Stones and spells, learn to optimise your Earth Genasi character with our guide
What are Earth Genasi?
The genasi are descendants of genies that have reproduced with a mortal. Not all genasi have a genie as a parent, some will have been born from 2 genasi parents, others will have dormant genie genes (which is quite a mouthful) from some ancestor that has only materialised with their birth. Whatever the circumstances though, the genasi are part mortal and part genie creatures.
But just as there are different types of genies, there are also different types of Genasi depending on their lineage. In the case of the Earth Genasi, they are descended from the evil dao (though are not necessarily evil themselves). With this comes a resilience and an affinity with the element of earth; powers they can harness to their own benefit.
Is an Earth Genasi the right race for me?
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 Earth Genasi you might consider the following:
Choose an Earth Genasi if you like…
- Innate spellcasting
- Being built like a brick
- Magical stealth
An Earth Genasi might not be for you if…
- You don’t want to deal with casting spells
- Have little use for stealth
If you think an Earth Genasi 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. For an alternative Genasi race, you could consider an Air Genasi, Fire Genasi or a Water Genasi.
Earth Genasi racial traits
| Ability Scores | +2 to one ability score and +1 to another or +1 to 3 different ability scores |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Medium or Small |
| Speed | 30ft |
| Traits | Darkvision, Earth Walk, Merge with Stone |
| Proficiencies | None |
| Resistances | None |
| Darkvision | Yes |
| Innate Spellcasting | Blade ward and Pass without trace |
| Book found in | Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse |
Tactics
An Earth Genasi is a tad awkward to optimise for as you can’t really get tactical with difficult terrain other than ignoring it when it’s there. Their extra toughness and stealth are irregular because they rely on spellcasting.
The best things you can do though, is be selective over when you use blade ward and consider the balances.of casting it to tough out some weapon attacks against what other benefits you might get from using your bonus action for something else.
Pass without trace is handy, but you get one use a day unless you take a spellcaster. For many adventures, one stealth section per day should be sufficient, but you may want to save the spell for when it’s important that the whole party needs to do some stealthing.
Which classes are good for Earth Genasi?
With Monsters of the Multiverse allowing playable races to choose any ability score to improve, the benefits of playing an Earth Genasi come down to its traits. While Earth Walk and Darkvision are decent allowing you to see in the dark and not feel the effects of difficult terrain, it’s an Earth Genasi’s innate spellcasting that help it out most.
Blade Ward is OK as a cantrip, particularly as you can cast it as a bonus action. You’ve got to cast it ahead of the damage though, so is useful if you have no better use for your bonus action, though some classes will have better uses for this most turns.
Pass without trace is an excellent out of combat spell that makes yourself and your allies very adept at sneaking making it a great option for rogues (or anyone else that wants to get involved in stealth), especially if you want to bring your allies along for some stealing.
Below I’ve put together a score for how well each class works with an Earth Genasi based on how well the racial traits work with each class:
Artificer⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Barbarian ⭐⭐
Bard ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cleric ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Druid ⭐⭐⭐
Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monk ⭐⭐
Paladin ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rogue ⭐⭐
Sorcerer ⭐⭐
Warlock ⭐⭐⭐
Wizard ⭐⭐⭐
*Star ratings scored out of 5
Best classes for Earth Genasi
Artificer
Any artificer will get use out of Pass Without Trace but the armourer with its stealth armour will make them unstoppable at sneaking. Blade Ward is good too, especially for artificers like the armorer who might wade into combat though some balance of what you’ll be using your bonus action for needs to be considered. If you’re a Battle Smith, chances are you’ll be using your bonus action for your steel defender for instance.
Cleric
Clerics often like to wade into combat and a bit of extra protection from Blade Ward is useful. There can be conflicts here with spells like Spiritual Weapon, but this is less of an issue for clerics than most other classes. Pass Without Trace is great for a class that’s typically heavily armoured meaning you can sneak around with everyone else.
Paladin
You’ll get the most out of an Earth Genasi build by going dexterity based. Paladins have modest use for bonus actions, which gives them the space to tank up a little more with blade ward. Pass without trace makes you reasonable at stealth, a dexterity build becomes very good at it.
Worst classes for an Earth Genasi
Because the Earth Genasi are at their best when they can often utilise their innate spellcasting, classes with little use for this can tend to suffer. Barbarians have little use for Blade Ward as they can’t cast spells while raging which provides the same damage resistances anyway. Pass Without Trace still has it’s uses but isn’t really enough to make barbarians a good option.
Monks lack repeat castings of pass without trace and their bonus action is so heavily used that blade ward loses too much in other areas. Rogues struggle in a similar way to monks and have less need for the extra stealth abilities anyway. You’ll probably take less damage by simply staying out of danger than by casting blade ward.
Wizards, sorcerers and warlocks will often have little use for these spells unless you’re playing a hexblade or a bladesinger, in which case, the extra durability is very useful.
About Earth Genasi
Appearance
With their mixed lineage, the Earth Genasi are born with aspects relating to both their lineages. From their dao aspects, they gain attributes of the elements of the earth such as skin like a gemstone or a constantly dusty or muddy appearance. Earth genasi tend to be proportionally heavier than most other mortals too. An Earth Genasi also gains powers related to their dao lineage such as the ability to merge with the stone and a resilience to the powers of the elemental plane of earth.
From their mortal parents, an Earth Genasi may acquire all sorts of features depending on what kind of mortal the dao mated with. The genasi child of a an elf might have pointed ears while the genasi child of a halfling might appear shorter. While not common creatures, the genasi that do exist tend to be hugely varied in appearance for this reason.
Society
Like many half-breeds, the Earth Genasi often live their lives as outcasts having no true home and with the dao generally uninterested in raising their own children. Often, the Earth Genasi find themselves living on the edges of society, particularly those with more unusual appearances. There are, however, throughout the planes, those that revere creatures of elemental powers and some genasi can find themselves in high regard in such societies. Others do go to their dao parents to live in the elemental plane of earth to serve within a dao household, though this tends to be rare.
Despite the usual habitations of the Earth Genasi, some do find there way into communities of genasi while others live within the large cities where many with an unusual nature are largely not eschewed due to the more cosmopolitan nature of such cities.
How to roleplay an Earth Genasi
As with any race, the Earth Genasi have a wide variety of personalities and attributes meaning you can play an Earth Genasi however you like. At least one of your parents may have been a cruel, evil dao, but you do not need to be. You may however, want to consider aspects of your past and your lineage that shape who you are such as:
- Who are your family? – Are you the offspring of 2 genasi or the child of a dao. If you’re the child of a dao, how do you feel about your powerful, but likely uncaring dao parent?
- How do you feel about your differences? – Chances are, you know few creatures that are similar to you, and even if you came from a community of genasi, you may find yourself among many other creatures that are not like you. How do you view your differences to others? Are you proud of your heritage? Ashamed perhaps?
- How has society treated you? – Where you’ve grown up may affect how you’ve been treated and may impact your personality. Did you grow up among other genasi or were you the only one for miles? How did other people treat you? Did they shun you or admire your differences, or were they indifferent? How did these things impact your outlook on life and your personality? Do you hide who you are or have you overcompensated with a brashness to your personality?
