3E halfings suck.
There is a distinct lack of originality when the best they can do is take something quite unique in one world (Dragonlance's kender) and force it upon another race (halflings). And for what?
It seems to me that it just ruins the whole point of having an unique campaign world when you're stuck with all the baggage of the core rules, and then the core rules get to steal the best of your originality on a whim.
End rant.
I like 3rd Edition halflings. They're quite unlike kender.
and kender are kender ...
3e-halflings???? no halflings in my opinion ... I don't need them.
The result isn't a 'real' halfling, but not a kender either. I liked the old halflings (and still use them occasionally), but I like the new halflings too.
It's just the kender I never liked, and never will.
Originally posted by TranquilDarkness
It's just the kender I never liked, and never will.
What!? someone restrain this man...
Originally posted by The White Sorcerer
And you think they should've remained hobbits?
Why not? They've always been hobbits.
Kender = Good
New Halfings /= Kender
If I want hobbits, I'll just take humans and make them midgets.
The similarities to kender are purely cosmetic anyways. Personality wise the two have absolutely nothing in common. DnD has spent all of these years moving AWAY from the Tolkien stereotype, each campaign setting and book developing its own flavor separate from The Hobbit, finally with the new edition someone finally updated the halflings in a way other than their names.
Here is the article.
I like the fact that the halfling "borrowed" so many kender traits. I agree with Primus that every hobit.. uhmm.. I mean halfling did have to be the exception to the rule.
But I don't agree that the change is cosmetic in any way. It's more like a "kender in halfing clothing".
*cue theme music*
Riddles,
Pipeweed,
and Excellent theiving skills
These are the ingredients to the Halfling.
But then WotC accidently added one ingedient to the concoction: Kender
*EXPLOSION*
Thus, the 3E halfing was born!
*end theme music*
They really did water down the "intense" kender nature and add in the likable traits of hobbits to make the new halfling. :D
Primus, did you borrow my brain. :D :D
That was the big thing about 2E halfings that I never understood. From everything I have read they are fat, lazy, and without a single adventurous bone in their body. How could they have ever been a core race for player characters.
I have never played a halfling adventurer. I always used them for NPCs that own bars, or merchant shops, or for that dude who is getting mugged by the villain.
I have played before, and would easily do so again, kender. If for nothing else than to irritate the other PCs. But kender are by far a whole hell of alot more interesting than 2E halflings.
And to top it all off the kender were supposed to be a subrace of halfling (in 2E).
I can understand why 3E halflings have taken a page from the "kender handbook." It makes a lot more sense for halflings to be adventurers now.
There is one line from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" that sums up 2E halflings very.
Forgive me if I get this wrong.
Gandalf on speaking about hobbits "You can learn everything about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you."
That is because when you do nothing, you will surprise someone when you do do something.
::Makes a nixing motion to the four quadrones playing volleyball with a mass of gray matter. They don't understand.::
::Sighs and commands a Secundus to command a Tertian, to tell a Quarton, to tell a Quinton, to tell a Hexton, to tell a Septon, to tell an Octon, to tell a Nonaton, to tell a Decaton, to tell a Pentadrone, to tell the Quadrones to stop playing and get Darth's brain out of there.::
Cough, yes, borrow....
Originally posted by darthsylver
And to top it all off the kender were supposed to be a subrace of halfling (in 2E).
I can understand why 3E halflings have taken a page from the "kender handbook." It makes a lot more sense for halflings to be adventurers now.
Woah! Kender are *not* a subrace of halfings. They never, ever were in 2E. I think you read the Completel Halfing (and something else?) book and got confused. Wanderlust driven Kender ventured across worlds and met Halfings. Eventually they were made *honory* halfings. But they *are* not a Halfing subrace in any real way.
The main things I dislike about the new halfing are as follows:
1. Pointed Ears
2. No Fur on Feat (I hope they still don't wear shoes)
3. Bonus against Fear
4. Communal Ownership of Property/Handling
These changes really go to far in terms of stealing things straight from the Kender. Now, #2 is relatively minor, but it is part of stealing the physical description of Kender. Thin I understand, since they needed to lose girth for adventuring. Pointed ears though!? Egads, pictures of halfings look just like Kender now! This and the feet make for a huge shift away from 2E...and an unnecessary one. Making them thin was enough of a physical change...nothing else needed to be done.
The bonus against fear is also something they didn't need. Halfings could have gotten some other bonus, or skill affinities. Halflings have never been particularly fearful in the past, and now suddenly they are? Ugh.
Lastly, the Communal Owndership of Property and Handling is as blatant a rip-off as I have ever seen. Just because a society isn't particularly capitialistic, doesn't mean they are Communal owners. Afterall, 2E halflings did *love* creature comforts. They could still be adventurers and love a good bed a bit more than their fellows. At the very least, tone it down, but don't get rid of it.
If they changed all of the above, I would really like the 3E halfing...as it is now....they are getting a bit houseruled in any campaign I run....though I might just have Kender instead (even if it isn't on Krynn).
-Drachasor
So back in the latter part of 2e, when there was a big fad for having all of the worlds interconnected and such, Wanderlusting kenders wandered on over to every other D&D realm. Now, because Kender populate so quickly (to offset their death ratio), they eventually bred out the old 2e halflings, perhaps merging with the species to create the 'watered down' mentality we see in 3e halflings.
Seeing the rapid growth of the kender population in the multiverse, all the various gods of worlds met and agreed than having an 'open world' policy was truly a horrible, tragic idea and abandoned it forthright, so that no other species went and infested other worlds as the kender had.
Yeah, it's stretching it pretty far, but I like it.
The Kender drove old halflings to extinction! I think it's sweet, anyway.Originally posted by The Udjat
Yeah, it's stretching it pretty far, but I like it.
I am not such a big fan of the kender breeding like rabbits bit.
I had thought of this too by the way....and I think it is more amusing than a realistic or good position. (but it is very amusing).
-Drachasor
I have to agree with the sentiment that hobbits don't make the best adventuring race as they're content to just sit in their hobbit-holes. It's true that most adventuring hobbits are the exception to the rule.
Then again, aren't all good drow characters? What about elves in Dragonlance, who often don't get away from their forests? In a way, aren't all player characters exceptions to the rule?
I'm not entirely certain on how hobbits related to the creation of kender, but in my mind, the kender were created to be a total opposite of hobbits so that they would have a reason to adventure. Hobbits are happy enough sitting in their little hobbit-holes, tilling the land, etc. They never go past the Shire. Kender, meanwhile, have wanderlust, which takes them to all corners of Ansalon.
When 3e came out, I'm sure they were trying not only to get away from the hobbit stereotype, but also to get a race that worked well for adventuring. The kender, obviously, was of great influence in this, as they were the first halfling type (to my knowledge) to break the mold and show how halflings could adventure.
So yes, kender have been a model on which to build the 3e halfling. I believe they also looked at the Dark Sun halfling as well.
I've been a bit uncertain on how I feel about 3e halflings, especially since I've never had opportunity to play one. I miss the hobbit side to them. I'm not sure if I like them "borrowing" from the kender so much. At the same time, I think the game designers made a very logical move.
After reading Kipper's comments above, I think I've come to the following conclusion:
The 3e halfling is a "generic" halfling. It can be molded and shaped to meet the needs of the individual setting. The hobbits of Middle-Earth and kender of Dragonlance are two ways that halflings can be modified to fit an individual campaign.
(Hrm...a kender with big furry feat that likes to smoke pipeweed... )
Anyway, those are my general thoughts on the 3e halfling.
As a side note, I once had a homebrewed world that I created that set up "halfling" race that had two subraces: hobbits and kender. I figured they'd work sort of like this:
Kender: "Cousin!"
Hobbit: "No relation!"
:D
Originally posted by Drachasor
4. Communal Ownership of Property/Handling
Whoa! Where you getting this from? Halflings don't "handle." If they steal, they're thieves (and proud of it).
They're like 3 foot tall gypsies, with a vibrant culture and a real dangerous streak. They're nothing like the old halflings, apart from the name and the penchant for indulging in the finer things in life, and they're nothing like kender, at least in terms of their personality.
The 3E designers wanted a race that consisted of people who would be as likely to adventure as any other race. So, they're nomadic swashbuckling thrill-seekers, riding wild dogs and borrowing about as much from the elves of Elfquest, the hin of Mystara, the feral halflings from Dark Sun, and the lightfoot halflings of Faerun as they do from the kender. In other words, they're the homegenization of all the halflings of the D&D worlds.
And I like 'em.
Cheers,
Cam
They're now just half-sized humans. Period.
They had a point when they were hobbits. They at least had a fantasy pedigree to work with. Now they're like some kind of politically correct validation mechanism for the vertically challenged!
I'm surprised they didn't overhaul the gnomes more too. They were also another loser race that was so minor that they didn't even warrant their own Complete Book of.... back when TSR was doing those. They had to share with the halflings.
In Dark Sun everything was a bad
fun-house-mirror version of the regular races so that was fine there. And the kender add some fun to the Dragonlance setting. It's worth noting though that in Dragons of Autumn Twilight Tas seemed noticeably more "adult", at least in the beginning, than later writing made him look. I kind of liked the edge he had then.And, grrr.....
Kender are NOT a (true) subrace of Halfings!
The closest they are in relation is honorary cousins.
As the Complete Book of Gnomes and Halflings states:
"The fabled Kender is a curious example of convergent evolution. Their native world of Krynn is one of the few with no true halfings of its own, yet this evological "niche" is filled by another race which, although unrelated, is similar in size, shape, appearence, and culture: the Kender. Hairfeets, Stouts, and Tallfellows who have been to Krynn or have met Kender wanderers on other worlds have adopted them as honorary cousins, despite misgivings about the Kender's complete lack of the prized Halfing virtue of common sense." (emphasis added)
While this is a second edition source, it does clearly show that Kender and Halflings are not the same species. I don't like making them of the same species, nor do I like unncessary similarities. So, thin halflings with a bit more penchant for exploring is fine....but why do we need any of the other similarities?
As a side note, this book also has the following great line about Kender: "The life expectency of a Kender is similar to a Hairfoot, but it must be noted that, due to their curiousity and fearlessness, Kender are far more likely than any other halfing subrace* to meet with a sudden and violent demise. They are not suicidal, but they do get carried away."
-Drachasor
*They call them a subrace after clarifying that they are not a true subrace for convience only.
Indeed, I'm rereading The Hobbit now, and throughout the book it goes on about how not only Bilbo has an adventure-some streak in him, but it runs through his mother's side of the family (the Tooks) who had their fair share of adventurers.
In general, it's just disapproved of by other hobbits, it seems.
But then, like Trampas said, the majority of drow, elves, even humans when you think about it, aren't adventurers either.
The kender, of course, see adventuring as the primary reason for breathing.
Unless of course you read that Dragon magazine article. However, that was just to add depth to halflings for Novice DM's, and is not officially how halflings are. Like Cam says, they are a homogenization of all the world's halflings, and were designed so that they could be the "everyman" (and thus hold all possible human personalities) only smaller.
'sides. I think it is only a good thing for the setting if DL comes up with some good ideas that people want to use. It will bring more fans to the setting.
Originally posted by ferratus
The halflings may have borrowed a few physical traits from the kender, but they are completely different from kender in personality, society and customs. Besides, what did they really take from kender? The fact that they are little men with pointed ears? Big whoop.
Well, there's more than that. Kipper's article does a pretty good job of comparing and contrasting the 3e halfling to kender.
Unless of course you read that Dragon magazine article. However, that was just to add depth to halflings for Novice DM's, and is not officially how halflings are.
Technically, everything in Dragon is 100% official. However, I haven't read the particular article in question so I don't know how it is presented.
Ferratus, can you tell us a bit about this article?
Like Cam says, they are a homogenization of all the world's halflings, and were designed so that they could be the "everyman" (and thus hold all possible human personalities) only smaller.
Wow. Cam Banks and Ferratus agree on something.
'sides. I think it is only a good thing for the setting if DL comes up with some good ideas that people want to use. It will bring more fans to the setting.
Wow. Ferratus and I agree on something. ;)
My son wanted to add a smiley, so here's the latest from him:
as for in 3e halflings having pointed ears? Seen lord of the rings? seen most hobbit depictions? they got pointed ears too. big huge elephantsized ears, but pointed none the less. Also, in 3e, every race but humans and gnomes got pointed ears. Even the dwarves.
Originally posted by Magus_Extreme
Also, in 3e, every race but humans and gnomes got pointed ears. Even the dwarves.
Erm.....Dwarves did not!
*looks at page 14 of PHB....nope...no pointed ears here.
Dwarves are thankfully pointy-ear-less.
-Drachasor