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


Bell of Souls opinion on the matter. Also suggests Artificer could be for the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the some species may get an update or new species might come to the book. Thoughts?
 

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Bell of Souls opinion on the matter. Also suggests Artificer could be for the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the some species may get an update or new species might come to the book. Thoughts?
Hilariously, the main thing I got from that is that even Bell of Lost Souls sees 5.5 as a new edition.
 

i don't see why a species couldn't just have multiple creature types, a tiefling is a Fiend/Humanoid, a goblin is a Fey/Humanoid, a warforged is a Construct/Humanoid.

both hold person and hold monster work on them but hold person has disadvantage on anything with a secondary type.
Seems a little fiddly for WotC 5e, but makes sense to me.
 

i don't see why a species couldn't just have multiple creature types, a tiefling is a Fiend/Humanoid, a goblin is a Fey/Humanoid, a warforged is a Construct/Humanoid.

both hold person and hold monster work on them but hold person has disadvantage on anything with a secondary type.
In another post I did mention that some of the heritages in Level Up took this route. :) For instance, those of the Garoul heritage had both the Beast and Humanoid types thanks to them being the descendants of werewolves.

It would be neat if there were heritages covering the other werebeasts. ;)
 

It does, and I'm not ruling it out. But I'm not treating it as a forgone conclusion either.
Nothing is a foregone conclusion, but it is clear that the designers currently envision the likelihood of non-Humanoid PCs, so it is extremely unlikely they will bend themselves into pretzels to avoid it in the future.
 


Bell of Souls opinion on the matter. Also suggests Artificer could be for the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the some species may get an update or new species might come to the book. Thoughts?
They went over what is going to be in the FRPG...conspicuously, they said nothing about Class or Species options. So, doubtful.

I still suspect we will see de facto Species options in the "Conversion Guide in the MM.
 


i don't see why a species couldn't just have multiple creature types, a tiefling is a Fiend/Humanoid, a goblin is a Fey/Humanoid, a warforged is a Construct/Humanoid.

both hold person and hold monster work on them but hold person has disadvantage on anything with a secondary type.
They tried that with the Van Richten's lineages Unearthed Arcana: dhampir was undead/humanoid, hexblood was fey/humanoid, and reborn was undead/humanoid or construct/humanoid (PCs choice). I think it didn't score well and lead to issues with rules contradictions.

(As an aside, I would be totally willing to see dhampir and reborn as undead if they get re-released.)
 

They tried that with the Van Richten's lineages Unearthed Arcana: dhampir was undead/humanoid, hexblood was fey/humanoid, and reborn was undead/humanoid or construct/humanoid (PCs choice). I think it didn't score well and lead to issues with rules contradictions.

(As an aside, I would be totally willing to see dhampir and reborn as undead if they get re-released.)
I don't think there was a functionality issue, people just didn't like it.
 

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