Yuan-Ti Playable Race Guide for D&D 5e - Dungeon Mister (2024)

Serpents and spycraft. Learn to play D&D as a Yuan-Ti with our optimisation guide

At a glance

Dungeons and Dragons lets you take a flexible approach to building a character, but if you’re going to stick to typical culture and the best-optimised build for a Yuan-Ti you might consider the following:

If you think a Yuan-Ti isn’t for you, not to worry, there are dozens of playable races for you to pick from, just check out our races guide to find out about all of them.

Yuan-Ti racial features

Tactics

If you’re taking a Yuan-Ti for optimisation purposes, you’re mainly here for the extra toughness, so simply enjoy being hardier than most other races. Darkvision is handy for scouts and as the character at the front of the party, it works well with your extra toughness.

Innate spellcasting isn’t great for the Yuan-Ti, though befriending animals does have decent roleplaying utility. Suggestion plays a similar role among humanoids and can be useful if you’re creative but will play little role in combat heavy games. Sadly, poison spray is a little redundant as if you’re a martial, you’ll have better close combat options and if you’re more about ranged combat, you’ll not want to be close enough to use poison spray.

Which classes work best for a Yuan-Ti?

Yuan-Ti are interesting characters from a role play perspective, often posing as spies and assassins among other civilisations. From an optimisation point of view though, they have some straightforward traits that work well for any class really.

The main benefit is in their resistances. Resistance to spells is an excellent resistance as it’s so widely needed. Poison is also a common damage and condition type so resistance to poison is also a big buff for toughening up a character. The innate spellcasting options though are a bit weaker and while they’re welcome options, will likely add little to your capabilities.

Below I’ve put together a score for how well each class works with a Yuan-Ti based on how well the racial traits work with each class:

Best classes for a Yuan-Ti

I’d probably lean a little more into frontline martials more than classes that fight at range. Toughening up your ranged characters is no bad thing but martials with spellcasting (for repeat casting of innate spells and better ability scores for the spells) are your very best options. This makes the best classes for a Yuan-Ti:

• Artificer
• Cleric
• Druid
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Some subclasses with melee and spellcasting abilities like the arcane Trickster Rogue, hexblade warlock and eldritch knight fighter

If you twisted my arm, I’d probably concede that the absolute best classes for a Yuan-Ti Pureblood are your less tough martials with spellcasting like battle smiths, hexblades and arcane tricksters. If anyone needs that extra toughness, it’s these classes that often get stuck in the melee, but don’t have the hit points to handle it as well.

Worst Yuan-Ti classes

I’d say that there are no bad classes for a Yuan-Ti. Wizards and sorcerers will enjoy the benefits of a bit of extra toughness, especially with their diminished hit points despite perhaps needing it less than other classes.

About the Yuan-Ti?

The Yuan-Ti were born of a merging of Human and serpent aspects centuries ago. While there’s a lot of variation in how the Yuan-Ti appear, they can generally be categorised into 4 groups:

• Purebloods – The most human looking of the Yuan-Ti, they also occupy lower positions in the caste system of the Yuan-Ti with more snake-like Yuan-Ti being seen as a superior version of the Yuan-Ti.
• Malisons (Half-bloods) – Malisons are Yuan-Ti that are roughly half Human and half serpent. Often they might have a serpent tail instead of legs with human head and arms or might have a cobra head instead of a Human one.
• Abominations – Abominations are almost completely snake-like with just a few Human features such as arms, an upright posture and/or a Human head.
• Anathema – the rulers of the Yuan-Ti are typically Anathemas when one exists among them. These creatures have almost all serpent features but also have 6 snake heads emerging from their shoulders.

Description

Yuan-Ti Purebloods are the ones that can be used as a playable race in D&D 5e and generally have the appearance of humans but with certain serpentine features. This might manifest as eyes with pupils that appear more oval, pointed canines, portions of scaly skin or a green tinge to their skin.

This is the most common form among the Yuan-Ti and one that serves well in functions that benefit from a Human appearance. This means that many Yuan-Ti Purebloods often operate as liaisons, ambassadors and spies among other races. The Yuan-Ti are an aggressive race and are known to attack, conquer and enslave other races, as such, spies are a highly needed commodity for them.

Personality

The Yuan-Ti were created from the worshippers of the demonic deity, Mhairshaulk, a being of serpentine qualities himself. In seeking to become more like their god, the Yuan-Ti sought to gain greater favour with Mhairshaulk. Of course, the worship of demons comes with certain occupational tendencies such as the destruction of civilisation and other nefarious schemes.

With this history and their ongoing worship of Sseth (an avatar of Mhairshaulk) along with other serpentine gods, the Yuan-Ti tend to be a fairly evil bunch. While their empire has dwindled in recent centuries, they continue to seek domination of the world, though often do so through more subtle means, espionage, assassinations and political maneuverings are more common than conquests on the battlefield nowadays.

The Yuan-Ti are intelligent, cunning and devious with grand ambitions. They maintain a large network of slave labour within their empires and consider all other races to be inferior and deserving of subjugation. Not all Yuan-Ti share such goals and some do leave their civilisation to live peacefully among other races. The Yuan-Ti though are feared and distrusted though so few are able to do this and only the Purebloods are able to discreetly insert themselves among other races.

A good Yuan-Ti remains a rarity. It’s more common for a Yuan-Ti Pureblood outside of its jungle empires to be operating as a spy, envoy, merchant or some other agent of the empire.

How to roleplay as a Yuan-Ti

Most Yuan-Ti Purebloods are evil, have little regard for the welfare of others and only cooperate if it helps to further their own personal schemes and those of their empire. You can however, choose to play a Yuan-Ti however you want. Some do choose to live a better life, though all will be influenced by their lineage, their history and their culture. You should consider the following when creating a Yuan-Ti Pureblood character:

• Evil schemes – You should consider why your character is among other races. The most likely reason is that you are on a mission from the Yuan-Ti. Are you there to influence local events? Perhaps you need to spy on someone or assassinate them. It may be less nefarious and perhaps you simply trade in goods to obtain powerful items for your empire’s wars. Maybe you have abandoned the Yuan-Ti and seek to live harmoniously among other races or have been exiled. Whatever you choose though, you should have a good reason to not be living among the Yuan-Ti.
• Hated race – Whether your intentions are good or evil, most that know your race will consider you evil and at best, will want little to do with you, or at worst, will want you killed. Most Yuan-Ti Purebloods will veil their race for this reason, preferring to discreetly operate in foreign lands. Most Yuan-Ti Purebloods attempt to pass themselves off as Humans as they have most of the same features.
• Serpentine appearance – As a Pureblood, you will mostly look Human, but you should consider what serpentine aspects you have inherited. Do you have patches of scaly skin, oval pupils, a forked tongue or some other telltale sign that you’re not the Human you try to pass yourself off as.

Other playable race guides

Related