And the people themselves – people of varying size, shape, and color, dressed in a dazzling spectrum of styles and hues – represent many different races, from diminutive halflings and stout dwarves to majestically beautiful elves, mingling among a variety of human ethnicities.
Scattered among the members of these more common races are the true exotics: a hulking dragonborn here, pushing his way through the crowd, and a sly tiefling there, lurking in the shadows with mischief in her eyes. A group of gnomes laughs as one of them activates a clever wooden toy that moves of its own accord. half-elves and half-orcs live and work alongside humans, without fully belonging to the races of either of their parents. And there, well out of the sunlight is a lone drow – a fugitive from the subterranean expanse of the Underdark, trying to make his way in a world that fears his kind.
– Players Handbook
Many old school players are familiar with ability scores assigned to races. High Elves were more intelligent, Dwarves were hardy (constitution), Humans well rounded.
With the introduction of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, D&D has moved towards a system of either +2/+1 or three +1 increases to your stats.
In that system, race has become more cosmetic, for better or worse. A Dwarf Wizard can identical in ability scores to an Elf Wizard.
Here we present the list of available Races in D&D 5th Edition:
Common
- Dragonborn
- Dwarf
- Elf
- Gnome
- Half-Elf
- Half-Orc
- Halfling
- Human
- Variant Human
- Tiefling
- Feral and Variant Tieflings
Exotic
- Aarakocra
- Aasimar
- Aetherborn
- Autognome
- Changeling
- Deep Gnome
- Drow
- Duergar
- Eladrin
- Fairy
- Firbolg
- Genasi
- Giff
- Githyanki
- Githzerai
- Goliath
- Harengon
- Kenku
- Locathah
- Loxodon
- Mousefolk
- Owlin
- Pixies
- Rabbitfolk
- Satyr
- Sea Elf
- Shadar-Kai
- Simic
- Tabaxi
- Tortle
- Triton
- Verdan
- Vedalken
- Warforged
Monstrous
- Bugbear
- Centaur
- Dhampir
- Goblin
- Gnoll
- Grung
- Hobgoblin
- Kobold
- Lizardfolk
- Minotaur
- Orc
- Reborn
- Shifter
- Thri Kreen
- Yuan-Ti
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Rich is an avid D&D player and DM. He has been playing since the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st and 2nd editions. He has run campaigns of various editions with family and friends for over 20 years. Playing DnD 5th Edition in person at local game stores and online with VTT’s over the past 10 years has provided a consistent connection to how the game has grown. He strongly believes in understanding the source material, but catering the games to your individual players. Feel free to ask anything in the comments or drop him an email: [email protected].