Unearthed Arcana Four New Elf Subraces in Unearthed Arcana

This month's Unearthed Arcana article gives us four new elf subraces to playtest. "After the positive response to the eladrin a couple of months ago in Unearthed Arcana, we decided to explore four more elf subraces: avariel (winged elves), grugach (the wild elves of Greyhawk), sea elves, and shadar-kai (deathly servants of the Raven Queen)."

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[Yaarel]

If the Elf is more customizable, there will be less need for so many special snowflake elves. And more of the D&D traditional diversity can be represented.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Elves, Elves, blinking Elves! Always Elves! Aghhh....Elves!

Begone with your Elvish effluence!

Pah!

 

[happyhermit]

Shadar Kai aren't elves, ...

Neither were Eladrin.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

Neither were Eladrin.

And firbolg weren't oversized gnomes. Didn't seem to stop them creating that aborted abomination.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I hate to say it, but this UA feels like they wrote it over the weekend because they forgot they were due to post one today. It was even several hours late being put up on their site.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I certainly have more complaints on the Shadar-Kai being an Elf subrace. I think they should just roll them in with other shadowy races like the Dark Ones and Shades and maybe Keepers, as a subrace of whatever the main Shadow race would be called.

I like Sea Elves but I feel they should get something else too, that may have some use outside of water.

Grugach are fine, though I felt that Wild Elves from the start with the PHB needed to accommodate them.

Avariel are fine as it is, obviously they aren't going to be allowed in all campaigns. I liked them being also known as "Al Karak Elam" in previous editions.

 

[Pauln6]

In 3e shadar kai were fey with elven features but I much prefer the version based on the Cenobytes from 4e.

 

[Dualazi]

While I definitely agree that Shadar-kai are not elves and should not be retconned as such, I actually hope the response to this UA is simply negative across the board. In a thread posted by Yaarel, they tally up that there will now be 12 variants of elves in the game with this UA, and that is insanely stupid. Not only because it has never been explained why elves sleep on a purple rock or something and spontaneously have an all new subspecies, but because this is a ton of work being devoted to a fantasy race that already has titanic presence in the hobby and culture at large. Why do we need so many damn elves, but no more human variants? No orcs/half-orc variants? Maybe a clan of dwarves that are a little outside the norm? There are so many other races that could badly use either more attention or simply introduction into the current edition that I can't help but be soured at more swipes at a low-hanging fruit that we have more than enough of already.

 

[Jhaelen]

We do. Aasimar, tieflings, yuan-ti are all variations on humans, after all.

Given that elves are just pointy-eared humans, yeah, we get plenty of human 'subraces'.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The winged races with flight movement may break the balance of power in low levels. How to explain it better? Do you remember the videogame "the mirror's edge"? Now let's imagine the main character, Faith Connor, with flight movement. Can a pitfall trap hurt a flier humanoid?

What do you think about a "template class" like the ones from "Savage Progression" articles?