How to Work Around Being Fey

[Tectorman]

So Ravnica is coming out soon and Centaurs are Fey. Not sure why. It isn't altogether out there (4E Centaurs were Fey), and it might make a whole lot more sense if I were more familiar with MTG's lore. On the other hand, I would have left it at Humanoid and been done with it (possibly adding in advantage on saves against spells that specifically call out "only works on humanoids"). But it is what it is.

But being Fey has a few complications. Protection from Evil and Good, Magic Circle (if the caster picks Fey), Forbiddance (also, caster-choice-dependent) and Hallow just flat out workon you, no save. Also, your Ancients Paladin buddy turns you when he uses his Channel Divinity.

And yes, being Fey also confers some straight up immunities (spells that specify "humanoids only"). But for all the times you want to avoid a "Fey hammer", how can you?

I looked at some likely candidates, but Alter Self, Nondetection, and Nystul's Magic Aura don't seem like they do the trick. Polymorph replaces your statistics with a beast's; presumably that includes creature type so it should work. Antimagic Field works from a sledgehammer approach. Reincarnate works, if you don't mind dying first.

Can anyone think of any other ideas?

[JellyPooga]

Suck it up and take the good with the bad?

Don't play a Fey player character?

Avoid using those Class features and spells yourself and tend to avoid characters that use them as well?

Playing a different creature type than humanoid is more than just playing a different set of immunities and vulnerabilities; it's an entirely different outlook. Take another look at those features and spells that are troubling you; what's their source (in general)? They tend to be used by Clerics and Paladins; proxies of the divine powers. Fey, as a rule, are proxies of the Feywild themselves; they draw their power and very being from another plane of existence and also tend toward being capricious and unpredictable; neither feature usually associated with the dedication and devotion required for being a Cleric or Paladin and I doubt they'd have much fun hanging around those kinds of characters. That's not to say they can't, of course, but you'd be playing as something of an "oddball" (like the Half-orc Wizard or Tiefling Paladin) if you did.

[Ninja_Prawn]

My feeling on this is that, if the party is going to include fey creatures, the mechanical infrastructure of the game needs to expand to permit that. Introduce new spells (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/03/fey-spells.html) that would be popular in the feywild but unknown outside of it, a new paladin oath (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/12/oath-of-never-setting-stars.html) that represents how fey creatures would interpret the 'green knight' archetype, etc. In here (https://www.patreon.com/posts/fey-folio-17893628), I also introduce new backgrounds, new poisons, new magic items, new weapons and a new wild magic table. Not all of that is necessary if you're just dropping a Ravnica centaur into a regular game, of course, but it's there to use if you want it.

[Man_Over_Game]

I mean, consider the fact that Goblins, Crow people, Cat people, Lizardmen, and Evil Snake people are all official options, acceptable is the most strictly controlled games (Adventure League).

A small handful of utility spells can/can't be used on you. Some of them good, some of them bad. I'd still say you'd be better off in my campaigns than a Goblin.

[MThurston]

You are born that way.

[stoutstien]

I mean, consider the fact that Goblins, Crow people, Cat people, Lizardmen, and Evil Snake people are all official options, acceptable is the most strictly controlled games (Adventure League).

A small handful of utility spells can/can't be used on you. Some of them good, some of them bad. I'd still say you'd be better off in my campaigns than a Goblin.
Why so much goblin hate?

[Man_Over_Game]

Why so much goblin hate?

They're monsters. You play a Tiefling in some places and some people might try to show you your place.

200 years ago, real people weren't friendly to people of the same race. Now ask yourself how long Elves live, and how much they'll care that a few goblins have started "playing nice" for 1/4 of a generation.

[Vogie]

Have a discussion about it with your DM. You've got a couple potential outs.

Perhaps you're not a natural Centaur, which would be a fey, but rather a human that pissed off a deity and was cursed to be a centaur, not unlike Hera transforming Lamia or Athena transforming Medusa.
Perhaps the reason Centaurs are fey is that they are, in fact, nature spirits. Maybe that actually provides some benefits that would counter the downsides you've listed.
Centaurs in general are fey, including you, but you've gone through a process to make you not count as one. Maybe you have some sort of amulet, ring, or even horseshoes that make you count as a non-fey humanoid.

[LordEntrails]

Gotta agree with JollyPooga on this.

If you are looking to "work around" one of the core features of a race, then you shouldn't be playing that race, imo.

I mean, you can play the game how ever you want, but working around a core part of a race is not playing that race...

[stoutstien]

They're monsters. You play a Tiefling in some places and some people might try to show you your place.

200 years ago, real people weren't friendly to people of the same race. Now ask yourself how long Elves live, and how much they'll care that a few goblins have started "playing nice" for 1/4 of a generation.

Okay so it's not mechanical it's purely a narrative reason.

[Man_Over_Game]

Okay so it's not mechanical it's purely a narrative reason.

My bad, I should have been more clear. I don't nerf goblins mechanically, they just...might not live long except in the most lucrative of societies.

[stoutstien]

My bad, I should have been more clear. I don't nerf goblins mechanically, they just...might not live long except in the most lucrative of societies.
So the Irish?

[Tectorman]

Gotta agree with JollyPooga on this.

If you are looking to "work around" one of the core features of a race, then you shouldn't be playing that race, imo.

I mean, you can play the game how ever you want, but working around a core part of a race is not playing that race...

I'm not looking to work around a "core feature" of the race. I'm looking to work around Centaurs being Fey, which I don't buy as a core feature. Seriously, when you picture a Centaur adventurer, are the first things you think of their attendance in the Faerie Courts, their inscrutable mindset, or their alien presence in normal reality?

'Cause for me, it's the hooves. And I'm not trying to work around that core feature in the slightest.

[JellyPooga]

I'm not looking to work around a "core feature" of the race. I'm looking to work around Centaurs being Fey, which I don't buy as a core feature. Seriously, when you picture a Centaur adventurer, are the first things you think of their attendance in the Faerie Courts, their inscrutable mindset, or their alien presence in normal reality?

'Cause for me, it's the hooves. And I'm not trying to work around that core feature in the slightest.

When I think of Orcs in D&D, I see Games Workshop Orks in my head, but I'm wrong. When I think of Wererats, I'm thinking Skaven and I'm still wrong.

Being Fey, or whatever creature type, is about as core a concept as you can get (seriously, it's the first thing after the name in every Monster Manual entry) and if you want to ignore that because you're just thinking of hooves, you're just as wrong as me with the Orks and the Ratties.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm going to have to agree with a few other posters. Using magic spells to be inventive and creative is one thing.

But if a character concept relies on the idea of a reincarnation spell, I think you might be going a little overboard in trying to make the fey thing work. At that point, I think you need to have a good chat with the DM on how much magic you can reliably depend on, and what the DM has in mind to make the problem interesting and not overbearing.


I'm not looking to work around a "core feature" of the race. I'm looking to work around Centaurs being Fey, which I don't buy as a core feature. Seriously, when you picture a Centaur adventurer, are the first things you think of their attendance in the Faerie Courts, their inscrutable mindset, or their alien presence in normal reality?

Well, it's a whole lot better than their mythological origins as being pretty rapey, soooooo...Yeah. Let's go with the fey thing. Sounds great. Give them some sparkly wings and flowers in their hair.

Also, while centaurs weren't fey in earlier editions, they did have extreme connections with elves, fey, and prancing about the wilderness since at least third. They don't have sylvan as a racial language because they went to centaur college.

Not only that, but even if centuars were say, laser firing robots in the actual DnD lore, Ravinca is based off of a different property entirely. I think I would have some issues with a player complaining that a campaign based off of Magic the Gathering was in fact, faithful to the lore of Magic the Gathering.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Also, while centaurs weren't fey in earlier editions

They're not fey in the 5e Monster Manual either, for the record. I think this is purely a Ravnica thing (not that I know anything about that setting).

[Spriteless]

About the flavor fitting; M:tG doesn't have creature subtypes in the rules. Well, the cards for sentient races will have a race and sometimes a job: Human Wizard, Centaur Cleric, Goblin Beserker, etc. Everything (save Planeswalkers) can be banished equally. But Centaurs are associated nature, so it fits well enough.

In Ravnica, there are big angry centaurs with horns in Gruul, and smaller peaceful hippy Celesnia centaurs. The monstrosity/fey divide is a way to codify that fluff difference. But if you want to play a Gruul, I guess either your parents were from another part of town, or you are a foal, or the horns and size come from some ritual that important centaurs use once they've proved themself which no one has mentioned up until now, or, ahh, this is silly.