Ranking Every Race In D&D 5e 

Heh, i‘m backer number 178. kickstarter launched like half an hour ago and it‘s already funded 200%

Those Praying Mantis arms are Cyberpunk’s Mantis Arms in D&D and I love it

firbolgs?

You forgot about the Thri-Kreen.

@@Qualman701 And Aasima r

Didn't most PHB Dragonborns eventually hate being a dragonborn?

True

"When everyone is a super, no one will be."

Nah, it's elf breh 😂

No it's Grung. Grung are just the best race. 😊

Honestly confused how every elf isn't S if they can trance to switch proficiencies and have double advantage with Elven Accuracy.

@@Dazen101cause that requires you to take a feat so doesn’t count when you’re rating species

It can’t be elves, fuck the knife ears

@@Barely_Edited I feel it should be factored if it's a race exclusive feat but each their own.

@@Dazen101 I thought that for half orcs. orcish fury allows for decent at will burst when getting a crit

The only way to get heavy armor proficiency by multiclassing is multiclassing into Cleric, specifically.

We're rich!

Replying to myself, certain Artificer subclasses have it as well, I just forgot about Artificer for a sec

@@Mr.Monacle Or by starting with a level in Fighter (which also then gives you proficiency in CON saves) or Paladin.

IF YOU DONT ROCK AND STONE, YOU AINT COMING HOME!

Would you keep those abilities with a Damphir, because Bite Cleric would be a concept!

If thats a selling point for you you could just play a satyr with 35 base move speed and magic resistance who also have 25 speed in heavy armor and 8 strength

@@Anthony-wt3zv i feel like the stat spread would be wasted in dex, if your wearing heavy armor to begin with there is no need for dex. but they might make better dex paladins with their charisma.

@@mortaljokes There is still need for Dex - for Saving Throws, Ability Checks, and attacks with ranged weapons and finesse weapons. With heavy armor on, the only bonus from Dex you'd lose is the AC improvement - which you kind of don't lose, because the heavy armor just has a baseline better AC. And obviously you'll lose access to any features that are blocked by wearing heavy armor. Your investment on Dex is only wasted if you take a role in the party that keeps you away from situations that require Dex. A Hill Dwarf makes a cool (Tasha's) Ranger with heavy armor, especially if your DM lets you train armor proficiency instead of requiring you to take a feat for it. Alternatively, as the above, you could easily justify a 3-level-dip in Armorer Artificer just for the infiltrator armor, without having to invest a ton on Intelligence. Predator, ho!

@@mortaljokes With the Tasha's alternate rules you can just move the dex bonus to another stat.

Rock Gnome.

As a Dwarf I feel disrespected for being confused with a gnome

@@TheDwarvenHeart my apologies, Int is my dumpstat

yeah you’re right Plus I didn’t see the under dark Dwarves nor thri kreen

@@nicholasesquivel6827 Because they're in the MotM video.

More like dnd LONGS

More like DND lo-... Oh

more like dnd LONGS

More like D&D LONGS

Remove space between words & remove L from its right, then we'll talk

Yeah, the only benefit of Vanilla human is that it's easy to reach the ability score requirements of multiclassing some bonkers combos. Bonkers as in "why would you ever", not as in "this is OP". As in "I want to be *every class".*

I had a character I made base human for reasons like that. Rolled really high on pretty much all stats (15 was the lowest and all the others were 17, 18 or 19) so I figured why not? Got to spend pretty much every ASI level I earned on feats to make the guy more interesting instead. (Normally I prefer the more animal-esc races because I love having to account for non human sensibilities and mannerisms while still making them fun and interesting people beyond that but making my guy some sort of eldritch 'afterlife protector/guide' having a living vacation as 'a totally normal human grave cleric' made for a ton of fun, especially with how difficult it was for him to account for the weirdness of fragile human existence -smart enough to understand those things once prompted but well. The rest of the party certainly never ran out of useful things to do in or out of combat around the guy, that's for sure~ XD)

Also human might be good depending on the setting. Usually its a lot of humans and humans are filthy racists so you probably have a better time being a human.

This is pretty good for point buy as well if you go with 5 13s... It's not remotely meta but sometimes above average Joe is fun to play.

You could just run Path of the Beast Barbarian, and that gives you natural weapons when you rage. You won't need to multi-class at all, and still get the benefits you describe - except the extra beefiness the bear gives you, but do more damage, as the Beast weapons are better than the soulknife blades.

@@bskec2177 or just play a monk

@@sev1120 BAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Reckless sneak Attack... My favorite combo!

Except soul knives suck. They were much better as a Mystic subclass than as a thief's. You make the blade only ONCE per attack action, so even if you multiclass, its just a d6 and a d4 bonus action blade. The soulknife NEVER improves as a weapon, nor its damage die, nor as a plus to hit or damage weapon. Essentially, you get a makeshift weapon that looks good and will never be disarmed. A main subclass feature to an aternal secondary or tertiary weapon.

Flying psychic "scream" barbarians. Mother of goat!

Absolutely, my friend plays an emerald totem barbarian and he is an absolute menace to put down☠

Yep, and Aasimar are solid S tier as well, though if I recall he for some reason ranked them lower. Celestial resistance, healing hands, dark vision, flight, and stacking radiant damage? Yeah, S tier.

Same goes for Lizardfolk.. really sad

let's be honest, how many campaigns are set for the most part in darkness? that's why they are C tier

@@Guille2033 The entire Out of the Abyss adventure takes place in the Underdark. I've run a campaign in Lankhmar where the party was a group of criminals running jobs for a powerful organized crime syndicate. They did things during the day, of course, but all the important action happened at night. Like so many other things in D&D, it all depends on the circumstances.

@@Josh-99 that's correct. A very small and limited number of campaigns are set in mostly darkness. That's why OVERALL Drow are C tier, which is what the C tier is about

@@Guille2033 I don't know if you ACTUALLY read my post before hammering away at your keyboard, but I clearly stated that Drow can be considered of higher rank in specific circumstances. So... What the hell are you even talking about? I never even disputed the general rating. Did you stop reading 5 words into my post and proceed to frenetically reply?

Fun fact drow are both only called drow and have their sunlight sensitivity in the forgotten realms setting where they're a race that's been cursed so say you're in a homebrew setting for example you'd be called a dark elf and you'd be perfectly fine in the sun

if you play (or splash) twilight cleric you can generate an aura of low light in 30' radius. Low light counts as a lightly obscured, so...

Minor illusion + woodelf + prestitigation= Free invisibility spell.

...You know I always wondered 'what would I do with a slime character if I made one' but thanks to you I am now 100% gonna make a metal slime at some point. Seriously thank you

​@@FaisLittleWhiteRavenI like the idea of a plasmoid draconic sorcerer. 2 levels in tempest cleric meta Magix all your spells to lightning and be a little ecectro slime 😊

Really wish all the "best races for X class" websites would change their guides since now you're basically choosing a race based on the feature it gives you.

We should really get an update on the human race, what would be the best? Im guessing white Black Asian White Mexican Latino

The first level mutations can be downright OP in the right campaign to be honest. You can have a cheap always on version of spider climb, a cheap always-on version of feather fall/fly or always on water breathing which also grants swim speed (objectively better than the spell being cast on you as the spell doesn't grant a swim speed and while 24hrs is a long time, forever is longer). For the level five mutations, I love Carapace because who doesn't like +1AC, great for people using no armour through to medium which is most classes. Acid Spit is admittedly better than I originally gave it credit for. 11 damage on average, half on a successful save but at least that number goes up over time (16.5 @ 11 level > 22 @ 17 level), it's not spectacular damage at high levels but it's more than I can say about Grappling Appendages. This is the only mutation I don't think I would ever take, even if I was building a brawler who likes to grapple. You can't use the appendages to hold/use items, but that might be slightly OP if they could. You have to hit with an attack using them before you can use your bonus action to try to grapple the same target. Probably would've been better if the condition for trying to grapple wasn't reliant on your attack with them hitting first and or if the damage at least increased as you levelled up (bigger die, like Monks - your attacks aren't magical though so Monks still have that going for them).

Mark of Hospitality Halflings can be busted with the right class, such as Life cleric, now you have a +3 to all your healing spells and an expanded spell list that gives you goodberry giving you for the low cost of 1 1st level spell slot 40 points of healing, preferably out of combat but it can neutralize the need for short tests for martials entirely. There’s also Aid so if you play a class that don’t get access to it you can eventually just cast it for those sweet extra HP to your party. They’re not just good for role play and businesses, they’re quite effective as supports, another combo is to play a sorcerer with this subclass and before you end the day burn all but your 1st level spell slots and then generate more 1st level spell slots to spam goodberry into a bag of holding since they last for 24 hours giving you massive amounts of healing the next day.

No you become Grimlock

If you're strength based then you won't have the +3 Dex required to make medium armour master useful

@Alexander Lea Certainly not all that likely, no. The main advantage would be not having disadvantage of Stealth, with possibly getting to a +3 Dex more dependant on how long the game goes and if there is anything the DM is going that can be used yo that goal. But one cannot quite rely on those things.

Probably B tier, they're very meh

I would say they are more than likely A if not S. Natural armor that gives you an insane AC without needing to wear anything and also gives you a bonus on Stealth checks. The built-in telepathy for stealthy plays. Not to mention the main feature which is all the silly and powerful combos and builds you can pull off with 4 arms. You could wear two pairs of living gloves, cast spells without putting away your shield or weapon, grapple someone and then use your baby arms to apply a contact-based poison, play an artificer artillerist and you can hold your tiny cannon in your extra set of arms, use the extra arms to activate cloak of the bat and glide while still having access to your weapons. Just saying the utility is pretty OP when you think about how much two extra arms having to manipulate objects or items can be. I mean technically RAW a Thri-Kreen artificer armor wearing their arcane armor has two sets of gloves as they have 4 arms and thereby baby arms get thunder gloves and big arms can wield other things and you can use both as the baby arms wouldn't technically be wielding anything.

S without question

@@joshdimaggio5764 good one

He also forgot the grung and the locathah

Did you even rate the aasimar?

@@CristianStOnge it’s in the other video since it got a update in Mordenkainen.

Resisting Radiant damage is almost entirely irrelevant unless you have a cool DM that specifically goes out of their way to give enemies radiant damage, but resisting Necrotic damage is amazing for nearly every level.

Too bad it’s because they can inherit a flying speed. Kinda wish he made a seperate entry for each of the lineages accounting for if you started off as one or didn’t have any special traits that carried over. But they are really cool nonetheless.

Fr bro kobolds are amazing

@@MayHugger So? It’s an infusion. Use it again the next day. Nothing says you can’t keep your homunculus day after day. It’s a familiar, basically. It’ll cost your infusion slot. As for the familiar, that lasts till it dies, whether or not you keep your spellwrought tattoo up. I don’t know what the tinkering feature from rock gnome figures here - I did rock gnome as I state for flavor and S size (for Squat Nimbleness) and nothing else.

@@alejandrogomezdelmoralguer3502 My mistake, I couldn’t understand what the rock gnome part was for, so I assumed it was for the Tinkerer feature, but if you want that feat, Hexblood can just be small size.

I really like the aven too

Tbh, that's how genes work. Beneficial genes are passed down because it improves your survival chance while those traits that give disadvantage slowly get pushed out. Now add an elf living for 750 years rocking plenty of good traits.

Just like Saiyans!

One more would be Goliath

@@dragonhunter3300 You're right, I can't believe I forgot goliaths.

Did you not see the start or the end of the video?

Specifically, he has a separate video for races from Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse.

thri-kreen is missing too :(

….Y’know, that’s a cute little message you’re trying to spread, but it’s a little hard to take seriously when you say that the best race is the one people want to play, and then follow up with mentioning your favourite being objectively one the best.

@@MayHugger No, my favourite race is preferentially the best choice, because it's the one I like playing.

Woah! Calm the hell down man!

Especialy casters

There are no skill checks in 5e. The "skill check" would be a Charisma Check, to which you might get to add your proficiency bonus if you have a relevant proficiency. Maybe performance? iunno.

@@TheRawrnstuff oh. Didn’t realise skill checks weren’t a thing in 5e lmao

This used to be the Bluff skill (Charisma based)

I’d say performance.

@@MsKeylas oh I was going to say, have I been playing wrong this whole time

Kalashtar is also Nice ocnsidering the MASSIVE telepathy ability. And their twin mind ability.

@@KneGros-nc1ss psychic powers are very useful if you actually think about how to use them

Those aren't player species.

They are constructs. Autognome can count as a construct. Thats a captrip AS a HEAL. A Free god damn heal!

What a disgusting exploit. 10/10

@@AwesomeWookiee ;)

​@@AwesomeWookiee not really, since if you start your character as a dhampir, you explicitly cannot get the flying speed. You have to start as an Owlin then convince your DM to let you become a Dhampir.

I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe it gives you access to heavy armor, ancestral legacy states “Ancestral Legacy: If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.” So to me you gain a flying speed from the flight trait, meaning any restrictions that came with it remain, although I could be incorrect and you just pick up the speed

@@t-mango2491 It specifically says “Any flying speed you gained” It does not say “Any trait that gives you a flying speed” Though, as always with fifth edition, that’s quite vague and up to interpretation. However, I think a literal interpretation leads to what I mentioned.

Some of them suck however. Like the halflings unless your DM allows a trading campaign as a side dish to your main one.

Those would also not have the superior darkvision, because they were not forced to live underground.

A tad too powerful early on

You forgot nearly uncounterable spellcasters. Counterspell requires "1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" But, Thri-Kreen language itself is not fully Verbal, they have different body structure, and their extra arms can be doing the material components behind their backs or under cloaks and other things... Thri-Kreen can exploit a myriad of tricks to either make their spells invalid targets for Counterspell, or force a Spellcaster to risk every gesture and action is a spell that they might need to cast Counterspell to stop.

​@@TxSonofLiberty 💀💀💀

Me too, I've always loved them and kinda have a thing for them ngl

I... have questions. Why were you living with a roommate instead of like... with a family member? How could your jobs legally fire you? Did you not seek medical attention? If I was growing so quickly it caused physical agony, I would probably seek medical attention because I'd be worried I had a brain tumor or something. How were you working, legally, at 14 anyway?

@@Mr.Monacle None of it was legal. I moved out of my mom's house very young, hospitals kinda creeped me out back then, and mostly, I was an idiot, I was 14.

@@andyspillum3588 I see...

Based on having played it for over twenty years... can't recommend it. It's a fantasy game for a reason.

Vanilla Human Banneret (aka Purple Dragon Knight). It's pretty good compared to a standard Human Commoner.

Vampire weakness is all in the e. Dhampirs got rid of theirs 😉

Dhampirs are not whole Vampires but half Vampires or hybrid of Vampire and living being, so they don`t have the full power of a Vampire but neither their weaknesses

They’re half-vampire

In Slavic mythology dhampirs don't have any weakness but are a little bit weaker then vampires

Magical staff or wand in 1 hand, shield in another, high con wizard for AC14-15, and casts with their semi-hand trunk

Oh sorry AC16-17 with the shield

@@KneGros-nc1ss actually you'd need to hold the staff or wand in the trunk and cast with the free hand most of the time. Loxodons specifically can't cast with theor trunk. The rules around casting and free hands are both complex and basically insane. But generally, you only need to be holding a staff or wand to get whatever benefit they provide you (+1 to hit or to DC's, etc) and the trunk does that job just fine.

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If you were a monk with dash and speed boots. You would be a living meteor.