How would you walk through the world if you could put on a face as easily as you don a coat? If you could adopt the voice, the identity, the authority of the people around you? You might discard these masks easily, or perhaps maintain a selection of fully-developed identities. As a changeling, you may feel freer than other members in your party, and less known.

The changeling species first appeared in fifth edition in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. It was updated in 2022 for Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. The species supports characters who are talented infiltrators, diplomats, and tricksters.

Below, we take a look at their traits and review some recommendations when building a changeling.

• Changeling Traits and Lore
• Best Classes and Subclasses for the Changeling
• Recommended Backgrounds, Feats, and Spells
• Roleplaying as a Changeling

Changeling Traits and Lore

Artist: MICHELE GIORGI

Changelings hail from the Feywild, the land of extreme and fleeting emotion. Many in the Feywild are mercurial and fickle, shifting easily from one mood or opinion—or identity—to the next.

How Shapechanger Works

Changelings can be Small or Medium-sized creatures, and they have the standard 30 feet of movement speed. Their most iconic trait is Shapechanger. It allows them to alter their physical shape almost as easily as other humanoids can adjust their facial expressions.

Some changelings prefer to create whole personas around each of their appearances, while others prefer quick-use visages that they can toss away and forget about when they’ve outlived their use. Your changeling could use a different face for swindling, sneaking, and fighting.

Shapechanging takes only a few seconds, and there is no limit to how many times a changeling can alter their form. Shapechanging can alter your voice, hair length, height, and other similar characteristics, but your game statistics remain the same.

For example, you might be able to adopt the appearance of scales and sharp teeth, but you couldn’t mimic a dragonborn’s Breath Weapon. Importantly, you are limited to your current basic body shape, i.e. bipedal with four limbs. Unfortunately, this means that your espionage plans can’t include shapechanging into the villain’s housecat—but the butler is fair game.

A Species Tailor-Made for Social Encounters

Helpfully, the Changeling Instincts trait provides two additional skill proficiencies from a list tailored to social interactions:

• Deception
• Insight
• Intimidation
• Performance
• Persuasion

Many changelings select the bard or rogue class (more on that later), which bestow skill proficiencies and expertise. But if you don’t want to play one of those classes, then your Changeling Instincts can still help ensure you’re capable during social encounters.

Fey in More Than Name

Unlike many other D&D species, changelings have the Fey creature type. This can feel like a boon in some moments and an obstacle in others.

For example, you are unaffected by common spells that only target Humanoids, such as calm emotions, crown of madness, and hold person. However, your identity may be revealed by spells such as detect evil and good, and some clerics and paladins will be able to turn you with their Channel Divinity features—although, as you’ll see below, there’s a spell for that.

Best Classes and Subclasses for the Changeling

Changelings are well-suited to an infiltration or social role in the party. If you want to focus on sneaking around castles, stealing valuable artifacts, or assassinating enemies, the rogue class might fit best. If you want to focus on lying through your teeth and using a carefree and confident demeanor to freely enter into a room you shouldn’t be in, or enchant a group of guards, look to the bard class.

However, while both the bard and rogue are excellent choices for the changeling, they aren’t the only options if you want to lean into trickery and subterfuge.

Sorcerers and warlocks can also be great choices for a changeling. Neither class boasts the ability check bonuses of a bard, but using a sorcerer’s Subtle Spell to cast calm emotions could be even more effective than a well-placed lie. A changeling warlock with Eldritch Invocations that allow it to cast disguise self, levitate, and silent image at will could be just as effective for an infiltrator as any bard or rogue.

Our Favorite Subclasses for Changelings

Several subclasses provide unique bonuses that befit a changeling looking to swindle or steal:

• College of Whispers: A College of Whispers bard makes for an excellent saboteur or assassin. When you sneak through the shadows and kill one of the king’s guards, the Mantle of Whispers feature will magically bestow you with some of the guard’s memories, to help you pass yourself off as them. Then, once you’re near the king and it’s time to make your move, the Psychic Blades feature will add psychic damage to your weapon attacks.
• Fey Wanderer: The Fey Wanderer ranger can add their Wisdom modifier to Charisma checks, allowing for otherwise unattainably high bonuses to some of your most frequently used skills. This archetype also adds a bit of extra psychic damage to your weapon attacks, and grants you spells that any sneaky or deceptive character would appreciate.
• Soulknife: Nearly any rogue archetype will treat your changeling well, but the Soulknife is practically tailored to the changeling’s playstyle. Their features are on any changeling rogue’s wishlist: a touch of telepathy, a dash of teleportation, a boost to ability checks, invisibility without requiring concentration, and weapons that disappear without leaving behind any physical evidence.
• Trickery Domain: The Trickery Domain cleric can create illusory duplicates, and gains access to spells like pass without trace and modify memory. If nobody sees you coming, they won’t expect it when you hit them with inflict wounds!

If you have a vision for your character—how you want them to behave in battle, during tense social situations, or as part of a con—then your class and subclass give you the tools to realize that vision. If you’re imagining a psychic assassin, the Soulknife might help you bring that concept to life. But what if what you want for your character can’t be provided by one class or subclass alone? Consider multiclassing.

A changeling College of Eloquence bard multiclassed with Fey Wanderer ranger could convince me that it was nighttime at high noon. A rogue multiclassed with the Champion fighter subclass and two levels in paladin can use their bonus action to Hide, attack an enemy from hiding (granting advantage), land a critical hit on a 19 or 20, add a Divine Smite to the hit, and then use Action Surge to heal themselves or an ally. Multiclassing can help you become a niche expert in a type of combat, or can broaden your character’s horizons and round out their skillset.

Recommended Backgrounds, Feats, and Spells for Changelings

Artist: GRZEGORZ RUTKOWSKI

Backgrounds

• Charlatan: If you’re adopting personas left and right, it may be challenging to keep track of all your identities, their documents, and details. Fortunately, the charlatan background grants you proficiency with a disguise kit, forgery kit, and all of the necessary materials to maintain a second identity.
• Courtier: A courtier is a person in a noble court or aristocracy. You traffic in clout, information, and gossip. Use your Shapechange feature to turn into a servant or a tax collector to suss out dirt on your opponents, or learn what motivates them.
• Criminal: Who makes a better thief than someone who steals your wallet with one face and blends into the crowd using another? If you’re inclined to adopt the appearance of a security guard as part of a heist, you may want to take the Criminal background. You gain proficiency with thieves’ tools and in Deception and Stealth. The Criminal Contact feature also connects you to an underground network of other criminals. If you don’t want to play a rogue but do want to be able to sneak around, try out a little crime!
• Faceless: The Faceless background helps you maintain the integrity of an additional identity. The Dual Personalities feature ensures that you have at least one persona that reliably fools people: "Upon donning a disguise and behaving as your persona, you are unidentifiable as your true self." Pick up this background if you’d like a few in-game connections that already know you as a false identity.
• Urchin: The Urchin background helps you expertly navigate around a city. As a changeling, you might be able to adopt a new face and blend into a crowd, but as an adventurer, you’ve probably got a party of friends traveling alongside you! The Urchin’s City Secrets feature will help you quickly lead them through a city’s shortcuts and lesser-known routes. This background also grants proficiency in thieves’ tools, allowing non-rogues an opportunity to sneak and steal.

Feats

If permitted by your Dungeon Master, feats grant your character unique abilities that can radically change how they approach combat, exploration, or roleplay. A good feat either rounds out your character by providing a skillset you feel their build currently lacks, or helps them specialize in a particular playstyle.

• Actor: The Actor feat is practically made for the changeling. It bestows a +1 to Charisma, and it grants you advantage on Charisma (Deception) and Charisma (Performance) checks when trying to pass yourself off as a different person. A changeling is much more likely to make these checks than most other characters, so you may find yourself using this feat’s benefit quite often.
• Alert: If you’re going to be sneaking around and lying all the time, you’ll need to watch your back. You might change shape when you think you’re unseen, only for a hidden guard to fire their crossbow bolt at your back. If you have Alert, you cannot be surprised while you are conscious, and other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you. You’re also much more likely to make the first move due to the feat’s +5 bonus to initiative! If your cover gets blown, this feat can keep you alive.
• Mobile: The Mobile feat shines in combat, but it can also keep you alive if you get caught scheming. Your movement speed increases by 10 feet, and you can ignore difficult terrain when you use the Dash action. No standard street guard is going to catch you when you’re running that quickly through a thick crowd! But you might most appreciate the Mobile feat after you roll initiative; if you make a melee attack against a creature, you do not provoke opportunity attacks from them for the rest of the turn.
• Skill Expert: Who doesn’t love doubling their proficiency bonus when making an ability check? The Skill Expert feat provides a little bit of everything: +1 to an ability score, proficiency in one skill, and expertise in another skill. It’s most useful for changelings who didn’t want to play a bard, ranger, or rogue, but still want a high bonus to a critical skill like Deception, Insight, or Perception.
• Telepathic: Telepathy can open many doors that your quick-thinking social skills may not have been able to fake. If a guard asks you for the password to a protected area, simply hop into their mind with detect thoughts, take a peek around, and provide the password. This feat can also radically change the way you coordinate with your allies. Your allies might know that you’re disguising yourself as the target’s bodyguard, but which one? Use your telepathy to tell your party members exactly where you are, or when you intend to act.

Spells

If your changeling is a spellcaster, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to use magic to amplify their trickery. Remember that if a spell you want isn’t available for your class, you may be able to ask a fellow party member for help, or there may be a magic item out there that can allow you to cast it.

• Arcanist’s Magic Aura: What if being recognized as Fey was optional? This spell has the aptly-named Mask effect, which can disguise the way you appear to spells and magical effects that detect creature types. This can even trick powerful spells like symbol or hallow, which enemies may be relying on for protection. How safe would Frodo have been if an orc could have approached without Sting glowing blue? Your targets may find out.
• Dimension Door: Time to run! Dimension door is an excellent spell for getting the heck out of dodge when your cover is blown. Teleport up to 500 feet away, to a place you need not see. When your pursuers catch up, you may be wearing an entirely different face. This spell can also be used for infiltration, perhaps to jump to the other side of a vault door.
• Disguise Self: Shapechanging is useful, but it doesn’t affect your clothes. If you’re wearing elaborate, brightly-colored robes in the middle of a crowd of simply-dressed folk, tweaking your eyebrows and sharpening your cheekbones isn’t going to fool anybody. Sometimes, you need to radically change your appearance, all the way down to the shoes. For that, you’ll need disguise self.
• Pass Without Trace: When it’s time to sneak, you’ll want pass without trace. This spell grants you and any nearby allies a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and it lasts for an hour. Compare this to invisibility, which grants advantage to your Stealth check, does not aid your allies, and is broken if you make an attack or cast a spell.

Roleplaying as a Changeling

When playing a changeling, you have an opportunity to explore themes of identity and growth that few other character builds can provide. Who are you, underneath all the masks?

How your character feels about their abilities may be heavily influenced by how they grew up. Someone who grew up stealing their meals with one face and fleeing with another may have a different attitude toward shapechanging than one who has only ever alternated between the same three personas.

If your character cultivates personas methodically and carefully, what does the process of "retiring" one look like? If, conversely, your character prefers to change faces as frequently as clothes, what would it take for them to become attached to one particular personality?

What does inner growth look like, when you can decide what you look like on the outside? When you can adapt your height, your size, your hair, your voice, how do you adapt to criticism about things that aren’t as easily changed, like the way you communicate?

Your character might be used to maintaining different circles of friends for each of their distinct personalities. How does that affect your party dynamics? If maintaining one identity around so many varying people is not something you’re used to, how is it making your character feel?

Building Your Own Changeling

There’s no wrong way to approach building your character. You can start with a sense of what role you want your character to play in the party, what city or culture you want them to hail from, or you may want to try out a specific mechanical build. Follow your gut, and play what feels fun.

When you’re ready to roll some dice, jump into the D&D Beyond character builder and get started!

Damen Cook (@damen_joseph) is a lifelong fantasy reader, writer, and gamer. If he woke up tomorrow in Faerûn, he would bolt through the nearest fey crossing and drink from every stream and eat fruit from every tree in the Feywild until he found that sweet, sweet wild magic.