A Guide to DnD 5e Races

What is a Race in DnD 5e?

There are many different types of creatures that call the wondrous, fantastical lands of D&D home. These creatures vary wildly from your plain old humans to axe swinging Orcs to experimental creatures that have been fused together by magic. Many of these creatures started off as a stat block in one of the many monster sourcebooks that have been released by Wizards of the Coast, in order to widen the player’s and DM’s ability to shape their worlds, they have been made into playable races.

What DnD 5e Races Can I Play?

According to the Player’s Handbook, the most common character races are dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans. There are more uncommon races such as dragonborn, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings. In Volo’s Guide to Monsters, it is mentioned that the supplemental races provided in the sourcebook are rarer than any of the “standard” classes presented in the Player’s Handbook.

Below is a list of all of the playable races and their subraces in D&D 5e. If you want to learn more about a race or its subrace, click on the link in the “Race” column to visit our Race Guide page. Keep in mind that your DM has the final say when it comes to which playable races are included in their campaign.

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Update

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (TCoE) introduced a new option called “Customizing Your Origin”. This optional rule allows you to take the Ability Score Increases (ASI) that you got from your race and apply that to another Ability Score to better represent your unique character.

This would mean, if you had an elf that you wanted to be strong instead of dexterous, you could transfer the typical +2 DEX bonus to +2 STR. The only caveats are:

• You can’t bring any ability score above 20
• If you receive 2 ASIs as part of your race, you cannot increase the same ability score twice

Customizing Your Origin also outlines rules for switching out languages and proficiencies from your racial traits, but these have less of an impact on our race and class guides.

We have chosen to keep our race and class guides “as is” to represent the typical ASIs, proficiencies, and languages of races as they are displayed in their official sources. Due to the unlimited variability offered by the Customizing Your Origin option, it would be impossible to take all combinations of ASI increases into account.

A Quick Overview of D&D Races

DnD 5e Races Ability Modifier Breakdown

We took a look at all of the D&D 5e Race’s Ability Modifiers and have come up with some interesting data that will help you when you are trying to pick a race that will mesh with your intended build. Keep in mind, this table excludes 11 Races that do not apply a +2 racial bonus to ability modifiers.

Looking at the tables above, we can see a number of interesting takeaways:

DEX is by far the most common +2 racial bonus

This is great news for Rogues, Rangers, and Monks, all of which draw their AC, Attack, Damage, Stealth, etc from their DEX modifier.

WIS and INT both have very few +2 racial bonus

An even more interesting conclusion is that only 2 of these races are from the PHB: the Rock and Forest Gnome. This can be quite limiting for the large majority of classes that use their WIS as their spellcasting modifier (Ranger, Druid, Cleric, Monk). That being said, both WIS and INT have the most common +1 racial bonus.

DEX + CON bonuses are more common than STR + CON bonuses

This certainly goes against the grain because STR based melee fighters are more likely to tank than DEX based fighters due to a higher AC.

Races Going Forward

As of Wild Beyond the Witchlight (September 21, 2021), races will go in the direction that Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything started. This direction allows free customization over the race’s ASIs and languages, while still providing certain racial features and proficiencies. The way that races will function in new books is as follows:

Ability Score Increases

No preset ability score increases. After selecting a race, players will choose whether they:

• Increase one ability score by 2 and another score by 1
• Or increase three different ability scores by 1

Age

No age range is provided. Instead, it is stated that races will age similar to humans and will live for about a century if they don’t meet a violent end. A note is provided saying “members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries.” This leaves the actual age range of races up to DMs interpretation.

Alignment

No alignment suggestions will be provided. Characters are to choose their own alignment.

Size

Some character races will be able to choose between the small and medium creature sizes. Also, no suggestions will be made surrounding a race’s typical weight and height.

Languages

Races no longer inherently come with language proficiencies. Instead, characters automatically learn common and are allowed to choose one other language to learn.