Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the fifth episode of our half-elf subrace series. Today we’re going to be going over another one of the eberron half-elfs namely the Mark of Storm Half-Elf. This sub-race is found in eberron rising from the last war and is one of the marked sub-races so it’s pretty good. A lot of DMs ban them but if yours allows them usually it make sense to double down and just go with them, you know might as well.
Much like the mark of detection we talked about earlier the traits were a little bit interesting on these so they overwrite the ability score increases you get from being half-elf and they also overrate your versatility perk as well. So just do bear that in mind moving forward. Now let’s move on to its traits.
Table of Contents
Traits
So you get plus two to charisma and plus one to dexterity. Naturally that overwrites the normal half elf ability score increases. You’ll gain access to storm’s boon which gives you resistance to lightning damage which based on the campagin can be quite good.
You’ll also gain a deductive intuition: When you make an acrobatics check or any ability check involving navigator’s tools. You can roll a D4 and add the number rolled to the ability check.
This is pretty good especially if you know you might not be the most nimble character or maybe if you’re an especially nimble character and you want to maintain your success rate let’s say. Then this is a pretty good way of doing that a d4 can go a long way on a d20 check naturally.
The navigator’s tools they’re kind of campaign dependent but they might save your neck from a pretty nasty, nasty scenario so you know use them each as much as you can and do your best to remind yourself that you have access to this trait. And as i’m sure you’re aware this is not all because we’re dealing with one of the marked sub-races. So let’s now move on to its other traits.
Other Traits
Your other trait is called headwinds: You know the gust cantrip, starting at 3rd level, you can cast the gust of wind spell once with this trait. And you regain the ability to cast it when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability modifier for these spells.
There’s always an interesting discussion when it comes to gust as a cantrip personally i don’t view it very highly i think relative to the other elemental base cantrips like shape water or control flame it just falls really short you know and it’s not obvious to me how it’s better than really any cantrip for the most part. Maybe with the exception of something like truesight but even then you know truesight has some uses with various class features so it could be a lot worse but gud is just meh you know.
Gust of wind however now that’s the spell i can get behind. It’s kind of a mix between a control and utility spell it is concentration which isn’t great. But you know for what it is, i think it makes a lot of sense and it’s just a second level spell. There is a lot of interesting ways you can use it with your dungeon masters discretion of course that make it quite viable at a lot of different levels of play.
In any case you also gain access to an extended spell list, these are just additional spells you’ll have access to when you reach the relevant levels. So it’s not as though you can cast these freely but you can select them if you would otherwise not have access to them.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | feather fall, fog cloud |
| 2nd | gust of wind, levitate |
| 3rd | sleet storm, wind wall |
| 4th | conjure minor elementals, control water |
| 5th | conjure elemental |
First level spells you gain access to feather fall and fog cloud, second level gust of wind and levitate, third level sleet storm and wind wall, fourth level conjure minor elementals, control water and at fifth level conjure elemental. All of these are quite good.
They’re all a little niche but they’re all quite good. Feather fall has saved my life a handful of times and likely to save your life as well. Fog cloud is one of those control based spells where there’s a lot you can do with it on like quite a bit. Gust of wind i’ve already kind of talked about. Levitates really niche but when you need it it can really save your neck in a pinch.
Sleet storm for a long time was considered to be one of the more broken spells in dnd 5e it’s really a pain in the ass for dungeon masters. The wind wall is fine there is a lot of the elemental wall type spells and they’re all okay wind walls no exception. The ability to conjure minor elementals is quite cool same with conjure elemental although most campaigns will not last long enough for you to gain access to that.
Maybe a little bit more on that later on but most campaigns won’t and control water just nice to have it’s one of the more broken spells if you know how to use it and if you have a lenient dungeon master but. In any case let’s now move on to my personal thoughts.
Thoughts
To those of you who are long time followers of this website you probably already know what i’m going to say. If your dungeon master allows you to pick the marked sub-races just pick them there is no real downside to picking them and they’re all substanstially better than a lot of the other subraces the half-elf has access to so you might as well.
Mark of storm makes a lot more sense for more melee orientated characters or control based characters and that resistance to lightning damage can certainly go a long way depending on the campaign and setting you’re in i guess. But it’s quite good and there’s not really any downsides to picking this.
Outside of the fact that you lose versatility but you know for an extended spell list the ability to cast some pretty cool spells a resistance and you know and added d4 to acrobatics. There’s a lot more upside than there would be from just going with versatility.
Conclusion
That being said! I hope you all have a great day and as always happy adventuring. If you have any cool thoughts, stories, ideas or any other concerns please let me know in the below comment section.