Hello adventurers! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the eighth episode of the elven sub-race series. Today we’re gonna be going over the pallid elf which i don’t expect a ton of you to be aware of in all honesty. More so for the reason i wasn’t really aware of it until i had to do this series. But it is a thing i guess, added in with the explorer’s guide to wildemount. The pallid elves are a mystical and insightful people with skin as pale as the surface of alexandria’s largest moon.
They emerge from the pallid grove this century and wander the world with childlike curiosity. They’re basically druid elves if you want to look at them like that and their stats seem to reflect that as well. Before we dive into their traits however if you’d like to check out the full elf race and its subraces you can do so by clicking on the provided link. Now let’s move on to the pallid elf’s description and traits.
Table of Contents
Description
The pallid elves are a mystical and insightful people with skin as pale as the surface of Exandria’s largest moon. They emerged from the Pallid Grove this century and wander the world with childlike curiosity.
Traits
You gain a plus one to wisdom for your ability score increase. You also gain incisive sense which gives you advantage on investigation and insight checks. Something worth pointing out of course is that incisive sense doesn’t have any limitation on it, you can use it as much as you want.
And depending on what kind of a game you’re running and what kind of a setting you’re in both inside and investigation are going to be super important. Man that’s especially true if you’re in a mystery themed campaign or the very least adventure currently or in a more political dialogue intensive campaign. Very cool stuff, worth talking with your DM about but still really nice. Now let’s move on to their additional trait blessing of the moon weaver.
Blessing of The Moon Weaver
You know the light cantrip, when you reach 3rd level, you can cast the sleep spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the invisibility spell (targeting yourself only) once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Casting these spells with this trait doesn’t require material components. Wisdom is your spell casting ability for these spells.
A couple things worth addressing with regards to this these are legitimate spells. In the past when we’ve talked about races that gain access to the ability to have certain spell-like effects, some of them have been magical abilities and as the result they’re exmepted from a lot of the nonsense that is attached to spells. However these are specified as being spells and as such they are able to thwart by similar means.
In addition to that looking at this overall spell list you gain light, sleep and invisibility. Light is a really interesting cantrip with a ton of uses if you’re very creative and it’s especially beneficial if you and your party member don’t have access to dark vision. Sleep is hit or miss, at early levels a sleep is incredibly good and is one of my all-time favorite spells. However in the late game especially since it can only cast yet at its base level it’s likely to fall off pretty quickly.
Invisibility on the other hand is perfectly viable at any level of play if anything at later levels it might even have a slight edge. That being said, you can really cast all these once per day with the exception of the ligth cantrip and as such it’s fine i guess. Wisdom being the spell casting ability modifier goes a long way if you’re creating a cleric or a druid character. And once again the theme seems to be in line with druid and clerics anyways so it makes sense. Now let’s get on to my personal thoughts here.
Thoughts
For some reason the pallid elf seems to remind me a lot of the drow and a little bit of the mark of shadow elf as well. It seems to be a blend of the two in more ways than not. It’s fine, it’s really lends itself to a specific playstyle though especially with incisive sense being what it is. Blessing of the moon weaver is alright it’s something that we’ve covered before in the race series so it’s nothing really worth bragging about.
However if you’re playing a character that doesn’t have access to a lot of spells out of the gate and you still would like some magical utility. All those spells are fine for that the only concern is that sleep really isn’t viable past a certain point. However who knows your DM might be able to let you up cast it for sacrificing a spell slot.
Usually if you’re allowed to do that it’ll specify in the actual description this does not so safe to assume you can’t. You can only cast it at its base level once per long rest. That being said however, you know early game you are going to have a pretty significant advantage over your counterparts. However it’ll fade into obscurity relatively quick.
I can picture a handful of DMs taking issue with this sub-race just because relative to a lot of the PHB sub-races. It’s pretty good and makes an obvious choice. I also like the way these elves are styled to be very pale like a reflection of the moon kind of reminds me of the drow a little bit although probably a little bit more socially acceptable.
Conclusion
That being said, let me know what you think of the pallid elf down beneath in the comment section. Mention any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns you have regarding them and of course if you have any ideas or build options let me know down beneath as well. I’m always super curious to see what you guys can come up with. As always guys i hope you’ll have a wonderful day and of course happy adventuring.