"Happy homebodies" is a pretty gross oversimplification of even just the PHB description of the race. It specifically notes that halflings will go into the world based out of curiosity or wanderlust, and also note that a halfling community can be a transient one rather than living in a single place.
So, I guess the trope is that halflings are slightly chubby, happy farmers who like in cozy houses under the hills, with round doors.
But you don't have to put up with that. In Darksun, halflings are little jungle devils who hunt using powerful poisons, and eat their prey, regardless of their level of sapience. In Eberron, halflings are plains barbarian who ride raptors. You could decide that halflings have an affinity with earth, and worms, and beetles and fungi and mold and decay and necrotic magics, and they live under the ground with their carrion crawler pets. Or they could be treetop dwellers, and have parrot scouts and poisonous frog pets and couatl allies and little feathered wingsuits, dropping nets on annoying giants (that is, size M creatures) and selling the better ones as slaves to the drow.
Or you know, something.
Not sure about combining couatl and slavery. That might be a bit of a miss. Are there evil, black couatl? I guess there could be, since there can be other kinds of halflings.
Edit: Urgh! So it seems coatl are the 'ultimate good'. So I have to propose the 'fallen coatl' - like an angel. The fallen couatl is burnt and broken, it's feathers blackened and ruined as it fell from heaven. It loses it's flight, it's various healing powers, and it's shielded mind. Instead, it gains Hateful Mind, which opponents have to Will save against, or suffer the effects of a Bane spell. It can spit venom as a ranged attack, and it retains the ability to constrict, and change shape. When polymorped, if it wants to hide it's hateful influence, it needs to a Wis check and beat the passive perception of those around it - otherwise, they have a very dubious feeling about it.
Maybe it also has a host of undead servants? I mean, adjust as needed to hit the correct CR.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Loved the Dark Sun halflings. Was first introduced to those cannibalistic psychos in Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and I’ve loved them ever since.
I never completed that. How were they in there? oO
=)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
They honestly didn’t have any story to themselves, they were just located in a Demi plane in a planar sphere. There were maybe three islands of rocky desert with giant bones sticking out here and there, rib cages and massive skulls and such. I think one of them had a quick little pop up message about how he was looking up from the corpse of a partially eaten man, wiped his bloody lips and said, “Dinner!” or some such. It was just wild to me to see halflings like that so I started reading up on Athas.
Your PC can date female halflings and it is allowed by the law.
Halflings can ride monster mounts.
In my game, halflings speak with a funny Andalucian(South Spain) accent.
Halflings are perfect for survival horror.
Halflings were cute decades before baby Yoda was famous and popular.
I would like to add a "martial maneuver"* like a "jump" spell effect, the difference is to reload with a Concentration check. I like the wuxia-like stories where the "little" hero defeat large monsters. Or magic/magitek jumping stits.
Your PC can date female halflings and it is allowed by the law.
I don't wanna start drama (in fact I'm hoping my comment here can stand in for anybody else who wants to say something, so that we can just move on), but I'd like you to take a minute, look inward, and ask yourself what the word "female" is doing in that sentence. How it got there. You don't need to respond, just think about it. Anyway, moving on!
Halflings can ride monster mounts.
The ability to ride, say, a wolf is pretty neat. I think Medium creatures are a lot more numerous in the early summoning spells, plus Beastmaster companion animals and Druid Wild Shapes. If that's not enough to make a mechanically-minded player excited to play a halfling, then idk. I'm pretty sure you can fit a halfling through the opening of a bag of holding. Maybe that's worthwhile? Lol.
And small PCs can ride flying monsters because they are lighter. Medium PCs are too heavy to ride flying monsters with a low Challenge-Rating in the first levels.
There is some special charm or glamour in the trope of little hero riding a monster (pet/friend).
I had an orphaned halfling who was unusually short, even for a halfling. He was found as a baby, barely alive, as the rest of his family was killed by orcs as they were moving to a different city. The town he was raised in was isolated and on the edges of civilization, so people were trained from birth to be self-sufficient. The best fighter in that town was a human ranger who fought with two long swords, and he taught the halfling to fight. Of course, based on his size, it was two short swords. So, this halfling was not fat, jolly and happy, he was short, strong and focused. Hated orcs with a passion. He was fun to play.
This is an old thread so it predates the playtest, but here are the benefits the OneD&D halfling will be getting over the 2014 one:
Brave now works on both avoiding and ending Frightened effects
No more speed penalty
Floating ability scores by default
Free Stealth proficiency
You start with a level 1 feat now, so you can for example pick Lucky to make the luckiest character ever (and then grab Bountiful Luck while you're at it, your party will love you!) or you can pick something like Skilled to start the game with 8+ proficiencies (1 from species, 5 from background, 2+ from class.)
Can use Heavy weapons if they have 13+ Str
Imo that's plenty of buffs and will make for a lot of interesting halfling characters that weren't possible before.
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Halfthings
Happy homebodies.
To make them adventurers and really interesting you basically have to take away their happy homebody personality.
"Happy homebodies" is a pretty gross oversimplification of even just the PHB description of the race. It specifically notes that halflings will go into the world based out of curiosity or wanderlust, and also note that a halfling community can be a transient one rather than living in a single place.
Never liked halflings, or for that matter hobbits. They are just child sized humans.
So, I guess the trope is that halflings are slightly chubby, happy farmers who like in cozy houses under the hills, with round doors.
But you don't have to put up with that. In Darksun, halflings are little jungle devils who hunt using powerful poisons, and eat their prey, regardless of their level of sapience. In Eberron, halflings are plains barbarian who ride raptors. You could decide that halflings have an affinity with earth, and worms, and beetles and fungi and mold and decay and necrotic magics, and they live under the ground with their carrion crawler pets. Or they could be treetop dwellers, and have parrot scouts and poisonous frog pets and couatl allies and little feathered wingsuits, dropping nets on annoying giants (that is, size M creatures) and selling the better ones as slaves to the drow.
Or you know, something.
Not sure about combining couatl and slavery. That might be a bit of a miss. Are there evil, black couatl? I guess there could be, since there can be other kinds of halflings.
Edit: Urgh! So it seems coatl are the 'ultimate good'. So I have to propose the 'fallen coatl' - like an angel. The fallen couatl is burnt and broken, it's feathers blackened and ruined as it fell from heaven. It loses it's flight, it's various healing powers, and it's shielded mind. Instead, it gains Hateful Mind, which opponents have to Will save against, or suffer the effects of a Bane spell. It can spit venom as a ranged attack, and it retains the ability to constrict, and change shape. When polymorped, if it wants to hide it's hateful influence, it needs to a Wis check and beat the passive perception of those around it - otherwise, they have a very dubious feeling about it.
Maybe it also has a host of undead servants? I mean, adjust as needed to hit the correct CR.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Loved the Dark Sun halflings. Was first introduced to those cannibalistic psychos in Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and I’ve loved them ever since.
I never completed that. How were they in there? oO
=)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
They honestly didn’t have any story to themselves, they were just located in a Demi plane in a planar sphere. There were maybe three islands of rocky desert with giant bones sticking out here and there, rib cages and massive skulls and such. I think one of them had a quick little pop up message about how he was looking up from the corpse of a partially eaten man, wiped his bloody lips and said, “Dinner!” or some such. It was just wild to me to see halflings like that so I started reading up on Athas.
Your PC can date female halflings and it is allowed by the law.
Halflings can ride monster mounts.
In my game, halflings speak with a funny Andalucian(South Spain) accent.
Halflings are perfect for survival horror.
Halflings were cute decades before baby Yoda was famous and popular.
I would like to add a "martial maneuver"* like a "jump" spell effect, the difference is to reload with a Concentration check. I like the wuxia-like stories where the "little" hero defeat large monsters. Or magic/magitek jumping stits.
* Tome of Battle: Book of the nine Swords.
I don't wanna start drama (in fact I'm hoping my comment here can stand in for anybody else who wants to say something, so that we can just move on), but I'd like you to take a minute, look inward, and ask yourself what the word "female" is doing in that sentence. How it got there. You don't need to respond, just think about it. Anyway, moving on!
The ability to ride, say, a wolf is pretty neat. I think Medium creatures are a lot more numerous in the early summoning spells, plus Beastmaster companion animals and Druid Wild Shapes. If that's not enough to make a mechanically-minded player excited to play a halfling, then idk. I'm pretty sure you can fit a halfling through the opening of a bag of holding. Maybe that's worthwhile? Lol.
[REDACTED]
And small PCs can ride flying monsters because they are lighter. Medium PCs are too heavy to ride flying monsters with a low Challenge-Rating in the first levels.
There is some special charm or glamour in the trope of little hero riding a monster (pet/friend).
I had an orphaned halfling who was unusually short, even for a halfling. He was found as a baby, barely alive, as the rest of his family was killed by orcs as they were moving to a different city. The town he was raised in was isolated and on the edges of civilization, so people were trained from birth to be self-sufficient. The best fighter in that town was a human ranger who fought with two long swords, and he taught the halfling to fight. Of course, based on his size, it was two short swords. So, this halfling was not fat, jolly and happy, he was short, strong and focused. Hated orcs with a passion. He was fun to play.
This is an old thread so it predates the playtest, but here are the benefits the OneD&D halfling will be getting over the 2014 one:
Imo that's plenty of buffs and will make for a lot of interesting halfling characters that weren't possible before.