SOURCE: Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron

Rating the Benefits of Greater Dragonmark

Benefit #1 – 

The Dragonmark Intuition die granted by the basic Dragonmark feat permanently increases from a d4 to a d6

Each dragonmark offers a boost to one or more skills. This feature makes that better by permanently increasing the size of the die. 

Benefit #2 – 

Increase an ability by +1, to a max of 20. The ability choices are dictated by the character’s chosen Dragonmark, but always have at least two options. 

Half an ASI is always good. Gaining it on top of what else is offered by this feat is, honestly, kind of crazy.  

Benefit #3 – 

Learn two spells, dictated by your Dragonmark. Each one can be cast once per day, without expending spell slots. The spell also requires no material components, if it normally would. 

The real meat of the Greater Dragonmark feat. Some of the spells on offer are absurdly powerful, commonly including spells of levels 4-6. A feat granting spells of this caliber is already excellent. Ignoring the costly material components many of them have only made this stronger. 

Mechanics and Requirements

Understanding How It Functions

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out the elephant in the room. Greater Dragonmarks aren’t legal 5e content for things like the Adventurer’s League anymore. While the concept of Dragonmarks is incredibly cool, and we’d be happy to have a Dragonmarked character played at our tables, if you’re heavily into organized play, this feat isn’t something you’re going to be able to use. 

The Greater Dragonmarks

Each Dragonmark in the guide below states which spells are granted by the feat, as well as which stats can be chosen for the +1 half-ASI boost, and the associated casting stat. 

We’ve also included a brief rundown of the overall power of each spell and the mark in general, as well as which characters could make the best use of it. 

Mark of Detection

ASI options – Charisma or Intelligence

Spellcasting ability – Intelligence

Mark spells

See Invisibility – 2nd level. See invisible creatures, as well as into the ethereal plane, for an hour without requiring any concentration. This is a great backup option for times when you’ve exhausted your single daily cast of True Seeing. (See below.)

True Seeing – 6th level. Costly material component. True Seeing gives a character Truesight, which sees invisible creatures, illusions, shapechangers, mundane and magical darkness, magical doorways, and the ethereal plane. All for an hour, with a range of 120ft. This is incredibly good. 

Mark of Finding

ASI options – Dexterity, Strength, or Wisdom

Spellcasting ability – Wisdom

Mark spells

Locate Creature – 4th level. By naming a creature, you know where they are, as long as they’re within 1000ft of you. Amazing for games of intrigue and subterfuge, and also great for those times when the big bad summons a bunch of chaff enemies and makes a run for it. 

Find the Path – 6th level divination. Costly material component. Find The Path makes a character aware of the direction and distance to a place that they know of, as long as it’s on the same plane. 

Does your GM like throwing the party in labyrinths? Do you commonly wander around the wilderness, or have to chase after enemies who run at the first sign of trouble? The Mark of Finding can help with that, as well as with general, day-to-day adventuring duties. It’s not the strongest, but you’ll use the spells here regularly enough to make the feat worthwhile. 

Mark of Handling

ASI options – Dexterity or Wisdom

Spellcasting ability – Wisdom

Mark spells

Beast Sense – 2nd level. Look through a beast’s senses for up to an hour, staring out of its eyes into the world. 

The problem is, this spell only works on a willing beast, you have to touch it, and it blinds you for the duration. The characters who can best use this spell, like the Druid and Ranger, probably already have it. 

Dominate Beast – 4th level. Take control of a beast-type creature for a minute. The caster can issue a general command and let it go, or assume direct control and walk it around like a puppet. 

Unfortunately, the restrictions in targeting make the Mark of Handling hard to recommend. It’s a shame the spells can’t be upcast, as Dominate Beast gets much stronger at higher levels. 

Increase the rating of this Dragonmark if you’re playing a Druid, Ranger, or somehow a Forest Gnome or Firbolg, which lets the PC talk to animals and makes the spells much more effective. 

Mark of Healing

ASI options – Dexterity or Wisdom

Spellcasting ability – Wisdom

Mark spells

Mass Healing Word – 3rd level. Up to 6 creatures heal 1d4+Wis bonus. So, that’s the whole party. Oh, and this casts as a bonus action. Casting Mass Healing Word for free once per day is amazing. 

Greater Restoration – 5th level. Costly material component. The restoration spells remove debilitating effects, including some that are otherwise permanent. Into higher tiers of play, having someone in the party with Greater Restoration often becomes essential. 

Honestly, the feat would be worth it for the free Greater Restoration alone. Dodging the 100g casting cost is huge when iterated over an entire campaign, and one cast per day is often enough.  

The Mark of Healing is fantastic, especially for characters who otherwise wouldn’t have this type of healing available. Rangers, Rogues, even Fighters and Barbarians can make great use of this. It’s also great on the spellcasters, even the Clerics and Druids who already have these spells, because now they get to cast them for free, opening up a whole lot of their power budget and saving a ton of gold in the long term. 

Mark of Hospitality

ASI options – Charisma or Dexterity

Spellcasting ability – Charisma

Mark spells

Sanctuary – 1st level. Anyone trying to hurt the warded target has to make a save. If they fail, they can’t. While many spellcasters have had it for 7 levels at this point, Sanctuary is a great panic button that can save a character’s life.  

Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion – 7th level. Material components. Once per day, create a massive extradimensional mansion with its army of staff, comfortable rooms, food, water, and probably a well stocked bar. 

The mansion lasts for 24 hours, which means the party can live there if they remember to recast the spell at the same time once per day. The only way in is a portal that automatically locks out anyone the caster wants, and can be invisibly hidden. 

Yes, it’s not going to win a combat, but Magnificent Mansion trivializes overland travel and resting in hostile environments, as well as boasting major style points. The Mark of Hospitality is amazing. 

Mark of Making

ASI options – Dexterity or Intelligence

Spellcasting ability – Intelligence

Mark spells

Fabricate – 4th level. Create items out of their raw materials. The uses for this are as flexible as the player casting it. Especially if the character has any tool proficiencies, which allows the crafting of complicated items with this spell. 

Creation – 5th level. Create anything that could fit into a 5ft cube, without any real restrictions beyond it not being living, and fading into shadow stuff after a reasonable period of time. Incredibly versatile and fun. 

The power of the Mark of Making depends heavily on the player, GM, and campaign being played. If your party regularly explores out of the box solutions to situations, then the flexible abilities on offer here are incredible. If you’re running a straight murderhobo dungeon crawl, then no, this is terrible. 

Mark of Passage

ASI options – Dexterity or Constitution

Spellcasting ability – Constitution

Mark spells

Blink – 2nd level. For one minute, at the end of every turn, have a 50% chance to disappear into the ethereal plane, essentially teleporting to safety, then reappear back at the start of your turn. 

Blink is fun but unreliable. A chain of bad rolls means it does nothing, and it leaves your party without your presence for a turn. But it’s still a strong defensive ability, especially as it doesn’t need concentration. 

Teleportation Circle – 5th level. Costly material component. Teleport yourself and your entire party to dedicated locations, generally larger cities, and magical academies. 

Most campaigns and GMs will create areas that a party can use as their home base, and many of these will again have a permanent teleportation circle there. The ability to dance back there in a single minute instead of several days of overland travel is incredible. 

Let’s be honest. You’re taking the Mark of Passage for the free cast of Teleportation Circle. You know if you want this.  

Mark of Scribing

ASI options – Intelligence or Charisma

Spellcasting ability – Intelligence

Mark spells

Sending – 2nd level. Choose a creature you know, and telepathically send it a short message from anywhere in existence. The creature can then send you a short message back. Useful if your GM plays into it, letting the party ping sages and scholars for answers to old riddles. 

Tongues – 3rd level. Touch a creature to let it understand all speech, and for all other creatures to understand its own speech. Almost necessary in games of wild exploration and frontiership, and also useful if your party likes to be diplomatic with all of the ghouls and goblins they stumble across. 

Firstly, it’s worth knowing that the spells here come back on a short rest, instead of a long rest like all but one other dragonmark. That increases the utility here. Characters who act as the Face of the party but don’t have easy access to these spells, like Warlocks, Rogues, or even the Bard, can get some good use out of this, even if it isn’t the strongest in raw power. 

Mark of the Sentinel

ASI options – Strength or Wisdom

Spellcasting ability – Wisdom

Mark spells

Compelled Duel – 1st level. Force a creature to attack everyone who isn’t you with disadvantage, and has to make saves to move more than 30ft away. Casts on a bonus action, and can seriously hamper an enemy’s ability to act. 

Warding Bond – 2nd level. Costly material component. Give a creature +1 to AC and saves, plus resistance to all damage when they’re close to you. Your character takes the other half of that damage, which you can also gain resistance against. A great defensive buff that makes the party significantly tougher.  

Another mark with spells that recover on a short rest. Unfortunately, the spells this mark grants are generally less useful than taking actual defensive feats, like Sentinel. Still, multiple casts of Warding Bond can go a surprisingly long way, especially if taken on a tanky class like the Fighter. 

Mark of Shadow

ASI options – Charisma or Dexterity

Spellcasting ability – Charisma

Mark spells

Nondetection – 3rd level. Costly material component. Become functionally immune to divination magic. Nondetection is a cool spell in theory but rarely comes up in any meaningful way. 

Mislead – 5th level. For an hour, become invisible and create an illusionary copy that acts just like you. A superlative scouting tool, whether for dungeon crawling or safely exploring towns and cities. 

Nondetection sucks, but Mislead is incredibly strong and really cool. The Rogue animating his shadow and sending it scurrying through a dungeon to scout the place, with his full complement of stealth skills keeping it safe, is an incredibly useful ability to fall back on, and normally only needs to be used once daily. 

Mark of the Storm

ASI options – Charisma or Dexterity

Spellcasting ability – Charisma

Mark spells

Control Water – 4th level. Quick question. Are you playing a naval campaign? Does your party regularly spend time on the high seas, in their ship, or ply the rivers and coasts of undiscovered islands? If so, you’ll love this spell. If not, it’s probably not that useful. 

Control Winds – 5th level. Surprisingly good. Choose from 3 effects, which have some surprisingly powerful benefits. Lock down a large area against flying creatures, or create a block of space where ranged attacks mostly miss and enemies will struggle to even reach the party. 

Generally, the party will know if the Mark of Storms is going to be useful in their campaign. Even without that, though, there’s some serious play in making a character who masters the elements here, and there’s enough power contained in its two spells that a player will get some use from it. 

Mark of Warding

ASI options – Dexterity or Intelligence

Spellcasting ability – Intelligence

Mark spells

Knock – 2nd level. Open a locked door or chest, or disable the Arcane Lock spell for 10 minutes. No checks, no chance of failure. Makes the Rogue feel worthless. Incredible. 

Glyph of Warding – 3rd level. Costly material component. Create an invisible trap in an area or on an item. The spell can either explode, for some serious damage or contain another spell you can cast. 

This isn’t a combat spell. It takes an hour to cast. But there’s no limit on the amount of glyphs a character can have, and they can be placed by familiars. This allows a party to create a hilarious minefield of traps and triggers in their personal spaces, or defend themselves when resting in hostile environments. 

Leomund’s Secret Chest –  4th level. COSTLY material component. The Mark of Warding’s cast of Leomund’s Secret Chest requires further investment. A character needs a Siberys dragonshard with a worth of at least 100gp, which they use to summon the chest. 

That’s still significantly better than the standard materials cost of 5000gp for a large, ornate chest, and the ability to hide things on the ethereal plane, where they are for all wants and purposes untouchable to anyone not in the party, is incredibly useful. 

The Mark of Warding is silly. Having a daily casting of Knock available can trivialize many puzzles, as it just opens any non-magical lock instantly. Glyph of Warding takes a little work to make use of but is incredibly strong if the party has prep time. It’s also hard to ignore the fact that you don’t have to pay the 200gp cost that other spellcasters incur when they’re creating their magical minefields. 

Finally, if your GM gives you a Siberys dragonshard, access to a Secret Chest for 5% of its standard cost is absolute insanity. 

Key Stats

The Greater Dragonmark feat offers half an ASI as part of its benefits, with a choice of two stats to raise depending on which mark a character has. 

Each Dragonmark also has its own dedicated spellcasting ability score. Honestly, though, we wouldn’t worry too much about this if you’re not already building toward it and picking one of the few marks that have spells that target hostile creatures. Most marks can get away with a lower casting stat, as the spells provided are party buffs or out of combat utility. 

Ideal Characters for Greater Dragonmark

Race or Subrace Choices

Dragonmarks are a variant racial choice made at character creation. 

Humans, Half-Elves, and Half-Orcs can choose a Dragonmarked variant at character creation. These are defined variations of the racial options and come with a fixed list of bonuses. 

Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, and Halflings instead take Dragonmarks as their subrace option, replacing a chunk of their racial traits with the Dragonmark abilities. 

Your GM might allow a character without these racial heritages to take a Dragonmark, but RAW, that’s not an option. As always, the best recommendation is just to talk to your GM about your character ideas and how they fit into the campaign. 

Combos, Tactics, and Synergies

Strategies for Maximizing Greater Dragonmark Effectiveness

It’s incredibly hard to give specific advice on what Dragonmark is best for your build, class, and character because there’s such a massive variance in what’s on offer. 

Instead, we’re going to give some general advice on how to build an effective character and strong, competent party composition. 

5e, character building and specialization

In 5e, given the choice between being decent at a lot of things, or exceptional at one or two things, it’s generally much better advice to get good. Fast. 

Here’s why: 

Scaling

Firstly, skill challenges in 5e scale relatively slowly, tending to stay on par with a character’s proficiency bonus. Taking options that push a character’s skills above the expected banding, through abilities like Expertise, spells like Guidance, or other untyped bonuses like Dragonmark Intuition dice, massively increases the chance of success, because… 

Randomness and chance of failure

5e is a game of dice, which means nothing is ever guaranteed. A natural 1 is always a natural 1, and you can bet that a character who needs to roll a 3 or more to succeed rolls a 2 every single time. 

That’s why it’s important to minimize any potential chance of failure. Push skill bonuses as high as possible, as each point is another 5% chance of success. 

Party composition and redundancy

Unless something goes horribly wrong, a party generally only needs one person who can do a thing. This holds true with Dragonmark powers. Let’s look at an example. 

The Mark of Hospitality allows a character to cast Magnificent Mansion, once per day. The spell creates a huge, extradimensional house that can comfortably hold and feed 100 people. Unless two members of the party have serious compensation issues, why would any party ever need to cast this more than once? This means two characters having the Dragonmark of Hospitality is a massive waste, both in terms of power budget, and 

With that principle in mind, it becomes much simpler for a party to delegate out roles and responsibilities. If your job is to scout, then take abilities, feats, and spells that help with that, such as the Dragonmark of Shadow. 

Stepping outside your role

Does this mean that a character should never take a spell, feat, or ability that’s outside their main role in the party?

Of course not. 

One, as long as it’s not significantly slowing down the core functions of a build, a character having skills and spells that don’t contribute to their main role can add a lot of fun and flavor to play. 

First off, it’s generally nice to have something to do in all three of the main parts of the game; combat, exploration, and social. 

Secondly, 

Final Thoughts on Greater Dragonmarks

The Dragonmark system is strange, and it’s clear why it’s been slowly retired from organized play as 5e goes further into its lifespan. 

The problem is the amount of power on offer. No other feat comes close to letting a character drop level 5, 6, or 7 spells once per day, completely for free. On top of this, Dragonmarks lets a character dodge material components entirely, and with several spells on the list running into the 100-200gp range, every time the spell is cast, this adds up. 

That said, Dragonmarks are incredibly fun, and can really add to a character’s theme and powers. If your GM and party are running a campaign where marks are an option, (or even expected, if you’re playing Eberron) then you should absolutely take one.