SOURCE: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Rating the Benefits of Fey Teleportation

Benefit #1 – 

Increase Intelligence or Charisma by 1, to a maximum of 20 

Half an ASI in two common spellcasting stats. Charisma might also be useful for skill/utility characters such as Rogues

Benefit #2 – 

Learn the Sylvan language, and the ability to speak, read, and write it

Sylvan is the language of the fey. Learning a fixed language isn’t a great benefit for a feat, and any character who wants this could just pick it at character generation, instead. This is a ribbon feature, and unfortunately mostly disappointing. 

Benefit #3 – 

Learn the Misty Step spell. It can be cast once without consuming a spell slot. The free use refreshed on a short or long rest

Misty Step is a fantastic spell that lets a character teleport a short distance as a bonus action. 

Learning it, then casting it for free one (or more) times per day is a decent benefit for basically anyone

Mechanics and Requirements

Understanding How It Functions

Fey teleportation does two things. Gives a character the Sylvan language, and teaches them the Misty Step spell, with the ability to cast it for free at least once per day. 

Misty Step

Misty Step is a level 2 spell that casts as a bonus action and lets the casting character teleport up to 30ft, to any open space they can see. 

At first glance, this is incredibly simple. Because it is. But there’s nuance:

• Firstly, the bonus action cast time. A spellcaster can throw a Misty Step and a cantrip (but only a cantrip, can’t cast two leveled spells in one turn,) and a fighter can outmaneuver and then take the Attack action for their full damage. 
• Second, teleporting is completely safe. No attacks of opportunity. Nothing can prevent the movement except counterspelling the cast, or some high level magic, and the casting character can freely move to any space within 30 feet, as long as they can see it at all. 
• Lastly, the spell only requires verbal components. No somatic movements. Holding a shield and sword? Doesn’t matter. Grappled by a pile of goblins and pinned to the floor? As long as you can still shout, you can get out. 

The Fey Teleportation teaches the spell to a character with the feat and allows them to cast it for free once per day. On top of this, the free casting refreshes on short and long rests. A party taking multiple rests per day might allow a character to cast this two or three times or more. 

Despite its simplicity, Misty Step is a very powerful spell, widely considered one of the best at its level, and comes recommended in many optimization guides. There is no character or build that can’t make great use of low cost teleportation, especially when it’s not eating into any other kind of class resource. 

Learning Sylvan

The second benefit of the Fey Teleportation feat is learning the Sylvan language. 

Generally, learning languages like this isn’t an impressive boost to a character. Character generation gives most characters the option to pick up a handful of languages, and Sylvan is among the options available. 

In many campaigns, past the very early levels, languages cease to be an issue, as long as the party has some sort of spellcaster. Tongues, a level 2 spell, utterly solves the language barrier problem. Realistically, a party should also know which languages they’re likely to need going into a campaign. 

Finally, while it’s a cute and fluffy benefit, the fact that the language is fixed to Sylvan, the language of the Fey, is another problem. A lot of tables can probably count the times they’ve interacted with Fey on one hand, and any that really take an interest will normally be able to speak common. After all, any high CR fey is probably smarter than your PCs.

Key Stats

Fey Teleportation offers an increase of +1 to either Intelligence or Charisma.

These are the primary casting stats for more than half of the main caster classes in 5e. So they’re important if you plan on playing a Wizard, Bard, or Warlock. 

For non-casters, Intelligence isn’t beneficial for most builds. Charisma, on the other hand, dictates a character’s ability with all of the talky skills, making it vitally important for any character dealing with the lion’s share of the social load.  

Ideal Characters for Fey Teleportation

Top Classes

Fighter – A bonus action teleport with potential for multiple daily uses, that doesn’t require any kind of spellcasting feature, is perfectly in line with what most Fighters are going to want to do. 

A character with this feat should focus on offense, playing aggressively, using their teleport to drop directly into groups of enemies that really don’t want an angry, plate-clad warrior up in their faces, or going all in for one devastating Action Surge turn, then flickering out again. 

Battle Master is always a strong subclass. Doubly so when it can position perfectly no matter the occasion. Rune Knight is also excellent here, stacking more per-rest special abilities on top of class abilities that turn the build into a big, scary, damage-dealing target. 

Wizard – While the Wizard has easy access to Misty Step in their spell list, the stats and free cast here are extremely useful, especially at low levels where spell slots are at a premium. 

If we’re going all-in on High Elf uniqueness, the School of Bladesinging takes the Wizard chassis, with all of its spell powered glory, and slaps the ability to lunge into combat on top of it. Though, realistically, every single Wizard subclass is strong in its own way. 

Bard – If you’ve got the stats for it, the boost here, plus a language (which the Bard, of all classes, might get some use from) and an emergency button to smash for when times go bad are all things any Bard will love. 

The Bardic class tends to be heavy on bonus action use, so we lean toward Lore as a subclass. Lore Bards have been strong since the inception of 5e, and their key ability, the reactionary enemy debuff of Cutting Words, is still great now. Alternatively, roll up a Bard of Creation and stab your enemies dead with your new floating sword companion. That’s good too.

Race or Subrace Choices

The Fey Teleportation feat is only available to High Elves. 

To us, limiting a feat to not only a single race, but a single sub-race seems incredibly restrictive. But any character wanting what this feat offers is better off looking towards the Fey Touched feat anyway.   

Combos, Tactics, and Synergies

Complementary Feats

Ritual Caster – For the non-Wizards, gain a spellbook and the ability to cast ritual magic. This feat does nothing for a character’s combat power but adds a ton of fun, flexible options for out-of-combat challenges. 

Other spellcasting feats – For High Elves that eschew magic, taking further spellcasting feats can give a build a surprising amount of magical potential, especially early game. 

Spells that Synergize

Because Misty Step is a leveled spell, it can’t be cast in the same turn as any other non-cantrip spell. So the quick answer for which spells synergize is “none of them”

That’s not the whole truth, though. Misty Step is ideal for getting characters with existing concentration spells into play. A great example is Spirit Guardians, which pushes an AOE of damage and difficult terrain out around the character that cast it. Using Misty Step the turn after it was cast can drop it right into the middle of the enemy, where it’s going to wreak the most havoc. 

Strategies for Maximizing Fey Teleportation Effectiveness

Consider Fey Touched

Squinting at the Fey Teleportation and Fey Touched feats shows an alarming amount of similarity. It’s understandable. 5e is over a decade old at this point, and there’s always going to be overlap in content. 

But two feats that offer daily free casting of the Misty Step spell, plus other benefits? That’s oddly specific. 

Fey Teleportation was released in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, in 2017. Fey Touched was released in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, in 2020. The 5e design team realized that what this feat offers is powerful and effective enough that it should be available to everybody. 

But what are the differences?

This feat, Fey Teleportation, almost feels like a practice run for what came later. 

Fey Touched doesn’t offer an ASI. It also doesn’t offer a (mostly useless) language. Instead, it gives a character taking it a second spell and also teaches these spells to any character already capable of any sort of spellcasting. 

For non-spellcasters, Fey Touched only allows a single cast of Misty Step per day, but considering the multiple castings from this feat are conditional on short rests, and you get a second spell, it’s generally a much more effective option unless your build needs the ASI on offer here.  

For a longer discussion on the Fey Touched feat, you can find our full guide here. 

Understand the intricacies of spellcasting

The Fey Teleportation feat gives the character the ability to cast the Misty Step spell for free. It’s important to recognize that this still counts as a leveled spell, so prevents the casting of other leveled spells in the same turn. 

This means a character needing to use Misty Step to escape on their turn is left with cantrips only. No casting other spells in the same turn you use this feat, folks!

Final Thoughts on Fey Teleportation

For most characters, Fey Teleportation is a worse version of the Fey Touched feat. 

One cast of Misty Step, with the potential for maybe one more, is worth that much less than MIsty Step and another known spell, plus the ability to cast them both. And what you get in return, +1 to one stat and a language that, in many games, won’t matter, just isn’t worth it.

So them’s the facts. Fey Touched is the better feat. Most characters will want that. But if you’re a High Elf who wants to top off an uneven stat or know you get a ton of short rests, maybe Fey Teleportation is better.