What do you think about halflings and other tiny races being warriors?

Is it a crime if the halflings look like that despite being older that you?

Well, there's your problem: systems shouldn't pretend to be realistic. Any attempt to do so inevitably ends up with the system fucking up and allowing things like peasant railguns or drowning people to save their lives.

Although if we MUST delve into "realism"...

> tiny races being warriors

If the tiny race exists at all, large groups of them MUST have needed to struggle for survival at some point, as hunters of food and later to defend their territories from outside incursions, even if it's just other tiny people. A warrior class would have developed as an eventual result of that.

Now, would they necessarily use the same tactics as their larger foes? Of course not. But they would still have warriors.

Read up on Tucker's Kobolds, is what I'm getting at.

I don't really see them working in traditional medieval fantasy but if setting has guns they could be a bigger pain than a human with a gun.

>systems shouldn't pretend to be realistic

This is complete bullshit. Not everything must be D&D heroic crap. Best games I had were realistic down to earth stuff where players actually had to think to survive instead of just rolling dice.

If realistic systems allow knives as weapons, then halflings are fine to be used as soldiers (assuming halfings exist in said systems).

They just won't be GOOD soldiers, just as knives aren't good weapons.

If the players didn't have to roll dice, then that probably means that it had nothing to do with the SYSTEM.

I'm not saying there's a problem with down-to-Earth stuff, I'm saying that trying to codify real-world physics and physiology into a numbers game based around dice is inevitably going to lead to that game not being as accurate to real-world physics and physiology as you might hope.

That has nothing to do with realistic.

Does "roll d100, GM decides probability" count as a system?

>Best games I had were realistic down to earth stuff where players actually had to think to survive instead of just rolling dice.
So, here's the questions for you.

1: Would you allow someone to use knives in a realistic setting?

2: Would you allow someone to play with a character with a disability (eg deaf)?

3: Would you allow a halfling to be a warrior in your setting?

If you would allow one but not others, why not? All are perfectly reasonable things, just suboptimal. Someone may use a knife as a weapon if they can't get a sword, or they need to hide their weapons. If given a choice between fighting or being cut down, both a deaf person or a halfling will probably take up arms even if there are other people who are better suited to fighting.

It does though. If player knows he can take 5 crossbow bolts because he has enough HP it changes play style quite a bit.

Their inability to pull their half-cave-troll companions to safety under fire, mainly.

It does, albeit not much of one.

Don't bother trying to explain it to the kiddos. Nu-Veeky Forums literally only understands D&D because it hasn't played anything else.

ranker.com/crowdranked-list/greatest-pen-and-paper-rpg_s-v1

People really overrate D&D popularity.

The idea of a tiny little ball of steel and fury punching outside its weight class is rarely unappealing.

I want to mating press that alchemist!

And of course they should, it’s a game faggot. Also tiny warrior/huge weapon is patrician.

>Realistic down-to-earth

All systems or games i saw described at that devolve into autistic tablechecking in about three minutes.

And the games with most at stakes, games where we survived by the skin of remains of our teeth, these games were, surprisingly in D&D.

So please, shove your head further up your ass so we wouldn't hear your whining anymore.

I'm not saying down-to-earth games can't be good, i'm just saying if it's advertised like that, the more smug the advertisement, the better it is to avoid it.

>suboptimal
This. Realismfags can't fathom playing anything but a statblock. They're literally optimization robots without creativity.

I don't know who the hell you play with but I never ever saw a realistic game where people gave a fuck about tables.

>realism
>optimization

Have you ever played something that's not D&D?

FATAL

Roll for anal circumference.

RPG players generally don't understand how important reach is in real combat since most systems ignore it.

Grabing a weapon and stabbing/bludgeoning someone in the dick or face is pretty much realistic to anything that could grab a weapon in the first place.
The problem is how to properly represent this. Humans with dwarfism are not exactly weaker, and in fact, some are quite strong. A gnome adult would have similar strength, so it would still make him an effective killer.
Another problem would be the weapons and tools. Being a race, and not just a "condition" of an existing race, a small race would had created tools and weapons for their own kind, albeit smaller then the tools other races would have. This might, and only might, change the way damage is dealt, since a dagger to a gnome is basically a scissors to a human, and both are effective to shank a sumofbitch.
The biggest issue would be the reach of their arms (and specially legs) and how somewhat easier would be to grab and drag them around, something no fighter would ever want to happen.
So gnomes, halflings and similar would be pretty much straightforward realistic in every sense of the way.
The problem would be the smaller creatures, like pixies, sprites and whatnot. Those would be too small to be taken serious as a warrior. A human could kill another human with a pen (something that would be akin to a sprite sword), but a sprite causing serious injury with the same item would be laughable.

They do when spears are involved against any other type of melee weapon.

What about a halfling who speaks fluent Draconic and trained with his world's equivalent of Tucker's Kobolds?

Halflings already take penalties in the form of racial stat bonuses not favoring the stats a warrior wants in most systems for choosing to be warriors. You can usually handwave away the fact that they're weak and small by saying that their warrior training focuses on the uniquely halfling advantages of speed, maneuverability, and stabbing things in the dick over brute force. Also knives/swords/maces puncture flesh without very much force anyway. A 12 year old could break through a helm with a mace if the target stood still and accuracy is something you train to gain.

They would be fighters, but probably use different tactics. Lots of ranged and reach weapons. Maybe pony or dog based cavalry.

Just look at OP.

>Should systems pretending to be realistic even allow them?

This is a realismfag. He can't fathom something suboptimal existing in a "realistic" system. By his logic, knives shouldn't be allowed in a realistic system, nor women warriors nor halflings.

This is a realismfag. Look at him and laugh.

A realistic system would not even allow them to wield human sized weapon or armor because of weight.

Is it still a warrior with a kitchen knife and baby size gambeson? What would he do to a 150kg orc?

Are you pretending to be retarded? It's D&D that forbid classes from using certain weapons because """balance""".

Nobody is saying that realistic systems should forbid you from doing something. But a GM knowing how things work should explain to a player wanting to play a halfling barbarian with baby size two handed axe that it may not work very well.

I have an entire halfling kingdom full of napoleonic dicks riding battle dogs and hill giants like Master Blaster.

I give no shits about realism.

Look, every nation's gonna have military no matter how inept or unsuited they may be.

>All this talk about realism
In real life history, if you were both not a noble and tall, you were made into an archer. Reason being that a tall, strong man can pull a big, heavy bow. This priority was made for the obvious reason: a bow can kill at a far greater range than a spear. For wartime practices, this left the average and lower folk to use melee (likely spears or pikes).

The average sword weighs in at about 3 pounds. The size may make it awkward, but considering that zweihanders were a thing, I cannot fathom why a smaller race would have trouble using one beyond "Would they want to?"

A set of plate armor, full sized, is about 40 pounds. In contrast, modern soldiers carry over 70 pounds of equipment. A smaller race would use smaller armor that is, of course, lighter. The square-cube law exists. A race that is half as tall is not necessarily half as strong.

Did protagonist fuck the dwarf?

I think it's mostly softcore, some nudity and sucking on breasts so far.

Why are you even mentioning swords? Average soldier would use a spear. Imagine a 1m tall guy being put into a shield wall with other normal size men. It simply wouldn't work.

A halfling only country would get conquered by it's neighbors with no problems.

She almost raped him twice but it ended on tit sucking.

You mean like the soviets conquered afghanistan?

Afghans are 1m tall? Halfling wouldn't even be able to fire an AK.

>haha if little man army will use big man tactics they surely will lose! I am so smart!

Of course if they will meet another army in favorite place of any armchair historian - featureless white plain - they will lose.

But consider this. Halflings are amazing ambushers. They live semi-burrowed and their smaller size will make things difficult if they take the war underground. They are amazing with slings, weapon that doesn't need much physical strength and can fuck up even an armored knight.

Halflings will be terrifying at gorilla warfare.

I mention swords because the point was previously raised ( and seem to imply "knives = smaller swords," ) and they were perfectly common side weapons. As you say, a 1m tall guy wouldn't be put into a shield wall with normal size men. Assuming they used those tactics, a 1m tall guy would be put in with people of similar height.

An army composed of a half-sized people would likely use different tactics from full sized humans. A halfling country would be a country full of small, easily concealed people, so heavy use of guerrilla tactics is not beyond the realm of possibility. Sneaking into camps for sabotage, hiding in ambush, and more is simply made easier by being smaller.

A hummingbird can drive off a hawk by pretending to be a bee: it's not always size and raw power that wins.

How far are we going to go with this though? Wouldn't human warriors be just as laughable as any of the tiny races in a setting with ogres, giants, and dragons?

this desu.

If there are clearly superhuman people who can fell a giant in your setting you have no business demanding that superhalflings shouldn't exist.

Not really because they're weaker and their reach is smaller. I think I could take a ten year old, even if they have a knife.

The point is that they were vastly outnumbered, less organised, far worse equipped, and still managed to beat the invading army. Your assertion that a mere 50% difference in body size means automatic victory is ludicrous. In D&D terms, the average human has 10 strength, the average halfling has 8. For once that's actually somewhat close to reality if we compare the average person to someone with dwarfism. They may be half as tall, but that does not mean they're only half as strong or that they're only half as hard to knock out.

Your other mistake is to assume Halfling military structure and tactics would be identical to an invading Human army's, and that they'd meet head-on. Why? Why would halflings not hit the supply trains, use ambush tactics, divide enemy forces into smaller portions and destroy those?
You're also not considering that a large portion of halfling infrastructure would be completely inaccessible to humans. Want to search some halfling homes because you suspect there're weapon caches in them? The door ends at your waist and you might not even be able to squeeze your fat ass through it. Or try capturing a halfling castle under those circumstances. And no, the walls won't be only half as tall, if the main threat to the halflings is surrounding humans, they'll build for that. Sure, 1vs1, or in a battle on a flat field, humans might win 90% of fights, but why would the halflings even engage them on those terms?

To be fair it doesn't take much to beat russians. They're like goblins of real world, weak and dumb, only winning with vastly superior numbers.

>muh motherland
Remind me, what were WW2 losses?

They won because they were warriors. People living in hard conditions with tribal warfare being normal for generations.

And they got invaded by terribly trained army of factory workers and farmers with horrible morale and discipline.

Every Afghan fighter was worth more than average Russian soldier. Meanwhile your average farm boy Ivan would be worth more than two halfling "warriors". Especially in times of primitive warfare where strength really mattered.

Humans outnumber ogres by like 1000 to 1. Not even mentioning dragons.

But when you think about it a setting where halflings breed like rabbits and outnumber everyone like humans in most settings would be hilarious.

>take the war underground
So you flood or smoke them out of their holes, no Geneva convention in fantasy land

Well see that's the other issue, I'm not sure I can believe that humans would manage to prosper enough to get to those sort of numbers in world with giants and dragons.

>So you flood
>or smoke
The thing is that in fantasy land the only way to do that without several months advance of engineering is magic, and the other side knows magic too.

Deer seem to do fine in world with wolves and tigers.

>starting some bonfires at a cave entrance takes months of engineering
Why are halfling players always so insufferable, constantly throwing excuses and what ifs and contrived scenarios to try and prove their race is just as good at every as any other race instead of acknowledging the weaknesses inherent with their size

Next time try to not be a smug asshole and people might listen to you.

Wolves and tigers aren't going to decide to organize themselves into a conquering army like giants might, and giants would not really have much reason to leave humans alive after they took over.

Brown Tomo is along for the ride, yes.

>Humans start a fire at the entrance
>"Oh no! Whatever shall we do!"
>Halflings close some doors to stop the smoke from coming in, use one of the other exits, and kill the humans with their crossbows.

Oh wait, that's way too contrived. The halflings just engage the human army on a featureless plain instead.

Next time try to not be butthurt that not everyone likes D&D.

History knows very, very few examples of gorilla warfare actually working. No, XXth century political wars don't even count.

>close some doors
>no one will ever find all our exits
>there's no way to defend against crossbows
>have I shown you the art of my character Uchiha Underhill, he dual wields bastard swords, is super fast, and so stealthy he can hide in plain sight
This is (you)r mind on halflings

>Fact
Halflings are better escape artists

>Fact
Halflings, being half the half the height of a human and having the same proportions, would have about half the muscle density and size

>Fact
Reach is an important factor. If Halflings are proportional—they’d have half the reach of a human

>Fact
Fighting a Halfling would be like fighting a slippery ten year old with an adult’s mental capacity.

I think Halfling’s would prefer pikes, tridents or Spears if they were real.

If they were real they would find a niche in society where their small size is an advantage. Like a halfling jeweler or something.

Or midget porn.

This is kind of a hilarious Hollywood bullshit perception of the Russo-Afghan war and the Afghan people as a whole.

Yes, they are pretty hard, tribal people, but they're also uneducated, suffer from all kinds of health problems, and have virtually no military training, making them shitty modern combatants.
Afghanistan has been conquered by many empires in the past. It's only modern armies that have failed. The Russians lost because the terrain of Afghanistan is mostly ridiculous mountains and the Mujahideen fought a guerilla war funded and backed by the US and CIA. You're severely underestimating the training and quality of the average Russian soldier, which at that time was from the USSR and came close to rivaling American infantry today which are having the exact same problems in Afghanistan.

>It’s a Veeky Forums shits on Halflings, but their favorite child the Kobolds go untouched episode
I don’t even like either of those races.

Here’s a pretty lady because I have nothing else to offer the thread

>having tastes this shit

>which are having the exact same problems in Afghanistan.

They too operated under a "we actually only want to control 3/4 of this highway circling the nation plus this pipeline pumping oil. Everything else we leave to our allies, who're mainly recruited from the closest approximation of comic book-style mass murderers our Specops could find in this country"-policy?

Smaller targets

What about a ten-year-old that's a trained fighter?

The strength difference between you and a 10 year old will be far bigger than between someone 5'5 and 6, assuming both train the same amount. It helps with leverage, and the reach does indeed give benefit though.

>What do you think about halflings and other tiny races being warriors?

It's fine if the setting has magic and the classes themselves are inherently magical, then it's just a matter of giant's belt this, fist of ogre strength that, etc.. Though, that isn't to say I don't think Halflings shouldn't have a steeper incline of growth when compared to other races or for that matter a somewhat smaller hard-cap of fantastical strength.

>Should systems pretending to be realistic even allow them?

They should still allow them.
Though, you'd be foolish to play a Gnome or Halfling warrior the same as you would a Minotaur or Orcish one, their 'strengths' and 'weaknesses' in a practical, realistic setting would be extremely different.

Well samurai were 5'3, Viking warriors 5'7 and romans around 5'4.
So why not.
Another point, due to added stress to joints taller people become disabled faster and developed joint/spine issues younger. Guess life cycle of a warrior that is average/short is longer than one who is very tall, assuming both survive their time in the army.

fun fact: in Shadowrun it's entirely possible to create a claymore-wielding pixie.

It is as ridiculous as it sounds and surprisingly effective.

True, the normal weapon you see halflings use would be a sling. People underestimate how deadly a sling is, it does require a lot of training and does not have as much range as a bow for example, but a hit of it in any vital area and you will die. A good hit to the head with a solid projectile, and even a helmet wont save you.

To each their own ability, to dismiss is silly, use all resources.

>legal loli porn

Yeah, HAV would be a thing for sure. Especially if they looked like in OP pic.

Shield will save you. And slings are inaccurate even at pretty short distances. If slings were so effective they wouldn't disappear from battlefields so fast.

I don't use halflings or gnomes. They just never end up getting used by my players, they don't really fit into my setting in an interesting way that isn't "and halflings were also there". I use Kobolds and Goblins in the role those races would fill, mostly because I just like them more.

Define "beat" please.
Did they succeed in preventing Soviets from taking any city that interested them? Or levelling any village they did not like?
Did they inflicted a serious military defeat on Soviets like Vietnam did to the french?

What they did was outlast the willingness of soviet union to engage in a war. How did they manage? Essentially in similar way Vietnam did - they had unlimited war supplies and unmolested support bases in Pakistan and from t3h West and moslem world. That's a testament to their enduring spirit, of course - but say they "beat" Soviet invaders is the same as to say Vietman beat USA (they did beat the French, though)

God I hate that japan got its hands on halflings they really ruin everything with their pedophilia.
They don't even do it right and have them act like adults.

This really. A small heroic band of rebels beating a large military is generally fictional bullshit. It happened few times only because of political reasons and support those rebels were getting from other powers.

How the hell is she not acting like an adult?

From what i know: there was indeed cooperation between Soviet Union and Afganistan';s communist goverment army. Often forgotten fact: Afganistan had a nominally communist goverment (ofc a puppet one) that invited Soviet Union in (after Soviet Union killed their president in his palace for being an asshole)
Soviet army controlled major population centers, and a number of relativelt remote bases. From what accounts i have read, war consisted ofrom ambushes on convoys between those bases, minethrower/etc attacks on them, and retaliatory cleaning out of the villages (kishlaks) and raids to the "enemy territory". Usually those were unsuccessful, because mojahedeen just did not engage in case of a major raid and who will comb the actual mountains?

I had a human sorcerer die and reincarnate as a halfling. Zero fucks and many disintegrates were given. No one expects much from a halfling until it's way too late.

Well, for a certain definition of "heroic", first chechen war did result in rebel win (((

>systems shouldn't pretend to be realistic. Any attempt to do so inevitably ends up with the system fucking up and allowing things like peasant railguns or drowning people to save their lives.

lolno
That only happens with overrated shit systems that don't even bother with realism.

>implying halflings have any purpose in a party other than as an onahole

Everybody shut the fuck up and let's talk more about this.let's combine /k/, Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums and think about how different races would likely and realistically tackle invasion or defense of a state. Halflings being adept at guerilla warfare sounds amazing, but I wonder how other similarly small races would handle it like dwarves or goblins? Dwarves at least hold the upper hand in territorial bouts by virtue of living in mountains and having the highground assuming typical medival warfare with little to no magic involved save for the mystical species themselves, dwarven stronghold would be nearly impenetrable. Goblins I think would mostly be tribal or nomadic without much in the way of land to defend, but they could always turn out as the Mongols did and unify under a goblin-khan. There's also morrow or merfolk to consider, assuming their more amphibious and therefore can't fully live in the water 24/7 they'd mostly take up residence in swamps, peninsulas, or islands in temperate climates. Imagine being the invading army going to fight merrows on their homeland of swamps and bogs, now there is some terrifying guerilla warfare.
>what was that?
>oh just a log, don't wor-
>dead
>charlies in the water! Charlies in the water! Retreat!

Elves would be a nightmare just because they can see at night while humans can't.

Most settings just ignore this shit with torches acting like miniature suns. "Lol I brought a torch so we can act like it's day" is one of the biggest bullshits crappy systems like D&D propagated.

That and their proficiency with bows comes into play well meaning a small group of bowmen could rain arrowheads on an enemy encampment long before a human could see them coming.
I also wonder how dwarves would hold up. They're often depicted as melee fighters but more stocky and less dexterous as halflings. Their reach would really be a hindrance since even giving them spears to compensate doesn't do much effectively when your arms only really thrust out a foot ahead of you. Axes are great and all since dwarves seem genetically dispositioned to have more muscle mass, but that requires they get close. You could argue their small size makes for a harder target but how much harder is that target to hit for a pikeman or a seasoned Bowman?

>knives = smaller swords
Knife fighting is gory wrestling.