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D&D Genasi

D&D Genasi – What Character Class Should You Play

Your D&D Campaign -- There Will Be Narrative
D&D Ideas -- Blood and Bone

Diving back into our D&D races- What Character Class should You Should Play series. Below you will find our picks for character classes in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons that are optimal for genasi. We also give our picks for unexpected character class options. You will also find the video and transcription.

D&D Genasi Race – What Character Class Should You Play Video

D&D Genasi Race – What Character Class Should You Play Video Transcription

Dave: “Hey Ted, you want a D&Dize Captain Planet today?”

Ted: “Well, he is made of earth, air, fire, water and heart.”

Dave: “Air, earth and fire and water, that sounds like a Genasi to me.”

Ted: “Right, but There was no Genasi for heart.”

Dave: “Yeah. Let’s just do D&D Genasi what character class should you play? Welcome to Nerdarchy for nerds by nerds. I’m a Nerdarchist Dave and today I’m hanging out with this nerd.”

Ted: “Nerdarchist Ted.”

Dave: “Hey, maybe it’s your first time hanging out and Ted’s basement with us. Nerdarchy is a place where we like to talk about news, views, and home brews for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. And sometimes we talked about other role playing games.”

Ted: “So if you don’t want to miss a single video, don’t forget to crit hit that subscribe button and attune to that notification bell.”

Dave: “So if you don’t want to miss a single video, don’t forget to crit hit that subscribe button and attune to that notification bell, like we said, we’re going to be talking about 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons and you know, this is our D&D Genasi. What character class should you play But before we jump into that, we would like to talk about maybe some other character races you might want to experiment with.”

Ted: “So if you jump down to the description below you can check out the link to the Kickstarter of Humble Wood and this is sponsored by the deck of many, the the sponsor for this video Humble Wood is a great campaign setting that is filled with a bunch of avian races that you can add right into your D&D game so you can either play in their campaign world or just use all of the cool spells, magic items, races and that are in this book, right in your D&D world.”

Dave: “Yeah. You’re going to get a full five avian bird folk to add to your, your D&D races, but not only that, you’re getting, you get another five furry little critters, anthropomorphic creatures that you can add in as well. This thing is funded they’re killing the stretch goals they were did, they did an amazing job with creating this free pdf that they were giving away for a long time. So much so they decided to turn it into a full book. It was an, it was weighing in at like 60 – 70 some pages before. I can only imagine how amazing he’s going to be. Now that you know their throwing their full weight behind it on all the deck of many resources.”

Ted: “There’s loads of different backer levels so you can choose what you want. If that’s not enough, you can piecemeal your pledge and get whatever you want via the add ons. There’s even minis that are completely sculpted off of the new avian races.”

Dave: “Yeah, they’ve got minis, they’ve got standees. There’s going to be animated spell cards. There’s all kinds of good stuff going on over there. I highly recommend you go take a look at that Kickstarter.”

Ted: “All right, so let’s dive back into the Genasi.”


Dave: “So we have the core Genasi race and then we have four sub races to go along with it. The race itself doesn’t have much to offer. Most of your benefits are going to come from your sub races.”

Ted: “Right So your base is going to be a +2 to your constitution and you’re going to get the language of primordial which that in and of itself, you know, means that you have access to a, you know, a rare or uncommon language and that generally the Genasi are a hardier folk then other races that are out there.”

Dave: “Now for this series of videos, what we generally do is we’re going to take a look at each of the Genasi subraces and we’re going to then break down what we believe is the most optimal class for that sub race. And then we’ll also look at some unexpected choices that we thought would be fun as well.”

Ted: “Absolutely. So you know, I know you like to do things in alphabetical order, so let’s dive in and we’re going to start off with the Air Genasi.”

Dave: “ All right, Air Genasi, you’re going to get it several benefits from picking this, this sub race. So you’re going to get a bonus. The Dex +1 , you’re going to get unending breath and you’re gonna also get mingle with the wind.”

Ted: “The ability to basically hold your breath forever kind of leads to me like, oh well you’re going to get this, you know this race that doesn’t really get to seem exhausted to me. Cause I know you know most people out there have done physical exertion and it’s that catching your breath that everybody sees. So when you have somebody who’s like, they get out of battle and everybody’s like and he’s like, what’s the problem?”

Dave: “Well that’s true. Only has to do is hold his breath beforehand and they’re good to go pretty much. So as long as they can basically take a breath, they never run out of air.”

Ted: “ And then the other thing is mingle with the wind and that is once per day they get to use the levitate spell pretty fun. And you mix that with a bonus to dex that leads you to believe that this is going to be good for a range combatant. Therefore you could just levitate and you know, shoot your your missile weapons from above.”

Dave: “Well once a day it can be your own mobile platform. But that being said, yeah, anything that’s dex based is going to be good for this. Any dex based fighter dex based ranger, the rogue a class, all of those would make right choices for an Air Genasi.”

Ted: “Absolutely. So we, we said in the beginning that you know, we’re going to talk about some unexpected classes that might work for this, but for that we’re going to hold off a little bit and you’ll see that we’re going to talk about the, the, the generic Genasi that that might be unexpected at the end.”

Dave: “Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap. So we’ll kind of do those together. So next up we have earth if we’re going in alphabetical order.”

Ted: “So next up we have earth if we’re going in alphabetical order, so the Earth Genasi is going to get a +1 strength merge with stone and earth walk.”

Dave: “So a earth walk is basically their ability to ignore difficult terrain on any kind of earth or stone. Super useful. You know, as long as you meet those conditions, you’re going to be able to move around. You got to be freed up. And there are other ability merge with stone is basically they get the past without trace that they can use once a day. Now I actually consider this one of the best abilities and the game. Literally it’s you and all your buddies get a +10 to your stealth check. It’s in some ways, sometimes better than a invisibility.”

Ted: “You know the, the group getting a +10 it is probably one of the largest, you know, passive bonuses that are out there that you can actually do. I’ve, I’ve seen this used in games quite a lot and it definitely changes the entire outcome by, by the, the use of that spell”

Dave: “Group stealth checks become a breeze with that one. Now, all right, expect it. We’re getting a plus one in the strength we’re getting I plus two to con. This is very much your physical character classes, your martial character classes, whether you go fighter, a ranger, barbarian, even paladin these guys are going to excel at any of them.”

Ted: “Having the more hit points, having a higher strength. It’s a no brainer. You know there’s a lot of paladins these days that you know their, their charisma isn’t as important. All they want to do is use their spell slots to smite. So it’s dumping it all into, you know, strengths and con. So totally works here.”


Dave: “Absolutely. And we’ll get to the unexpected a, you know at the end on this one. So again, now we’re going to keep on going to fire.”

Ted: “So the fire Genasi is actually gets a +1 to intelligence. They get dark vision, they get reach into the blaze and they get fire resistance.”

Dave: “Yeah. So they get a nice suite of abilities here that reach into the blaze is the cantrip produce flame. They’re going to get that. And then a third level they get burning hands.”

Ted: ”Which is a nice a attack spell it at attacks in a, in a cone, no attack role necessary. So useful there.”

Dave: “Now that +1 intelligence +2 to con, this is definitely going to lend itself to playing a wizard.”

Ted: “A wizard definitely works, but there’s other things that you can do with that. If you’re going to go with intelligence and constitution, that leaves me to be able to play some of the other intelligence-based casters that are, you know, not primary casters. So this isn’t going to be your eldritch knight and this is going to be your, um, rogue arcane trickster.”

Dave: “So you’re going into our unexpected classes for that?”

Ted: “Yes.”

Dave: “Yeah. So yeah, Absolutely a eldritch knight I was right there with that bonus to con works with a fighter really well. Eldritch knight your, your primary casting ability is going to be intelligence. So if you want to mix the martial with the spell to make it Gish type character that works. I wasn’t seeing the arcane trickster rogue angle at first, but you know, you kind of convinced me.”

Ted: “So I looked at this and say, okay, okay, you can put your 15 into intelligence if you’re going to use the basic stat, right So you start off with a 16, you put your 14 in strength for your eldritch knight or you put your 14 in dex for your arcane trickster, you put your 12 into constitution, bumping it up to a 14. So now you got 14, 14, 16 in your prime stats for those classes as a, as a rogue dex based, you can still get into melee, you don’t always have to, you know, be a range combatant and there are times that your rogue having the d8 hit die. You’re going to just need more hit points. And getting that, that bonus to constitution as a Genasi. I totally think this will be a great way to go.”

Dave: “Well it goes back to our ye old argument of when, when do you have too many hit points And the answer is never.”

Ted: “Very true, sir.”

Dave: “All right, so we’ve got one more left and that is the water Genasi.”

Ted: “So the water Genasi is going to get a +1 to wisdom, they’re going to get an acid resistance and there are also amphibious.”

Dave: “They’re also going to get a swim speed and an ability called called to the wave that is shape water as the cantrip. And they’re also going to get, create and destroy water as a second level spell and they get that at third level. So they actually get more than anyone else. And that swim speed is a big deal.”

Ted: “So we’ve seen in games and an underwater campaigns and just disadvantage on everything, you know, moving, moving slow. It is a major hassle. And I’ve done campaigns are done sessions where I’ve used a lot of things that granted disadvantage and it can change the the encounter drastically. So being able to just ignore that disadvantage because you have a swim speed. Totally. As a game changer.”

Dave: “Yeah. And for anyone that doesn’t know a lot of the restrictions you have for doing things underwater are totally negated once you have a swim speed, that’s the mitigating factor. So what classes are we looking at for, you know the optimals for this one?”

Ted: “Oh this is, this is kind of a no brainer. Would that +1 to wisdom. You’re going to go right to your divine casters. This is going to be your druid and this is going to be your cleric.”

character class

Genasi appear in the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. [Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast]

Dave: “All right. So now when we did the dwarf video, we got a little bit of flack because we didn’t pick monk as you know, as one of the prime classes for the hill dwarf. Because just like the hill dwarf the, water genasi gets a +1 to wisdom +2 to con. But the reason why we did not throw monk out there, monk is a melee combatant with a d8 hit die. Even with the extra hit points it doesn’t make up for that lower dexterity are going to have and armor class and, and the truth of matter is and may only be a armor class of one less, but with bounded accuracy, especially at the lower levels, that makes a huge difference. You’re going to get hit way more often. The little bit of extra hit points you’re going to get at the low levels does not compensate at the higher levels. It makes sense. That totally works out. It would still be a fun character of the play, but I just don’t think it’s enough to push it into the optimal arena.”

Ted: “So now we did have, uh, some unexpected that doesn’t match with the group unexpected. And for this one, that’s going to be the ranger.”

Dave: “Yeah, the ranger. Because the ranger is such a heavy exploration pillar, character class and this particular Genasi gets amphibious and you know, the swim speed I really feel like that is going to make for a great aquatic ranger.”

Ted: “100% agree with you sir.”

Dave: “Uh, so now, uh, we can go jump back because both of our air and earth kind of shared the same unexpected and everyone kind of shares it as well. And that is in essence, because these are elemental creatures. They there, they draw their strength from the elemental planes, the very thematic for any kind of cleric or wizard that is elemental flavored.”

Ted: “ So you get, you dive into, you know, the thing that is, you know, themselves, you know, all of the elemental powers that they all have. You know, they all have some kind of casting. So the be the ability to add on more casting too, that is just going to make them better caster.”

Dave: “Right. And they’re just theme that way anyway, you know, as long as you pick the corresponding element to the corresponding Genasi. So we think, you know, for unexpected it’s going to be elemental type casters. Whether it be cleric or wizard. And you know, obviously you’ll probably want to take a look at that elemental affinity feat at some point as well. And you know, get the whole Shebang going on. So that is our D&D Genasi. What character class should you play? What do you think? Did we get it right? Did we get it wrong? We got to a place where we can discuss it. And that is down in the comments below. While you’re at it, don’t forget to like share and subscribe.”

Ted: “On your way down there. And don’t forget to stop by the description and check out the link to that Kickstarter for Humble Wood.”

Dave: “So until next time.”

Both: “Stay nerdy!”

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david friant

My name is Dave Friant I've been gaming off and on for over 27 years. But here is the thing it's always been a part of my life I've kept secret and hidden away. I've always been ashamed of the stigma that gaming and my other nerdy and geeky pursuits summon forth. Recently I decided screw it! This is who I am the world be damned. From now on I'm gonna be a geek, nerd, or however folks want to judge me and just enjoy life. Currently one of my greatest joys is introducing my 13 yr old son to table top RPG's.

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