Monster Manual Suggests Changes Are Coming to Some Playable Species

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.

 

[Wibbledtodeath]

I can see a path, where if Wizards doesn't wake up, those kinds of themes are removed from all but the bad guys.

They already retconned even bad wizards doing slavery from the 5e Planescape book.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yeah, I've never gotten why they didn't just do it this way. Humanoid is a body plan - as a new player I'd at first thought that was what the "Hold Person" restriction was actually about, as in it was made to restrain a biped (featherlessness notwithstanding) with two arms. But no. Weird arbitrary magical type restriction instead.

They could have taken the route of having some of the PC species having two monster types instead of shuffling them from one monster type to the next. Those species in 5e who had Fey Ancestry, for instance, could have had Fey and Humanoid in 5.5e. There are a couple of Level Up heritages that have been done this way.

It's neat that the Warforged are going back to being Constructs (like they were in 3e). But will they have a species trait that says they are out to make a Living? They were originally seen as Living Constructs back then.

But why are the Kobolds getting the Dragon type? I don't get it. Goblinoids are becoming Fey, but Elves are still Humanoids. What do those Dragonborn mini-me's got that Dragonborn don't to earn them a type change?

 

[Bae'zel]

For a moment I thought that this was telling us that we’d be getting some new Species rules in the Monster Manual. That would have been amazing.

Oh well. Easy enough to adapt what we got in Monsters of the Multiverse, I guess.

 

[CreamCloud0]

How are satyrs non-humanoid?

I’d say it’s the goat legs that do it.

 

[Bae'zel]

I’d say it’s the goat legs that do it.

Yeah they said that their new definition of Monstrosities was creatures that were “unnatural”, as in, gods, wizards, curses messing around with living things outside of the norm. Or creatures based on iconic, real-world myths like Greek and medieval animal + another animal (or human) in nonsensical ways that wouldn’t have evolved naturally.

 

[Li Shenron]

That was my read. In a modern world where taking away someone's ability to consent is (rightly) seen as a serious issue, enchanters and enchantment powers are harder to sell as the "good guy" spell school.

Are you telling me that WotC is changing some creatures' types so that the PCs can not easily coerce goblins and bugbears into bed, while being just as effective as before at coercing humans and elves into bed?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are you telling me that WotC is changing some creatures' types so that the PCs can not easily coerce goblins and bugbears into bed, while being just as effective as before at coercing humans and elves into bed?

FOUND THE BARD

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Eh, I think it depends a lot on what you do with it. Sexual coercion is of course vile regardless of whether you do it with physical or mental force, but I refuse to entertain the notion that it would have been a more moral option for Obi-Wan Kenobi to start slicing his way through Mos Eisley rather than making the storm troopers believe that these aren't the droids they're looking for and that they don't need to see his or Luke's ID.

Obi-Wan had the advantage of being played by George Lucas, who wasn't interested in jedi deciding that Stormtrooper #2 had a great butt and having Obi-Wan "convince" him that they should go out behind the vaporator and get it on.

In contrast, WotC can be pretty sure that some players are going to grossly abuse charm spells. Making them less the focus of the school of enchantment both lowers the ick factor and limits the power of what has always been a fairly overpowered spell. (And yes, they explicitly won't limit the overpowered fireball, which "merely" sets people on fire. So it goes.)

They're not getting rid of charm spells, but if fewer things are vulnerable to it, they're not going to be used as the go-to solution for some wizards.

 

[MGibster]

They're not getting rid of charm spells, but if fewer things are vulnerable to it, they're not going to be used as the go-to solution for some wizards.

Was it the go-to solution? I hated the description of Charm in the 2014 PHB.

The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance.

An acquaintance is someone you don't really know very well, so ss a DM, I didn't think the spell was really all that useful. Is a guard likely to just let an acquaintance waltz through the door? Probably not. A close friend? That seems more likely. As a consequence, Charm Person just wasn't used a lot in any of my campaigns...not that I ran more than 3.

 

[Remathilis]

I think there's been a slow drift toward "mind control = bad" for a while now, and this change might be part of that?


Not necessarily. MotM had the NPC goblinoids as fey, but the playable species was still humanoid, for instance. So these changes in the 2024 MM don't automatically mean that any updates to the playable versions of those species will also get the same change.

MotM justifies it by saying the fey goblins are less removed from the feywild than regular goblins. We'll see if that holds true. I could see though that "PC goblins" come from a stock that has lost its fey origin (only keeping a lingering trace in fey ancestry) and are humanoids while MM goblins are more connected to the fey and influenced by that to give them different abilities (and outlooks).

Or not. We'll find out eventually.