Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the sixth part of our race series if you want to look at it that way. We’re gonna start covering the halfling. The halfling is a relatively unique playabe race in dnd 5E, simply because it’s usually just used for the memes i guess i don’t know anyone who seriously maine’s halflings and i know a lot of people who play dnd.
There are a couple here and there, but they usually just pick them for either flavor purposes or because they have a certain zebashu build in mind but it is a pretty strong race overall and there’s a handful of the sub races that really can elevate it and it has a handful of unique feats that are attached to it to make it a little bit superior overall.
But it’s, i think it’s a lot to do with it’s not as flashy and there’s lot about it that many consider to be quite safe and people don’t usually play dnd with the intent of being safe, you know! So maybe that’s why and if you are playing with the intent of being a safe character then there are technically better races to go with depending on how you define it. In any case doesn’t really matter so much for this article but yeah we’re going to be covering the halfling which is found in the player’s handbook. Let’s dive right into them by first taking a look at their naming conventions.
Naming Conventions
Male Names: alton, ander, cade, corrin, eldon, errich, finnan, garret, lindal, lyle.
Female Names: andry, bree, callie, cora, euphemia, jillian, kithri, lavinia, lidda, merla.
Family Names: brushgather, goodbarrel, greenbottle, high-hill, hilltopple, leagallow.
I gotta say halfling naming conventions are probably my favorite in all of dnd. Maybe with the exception of humans of course and maybe lizardfolk as well that i’m thinking about it. But they’re up there. Reason being they’re really simple, they don’t play with a lot of weird syllables, it’s pretty much very similar to humans.
So alton, ander, cade, corrin, eldon for male names and for female names andry, bree, callie, cora. You know it’s really really simple stuff and then their family names of course, brushgather, goodbarrel, greenbottle, high-hill. You know it’s really simple stuff.
It’s really nice, if you’ve been listening for a while you know i’m rather opinionated about character names and i like it when they’re easy to pronounce and easy to remember and i’ve been in games where everyone was like sylvan, sildon, syllis whatever you know it’s like okay keeping all you staright is gonna be a little bit of a headache.
In any case you know i like their naming conventions are relatively similar to humans in the modern day you know first name and then a family name so just bear that in mind. Now let’s take a look at their traits here.
Traits
In terms of Age halflings reach adulthood at the age of about 20 and generally lives into the middle of his or her second century. So they’re quite long lived all things considered but they do mature at approximately the same rate as humans do at least for the beginning portion. But would stand to reason that long-lived halflings would be, you know fairly common given their safer nature i would say or luckier nature would probably be a better way of putting it.
In terms of Size they average to be about three feet tall and way only about 40 pounds. Their size is considered small as a result. This is kind of where the whole halfling dart meme becomes a thing and it’s rather effective because carry weight in dnd doesn’t make a ton of sense at a glance. So it’s feasible that most familiars would actually be able to carry you, which is an interesting thing to consider.
If you’re not familiar with how carry weight works in dnd 5e by the way it’s your strength score multiplied by 15 so in the case of the average halfling it’s like anyone with a score of three or greater. Really would be able to move a halfling around with virtually no problems. So it is quite cool, if you perceive in that way you know.
In terms of Alignment most halflings are a lawful good. As a rule, they are good-hearted and kind, hate to see others in pain and have no tolerance for oppression. That last part would likely lead to a call to adventure. Outside of that, you know i guess they have a general whimsical nature to them that would probably lead to them leaving the home, but a more concrete call to adventure would be like for example their family was enslaved or something like that you know where they witnessed tyranny and they swore an oath to eradicate it for lack of a better term.
There’s a couple different ways you could approach that but it’s. I think that’s the whole reason it’s really there is that they need to have a hook, you know. Now let’s move on to their mechanics.
Mechanics
In terms of ability score improvements they gain a plus two to dexterity which is absolutely fantastic for almost every class. Dexterity is one of those abilities where it affects a lot of what you can do in game and it will likely save your neck and some life or death scenarios. Especially once magic spells start getting more and more common and you have to make those dex saves more and more frequently.
In terms of speed they have a slightly reduced walking speed of 25 feet and in languages they can read, speak and write common and halfling. They will also gain access to halfling nimbleness you can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
So anything larger than small in the halflings case, this also works fairly well with spells like reduce for example that change the size of either your or i guess reduce/enlarge. So anything that has to deal with size this is quite beneficial with. There are optional rules that allow you to kind of tumble through enemies and shove your way through them. However if you’re playing a strictly rules as written game, this is about as good as you can get. There’s also no penalty incurred for doing this which is also quite nice.
So you don’t have to worry about difficult terrain or anything like that. However you may need to worry about an attack of opportunity depending on how you go about it. And if you thought that was all, you’d be slightly mistaken. They have some other traits worth discussing.
Other Traits
The first of the traits is called Lucky when you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check or saving throw, you can re roll the die and must use the new roll.
This is what halflings are most well known for. If you combine this feature with the bountiful luck racial feat and the lucky feat it becomes pretty obvious that you’re not gonna be rolling any ones and you or your party for that matter which is pretty impressive when you actually consider that there’s a five percent odds of rolling a one and now that’s no longer a thing it just leads to a re-roll.
I guess in most cases you do have to use the new roll or there’s some form of cost with re-rolling it, outside of that but you know it’s pretty damn good and if you stack this with the divination wizard it’s like man that’s even better and if you stack it again with the celestial source word then you know it gets a little messed up too so.
It’s really good, you know if you’re using like the one as a crit fail system then it’s even better because you’re never really gonna fail or at least the odds of you doing so are incredibly low. And they also gain access to Brave which next to lucky is you know it’s okay. And it’s you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Frightened is one of those conditions where you’re likely gonna see it pretty frequently at every level of play, it’s a very common trait for a variety of creatures to have, there’s also a handful of spells that utilize the frightened condition quite effectively. So it’s a pretty good thing to have advantage in as far as conditions are concerned.
That being said though, you know depending on what your role in the party maybe and depending on what spells you have access to and what other class features you have. This might not be a huge deal, but it only takes one time for it to be useful for it to be worth it. Because the frightened condition is pretty detrimental in a lot of circumstances. So you know it’s okay for what it is. And that’s really about it for the halfling. So let’s get to my personal thoughts.
Thoughts
I’ve gone back and forth on why the halfling isn’t as popular as a lot of the other PHB races. The main reason i can think of is it’s just visually not a very appealing character to those who wish to pursue the hero archetype, you know like they’re always kind of cheery and the odds of them really experiencing consistent hardship are pretty low and the odds of them experiencing personal growth despite their long-lived lives are conceivably pretty low, it’s interesting.
There’s a lot you can do with a lot of the sub races that really entrench the flavor of the halfling or at least change it up significantly enough where you can expect a different kind of of adventurer. But at a glance you know a lot of the artwork for them is pretty cheery and it’s them dancing and it’s like yeah it’s really not what i imagined my badass character to be behaving like and it doesn’t help that a lot of the cheery role players tend to take it a little bit too far from time to time and annoy some other party members so maybe that’s a little bit to do with it as well.
However i’m not 100 percent certain about that last part. In any case mechanically they’re quite good a plus two bonus to dexterity is always nice. Halfling nimbleness is really cool if you’re in a pinch, lucky is just fantastic overall. Their racial feats seem to be pretty well though out. And the brave is nice to have around if for no other reason, it reminds me a lot of the fae ancestry just a little bit different you know it’s just helps you out with a condition that may or may not change the flow of battle if implemented at the right time. So it’s fairly similar in that regard.
Conclusion
So in any case let me know what you think of the halfling down beneath in the comments section. Be sure to mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you have regarding them. That being said, i hope you have a great day and as always happy adventuring.