Summary
Choosing a species inDungeons & Dragonsis often the least impactful part of your character build, since the abilities the choice gives you are all at level 1; they rarely grow as you level up. If they do, they are often built around access to spells that you might be able to cast anyway.
If you look hard enough, however, you might find species that offer other wild benefits, and we aren’t just talking about flight speed. Some of these abilities could be game-breaking, so talk to your DM before planning a whole character around their one unique quirk.
7Tabaxi
Running Cats
The Tabaxi don’t seem all that strange when compared to other species, particularly the animal-like ones. As expected from a species that looks like a cat,they are all incredibly dexterous, curious, and can easily climb thanks to their claws.
Their strange feature, though, is their Feline Agility, which lets them double their speed during their movement. This burst of movement needs to be recharged by not moving on their next turn, but beyond that, it doesn’t cost an action, making them too good as ranged classes that rely on careful positioning.
6Loxodon
One Powerful Trunk
A Loxodon is basically a sentient, bipedal elephant with rough enough skin to give them natural armor. While players might be drawn toplaying a Loxodon due to their mighty figure, they often forget their main feature: the trunk.
A Loxodon’s trunk can be used to hold small objects, but it can’t be used to manipulate tools or wield weapons. It can, however, be used to make a simple unarmed attack, which might not seem like much, but it allows melee combatants to make a secondary attack with it as a bonus action; otherwise, that bonus action is often wasted.
5Tortle
Their Shell Is A Blessing And A Curse
A Tortle’s main advantage is, as you can imagine, their shell, giving them a natural armor score of 17. While the number is impressive, it comes with limitations: your Dexterity score can’t increase that number, and you can’t wear any kind of armor (although shields work as usual).
This all makes the Tortle species a hard one to build around, at least on the higher levels. Early on, they are one of the strongest species, since very few things can hit you on level 1 with an AC score of 17, and since it is natural armor, a Tortle Wizard can double up as the damage dealer and the tank of the party.
4Warforged
Machines Meant To Last
A Warforged works like a sentient robot, which comes with all the benefits you’re able to expect from them, like not needing to sleep, eat, or breathe. Their metal bodies are also very resilient, giving them a +1 to their armor class, but that isn’t their only interaction with armor.
When a Warforged wears armor that it is proficient with, it needs to spend 1 hour to meld with it, essentially making it part of its body. While this makes them efficient tanks, it becomes odd when you think about how they interact with sentient magical armor or traps that remove all your magic items, making Warforged a walking headache for DMs that want to apply those special scenarios.
3Grung
Always Thirsty
Most species on this list are strange for their positive traits, but the Grung ends up having more negatives than positives. Their main disadvantage, Water Dependency, makes them need tosubmerge themselves in wateronce per day, or else they gain one level of exhaustion.
Their other strange problem is their poisonous skin, which can, as expected, poison anyone who comes into contact with them. While that sounds like a plus, spells like Cure Wounds require you to touch your target, so a Grung Priest might be doing more harm than good when trying to help their party members.
2Thri-Kreen
They Can Lend You More Than One Hand
Whilethe Thri-Kreen has a lot of interesting features(like natural camouflage or telepathy), the main reason anyone picks this species is their four arms and the many possibilities that they add in terms of combat. We have some bad news, however: they can’t attack four times, since attacking is still an action, and you can only do one additional attack with a bonus action.
The smaller arms of a Thri-Kreen can only wield light weapons.
This doesn’t mean there are no advantages to having multiple arms, since what changes is not the number of attacks but the kinds of things you can wield. You can, for example, have a short sword on your smaller arms for a secondary attack, while your main weapon is either a two-handed Greataxe or a one-handed weapon that lets you have a shield on your other big arm.
1Plasmoid
Blobs Can Be Heroes, Too
When talking about strangeness, the fact thatyou can play as a sentient blobshould be strange enough. But Plasmoids let you do more than just look featureless; it is all around their slimy nature.
When squeezing through crevices, your DM might allow you to take some of your items as long as the crevice in question is big enough.
Thanks to their Amorphous ability, Plasmoids can squeeze through very narrow spaces, but their equipment can’t normally go with them. If you want to make the most out of this feature, you’d want classes that don’t rely on weapons and armor too much, like Monks or Warlocks.
