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.

 

[MGibster]

Than what benefit to the game is there to decide that psionics are all about the tentacles and the mind-destroying secrets none were meant to know? Why even try to force that narrative as a default? It's pretty specific, and colors everything about the topic.

Because that's the direction they want to go? It may not be something you like, heck, it may not be something I like, but D&D cannot be all things to all people. Although I do like it. Though I'd like it more of psionics were thrown into the dustbin of history, forever to molder forgotten and unloved like it deserves. But I'm going to remember that D&D can't be all things to all people, and nobody what decision they make someone is going to be unhappy.

 

[Belen]

Because that's the direction they want to go? It may not be something you like, heck, it may not be something I like, but D&D cannot be all things to all people. Although I do like it. Though I'd like it more of psionics were thrown into the dustbin of history, forever to molder forgotten and unloved like it deserves. But I'm going to remember that D&D can't be all things to all people, and nobody what decision they make someone is going to be unhappy.

They are the ones deciding to change backward compatibility after making a lot of promises there.

There was no reason to make the change from humanoid to aberration except to justify the Orc and try to provide more reasons for them to be “monsters.”

I get it and this is not my main reason for not switching to 5.5. That would be masteries. It just seems to be change to have change.

 

[MGibster]

They are the ones deciding to change backward compatibility after making a lot of promises there.

While I'm with you when it comes to backward compatibility, we've been overruled. I've been assured that it's all backward compatible because I can mix and match whatever I want from either edition. Oops. This isn't a new edition of the game. Let's call them versions instead.

 

[Chaltab]

Because that's the direction they want to go? It may not be something you like, heck, it may not be something I like, but D&D cannot be all things to all people. Although I do like it. Though I'd like it more of psionics were thrown into the dustbin of history, forever to molder forgotten and unloved like it deserves. But I'm going to remember that D&D can't be all things to all people, and nobody what decision they make someone is going to be unhappy.

Not to be uh.. rude or anything, but why?

Psionics doesn't have to be a determent to the game and there's no reason to remove it just because it was busted in past editions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because that's the direction they want to go? It may not be something you like, heck, it may not be something I like, but D&D cannot be all things to all people. Although I do like it. Though I'd like it more of psionics were thrown into the dustbin of history, forever to molder forgotten and unloved like it deserves. But I'm going to remember that D&D can't be all things to all people, and nobody what decision they make someone is going to be unhappy.

I have more of an issue with why they made these decisions than I have with the decisions themselves. As much as I disagree, they and I can do what we want. But I can't see any of these choices as being creatively motivated, and frankly that just makes me respect them less.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not to be uh.. rude or anything, but why?

Psionics doesn't have to be a determent to the game and there's no reason to remove it just because it was busted in past editions.

Or because you personally don't like it.

 

[AlViking]

They are the ones deciding to change backward compatibility after making a lot of promises there.

There was no reason to make the change from humanoid to aberration except to justify the Orc and try to provide more reasons for them to be “monsters.”

I get it and this is not my main reason for not switching to 5.5. That would be masteries. It just seems to be change to have change.

This is not a significant change to backwards compatability in my book. We knew they were going to change some things and I don't see how anything has changed that breaks any character builds or modules. Some very specific builds for very specific scenarios might be slightly less effective, the only way to change that would have been to make no changes.

 

[Chaltab]

Plus, unless your game is specifically an Adventures League or Living Greyhawk game then there's no obligation to use the new rules. My last encounter with Hobgoblins had some of them as humanoids from Revenge of the Horde and some of them as Fey from MOTM and I just made a note that the latter had larger, pointy ears so the PCs sensed that Hold and Charm Person spells probably wouldn't work on those.

 

[dave2008]

I have more of an issue with why they made these decisions than I have with the decisions themselves. As much as I disagree, they and I can do what we want. But I can't see any of these choices as being creatively motivated, and frankly that just makes me respect them less.

They definitely talk about them being creatively / story motivated. I can't know if that is the whole truth, but it is how they represent them in these videos.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They definitely talk about them being creatively / story motivated. I can't know if that is the whole truth, but it is how they represent them in these videos.

I know people hate this, but that really is exactly how they would represent themselves in marketing materials.

I guess it doesn't matter, but I would have liked to part with WotC still feeling they made choices for the game I grew up on because they wanted to make the best game they could.