Announced under the working title of D&D Next, the 5th edition of Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game is the Coca-Cola Classic to 4E's new coke, where they had a long period of playtesting. It is available as a free 110-page *.pdf with a subset of the rules, and in the usual three hardcover tomes: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual. 5th edition took dramatic steps to regain the "feel" of older editions, hoping to bring Pathfinder expats back into the fold without alienating the minority of players who liked Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and maybe, just maybe even woo back some of the TSR grognards.

On January 12, 2016, Wizards of the Coast released the Systems Reference Document, 5th Edition under the Open Gaming License- effectively making the core rules and much of the more generic fantasy content in 5th edition free.

What's The Same [ edit ]

Player classes are still the classics (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard in free version, plus Paladin, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, Barbarian, Ranger, Monk, and Druid in full PHB), players have the archetypal races (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Human in free version, adding subraces such as Mountain/Hill Dwarves, Forests/Rocks Gnomes, Forests/High/Dark Elves, two versions of the Halfling, also Tieflings, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs and Dragonborn). Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Ability scores can give small bonuses to your dice rolls. Characters can be skilled at predefined tasks like "acrobatics" or "intimidation" to get bonus to rolls. Universal d20-based system of roll-over target numbers. Experience points, with every class requiring the same number of EXP's to advance to the next level. Classes get features as they reach new class levels. Hit points, class-based hit dice. 10 silver pieces = 1 gold piece. In combat, targets have armor class to-hit numbers determined by armor & stuff.

Character alignments are two-axis good-evil & law-chaos. Multiverse in PHB looks like old Planescape with the best ideas from the Points of Light cosmology added.

What's Different (from 3E) [ edit ]

A big change is the advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which collapses a lot of the circumstance bonuses. If a character has an 'advantage' for a skill roll or combat roll, the player rolls two d20 and takes the better one. If a character has a 'disadvantage', roll two d20 and take the worse one. These advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out, and do not accumulate; you will only ever roll two d20 and choose one. So if your second level rogue is trying to pick a lock but he is on fire and drunk (as players of rogues often are) but he's being aided by another person, he'll pick the lock just as well as if he was totally fine. The explosion of buffs has been dramatically scaled back from 3E, where having ten buffs at once was not unheard of.

Attributes are the same ol' six, but more important than before. They're used for skills checks and saving throws. Ability score increases are now class features, meaning that you have the potential to lose them if you multiclass. Most classes get 5 ASIs, at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19. Rogues get one extra, and Fighters get one more than Rogues.

Feats are now fewer in number and more potent. If a character wants to obtain a Feat, they have to give up one of their Ability Score Increases to gain access to it.

In order to maintain the 'bounded accuracy' system described above, ability scores have a 'soft cap' of 20, which can only be broken using (rare) magic items, or exceptional circumstances such as the Barbarian's level 20 feature. There is a hard cap of 30, which cannot be exceeded by any means.

Target numbers including Armor Class are capped hard; no more DC 80 skill rolls, no more AC 120 monsters. Goblins can still hit you when you're a level 20 paladin, they just do weaksauce damage (Fixed damages to make the combats faster are also suggested/used for the weakest creatures). Swarms are still a problem, as are clever little shits like Tucker's Kobolds; no more Superman characters.

No more skill points; either you have proficiency in a skill, or you don't. As you level up, you get a 'proficiency bonus' (roundUp((level)/4)+1) you add to any rolls for those skill checks you're proficient in. Seems small, but see above about skill checks and ACs not getting stupid large even at high levels.

Saving throws are like skills checks. Each class is proficient in two attributes for saving throws, so they get to add their proficiency bonus. So when a Cleric gets hit by a charm spell, that's a wisdom save: d20 + wisdom bonus + proficiency, versus the spell DC (explained below). No more 'fort','reflex','will' per level, although Constitution, Dexterity, and Wisdom are still the three most common saves. Each class gets two saving throw proficiencies, one "common" and one "uncommon."

Races come with racial bonuses, but some races also choose a racial sub-type. I.e. all dwarves get bonuses to save vs. poison, but Hill Dwarves get +1 Wisdom and extra hitpoints while Mountain Dwarves get +2 Strength and medium armor training. This has been around since Dragon Magazine was still a print magazine, but it's codified right there at character generation. The exceptions are humans, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings.

Spellcasting is through spell slots used to cast the known/daily prepared spells as many times as there are slots available (essentially, you no longer have to assign a spell to each spell slot). It is very similar to 3e Sorcerers. Older players may recognize this system from the Final Fantasy 1 and Wizardry vidyas.

Each class has a subtype called "archetype" you choose at 1st, 2nd or 3rd level, depending on the class. This lets you choose some of the class features you get as you level up. For Clerics this would be their god's domain that the Cleric is gonna be all about (Basic Set only has "Life" domain). For Wizards it's the school of magic (Basic Set only has "Evocation"). Paladins have the Oath they swear, bards have the College they join, etc.

Character background is now a mandatory part of character generation. A Background includes additional skill and tool proficiencies, and even bonus equipment, as well as a "Feature" that gives some sort of social advantage. For example, a Criminal has a contact in the criminal underground, or a Sailor being able to get free passage for their party in exchange for assisting the ship's crew. Backgrounds also have tables players will roll on to get two Personality Traits, one Ideal, one Bond, and one Flaw, though like most tables of this nature the player can just choose whatever sounds best to them (or come up with their own that fit the background 'cause this is a roleplaying game).

When you role-play well, the DM can give you an "inspiration" token you can spend to gain advantage on a d20 roll, or pass it off to another player in the group. This has often been a house rule but now it's codified and it will likely push people into using the fanmail mechanic more often, and roleplaying for benefits instead of being entitled to a hero point with every long rest. Additionally, you can only ever have one inspiration token at any given time, effectively incentivizing you to spend it quickly and not hoard it. Presumably this is all to help out new players with the idea of playing a character that isn't of their own personality, but it also probably helps the players who view their characters as walking stat blocks with little to no personality into trying actual roleplaying for once. The PHB even explicitly suggests working with your DM to come up with a custom background if none of the ones in the book really fit your character. The basic set comes with five pre-made character backgrounds, and tables so you can roll the "traits" "ideal" etc. Notably, the bard's performance can also grant inspiration.

Starting equipment is now decided with the use of a list for a given class, as well as equipment granted by choosing a background. Some things in a list give you an option, such as choosing between two kinds of weapons or item packs. It's an awfully generous amount of items to start with when you add it all up. Of course, you can roll for starting gp like in older editions, but you stand a decent chance of rolling poorly, and considering how the monk's starting item set alone has the potential to be worth more than the maximum roll for their starting money (22.5 vs. 20 gp, without even taking background equipment into account) you'd be stupid not to take items from the list, unless some rule passed this writer's knowledge.

Electrum pieces are once again acknowledged as existing in D&D.

Noticeably Missing [ edit ]

None of the core books have rules for playing as "monster races." A few were released in Volo's, but about half of them are widely-disliked, have flagrant balance issues, or both, and none from outside that book's purview (such as setting-specific races like thri-kreen or warforged and plane-specific options like githyanki and githzerai). Official online supplements are being released to cover some of this (with the first one including all the Eberron-specific races as options), and the DMG does offer very free-form rules for homebrewing new races off the template of the old.

Exotic/Superior weapons are absent from the core books entirely, with the Player's Handbook listing only simple weapons and martial weapons. Bastard swords and spiked chains are nowhere to be found. 3rd edition's Dwarven waraxe, two-bladed sword, Gnome hooked hammer, and a bunch of others weren't invited to the party. Hand crossbows are now martial weapons (after 4th edition downgraded them from exotic to simple). Instead, the rules tell the player to use equivalents for flavor (katanas are just longswords, etc.) and not sweat the small stuff.

No Wealth by Level. There is no assumed or prescribed treasure, gold becomes of questionable usefulness after a few hundred for basic gear, and magic items in general are to be given almost solely by DM fiat. Magic items break down into roughly five different price points rather than being priced individually and there is virtually no way to afford even the most basic of magic items that don't involve adventure. Adventure League tried to standardize magic item gains, but reverted to a secondary, non-gold and purely meta, currency. Not having even gear leads to magic items being even more of a swing factor in fights, further undermining 5e's already rocky encounter balance.

Psionics haven't reared their head yet, save for a brief mention that Illithids are "Psionic Commanders" and possess "psionic powers" with no further description for what that means to the player (some other monsters also mention possible psionic powers, for example quaggoth and gray ooze). In the Unearthed Arcana article for Eberron, it was mentioned that rules for psionic classes would be published "once such rules are made available," implying that WotC is working implementing a Psionic class and as of this writing there is currently a rough draft of psionics in existence.[1] The Psionic class (named the Mystic this edition) now goes up to 20th level, as seen here. [2]

The Warlord has yet to make a 5e appearance, apart from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide lackluster Purple Dragon Knight (aka Banneret), despite the battlemaster being the Eldritch Knight to its wizard and the Warlord being a core class from 4e.

No epic progression. The DMG has rules for epic boons, but there's not much support beyond this. Consequentially the Monster Manual lacks epic monsters like Atropals and Orcus. (The atropal is now in Tomb of Annihilation, but it has a much lower CR). Official material and pre-made adventures soft-cap at around level 12 to better support the Adventure League.

4e's Legacy [ edit ]

5e plays, looks and feels a hell of a lot more like 3rd edition than 4th, but make no mistake, a lot of stuff carries over from 4th edition, for good or ill.

Character alignment has no mechanical effect; basically character mindset/flavor only. No more "Barbarians must be Chaotic, Bards must be Chaotic, Druids must be Neutral, Paladins must be "Lawful Stupid". Paladin flavor definitely leans towards the Good alignments, but focus is given on following their archetype's Oath rather than a specific alignment. DM is still given permission to drop a mechanical penalty on a player who is purposely breaking/ignoring their oath, but at least is given the option to switch over to the Blackguard-ish "Oathbreaker Paladin" archetype instead of forcing the player to become a different class instead.

PC racial traits are more like 4E than other editions. There are no ability score penalties, level adjustments, or favored classes.

Dragonborn and Tieflings remain core races, appearing in the PHB1 race lineup alongside the iconic human/dwarf/elf/halfling/gnome/half-elf/half-orc setup. Both races retain aspects of their 4e lore as well, tieflings moreso than dragonborn -- dragonborn, in fact, have been made somewhat closer to the half-dragons/draconic template of older editions in that they need to choose which of the iconic chromatic/metallic dragons they resemble. However, races outside the standard Dwarf/Elf/Halfling/Human are now considered uncommon where small town and villages treat them with suspicion.

Eladrin returns as a playable race, here an Elf sub-race introduced in the DMG.

Warlock remains a core class and Bard is a full-fledged caster. Fighter and Monk don't completely suck.

Second Wind lives on as a class feature for Fighters. Bits and pieces of Defender Marking also turn up (such as Protection fighting style and Sentinel feat). Action Points live on in the Fighter as well, in the form of Action Surge, which lets a Fighter make a second action on their turn, but needs a short rest before getting this extra action back.

Speaking of short rest, many class-related feature-powers are designated as needing either "a short rest or a long rest", or "a long rest" to recharge after being used. This is essentially a fancier/less universal version of 4E's encounter power & daily power set-up (although 3.5 did have some abilities that were "once per encounter", like Barbarian Rage, and "once per day" has been around forever). 5E also has at-will attack cantrips for casters, so AEDU's influence definitely shows.

On the other hand, the definition of "Short Rest" has changed a bit. In 4e, a short rest was a 5-minute breather, and it was generally assumed that you'd get a short rest after every encounter. In 5e, a short rest is more like a 1-hour lunch break, so you won't get them as often.

"Recharge 5-6" was retained for not-quite at-will abilities (like dragon breath) instead of 3E's "wait 1d4 rounds" mechanic.

The use of hit dice to regain hit points during a short rest is based on 4th edition's healing surges. The death/dying mechanic, in which you need three "saving throw" successes or failures at 0 HP to either live or die still remains.

The skill list is almost identical to 4E, and proficiency is a yes/no binary rather than skill points, though this was first introduced back in Star Wars Saga Edition (aka D&D 3.75).

Psychic damage type is still here. Poison is also a damage type in this edition, but since Poison damage was a 2e thing that 3e chucked out for some absurd reason, it doesn't really count.

Lightning and Thunder damage retain their 4E names (instead of Electric and Sonic). Likewise, Necrotic and Radiant energy survived the edition change, though they are tied to the old "Positive Energy Plane" and "Negative Energy Plane", which are here imagined as secondary planes beyond even the Outer Planes.

Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos have all survived the transition.

Nine spell levels return from previous editions, but as in 4E, spell effects don't scale with caster level, other than the aforementioned attack cantrips. Instead, lower-level spells can be cast in higher-level slots for more potent returns, like targeting additional enemies or dealing more damage.

Cleric's Channel Divinity and the 'ritual' mechanic for spells were also introduced in 4th edition.

The idea of superpowerful "Epic Boons" being awarded for hitting level 20+ appears in the DMG as a homage to 4e and its Epic Destinies.

All ability scores are used for saving throws (although not the same way as 4E).

The Swordmage's iconic cantrips appeared as available to wizards, sorcerers and warlocks in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, along with a Wizard archetype that roughly fits their M.O.

Spells don't vanish like Vancian spellcasting "fire-and-forget". Spellcasters get a small number of 'cantrips' that they can cast at-will. The attacking ones are (sort of) equivalent to weapons, and scale up with level. Non-cantrip spells do not scale up their effect with character level, but they may have bigger effects if cast using a higher spell slot. For instance, the 1st-level spell Burning Hands (3d6 damage) does 4d6 when cast as a 2nd-level spell, 5d6 as a third-level, etc. The caster either prepares a number of different spells each day (cleric, druid, paladin, wizard) or uses all the spells in his repertoire (ranger, sorcerer, warlock, bard) which are then freely cast using spell slots. There is no "Improved Hold Person" instead you cast this 2nd level spell using a 3rd level slot to affect one additional person.

Some spells can be cast as rituals, usually utility stuff. They take an additional 10 minutes to cast as a ritual, but don't use a spell slot. Still needs to be on your spell list, but this means no more blowing an entire day's worth of spell slots on casting "Read Magic" and "Identify" just so you can assess loot. More interestingly, there are some utility spells, what are not rituals, so you DO need to waste a spell slot for one person's 8 hour darkvision.

Some spells, like buff enchantments or protection abjurations, have a continuous effect maintained by 'concentration'. The spellcaster can maintain concentration as a free action, but can only keep concentration going for one spell. No more heaping a bazillion enchantments or abjurations all at once. Concentration can also be broken by taking damage if the caster fails a Constitution saving throw.

Another change to spellcasting is that many spells have been compressed into one; instead of having six different buff spells, one for each stat, there is now one and you pick which stat to buff when you cast it. Examples of spells that have this are the Runes spell series and the Symbol spells.

Spells are no longer cast with XP as a required component. Wish, for example, does not require EXP to cast; however, it is much more dangerous to use (the caster has a 1/3 chance of never being able to cast it again).

Charge-based magic items such as wands, staves, etc have returned, but are no longer completely "fire and forget". If you use your last charge in such an item, there's a 1 in 20 chance that it will be destroyed (roll a D20 after charges drop to zero, item disintegrates after use if you roll a 1), but otherwise it will regain a number of charges based on the item each morning. So, if you're careful and lucky, you can keep using the same wand (or other item) throughout your career.

Combat [ edit ]

Combat is faster. The advantage/disadvantage mechanic speeds up combat by making situational modifiers simpler, and the Monster Manual offers the option to let monsters deal set damage per attack instead of rolling every time.

There's a "disengage" maneuver that lets you step away from an enemy without provoking an AoO. The "charge" maneuver is noticeably missing , but you can both move your speed and do all of your iterative attacks (which are now a class feature and not based on your to-hit roll.) In addition, you can now break up your movement over the course of your turn; do a partial move, action, then more moving instead of "move then attack." Two weapon fighting doesn't give you a huge minus to your attacks, you just need to use two light weapons, spend your bonus action for the round, and you don't get your usual attribute bonuses with the off-hand.

Resistance, vulnerability and immunity are simplified. Whereas before they used a numeric system, it's now a Pokemon-style double-damage/half-damage/no damage system. Also, any of these matters is applied explicitly after any circumstances in a mathematical order of operations - example given in the PHB is a character with Acid Resistance being hit for 25 Acid damage whilst under a spell that lowers damage by five, so the initial 25 damage is lowered by the spell first, then resistance gets applied, so only 10 Acid damage is inflicted. Also, the number of monsters with innate damage vulnerabilities is much lower, but there are also fewer things like Spell Resistance to allow monsters to just nope the hell out of the way during magic attacks.

Creatures and characters now have a set move speed per turn, instead of a move action, allowing them to split up their movement however they wish throughout their turn, including between attacks. Because moving is no longer a single action, the "five foot shift" maneuver is no longer present.

Special "legendary monsters", such as dragons or aboleths, can perform a "legendary action" at the end of another character's turn, and may also use the ambient magic within their lairs to perform unique attacks. They can do this a set times per round, usually three. They can also affect their surroundings indirectly simply by existing, using “Lair Actions.” Finally, there are the "Regional Actions," which allow monsters so imbued with magic that they can modify reality itself a little to do just that, like adding swarms of choking flies around demon lairs, or helping good-hearted people find paths in confusing mountain passes for Gold Dragons. A monster that has Legendary, Lair, and Regional Actions has special rules for doing all of them in a single initiative order, usually doing automatic Lair and optional Regional Actions on Initiative 20.

Setting [ edit ]

Fifth edition's cosmological setup is basically the Great Wheel, but has some new features. Most notably, the Inner Planes have been changed to have an Exalted-esque "Border Elemental Plane/Elemental Plane/Elemental Chaos" layout. The Border Elemental Planes are closer to 4e's envisioning/reason for revamping the elemental planes; they resemble the material plane, but with the chosen element being more dominant. As one ventures "deeper" into the elemental plane, though, that element becomes more dominant, similar to approaching the Elemental Poles in Creation. Eventually, it's nothing but pure element wherever you look, unless you head back towards the Material Plane. And then, beyond the Elemental Planes, you have the Elemental Chaos, where they all go mad and become a swirling tide of insane elemental matter and energy, giving you stuff like 4e's Riverweb, mountains of burning ice, seas of liquid salt, storms of acid, etc. For an example; the Border Elemental Plane of Air would look like an infinite sky with lots of floating islands in it, perhaps even the size of continents. As you venture even deeper into the Plane of Air, those "earthbergs" become rarer and rarer, until eventually there's nothing but infinite, empty space all around you.

The idea of an "official campaign setting" is handled a little differently than in previous editions. Whereas 3e used "Greyhawk with the serial numbers filed off" and 4e used "Points of Light" with the assumption that you would wait for a sourcebook if you wanted to play something different, the 5e corebooks just give you suggestions for playing in various officially-published settings (including Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Eberron) and trust you to work the rest out on your own. At least, in theory. In practice, the 5e setting is the Forgotten Realms, specifically the iconic "Sword Coast" region; the official online adventuring program is explicitly set there, 98% of the adventures have been set explicitly in the Realms, and at least one major sourcebook was named after a prominent Realms NPC.

That's not to say that 5e hasn't released some setting splatbooks, but they've been a definite low priority, and combined with the sluggish release schedule of 5e books in general, it has made many fans of less populous D&D settings very annoyed. Currently, 5e supports the following settings with detailed splatbooks:

Forgotten Realms - The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide was the very first setting splatbook to be released, and it's actually much shorter than any others to follow.

Eberron - It took until 2019 for Eberron: Rising from the Last War to see the light of day, but it finally made it.

Ravnica - The Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica was the first official crossover between the multiverses of D&D and Magic: The Gathering, releasing in November 2018.

Exandria - Initially a 3rd party setting, it made the jump to an official 5e setting with the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount in early 2020.

Theros - A second MtG crossover setting, Mythic Odysseys of Theros released in 2020 as well.

Outside of the above, Ravenloft and Greyhawk both got very small bones thrown their way in the form of a dedicated adventure for each. Curse of Strahd is an update of the original Ravenloft module that at least hints at the existence of a wider Demiplane of Dread beyond Barovia's borders. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is explicitly set in Greyhawk. Neither setting has seen dedicated splatbooks released yet.

When called out on this lack of support, WotC's usual bluster is to point to the Dungeon Master's Guild, which has almost the entirety of the AD&D sourcebook library available for purchase, and to bleat about how easy it is to convert material from AD&D to 5e. This is true only in the barest sense; a Dark Sun campaign, for instance, would probably prefer an updated set of survival rules that's more in-depth than 5e's core ones but less artificially complex and clunky than 2e's, or a Birthright campaign some dramatically-reworked kingdom management rules to make that aspect of the game less of a drag for PCs who aren't Blooded.

Races [ edit ]

The first PHB contains the eight iconic races of editions past, plus the 4e additions of Dragonborn and Tiefling. Dwarves, elves, halflings and humans are all labeled as "common" races who will be seen practically everywhere (save the drow subrace for elves), whilst the others are labeled as being "uncommon" races. Many races have subraces; they must choose to be a specific kind of that race for further added bonuses. Race design is similar to 4e, minus the "racial powers" setup due to the loss of that mechanic; all bonuses, no penalties - with a few subrace exceptions. This carries over the 4e philosophy of not completely screwing players who want to build something unconventional, like a halfling barbarian or a half-orc wizard.

The first DMG includes rules for custom-building subraces and whole races, with the Eladrin and Aasimar used to demonstrate the rules.

Core [ edit ]

Added as the sample "create a race" to demonstrate the rules therefore in the DMG, the aasimar is built as a celestial counterpart to the tiefling; +1 Wisdom, +2 Charisma, Darkvision, resistance to necrotic and radiant damages, and the spell-like abilities Light (level 1), Lesser Restoration (1/day at level 3) and Daylight (1/day at level 5). It got an alternative write-up in Volo's Guide to Monsters that shares some, but not most, of the base race's traits.

Essentially, they are their 4e counterparts with vaguer backgrounds, dragonborn are still pretty close to what they were. +2 Strength, +1 Charisma, and choose one Chromatic or Metallic Dragon; they get a breath weapon shape, breath weapon damage, and damage resistance based on what they chose (cold for Silver Dragonborn, acid for Black, etc). Not terrible, even if laughably outclassed in almost every way by other races with similar stat bonuses.

Your standard issue dwarf. Short and stout, grumpy but loyal, love digging, and tough as a hammer sammich. They get a +2 bonus to Constitution, have Darkvision, protection against poison, training with axe and hammer weapons, training with several kinds of artisan's tools, the usual dwarven armored movement and stone knowledge. They get two subraces; Hill and Mountain.

Hill dwarves are wiser (+1 Wisdom) and even tougher than regular dwarves, giving them extra maximum hit points equal to their character level.

Mountain dwarves are more warlike, getting +2 Strength and free proficiency with light armor and medium armor. The *only* subrace to offer two +2 bonuses now, balanced by the fact that the armor training will almost certainly be completely redundant to any class that would realistically make use of those stats. However, it's a good choice for a squishy character who wants melee a bit, like a blade-pact warlock.

Duergar, or "Gray Dwarves", appear in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. In addition to the base dwarf stuff, they get a boost to Strength, Superior Darkvision (so Darkvision 120 feet), Duergar Resilience (Advantage on saving throws against Charm, Illusion and Paralysis effects), and the spell-like abilities of Enlarge/Reduce (3rd level) and Invisibility (5th level), both usable once per long rest. They also get Sunlight Sensitivity, though tweaked slightly; in addition to taking disadvantage to attack rolls and Perception checks when they or their target is in direct sunlight, they can't use their spell-like abilities if they're in direct sunlight.

Still pretty standard; graceful, eerie, beautiful, mary-sueish bastards. Grace translates to a +2 bonus to Dexterity, keen senses give them Darkvision and proficiency in Perception, they are resistant to charming and immune to sleep, and they trance instead of sleeping. They get three subraces; high, wood and dark.

High elves are the magically adept elite. They get +1 Intelligence, proficiency with long & short swords and bows, an extra language, and the ability to cast one wizard cantrip of the player's choice.

Wood elves are the iconic forest-dwelling primal elves. +1 to Wisdom, same weapon proficiency as High Elves, even quicker (they have base speed 35 feet, making them the fastest of the default races), and they're extra adept at using natural phenomena for hiding.

Dark elves have innate magic (Dancing Lights cantrip at level 1, Faerie Fire 1/day at level 3, Darkness 1/day at level 5), Superior Darkvision (Darkvision to 120 feet), +1 Charisma, proficiency with rapiers, shortswords and hand crossbows, and are the only (sub)race in the corebook with any kind of racial penalty; they take disadvantage to attack rolls and Perception checks when they or their target is in direct sunlight.

The DMG-added Eladrin get the elf weapon proficiency (as per High/Wood Elves), +1 Intelligence, and Misty Step, like "Fey Step" from 4E.

Strangely, although the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide contains rules for Half-Elves of Aquatic Elf ancestry, there are no rules for a pure-blooded Aquatic Elf, but it's only logical that it'll come out in a following supplement or Unearthed Arcana. If it does, we at least know, from the way the other half-elf subraces worked, that it'll include a 30-ft swim speed.

And those expectations turned out to be right with the November 2017 Elf Subraces Unearthed Arcana.

The Sea Elf comes with the above mentioned 30-ft swim speed as well as the ability to breathe under water as part of the "Child of the Sea" racial feature. "Friend of the Sea" gives you the ability to talk to beasts with a swimming speed, so you are basically Aquaman. Your Constitution score increases by 1, you know Aquan, and you have proficiency with the trident (as if you weren't already like Aquaman), the spear (pretty much a stand-in for a harpoon), light crossbow (like a harpoon gun), and the net (going with the fisherman theme).

Avariel are the winged elves of the Forgotten Realms, nearly driven to extinction by dragons. You have a flying speed of 30 feet while not wearing heavy or medium armor, and know Auran. And that's about it. Unless you are in it for the flavor, there is really no reason to pick them, seeing how there are plenty of better races with flight out there.

The Grugach of the Greyhawk setting are xenophobic, isolationist forest dwellers, known to massacre anyone unfortunate enough to stumble into their realm. They get a Strength score increase of 1, a proficiency with the spear, shortbow, longbow, and net (going with their savage theme). They can choose a single cantrip from the druid spell list, using Wisdom as their spellcasting ability. Their xenophobic nature also manifests itself by having their ability to speak Common replaced by Sylvan, so you better use a background feature to learn it.

Shadar-kai have returned as an elf dub-race, being now a hybrid between their 3rd edition lore of being fae dwelling on the Plane of Shadow, and their 4th edition lore that presented them as humanoids from Shadowfell. Ironically, the fact that they are now basically insane BDSM eleves from a different plane makes them seem allot like a certain other type of Dark Elf. They get a Charisma score increase of 1, and the choice between chill touch, spare the dying, or thaumaturgy, with Charisma as their spellcasting ability. Once per short rest, they can also teleport up to 15 feet to an unoccupied space they can see, and gain resistance to all damage until the start of their next turn.

Crazy, hyper-energetic and insatiably curious, gnomes are also the only uncommon race in the corebook with full subraces, assuming the dragonborn's choice of dragon doesn't count. +2 Intelligence, small-sized, Darkvision, and advantage to any saving throw against magic that relies on Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma.

Forest Gnomes are the more mystical, nature-affiliated gnomes, gaining +1 Dexterity, having the minor illusion cantrip as a racial ability, and being able to speak with any natural animal that is Small or smaller. With Dragonlance supported, but the Kender race (thankfully) missing after playtest, these seem to hold up as the Kender replacement.

Rock Gnomes are the iconic tinker gnomes, gaining +1 Constitution, being more adept at puzzling out magic items, alchemical objects and technological devices, and starting the game with a set of tinker's tools that let them cobble together small, harmless gizmos like clockwork toys, fire starters and music boxes. In the corebook, it's explicitly stated that these should be used for playing Tinker Gnomes if you're running a Dragonlance game.

Deep Gnomes got added by the Elemental Evil Player's Guide web-feature from the WotC website. There was a printed reveal in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, but the versions are absolutely identical. These are the "svirfneblin", the Underdark-dwelling gnomes mentioned but mostly ignored in editions past. They get +1 Dexterity, Superior Darkvision (so they see in the dark 120ft instead of 60ft), and Stone Camouflage (advantage on Dexterity [Stealth] checks made in rocky terrain). If Feats are allowed, they have a racial one called Svirfneblin Magic that lets them cast Nondetection (self-only) at will and Blindness/Deafness, Blur and Disguise Self once per long rest.

Half-Elves gain +2 Charisma, making them natural diplomats, but also get +1 to two other ability scores of their choice, are automatically proficient in two skills of their choice, as well as retaining the darkvision and resistances to charming and sleep of their elven ancestors. They can also grow beards, something that may have been in previous editions, but is directly addressed in this one. The best PHB race for any Cha-based class, due to their tremendous versatility, and easily has the most raw power.

Look at it like this: imagine if, as a variant human, you got to pick a feat that gave you +2 charisma, an extra skill, darkvision, and charm resistance plus sleep immunity. It might not be the optimal feat for your build, no, but can you easily deny that it beats out any other feat in the game for raw power? Well, a half-elf is essentially a variant human who gets a feat like that.

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide includes rules for half-elf racial variants, allowing them to have sub-races like several other races. Basically, they can trade out their bonus skill proficiencies for the other elf races' bonuses. Any kind of half-elf can trade for an upgrade to darkvision and proficiency in perception, half-high elves can gain a wizard cantrip, half-wood elves can gain a five-foot speed boost or an improved ability to hide in the wild, and both of the above can gain elf weapon training. Meanwhile, half-Drow gain Drow Magic, while half-Aquatic Elves have a 30-ft swim speed. (Whew!)

Big scary bruisers, half-orcs get +2 strength and +1 constitution, have darkvision, are automatically proficient in the Intimidation skill, are harder to kill than other races, and deal much nastier criticals with melee weapons. This effectively makes them the best barbarians in the game and gives barbarian-lite abilities to any other classes. This new design eliminates the culturally awkward standard of male orcs forcing themselves on human women, to the point of actually raising the idea that the race could be used for playing a half-dwarf, half-orc.

Small, cheerful, practical creatures, halflings try to make friends with anybody. They usually don't have any greater goal beyond a simple, pleasant life. They get +2 Dexterity, they're Small sized, their Lucky trait lets them reroll various results of 1, they're resistant to fear effects and they can move through spaces occupied by creatures that are Medium-sized or bigger. Their two subraces are Lightfoot and Stout.

Lightfoot halflings are sneaky even by Halfling standards, able to use Medium-sized or bigger creatures to hide behind and gaining +1 Charisma.

Stout halflings are rumored to have dwarf blood, and so they get +1 Constitution and identical poison protection.

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide includes the Ghostwise halfling subrace, which gets +1 to Wisdom and the ability to telepathically communicate with one creature nearby creature at a time.

The playtest release featured the infamous Kender of Dragonlance as yet another halfling subrace. However, it failed to make it into the official book, perhaps because kender have never really differed that much from regular halflings beyond resistance/immunity to fear, a "taunt" ability, and sometimes mechanical enforcement of their "entire race of sickeningly cutesy Chaotic Stupid Rogues" fluff. Of course, if an official Dragonlance playbook ever comes out (doubtful, at this point, given the lackluster success of it in 3.5), you can sadly make a sure bet that Kender will be in it.

Humans are the versatile race once again. Either they get a +1 bonus to all ability scores (which is better than any previous edition of the game has trained you to believe, but still kinda bland), or they get +1 to any two ability scores they want, a free skill proficiency, and a free feat (which, as usual, rocks). The feat option, given how strong feats are in 5th, can actually make it very hard to choose any other race, even ones that specialize in a specific area, over humans for a build given the sheer rapidity of power the variant human allows.

Following in the footsteps of 4e, with a unified (if still very variable) appearance and a tiefling racial backlore as "descendants of a cursed empire" rather than "spawn of a human and a fiend". +1 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, resistant to fire, darkvision and "Infernal Legacy", which gives them three warlock spells as racial abilities; the Thaumaturgy cantrip (level 1), Hellish Rebuke (1/day at level 3) and Darkness (1/day at level 5).

Like half-elves, they got upgraded with subrace options in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. Specifically, aside from an official list of alternate physical traits (complete with 2e-esque "roll 1d4+1 and take that many traits"), they get an alternative ability score modifier set option (+1 Int, +2 Dex, for the ones that didn't get any monstergirl genes), and a series of tweaks to their racial magic. Hellfire simply replaces their Hellish Rebuke spell-like ability with Burning Hands, the Devil's Tongue option alters their list completely, trading in all their spells for mind-affecting choices, and choosing Winged means giving up all spells in exchange for a 30-ft fly speed, which is kickass.

Adding to that, the Unearthed Arcana "That Old Black Magic" offers suggestions for defining diabolic tieflings vs. demonic ones. The corebook tiefling is used for the diabolic breed, but demonic tieflings get +1 Con instead of +1 Int, increase their hitpoints by half their character level (so a level 20 one gets an extra +10 HP), and randomly generate their spell-like abilities at the end of each long rest.

The October 2017 UA (Reprinted in Mordekainen's Tome of Foes) also gave Tieflings a bevy of subrace options based on who their patron god is. Each gives differing racial spell-like abilities as well as +1 to a differing stat instead of Intelligence.

Eberron Unearthed Arcana [ edit ]

Brought back in the Eberron Unearthed Arcana on the WoTC website. Surprisingly simple and effective; +1 to Dexterity and Charisma, Duplicity (automatically proficient in Deception), and Shapechanger (can polymorph into any humanoid of your own size that you have seen, or back to your true form; your gear doesn't change, and you revert to your true form upon death).

Brought back in the Eberron Unearthed Arcana on the WoTC website. Pretty much all of the 3e variants made it through as sub-types. Basic racial profile is +1 Dexterity, Darkvision, and Shifting (bonus action, lasts for 1 minute, gain temp HP equal to level + Constitution bonus and a sub-race derived bonus, can shift once per short rest). Gotta pick a sub race from the following:

Beasthide: +1 Constitution, shifting grants +1 AC. Boring, but hey. A +1 AC bonus is more than it sounds like in this edition. Cliffwalk: +1 Dexterity (so +2 Dex total), shifting grants a 30 ft climb speed. Nice utility, as all alternative movements are. Longstride: +1 Dexterity (so +2 Dex total), shifting grants ability to Dash as a bonus action. Good for other Dex-based classes, completely redundant for a rogue or high-level ranger. Longtooth: +1 Strength, shifting grants a 1d6 bite attack that automatically initiates a grapple when it hits. Good for a control fighter and the like. Razorclaw: +1 Dexterity (so +2 Dex total), shifting grants claw attacks, which can be used as bonus actions to make Dex-based unarmed strikes that deal slashing damage. Unarmed strikes may only deal a single point damage, but the real power of this ability is essentially two-weapon fighting without needing the fighting style to add the ability score modifier to the damage roll. Wildhunt: +1 Wisdom, shifting grants advantage on all Wisdom-based checks and saving throws. Good for mage-hunting and utility.

Same old magic robots. Very simple, yet very effective: +1 Strength and Constitution, a flat +1 AC bonus, and the benefits of being a robot. They don't need to eat or breathe, trance for 4 hours per day instead of sleeping for 8 hours, and immune to disease. All of these are somewhat abusable, so your DM might tone them down. On the plus side, they no longer have healing penalties and such.

Elemental Evil Player's Guide [ edit ]

Biiiiiiiiirdmaaaaaan! +2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom, only 25 ft landspeed but a 50 ft fly speed (which doesn't mix well with armor heavier than light), and are automatically proficient in unarmed strikes (which do 1d4 slashing damage). You're trading in a lOttttt for that flyspeed, so make sure your DM's actually going to let you use it.

Part of the Elemental Evil Player's Guide web-feature from the WoTC website, they were the only race from it to make it into the official Princes of the Apocalypse Elemental Evil adventure, which keeps them safe from DMs who insist "it's not in print, so it's not official". Only four varieties this time; Earth, Air, Water and Fire. All Genasi get +2 Constitution and racial magic (usually of the cantrip and/or "once per long rest" spells variety) determined by their subrace, which uses their Constitution.

Air Genasi gain +1 Dexterity, have Unending Breath (can hold their breaths indefinitely when not incapacitated) and can cast levitate. Earth Genasi gain +1 Strength, ignore movement penalties from earth/stone-based difficult terrain, and can cast pass without trace. Fire Genasi gain +1 Intelligence, darkvision, fire resistance, and can cast the produce flame cantrip, plus burning hands at level 3. Water Genasi gain +1 Wisdom, can breathe water and air, have acid resistance and a 30 ft swim speed, and get the Shape Water cantrip, plus create or destroy water at level 3.

Yet another big bruiser race, Goliaths get +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, proficiency in athletics, the unique ability to use a reaction upon taking damage to roll a D12 and reduce that damage by [result + Constitution modifier] once per short rest, count as one size larger for carrying, dragging, pushing and lifting and are automatically acclimated to high altitude and naturally adapted to cold climates if your DM's using those rules.

Also, got a lot more cultural tweaks than just about anyone was expecting.

Unearthed Arcana Waterborne Adventures [ edit ]

Explicitly based on the Krynnish model, and to that end focused on sea-travel and brutal cunning as much as raw power, on the grounds that "We already have half-orcs and goliaths and don't really need just another big brutish monster race." They get a +1 to Strength, and then a +1 to either Strength, Intelligence, or Wisdom depending on which of the "three virtues" the character aspires to. They also have horns, which they are automatically proficient with, that deal 1d10 piercing damage, offer advantage on shoving checks, automatically shove when used as part of an Attack action, and can be used to gore an enemy as a bonus action even after a Dash. Finally, they have Labyrinthine Recall (giving them perfect recall of any path they've traveled down, land, dungeon, or sea) and Sea Reaver (proficiency with navigator's tools and waterborne vehicles).

Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Heroes [ edit ]

The most exotic race to come out of 5e yet, the Revenant is a member of any of the other races that has died and then risen from the grave as an undead creature in order to pursue an all-compelling goal. It uses the subrace mechanics, with a sidebar explaining how to adjust it for human/dragonborn/tiefling revenants. A Revenant gets +1 Constitution and the Relentless trait, which lets you regenerate 1 HP per round once below half your max HP, makes you indestructible (you automatically rise from the dead 24 hours after being killed, and even completely vaporising your body won't stop this), and gives you plane-spanning "goal sense" abilities. The drawback is, once you complete the goal that brought you back from the grave, you die well and truly, passing on to the afterlife with no further possibility of resurrection.

Unearthed Arcana: Race Options [ edit ]

A new take on the version from the DMG that gets a bit of a power boost; still an elf subrace, and can now choose to have either +1 Int OR +1 Cha, still has Fey Step, loses High Elf Weapon Training and has access to four cantrips - friends, chill touch, minor illusion, and firebolt, attuned to autumn, winter, spring, and summer respectively. This represents the eladrin's attunement to each of the four seasons, which affects their personality, roleplay-wise, and they can adjust their seasonal attunement each short or long rest.

Gith

One of the biggest and most important subrace splits in the game over here. Gith get +1 intelligence and the mage hand cantrip, regardless of subrace, and that's where the similarities end.

Githyanki get +2 Str, because they train as warriors, a free skill or tool proficiency and a free language, to represent their eternal city full of bits of random knowledge, proficiency with Light & Medium Armor, and the the jump and misty step spells once per long rest at levels 3 and 5 respectively, as part of the now-classic 5e approach to spell like abilities.

Githzerai get +2 Wisdom, +1 AC when only wearing Light or No Armor and not wielding a shield, because monks, and shield and detect thoughts as their 1st and 2nd level spells.

Plane Shift: Zendikar [ edit ]

Appearing on the Magic: The Gathering website instead of the D&D one, this article basically consists of a booklet towards letting you run D&D games set in the world of Zendikar. As a result, it included assorted Zendikaran races, from humans and elves to goblins, vampires, merfolk and kor.

The White Mana-aligned nomads, Kor are sort of like Zendikaran Goliaths, but different. A Kor is a Medium sized creature with +2 Dexterity and +1 Wisdom, a base speed of 30 feet, a climb speed of 30 feet (can't use if encumbered or in heavy armor), free proficiency in Athletics and Acrobatics, and the Lucky and Brave traits as per your basic Halfling.

Zendikaran Merfolk

The handbook's racial representative of Blue Mana. Unlike traditional Merfolk, these ones come with legs, so they can actually walk around on land like Tritons. They're Medium sized creatures with +1 Charisma, Amphibious (can breathe air and water), and a Swim speed of 30 feet on top of their base speed of 30 feet when walking on land. They have to pick one of the three Creeds to follow, which functions as a subrace choice. All cantrips cast with their highest racial bonus (so Wisdom for Emeria, Intelligence for Ula, Charisma for Cosi).

Emeria Merfolk follow the Creed of Wind, giving them +2 Wisdom, free proficiency in Deception & Persuasion, and a Druid cantrip of their choice.

Ula Merfolk follow the Creed of Water, giving them +2 Intelligence, free proficiency in navigator's tools and survival, and a Wizard cantrip of their choice.

Cosi Merfolk follow the Creed of the Trickster, giving them +1 Charisma and +1 Intelligence, free proficiency in Slight of Hand and Stealth, and a Bard cantrip of their choice.

Zendikaran Vampire

Aligned to Black Mana, Zendikaran Vampires are not undead, but infused with a necrotic disease that requires them to feed on the life-energy of others. Medium sized and with a base speed of 30 feet, they get +2 Charisma and +1 Intelligence, Darkvision, Resistance (Necrotic), and the Blood Drain ability. This is a special attack that they can only do on a target that is willing, restrained, grappled or incapacitated; it inflicts 1 piercing damage and D6 necrotic damage, which A: is deducted from the target's maximum hit point value and B: heals you of an equal amount of damage. The target can shake off this effect by taking a long rest, but if killed by this attack, then they become a Null (a unique sort of zombie, but which isn't statted in the booklet).

Zendikaran Goblin

Aligned to Red Mana, these goblins are tough and hardy creatures. They are Small creatures with speed 25 feet, bolstered by having +2 Constitution, Darkvision, the Grit trait (resistance to Fire and Psychic damage, unarmored AC is 11+Dex modifier), and they have to choose one of the three Tribes to belong to, though none of them are really spectacular choices.

Grotag Tribe Goblins receive free proficiency in Animal Handling.

Lavastep Tribe Goblins have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made in rocky or subterranean environments.

Tuktuk Tribe Goblins receive free proficiency in thieves tools.

Zendikaran Elves

What to really say about these guys? Medium sized, base speed 30 feet, +2 Wisdom, Darkvision, free proficiency in Perception, Fey Ancestry (so immune to magical sleep effects, resistance to charm effects), and three nationalities/subraces.

Tajuru Elves gain +1 Charisma and two free proficiency slots, each of which can be spent on any skill or tool of your choice.

Joraga Elves are basically corebook Wood Elves, but with +2 Wisdom and +1 Dexterity, instead of the +2 Dexterity/+1 Wisdom of the corebook version.

Mul Daya Elves have +1 Strength, Superior Darkvision and Sunlight Sensitivity, free weapon proficiency in the longbow, longsword, shortbow & shortsword, and the Mul Daya Magic trait (know the Chill Touch cantrip, learn Hex as a 1/day spell like ability at level 3, learn Darkness as a 1/day spell-like ability at level 5, use Wisdom to cast with).

Plane Shift: Innistrad [ edit ]

Appearing on the Magic: The Gathering website instead of the D&D one, this article basically consists of a booklet towards letting you run D&D games set in the world of Innistrad. As a result, it doesn't have all of the exotic races of its Zendikar counterpart, seeing as how Innistrad is the "Gothic Horror" MtG realm and so, like Ravenloft, it's heavily biased towards humans. So instead you get an entirely new "human race", with assorted sub-races reflecting specific provinces of Innistrad.

Innistrad Human

Still Medium sized and with a base speed of 30 feet, the big difference with Innistrad humans is that they're handled with the subrace mechanic, requiring you choose between the Gavony, Kessig, Nephalia or Stensia provinces to determine your abilities.

Gavony follow the standard "+1 to all stats" approach of your vanilla PHB human. Kessigs get +1 Dexterity and Wisdom, proficiency in Survival, base speed of 40 feet, the ability to ignore difficult terrain when you dash, and the Spring Attack trait (if you land a melee attack on a creature, you can't provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of your turn). They essentially have the Mobility feat, but without having the mobility feat so you can double up on it if you gotta go fast. Nephalians gain +1 Intelligence and Charisma, as well as proficiency in any combination of four skills and/or tool kits that they desire. Stensians gain +1 Strength and Constitution, proficiency in Intimidation, and the Tough trait, which gives them +2 max HP at character creation and boosts it by a further +2 max HP each time you gain a level. Yes, this is basically the Mountain Dwarf's Dwarven Toughness racial feature but twice as good.



Volo's Guide to Monsters [ edit ]

Though officially a kind of Monster Manual 2, Volo's Guide earned extra interest by promising to contain fully-fledged monstrous PC races. In mid-September, it was revealed that the book would feature roughly a dozen "deeply detailed" monstrous PC races, and an undisclosed larger number of monsters given "quick rules" for PC use. However, this turned out to be WoTC playing it vague and the end result was that there were only thirteen races in it, one of which was effectively a reprint. In fairness to them, that's still a pretty large amount for what isn't a dedicated PC book, but still, fans were expecting Volo's Guide to be the 5e "Complete Book of Humanoids" and were... disappointed in a lot of ways.

The Monstrous Adventurers mark the first return in 5th edition of racial ability score penalties, something that brought a lot of rage and skub from those who hated this idea and those who loved it. Not helping is that of all the races in the book, only the orc and the kobold get these penalties. The designers essentially tried to sidestep some critiques of flagrant balance issues with the "monstrous" races by saying that they are not intended to be truly balanced, and that all DMs have free reign to modify or ban them.

Ironically, despite the fact that gnolls have been a playable race in every edition since 1e's "The Orcs of Thar", and were in fact first introduced in 3e as a PC race in the both the "Unapproachable East" splatbook for Forgotten Realms and the core Monster Manual, they received no stats in Volo's Guide. In fact, they were officially called out well before its release as not getting the PC treatment, due to being "too demonic," thanks to the lore that they're literal creations of a demon prince. Now, most fans of monstrous humanoids called bullshit on this reasoning, since 5e's lore was essentially the same lore as was used in 4th edition and they still got a PC writeup there, without the lore trying to claim they're unable to defy their evil nature like orcs. Hell, the yuan-ti pureblood got a writeup, and they're power-hungry manipulative sociopaths who only see other races as meat!

The rejection of gnolls did get a little more justified when the book came out and revealed the official 5e lore for gnolls was essentially 4e's lore, but doubling down on the demonic corruption angle and completely removing all the stuff about gnolls having free will and being able to reject Yeenoghu. Of course, this change in lore from 4e was met with huge amounts of skub.

Very, very different from their DMG examples. They're a multitudinous species divided into three subraces, Protector, Scourge and Fallen, rather than having switchable variant racial traits like the tiefling does. All Aasimar get +2 Charisma, are Medium sized with normal speed (30feet), have "Celestial Resistance" (Radiant and Necrotic resistance), can cast Light at will (Charisma) and once per day can heal another character with a touch, restoring HP equal to the Aasimar's Level. Each of the three subraces, at 3rd level, gets an "angelic manifestation", a transformation they can enter as an action and which lasts for 1 minute or until they end it, with bonuses depending on the subrace. Protector Aasimar get +1 Wisdom and their "Radiant Soul" gives them wings (30ft fly speed) and the ability to inflict bonus Radiant damage with attacks. Scourge Aasimar get +1 Constitution and their "Radiant Consumption" causes them to glow, automatically inflict Radiant damage on everyone within 10 feet (including themselves!) and inflict bonus Radiant damage like a Protector. Finally, Fallen Aasimars get +1 Strength, cause a fear check in anyone who sees them transform, and can inflict bonus Necrotic damage with their attacks whilst transformed.

A really surprising entry confirmed in the product announcement; firbolgs are a race of giant-kin from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which can be roughly summed up as "generally benevolent 10ft tall Vikings with a bundle of druidic spell-like abilities". Naturally, they had to undergo a fair amount of changes, since 5e wants to avoid letting PCs be Large. +2 Wisdom, +1 Strength, the same Powerful Build trait as Goliaths, Bugbears and Orcs, Detect Magic and Disguise Self (with "appear as a human-sized being" as an extra option) once per short rest, turn invisible for 1 turn once per short rest, and talk with animals & plants.

Although they already appeared in the Elemental Evil Player's Guide, they got an official printed release here. Many grumbled about what the need for this was, given we'd already gotten perfectly good stats for them earlier, especially when it turned out that, unlike the aasimar, they'd received no changes of any kind. Not even in cultural information.

A surprisingly popular and requested choice, their presence in the book was first revealed as part of the D&D ExtraLife Twitch marathon of September. +2 Dex and +1 Wisdom, Medium, Normal Speed and Vision, Advantage on checks to produce forgeries and duplications, free proficiency in any two skills from a list of Acrobatics/Deception/Stealth/Sleight of Hand, and the ability to mimic sounds. Which is useful as you can't speak except through your mimicry trait, which is pretty much the only downside to the kenku - although if you think about it, if you live amongst humans for some years, you simply can tell everything by mimicing. Just like small children learn their native language.

Lizardfolk got quite a beefy racial writeup; +2 Constitution, +1 Wisdom, the ability to bite instead of unarmed striking, can digest what they bit off once per short rest for some temp hitpoints, Swim speed of 30 feet, hold breath for 15 minutes, free proficiency in any two skills from a list of Animal Handling/Perception/Nature/Stealth/Survival, natural AC of 13+Dex modifier, and can craft their own shields, clubs, javelins, darts and blowgun needles during a short rest if they can acquire raw materials.

When the existence of a "catfolk race" was teased on reddit, people really began to wonder, but it was eventually revealed in the D&D ExtraLife Twitch marathon of September that they were specifically going to be Tabaxi, a race of jaguar & leopard people first introduced in 1e's Fiend Folio, and then native to Forgotten Realms' tropical regions, most prominently Maztica. +2 Dex, +1 Cha, Medium, Normal Speed, Darkvision, the infamously leaked "Feline Agility" trait (double your speed for 1 turn, cannot use this trait again until you spend a turn without moving, because this is not considered an action you could argue that you can dash as well on the same turn, effectively quadrupling your speed for one turn), 1d4+Str modifier slashing damage with unarmed strikes, and free proficiency with Perception and Stealth. With the long-running stigma against furry races in D&D, plus the Tabaxi's lore as a highly chaotic, impulsive, curiosity-driven race, you just know there's going to be people turning them into nubile savage style dark-skinned blonde catgirls sooner or later...

A minor aquatic elemental race, the triton is probably going to be the closest we'll get to a 5e merfolk race, since they're like the Zendikaran merfolk and use legs rather than the awkward-for-land-adventuring tail. They are surprisingly fitting, since they were first introduced as a player character race in the Forgotten Realms setting. They're one of the few races that get +1 to three stats - Strength, Constitution and Charisma - instead of +2 to one stat and +1 to a second. Medium sized, 30ft land and swim speeds, amphibious, can cast Fog Cloud at will and Gust of Wind (at 3rd level) and Wall of Water (at 5th level) once per day with Charisma, telepathically talk to water-breathing creatures, are Resistant to Cold and immune to deep water environments.

Monster Adventurers [ edit ]

Again, they're generally very much a subset of the "normal" races, with many having drastic power-differentials from the "core" races. Exactly which ones are broken is and forever will be skub, but general agreement is that the would-be orc and kobold will be far happier using re-colored half-orcs and halflings as a template, respectively, and that the yuan-ti pureblood is gob-smackingly powerful enough to make even the half-elf blush.

Stealthy but powerful bruisers, bugbears get +2 Str and +1 Dex, are Medium with 30ft land speed, have Darkvision, have +5 feet of reach with melee attacks, Powerful Build, free Stealth proficiency, and the ability to, once per combat, deal +2d6 damage to a creature on the first turn if they successfully pull off a surprise attack. Essentially, you've got a natural fighter base with a built in level of rogue.

With how strongly they dominated the polls for new races, it shouldn't be surprising that goblins were one of the most advertised entrants to Volo's Guide. They're actually surprisingly powerful; +2 Dexterity, +1 Constitution, speed 30 feet, Small, Darkvision, can do bonus damage equal to their level to a creature that's bigger than they are once per short rest, and retain their Nimble Escape feature from the Monster Manual. Many think a goblin rogue is kind of redundant, although actually it's just a case of good synchronization; being able to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action is hugely beneficial for any hit-and-run fighter. Goblins also make good defensive casters, as well, as they benefit from the added action economy and disengage.

The D&D Klingons, essentially; +2 Con, +1 Int, Medium, normal speed, Darkvision, and free proficiency with light armor and 2 martial weapons of your choice. One of the only monsters not to get their core racial power: instead of their faux-sneak attack, they get the "Saving Face" racial trait, which lets them, once per short rest, reroll a failed attack, ability score check, or saving throw with a bonus equal to the number of friendlies they can see (max +5). It's become memetic that "hobgoblins are wizards now!", since their stat bonuses are a lot more useful for wizards than they, technically, are for fighters, and their free armor & weapon proficiency are not much use to a fighter. But +2 Con is good for anyone, and hobgoblins have always had a strong arcane tradition to them anyway.

/tg/'s memetically beloved shortstack scalies have finally made the leap into the game! ...Unfortunately, their stat blocks are rather less than fun as, much like in Pathfinder, they've been kind of gimped. +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength, Small, 30ft speed, Darkvision, can Grovel once per short rest to cause all enemies within 10 feet to give Advantage to all of your allies, have Sunlight Sensitivity, and retain their Pack Tactics trait from the Monster Manual. It's hard to say which has elicted more complaints; the triple-Jeopardy of negative traits (Small, Sunlight Sensitivity, -2 Strength) or the Grovel trait. In all fairness, Grovel is kind of powerful - a 10ft burst of combat advantage for allies once per encounter is seriously buffing them - but the flavor text is infuriating for anyone who, y'know, doesn't want to portray their kobold as a cowardly, snivelling joke character (might be worth trying to convince your gm to let you re flavor it as a subsonic howl). That said, Pack Tactics is incredibly strong due to ANY form of advantage cancelling out disadvantage. What makes a kobold powerful is not that they have access to Advantage, but that they can pretty much never have Disadvantage when near an ally. This opens up a GWM kobold, or a long range sniper kobold as actually viable options. Put a Kobold on a Wolf mount for extra shenanigans.

Exactly how pureblood orcs were going to work in 5e when we already had Half-Orcs was anyone's guess... and then it turned out that they were basically inferior to Half-Orcs. +2 Str, +1 Con, -2 Int, Medium, Normal Speed, Darkvision, their Aggressive trait from the MM (can move as a bonus action IF you use it to move towards an enemy), free training in Intimidation, and the Powerful Build trait. The bonus move action is probably their most salient feature; a great boon if you can make use of it, but with less to work with if you can't.

Perhaps the most surprising reveal, but not entirely unwarranted; Pureblood Yuan-ti have always been the most "human" of Faerun's snake-folk, and did in fact get a PC writeup in the Serpent Kingdoms sourcebook for that setting back in 3e. As for their crunch... put it like this; there's powerful, there's overpowered, and there's "holy fuck, what were you fucking thinking, WoTC?!" Yuan-ti fit pretty firmly into that last category: +2 Cha, +1 Int, Darkvision, Medium with Normal Speed, Poison Immunity, Poison Spray cantrip spell-like-ability, Suggestion 1/day, permanent Animal Friendship (snakes only) and, the cherry on top, "Magic Resistance: You have Advantage on all saving throws caused by spells and magical effects". Sweet crunchy christ...

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes [ edit ]

As well as reprinting the Svirfneblin and Duergar from the SCAG, the Tome of Foes brought in a bevvy of new Tiefling and Elf subraces as well as playable Gith.

Mixture of the DMG and Unearthed Arcana versions. +1 Charisma, the Fey Step 1/encounter teleportation power, and the shiftable Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter racial state, which now empowers your Fey Step at 3rd level; Spring state lets you teleport a willing creature within 5 feet instead of teleporting yourself, Summer lets you blast foes within 5 feet with Charisma modifier Fire damage after teleporting, Autumn lets you Charm two creatures within 10 feet after teleporting, and Winter lets you Frighten a creature within 5 feet before you teleport.

Sea Elf

Pretty standard; +1 Constitution, Swim Speed 30 feet, some weapon proficiencies and the Friend of the Sea trait, which lets you talk to fish.

The first ever official +1 Constitution elf subrace. Gains necrotic ressitance and and a 1/day teleport which, from third level on, grants you resistance to all damage until the start of your next turn.

Was released as an early teaser; +2 Str, +1 Int, medium, 30ft speed, a bonus language proficiency, a bonus tool or skill proficiency, free proficiency with light armor, medium armor, shortsword, longsword and greatsword, and the Githyanki Psionics trait. This is your standard Cantrip/1st level/2nd level spell-like abilities, giving you Mage Hand, Jump and Misty Step.

Was released as an early teaser; +2 Wis, +1 Int, medium, 30ft speed, Mental Discipline (Advantage on saves vs. Charm and Fear) and the Githzerai Psionics trait. This is your standard Cantrip/1st level/2nd level spell-like abilities, giving you Mage Hand, Shield and Detect Thoughts.

Infernal Descendants

A less...bizarre version of building subraces, this allows the Tiefling to hail from a different Archdevil (rather than just Asmodeus 24/7) by replacing the +1 Int and Spell-like Abilities with new ones.

Baalzebul: +1 Int and Thaumaturgy, Ray of Sickness, and Crown of Madness SLAs Dispater: +1 Dex and Thaumaturgy, Disguise Self, and Detect Thoughts SLAs Fierna: +1 Wis and Friends, Charm, and Suggestion SLAs Glasya: +1 Dex and Minor Illusion, Disguise Self, and Invisibility SLAs Levistus: +1 Con and Ray of Frost, Armor of Agathys, and Darkness SLAs Mammon: +1 Int and Mage Hand, Tenser's Floating Disk, and Arcane Lock SLAs Mephistopheles: +1 Int and Mage Hand, Burning Hands, and Flame Blade SLAs Zariel: +1 Str and Thaumaturgy, Searing Smite, and Branding Smite SLAs



Plane Shift: Kaladesh [ edit ]

When the Plane Shift: Kaladesh article came out on February 17 2017, it brought two of that plane's more unique races along with it. Aside from the new Vahadar subrace for elves (+1 Wis, 1 Druid cantrip of your choice cast with Wis), it featured...

Aetherborn

Artificial humanoids that sometimes spontaneously form from the aether refinement process, aetherborn have extremely short lifespans (some live only a few months) who are driven to experience as much as they can in what time they have. Hedonistic and self-interested, an Aetherborn has Charisma +2, +1 to two ability scores of its choice, is a Medium creature with 30 feet base speed, and has the Darkvision, Menacing (free proficiency in Intimidate), and Born of Aether (Resist Necrotic) traits. Rules are also presented for "darkling" aetherborn, who have learned to suck the life from others in order to extend their own lives. An aetherborn can use the rules for inventing and manufacturing a magic item to transform itself irrevocably into a darkling, in which case it gains the Drain Life trait (a natural attack that inflicts 1d6 Necrotic damage on a victim and heals the aetherborn for that much). If the darkling goes 7 days without using this ability, it loses 1d6 maximum hit points per week without feeding; only feeding followed by a long rest will restore this degraded health.

Kaladeshian Dwarves

Largely identical to the Hill dwarves, with a +2 bonus to Constitution and a +1 bonus to Wisdom, Darkvision, advantage on saving throws against poison, same bonuses that come from Stonecunning, resistance against poison damage, and a hit point maximum increase by 1 each level. What makes them different is the lack of weapon proficiency, and the Artisan’s Expertise feature. Instead of having to pick one from smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools, these dwarves can pick two of any artisan’s tools, and their proficiency is doubled while using them.

Vedalken

Elf-like, inventive humanoids who perceive everything as imperfect and rejoice in the opportunities for improvement that presents. This leads to an irritating enthusiasm for criticising other people's approach/skills/personality. +2 Int, +1 Wis, Medium, Base speed 30 feet, Vedalken Cunning (advantange on Int, Wis and Cha saves vs. magic) and Aether Lore (double Proficiency bonus on Int (History) checks relating to magical items or aether-powered technological devices).

Plane Shift: Amonkhet [ edit ]

This article was a furry wet dream, as it introduced four beastfolk races to 5th edition, alongside Naktamun's human population, who are simply Variant Humans from the PHB. Weirdly, despite the fact that one of the Five Gods is Oketra the True, the catgirl God of Solidarity, there is no catgirl or catfolk race in this booklet.

Similar to the Aarakocra, the Aven are bird-people, but in this case they resemble humans with the heads and wings of birds. There are two kinds of Aven; the more scholarly ibis-headed, who are naturally drawn to revering Kefnet, the God of Knowledge whom they resemble, and the more war-like hawk-headed, who tend to devote themselves to Oketra, God of Solidarity (who is, ironically, a goddess depicted as a catgirl). All Aven get +2 Dexterity, are Medium sized, have a base land speed of 25 feet, and a Fly speed of 30 feet, but they can't fly if wearing medium or heavy armor, or if they're encumbered.

Ibis-Headed Aven get +1 Intelligence and Kefnet's Blessing, which lets them add half their Proficiency Bonus, rounded down, when making an Int check for a skill they don't have Proficiency in.

Hawk-Headed Aven get +2 Wisdom and the Hawkeyed trait, which grants them free Perception Proficiency and negates the long-range attack penalties when using ranged weapons.

Made in the image of Hazrozet the Fervent, God of Zeal, the Khenra are a race of graceful humanoid jackals who, for some reason, are almost always born as fraternal or identical twins. This leads to strong, culturally encouraged, ties between siblings, and even impacts their stats. Khenras are a Medium-sized race with +2 Dexterity and +1 Strength, a speed of 35 feet, the Khera Weapon Training feature, which gives them free proficiency in the khopesh, spear and javelin, and the Khenra Twins feature - which requires you to decide at character creation if you have a twin. If your twin is alive, so long as you are within sight of your twin, you can reroll results of a 1 for attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws (second result stands). If your twin is dead, or you were one of the rare singleton births, you're Immune to Fear. Of course, making use of your twin being alive can be tricky unless either another player wants to be a Khenra and roleplay as your sibling, or the DM is willing to be flexible

Amonkhetian Minotaur

Vibrant, boisterous, rowdy humanoids, the Amonkhetian Minotaur bears the head of a curly-horned sheep rather than the traditional bovine head. +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, Medium, 30 feet speed, and as for features? They get the half-orc's Menacing (free Proficiency in Intimidate), Relentless Endurance (shake off a fatal blow and stand at 1 hit point 1/day) and Savage Attacks (+1 damage dice on a crit with a melee weapon) racial traits, plus the Natural Weapon (Horns) trait, which lets them choose to do 1d6 + Str modifier bludgeoning damage with their unarmed strikes.

Made in the image of Rhonas the Indomitable, cobra-headed God of Strength, the nagas also deeply revere the God of Knowledge, Kefnet, pursuing a philosophy that mind and body must be of equal strength to work in harmony. They stand unique amongst the races of 5e so far because they're the first non-bipedal race to get an official writeup; these serpentfolk resemble the iconic Yuan-ti Abomination, having a humanoid upper torso, a cobra's head, and a slithering tail in lieu of legs. They get +2 Consitution and +1 Intelligence, are Medium sized, and have a base speed of 30 feet. Their Speed Burst feature lets them choose to spend a bonus action to lower their torso to the ground and pull themselves along with their hands, increasing their speed by +5 feet for the turn due to the boost - of course, they need to have both hands free before they can do this. Poison Immunity speaks for itself, and Poisoner's Affinity gives them free proficiency with the poisoner's kit. Finally, they have two Natural Weapons; Bite and Constrict. Both can be used as an option for an unarmed strike. A Bite Attack deals 1d4 + Str mod Piercing damage and forces the victim to make a Constitution save (DC 8 + naga's Con modifier + naga's Proficiency bonus) or take 1d4 Poison damage. A Constrict Attack deals 1d6 + Str mod bludgeoning damage and automatically grapples the target (DC to escape is 8 + naga's Str modifier + naga's Proficiency bonus). So long as they have someone grappled in this way, the target is restrained, but the naga can't make another Constrict Attack until they let them go.

Tortle Supplement [ edit ]

Big crazy turtle men. They're natural adventurers. +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom, can use claws to make unarmed attacks for 1d4 + Str slashing damage, can hold their breath for an hour, and have proficiency in survival. The main attraction of the race (aside from playing TMNT) is their shell, which gives them a base AC of 17 and stops them from wearing armor. They can also withdraw into it, giving another +4 to AC, and granting advantage on strength and con saving throws, but disadvantage on dex saving throws and removal of their ability to do anything but emerge from their shell. Used carefully, this ability makes them one of the tankiest races in the game.

Plane Shift: Ixalan [ edit ]

Aside from humans (use vanilla 5e human stats) and orcs (use 5e half-orc stats), Ixalan offers four new races; Merfolk, Vampire, Goblin and Siren. It also adds some notes on how to make Ixalan Merfolk, Vampires and Goblins function as subraces of Zendikaran ones.

Unlike the tail-legged merfolk of myth, Ixalan's merfolk are finned amphibious humanoids, sort of like the Zora from The Legend of Zelda, but more brightly colored. They're divided into two subraces; Green Merfolk are denizens of the wet, humid rainforest, whilst Blue Merfolk prefer a subaquatic lifestyle. +1 Charisma, Medium size, base speed 30 feet, swim speed 30 feet, and the Amphibious trait serve as the "racial core" traits - yes, these are identical the merfolk stats from the Plane Shift: Zendikar article earlier. Green Merfolk get +2 Wisdom, the Wood Elf's Mask of the Wild trait, and a Druid cantrip spell-like ability that keys off of Wisdom. Blue Merfolk get +2 Intelligence, the Lore of the Waters trait (free proficiency in the History and Nature skills), and a Wizard cantrip spell-like ability that keys off of Intelligence.

On Ixalan, vampirism is considered a holy sacrifice undergone by valuable members of the Legion of Dusk. +2 Charisma, +1 Wisdom, Medium, base speed 30 feet, Darkvision 60 feet, Vampiric Resistance (halves Necrotic damage), a Bloodthirst special attack that lets you suck the life from others, and the Feast of Blood ability. Bloodthirst is a special melee attack you can only use on a willing or grappled/restrained/incapacitated target, inflicting 1 piercing and 1d6 necrotic damage; this necrotic damage is deducted from the victim's maximum hit points (causing them to die if these are reduced to 0 HP), which is undone if they complete a long rest. You also regain hit points equal to the necrotic damage inflicted with Bloodthirst. Feast of Blood means that, after successfully using Bloodthirst, for the next 1 minute, you gain +10 feet speed and Advantage on all Strength and Dexterity checks & saving throws. Ixalan Vampires can also take the racial feat Vampiric Exultation, which lets them give themselves a Fly speed of 30 feet for 10 minutes once per short rest.

Ixalan Goblin

Agile tree-climbers, the goblins of Ixalan have readily taken to life aboard the pirate ships of the Brazen Coalition. +2 Dexterity, Small, base speed 25 feet, climb speed of 25 feet if not wearing medium/heavy armor or encumbered, and Darkvision 60 feet.

Ixalani Sirens are harpy-like bird-folk infamous for their mercurial moods and hypnotic voices. +2 Charisma, Medium, speed 25 feet, Fly speed of 30 feet if not wearing medium/heavy armor or encumbered, and the ability to cast the Friends cantrip at will.

Unearthed Arcana: Centaurs and Minotaurs [ edit ]

Nature-loving hippies, evidently built to be Rangers. +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom, appropriately ridiculous walking speed of 40ft, and proficiency in Survival; you get once-per-short-rest double damage when charging a target, and your hooves count as natural weapons. You also get "Equine Build", which is Powerful Build plus increased difficulty in climbing and the ability to let allies ride on your back. Lastly, "Hybrid Nature" means you count as both humanoid and monstrosity, which will only rarely affect the game and be actually useful to you precisely never. Note that an odd interaction means that centaurs themselves aren’t necessarily unable to have mounts, and they also count as medium creatures themselves, thus leading to the infamous “Quintuple Centaur Stack.”

A "revision" of the one that appeared in Waterborne Adventures... which is to say it throws out all of the flavorful mechanics and "brutal cunning" focus to be a generic "brute" race (but with horns this time!), despite the fact that WOTC gave them the Krynn-based flavor in the first place because they didn't need another generic brute race. They lose Labyrinthine Recall and Sea Reaver (traits that would be rarely used at best, but that added character), and swap out their flexible ability score bonus for a flat +2 strength, +1 constitution. But they get proficiency in Intimidation and the Centaur's "Hybrid Nature" now. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron [ edit ]

With the release of Keith Baker's Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, everyone's favorite dungeonpunk setting is one step closer to coming back, even though it's still not "Adventurer's League" legal and the Wayfinder's Guide is explicitly a $20 playtest for groups to tear apart before the "official" 5e Eberron update. That means that the three iconic Eberron races have undergone a generous makeover, and the Kalashtar even showed up for good measure. In addition, each of the main dragonmarks has been reworked as a new set of sub-races for each race the house in question is mostly made of.

Back and stronger than ever, this new version of the changeling is a lot more "fluff-based" for its powers. +2 Charisma and then +1 to your choice of either Dexterity or Intelligence, Medium, base speed 30 feet. Change Appearance lets you shift your looks around to look however you want, although you can't imitate somebody you've never seen and it doesn't change any of your gear; if you need to make a Charisma (Deception) check to convince others of your identity whilst shapeshifted, you still have Advantage on the check. The new Changeling Instincts feature gives you proficiency with any 2 skills chosen from a list of Deception, Intimidation, Insight, and Persuasion. The Unsettling Visage feature lets you use a reaction to being attacked to impose disadvantage on the attack roll; you make this before you figure out if it would hit, this gives away your shapechanging abilities to anybody within 30 feet, and you can only do it 1/short rest. Finally, Divergent Persona gives you proficiency with one set of tools and then requires you to make up a complete secondary identity to associate with those tools; when you take on that identity with Change Appearance, you double your proficiency bonus with those tools.

Just like in 4e, 5e kalashtar use handwaving and racial flavor to get around the inherent lack of psionics at the moment of their release. Medium sized and with a base speed of 30 feet, you get +1 Wisdom, +1 Charisma, and +1 to any ability score that you choose. Your racial features are Dual Mind (when you make a Wisdom save, use your reaction to gain Advantage on the save), Mental Discipline (Resistance to Psychic Damage), Mind Link (you can open 2-way telepathic communication with any creature you can see within 60 feet), Psychic Glamor (you have Advantage on skill checks made with one of the following skills: Insight, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion) and Severed From Dreams (you're immune to spells & effects that target dreaming victims, but not to sleep effects). Oddly enough, they're actually rubbish at being Mystics, which is as close to a Psychic class as there is at present.

Same basic formula as their original UA version; Basic racial profile is +1 Dexterity, Darkvision, and Shifting (bonus action, lasts for 1 minute, gain temp HP equal to level + Constitution bonus and a sub-race derived bonus, can shift once per short rest), pick a subrace for extra goodies. However, the subraces have shrunken to just Beasthide, Longtooth, Swiftstride and Wildhunt.

Beasthide: +2 Con, free Athletics, gain a further +1d6 temp HP and +1 AC when shifted. Longtooth: +2 Str, free Intimidation, when shifted you can bite (1d6 + Str piercing unarmed strike) as a bonus action. Swiftstride: +1 Dex, +1 Cha, free Acrobatics, +5 movement speed, when shifted your speed increases by +5 feet and, when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you, as a reaction you can move 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. Wildhunt: +2 Wisdom, free Survival, you can Mark a creature within 10 feet as a bonus action 1/short rest (Until the end of your next long rest, double your Proficiency bonus for checks made to find the Marked creature and you always know if the Marked creature is within 60 feet of you), and when shifted you gain Advantage on Wisdom checks.

Incredibly beefy, the warforged is practically unrecognizable from its past incarnation; it even got subraces! +1 Constitution, Medium, base speed 30 feet, Warforged Resilience (advantage on saves vs. poison, resistance to poison damage, don't need to eat/drink/breathe, immune to magical sleep, don't gain exhaustion from not sleeping), Sentry's Rest (you are fully alert whilst taking a long rest), and Integrated Protection (you can't wear armor, you can use a shield, when you take a long rest you can switch between your three defensive modes: Darkwood Core - counts as unarmored, AC 11 + your Dex modifier + Proficiency if proficient with Light Armor; Composite Plating - Requires Medium Armor Proficiency, counts as armored, AC 13 + your Dex modifier (max +2) + Proficiency; Heavy Plating - Requires Heavy Armor Proficiency, counts as armored, disadvantage on Stealth checks, AC 16 + Proficiency).

Envoy: +1 to two ability scores of your choice, 1 free skill proficiency, 1 free tool proficiency, 1 bonus language, and choose one tool you are proficient with - that tool is integrated into your body, so you can use it as long as your hands are free, and you double your proficiency bonus when using it. Juggernaut: +2 Strength, Powerful Build, your unarmed strikes do 1d4 + Str bonus bludgeoning damage. Skirmisher: +2 Dexterity, +5 movement speed, when you are traveling alone for an extended period of time, you can move at full speed whilst still moving stealthily.

The warforged is currently on track with the Yuan-Ti as the most overpowered PC race available. The Integrated Protection ability gives warforged with heavy armour proficiency higher AC than the Tortle, while also scaling with level. On top of that, they have a host of resistances and immunities. On top of that they gain a subrace bonus.



Plane Shift: Dominaria [ edit ]

The last Plane Shift before the release of the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Dominaria was quite sparse in terms of crunch, but it did add two new races... sort of.

Benalian Aven

Exactly the same stats as the Hawk-Headed Aven from the early Plane Shift: Amonkhet article: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, 25ft ground speed, 30ft fly speed (can't fly in medium/heavy armor or if encumbered), and the Hawk-Eyed racial trait, which gives proficiency in Perception and nullifies the Disadvantage from using ranged weapons at long range.

Keldorn Human

A variant human which is basically a watered-down Goliath; +2 Str, +1 Con, proficiency in Athletics, Advantage on Strength saves, and acclimatized to cold environments.

Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica [ edit ]

Released in November 2018, the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is the big brother to the Plane Shift articles, with its expanded page count and shiny hard cover adding a level of officiality that the Plane Shifts tend to lack in the eyes of many DMs. And, of course, no visit to Ravnica would be complete without new races to highlight how this isn't your standard city-scape. Various teasers were released through different media, including Unearthed Arcana for August 2018, before it was finally revealed what the total list of races for Ravnica would be when the Table of Contents was spoiled on /tg/. Its content was ultimately released on 5e Tools a good week before the print book hit local game stores.

In addition to the unique races who got their own statblocks in it, outlined below, the GGR also explains that humans are native to Ravnica (duh), and so are the three core Elf subraces; High Elves are the nameless elves of the Simic Combine, Wood Elves are the Silhana of the Selesnya Conclave, and Dark Elves are the Devkarin of the Golgari Swarm.

Completely different to the version first presented in Unearthed Arcana, the GGR Centaur is a +2 Strength/+1 Wisdom Medium Fey (not humanoid!) with a 40ft base speed, a hoof attack natural weapon (unarmed strike that does 1d4 + Str Bludgeoning), the Charge ability (if you move at least 30 feet straight toward a target and then hit it with a melee weapon attack on the same turn, you can spend a bonus action to make a hoof attack against that same target), the new Equine Build trait (as Powerful Build, but you also increase your movement cost by +4 feet when climbing instead of +1), and free skill proficiency in either Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, or Survival.

Just uses the same Goblin statblock as in Volo's Guide to Monsters.

This one, unlike the Centaur, is mostly identical to its Unearthed Arcana appearance; the only differences are that it loses Hybrid Nature and trades Menacing for Imposing Presence (you have Proficiency in either Persuasion or Intimidation).

The wise, patient, elephant-people of Ravnica. When these guys first showed up in their Unearthed Arcana playtest, they had the following traits: +2 Constitution, +1 Wisdom, Medium, base speed 30 feet, the Dwarf Stonecunning feature, Natural Armor as per the Lizardfolk, Powerful Build, free Proficiency with Mason's Tools, the Keen Smell trait (Advantage on Perception & Investigation checks based on scent), and Loxodon Bravery (Advantage on saves vs Fear). In the GGR proper, they retain their base stats (ability modifiers/size/speed), Keen Smell, and Powerful Build, but they gain the new traits of Loxodon Serenity (Advantage on Saves vs Charm and Fear) and Trunk (you have an extra appendage with a reach of 5 feet capable of doing simple tasks), and their natural armor trait is changed to be a lower base than Lizardfolk but scaling with Constitution instead of Dexterity (12+CON mod).

Simic Combine Hybrid

A human, elf or vedalken who, due to their membership in the Simic Combine, has been spliced or grafted with animal traits. For simplicity's sake, the original race is functionally ignored; instead, you get +2 Constitution, +1 to one other ability score of your choice, Medium, base speed 30 feet, Darkvision 60 feet, and the Animal Enhancement trait. At 1st level, you pick one of the following mutations: Manta Glide (when falling, if not incapacitated, ignore the first 100 feet when calculating the fall damage, and you can move 2 feet horizontally for ever 1 foot you descend), Nimble Climber (Climb Speed equal to base speed), or Underwater Adaptation (gain the Amphibious trait and a Swim speed equal to your base speed). At 5th level, you gain a second mutation; you can either take one of the level 1 mutations, or you can take one of these mutations: Grappling Appendages (you gain a pair of extra limbs that can only be used to make unarmed strikes with; an attack from these natural weapons does 1d6 + Strength modifier damage and lets you make a grapple attack as a bonus action on a hit), Carapace (+1 AC when not wearing heavy armor), or Acid Spit (as an action, spit at one creature or object within 30 feet; if the target fails a DC (8 + your Con modifier + your Proficiency bonus) Dexterity save, they take 2d10 Acid damage, which increases to 3d10 at 11th level and 4d10 at 17th level). These stats remain unchanged from their Unearthed Arcana playtest appearance.

Presented with their fluff taken straight from Plane Shift: Kaladesh, they are presented with stats meshing up with their iconic status as the grim, ruthless, logic-driven mad scientists of Ravnica: +2 Intelligence, +1 Wisdom, Medium, base speed 30 feet, Vedalken Dispassion (Advantage on Int, Wis and Cha saving throws), and Tireless Precision (you are proficient in one tool of your choice, and one skill chosen from the list of Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Performance, Sleight of Hand - you also get to add a +1d4 bonus when making a skill or tool check). The book version of them is identical to this Unearthed Arcana playtest version, but adds the Partially Amphibious trait, which lets them brethe water for up to 1 hour once per long rest.

Wiry, vicious little lizardfolk with bladed whipping tails they use to defend themselves. +2 Dexterity, +1 Strength, Medium, base speed 30 feet, Bite (natural weapon, does 1d4 + Str mod Piercing damage), Lashing Tail (if an enemy within 5 feet does damage to you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to make an unarmed strike against that creature that, on a hit, does 1d4 + Str mod Slashing damage), Wiry Frame (free Proficiency in either Acrobatics or Stealth). Strangely, despite the fact that these were teased, and did show up in the original Unearthed Arcana playtest, they were cut from the actual book.

One Grung Above [ edit ]

Grungs are an obscure monster that disappeared from the game for several editions before reappearing in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Later a supplement was written called One Grung Above that gave them PC traits when somebody at Wizards of the Coast had the idea to run Tomb of Annihilation with an all grung party, however it includes a disclaimer stating that it does not make grungs legal to play in Adventurer's league. Grungs are cute but lawful evil poison frog people. Dexterity +2, Constitution +1, Small, base speed 25 feet for both climbing and walking, can breath air and water, immune to poison and the poisoned condition, poisonous skin that makes anyone that touches you roll a saving throw to avoid being poisoned for a minute (even if they are touching you in order to heal you) and can also be applied to piercing weapons but causes immediate 2d4 poison damage instead of the poisoned condition, long jump 25 feet and high jump 15 feet with or without a running start, must spend one hour a day immersed in water or suffer exhaustion which can only be removed with magic or spending an hour in water.

Acquisitions Incorporated [ edit ]

Verdan are chaos-warped goblins and hobgoblins originally from the Aquisitions Incorporated podcast setting. Essentially, they're non-evil goblinoids who begin their lives as a Small sized race, but eventually grow into a Medium sized one at full maturity. They have no memories of their racial history, so they've had to reinvent themselves from the ground up and are now a freedom-revering race of nomads. Oh, and the chaos still suffuses them, making them prone to random transformations, and in particular almost every verdan will spontaneously change sexes at least once in its life.

Eberron: Rising From the Last War [ edit ]

In addition to reprinting the Goblin, Hobgoblin and Bugbear stats from Volo's Guide to Monsters, and using subrace mechanics to represent Dragonmarks, the official Eberron 5e sourcebook contains the following races:

Changeling

Kalashtar

Shifter

Warforged (Rather than the practically OP version of Warforged introduced in WGtE, this variation is a lot more in line with the original UA's version, with +2 to Con and +1 to another stat. Gone are the various subtypes, now all Warforged get proficiency in one skill and one tool kit. In addition, Warforged get to wear normal armor with a tame +1 bonus that merges with them)

Non-Shit Orc (drops the -2 Int and trades Menacing for two skills chosen from a small list, otherwise identical to Volo's Guide)

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount [ edit ]

Whilst there's a lot of races in this book, most of them are reprints of races from elsewhere in the 5e lineup - the Sea Elf subrace from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Aarakocra, the Aasimar, the Firbolg, the Genasi, the Goblinoids from Volo's Guide, the Goliath, the Kenku, the Orcs from Eberron, and the Tortle (which means it's finally undeniably official). That said, there are some new unique subraces here as well.

Pallid Elf

A mystical race of albino elves newly emerged from the Pallid Grove. +1 Wisdom, Advantage on Investigation and Insight checks, and the Light/Sleep/Invisibility (Self) spell-like abilities triad.

Lotusden Halfling

Forest-dwelling halflings with innate druidic magic. +1 Wisdom, Druidcraft/Entangle/Spike Growth spell-like abilities, and the Timberwalk racial check, which forces Disadvantage on attempts to track a lotusden halfling and lets them ignore difficult terrain made of nonmagical plants and undergrowth.

Dragonborn Variants

Exandria is home to two different types of dragonborn, replacing the standard model. Both versions have Darkvision and replace the Damage Resistance trait and their ability score modififers. Draconbloods' are smaller, sleeker, tailed dragonborn who once ruled a mighty empire; +2 Int, +1 Cha, and the Forceful Presence trait (gain Advantage on an Intimidation or Persuasion check 1/short rest). Ravenites look like "normal" dragonborn and were once slaves to the draconborn, before they fought their way free; +2 Str, +1 Con, and the Vengeful Assault trait (once per encounter, when you take damage from a creature within range of your weapon, you can make an attack as a reaction).

Mythic Odysseys in Theros [ edit ]

Alongside the reposted Minotaur and Centaur from the Ravinca book and Triton from Volo's, all of the races introduced are brand new. Alongside humanity, these are the only races that are native to Theros. All of them are here because of the Greek-like setting.

Leonin

A strong version of the Catfolk, now like lions. Alongside the natural weapons, you get training in one skill (Athletics, Intimidation, Perception, Survival) and a 1/rest power to roar and possibly frighten enemies.

Satyr

Finally free from UA. These guys have insignificant unarmed attacks. They also count as fey rather than humanoids (making them immune to several things, many of them positive as well as negative), have Magic Resistance flat-out for advantage on all saves against magical effects, jump extra far, and gain proficiency in Persuasion, Performance and a weapon.

Classes [ edit ]

Iconic array of classes, plus the Warlock. Classes have a customization "path" option similar to Pathfinder, where player chooses which of an archetype of their class they want to follow - the Berserker Barbarian, the Evoker Wizard, the Wild Magic Sorcerer, the Beastmaster Ranger, etc. This archetype defines a lot of the special abilities that the class gets, and usually starts making itself felt on second or third level.

In a blast to the past, multiclassing requires a certain level of ability scores before a