Playing Halflings
Rigel
Member Posts: 252
I love playing Halflings. For the moment, I have never played with modes so I just played Thiefs, F/T and Clerics. I have to say that for me the quintessential Halfling is a simple vanilla Thief, a role which fits how I see Halfling (of course influence of LoTR) and how I imagine Gorion's ward.
At the moment, I am running a character called Lily Weatherbee, vanilla Thief. Usually, my characters have a maximal strength of 8, which fits I think Halfling's size - and weight allowance. I try to be "realistic" regarding to objects - Lily can only wear armor custom-made and not armor found in the field. Zhurlong's boot are OK (he is too a Halfling). Her weapons are dagger and sling - perhaps latter she will learn to use darts.
I have an other Halfling character, Myrtle Leafshadow, a Priest of Lathander. I love her, but it is still strange for me to play a non thief Halfling (pity she cannot be cleric-thief like a gnome).
What are your experiences with Halfling characters ? I would be interested to hear and surely learn from them. Have someone run the whole trilogy with an Halfling character ?
At the moment, I am running a character called Lily Weatherbee, vanilla Thief. Usually, my characters have a maximal strength of 8, which fits I think Halfling's size - and weight allowance. I try to be "realistic" regarding to objects - Lily can only wear armor custom-made and not armor found in the field. Zhurlong's boot are OK (he is too a Halfling). Her weapons are dagger and sling - perhaps latter she will learn to use darts.
I have an other Halfling character, Myrtle Leafshadow, a Priest of Lathander. I love her, but it is still strange for me to play a non thief Halfling (pity she cannot be cleric-thief like a gnome).
What are your experiences with Halfling characters ? I would be interested to hear and surely learn from them. Have someone run the whole trilogy with an Halfling character ?
7
Comments
Thief ? Vanilla or kitted ?
Cleric ?
F/T ?
I´ve never played one in bg2 but I made one for iwd-iwd2. I also do not give her boots for RP reasons XD
My vote is for the cleric halflings (of lathander in vanilla) because you do not have penalties and also with dex 19 and bonus with slings you can be a decent marksman.
As for your second question: the best class to play? Well, this may not come across as being helpful, but the only answer I have is, 'the character you feel like playing.' Really, that's what it comes down to. In terms of their racial bonuses, they make the best thieves in the game (as far as thieving points are concerned). So if maximizing value is important, some kind of thief is an obvious choice. Vanilla thief for RP, or any of the kits. Their racial bonuses help offset the assassin's limitations (only 15 thief points per level), so there's that. From a power-gaming standpoint, the fighter thief is probably the strongest build you can make. You get all that melee power (and fighter HLAs) - and it helps offset the fact that a vanilla thief ends up with way more thief points than you'll ever need.
On the other hand, if you're in the mood to play a cleric you should just do that. You can couple a 19 dexterity score with the racial bonus with slings for an effective ranged character, or armour-up and tank. They can be strong fighters, too, if you're in the mood for that. High dex for ranged attacks and AC... grand mastery... and shorty saves, which are useful no matter which class you choose.
I agree with @OrlonKronsteen that you should play whatever character most inspires you. That will give you the best chance of maintaining interest throughout the games and, if you're using a full party, the class of the main character doesn't have that much impact on the chances of success in any case.
@OrlonKronsteen and @Grond0 yes you're right. For the moment I run two playthrough parallely, one with a vanilla thief and one with a priest of Lathander.
For TOB, trap setting and HLAs will keep you relevant. Backstabbing is unfortunately less useful due to some enemy immunities so your NPCs will tend to take the spotlight in boss fights. But traps, UAI wands/scroll use etc you will be far from useless in high level play.
Good kits are assassin or swashbuckler, due to excess points available it does not matter long term that they get less thievery points per level. Swashbuckler is viable in melee and assassin can do all kinds of funny things. They level up very fast. I completed a full trilogy run with Swashbuckler before and it was quite good.
Clerics are clerics. All the kits can be made to contribute nicely but pure clerics are not that fun for me. Multi or dual preferred in my games.
Fighter/thief excels, many good HLAs available and very versatile. Deadly from a distance too, good backstabs etc. Try Lvl 7/8 Montaron for example.
As pure fighter, see Mazzy for how good that can be. Grandmastery in darts and/or daggers can be interesting, dual wielding, maybe at some stage slings esp once you have access to permanent strength enhancing items.
F/T looks great, I will perhaps try. But for the moment, inspired by the halfling portrait of Icewind dale, let's roll with a vanilla thief.
- Myrtle Leafshadow, priest of Lathander
- Lily Weatherbee, vanilla thief
- Lavinia Pumpkinseed, F/T
For the moment, everyone more or less after Cloakwood mines. And I have to admit that the F/T rocks. SHe does not have a very high Strength (10), but accounts for almost 50% of the party kills (proficiencies Dagger and Sling). Pretty impressive.
Her name is Seraphina Amberleaf, F 8 C 15 D 19 I 18 S 13 C 18
8 in strength because she is a Halfling
18 in Intelligence in Charisma and 19 in Dexterity because this is how I see swashbuckler, some kind of "flamboyant" and witty character (according to the official definition :
"Swashbucklers are part acrobat, part swordman, and part wit: the epitome of charm and grace."
Moreover, the abilities scores are very close to what I got - I just had to correct them a bit. So this is what the fate (gods) bestowed to her.
Proficiencies : short sword + sling
Difficulty : Hard
I try to play her in some kind of "flamboyant way" - she of course uses her sling but does not hesitate to go to melee, even if the results are sometimes not so brilliant - at the beginning at least. Currently, she is already level 7 (just entered to Baldur's gate) and it becomes a bit easier.
She is very proud and a bit daredevil. For the moment, she does not wear armor - Bracers to the death + ring + 2 . She blankly refused to wear shadow armor because she does not need to hide herself (it will surely change afterwards), and of course did not buy the dagger of venom (for assassins ! and not for real fearless adventurers according to her own words).
She has a nice party at the moment - Kivan, Imoen (dualed to mage), Neera, Coran and Quayle.
Before Cloakwood, the party was pretty different - Minsc, Imoen, Xan, Branwen, Neera. Neera stayed to rest a bit in Friendly Arm Inn, and tey entered the five of them to the wood.
They recruted Coran and then Faldorn. Xan fell victim to a bloody phase spider. Then, Minsc was litterally erased by a suicidal lightning bolt sent by Haneishan (35 HP damge and after the rebound an other 36). Faldorn fell as well (I pretty messed up this attack... and more to come). The party recruited Yeslick, but then in a cruel twist of fate, the mage Natasha, in a kind of kamikaze way, launched a lightning bolt as well which killed Branwen, Yeslick and Imoen. So Seraphina and Coran finalized the attack alone - they dragged with them the body of Imoen to resurrect her.
- Objects that belong to a Halfling, e.g. Zhurlong's boots (evben if my Halflings thiefs do not wear boots), Hands of Takkok in SoA (from the cannibal hobbit in the planar sphere), the Halfling cap in SoD
- Objects that are crafted specially for my character - for example, I can ask Thaerom to craft an Ankheg armor to the size of a Halfling character.
- Of course the reverse is true - what is intended to a Halfling should not be worn by a Human or an Elf.
There's a few halfling stuff in BG2:
- Duskblade (+2 halberd) & Darkmail (+3 chainmail) looted from Shadow Patrick, former halfling companion of Mazzy Fentan;
- obviously, the Bow & Sword of Arvoreen wielded by Mazzy
- Wellyn's teddy bear (for sweet dreams)
- Boots of Speed & Pixie Prick (dagger+3) dropped by the halfling (i think?) Bounty Hunter in the Planar Prison
- all the loot from the halflings in the planar sphere (the gauntlets you already mentioned, a +2 composite longbow, there's also a +2 dagger)
- Boomerang Dagger +2 (description states it was crafted for and owned by a halfling)
- Slings: Arla's Dragonbane (+3 sling), Sling of Arvoreen (+4 sling).
Perhaps a few others, not sure.
In BG1, apart from 2 slings (Arla's Dragonbane, Sling of Unerring Accuracy), I don't think there is many gear with halfling-flavour in their descriptions.
In SoD, there's the Gemblade whose description clearly has halfling background, and the Firefly sling designed for Halflings. Probably a few more too.