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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not sure I would place the wheels of fire with eyes along the rims angels, or the mutli-animal headed angels from the Bible as aberrations.

The ones which are just wings and eyes are extremely aberration-y vibes-wise - the Japanese totally get how freaky a lot of that stuff is, when it turns up in anime it tends to be horrifying. The wheels within wheels are quite "Mechanus".

 

[Corinnguard]

apes were beasts

If an Ape had the spell Awaken or Evolve (2e spell) cast upon it, would there be a Type change from Beast to Humanoid?

 

[Voadam]

In RL, there are some angels who would fall into the category of Aberration if they ever appeared in D&D.

Also FYI the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary an OGL product for 3.0 D&D had a number under their Saboath angel category.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If humanoid just means has basic human form then a lot of things are humanoid. Gith's ancient ancestors likely were humanoid but they have been altered and now aren't what they once were like that undead zombie. My neighbor's border terrier's long ago ancestors were wolves but nobody would look at the 14 pounds of yipping fury and confuse it with anything other than a domesticated pet.

So how do you square this with them saying that:

PC Gith == Humanoid
NPC Gith == Aberrant

That's like saying your dog is a domesticated animal, but your neighbour's dog, of the same breed and size and so on, is a wolf.

 

[Umbran]

I gotta tell you, from a practical standpoint, to me this looks like 42 pages of mountain from molehill.

The practical point of view is about the effect of being a creature of a particular type. Given how few effects in game are keyed off of creature type, I would be thoroughly unsurprised if many, many entire campaigns go by where the question of type is entirely moot.

So, a PC is not effected by some magics exactly as others of their nominal species are? Big whoop! If a thing that is supposed to effect Aberrations one way, and Humanoids another, is never focused upon the PC, the difference is not relevant.

 

[VelvetViolet]

I mean it helps that 4E only had four creature types: Animate, Beast, Humanoid, and Magical Beast.

It also had origins and subtypes. The distinction between the four types was also pretty easy to eyeball.

The problem with 5e is that it makes types exclusive and the criteria for what type a creature is ends up being arbitrary inconsistent nonsense. Why is a griffon, owlbear and centaur are a monstrosity but a winged snake, cranium rat and tressym are beasts?

 

[SkidAce]

I gotta tell you, from a practical standpoint, to me this looks like 42 pages of mountain from molehill.

The practical point of view is about the effect of being a creature of a particular type. Given how few effects in game are keyed off of creature type, I would be thoroughly unsurprised if many, many entire campaigns go by where the question of type is entirely moot.

So, a PC is not effected by some magics exactly as others of their nominal species are? Big whoop! If a thing that is supposed to effect Aberrations one way, and Humanoids another, is never focused upon the PC, the difference is not relevant.

How do you feel about the NPC gith casting Charm Person on the PC gith and it works?

 

[Corinnguard]

So how do you square this with them saying that:

PC Gith == Humanoid
NPC Gith == Aberrant

That's like saying your dog is a domesticated animal, but your neighbour's dog, of the same breed and size and so on, is a wolf.

Didn't 3e have it where you could have a water-downed version of a monster as a PC? No monster class, no LA or ECL, just a playable version that you could play right at 1st level with everybody else.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Didn't 3e have it where you could have a water-downed version of a monster as a PC? No monster class, no LA or ECL, just a playable version that you could play right at 1st level with everybody else.

3E had so so many things that I can only answer "probably" lol

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure I would place the wheels of fire with eyes along the rims angels, or the mutli-animal headed angels from the Bible as aberrations.

I think what they actually are is metaphors...

But mechanically, in D&D, they are celestials, because that tells you what rules to use. It has nothing to do with what they look like.