Air Genasi: the secret best AL legal race?

[Foxhound438]

Air genasi get levetate as an innate spell, once per day, from level one. We all know that a lot of people hate other flying races because it can break early encounters, since a lot of the time you're going against fairly vanilla creatures that have little or no way of attacking at range. Something like wolves in the mountains can't do anything against an archer that's 20' or more above ground. Levitate in specific also gets around the trip and dispel tricks that can kill characters with other techniques for flight, since it's not flying and thus isn't beholden to the knock prone clause, and if it's dispelled or you lose concentration the spell has a built in failsafe of floating gently down rather than outright falling.

But, being once per day, and a concentration spell, and takes an action, and Levitate rather than proper Flying means that it's not really as much of a free win in some situations like a real flying race gets. It's basically what makes it balanced in terms of being used on yourself for mobility, since you can't use it to be perfectly safe in that wolf encounter and then the next thing you're going up a cliff to tie down a rope for everyone else to get up for free, and then do all sorts of other stuff that you don't need flying for per say but having it trivializes the issue... Long story short, it's not broken, but I think it's still pretty good. Even beyond getting up in the air yourself, you can move 500lb as an action which can be your way to get out of a situation, say a big drop down gate trapping your party in a hard to win encounter.

So what do you all think? have you ever played this race, and how good is having levitate once per day for free? Being on a race that gets dex+con, it looks like it might be pretty good on an archery focused fighter or rogue to me, and concentrating on the spell doesn't really cost them much since they otherwise aren't necessarily spellcasters.

[OldTrees1]

In AL, out of combat flight tends to be redundant with Athletics or Acrobatics because the challenges were not made with flight in mind.

In AL, you will frequently encounter enemies with ranged attacks so Levitation (or even Flight) are not as big a deal in AL despite what the AL Admins consider them to be. Even when the enemy does not have ranged attacks, an Air Genasi does not make the rest of the party levitate.

Air Genasi are a rather standard +3 race for any Dex based character. They do gain that Levitate once per Long in exchange for Normal Vision rather than Darkvision. I have seen the lack of Darkvision impact characters in AL.

So no, I don't think they are the secret best AL legal race. That honor probably still goes to the Pureblood or the extra secret Variant Pureblood.

[Aett_Thorn]

I actually find that Air Genasi are actually pretty weak compared to other races. Levitate is a decent spell at low levels depending on your build, but it’s not great and is only usable once per long rest. Unending Breath is great thematically, but is a bit DM- or story-dependent on whether you’ll be able to make use of it or not. I mean, how many times have you come across a problem that would be avoided if only you could just hold your breath longer?

[NaughtyTiger]

Yuan-ti definitely gets the title of most OP race.

Genasi as good. (I prefer Water, but I like Wis characters). It helps that they are in Elemental Evil, so you still get access to some decent spells.

You are correct about the advantage of levitate.
I am surprised about OldTrees1's comments, as I have not found ranged attacks to be that common in AL modules. (A common complaint by AL DMs)

[Snowbluff]

Not at all. There is a DM reward quest for social media that gives you a table item, which can be Broom of Flying or Winged boots.

[Griswold]

Xanathar's Guide to Everything is so good that basically everyone's going to want to use it as a +1. So I think that the best AL legal race is either something from the PHB or Tortles (which count as part of XGtE). If you want to avoid the standard Half-Elf and Variant Human choices, there's still a few good options opened up by XGtE.

Specifically, Drow and Wood Elves get really awesome racial spellcasting feats. Drow can get Detect Magic at will, Dispel Magic, and Levitate! Wood Elves get Pass Without Trace and a druid cantrip (Guidance? Shillelagh?).

[Foxhound438]

Thanks all for the feedback.

Like I said, there are certainly limiting factors on it compared to proper flying races, but having levitate is still pretty good by my estimation. Have any of you ever considered using the race, or has it flown under your radar because you always want XGtE as your +1 anymore like Griswold says?

I still wonder how many people have used the race though. I hardly ever see any discussion of it in build threads or anything like that.

[Rukelnikov]

I played one from GOOLock1 to StormSorcerer9/GOOLock7.

It was not AL, and it did ok, Levitate helped a bit on the early levels as a good CC, but if I wanted to stay away from my enemies attacks (and I usually did) I would use my concentration on Expeditious Retreat and just Dash + EB.

Hold Breath was useful an unexpected ammount of times during the campaign, but that's not somthing you can count on since its completely DM/campaign dependant.

[sophontteks]

Thanks all for the feedback.

Like I said, there are certainly limiting factors on it compared to proper flying races, but having levitate is still pretty good by my estimation. Have any of you ever considered using the race, or has it flown under your radar because you always want XGtE as your +1 anymore like Griswold says?

I still wonder how many people have used the race though. I hardly ever see any discussion of it in build threads or anything like that.
I want to like them, but they offer very little outside of levitation. The only other racial trait they have is water breathing. Genasi got shafted a bit there. The base race should offer more then just +2 con.

[Snowbluff]

Thanks all for the feedback.

Like I said, there are certainly limiting factors on it compared to proper flying races, but having levitate is still pretty good by my estimation. Have any of you ever considered using the race, or has it flown under your radar because you always want XGtE as your +1 anymore like Griswold says?

I still wonder how many people have used the race though. I hardly ever see any discussion of it in build threads or anything like that.

I have not. I usually go for more passive abilities, like Lucky from halflings.

I find Kobolds to be a sleeper hit. Either you get a Knave's Eyepatch, or play in mods without sunlight (of which there are MANY), and you have easy advantage on attacks. Easier still is getting a familiar to sit on your shoulder (or hide in your shirt) to trigger the effect of pack Tactics.

[Foxhound438]

Hold Breath was useful an unexpected ammount of times during the campaign, but that's not somthing you can count on since its completely DM/campaign dependant.

I certainly expect that these guys, as well as other amphibious races, will surge in popularity when ghosts of saltmarsh is out. I don't know how often you'd even need it there, but it's something that you'd rather not need without having in a game that apparently focuses largely on aquatic adventures.


I want to like them, but they offer very little outside of levitation. The only other racial trait they have is water breathing. Genasi got shafted a bit there. The base race should offer more then just +2 con.

I definitely agree that they should get like one more thing, even just a skill proficiency or something, but what we have is unfortunately it. I think that for the most part the spells are supposed to be considered a little better since you get a 2nd level spell as a 1st level character, but that of course only goes so far.

[Griswold]

I find Kobolds to be a sleeper hit. Either you get a Knave's Eyepatch, or play in mods without sunlight (of which there are MANY), and you have easy advantage on attacks. Easier still is getting a familiar to sit on your shoulder (or hide in your shirt) to trigger the effect of pack Tactics.

Yeah, if I was going to step outside of XGtE as my +1, I'd probably want to play a kobold. They're really cool flavor-wise, very strong in terms of the many ways to get pack tactics active, and I have a Knave's Eyepatch DM rewards unlock that I can claim. That, or take a race from SCAG and focus on Booming Blade as a tactic (Ghostwise Halfling Rogue?).

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, if I was going to step outside of XGtE as my +1, I'd probably want to play a kobold. They're really cool flavor-wise, very strong in terms of the many ways to get pack tactics active, and I have a Knave's Eyepatch DM rewards unlock that I can claim. That, or take a race from SCAG and focus on Booming Blade as a tactic (Ghostwise Halfling Rogue?).

Yeah usually it's blade cantrips or a specific race that ear me away from XGtE. Ghostwise was actually my choice for playing a druid/barb, as they have telepathy and Lucky which work while wildshape.

[Foxhound438]

Yeah, if I was going to step outside of XGtE as my +1, I'd probably want to play a kobold. They're really cool flavor-wise, very strong in terms of the many ways to get pack tactics active, and I have a Knave's Eyepatch DM rewards unlock that I can claim. That, or take a race from SCAG and focus on Booming Blade as a tactic (Ghostwise Halfling Rogue?).

is the eyepatch just a magic item that negates sunlight sensitivity? sounds pretty worthwhile.

[Griswold]

is the eyepatch just a magic item that negates sunlight sensitivity? sounds pretty worthwhile.

Yeah, that's what it does. It costs a stack of TCP, though, so it may not be worth it if your DM isn't invoking the sunlight sensitivity. I don't know how common it really is.