 Howdy how's going? My name's Davy Chappy, and a year ago I made a video about the elf where I helped you figure out what class you'd want to play with each subclass, and today I'm gonna do that again! As always, keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion. You don't need to follow a meta to make a D&D character, this is just to help you find synergy. And if you're using Tosh's optional rules for stat allocation, then you can ignore any comments that I make about racial scores, they're dumb anyway. But with that out of the way, let's begin. So the tiefling is undeniably the most customizable race in 5e. It gets options in the player's handbook, it gets 8 subraces in Mordenkainen's Tome of Fos, and little known fact, but there are even some build-a-bear options hidden in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide that make things even more complicated. But the basic tiefling is a bit of a double-edged sword. Two mental stats isn't usually any good, especially when one of them is intelligence, which doesn't have a whole lot of practical application outside of knowing things that a tidal wave of your party member is asking, hey, can I roll two? We'll account for. That said, multiple mental stats means that you have a wider range of castors to play, since you can pull from intelligence or charisma, and martial classes can make use of the hellish rebuke to keep away the bad guys. Castors can do that too, but the goal of a magic man is usually to get hit as little as possible, and we don't plan for failure here. If you want my personal pick, I find that the OG angsty boy is best paired up with the OG angsty class, the Rogue. Specifically, the Arcane Trickster, which can make use of the intelligence bonus. The hellish rebuke plus uncanny dodge means that you'll have the choice of whether you want to have damage that hits you or hit them back with fire, and you can throw down darkness for quick escapes that the DM doesn't let you roll to hide inside a bucket that everybody saw you jump into. The charisma bonus is kind of a dump, but I found that a lot of Rogue players play a dashing carousel anyway, so it's up to you. I'd also say that the worst class to play a tiefling as is the barbarian, since you can't make use of any of your spells while raging, but that's not to say that you can't make use of them before or after you rage. No matter what you play, though, the fire resistance is universally good, considering how prevalent the fourth state of matter is in the D&D damage type world. But the Thaumaturgy is just for show and tell. It's only there to make you look cool. It'll drink with you at the bar, but it won't drive you home at night. Now, not many people know this, but keeping in tune with the idea of devilish people, if you have the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, then you can sell your Infernal Legacy trait, so all of your magic, in exchange for three different options. The first one is just different magic. Instead of Thaumaturgy, you get Vicious Mockery. Instead of Hellish Rebuke, you get Charmed Person, and instead of Darkness, you get Inthral. I personally prefer Darkness over Inthral, but I like Vicious Mockery more than Thaumaturgy. Hellish Rebuke and Charmed Person are kind of even for me, so it really comes down to what sort of character I'm willing to play, since neither set of spells pigeonholes you into one play style. You can be a charming cleric or a flirty fighter, it's up to you. If you don't want spells at all, though, you can trade them in for a set of wings that'll let you fly 30 feet as long as you aren't wearing heavy armor. So while paladins are for sure not using Darkness, you can always play a class with a medium armor option, like Cleric, Fighter, or even Ranger, and still be pretty tanky while also flying through the air. Finally, if for some reason you aren't a fan of Hellish Rebuke, you can choose to take a more proactive stance by swapping it with burning hands, which is best utilized by classes that expect to be directly in front of a lot of people, but still not the barbarian because you're still too angry to catch fire. Beyond the normal Tiefling Benefits, Morning Canon's Tomefos also gives us eight more options by swapping out the smaller ability score increase and the magic to lean you more towards a specific play style, flavored in the musk of one of the nine Archdeffles of the Hells. You keep your major charisma bonus and all the fancy dark vision, fire resistance and whatnot, but those traits are all really universal, so there's no need to worry about how they might affect your class choice. First up is Balzable, which is a whole lot of Balza bullshit. It doesn't change the ASIs, but it does give you Rave Sickness and Crown of Madness, both of which are best used at range, so this whole thing is made for people that don't want to be right up front. That said, you may have picked up on the fact that your spells are Poison Damage, which is ineffective against half of the Monster Manual, and then the worst Charm Spell in the game, so unless you're going for a high concept character where you're specifically the spawn of boob-boob-boob, then you have way better options on this list for any class. Moving on. Dispater Tieflings are given a minor dex bonus, which immediately makes them applicable to more situations because dex is a friend of everybody but the Paladin. With the spells Disguise Self and Detect Thoughts, you're not really restricted to a class here, even if you do play a Paladin, because neither of these spells are being used in combat. They're social spells, best use for spies and secret agents, which has helped out by the natural Tiefling Charisma, so this is a concept build that works with anything. Fiorna Tieflings are much the same way, with Major Charisma and Minor Wisdom, plus your best friend Thaumaturgy getting sidelined in favor of the Friends Can Trip, which a lot of people don't like, but I legitimately find it to be a good spell when you need to get through a situation quickly. Charm someone, get past the door, then go about your day while they get angry. It's a niche spell, and it's assisted by Charm Person and Suggestion, two of the best Charm Spells, so while you could use them to bolster an already Charm- oriented spellcaster, you could also make use of that Wisdom Mod to give Charm Spells to the Druid and make everybody horny for the bear. Funnily enough, I think that the best class for this race would be the Feywanderer Ranger, which naturally scales off of Wisdom, but then also scales off of Charisma, and it focuses on Charm Spells, but due to the naturally restrictive nature of the Ranger, you don't get many spell slots, so this could be a way for you to cast spells more often. The Glazia Tiefling is literally just the Dispater Tiefling, but you trade the Thaumaturgy for Minor Illusion and detect thoughts for invisibility. The ability scores and disguised selves stay the same, so once again, if you're looking for a class that can really do anything but with a hard focus on Illusionary Magics, here you go. It should be mentioned that normally the first spell that you get at third level is automatically bumped up to a second level spell slot, but because disguised self doesn't do anything at a higher level, you're technically getting less out of this sub-race than the others. The same goes for Dispater Tieflings, but like I said, these spells were imagined for non-combat scenarios, so you won't have to worry about pumping out high-level magic in the first place. Levistus Tieflings get a Constitution Bonus, which is pretty baller. Charisma makes you happy, but Constitution makes you thick. Everybody can use Constitution, and the spells that you get here may look more melee oriented with that armor of Agathys, but if you take into account that you also get the Ray of Frost Kentrip and the fan favorite Darkness spell, then you begin to realize that this is still a generally ranged friendly Tiefling. The damage from armor of Agathys only works on melee, though, so the idea seems to be toss darkness on the range baddies and let the fighters come to you, which makes Levistus more of a switch than anything. I'd personally pair this sub-race with any class that normally doesn't get a ranged option, like the Paladin or the Barbarian. Always remember that armor of Agathys is non-concentration, so cast before you rage, so if I ever need to take a quick pot-shot, I can, but otherwise I can rely hard on the armor and use darkness to run away if things are looking bleak. Okay, so Mammon Tieflings confuse me. They easily have the most utility-based spells in the horny subculture, but they don't really apply it to social or combat cues. Instead, Mammon Tieflings have spells that will help with quality of life, and to be honest, are niche enough that we wouldn't take them if they weren't already given to us. Firstly, Mammon Tieflings get a minor buff to intelligence, then get Mage Hand, Tenser's Floating Disc, and Arcane Lock, all with a gimmick of playing somebody who likes treasure and wants to hoard that treasure. Mage Hand needs no explanation, we've all been handsy before, but Tenser's Floating Disc is a wizard spell that can help you carry a large amount of something that you wouldn't normally be able to carry with your weak nerd arms. Making it non-exclusive doesn't make it less helpful though, as most of the things that can go on the disc would be heavy even for the barbarian, and now they don't have to lift it the whole time, they just need to concentrate. Arcane Lock means that once you get your treasure, you can keep your treasure. But it also has a secondary combat application in that a fleeing party of adventurers could slam the door shut behind them and then use magic to keep it held there, or they could use it to close off the only escape and keep the wily big bad evil guy in the room, or they can just use it to ensure that no one sneaks into their room while they're sleeping. While the spells imply that you're going to be a treasure goblin, you don't actually have to behave that way, and in fact the ability score increases kind of make it hard to justify playing a subclass that specializes in that, so Mammon is definitely one sub-race that I would encourage using Tasha's optional ASI rules on, because that's the only thing keeping it down, and the other spells are just universal. Mephistopheles is a hard word to say, and its sub-race features are hard to justify. You get an intelligence bonus paired with mage hand, burning hands, and flame blade, none of which particularly go together. Intelligence implies wizard, but you can also be an artificer, gish knight, or an arcane knobhead, all of which are better options because burning hands and flame blade want you to get in close. Except that flame blade is also a concentration spell, so if you get in close, you're at risk of losing it when you get hit, meaning gish knight and artificer are better options because they both have a natural proficiency in constitution saving throws, which is sort of a necessary thing when you want to maintain concentration on melee-oriented spells. Mage hand, I'm not really sure why it's here, but no one ever gets mad at mage hand, so it's whatever. I'm just surprised that it's not firebolt or fireflame. A part of me wants to say that you could play a melee druid for this, but melee druids I've seen are the ones where you turn into a bear, and bears can't hold swords, so there lies the problem. But yeah, if you play a mephistophilist tiefling, either play a class with a constitution save, take the feat that gives it to you anyway, or just don't cast flame blade and do what you want. Last up, nobody told me that the villain of descent into Avernus fucks, but it would explain all the fan art, and also why the xerial tiefling can get it. You get strength bonus and our good friend thaumaturgy, searing smite and branding smite, which is admittedly the only second level spell that you have to wait to level 5 for, but it makes sense because that's when the paladin gets it, and you can play the sub race if you want to pretend to be a paladin, or if you want even more paladin in your paladin, because paladins really do feel using every single one of those spell slots, so it's nice to get two new ones for free, and all you have to do is wear some candy horns. I really don't need to explain the xerial tiefling too much, you walk forward, you smite. Obviously this isn't meant for the wizard, but if you wanted to do the strength sorcerer meme without putting any actual spell slots into it, you got an easy in. This will turn any spellcaster into a viable frontline fighter for the first two swings, and then you'll be reminded that you brought a bed robe to work today. I actually think that monks can get a lot out of this sub race, since they've always been seen as underpowered due to their low resource pool, but the resources they do have usually take a bonus action slot, so this can add two more resources as long as your DM lets you smite with your fist. Technically, it's against the rules, but who cares, it's fun. Overall, the tiefling as a race is good for just about any class except the barbarian. Some of the sub races are exceptions, but for the majority of it, half of the tiefling flavor comes from spells, that the barbarian is uninterested in understanding, and the fire resistance is never bad, but the barbarian already resists three much more common damage types, so they're definitely not hurting for damage mitigation. Other than that, the world is your oyster, and keep in mind that if your DM is any good at encounter balancing, you can play anything you want. But that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell, check out all my social media in the description below, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can hellishly rebuke my taxes. But yeah, dev-yow.