D&D (2024) The new ONE inspiration rules really screw Halflings

[ECMO3]

Halflings were already a relatively weak race, but as we found out ONE inspiration basically nerfs their best feature. If a halfling rolls a 1 she can roll again, but gets no inspiration unless the second roll is also a 1. So basically Halflings never get inspiration.

This is made more worse by the fact every non-halfling gets a reroll of another roll every time they get a 1. So they will be getting as many rerolls as halflings will.

After playtesting this it is very, very bad unless they come up with a different mecahnic for the Halfling lucky trait or the inspiration.

Honestly I don't know what was wrong with the original inspiration rules.

 

[Minigiant]

Halflings should just get Charisma or Proficiency modifier in luck points and be done with it.

Just give halflings the active "power" and standardize luck in the edition.
I don't know why they had 2 forms of luck in 5e.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I believe it's pronounced: Um, Actually....

Lucky.
When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

Key word being "can" rather than "must".

The player with the Halfling character actually now has an interesting choice when rolling a 1. The player can choose to keep that 1, fail the roll (although, in some low-mid DC Ability Check cases with a Rogue's Reliable Talent, they might actually succeed on an ability check with a nat 1), and gain the Heroic Inspiration -or- the player can choose to reroll per the Lucky trait and take the new result.

Or, you know, the player can have their Halfling character do something particularly heroic or in-character and DM can do the thing that's also in the Heroic Inspiration rules:

The DM can also award Heroic Inspiration to a player character who’s done something that is particularly heroic or in character.

Also, I'm looking at the Heroic Inspiration rule on page 30 of the UA2022-Expert-Classes.pdf from Get One D&D Playtest at no cost - D&D Beyond - where is the bit about "every non-halfling gets a reroll of another roll every time they get a 1."? I don't read it that way at all.

 

[ECMO3]

I believe it's pronounced: Um, Actually....

Lucky.
When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

Key word being "can" rather than "must".

The player with the Halfling character actually now has an interesting choice when rolling a 1. The player can choose to keep that 1, fail the roll (although, in some low-mid DC Ability Check cases with a Rogue's Reliable Talent, they might actually succeed on an ability check with a nat 1), and gain the Heroic Inspiration -or- the player can choose to reroll per the Lucky trait and take the new result.

Or, you know, the player can have their Halfling character do something particularly heroic or in-character and DM can do the thing that's also in the Heroic Inspiration rules:

The DM can also award Heroic Inspiration to a player character who’s done something that is particularly heroic or in character.

Also, I'm looking at the Heroic Inspiration rule on page 30 of the UA2022-Expert-Classes.pdf from Get One D&D Playtest at no cost - D&D Beyond - where is the bit about "every non-halfling gets a reroll of another roll every time they get a 1."? I don't read it that way at all.

"Whenever a player character rolls a 1 for a d20 Test, that character gains Heroic Inspiration."

"When you have Heroic Inspiration (also called Inspiration), you can expend it to give yourself Advantage on a d20 Test. You decide to do so
immediately after rolling the d20."

"A player character gains Heroic Inspiration if the character rolls a 1 for a d20 Test. That 1 must be on the d20 used for the test’s total, not on a d20 that was rerolled or discarded."

So what these lines mean is any time anyone rolls a 1 on a d20 test they get Heroic Inspiration. The second line specifies how you can use that hero to reroll on a future test. So every time someone rolls a 1 they will get to reroll on a future roll, presumably their next failure. After the reroll they will use the highest die.

Sure the Halfling has the choice of keeping the 1 and getting inspiration, but that is a horrible choice. It means one of his racial traits basically gets him no additional benefit other than choosing to use it now or later.

 

[tetrasodium]

"Whenever a player character rolls a 1 for a d20 Test, that character gains Heroic Inspiration."

"When you have Heroic Inspiration (also called Inspiration), you can expend it to give yourself Advantage on a d20 Test. You decide to do so
immediately after rolling the d20."

"A player character gains Heroic Inspiration if the character rolls a 1 for a d20 Test. That 1 must be on the d20 used for the test’s total, not on a d20 that was rerolled or discarded."

So what these lines mean is any time anyone rolls a 1 on a d20 test they get Heroic Inspiration. The second line specifies how you can use that hero to reroll on a future test. So every time someone rolls a 1 they will get to reroll on a future roll, presumably their next failure. After the reroll they will use the highest die.

Sure the Halfling has the choice of keeping the 1 and getting inspiration, but that is a horrible choice. It means one of his racial traits basically gets him no additional benefit other than choosing to use it now or later.

Inspiration points melt after a rest iirc. Those other races need to burn that inspiration before taking a rest or they are back where they started.

Frankly I think 5.5/6e needs to do away with having 47 ways to reroll a & d20 but this doesn't seem to be the problem it's being made out to be. Maybe instead of Tolkien's hobbit "luck" the new halflings will draw something original to d&d from Athss or eberron where halflings are fairly distinct in interesting ways.

 

[Shiroiken]

Given they are from two different packets, it certainly wasn't the intent. We found gaining HI on a 1 to be a much better feature than gaining it on a 20, so hopefully they'll change the halfling ability instead (maybe gain HI in addition to the reroll).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think the halfling trait can easily be fixed if we keep heroic inspiration.
Notice, that it needs fixing, yes. Worrying, not so much.

Edit: My fix would be, that you may chose to keep the 1 as halfling. So you get heroic inspiration if you still miss with your reroll.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe instead of Tolkien's hobbit "luck" the new halflings will draw something original to d&d from Athas or eberron where halflings are fairly distinct in interesting ways.

Oh yes, give them the ability to consume a humanoid heart to gain heroic inspiration.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Halflings were already a relatively weak race, but as we found out ONE inspiration basically nerfs their best feature. If a halfling rolls a 1 she can roll again, but gets no inspiration unless the second roll is also a 1. So basically Halflings never get inspiration.

This is made more worse by the fact every non-halfling gets a reroll of another roll every time they get a 1. So they will be getting as many rerolls as halflings will.

After playtesting this it is very, very bad unless they come up with a different mecahnic for the Halfling lucky trait or the inspiration.

Honestly I don't know what was wrong with the original inspiration rules.

I trust you wrote your findings in your playtest survey, yes? That's the best place to point out overlapping rule issues to make sure WotC sees these pitfalls. I made sure to do the same when I pointed out the Actor feat issue.

 

[aco175]

Maybe parse the wording some with RAW vs RAI and come up with halflings getting Inspiration since they did roll a 1, then specific beats general and they have a power that lets you re-roll.

I would even find it cool that they can use this to give others the inspiration, maybe within 30ft or such.