Shadar-Kai
by Prince Phantom
A frequent entry into the most edgy race of all time competition, the Shadowfell cousins of the Eladrin also happen to be one of the strongest races in the game. They share many traits with their Elf brethren, but the ones unique to them are the parts that make this a strong pick for most any build.
Shadar-Kai Features
Darkvision: I’m honestly surprised that this race doesn’t get Superior Darkvision, but this is still nice.
Fey Ancestry: Advantage on charm effects comes up a lot, as many monster abilities will charm first and then have a further debilitating effect on top of the charm. Stopping the charm stops these effects, so having advantage on those saves will help a lot. Note that at high levels, you’ll probably still need proficiency in Wisdom saves (the type of save that charm effects usually target) for this to be helpful, as advantage doesn’t help much with a DC 19 check when you’ve got a +1 modifier.
Keen Senses: Perception is the best skill in the game, and we get it for free. Very nice.
Trance: At first glance, this probably reads like a ribbon feature, however with the right build and playstyle it can be game changing. This essentially cuts our long rest time from 8 hours to 4 hours, and while that alone isn’t a huge deal, what it does is give us 4 free hours every day to do whatever we want without slowing our party. There are myriad ways to spend this time, like copying spells into a spellbook, scribing scrolls, creating alchemical items, crafting magic items slowly over time, taking short rests and recovering pact slots that you spent on long duration spells like Death Ward, and so, so much more. If you’ve got even an ounce of creativity (and some magic, martials don’t really have much to do with downtime), then you’ll definitely find something productive to do with those 4 hours.
Necrotic Resistance: This is one of the best types of damage to get resistance to, and fits I well with the theme of the race. This is especially useful if you are playing an undead heavy campaign.
Blessing of the Raven Queen: Setting aside that the Raven Queen is literally the best god in the entire lore, this is one of the best non-flight abilities that any race gets. We get multiple 30ft teleports akin to Misty Step but better than that spell because we can still cast a spell with our action on the same turn we use this. Not only that, but we also get resistance to ALL damage types until the start of our next turn after using it. This turns a good defensive feature into a fantastic one. This is the reason you pick this race.
The easiest comparison here is to the Eladrin, both in lore and mechanics. Where Eladrin can choose from a few decent options for additional effects after their teleport, as Shadar-Kai we get one fantastic option, and I’d honestly take that any day. That plus the necrotic resistance and all the other elf goodies make this my favorite elf by a mile and one of the best races in the game overall. This is also pretty build agnostic, so just about any character can make use of this race.
Final Rating: 5/5
Shadar-Kai (Legacy)
This older version limits our teleport to once per short or long rest, meaning this is strictly worse than the revised version and you have no reason to select this.
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