Fey Touched 5e

Published on March 12, 2022, Last modified on September 28th, 2023

The Fey are tricky, powerful beings which are reflected in the excellent Fey Touched feat. Not only does this feat allow a free once-a-day casting of misty step, but you also get an ASI, and access to another powerful 1st-level spell of your choice.

Magali Villeneuve - Wizards of the Coast - Fae of Wishes

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What Is Fey Touched 5e?

Do the lines between the Feywild and your world seem to be thin? Perhaps your character’s ill-begotten luck has left them with a mark from a fickle fey creature, or maybe blessed by an Eladrin?

The Feywild and fey creatures offer a ton of flavor when creating a character. There’s a specific feat in one of the newer books that can flesh out a character’s history, as well as be an incredibly flexible tool in your arsenal.

How Does Fey Touched Work?

Fey Touched can be found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. If you pick up this feat, you gain these two benefits:

You can increase either your Wisdom, Charisma, or Intelligence by one (it’s still capped at 20, however).
You can cast misty step and any 1st-level spell from the Divination or Enchantment schools. You get to cast each of these without spending a spell slot, but only once per long rest.
- If you have the required level to do so, you may use a spell slot instead to cast these spells.
- The spell you gain from this feat will have the same spellcasting ability as the ability you chose to increase.

For most classes, a free misty step or another spell once per day is excellent, but this becomes better for casters who want access to misty step and want to use their normal spell slots for it. Plus, who doesn’t like a stat increase?

Is Fey Touched Good?

We gave Fey Touched an S Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it among the most potent feats in D&D 5e.

Misty step is a spell that every caster wants. Being able to pick misty step up, plus another spell from the Divination or Enchantment schools, plus increasing your spellcasting ability score is an insanely good deal. The reason this is ranked above its twin, Shadow Touched, is the Divination and Enchantment school of spells offer a wider variety of spells, including some insanely powerful 1st-level spells. While these spells can only be cast once a day without a spell slot, casters will be able to use their spell slots to cast more often, or potentially even upcast.

Here are our choices for the best spells to grab with Fey Touched:

Bless – Bless is one of the best 1st-level buffs around. Adding a d4 to all attacks and saving throws for up to three allies (more if you upcast it) can have a huge swing on a combat encounter.
Command – Very effective charm spell that can be very versatile in combat, you can lock down opponents, cause them to drop important items, and so on. Make sure the target can understand your language before casting. Unfortunately, it only lasts one round so using it out of combat is pretty tricky.
Dissonant Whispers – One of the best 1st-level spells in the game. Verbal only components, good range, psychic damage, and can cause an enemy to move away from an ally. Not only does this provide support on the battlefield, it can cause an opportunity attack which makes the spell even more powerful.
Hex – Deal an extra 1d6 of necrotic damage when you hit a creature with an attack. This is the spell of choice for casters that will be making spell attacks more often than not, like the warlock with their eldritch blast. Similar to hunter’s mark in effect but it does necrotic instead of additional weapon damage and can be used on any type of attack, not just weapon attacks. The main downside of hex over hunter’s mark is that it requires VSM components, which can be difficult to manage if you have you hands full and don’t have the War Caster feat.
Hideous Laughter – Poor man’s hold person. Still a great spell but the fact that they get to make saves after each time they take damage drastically reduces its effectiveness. If you can, save this for non-humanoids and use hold person on humanoids.
Hunter’s Mark – Allows for an extra d6 of damage from weapon attacks, can be cast as a bonus action at a range of 90ft, and only requires a verbal component so it can be cast when you have your hands full. Overall stellar spell for martial classes that will be attacking with weapons. The biggest disadvantage this spell has compared to hex is that hex does necrotic damage which can work around resistances better than bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage. The secondary effect that allows you to track creatures more easily while they are marked is comparable strength to hex‘s secondary effect.
Silvery Barbs – Probably one of the more broken spells in 5th Edition. Silvery barbs allows you to automatically grant disadvantage to any creature when they succeed on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. This may seem innocent enough, but when used in higher-level play and when noted that there is no saving throw to resist the effect, it can make short work of a legendary monster’s Legendary Resistances when saving against powerful spell effects. Essentially, silvery barbs acts like a second casting of a high-level spell, for the low price of a 1st-level spell slot and a reaction. Yes, using your reaction means you won’t be able to counterspell. But in most circumstances, especially when fighting a non-caster legendary monster, it can begin to trivialize encounters. The secondary effect, wherein you grant another creature advantage on the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is simply icing on top of the extremely powerful cake.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Fey Touched?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Fey Touched 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

Artificer: Great half-feat to boost INT, pickup misty step, and a 1st-level spell. Hex or hunter’s mark are great choices in most circumstances.

Barbarian: A free casting of misty step will help mobility but unfortunately, all the best spells in the Divination and Enchantment schools require concentration so they can't be used when raging.

Bard: Great half-feat to boost CHA, pickup misty step, and a 1st-level spell. Seeing as the bard already gets access to most of the powerful spells in the Divination and Enchantment schools, bless would be a great pickup for bards looking for a bit more party-buffing capabilities. Hunter's mark and hex won't offer bards a whole lot of value as they are more often than not casting debuff/buff spells rather than damage spells. If you're playing a Valor or Swords bard, hunter's mark is a great choice.

Cleric: Great for the misty step spell alone, but also gives +1 WIS and another 1st-level spell of your choice. There are a ton of choices here for clerics. Melee clerics would love either hex or hunter's mark, caster clerics will have a lot of fun with silvery barbs or dissonant whispers.

Druid: Misty step is a great spell that druids don’t normally gain access to. Plus, you get to increase your WIS. This is a go-to option if you end up with an odd WIS score after character creation. For the spell choice, pretty much all of the options could work. Wild Shape-focused druids will love hunter's mark before they wild shape, caster druids can choose from bless to buff their party or silvery barbs/dissonant whispers for more damage/debuff focused spells.

Fighter: Misty step is an amazing spell for a fighter, allowing them to traverse the battlefield with ease. The ASI will likely get wasted, but can go into CHA for extra face skills or WIS for perception. The 1st-level spell will more often than not be hunter's mark because it can be cast while your hands are full and will add a d6 onto every one of your hits. Hunter's mark also doesn't really need any upcasting to increase the benefits, nor does it matter if you have a bad spellcasting modifier.

Monk: Misty step is an amazing spell for a monk, allowing them to traverse the battlefield with ease or get out of dodge if they're hurt. The ASI will obviously go to WIS. The 1st-level spell will more often than not be hunter's mark because it will add a d6 onto every one of your insane amount of melee attacks. Hunter's mark also doesn't really need any upcasting to increase the benefits, nor does it matter if you have a bad spellcasting modifier.

Paladin: Misty step is great for any paladin and the CHA can be used to buff your spellcasting modifier. As for 1st-level spells to pick up will want hunter's mark to boost their damage, any other than Oath of Vengeance who already gets it as part of their Oath Spells.

Ranger: Misty step is a solid spell for rangers and the WIS can be used to buff your spellcasting modifier. As for 1st-level spells, you could go for a free casting of hunter's mark but that's not particularly exciting. There are some interesting Enchantment and Divination spells that could add utility to a ranger, like animal friendship or beast bond.

Rogue: A free misty step is what every rogue in existence is looking for. Yeah, it uses your bonus action, but the utility of a 30ft teleport is undeniable. The ASI will likely go to waste, but it could be used to boost CHA for Swashbucklers or INT for Arcane Tricksters. As for the 1st-level spell to pick up, there are not too many optimal choices. Hunter's mark and Hex aren't particularly desirable because you only get 1, maybe 2 attacks per round. You'd rather somebody else cast dissonant whispers on an enemy you fighting so you can get another sneak attack in. Probably the best choice would be hideous laughter in order to incapacitate a creature in combat for some attacks with advantage or take a guard out while you're on a sneak mission.

Sorcerer: Free misty step, an ASI to CHA, and an extremely potent 1st-level spell. What's not to love? Due to their lack of known spells, sorcerers will doubly appreciate the additional spells gained by this feat. The best option would probably be silvery barbs, a ridiculously powerful reaction spell that sorcerers don't normally get access to.

Warlock: Misty step is a great spell and an extra 2nd-level spell goes a long way because of the warlock’s reduced spell slots. Plus, you get to increase your CHA. This is a go-to option if you end up with an odd CHA score after character creation. As for 1st-level spells to grab, you're looking for something that can be upcast so you can use your warlock spells to cast it after the once-a-day use. Command and dissonant whispers seem to be the best candidates that fit the bill. Though, if you want to be a pragmatic warlock, you could also grab hex and use it for a free once-a-day 1st-level casting.

Wizard: An amazing half-feat that allows you to pump your INT and get a free cast of misty step once per long rest. This feat provides solid value, even for a caster as potent as the wizard. For the 1st-level spell, there are quite a few powerful spells to add to your already spell list. Among the best would be bless, command, and dissonant whispers.

Conclusion

It’s no secret that Fey Touched is an outstanding feat. Almost any class can use it somehow, whether it’s just a free stat boost plus misty step or something more. It’s hard to go wrong with this feat, and it does way more than your traditional half-feats.

How do you feel about Fey Touched? Have you made some dastardly combos that made some great storytelling? Let us know in the comments!

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.