Are you happy with the Halflings?

[Anderlith]

So a little while back WotC released some art & background for the halfling. I didn't like it so I have come to the internet to complain! ... um I mean ask if I'm just a grumpy minority & everyone else in fact loves the halflings that are presented.

- I know it's just fluff, but fluff will inspire general playstyles, & overarching mechanics

My problem is that they are too much like hobbits culturally, & in some cases, in appearance. The halflings could use some uniqueness a more solid independant identity. One of the few things I liked about 4e was the riverboat halflings. To me it made some sort of sense that the halflings stature would be of benefit near the water. No huge river monsters, & they have smaller bodies so they can't go as far without water as other races, & stuff like that.

So comment below what's your opinion?

[Craft (Cheese)]

I'd be happy to give my opinions (and I assure you, I have lots of them!) if you'd be so kind as to link to this. This is for 5E, I presume?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Are you familiar at all with the halflings of the talenta plains in the eberron campaign setting?

Tribal, territorial, stoic dinosaur wranglers. Seriously.

[Lentrax]

Don't let the Kender be forgotten about!

Someone please think about the Kender!

Although, I've never been forogtten about, I wonder if it feels any different than being remembered all the time. I mean I know people think about me because I don't feel like I've been forgotten about, but sometimes it seems like everyone wants to, especially when everyone plays 'Tie down the Kender.' That's a real fun game to play...

[Craft (Cheese)]

The day I met my first Kender is the day I took up skeet shooting as a hobby. With the Kender as the pidgeon.

[Lentrax]

And that's about par for the course...

Good thing I have Uncanny dodge and a really high Dex.

[Craft (Cheese)]

But that's why you make such good target practice!

[Lentrax]

Cooperative skill building has never ben so much fun.

[Anterean]

Don't let the Kender be forgotten about!

I vehemently disagree.

[Kalmarvho]

My problem is that they are too much like hobbits culturally, & in some cases, in appearance.

You might remember how older D&D halfings were pretty much hobbits. It's almost as though the way they're developing 5E is taking bits and pieces out of older editions without any regard for the whole.

On the plus side, if you're unhappy with the new [old] halflings, WotC values your input!

At least, that's what they say.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I still can't find this thing the OP is talking about.

[LibraryOgre]

"Forgotten about kender"... really, since 3e, they've been turning halflings into kender. Tribalist kender, but roving gypsy thieves? Yeah, they're kender without the tendency to talk about everything.

[DigoDragon]

Yeah, I was pretty "meh" about Halflings overall so in my homebrew campaign world I rewrote them as being cousins to the fey and made them really savvy merchants and traders. My players love caravans of Halfling sorcerers to spend their money at.

Also, totally stole the Halflings from Dark Sun. Everyone loves a "people person".

[Reaper_Monkey]

I still can't find this thing the OP is talking about.

Same here, anyone care to educate us in the changes we're meant to be defending/criticising here? Halfings are those short people right? The ones with beards?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Same here, anyone care to educate us in the changes we're meant to be defending/criticising here? Halfings are those short people right? The ones with beards?

No, silly, those are Duergar. Halflings are the ones with 6 arms and leet psionic powers.

[Amphetryon]

You might remember how older D&D halfings were pretty much hobbits. It's almost as though the way they're developing 5E is taking bits and pieces out of older editions without any regard for the whole.

On the plus side, if you're unhappy with the new [old] halflings, WotC values your input!

At least, that's what they say.

I believe they're starting from that point and letting the concepts grow/evolve based on official feedback. (Because design-by-committee is always the best way).

To the OP, I think there are enough varieties of Halflings in the worlds of WotC, complete with their own fluff, that it's easy enough to choose the bits that fit the world you want to describe, and leave out the rest.

[hamlet]

Don't let the Kender be forgotten about!

Someone please think about the Kender!

Although, I've never been forogtten about, I wonder if it feels any different than being remembered all the time. I mean I know people think about me because I don't feel like I've been forgotten about, but sometimes it seems like everyone wants to, especially when everyone plays 'Tie down the Kender.' That's a real fun game to play...

Oh, we have not forgotten about the Kender. Trust me.

We have a solution for the Kender. A "final solution" you might say . . .

And before anybody gets the wrong idea, yeah, that was a joke.

[Lentrax]

Oh, we have not forgotten about the Kender. Trust me.

We have a solution for the Kender. A "final solution" you might say . . .

And before anybody gets the wrong idea, yeah, that was a joke.

A final solution? To what? I didn't realize we were trying to solve a problem, what is it? Can I help? Hey, what does this button over here do?

*click*

... Oops.

[Yora]

What joke? Kender have to be erased from existance.

I don't really care about halflings, they tend to be either non-adventurers or Rob Schneider. I rather ignore them and have everything that could be interesting about them shoved over to non-tinker gnomes.

[Joe the Rat]

Bold emphasis mine

I believe they're starting from that point and letting the concepts grow/evolve based on official feedback. (Because design-by-committee is always the best way).

To the OP, I think there are enough varieties of Halflings in the worlds of WotC, complete with their own fluff, that it's easy enough to choose the bits that fit the world you want to describe, and leave out the rest.

Now this is where we get into trouble. D&D has a monkey-barrel-load of official settings, each of which can sport a different flavor of Halfling, with a different style to their play. Their default Halfling (or anything else, for that matter) should be what works in their default setting - the generic fantasy which-may-or-may-not be Greyhawk one. They should probably aim for a common cultural core to start from, which lets the different settings define themselves as "Our Halflings are like this, except for..." or "our Halflings are nothing like this, except for..." (and so on for other races). This doesn't have to be an amalgam of the vote (40% hobbit, 22% kender, 17% cultural stereotypes, and a dash of misplaced gnome input, and maybe an original idea), but something closer to the mode. Making a popular exception the basis of the core changes the core, and the old unique exception becomes commonplace.

Kender? Dragonlance. Different flavors for different worlds. (Here's where I tangent into my issues with 1,001 "core" races, but the topic is Halflings).

Personally, I like them a bit Hobbity.

[Tvtyrant]

If only they gave the Kender a burrow speed, then I could use them as mole people. Seriously, they usually live in holes! Mole people who ambush their goblin prey in order to devour them...

[EccentricCircle]

The Article in question is located here:
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...dreye/20121107

From what it and other articles in this series say this is going to be the default Forgotten Realms halfling, with the Forgotten Realms becoming the new default setting for D&D in the way that Points of Light/ Nentir Vale was for 4e and Probably-Greyhawk was for 3e. Kendar, Talenta halflings, Athasian halflings and any others will still exist in their given worlds if wizards support those worlds.

Personally I'm not that keen on the new design, as they look too cartoony and exagerated. I don't particularly think that making them more hobbitlike again is a good idea, but I can see why they want to do it. Theres no release date for the new edition but its likely to fall either during the period over which the Hobbit films are being released or shortly thereafter. If the Hobbit proves as successful as the Lord of the Rings films then it could well boost interest in fantasy and D&D will want to benefit from that. Making their halflings more hobbitlike could be a deliberate decision.

However I think that they are going too far. Hobbits in Peter Jackson's movies are not cartoonish after all and don't have a bizzare nature motif.

[snoopy13a]

I like them. The nature theme seems appropriate for a society of rustic villagers. Further, I think the larger heads do give the illusion of smallness and prevents them from being "mini-humans." Essentially, they seem like hobbits with tiny feet--and I understand why they have tiny feet.

And I did like the drawing of the hobbit halfling father and daughter returning from the fishing trip.

[SgtCarnage92]

I think it still needs some work for sure. I do want to see them avoid the "mini-human" problem they were talking about, but I don't want to see the Halflings turn into Gnomes or Hobbits either. I like the general direction their going in, i'm not sure that he grossly over sized body parts are the way to go however. It makes them seem more awkward than I feel they should be.

[Susano-wo]

Yeah, I like them. I can see the cartoony complaint, but I think that may hae to do as much with the art style as the design.

[OracleofWuffing]

Wait, I'm confused. I thought Halfings and Hobbits came from the same idea-genealogy?

[Yora]

Yes they are hobbits, but in D&D they lost almost all of the Shire culture over time, especially starting with 3rd Edition.

[Kalmarvho]

Yeah, they're kender without the tendency to talk about everything.

Well, that was the worst part about Kender, so it's worthwhile to let it slide.

[Water_Bear]

Well, that was the worst part about Kender, so it's worthwhile to let it slide.

Wasn't the worst part about the Kender that they were pathologically lying kleptomaniacs who everyone loved for no clear reason?

But back on topic; I'm not sure what the 5e fluff for Halflings is, but saying that they are too much like Hobbits... is just too strange a complaint for me to comprehend. They are Hobbits, that's kind of their entire thing.

[Kalmarvho]

It's a departure from the old art and fluff (which was itself a departure from the OLD art and fluff), and you know how people hate change.