Halfling Balance

If they don't have some sort of bonus vs magic, what is the point of playing them. Better of playing a human or half-drow.

Yes @trick, that is doable, resistances against types can be done.

Take away weapon bonus and add a vuln (If they really need one which I don't think they do), the smashing one was a fine idea since they are small. I still think a proper Fire Giant will laglock most of them to death (Except maybe Bards because yeck)

1 hour ago, Rygothran said:

 Dwarf/duergar has magical resistance and has a water vuln and are small size. Halfling has magic resistence and has no vuln, but has small size and low strength.

Dwarf and Duergar are normal sized, Halflings are still small.

Any Halflling without protective shield is very vulnerable to being lag locked by any competent player and in theory will be out classed by any giant player when playing the Warrior Class.

The dagger and sword bonus could be reverted as it was only put it to try even the scales with the physical vulnerability they had, with that removed, no need for it anymore.

What Halflings have recently dominated purely because they are Halfling?

They have low int.

Mental magic should be removed from their resistances.

Lose bonus perk Addiction.

Let magic resistance swing both ways, -1 tick for all consumable buffs.

Edit: Remove bonus to songs for halflings give it to faerie bards instead.

Second cup of coffee. All cylinders firing.

Add diminishing resistance.

It seems to me that part of the problem could stem from saves on equipment stacking with the innate magical resistance of the race. Perhaps we should consider that when saves reach a certain point the magic resistance of the race begin to drop. Consider that the resistance is a field of protection, a field disrupted by the innate magic of the equipment granting the saves.

I discussed sth similar with Erelei before, it would warrant a major recoding of how resistances work. So no.

Can you mix and match vulns and resistances to a fair lvl? I don't know enough to offer specifics. But it would be something along the lines of mental vuln (damn low impulse control) but resist mals.

7 hours ago, Fool_Hardy said:

They have low int.

Mental magic should be removed from their resistances.

Lose bonus perk Addiction.

Let magic resistance swing both ways, -1 tick for all consumable buffs.

Edit: Remove bonus to songs for halflings give it to faerie bards instead.

I like the idea of magic resist swinging both ways...but what if instead of -1, they randomly "resisted" buffs..quaff a vial and it does't work 15% of the time? Smoke an herb and randomly no effect? The randomness would make it much more challenging to deal with. Once in a blue moon your glimmering fails 3 times in a row.

Halfings OP? Really? We sure it's not a Feral under guise?

On topic though, thieves in glad are OP. Playerbase has recently grasped this and everyone is taking his shot at them. Make them lose the extra defense they gain from close combat.

Pretty easy solution.

Thieves are already disallowed in Glad moving forward - so making balance changes to a whole race based on a combo that won't exist moving forward seems to be an over-correction.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record - we are trying to fix symptoms - rather than the cause.

Why do we think Halflings are OP? Halflings have always been defensive powerhouses, but have lacked damage output - which was the balance.  Any melee is able to hit 50 / 50 Hit / Dam without trouble these days - so a race that was balanced around having high def but lower damage output, suddenly seems to powerful, as their 'weakness' has been taken out of play via power creep in equip / consumables.

Over the years we have made lots of 'QOL' changes - with the intention of making the game easier to play.  Anybody who knows me knows that I am massively behind making the game more accessible - so I don't think it is a bad thing in principal.  What has been missed is the fact that some of the races / classes in the game are balanced around not having easy access to certain things - and when you take away those downsides - you make them stronger overall, without meaning to.

Thieves not allowed in glad anymore? Then what are we doing here lol

Thieves not allowed in glad? It does make some sense, but I haven't read such a change. Can someone link it?

There is a lot of unpublished changes at the moment, I believe they are done on purpose too to see how the players react without consciously knowing there has been a change.

It was mentioned in Discord.  Until I see it in print here, I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

I never understood why thieves could be gladiators to start. The subcabal all about honor, and duty, doesn't mesh with every skill thieves have

My suggestion is to generally add value at the race level, preferably small stuff like the +prof or 'perk' level bonuses. Nerf at the cabal or class level which is where you have most of your flexibility.

If a halfling thief in glad is too powerful, your next question should be if an avian or feral thief in glad is too powerful. If that answer is yes, start looking at all thieves in gladiator. Deconstruct that way.

I'm out of the loop on balance issues, but it is very hard for me to imagine that halflings as a race are the source of this problem. Like others have said, I'd bet it is more of thief/glad synergy than halflings in particular.

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The reason you want to boost races and nerf cabal/class abilities is to redistribute the balance from something like 50/30/20 class/cabal/race importance in the build strength to something more equitable. This gives you more levers to play with in the future in balancing out the combinations. The smaller the lever you add, the better you can balance, so I strongly suggest (and have suggested for decades now) to focus on build synergy and not pretend that races operate in isolation. Race is the smallest part of a build generally, so playing with the race 'lever' has the largest effect on balance. Generally work on focusing class/cabal down so you have the ability to more finely adjust the entire combination in the future.

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Buffs to race, balance with nerfs to class/cabals or specific combinations. Look at the necro changes and how races work with them as an example in practice.

Completely agree Cel. A lot of the balance problems currently have their root in the shift of power make up. Historically most of your strength was defined by your race / class combo. With cabal, equip and consumables being icing on the cake. To much power has been shifted into equip and consumables (cabals not changed much) which makes balancing very hard.

Also agree with your point on equipment/consumables which I purposely left out due to the unresolved arguments revolving around them. Maybe one day the near-mythical equipment overhaul will come to fruition.

dont they lose the ability to poison themselves? I do recall that being an issue with my halflings.