Talk:Halo (5e Campaign Setting)

Hello, everyone. I would just like to let anyone who stumbles across this message know that I will be working on this page for a while, particularly the Bestiary section, and that if you do help, you will not be working alone.

Always good to see new users trying to contribute to things! Two quick tips though, creature names are singular in page titles, not plural, and use the pre-existing templates for attacks. Thanks! --SwankyPants (talk) 13:22, 10 February 2021 (MST)

Howdy, I'm the original creator of this setting. I'm so glad to see someone picking this setting up after almost 2 years of humming and hawing over returning to it some day. The purpose of making pages with plural names was to allow for various ranks. For instance, Buggers (5e Creature) was originally supposed to link to Queen, Leader, Ultra, Major, and Minor buggers, and Hunters (5e Creature) was supposed to link to Basic, Serpent (slightly stronger with Berserker's Claw (a weapon we have yet to make), Elder (stronger basic with shields), and Mythic (stronger Serpent with shields). Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you what to do, just giving you the original vision. Thank you so much for adding to this setting, I look forward to what you make in the future. --Ref3rence (talk) 20:30, 10 February 2021 (MST)

Getting in Touch

Hey, I'd like to discuss with @SwankyPants regarding the Halo campaign with a couple suggestions. Reach me on discord; Mjr-issues420#8947 March 12th 5:55 p.m. 2023

Hi! I'm just an admin of the site, not the one working on this setting. As for any suggestions, feel free to just post them here. --SwankyPants (talk) 18:51, 12 March 2023 (MDT)

Overhaul #3

Given the resent undo string, I figured I should justify the current rework. I initially created this setting when I was much less experienced in creating homebrew, and I am severely unsatisfied with the groundwork I laid:

• The page naming scheme was changed to make differentiating between this setting and the 3.5e Halo setting, which uses the frustratingly-similar (Halo Supplement) identifier, without occupying common page titles with the (5e X) header and keeping every page from being "Y, Halo Variant (5e X)" (i.e. Hunter, Halo Variant (5e Creature)).
• The current class system of Spartan (Headhunter, Master Chief, Carolina from RvB, Gamma), Marine (ODST, Vehicles, Ordinance, Medic, Captain), Covenant (Elite, Hunter, Brute), and three reflavors of core 5e classes does not accurately represent how playing a Halo campaign should be.

• Spartan subclasses are very oddly pigeonholed, with Headhunter being the only one that really represents a classification specific to Spartans. The first two Sierra features aren't necessarily exclusive to Spartans (casting Fear nonmagically could probably just become a variant rule for larger than average creatures), while the third grants equipment, which beyond being kind of a lazy cop out on my part can completely break the DM's ability to ration out equipment on a reasonable scale, and means a player can simply lose an entire level's feature for RP decisions or just being disarmed (this will become a trend). Freelancer technically shouldn't even be a Spartan subclass since they aren't part of a SPARTAN program (my plan was to make all RvB-adjacent content part of a subpage separate from everything else in this setting), and doesn't represent half of the abilities the various Freelancers have. Gamma Company's 009762-OO Mutagen isn't unique to Spartans, since it was already illegal prior to the SPARTAN-II program.
• As with Spartan, the Marine class grants equipment at multiple levels (see above). There's also the issue of exclusivity among subclasses; are Spartans unable to be vehicle/ordinance specialists, medics, or leaders?
• Only 3 Covenant species currently playable, but I'd argue Covenant subclasses shouldn't even be determined by species, since as above are each of the Covenant's species unable to be vehicle/ordinance specialists, medics, or leaders?
• As part of wider wiki content, Mechmaster, Soldier, and Gunslinger don't have a place in this setting, since there's no way to ensure balance within this setting, and there's nothing unique to these classes that Spartans, marines, and members of the Covenant should be unable to do.
• Comparatively, the specialization system would cover human and Covenant forces in a unified manner without granting non-starting equipment. As an aside, classes aren't necessarily being lost with specializations, just truncated.

• While races aren't the biggest issue currently, their current versions are designed for core 5e, so things like san'shyuum tool proficiency and kig-yar weapon proficiencies aren't going to be as useful in this setting.

• In the overhaul, most races (human, kig-yar, san'shyuum, unggoy, yanme'e) will be Small to make better use of the Heavy property (i.e. Spartans, jiralhanae, sangheili, and prelates will be able to dual-wield SMGs and use brute shots more effectively).

• The current bestiary is built on 5e's CR calculations, in which a creature's CR is roughly based on the damage output and hit points of a party of 4 traditional 5e players, and while that works just fine for 5e, I don't think it works well for this setting. In Halo, bosses are the exception, not the rule, so PECR would be a good fit.

Hopefully this makes things clearer. This doesn't mean that any currently-existing content will simply cease to be, as I intend to keep it in a subpage for quick reference for players/DMs wanting to integrate Halo content into a more standard 5e campaign, I just think that there's so much we can do to make this setting more playable and more Halo.--Ref3rence (talk) 08:54, 6 February 2024 (MST)

Hey, I’ve been the one making the recent undos and I’m actually really sorry. I’m somewhat new to D&D and got into it because of my friends. I didn’t really understand the way the changes worked. Apologies, I realise all the old stuff is still here and that you definitely get this more than me. Can you clarify how the Specialisations sections work? I’m used to classes and this is new to me. My friends don’t get it either and we thought that you didn’t know what you were doing (evidently we were wrong). They only seem to have 4 levels each. How do they work and why are the changes being made to overhaul classes in favour of specialisations? Thanks so much and deepest apologies! (Plus, if there’s any way that I can help I’d love to) -Whermst117

There's no need to apologize, I'm actually really glad you reached out. Specializations work identically classes (admittedly I probably could've saved a lot of confusion by keeping the name class) save for the number of levels they have, proficiency bonus scaling, and hit point calcs (which were mostly to smooth out the relationship between hit points and damage. As above, there are a lot of reasons I chose to do this, with the main one being that instead of trying to cram everything a soldier can be into a single class or splitting it up by race, a player can choose what their soldier is specifically good at (which also fits with a more modern concept of what a soldier is). The main reason they're only 4 levels is because the 20-level scaling of 5e works great for fantasy superheroes, but leaves fairly realistic military settings with a lot of filler content, and I want every level to feel like it means something (although originally I was considering any number of levels between 4 and 8). A lot of things are still in progress (the Specializations header most prominently), but feel free to contribute wherever you want (and as above, if you want to keep making content without these rules through the Help page (though I plan on moving it to another page under the Dungeon Master's Guide section of the main page eventually), that's perfectly fine, as I don't intent on getting rid of it (though I will probably remove the Halo Setting and Supplement categories once all is said and done)).--Ref3rence (talk) 11:31, 8 February 2024 (MST)