What's the point of halflings?

[rebthor]

Yes, I realize this is a trolling topic, but now that I've gotten your attention, I'm 100% serious. Also note that I currently am playing a HaAr^Nem that has cleared lair, orc, swamp and will probably win unless I do something incredibly stupid. With all of that out of the way, I don't see any unique "hook" for a halfling as compared to a kobold. Sure they're aptitudes are slightly different on the weapons side, but there is lots of overlap on the sneaky, stabby side. They are both small races, both have a native hunger mutation - slow digestion vs. carnivore.

The two things that make them stand out as slightly different are slings+4 and the inherent rMut. Now it's possible that the developers and designers will come back with a "nothing to see here, this is working as intended" response and I can see that, but what I'd like to see is some change to halflings and/or kobolds to further differentiate them. I think that halflings could use it more since kobold's carnivore/saprovore mechanic already makes them different enough from other races.

I believe that halflings used to be hobbits in an earlier version of DCSS, so maybe remove a boot slot and give them inherent stealth+? Or further change their hunger mechanic to make it so they can only eat permafood due to their disgust with butchered corpses but keep slow digestion. Although with the move away from Tolkeinesque mythology the devs might not like this. A possible recurring theme in mythology/history involves small fighters who fell a giant (David vs. Goliath, Jack the Giantkiller, Lugh vs. Balor the Strong-Smiter) so perhaps give them some additional benefits when attacking huge size creatures?

I realize that a similar case could be made for high elves as well compared to several other species but I'll leave that for another time.

[mageykun]

My thoughts on halflings was always that they were like spriggans, except a little slower and heartier. Easier to build for melee and ranged instead of casting.

Kobolds are the ravenous eaters. That's the end of it- seriously. Whether you're using those glutenous food reserves to fuel a berserker or high hunger spellcasting, that's what's shaping your play. And due to apps and the food thing, you can kind of comfortably go melee, ranged, or casting with them.

Spriggans, of course, are the fragile speeders. Great casters and stabbers, harder to work into melee roles.

So that's kind of how I see the line up of little people in the game, there's a neat sliding scale. If you think kobolds and halfling are too similar, it's because they're right next to each other on it. :p

[rebthor]

So that's kind of how I see the line up of little people in the game, there's a neat sliding scale. If you think kobolds and halfling are too similar, it's because they're right next to each other on it. :p

Oh I agree 100% which was why I started the thread. Just given the MD "fiasco", I'd rather have them differentiate the two races a little more before they just up and rip out another one. As I said, HE are also on that list of "no interesting, unique hook" compared to DE <-> HE <-> Mf <-> Hu which is along the scale where I think they lie, but having had almost no experience with HE, I don't feel the ability to make good suggestions.

[nicolae]

A lot of devs ask the same question, but Halflings have been spared extinction because their niche isn't quite as obviously redundant as the MD and Mi were.

[Dustbin]

They're the beefy (beefier anyway) small race :p

[Kate]

See the wiki page for some really old ideas for differentiation, including the "giantslayer" one you mentioned (although none of the remaining ideas on that page seem particularly worthwhile to me). There have been multiple changes in order to differentiate them from Kobolds since I've followed development - way back in 0.6 (or 0.7?) they got more HP, a boosted shield apt and the penalty for bucklers+slings was removed, then I did the innate rMut and spellcasting apt changes in 0.8 (summ/necro/hex for Ko and charms/tloc for Ha).

At the moment Ha make for pretty great small melee powerhouses, with their potentially huge SH and EV - that seems like the thing they do that Sp and Ko can't really. So giving them some kind of stealth bonuses definitely wouldn't help differentiate them, since as you even mentioned in the OP, stealth and stabbing is where a lot of the overlap is. If anything, they could be a whole lot less stealthy to differentiate them there.

[crate]

Ha is basically Ko except better.

[mumra]

Yes, I realize this is a trolling topic, but now that I've gotten your attention, I'm 100% serious.

This is not the best intro I've ever seen to a thread

Still, I've never been even remotely inclined to try a halfling; literally the only race for which that is true, so you do have a point. There are few other races I haven't tried at some point (just Hill Orc, Kobold, and Vampire) but those are more "not got around to it yet" than "haven't seen the point".

[Blade]

The question, then, may be "is it worth having a race that's 'basically kobold but better?'" I'm not sure halflings and kobolds play differently enough to warrant the inclusion of both; you can point to apts, etc., but usually kobold games and halfling games feel very similar. Both strong, yes, but "it's strong" is not really a good reason to keep something.

[Jeremiah]

I've played both Ha and Ko to high level and don't think they play similarly at all. Ok, they're both sneaky and dodgy, but really Ha is not "like Ko but tougher," more "like Mf but smaller."

Yes of course your aptitudes aren't so restrictive that you can't play as a conjurer, but why would you when there are other species that do that better

[evilmike]

Halflings and kobolds are pretty similar yeah. The main difference I see is that halflings are more fun. I think this is because I don't like low HP races, and the slow metabolism makes food a less annoying issue (kobolds also have an easy time with food, but you have to eat more often than halflings do).

They do have some other differences though, and these could be made bigger.

[mumra]

One thing I like is the old D&D concept of Tucker's Kobolds - sneaky, smart, trapper kobolds. There's been some talk of trap creation (possibly from wands) - what if this were given to kobolds in some form as a racial ability, along with T&D aptitude whilst lowering some other apts.

Links for inspiration:
http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/tuckers-kobolds/
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tucker's_Kobolds

[Blade]

Even with something like that, I don't think it would do much to differentiate the two races for standard play. Trap creation would still be a fairly minor aspect of an overarching strategy, and unless it was crazy op, it would often fall to the wayside in favor of exactly the same thing that already happens.

It's really a challenge to differentiate races based almost purely on apts. For example, consider an idea of two races, one with good apts in long blades and polearms, the other with good apts in m&f and axes, all other things being equal. One could say "They're plenty differentiated -- look at the weapon apts," but what it would come down to is one would kill everything with long blades or polearms, and the other would kill everything the exact same way with an axe or mace. In the end, a game with polearms will feel almost identical to one with axes, with a slightly different flavour (and some mechanics differences, but nothing big enough to note). Same thing with apts for, say, fire and ice -- whether you use throw icicle or fireball to kill all the dudes, they will still end up dead in almost the same way. A race could try go the "defensive juggernaut" route, but the player would still pick up offensive skills, kill dudes the same way they always have, and appreciate heightened defenses while doing so with nothing really changed.

To feel truly different from each other, races need to have mutations/special conditions (which many races do; the ones where it impacts the game in a meaningful way are sp, ce, dd, dg, ds, fe, gh, mu, na, og, op, tr, and vp, with arguably a few less or more) or very significant apt differences -- the difference between a deep elf and a minotaur, for example -- and halflings and kobolds (along with some other races) have none of this. All the flavour changes in the world will not change that playstyles will fundamentally not feel unique.

Another challenge is specialization -- if you make one race very good at a few things and not very good at everything else, almost every one of them will play in a very similar manner (see: ogres [although +2 spc helps with this], felids, merfolk, trolls, a few others). Further, there is less reason to use those playstyles with other races, because "if you want to do that, why are you not this race." This is fine to have for a few races, but if you have too many like that, it reduces "real" choices.

So...I'm not really sure what could be done with halflings and kobolds (and the other races with similar niches) to differentiate them further. Crawl only has so many niches, and they're all pretty well covered by the races out there. Without a drastic change to one or both, whether in apts or mutations, they'll still end up being very similar in all ways other than flavour. Would it be fine to keep them both anyway? Yeah; they have somewhat distinct niches, even if they're not as different as would be ideal. Would it be fine to cut one? Yeah. Crawl has too many races right now.

(note: I'm not sure how much sense any of this makes; it was much more coherent in my head. I hope that I still managed to say more than nothing in this huge block of text)

[Jeremiah]

It's interesting that whenever this topic comes up it's always halflings that are seen as the problem.

They play well in a fairly narrow niche - and kobolds can be played in that niche, but can also do pretty much anything else.

Maybe the problem is not with halflings but with kobolds, who are too versatile.

So, a suggestion: (though I don't really think anything needs to change, I'd rather see one of the species changed than removed.)

Keep Halflings as the stabby-stabbers who aren't spriggans. Not really many changes from now, but maybe give them better stabbing and hexes apts and tone down slings.

Kobolds are dog-like, so play on this more. Give them an auxiliary bite attack that causes sickness at higher levles, and also the claws mutation at XL7 and claws:2 at XL14. Along with this, tune their aptitudes more towards unarmed and less towards weapons and magic.

[Konebred]

Kobolds are dog-like, so play on this more. Give them an auxiliary bite attack that causes sickness at higher levles, and also the claws mutation at XL7 and claws:2 at XL14. Along with this, tune their aptitudes more towards unarmed and less towards weapons and magic.

This is a cool idea. The bite could be a counter-attack like mino horns maybe. Maybe make the sickness a slow effect, that would be pretty fun to play. I would love to play a small unarmed character, it sounds like lots of fun.

[twelwe]

Kobolds already have their niche (small, carnivorous) and vampires already have fangs + bite attack.