D&D Halflings are Boring (and how to make them better)

hello half humans it's me Antonio this is pointy hat and welcome to DND with a Twist you guessed it this is a show where I peruse the DND catalog and choose one of their Twisted little thingies now this not this oh definitely not this I look at it tell you about it and then I give it a new twist that you can then take for free and use in your games so when I think of half links I think of gentlemen we do not stop till Nightfall what breakfast I've already had it we've had one yes what about second breakfast Appling is the race for Stoners and people with cottage core Pinterest boards halflings are three feet tall kings that look inconsistent we have uh tieflings can't be purple situation on our hands here halflings are supposed to have completely normal human proportions their size is just shrunk down like someone hit the transform button in Photoshop but they are often described and drawn as having slightly cartoony or proportions with larger hands feet and Heads This one is clearly the superior option and sometimes they are drawn as these bobble-headed ass Abominations with those little doll hands people use as a gag online and these little feeties I hate these I can't stand these I reject these I rebuke these name of the Lord whoever wrote the brief for this that was then sent to a poor unsuspecting artist deserves jail time okay so what else what else um they can't grow beards so we don't confuse them with dwarves sometimes they're depicted Barefoot sometimes and um okay fine yeah I'll say it halflings are Hobbits they are just just Hobbits that's it halfling is just Wizards of the Coast way to tiptoe around the Tolkien estate bandhammer by making a thing that is as close to Hobbit without actually calling it a hobbit halflings are short because Hobbits are short halflings are good at hiding because Hobbits are good at hiding halflings enjoy simple Comforts and spend their day smoking and tending to cut a score aesthetic blogs because that's what Hobbits did hell halfling's luck is just a clear reference to the amount of times that Bilbo is impossibly lucky throughout the Hobbit book oh oh it's that thing they can give us as many bubble-headed Abominations from hell as they want if you look at first and second edition illustrations they gave them big furry feet and had them walking around Barefoot I'm sure someone in the comments will feel the need to fight me on it and please do up my engagement like comment and subscribe fight me but I don't see how you could fight this they were literally called Hobbits in the first editions of the game until the Tolkien Escape which is notoriously so happy told them to stop it so Wizards just changed the name interesting how Wizards fought corporate greed by skirting around copyright law I just I find that funny some might say it's ironic anyway side note apparently the tolki to State wanted them to also remove the words dragon and elf because they consider those of theirs too hope they got some numbing cream after that massive [ __ ] stretch so okay good vibes only little guys we get it we got the basics out of the way let's dive deeper into what we know about halflings so I've alluded to it a bunch but having society and culture really revolves around vibing they're sort of forgive the term Hufflepuff coded halflings care a whole lot about being comfortable at all times constantly forever and are fans of the simple things in life like good snacks and getting Blitz the high habit off of the halfling equivalent of catnip they don't see Marshall prowess and military strength as anything even worth aspiring to and when conflict Rises they go straight to diplomacy There's No bummers Good Vibes only hippie-esque mode of government has resulted in pretty much every race being at least okay with halflings you really gotta go out of your way to make these guys dislike you in terms of morals they care a whole lot about Hospitality which is why your DM will always default to a halfling when describing a Tavern Keeper in a panic because they thought you would go to the castle first and now you guys want to get shot but they're also all about community and family caring a lot about their familial units neighborhoods towns Etc now you might be thinking these guys sound very sweet and nice you might also be thinking this sounds boring and like a race that was basically made to be NPCs and both of those are sort of correct to kind of offset that second one people need to play these after all one of their defining traits other than The Rustic charm love of hallucinogens and very punctable sides is the halflings wonderlost and slightness some halflings will start to wonder what's on the other side of the cottage core Hills in the tinkle bottom Shire or whatever awful Beatrix Potter as name you gave their Town not all of them experience this but it's common enough for them to have a name to to it halflings call this having Fancy Feet and those havelinks with the fanciest defeats will experience this innate curiosity and need to see new things and find new stuff and then go back to twinkle bottom Shire God I hope that's a working title and tell Mommy and Poppy and Granny and grandpoppy and their 50 siblings all about their travels there's wonderlust along with a half links proclivity to use charm to hide their true intentions and get out of trouble scott-free make them a better fit for adventuring even though I can assure you you will find them more as NPCs that are Inns and taverns than anything else that's sort of the catch with making them so lucky that they basically avoided most conflict in their history yes I referred to this before but halflings are lucky extraordinarily so supernaturally so halfling luck is literally a racial feature a halfling when stealing and alerted the lookout after making a noise a cat will scream at just the right time to distract them a horde on their way to war passes through a halfling village they conveniently happen to miss all the paths that lead to the Village caught by the guard after sneaking somewhere to find some important documents regards this happens to have a thing for short Kings it's super nice natural because it's literally a gift from God yondala the patron deity of halflings and of hair extensions apparently give to them their look she felt that halflings were not particularly strong nor magical nor dexterous nor smart okay okay we get it lady jeez those are your kids maybe be kinder anyway she was worried about how halflings would survive in a world full of creatures and people that could squish them down without a second thought so she gave them luck it's literally a survival mechanism for the race in a very interesting twist it has been said that their luck is the reason why halflings are so laid back and all about staying home and eating snacks as a race they just haven't had much Misfortune other than that one time where the different tribes fought each other when the emo cousins decided to worship a furry God of evil we'll get to it don't worry it's pretty easy to be all about Good Vibes only when you literally have Divine luck protecting you from the consequences of your actions oh you again there just hasn't been much of a need for halfling culture to ever develop a military or you know the concept of anxiety Lucky them be nice okay we got it halflings are Hobbits with a Twist how fitting for this show we've covered what halflings are what they are about and we've talked about how luck is literally a racial ability for them so how about we take a look at those abilities if you decide to make your very own little mousy boy and you use racial ability scores your decks increases by two you are one of the small races which means you are just plain worse than medium creatures great your speed is 25 and believe me those five feet will make a difference and will be annoying this is somewhat mitigated by halflings getting some pretty nifty racial abilities the first one being Nimble which allows you to move through the space of any creature one size larger than yours and since you're a size small that includes medium creatures it won't offset the five feet of speed loss but it will somewhat mitigate it Brave makes it so that you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened symbolizing halflings being constantly chill about everything and their immunity to anxiety and finally their trademark racial ability lucky halfling's Divine gift of luck translates into in my opinion one of the most powerful abilities in the game be careful of who you make fun in high school when you roll one in an attack saving throw or ability check so all roles using a D20 you roll again what are you waiting for me to say you get to use this at next number of times no you always get this every time no limit to the amount of uses this is amazing it's really really powerful I honestly don't know if it's better than the lucky feed since this one has unlimited uses but if you take both you can basically say goodbye to ever rolling critical failures I heard some DMS banned this along with the lucky feat and like whatever man you do you but if you're that afraid of someone succeeding at a check maybe don't call for it honestly halflings and gnomes are already hard to tell apart and have a sort of shaky identity as distinct races so taking away the one defining feature of halflink seems like a shake to me so yeah those are the halflink's basic features so let's see what sub races have in store for us first up Lightfoot halflings these are halflings everything I've said before applies to them they are the vanillaist version of halfling lightfoots tend to develop wonderlust more than other halflings and are also the most likely out of all of them to live among other races halflings are already likely to do that so lightfoots are just super likely I guess this is translated by one to Charisma and their trademark ability is naturally stealthy which allows you to hide if you're obscured by a creature that is one size larger than you so medium creatures count this is sort of cute like hiding behind your party members and stuff and that's it honestly this one sure is basic moving on Stout halflings are dwarves they are described as shorter and thicker than your average halfling some real compact boys here since a regular halfway is three feet tall honestly most if not all halfling sub races are very uninspired in terms of looks it's not enough that gnomes and halflings are hard to tell apart apparently we also need to make all different types of halflings virtually indistinguishable from each other too for what it's worth Stout halflings tend to resemble dwarves more than your regular halflings being all about crafting rather than just vibing they don't get beards though presumably so you can actually tell them apart from dwarves this dwar Vibe is even alluded to in Universe with Scholars speculating that Stout halflings have Dwarven ancestry it also translates to their sub race ability Stout resilience which gives you advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage just like dwarves pretty boring but pretty good moving on to the weirder cousins we have the ghost wise halflings and these continue the tradition of halflings looking all basically the same these guys are like tree dwelling emo siblings of the halfling family having a much less friendly more tarzan-esque vibe to them they don't experience wonderlust as much as the other halflings and would much rather prefer to stay in their woods and not talk to Outsiders they don't talk at all to anyone actually since they are under a vow of silence one of the only conflicts that halfling ever had was actually a sort of Civil War the ghostwise halflings decided it would be fun to worship a dark furry deity which of course instructed them to destroy all other halflings lightfoots and Stouts banded together and fight back and embarrass The ghostwise Happening so thoroughly that they made a vow of silence until they could repent for their dark furry crimes and they stayed silence ever since presumably because some crimes can never be forgiven they filed a loophole though and now they have telepathy their ability silent speech allows them to communicate telepathically with anyone they share a language with I guess it doesn't count as talking if you do it in your brain and finally we gotta talk about the Kender all the oldies in the audience got real scared there gender are not halflings but they are not not halflings weirdly enough and the 5D release they are associated with gnomes I could have sworn they were connected with halflings anyway who cares not me they come from the dragon lands books which just came back to fighting Rejoice people that care in the world of crin the Kendra sort of take the spot of the halfling and they are quite possibly the most hated DND race of all time yep more than tabaxy for people with a weird obsession with hating furries more than aracokra with her flying people hate Kinder the most and honestly kind of for a good reason they are literally described in text as aloying and widely disliked in their own setting while halflings are curious and have the whole Wanderlust and need for new experiences the Kendra cannot take that and turn it into the most annoying version of those traits they are described as acting very childishly even as adults they have short attention spans constantly moving from one interest to another and not being able to stay on attacks for very long they act on impulse and are not very into making or following careful plans you can see how this can get really annoying but what made the Kendra so hated was their loose interpretation of personal property in that they don't really believe in it akender will just take whatever they feel like taking they don't necessarily see it as theft but rather they just felt like taking something and then they did it to quote the text on the original Incarnation can there appropriate anything that catches their eye physical boundaries or Notions of privacy are both alien Concepts to them Kendra are never happier than when their hands are in the pockets pouches or backpacks of those around them so yeah I wonder why these guys were not popular since they have released new dragonlance content that Kinder have made their way to fighty in the First on Earth are data for them they could like summon stuff from Magic Pockets it was weird they have since changed this and now they are all about their taunt ability which incentivizes the enemy to hit you repeatedly great tanking ability and fitting for such a punctable little beast real talk here I think it's a bad idea to give Envy one an in-lord excuse to act shitty to others during the game but I am sad that the kind of kind of ruined the whole giving a racial option A negative trait if the trait doesn't incentivize toxic Behavior and the group has agreed on it and are cool with it I think it could be extremely fun to give your character negative traits or abilities oh God this is foreshadowing oh no so we've looked at halfling culture their history their abilities the different kinds and that's all well and good but what if we gave halflings a new twist so you want to play a halfling [Music] halflings are Sly short King hippies that get Typecast as thieves when in reality they are just way too busy being fantasy Stoners okay time for me to be real with y'all and say what I actually think of these little guys I find halflings a bit uninspired I see the niche they filled small little fantasy guys and all it's very much a genre staple which is why it's strange to me that we have gnomes on top of that the two look and feel so incredibly similar that it becomes particularly hard to tell them apart like did we really need two of the same guy with the slightest of changes I understand the lore is different gnomes being more closely tied to the FAE but in practice they end up feeling so similar that I would honestly kick one out and keep the other it really really doesn't help that halfling racial options feel so saley it's not only hard to tell gnomes and halflings apart it's also hard to tell halflings apart from each other not a single one of them has a distinct look to them which is just not the case with other races Sun elves look different from Moon elves or from drow but half legs one is slightly chunkier than the other don't get me wrong I like the idea of a fantasy race of chill dudes that love to ride but I wonder if the race would be as popular if it wasn't for them being you know Hobbits with the serial numbers filed off not like it's particularly popular it's one of the least popular core races the least popular being gnomes which as I said I'm not surprised there is something however that I find really interesting about halflings you guessed it I've been hinting at it throughout the video I think that the halfling Saving Grace is their luck and I'm interested in exploring that further think about it it's a race of people that are naturally luckier than anyone else and the source of this is divine in nature and gift from God they rely on it as an actual survival mechanism it's their way of staying alive it has literally shaped halfling history and their civilizations allowing them to Just Vibe confident that it will all work itself out in their favor so if luck has had such wide and deep consequences for the halfling race what would happen if they lost it what would happen if instead of being gifted with good luck they were cursed with bad luck let's do it [Music] nobody knows what jinxes did to deserve their fate some say that they descend from a halfling that broke all laws of hospitality and was forever cursed by yondala's children some believe that they were created to make up for the lucky halflings so at the cosmic scale of Fate remains in Balance whatever the case may be the reality is that Jinx has naturally attract Misfortune wherever they go it matters little what a jinx does to try to offset their fate they are constantly followed by a streak of bad luck at Jinx attacking any function will ensure that it will rain on that day a wagon will mysteriously break down if a jinx is traveling on it hosting a jinx under your roof will lead to rats finding their way into your pantry and a leak to forming your roof this series of mishaps has influenced the way that jinxes go through life completely there is no Jinx society as any concentration of jinx is in the same place tends to have terrible consequences for anyone around them there are no Jinx family units as it's generally frowned upon even among jinxes to form a relationship with another Jinx and children leave their pants behind in their teens when their bad luck starts to manifest they are naturally nomadic not just not to curse the same place with their Misfortune for too long but also because they are simply not welcomed by others anywhere and for regrettably good reason the jinx's distinctive looks make it all the easier for them to be spotted and shunned by members of a community they stand around three feet tall like other halflings but that's where the similarities end their skin and hair come only in Shades of Gray black or stark white as if color had been sapped from them along with her look the dark rings around their eyes seem to be indelible no matter how much sleep they get and the tips of their fingers are always slightly darker than the rest of their skin as if their bad luck had tainted them phased with this unfortunate existence Jinx go through life in many different ways since they are nomadic by necessity many take on adventuring as it's one of the few positions that can actually benefit from bad luck after all The jinx's Misfortune can just as easily affect those the jinxes fighting some jinxes decide to rebel against their cruel fate and try to find a way to free themselves on their Brethren from their curse in their travels keeping a happy and positive attitude even in the face of a constant Misfortune some others however Embrace their bad luck and see it as a gift they are Whispers of guilds of jinxes that disguise their members and send them to the houses of their targets they gain employment as servants or befriend them and are invited as guests and then they just need to stay there long enough for their natural gift to do its work the string of bad luck will soon follow and fall upon the house they have infiltrated it is said that countless business magnets athletes actors and singers have had their careers ruined by a jealous rival hiring the services of a jinx Guild imagine playing a Jing's cinnamon roll that absolutely refuses to let their awful lot get them down constantly looking for a silver lining and keeping a smile on their face while they search for a cure for their curse maybe their Arc is about coming to terms with their toxic positivity and finding a healthy balance it certainly gives you a very personal Quest that your DM can build upon how about a little raccoon Goblin man of a jinx that Revels in the effects of the bad luck they inflict on others because he's always been treated like absolute trash for something he has no control over maybe his art could be about changing and learning to trust again after finding a group of party members that accept him and don't blame him for his misfortune those are cool characters I think it's just a shame that you will have to come up with them make a whole bunch of possible Strokes of bad luck come up with the mechanics of how their bad luck manifests in order to make it fun for the table their racial abilities it's a lot fortunately you don't have to do it because I did it bees pretend to be surprised in the comments I know that you know that I do this in every video but pretend you didn't know it was coming for me that's right the Jinx race is a hundred percent free for you to use and you can find it in the description of this very video I wrote it and Illustrated it myself look at these sad little guys don't you want to pet them it's like they are genetically engineered to be woobies and I hope you like them they come with a huge table of possible effects for their bad luck but also a way for you to use it in your favor you'll see just head down to the description and check it out and you did it you made it hello disclaimer before you go because of the mechanics inheriting the Jinx you gotta check with your group before using them in your games I would say not just your DM but also the other players I'm a big fan of characters with setbacks I think they can be great fun but it can only be fun if everybody is in on it I'll add a little baby disclaimer to the dog in case people have left before getting to this part and are already typing in the comments about how this is unfair if you did stick around thank you you're the best YouTube really cares if people watch the video all the way through so thank you for doing that anyway that's quite enough rambling I gotta go don't break your mirror don't open umbrellas indoors don't whistle at night I have no idea how many of these are Regional and won't make sense to any of you enough enough bye love you [Music]

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 448,684

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, homebrew, trailer, D&D trailer, OneD&D, one d&d, onednd, OGL, SRD, Wizards, wizards of the coast, WotC, WOC, OGL drama, D&D movie, Hobbits, Halflings, Halfling, Hobbit, D&D Hobbit, Jinx, Frodo, harfoot, harfoots

Id: QoWZwJsh_s8

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023