D&D 5E New Errata & Advice For D&D Issued

WotC has issued an update to the 'Sage Advice' compilation, including new errata documents and amendments to racial attributes.

Compendium: October 2020 | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice Compendium includes updates to Curse of Strahd, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters.

dnd.wizards.com

"The PDF contains answers to a collection of new questions. To find the latest answers, search for “[New]” in the PDF.

The compendium includes links to new errata documents for Curse of Strahd, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters."

Racial attributes have been altered (thanks to @dave2008 for pointing that out).

 

[Delazar]

Really? I have never allowed that unless there is a specific exception that makes the hands count as a natural weapon, in any version of D&D.

I actually always allowed that, because, why not? In Tyranny of Dragons, our pally used a divine smite while punching Tiamat on the (red) face. It was awesome.

 

[Iry]

I go the other way. Unarmed Strikes should be a finesse weapon.
Magic/Holy Weapon on your fists is dripping with Rule of Cool.
And a Monk/Rogue should be able to Judo Chop.

 

[Krachek]

My favorite is Portent that has no on Plane, and require only sight.
We can imagine a Mage with a bunch of apprentice using scrying device to cheat on gambling in Bloodball match!

 

[ccs]

Except by RAW they no longer do. I mean they can be that way at your table but they always could. You not acknowledging that they changed the written rules does change the fact the rules have been changed.

Yeah, well, I'm the DM. And the DM > RAW.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Except by RAW they no longer do. I mean they can be that way at your table but they always could. You not acknowledging that they changed the written rules does change the fact the rules have been changed.

I figured my response made that obvious.

I guess you didn't get that?

Lots of "changes" have been made for the wrong reasons, most of these reflect that so I won't honor them. D&D is not a RAW game, in case you weren't aware of that either.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I figured my response made that obvious.

I guess you didn't get that?

Lots of "changes" have been made for the wrong reasons, most of these reflect that so I won't honor them. D&D is not a RAW game, in case you weren't aware of that either.

There are a few sage advice that are not totally correct in my opinion. I would rule differently.

 

[RSIxidor]

I go the other way. Unarmed Strikes should be a finesse weapon.
Magic/Holy Weapon on your fists is dripping with Rule of Cool.
And a Monk/Rogue should be able to Judo Chop.

This is also how I feel about the unarmed strike, though I'm not 100% on liking it being finesse. It's very rule of cool, though, so maybe I do like it.

Unarmed strikes should either be weapons, or not weapons. If not weapons, there should be a separate action for attacking with unarmed strikes. Maybe Monks/Tavern Brawlers/etc get to to say they are weapons as a feature. I don't know. I feel like they really screwed this particular concept up right from the start and now they're building trenches in different directions to fix things rather than just addressing the issue directly.

The +2 magical shield ruling is weird but I kind of like it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They should rename weapon attack into physical attack.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is also how I feel about the unarmed strike, though I'm not 100% on liking it being finesse. It's very rule of cool, though, so maybe I do like it.

Unless you have proper training the idea of Finesse to unarmed strikes doesn't make sense to me. This is why monks can use DEX for unarmed strikes instead of STR. Our simple rule is if your unarmed strikes do 1d4 or better damage, you can use DEX for it if you want.

Of course, we went back to unarmed strikes being simple weapons. So, Sorcerers and Wizards cannot do unarmed strikes and add their proficiency bonus.

I'm (not) sorry, but there are more people out there IMO who don't know how to fight (punch, kick, etc.) effectively than do. Removing unarmed strikes from the simple weapons section was dumb. It make the whole "a weapon attack but not a weapon" naughty word asinine.

 

[Marandahir]

The errata you should be referencing is is Melee Attacks. See snippit of the errata below. You can use an unarmed strike instead of a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, so of course you can use your proficient bite attack with divine strike (see second snippit, from the Paladin page on D&D Beyond).