Halfling professions

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by Dalin

It all depends on the table, as always. All I can say is that Wolf Girl has been popular with both adult players and kids. I've seen her chosen as often as any other character in my pile of 250-point pregens.

But, I do facilitate games for newcomers to the GURPS ecosystem and, often, newcomers to TTRPGs. Very few of these folks know how to optimize a character or have any sense of what their DPS should be. I've seen Wolf Girl do alright in melee, but she does need to invest some additional points wisely after the first few adventures.

As for whether her backstory is good enough, I guess it is a matter of taste. I just read it over, and it doesn't seem too wacky to me. Honestly, I also tend to dislike goofy characters, but I've seen this one played pretty straight. Sillier than Princess Mononoke, but still has that vibe. The great thing, IMO, about a backstory like this is the *character* doesn't need to know more than this. She was a kid. She doesn't remember the details. If the party wants to make a quest out of finding out how the wolves actually managed to raise her, there's plenty of time for the GM and player to work out the details.

Sure works for a one-shot convention game. Not so much for a hard level campaign. Putting the character in "I Smell a Rat" without fudging die rolls and showing the character favoritism is pretty much criminal. GURPS adventures often are pretty hard. The character would probably be survivable in the campaign I'm look to run, but after a few games I don't see the character growth being good compared to most other crafted characters.

My main thing is for a campaign it's goofy and kills the vibe I want for my games. If playing for laughs is your goal, I wonder why pick a difficult somewhat killer rules system like GURPS DFRPG. I'd go with something more narrative like FATE. The halfling ST14 and HP21 seems very off. Is the construction RAW? Ok, ran this through with GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) and I came up with ST15/HP 22. Wow. Never thought halfing Barbarian was a thing.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by restlessgriffin

Never thought halfing Barbarian was a thing.

A halfling Knight isn't a particularly good Knight, but still crushes the halfling Barbarian at stealth and fighting. Compare the halfling barbarian's one club attack at 19 for 2d+8 cr and a 13U parry with a halfling knight's two greatsword attacks at 22 (one of which can be split into two Rapid Strikes at 19) for 2d+6 cut with a 15 parry.

Knight: halfling [0], Striking ST +2 [10], Weapon Master (Two-handed Sword) [20], Extra Attack [25], HP +1 (14) [2], Sacrificial Parry [1], Weapon Bond [1], Trademark Move (Rapid Strike with Deceptive 1 greatsword to the leg at 16, twice, then a greatsword to the skull at 16) [1].

The knight does three times as much damage and is safer, and still has Stealth-14 (+2 vs. hearing, +4 when unmoving), which you can increase to Stealth 16 (+2 or +4) with Quirk points if you want, plus Camouflage-11 with two more quirk points if you want.

A halfling Knight is objectively better than wolf-girl both at thiefy backstabbing and in straight-up combat. A human or especially half-ogre Swashbuckler is better, but just because a halfling is suboptimal in melee doesn't mean they can't still be very, very good. But Barbarian isn't the way to go.

(For combat, I mean. If the goal is amusing RP then wolf-girl is fine; Barbarian works for modeling "raised by wolved" because she can get Discriminatory Smell, for example, which feels very wolfy. But Wolf Girl isn't really a combat specialist.)

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by restlessgriffin

What roles other than Scout and Thief are Halfings good at:

Considering that I allow Halfling Marksmanship to also apply to Innate Attack (Projectile) I've seen quite a few casters as Halflings, both Wizard and Cleric.

And once I slightly beefed up Silence*, I've seen a lot of Halfling Scouts and roguish Swashbucklers. Plenty of Thieves too, but my games aren't combat-centric, otherwise I'd never see one.


* It's 5 points when just raising Stealth is 4 points, it definitely needs a bit of a boost, and no, +2 when not moving and being, in the words of my Players, "immobile bait" is not a boost.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

* It's 5 points when just raising Stealth is 4 points, it definitely needs a bit of a boost, and no, +2 when not moving and being, in the words of my Players, "immobile bait" is not a boost.

Especially because it doesn't work if the monsters can potentially detect you with vision, since they normally get to use the better of hearing and vision. It's only applicable when the enemy has Acute Hearing or e.g. when you're out of line-of-sight, which means it's usually not applicable to backstabbing.

Light Walk and to some extent Hush/Mage Stealth have a similar issue but they aren't as expensive as Silence.

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by johndallman

<Moderator>
Lay off the personal side, please.
</Moderator>

Not meant to be personal, goes to experience. "Anyone can be raised by wolves?"

Re-phrasing the reply, "No one can be raised by wolves". It's one of those unrealistic things people say but really can't be done. In a fantasy setting, unreal stuff happens, but again, internal consistency and logical conclusions based on setting.

[JulianLW]

Detect: Irony [5]

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Considering that I allow Halfling Marksmanship to also apply to Innate Attack (Projectile) I've seen quite a few casters as Halflings, both Wizard and Cleric.

And once I slightly beefed up Silence*, I've seen a lot of Halfling Scouts and roguish Swashbucklers. Plenty of Thieves too, but my games aren't combat-centric, otherwise I'd never see one.


* It's 5 points when just raising Stealth is 4 points, it definitely needs a bit of a boost, and no, +2 when not moving and being, in the words of my Players, "immobile bait" is not a boost.

How are you beefing up Silence? I'm missing what you're saying.


I think the Innate Attack (Projectile) is something worth considering. Got to consider how outside RAW this would be.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by restlessgriffin

How are you beefing up Silence?

My question too. Silence always seemed too expensive to me; the same 5 points could get you a Talent that boosts Stealth and four other skills.

Rather than cut the cost of Silence, I've tried to beef it up. A few months ago I tweeted this:

The Silence advantage is expensive compared to just buying up Stealth.

I get that Silence’s doubled “when motionless” bonus is valuable. But it comes up rarely. And Silence only works vs hearing; plain old Stealth hides you from both hearing and vision. I’d like to see Silence repriced—or beefed up.

Idea: As long as the PC stays in place (the "no Move" restriction), use Silence’s higher bonus to perform any action quietly, not just breathe quietly, if reasonably possible: draw a weapon, pick a lock, search a bag, etc.

(Or maybe that’s already the intended working of Silence? Correct me if I’m house-ruling what’s already the rule…)

It's a small improvement, but I'm open to better ideas.

Maybe even this really simple idea: Each level of Silence adds +2 to Stealth, only vs Hearing. That's it; any actions, with or without movement, no other restrictions/complications. Still a little expensive, IMO, but a better buy than the current version.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Rolando

If real people believed a wolf raised a pair of children and they somehow ended founding one of the great empires of humanity I think a fantasy game can tolerate a halfling raised by a pack of wolfs and turning into a successful barbarian adventurer.

As to the Romans, I understand it to be a running joke that in Latin, "she-wolf" was used as a euphemism for prostitute. It certainly amuses me to think of all those wolf statues as a form of insistent terminology...

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by tbone

Maybe even this really simple idea: Each level of Silence adds +2 to Stealth, only vs Hearing. That's it; any actions, with or without movement, no other restrictions/complications. Still a little expensive, IMO, but a better buy than the current version.

You could steal a page from the Hush spell: each level of Silence gives +1 to Stealth OR -2 to enemy hearing checks against your Stealth, your choice. Normally you'd take the Stealth bonus, but when sight isn't applicable you'd impose the hearing penalty instead--and there's no requirement to remain motionless to get it.

In fact I should run bugbears this way.