point, which is if the player's DO want that sort of stuff... they probably don't want it to be only the Hobbits that deal with it, but everyone. And an addendum that waiting until the end of the campaign for something that defines your character isn't great. 


I'm not sure I agree with racial abilities being minimal though. I think they should have a significant impact. You should KNOW that you are dealing with someone with unique capabilities when you are dealing with a specific race.  I actually was just running a group of bandits who I made mixed races (all short) and just their racial abilities alone suddenly changed a lot about how I thought of them and how they were going to act. The Harengon was able to reposition quickly, the dwarves were super tough, the tiefling used magic instead of a ranged weapon, the Earth Genasi was able to deflect blows from the weapons of the players, the leader was a Deep Gnome and was able to stealth and retreat because of the gnome traits. It took a group of generic bandits and added an entire level of complexity to them that altered how they approached the fight.


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Why do you always do this? Why do you think that because I express a well-researched and well-founded opinion I must be "I AM THE SINGLE ARBITER OF TRUTH ACROSS ALL THINGS!!!!" about it? Like, you realize that instead of trying to make this position sound like it is insane, implying I must somehow require everyone to have read all of DnD and reference some weighted formula, you could just... give examples of why I'm wrong about humans.
> 
> I mean, despite your cussing and theatrics, I'm not discounting the Designers of DnD at all, nor am I discounting the rulebooks. I am in fact referencing those materials. So, since I'm referencing those materials, instead of just trying to make the PHB the only possible thing that can define DnD (which would also apply and discount Dark Sun Halflings) you could reference some official world where DnD humans aren't as I describe.
> 
> ...



Hmm..how to respond to a post that begins with "why do you always do this"

I feel no need to prove what humans are in D&D. The designers have already done so in the section labeled 'Races' in the PHB.

I feel no need to prove what halflings are in D&D. The designers have already done so in the section labeled 'Races' in the PHB.

As far as your "Well-researched, well-founded opinion"..

I find your research silly from end to end..

I find the exercise silly.
I find the chosen "evidence" silly.
I find the interpretations of that evidence silly.
I find the conclusions that you are willing to draw from it silly.

As such I choose not to engage with it.

I do apologize for "all my cussing". I did not anticipate the level of offense that could be taken from the one-time use of a word that appears in the King James Bible. I will strive to do better.


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## CreamCloud0 (Nov 13, 2022)

halflings could probably have something like this and really benefit from it

Halfling small weapon mastery: you have proficiency with daggers, handaxes, lighthammers, javelins and slings, when attacking with any one of these weapons you deal a crit on an 18 or above, the range you can make ranged attacks at without disadvantage is increased by 50%(20/60 becomes 30/60, 30/120 becomes 45/120), additionally you can load your sling as part of any attack made with it and make as many attacks as you are able to.

I don’t think this is excessive really, none of these weapons are over a d6 and considering halflings cant use heavy weapons without disadvantage i think it balances out all things considered, plus it’s nonmagical.

Edit: would the spear be too much to add to the list of weapons there?


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## James Gasik (Nov 13, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> halflings could probably have something like this and really benefit from it
> 
> Halfling small weapon mastery: you have proficiency with daggers, handaxes, lighthammers, javelins and slings, when attacking with any one of these weapons you deal a crit on an 18 or above, the range you can make ranged attacks at without disadvantage is increased by 50%(20/60 becomes 30/60, 30/120 becomes 45/120), additionally you can load your sling as part of any attack made with it and make as many attacks as you are able to.
> 
> ...



I don't think the spear would be problematic, but some people might, because of Polearm Master (though we don't yet know what the future holds for that Feat).  This would make Halflings quite nice as Paladins or Rogues (at least, with the current critical hit rules), and be pretty decent with the proposed upgrade to two weapon fighting.

That having been said, I'm sure someone would say this is too strong because it would make Halflings "the best" at certain builds, no matter how niche.  I think that's a little silly, because you can't make all races equal at everything, so someone has to be the best choice, but I suppose the logic comes from the optimizer mindset, where you can feel "forced" to play something you don't want to, because the other choices are a complete downgrade.

I don't personally mind, because I like playing Halflings, but YMMV.


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## Oofta (Nov 13, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I don't think the spear would be problematic, but some people might, because of Polearm Master (though we don't yet know what the future holds for that Feat).  This would make Halflings quite nice as Paladins or Rogues (at least, with the current critical hit rules), and be pretty decent with the proposed upgrade to two weapon fighting.
> 
> That having been said, I'm sure someone would say this is too strong because it would make Halflings "the best" at certain builds, no matter how niche.  I think that's a little silly, because you can't make all races equal at everything, so someone has to be the best choice, but I suppose the logic comes from the optimizer mindset, where you can feel "forced" to play something you don't want to, because the other choices are a complete downgrade.
> 
> I don't personally mind, because I like playing Halflings, but YMMV.




In the playtest, pole arm master requires a heavy reach weapon.  Seems like they don't care for the 1-handed spear/quarterstaff exploit either.

I don't have problems with creating niches for different races, there are only so many ways to distinguish them.  Unless you pick your race which gives you nothing that has direct impact on the game and then pick from a menu of options there's are always going to be a bit of a mono-culture per race.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 13, 2022)

Gammadoodler said:


> Hmm..how to respond to a post that begins with "why do you always do this"
> 
> I feel no need to prove what humans are in D&D. The designers have already done so in the section labeled 'Races' in the PHB.
> 
> ...




It doesn't matter if it is in the King James Bible, the site rules are the site rules. 

And I guess I am just left confused. You don't feel the need to engage in the discussion... except to tell me I'm wrong. You in fact find it all "silly".... except to continually tell me I'm wrong. You choose not to engage with my argument.... except to tell me I'm wrong. 

Instead of attempting to, in any way, address my points about humanity is depicted in the Adventures and has been depicted for decades in Dungeons and Dragons... you just refuse to engage, call it silly, and tell me I'm wrong. So, on one hand we have evidence and an argument, and on the other hand we have... nothing but you telling me I'm wrong. So, after a deep consideration of all your myriad points (zero points) I have decided I'm going to continue along the path of actual evidence.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 13, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> halflings could probably have something like this and really benefit from it
> 
> Halfling small weapon mastery: you have proficiency with daggers, handaxes, lighthammers, javelins and slings, when attacking with any one of these weapons you deal a crit on an 18 or above, the range you can make ranged attacks at without disadvantage is increased by 50%(20/60 becomes 30/60, 30/120 becomes 45/120), additionally you can load your sling as part of any attack made with it and make as many attacks as you are able to.
> 
> ...




So, why throwing? 

I'm just consistently puzzled why this is presented as something that fits halflings really well. Nothing about them has ever really seemed to be about throwing things and it doesn't seem to really change their flavor in any way except to give them a mechanical boost. I agree they need more active and more interesting abilities, but "good at throwing things" and critting with daggers on an 18 in melee is just... a bit flavorless to me. 

Powerful for sure, rogues would love to have more crits and might be willing to stick with dual-wield daggers to get it, but I don't see the flavor here of what that does for halfling lore.


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## Oofta (Nov 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> So, why throwing?
> 
> I'm just consistently puzzled why this is presented as something that fits halflings really well. Nothing about them has ever really seemed to be about throwing things and it doesn't seem to really change their flavor in any way except to give them a mechanical boost. I agree they need more active and more interesting abilities, but "good at throwing things" and critting with daggers on an 18 in melee is just... a bit flavorless to me.
> 
> Powerful for sure, rogues would love to have more crits and might be willing to stick with dual-wield daggers to get it, but I don't see the flavor here of what that does for halfling lore.




Throwing things goes back to the source inspiration of halflings.  Hobbits were said to be particularly good at throwing stones.


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## bedir than (Nov 13, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I don't think the spear would be problematic, but some people might, because of Polearm Master (though we don't yet know what the future holds for that Feat).  This would make Halflings quite nice as Paladins or Rogues (at least, with the current critical hit rules), and be pretty decent with the proposed upgrade to two weapon fighting.
> 
> That having been said, I'm sure someone would say this is too strong because it would make Halflings "the best" at certain builds, no matter how niche.  I think that's a little silly, because you can't make all races equal at everything, so someone has to be the best choice, but I suppose the logic comes from the optimizer mindset, where you can feel "forced" to play something you don't want to, because the other choices are a complete downgrade.
> 
> I don't personally mind, because I like playing Halflings, but YMMV.



Crit expansion is very rare and high level in 5e. It wouldn't make sense for a halfling sorcerer to crit more frequently than any champion fighter


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## James Gasik (Nov 13, 2022)

bedir than said:


> Crit expansion is very rare and high level in 5e. It wouldn't make sense for a halfling sorcerer to crit more frequently than any champion fighter



As far as that goes, however, the Champion really doesn't get a lot out of their expanded crit range. It's not like they get tons of bonus damage when they crit, like some other classes do.  You're talking what, an extra 6.5 damage from a greataxe crit?

Oh sure, there's Half-Orcs (Orcs, now?), but the way I see it, the extra 6.5 damage on the critical hit just makes that a superior race for Champions?

Anyways, I don't think "but think of the Champion!" is a good reason to worry about expanded crit ranges in of itself- but thinking about how Paladins and Rogues might benefit from an expanded crit range is.  If we're talking about having a higher chance to crit with a light weapon, that's not particularly bothersome.  Oh no, you get an extra d4 or d6 damage!

But Elevating Halfling to top-tier for crit fishing Paladins (which, btw, I despise.  If you're going to be a Smite machine, Smite on all your attacks, don't wait around until you luck out and roll a 20, jeez) and basically almost all Rogues might be a better reason to worry.  Not that I think a 10% better chance for bonus damage is a big deal.  It's not even a full 10% damage per attack increase.

The crux will be how D&D One would change critical hits.  If Rogues are still permitted to double all their Sneak Attack dice (and ditto for Paladins), then sure, maybe it's a problem.

There are a few other classes that get a bonus die of damage here and there, like Warlocks or Rangers, but it's really not worth worrying about, IMO.  

Personally, I'm not even sure *why* WotC is so stingy with critical range expansion; this reminds me of the 3.5 devs kiboshing the 11-20 crit range with a Rapier, not because doubling the d6 plus mods was problematic, but simply because "crits should be special, this makes them feel less special".

Thing is though, if your critical hit can manage to deal less damage than a regular hit, that doesn't feel all that special to me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Halflings and throwing things:  Yes, this is part of Halfling lore, but so are Halfling infantry and archers.  Here's some quotes from the Professor himself.

_To the last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen to the aid of the King, or so they maintained, though no tales of men record it.

– The Fellowship of the Ring, Prologue: ‘Concerning Hobbits’

...apart from many younger lads, more than a hundred sturdy Hobbits were assembled with axes, and heavy hammers, and long knives, and stout staves; and a few had hunting bows.

– The Return of the King – ‘The Scouring of the Shire’, Chapter VIII_

So here we see that Halflings use a fairly large assortment of weapons in times of war, not just light weapons, or those that can be thrown.  Yet D&D chose to focus on throwing rocks and using slings- not that I'd mind Halfling slingers, since in real life, the sling was an effective weapon of war, but D&D, as I've mentioned before, seems to think the sling is a fairly pathetic weapon.

Also, curiously, it turns out there's a reason the Shire is relatively peaceful.  Only twice in history did war ever come to the Shire, and both times, the Halflings booted the invaders out.  The Battle of Bywater, during the Scouring of the Shire, and the Battle of Greenfields in 1147, when a band of Orcs moved too far west and entered the Shire.  The Thain at that time, Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took was an exceptional military leader, who lore tells us could ride a pony, and decapitated the Orc leader.  

I find it a remarkable fact that, although Tolkien tells us halflings were not warlike and did not have particular skill in arms, they managed to overthrow a band of orcs – who were significantly larger and more efficient in combat!


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## Bohandas (Nov 13, 2022)

Irlo said:


> I’m behind the times and unlikely to adopt another set of changes in D&D rules that aren’t of my own devising. I just don’t have it in me.



Personally I swore off buying any more rulebooks after the transparent cash grab that was 4e


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## Faolyn (Nov 13, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> halflings could probably have something like this and really benefit from it
> 
> Halfling small weapon mastery: you have proficiency with daggers, handaxes, lighthammers, javelins and slings, when attacking with any one of these weapons you deal a crit on an 18 or above, the range you can make ranged attacks at without disadvantage is increased by 50%(20/60 becomes 30/60, 30/120 becomes 45/120), additionally you can load your sling as part of any attack made with it and make as many attacks as you are able to.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I think the spear would be too much. I'd limit it to weapons with the Light property. 

For the very similar halfling gift I included in my _Handbook of Heritages _that I published for Level Up, I also said that at 5th level, the weapons counted as magical for purposes of overcoming damage resistance. Because these halflings are _just that good._


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Throwing things goes back to the source inspiration of halflings.  Hobbits were said to be particularly good at throwing stones.




And... were they?

I mean, I know I'm not super keen on my Tolkien lore, but I don't remember them being famed rock-throwers like the giants. I remember it mentioned in passing that they skipped rocks and threw things at animals for fun, like a lot of farmer's children, but nothing about them being fearsome throwing experts. 

And looking at the quotes from @James Gasik it seems they were just as likely to use any other common weapons, bows, hammers, axes. They read much more like a peasant levy and if stone throwing was such an iconic part of them then it would have been what they'd be known in battle for, right? 

And again, set aside the mechanics, lore wise what does this do for us? How does being good at throwing add some interesting angle to their lore?


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## Oofta (Nov 13, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And... were they?
> 
> I mean, I know I'm not super keen on my Tolkien lore, but I don't remember them being famed rock-throwers like the giants. I remember it mentioned in passing that they skipped rocks and threw things at animals for fun, like a lot of farmer's children, but nothing about them being fearsome throwing experts.
> 
> ...




Another reference (been a while since I read the books)
Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. *If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well*.​​The point for lore is that while they may not be considered aggressive by their neighbors and they don't care about building empires, they are surprisingly capable of defending themselves.


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## James Gasik (Nov 13, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Another reference (been a while since I read the books)
> Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. *If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well*.​​The point for lore is that while they may not be considered aggressive by their neighbors and they don't care about building empires, they are surprisingly capable of defending themselves.



So really, if they have a bonus for anything, it should be ranged attacks in general, not just throwing stuff.


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## Clint_L (Nov 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm not sure I agree with racial abilities being minimal though. I think they should have a significant impact. You should KNOW that you are dealing with someone with unique capabilities when you are dealing with a specific race.  I actually was just running a group of bandits who I made mixed races (all short) and just their racial abilities alone suddenly changed a lot about how I thought of them and how they were going to act. The Harengon was able to reposition quickly, the dwarves were super tough, the tiefling used magic instead of a ranged weapon, the Earth Genasi was able to deflect blows from the weapons of the players, the leader was a Deep Gnome and was able to stealth and retreat because of the gnome traits. It took a group of generic bandits and added an entire level of complexity to them that altered how they approached the fight.



We are actually totally in agreement - I obviously just didn't express myself clearly. What I meant is that I don't like making things like skills and languages racial features. Like, should all dwarves really be proficient in axes and hammers, and one of three types of tools? What about that nerdy dwarf kid who could care less about making stuff or hitting things and just wants to study magic? Is there a gene for hammer proficiency, or something? This is what I mean about the game sneaking in cultural traits disguised as racial features. Leave those things to the player and the DM.

On the other hand, resistance to poison...sure. That could be a racial trait. Darkvision? That tracks.

So looking at Halflings in thePHB:
I would cut all the "kind and curious" stuff, or modify anything like that with words such as "in many settings," etc.

Base speed 25: Not a huge fan, but okay. The reason that I'm not a huge fan is that it is a nod to realism ("they're slow because they're small"), but given that we have no problems letting Halflings have the same strength score as Goliaths, making sure that they have a lower base speed seems like an odd line to draw.

Halfling Luck: I love natural 1s. They make the best story beats. I don't like robbing players of natural 1s just because they want to play a Halfing. Give them a better feature that doesn't kill their fun.

Halfling Nimbleness: Sure. But should really just apply to all small sized races.

Languages: Get rid of "Halfling" as a language. Racial languages are a weird idea. I don't speak "human."

Brave: Nah. Why is a whole race unusually brave? This is just a nod to Tolkien's Hobbit characters, who were kind of stand-ins for his idealized English people.


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## James Gasik (Nov 14, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> We are actually totally in agreement - I obviously just didn't express myself clearly. What I meant is that I don't like making things like skills and languages racial features. Like, should all dwarves really be proficient in axes and hammers, and one of three types of tools? What about that nerdy dwarf kid who could care less about making stuff or hitting things and just wants to study magic? Is there a gene for hammer proficiency, or something? This is what I mean about the game sneaking in cultural traits disguised as racial features. Leave those things to the player and the DM.
> 
> On the other hand, resistance to poison...sure. That could be a racial trait. Darkvision? That tracks.
> 
> ...



Maybe I'm an outlier, but you can totally steal all my natural 1's.  I won't mind.  I promise I'll still have fun without them.


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## Scribe (Nov 14, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> Base speed 25: Not a huge fan, but okay. The reason that I'm not a huge fan is that it is a nod to realism ("they're slow because they're small"), but given that we have no problems letting Halflings have the same strength score as Goliaths, making sure that they have a lower base speed seems like an odd line to draw.




Theres a fix for this...somewhere....


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 14, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> So really, if they have a bonus for anything, it should be ranged attacks in general, not just throwing stuff.



While this is true, and a thing people forget about hobbits, it seems a bit more flavorful to have halflings be effective with weapons almost no one else is effective with, with the weapons of shephards and farmers and simple country folk. Everyone is effective with a longbow in dnd, no need to worry about that.


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## James Gasik (Nov 14, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> While this is true, and a thing people forget about hobbits, it seems a bit more flavorful to have halflings be effective with weapons almost no one else is effective with, with the weapons of shephards and farmers and simple country folk. Everyone is effective with a longbow in dnd, no need to worry about that.



Well, actually, Halflings aren't effective with a longbow.  They take disadvantage to use one.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 14, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Another reference (been a while since I read the books)
> Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. *If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well*.​​The point for lore is that while they may not be considered aggressive by their neighbors and they don't care about building empires, they are surprisingly capable of defending themselves.




Okay, so good with a bow and good at chucking stones at beasts. 

But... Well, I don't see them being better than others at throwing things as leading to "surprisingly capable of defending themselves". I'm trying to imagine a group with a halfling rogue and them being surprised that the halfling is effective in combat. That doesn't feel accurate to me. Now, if they are getting crits on 18 that double sneak attack, then yes, that is very deadly, but that is a function of crits and sneak attack, not the idea of throwing weapons. And the mechanic you guys were discussing doesn't only work when throwing, but works when making an attack with the weapon. 

And I'm going back to the thing I said about the bandits. How I gave each bandit the racial traits and it changed how they played? If they had d6 slings that had extra crit... it wouldn't really change how they played, it would just make them crit more often. They are more of a threat than most any other type of bandit, simply because they will do more damage, it doesn't seem to fit with this lore you are trying to craft.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 14, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> We are actually totally in agreement - I obviously just didn't express myself clearly. What I meant is that I don't like making things like skills and languages racial features. Like, should all dwarves really be proficient in axes and hammers, and one of three types of tools? What about that nerdy dwarf kid who could care less about making stuff or hitting things and just wants to study magic? Is there a gene for hammer proficiency, or something? This is what I mean about the game sneaking in cultural traits disguised as racial features. Leave those things to the player and the DM.
> 
> On the other hand, resistance to poison...sure. That could be a racial trait. Darkvision? That tracks.




Well, we aren't in total agreement. 

Languages? I love how One DnD is doing them, just let people pick languages, that works. The weapon Proficiencies? I was fine with them, because I integrated them, but I'm not sad to lose them. They didn't work as nicely as I liked, and the dwarven ones I was more than willing to drop for tools. 

But skills? I'm fine with some skill profs. Specifically, I tend to like them for the Giantkin and the Beastfolk, where it feels less like they were trained and more like they are just naturally as good as someone trained in those things. Tools? I love the tools. Especially for the dwarves. I am fine dropping brewer's tools, but I feel like crafting is so integral to the Dwarven existence and religion that  it even transcends setting to a degree. I can hardly imagine a setting where dwarves aren't doing some sort crafting. I agree it is "cultural" to a degree, but it feels cultural in the same way that being literate in the modern day is cultural. Even if they don't like it, they can do it.



Clint_L said:


> So looking at Halflings in thePHB:
> I would cut all the "kind and curious" stuff, or modify anything like that with words such as "in many settings," etc.




An "in many settings" thing I think is obvious. But this is mainly the section of stuff I want to change. This is where the biggest conflicts seem to come from.



Clint_L said:


> Base speed 25: Not a huge fan, but okay. The reason that I'm not a huge fan is that it is a nod to realism ("they're slow because they're small"), but given that we have no problems letting Halflings have the same strength score as Goliaths, making sure that they have a lower base speed seems like an odd line to draw.




I'm not a huge fan either. Loving that One DnD is standardizing 30 ft.



Clint_L said:


> Halfling Luck: I love natural 1s. They make the best story beats. I don't like robbing players of natural 1s just because they want to play a Halfing. Give them a better feature that doesn't kill their fun.




I also hate this ability, but for entirely different reasons, which I have discussed before. It is a call to have plot warping, and I don't like that.



Clint_L said:


> Halfling Nimbleness: Sure. But should really just apply to all small sized races.




Yeah, that feels about right. Nothing about halflings seems like they should be more nimble and able to slip through crowds than goblins or other small folk. I don't mind if they keep it, but it can go away easily I think.



Clint_L said:


> Languages: Get rid of "Halfling" as a language. Racial languages are a weird idea. I don't speak "human."




Meh, racial languages are fine. It is hard enough to have languages come up and keep track of them without having to have "Eastern Lower Goblinese" and "Higher Southern Goblinese" and other languages. They work and fulfil their purpose, even if they don't make a ton of simulationist sense



Clint_L said:


> Brave: Nah. Why is a whole race unusually brave? This is just a nod to Tolkien's Hobbit characters, who were kind of stand-ins for his idealized English people.




I agree, this ability is terrible. Had a long discussion about it and how it breaks story norms and is bizarrely phrased and applied. Along with Luck it is the ability I most dislike from their list.


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## James Gasik (Nov 14, 2022)

If re-rolling a 1 is "plot warping", then so is advantage.  As for Brave, well, I still disagree that possessing exceptional bravery somehow makes other people "not-brave".  Not everyone will run into a burning building to save lives, but perhaps it turns out that Halflings are more likely to do so, works just fine.  Either way, if *you* happen to be the kind of Human that runs into burning buildings, you aren't any less Brave than a Halfling who does the same thing.  

Of course, that's not what Brave _does_.  It protects you from supernatural fear effects.  I hope the Kender, once published, will be allowed to keep their immunity to fear, it's a much more useful ability, since all the advantage in the world can't save you sometimes.

Though in reality, this is a unique ability that only arose in 3e, sort of out of nowhere.  Suddenly, Halflings had this +2 bonus on saves vs. fear (+3, once you added their +1 luck bonus on all saving throws).  This isn't mechanically an ability Halflings had before, it was apparently WotC's attempt to differentiate their Halflings from Hobbits.  Even though they kept the thrown weapons bit...

Anyways, I think it's fine for racial traits to represent a trend for a race, though it would be nice to be allowed to trade it in for some other ability, if it doesn't suit you.  Like if you wanted to play a non-brave Halfling, or a lazy Human who doesn't have a bonus Feat, or a civilized Lizardfolk who doesn't particularly need the ability to cobble together cheap weaponry on the fly.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 14, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Though in reality, this is a unique ability that only arose in 3e, sort of out of nowhere.  Suddenly, Halflings had this +2 bonus on saves vs. fear (+3, once you added their +1 luck bonus on all saving throws).  This isn't mechanically an ability Halflings had before, it was apparently WotC's attempt to differentiate their Halflings from Hobbits.  Even though they kept the thrown weapons bit...



Hobbits are incredibly brave, though. From Fatty Bolger to the Shire in general in two separate invasion attempts, to Sam and Frodo and Merry and Pippin. Like, they don't tend to seek out adventure unless enticed or pushed to it, but they're formidably brave and fierce in a corner.

They changed plenty from hobbit to _hin_, but bravery was a step closer to the inspiration, not further away.


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## James Gasik (Nov 14, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Hobbits are incredibly brave, though. From Fatty Bolger to the Shire in general in two separate invasion attempts, to Sam and Frodo and Merry and Pippin. Like, they don't tend to seek out adventure unless enticed or pushed to it, but they're formidably brave and fierce in a corner.
> 
> They changed plenty from hobbit to _hin_, but bravery was a step closer to the inspiration, not further away.



I'm not sure about that.  I mean, sure, Samwise Gamgee?  Absolutely brave.  I'll give that to Merry and Pippin, though they are a bit more reckless.  But there are times when Frodo is not particularly brave, and while Bilbo has his moments, he's perfectly capable of deciding that discretion is by far the better part of valor.  Not that I expect a brave person to never show good sense, but some would call that behavior "cowardly".  Even during the Scouring of the Shire, it wasn't until the heroes returned that they were able to rouse the populace into doing something about it.

Thus, while a Hobbit can be brave, I wouldn't consider them universally so.  This point can be debated, of course, but let me just say that, if I was given the job in 1999 to differentiate Halflings from Hobbits, bonuses to save against fear wouldn't have been on my mind.  A generic bonus to Will saves might be, since we see Halflings stave off the influence of the One Ring, and recovering from being exposed to the mind of Sauron via a Palantir.

I'd have been tempted to give them a racial bonus to Wisdom as well, since most Halflings seem possessed of good sense (Peregrine and Meriadoc notwithstanding), or Constitution, since they seem able to endure more hardship than most folk.

I definitely would have kept their resistance to magic in some form.  I certainly didn't mind them becoming a Charismatic race in 4e, though, and that's also a decent choice.  I definitely wouldn't have stuck with thrown weapons or slings, since I'm well aware these are traditionally inferior weapon choices in D&D.  It might seem flavorful, but when other races are getting free proficiencies with useful weapons, like Dwarves and Elves, it doesn't seem a particularly balanced choice.


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## CreamCloud0 (Nov 14, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I definitely wouldn't have stuck with thrown weapons or slings, since I'm well aware these are traditionally inferior weapon choices in D&D. It might seem flavorful, but when other races are getting free proficiencies with useful weapons, like Dwarves and Elves, it doesn't seem a particularly balanced choice.



That’s a significant part of why I chose to expand their crit and non-disadvantage range with those weapons in the halfling proficiency, i know those weapons aren’t incredible so just giving them the proficiency is a bit naff when 90% of classes already get those weapon proficiencies or better.


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## Lanefan (Nov 14, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> If re-rolling a 1 is "plot warping", then so is advantage.  As for Brave, well, I still disagree that possessing exceptional bravery somehow makes other people "not-brave".  Not everyone will run into a burning building to save lives, but perhaps it turns out that Halflings are more likely to do so, works just fine.  Either way, if *you* happen to be the kind of Human that runs into burning buildings, you aren't any less Brave than a Halfling who does the same thing.
> 
> Of course, that's not what Brave _does_.  It protects you from supernatural fear effects.



Which means they really should rename it as Fearless.  It should also protect against magical fear effects e.g. spells like _Scare_, _Spook_, etc. (if they even still exist).

I give this to Cavaliers as a baked-in class ability, and it shows up now and then as a side (or main, sometimes) property of some magic items.


James Gasik said:


> I hope the Kender, once published, will be allowed to keep their immunity to fear, it's a much more useful ability, since all the advantage in the world can't save you sometimes.



Agreed.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 14, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I'm not sure about that.  I mean, sure, Samwise Gamgee?  Absolutely brave.  I'll give that to Merry and Pippin, though they are a bit more reckless.  But there are times when Frodo is not particularly brave, and while Bilbo has his moments, he's perfectly capable of deciding that discretion is by far the better part of valor.  Not that I expect a brave person to never show good sense, but some would call that behavior "cowardly".  Even during the Scouring of the Shire, it wasn't until the heroes returned that they were able to rouse the populace into doing something about it.



None of that makes them any less brave. When someone said “hey let’s not put up with this” they rose up, go hasty, and stood up to bigger folk. 


James Gasik said:


> Thus, while a Hobbit can be brave, I wouldn't consider them universally so.  This point can be debated, of course, but let me just say that, if I was given the job in 1999 to differentiate Halflings from Hobbits, bonuses to save against fear wouldn't have been on my mind.  A generic bonus to Will saves might be, since we see Halflings stave off the influence of the One Ring, and recovering from being exposed to the mind of Sauron via a Palantir.
> 
> I'd have been tempted to give them a racial bonus to Wisdom as well, since most Halflings seem possessed of good sense (Peregrine and Meriadoc notwithstanding), or Constitution, since they seem able to endure more hardship than most folk.
> 
> I definitely would have kept their resistance to magic in some form.  I certainly didn't mind them becoming a Charismatic race in 4e, though, and that's also a decent choice.  I definitely wouldn't have stuck with thrown weapons or slings, since I'm well aware these are traditionally inferior weapon choices in D&D.  It might seem flavorful, but when other races are getting free proficiencies with useful weapons, like Dwarves and Elves, it doesn't seem a particularly balanced choice.



Which is why my suggestion wasn’t proficiency, which they’d have anyway because they’re simple weapons. Instead I suggested better damage, or some other bonus to make them comparably effective next to normally better weapons.


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## Oofta (Nov 14, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, so good with a bow and good at chucking stones at beasts.
> 
> But... Well, I don't see them being better than others at throwing things as leading to "surprisingly capable of defending themselves". I'm trying to imagine a group with a halfling rogue and them being surprised that the halfling is effective in combat. That doesn't feel accurate to me. Now, if they are getting crits on 18 that double sneak attack, then yes, that is very deadly, but that is a function of crits and sneak attack, not the idea of throwing weapons. And the mechanic you guys were discussing doesn't only work when throwing, but works when making an attack with the weapon.
> 
> And I'm going back to the thing I said about the bandits. How I gave each bandit the racial traits and it changed how they played? If they had d6 slings that had extra crit... it wouldn't really change how they played, it would just make them crit more often. They are more of a threat than most any other type of bandit, simply because they will do more damage, it doesn't seem to fit with this lore you are trying to craft.




I was thinking of @James Gasik's post about defending their homelands along with the epilogue to the lord of the rings books.  Combine bonus to ranged attacks (including simple rocks) with small size and abilities to hide and I can see halflings being guerilla warfare types defending their homes while retreating into small places difficult for large races to access.  They don't go out seeking confrontation, but defending home territory?  Being small could actually be a pretty huge benefit for setting up defenses.

Makes sense to me.


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## bedir than (Nov 14, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I was thinking of @James Gasik's post about defending their homelands along with the epilogue to the lord of the rings books.  Combine bonus to ranged attacks (including simple rocks) with small size and abilities to hide and I can see halflings being guerilla warfare types defending their homes while retreating into small places difficult for large races to access.  They don't go out seeking confrontation, but defending home territory?  Being small could actually be a pretty huge benefit for setting up defenses.
> 
> Makes sense to me.



I need more halfling rangers in my life.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> If re-rolling a 1 is "plot warping", then so is advantage.




Re-rolling 1's isn't plot warping. It is all the stuff that surrounds the assumptions of what halfling luck means. I posted about it multiple, multiple times. I don't feel like re-litigating it here would be worthwhile.



James Gasik said:


> As for Brave, well, I still disagree that possessing exceptional bravery somehow makes other people "not-brave".  Not everyone will run into a burning building to save lives, but perhaps it turns out that Halflings are more likely to do so, works just fine.  Either way, if *you* happen to be the kind of Human that runs into burning buildings, you aren't any less Brave than a Halfling who does the same thing.
> 
> Of course, that's not what Brave _does_.  It protects you from supernatural fear effects.  I hope the Kender, once published, will be allowed to keep their immunity to fear, it's a much more useful ability, since all the advantage in the world can't save you sometimes.




Right, so you have pointed out the exact problem with the ability. 

1) Running into a burning building to save lives is a "brave" act. 
1A) This act is not about mechanics, but is purely a factor of how the PC is played at the table. If a PC wants to be played as "brave" then they are 100% as brave as a halfling. Which is just as brave as an adventurer is normally. And as brave as many people are normally. 
2) Interacting with the commonly held idea of Bravery isn't even what the ability does, it simply is a protection against supernatural and magically induced fear. 

Our only point of disagreement seems to be you don't think it is therefore implied that other races are inherently less brave than halflings, if you make halflings the brave race. But I find this to not hold up. You can't have a "strong one" without someone being weaker, you can't have a "smart one" without other people being less intelligent, and you can't have "the brave one" unless the others are less brave. But look at any team of heroes. Is there really a "Brave One" in the Justice League? The Power Rangers? They are super heroes, they are all brave. That's the point of being heroes.



James Gasik said:


> Though in reality, this is a unique ability that only arose in 3e, sort of out of nowhere.  Suddenly, Halflings had this +2 bonus on saves vs. fear (+3, once you added their +1 luck bonus on all saving throws).  This isn't mechanically an ability Halflings had before, it was apparently WotC's attempt to differentiate their Halflings from Hobbits.  Even though they kept the thrown weapons bit...
> 
> Anyways, I think it's fine for racial traits to represent a trend for a race, though it would be nice to be allowed to trade it in for some other ability, if it doesn't suit you.  Like if you wanted to play a non-brave Halfling, or a lazy Human who doesn't have a bonus Feat, or a civilized Lizardfolk who doesn't particularly need the ability to cobble together cheap weaponry on the fly.




It is fine to represent a trend. I don't think it is fine to take a core part of being an adventurer and try to delegate it to a single race's "iconic" and "archetypical" depiction.


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## James Gasik (Nov 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Re-rolling 1's isn't plot warping. It is all the stuff that surrounds the assumptions of what halfling luck means. I posted about it multiple, multiple times. I don't feel like re-litigating it here would be worthwhile.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Two people are in a room.  They have IQ's of 170 and 175.  Is the 170 IQ person not exceedingly intelligent because someone smarter exists?  Spider-Man can lift 10 tons.  Thor can lift 100 tons.  Is Spider-Man not superhumanly strong?

Halflings exhibit bravery, but unlike other races, that bravery is sufficient to grant them additional protection from magical fear effects beyond their Wisdom save alone.  All stop.

Compare and contrast Gnome Cunning, which does all of that and more.  

But it's like how Kobolds had the ability to Cower, Grovel, and Beg.  We're not saying other races can't be cowardly.  Or pathetic.  Or that a non-Kobold can't plead for their lives, protesting their unworthiness.  Kobolds just have a knack for it.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 15, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I was thinking of @James Gasik's post about defending their homelands along with the epilogue to the lord of the rings books.  Combine bonus to ranged attacks (including simple rocks) with small size and abilities to hide and I can see halflings being guerilla warfare types defending their homes while retreating into small places difficult for large races to access.  They don't go out seeking confrontation, but defending home territory?  Being small could actually be a pretty huge benefit for setting up defenses.
> 
> Makes sense to me.





Right, but let's take away that "crits on an 18 with a sling" and "increased range with light or thrown weapons". What are the halflings going to do when invaded? 

They are going to use their small size and ability to hide to engage in guerilla warfare to defend their homes. They will use simple weapons like slings, daggers, thrown stones and even staves, hammers, and axes to do so. In actuality, not giving them a mechanical incentive to focus on just a few weapons could make them better at defending their homes, because it widens their options.  

Sure, you are correct that being small is a useful thing for guerilla warfare, just like it is for every other small race in the entire game. But throwing things good doesn't actually play into them being guerilla fighters any more than being excellent archers would or excellent trap makers, or the ability to use magic. It doesn't affect the lore or the potential interpretations of the lore at all. It just makes them more mechanically effective at using those specific weapons.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Two people are in a room.  They have IQ's of 170 and 175.  Is the 170 IQ person not exceedingly intelligent because someone smarter exists?




IQ is a horrendous measure of intelligence. But, you are missing the point. Neither the person with the 170 or the 175 could be considered the "smart one" of the pair, because they are both smart. 

You have Lebron James and Michael Jordan in a room together. Which one is the "Great Basketball player"? They both are. Claiming one is and the other isn't just derides the acheivements of whichever one you don't pick.



James Gasik said:


> Spider-Man can lift 10 tons.  Thor can lift 100 tons.  Is Spider-Man not superhumanly strong?




"Superhumanly strong" is a measure compared to "humanly strong". Of course Spider-Man is superhumanly strong, he is stronger than a human, who cannot lift 10 tons. 

However, what is the equivalent of lifting 10 tons compared to lifting 100 tons in terms of Bravery? What are Bravery Units? Can we decide which brave actions are braver than others? Of course not. We don't measure bravery this way. We don't look at a man who runs into a burning building and compare him to a woman who dove into a rushing river and decide that one action was worth more "bravery" than the other. 

The question is absurd.  



James Gasik said:


> Halflings exhibit bravery, but unlike other races, that bravery is sufficient to grant them additional protection from magical fear effects beyond their Wisdom save alone.  All stop.




And that is bad, because of how we depict bravery, what bravery means, and the integrity of a player's concept of their character. Making a "brave" race is just as terrible as making a "kind" race or any other binary state of being. The most you can hope for in states for bravery is "Brave -> Neutral -> Cowardly" you can't measure it beyond that in any meaningful way. And so you can't make it so that someone is "braver" than someone else without shoving them down the scale towards Neutral.



James Gasik said:


> Compare and contrast Gnome Cunning, which does all of that and more.




And Gnome Cunning is a fine ability. It is a resistance to mental compulsion effects of all kinds. It doesn't give a personality trait. (Though I did rename it Crystalline Mind for reasons)



James Gasik said:


> But it's like how Kobolds had the ability to Cower, Grovel, and Beg.  We're not saying other races can't be cowardly.  Or pathetic.  Or that a non-Kobold can't plead for their lives, protesting their unworthiness.  Kobolds just have a knack for it.




And you realize that that ability was so loudly decried that Kobolds lost it nearly immediately, right? Because people found the idea of the entire race being cowardly off-putting and they didn't like it. Sure, some people want their Kobolds cowardly, but many instead preferred the brash and over-confident kobold. Those who would be... ya know... brave, even to the point of foolishness. 

It may have taken a couple of years, I know the book was published in 2016 and the Draconic options wasn't until 2021, but five years with how slow 5e publishing was and them rarely doing errata? When we are discussing patterns where people think 30 years is moving too fast? And I know not a single table I played at kept the ability, we all reflavored it. I'm pretty sure the outcry over it was immediate on this forum too.


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## Clint_L (Nov 15, 2022)

Why we gotta try to legislate how different tables roleplay? This impulse to define fantasy for everyone else is deep in the DNA of D&D, going back to Gygax's particular notions about what a fantasy world and fantasy races should be like. Remember when half-orcs had to be evil?

In my worlds, a halfling is no more likely to be "nice" than a goblin, though "nice" can also mean different things to different people and cultures. My villains aren't villains because of how they were born, but because of the choices they've made, or maybe their economic, political or cultural circumstances put them at odds with the party's interests.

And I respect that other feel differently, and want a more traditional D&D setting with alignments and all that stuff. I just don't think we need rules that make one way of roleplaying a halfling (typically, as Tolkien's hobbits) the "correct" way. Leave all that stuff up to each table to decide for themselves.


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## James Gasik (Nov 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> And Gnome Cunning is a fine ability. It is a resistance to mental compulsion effects of all kinds. It doesn't give a personality trait. (Though I did rename it Crystalline Mind for reasons)



Now you've completely lost me.  "Cunning" is totally a personality trait.  But either you're ok with Gnomes being more Cunning than anyone else, or you just renamed the trait so it doesn't do that.

If it's the first...I got nothing.  If it's the second, just rename "Brave" to "Lion-Hearted" and call it a day.

Lots of races are described by their personality traits.  Here, let's look at the PHB.

According to page 18, Dwarves are "Bold and Hardy".  Are they bolder than everyone else?  No, but they are bold.  Dwarves are "Determined and Loyal".  Does this mean that everyone else is wishy-washy and can't show loyalty?  No, but they are determined and loyal.  Dwarves have a "strong sense of justice" (continuing on to page 19).  So other races don't?  

Dwarves hold long grudges.  That doesn't say other races don't.

Some Dwarves have a love of precious metals and gems that descends into avarice.  So what, other races can't be greedy?  Dwarves are also "slow to trust"...so everyone must be immediately trusting of others?  Of course not.

Every race has traits they are noted for.  Like Halflings being practical.  That doesn't mean other races aren't practical.  Sometimes, these traits have mechanical weight, like Halflings bravery, Gnomes cunning (which means deceitful or resourceful, by the way), Half-Orcs being menacing, full Orcs being aggressive, Bugbears being sneaky, and Hobgoblins either being paranoid about losing face or, in the update, having weaponized their sense of hospitality.

Often times, they do not, and the racial traits are either physical in nature, like Drow having darkvision, are the result of training, like High Elves knowing a free cantrip, or some Dwarves having armor training, or just something that is based on their culture.

Granted, cultural and trained traits seem to be getting phased out for races, but this is how things have been done for many years.  If it's a problem, then it's a systemic one, not just for Halflings, and this thread should be named "The Trouble with Personality-based Racial abilities".


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 15, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Now you've completely lost me.  "Cunning" is totally a personality trait.  But either you're ok with Gnomes being more Cunning than anyone else, or you just renamed the trait so it doesn't do that.
> 
> If it's the first...I got nothing.  If it's the second, just rename "Brave" to "Lion-Hearted" and call it a day.




I renamed it Crystalline Mind because in my world Gnomes were originally Slaadi, and it ties into them being born from crystals. They quite literally have brains made of organic crystal. 

And while Cunning is a personality trait, it isn't something really used to describe gnomes. Cunning means "having skill in achieving one's ends by deceit". When people talk about gnomes, they aren't generally talking about them being highly deceitful. And how would the ability to have advantage on all mental saves tie into lying and deceit? You could use it more vaguely, as with a different definition "crafty in the use of special resources (such as skill or knowledge) or in attaining an end" but even that is just... very vague. What would it mean to use special knowledge to succeed on Charisma saves? At that point it almost sounds like gnomes have passed down special techniques or magic to resist magical effects, which isn't a personality trait at all. 

So... no, I wouldn't really be okay with them being better schemers and planners than other races, but that doesn't seem to be how the ability is described. Meanwhile, changing "brave" to "Lion-hearted" is just changing to a synonym. It literally means "brave and determined"  



James Gasik said:


> Lots of races are described by their personality traits.  Here, let's look at the PHB.
> 
> According to page 18, Dwarves are "Bold and Hardy".  Are they bolder than everyone else?  No, but they are bold.  Dwarves are "Determined and Loyal".  Does this mean that everyone else is wishy-washy and can't show loyalty?  No, but they are determined and loyal.  Dwarves have a "strong sense of justice" (continuing on to page 19).  So other races don't?
> 
> ...




Right, but none of these are given mechanical weight. Well, maybe "hardy" is because of the increased hit points. But they don't have a "Boldness" ability or a "Justice" ability. These are just stereotypes, and as true or untrue as the player wants to make them. 



James Gasik said:


> Every race has traits they are noted for.  Like Halflings being practical.  That doesn't mean other races aren't practical.  Sometimes, these traits have mechanical weight, like Halflings bravery, Gnomes cunning (which means deceitful or resourceful, by the way), Half-Orcs being menacing, full Orcs being aggressive, Bugbears being sneaky, and Hobgoblins either being paranoid about losing face or, in the update, having weaponized their sense of hospitality.
> 
> Often times, they do not, and the racial traits are either physical in nature, like Drow having darkvision, are the result of training, like High Elves knowing a free cantrip, or some Dwarves having armor training, or just something that is based on their culture.




Halfling practicality doesn't bear mechanical weight., it is a stereotype But let's look at the abilities that DO have mechanical weight you list. 

Gnomes? Covered above. 
Half-Orcs being menacing? This has been noted as a problem many times. It is being phased out as well. 
Orcs being aggressive? This has been noted as a problem many times. And in the most recent iteration of them in Mordenkainen presents, it was gotten rid of in favor of "adrenaline rush". I personally went a bit further and took from Colville's orcs and renamed it "Bloodfire" and tied it even deeper into a series of traits and biology. 

Bugbear's being sneaky is actually interesting. For a long time it was just proficiency in stealth, which isn't the personality trait of being sneaky, but the actual physical ability to sneak. And as ambush predators this is a thing. Tigers are sneaky, not because of their personality, but because of their bodies blending into their environment. Additionally, in the most recent version of Bugbears, sneaky was expanded. It isn't just their ability to stealth, but they can move through small spaces without squeezing. Considering their massive size (they can be 8 ft tall) being able to move comfortably in a 3 ft space and likely squeeze into smaller? This isn't a personality trait. It is a biological trait for an ambush predator. 

Hobgoblin's saving face? Again, another ability that was widely decried for its flavor. Just like grovel and beg, just like menacing, just like aggressive. And again, one that was altered in Mordenkainens. And it isn't weaponizing their "sense of hospitality". Their first ability is called "Fey Gift" and the other is "Fortune from the Many" and says that they "draw on your bonds of reciprocity". This isn't a personality trait, it is flat out fey magic, using the belief's surrounding fey and the mystical weight of concepts like hospitality. 



James Gasik said:


> Granted, cultural and trained traits seem to be getting phased out for races, but this is how things have been done for many years.  If it's a problem, then it's a systemic one, not just for Halflings, and this thread should be named "The Trouble with Personality-based Racial abilities".




Sure, I can agree it is a systematic problem. So can many people who have repeatedly identified things like "Menacing", "Aggressive", "Saving Face", "Grovel, Cower and Beg" as problems to the point that every one of those abilities is being altered, re-flavored, or flat dropped.

And Brave falls under that same umbrella. And sure, we could have a thread discussing why those abilities that we have gotten rid of were bad, but considering the majority of them are gone it would be a rather short conversation. However, halflings have more than just that single point to discuss, and this thread was made to discuss halflings, not a larger systematic problem that also touches on halflings.


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## Oofta (Nov 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Right, but let's take away that "crits on an 18 with a sling" and "increased range with light or thrown weapons". What are the halflings going to do when invaded?
> 
> They are going to use their small size and ability to hide to engage in guerilla warfare to defend their homes. They will use simple weapons like slings, daggers, thrown stones and even staves, hammers, and axes to do so. In actuality, not giving them a mechanical incentive to focus on just a few weapons could make them better at defending their homes, because it widens their options.
> 
> Sure, you are correct that being small is a useful thing for guerilla warfare, just like it is for every other small race in the entire game. But throwing things good doesn't actually play into them being guerilla fighters any more than being excellent archers would or excellent trap makers, or the ability to use magic. It doesn't affect the lore or the potential interpretations of the lore at all. It just makes them more mechanically effective at using those specific weapons.




Being good with ranged weapons is part of their defenses so they practice.  If fighting off invaders the tactic is going to be hit-and-run sniping, direct melee confrontation is an absolute last resort.  It fits the narrative picture.

But you aren't going to be happy with any explanation.


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## Oofta (Nov 15, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> Why we gotta try to legislate how different tables roleplay? This impulse to define fantasy for everyone else is deep in the DNA of D&D, going back to Gygax's particular notions about what a fantasy world and fantasy races should be like. Remember when half-orcs had to be evil?
> 
> In my worlds, a halfling is no more likely to be "nice" than a goblin, though "nice" can also mean different things to different people and cultures. My villains aren't villains because of how they were born, but because of the choices they've made, or maybe their economic, political or cultural circumstances put them at odds with the party's interests.
> 
> And I respect that other feel differently, and want a more traditional D&D setting with alignments and all that stuff. I just don't think we need rules that make one way of roleplaying a halfling (typically, as Tolkien's hobbits) the "correct" way. Leave all that stuff up to each table to decide for themselves.




Which is why I would approach all racial descriptions simply as typical defaults.  Halflings don't have to be cheerful hobbits in your world, but if you don't want to do too much work to integrate them into your world or come up with a default culture here's a typical one you can use.  It's not a rule that halflings are "affable and cheerful", but it's a starting point if I'm not trying to write an entire world completely from scratch.  Much like alignment for monsters, it should be a general default and suggestion, not a rule.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 15, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Being good with ranged weapons is part of their defenses so they practice.  If fighting off invaders the tactic is going to be hit-and-run sniping, direct melee confrontation is an absolute last resort.  It fits the narrative picture.
> 
> But you aren't going to be happy with any explanation.




So humans would get bonuses to spears, polearms and swords, right? They would also be fighting off invaders to their lands, so they would also practice with weapons as part of their defenses. 

The problem you are running into is you are acting like "defending their homes" is somehow something that no other race does. All races defend their homes, not all of them use guerrilla tactics based on size sure, but all of them would use weapons. And so if the logic is "halflings defend their homes, therefore they are good with the weapons used to defend their homes" then that is going to apply beyond halflings until you find races that do not defend their homes and instead choose to flee. 

It isn't the idea that I will never be happy with any explanation, but that it has to stand up under at least mild scrutiny. Because you also have to consider that if you are going to add an improved weapon proficiency to them, and they were considered balanced before, then you need to take away an ability. They need to lose something, and therefore what replaces it can't be bland and flavorless or it is just going to hurt the race.


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## CreamCloud0 (Nov 15, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Because you also have to consider that if you are going to add an improved weapon proficiency to them, and they were considered balanced before, then you need to take away an ability. They need to lose something, and therefore what replaces it can't be bland and flavorless or it is just going to hurt the race.



They were considered balanced with the original PHB races but I wonder if that would still be the case when comparing them with everything else that’s been released since then? Power creep is an oft complained issue.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 16, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> They were considered balanced with the original PHB races but I wonder if that would still be the case when comparing them with everything else that’s been released since then? Power creep is an oft complained issue.




Oft complained, rarely backed up. 

After all, until the One DnD playtest what were the most powerful racial options? Variant Human and Half-Elf, from the same PHB as the Halflings. And they are still strong contenders. If there has been racial power creep, it has been so mild and limited that it might as well not exist.


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## Mecheon (Nov 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> After all, until the One DnD playtest what were the most powerful racial options? Variant Human and Half-Elf, from the same PHB as the Halflings.



Yuan-Ti made a strong showing, along with Satyrs.

But, yeah, nothing has ever come close to toppling variant human. Feats are just that powerful


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## Gammadoodler (Nov 16, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> They were considered balanced with the original PHB races but I wonder if that would still be the case when comparing them with everything else that’s been released since then? Power creep is an oft complained issue.



Especially since, with unshackled racial ASIs, pretty much every race with an inconvenient ASI got a bump relative to Halflings. 

Gnomes and Tieflings immediately come to mind.


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## CreamCloud0 (Nov 16, 2022)

Chaosmancer said:


> Oft complained, rarely backed up.
> 
> After all, until the One DnD playtest what were the most powerful racial options? Variant Human and Half-Elf, from the same PHB as the Halflings. And they are still strong contenders. If there has been racial power creep, it has been so mild and limited that it might as well not exist.



I wasn’t making an assertion i was asking a question, however sure there might be a few powerful options in the PHB but that doesn’t mean the baseline of other races could’ve also trended upwards.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 16, 2022)

Mecheon said:


> Yuan-Ti made a strong showing, along with Satyrs.
> 
> But, yeah, nothing has ever come close to toppling variant human. Feats are just that powerful




True, but that was really a bit of over-valuing Magic Resistance I think. It is a powerful ability, but only if you are facing spellcasters semi-regularly and most damaging spells are save for half, so you still are getting hit by some effect. It was very good, but not necessarily better than having a 1/day Deathward without a spell slot.


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## Chaosmancer (Nov 16, 2022)

CreamCloud0 said:


> I wasn’t making an assertion i was asking a question, however sure there might be a few powerful options in the PHB but that doesn’t mean the baseline of other races could’ve also trended upwards.




Okay, but just because the baseline of races might have trended up doesn't mean it did. It could have also trended downwards. I don't remember anyone saying anything about halflings being weaker than most other short races. So, without any evidence or argument, I can't really put much weight behind "well it might be possible"


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## Bohandas (Nov 19, 2022)

Clint_L said:


> We are actually totally in agreement - I obviously just didn't express myself clearly. What I meant is that I don't like making things like skills and languages racial features. Like, should all dwarves really be proficient in axes and hammers, and one of three types of tools? What about that nerdy dwarf kid who could care less about making stuff or hitting things and just wants to study magic? Is there a gene for hammer proficiency, or something?




I think there is. That they can just pick one up having never seen one before and be able to use it



Clint_L said:


> So looking at Halflings in thePHB:
> I would cut all the "kind and curious" stuff, or modify anything like that with words such as "in many settings," etc.




There could totally be a gene for that. Look at dog breeds that have different temperments



Clint_L said:


> Halfling Luck: I love natural 1s. They make the best story beats. I don't like robbing players of natural 1s just because they want to play a Halfing. Give them a better feature that doesn't kill their fun.
> 
> ....
> 
> Brave: Nah. Why is a whole race unusually brave?




Because they don;t randomly or catastrophically fail at things?


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