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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why?

Why? It is obviously utterly ludicrous. Why on Earth would being a PC affect your creature type? Being a PC isn't diegetic.

 

[Parmandur]

I am by no means someone that thinks monsters and player characters need to use the same abilities and rules, but having the creature type of the player option and monster version be different is dumb. When the Gith change came in Planescape, I was excited because I thought that meant Gith would be playable aberrations. Making playable Gith be humanoid while the monsters are aberrations doesn’t make any lore sense and doesn’t please either crowd.

There are multiple examples, even before this MM, of Monsters crossing Cresture Type.

 

[Parmandur]

Why? It is obviously utterly ludicrous. Why on Earth would being a PC affect your creature type? Being a PC isn't diegetic.

Is it not diagetic...?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Is it not diagetic...?

What? Do people in your setting know who is a PC and who isn't?

 

[Parmandur]

What? Do people in your setting know who is a PC and who isn't?

I mean, there are only a handful? NPCs don't have Class or Level, and the world is actually built around the PCs succeeding.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

What? Do people in your setting know who is a PC and who isn't?

"'E must be a king."
"'Ow can you tell?"

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There are multiple examples, even before this MM, of Monsters crossing Cresture Type.

Not many, and I didn’t like those either. When Tome of Foes came out, I complained that the Eladrin monsters were Fey and the subrace was humanoid. When Monsters of the Multiverse came out I complained that the Hobgoblin monsters were fey while the player option merely had fey ancestry.

 

[Parmandur]

Not many, and I didn’t like those either. When Tome of Foes came out, I complained that the Eladrin monsters were Fey and the subrace was humanoid. When Monsters of the Multiverse came out I complained that the Hobgoblin monsters were fey while the player option merely had fey ancestry.

I can appreciate that you didn't like that: however, as you point out, WotC has been doing that for years. There are also the Aberration Goblins in Phabdelver, for example.

 

[SkidAce]

Meanwhile on the astral

"Mom! I want to be a Githyanki Knight, but the council said I couldn't cause I was a humanoid, is their something about my father you want to tell me?"

 

[Chaosmancer]

What? That's even more stupid.

Yep, so stupid that they can't go back into the past and un-publish something they already created.

"Just do an errata"

Why? Literally the only difference would be giving the PC immunity to some low-level spells. That isn't worth an errata at the moment.