D&D (2024) I think the Fey Ancestry Trait is better for PCs than actually being Fey

[Kobold Avenger]

Often brought up on the subject of Goblins being Fey in the Monster Manual, but I feel that species such as Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears which are Humanoids as PCs but have the Fey Ancestry Trait where they get Advantage on saves against and to end the Charmed condition is usually more useful to have as a PC. Being Fey is more useful against low level spells as it is outright immunity to some like Charm Person and Hold Person, but at higher levels I think having that general advantage against the Charmed condition is more useful.

 

[Clint_L]

That's a good point. Kinda depends on the level of the campaign, I guess.

 

[Stormonu]

I think it is a mistake to change these "PC races" to fey and give them blanket immunity to a swathe of spells. I don't think the designers really thought through what sort of knock-on effects they're causing when they were doing this.

 

[Kobold Stew]

In my opinion, the 5e designers seem particularly uninterested in playing nonstandard species as player characters. What the species contributes to the character has eroded. This has been true throughout the 5e era. What they produce is inconsistent and (often) easily breakable. Because they are uninterested, things are under-playtested: they design the bugbear, and maybe someone plays one once but it happens not to be a melee combatant, and so the exploits aren't discovered.

They also can't conceive that someone would want to play a "weaker" species or species-and-class combination.

That's not to say that they can't produce some good material: MotM is for the most part excellent; but it took a lot of iterations to get there, and I am not sure they recognize what works and what doesn't.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In my opinion, the 5e designers seem particularly uninterested in playing nonstandard species as player characters. What the species contributes to the character has eroded.

That's been the thing post 3.5e, and some would argue for most of 3.5e as well as it only really seemed to matter in something like Savage Species were the Species (like if you played an Ogre or Ghaele) were part of the level progression for some characters.

 

[Kobold Stew]

There were absolutely problems with the 3.5 Level Adjustments (indeed my first post to this forum was about the implications of the monster hit dice for skills in 3.5), but there was no doubt they were thinking about the possibilities, and trying to make it work. I do not get that sense fro 5e -- they do it because players clearly want it; but at the same time it feels to me like the designers we're wrong for wanting it.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think it is a mistake to change these "PC races" to fey and give them blanket immunity to a swathe of spells. I don't think the designers really thought through what sort of knock-on effects they're causing when they were doing this.

Satyr makes some sense, but they have the quite useful to have Magic Resistance trait to go along with it. Sure being a Satyr is better for resisting spells than being a Yuan-Ti, which also has the trait since a Satyr in Monsters of the Multiverse is Fey while the Yuan-Ti is humanoid. But the Satyr only has a slight edge over resisting spells, because they don't need to roll a saving throw with advantage against Charm Person and Hold Person, while a Yuan-Ti PC still does.