All Forums  Forgotten Realms Journals  General Forgotten Realms Chat  5e FR Halflings Conversion

Note: You must be registered in order to post a reply.
To register, click here. Registration is FREE!

Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by TomCosta[/i] [br]So, I know SCAG had 5E stats, but I've always had some problems with the way the strongheart were presented and had some different ideas about converting the ghostwise. Some design notes on the strongheart are at the end. I also reintroduced low light vision, but it's easily dropped for those who think it adds more complexity. Comments welcome. Ghostwise In the Forgotten Realms, these wild, nearly feral halflings rarely leave the confines of the deep forests. Strange and reclusive, they form close-knit communities because of their amazing talents and are uncomfortable with strangers. Like other halflings, they refer to themselves as the hin. They do not have a name for their subrace, because their culture is almost entirely cut off from the outside world and their awareness of other kinds of halflings is very low. Ability Score Increase . Your Wisdom score increases by 1. Low-Light Vision . Accustomed to keeping a watchful eye out amidst the shadows of the trees or for nighttime attackers, dim light doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight. Speak Without Sound. You can communicate telepathically with any creature within 25 feet, just as if speaking to him or her. You can initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation without using an action. You do not need to see the contacted creature and can end the telepathic contact at any time. You can only speak and listen to one creature at a time, and unless the other creature also has telepathy, you must share a common language to understand the creature you speak to telepathically. If you are incapacitated, you can’t initiate telepathic contact, and any current contact is terminated. Stoutheart Alternately known simply as stout halflings, strongheart halflings, or, because they often live among dwarven cities bordering on or in the Underdark, deep halflings. Stouthearts are physically more stout and hardier than their lightfoot cousins. Some say stouthearts have dwarven blood in their past. Moreover, perhaps it’s due to their less itinerant nature and exposure to Underdark aberrations and other threats, but these halflings have a decidedly resolute character. In the Forgotten Realms, these halflings are most common in the south, where they often live near or among gold (hill) dwarf communities. Here they have been forced to fight aberrations above and below ground, as well as, at one time, their telepathic kin, the ghostwise halflings. The Ghostwars as the latter conflicts were known, were horrific and the stouthearts were unwavering in doing what had to be done. Following the destruction of much of Lurien, many more stouthearts moved below ground. Ability Score Increase . Your Constitution score increases by 1. Low-Light Vision. Accustomed to keeping a watchful eye out for nighttime attackers or life underground, dim light doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight. Strongheart. You have advantage on saving throws against apathy, despair, dread, fear, hopelessness, horror, insanity, madness, and psychic damage, and you have resistance against psychic damage. Thought Shield. You automatically detect attempts to sense your emotions, read your thoughts, or contact you telepathically. You cannot determine who is trying to do so (aside from any obvious clues), and these attempts only work if you allow them to do so. If you allow a telepathic conversation to begin, you can terminate it as a free action. ************* So regarding the stoutheart... In the original artwork for D&D Next, the stout’s were going to be called stouthearts, which is a nicer contrast to lightfoot than just stout. I like this idea, in part because I never liked the stout halflings being more or less half dwarves, seeing them as somewhat unimaginative. I was excited when FR introduced stronghearts, but disappointed in their mechanics as not having anything to do with their evocative name. Con bonus goes to them being “stout,” hardy, and perhaps having some dwarven blood. Low-light vision plays into their past sometimes having darkvision as deep halflings, but also plays into the FR stronghearts having to protect themselves from night raids by drow, Crintri, and ogres, as well as having to track their Ghostwise kin through the deep forests or work with gold dwarves in the Underdark. Finally, it plays into their strongheart ability by in part explaining why they are not afraid of the dark. I did not consider giving them full blown darkvision, but I just didn’t see a good historical reason other than to make them half-dwarves, which strikes me as boring. I also considered giving them a bonus to Wisdom (Perception) checks to hearing, but there was no good reason the lightfoot wouldn’t have that too. Strongheart is simply more interesting than making them less vulnerable to poison with no real explanation. It plays into their FR name of strongheart and their thought shield ability below, but also their coming out of the atrocities of the Ghostwars and seeing their nation destroyed in the spell plague. Game wise, this is not terribly useful. They already have advantage against fear and the other affects are generally encountered at higher levels with monsters like mind flayers and spells like symbol or are optional like horror and madness. That said, it is a fairly wide-range of effects. Thought shield plays into their long-ago battles with the telepathic Ghostwise, fights with various aberrations, and could explain, in part, why the yuan-ti view/ed them as a threat. It also helps explain another use for them in the dwarven Underdark. Game wise, this is also of not the greatest use, but combined with Stoutheart, is probably decent. [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature. Check here to subscribe to this topic.