D&D: Be The Elephant In The Room – Play A Loxodon
Loxodon are a hidden gem of D&D–their trunks and powerful build give them a unique advantage. Here’s what you can get out of playing a Loxodon.
The Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica introduced some of our favorite concepts in D&D, including the Circle of Spores Druid and the Order Domain Cleric, but the real treasure is in the new creatures you can play. Everything from Viashino to Vedalken and back, including the focus of today’s spotlight, the mighty Loxodons. These powerful pachyderms can pack a mean punch. But before we get into what they do, let’s talk a little about who they are.
Ravnica is a massive city-wide plane, and Loxodons are one of the rarer sights within it. They typically tend to be found in Selesnyan Conclave, which means they are all about protecting nature and community–but there’s a big paladin/cleric undertone to most of them. If you look at some of the famous Loxodon cards (and some of the not famous ones), you’ll find Loxodon Hierarchs and Smiters, and are classified as Elephant Clerics, according to the arcane taxonomy of Magic the Gathering.
Even looking outside of Ravnica to the other big Loxodon-heavy plane, Mirrodin, shows us mystics and monks. Wherever they show up, Loxodons seem to drift into priests and warriors and druidic types.
They are also skilled crafters, known for their skill at working stone and metal. They are all consummate smiths, which seems like a great way to launch into what the PC race is actually like.
Loxodons have one of the most curious traits in D&D, their Trunk. This lets you have an extra appendage you can use to do many simple tasks–including grappling someone or making an unarmed strike, meaning you can grapple someone and then still whomp on them with a two-handed weapon. You can also use it as a snorkel.
It also grants you a Keen sense of Smell which grants you advantage on Perception, Survival, and Investigation checks that involve smell.
As far as what their build actually grants them, you get some pretty stout stat bonuses, starting with +2 Constitution and +1 Wisdom, making them able to compete with Dwarves for strong Cleric choices. They also make excellent Monks, and might be one of the stronger races with Powerful Build and Natural Armor–this one in particular is pretty spicy. It grants these elephant-men a 12+Dex modifier natural AC bonus, which is better than most folks with natural armor get. It’d be even better if you didn’t rely on your Dex and could let the 12 stand in for the Dex half of the equation when putting together AC combos for Barbarians and Monks, neither of whom can combine their Con or Wis bonuses with the Loxodon’s inherent armor to get even more AC. Which is good–I don’t think they need that, but it would be nice to say, as a Barbarian, my AC is 12 + Con modifier, or what have you.
Finally they’re rounded out with Loxodon Serenity which gives them advantage on saving throws against being Charmed Frightened. So all in all, good stat bonuses that skew them towards divine casters and burly brawlers.
Happy Adventuring!
