Here's a "small" issue that gives me fits any time I try to analyze it. Halfling preferred weapons varied wildly across different editions of D&D. Let's look at that. (Also: Happy birthday to J.R.R. Tolkien, who was born on Jan-3.)
Tolkien
Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough. They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were, perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief, foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well and looked no further than their bellies and their well-fed faces. Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows. If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well.
This is the key paragraph on Hobbit martial prowess from the Prologue to the
Lord of the Rings ("Concerning Hobbits", 18th paragraph). Interestingly, what takes priority here is first and foremost the bow (and only secondarily stone-throwing). And this is underscored elsewhere, too: the only assertion of historical Hobbit military action outside the Shire emphasizes the same thing (3 paragraphs prior): "To the last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen to the aid of the king, or so they maintained, though no tales of Men record it."
In the
Lord of the Rings, we see Hobbit archers in action only at the very end. Perhaps more memorable for most readers is the major combat in Chapter 8 of
The Hobbit, in which Bilbo, alone and invisible, holds off at least 50 giant spiders by throwing stones at them (one-shot killing at least the first two he targets). Tolkien writes:
Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one that fitted his hand cosily. As a boy he used to practise throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand, bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing sort—indeed he could do lots of things...
So we can forgive most readers if foremost in their minds are the scenes of Hobbit stone-throwing, instead of archery. If you search online, you'll find quite a bit of confusion and debate as to the source, context, and meaning of these passages (e.g.,
here and
here). But if we read carefully in each case, Tolkien indicates that stone-throwing is but one instance of a broad family of similar skills. In the Prologue to
Lord of the Rings, it is clear this is due to their being "keen-eyed and sure at the mark". Likewise in
The Hobbit it is emphasized at many points that Bilbo has significantly better eyesight than any of the dwarves, e.g., even in the darkness of the Mirkwood ("for by now they knew Bilbo had the sharpest eyes among them", Ch. 8).
We might think that the halflings should therefore get some bonus to finding secret doors or traps or somesuch, but they do not in any edition of D&D; in contrast to elves with their secret-door detection, and dwarves with their stonework traps detection, etc.
Chainmail Fantasy
They can fire a stone as far as an archer shoots, and because of their well known accuracy, for every two halflings firing count three on the Missile Fire table.
Unfortunately, in
Chainmail (hobbits/halflings being the very first entry in the list of fantasy creatures), the weapon being described is ambiguous: "fire a stone". This is might be throwing (although "fire" is a slightly unusual verb for that; Tolkien does not use it). Or it could be slings (but there is no reference, statistics, or fire rate given for slings anywhere else in Chainmail). Or it could possibly be crossbows (some crossbows fired stones instead of quarrels). It seems like the only thing it
couldn't be is the self-bows highlighted by Tolkien. The three-for-two attack rule means that halflings get a boost on the normally mass-attack Missile Fire table, with any group likely scoring an extra hit as a result.
Original D&D
In Vol-1 (
Men & Magic) we see this:
... they will have deadly accuracy with missiles as detailed in CHAINMAIL.
This shares the ambiguity of Chainmail itself. Is this meant to be throwing, slinging, and/or crossbows, as it might be in Chainmail? Could it be a blanket bonus to all things that count as "missiles"? Furthermore, handling the numerical bonus gets murkier as we shift from mass combat to man-to-man. (This was written, presumably, shortly before the "Alternative" combat system using d20's.)
On that point, after Sup-I (
Greyhawk), we get a Corrections sheet that says this:
Hobbits: All hobbits add +3 to hit probabilities when using the sling.
Now we have the first clear specification, giving the preference to slings (and only to slings). The bonus of +3 is both odd and surprisingly hefty (equivalent to the melee attack bonus from 18/75 Strength in these same rules, say). But consider this: Against an opponent in chain mail (AC 5, e.g., most humanoid types), a 1st-level fighter hits on a 14 or more (that is, 7 in 20, or 35%). The chance to get at least one hit from
n such attacks is given by P(
n) = 1 − (1 − 0.35)^
n. For 2 attacks we have P(2) = 0.58, whereas for 3 attacks we have P(3) = 0.73. The difference between these chances is 0.15 = 15%, or precisely 3 pips out of 20; so the +3 attack bonus is a reasonable translation of the advantage given in
Chainmail.
AD&D 1st Edition
We will see that across AD&D, different books in the same edition always expressed contradictory ideas about the halfling attack bonus. (Perhaps as one was updated and the other lagged one edition behind?) In the 1E PHB, we see no reference whatsoever to any attack bonus in the section on Halflings (9 across paragraphs on p. 17). But the 1E MM says this in the monster entry for Halflings:
SPECIAL ATTACKS: +3 with bow or sling
This is in the statistical summary block (p. 50), with no further explanation in the text. This seems to be a retention of the +3 bonus from the Greyhawk correction, expanded by Gygax to be more in line with Tolkien's original depiction. The illustration of halflings in this book features one in action with a bow (see top of this article); their weapon frequency table shows 20% with short bows, and 20% with slings. However: we will see that this is effectively the one and only time that a D&D editor thought to call out halfling specialization with the bow. (Side note: at this time Thieves cannot use bows, but in the later
Unearthed Arcana they will be given permission to use short bows.)
AD&D 2nd Edition
The 2E PHB says this:
Halflings have a natural talent with slings and thrown weapons. Rock pitching is a favorite sport of many a halfling child. All halflings gain a +1 bonus to their attack rolls when using thrown weapons and slings.
Notice that the preference here is different from the 1E MM, shifting from slings/bows to slings/thrown (emphasizing the final line from Tolkien about stones, and overlooking his thoughts on archery). The bonus is dropped from the hefty +3 to a measly +1 (but see also the B/X rules, which the author Dave Cook worked on previously -- this may be from whence his numerical sensibility for the issue comes from). On the other hand, the 2E MM still says this:
They are very skilled with both the sling and the bow (receiving a +3 bonus on all attack rolls) and use these weapons to great advantage in battle.
Note that the weapons and bonus value both contradict the 2E PHB, but are still in line with the 1E MM (likely a copy-paste mistake from that prior edition).
D&D 3rd Edition
3rd Edition can be credited with somewhat better organization, finally synchronizing the rule between PHB and MM. The 3E PHB says this, and the MM agrees:
+1 racial attack bonus with a thrown weapon: Throwing stones is a universal sport among halflings, and they develop especially good aim.
This is different from the 2E PHB rule, and is the most restrictive version seen in any edition (thrown only, no slings or bows). It's also the most likely interpretation to come from someone who primarily remembers the combat between Bilbo and the Spiders in
The Hobbit, say.
D&D 3.5 Edition
From the 3.5 PHB and MM:
+1 racial bonus on attack rolls with thrown weapons and slings.
This backs off the hyper-restrictive rule in 3E, and returns the skill with the sling (so: exactly matches the rule from the 2E PHB).
Basic D&D
Here we check in with the Basic D&D line, which branches off temporally after OD&D, but has its own distinct rule. Holmes Basic says this (p. 7):
Halflings are extremely accurate with missiles and fire any missile at +1.
According to Zenopus Archives, this bonus is exactly what Holmes put in his original manuscript (before an editing pass by Gygax;
link), which is totally different from any other ruleset. Compared to the prior OD&D
Greyhawk, it seems to massively expand the preferred weapons (from only slings to all missiles), while severely reducing the bonus (from +3 to +1).
What was the motivation for this? Well, let's imagine for a moment that Holmes was looking only at OD&D Vol-1, and didn't have the
Greyhawk Correction sheet in sight when he wrote this rule. As we saw above, Vol-1 fails to explicate either the exact weapons or bonus applicable for the present ruleset ("they will have deadly accuracy with missiles as detailed in CHAINMAIL"); even if you looked back in
Chainmail the weapons are ambiguous, and the bonus is totally not in terms of the present ruleset. So you might very well interpret "missiles" as "all missiles", and some kind of undefined bonus as +1, in all probability. But perhaps more importantly: if you have expert familiarity with the writings of Tolkien, re: Hobbits being "keen-eyed and sure at the mark" with bows and other weapons, then this might be the most faithful expression of that conceit.
This "any missile at +1" was kept unchanged through all later editions of Basic D&D: it is the same in Moldvay-Cook B/X, Mentzer BXCMI, the Allston
Cyclopedia, etc.
Conclusions
Below is a table summarizing the always-changing status of the halfling attack bonus across different editions of D&D:
I also asked the question as a poll on the Facebook 1E AD&D group. Interestingly and unusually, the 1E rule (neither of them) did not come out on top, with a strong preference for the 2E/3.5-style rule highlighting slings and thrown items:
Recall once more that Tolkien himself emphasized use of bows, and secondarily thrown items. In the history of D&D, this latter item seemed to get the focus of attention: an ambiguous rule in Chainmail/Vol-1, with the Sup-I correction translating it to slings, around which the rule orbited from then on (and reflected in the poll results above). Yet amusingly, in some sense the sling was the only missile weapon that Tolkien
didn't call out by name as favorable for Hobbits.
At this point in my OED house rules I have the benefit to halflings listed as +2 to all missile attacks (the least-popular option in the poll above, but one). It would seem that if we want to be in any way faithful to Tolkien, we must give the bonus to at least bows and thrown weapons; and then the most concise rule is to just wrap in slings on the side and make it "all missiles". Moreover, if Tolkien attributes this to being "keen-eyed and sure at the mark", then by all rights it should benefit all types of ranged attacks. The value I set at +2 as the mean between the +1 and +3 bonuses seen in various editions above (also: I have a rule-of-thumb that I don't want to deal with any situational modifiers less than +2). However: I've juggled that benefit around in OED I-don't-know-how-many-times, so based on that, it might get adjusted again in the future.
What is your preference for the Halfling attack bonus, in terms of both numerical value and preferred weapon(s)?
