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Elves and half-elves have the fey ancestry racial trait; however, I have noticed that the fey creatures do not have the same trait. It seems illogical that fey would not have the benefits of Fey Ancestry.

In my current campaign, I have a Half-elf warlock that has taken a sprite familiar. Would it be unbalancing to give the sprite familiar the traits of fey ancestry (adv against charm and immunity to magical sleep)?

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2 Answers 2

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The value of Fey Ancestry is roughly half a stat score 1, which will hardly unbalance anything.

In particular, adding that to a friendly creature is even less harmful. Giving it to a foe might increase its CR (probably won't as well), and certainly will make the encounter harder for low level parties, where it's usual for the Spellcaster to rely on sleep as their major utility spell. For friendly creatures though, how often will the familiar be targeted/affected by sleep or charms? My experience says: seldom. And I frequently put spellcasters against my parties.


1 There is a reddit guide on homebrew races (link to google docs) that ranks racial features using an ability score as the unity (e.g., +1 Dex = 1 point). From my experience, this guide was well received and I use it commonly to get feedback for my own homebrew races (although I don't use it to design them). There are other guides that do the same thing, e.g. this one (link to google docs). This one handles different ASI better (e.g. +2/+2 is as good as human +1 for everyone, which is a net +6). Both of them rank the Fey Ancestry feature as half a stat, as I described. That's my personal value for it, as well. Since the time this answer was posted, the guide has been updated. The conclusion of the answer did not change, though.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Worth noting the second link now lists fey ancestry with a score of 2... \$\endgroup\$ Jun 7, 2018 at 6:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ @IsaacReefman Yeah, but a +1 ASI there has a score of 4 :P - so Fey Ancestry is consistently half a +1 ASI \$\endgroup\$
    – HellSaint
    Jun 7, 2018 at 6:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Sorry, I wasn't looking at the decimal version - a later sheet, same info, basically everything is divided by 4. So the same. Which I would have known if I'd read the guide... \$\endgroup\$ Jun 7, 2018 at 6:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ @nick012000 Actually, the NPCs in the back of the MM have no racial anything attached, the idea is that you as the DM add them which adds diversity (buzz word) and depth to the encounter. It should feel different to fight a group of elves rather than a group of goblins. \$\endgroup\$
    – Slagmoth
    Jun 7, 2018 at 14:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ I just want to add that now exists a new guide about homebrew races which is based on the previous guide but with some tweaks and the new races. \$\endgroup\$
    – Enderluck
    Jun 6, 2022 at 14:35
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No. These are two very minor traits, which aren't likely to come up very often. Granting them to a creature won't break anything and it seems thematic enough to give them to a sprite.

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