Elves and dwarves are iconic fictional species across countless fantasy settings, and feature heavily in the world ofDungeons & Dragons.Both have been choices for player characters since the very first iteration of the game, and both have reworked rules in the2024Player’s Handbook.And while changes to such staples of the setting can be hard to get used to, the buffs to these species' features provide them both with a much-needed power boost.
While dwarves and elves remain popular choices for player characters, they have been seriously outclassed by newer choices like aasimar, changelings, and firbolg. Especially by the timeMonsters of the Multiversecame out with revamped versions of manyDnDspecies, it felt like some of the older choices had gotten left behind. But with new rules in the 2024Player’s Handbookrules, it’s easy to see that much work has been put into evening out the power offered to players by their character’s species.
Improvements To The Elf Species In D&D’s 2024 PHB
A More Magical Focus Than Before
Theelf in the2014Player’s Handbookgot a few cool features, but too many of them felt niche. Trance let them rest more quickly and Fey Ancestry helped them resist being charmed, but neither comes up that often in mostDnDgames.They had proficiency in perception and darkvision, which are both good, but offered to many other species. And their subspecies, the high elf, wood elf, and drow, felt imbalanced in the extra powers they granted.
The new elf focuses more on the species' innate magical connections, granting each subspecies a selection of spells they can cast as they level up. These include options likefaerie fire,misty step, andpass without trace, many of which will come in handy often. They retain a lot of their old features, keeping Trance, darkvision proficiency, and Fey Ancestry, and get a wider selection for their extra proficiency. They can choose insight or survival if players prefer.
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Each subspecies choice gets its own passive features as well. Each gets an extra cantrip that pertains to the typical environment of that type of elf, drow get better darkvision, and wood elves have a faster movement speed. All in all, the drow is largely unchanged, save for better spell selection and the removal of sunlight sensitivity. Butthe wood and high elf subspecies benefit greatly from their own spell lists, which they did not have previously in fifth edition.
Dwarves Have More Versatile Abilities To Make Use Of In D&D’s 2024 PHB
One Particular Feature Goes From Useless To Amazing
Dwarves were no slouches in earlier versions of the rules, withplenty of powers that gave them heightened durability beyond other choices. But they’ve always had one feature that ends up being pretty useless: Stonecunning. As written, it allows dwarves to have a better chance of succeeding on history checks to identify the origins and features of stonework. Players were lucky if they got a use out of this feature once in a campaign.
Now, Stonecunning is one of the dwarf’s best abilities; it can be used as a bonus action for a dwarven character to gain tremorsense for ten minutes, basically allowing them to know where anything and anyone touching the ground within sixty feet of them is. It’s great for avoiding the downsides of being blinded and finding creatures that are hiding or invisible, and it can be used multiple times per day.
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Aside from that,the dwarven subspecies are consolidated together, so each provides buffs to the dwarf in general. All dwarves get improved darkvision, once only a feature for duergar, and they all get one extra hit point per level. Finally, their speed is made 30 feet instead of 25, and they retain their poison resistance. Despite the subspecies consolidation taking some elements of player choice away,dwarves with all of these features are very strong.
How Will These Revised Species Stack Up Against Others In The 2024 Player’s Handbook?
Origin Features Change The Game
Of course, these two species aren’t the only ones getting reworked in the newPlayer’s Handbook.There are 10 total species in the new book, including the human, goliath, and halfling. Regardless, it seems the goal of this species update was to make them all equally viable choices for player builds. And aside from that, they have all been affected by the way that the new book rules player Origins.
Species in the 2014Player’s Handbookhad much more of an effect on the kind of character a player could make. The added versatility of these species' features and the new emphasis on backgrounds makes that less of a restricting factor.
Player Origins include both a character’s species and background, and the amount provided by each has been evened out.Species no longer determine ability score increases, and some of the most powerful species have had their features worked back slightly. It is yet to be seen how some of the most powerfulDnDspecies, like the yuan-ti with their poison immunity and spell resistance, get updated in the new rule set, but it seems likely they will have their features debuffed.
This does come with the added bonus of a feat at first level, determined by acharacter’s 2024PHBbackground, as well as backgrounds feeling more important in general. In previous fifth edition books, they felt like ribbon features at best; now, they are being built to carry weight equal to character species, which should help balance out the different choices players have for character creation. All in all, the rebalancing done in the newDungeons & DragonsPlayer’s Hadnbookshould make more builds viable for players to create, and the elf and dwarf more tempting as options for players to choose.
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Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson. The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the ’70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.
