DnD 5E Optimized Race and Lineage Guide

Author: Xenken

With the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Wizards of the Coast has normalized floating racial ability score modifiers during character creation. Many races that were formerly considered compatible only with certain classes solely on the basis of their ability scores can now be used in almost any race-class combo to create functional characters. So how do they all compare against one another now that they’re left to compete on features alone?

This guide is designed for a table where players can access the Customizing Your Origin feature from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. It assumes races are being played as characters that make their strengths as impactful as possible, by players that look for game styles that do the same, and attempts only to rate how much a race contributes to its best builds without considering how good those builds are against each other. A race that adds a lot of power to a Fighter will be rated higher than a race that adds less power to a Paladin, for example, even if you’d still rather have the Paladin. Similarly, a race won’t be lowered solely because its benefits are shared by a different one, though comparisons will be drawn. 

In accordance with our Core Tenets, these ratings assume an adventuring day with a high number of encounters that, when summed up, are difficult enough to meaningfully challenge the players (and make them short rest more than once). They also don’t account for house rules, though we’ll attempt to note interactions with especially common ones anyway.

Before we get into the races themselves, we will evaluate the impacts of some common racial features, because they will come up repeatedly going forward.

Darkvision 

Players clamoring to mention their Darkvision whenever they enter a new area has become a bit of a meme these days, but there’s a reason why it sticks around. Not putting up a light in the dark while adventuring is great for using Stealth to get the jump on enemies, saves precious gold at low levels because torches and lanterns become unnecessary, (although Bullseye Lanterns are still great to get for their huge, one directional range,) and prevents the party from “aggroing” the entire dungeon with bright light. Since it turns darkness into dim light, that’s still lightly obscured and reduces passive Perception, but the most common monster sense by far is also Darkvision, so that goes both ways, and you can turn it to your advantage simply by using Stealth more often than your opponents do. 

Racial Darkvision is far from the only source of Darkvision, but it’s the least costly and most common, and the advantages of a full Darkvision party are easy to see. The flip side to this is that if you already have one party member without Darkvision, then the cost of anyone else not having it suddenly drops to almost zero because you’ll need the light anyway, making every race without it more appealing. Of course, all this is assuming you are actually in a game that is dark at least some of the time, but that’s a pretty safe assumption considering how most campaigns (including modules from Wizards of the Coast) are designed.

Some races also have Superior Darkvision, with 120 foot range, which occasionally gives them a huge advantage. If the combat environment is dark and has enough space, they can opt to be more than 60 feet away from their opponents. Since almost every monster has at most 60 feet of Darkvision, those races can then attack the enemy at advantage (and only be attacked in turn at disadvantage) at no cost, simply because they can’t be seen from that far away.

Small Size 

You get disadvantage on attacks with heavy weapons. This is bad if you want to make a Barbarian, but when you consider that hand crossbows are the best weapon in the game and that Spellcasting has a huge impact without using weapons at all, you have plenty of effective non-heavy weapon offensive options. You also can’t grapple large creatures, which is not a huge concern since most characters aren’t invested in Strength at all and those that are still have plenty of medium targets, but it can still be a real downside. Dimension door and thunder step get worse for you, because now you can’t use them to teleport other medium creatures, which is very relevant in late Tier 2 when dimension door starts to see common use. So are there any upsides to being small? Yes!

The best upside is that small characters have access to medium size mounts. A donkey costs 8gp, which is 1/5th the price of the cheapest large mount, their medium size guarantees they won’t have to squeeze to follow your party around, the game explicitly assumes they’re trained, and controlled mounts represent a huge mobility upgrade. A donkey could Dash to carry its rider 80 feet in a turn, or Disengage to rid both itself and its rider of opportunity attacks while moving 40 feet. And it’s probably worth emphasizing again that it’s 8 gp. If and when you know the extra speed is not needed, you can just leave them behind, and in most games you could buy 2 just to have a spare for every adventure and the dent it would make in your profit margins would be tiny. If a monster managed to actually hit your mount instead of finding you 30 feet away behind a corner, they would still be losing because they traded their precious attack for 8 gold. Being small means easy access to controlled mounts, which will almost entirely counteract any downsides to your smaller stature in the first place!

That’s probably the best reason to be small, but it’s not the only one. Finding cover is generally easier, you get to squeeze into tiny spaces, and there are various shenanigans involving being carried by another creature or object that are much easier to do when you’re small. Overall, being small is generally both a positive feature and an important one to mention.

Shorter Long Rests 

A few races gain the special ability to long rest in only 4 or 6 hours instead of the usual 8. The rules around this have changed over time, but the printing of both errata and the Sage Advice Compendium have solidified that races with shorter long rests actually can rest in less time, as opposed to needing to fill the rest of a normal 8 hour rest with light activity. This potentially gives extra time to short rest, which can be an advantage for a select few characters. The ability to benefit from an early short rest is actually quite common, from Paladins with aid and Harness Divine Power to Battle Masters with the Rally maneuver, but the vast majority of characters can only profit once. Thus, having a shorter long rest is usually unnecessary compared to just having one short rest in the morning with the party.

That dynamic changes if you can make short rests valuable as many times as you want, because in that case having access to 2 or 4 more will always be good, but the ability to do that is pretty much exclusive to either Warlocks with long duration spells, or Warlock/Sorcerer multiclasses with sorcery point conversion, or perhaps both. If you do happen to be one of those specific archetypes, a shorter long rest is quite useful for you and thus worth looking out for.

These races also have the ability to not be unconscious while resting, but this is not all that important since the party could just sleep in shifts during a long rest to always have someone on watch.

Poison Defense 

“Poison Defense” is not actually a racial feature—we are using this as a blanket term to refer to racial defenses against poison. Races will either have Poison Immunity (Yuan-Ti, Grung), or a feature that provides them with resistance to poison damage and advantage on saves against poison (Dwarves and Stout Halflings). Damage resistance and condition immunities are DM and campaign-dependent, but on average this feature will rate highly due to the prevalence of poison, especially in tiers 1 and 2.

Non-humanoid Typing

This prevents you from being targeted by things that target humanoids and lets you be targeted by things that target whichever type you now have. This tends to favor you greatly, as many monsters have designs resting on the assumption that parties are composed of humanoids. Take spells, for example. Charm person, hold person, and dominate person, which you are now immune to, are featured in around 80 NPC spell lists. Even Fey, the most vulnerable of these types due to spells like forbiddance, hallow, and protection from evil and good, still only has those spells shown on only nine lists, while other types like Construct and Monstrosity have none at all. Monster abilities that aren’t spells are similar, with these types being immune to several iconic monster attacks such as Vampire Charms and Ghost Possessions while gaining almost no extra vulnerabilities in return, an ability made even better by the high level of danger posed by most of these abilities.

Increased Movement Speed 

There are two different strengths to higher speed, being able to move faster and being able to outrun characters who are slower. While the first is pretty self explanatory, the second is actually more important. Having even as little as 5 feet of extra movement over another creature has significant tactical implications, the most significant of which is them being unable to catch up to you when you retreat from them without spending an action to Dash (which is especially useful for Disengaging out of melee). Since 30 feet is far and away the most common monster speed, having 35 gives you this extra leverage in many, many fights, which is quite good. For this reason, even higher speeds, while being strictly better, aren’t nearly as impactful as the increase from 30 to 35. 

+1/+1/+1 Ability Score Spreads 

Which ability score bonuses your race can get are important to know if you’re planning a character in advance. However, different ability score spreads are typically lateral changes and usually don’t meaningfully affect power level at all, specifically because of the plethora of strong caster half-feats and most classes not needing more than a 14 for their third ability score. As a result, it’s pretty easy to work with most racial ability score increases. The one exception is Ranger in point buy, because the class’s best stats (Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom) just so happen to be the best stats for the game at large, so the gap between their third and fourth best stat is much bigger than usual. Clerics and Druids share this, but there are several good, or at least decent, Wisdom and Constitution half-feats they can grab early, unlike Ranger who can’t because their weapon feats are too important. So for most characters, having this racial ability score improvement spread is a footnote, unless you are playing Ranger, in which case this feature has some benefit.

Ancestral Legacy

A feature introduced in the Dhampir, Hexblood, and Reborn lineages from the recently released sourcebook Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, these lineages allow a character to potentially start as one race and then become one of these later while keeping their non-grounded speeds. This can vary from a non-factor to a huge buff. If you know you’ll have the opportunity to become one of these mid-game, consider taking races such as Grung, Centaur, and especially Aarakocra, which become substantially better when paired with lineages. But alas, you explicitly cannot make these transitions during character creation, so we only review these lineages in their base form.

Climb or Swim Speeds

Having a climb or swim speed allows you to ignore the extra movement cost of 1 foot per foot when using that speed in its respective environment. Unlike some past editions, climb and swim speeds in 5E don’t give you any special movement in their respective terrains. Unless your DM decides to add some homebrew rules and throw you a bone, you can’t skip checks for difficult circumstances, gain extra maneuverability underwater, or anything along those lines. It’s still a notable benefit, particularly for campaigns with lots of relevant terrain.

Weapon Training

All the weapon training features, save the elven ones, used to share the problem of providing proficiencies for weapons that wouldn’t see use in a typical game. Customizing Your Origin from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything allows players to swap one weapon proficiency with another from the same weapon group as the original, or a tool proficiency. This turns a mostly redundant feature into a fairly useful one, and as a result all the races that gave weapon proficiencies have been made notably more interesting. 

Now, if you actually want a particular weapon for some reason—longbows for Tier 1 full casters and a few Rogues, guns if you have access to them, hand crossbows so anyone can use Crossbow Expert, and so on—then you can just obtain proficiency with that weapon via a trade. Meanwhile, your 2 to 3 other weapon proficiencies can become extra tool proficiencies instead, which are much more useful than the weapons would’ve been on account of having no overlap. For a complete overview of tool proficiencies, check out our Complete Guide to Tools. Post-Tasha’s, Weapon Training is not overly powerful, but it can definitely matter.

Additional Skill Proficiencies/Other Skill Bonuses

From a combat-oriented perspective, there are only 2 skills everyone in the party wants and can see consistent use from: Perception and Stealth. As long as these are the only skills taken multiple times, a typical four person party has enough extra skills left over to cover most of what they’ll actually use (which is not all of them—how often do you roll absolutely critical Animal Handling checks?). There is a chance for there to be a third relevant skill: the one that you use to break grapples, which will either be Athletics or more commonly Acrobatics, but this becomes lower priority if anyone in the party has access to a consistent at-will movement effect like Telekinetic or Repelling Blast. If they do not, or if you have less than four people in your party, then a few extra skills could help obtain reliable coverage, especially now that you can swap any given skill proficiency to whichever one is most necessary. Just keep in mind that their value drops significantly as you acquire more, to the point where even when they are a good idea to have you still do not want more than two. 

Abilities that provide a stacking boost to skills, on the other hand, will always be notable simply by virtue of being a stacking bonus in a game whose design philosophy is all about making such bonuses rare.

Powerful Build

Many DMs do not strictly enforce encumbrance penalties, but if you play with one who does in a game where both spellcasters and ranged martials have a tendency to dump Strength, this might seem like a potentially attractive workaround to that solution. As noted above, however, you can also typically deal with carry weight problems by forking over 8 gp to a local stable. Donkeys are extremely convenient solutions to encumbrance problems, and they’re only the best of many. (Others include getting hirelings, Tenser’s floating disk, and simply dealing with encumbrance by dropping items when you need to move fast.) Thus, Powerful Build does not matter because it is an answer to a rare problem with other accessible, extremely easy to use answers. It doesn’t help that Variant Encumbrance, a rule that should in theory improve features like Powerful Build, calculates load directly from Strength score without considering size, and thus completely nullifies this without a house rule changing it. Also note that grappling doesn’t interact at all with carrying capacity. This is intentional, as most monsters don’t have listed weights.

Natural Weapons

Every natural weapon is melee only, all but one uses Strength to attack, none have a damage dice higher than a d6, and they have no synergy with the strong Fighting Styles or martial feats. This presents a problem. Casters and ranged attackers have no use for them because they are not valuable enough to be worth going into melee for, and most melee attackers have no use for them because they pale in comparison to their weapon attacks, which will almost always hit harder. The one exception is pre-5th level Monks that could upgrade to 1d6 from 1d4. Except, that is, if they happen to be using Dedicated Weapon, Crossbow Expert, or the Unarmed Fighting style (taken via Fighting Initiate). And even if none of that applies, they should still be whacking away with a quarterstaff, so that best case scenario of +1 damage on hit is only from their bonus action 1d4 unarmed strike, meaning this is a once per turn single point of extra damage (or twice with Flurry of Blows). Do not pick a race for these; it simply is not worth it.

Natural Weapons also do not suddenly become useful if your party gets captured. Even ignoring how little time players spend in such a situation, any opponent competent enough to tie or chain up the players to limit their range of motion can and will just do the same for their claws, extra tentacle arms, and similar. For scenarios where you are free but still stripped of equipment, do remember that improvised weapons that resemble regular ones can count as a weapon you have proficiency with and use that damage dice at DM discretion, so you can most likely find something to work with that is just as good as a 1d6 natural weapon.

Hopefully the above section explains some of our reasoning behind our evaluation of certain races and their racial features. With that preamble out of the way, let’s get to the actual races and lineages, which we will be presenting in groups, ordered approximately from best to worst based within each group.

Tiefling (Winged) (SCAG), Fairy (MPMM), Owlin (SCC), Aarakocra (EEPC, MPMM) (★★★★★)

These races are an extremely powerful option. Flight is amazing because almost every encounter in Tier 1 and 2 features mostly grounded enemies with big melee damage, and the ability to just ignore them completely at any time for free is very good. Even when monsters have ranged attacks, they often do twice as much damage in melee regardless.

Then there are the numerous powerful tactics flight opens up, like grappling or casting thorn whip while flying to drop people for damage and an automatic prone, immunity to difficult terrain and ground-locked area of effect spells or abilities (including your own), the powerful exploration benefits unavailable to grounded characters, the universal helpfulness of three-dimensional movement as an aid in positioning, and the borderline degenerate play of flying a little bit ahead with a longbow or firebolt and kiting things for free. Dealing with flying player characters in a published adventure can require significant overhauls by the DM to make encounters challenging, which is a surefire sign of how powerful it can be. Winged Tieflings, unlike Fairies, Owlin, or Aarakocra (either version), can use their wings in medium armor. Combined with their Darkvision and resistance to fire damage, which is the most common form of elemental damage, that means they’re generally the best of the three on account of being the most well rounded and having the least opportunity cost. Fairies instead gain Small size, immunities from their Fey typing, and a useful but not amazing casting suite in the form of druidcraft, 1/day faerie fire, and 1/day enlarge/reduce. Owlin get to choose between going Small or Medium in addition to getting Darkvision and an extra skill proficiency. Aarakocra (EEPC) make up for their lack of other useful traits with the highest base racial speed in the game (though not quite the fastest movement, as we’ll see later). 50 feet would be impressive even as a ground speed, but when combined with flight it really pushes their mobility into a league of their own. Aarakocra (MPMM) don’t get this impressive flight speed of 50 feet, but instead have a fly speed equal to their walking speed which is 30 feet by default. They also get the ability to cast gust of wind for free once and then with spell slots at level 3, which is not nearly as useful as the improved flight speed in their EEPC version.

Regardless of your choice among these options, flight is the one racial feature that your DM will have to think about in every encounter they ever run, and for that it’ll always be powerful.

Custom Lineage (TCE), Human (Variant) (PHB) (★★★★★)

If your game allows feats, these races build characters up faster than any other. It’s very tempting to think of the extra feat as just another +2 or +1/+1 in ability scores because every build takes ability score increases at some point later on, but even though a hypothetical +3/+1 or +4/+0 race would be quite powerful, that’s still hugely underselling the power of a starting feat.

It’s common to think that an ASI to a character’s primary ability score is preferable to taking any feat, due to 5E being built on the idea of bounded accuracy, but this isn’t necessarily true in the case of good feats, and it’s especially untrue in comparison to the best feats in the game. Say, for example, that you want to be a martial and you want to do big damage. A Human (Variant) Barbarian starting with Polearm Master does 16.6 DPR at level 1, 25.1 DPR at level 4 after taking Great Weapon Master and using it with Reckless Attack, and is up to 38.8 DPR at level 5, all at 16 Strength. A mountain dwarf (the only +2/+2 race) Barbarian does 11.2 DPR at level 1, and after increasing their Strength to 18 at level 4, does 12.5 DPR—still less than the level 1 Variant Human! The math changes slightly for ranged builds (with Crossbow Expert then Sharpshooter) due to differing damage dice, Archery Fighting Style, and no free advantage, but the principle remains the same: an extra attack is simply much more potent than a +1 to attack and damage rolls. 

The math is more complex for spellcasters, but the benefits are still clear. A one point difference in spell save DC is less impactful than you would think when compared to the benefits of certain feats. Additionally for casters, a number of powerful half-feats make it possible to keep the same primary ability score progression as a non-feat race taking ASIs. A Cleric of a starting feat race can take War Caster at level 1, and Telekinetic (boosting Wisdom) at level 4, getting to 18 Wisdom. For Clerics, whose primary damage-dealing strategy at level 5 and above is spirit guardians, boosting your chance of maintaining concentration (DC 10) from 70% to 91%, and getting to use Telekinetic to try to double dip spirit guardians on a single target every turn is a notable increase in power over an 18 Wisdom/18 Constitution cleric (the highest possible stats at level 5 with a mountain dwarf). 91% chance to save on concentration is still better than 75%, and while the two Clerics have the same Wisdom score, one has an incredibly versatile and powerful feat that they can use with a bonus action every turn!

Concentration protection is incredibly valuable for casters, to a degree that many players don’t realize. A 70% chance to maintain concentration (DC 10)—the average save for casters with 16 Constitution but no save proficiency—can expect their concentration to last for 3.33 saves before a failure, on average. That same character with War Caster has a 91% chance to pass concentration, on average lasting for 11 saves before a failure, over three times as much. This is an incredibly potent increase to the duration of your concentration spells, which are most of the best spells in your arsenal. 

We could keep going, but suffice it to say that there are lots of great feats, and most of them are worth more than the +2.

It’s also worth considering that most campaigns don’t go into tier 3, and many end even sooner than that. If you only play in tiers 1 and 2, every class save Fighter only gets two Ability Score Improvements ever, so these races might be your only options if you want a 2nd or 3rd feat at all.

Additionally, many feats are even stronger at lower levels. Polearm Master and Crossbow Expert bonus actions have more value before Extra Attack (adding 100% to your attack damage at level 1 but only 50% at level 5), any of the feats that add free castings of spells (Fey Touched, Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, and so on) matter more when you have a lower total number of spell slots, and most of the feats that increase effective hit points (Inspiring Leader or Heavy Armor Master) either scale poorly or don’t scale at all. If you want to experience any of these feats at their best, these races are the only way to do it without house rules. 

In short, these races are the keys to the kingdom, and one of them will almost always be in the top three picks for a character while feats are in play. Which one is better is almost entirely dependent on which gives you the cleaner ability scores, which generally means Variant Human when you want to start with two 16s or a feat that isn’t a half-feat, and Custom Lineage when 18 and 15 or 14 is better, but it can vary. If either race works, Custom Lineage is preferable on account of Darkvision being more important than an extra skill, the unique possibility of starting with an 18 through a half-feat, and the option to be small, but you can’t go wrong with either.

Dragonmarked Races (ERLW) (★★★★★)

Dragonmarked races, despite being subraces of many different races, all have much more in common with each other, so they are grouped together here. All have 3 traits in common: a set of spells they add to your Spellcasting list(s), minor magic you get to cast for free once per long rest, and 2 skill or tool ability checks you get to add a d4 to. All of them also have other features on top of that, and it’s a lot to go through if you want to pick one. Presented here are the most relevant spell additions of each race, a note of which skills or tools gain the d4, and any tertiary features that are worth mentioning. Note that the below ratings are for casting classes with both minimum overlap and the ability to ritual cast any important rituals, like Mark of Passage on a Cleric or Mark of Sentinel on a Druid. Spells or checks with no color rating in the table are nice to have, but are not powerful enough to affect the overall rating of a given Mark.

Mark	Notable Spells	D4 added to	Other Features
Human (Mark of Passage) (★★★★★)	pass without trace, phantom steed, dimension door, 1/lr misty step	Acrobatics, land vehicles	35ft speed.
Elf (Mark of Shadow) (★★★★★)	pass without trace, major image, minor illusion, 1/lr invisibility	Stealth, Performance	Darkvision, advantage on saves vs charm, immune to sleep, 4 hour long rest.
Halfling (Mark of Hospitality) (★★★★☆)	sleep, goodberry, aid, Leomund’s tiny hut, 1/lr unseen servant	brewer’s supplies, cook’s utensils	Reroll 1’s, advantage on saves vs frightened, small.
Human (Mark of Sentinel) (★★★★☆)	counterspell, death ward, Bigby’s hand, 1/lr shield	Perception, Insight	Can use a reaction to take a hit for a creature within 5ft of them once per long rest.
Human (Mark of Handling) (★★★★☆)	animal friendship, speak with animals, conjure animals	Animal Handling, Nature	Can target monstrosities with animal friendship and speak with animals.
Half-Elf (Mark of Storm) (★★★★☆)	fog cloud, levitate, sleet storm, gust	Acrobatics, navigator’s tools	Darkvision, advantage on saves vs charm, lightning resistance, immune to sleep.
Dwarf (Mark of Warding) (★★★☆☆)	armor of Agathys, antilife shell, 1/lr mage armor	Investigation, thieves’ tools	Poison resistance, Darkvision, 25 foot heavy armor speed, Weapon Training.
Gnome (Mark of Scribing) (★★★☆☆)	arcane eye, dream, 1/lr magic mouth	History, calligrapher’s supplies	Advantage on all mental saves vs magic, Darkvision, small.
Halfling (Mark of Healing) (★★★☆☆)	healing word, lesser restoration, aura of vitality, greater restoration, 1/lr cure wounds, lesser restoration	Medicine, herbalism kit	Reroll 1’s, advantage on saves vs frightened, small.
Half-Orc/Human (Mark of Finding) (★★★☆☆)	faerie fire, locate object, divination, 1/lr hunter’s mark, locate object	Perception, Survival	Darkvision.
Human (Mark of Making) (★★★☆☆)	fabricate, stone shape, 1/lr mending, magic weapon for 1 hour without concentration	Arcana, any artisan’s tool
Half-Elf (Mark of Detection) (★★★☆☆)	arcane eye, divination, 1/lr detect magic, see invisibility	Insight, Investigation	Darkvision, advantage on saves vs charm, immune to sleep.

Earth Genasi (MPMM) (★★★★★)

The Earth Genasi presented in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (MPMM) is the new king among Genasi, and for good reason. They get Darkvision, the choice to be Small size, some neat spells, and can move across difficult terrain without its downsides on the ground or floor. Their key feature here is the ability to cast pass without trace once per long rest and with spell slots, and the ability to freely move across earthen difficult terrain without movement penalties. Unlike their EEPC counterpart which can cast pass without trace once per long rest by level 1, the MPMM Earth Genasi gains the ability to do so by level 5, but has the additional option of casting the spell using their spell slots. This additional flexibility is often worth the wait in campaigns that reach level 5 and beyond as pass without trace is one of the best spells in the game and this feature puts the MPMM Earth Genasi in a similar position to some of the Dragonmarked races. In a game where Stealth enables surprise, it’s already one of the best 2nd level spells in terms of pure value. The more you optimize and synergize with your party, the more powerful pass without trace becomes, as casting your spells and laying down other forms of control becomes more and more important. If you play in games where you can approach a reasonable number of encounters stealthily, any race that gets access to pass without trace will be quite good by default. Earth Genasi provides a very specific benefit, but one full round of surprise can end an encounter. If Dragonmarked casters aren’t available and your party doesn’t already have a Druid or Ranger, Earth Genasi makes for an incredibly solid choice. Lastly, as a little cherry on top, they get to cast blade ward, and have the ability to cast it as a bonus action (normally an action) proficiency bonus times per long rest. Being able to cast blade ward is not something we usually see as an incredible boon, but being able to still cast cantrips or Dodge in the same turn a couple of times per day makes this pretty good.

Dhampir (VGTR) (★★★★★)

They start off with Darkvision, the ability to be small, and a 35 foot ground speed. They also don’t need to breathe, but that isn’t nearly as important.

Then they add Spider Climb, which is a great thing to have. Given a high ceiling or even just sufficiently tall objects, it becomes budget flight, with almost all the benefits thereof. It even has one thing flight can’t do: since you can stay climbing without using your hands, you can drop prone and crawl while you’re on the walls or ceiling. As prone gives ranged attacks disadvantage, it’s a very good condition to have when most melee can’t reach you because you’re in the air.

On top of that, their bite is the best racial natural weapon in the game. When used in combat it continues to have the classic natural weapon downside of just not being worth the action or attack used to make it, but you don’t have to use it in combat, and it could potentially even be worth it for something like an opportunity attack. Why? Well, think of it less as a weapon and more as the means to gain the real reward: hitting with it and gaining either the hit points or the bonus to ability checks, usually the latter. Controlling exactly when you bite is really important, since the boost is just “to the next check” rather than having control over the timing, so keep every opportunity in mind: defeated but living enemies post-combat, captives, the party Abjurer with refreshing wards, the Druid after they finished scouting with Wild Shape, you name it. You could even carry your preferred version of a “bag of rats” for some snacks. However you do it, the ability to add ~5 to your next ability check at specific times is very potent. Eat a Snickers before combat and add it to initiative (an ability check) and you have half the benefits of the Alert feat, and that’s just the baseline use if there’s nothing better to do with it.

Getting three good features on top of two excellent ones would’ve already been enough to make Dhampir top tier, having one of them be a flight substitute guarantees them to be one of the strongest options you can select at character creation.

Githzerai (MPMM) (★★★★☆)

This is the first race that allows you to cast shield with spell slots, which makes this quite a hot option. From third level you get to cast shield once for free, and then with spell slots afterwards. At 5th level, you get to do the same with detect thoughts. Finally, you also get to cast mage hand, with the benefit of the hand being invisible. The wording is a bit unclear, but arguably you get to cast all these spells without components, but check with your DM. For a full explanation, check our NobleFire build which makes use of this new race option! However, the boons don’t stop there: you also get advantage on saves vs. the charmed and frightened conditions, and resistance to psychic damage! All in all, this race is really quite valuable for the builds where it is good, which are primarily the ones that lack the shield spell for a big part of their career, like Paladins, as we value defenses really highly.

Yuan-ti Pureblood (VGM), Satyr (MOT) (★★★★☆)

Magic Resistance is a feature that is somewhat overrated because it’s not actually that good on player characters even though it’s powerful when enemies have it. This is because players tend to cast far more spells than enemies do, especially early in the game and in published modules. Magic Resistance is good to have, but alone would not be enough to make a race mechanically powerful. Yuan-Ti Purebloods and Satyr both earn their rating by having additional features on top of Magic Resistance that make them well worth playing. Yuan-Ti Pureblood have a second notable ability in Poison Immunity, as well as Darkvision and the ability to cast suggestion once per long rest, and they can be great picks for anyone as a result. Satyrs instead gain a defensive benefit due to being Fey, on top of getting a 35 foot movement speed and Mirthful Leaps’ jump distance increase, surprisingly useful movement abilities that give them niches for builds that can synergize with them (for example, Clerics with low Strength using heavy armor see 20 > 25 foot speed as a comparatively much bigger bump). As they fulfill a similar niche, which one to pick is a matter of if you have a read on how common poison damage will be and if your character can make the most of a little bit more speed.

Simic Hybrid (GGR) (★★★★☆)

Simic Hybrids have Darkvision and choose one feature from a set of three possible features at 1st level, and gain access to an additional set of features at 5th level.

At 1st level they can choose between a climb speed, Manta Glide (you don’t take damage from up to 100 feet of falling, and for every foot you fall you can move 2 feet horizontally), and a swim speed plus water breathing. Manta Glide is almost always the best of these, especially since a campaign with lots of tall places to climb also has lots of tall places to glide off of, and it is the biggest reason Simic Hybrids are so strong. (Note that unlike feather fall, Manta Glide doesn’t change your rate of descent, so a fall still happens instantaneously if it’s shorter than 500 feet.)

There are a lot of Manta Glide-associated vertical movement tricks, such as:

• If you’re at the bottom of something, you can climb up at half speed and glide off instead of moving away, which covers the same horizontal distance, but in the air (useful for avoiding ground-locked hazard zones or difficult terrain).
• Instead of casting misty step and going 30 feet horizontally, you could go diagonally to add 30 feet of height so you can glide another 60 feet.
• If you have 14 Strength, you can move 10 feet, high jump 5, and glide 10 more to move 20 feet while only spending 15 feet of movement. 
• Alternatively, move 10 feet within a creature’s reach, high jump, and then glide sideways, escaping said reach without using your movement, Action, or Reaction, and thus avoiding opportunity attacks.

Getting extra movement and disengages to supplement build-specific access to vertical movement, like Echo Knight.

At 5th level they can choose between grappling appendages, a carapace, and Acid Spit. Carapace’s +1 AC bonus does not work with heavy armor, but this is a caveat you can account for ahead of time. Perhaps counterintuitively, its best use is for already well armored characters. Those who are lacking can get bigger bonuses to their armor elsewhere, and while each additional point of AC stops the same number of hits, they increase a character’s longevity exponentially as they block larger fractions of remaining damage. As this effect intensifies when attacks are at disadvantage, Carapace is best on builds that already maximize their defenses against attacks, such as Bladesinging Wizards. Even though the delay to 5th cuts out the levels where high AC is the most impactful, it’s easily the best of your options here. 

Second best would be taking from the 1st level list again, which you can do, to add climb speed to glide shenanigans or for taking glide if you desperately needed swim speed at level 1.

Acid Spit is getting a limited-use version of an attack that wouldn’t be worth noting if it was at-will. 30 foot range, 2d10 acid damage unless the target succeeds on a Dexterity save, with cantrip scaling simply is not very good. Strength-based martials could just bring and throw two javelins, an attack that’s more consistent with two rolls, does more damage with 16 Strength, and has the same range. Dexterity-focused characters have bows that are even better. Casters with the likes of 5th level toll the dead, firebolt, thorn whip, and mind sliver aren’t impressed either. Reasons to have this still exist—you sometimes want to use a saving throw instead of AC, or acid instead of a different type—but it’s never really worth picking.

Grappling Appendages, like Loxodon, could let you grapple with hands full. But, unlike Loxodon, you can’t just do your normal Extra Attack and grapple then knock prone, or Extra Attack, grapple once, and attack once to get a bonus action attack trigger. You have to either use a whole action to grapple once, which is just half as efficient, or use a bonus action to grapple after hitting with an appendage as a natural weapon, which trades down your regular weapon attack for a natural one and also adds a chance that you miss and never get to grapple at all. Appendage action economy is bad enough that having both hands full while grappling with this is worse than just grappling with only one hand, and since the latter is always an option this should never be used.

Simic Hybrids have the best grounded mobility out of all races, which alone makes them worth considering, and the fact that they get that as part of a modular package makes them even better.

Tortle (MPMM, EGW), Dwarf (Mountain) (PHB), Gith (Githyanki) (MTF) (★★★★☆)

If you need to patch up a low AC character, these races might be your solution. Strange bedfellows, but they’re grouped together because they have the same biggest benefit and problem: all of the classes that don’t have medium armor proficiency also don’t have shield proficiency, and in games with multiclassing, basically all of them would rather take or start with a level in a different class to get both. If multiclassing is not on the table, then these races along with Hobgoblins (see below) are the go-to armor races, becoming mainstays for Wizards and Sorcerers especially. 

Tortle shells cost no money, while half plate costs 750 gp and even splint armor is still 200 gp, so if you’re in a high-scarcity campaign, a one-shot that doesn’t leave Tier 1, or are otherwise in a position where no one can buy or find armor beyond their starting gear, said shell is better armor than anything else in the party, regardless of proficiencies. It also doesn’t impose disadvantage on Stealth checks, is Bladesong compatible, and can be the last resort for Druids that can’t get medium armor any other way, so Tortles have a surprisingly large niche even outside of their expected role. A difference between the Tortle in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse and Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is that the former can choose to be Small, and the damage dice for their claw attacks is 1d6 vs 1d4 for the latter, putting the former a bit ahead.

Mountain Dwarves, while never vital in the same way, can use their uniquely high +2/+2 ability score increases, Dwarven Resilience, and Weapon Training to their advantage. The first feature lets them maximize their secondary ability score, the classic point buy example being having 18 in two ability scores after a single +1/+1 increase. The second is one of the best defensive racial features, and the third gives them a bit of extra utility. 

Githyanki also have Weapon Training, along with a Spellcasting package of invisible mage hand, once per long rest jump, and once per long rest misty step, which is usually less useful than +2/+2 and resistances, but still worth mentioning. Invisible mage hand is an ability that is likely somewhat dependent on DM fiat, but has great potential for shenanigans and utility. 

In short, these races are strong picks in games that don’t allow multiclassing, and provide reasonable alternatives in games that do for builds that need a slight AC boost and prefer to maintain full spell progression in a single caster class.

Hobgoblin (VGM) (★★★★☆)

In many ways, Hobgoblins are similar to the “medium armor races,” serving as an AC booster for Wizard and Sorcerer, but they perform best in almost the opposite circumstance. Light armor proficiency is not really useful on its own, as it’s worse than mage armor, but it unlocks the ability to take the Moderately Armored feat. A race whose best feature is providing the ability to take a feat has downsides; feats need to be allowed, you only start to really benefit from level 4 onwards, and there’s an opportunity cost of taking Moderately Armored over something else. If you can get past those stipulations, no other race can grab this level of Armor Class this cheaply. 

If the above is true and multiclassing is not allowed, Hobgoblin becomes the best race for the role, thanks to its second ability, Saving Face, pushing it over the top. It’s not difficult to get a bonus of +4 just by being able to see your party, and that’s not even counting less substantial allies like familiars, summons, or other NPCs. It’s comparable to Lucky in raw numerical impact, though not quite as versatile. This means that the Hobgoblin outclasses the Mountain Dwarf by simultaneously giving access to armor and being powerful overall. As a result, even when multiclassing is allowed and there are armor dipped casters everywhere, Hobgoblins are a solid choice that can play very well as full casters that get a nice AC bump with some built-in protection against bad rolls, which you may find to be the right play if that makes spell access line up better with the start and end levels of your campaign. They also have a mini Weapon Training, which is decently useful.

Hobgoblins, like any medium armor race, have the capability to become a godsend for the right campaign and build, and Saving Face makes them decent generalists too. They’re well worth keeping in mind.

Genasi (Earth) (EEPC) (★★★★☆)

The second best Genasi, Genasi (Earth), right behind Earth Genasi… This Genasi’s key feature is still the ability to cast pass without trace once per long rest but, unlike the Earth Genasi, they cannot recast it with their own spell slots. They get it right at first level, however, which makes them more viable in a game that spends most of its time in Tier 1. Additionally, they have the ability to freely move across earthen difficult terrain without movement penalties.

Goblin (MPMM, VGM) (★★★★☆)

Goblins really enjoy games filled with dungeons and other dimly lit environments, as limiting vision and lines of sight give them the most chances to use their strongest ability: Nimble Escape, which allows them to use a bonus action to Hide or Disengage. Being hidden is one of the strongest defensive positions in the game because an opponent that can’t beat your Stealth check is forced to guess your location to hit you with anything, and still has disadvantage on attack rolls even if they’re correct. While this ability is perhaps most noticeable when spells and abilities like fog cloud block line of sight in open terrain, since this allows the hidden Goblin to easily attack and then hide repeatedly, there is also the less powerful but more common use: using an Action, even ones that reveal you like Spellcasting, while still getting to Hide and then move to obscure your new position.

Goblins also have Darkvision, Small size (though Nimble Escape has some anti-synergy with mounted combat), a token bit of extra damage with Fury of the Small, and the ability to use a bonus action to Disengage instead in case you get caught. The Goblin from MPMM gets to use Fury of the Small once per turn proficiency bonus times per long rest, vs. all the other Goblins who can use it once per long or short rest. Additionally, its damage for the former equals to your proficiency bonus and the latter to your level. Assuming 2 short rests in a day, the Goblin from MPMM only deals equal or more damage than the others at levels 1 and 2, after which it is beaten. However, looking at the bright side of things, they do get advantage on saving throws against the charmed condition, unlike its other version.

Considering their bonus action reliance and spell synergies, Goblins are pretty naturally spellcaster inclined (and Rogue disinclined, due to the overlap between Cunning Action and Nimble Escape). Their particular brand of shenanigans can’t just be slotted into any game, but they can be terrifying to face in the hands of a player willing to use a bit of finesse. It’s also worth considering that Goblins, like any character with bonus action Hide, become more powerful the more of them there are in a party. Earlier we mentioned using spells like fog cloud to provide obscurement one can Hide in, but that’s usually not worthwhile without other benefits simply because an action and concentration are very important and can be spent better. But if there are two Goblins, or maybe a Goblin and Rogue, then it suddenly becomes notably better because the second player still gets all the same benefits of moving and obscurement without having to invest anything themselves, and this remains true for every additional player with this ability on the team. A party consisting of mostly or entirely Goblins, perhaps even with a second character concentrating on pass without trace to guarantee Hide checks, could be a very interesting and strong choice for that reason.

Kobold (VGM) (★★★★☆)

Sunlight Sensitivity is a somewhat overstated weakness in a game called Dungeons and Dragons. Disadvantage on attacks and checks is a painful downside to have when having better attacks is the main selling point of the race, but there are many games, both homebrew and based on official modules, where direct sunlight is a non-factor in combat.

Kobolds also come with Darkvision and small size, two features which are consistently useful, and Grovel, Cower, and Beg, which isn’t. It’s almost never worth the action it takes to use, as Kobolds typically leverage Pack Tactics to output large amounts of damage themselves. Even in scenarios where 8 conjured summons are surrounding one enemy, attacking is still usually a better use of your action. The one exception would be creatures with on-hit debuffs that you could potentially help land, like summoned giant frogs with their on-hit grapple that restrains. 

And then we come to Kobold’s big budget feature: Pack Tactics. While it’s not the golden ticket to always-on free advantage it may look like at first, since requiring one person to be in melee both leaves them exposed and introduces some chance of failure, it’s certainly pretty cheap, and it makes Kobold a key for many builds that rely on it as a part of their offense. For an ultimate guide to Kobolds, check out Pack Tactics’ video.

Bugbear (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

This fuzzy critter gets Darkvision, advantage on saving throws vs. the charmed condition, and Powerful Build. Additionally, melee attacks on your turn get 5 extra feet of reach, which you can leverage to make use of the opportunity attack property of Polearm Master, as enemies will likely have to walk towards you after you have hit them from range. They get proficiency in a skill, and get to move and stop in spaces fit for Small creatures without squeezing. Now for the crème de la crème, Surprise Attack. They get to do 2d6 extra damage on any attack roll against creatures that haven’t taken a turn in combat. This is most useful when you can consistently beat the initiative of the enemy, like through gift of alacrity, the Oath of Watchers’ Aura of the Sentinel, or the Alert feat. Consider playing this race with a Sorlock (Sorcerer with at least 2 levels in Warlock) or something like a Gloom Stalker Ranger after level 8 (such that you can get both Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert), which can both do many attacks to gain as much damage from the feature as possible.

Aasimar (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Aasimar get resistance to both necrotic and radiant damage, Darkvision, the light cantrip, and an ability to heal creatures. Their healing ability, Healing Hands, is a once per long rest ability that requires you to touch a creature as an action, and heals proficiency bonus times 1d4 hit points. This is not a lot of hit points at all, but there are some interactions here with beacon of hope, and the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones invocation for Warlocks. Nevertheless, still not very many hit points…You also get to choose a form at level three, which you can then transform into as a bonus action for a minute once per long rest. The best option here is Radiant Soul, which allows you to fly with a flying speed equal to your walking speed during the transformation. The other options are Necrotic Shroud, which has a mass frightened effect against enemies within 10 feet of you upon transformation, and Radiant Consumption with an area of effect that deals radiant damage equal to your proficiency bonus to creatures within 10 feet of you at the end of your turns for the duration. Radiant Consumption not only affects allies in the area, but yourself as well (as you are within 10 feet of yourself) though a DM may reasonably allow you to exclude yourself from the area, following the RAI as indicated by Jeremy Crawford (starting at 6:43) regarding similar interactions and wording. Each transformation also allows you to deal extra damage equal to your proficiency bonus once per turn to a target when you deal damage with an attack or spell. They all deal radiant damage except for Necrotic Shroud, which as the name suggests does necrotic damage.

Dragonborn (Gem, Metallic, Chromatic) (FTD) (★★★☆☆)

The signature feature of all Dragonborn is their Breath Weapon, and Fizban’s Dragonborn are no different: this one does 1d10 damage in a 15 foot cone for Gem and Metallic Dragonborn, or a 30 foot line that is 5 feet wide for Chromatic Dragonborn. Unlike other Dragonborn who can only use their breath weapon once per rest, Fizban’s Dragonborn can use their breath weapon a proficiency bonus number of times per long rest, and adds 1d10 at 5th, 11th, and 17th level. It compares favorably against a single attack with its ability to hit multiple targets, and it’s also much more useful for anyone with Extra Attack because it only takes a single attack in the Attack Action. Not only do you not have to give up both attacks, but now the second one can still trigger bonus action attacks from the likes of Polearm Master and Crossbow Expert. Note that it’s actually worse in raw damage than the old Dragonborn with their 2d6 weapons at first, but 1d10 versus 1d6 scaling means the new Breath Weapon does more damage past level 5.

They each also gain a resistance, with the caveat that it matches their Breath Weapon damage. It’s not uncommon for dealers of necrotic and the various elemental damage types to be resistant or immune to the same damage types, which makes the Breath Weapon a lot worse against those kinds of creatures. Having that resistance is a positive trade overall due to how common these creatures are, and because you should still have a variety of other options in combat besides the Breath Weapon.

Subrace	Features
Gem	Their ancestry choices consist of mostly non-elemental damage types, with the exception of thunder. The most common one of these to face is necrotic, which has the previously mentioned trade-off. (While psychic has almost as many users across all books, it is much less common in the core Monster Manual and thus most games.) They also gain the ability to fly for a minute as a bonus action. As previously explained, flight is still really good to have so even this limited instance of it is quite valuable. They lastly get one-way telepathy with a range of 30 feet with built-in translation, which is decent.
Metallic	They get a choice out of elemental damage types, of which fire is the most commonly faced, and thus the best choice. They also get the ability to replace their Breath Weapon with either a mass incapacitation effect on a Constitution save until the start of your next turn or a multi-push + prone effect on a Strength save. Usually the Enervating Breath wins out, but Repulsion Breath can also be useful when combining it with something like web or sleet storm.
Chromatic	They also get to choose one of what are mostly elemental damage types, with the addition of poison. Of the options, fire and poison are the most commonly faced. Depending on your campaign, see what is right for you.They also get to become immune to the damage type that they resist for 1 minute as an action, which is not often worth it if you don’t get to use it before a fight.

Overall, the new Dragonborn have kept a lot of features from their predecessors while receiving significant new ones on top, and that extra budget does a lot for them.

Autognome (AAG) (★★★☆☆)

Like Warforged, Autognomes have poison resistance, advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition, the ability to take 6 hour long rests while conscious, and immunity to disease, suffocation, hunger, and thirst.

Their AC granting feature is much more limited, however. 13+DEX is only actually a boost for Rogues, Bards, and Warlocks, and you can’t reap the increased benefit of +1 on heavier armor like Warforged can. Less importantly, they also don’t get Warforged’s extra skill. In exchange, Autognomes are small, get advantage on saves against paralysis, are Construct type, and can add a d4 to one attack, check, or saving throw proficiency times per long rest.

Warforged (ERLW) (★★★☆☆)

Integrated Protection (+1 AC), poison resistance, advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition, the ability to take 6 hour long rests while conscious, and immunity to disease, sleep, suffocation, hunger, and thirst are all good features. The various immunities are all pretty mild, as their targets just aren’t common dangers typically, but can certainly be worked to an advantage in niche situations. Their shorter long rest is the most mild version of the effect but still pretty good for its uses, and poison resistance and advantage on saving throws against poisoned is very good but potentially not as good as their Integrated Protection: a stacking AC bonus, like Simic Hybrid’s Carapace, but with none of the limitations on level or armor, making it very good in combination with subclasses like Forge Domain Cleric. All in all, Warforged are powerful in a straightforward way, and are both decent in general and great for anyone armored enough to make the most of Integrated Protection.

Satyr (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

While similar to their cousin in Mythic Odysseys of Theros (MOT), these Satyr lose out in that their Magic Resistance equivalent (same name, different feature) only works against spells. More and more printed monsters in recent material are getting spell-like effects (abilities that look like spells, but aren’t), making this a heavy blow to Satyr. Their only other difference is that their Ram attack went from 1d4 to 1d6 damage. For more information on Satyr, check the MOT entry above.

Changeling (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Changelings get proficiency in two skills, but their main standout feature is Shapechanger, allowing them to adopt a different physical look. Changelings in MPMM additionally are Fey, can choose to be Small, and their version of the Shapechanger trait allows them to change between Small and Medium.. The ability to switch between Small and Medium and gain a perfectly disguised voice and appearance lets it work in many situations where disguise kits or disguise self would be insufficient. Impersonating a specific other person should still generally be risky because you need to rely on more traditional tools for changing things like clothing, and this is not even considering what countermeasures might become common practice in a society where Changelings exist, like how important figures in Eberron make it a point to carry around trinkets that can’t be replicated, but being a random person that’s not you is really easy with just a basic spare set of clothes, relatively hard to stop, and can be done very quickly. If you find yourself in a game where you’ll need to “disappear” frequently, Changeling should absolutely be a consideration.

Yuan-ti (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Yuan-ti and Yuan-ti Purebloods differ in a similar way as the Satyr from MOT and MPMM do. Their “Magic Resistance” is only against spells, and they now have Poison Resilience instead of Poison Immunity. This means instead of immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition, they have resistance to the damage and advantage on saving throws against the condition. They did gain some things though; they can now choose to be Small, and get to recast animal friendship and suggestion with spell slots after using them for free once.

Grung (OGA) (★★★☆☆)

Water Dependency is an environmental downside, like Sunlight Sensitivity, but a slightly tougher one of a very different scope. Assuming you aren’t in a game that’s near a lake or shoreline, you could carry a tub of water around with the party’s supply chain, which is not that hard considering your small size. Worst case scenario, you make sure to have a caster in the party who can prepare a first level slot for create and destroy water. You could also cure the exhaustion with greater restoration, although a fifth level spell with a consumed material component is far from free.

So, why play a Grung? Firstly, Grung have the only racial attack that’s actually worth using offensively, albeit only in Tier 1. Especially at levels 1 and 2, a DC 12 Constitution save or 2d4 poison per hit is really nice when you consider that you can apply it to actual weapons multiple times a turn without using an action, and the potential to inflict the poisoned condition for a round is perfect for builds such as Path of the Beast Barbarians, and can make unarmed strikes potentially worth using over a quarterstaff on a melee monk. Unfortunately, this quickly falls off in relevancy: a static save means this will become useless at higher level play, and poison resistance and immunity becomes far more common at those levels as well. Making the most of this feature would be best suited for shorter low-level campaigns or one-shots.

Grung also has quite a few other benefits that don’t lose power as levels increase. Poison Immunity, small size, a climb speed, water breathing, and a standing 25 foot long jump to bypass difficult terrain are all good. None of this is class-specific, it’s just a handy set of movement and defense features to have. 

It’s unfortunate that Grung’s main trick peaks at 1st and 2nd level before becoming irrelevant, but they rock a ton of secondary tools, and free damage is free. If you can play one in a game, particularly one in their optimal right level range, they’re well worth a shot.

Verdan (AI), Vedalken (GGR), Gnome (MTF, PHB) (★★★☆☆)

Earlier, we said that Magic Resistance wasn’t quite enough to make a race mechanically powerful all on its own. Verdan and Vedalken have their own resistance features on par with Magic Resistance by virtue of being applicable to non magical effects, and Gnome Cunning isn’t all that far behind, but they still rank lower than Yuan-Ti and Satyr because their secondary features aren’t nearly as relevant. 

Verdan’s Telepathic Insight is limited to Wisdom and Charisma saves. They get to be small, though unfortunately only until 5th level, and also get a skill, a limited telepathy that is not based on sharing a language, and the ability to reroll 1s and 2s on hit dice, a minor but useful extra bit of healing.

Vedalken is the best of these races for pure coverage, as their Vedalken Dispassion also applies to Intelligence saves while still covering non-magical effects. Getting to add a d4 to a skill or tool check that stacks with everything can be useful despite the limited selection. One hour of water breathing is probably as much time as you will need in most campaigns, so you at least will never be in danger of drowning. 

Gnome Cunning is limited to magical effects only, but the advantage of being small as well as a few secondary benefits from their subrace results in them grading out passably.

Subrace	Features
Deep (MTF)	Superior Darkvision and advantage on Stealth checks in rocky terrain. The former is just amazing when it’s relevant even though its number of use cases are relatively small, while the latter is more circumstantial but still nice. Allows you to take the Svirfneblin Magic feat, which is especially relevant for School of Abjuration Wizards.
Forest (PHB)	Gain minor illusion, a great cantrip for its image and sound manipulation, though not a particularly difficult one to acquire.
Rock (PHB)	The ability to make little clockwork trinkets, which are probably not as useful on average as utility cantrips like minor illusion or prestidigitation, but at least it does last 24 hours without any further input from you.

All of these races remain pretty good picks despite being nominally outclassed by the actual Magic Resistance races, and all have unique features that make them worth considering.

Harengon (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Rabbit Hop negates opportunity attacks and can allow the Harengon to leave difficult terrain from a standing start. These are nice benefits, although proficiency bonus uses per long rest isn’t many, and the bonus action is a high cost compared to most racial movement features. Lucky Footwork’s d4 bonus to Dexterity saving throws can situationally be quite good, but it comes at a high cost. Reactions are quite valuable, especially when they could be used for something like absorb elements instead. Note also that you can’t use this feature if you’re prone, a fairly common scenario for characters that aren’t in melee range of their opponents. Small size is quite good, as usual.

The race’s best feature by far is their bonus to initiative, which amounts to extra turns and the ability to reposition before enemies act. Said boost is limited by its lack of scale at earlier levels, but it can still be easily taken advantage of. Using proficiency to determine this bonus has a couple of side effects for Bards and Rogues. The former only gets half the benefit of the Harengon feature (because Jack of All Trades no longer applies) and the latter can eventually apply Reliable Talent to set a floor on their initiative.

Elf (PHB, MTF), Half-Elf (PHB, SCAG) (★★★☆☆)

Elves are more specific while Half-Elves are more generalized. Both share Darkvision, advantage on saves versus the charmed condition, immunity to magical sleep, and access to Elven Accuracy. In addition to this, Elves can long rest in only 4 hours and get sub-races with multiple features themselves. Half-Elves instead get a notable set of +2/+1/+1 racial modifiers, which can work well with tertiary ability scores or half-feats, and variants that let them snatch key features from Elven subraces. Not all arrays can actually make use of that extra +1, making Elf strictly better for those who can’t. Warlocks with long duration spells should similarly always be an Elf for Trance, and Wood Elves with Wood Elf Magic can be pretty great all on their own. Typically everyone else should be a Half-Elf.

Subrace	Features
Wood (PHB)	Have access to the best elven feat in Wood Elf Magic (which can simultaneously give thorn whip to Clerics and pass without trace to everyone), 35 foot speed, can Hide when lightly obscured by nature, Weapon Training.
Astral (AAG)	Optional +1/+1/+1 statline, learns one of light/dancing lights/sacred flame, gets a non-magical misty step effect prof times per long rest, prof in 1 skill and tool that can be swapped every long rest.
Half-Elf (Variant; Moon, Sun, or Drow) (SCAG)	Choose One: -Choice of Wizard cantrip -Drow Magic
High (PHB)	Choice of Wizard cantrip (usually grabbing either booming blade for a few select builds or filling for a utility cantrip), Weapon Training.
Drow (PHB)	Drow Magic (dancing lights, once per long rest faerie fire at 3rd level and darkness at 5th), Superior Darkvision, Weapon Training, Sunlight Sensitivity.
Eladrin (MTF)	Once per short rest, bonus action 30 foot teleport that at 3rd level also has one of several seasonal effects. Winter is the best one, because ranged Fear effects are good at denying actions from melee characters and limiting everyone else. Autumn’s Charm can be pretty good as well but requires some tight party coordination to make use of  it.
Eladrin (DMG)	Misty step once per short rest. Weapon Training.
Shadar-kai (MTF)	Necrotic resistance, once per long rest bonus action 30 foot teleport that at 3rd level also gives you resistance to all damage until the start of your next turn.
Pallid (EGW)	Blessing of the Moon Weaver (light, once per long rest sleep at 3rd level and invisibility on self only after 5th), advantage on Investigation and Insight checks.
Half-Elf (Variant; Wood) (SCAG)	Choose one: -35 foot speed -can Hide when lightly obscured by nature -Weapon Training
Sea (MTF)	Weapon Training, 30 foot swim speed and water breathing.
Half Elf (Variant; Sea + Standard) (SCAG)	Choose One: -Proficiency in two skills of your choice. -30 foot Swim.

Eladrin (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

The Eladrin in MPMM are very similar to the one in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (MTF), but slightly better. You get to use your teleport ability proficiency bonus amount of times per long rest, instead of once per rest, which catches up to the latter by level 5 in parties that take 2 short rests per adventuring day. Additionally, you can decide the ability score the DC is keyed off of for the effects between Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma, allowing you to go with your highest modifier. You still get to swap your season once per long rest, Darkvision, magic can’t put you to sleep, you have advantage against charmed, and Trance, but now you can also choose two proficiencies (tool or weapon) of your choice at the end of your long rest.

Shadar-kai (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

These are also slightly better than their MTF variants. You get to use your teleport proficiency bonus amount of times per long rest, instead of once per long rest, and also get to choose two proficiencies (tool or weapon) of your choice at the end of your long rest.

Sea Elf (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Instead of proficiency with four weapons (like the variant in MTF gets), which you could have swapped for tools through the customization rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, you also get to choose two proficiencies (tool or weapon) of your choice at the end of your long rest. However, you do gain cold resistance, which is pretty solid.

Aasimar (Fallen, Protector, Scourge) (VGM) (★★★☆☆)

Similar to the Aasimar from MPMM, these get resistance to both necrotic and radiant damage, Darkvision, the light cantrip, and Healing Hands. However, their Healing Hands equals their level, which starts off worse but beats the MPMM Aasimar on average for most levels. Another difference is that this Aasimar includes actual subraces, which decide their transformation. All transformations come with extra damage, but these ones cost an action (not a bonus action) to set up, and only last a minute, meaning that they’re hard to get up before combat starts and probably won’t make up for the action loss if you spend a turn on it, so that’s not as impactful as their subrace specific effects (see below).

Subrace	Transformation Benefit
Protector (★★★☆☆)	Being able to fly. Flight is amazing here for all the same reasons it’s amazing elsewhere, and this is by far the best subrace as a result.
Fallen (★★★☆☆)	A short range fear effect that only lasts 1 round. It’s on the meager side, but an effect that you can reap immediate benefit from still helps this feature a lot.
Scourge (★★☆☆☆)	You have to automatically damage yourself, and in exchange you get a circular area of effect that can also damage your friends. If anything, it makes the base transformation even worse, and the subrace suffers for it. Occasionally can keep you in a Barbarian Rage.

Aasimar—Protector in particular—can be reliable choices, particularly for casters with absorb elements who like the fact that none of the six resistances overlap.

Thri-kreen (AAG) (★★★☆☆)

Thri-kreen are perhaps most well known for having four arms, and can use this to some good effect despite the limitations on the second pair. They can hold a greatsword or shield+rapier alongside dual wielding two light weapons to get a bit more out of dual wielding with extra attack, which could be mildly useful in a featless game. Even better, they can hold a shield for extra AC alongside a hand crossbow while still having a free hand to load the latter. Additionally, they have several other features in Monstrosity type, Darkvision, optional small size, the ability to gain advantage on stealth checks as an action, and one way telepathy. They also get 13+DEX natural armor, but classes with the lacking armor needed to benefit from it are mutually exclusive from the ones with the weapon and shield proficiencies needed to take advantage of the extra arms.

Reborn (VRGR) (★★★☆☆)

Reborn have a lot of features: optional small size, optional +1/+1/+1 ability score increases, getting to add a d6 to a skill a proficiency bonus number of times per long rest, a 4 hour long rest that still leaves you conscious, advantage on death saving throws and saves against disease, and immunity to sleep, hunger, suffocation, and thirst.

This race is very similar to Warforged, perhaps unsurprisingly. Their key differences being:

• Only advantage on saves versus disease instead of immunity. 
• No +1 AC boost, which was Warforged’s best feature and thus a pretty huge loss.
• Advantage on death saving throws, which is more niche than it sounds, as it requires both a party that will not or cannot heal you immediately, and monsters that won’t just double tap to instantly kill you. Reducing the chance of dying to a natural 1 from 5% to 0.25%, or increasing the chance of waking up with 1 hit point from 5% to 9.75% is a boon, but not a large one.
• 4 hour long rest instead of 6 hours, for more short resting fun.
• Small size.
• The ability to add a d6 to an ability check that uses a skill a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus, which is better than it looks in that it’s a stacking bonus that can be used after the roll, but also unfortunate in that it specifies “with a skill,” meaning no initiative boost.

Overall, Reborn are similar to Warforged—it’s a downgrade overall, but not a severe one, and besides sometimes being allowed in settings where Warforged are not, they can be just as good for characters that can make use of the even shorter long rest.

Plasmoid (AAG) (★★★☆☆)

Plasmoids hinge on their good overall defenses, with Ooze type, Darkvision, resistances to poison and acid damage, advantage on saves against poisoned and checks to escape grapples, and optional small size.

Additionally, they have advantage on grappling themselves, which might be useful for certain characters, as well as the interesting but not very useful ability to extrude a pseudopod.

Dwarf (Duergar) (MTF) and Dwarf (Hill) (PHB) (★★★☆☆)

Despite the downside of being the only medium 25 feet speed race, the base Dwarf package on its own has a fair amount going for it. Poison Resistance, Darkvision, never suffering from heavy armor speed reduction due to insufficient Strength—though you could just eat the penalty as a 35 foot speed race for the same effect—and Weapon Training plus a free extra tool proficiency on the side.

Subrace	Benefit
Duergar (MTF)	A surprisingly large set of features, adding advantage on saves against the charmed condition, the paralyzed condition (rare but incredibly deadly), and all illusions. They also have 120 feet Darkvision and the two spells enlarge and invisibility, both only on self, once per long rest. Huge Rune Knight Fighter, anyone? This all comes at the downside of Sunlight Sensitivity which, as we’ve discussed earlier, is less impactful than you would think. This is doubly true for a race that’s perfectly comfortable with being a caster and not using attack rolls at all.
Hill (PHB)	Equally surprisingly, they’re not that good. They increase their maximum hit points, which is an obviously good thing to improve, but one additional point per level just doesn’t compare favorably to average damage taken at any level of play.

Duergar (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Basically at the same power level as the Duergar from MTF, but with a different package of features. You still get 120 feet of Darkvision, but no longer have Sunlight Sensitivity. Your speed is now 30, but you do suffer the reduction to speed of heavy armor. You don’t get a tool proficiency, weapon proficiencies, or Stonecunning, and instead of gaining advantage on saves vs. charmed and paralyzed you gain advantage vs. charmed and stunned. Lastly, you get to recast enlarge/reduce and invisibility with spell slots after casting them once for free.

Halfling (PHB, EGW, SCAG) (★★★☆☆)

Lucky (the ability to reroll 1s, not the feat), advantage against the frightened condition, small size, and the ability to move through the spaces of medium enemies is a very solid base set of features. Lucky is somewhat overrated. While rerolls can definitely feel good that doesn’t make up for the fact that it doesn’t happen often enough, especially when most good builds have ways to generate advantage for their most important rolls. Still, this is an additional layer of protection, especially for saving throws, so there’s still notable value. Frightened is not the most threatening condition, unless you happen to be a melee build, but it is a common one and sometimes tied to more debilitating effects, and the size and freer movement are nice if not super notable.

Subrace	Benefit
Lotusden (EGW) (★★★☆☆)	A casting package of druidcraft, and once per long rest casting of entangle at 3rd level and spike growth at 5th level. The latter two are excellent spells while the former is decent by cantrip standards.
Lightfoot (PHB) (★★★☆☆)	A mildly strange feature that lets you Hide using a form of obscurement that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the obscurement rules. We take the fairly straightforward interpretation of “now creatures count as cover for hiding” which makes it very useful for Rogues in games where either cover is less available or your DMs rule that you have to step out of it to attack, since Hide is their best bonus action.
Stout (PHB) (★★★☆☆)	Resistance to poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition, decent as always.
Ghostwise (SCAG) (★★☆☆☆)	A telepathy feature which unfortunately borders on being a ribbon. It’s one-way communication that can’t translate language, meaning that the useful things it can do are rendered almost entirely redundant by the multiple low-cost methods of long-range subtle communication already available, including sensory cantrips (like druidcraft!) and simple things like hand signals, uncommon languages, and Morse code. It is a convenient racial feature for Circle of the Moon Druids.

This doesn’t count towards the rating, but it goes without saying that Halfling goes up in value in games where rolling a natural 1 leads to permanent injury or other dreadful fates, especially on classes like Fighter that roll a lot of dice without easy access to sources of advantage. Note: we strongly recommend against such “critical failure” house rules to begin with.

Hobgoblin (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

These Hobgoblins are in some sense similar to their non-fey cousins, but they do in fact differ quite a lot. They share Darkvision, and a way to increase the roll of a missed attack roll or a failed ability check or saving throw. However, their Fortune from the Many, which works similar to Saving Face, caps at +3. They can use Fortune of the Many a proficiency bonus times per long rest, which is commonly an advantage over the once-per-rest Saving Face, but the lower limit is quite a large blow. They lose their weapon proficiencies and light armor, and instead gain extra options for their Help action. They can use the Help action as a bonus action a proficiency bonus amount of times per long rest and, from third level on, they also get to give the recipient an extra effect. Sadly, in play these effects are not great, and you can barely make use of the benefits of the Help action. When taking the Help action, you either give the recipient advantage on an ability check (not very useful), or while within 5 feet of an enemy (a place you don’t want to be at) you can give the recipient advantage against them on their first attack before your next turn.

Hexblood (VRGR) (★★★☆☆)

Darkvision, optional small size, optional +1/+1/+1 ability score increases, the benefit of Fey typing, once per long rest hex and disguise self, and the ability to create an eerie token to give to other people. You can speak through it to someone else—not the best subtle communication method out there, considering it is one way, but it works well enough while having great range—or see and hear through it remotely for up to a minute. The token message can be treated as functionally equivalent to message; and the remote viewing as a mildly weaker clairvoyance (after all, something as small as a lock of hair could probably be fairly easily slid under a door or similar).

A pretty beefy casting package, when it’s all put it together. Probably a little better than the best Tieflings, except you get all of it at level 1. Combined with Fey typing, this places Hexblood as solidly usable. If Reborn were built like Warforged, but a bit worse, then Hexbloods are built like Tieflings, but a bit better.

Changeling (ERLW) (★★★☆☆)

Very much just a straight downgrade to the MPMM Changelings, not being Fey, unable to be or become Small. Otherwise, they basically get the same features.

Shifter (Beasthide, Wildhunt, Swiftstride, Longtooth) (ERLW) (★★★☆☆)

You get Darkvision, one skill, and the ability to transform into a form based on the subrace you select at character creation as a bonus action once per rest. All transformations provide character level + Constitution modifier temporary hit points when you transform.

Subrace	Transformation Benefit
Beasthide (★★★☆☆)	+1d6 extra temporary hit points per transformation and a +1 AC bonus that stacks with everything.
Wildhunt (★★★☆☆)	Advantage on Wisdom checks and the ability to never be attacked with advantage, which are both good abilities made worse in practice. The former is a nice boost to Perception, but the one minute duration can make proper timing a challenge since if you transform either too early or too late, you’ll miss the window where you can possibly stop an ambush with it. While actually leveraging the latter tends to be unreliable, such as going prone if you happen to get attacked from melee and range at the same time, or resource intensive, such as using an action and spell slot to cast fog cloud. Your best setup by far is Reckless Attack, but transforming being a bonus action that competes with Rage and bonus action attacks still hurts it there.
Swiftstride (★★★☆☆)	+10 feet of movement speed and the ability to move 10 feet as a reaction to enemies approaching you in melee, which works decently with people who already prefer to be at range and with careful positioning might even force an enemy to Dash, wasting their turn.
Longtooth (★★☆☆☆)	1d6 natural weapons that can be used as a bonus action. This is limited by the initial transformation also being a bonus action, and is eventually outscaled by feats, but can at least represent a little bit of extra melee damage before that point.

Between the short rest recharge time and the minute duration, you should be able to have your subrace benefit up in half or more of your combats, particularly for spellcasters with fewer bonus actions in competition, and the temporary hit point boost adds up to quite a lot. For example, if you’re a 1d8 hit die class with 16 Constitution at level 5 and you transform once near the beginning of the day and once more after each of two short rests, that’s 24 temporary hit points from your race alone, more than half of the 43 hit points you get from your class and Constitution modifier. Combine that with the (usually) good subrace features and it makes for a nice bundle of stuff.

Shifter (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Very similar to the above mentioned Shifter with its subraces. The main difference is that this one allows you to transform a proficiency bonus times per long rest, and gives you 2 times your proficiency bonus in temporary hit points, which is overall worse than the temporary hit points you get with the other version.

All the options, which are chosen at character creation, are identical to the subraces, except for Longtooth, which has been slightly buffed. You can now also attack as part of the transformation, which you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do as both the transformation and the attack are a bonus action.

You’re best off choosing one of Beasthide, Wildhunt, or Swiftstride, whereas Longtooth is not really that great.

Centaur (MPMM, MOT) (★★★☆☆)

Once again seeing that great Fey typing, a great 40 feet speed (although with the minor downside of climbing half as fast as most races), and a bonus action melee-only charge attack that’s redundant by virtue of every good melee build having good use for their bonus actions. Centaur’s biggest advantage, surprisingly, is not even listed: the fact that it’s a quadruped race, meaning that at most tables it’s much easier to sell them as having the appropriate anatomy for being ridden on by a small player character, making them the best way to do the medium player character mount/small player character rider combo without the mount being a Wild-Shaped Druid. It’s a build that’s not only potentially quite powerful, with sharing movement and the ability to use Mounted Combatant to protect a more fragile PC, but also just really fun.

Tabaxi (MPMM, VGM) (★★★☆☆)

Darkvision, 20 feet climb speed, two skills, and Feline Agility: the ability to double your speed for one turn, which recharges if you spend a turn not moving. This means you’ll get to use it at least once per combat. Turns can happen outside of combat, so standing still for six seconds should be enough to recharge. Climb speed has some utility in areas where you can gain height but have a spot to stand at the end of the path, treetops for example, and there’s a minor synergy with the speed boost here to let you reach even higher. Feline Agility can also be beneficial for melee weapon users in situations where it lets them get into melee on turn 1 without spending an action vs opponents who are primarily ranged, like spellcasters. This isn’t applicable for opposing melee since you can always opt to move back and make them come to you instead. Even for ranged characters, getting to move twice as fast in one turn can on occasion give you some important breathing room. This also stacks with most other movement boosters like Cunning Action, although this tends to travel into the realm of “when would you ever actually need to go this fast?”. Overall, if you’re worried about not being in melee range on turn one, then this could be the race for you. If you’re playing in environments with lots of high ledges where flying is banned, you’ll probably find it quite nice. If neither of those things are true you might still want to keep it in mind just because it’s nice to have a Dash in the back pocket. The Tabaxi from MPMM even gets to choose Small as a race option. Overall, both versions are quite solid.

Leonin (MOT) (★★★☆☆)

Darkvision, Dauntless Roar, 35 foot speed. The roar isn’t great, but it doesn’t cost you much to use either. It’s a bonus action and party friendly, though limited by the small area of effect. High level enemies tend to have more immunity to the frightened condition, more magic, more ranged attacks, and longer reach, so you should probably stay out of those levels, or otherwise be careful in only using Dauntless Roar against effective targets. Typically the play you’re looking for is inflicting frightened on one or more melee-only creatures from beyond their 5 foot attack range and forcing them to waste a turn as they are unable to approach your party. Reach weapon users work well at this range, since enemies having to close the distance again after being frightened are open to a reaction attack). If you can’t go for that, then use the disadvantage from the fear to combo with a check based ability, like escaping a web or someone grappling. The extra speed, on top of being generally useful, does a little bit to help position your roars.

Leonin, more than most races, really benefit from their players being proactive. They have no passive defensive benefits, and their main ability is not even all that strong in a vacuum: it has to be leveraged. If you do that, they can go a long way, and it’s a fun playstyle that  feels like you’re actively getting the most out of a racial ability.

Hadozee (AAG) (★★★☆☆)

The Hadozee’s Glide used to be an even better version of Simic Hybrid’s, giving it one of the best racial movement features in the entire game, but it has since been significantly nerfed. It doesn’t provide as much movement, you can’t glide from a small jump, glide more than once in a turn, or use reactions afterward. But despite all that, it’s still useful simply because it can extend the distance you move in a turn by up to 20 feet if you gain 10 feet of height, which is relatively easy to do with something to climb off of, since you have a climb speed.

Additionally, Hadozee Resilience gives them a fair bit of extra durability and Dexterous Feet adds a smidge more flexibility when it comes to opening doors and picking up items. While neither of these are all that important, they do help to complete the package.

Air Genasi (MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Air Genasi are eerily similar to Dhampirs. They don’t need to breathe, get Darkvision, can be Small or Medium, and have a 35 feet speed. However, the rest of their benefits are quite different: they get lightning resistance and get to cast shocking grasp and feather fall for free once per long rest at third level, can cast levitate for free once per long rest at 5th level, and they can cast the latter two spells with spell slots.

Tiefling (Non-Winged) (MTF, PHB, SCAG) (★★★☆☆)

Quite the classic, and quite simple to understand mechanics-wise. You get Darkvision, you get resistance to fire, you get a cantrip, and you get 2 once per day spells, one at 3rd level and one at 5th. There are lots of different versions, yes, but all they change is the spells, and even then a lot of them stay the same, as you’ll see here:

Subrace	Cantrip, Spell at 3rd, Spell at 5th.
Levistus (MTF)	ray of frost, armor of Agathys (2nd level), darkness.
Fierna (MTF)	friends, charm person (2nd level), suggestion.
Glasya (MTF)	minor illusion, disguise self, invisibility.
Dispater (MTF)	thaumaturgy, disguise self, detect thoughts.
Standard (PHB), Asmodeus (MTF), Infernal Legacy (SCAG)	thaumaturgy, hellish rebuke (2nd level), darkness.
Hellfire (SCAG)	thaumaturgy, burning hands (2nd level), darkness.
Devil’s Tongue (SCAG)	vicious mockery, charm person (2nd level), enthrall.
Zariel (MTF)	thaumaturgy, searing smite (2nd level), branding smite.
Mammon (MTF)	mage hand, Tenser’s floating disk, arcane lock.
Mephistopheles (MTF)	mage hand, burning hands (2nd level), flame blade.
Baalzebul (MTF)	thaumaturgy, ray of sickness (2nd level), crown of madness.

In our estimation, none of the listed Tiefling subraces are substantially better or worse enough to be moved up or down a tier. In general, a utility that sees common use is one of the best things you can grab. If you can’t get that, get a consistently impactful control option, and if you can’t get that, at least aim for something that doesn’t take too much out of your turn.

With their two solid abilities and a pinch of casting spice, Tieflings are a good benchmark for what a fundamentally solid race looks like. They’re never the best choice, but they’re never bad either.

Triton (VGM, MPMM) (★★★☆☆)

Tritons are a lot like Tieflings that trade more general things for more specific ones. They replace fire resistance for the usually mildly worse cold resistance, and despite the fact that they have better casting on paper with access to 3rd level spells, the spells included being gust of wind, wall of water, and water walk leaves them lagging a bit behind the best Tiefling packages. In return they get a swim speed and the ability to breathe water, and +1/+1/+1 ability score increases in their Volo’s Guide to Monsters version. While not as easy to just slap on a character as Tiefling, Tritons can be just as good if not better in the right setups while also giving you the chance to play with some rarely used spells.

Firbolg (MPMM, VGM) (★★★☆☆)

You get to cast detect magic and disguise self once for free per long rest, and the one from MPMM can use spell slots to do it again. Additionally, you get Hidden Step: the ability to turn invisible as a bonus action until the start of your next turn, which can be used once per rest for the one from Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and proficiency bonus times per long rest for the one from MPMM. Hidden Step is quite good, especially given the recharge time. However, to get maximum value from the disadvantage it gives, you want to be a valuable target to hit. By far the easiest way to do this is to concentrate on something powerful, so the best Firbolgs are going to be full casters—though not Clerics, since spirit guardians damage is off-turn and will break the invisibility early. You can also use it as a pseudo-disengage, as you can only make opportunity attacks against creatures you can see, or you can use it to move to cover where you can Hide. Firbolg also get the special ability to make their disguise self form up to 3 feet shorter to compensate for the fact that they’re 7 to 8 feet tall, but considering that the spell explicitly does nothing about extra body mass, good luck not getting found out if you actually turn into something almost half your size. There is the minor upside of being able to impersonate some large bipeds. Detect magic, by contrast, is always useful. It’s common to have it available, given that it’s on almost every spell list and is a ritual, but it’s actually a high demand pick if you don’t already have it in the party somewhere. Seeing which creatures have spells on them could be important, and seeing which objects have magic on them could be vital, to the point where this race is stronger by virtue of covering for detect magic if the party doesn’t have it (or even has it, but not as a ritual).

Kobold (MPMM) (★★☆☆☆)

The Kobolds in MPMM are quite different from their predecessors. They don’t have Sunlight Sensitivity, don’t get Pack Tactics, or Grovel, Cower, and Beg. Instead they gain Draconic Cry, which allows you and your allies to attack enemies within 10 feet at advantage proficiency bonus times per long rest, as well as Kobold Legacy, which is one of a skill, advantage on saving throws against the frightened condition, or a sorcerer cantrip. These new features however don’t outweigh the loss of Pack Tactics, even taking into account Sunlight Sensitivity and thus this version of the Kobold is rated lower. For an even more ultimate guide to Kobolds, check out Draconic Cry’s video.

Deep Gnome (MPMM) (★★☆☆☆)

Another casualty of the great remix of Magic Resistance, the Deep Gnomes from MPMM only get advantage on saving throws vs. spells, compared to magical effects and spells for the Gnome (Deep) (MTF). You still get Superior Darkvision. You get 30 feet speed instead of 25. You can roll Dexterity (Stealth) checks at advantage a proficiency bonus amount of times per long rest, instead of only in rocky terrain. They get a sort of knock-off of the Svirfneblin Magic feat built in, in that they can cast disguise self for free once at 3rd level, and nondetection at 5th level. Both of which you can recast with spell slots.

Aasimar (DMG) (★★☆☆☆)

Aasimar combine damage resistances with Darkvision and Spellcasting, much like Tritons and Tieflings. But while their resistances (Necrotic and Radiant) are pretty good, their mediocre spellcasting holds them back, with lesser restoration being the only spell of note, making them generally inferior to most other races with the same template.

Giff (AAG) (★★☆☆☆)

Firstly, Giff get proficiency in firearms, ignore the loading property when using them, and don’t have disadvantage when attacking with them from long range. Ignoring loading is the most important of these, since it allows renaissance firearms and their higher damage die to be used with extra attack (though note the lack of a bonus action attack feature akin to crossbow expert). No disadvantage at long range, while not useless, is fairly marginal since you can always opt to carry a longbow with as much range as many long range firearms. Additionally, the proficiency is essentially only worth one weapon proficiency, since firearms are martial weapons and thus can be traded for as needed.

Secondly, they can add a token amount of extra damage at no action cost with astral spark. Convenient, but minor.

And lastly, they get advantage on all Strength saves and checks. Most out of combat Strength checks can just be Helped for advantage, and Strength saves are both relatively rare and non-threatening, but this is still a useful defense against some effects, including checks to grapple or break out of Entangle and similar spells.

Loxodon (GGR) (★★☆☆☆)

Trunks are a neat feature with several uses. Not quite a third arm, but you can hold things such as a lantern or a torch, which you might need as you lack Darkvision, or use it to push or grapple targets. Holding a light source is pretty common but not necessarily worth a race pick over just having Darkvision, and grappling is a pretty specific task, but being able to contribute on the control front (particularly later on with Extra Attack to shove prone an enemy and grapple them, reducing their speed to 0) while still being able to attack with heavy two-handed weapons is great, and Loxodons also have advantage on saves against Charmed and Frightened, two conditions that especially hurt melee-focused characters. While other Barbarians cannot grapple without being unable to invoke Great Weapon Master, Loxodons can, which is helpful. Advantage on Perception checks involving smell won’t always be relevant, but any ability that prevents you from being surprised is helpful.

Loxodon work particularly well with one specific class, and open up a niche (grappling) with a unique ability, and have a number of relevant defensive features. It’s hard to complain about their effectiveness when they slot into that niche so well, especially in a party that already has someone else who lacks Darkvision.

Orc (MPMM) (★★☆☆☆)

Darkvision, a bonus action Dash a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest, Powerful Build, and Relentless Endurance, and the ability to go to 1 hit point when you’d be dropped to 0 hit points without being killed outright once per long rest. Relentless Endurance is basically a small amount of extra health per day, possibly as much as 10+ but typically 2-5, but even at lower levels that’s not a huge amount of added survivability, especially since Multiattack is the most common form of attack scaling.

Fire Genasi (MPMM), Genasi (Fire) (EEPC) (★★☆☆☆)

Genasi (Fire) (EEPC) are unique among their respective Genasi variants in having Darkvision, and combined with their fire resistance and produce flame, that makes for a mediocre set of abilities. Their main problem is that produce flame isn’t a good cantrip, 1st level burning hands at 3rd level is actively bad, and they get no other spells, so this whole package is strictly outclassed by every Tiefling, who have the same defenses with better spells. Not great on its own, and on top of that there is a mechanically superior option, which makes them a tough sell. The MPMM Fire Genasi get basically the same things as Genasi (Fire) (EEPC), and in addition can be Small, get to recast burning hands, and get to cast flame blade from 5th level onwards for free once and with spell slots.

Kalashtar (ERLW) (★★☆☆☆)

Advantage on Wisdom saves, psychic resistance, and telepathy. Wisdom saves are the best part of mental saves in terms of pure volume (though not necessarily threat level), and non-magical coverage is great. Psychic is a relatively uncommon damage type, and so is not a great resistance to have, and being a Bear Totem Barbarian doesn’t change that. This telepathy, unlike the Ghostwise Halfling feature, has an actual use in being able to translate languages with its two-way communication, but it still is not that strong.

Kalashtar are decent, by virtue of Wisdom save advantage, but are outclassed by other races with Magic Resistance, and their other abilities aren’t particularly noteworthy. Verdan in particular are almost strictly better if you can use them.

Githyanki (MPMM) (★★☆☆☆)

You get proficiency in one skill and a weapon or tool of your choice, and can change this choice every long rest. You get resistance to psychic damage. You can cast mage hand to create an invisible hand, and get to cast jump at 3rd level for free once per long rest, and misty step at 5th level, both of which you can also cast with spell slots. Githyanki (MPMM) lost big time losing their proficiency in armor, which makes them a lot worse compared to their variant.

Gith (Githzerai) (MTF) (★★☆☆☆)

Advantage on saves against the charmed and frightened conditions plus a Spellcasting package that consists of at-will invisible mage hand, once per long rest shield at 3rd level, and a once per long rest detect thoughts at 5th. Shield is really good even if you only get the one. The save advantage is decent, as is detect thoughts. 

While Githzerai aren’t rendered obsolete by other races like many in this category, it’s hard to recommend them. None of their features really synergize, they don’t bring as much overall as many other generalists, and all of their features can also be found in other, stronger races. 

Orc (VGM/ERLW) (★★☆☆☆)

Quite similar to the other Orc version from MPMM. These get Darkvision, 2 skill proficiencies, and a Dash-like ability as a bonus action. However, this ability has the limitation that you must end your movement closer to a hostile creature, but can be used whenever you want. Similar to Tabaxi, but with more restrictions and a bonus action cost. However, this can be used turn after turn, and there are a few scenarios where that can be handy, the most obvious being an enemy with above 30 feet speed that persistently retreats. Better mobility is generally one of the stronger things a race can provide, but almost every other racial mobility feature has both less restrictions and a smaller action cost. Funnily enough, as this only works for hostile creatures, Orcs are one of the best races for a social intrigue game!

Bugbear (VGM) (★★☆☆☆)

Similar to its MPMM version, but with a worse Surprise Attack. Extra reach is a useful ability, but it’s not hard to replicate considering that you can get more range that also works outside of your turn just by using polearms or any ranged attack. The surprise damage is more interesting. It requires support, but that support can be in the form of someone casting pass without trace, which doesn’t present much opportunity cost to use as it’s one of the best spells in the game anyway. The lack of restrictions on this extra damage is important too: all at once, on the first turn, no limit on who it can target. You won’t get it in every fight in the same way you won’t get surprise on every encounter, but it’s enough of a bonus to create a niche, particularly for Rogues who don’t gain as much from stacking damage feats.

Goliath (MPMM, VGM) (★★☆☆☆)

Stone’s Endurance and cold resistance. The former is their signature feature, and in raw numbers it’s actually a pretty thick hit point buffer. With two short rests per adventuring day for the one from VGM, this is around 28.5 average total damage you can reduce, in three chunks, over the course of an adventuring day. The one from MPMM gets to use it a proficiency bonus amount of times per long rest, which would eventually catch up to this damage. This does consume our reaction, and a d12 can be swingy as well. Overall, a Shifter or a Triton is somewhat better, but Goliaths are quite usable. Altitude resistance is campaign-dependent, but has a niche.

Dragonborn (Ravenite, Draconblood) (EGW), Dragonborn (Standard) (PHB) (★★☆☆☆)

Both the original and Fizban’s Dragonborn share a Breath Weapon ability, but it works slightly differently for the original Dragonborn. The whole race pivots around its Breath Weapon as this huge, defining feature, and that’s a problem because it just isn’t. The lackluster scaling really lets it down later, especially as it always costs an action. 2d6 is genuinely good damage at levels 1 to 3, as it’s still basically a martial weapon’s worth of damage that can potentially hit 2 or more targets, but is quickly going to fall by the wayside once players get class boosts to damage, never mind multiple attacks.

The majority of Dragonborn’s power actually lies in its subraces, with both Ravenite and Draconblood granting Darkvision along with their subrace feature.

Subrace	Benefit
Ravenite (ERLW)	Once per short rest, you get to attack back with your reaction against a creature that hit you. It’s actually good value for levels before 5, and can go especially far for Rogues who can use it to potentially Sneak Attack again.  Between this and their Breath Weapon, low level Ravenites are similar to Bugbears with their combination of Darkvision and damage features. They’re worse, given that they rely on enemy positioning for their Breath Weapon and being attacked by an enemy for their revenge strike (which will rarely have optimal targeting as a result), but not needing any Stealth support can be nice.
Standard (PHB)	Gets one resistance of their choice from a short list, including options for common damage types like fire or poison, which is still quite good. Note, though, as with Fizban’s Dragonborn, this resistance is the same as their Breath Weapon damage, so the same deal applies here: Getting a common resistance is quite good, but your Breath Weapon will be worse off. Do keep in mind you will be using your Breath Weapon less with the PHB Dragonborn anyway.
Draconblood (ERLW)	The ability to roll a single Intimidation or Persuasion check with advantage per short rest. This feature provides no benefit that could not already be achieved during a social interaction from two or more characters teaming up together (see page 175 of the Player’s Handbook, under Working Together). In a situation where help during a social interaction is not possible or doesn’t apply, the feature does what it says: you gain advantage on one Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check. Overall, this is redundant at worst and likely niche at best. Darkvision combined with low level Breath Weapon is enough to be ok at low levels, but effectively having no subrace features is really rough.

Dragonborn get to be alright in the early game through combining basic stuff like Darkvision and resistances with their damage features before they fall off, while Ravenite+Sneak Attack can even extend that middling performance into higher levels. Not good, but could be worse.

Water Genasi (MPMM), Genasi (Water) (EEPC) (★★☆☆☆)

Shape water at will, once per long rest create or destroy water, acid resistance, the ability to breathe water, and 30 foot swim speed. Water Genasi are in a similar state to their fire brethren, being summarized as an alright race power budget-wise but with less features and a counterpart that grades out as generally superior (Tritons, this time). Shape water is a genuinely impressive cantrip, but acid is one of the worst resistances, and there’s no Darkvision for the old option. The package is still workable, mostly just because having shape water when no one else does is good enough to stand out, but unless you specifically want both it and the underwater talents, there are other races that fulfill a similar role. The Water Genasi from MPMM is slightly better off with the ability to be Small, Darkvision, a free cast of water walk from 5th level onwards, and the ability to cast both that and create or destroy water with spell slots.

Locathah (LR) (★★☆☆☆)

Locathah, similar to Grung, have a water dependency drawback, but it’s actually way more limiting. Instead of 1 hour per day, something you can do before bed, it is a submersion every 4 hours, meaning you’re forced to squeeze it in between adventuring days. Also, unlike Grung, there’s absolutely no leeway. If you miss your dip once then you just perish. You could apply the same strategies as Grung, be in an adventure near water, bring a container, or have a spellcaster, but it is not realistic to ignore that a single disruption in your logistics means instant death. That’s a problem. 

To its credit, Leviathan’s Will single handedly makes for one of the better defensive profiles in the game, and can to some extent carry the race. You also get a swim speed and water breathing, for what those are worth. You could also possibly negate the downside in a high level campaign by being a Zealot Barbarian. But really, if advantage on a bunch of different saves is what you’re after, just be a Duergar. They have just as many good saves, Darkvision, and a downside that won’t kill you immediately. 

Half-Orc (PHB) (★★☆☆☆)

Darkvision, Relentless Endurance, a skill proficiency, and Savage Attacks. Savage Attacks is some extra critical damage, which is not as good as many people think it is. A Barbarian with a 1d12 weapon rolling at advantage 100% of the time only gets an additional 0.6 damage per hit (not per attack, per hit). Just don’t fall into the new player trap of tunnel-visioning and trying to maximize Savage Attacks with negative value plays. Don’t ever take the 1d12 greataxe over the 1d10 glaive with reach for it, or dip 3 levels in Champion Fighter for it instead of Battle Master or Rune Knight, etc. Just have an already solid build and let the bonus damage be a bonus.

Half-Orc features aren’t strong, nor are they consistent, but they are at least always on and pretty universal. Almost every good race outclasses it either defensively OR offensively to a high enough degree that it’s never a standout choice.

Genasi (Air) (EEPC) (★☆☆☆☆) 

A worse version of the one from MPMM. You don’t have Darkvision, cannot be Small, and can only cast levitate once per day! You do at least get to hold your breath indefinitely. Levitate is a pretty good spell, especially when you consider how versatile it is, but it’s not strong enough that having it once per day would be enough to make for a solid race.

Kenku (MPMM) (★☆☆☆☆) 

None of Kenku’s features are combat applicable, which by itself can be totally fine (just look at Changeling), but they also just aren’t that strong. Two skills, while their best ability, still aren’t very necessary most of the time. Mimicry can be useful, but it’s still almost entirely outdone by learning and then casting the very easy to get minor illusion, which incidentally doesn’t come with a contested check. Expert Duplication is in a similar boat, though it’s a little bit more fortunate. Advantage on any check to produce a forgery is not fully covered by a forgery kit, since that’s documents only, but that is still the most common thing to forge in a game. This lack of overlap does mean there’s a specific Kenku use, but there is such a thing as too specific. Additionally, they get to roll an ability check with a skill at advantage a proficiency bonus times per long rest. The big issue here and with the duplication feature is that It is extremely unlikely that there is a game where picking a race to gain advantage on these checks is important, especially when there are other ways to gain advantage, like the Help action. 

Lizardfolk (VGM, MPMM) (★☆☆☆☆)

Almost everything Lizardfolk have competes against baseline options that improve over time, so they’re at their most impactful at levels 1 to 3. Given you’re in a game in that range, there’s another problem: their Natural Armor is most useful on light armor classes, while bonus action 1d6 bite that can give temporary hit points is most useful on builds that pump Strength so that said bite can actually hit. Never mind that almost all Strength builds want to find a way to attack with a bonus action every round anyway, which would just replace the bite. Those are the race’s two strongest features, and they don’t even work together.

What else do they get? Well the one from VGM gets Cunning Artisan, which lets you make some basic equipment which could be an income stream if you make shields and sell them, but there are already universal ways to make money in downtime. The ones from MPMM? They don’t get this feature at all. They can hold their breath for 15 minutes, but that’s almost a ribbon. 

If Lizardfolk could use all of their abilities to their best effect on a single character, they’d be passable. As it stands, they can’t, so they’re less than that.

Kenku (VGM) (★☆☆☆☆)

A direct downgrade from the MPMM Kenku, and that’s without getting into the difficulty of only being able to speak using Mimicry, however that is interpreted at your table. You should probably play something else.

Minotaur (MOT, MPMM) (★☆☆☆☆)

Minotaurs can bonus action attack after a Dash, which would count as a “character really needs to get into melee” option, albeit a bad one since you only get one attack, but it goes from bad to worse when you consider they have to do it with their natural weapon instead of an actual one.

Similarly, they can bonus action shove away after hitting with a melee attack, but builds that actually aim to shove enemies would much rather go for a contested check as opposed to risking both a miss and a successful save.

Unexpectedly, the new version in MPMM is worse compared to the one in MOT. The one in MOT gets a skill proficiency, which is traded for the ribbon abilities to know which way is north and advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to navigate or track.

Minotaur’s abilities aren’t literally useless, but they might as well be.

Human (Standard) (PHB) (★☆☆☆☆)

Racial ability scores of +1 to everything, and no other features. The good news is that this feature is entirely unique and something no other race gets. The bad news is everything else. For starters, this is the only feature, so while literally every other race gains at least some depth though having a profile of benefits, Human just doesn’t. +2/+1 is equivalent to +1/+1/+1 for almost everyone, so Human’s remaining edge is the ability to +1 a player’s lowest 3 ability scores. This is bad on the surface because maxed point buy only lets 2 of those be odd at most without losing points, (15/15/13/10/9/9 for example,) and standard array only has one odd in its bottom 3, so some of that potential will always be wasted on making a low stat odd unless you roll for stats and are lucky enough to get all odd numbers. If you manage to do that, it’s still bad fundamentally because you’re improving the stats that gain the least from being improved. Half the time that’ll manifest as +1 Strength /+1 Charisma / +1 Intelligence, which you probably won’t notice at all, but sometimes one of those is your main stat so you get to see +1 Dexterity or +1 Wisdom on there instead (on a class that can’t maximally use its benefits, of course). Is this an upside? Yes. Can it be the entirety of a race’s gameplan? Absolutely not.

So when the stars align for Human and you have both the right stat gen method and the right luck, you get something like 10 Dexterity instead of 8 on a heavy armor Paladin, or 10 Wisdom instead of 8 on a Wizard, which is some tangible gain but still less powerful than almost any other racial setup we’ve talked about so far. And most of the time you won’t be lucky and thus will be even worse. Mechanically speaking, we’d advise never touching the “standard” Human.

Rating	Races and Lineages
★★★★★	Tiefling (Winged) (SCAG), Fairy (MPMM), Owlin (SCC), Aarakocra (EEPC), Aarakocra (MPMM), Custom Lineage (TCE), Human (Variant) (PHB), Human (Mark of Passage) (ERLW), Earth Genasi (MPMM), Elf (Mark of Shadow) (ERLW), Dhampir (VGTR)
★★★★☆	Halfling (Mark of Hospitality) (ERLW), Human (Mark of Sentinel) (ERLW), Human (Mark of Handling) (ERLW), Half-Elf (Mark of Storm) (ERLW), Githzerai (MPMM), Yuan-ti Pureblood (VGM), Satyr (MOT), Simic Hybrid (GGR), Tortle (MPMM), Tortle (EGW), Dwarf (Mountain) (PHB), Gith (Githyanki) (MTF), Hobgoblin (VGM), Genasi (Earth) (EEPC), Goblin (MPMM), Goblin (VGM), Kobold (VGM)
★★★☆☆	Bugbear (MPMM), Aasimar (MPMM), Dragonborn (Gem) (FTD), Dwarf (Mark of Warding) (ERLW), Gnome (Mark of Scribing) (ERLW), Halfling (Mark of Healing) (ERLW), Half-Orc (Mark of Finding) (ERLW), Human (Mark of Finding) (ERLW), Human (Mark of Making) (ERLW), Half-Elf (Mark of Detection) (ERLW), Warforged (ERLW), Satyr (MPMM), Dragonborn (Metallic) (FTD), Changeling (MPMM), Yuan-ti (MPMM), Dragonborn (Chromatic) (FTD), Grung (OGA), Verdan (AI), Vedalken (GGR), Gnome (Deep) (MTF), Gnome (Forest) (PHB), Gnome (Rock) (PHB), Elf (Wood) (PHB), Harengon (MPMM), Half-Elf (Moon or Sun) (SCAG), Half-Elf (Drow) (SCAG), Elf (High) (PHB), Elf (Drow) (PHB), Eladrin (MPMM), Elf (Eladrin) (MTF), Shadar-kai (MPMM), Elf (Shadar-kai) (MTF), Elf (Pallid) (EGW), Half-Elf (Wood) (SCAG), Sea Elf (MPMM), Elf (Sea) (MTF), Half-Elf (Sea) (SCAG), Half-Elf (PHB), Reborn (VRGR), Aasimar (Protector) (VGM), Aasimar (Fallen) (VGM), Hexblood (VRGR), Dwarf (Duergar) (MTF), Duergar (MPMM), Dwarf (Hill) (PHB), Hobgoblin (MPMM), Halfling (Lightfoot) (PHB), Halfling (Lotusden) (EGW), Halfling (Stout) (PHB), Changeling (ERLW), Shifter (Beasthide) (ERLW), Shifter (Wildhunt) (ERLW), Shifter (Swiftstride) (ERLW), Shifter (MPMM), Centaur (MPMM), Centaur (MOT), Tabaxi (MPMM), Tabaxi (VGM), Leonin (MOT), Air Genasi (MPMM), Tiefling (Levistus) (MTF), Tiefling (Fierna) (MTF), Tiefling (Glasya) (MTF), Tiefling (Dispater) (MTF), Tiefling (Hellfire) (SCAG), Tiefling (Devil’s Tongue) (SCAG), Tiefling (Zariel) (MTF), Tiefling (Mammon) (MTF), Tiefling (Mephistopheles) (MTF), Tiefling (Baalzebul) (MTF), Triton (VGM), Triton (MPMM), Firbolg (MPMM), Firbolg (VGM)
★★☆☆☆	Kobold (MPMM), Deep Gnome (MPMM), Aasimar (Scourge) (VGM), Shifter (Longtooth) (ERLW), Halfling (Ghostwise) (SCAG), Loxodon (GGR), Orc (MPMM), Fire Genasi (MPMM), Genasi (Fire) (EEPC), Kalashtar (ERLW), Githyanki (MPMM), Gith (Githzerai) (MTF), Orc (VGM), Bugbear (VGM), Goliath (MPMM), Goliath (VGM), Dragonborn (Ravenite) (EGW), Dragonborn (PHB), Dragonborn (Draconblood) (EGW), Water Genasi (MPMM), Genasi (Water) (EEPC), Locathah (LR), Half-Orc (PHB)
★☆☆☆☆	Genasi (Air) (EEPC), Kenku (MPMM), Lizardfolk (VGM), Lizardfolk (MPMM), Kenku (VGM), Minotaur (MOT), Minotaur (MPMM), Human (PHB)

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We hope you have found this guide useful for building your characters. Thanks for reading!