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 think what they actually are is metaphors...

I don't think they are actually.

I think in a least a lot of the cases they're attempts to describe things which are very hard to describe, which someone could imagine or envision or have visions of, but really have the language for. I think a lot of the frilly "It's all metaphor" stuff is a layer that's been added by later authors to try and intellectualize or otherwise tame quite vivid things, but we can't really discuss active religions here so I can't go into detail beyond generally pointing out that I think there's a legitimate case that they aren't.

 

[AlViking]

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.

We don't have rules for Gith PCs in the 2024 rules so I don't care. Even if I did add them the times when being an aberration would matter is so rare I can't remember a time in any game I've played over the past decade that it would have mattered. Other people will have to decide for themselves how to handle it and it would likely depend on world lore and what the Gith abilities are in the monster manual which again we won't know until next week. Ask me again when we have actual details instead of speculation of what might be.

 

[Voadam]

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.

From Savage Species and web articles. You would start out with a 1 HD version of the monster with fewer powers and have to advance along monster HD and LA/ECL advancements to get back to the base monster stuff. It did not change the monster type.

For example:

 

[Umbran]

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

The practical view looks not just at the logic, but also at how likely it is to happen.

The status as "PC" is not typically an in-game concept. So, the NPC Gith doesn't know it. In the fiction, he knows his people are immune to it? Then why would the NPC knowingly target the PC with that spell?

One can concoct a hypothetical situation involving disguise or something, but that narrows the chances of this happening in-game to a point I call it largely moot.

Then, on top of that, using Charm Person on PCs is fraught. I don't generally do it. The last 4 GMs I've played under don't either. So, again, kind of moot.

 

[AlViking]

Thinking about the above of any instance where being an aberration would have mattered the only one I can think of is things like a vampire's charm ability. It calls out that it works only on humanoids so I would likely just house rule the text or accept that aberrations can't be charmed that way. Much like elves can't be magically put to sleep it's a nice benefit that almost never matters. Of course we also haven't seen the rules for vampires and the like yet so it could change.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thinking about the above of any instance where being an aberration would have mattered the only one I can think of is things like a vampire's charm ability. It calls out that it works only on humanoids so I would likely just house rule the text or accept that aberrations can't be charmed that way. Much like elves can't be magically put to sleep it's a nice benefit that almost never matters. Of course we also haven't seen the rules for vampires and the like yet so it could change.

I think it's kind of fascinating that as per the new MM, a goblin PC (increasingly common across 5E as a whole, even if not in your or my game) would be definitely immune to that stuff.

Elves not being subject to ghoul paralysis has come up for me more often than them not being able to Sleep'd in 5E I note, and that's not even in the PC stat block, that's in the monster stat block! I don't think I've seen Sleep cast on PCs at all in 5E.

 

[Voadam]

In the fiction, he knows his people are immune to it? Then why would the NPC knowingly target the PC with that spell?

In the fiction why would he not know that some are not immune? This ties directly back to why there is a narrative difference between PC ones and NPC ones. Is it something in the fiction like AD&D drow who leave the underdark radiations too long lose magic resistance? Is it Githyanki who leave the Queen and lose some benefits she gives Githyanki under her rule? Are fey goblins different populations and communities and origins from humanoid goblins? Something else?

 

[Umbran]

In the fiction why would he not know that some are not immune?

Generally, and IMHO, game rules are not strictly the physics of the game world. The status of "PC" is not an in-world thing, it is a meta-game concern. No amount of in-world investigation will reveal the status of "PC". It exists to help us real-world people manage the fact that this is a game and activity of humans around a table.

I am currently running a D&D campaign. There are four players at the table. If one of them happened to be Githyanki, there's only one Githyanki PC in the entire universe. The Gith NPC doesn't know that some are not immune, because that non-immune Githyanki is UNIQUE. There is not some small but statistically relevant population of PCs out there in the universe that the NPC could have encountered or heard about before - there's just the four in the entire universe, only one of whom is githyanki!

This ties directly back to why there is a narrative difference between PC ones and NPC ones.

Well, there is only a narrative difference if the difference appears in the narrative generated by play. In play, has someone actually tried to cast Charm Person on both a PC and NPC Githyanki? No? Then that's no narrative difference.

There may be a rules difference. As above, those differences exist because we are playing a game, and that activity calls for some deviation from strict simulation of a world.

Plus... we are effectively comparing the 2014 Githyanki playable race to... nothing. We don't have the 2024 playable race, if one will ever exist. We are assuming they won't have the equivalent of "Elven Ancestry", which might largely eliminate the issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

And yet WotC themselves seem to want to make a big deal out it in their marketing materials. How can you expect those following their every move not to do the same?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The practical view looks not just at the logic, but also at how likely it is to happen.

The status as "PC" is not typically an in-game concept. So, the NPC Gith doesn't know it. In the fiction, he knows his people are immune to it? Then why would the NPC knowingly target the PC with that spell?

One can concoct a hypothetical situation involving disguise or something, but that narrows the chances of this happening in-game to a point I call it largely moot.

Then, on top of that, using Charm Person on PCs is fraught. I don't generally do it. The last 4 GMs I've played under don't either. So, again, kind of moot.

So not an issue personally. Entire possible for it to be an issue for others though, and perfectly valid as a concern from that perspective.