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).

 

[DND_Reborn]

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).

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Yep. We have no issue with someone smiting with unarmed strikes, sneak attacking with them, or casting spells such as Holy Weapon on them. It doesn't break anything or affect game balance in any way. It is more thematic (a monk/rogue "sneak attacking" with martial arts is doing vital strikes, etc.) and allow for greater freedom in game play and over all enjoyment and simplicity of the rules.

We just changed that last line of Melee Attacks from "You are proficient with your unarmed strikes." to "You are proficient with your unarmed strikes if you have simple weapon proficiency."

 

[TheSword]

This isnt errata, it's sage advice.

And in the exact same sage advice, unarmed strikes are expressly noted as being 'melee weapon attacks' and thus (by the wording of Divine Smite), legal delivery platforms for Smites.

Sage advice seems to contradict itself here.

The errata is the change to require a weapon for Divine Smite.

Sage advice is helpful but trumped by errata. They could have made the errata clearer to acknowledge the change but they have made the rule pretty clear. The existing of previous sage advice is irrelevant.

I also wouldn’t expect errata to refer to sage advice, which isn’t officially published.

Unarmed strikes don’t use a particular body part, you can knee, head butt, kick, punch etc. I have less problem with someone having enhanced fists... but I find a divine knee to the groin less tasteful. The same would apply to lizard men teeth and claws which as I understand is purely a DM decision.

 

[TheSword]

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).

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Except this has just been errata’d to require a weapon and not an unarmed strike.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

These changes were made for absolutely the right reasons, and are now the rules.

I’ve never talked about kobolds in my games as if the Volos writeup was incorrect. No, “sorry folks these aren’t the real kobolds” nonsense that suggests that others need to follow your lead even if they don’t like it.

“Not at my table.” Is fine.

Your post wasn’t that.

 

[Hriston]

My completely un-errataed original printing of the PHB says "melee weapon attack" which matches the current wording. The problem with Divine Smite is that it also references a weapon in that the radiant damage is "in addition to the weapon's damage" as if it presupposes that a weapon is required to make a melee weapon attack. If used without a weapon, it's not clear what the radiant damage would be in addition to. It does seem to need errata, but not, IMO, in the direction of Jeremy Crawford's ruling.

 

[Mike Myler]

You build a slightly squishy system that's really fun. You are confident that it is a solid game engine—but you need people to be confident while using it. For everything to work just right the GM needs to be not just making their own rulings, the table needs to be on board with them to establish trust and an environment where their rulings aren't constantly being challenged (slowing down play, harshing the narrative, frustrating players).

Spoiler: The plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister!

How do you do that?

Do you sprinkle in a few mentions of the GM having the final say on things inside the text?

Definitely you should do that, but you do that too many times and it looks bad. Looks too squishy. Like the system itself can't be trusted.

So what else can you do with your slightly-squishy-yet-fun system to get people where they need to be for it to function 100%?

What about intentionally leaving some things in that you know are broken or wrong (hey there, Lucky feat | maneuvering around unarmed strikes | clone and Small creatures) with the expectation that GMs will house rule it instead of explicitly calling it out for more GM discretion? Gets the GM in the right mindset to be making more rulings that you haven't intended for, and if it's a semi-obvious or relatively arbitrary mechanic then all the merrier because the players will agree with it.

 

[Hriston]

Well this is an errata so I guess Smite does require a weapon now. Arguing about the pre-errata rule to say the errata is wrong is kinda pointless.

Sage Advice is not errata. There is no PHB errata document here.

 

[dave2008]

Sage Advice is not errata. There is no PHB errata document here.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but the PHB errata is linked to in the sage advice compendium: PHB Errata

On the first page of the compendium:

 

[Hriston]

The errata is the change to require a weapon for Divine Smite.

Sage advice is helpful but trumped by errata. They could have made the errata clearer to acknowledge the change but they have made the rule pretty clear. The existing of previous sage advice is irrelevant.

I also wouldn’t expect errata to refer to sage advice, which isn’t officially published.

Unarmed strikes don’t use a particular body part, you can knee, head butt, kick, punch etc. I have less problem with someone having enhanced fists... but I find a divine knee to the groin less tasteful. The same would apply to lizard men teeth and claws which as I understand is purely a DM decision.

Except this has just been errata’d to require a weapon and not an unarmed strike.

What "errata" are you talking about? No changes have been made to the PHB here. This is just a ruling based on the pre-existing text, which is problematic. IMO, the text should be amended to say "in addition to the attack's damage" which would probably be more in alignment with the original intent. Rather than a statement of the design intent, I believe this ruling is another literal reading by Jeremy of a rule that failed to adequately express the intent of the design (probably because of the classification of an unarmed strike as a weapon during the design process). Instead of doubling down on design flaws like this, they should fix the problems, but I realize there are economic reasons to consider.

 

[Hriston]

Not sure if this is what you mean, but the PHB errata is linked to in the sage advice compendium: PHB Errata

On the first page of the compendium:

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No, that isn't what I meant. I meant there's nothing new in the PHB errata document, and certainly not anything new about Divine Smite.