 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and it's my job to talk about things that make it easier for you to turn your brain off because 2021 just ended, but the struggle is not over. Today I'm going to be going over the races presented in Volo's Guide to Monsters, with a bigger focus on the abilities and which classes are good options for set abilities. For lengthy reasons, I'm going to put the monstrous races in their own video and this one will just focus on the intended playable races. As always, keep in mind that the majority of this is just my opinion and if you feel like an arbitrary grab bag of races is a weird choice for a video topic, feel free to play your games however you want. And really quick, I'd like to give a brief shout out to my new patrons this month. Joshua Abrahamson, Beats Orion, 2487, Alistair Crowley, Runaard Odinson. Follow Davy on Twitter. The click-click, Alex. Thank you so much for pledging to my Patreon, it is because of you that I can continue making money off of talking into a microphone and annoying my cat with loud noises. But with that out of the way, let's begin. So first up, when the ASMR isn't interrupting perfectly fair baseball games, it's standing in the front lines and shouting for evil to go away. ASMRs love to be in the thick of it, getting two separate resistances to radiant and necrotic damage as well as a once per long rest pick-me-up heal. I know that I don't put much stock into resistances due to the meta understanding that DMs will just stop throwing enemies at you with those damage types if it gets annoying, but it's interesting that ASMR get two separate resistances that do come up semi-often. Necrotic damage is everywhere in Undead Fights and while radiant damage isn't as common, it's a regular damage type in lower level spells. Range classes can also make use of the resistances, but the nature of being ranged means that you're usually not getting hit as much, ergo, your resistances won't see as much use. Plus, the healing touch is, well, a touch ability, so you won't be near your friends anyway, although there is an argument to be made that any ranged classes would have an easier time getting to the downed allies since they don't have to worry about attacks of opportunity. The ASMR also have access to the light cantrip and dark vision, which kind of serve the same role, but light can be thrown onto somebody else to make them the glowing beacon that gets punched in the face instead. Among all of these races, the ASMR is the only one that gets subrace options, which is probably why it's the one that gets invited to the most parties. Each subrace determines whether you're good, neutral, or angsty, and they give you a power at third level that'll make all the other players jelly. The Protector ASMR pretends to be the responsible one, but they're the first person out of the house when the cops come, igniting spectral wings for a minute and flying around like a chad. Flying is fun and nobody dislikes flying, but in a paradoxical twist, it benefits ranged characters more, because what's the point of flying if you're just going to stop right next to the person anyway? That said, melee combatants can use the wings to sail right over the bruisers and get to the squishy bits hiding in the back, and the wings let you add your level and extra radiant damage to one attack per turn. So no matter what you do, your damage output will be wholly graceful. The Scourge ASMR is neutral in the same way that your one co-worker is neutral. They say that they don't talk politics, and that the first person to go into a violent rant about purification. At third level, Scourges can glow bright for a minute as they take up all the attention in the room, and anybody stuck in the radius of that bright light takes half of the ASMR's level in radiant damage. Unlike the Protector's wings, this only takes a bonus action, so you can prepare your speech about why gingerbread women are the destruction of the West in the time that it takes to run in and start axing people questions. As these types of conversations tend to go, the damage from your radiant aura hurts you as well, and nobody's going to want to be around you unless they're specifically trying to punch your face in, so this sub-race is best played by characters who have enough HP to not buckle under the pressure. I can't see full casters needing this since they're more like keyboard warriors who do their talking from afar, but one of my favorite meme builds is playing a Scourge Warlock with shield and the false life invocation. Activate the aura, cast false life every turn, and then use shield when the room realizes what's happening. You won't be great, but you'll be annoying, and at some point, that just becomes the goal. Lastly, the fallen ASMR heard the emo G-key and knew their fate was sealed. When their power activates, they get the witcher's black eye, spooky scary skeleton wings, and they strike fear into the hearts of anyone who happens to be standing right next to them. They also start dealing necrotic damage just like how the Protector deals radiant damage, and just like the Protector, fallen ASMR can be taken by anybody to different effects. Big tanky people can step in and send groups of enemies running in all directions, and ranged, casty people can save the ability as a get out of jail free card that also doubles as a power boost right after. Just keep in mind that it's an action to activate, so you'll use it and then you'll stand there like a gloomba afterwards unless you got a bonus action. Anyway, that was much to do about the ASMR, but there are still six other races on this list, and I can only make this video so long before Emma asks for a raise, so let's move on to the cow slash giant slash people. For a bulk, have weirded me out for years because I don't really get what they are. Is it a man? Is it a baby? These are legitimate questions. And it extends to the abilities too, because even though they're described as natural druids, they don't do druid things. They can talk to plants. That's it. I can do that too. They also get to detect magic and disguise itself, as well as a short invisibility burst as a bonus action, which would make them really good spies, despite also being massive powerful build monstrosities. Unluckily for me, none of these powers are any good at specifying which combination of abilities might be good for them, because they're all so broad and generic. But with a minor invisibility power combined with disguises and powerful builds, the term stealthy barbarian comes to mind. That said, the less stealthy barbarian would be the goliaths, second cause into the furbolg, only they decided to live in Canada, so now they're really cold all the time. Gliaths get powerful build, resistance to cold damage, proficiency in athletics, and the holy grail of barbarian skills, stones endurance, wherein you use a reaction to reduce incoming damage by 1d12 plus con. This is insanely good for anyone, because it can mean the difference between life and death, but on a barbarian who already cut most damage that hits them in half, the one time that you do get an unlucky crit against you, and the damage rises somewhere in the 20s, you can just say, stones endurance, and all that damage goes away. It's dumb. The other skills are pretty universal, even stones endurance becomes a general panic button in the hands of fighters and wizards alike, because you can only get it once per short rest, so it's not like the tanks will get to spam it. Reficiency in athletics implies a more physical bent, but outside of grappling, no one is using athletics in a fight anyway. And besides, if you want your pick of abilities, you should look at the canku. This bird, parrot thing, gets two skills from a list of acrobatics, deception, stealth, or sleight of hand, destining it to a life of crime. It can also mimic noises which everyone already knows about, but no one knows how to roleplay without getting hospital bills for ear surgery sent to their home. And they have advantage on forging both writing and objects. That last bit, and objects, is one that everyone silently ignores because canku being tinkers, isn't very on-brand. But if a canku artificer gets its hands on somebody else's creations, then you have a pretty good argument for recreating magical items. Everything else is standard, universal stuff, but item mimicry at least adds artificer to the list of like three classes that anybody ever wants to play a canku as. Oh, the lizard folk. You are always such a janky race, but at least your jank is justified. Natural armor? Useless. Don't need it. Either you're a tank already, and your armor is better, or you're a caster who didn't want to take major armor. The bite attack does 1d6 plus strength, so you're either using a strength-based weapon already, which pretty much all do more than 1d6, or you dump strength, in which case the only thing that the bite attack will be is kinky. The exception is that it can be used once per short rest as a bonus action, and that attack heals you for your con mod. So it's not that you should be using it as an alternative weapon, but as a random bit of extra damage against somebody that you think deserves a hickey. Besides that, you get some extra skills, swimming powers, very good lung capacity, and you can make weapons out of dead people. All of that screams ranger to me, but ultimately, it can be used by anyone. Even the bite attack is useful for casters, not because it'll do damage, but because that little bit of health might be the difference between life and having weapons made out of your body. None of those practical abilities matter, though, compared to the one thing that everybody loves, furries. The tabaxi open the floodgates, and ever since, DMs have had to map out their dungeons twice as long, because it wasn't enough to make a party member that would come to you with a pssspspspspsp. It also had to have useful abilities. Unlike actual D&D cats, the tabaxi get dark vision, as well as a useless natural weapon, proficiency in both perception and stealth, and the option to, at your discretion, double your movement speed to go lightning fast and knock over everything on the table at super speeds. This ability is ridiculous, and you get it back whenever you want, as long as you take a turn to stop moving, and it makes the tabaxi the number one in all speed builds. Tobaxi Monk with mobility. Boom. You're now kit and flash. Much like the other Volos races, there's not much discretion in classes here. Technically the natural weapon could be used to change a monk's fist from bludgeoning to slashing damage, but there are so few scenarios where you'd care to do that that it's just for the flavor. Part of me misses the old ASI bonuses because I could say, Hey, pick this thing, dummy. But now everybody gets freedom, so I have lists to talk about. Onto the last one. Triton is a trite race that doesn't get a lot of coverage because it isn't a a typical high fantasy creature that you'd imagine seeing in an adventuring party, nor is it to be a furry. What it lacks in deviant art, it makes up for by being Aquaman, complete with all the powers of a fish, including talking to them, which again, isn't special. It also gets cold resistance and a few nautical spells in the form of fog cloud, gust of wind, and wall of water, which are spells that are intended to be used during combat. So sorry, barbarian, you're out of the running. The spells are also charisma based, so that narrows down the amount of people who can use them effectively to the bard, paladin, sorcerer, and the warlock. Although, to be fair, that only matters for gust of wind. Fog cloud and water wall don't care about anything. Being honest, a lot of the reason why this race isn't played is because half of these abilities are focused on water. And despite 90% of published adventures taking place on the Sword Coast, exactly one adventure is set in the water, and it isn't even on the Sword Coast. And it isn't even in water, it's just water adjacent. Sorry Triton, I guess you're all washed up. Buuuut, that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, ring that bell, check out all my social media in the description below, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can bribe Wizards of the Coast to reintroduce ASIs that'll give me more to talk about. But yeah, dev'ya out.