Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 4:13:57	Looking over the Lucky ability and the Lightfoot's Natural Stealth ability, I'm kind of thinking these benefits are a little too cheesy. Anyone else feel this way?   I'm thinking about replacing these racial abilities. Trying to think of other things I can put in their place to keep it balanced. Any ideas?
#2 kanageddaamen Jul 24, 2014 4:56:24	They seem pretty balanced to me.  Lucky increases their crit rate by 0.25% (unless they get an expanded crit rate) and increaes their average d20 roll from 10.5 to 10.975.  Not all that drastic.  Natural stealth is pretty situational too. This is offset by a relatively slow speed, normal vision, and a significant reduction in weapon options since they are small sized
#3 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 6:06:52	But rolling a 1 is an auto-fail no matter what. If you're rerolling all of your auto fails, chances are slim that your reroll will be another 1.  It can happen but I doubt it happens often. So taking away auto fail (for a large percentage of all games played as a halfling) is putting all other races at a bigger disadvantage it seems to me. Offsetting that with a speed of 25 isn't that bad. Dwarves have the same speed and only get dwarven reselience (advantage/resistance against poison), some weapon and tool proficiencies and darkvision as their base racial abilities. Somehow it's seeming that the Dwarf has the short end of the stick, not the Halfling.      Natural Stealth is literally just a synergetic rule placed solely in the game for Halflings to constantly cheese the hide ability as a rogue, so that they always strike with advantage and gain their sneak attack. I'm not a fan of it personally, I think it's cheap and that it will kind of work too repetitively in combat and make it a little boring. Player roles to hide AGAIN, DM rolls to spot character for each opponent AGAIN every round. Etc
#4 Mephi1234 Jul 24, 2014 6:43:33	Protection from botching is nice, and all, but hardly game breaking; it only comes up 5% of the time, and gives you another chance to reroll if it does, but that still leaves 50% chance failure on the reroll.  Outside of combat, it doesn't really matter anyways, since you can almost always reroll anyways.    In combat, its worth less than a +1 bonus to accuracy.         Being able to hide behind medium creatures is a pretty strong ability for a ranged rogue, but I also wouldn't really consider it useful for any other class, only in combat, and usually not with melee tactics; as well, the renamed Stealthy feat may offset the lightfoot's bonus handily, not only making such tactics viable for all, but rendering the lightfoot's bonus redundant in most cases, as they probably want the feat too for other bonuses!     Moving through medium creature spaces is good because it helps enable the Lightfoot ranged rogue tactics and get a good angle in to hit, but its not like you can run through enemy spaces without provoking AoO, and its usually just as easy to run around the square as through it.   Not sure if its really that good for any other class.   Advantage against fear can be handy, but no more so than resistance to charms/sleep, poison, and fire.     All in all, the halfling is pretty much built to be a rogue almost exclusively, though there's some claim towards wild magic sorcerers as well for the lightfoot as well, due to +Cha and Lucky; the stout's resistance to poison and con boost is nice for a dex-fighter, but they lose out on the high damage weapons, which hurts.  It does help with HP for the non-sneaky monks, however, since their damage isn't based on weapon size.
#5 kanageddaamen Jul 24, 2014 7:01:45	Sands666 wrote:
(Reply to #4) kanageddaamen	Mephi1234 wrote:
#7 E-Tallitnics Jul 24, 2014 7:14:01	1 as an auto fail only counts on attack rolls, not ability checks or saving throws.
#8 Overpromises Jul 24, 2014 7:18:59	For racials I am more concerned that it is difficult to outweigh the movement speed penalties. There is likely to be a feat to increase movement speed, but the faster races can take the same feat.
#9 jaelis Jul 24, 2014 7:20:10	I think it is balanced fine as written, but if yours is one of the many groups that plays where rolling a natural 1 is a critical failure where something really bad happens, then Lucky starts to look a lot stronger.
#10 Mephi1234 Jul 24, 2014 7:31:12	kanageddaamen wrote:
#11 kanageddaamen Jul 24, 2014 7:50:08	Mephi1234 wrote:
#12 alienux Jul 24, 2014 12:26:53	E-Tallitnics wrote:
#13 Psikerlord Jul 24, 2014 15:25:22	Sands666 wrote:
#14 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 16:21:45	Psikerlord wrote:
#15 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 16:41:41	jaelis wrote:
#16 kanageddaamen Jul 24, 2014 16:44:01	The halfling's hide ability is not suppoed to be some super powerful thing.  Its situational, and just another tool for the halfling, but something monsters can get around, which means the players will need to change tactics (all the more reason to see it as balanced)
#17 2Chlorobutanal Jul 24, 2014 18:17:00	Although Lucky is decent statistically and Natural Stealth opens up a lot of ways for a Halfing to hide, I think the small size and speed penalty make Halflings pretty balanced.  They may be more of a niche race compared to Dwarves or Elves- higher risk and higher reward.   E.g.: Dwarves are slow like Halflings, but have nice combat bonuses for Fighters (+2 str/+2 con,defensive traits) as well as proficiencies for non-Fighters that allow them to fight better. Wood Elves also have a Natural Stealth-like ability- although it may be more limited than the Halfling, they also move 20% faster than the Halfling.
#18 FallingIcicle Jul 24, 2014 19:24:50	Darkvision is the best racial trait for a rogue IMO, and halflings don't have it. It's kind of hard to be sneaky in a dark dungeon when you are carrying around a light source.
#19 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 20:26:09	kanageddaamen wrote:
#20 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 20:28:21	FallingIcicle wrote:
#21 jaelis Jul 24, 2014 20:36:21	If you want to make lucky work with fumbles, just change it to be you can reroll 2s instead.
#22 Sands666 Jul 24, 2014 21:13:05	jaelis wrote:
#23 E-Tallitnics Jul 24, 2014 21:30:19	Two points to keep in mind: Using Darkvision only means you're at Disadvantage on perception checks and to move through any creatures space, that space is considered difficult terrain.
#24 ORC_Ragnar Jul 25, 2014 4:59:23	I have removed content from this thread because trolling/baiting is a violation of the Code of Conduct.   You can review the Code here: http://www.wizards.com/Company/About.aspx?x=wz_company_about_codeofconduct   Please keep your posts polite, on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.You are welcome to disagree with one another but please do so respectfully and constructively.   If you wish to report a post for Code of Conduct violation, click on the Report Comment button below the post and this will submit your report to the moderators on duty.
#25 MrHotter Jul 25, 2014 6:22:46	Sands666 wrote:
(Reply to #25) TempestRime	MrHotter wrote:
#27 BatFett Jul 26, 2014 9:00:28	Isn't the point of being lucky, that you don't fumble as often as other people? Doesn't that mean that a mechanic that makes you fumble less often, is making you lucky?   Does that mean that it is also imbalancing that they always have disadvantage when using a longbow, then? Other characters have a much better chance of getting critical hits with a longbow than a halfling does, right?
#28 akaddk Jul 26, 2014 14:38:19	I played a halfling rogue last night in a Starter Set game. I rolled a 1 three times during the session and each time I rerolled, I rolled high enough to succeed.   This means that D&D is broken and I will now be moving my bookmarks until 6th edition.