The Gith Are Now Aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons

The githyanki and githzerai are officially reclassified as aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons. In a video released today about the 2025 Monster Manual, D&D designers Jeremy Crawford and F. Wesley Schneider confirmed that the two classic D&D species are now being classified as aberrations. The reasoning given - the two gith species have been so transformed by living in the Astral Plane and Limbo, they've moved beyond being humanoids. Schneider also pointed out that the illithid's role in manipulating the gith also contributed to their new classification.

The video notes that this isn't technically a new change - the Planescape book released in 2023 had several githzerai statblocks that had aberration classifications.

The gith join a growing number of previously playable species that have new classifications. The goblin, kobolds, and kenku have also had their creature classifications changed in the 2025 Monster Manual. While players can currently use the 2014 rules for making characters of those species, it will be interesting to see how these reclassifications affect the character-building rules regarding these species when they are eventually updated for 2024 rules.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

PC Githzerai have been described as being different from NPC Githzerai since they were first available as a PC option in the 2e Planescape Campaign Setting. For one thing they lacked many of the abilities that NPC Githzerai had, and it was clear that a lot of Githzerai in Planescape lived in places like Sigil or the Outlands and were therefore different than the ones that were from Limbo.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Yes, but by the current logic, being a human like creature that was experimented on to give you green skin, long ears, psychic powers, and reproduction via spitting out eggs makes you a aberration now. Psi Goblins and Derro are also considered Aberrations now. Would not be shocked to see Duergar included.

so does gaining a psychic power by feat also make you an aberration?

Did you watch the video? The definition of aberration wasn't dependent on how it looks are even how it acts really. It was simply that the creature has been influenced by the Far Realm to some degree (how much exposure is required is not clear). Now, I also find the Gith as a bit of an odd choice based on their appearance. However, in the video they mention that Gith are so (for lack of better term) messed up by the Mind Flayers and the Far Realm that despite breaking away from their overlords there is a suspicion they are still being influenced by the Far Realm and continue to this day to play a part / their part in enacting the Mind Flayer's Grand Plan. That is aberration levels of f****d up!

a) I feel that robs them of moral agency in the worst way, just having a psychotic existential breakdown would be nicer.

b) they are not defining aberration in a meaningful way, lots of things have strange biology and give hard examples to get a feeling.

c) this is fundamentally about making it less questionable to kill them but they are space bandits thus of limited consequence to defend yourself from.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

so does gaining a psychic power by feat also make you an aberration?

Why should it? To you feel it should make you an abberation?

It is not the psychic power alone. It isbas explained being transformed by the agents of the far realm.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Did you watch the video? The definition of aberration wasn't dependent on how it looks are even how it acts really. It was simply that the creature has been influenced by the Far Realm to some degree (how much exposure is required is not clear). Now, I also find the Gith as a bit of an odd choice based on their appearance. However, in the video they mention that Gith are so (for lack of better term) messed up by the Mind Flayers and the Far Realm that despite breaking away from their overlords there is a suspicion they are still being influenced by the Far Realm and continue to this day to play a part / their part in enacting the Mind Flayer's Grand Plan. That is aberration levels of f****d up!

Nah.

It's just a shoddy and silly definition of Aberration for the sake of making fewer things Humanoids, and obviously pretty ridiculous. They're not meaningfully in the same category as any actual aberrations.

6E is undoubtedly going to end up reversing this (or rather giving back dual classifications).

EDIT - Also can you imagine trying to tell Lae'zel that she was an aberration like a Mind Flayer and not a person lol? I can't think of any way to get bisected faster than that! And doing so on the basis of "well they lay eggs, they aren't people" is messed-up on a lot of levels, and a more "problematic" than mind control spells are. Indeed it's actual setting point from Spire, which is literally about racialized oppression.

 

[Michael Blackett]

So, basically, 2024e is telling you to create a load of Hold <type> spells in your spell slots as far as the MM is concerned. The same goes for Charm and Dominate spells I suspect. Jeebus, sounds more like the old Deluxe Runequest magic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

6E is undoubtedly going to end up reversing this (or rather giving back dual classifications).

Heh heh... which begs the question why should anyone actually be all that concerned by any of it? Every single thing in D&D has been changed multiple times throughout the last 50 years... some going back and forth, others changing to something completely new each time... and will easily get changed again multiple times down the line in the future whenever a new designer comes in and wants to put their stamp on things.

So why be bothered by what TSR/WotC/Paizo/Kobold/EN Pub put down as their version of "current" lore for D&D? Their views are just their views, same way all our views are all our views. Just keep using whatever (general) you prefer for your own game and to heck with what anyone else writes down. It's not worth the concern.

 

[Corinnguard]

Did you watch the video? The definition of aberration wasn't dependent on how it looks are even how it acts really. It was simply that the creature has been influenced by the Far Realm to some degree (how much exposure is required is not clear). Now, I also find the Gith as a bit of an odd choice based on their appearance. However, in the video they mention that Gith are so (for lack of better term) messed up by the Mind Flayers and the Far Realm that despite breaking away from their overlords there is a suspicion they are still being influenced by the Far Realm and continue to this day to play a part / their part in enacting the Mind Flayer's Grand Plan. That is aberration levels of f****d up!

The Gith sound like they should be planetouched. In this case, they were touched by the Plane of Madness and its' denizens.

 

[plecostomus]

So, basically, 2024e is telling you to create a load of Hold <type> spells in your spell slots as far as the MM is concerned. The same goes for Charm and Dominate spells I suspect. Jeebus, sounds more like the old Deluxe Runequest magic.

Disregard all other control spells and return to Command, the evergreen.

 

[Michael Blackett]

Silly ppl, come out with 2024e, state changes are for the better, in the process unwittingly nerf one of the staple spells of D&D, lol.

Right now am just using 2024e as a bolt on 4 2014e. Think inspire of this, will rule that the Gith are still individuals/person and unless resistant/immune to hold spells like Elves they will have to make a save like everyone else (honestly cannot recall if they are. ..am at work at the mo and cannot check my Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainens Tome of Foes (don't care if 2024e makes those 2 books obsolete to some, they are still great).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Heh heh... which begs the question why should anyone actually be all that concerned by any of it?

I mean, fair question.

It's just unnecessary and silly, I guess is the issue, and it's always a little annoying when D&D gets into that (and it gets into it at least a little every edition!).

So why be bothered by what TSR/WotC/Paizo/Kobold/EN Pub put down as their version of "current" lore for D&D?

The issue here is that this is mechanical/functional, so it's not just weird/dumb lore, it's actually impacting gameplay. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind "let's make all the humanoid-targeting spells wildly less useful" is, but it's so consistent it's undeniable that it's a thing WotC are actively doing.

And yeah, you could house rule, you can house rule anything, but that causes friction and shouldn't be necessary in this case imho. I'd really love to know what WotC's actual-actual reasoning is here. Like, do they just feel mind-control spells are "beyond the pale"? It doesn't quite seem so.

unwittingly nerf

Why do you think this is unwitting? I think they absolutely know what they're doing here. It's been discussed significantly when it was done with previous creatures, and I think the designers even noted that was RAI not some accident or oversight.