Best Races for Rogue 5e
by Prince Phantom
As one of the worst classes in the game, the Rogue really needs some help to truly excel. Normally when I say that about a martial class, I follow it up with something about how Variant Human’s level one feat is so crucial to doing that, but that’s less true for the Rogue. There isn’t one or even two feats that are going to make the Rogue suddenly keep up with the stronger classes, at least not nearly to the extent of something like what feats do to a Fighter. Variant Human and Custom Lineage are still fantastic options as always though, they’re just not as necessary as they are for other martials. That means the bar for other races is a bit lower, allowing for more variety and experimentation. As always, I’ll exclude flying races, as they are banned at many tables.
Best Races for Damage
Bugbear/Grung/Aasimar (Radiant Soul): Each of these races offer extra damage when we hit with a weapon under different circumstances. Aasimar grants it when we transform as a bonus action and Radiant Soul in particular grants flight, making it the best of the three Aasimar options. Grung gives potential poison damage on a hit, and Bugbear adds damage on round one. Normally I’d talk about these separately, but the Rogue’s lack of extra attack means that there’s not much room for features like this to really improve our damage. You’ll find that there’s not many better options than this out there either, as the Rogue’s unique combat style just doesn’t gel with most features in this game. Of these three I’d pick the Grung assuming I had a method of dealing with the water dependency, and Aasimar if I didn’t.
Best Races for Defense
Githzerai: This is really only for Rogues that take a spellcaster dip or are Arcane Tricksters, as those options are able to use the Shield spell to its fullest extent. Rogues really struggle when it comes to AC, so helping in this regard really makes a difference. The other features are nice too, I especially like the idea of Detect Thoughts on a Rogue.
Earth Genasi: Uncanny Dodge is not a great feature, and only becomes worse as monsters get more and stronger attacks. Thankfully, we get more and more uses for our bonus action Blade Ward as monsters grow in strength. We also get Pass Without Trace, allowing the rest of our party to stealth as good as we can.
Vedalkin: Rogues get proficiency in Wisdom saves (the most important mental save) at higher levels, but if you know your campaign won’t reach those or you know that your campaign will be filled with dangerous spellcasters or mental attacks, as Vedalkin Dispassion is potentially the best saving throw racial feature.
Best Races for Utility
Reborn: You wouldn’t guess it at face value, but being a vengeful spirit with unfinished business makes you really good at skills! Knowledge from a Past Life is a great little feature for empowering our most important skill roles, especially because it stacks with advantage, Guidance, and bardic inspiration, meaning we can really pile on for those super crucial checks. Deathless Nature also provides some nice defensive tools, making this a really well rounded pick.
Kenku: This race gets a similar feature to enhance skill checks as the Reborn, but grants advantage, meaning it’s harder to stack it with other boosts to our rolls. Still, this is a solid option and if you’re a creative enough player to make use of Mimicry, you’ll find a lot to love here.
Autognome: We get a boost to our AC over studded leather, Built for Success to buff skill checks and saving throws, poison resistance, and, if we’re an Arcane Trickster, the ability to heal ourselves with Mending. There’s a lot of small things here that add up to be a pretty nice package.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
