One of the best things aboutDungeons & Dragonsis the variety of species your character can be, from elves to orcs, dwarves, tieflings, and even expansion books that allow you to play with creatures like goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and more. There are a lot of options out there.
That said, D&D has many famous monsters, and not all of them were adapted for players, as they weren’t meant to be in the players' hands in the first place. Still, you and your friends get to play however you want to, and if your DM gives you the green light to use a monster creature, you’re able to go for it. Which ones would be interesting choices, then?
For players: Keep in mind that all ideas here are homebrew, and you need to talk to your DM beforehand and get their approval before creating your character.
For dungeon masters: We’ll adapt some monsters into a PC version, nerfing some abilities or even removing others. It’s up to you whether you want to use our recommendations or do the homebrewing yourself.
7Humanoid Animal
Pick Any Animal And Have Fun
D&D already offers a lot of humanoid animals as playable species, like aarakocras, tabaxis, lizardfolk, and many others. Still, if there’s one animal that you want to play as that didn’t get such treatment, you may go to the list of animals from the Monster Manual, like wolves, and adapt them into a playable species.
If their monster version doesn’t offer a lot of traits, like the jackal, you can adapt real traits from the animal, traits from similar animals (wolves could work here for jackals, too), or use traits from similar creatures, like the jackalwere in this case.
Psychic
Tentacles
You can do unarmed strikes with your intelligence modifier (or spellcasting modifier).
Mind Blast
We recommend copying the dragonborn’s Dragon Breath but making it psychic damage, turning the damage die into d6s, calculating DC with spellcasting modifier, and making enemies roll an intelligence saving throw, where failing this saving throw stuns them.
Mind Flayersare some of the most popular monsters in D&D, so the idea of playing as one of them is exciting. They have to be tuned down to an extent, as they are too powerful to leave in a player’s hands, but they can work.
The roleplaying potential is also intriguing (though difficult, to be fair), as most people hate and fear the illithid, and you’ll need to eat brains to survive. Adding githyanki NPCs to the narrative would be a nice plus.
30ft (9m), 30ft (9m) climb
You can climb difficult surfaces, including ceilings, without ability checks.
Web Walker
Ignores movement restrictions caused by webs and can identify creatures in contact with the same web as them.
Spells.
You get Faerie Fire at level three and Web at level five. They can use each once per long rest without spell slots, or use them further by consuming spell slots.
Centaurs are already playable in D&D, so why not driders? They also work as terrifying creatures from a narrative standpoint, and if you and your DM are on board with the idea, you may also use the madness system with the drider character since the transformation twists the mind.
you’re able to also leave them as large creatures, something unique for player characters, or make them the smallest drider in the world by making them medium - something centaurs went through when they became playable, too.
Fey
Speak With Beasts and Plants
You can freely talk to animals and plants without requiring spells to do so.
Spells
You get Entangle at level three and Pass Without Trace at level five. They can use each once per long rest without spell slots, or use them further by consuming spell slots.
Tree Stride
If you’re in contact with a large or bigger tree, you may use your bonus action to teleport to another large or bigger tree within 60ft (18m) of you.
If being an animal doesn’t intrigue you, then you can always be a plant instead. Dryads are a great option for being unique without causing fear and disgust from NPCs, as the previous options will cause. Plus, you can talk to animals and plants, which is a fun roleplaying gimmick.
They are also a great option to playas a fey,which can be a magnificent character to have in the party if other fey creatures are going to be prominent in the story. Your clash with big cities is also a fun narrative to have.
3Mimic
Be Anything
They can use their bonus action to resemble any medium or smaller object. Other than that, the stats would depend on the object, so we recommend preparing a few beforehand, like a druid changing through Wild Shape.
If you want to make a fun concept with a friend, why not be one of their weapons? Or any weird object that has sentience of its own? They’re amorphous creatures that can take over any mundane objects, so you can swap as you go, too.
You could choose something that is human-shaped, like armor or a statue, but if you’re going with something without hands, we recommend your character to be a spellcaster so you don’t need to worry about using weapons yourself.
10ft (3m) of blindsight.
Sting
Once per long rest, one of your attacks can be a sting, that forces an enemy into a constitution saving throw (DC also based on your constitution). They take 2d4 poison damage and are poisoned for a turn. They roll again next turn, and if they fail, they fall unconscious for an hour or until someone wakes them up.
Most DMs dread flying characters, but adjusting their size is a fun way to balance that. That said, being a tiny creature makes up for the flying speed, andpseudodragonsoffer a very different way for the player to play the game.
It’s almost as if the player is a familiar, being able to get around tight places and do things others can’t, but they’re also easily grappled and tossed around by enemies in combat. We also recommend spellcasters here, though martials who don’t rely on strength can still excel.
Poison damage and condition.
Bloodied Fury
You have advantage on attack rolls when bloodied. Your melee attacks also cause an extra d6 damage when bloodied.
Quaggoths don’t have a lot going for them, but martial characters might enjoy the creature - though you can use the stronger version that has access to spellcasting as a reference, too, giving the species more variety.
Either way, they are similar to our first options, aka species that most people will treat like monsters, and you’re able to do interesting roleplaying out of that. They’re not common outside the Underdark, so people might not know you.
Some species here are too dumb to be fully sentient, but that is a liberty we took to make them viable options.
