Careful, they’re armed! Learn how to optimise the four-armed Thri-Kreen with our guide.
What are the Thri-Kreen?
While many races in the D&D universe do look weird and wonderful, most have the appearance of the fantasy characters the franchise is well known for. However, the Thri-Kreen are the most alien-looking playable race in D&D 5e. They are insectoids that stand upright on a pair of legs but have 2 pairs of arms, an armoured carapace and mandibles instead of teeth.
Most creatures are unfamiliar with the Thri-Kreen. They originate from the Dark Sun setting, but as Wizards has distanced itself from this setting, I’m not expecting a comeback (it still exists, but there’s not update lore around it). In 5e, the very basic lore is that they can be found across the settings of D&D, travelling through wildspace on Spelljammer ships. Expect many people to be surprised and even concerned by their appearance.
The Thri-Kreen language relies on a series of clicks with emotions conveyed with their mandibles and antennae. As you can imagine, this can make communication with other races challenging as they generally can’t create the noises that most races make with their mouths. Instead, the Thri-Kreen communicate through telepathy with most other races.
As you’d expect from such an alien race, the Thri-Kreen have been introduced as part of the Spelljammer setting in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space (though they originally appeared in the Dark Sun setting many editions ago). They are now a playable race in D&D 5e and our guide will tell you everything you need to know to play as one.
Is a Thri-Kreen 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 Thri-Kreen you might consider the following:
Choose a Thri-Kreen if you like…
- You love a tough, armored carapace
- Like to camoflage yourself for extra stealth
- Like to speak telepathically
- Want extra arms to hold extra things
- Want to go with a dexterity-based character
- Want to play a truly bug-eyed alien race
A Thri-Kreen might not be for you if…
- You don’t want to play an alien
- Like communicating with your mouth
- Have little use for things like light weapons
- Don’t intend to be stealthy
If you think a Thri-Kreen 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 a different stealthy race, you could consider a Deep Gnome or a Bugbear.
Thri-Kreen racial traits
| Ability Scores | +2 to one ability score and +1 to another or +1 to 3 different ability scores |
| Creature Type | Monstrosity |
| Size | Medium or Small |
| Speed | 30ft |
| Languages | Common and 1 other |
| Traits | Chameleon Carapace, Darkvision, Secondary Arms, Sleepless, Thri-Kreen Telepathy |
| Proficiencies | No |
| Resistances | No |
| Darkvision | Yes |
| Innate Spellcasting | No |
| Book found in | Spelljammer: Adventures in Space |
Tactics
The Thri-Kreen are a properly unique race. Truly alien, with insectoid features, camoflaging carapace, bug eyes and multiple arms. No other race can boast any of these features. With advantage on stealth checks to hide, and armored carapace that relies on dexterity over armor and light weapons able to be wielded with their spare arms, Thri-Kreen are fairly pigeon-holed into dexterity based activities. I’d consider the following tactics when playing as one:
Natural armor: A thri-kreen’s armored carapace is better than any light armor (13+ dex modifier) and allows them to equal the AC of the best heavy armor (18). No armor is far cheaper than full plate mail and allows you to easily stealth around. Take full advantage of this by going big on dexterity to max out your AC.
Out of sight out of mind: Thri-Kreen are great at stealthing. You can camoflage yourself to give yourself advantage on stealth checks to hide (but not for other types of stealthing). Handily, this stacks with stealth proficiency making you potentially, incredibly difficult to spot. Your maxed out dex for your armor plus stealth proficiency will be your friend here allowing you to be one of the stealthiest races around.
Heavily armed: You have 4 arms! 2 of these can do all the normal things you expect arms to do, while the other 2 are more limited in use. Still, they can do a lot, from manipulating objects to wielding weapons with the light property. This is handy if you’re a spellcaster that needs a spellcasting focus, but want your main hands wielding other things. There’s a bit of hand economy here as your secondary arms can only do certain things (you can’t drink a potion for instance). Here’s a few ways you could work your secondary arms:
- Great weapon in primary arms, light weapons in secondary arms qualifying you for two weapon fighting while still getting the benefit of a great weapon’s power. Keep in mind that you’ll want high strength for this build, but the build I’ve shared so far is dexterity based.
- Two light weapons in your secondary arms, shield in your primary arms and a hand free for other things allowing you to do two-weapon fighting and have the bonus of a shield’s protection.
- Multiple ranged weapons with load property with a hand free for loading. Consider a fighter shooting 3 pistols or hand crossbows then reloading with your free hand. If you have 4 attacks, you could take a mix of pistols and daggers to make this work (handaxes are an option for a strength build too).
- Two light weapons in your secondary arms and a glaive in your primary arms for opportunity attacks while making a bonus attack with your offhand.
Having extra arms is super useful, it just takes a bit of thought how to build your character around them.
Telepathy: Telepathy is great for stealth characters. You can communicate silently with your companions without causing noise. Sadly, they can’t communicate with you in the same way, but it’s still great, and 120ft is a fair distance for telepathy too.
Which class should I choose?
Primarily we’re looking at dexterity based classes that can either stealth, make use of multiple combinations of weapons, or a bit of both.
Below I’ve put together a score for how well each class works with a Thri-Kreen 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 a Thri-Kreen
Your best options for a Thri-Kreen are a fighter and a ranger. Both can take advantage of combinations of weapons using your secondary arms and both work easily as dexterity builds. Rangers edge things in terms of their stealth capabilities while fighters have a bit more use for weapon attacks with their additional extra attacks.
Some subclasses can work fairly well here too. Swords and valor bards make decent options for taking advantage of all those arms, especially with the option of a shield. Hexblade warlocks and battle smith artificers gain similar benefits too.
A rogue can be a decent option making two weapon fighting more viable, but they gain a little less from the combat options even if the stealth and AC options work very well for them.
Worst classes for a Thri-Kreen
Sorcerers and wizards will have little use of the extra arms. The armored carapace is a little helpful and better stealth is OK, but chances are, they’ll get less out of these abilities than most others.
Monks also make a poor option as unarmored defence can’t be combined with armored carapace and they have little use for the extra arms (even if a 4 armed monk sounds like it would be great for slapping your foes around).
About the Thri-Kreen
Appearance
The Thri-Kreen look like large, bipedal ants. Their legs allow them to stand upright and they have 2 pairs of arms though their secondary arms are not as strong or maneuverable as their primary pair giving them limited uses (no wielding 4 lightsabers like General Grievous style I’m afraid, though I guess you can wield 4 shortswords if you really want). Like most insects, the Thri-Kreen have an external carapace giving them a tough, armoured exterior. Their carapace is also chameleonic allowing them to change their colour to blend in with their surroundings. They have mandibles instead of teeth, a pair of antennae and large eyes on the sides of their face.
Personality
As an alien species that are not even classed as humanoids, but monstrosities, they have a very different culture to most other species. They express emotions through their mandibles and antennae, speak using telepathy and are a space-faring race having experienced countless worlds. While little is fully known about their culture, it’s worth bearing in mind what quirks an alien species might have when you play as one and what misunderstandings might occur with other races.
How to roleplay as a Thri-Kreen
As an alien species, the Thri-Kreen are perhaps some of the most difficult races to roleplay. Little information is given about their culture or personalities so you’ll need to make up a lot for yourself.
This does give a great opportunity for you to play around with the concept of an inscrutable alien species. Making it difficult to understand how you feel about a given situation is great way to do this. I’d also consider unique ways your telepathy might manifest to provide emphasis.
With that in mind, it’s up to you how you play as a Thri-Kreen, but I’d suggested leaning heavily into how you might act as an alien coming across different cultures (much like ET or Stitch for example).
