D&D 5E Witchlight publishes the new official format for player character races.

[Yaarel]

If it were up to me choosing between a Feat that gave flight and Fey Touched, I would choose Fey Touched 9 times out of 10. Flight is good, but it's not gamebreaking in my opinion (nor in my experience), and I'd way rather have Hex/Hunter's Mark and Misty Step for free 1/day, and a mental ASI. The same applies to a ton of feats, like GWM/Sharpshooter, Eldritch Adept, and so on.

It's good. It's useful. However, I disagree with the claim that it's somehow better than every feat available in the game.

The value of flight seems campaign-dependent. While some experiences might find the fairy race overpowered because of flight, other experiences (such as that of @FryMinis) find the fairy race underpowered.

 

[grimslade]

Flight is a great trait. It is not comparable to the Fly spell. Flight is self only, limited to walking speed, and negated by wearing medium or heavy armor. It is great if you have it, but there is magic and items/mounts to enable the ground-bound races.

 

[humble minion]

Really glad they put an armour limitation on the fairy's flight. That's definitely a change for the better from the UA.

 

[Yaarel]

The Harengon likewise follows the new race format. Descriptions paraphrased for brevity.

HARENGON
Creature Type. Humanoid.
Size. Choice of Medium or Small.
Speed. 30 feet.

Worth about a feat
Lucky Footwork. Reaction to add d4 to Dex save. (≈ Dex save advantage.)

Worth about half of a feat
Hare Trigger. Add proficiency to Initiative. (Contrast: Alert.)
Rabbit Hop. At level 1, bonus to jump 10 feet, twice per long rest; improves with proficiency bonus.
Leporine Senses. Perception proficiency.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The Harengon likewise follows the new race format. Descriptions paraphrased for brevity.

HARENGON
Creature Type. Humanoid.
Size. Choice of Medium or Small.
Speed. 30 feet.

Worth about a feat
Lucky Footwork. Reaction to add d4 to Dex save. (≈ Dex save advantage.)

Worth about half of a feat
Hare Trigger. Add proficiency to Initiative. (Contrast: Alert.)
Rabbit Hop. At level 1, bonus to jump 10 feet twice per long rest; improves with proficiency bonus.
Leporine Senses. Perception proficiency.

This format seems to (more-or-less) match how the Lineages from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft are formatted.

 

[Shiroiken]

I agree, the availability of Flight at level 1 is shocking. In my campaigns, this seems overpowered.

Currently playing a low level character with flight. You obviously haven't considered the potential downside: falling can easily be a death sentence. If you drop to 0 HP, you are getting a minimum of 1 failed death save. If falling from high enough, especially at lower levels, you can be killed outright. Depending on where you fall, the healer may not be able to get close enough to do so. The solution to this is to land at the end of every turn of combat, which minimizes the benefit of flight in the first place. Flight can a major problem for exploration challenges though, so they require more thought and preparation.

 

[NaturalZero]

I'm not a fan of the fairy stats for multiple reasons but I feel like the variable ability score bonuses and general flexibility of the new PC building is a huge step forward. Creatures type, for instance, doesn't have a lot of mechanical weight outside of a few spells like hold person, and yet the designers have been super gun shy about letting people play anything that isn't humanoid. Make some fey, or construct, or aberration races and let folks have some flavor diversity.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not a fan of the fairy stats for multiple reasons but I feel like the variable ability score bonuses and general flexibility of the new PC building is a huge step forward. Creatures type, for instance, doesn't have a lot of mechanical weight outside of a few spells like hold person, and yet the designers have been super gun shy about letting people play anything that isn't humanoid. Make some fey, or construct, or aberration races and let folks have some flavor diversity.

The only non-humanoid creature type that you can play so far in 5e is Fey. Centaurs, Satyrs, Hexblood, and now the Fairy. I would love to have other options, like Celestials (Bariaur, anyone?), Fiends (Cambions?), and Aberrations (maybe a Ceremorph lineage, like the Gnome Ceremorphs from Rime of the Frostmaiden).

But, yeah, so far there's only two creature types that you can play, and IMHO it sucks.

 

[NaturalZero]

The only non-humanoid creature type that you can play so far in 5e is Fey. Centaurs, Satyrs, Hexblood, and now the Fairy. I would love to have other options, like Celestials (Bariaur, anyone?), Fiends (Cambions?), and Aberrations (maybe a Ceremorph lineage, like the Gnome Ceremorphs from Rime of the Frostmaiden).

But, yeah, so far there's only two creature types that you can play, and IMHO it sucks.

I loved the flavor of the daelkyr half-blood in 3.5 and just getting something like aberration as a creature type does a lot for me, conceptually.

 

[Mistwell]

I am very much looking forward to this book because my 10 year old daughter is just learning to play, is playing a fairy druid, and it seems this book will fit well with her play preferences. She doesn't like combat as much as exploration and social, and I suspect this book will satisfy those interests well.