Dice 'n Buttons

5 Fun Character Flaws

A lot of players concentrate on their characters’ strengths, building a powerful caster, an agile sneak-theif, or a brutal barbarian warrior. Equally important though are the flaws in your character. These are generally skipped over entirely in the books, so here are a few examples to inspire you. A hero with problems, in my opinion, is a more interesting character than an alabaster statue. Flaws also, almost more than strengths, open up opportunities for further background development. Without further elaboration, here are a few ideas.

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5 Reasons to Play a Halfling

You’re Small!
A lot of players look at this as a bad thing, but in 4th edition the only negative effect it has involves weapons. You can’t use two handed weapons, and you wield versatile (think bastard sword) weapons with two hands but don’t do extra damage like you normally would. If you’re a rogue or a caster, neither of these really affect you. One the plus side, you can fit through spaces other creatures can’t. You can also take a lot of feats to get attack bonuses against bigger creatures. As a rogue, you have more opportunities to hide in barrels, under carts, under desks, in shallow water, or under another player’s cloak than you would as a medium creature. Think about hide and seek as a kid; you can actually fit in those places again!

Halfling Second Chance
In a fight, you get one of (in my opinion) the best racial abilities in the game. Halfling Second Chance allows you to force an opponent to reroll a hit once per encounter. If you’re smart about it, this basically makes you immune to critical hits. Just save the ability for a critical hit (or hit that might kill you) and force the DM to reroll it. Unless you offended the god of chance, you probably won’t suffer the same fate twice.

You Don’t Weigh Very Much 
As a DM, I like weight puzzles. Usually I use them to break up the party a bit and force unusual strategy in a game. There are all kinds of examples, but here are a few: pressure plates, counterweights, elevators, rotting timber, boats, old bridges… you get the idea. Yes, I do make my players track their carry weight. Halflings weigh about 80 pounds. In addition to adding more flexibility in these situations, this means they can be thrown short distances through the air (check it with your DM) by a strong player. You won’t be able to work it into an attack unless your DM is really generous, but the party’s barbarian could probably toss you onto a low roof, over a wall between guard patrols, or over a gap if you jump poorly.

Halflings Don’t Give a Fuck
You get a +5 bonus against fear. You also get a racial bonus to your charisma, which probably factors into your will defense, unless your wisdom is amazing. This means that effectively you’re getting +6 to every roll you make to run away. You won’t run away. As a DM I often force ‘morale’ checks for monsters when their numbers are halved, provided it makes sense for the monsters to flee. This cuts down on combat time. I do the same thing for nearby players if a party member is dropped violently, forcing them to move away from the fallen ally on their turn until they succeed a fear check.

In Eberron, Halflings Live in Barbarian Tribes and Ride Dinosaurs
This should be the only reason you need. Seriously. Go roll a halfling now. 

If you liked this, you can find the other articles on my blog through the Dungeon Map. 

6 Badass Nerdy Dads

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
Father’s day is probably one of the most underrated holidays out there (right alongside Arbor Day) so I put together this list of the best nerdy dads that came to mind. Tell your own dad how awesome they are (remember, there is a zombie killing hero in all of us) and do something special together. Or if you’re too lazy, check out my list:

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