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Halflings may not always be the first ones picked in the game that isDungeons & Dragons, but they deserve some time in the spotlight. And, while they were good options in the 2014 ruleset, in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, they, like many species, have received some fine-tuning.
But exactly how have they changed? This guide will give an overview of our halfling friends, what traits they have, and what is different about them. Plus, if you aren’t sure how you want to build your halfling character, this guide will also go into some options to consider during that creative process.
What Is A Halfling?
Halflings hold an exalted position in D&D lore. The gods who rule over such things ashouse and hearth, family and community,love the halflings. The exact word used ischerished.
While halflings do care deeply for their homes and their people, many of them feel thisdrive within them to get out and explore. Thus why they make great adventurers, especially when they’re a part of a team.
Halflings also know thatthey are lucky and believe in it as a power, the same as a goliath may know they hold within them the power of the ancestors who came before them. Halflingsharness that luck well, especially when they feel they are in grave danger.
They have a long life span compared to humans, at150 years on average. And, depending on where they hail from or how they live, they may be calledstouts or lightfoots, strongheats or tallfellows.
Halfling Traits
Some of the species in the 2024 Player’s Handbook have long entries regarding their traits and all of the spells and lineages they can choose from and acquire. Halflings, on the other hand,only have four traits, but they are mighty.
Description
Brave
You have advantage on any saving throws that would prevent or end being frightened.
Halfling Nimbleness
You can move through a space occupied by a creature at least one size larger.
You can’t stop your movement in an occupied space.
Luck
When you roll a 1 on any D20 test, you can reroll, but must keep the new number.
Naturally Stealthy
You can take the Hide action if you are obscured by a medium or larger creature.
A lot of the traits are simplistic, making them easier to understand when reading through a new sourcebook with many changes and adjustments. This also makes things clearer for Dungeons Masters (DMs) who are eithercreating halflings or running a game with a halflingplayer character.
Brave helps withthe frightened condition, making it harder to shake you. This is something that not even the mighty goliaths and orcs have in their kits. They’re more easily scared than your halfling character.
The frightened condition hastwo effects. You have disadvantage on attacks and ability checkswhile the origin of the fear is in your line of sight. You alsocan’t move closer to that source of fear.
Halfling Nimbleness gives you abetter, more direct optionwhen you’re trying to get from point A to point B. This, coupled with theirmovement speed increase from 25 to 30 feetmakes it easier for you to get to where you’re going or get into the middle of the fray. Or escape it.
Thenthere is Luck. This may be one of the best traits in the whole of D&D. While rolls of natural one are excellent storytelling vehicles, ensuring thatyou never critically fail a checkcan save not just your halfling’s life, but your teammates' lives too.
Naturally Stealthy, although not an entirely new ability for halflings, is used for the first time across the board in the 2024 handbook. This gives you anatural ability to hide right in plain sight, allowing for some fun roleplay and combat scenarios.
As for your creature type, youcount as a humanoid. And size-wise, if you’re already contemplating if you can hide behind a party member or not, you areconsidereda small creature. After all, halflings only get to aroundtwo or three feet tall.
What Class Should You Consider?
Rogue.
While every class benefits from the Luck feat, this works so wonderfully with rogues. Not to mention the Nimbleness and Naturally Stealthy traits. Whilerogues can already Hide as a bonus action, being able tomove quickly around people and through their spaceon combat maps is fantastic for getting in and out of situations.
Then, for Luck, rogues often find themselves in situations where they may be spying on someone, tailing a target, alone in a room rifling through papers for clues or evidence.When you are separated from the party, a natural one can be your demiseif you get seen or caught.
Ranger is another classto consider. While rangers didn’t get as much love as other classes, with a halfling at the helm, they can be a strong choice.Movement and hiding are great things that bolsterwhat some, not all, rangers like to do. Which is snipe across great distances without being seen.
That Luck trait again will help youwith any of the checks that you may make, along with those fight-ending headshots from afar.
There is a sorcerer subclass that will love the ability to reroll ones.The wild magic sorcerer. Wild Magic Surge and Tides of Chaos bothrevolve around the D20 Test.
If you like unpredictability, you’ll want the randomness and chaotic nature of a Wild Magic Surge going off.If you roll a one and find yourself without many Surges, you canreroll that die in the hope that you hit a 20.
Tide of Chaos is an ability that allows you to give yourself an advantage on a D20 test before you roll a die. But, paired with Luck, that means that you havemultiple opportunities to turn low rolls or fails into winsfor you and your team.
Differences In The 2024 Player’s Handbook
There arethree main differencesto highlight for halflings, although there are other minor things that have been altered as well. The small things are quality of life changes and just some wording.Luck used to be called Lucky, as one example.
The first of the big three ismovement speed. Before, halflings were locked inat 25 feet of movement. That made itdifficult for them to keep up with the partyunless being carried or getting aid in another way, like being in a vehicle or using spells like Misty Step or Dimension Door.
All of the small species gotbumped up to 30 feet of movement, keeping almost every species in check when it comes to how quickly they can run toward a situation or flee from it. This alters combatfor the better.
The second big change is thatthere is no subspecies to choose. Before, you would pick to be alightfoot or a stout halfling. Now there isn’t a choice from a rule’s perspective, even if you’d like that distinction for flavor. This allowed forNaturally Stealthy to be a trait of every halflinginstead of being locked behind the lightfoot option.
Then the third change, whichis a change for every species, is that theyno longer gain any ability score increases.
In the 2014 Player’s Handbook, when you chose to be a halfling,you’d get a Dextirity score increase of two. If you picked lightfoot, you’d geta plus one to your Charisma scoreas well. Stout halflings, on the other hand, would get that additional pointadded to their Constitution. This is gone from the 2024 handbook.
