Opinion: I Don't Like Halflings

Still not really up for digging into the editing part of the Core Rulebook at the moment (full-time remote learning for a kindergartener takes up a lot of the week). Instead, we get to go over a relatively unpopular opinion I have about one of the core ancestries: halflings.

This is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness article, so bear with me. Also, this post is in no way saying that halflings are bad/unbalanced/racist/anything else you want to throw out. It is purely an opinion on them and what I the little that I think is worth pilfering. For my games. Everybody else is free to use halflings all they want and have fun with them. 

Image courtesy of Paizo, Inc.

…Halflings. I do not like them. Don't get me wrong, I think they're fine in Lord of the Rings and a few other settings, but in general, I think they make for boring and one-note characters. I've yet to see a halfling played anything close to seriously that wasn't a rogue. Or the player takes it and turns it into a joke and completely goes against everything established about the ancestry (one player wanted to make a super angry/hyperactive Vegeta-like sorcerer halfling, for example). 

Could it be a problem with my players? Maybe. But looking through the write up of halflings, I’m standing by my thoughts on them.

Those thoughts are that halflings add very little to the game/world on their own and are EASILY replaced by humans in 99% of the situations. Without requiring the change of anything in the story of the setting. To make matters worse, Paizo brought in another race to take the place of the wanderlust and curious small characters that get into more trouble than they should in the form of the goblin ancestry, and the write up of goblins invites more variety of character types/ideas.

To be fair, I was very against goblins being included as a standard player option when it was announced. I enjoyed running We Be Goblins, but …goblins were evil, rotten, bad, etc. Since playing through Age of Ashes, they've grown on me immensely. But, they take up most of the niche that people who wanted to play halflings were looking for and offered more variety while fitting with the established lore really well as halfling replacements.

Back to halflings.

As described, they are effectively short, long-lived humans who have no homeland of their own. They instead blend in with other ancestries and live in their shadows. Supposedly they add their own unique twists to the culture around them, but it's hard to see what that twist would be based on how the write-up. They don't seem to have anything unique about them except that they are …optimistic?

Almost every section of their entry makes sure to mention how they tend to adopt most of the surrounding ancestry's culture instead of having anything of their own going on. Except for names. That does not make for a very interesting ancestry in my opinion.

I just don't get what the narrative hook is to playing a halfling. I get the mechanical hook. Stealthy/lucky/small. But narratively, I get nothing that you can't get from other ancestries.

I’m going to go through the halfling mechanics at this point and discuss what's worth keeping and what's worth tossing. I feel like I’m just going to be repeating myself if I continue talking about this. You’ll either agree or you won’t.

Heritages

Most of the halfling heritages are fine. I don't have an issue with them (or even their feats…mostly). It is an issue with the package as a whole and how they fit into the overall game and setting of Pathfinder.

Gutsy Halfling – This is a solid heritage and I think it's a good option to add to humans. It steps on the toes of their Haughty Obstinacy, but it could still work.

Nomadic Halfling – The weakest of the heritages in almost every game type. I've played in, and listened to, many games were the only real language spoken was common for pretty much the entire campaign. This could also be added to humans if you really wanted it, but I'd probably leave it out. Mostly because of the human’s General Training feat allowing them to take the Multilingual feat.

Wildwood Halfling – A very interesting heritage. I wouldn't port this one over to humans…though porting it over to goblins would work.

The Twilight Halfling heritage is the standard "in some versions of D&D, halflings have had low-light vision, so here's your way of getting it" heritage. It's the only one that is very specific to halflings. Hillock Halfling is a close second. It probably could be ported over to humans, but I don't think I'd bother.

Ancestry Feats

Distracting Shadows – This could just be a Skill Feat tied to Stealth (requiring 2^nd level and Expert proficiency). I don’t see what is specific about halflings that the other short ancestries couldn’t also do this. If the medium-sized ancestries also wanted to do this when they’re fighting large-sized creatures, go for it.

Halfling Luck – This is a fun feat. It would be a great option as a 1^st level General Feat called Lucky.

Sure Feet – It's a fun feat. You could probably get away with making this a 1^st level General Feat requiring a Dexterity of 14 and Strength of 12, but I’d probably leave it alone.

The other first-level feats are…mixed. Halfling Lore has got to be one of the most useless lore categories ever conceived. The training in Acrobatics and Stealth is nice, though. Halfling Lore, Halfling Weapon Familiarity, Titan Slinger, Unfettered Halfling, and Watchful Halfling are all okay, most of those being the standard package of ancestry feats applied to each non-human ancestry. They are not needed if halflings are out and can all be thrown away. Watchful Halfling could be a 7^th level General feat requiring Master proficiency in Perception if a table wished.

Their fifth level feats can also be thrown away. Humans can effectively take Cultural Adaptability already and Halfling Weapon Trickster only matters if you have Halfling Weapon Familiarity.

Guiding Luck – If Halfling Luck becomes the general feat Lucky, then this should become a 7^th or 11^th level General Feat requiring the Lucky feat. I’d lean towards 11^th level, but I don’t think it’d break anything by giving it at 7^th.

Irrepressible isn't bad, but unless you're moving the Gutsy heritage to another heritage, leave it out.

Neither of the 13^th level feats do anything for me. I don’t like Ceaseless Shadows, but it could just be the way that it is written and my lack of processing power. I’m not sure. The other one is a further improvement on Halfling Weapon Familiarity, so… unneeded.

Summary

Halflings are boring, and the other races fill the same roles in the world that halflings do (and usually are more interesting to boot). I defaulted to just removing everything related to halflings from my game/game world, but digging into the ancestry, I've found some things that I do want to steal.

• Wildwood Goblin – Formally Wildwood Halfling that is now a Goblin Heritage.
• Distracting Shadows – This becomes a 2^nd level Stealth-based Skill Feat that requires Expert Proficiency in Stealth.
• Lucky – Formally Halfling Luck and becomes a 1^st level General Feat.
• Guiding Luck – This becomes an 11^th level General Feat that has the prerequisite of the Lucky feat.

Am I being overly harsh on the ancestry? Probably. I'm not telling anyone to remove them from their game/game worlds. But, since removing them I have not regretted it at all.

Bonus

I wanted to look through the stuff for halflings from the Advanced Player's Guide and see if anything was interesting in there. The result… no. There isn't anything in there that I want to add to another ancestry. Half the ancestry feats from the APG feel like they are focused on turning the halfling into a giant slayer, which seems off-brand a bit.

I’m not going through them. I just don’t care enough.