D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana: Folk of the Feywild!

Wander into the magical realm of the Feywild with our latest Unearthed Arcana: Folk of the Feywild!

Your character can be a member of one of the new D&D races: fairy, hobgoblin of the Feywild, owlfolk, or rabbitfolk. Which will you choose?

Playtest now:

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[doctorbadwolf]

More player races??? Hell yeah!

Where my redcap race tho

Gnome subrace?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They just so happen to release a UA that includes two races from a setting that's been increasingly popular with nearly identical mechanical traits?

In what way is Humblewood, a product line that consists of a single main product and a Free RPG Day product "increasingly popular?"

Strixhaven has humanoid owls, for sure. They may well have talking rabbits -- a concept Warner Brothers came up with about 90 years ago -- as well. Beatrix Potter had a clothes-wearing rabbit rogue 118 years ago.

World of Warcraft has humanoid owls in their newest expansion. Are they ripping off Humblewood, too?

It's cool to be a fan of a product, but deciding that everyone else is leeching off the thing you like is a slippery slope into silliness.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The jumping rules are a bit of a mess at the best of times, and the Jump spells only really makes them worse. I think the intent here is to effectively add an unpredictable amount of speed to rabbitfolk PCs, with the additional flavour of that speed being jumping distance - while engaging as little as possible with the messy jumping rules. But the d12 just introduces more messiness, in my opinion. Not sure what a neat alternative is though - extra distance of d2 x 5ft or d3 x 5ft seems obvious, but 5e doesn't like anything smaller than d4s very much, and d4 x 5ft makes this the fastest PC race i can immediately think of, and not by a small margin.

Maybe replace it with advantage on all jump related rolls and make a jump a bonus action for them, or something?

 

[Faolyn]

The weirdness around the naming there is one of the biggest red flags that they are dancing around what they are really doing here.

Which is?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

More player races??? Hell yeah!

Where my redcap race tho

Maybe it could be a background for fey goblins?

 

[Faolyn]

They just so happen to release a UA that includes two races from a setting that's been increasingly popular with nearly identical mechanical traits?

Since I own Humblewood, here goes. They don't have rabbits, but they do have Jerbeen, which also go boing.

Owlfolk
Size: either Small or Medium
Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft.
Darkvision 90 ft.
Can cast detect magic as a ritual.
Proficiency in Stealth.

Strig (HW)
Size: Medium
Speed 30 ft. Can't fly but can glide at 60 ft.
Talons for 1d4 slashing, plus advantage on Athletics checks to climb where the can grip.
Darkvision 60 ft.
Proficiency in Stealth only in forests.

Subrace: Stout
Proficiency in Intimidation
Can grapple after hitting with claws

Subrace: Swift
Proficiency in Survival
Speed increases to 35 feet.

Rabbitfolk
Size: Medium or Small
Speed: 30 ft.
Can add prof bonus to Initiative rolls
Proficiency in Perception
Can use reaction to add a d4 to a failed Dex save
Can add 1d12 feet in a hop, which doesn't cost movement.

Jerbeen (HW)
Size: Small
Speed: 30 ft. They also have a 30-foot long jump and 15-foot high jump.
Can move through a Medium creature's space.
Have advantage on Strength saves and saves against being frightened as long as there's an ally within 5 feet that isn't frightened or incapacitated
Can use the Help action as a bonus action.

They're really not at all similar.

 

[Parmandur]

Which is?

I'm not sure, because they are hiding it as they did for Ravnica months before Ravnica: they introduced a UA for the Centaur and Satyr as "Hellenistic Options" when they were testing for Magic the Gathering options. A Magic Setting seems plausible, maybe a new Setting. But they don't want to tip their hand just yet

 

[Reynard]

Potential unpopular opinion: I really dislike the Mos Eisley/Pirates of Dark Water style anything goes attitude for PC ancestries. At some point it's just a bunch of bad rubber masks. A few species with defined, deep cultures (a few each, even; monoculture is bad too) is much more preferable. You can actually tell interesting stories with that.

And, yes, you can kindly get off my lawn.

 

[Unwise]

Potential unpopular opinion: I really dislike the Mos Eisley/Pirates of Dark Water style anything goes attitude for PC ancestries...

I feel much the same. I even think RP is helped by stereotyping, not every group has Critical Role style RP. Lazy shorthand can help. When players interact with a certain species, I am happy for them to have preconceptions about how such interactions will go. I would rather preconceptions be subverted than to have no preconceptions at all.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Pick your size, again. Now I wonder if this is a new secret standard they are testing.

Seems a like cludge to appease min-maxers, because a small strength build is still suboptimal. I soon expect to see the lack of medium halflings be declared a hate crime.