Gith Guide 5e

What is this guide?
This guide is meant to give you an idea of whether or not the gith will be right for your 5e character build.
The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good that option will be for your gith. This color coding isn’t a hard and fast rule; there are plenty of sub-optimized options out there that will be viable to your party and will be fun to play.
- Red: Weak, unlikely to contribute to your build
- Orange: Situationally good, but below average
- Green: A solid choice
- Blue: A great option worth considering
- Sky Blue: One of the best choices for optimization
What are Gith in 5e?
Source: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
The gith, once servants of the mind flayers, overthrew their masters to obtain freedom. After their victory, two factions quickly formed with opposing views on how they should move on with their lives.
The githyanki are angry at their circumstances, believing they have the right to to kill whoever and take whatever they want. Their hatred for the mind flayer still runs very deep and they wish to destroy them all. On the other hand, the githzerai have chosen to cut themselves off from the world, taking refuge in an impenetrable fortress and only venturing out to eradicate nearby mind flayers.
Even now, the githyanki and githzerai have inconsolable differences and will kill each other on sight.
Gith 5e Traits
Ability Score Increase: +1 INT is pretty bad. Very few classes need INT and most that do want +2. Luckily the gith subraces add more meaningful ability score increases to this baseline, but they don’t really pair well with INT.
Size: Medium is the typical size of most races, and is neither good nor bad.
Speed: Gith have a standard walking speed of 30 feet.
Gith 5e Subraces
Githyanki
Githyanki have a bizarre mish-mash of ability scores and traits. They don’t seem to be designed for any one class or build, though the spells offer good utility to all.
Ability Score Increase: STR and INT don’t really go together, though STR builds can just ignore the INT if necessary.
Decadent Mastery: Learning languages isn’t too exciting, but a free skill proficiency is a nice bonus.
Martial Prodigy: This trait is interesting because it allows INT spellcasters a chance to use medium armor and wield swords. Martial Prodigy opens the door for some unique character builds, even if they aren’t optimized. STR builds will flat out ignore this because they will likely already have access to the weapons and armor.
Githyanki Psionics: These spells don’t require components and use INT as the spellcasting modifier.
- 1st level
- Mage Hand: Mage hand provides a lot of utility for a caster, allowing them to extend the range they can grab or interact with objects, with little combat benefit.
- 3rd level
- Jump: Tripling a creature’s jump distance isn’t usually worth a 1st level spell slot.
- 5th level
- Misty Step: Misty step is the staple movement spell for those classes lucky enough to have access to it. It can be cast as a bonus action and avoids opportunity attacks.
Githzerai
Githzerai also have strange ability scores. The racial trait is generally more useful than that of the githyanki and none of the spells are a miss.
Ability Score Increase: WIS and INT don’t really go together since spellcasters either use one or the other, though WIS builds can just ignore the INT if necessary.
Mental Discipline: Charmed and Frightened are very annoying conditions in the best case, and really deadly in the worst case. Having advantage against these conditions will make it far less likely that you succumb to them.
Githzerai Psionics: These spells don’t require components and use WIS as the spellcasting modifier.
- 1st level
- Mage Hand: Mage hand provides a lot of utility for a caster, allowing them to extend the range they can grab or interact with objects, with little combat benefit.
- 3rd level
- Shield: This is a great spell to have in your pocket when you’re stuck in a sticky situation. Obviously, the most common use for this spell is to cast this spell when you get hit by an attack, and the +5 boost to your AC will cause the attack to miss. If you have a particularly low AC, you might find this spell sits on the sidelines more often than not at higher levels when enemies get higher attack bonuses.
- 5th level
- Detect Thoughts: Useful spell for interrogations, or to determine if there are any hidden creatures near your location.
Sources Used in This Guide
- : 2014 Player's Handbook
- 2024 PHB: 2024 Player's Handbook
- BR: Basic Rules
- GotG: Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
- SotDQ: Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
- ERLW: Eberron: Rising from the Last War
- EEPC: Elemental Evil Player’s Companion
- EGtW: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount
- FToD: Fizban's Treasury of Dragon
- GGtR: Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica
- MotM: Monsters of the Multiverse
- MToF: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
- MOoT: Mythic Odyessys of Theros
- PAitM: Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse
- PHB: Player's Handbook
- SAiS: Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
- SCoC: Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
- SCAG: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
- TCoE: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
- TTP: The Tortle Package
- WBtW: The Wild Beyond The Witchlight
- : Unearthed Arcana
- VRGtR: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
- VGtM: Volo's Guide to Monsters
- XGtE: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything