Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook. Today we’re going to be going over the second entry in our half-elf subrace series and we’re going to be covering one of the more popular half elf choices the Drow half-elf. This entry was first introduced in the sword coast adventurers guide book and quickly thereafter became one of the more prominent choices for those edge lordy players.
Being able to take advantage of the cultural amalgamation of the half elf while at the same time having the edgy vibe and spellcasting abilities of the drow. Really a cool combination, there is still a little bit of dispute between which choice is truly better between the full drow and the drow half-elf. However with that being said of course it really does come down to setting and your dungeon masters view on each of the sub-races respectively.
With that out of the let’s now take a look at their special trait. This is called drow magic and much like a lotof the other half elf traits at least for the subraces.
Table of Contents
Drow Magic:
This does come at the cost of your versatility trait, so whether or not it’s worth it to you. It’s worth sitting down and really thinking about it.
The drow magic gives you a couple spells you can use. It is worth noting of course these are not magic spells in the traditional sense. They are instead considered to be traits, so just make sure you know the difference because various things like dispel magic will affect them differently. So have that conversation with your dungeon master fairly early on just in case they need a quick refresher.
In terms of specifics you know the dancing linghts cantrip when you reach third level you can cast the faerie fire spell with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest and when you reach a fifth level you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.
Charisma is your spell casting ability modifier for these spells. Overall this is quite similar to the drow subrace for the elf and you know make sense because you are of course half-drow. There is of course some discussion to be had for the viability of these spells.
Dancing lights is okay for what it is, it provides a great opportunity to serve as distractions light paths that other people may not be able to see or you know have some cool downtime activities or if you’re a bard you can incorporate it into your teams, so forth and so forth that has its uses. The thing is “is you already have dark vision just for being a half elf”.
So the amount of usage you’re gonna getting out of it, it’s gonna vary based off of circumstances quite a bit. Faerie fire on the other hand is universally considered to be one of the best spells in the game and considering you can just cast it at third level, i’ll be at once per day. It’s quite handy, if you’re not familiar with faerie fire it essentially gives you advantage on attack rolls and reveals invisible enemies things of that nature. It’s a great spell. It is quite well done and it gets its fair share of usage in fifth edition book and in really every edition it’s been a part of to be quite fair.
In any case darkness is another one of those spells where it’s quite circumstatial. I’ve heard stories of it being used incredibly effectively but depending on circumstances it could serve as a bane as well so. You know overall it’s a mixed bag but whatever goes with your character you know and that they do kind of fit that edge lordy persona quite well. So take it with a grain of salt. Now let’s move on to my personal thoughts.
Thoughts
Apart from my criticism of its spell choices, i’m actually pretty huge fan of the drow half-elf overall. I think a lot of players have a lot of fun with them and at the end of the day that’s all that really matters. But even more of a nitty gritty thing is that depending on how your world is set up this half elf connect is a huge boon to the dungeon master.
Giving them certain role play opportunities or maybe even crafting the world around the relationship between humans and drows. It could lead to some really interesting character development and might lead to some situations where they may be discriminated against pushed aside or looked down on or even held in higher regard depending on the culture. It’s quite interesting and worth considering from a world building perspective.
Conclusion:
With that being said however! you know let me know what you guys think down beneath in the comment section any thoughts, questions, comments, concerns i’m always open to hearing them. With everything out of the way now i hope you have a great day and as always happy adventuring.