What is the best program for organic modeling like cliffs and ground.

Well that is a pretty odd question and it doesn't make sense in Halo's Low-Poly environment. It is the talent of the artist that makes the the geometry accurate or believable. If you are trying to model cliffs in halo just use the face by face strategy. I use 3ds max 8 and go face by face. Over-all I recommend 3ds Max 8 or later for all your modeling needs. I don't mean to beat a dead horse here but,
3ds Max > Gmax.
3ds max (stock) has more useful plug-ins for low-poly modeling then gmax and Maya. Now... if you are moving on from Halo modeling and going to high poly organic modeling or the like then zBrush reins king.
Back to Halo's Low-Ploy rules to add a little randomness to your map use the "Noise" or the "Paint Deformation Tool" (only available in Editable Poly mode).

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Hope this helps
Eliasness

Maya is useful, dont judge it. Bungie uses it for Halo 3.

If it's for Halo CE, then 3ds max 8 is best for pretty much everything only because of how it's supported by plenty of apps and it's most common within the community other than Gmax.
For modeling in general, I've heard Maya is the best for organic modeling. You could use any of these and should get the same outcome if you know how to model. Using one of another won't make your work better if you have no experience. I would say use 3ds max 8 but if that's not an option, go with Gmax.

I am modeling a rolling desert floor and some boundary cliffs of a canyon for an SP. It is not to be high-poly.

3ds Max 8 doesn't seem to be readily available anywhere, cheaper than a couple thousand dollars. So, it looks like I should use Max 9/10? Also, does anyone know any good tutorials concerning this topic, possibly non-Halomaps(as I have a large library of Halomaps tuts)?
Edited by Headhunter09 on Jun 24, 2009 at 06:54 AM

soft selection is sometimes usefull for rolling planes or hills.

But for large realistic terrain i recomend L3DT (google it). It can export decemated obj meshes which can be further optemized in max. From there you add a skybox and portals, make a custom shader for it, and it can export. Terragen might be good too but i don't know how to use it. L3dt is more strait forward and easy to learn and use.

I don't disagree. Just because I don't recommend it for Halo CE's Low-Poly environments doesn't mean I have judged it as a bad program. Personally, I prefer it for NURBS modeling. While I am on the topic its hierarchy system is much better and the UI is much more desirable once you get use to it.

Vick Jr is right; I used L3DT not too long ago (for fun) but it didn't really fit into my work flow. Mainly because I didn't have time to deal with their texturing system. If you take the time to fit it in then I have no doubt it will fulfill your needs.

Respectfully,
Eliasness

Well, it's the skill of the user that makes the terrain good.
You should watch Mass's cliff tut, and there's a few other good cliff tuts on this site.