Hello adventurers, welcome to my spellbook! and thank you so much for checking out the third episode of the elven subraces and subsequently the second episode of the eladrin if you want to look at it that way, we’re going to be talking about the Winter Eladrin today. The season of which it represents is described as the season of contemplation and allure. Where the vibrant energy of the world slumbers.
Basically you’re one chill dude at least more than likely. If there is such a thing as an evil audren it would probably have to be the winter i’d imagine. I mean maybe summer could be considered evil in some sense but they’re usually just chaotic but in any case yeah here we are with the winter eladrin and found in mordenkainen’s tome of foes.
If you’re not super familiar with what the eladrin are…they’re essentially elves that are native to the feywild, they have a really weird and interesting history. Highly recommend getting mordenkainen’s tome of foes. In any case before we dive into its mechanics, you need to check out the elf main article to know everything you get. Just because this only covers the sub-race and it doesn’t cover the race in its entirety. So just bear that in mind, now let’s dive into the mechanics for the winter eladrin.
Mechanics
So like all of your eladrin counterparts you’re going to be getting a plus one to charisma and you gain access to fey step as well.
Fey step: As a bonus action you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Something i want to make super clear. I went over it in the autumn article and i’m gonna have to go over it with every article, this is not a magical spell. It’s a redressed misty step but at its core this is a race-based ability, it’s not a spell. So things like counter spell or even to spell magic don’t really work on it.
There are some layer actions that would work on it but you’re likely not going to run into those creatures for quite some time and when they do come up it’s kind of meant to be a surprise that they can do it. So…yeah don’t worry too too much about it. However misty step if you’re not familiar is an incredibly useful spell almost every caster with access to it takes it. Especially because you know you can use your main action to do a damaging cantrip and then you misty step away or vice-versa right!
And since there’s a location you can see within a range, it’s not limited by elevation so as long as it’s within 30 feet you can get onto roofs or vantage points you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to get to, it’s just super useful and since this particular ability resets on a short rest, doesn’t require any components it’s really really good.
So if you’re looking at these mechanics and you’re like “well it doesn’t get that much” so i’m not going to pick it. I get that and that’s a fairly common statement about the Eladrin subrace as a whole. However i gotta say, this is one of the strongest racial abilities you’ll get access to and it scales really well. The autumn especially winter it’s kind of hit or miss depends on how you role play but.
What do i mean by that you may ask “well…each eladrin gets a customized version of fey step” so let’s move on and check out the winter version of fey step down beneath here.
Fey step (Winter):
As with all of the fey steps that require you to make a saving throw or require someone to make a saving throw. The DC is 8+ your proficiency bonus plus your charisma modifier. Really good stuff, what this really boils down to is that it scales with a level. Which is super great and it’s something a lot of racial features and even a handful of class features overlook and what that really translates to is this is viable at every level of play and it’s consitently viable.
If anything it becomes more viable if you’re a charisma based class and if you are a charisma based class like a warlock, sorcerer, bard, or paladin to a lesser extent you’re going to see a ton of usefulness out of this. Straight up just a ton of usefulness.
What is the feature in particular well “when you use your fey step one creature of your choice that you can see within five feet of you before you teleport must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.”
How useful is this really! not super useful sadly, at least not as far as i can tell. The maid the biggest downside is this is before you teleport. So what that means is before you teleport away and kind of it’s realistically you’re gonna be moving more than five feet away from them at least presumably because 5E doesn’t have any backstabbing mechanics so presumably you’re running away from them and you’re moving more than five feet away so attacks of opportunity aren’t really a thing and the frightened condition is really super beneficial when you’re closer up to them.
So if you’re unfamiliar when a creature is frightened…they have disadvantage on ability checks and attack roles while the source of its fear is within line of sight and the creature can’t willingly move closer to the source of its fear. So the biggest bonus intention a lot of people have with the frightened condition is that it doesn’t apply to saves right! It’s strictly applies to ability checks and attack rolls.
Saves are a super big deal and if the frightened condition did apply to saves then i’d be able to say something like well using the winter eladrins fey step you can further cement on the usefulness of upcasting certain spells like fireball of course being a notable example. However because the frightened condition has nothing to do with saves, that’s not really the case. The only really beneficial way to use this would be to use it to put some distance between your party and a massive threat but that would of coruse imply that massive threat would have to fail the wisdom save.
So there’s a lot of things that could possibly go wrong and the frightened condition is really best used when it applies to multiple foes simultaneosuly if it’s just one and it’s only lasting for one round. I don’t know maybe i’m looking at this the wrong way, maybe i’m completely off the mark but between the kind of shortfalls of the frightened condition and the fact that the rating supplies before you cast it. I don’t know it’s just one of those things where i’m like well very niche, very niche is probably the best way to put it. Now let’s get over to my personal thoughts.
Thoughts
As big of a fan of the Eladrin as i am. I don’t know i’m just really i am biased and i know what the metas are and it’s really hard for me to defend a couple of them. The winter is one of them sadly! the frightening conditions interesting and i suppose there’s a ton of role play opportunity for it now that i’m actually thinking about it like might provide an advantage on intimidation checks stuff like that.
Or might be an interesting way to sabotage someone you know stuff like that. But when compared to the automoladron in particular it can apply to more than one foe and they deal with the charmed condition. So almost everyone would agree that the charming condition is substantially better than frightened and their conditional effect applies for a full minute. I don’t know, once again maybe i’m missing something, i don’t think that i am however maybe you disagree. If you do i welcome it, let me know what your thoughts are down beneath.
Conclusion
Be sure to mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you have regarding the winter eladrin. That being said! i hope you all have a great day and as always happy adventuring.