The Gith Are Now Aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons

The githyanki and githzerai are officially reclassified as aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons. In a video released today about the 2025 Monster Manual, D&D designers Jeremy Crawford and F. Wesley Schneider confirmed that the two classic D&D species are now being classified as aberrations. The reasoning given - the two gith species have been so transformed by living in the Astral Plane and Limbo, they've moved beyond being humanoids. Schneider also pointed out that the illithid's role in manipulating the gith also contributed to their new classification.

The video notes that this isn't technically a new change - the Planescape book released in 2023 had several githzerai statblocks that had aberration classifications.

The gith join a growing number of previously playable species that have new classifications. The goblin, kobolds, and kenku have also had their creature classifications changed in the 2025 Monster Manual. While players can currently use the 2014 rules for making characters of those species, it will be interesting to see how these reclassifications affect the character-building rules regarding these species when they are eventually updated for 2024 rules.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

One would start to think that Humanoid is redundant

There used to be monstrous humanoids. Or humanoid as a subtype.

Both were not affected by hold or charm person as they were not humanoid.

Goliath, kuo toa, yua-ti all fall under that category. So in some ways for some creatures, those new categorizations are actually bringing them closer to an older edition (3e) by making them immune to some spells.

So I am baffled by the reactive outrage.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm ok with Hold Person being nerfed because it was so useful that it really crowded out other spell choices. Ideally, I think any real paralysis effect should be staved off for higher level spells, so that lower level spells can have more pick diversity. Maybe it won't manifest like that in actuality, but well, we can hope.

Anyway, I like this change, but it really does make Humanoid a little bit meaningless. Let's just cleave all the way to the Realist take and make Elves into Fey, Humans into Beasts, and Halflings into removed from the game. Dwarves can be, uh, Elementals. Hmm....ideas isn't holding up as well as I'd thought.

Aasimar Celestials, Tieflings Fiends, and Dragonborn Dragons, Goliaths Giants, Halflings Oozes, etc... right?

 

[Corinnguard]

See post above. Aasimars used to be outsiders in 3e

I remember. I also remember one of the 3e FR books having a variant of the Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi where they were Humanoids with the Planetouched Subtype. The subtype allowed anyone playing these races at 1st level rather than 2nd level by dropping the +1 LA down to +0.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I think this changes look cool at first, but folks will find it actually causes more problems both mechanically and lore side then folks think.

Like these are all creatures Slaads previously could infect, now they can't, same with Mindflayers, Gith are now immune to mindflayers. This could end up a major problem, it really should have been playtested.

 

[MerricB]

Well, it’ll hold humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, tieflings, dragonborn, goliaths, and aasimar. But, yeah, won’t likely hold any creatures you’re likely to encounter in a dungeon.

Possibly. Next thing you know... halflings are aberrations as well!

(Gnomes already should be!)

One of the reasons I'm reacting so negatively to this change is that this isn't a new edition. If they'd say 2024 was 6E, I'd be fine with all these changes.

But there's stuff here that actually changes how the game plays in significant ways. You can find old adventures that assume the spells work one way and now that is illegal.

To say nothing of how the daylight spell now produces sunlight... and makes Curse of Strahd a lot easier. Just bring in a driftglobe!

(Do I think a spell called daylight should produce sunlight? Absolutely. At that level? No.)

Ultimately, I'll keep playing and enjoying D&D (2024 most likely), but wow it's giving me the strangest vibes.

Cheers!

 

[Corinnguard]

This could end up a major problem, it really should have been playtested.

They could have been left as is like they now are in 5e.

 

[Barolo]

I don't really care about the type change. What bothers me, and has bothered me for a long time already, is the hold/dominate/charm person spells. Like.... why are humans and dwarves supposed to be the uber singletons in the game? I get that this comes from legacy and was used to allow such effects against lower treats, but if half of the ordinary folks are reclassified as non-humanoid, then just get rid of these spell versions already.

Now...If there really ought to be spells that discriminate by creature type, shouldn't each type have its own, lower level, narrower application spell instead? Or maybe the lower version spells could be something like "hold similar" so that each creature type with access to such lower level effects can only affect their own type.

Or whatever, I guess.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think this changes look cool at first, but folks will find it actually causes more problems both mechanically and lore side then folks think.

Like these are all creatures Slaads previously could infect, now they can't, same with Mindflayers, Gith are now immune to mindflayers. This could end up a major problem, it really should have been playtested.

Do we know that extract brain will still only work on humanoids? Do you have special insight?

I don't know if you are wrong or right. Maybe you are right, then we need to see how that descends into lore.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't really care about the type change. What bothers me, and has bothered me for a long time already, is the hold/dominate/charm person spells. Like.... why are humans and dwarves supposed to be the uber singletons in the game? I get that this comes from legacy and was used to allow such effects against lower treats, but if half of the ordinary folks are reclassified as non-humanoid, then just get rid of these spell versions already.

Goblins, gith and so on are not ordinary folks. Player species are.
And by all means, in my experience, humanoids are the most common enemies. And those spells are very low level for what they do.

Now...If there really ought to be spells that discriminate by creature type, shouldn't each type have its own, lower level, narrower application spell instead? Or maybe the lower version spells could be something like "hold similar" so that each creature type with access to such lower level effects can only affect their own type.

I think that is not a bad idea. I actually like that. But in most cases spells are cast by other humanoids, NPCs. For other creatures, spell levels don't really matter usually.

Or whatever, I guess.

 

[Shardstone]

Aasimar Celestials, Tieflings Fiends, and Dragonborn Dragons, Goliaths Giants, Halflings Oozes, etc... right?

Yes, yes, this all makes sense!