New errata for core books, dated 7/2/2008

[Zurai]

since now, adding the Fire keyword to Radiant damage and making all damage Fire damage have the same effect

No. If you added Fire damage to Radiant damage to a 30 damage attack against a creature with 5 Radiant and 10 Fire resist, you'd do 25 damage. If you instead turned all of the damage into Fire damage, you'd do 20 damage.

 

[Andur]

Funny how they change some rules but not others, even when they contradict each other...

2d10 Fire and Radiant damage deals 1/2 Fire (rounding up) and 1/2 Radiant (rounding down), but you only get resitance if you have bothe Fire and Radiant resistance.

???

For example, a character who has resist 10 lightning and
resist 5 thunder who takes 15 lightning and thunder damage takes 10 damage
because the resistance value to the combined damage types is limited by the
lesser of the two resistances

According to RAW, the attack deals 8 Lightning and 7 Thunder damage. The example holds "true" due to 7-5=2+8=10. However, it doesn't "seem" right that a resistance one has is negated if someone finds the right "combination" against a creature. Especially when there are several keywords in place, with four keywords, you are only losing 5 damage from 1/4 (rounded down) of the damage. And if folks want to get real technical the "natural state" of any creature is Resitance 0, so unless they have Resitance to ALL keywords affecting them, then they gain no benefit from having any resitance at all.

Just doesn't "sit right" that a creature loses it's best resistance because it gets hit by something that in addition deals damage to a lesser resistance.

 

[Juriel]

I think it all goes back to what I see as the main flaw of skill challenges: a skill check that doesn't succeed counts as a failure. In order to encourage all the PCs to participate meaningfully in a skill challenge, each character should be able to make at least one skill check per "round" which does not penalize the party on a failure (apart from the lack of progress).

My thought as well. Not succeeding = failure leads towards a player rather skipping their turn than attempting an unlikely thing. So I think I'm giving up on WotC handling the issue, and using an alternative way of doing things.

 

[zoroaster100]

True, it would be better in an ideal world if the product was so well playtested that there was little or no need for errata. But I am still relatively pleased that WOTC is addressing these problems early on, rather than waiting a long time to fix things. Remember with 3rd edition it took an entire other "edition", 3.5, to address all the errata in the original edition, and 3rd edition had plenty of playtesting before its release in 2000. There is simply no substitute for the massive test of actually releasing the product to the fanbase and having massive feedback in places like ENWorld where there are hundreds of DM's with decades of experience who are running games for whole groups of experienced players, and analyzing and testing the rules and trying to break them or fix them in multiple ways simultaneously.

 

[Mengu]

Warlock’s Curse [Revision/Addition]​

Player’s Handbook, page 131

Add the following clause to the end of the last sentence of the first paragraph: “so
if you have dealt Warlock’s Curse damage since the start of your turn, you​

cannot deal it again until the start of your next turn.”

Was this part ever in question?

Since it said once per round, you could use an opportunity attack or an attack granted by the Warlord, before your turn to deal curse / hunter's quarry / sneak attack damage. This change prevents that, *if* you got to apply that extra damage during your previous turn. It's slightly different book keeping. It also lowers the damage output potential of the strikers a smidge, because they will get slightly fewer chances to apply sneak attack damage. The damage potential now resets at the beginning of their turn, instead of at the beginning of the round.

Under Mummy Rot, replace the Endurance line with “Endurance improve DC
15 + two-thirds mummy’s level, maintain DC 10 + two-thirds mummy’s level,
worsen DC 9 + two-third’s mummy’s level or lower.”

Two-thirds? Really? Two-thirds? Why not three-fifths, or five-sevenths? I like a lot of the errata, I think they were necessary, but this one just made me face palm.​

 

[Insight]

I am similarly of two minds about this. I think that what I will do is get some small, brightly coloured stickers and stick them in the books wherever errata has been released. That way I know there is something to check.

This is what I do. There's no way I'm carrying around extra sheets of paper that will invariably get lost, torn, or damaged... and that I'll forget to use.

 

[Goumindong]

Since it said once per round, you could use an opportunity attack or an attack granted by the Warlord, before your turn to deal curse / hunter's quarry / sneak attack damage. This change prevents that, *if* you got to apply that extra damage during your previous turn. It's slightly different book keeping. It also lowers the damage output potential of the strikers a smidge, because they will get slightly fewer chances to apply sneak attack damage. The damage potential now resets at the beginning of their turn, instead of at the beginning of the round.

Actually their damage should go up slightly at the beginning of a fight and down slightly at the end of a fight.

1/round means that if a friendly granted you an attack before your turn you could get sneak attack on it. But you could not get sneak attack on your turn.

So at the end of combat when the monsters are dropping there is more of a chance that a friendly will grant you an attack before your turn comes up which can then sneak attack. Such you could then get that extra sneak.

But at the beginning of a fight you can actually get this attack with sneak attack damage because you have not used it since the end of your last turn.

E.G. Init order
Warlord
Rogue
Wizard

Actions:
Warlord grants ranged basic attack: Rogue Sneak attacks
Rogue attacks with CA: Sneak attack rests at beginning of turn: Rogue Sneak Attacks
Wizard does his shtick.

While at the end of a fight you could have had under the previous rules

Warlord grants attack: Rogue sneak attacks
Rogue attacks with CA: no sneak
wizard does his shtick
new round:
Warlord grants attack: Rogue sneak attacks
monster dies, rogue does not take a turn.

End result should be slightly more damage as you are more likely to be able to manufacture attacks before your turn starts in combat(iirc) than you will be able to manufacture situations where the monsters die ahead of the rogues init.

 

[Mengu]

Actions:
Warlord grants ranged basic attack: Rogue Sneak attacks
Rogue attacks with CA: Sneak attack rests at beginning of turn: Rogue Sneak Attacks

This is true, hadn't though of the beginning of combat.

It also depends on whether you hit or miss during your turn. There is probably a very slight difference in favor of the old way, all situations considered, especially since the rogue tends to have high initiative anyway. It's mainly just different book keeping.

 

[jodyjohnson]

According to RAW, the attack deals 8 Lightning and 7 Thunder damage.

The errata completely replaces this section. The PHB rules now match the MM rules.

No more damage splitting - when damage has multiple types all the damage is all types. Resistance uses the lowest resist to any.

 

[Goumindong]

This is true, hadn't though of the beginning of combat.

It also depends on whether you hit or miss during your turn. There is probably a very slight difference in favor of the old way, all situations considered, especially since the rogue tends to have high initiative anyway. It's mainly just different book keeping.

The difference is that a rogue can delay and have his turn start later at the beginning of combat. It doesn't do him any good at the end.

The change was done mainly for bookkeeping i am willing to bet, and I am also willing to bet that was how most groups played it anyway. Someone mentioned it to them and they corrected the language to fit how it had been played.