Silent but deadly, learn to play as this psychic tribe of Halflings with our optimisation guide.
What are Ghostwise Halflings?
Halflings are short humanoids, standing at about 3ft tall, making them shorter (and less stocky) than even Dwarves. They’re similar in nature and stature to the Hobbits of Lord of the Rings enjoying home comforts, friendship and steering well clear of any trouble that might be brewing (though they’re happy to get near any ale that might be brewing).
Ghostwise Halflings are the least common of the Halfling subspecies and are known for their psychic gifts. In particular, they’re capable of telepathy, though some do develop other psychic gifts too.
Ghostwise Halflings were introduced in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for D&D 5e and our guide below will tell you everything you need to know to play as one of these diminutive characters.
Is a Ghostwise Halfling the right race for me?
Dungeons and Dragons lets you take a flexible approach to building a character, but if you’re going to stick to typical culture and the best-optimised build for a Ghostwise Halfling you might consider the following:
Choose a Ghostwise Halfling if you like…
- Being surprisingly brave
- Having psychic abilities
- Are fond of the small folk
A Ghostwise Halfling might not be for you if…
- You don’t like being slower than everyone else
- Prefer to tower over your enemies
- Would rather use your brawn than your dexterity or your mind
If you think a Ghostwise Halfling isn’t for you, not to worry, there are dozens of playable races for you to pick from, just check out our races guide to find out about all of them. For an alternative small race, you could consider a Kobold or a Forest Gnome.
Ghostwise halfling racial traits
| Ability Scores | +2 Dexterity; +1 Wisdom |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Small |
| Speed | 25ft |
| Languages | Common and Halfling |
| Traits | Lucky, Brave, Nimble, Silent Speech |
| Proficiencies | None |
| Resistances | Frightened |
| Darkvision | No |
| Innate Spellcasting | None |
| Book found in | Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide |
If you want to play as a Ghostwise Halfling, your character will have the following traits and abilities (as found in the SRD for D&D 5e). Silent speech is featured in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide which I can’t replicate here but have summarised the ability instead:
Lucky: When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die. You must use the new result, even if it is a 1.
Brave: You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Nimble: You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
Silent Speech: This ability is unique to Ghostwise Halflings and allows them to speak telepathically to creatures within 30ft of them. The only caveat is that you must share a language with the creature and can only speak to one creature at a time in this way.
Tactics
Like other Halflings, the Ghostwise have a few resiliency abilities while lucky and silent speech have fairly broad utility in and out of combat. Sadly, nimble is too situational to be of much value so you can basically discount this.
I’d recommend some of the following tactics for a Ghostwise Halfling:
Hard to hit: With a +2 in dexterity, Ghostwise Halflings favour dexterity focused classes meaning high dexterity (and also high AC). Even if you don’t focus on dexterity, you’ll likely still end up with an AC boost. There’s not enough resiliency to recommend a Ghostwise as a more tanky character, but does give them more durability for melee if needed. This is the case for your less tough melee classes like rogues, monks and subclasses like swords and Valor bards or hexblades. Alternatively, it works great for shooting ranged weapons too.
Jammy dodger: With lucky allowing you to reroll ones on attacks, ability checks and saving throws, you’re even more geared up to preventing bad things happening to you. And there’s no limit to how often making you practically immune to devastating rolls. Your best options here are classes that will use these types of rolls most often. This is primarily classes like monks and fighters that make a lot of attacks or rogues and bards that make a lot of skill checks. Spellcasters tend to fare worst here unless they make a lot of spell attacks (like a warlock).
Mindfulness: Speaking telepathically can be handy. Need to share a plan without others overhearing can be useful in many social situations. For a fun way to use the ability, consider using it to freak out an enemy and literally get inside their head. It’s even handy in combat if you need to share a tactic without the enemy knowing what you’re up to. In stealth moments where silence is essential, it can also be a huge boon. However, there’s nothing to say that the recipient can speak back making communication a one way affair.
Choosing a class for a Ghostwise Halfling
Really, we’re looking at high dexterity classes or to some extent, those that use wisdom as you have traits with fairly broad appeal. There’s an arguement to go for classes with great face skills to really maximise on your silent speech moments, but since you’ll likely use it more for communicating with allies than dealing with NPCs, there’s less of a case for this approach. Still, it depends on how you want to use those powers and how happy your DM is to let you play with the minds of your enemies.
Artificer⭐⭐⭐
Barbarian ⭐⭐⭐
Bard ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cleric ⭐⭐⭐
Druid ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monk ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Paladin ⭐⭐⭐
Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rogue ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sorcerer ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Warlock ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wizard ⭐⭐
*Star ratings scored out of 5
Best classes for a Ghostwise Halfling
Its not hard to make a Ghostwise Halfling work for most classes with a lot of universally useful traits. Having said that, those classes with use for dexterity and wisdom as well as lots of opportunities to use the lucky trait are the standout options here.
With that in mind, I’d recommend the following classes as your best options:
- Monk
- Ranger
- Bard
- Druid
- Rogue
- Warlock
Druids, monks and rangers are the obvious choices here with all reliant on both dexterity and wisdom. Monks in particular get a lot of attacks giving lucky more chances to be useful. Rangers get a couple of attacks and can be reasonably skillful. It should be noted that I’d rule that druids can use lucky in wildshape as it’s not something about them physically that affects this but that’s one for your DM.
Rogues and bards get the nod for their high dexterity reliance and their high level of skill uses giving them a lot more need for lucky. Bards in particular are highly charismatic and may also find more interesting ways to make use of silent speech.
Warlocks just about get the nod here despite the lack of a charisma increase. Multiple castings of eldritch blast gives lucky extra usage while dexterity is fairly important for them, especially hexblades. Similar to bards, as natural party faces, you may be able to find some really fun uses for silent speech.
Clerics don’t make the cut here despite the wisdom increase. A dexterity based cleric can work, but with much less use for lucky and the option of armor for protection makes them a lesser fit here.
Worst classes for a Ghostwise Halfling
Most classes can work for a Ghostwise Halfling, but the only one that maybe struggles to fully utilise their traits enough is a wizard. Dexterity is useful but with less attacks and skills than really any other class, there’s little to gain from lucky. Most everything else is of minimal usefulness to a wizard.
About Ghostwise Halflings
Halflings come in a few different varieties in D&D 5e. All of them though, can be identified by their short height (about 3ft tall). They tend to have tan to pale skin, curly hair, little facial hair and a stoutness that comes from enjoying many home-cooked breakfasts. The differences in Halfling variants are fairly minimal; most share the same basic traits but with certain groups adopting certain different behaviours and attitudes, there’s enough to differentiate them by subspecies (just about). These are; Lightfoot Halflings, Stout Halflings and Ghostwise Halflings.
Ghostwise Halflings are the least common of the Halfling subspecies and were a clan that were once involved in the worship of the violent deity, Malar. The Stronghearts and Lightfoots allied against this clan and its savagery centuries ago, defeating them and leaving them depleted. The Ghostwise Halflings have since atoned for their crimes through a vow of silence. They are now much scarcer than the other Halfling clans, only really found in the Chondalwood of Faerun and a few other isolated forests.
Unlike most other Halflings, Ghostwise Halflings tend to stay near their tribe and lack the same kind of wanderlust as their kin. Perhaps this is due to their scarcity and the need to keep the tribe strong. It usually takes a very compelling reason to lead a Ghostwise Halfling to leave their tribe, and usually, it’s linked to the support of the tribe itself.
How to roleplay a Ghostwise Halfling
Unlike most Halflings, Ghostwise Halflings share less of the carefree, cheerful attitude of their cousins. The weight of the bad decisions of their ancestors alongside the waning size and influence of their tribe weighs more heavily on them. They are more reclusive and tend to isolate from other species. If you do play a Ghostwise,.consider some of the following approaches to roleplaying them:
- Strength in the clan – Ghostwise Halflings are scarce now. Having dwindled following the clan wars aeons ago, they now seek the support of one another for survival. You may have left the clan, but your caution and desire for strength in numbers will have continued with you. Use caution abundantly and seek the support of your allies.
- Isolationist – The Ghostwise clan has been in isolation for a long time, living in forests rather than large cities. As such, you’ll likely be unaccustomed to the cultures and cities of other races. You may not be completely ignorant, but will likely feel wary of large cities and unused to some of the more cosmopolitan t attitudes in these places.
- Silent history – Because of their history of being silent for so long and their telepathic capabilities, Ghostwise Halflings may display slightly different behaviours. It’s up to you how this manifests. Perhaps you talk less, communicate more naturally using psychic powers or some other quirk. Consider your background here as a small clan fighting for survival and with the weight of grave misdeeds on the shoulders of your ancestors.
