Centaur Race Guide: D&D 5e (2014)

Introduction

Centaur is one of five new player races Wizards of the Coast added in Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica, and it is the one with the most obvious combat identity out of the box. Where a race like Simic Hybrid sells a menu of build-defining choices, Centaur sells one clear, repeatable trick: cover 30 feet of ground in a straight line, hit with a weapon, and add a bonus-action hoof attack.

The trait list backs that identity up. A 40-foot base speed, 10 feet faster than most player races in the 2014 catalog, turns Charge from a gimmick into a reliable opener. Hooves gives you a natural weapon that never leaves your side. Equine Build upgrades your carrying capacity while taxing your ability to scale a cliff by hand. And your creature type is Fey rather than Humanoid: a mechanical distinction that changes what can target you, not just a lore footnote.

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Disclaimer

Ratings use a four-color system reflecting overall power in the context of the 2014 rules:

• ● Red - Poor. Avoid or situational at best.
• ● Orange - Situational. Useful in specific builds or campaigns.
• ● Green - Good. Reliable value in most builds.
• ● Blue - Excellent. Best-in-slot or near it for the right build.

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Racial Traits

Centaurs have no subraces; the traits below are the complete package for every Centaur character, and per Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica, they also apply to the fey-blooded centaurs of other worlds.

● Ability Score Increase: +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom

A stat line aimed squarely at Strength-based martial classes with a small Wisdom kicker on top. +2 Strength improves melee damage, carrying capacity, and Athletics checks directly, and it is the single most useful primary bonus for Barbarian, Paladin, and a Strength-built Fighter or Ranger. +1 Wisdom is a modest boost to Ranger and Cleric spellcasting and to Wisdom saves, which matter more than most players expect since Wisdom is one of the two most commonly targeted saves in the game.

● Speed: 40 Feet

Most Medium player races move 30 feet per turn, and even the Wood Elf moves only 35. Centaur moves 40. That extra 10 feet is not a minor convenience. It is the trait that makes Charge reliably usable, lets you kite a slower enemy without giving up your action, and closes gaps that would otherwise cost a Dash action for anyone else at the table.

● Fey (Creature Type)

Your creature type is Fey, not Humanoid: a deliberate mechanical distinction the book calls out explicitly, not a lore-only label. A meaningful number of spells and effects are written to target humanoids specifically: Hold Person, Dominate Person, and any monster or class feature keyed to the humanoid type simply do not function against a Centaur. That is a defensive edge against a specific, common category of enemy spellcaster, so mention it to your DM before the first Hold Person target list gets read at the table. The tradeoff runs the other way too: anti-fey magic now applies to you. Protection from evil and good covers fey, so an enemy protected by protection from evil and good imposes disadvantage on your attacks against it and stops you from charming or frightening it, and a hallow spell can bar fey from entering its area. Fey is a strong defensive type, not a strict upgrade.

● Charge

If you move at least 30 feet in a straight line toward a target and then hit it with a melee weapon attack on the same turn, you can immediately follow up with a bonus action, making one Hooves attack against that same target. This is the marquee trait of the race: a free extra attack every time you can set up the geometry, with no rest limit and no resource cost. It rewards a positioning-aware playstyle: start a fight at range, then close the distance in a straight line rather than shuffling around cover. It also stacks cleanly with Extra Attack once you have it, since Charge's bonus action is independent of your action economy for the turn.

● Hooves

Your hooves count as natural weapons for unarmed strikes. A hit deals 1d4 + your Strength modifier bludgeoning damage instead of the flat 1 + Strength modifier of a standard unarmed strike. On their own, Hooves are a solid but unremarkable natural weapon. Their value is that they are always available as the bonus-action attack Charge grants, and they never need to be drawn, re-equipped, or repaired after being disarmed.

● Equine Build

You count as one size larger than your actual size when determining carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. For a Medium Centaur, that means you calculate carrying capacity as if you were Large: a permanent logistics upgrade with no action cost, useful for hauling loot, dragging an unconscious ally out of a collapsing room, or carrying heavier armor and gear without being encumbered.

The tradeoff: any climb that requires both hands and feet is unusually taxing for your equine legs. Each foot of movement during such a climb costs you 4 extra feet, instead of the normal 1 extra foot most climbing rules apply. In practice this means a climb that costs a human half of their movement can consume nearly all of a Centaur's turn. Ladders and ropes count, so it comes up in dungeons with vertical shafts as well as in a wilderness or mountain-heavy campaign, so flag it to your DM before you need it rather than discovering it mid-climb.

● Survivor

You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice from Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, or Survival. This is a narrower list than most player races' skill-choice traits: there is no Perception or Athletics option here, despite how often those two get lumped into similar racial skill grants. Every option on it is still useful. Nature and Survival both cover general wilderness competence and are the strongest default picks for a party without a dedicated scout; Animal Handling supports any build that wants to work with mounts or beasts; Medicine covers your party if it otherwise lacks a way to stabilize a dying ally without magic.

● Languages

Common and Sylvan. Sylvan is a strong thematic and mechanical pickup for any campaign involving fey creatures, the Feywild, or Selesnya-flavored Ravnica content, and it is rarely a wasted language choice in a setting with meaningful fey presence.

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Centaurs on Ravnica

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica gives Centaur a specific cultural framing, rather than defaulting to a generic fantasy-centaur trope. Ravnica is a city-world with almost no open wilderness, and the book leans into that tension deliberately: Centaurs retain a love of wide-open spaces and run wherever they can find room to do it, in plazas, parks, and the rubble-strewn expanses of ruined districts, until the next wall stops them.

That restlessness maps onto the guild system in a specific way. Centaurs gravitate toward the guilds most connected to the natural world: the feral rubblebelts of the Gruul Clans and the wide, tended plazas of the Selesnya Conclave, over the cramped undercity tunnels of the Golgari Swarm or the sterile laboratories of the Simic Combine. In both guilds, centaurs serve as voices of memory and history, preserving old ways and keeping the legends of ancestral heroes alive, and they are more likely than most Ravnicans to join their parents' guild. Gruul centaurs carry a strong clan identity; Selesnya centaurs are fiercely loyal to their communities. New foals are typically named after the most recently deceased family member of the same gender, which centaurs believe keeps some shard of the departed's spirit alive.

This cultural grounding is useful at the table beyond flavor text: a Centaur character has a built-in reason to gravitate toward outdoor, nature-adjacent, or tradition-bound roleplay hooks even inside a dense urban campaign, and it gives a DM a natural lever for guild-affiliation subplots without having to invent one from scratch.

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Centaurs on Theros

Mythic Odysseys of Theros gives Centaur a second source and a completely different cultural home. The racial traits are identical to the Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica package above (+2 Strength, +1 Wisdom, 40-foot speed, Fey creature type, Charge, Hooves, Equine Build, a Survivor skill choice, and Common plus Sylvan), so nothing about the build changes if you pick Theros as your Centaur's origin instead of Ravnica. What changes is the culture, and Theros trades a guild city for two rival bands.

The Lagonna band lives as small merchant families called guri, trading with the human poleis of Meletis, Setessa, and Akros's territory. Each guros leans on a barterer to negotiate deals, an omener to read the gods' guidance in the natural world, and a courser to scout new trade routes, and every family hopes to travel with a koletra, a warrior said to carry the blood of the first legendary Centaurs. When young Lagonna reach adulthood, many set out on a protoporos, a solo journey of self-discovery that can last weeks or years before they return to the band, if they return at all.

The Pheres band runs the opposite direction: voluntary raiding herds that roam the wild country between Setessa and Akros, targeting dangerous but resource-rich prey and banding together against bigger threats. A charger, usually the herd's strongest fighter, typically leads, though some herds elevate a tactician instead. Pheres herds rely on callers (druids or rangers who summon animal allies) and trompers, the herd's most feared warriors, and some Pheres who chafe against herd life strike out alone as renegades. Lagonna centaurs tend toward lawful alignments and Pheres toward chaotic, a split the book states outright rather than leaving to inference.

Neither band maps onto Ravnica's guild structure, so a Theros Centaur skips the Gruul-or-Selesnya framing entirely in favor of a family-versus-herd choice: merchant lineage and inherited trade roles for a Lagonna character, or a raiding band's hierarchy of strength and cunning for a Pheres one. See the Theros guide's character options section for how Centaur fits into Theros character building generally, and the Theros guide's gods section for how Lagonna omeners and Pheres worship intersect with the pantheon and Piety.

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Ability Scores

Strength (+2): A primary-stat bonus for every Strength-based martial class. It improves melee attack rolls and damage directly, raises your carrying capacity on top of Equine Build's own bonus, and boosts Athletics checks for grappling, shoving, and climbing (outside the Equine Build penalty case above).

Wisdom (+1): A useful secondary bump for Ranger and Cleric spellcasting, and a meaningful boost to Wisdom saving throws for anyone, since Wisdom saves are among the most frequently targeted in the game (fear, charm, and many battlefield-control spells key off it). It will not carry a dedicated Wisdom caster the way a race that puts +2 into Wisdom would, but it is never a wasted point.

Neither bonus touches Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, or Charisma, so a build that leans on any of those four stats gets nothing from Centaur's ability score line beyond the flat combat and mobility traits every Centaur carries regardless of class.

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Best Classes

● Barbarian

The strongest fit for the race. +2 Strength drives Rage damage and Reckless Attack, and 40-foot base speed plus Fast Movement (+10 feet at 5th level when you aren't in heavy armor) makes a Centaur Barbarian a 50-foot frontliner. The catch is the bonus action: Rage, the Charge hoof attack, Berserker's Frenzy and the Eagle totem's bonus-action Dash all compete for it. Rage on turn 1 and charge from turn 2 on, and prefer the Bear or Wolf totem, which need no bonus action, over Berserker.

● Paladin

Excellent. +2 Strength supports a Strength-based smiting build directly, and the 40-foot speed closes the gap to a priority target faster than almost any other race can manage, which matters for a class built around delivering a single devastating nova hit. Charge pairs naturally with an opening Divine Smite: land your weapon attack and smite for the big number, then use the free Hooves bonus action for extra chip damage on the same target. The Wisdom bump is a small but measurable improvement to Paladin's often-neglected save, and Fey creature type is a minor bonus against effects specifically written to target or exclude humanoids.

● Ranger

A strong match, especially for a melee-leaning build. Wisdom is Ranger's casting stat, so the +1 bump has direct mechanical value, and Strength supports a Strength-based weapon Ranger rather than the more common Dexterity build. 40-foot speed and Charge give a Ranger an unusually aggressive opening option for a class that often plays at range, and Survivor's skill list (Animal Handling, Nature, Survival) overlaps heavily with what a Ranger already wants to be proficient in, letting you free up a class-granted skill choice for something else.

● Fighter

A solid pick, particularly for a Strength-based build that wants to lead with Charge every combat. +2 Strength and 40-foot speed both feed a straightforward melee Fighter, and Charge's bonus-action Hooves attack fits neatly alongside Action Surge for an opening-round burst. The Wisdom bump is largely wasted here, which is the only reason this sits a tier below Barbarian and Paladin rather than beside them.

● Cleric

A reasonable option for a War Domain or Tempest Domain Cleric that wants to fight in melee. Wisdom drives Cleric spellcasting directly, and Strength supports a martial-leaning build that wears heavier armor and swings a weapon rather than relying purely on spells. Charge and Hooves give a frontline Cleric a bonus-action option that most Cleric builds otherwise lack, though a pure caster Cleric will get less mileage out of the race's combat-forward kit.

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Worst Classes

● Wizard

Wizard wants Intelligence above every other consideration, and neither Centaur ability bonus touches it. Strength and 40-foot speed are wasted on a class that generally wants to stay out of melee range, and Charge requires a melee weapon attack a Wizard almost never wants to make.

● Sorcerer

Charisma-primary, and neither +2 Strength nor +1 Wisdom improves spell save DC or spell attack rolls. The race's entire kit (Charge, Hooves, Equine Build) is built around melee combat that a Sorcerer is actively incentivized to avoid.

● Warlock

Same problem as Sorcerer: Charisma drives Eldritch Blast and Pact spellcasting, and Centaur offers nothing toward it. A Hexblade Warlock could theoretically use the Strength bonus for a melee pact weapon build, but a race with a Charisma bonus will nearly always outperform Centaur for that niche.

● Rogue

Not a strong fit, but not a dead one either. Rogue wants Dexterity, which Centaur does not provide, and the race's bulkier, more visible combat identity (loud hooves, a Large-scale carrying frame, no stealth-oriented traits) works against a class built around subtlety. The 40-foot speed is useful for a hit-and-run skirmish Rogue, and a Strength-based Rogue archetype (an unusual but valid build) can make some use of Charge, which is why this lands at orange rather than red.

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Best Feats

● Mobile

The single best mechanical complement to the race. Mobile adds 10 more feet of speed on top of an already class-leading 40 feet, and it lets you avoid opportunity attacks from any creature you attack in melee, so you can Charge in, swing, and reposition without eating a free hit on the way out.

● Great Weapon Master

Pairs naturally with a Strength-based Charge build, with one conflict to plan around: GWM's bonus attack after a critical hit or a kill uses the same bonus action as Charge's hoof attack, so you get one or the other each turn. The -5/+10 option works best when you have advantage, such as from Reckless Attack.

● Sentinel

Rewards a Centaur that wants to lock an enemy down after closing the distance with Charge. Once you have used your mobility to get into melee range, Sentinel's opportunity-attack upgrades make it costly for that same target to disengage or move past you.

● Charger

Thematically obvious, but read the interaction carefully before taking it. The Charger feat triggers off using your action to Dash and then spending a bonus action for an extra attack or shove; your racial Charge trait triggers off moving 30+ feet in a straight line and hitting with a melee weapon attack, and its bonus action is a Hooves attack specifically. The two do not stack in the same turn, since both want your one available bonus action. Charger is still useful on a turn where you choose to Dash instead of attack, but it is not the free stacking combo the names suggest.

● Polearm Master

Gives you a bonus-action attack of your own with the butt end of a polearm, which competes directly with Charge's bonus-action Hooves attack rather than stacking with it. Still a fine pick for the reach and opportunity-attack utility on turns you are not charging, but do not expect to use both bonus-action options on the same turn.

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Multiclassing Considerations

Barbarian + Paladin: Both classes want Strength as a primary stat, and both benefit from the race's mobility and Charge trait on the opening exchange of a fight. A short Paladin dip for Divine Smite or the Bear Totem Barbarian's damage resistance layered under a Paladin chassis both make full use of the shared Strength investment.

Ranger + Cleric: Wisdom drives both halves of this multiclass, so the +1 Wisdom bonus serves either class equally well. Strength still supports a melee-weapon approach for both, and Survivor's skill options (Nature, Survival, Animal Handling) reinforce a wilderness-and-faith character concept.

Fighter + Barbarian: Two classes that want Strength and care little about Wisdom: a straightforward, mobility-forward melee build that leans entirely into the race's strongest stat and its speed-and-Charge identity.

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Example Build: Centaur Paladin (Levels 1-10)

Race: Centaur (+2 Strength, +1 Wisdom) | Class: Paladin (Oath of Devotion) | Background: Soldier

Starting Stats (Point Buy, 27 points): STR 15 (+2=17), DEX 10, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 8 (+1=9), CHA 15

Key Tactics:

• Opening round: identify the priority target, move 30+ feet in a straight line toward it, land your weapon attack, then use the bonus action Hooves attack from Charge rather than saving the bonus action for anything else.
• Reserve your biggest Divine Smite for the weapon attack that triggers Charge, so the smite damage and the free Hooves follow-up land in the same opening exchange.
• Mobile at level 8 lets you Charge into range, fight, and reposition out of melee afterward without eating an opportunity attack, which is useful for peeling off a spent target to threaten a new one next turn.

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FAQ

Is Centaur a good race for Barbarian?

Yes. +2 Strength feeds weapon damage and Reckless Attack, and 40-foot speed plus Charge closes gaps fast. Rage and the Charge hoof attack both cost a bonus action, so rage on turn 1 and charge from turn 2, or rage before initiative. Fast Movement adds another 10 feet at 5th level for a 50-foot frontliner.

Does Charge work with ranged or spell attacks?

No. Charge requires a melee weapon attack on the same turn you move at least 30 feet in a straight line toward the target. A spell attack or a ranged weapon attack does not trigger it. Any unarmed strike does, because unarmed strikes are melee weapon attacks.

Why is Fey instead of Humanoid a big deal?

Several spells and features are written to affect humanoids specifically: Hold Person, Dominate Person, and certain monster or class abilities that key off the humanoid type. As a Fey creature, a Centaur cannot be targeted by those effects. The cost is that anti-fey magic applies to you: an enemy protected by protection from evil and good imposes disadvantage on your attacks against it.

How much does the Equine Build climbing penalty actually matter?

It applies to any climb that needs hands and feet: ladders, ropes and cliff faces. A Centaur pays 4 extra feet of movement per foot climbed instead of the normal 1 extra foot, so a 10-foot ladder costs 50 feet of movement, more than a full turn at 40-foot speed. Stairs and ramps are fine.

Is Centaur good for Paladin?

Yes. +2 Strength directly supports a Strength-based smiting Paladin, and the 40-foot speed closes distance to a target faster than almost any other race can manage on foot. Charge stacks with an opening smite for a heavy first-hit nova, and the Wisdom bump gives a small boost to Paladin's often-neglected secondary save.

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Final Notes

Hot Take: Fey creature type is a trade, not a free immunity. You shrug off hold person, dominate person and charm person, the spells a humanoid party fears most from enemy casters. In exchange, every anti-fey tool in the game now works on you: a cult priest who casts protection from evil and good on its champion gives you disadvantage on every attack against it, and a temple under hallow can keep fey out entirely. Against human cultists and mages, the trade is excellent. Against a campaign full of clerics and paladins, tell your DM what you picked and expect to see those wards.

Centaur rewards a build that wants to close distance fast and hit hard on the first exchange of a fight. The stat line and trait set line up almost perfectly with Barbarian and Paladin, stay strong for a Wisdom-secondary melee Ranger, and fall off hard for anything built around Intelligence or Charisma.

If you want a mobile, Strength-primary frontliner with a reliable bonus-action opener and a mechanical edge against humanoid-targeting effects, Centaur is one of the most straightforward combat picks in Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica. Browse the rest of the catalog in the race guides hub to compare it against every other option in the 2014 library.