Monster Manual Suggests Changes Are Coming to Some Playable Species

More non-humanoid playable species are coming to the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. In videos released over the last two weeks to promote the 2025 Monster Manual, Wizards of the Coast has revealed they have reclassified several creatures that doubled as playable races in the previous version of 5th Edition as non-humanoid species. The goblin is now a fey creature, the kobold is now a dragon, and the kenku is now a monstrosity. It's likely that the hobgoblin and bugbear (both of which are goblinoid creatures in D&D) will also be reclassified in the Monster Manual. The 2024 adventure Vecna: Eve of Ruin reclassified the Warforged as a construct rather than as a humanoid, a change from the 2018 Eberron sourcebook. Lycanthropes are also reclassified as monstrosities in the 2025 Monster Manual, which could also have an impact on playable species.

There are 14 different creature types in D&D 5E, although it took D&D years to include non-humanoid creature types as an option. Centaurs (from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica) was the first non-humanoid creature type, followed by satyrs in Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Both of those books were Magic: The Gathering crossovers and classified those races as fey creatures. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight added Fairies and Haregon as playable fey creatures. Spelljammer added playable construct, monstrosities, and oozes via the Autognome, Thri-kreen, and Plasmoid. Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse also changed the Changeling from Eberron into a fey creature.

D&D hasn't stated their plans for the goblin, kobold, kenku, and warforged playable species rules, but these classifications should be reflected if/when the D&D team updates those species for the 2024 rule set.

Creature classifications matter in 5E D&D because certain spells only impact humanoids. Hold Person, Charm Person, Dominate Person, Finger of Death's zombification effect, Reincarnate, Calm Emotion, Friends, Crown of Madness, Magic Jar, and Simulacrum are all spells that only impact humanoids, for instance. Some of these spells have equivalents that can be used on any creature type but often require a higher level spell slot to be used.

On the flip side, one immediate impact is that, once the 2025 Monster Manual comes out, a bard PC will no longer be able to Charm Person their way out of tense encounter with a goblin or a kobold. Mind manipulation is no longer in vogue (or mechanically possible) when interacting with the game's beloved trash dragons.

 

[MGibster]

"Often seem" is a funny way of spelling "have always been."

Sometimes they make sense. Most creatures that are classified as Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, or Fiends makes sense to be in those groups.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sometimes they make sense. Most creatures that are classified as Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, or Fiends makes sense to be in those groups.

My point was that there have always been edge cases in every edition that has tried to have comprehensive creature categories. There have always been creatures that get stuck somewhere a little funky. You might have just a couple edge cases, or many many edge cases, but you'll never, ever have zero edge cases--so the categories are necessarily at least somewhat arbitrary no matter what.

Perfect encyclopedic categorization is a fool's errand. Something actual biologists learned a long time ago. "Species" does not have a clean definition because it is impossible to define "species" cleanly. Instead, it's much like that Supreme Court justice's opinion on obscenity: "I know it when I see it."

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Haven't they been Fey since they were introduced in Theros?

Since the 2014 Monster Manual. But, yes, the player option was also Fey since Theros.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Since the 2014 Monster Manual. But, yes, the player option was also Fey since Theros.

Even before that, really. 4e classified satyrs (which were playable back then!) as "fey origin" as well, and that's more or less its equivalent of creature-type stuff.

 

[InkTide]

I think there's been a slow drift toward "mind control = bad" for a while now

I'm not sure I agree with this fully, because most of the nerfs to that from the spell side at least were there by the beginning of 5e and 5.5e hasn't changed them much except for weird edge cases; I don't know much about 4e so it might be similar there. 3.5e has a good number of permanently mind altering effects, and I think what you're seeing is really a drift towards "permanent anything = scares the crap out of the people balancing abilities post 3.5e" across all magic in D&D.

Sometimes they make sense.

Thematically, sure... but only until you look at the mechanical impacts outside the creature itself, which make a mess of the thematic appropriateness anyway. Because typal restrictions in abilities/spells are a mess, and it seems to get more messy every time they change types like this. It feels like something they just don't design for outside of the stat block itself anymore, and I've got to ask what the point even is.

Personally I prefer for much of the targeting issues a construction like "Lesser X - creature that shares a type with the caster" and "X - any creature" if they wanted to do type-based targeting, but we've still got the old "humanoid = person" wording in the new PHB.

On the plus(?) side, you will now be able to permanently banish a slightly greater selection of PCs to the Feywild, because even though Banishing Smite accounts for a character having a native plane not defined by their biology... Banishment does not. For consistency, this really should work for Tieflings, Elves, Aasimar, and arguably Dragonborn (banished to Abeir), but WotC isn't quite brave enough with their categorization for that.

 

[JEB]

Even before that, really. 4e classified satyrs (which were playable back then!) as "fey origin" as well, and that's more or less its equivalent of creature-type stuff.

Fey humanoids, in fact - perhaps a nuance that would address some of the above concerns were it in 2024. (Or make it more contentious, who knows.)

They were also fey in 3e, FWIW.

 

[pukunui]

I'm not sure I agree with this fully, because most of the nerfs to that from the spell side at least were there by the beginning of 5e and 5.5e hasn't changed them much except for weird edge cases; I don't know much about 4e so it might be similar there. 3.5e has a good number of permanently mind altering effects, and I think what you're seeing is really a drift towards "permanent anything = scares the crap out of the people balancing abilities post 3.5e" across all magic in D&D.

I was also thinking of other D&D media, like Ed Greenwood's early 5e era (2016) novel, Death Masks, in which Laeral Silverhand talks about how Mystra has cracked down on magical mind reading and mind control. In fact, her reading the minds of some would-be assassins has her writhing on the floor in a cold sweat by the end of it.

 

[InkTide]

I was also thinking of other D&D media, like Ed Greenwood's early 5e era (2016) novel, Death Masks, in which Laeral Silverhand talks about how Mystra has cracked down on magical mind reading and mind control. In fact, her reading the minds of some would-be assassins has her writhing on the floor in a cold sweat by the end of it.

That feels a little post-hoc to me - like if we take that as a broader meta statement, he's just trying to rationalize the massive meta changes that already happened for meta reasons with in-story beats, not trying to make a statement about where the meta wants to go. By 2016, those massive duration nerfs compared to 3.5e had probably already been established (I am not very familiar with 4e, but I believe it had gotten the 'nothing magical can be permanent anymore' ball rolling so hard they even had to pull it back a little in places with 5e).

However, there it's clearly just providing a justification for maintaining narrative tension (can't cheat information out of the foes with magic). Not sure why Silverhand needed to be writhing on the floor for it though.

Fey humanoids, in fact

Yeah, I've never gotten why they didn't just do it this way. Humanoid is a body plan - as a new player I'd at first thought that was what the "Hold Person" restriction was actually about, as in it was made to restrain a biped (featherlessness notwithstanding) with two arms. But no. Weird arbitrary magical type restriction instead.

 

[Staffan]

That was my read. In a modern world where taking away someone's ability to consent is (rightly) seen as a serious issue, enchanters and enchantment powers are harder to sell as the "good guy" spell school.

Eh, I think it depends a lot on what you do with it. Sexual coercion is of course vile regardless of whether you do it with physical or mental force, but I refuse to entertain the notion that it would have been a more moral option for Obi-Wan Kenobi to start slicing his way through Mos Eisley rather than making the storm troopers believe that these aren't the droids they're looking for and that they don't need to see his or Luke's ID.

Edit: That said, I would be happy to see the ability of wizards to screw with people's minds be nerfed to provide design space for psionics being better at doing that. But given the treatment of psionics in 5.5, I do not believe that's the way they're going.

Yeah, I've never gotten why they didn't just do it this way. Humanoid is a body plan - as a new player I'd at first thought that was what the "Hold Person" restriction was actually about, as in it was made to restrain a biped (featherlessness notwithstanding) with two arms. But no. Weird arbitrary magical type restriction instead.

As usual when it comes to monsters, 4e did it the best, with monsters having both an origin and a creature type (in addition to a role). So a satyr would be a fey humanoid, a dragon a natural magical beast (dragon), and a carrion crawler an aberrant beast.

 

[Wibbledtodeath]

I can see a path, where if Wizards doesn't wake up, those kinds of themes are removed from all but the bad guys.

I believe even bad guys doing slavery was retconned from the 5e planescape book