Homebrew Fairy Race Species Details

Flight: Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can’t use this flying speed if you’re wearing medium or heavy armor.

Super quick stats huh? But let’s dig into each of these features:

Creature Type: This may just seem like flavor at first, but it can actually have some major effects. Not so much because you’re “fey” but because you’re not “humanoid”. Mechanically there are some spells and abilities that will only effect or target “humanoids” specifically, and since you aren’t one as a fairy you can’t be targeted by them, can't be an affected creature and are basically immune to them. For example, the spells charm person, hold person, and dominate person all specify that their target must be humanoid.

Size: You’re small, and not tiny because WotC are cowards! My nerd rant aside, the lineage format also infuriatingly doesn’t really specify their heights or weights other than “small”, so we’re left to speculate. By the artworks and other “small” races your new fairy character should probably be about 3 feet to 4 feet tall, excepting the wings which may be “taller” when extended. And we’re guessing here, but probably around 30-40 pounds.

Speed: Pretty basic, you’ve got a 30-foot movement speed. However, your flight speed is tied to it which is very interesting...

Fairy Magic: You're a magical creature and that entitles you to some racial spells. This gives you the “standard” racial spell ability akin to many others including a cantrip, a 1st level spell when you hit your 3rd character level, and a 2nd level spell when you hit 5th. Druidcraft is a fun “creative” cantrip that has a lot of potential uses, the main use of Faerie Fire is to find invisible enemies and Enlarge / Reduce has great combat potential for the enlarge half and good scouting potential for the reduce half. Not to mention you can reduce yourself to finally be tiny-sized (at least for a minute). It also lets you choose between your Wisdom score, your Intelligence score, or your Charisma score for the casting stat on these spells making them potentially much more useful due to a higher saving throw no matter what class you're in.

Flight: The fairy is (insert trumpet fanfare) a proper flying race. You get a fly speed equal to your movement speed and the only caveat is that you can’t wear medium or heavy armor. 1st level flight is HUGE and there are countless problems that can just melt away because you have the power of flight. The armor limitation makes it awkward for some of the martial classes to make the best use of the fairy race, but it’s absolutely perfect for practically any spellcaster and the martial classes that rely on Dexterity instead of tough armor. Be prepared though, a lot of DMs have banned previous flying races before and your particular DM may not allow fairies due to the awesome power of flight. The other interesting thing is that your flying speed is tied directly to your walking speed, meaning that if you increase your walking speed your flying speed increases just as much and if you have the opportunity, you should try and gain magic items or spells to increase your walking speed for some additional fly speed.

Fairy Race Traits

Fairy race: Flight tied to walking speed, immune to humanoid spells, innate magic, advantageous flight, size 3-4 ft, 30 lbs.

Ability Score Increase/Decrease

Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1, but Strength score is decreased by -2.

Size

Fairy's are less than 1 foot tall. They have thin, lightweight bodies. Your size is Tiny.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Flight

You have a flying speed of 50 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common, Sylvan, and Elvish.