Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the second episode of our elven sub-race series. We’re gonna start going into the Eladrin now. So what are Eladrin i hear you saying…well quite simply put, their elves that never really left the feywild. If you look at the history of elves at least from a 5E standpoint they started out as kind of like these shapeless, formless demigods and then they were tricked into retaining form and the Eladrin or kind of like “nah bro we’re going to stay in the feywild” that’s kind of how it played out more or less.
Long story short you’re an elf native to the feywild and you represent a season really. In this particular case we’re going over the autumn eladrin which is the season of peace and goodwill. When a summer’s harvest is shared with all, they’re kind of the good guys i guess! if you want to look at them like that none of them are inherently evil per say but these guys are particularly good natured so spin that however it is you’d like. In any case with all of that out of the way let’s now move on to its mechanics.
Mechanics
These two are universal for all of the Eladrin and all four of them. They all get a plus one bonus to their charisma. They all get feystep which is just a redressed misty step and where they differ is the customization aspect of their face step but we’ll get into that in a little bit here but let’s talk about these mechanics for a little bit.
The plus one to charisma always super helpful, always super great. Charisma is just one of those stats in role-playing games where it’s almost always beneficial to have a high charisma. And in terms of fey step it lets you use a bonus action to magically teleport 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again if you finish a short or long rest.
There’s no components for this…it’s kind of an at will thing. So that’s really convenient for doing things like escaping shackles or manacles for example or just prison in general. In addition to that it’s a little bit better than misty step where there isn’t really a ton of tells to it.
That being said! the customization that each different eladrin might change that a little bit. But overall it’s just a super strong ability especially since it can reset on a short rest and if your games are like most of mine and you take several short rests per session..you’re going to get a lot of use out of feystep which is really great. Now let’s move on to the autumn specific variant of feystep.
Fey Step (Autumn)
Before we get in too too far. When you’re calculating the DC for any of these phase step abilities it’s going to be about the same. So it’s 8 plus your proficiency bonus plus your charisma modifier. So clearly some classes are going to benefit from this a little bit more than others namey the classes that use charisma it’s their spellcasting ability modifier.
However once again charisma is almost always a relatively high stat. Almost regardless of what class you’re playing. The only real exceptions exist when you have multiple different ability scores that i’ll rank it. For example eldritch knights strength is probably going to be your main unless you’re playing a Dex space eldritch knights which i’ve seen with decent effectiveness. But predominantly strength followed up by intelligence because that’s your spell casting modifier and then whatever you’re not spending in those two you’re likely spending in constitution.
So in that particular class and subclass you’re likely not gonna have a very high charisma. But as a rule of thumb if you were coming from a class that has one or maybe two important ability scores, charisma is going to be pretty strong choice for your third. Now that i’ve addressed that let’s go into autumn specific fey step.
When You Reach 3rd Level
Immediately after you use your fey step, up to two creatures of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for 1 minute, or until you or your companions deal any damage to it.
This is really really strong. A lot of times the biggest kind of call downs for the eladrin come in the shape of people who make the argument that their traits aren’t good in every situation they’re usually pretty combat focused, the automoladron is kind of the opposite of that. The charmed condition is one of the best conditions in the game. It’s not quite as good as paralysis but outside of paralysis it’s arguably one of the best.
It does a lot in terms of not only buying your party a ton of time during a combat. But also is likely to help you out greatly in social situations as well which is super nice and it’s not really a spell, it’s just a magical effect so there’s not a ton of ways to block it even amongst well-established spell casters.
So that just puts a finer point on how useful it is. There is of course kind of a caveat to this and that’s its limited range 10 feet, it’s not that great. It is kind of a 10 foot radius which is a little bit nicer. So 20 feet total from end to end. But there aren’t going to be…i don’t know it’s one of those weird abilities where it’s kind of like fireball where typically as soon as parties start abusing it too much you’re gonna see dungeon masters consciously or not kind of spacing enemies out a little bit more.
So this might be combined with other spells and abilities to kind of group them up and then use this afterwards. This is also particularly useful by for hexblade warlocks for example or spell casters with blink active. There’s a lot of crazy cool things you can do with this.
That being said! the sky is kind of the limit in terms of creativity and one minute in terms of combat is like an eternity that’s 10 rounds. Most combats last like five or six, so this will likely last for a combat if push comes to shove and depending on how liberally your party takes short rests. You might be able to just use this all over the place like want a better deal on some goods…wham fey step in the area and have them make a wisdom saving throw.
You want to get out of trouble with the local guard wham fey step have to make a wisdom saving throw. Once again it’s not a magical spell and it doesn’t say that they’re aware that you did it to them. So it’s pretty safe to assume you can do it subtly there’s no real components however you do just kind of teleport out of nowhere and then they’re enamored by you so.
However you want to role play that off or make sense go crazy. Let me know down beneath if you have any ideas on how to do that. Now let’s move on to my personal thoughts here.
Thoughts
I’m honestly a huge fan of pretty much all of the eladrin. Now that i’m actually thinking about it. The autumn however is one of the more commonly used that i’ve seen in my games and with good reason, their fey step is arguably one of the best in terms of just general usefulness once again it applies to social circumstances even just getting better deals on stuff. The term condition is just really really strong in 5e.
Early on a lot of creatures and enemies in general you’re going to be going up against. They don’t really have the highest wisdom score. So it’s pretty safe to assume they’re going to fail it. That being said, you know they might just roll really good but for the most part yeah and because it scales with your proficiency bonus and your charisma modifier.
If you’re like a warlock per se you’re gonna a really high DC on this and especially if you’re a warlock and you’re kind of squishier at the beginning. This could just save your neck constantly so do bear that in mind. However is it perfect, you know now probably not..is it the best and most optimized sub-race for the elf, you know not really but there’s like 13 of them so it’s really hard to rank them all when you get that many.
Is it a strong choice though..yes! It really is, Also there aren’t a lot of dungeon masters that dislike the Eladrin at all. There are a couple of the elven subraces i personally have a bone to pick with. Namely the marked ones but that’s kind of a pretty common opinion to have.
Conclusion
That being said! Let me know what you think of the autumn eladrin down beneath in the comments section. Be sure to mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you have about them. That being said, i hope you all have a great day and as always happy adventuring.