Is there any point to Halflings?

[Old Man]

In my gaming career I've played halflings exactly twice: once in AD&Dv1 and once in MERP.  The MERP one was an unbelievably lethal archer, I still have parts of that critical hit table memorized.

 

The issue with the various little people races is that they're all based on mythological beings that themselves were very fuzzily defined.  In folklore there is very little daylight between the categories of elves, dwarves, dark elves, fairies, gnomes, goblins, trolls, and kobolds--it's almost a spectrum rather than a set of cut and dried separate species.  Tolkien probably had the same problem--his elves, orcs, and halflings are all kind of his own inventions, very loosely based on folklore.  Only his dwarves strongly resemble a specific race of mythological beings (the ones from Norse legends).

 

My own solution was to take the various races and make them more distinct by ramping them up to 11--or to be more specific, ramping their characteristic maxima up to 25-28.  Elves were incredibly agile but their light build and failing bloodlines made them highly susceptible to damage.  Halflings were incredibly agile, sneaky, and tough, but were weak and not too bright.  Gnomes were just extremely magically gifted and useless and anything physical--rather like shrunken old men.  Dwarves were incredibly strong and tough, but slow as hell.  This all was back in the days of package deals and figure characteristics though; I'm not sure how I'd handle it in 6e.

[Duke Bushido]

Yet Another Tolkien Rip-Off.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

The concepts and the game stats are only the start. What players and GMs choose to do with them are what elevates or detracts from the game.

 

The last Halfling someone played in my game was for my modified Turakian Age setting. The background the player chose for his character was that he came from Myrwick Strand, a nominally independent Halfling county which was tributary to the Human kingdom of Keldravia. The Stranders (as we called them) sometimes had difficulty raising the demanded tribute. One year when he was a boy, this character's village was among those raided by the Keldravians to make up the difference in tribute. The PC's older brother was killed trying to fight them off. The PC took up an adventuring life to earn treasure to bring back to his people to fill out the tribute.

 

Hollis Barque, as the PC was named, was in most circumstances laid back and easy-going like a typical Halfling, but he took his mission very seriously. He kept no treasure for himself, aside from personal needs and contributing to the party's supplies. He trained religiously to improve his accuracy with projectile and thrown weapons, and practiced melee techniques taking advantage of his small size (i.e. buying RSL, PSL against limb Hit Locations, and the like). Hollis refused to be intimidated by any opponent whatever their size, had no mercy for brigands who hurt innocent people, and went out of his way to punish bullies, even if they were acting as agents of local law. He would relentlessly pursue anyone who stole some of his carefully hoarded treasure. All that did occasionally cause the party complications, but it was great for role-playing.

[Ninja-Bear]

Also I have some cool miniatures. Is that valid reason? 😁

[assault]

18 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Also I have some cool miniatures. Is that valid reason? 😁

 

Certainly.

[Lord Liaden]

Can't let a good mini go to waste.

 

[Mr. R]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:56 AM, death tribble said:

The problem I had is that people play Halfling thieves and are pains in the neck with it, This is before Grunts ! by Mary Gentle where the halflings are evil thieves.

 

This is a hold over from ADnD 2ed where the ONLY class a halfling could get ANY decent level in was thief.  No wizard.  Cleric was like level 7.  Druid was level 10.  Fighter was level 5.  And don't even think about Paladin or Ranger.  So Halflings were pigeon holed into Thief!

 

Now they can be any level and any class.  Do you really want to tangle with that halfling village as the local cleric is a level 12.  Or a group of halfling rangers who wander from town to town.  

 

My point is that NOW you are free to make what you want!

[Mr. R]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:56 AM, death tribble said:

The problem I had is that people play Halfling thieves and are pains in the neck with it, This is before Grunts ! by Mary Gentle where the halflings are evil thieves.

 

 

[Mr. R]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:56 AM, death tribble said:

The problem I had is that people play Halfling thieves and are pains in the neck with it, This is before Grunts ! by Mary Gentle where the halflings are evil thieves.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Phineous Fingers in the Dragon Magazine had evil theiving hobbits in it, mean little assassins.  That was back in like 1982

[assault]

2 hours ago, Mr. R said:

This is a hold over from ADnD 2ed where the ONLY class a halfling could get ANY decent level in was thief. 

 

Long before that.

 

2 hours ago, Mr. R said:

My point is that NOW you are free to make what you want!

 

Which leaves everything bland, unfortunately.

Funnily enough, while you are free to make what you want in Hero, Chaotic Evil Half-Tortle Paladin/Ranger/Assassins seem to be less of a problem.

[BNakagawa]

Well, sure. Just create a halfling that is a spellcaster with healing and/or good buff/debuff spells and team it up with a beefy well armored martial character and go all Master/Blaster on people.

 

I am currently playing a halfling Summoner in Pathfinder(1) who has taken feats that enable her to pass for a human child when she dresses and acts appropriately. She also has a stupidly strong humanoid outsider that she summons that has the appearance of a heavily armored man. They are doing the Little Sister/ Big Daddy schtick from Bioshock.

[Lord Liaden]

  

2 hours ago, Mr. R said:

My point is that NOW you are free to make what you want!

 

20 minutes ago, assault said:

Which leaves everything bland, unfortunately.

 

Would you please explain how being free to make what you want leaves everything bland?

[Ninja-Bear]

I mentioned upthread about I don't see the point about gnomes. What if Halflings take over for Forest Gnomes niche?

[Lord Liaden]

On 1/17/2023 at 9:56 PM, assault said:

Aside from being friendly towards people familiar with D&D, I can't really see the point of having two groups. And yet...

Has anyone else addressed this kind of thing? How did you differentiate between the two, or justify having both?

 

Wouldn't being friendly towards people familiar with D&D be enough of a point? If they want to play those races because they're familiar, and assuming they can make the characters interesting and fun for themselves, you as GM, and the rest of the group, what's the downside?

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

themselves, you as GM, and the rest of the group, what's the downside?

 

 

Tolkien elves, Sir.

 

The downest of all sides.  The Nat 20 of Mary Sues.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

MERP is the one setting that hobbits make the most sense in, to me.  Its their natural habitat and the entire world is set up to support their existence.

[Mr. R]

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

  

 

 

Would you please explain how being free to make what you want leaves everything bland?

 

 

I find myself agreeing with LL here.

 

Lets just limit ourselves to Halflings.

Thief  Before Unlimited   Now Unlimited   Still boring!

Warrior (archer) Before level 5  Now unlimited  Take that +3  Add dex bonuses  Add Specialization Bonuses.  Just off the top of my head that is +7 with no enchanted bow.  

Ranger Before NIL  Now unlimited  

Wizard Before NIL  Now unlimited (Imagine players surprise at a halfling casting a lightning bolt)

Paladin Before NIL  Now unlimited (want to know why the local halfling village has NO undead)  

 

This is just off the top of my head in the last five minutes!

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

4 minutes ago, Mr. R said:

 

 

I find myself agreeing with LL here.

 

Lets just limit ourselves to Halflings.

Traditional

Warrior (archer) Before level 5  Now unlimited

Ranger Before NIL  Now unlimited

Wizard Before NIL  Now unlimited (Imagine players surprise at a halfling casting a lightning bolt)

Paladin Before NIL  Now unlimited (want to know why the local halfling village has NO undead)  

 

This is just off the top of my head in the last five minutes!

 

 

Ok, (and this is a point but not everyone agrees, which is fine). What makes these Halflings unique now? As Syndrom said “If everyone has super powers then no one is special”.

[Lord Liaden]

Halflings are the threat they don't see coming, the ones they never expect to be dangerous. And 90% of the time, they're right. But that other 10%...

 

That could be fun to roleplay. Act harmless, get your enemy to underestimate you. Probably won't keep working if it's overused or you develop a reputation.

[Ninja-Bear]

One thing I wanted to point out about rolling characteristics in order (though obviously it has another set of problems) is that it makes said character unique. I just rolled a a wizard that had STR 12 INT 10 (made the minimum for BF) and CON 14, oh and CHA 14. I would he hard pressed to build such a character if I used point buy or could put rolls in stats I wanted. 

[Duke Bushido]

That wizard is ready for TFT, Sir.

 

Multiclass, multigenre, multisystem.

 

 

Nice.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh and another point about rare races. I think that its a good idea! Sometimes in game its hard to pull off. I’m thinking like Star Wars and particularly Mando and Space Wizards. Some people seem to not be able to fathom that in universe seeing a Force User would he rather rare unless for some reason you are around them. The viewers know about Force Users.  
 

Making characters unique to the players isn’t limited to any particular  game system.

[sentry0]

I just popped into say there's a surpising amount of dark meat on a halfling.

[Duke Bushido]

4 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

I just popped into say there's a surpising amount of dark meat on a halfling.

 

Yeah, I have been fighting the urge to say "not really, but if you work at it, they can be sharpened."