D&D Race Guide: How to Play a Fairy
With natural magic, flight, and small of size, a Fairy may be a surprisingly useful character to take on your next adventure.
Dungeons and Dragons is a game set in a big, magical setting. So of course you may want to play a magical character or two. There are all sorts of magic-based classes. But what if you don’t just want magic to be your character’s job? What if you want it to be baked into everything that they are? Well the official adventure, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight may have your perfect character with Fairies.
“The Feywild is home to many fantastic peoples, including fairies. Fairies are a wee folk, but not nearly as much so as their pixie and sprite friends. The first fairies spoke Elvish, Goblin, or Sylvan, and encounters with human visitors prompted many of them to learn Common as well. Infused with the magic of the Feywild, most fairies look like Small elves with insectile wings, but each fairy has a special physical characteristic that sets the fairy apart.”
Fairy Traits
Picking Fairy for your next playable D&D race will give you a lot of freedom in character creation. Right off the bat, you’ll get a +2 increase to an ability score of your choice as well as an additional +1 to another score. Otherwise, you can take a +1 to three different skills.
Fairies are also members of the Fey, have a lifespan of about a century- so a little longer than your average human- and are considered “small” creatures. But despite their size, Fairies still have a very average walking speed of 30 feet.
After all of that is where Fairies get pretty interesting as player characters. Natural “Fairy Magic” gives them the Druidcraft cantrip for free as well as the spell Faerie Fire at the 3rd level and Enlarge/Reduce at the 5th. Access to these is, of course, in addition to any other spells they may get as part of their chosen class.
Finally, Fairies have the ability to fly, and their flight speed is equal to their walking speed at 30 feet. They can’t fly if they’re wearing medium or heavy armor.
Best Classes
With flight giving the character access to an entire dimension of movement, and without the ability to wear heavy armor, I’d avoid any class that’s generally seen as tanky. Instead, you’ll want to pick a more long-range, magical, or even dexterous character class.
Ranger or Rogue would both give your character a ranged fighting style and the extra ability to stay overhead and hopefully out of reach. In fact, with a small size and flight, a Fairy Rogue would have a uniquely easy time sneaking into and back out of places.
Sorcerer, Wizard, or Warlock would also all be solid choices, though. Magic attacks give each of them the ability to keep some extra distance during a fight, and the couple of extra spells they bring to the mix are always useful.
Variants
There aren’t any Fairy variants, per se. But in character creation, you’ll want to pick from one of the eight randomly determined Fey Characteristics available to your Fairy character. These include bird-like wings, shimmering and multicolor skin, large ears, being surrounded by a glittery mist, a spectral unicorn horn, insectile legs, a natural odor of fresh brownies, and a noticeable but harmless chill.
Tips & Tricks
There’s a good chance that a player would choose a Fairy character for the aesthetic. We have a very specific picture in mind and want to bring that to our next adventure. This is great. I understand your vision and I love it. But Fairies are uniquely useful, too. Whatever you do, don’t forget that their smallness size, and flight can be useful in and out of battle.
Have you ever played a Fairy character or had one as a member of your party? Do you think a Fairy may be one of your next characters? What Fey characteristic would you hope for? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
