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:

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Scribe]

Which is fine. The books 100% support you in that decision.

This particular feature is still in playtest. When the survey comes out, you should share your concerns. If enough people don't like it, or if it in their own testing it's too good, then either the race won't make it to an official book or it'll be changed.

Personally, if it makes it to a book, I'd be entirely happy to allow players to use it in my games. Hell, I'd allow it as-is for a one-off, if I had any time to run one.

Oh and for the record I'm 100% aware that the books and game itself will further deviate from what i find acceptable.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I almost said yes, but that's a boggle in Volo, not a boggart. So its wide open.

I'm down for this. Feywild Goblinoids should totally be called Boggarts. Goblins/Hobgoblins/Bugbears in folklore even had a connection to Boggarts, so that name would work really well.

Material Plane based goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears would be "Goblinoids", while Feywild based goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears could be called "Boggartkin". "Goblins of the Feywild" would just be "Boggarts", "Hobgoblins of the Feywild" could be "Hobboggarts", and "Bugbears of the Feywild" could be called "Bugbarts/Bogbears" (this last one could use some work, though).

Previous editions did have a fey-ish creature called a Boggart that was related to Will-o'-Wisps, but as the lore for Will-o'-Wisps have changed for the ones in 5e, that leaves a nice place for the name to be used elsewhere.

Anyone else agree with me? I feel like just calling these "Goblinoids of the Feywild" will get real old, real fast, so some cool, evocative names like these would be very welcome to me.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm down for this. Feywild Goblinoids should totally be called Boggarts. Goblins/Hobgoblins/Bugbears in folklore even had a connection to Boggarts, so that name would work really well.

Material Plane based goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears would be "Goblinoids", while Feywild based goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears could be called "Boggartkin". "Goblins of the Feywild" would just be "Boggarts", "Hobgoblins of the Feywild" could be "Hobboggarts", and "Bugbears of the Feywild" could be called "Bugbarts/Bogbears" (this last one could use some work, though).

Previous editions did have a fey-ish creature called a Boggart that was related to Will-o'-Wisps, but as the lore for Will-o'-Wisps have changed for the ones in 5e, that leaves a nice place for the name to be used elsewhere.

Anyone else agree with me? I feel like just calling these "Goblinoids of the Feywild" will get real old, real fast, so some cool, evocative names like these would be very welcome to me.

I'm pretty sure the naming here is a stand-in to avoid tipping their hand about...something.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm pretty sure the naming here is a stand-in to avoid tipping their hand about...something.

Could be. No harm in giving suggestions, in either case. Even if they do name the "Hobgoblin of the Feywild" something other than that bland name, I'm probably still going to go the boggart-route.

Just a point, I could definitely see them withholding the "true names" of the Owlfolk (Strix?) and Rabbitfolk (I-have-no-idea) to avoid spoilers for a setting book, but Hobgoblins of the Feywild seem less likely to have spoilers by dropping their true name for whatever book these are coming out in.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Do you really need to ask? Its similar to the concept of the Halfling that is as strong as the strongest Half-Orc. A Fairy flying around in Heavy Armour, to me, is a concept I do not, and in my setting will not, support.

Well, yeah I need to ask. It doesn’t make any obvious sense to me. Flying creatures can carry prey that weighs pretty close to their own weight. Not being able to fly with armor that is slightly heavier than other armor they can fly with is...not a stretch. At all.

Being able to fly with any armor is a vastly bigger stretch, for reasons unrelated to weight.

 

[NotAYakk]

Rabbit Hop.

This gets annoying if you are using a grid. You end up having to invent ad-hoc rounding rules? Or are there already standard rounding rules?

Hobgoblin

Making them canonically fey is interesting.

Lucky Footwork.When you fail a Dexterity saving throw, you can use your reaction to roll a d4 and add it to the result, potentially turning the failure into a success

This should really be +1d4 always?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Well, yeah I need to ask. It doesn’t make any obvious sense to me. Flying creatures can carry prey that weighs pretty close to their own weight. Not being able to fly with armor that is slightly heavier than other armor they can fly with is...not a stretch. At all.

Being able to fly with any armor is a vastly bigger stretch, for reasons unrelated to weight.

Furthermore, this UA outright says that Fairies don't even need to have wings . . . the flight is magical. So, if magic can lift their body, why not armor? (I would like to see some restriction saying that they can't wear armor/use weapons that are made of iron/steel, because of the folklore about fairies being burned by it, but that's not a huge sticking point for me.)

 

[NotAYakk]

It seems weird that the rabbit folk are not faster than typical humanoids.

They are. They add +1d12 feet of movement every round to their speed with a hop.

If you round 3 up to 5', this works out to 16% chance of no bonus, 42% of 5' bonus, 42% chance of 10' bonus, for an average of 6.3'. If you don't round, that works out to an average of 6.5'.

It does not, however, stack with dashing.

 

[Scribe]

Being able to fly with any armor is a vastly bigger stretch, for reasons unrelated to weight.

I'd agree, but that seems punitive.

 

[Faolyn]

Do you really need to ask? Its similar to the concept of the Halfling that is as strong as the strongest Half-Orc. A Fairy flying around in Heavy Armour, to me, is a concept I do not, and in my setting will not, support.

And strangely, the strongest halfling is, by RAW, as strong as the strongest Loxodon, despite the Loxodon being larger and heavier than even a goliath...