Unearthed Arcana Four New Elf Subraces in Unearthed Arcana

This month's Unearthed Arcana article gives us four new elf subraces to playtest. "After the positive response to the eladrin a couple of months ago in Unearthed Arcana, we decided to explore four more elf subraces: avariel (winged elves), grugach (the wild elves of Greyhawk), sea elves, and shadar-kai (deathly servants of the Raven Queen)."

​

 

[Mephista]

Any reason we get race after race and sub-race after sub-race of elves dwarves and halflings but we only get one race of humans? Why don't we get different races of humans in 5e?

We do. Aasimar, tieflings, yuan-ti are all variations on humans, after all.

 

[SkidAce]

Human Variant from my campaign... I have others. Don't understand why WotC are reluctant to explore the concept.

Novans

Novans normally have tanned skin, with black or brown hair and blue eyes. The Novans are the race that populated the areas south of the central Alyndrica. They are mainly found in the area stretching from Rel Astra through Landfall and Sunaria. They are mostly of even temperament, practical, and stick together.

Ability Score Increase. Increase Constitution and Wisdom by 1.
Skills. Choose Insight or Animal Handling.
Feat. Choose Durable or Observant
Common Backgrounds etc....

 

[gyor]

The Shadar Kai's features are good, but I'd add Chain Weapon Prof. But make them their own race or a human variant. PS the Drow are the Emo race, the Shadar Kai are the BDSM race.

Sea Elves are awesome, but add Dolphins to the list of sea creatures they can take too.

The Grurach make a passable stand in for Wood Elves in FR.

Averiel are fine, but will be disallowed for FR play, personally I'd start them off with gliding or a feather fall type effect at level 1, then have their wings grow stronger to give them actual fight at an appriotate level.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Grugach: The PHB already says grugach are wood elves. Contradicting the PHB actually makes me angry. Hopefully people with less emotional response will also object to this move in the survey.

Otherwise, I don't have any problem with this material. Avariel and Sea Elves are welcome and well-executed additions. While they're at it, they need to update the aquatic half-elf from SCAG to get water breathing to go with their swim speed. What if their mother was a sea elf or they were raised in that culture?

 

[pukunui]

We do. Aasimar, tieflings, yuan-ti are all variations on humans, after all.

As are 5e's half-elves and half-orcs.

The Shadar Kai's features are good, but I'd add Chain Weapon Prof.

No. The spiked chain must remain in 3e where it belongs.

PS the Drow are the Emo race, the Shadar Kai are the BDSM race.

Uh, I'd say it was the other way around. The stereotypical drow female of past editions looks just like a dominatrix.

The Grurach make a passable stand in for Wood Elves in FR.

FR has wood elves *and* wild elves, so why not have the grugach stand in for the latter, and let the PHB wood elves stand in for the former?

Averiel are fine, but will be disallowed for FR play

You mean AL play, of course.

 

[Leatherhead]

Well lets take a look.

Avariel:
The Winged Elves seem a bit weaker than Aarakocra at first glance. But then you remember that they are still an Elf, which means that they will not suffer the problems of being a Birdman, and get the basic elf package (which is a good thing to have). However, if you are allowing flying races in your game, it's not mechanically stronger than the winged Tieflings, though the peasants will probably be more amiable to them.

Grugach:
Strong elves. The bonus in str isn't likely to temp anyone outside of the odd elf-barbarian. The weapon proficiencies exist to help out the Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard. But the real windfall here is the free Druid Cantrip. Druids have a very nice selection of cantrips that lots of characters will want in on, though using wisdom for the casting stat is going to put some breaks on them.

Sea Elf:
The AquaElf. That's basically it actually, outside of those water-focused campaigns they aren't anything to think about. Constitution is always good. Trident proficiency isn't any better than spear proficiency unless you happen to find a magic one. Nobody uses nets. The only characters who would really want to use hand crossbows are the ones which have class support to back it up(and thus proficiency with them). That leaves "talking" to swimming animals, swimming, and breathing underwater as the draws here.

Still, it's nice to have stats for them now, my Pirate game was missing them.

Shadar-kai:
These things used to be Human-ish, and masochists. Odd that. Now they are half-undead goth elves or something.
As of right now, they are weaker Eladrin (the UA kind). However, they are clearly more geared for the Paladin or Hexblade playstyle (fitting I guess, given that they serve the Raven Queen), teleporting into the fray and getting resistance to damage while doing so.

 

[gyor]

They *weren't* elves. Apparently, now they are. But I'm sure they'll get loads of feedback along the lines of "How dare you make them elves!" so they'll probably go back to being humans again.

So? The grugach of Greyhawk have no ties to FR. What's your point?

(By the way, "Grugach of Greyhawk" sounds like a tongue-twister. Say it out loud ten times fast!)

The Grugach can be refluffed as Wood Elves for FR purposes because FR doesn't have Grugach, but Shadar Kai do exist in FR and have a story and background.

 

[pukunui]

The Grugach can be refluffed as Wood Elves for FR purposes because FR doesn't have Grugach

FR does have wild elves that are distinct from its wood elves.

... but Shadar Kai do exist in FR and have a story and background.

True, but shadar-kai also exist outside of the FR, where they *do* have links to the Raven Queen. And since not everything 5e is specifically written with the FR in mind, despite what many people claim, I'm not seeing why this is a big deal. Especially since it's in the same article as a race specifically mentioned to be from a setting other than FR.

 

[gyor]

I think this really reinforces this is going to be the Book of the Planes next.

 

[gyor]

FR does have wild elves that are distinct from its wood elves.

True, but shadar-kai also exist outside of the FR, where they *do* have links to the Raven Queen. And since not everything 5e is specifically written with the FR in mind, despite what many people claim, I'm not seeing why this is a big deal. Especially since it's in the same article as a race specifically mentioned to be from a setting other than FR.

Well they can at least have a side bar for FR Shadar Kai when they publish it.