The blood of Dwarves and a heart of gold. Play as a Stout Halfling with our optimisation guide.
What are Stout 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). Of course, Halflings also have a very curious streak that often overrides their caution in the face of danger. Sometimes this curiosity manifests itself as an adventurer and giving them the kind of bravery you wouldn’t expect from such diminutive people.
Stout Halflings are a little less common than their Lightfoot cousins. They are also hardier, with resistance to poison. For this reason, some believe that Dwarven blood may run in the veins of Stout Halflings, though it’s unknown if this is really true.
Stout Halflings were introduced in the Player’s Handbook 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 Stout 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 Stout Halfling you might consider the following:
Choose a Stout Halfling if you like…
- Being incredibly lucky
- Being braver than your size would imply
- Being tougher than your size would imply
A Stout Halfling might not be for you if…
- You don’t need to be that tough
- Don’t want the slow move speed of small races
- Prefer to tower over your enemies
If you think a Stout 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 Halfling race, you could consider a Lightfoot Halfling or a Ghostwise Halfling.
Stout Halfling racial traits
| Ability Scores | +2 Dexterity; +1 Constitution |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Small |
| Speed | 25ft |
| Languages | Common and Halfling |
| Traits | Lucky, Brave, Halfling Nimbleness, Stout Resilience |
| Proficiencies | None |
| Resistances | Frightened, poison and poisoned |
| Darkvision | No |
| Innate Spellcasting | None |
| Book found in | Player’s Handbook |
If you want to play as a Stout Halfling, your character will have the following traits and abilities (as found in the SRD for D&D 5e):
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.
Stout Resilience – You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance to poison damage.
Tactics
Hard to hit: With a +2 in dexterity, Stout 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. This means you can easily work well as a melee combatant dodging lots of attacks.
Tough: An extra constitution, advantage against poisoned and frightened and poison damage resistance (a really common damage type) makes Stout Halflings pretty gnarly! More so than most races. This means they make great martials and tanks so send them upfront to soak up some damage!
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.
Choosing a class for a Stout Halfling
As you can see from the tactics above, Stout Halflings work best as frontline martials and tanks to beat take advantage of their hardiness. Having said that, being tougher works well for any class so most classes can take something from a Stout Halfling’s traits. Just be aware that lucky will only work with spell attacks and not other types of spells so dedicated Spellcasters are likely to get less out of lucky than most classes, especially those not using their skills often (like rogues and bards).
A ranged specialist can be a solid option too as without a strength boost, dexterity based ranged weapons are a good option for you.
Below I’ve put together a score for how well each class works with a Stout Halfling based on how well the ability score increases and racial traits work with each class:
Artificer⭐⭐⭐
Barbarian ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Bard ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cleric ⭐⭐⭐
Druid ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monk ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Paladin ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rogue ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sorcerer ⭐⭐
Warlock ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wizard ⭐⭐
*Star ratings scored out of 5
Best classes for a Stout Halfling
Your best options is going to be frontline martials, as long as you build them with dexterity in mind rather than strength. With a boost in dexterity, constitution and some extra resiliences and lucky, you should be tough enough to manage being on the frontline.
With that in mind, the best classes for a Stout Halfling are:
- Barbarian
- Fighter
- Monk
- Ranger
- Rogue
The more attacks you make, the better lucky gets meaning fighters and monks are particularly good options. The same goes for making more skill checks, meaning rogues and to a lesser extent, rangers get some extra benefit here. On that note, bards get a fair bit from lucky as skill masters but unless you play a swords or Valor bard, You’re unlikely to benefit as much from the extra toughness.
Paladins can also work reasonably well, but you’ll have to go with a Dex build which can be a little more challenging.
Worst classes for a Stout Halfling
Classes that steer clear of the action will get less out of your resilience traits while Spellcasters that don’t do as many spell attacks will also lose out from the lucky feature (these classes also tend to make less skill checks too). This means that wizards and sorcerers are your worst options. Clerics fare better with some melee and tanking capabilities with druids tending to fulfill a similar function.
About Stout 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; Ghostwise, Lightfoot and Stout Halflings.
Stout Halflings are less common than their Lightfoot cousins but are hardier. They have a better constitution and resistance to poisons leading some to believe that they have the blood of Dwarves running through them. Stout Halflings are also referred to as Stronghearts in the Forgotten Realms and can be found in southern Faerun.
How to roleplay as a Stout Halfling
Like most Halflings, Stouts are carefree, cheerful people, but with some added resilience and a slightly rougher approach to life than their Lightfoot or Ghostwise cousins. Consider the following approaches to roleplaying a Stout Halfling:
- Avoiding trouble – you may be tougher than most Halflings, but you’re certainly not as big as most of the other folk of Faerun! Consider the fights you pick and who against. Halflings are braver than they look, but they also know there are many more menacing threats than them. Maybe you’re capable of going toe to toe with an ogre, or perhaps you know it’s best to put on your charm or use your small size to sneak about before getting into a fight.
- Friendly – Halflings are friendly folk that can find goodness in just about anyone. You’ll likely find it easy to develop friendships and other races may also trust you more easily for that.
- Home comforts – While many Halflings do have an intense wanderlust, they also love the comforts of home. While you’re adventuring, you may certainly desire a comfortable stay in a warm inn with piping hot food and a cool ale (perhaps from a smaller mug than everyone else).
