I have started a campaign with a small group of dnd first timers (one of them is my 9 year old niece). I have based my campaign in the feywild and restricted my players choice of races (some RAW, some homebrew) to reflect that setting. They are a forest gnome, an eladrin (DMG version), and a dryad. I have a long way to go in the campaign but the endgame is an ancient black dragon who has been sending troops from the material plane in an attempt to take over the feywild. I want the campaign to end with them fighting the dragon in his lair, and I thought it would be cool if the dragon had permanently cast Forbiddance on the swamp surrounding his lair. This forces my players to enter on foot rather than teleporting right in from the feywild or something. BUT it also allows the area to deal damage to certain creatures, specifically including fey. And after I noticed this I realized a lot of spells have specific rules for fey and I need to know if any of my characters are fey for this purpose. I see a few ways to deal with this:
1. All of them are humanoid - I’ve seen some people interpret the character creation of the PHB to be that ALL player characters are automatically humanoid but I’m not sure about that.
2. All of them are fey - If you want to define fey more as a creature from the feywild, all of my PCs were born in the feywild and have lived there for their whole lives. Their families also have lived in the feywild for many generations. They have the spirit of the feywild within them. So I see a valid argument that they are ALL fey.
3. Some are fey and some aren’t. In this option, the forest gnome is obviously humanoid, and the dryad is obviously fey. The Eladrin is written as an elf subrace, and elves are humanoid. But Queen Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness are supposedly Eladrin and they are the fey-ist fey out there.
Mechanically by RAW, it's pretty clear what races would get hit by this effect and which wouldn't. The gnome and the elf are humanoid and the dryad is some sort of fey. Judging all Eladrin by a few of the most powerfully steeped in fey magic is probably a bad idea. However, you are the DM and if you would rather the group, having lived in the feywild their whole lives be counted as fey, then sure, go for it. Just be aware that lots of creatures call the Feywild their home and don't count as fey, just as many things call the Prime Material home and are all not one sort of creature type.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Eladrin are a little odd in terms of creature type. In Monsters of the Multiverse, the Eladrin race option for player characters is Humanoid, whereas the “monster” versions of the Eladrin are Fey. (Hobgoblins have the same dichotomy.)
There are a few Fey species available for player characters: MotM has the Centaur, Changeling, Fairy and Satyr, while Von Richten’s Guide has the Hexblood. Thus, you can have some (or all) the characters as Fey without breaking anything fundamental in the game. Just watch for the interactions with some Spells and other features, when they specify the creature types affected.
I think I agree with metamongoose about the gnome and dryad. But it is interesting about the Monsters of the Multiverse rules because it seems to support the theory that ALL player characters are supposed to be considered “humanoid” regardless of race.
I had homebrew options for Centaur, Satyr, and Pixie, and was frankly shocked that they went with Eladrin and forest gnome instead.
I think I will determine only the Dryad is fey, which is RAW as far as I can tell (for as much as a homebrew race can follow RAW). I’m glad at least one of them is, as it will force them to deal with the forbiddance spell rather than walking right through with no repercussions. And narratively, the players can see that the dryad is much different than them so it makes sense.
I think I agree with metamongoose about the gnome and dryad. But it is interesting about the Monsters of the Multiverse rules because it seems to support the theory that ALL player characters are supposed to be considered “humanoid” regardless of race.
But, they’re not all humanoid. I could see defaulting to that, and all PHB races happen to be, but many races are not humanoid. As it says in every racial description in MotM “Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race tells you what your character’s creature type is.” Most. Not all. Autognomes are constructs. Plasmoids are Ooze. And quite a few are fey here and there. In the PHB, it doesn’t look like they specify, but back then they hadn’t started adding in the funkier options.
FWIW, I agree with metamongoos’s interpretation, which seems like what you’re using. I just wanted to correct the record for creature type.
I wonder if 5th edition started with the assumption that all characters would be Humanoid, which would fit with the race descriptions in the PHB not specifying the creature type. That might explain why the Eladrin when it appeared in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes was Humanoid, despite the Eladrin Monster stat blocks in the same book being Fey.
When some of the later races were playtested, they experimented with hybrid creature types: the Minotaur and the Centaur were Monstrosity/Humanoid and the Dhampir and Reborn were Undead/Humanoid, if I recall correctly. They abandoned the hybrid types, and most were published as just Humanoid, except the Centaur is now Fey.
Species for Player Characters now specify the creature type. Most are Humanoid, but we now have at least five Fey options, a Construct, an Ooze and a Monstrosity (the Thri-Kreen). The play-test materials for the new PHB, due out this year, also included Creature Type as part of the description of the PC species (although all the species previewed for the new PHB are Humanoid).
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I have started a campaign with a small group of dnd first timers (one of them is my 9 year old niece). I have based my campaign in the feywild and restricted my players choice of races (some RAW, some homebrew) to reflect that setting. They are a forest gnome, an eladrin (DMG version), and a dryad. I have a long way to go in the campaign but the endgame is an ancient black dragon who has been sending troops from the material plane in an attempt to take over the feywild. I want the campaign to end with them fighting the dragon in his lair, and I thought it would be cool if the dragon had permanently cast Forbiddance on the swamp surrounding his lair. This forces my players to enter on foot rather than teleporting right in from the feywild or something. BUT it also allows the area to deal damage to certain creatures, specifically including fey. And after I noticed this I realized a lot of spells have specific rules for fey and I need to know if any of my characters are fey for this purpose. I see a few ways to deal with this:
1. All of them are humanoid - I’ve seen some people interpret the character creation of the PHB to be that ALL player characters are automatically humanoid but I’m not sure about that.
2. All of them are fey - If you want to define fey more as a creature from the feywild, all of my PCs were born in the feywild and have lived there for their whole lives. Their families also have lived in the feywild for many generations. They have the spirit of the feywild within them. So I see a valid argument that they are ALL fey.
3. Some are fey and some aren’t. In this option, the forest gnome is obviously humanoid, and the dryad is obviously fey. The Eladrin is written as an elf subrace, and elves are humanoid. But Queen Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness are supposedly Eladrin and they are the fey-ist fey out there.
Thoughts?
Mechanically by RAW, it's pretty clear what races would get hit by this effect and which wouldn't. The gnome and the elf are humanoid and the dryad is some sort of fey. Judging all Eladrin by a few of the most powerfully steeped in fey magic is probably a bad idea. However, you are the DM and if you would rather the group, having lived in the feywild their whole lives be counted as fey, then sure, go for it. Just be aware that lots of creatures call the Feywild their home and don't count as fey, just as many things call the Prime Material home and are all not one sort of creature type.
Eladrin are a little odd in terms of creature type. In Monsters of the Multiverse, the Eladrin race option for player characters is Humanoid, whereas the “monster” versions of the Eladrin are Fey. (Hobgoblins have the same dichotomy.)
There are a few Fey species available for player characters: MotM has the Centaur, Changeling, Fairy and Satyr, while Von Richten’s Guide has the Hexblood. Thus, you can have some (or all) the characters as Fey without breaking anything fundamental in the game. Just watch for the interactions with some Spells and other features, when they specify the creature types affected.
I think I agree with metamongoose about the gnome and dryad. But it is interesting about the Monsters of the Multiverse rules because it seems to support the theory that ALL player characters are supposed to be considered “humanoid” regardless of race.
I had homebrew options for Centaur, Satyr, and Pixie, and was frankly shocked that they went with Eladrin and forest gnome instead.
I think I will determine only the Dryad is fey, which is RAW as far as I can tell (for as much as a homebrew race can follow RAW). I’m glad at least one of them is, as it will force them to deal with the forbiddance spell rather than walking right through with no repercussions. And narratively, the players can see that the dryad is much different than them so it makes sense.
But, they’re not all humanoid. I could see defaulting to that, and all PHB races happen to be, but many races are not humanoid. As it says in every racial description in MotM “Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race tells you what your character’s creature type is.” Most. Not all. Autognomes are constructs. Plasmoids are Ooze. And quite a few are fey here and there. In the PHB, it doesn’t look like they specify, but back then they hadn’t started adding in the funkier options.
FWIW, I agree with metamongoos’s interpretation, which seems like what you’re using. I just wanted to correct the record for creature type.
Thanks for the clarification! I have not dabbled in any published materials besides the core books, so I haven’t had much to go on.
I wonder if 5th edition started with the assumption that all characters would be Humanoid, which would fit with the race descriptions in the PHB not specifying the creature type. That might explain why the Eladrin when it appeared in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes was Humanoid, despite the Eladrin Monster stat blocks in the same book being Fey.
When some of the later races were playtested, they experimented with hybrid creature types: the Minotaur and the Centaur were Monstrosity/Humanoid and the Dhampir and Reborn were Undead/Humanoid, if I recall correctly. They abandoned the hybrid types, and most were published as just Humanoid, except the Centaur is now Fey.
Species for Player Characters now specify the creature type. Most are Humanoid, but we now have at least five Fey options, a Construct, an Ooze and a Monstrosity (the Thri-Kreen). The play-test materials for the new PHB, due out this year, also included Creature Type as part of the description of the PC species (although all the species previewed for the new PHB are Humanoid).