Monster Manual Suggests Changes Are Coming to Some Playable Species

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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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Creature Type at this point is mostly for narrative and game prep/design purposes: the tables of Monsters by Creature Type and Level we are getting will be great for building thematically coherent campaigns at home.
 

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Why were subtypes dropped after 3e? And why do types seem more like a ribbon feature? In 3e, both types and subtypes contained info on things like resistance and immunities that were commonly held by a group of related creatures.
I think it was too limiting to have type be that mechanically significant. I know from my days in 3e that I've often had to design around creature type and find ways to circumvent it's limitations rather than design what I wanted.
 

I think it was too limiting to have type be that mechanically significant. I know from my days in 3e that I've often had to design around creature type and find ways to circumvent it's limitations rather than design what I wanted.
Understandable. I remember some of the workarounds WoTC had to do for some of the 3e races (the Raptoran, the first take on the Dragonborn, and the Warforged) that came out after the debut of Savage Species.
 

That's enough, surely?

I mean, a creature's type doesn't matter now anything like as much as it did in, say, 3e, where it largely dictated whether you had darkvision, and provided a package of immunities etc, and (for monsters) their attack bonus, saves, hit dice size, etc etc. But if 'type' doesn't provide a handful of immunities/vulnerabilities, then what else does it do? We might as well remove it as a concept completely.

I think you are missing the point. I rarely use Charm Person or Hold Person on a party. Hold Person more commonly, but maybe once or twice an adventure.

So... if the only difference between a Tiefling and a Playable fiend is being immune to charm person, an effect I'm not even using... then why would playing a Tiefling not be good enough to play a Fiend? I often do homebrew partial or uncomfortable effects on things like Hallow or a Paladin's Divine Sense with regards to Tieflings, as flavor, so that's fun, but if a player told me that a Tiefling isn't enough to play a Fiend, I'd want to know what else they want from the character. And if it was mostly a list of things they were immune to.... I'd question their motivations.
 

Going by their real-world origins and in-universe connection to Goblins and Hags, Ogres should be Fey too.

Plus doing so would be a great way to distinguish them from other Giants.

And make them less problematic since instead of being a species of strong lazy idiots they'd be Fey personifications of strength instead who could have more variety in how they're portrayed.

Oooh, I LIKE that.

Hmm, with the Cyclops returning to being Divinely made, me personally shifting Hill Giants into more "homesteading farmer" than "dirty, stupid brute" and shifting Ogres to fey... I'd almost be out of the "large, dirty, stupid brute that smells bad and eats a lot" monsters. Which would be AMAZING
 

Why were subtypes dropped after 3e? And why do types seem more like a ribbon feature? In 3e, both types and subtypes contained info on things like resistance and immunities that were commonly held by a group of related creatures.

These things still exist technically. All Demons to my knowledge in 5e are resistant to fire, cold and lightning damage, while all Devils were immune to fire. Most if not all celestial were resistant to radiant and necrotic. All constructs are immune to poison and I think all of them are immune to psychic as well.

What they essentially did was move that information into the statblock. So you didn't need to memorize "what are the traits of a plant" the plant monster just had their traits. And this also allowed for things to be shifted. A construct that is a brain in a jar piloting a golem perhaps should take psychic damage, and if so, you can just remove that immunity.
 

I think you are missing the point. I rarely use Charm Person or Hold Person on a party. Hold Person more commonly, but maybe once or twice an adventure.

So... if the only difference between a Tiefling and a Playable fiend is being immune to charm person, an effect I'm not even using... then why would playing a Tiefling not be good enough to play a Fiend? I often do homebrew partial or uncomfortable effects on things like Hallow or a Paladin's Divine Sense with regards to Tieflings, as flavor, so that's fun, but if a player told me that a Tiefling isn't enough to play a Fiend, I'd want to know what else they want from the character. And if it was mostly a list of things they were immune to.... I'd question their motivations.
People choose different species for different reasons. I'm not going to shame someone because they have mechanical preferences. And anyway, interactions with Charm Person may not affect your choices, but it's perfectly valid for them to affect the choice of others.
 

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