Official D&D Errata Updated (Nov 2018)

ad_hoc said:

Those flanking rules are terrible. They nullify the need for other means of advantage.
You really can't think of another reason that having a beast is a good thing?

The beast can give ranged attackers disadvantage.

The beast can help defend allies in a couple ways. Up front they get an OA if an opponent rushes past. If the beast is a wolf they could even knock the opponent prone which probably means that creature can't reach the vulnerable party members.

The beast can also act as a blockade to protect a vulnerable party member by standing directly next to them.

Those are just general advantages to having a beast around. Others are circumstantial but nonetheless useful.

Now compare all of that (and more) against getting +1d8 damage.

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The main problem with the beastmaster has always been two things that both stem from how the health of the pet is calculated. First, certain pets are just outright mechanically better options because the base monsters cr considers how much health they have while the ranger's pet does not, so defensive "meatshield" type pets end up with the same amount of health as a glass cannon pet but severely less offense.

Second, and more of a concern, is pet survivability. Ranger pets don't have all that much health at mid to high levels. What kills them isn't monsters taking swings at them, but when the DM carelessly throws fireballs, pit traps, or other sorts of partywide AOE damage without considering if poor Fluffy the ranger's precious wolf from level 3 and beloved mascot of the party will outright die from it or not, and even if it does it becomes incredibly difficult to heal when the party takes a short rest at 10th level and said pet has at most 3d8 hit dice to heal with. It forces the range to spend all their spell slots on healing their pet or beg the cleric to use spell slots, and this is to say nothing about how the pet can't be raised easily if it (inevitably) dies. Pact of the chain warlocks dont lose all of their subclass features of their familiar dies, they just spend an hour to bring it back. The ranger has to find a 5th level cleric, 300g in diamonds, and hope to help they have an intact body, or derail half the session to go find and train a new pet while the party waits.

The offense has always been fine (albeit whether trading attacks to let the pet do theirs is a whole subject of debate for if it is "fun" or not. Auto dodge action on the part of the pet is just a bandaid fix without scaling hit dice to help it heal.

Prakriti said:

Funny, I see it as the exact opposite: The new wording comports with the Sage Advice ruling. Disintegrate no longer kills a Wild Shaped druid, because while the damage might reduce a druid to 0 HP, it doesn't leave them with 0 HP, because they are left with whatever their human-form HP is.


But since there's already a disagreement over the meaning, maybe they need to errata the errata.

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I imagine that change was likely for stuff like the barbarian that can ignore being reduced to 0 hit points, instead bouncing back to 1. But they were still reduced to 0...

Regardless, I think this errata saves the druid from disintegration.

Saelorn said:

Edit: And it looks like you can now punch the Tarrasque to death, since it's only immune to damage from nonmagical weapons, and unarmed strikes are no longer classified as weapons.

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Double check the MM errata:
Global
Damage Resistances/Immunities. Throughout the book, instancesof “nonmagical weapons” in Damage Resistances/Immunitiesentries have been replaced with “nonmagical attacks.”

Gladius Legis said:

They think they made Contagion better. How cute. They actually made it much worse because everything in the MM and their mother is immune to the poisoned condition.

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It's not about making it "better". It's about making it more clear, so people stop misunderstanding the text.

Jester David said:

It's not about making it "better". It's about making it more clear, so people stop misunderstanding the text.

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But that's not what happened. What happened is that Contagion no longer works against a bunch of enemies it used to work against. Contagion used to not inflict the poisoned condition. Now it does. And if you're immune to the poisoned condition (which is A LOT of the enemies in the MM), you're immune to this.

It's a huge nerf to the spell.

It was a spell NOBODY was using. It is a great spell for NPCs to cast on a PC as it creates drama at little real cost, but it is not important here.

As for Beastmaster: It is still ridiculous. In my game, all natire clerics, druids and rangers can have an animal companion. There is a 1st level bonding spell that allows a PC to bond and communicate with one animal with a CR no higher than 1/3 of their level (rounded down). That animal's weapons count as magic for attack purposes, it gets to use the PC's proficiency bonus, it can share spells that target the PC only, and the HP for the beast are either the normal for the beast or 4X level of the PC (whichever is higher).

Boom. NPC ally of the party that cares about one of the PCs. No big deal.

MostlyHarmless42 said:

The main problem with the beastmaster has always been two things that both stem from how the health of the pet is calculated. First, certain pets are just outright mechanically better options because the base monsters cr considers how much health they have while the ranger's pet does not, so defensive "meatshield" type pets end up with the same amount of health as a glass cannon pet but severely less offense.

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Agreed.

Second, and more of a concern, is pet survivability. Ranger pets don't have all that much health at mid to high levels. What kills them isn't monsters taking swings at them, but when the DM carelessly throws fireballs, pit traps, or other sorts of partywide AOE damage without considering if poor Fluffy the ranger's precious wolf from level 3 and beloved mascot of the party will outright die from it or not,

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Careless? These are terrible creatures the party are fighting who are trying their best to kill them.

I know in some groups they want the DM to give the illusion of danger without actually having a chance of failing. Not for me.

and even if it does it becomes incredibly difficult to heal when the party takes a short rest at 10th level and said pet has at most 3d8 hit dice to heal with. It forces the range to spend all their spell slots on healing their pet or beg the cleric to use spell slots, and this is to say nothing about how the pet can't be raised easily if it (inevitably) dies. Pact of the chain warlocks dont lose all of their subclass features of their familiar dies, they just spend an hour to bring it back. The ranger has to find a 5th level cleric, 300g in diamonds, and hope to help they have an intact body, or derail half the session to go find and train a new pet while the party waits.

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How many people are actually playing in Tier 3 and 4? And for how long?

If I had to guess I would say, across all 5e games, about 1% of game time is spent in Tier 3+. That's going to rise a bit once people start playing the new high level adventure but it will still be quite low.

I think when we are talking about the game we need to be clear about what tiers we are talking about. For many, anything in Tier 3+ essentially doesn't exist.

Jester David said:

Double check the MM errata:
Global
Damage Resistances/Immunities. Throughout the book, instancesof “nonmagical weapons” in Damage Resistances/Immunitiesentries have been replaced with “nonmagical attacks.”

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Neat! Did they define what constitutes as an attack, though?

It was clear before, when things were immune to weapons. Now, I'm not so sure.

Saelorn said:

Neat! Did they define what constitutes as an attack, though?

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Yes.
PHB, page 193-194

Saelorn said:

It was clear before, when things were immune to weapons. Now, I'm not so sure.

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They still are. It just clarifies you can’t just punch a werewolf to death. Or beat the tarrasque to death with a big rock.

Glad to see that the cr4p about losing HP on level up is now corrected.

Gladius Legis said:

But that's not what happened. What happened is that Contagion no longer works against a bunch of enemies it used to work against. Contagion used to not inflict the poisoned condition. Now it does. And if you're immune to the poisoned condition (which is A LOT of the enemies in the MM), you're immune to this.

It's a huge nerf to the spell.

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Yes and no.
It’s a nerf because it reduce it’s effectiveness. But it’s a buff because it makes it actually do something for two rounds.
And creatures immune to the poisoned condition should be immune to disease.

Jester David said:

But it’s a buff because it makes it actually do something for two rounds.

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To enemies who aren't immune to poison.

They should've stated that Contagion causes disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls explicitly, instead of actually giving the poison condition. Then it affects everyone it used to affect.

And creatures immune to the poisoned condition should be immune to disease.

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According to what? Certainly not the rules of D&D, where poison and disease are two separate game elements.