Introduction

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Halfling Racial Traits

  • Hit Points: The least hit points of any race, but at least the Halfling doesn’t have a racial Ability Flaw in Constitution like the Elf.
  • Size: Small. Medium and small size have few functional differences in Pathfinder 2e.
  • Speed: 25 ft. is standard.
  • Ability Boosts: Dexterity and Wisdom works well for several classes like cleric and ranger, but a Strength penalty limits your effectiveness with melee weapons and makes classes like Barbarian difficult.
  • Languages: Racial language plus Common is standard.
  • Senses: No special senses, but “Keen Eyes” makes it easier for you to locate concealed or invisible creatures and to target them with attacks. If you have an ally in the party who likes to create concealment effects like the Alchemist’s Smoke Bomb feat or the spell Obscuring Mist, this gives you an advantage over other creatures.

Halfling Heritages

  • Gutsy Halfling: Situational.
  • Hillock Halfling: If someone in the party uses Medicine to complement the party’s healing capabilities, this goes a long way to improve those benefits for you. Bring plenty of snacks.
  • Jinxed Halfling: Once per day won’t make a huge impact. If you go this route, use this on big martial enemies who often have poor Will saves and are more likely to roll a Critical Failure.
  • Nomadic Halfling: Normally you can get enough languages from your Intelligence bonus.
  • Twilight Halfling: Low-light vision isn’t as good as Darkvision, but it’s still useful.
  • Wildwood Halfling: Too situational.

Halfling Feats

Level 1

  • Distracting Shadows: Hiding behind taller allies is great, especially in a party full of medium creatures.
  • Folksy Patter: Too situational.
  • Halfling Lore: Three skills is really good for a feat.
  • Halfling Luck: Rerolls are fantastic, and you get to use this after failing a saving throw as a free action so you can do it only when absolutely necessary and without cutting into your other actions.
  • Halfling Weapon Familiarity: The Filcher’s Fork and the Halfling Sling Staff are both martial, so this drops their profiency type to Simple, making them easily accessible to most classes. The Filcher’s Fork is on of my absolute favorite weapons, adding Backstabber and Deadly (d6) and another 10 ft. of range to daggers, making them a spectacular option for rangers and rogues.
  • Prairie Rider: The bonus is small, but if you’re building a mounted combat build you may find that the consistent bonus is worthwhile.
  • Sure Feet: Too situational, and you’ll be able to solve these problems with alchemy or magic at low levels.
  • Titan Slinger: I’m not sure if this applies to Halfling Sling Staves since they’re in the “sling” weapon group, but they’re not “a sling”. Even if it does apply, it’s an average of +1 damage per weapon damage die. I’m not sure if the damage bonus is worth the feat.
  • Unfettered Halfling: Potentially useful for spellcasters scared of grappling.
  • Watchful Halfling: Situational.

Level 5

  • Cultural Adaptability: Absolutely spectacular. There are a ton of fantastic feats exclusive to various Ancestries, and this lets you explore those options much more easily than other Ancestries. You’re limited to 1st-level Ancestry Feats for the free feat you get when you take Cultural Adaptability, but that’s fine. Many of the best options are 1st-level anyway.
  • Halfling Weapon Trickster: The Critical Specialization effects of spears (filcher’s fork) aren’t very good, but slings (Halfling Sling Staff) are great.
  • Step Lively: You need to remain adjacent to the creature, and a Step only moves you five feet so this won’t get you into flanking position on its own. I might consider this in a campaign where giants or other large creatures are prominent enemies, but otherwise it won’t see enough use to justify the feat.

Level 9

  • Dance Underfoot: You gain the ability to share a space with larger enemies, which has no other effect. I do not know why you would want this.
  • Guiding Luck: More reolls are always great, but rerolls on attacks and Perception checks aren’t nearly as useful as rerolls on saving throws because a single Perception check or attack roll is so rarely going to be the difference between life and death.
  • Irrepressible: Situational, but if you’re a Gutsy Halfling this makes emotion effects dramatically less threatening.
  • Unhampered Passage: Situational, but a great way to handle grapples and similarly problematic effects.

Level 13

  • Ceaseless Shadows: Hide wherever you want, and use your allies as cover to protect yourself from attacks. Crucial for rogues, but potentially useful for spellcasters or ranged weapon users.
  • Halfling Weapon Expertise: The only essential weapons from Halfling Weapon Familiarity become Simple weapons, so any class that should be using weapons of any kind will already get improved proficiency with them.
  • Toppling Dance: You have now spent 3 feats to get to pretend that your weapon has the Trip trait. At that point, just get a weapon with Trip.

Level 17

  • Shadow Self: You notably don’t need to have any “current foes” to trigger this, so you can use it to become invisible for one minute once per hour. That’s not the intent, and by this level there are numerous invisibility options, but it’s still a good reusable option. The primary use case is to get yourself out of tight spots in combat, where you can use invisibility to move past enemies without triggering Reactions, to rejoin your allies if you’re separated, or to reach advantageous positions unnoticed.