D&D 5E Things that "need" errata

[GMforPowergamers]

Likewise, but it's not because I expected the GM to intervene with a house rule that certain attacks bypassed Hit Points - it's just that lava submersion does a ton of damage, so the player and the character are usually on the same page in realizing its obvious lethality.

Witch makes it all the more heroic and legendary... If I was playing a 7th level paliden who just saw the holy ring of his God thrown into the lava pit and I jumped after it with 70hp I would expect to have to get lucky to survive but if the dm ruled that no luck could save me I would be mad... If 10 levels later when I had 175hp I would be even madder still at least with 70 up I could expect death...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Where did I say the hit that drops you to 0 isnt physical injury? Its most likely that the closer you get to zero HP, the more your luck is running out, the cumulative effect of ducking, dodging and weaving those narrow misses takes its toll, your bruised and battered from rolling on the floor and deflecting attacks from your armor, and too knackered to properly defend yourself. You cop an injury, bad enough to drop you like a fly. It may not have been a square hit with the massive blade, but its enough to have you drop, wounded and dying.

Under this interpretation, the absurdity occurs that a sword through the torso is easy to heal (one guy with a healing Kit and the Healer feat can get you back to 1 HP every single round from now until the end of time, if he has enough healing kits) but "luck" is so difficult to heal that it takes a full day's rest. Since HP are fungible via spells like Vampiric Touch, or the Life cleric's Disciple of Life feature, it also means that healing 70 people who are dying of torso wounds for the same amount of healing energy that it takes to get one mid-level fighter who is almost-but-not-quite exhausted back up to full energy. That's not something that happens at the metagame level, it's an actual observable phenomenon that NPCs can observe and form theories about.

Interpreting HP as "luck" instead of injury is going down the rabbit hole. And no, don't quote that PHB passage back to me because I already know it. Re-read the passage until you see the part where it mentions physical durability and will to live. Those are physical qualities. The PHB is pretty clearly intended to cover both HP-as-physical-injury and HP-as-luck to whatever extent a given DM wants in his games. It doesn't support your interpretation of the rules, it merely permits it, as it permits mine.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Witch makes it all the more heroic and legendary... If I was playing a 7th level paliden who just saw the holy ring of his God thrown into the lava pit and I jumped after it with 70hp I would expect to have to get lucky to survive but if the dm ruled that no luck could save me I would be mad... If 10 levels later when I had 175hp I would be even madder still at least with 70 up I could expect death...

Yeah. The most legendary moments in my experience are generated not by DM fiat but by random die rolls (and/or player planning), precisely because the players are full participants in the drama making decisions with their eyes open. If my seventh level Nazgul anti-paladin decides to go for the Holy Ring of Lord Sauron by jumping into the pit of Mount Doom, knowing full well that it will do 18d10 damage to him and he's got only 63 HP... and then the DM rolls

( 5 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 6 + 2 + 8 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 ) = 61 HP, he survives and the crowd goes wild!

That paladin becomes an instant legend, and the whole campaign's future direction changes.

An Eldritch Knight might just cast Absorb Elements, let the DM roll 104 points of damage and take 52, which is awesome in a different kind of way (shows the power of planning). But the paladin's version is actually more memorable and fun because of the tension between what the player expects to happen and what he hopes will happen, whereas the Eldritch Knight's expectation will be to survive. Surviving certain death is a rush.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I haven't read that thread, and I know the rules are confusing, but in light of the third bullet of Crossbow Expert, I think it's intentional. The intention being that you can't two-weapon fight with the hand crossbow unless you have the feat, and if you do have the feat, hand crossbow is light to let you know that you can do more with the feat than just fire the same crossbow twice.

If that's so, then there has to be a different explanation for why the hand crossbow is "light". The only relevant rule I can find is two-weapon fighting.

So either remove the "light" qualification, or specify that two-weapon fighting can involve a hand crossbow. The easiest way to do that would be to change "melee weapon" to "weapon" twice in the description of twf.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Witch makes it all the more heroic and legendary... If I was playing a 7th level paliden who just saw the holy ring of his God thrown into the lava pit and I jumped after it with 70hp I would expect to have to get lucky to survive but if the dm ruled that no luck could save me I would be mad... If 10 levels later when I had 175hp I would be even madder still at least with 70 up I could expect death...

You would be mad if your character was not given a chance to live when jumping into a pool of lava? …I am picturing a cannonball, Ron Burgundy style…

 

[steeldragons]

The concept of "needing Errata" in D&D needs to be errata'd.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

If that's so, then there has to be a different explanation for why the hand crossbow is "light". The only relevant rule I can find is two-weapon fighting.

So either remove the "light" qualification, or specify that two-weapon fighting can involve a hand crossbow. The easiest way to do that would be to change "melee weapon" to "weapon" twice in the description of twf.

Maybe it has the light property because it doesn't weigh that much and is fairly easily concealable.

 

[Kobold Stew]

That's not what the light property means, though. If that were so, one would expect the light property also to be given to the sling and the blowgun (among ranged weapons).

 

[brehobit]

The concept of "needing Errata" in D&D needs to be errata'd.

Yeah, I spent some time trying to figure out how to phrase it. Apparently I choose poorly and pissed people off. I wanted to discuss things that A) a lot of people feel need fixing and B) that would be candidates for actual fixing by WotC.

I think that's a reasonable thing to want to discuss here. Apparently errata isn't the word I should have used.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

The concept of "needing Errata" in D&D needs to be errata'd.

I agree wholeheartedly. Though as an AL player, occasional bugstomping to clear out the obvious misprints and misunderstandings would be a big help.