Can the FAQ be used to issue errata (create new rules)?

[RedShirtNo5]

The real question is, when someone asks for a rule interpretation, how should the community in this forum go about answering?

Personally, I'm with Artoomis. Whatever the original purpose of the FAQ, WotC now treats it as an errata document.

-RedShirt

 

[Starglim]

Only when it is explicitly stated to be errata. edit: Or corrigenda, properly.

Even then, if there has been a release of official errata later than the FAQ and it doesn't contain the change, I would consider that that weakens the FAQ claim to be errata, much more so a new printing or new edition of the rulebook in question.

 

[Shin Okada]

The real question is, when someone asks for a rule interpretation, how should the community in this forum go about answering?

Personally, I'm with Artoomis. Whatever the original purpose of the FAQ, WotC now treats it as an errata document.

-RedShirt

I think the issue is not interpretation but errata. Those two are different.

 

[moritheil]

No way. Not only is the errata the proper channel for communicating errata, the FAQ and WOTC Help staff have a ludicrously high error rate when compared to even unprofessional sources such as this rules forum.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I look forward to your response on that one.

So I checked the weapon table in the PHB. Bastard Sword is a one-handed exotic weapon. The FAQ entry you posted contradicts this. The "rule" on what a Bastard Sword is has not changed, it has only been clarified (incorrectly I might add). All this example tells me is that the FAQ contradicts the rules at times and can sometimes give us incorrect, or at least, not well thought out clarifications. The reason I feel that the clarification is incorrect is because of the reprecusions that happen if you were to rule that a Bastard Sword is a two-handed weapon. Namely, if you had the Exotic WP feat, you would be able to use the Bastard Sword in one-hand AND get 1.5 Str bonus while doing so. I don't think whoever put that in the errata considered this.

Now if this had shown up in the errata, then I would play Bastard Swords as being a two-handed exotic weapon just as the FAQ suggests.

I see the point you are trying to make here, but to answer your poll question (again), "Is the FAQ an official source for new rules?" I still say NO.

 

[RigaMortus2]

The real question is, when someone asks for a rule interpretation, how should the community in this forum go about answering?

Personally, I'm with Artoomis. Whatever the original purpose of the FAQ, WotC now treats it as an errata document.

-RedShirt

I think I am just too hung up on the Poll question. Seems like Artoomis is asking US (the ENWorld community) if the FAQ is the new rules source, when in actuality, none of us can answer this. He should ask that question to WotC.

If he asked, "Do you think the FAQ is being used as the official source for new rules?" (effectively repacing the need for an errata, by becoming errata itself). Then perhaps my answer would be different

Sorry if I seem nit-picky, but I am just trying to answer the question(s) at hand. Both the question in the subject line, and the actual Poll question (as I felt they weren't technically the same question).

 

[Christian]

Maybe I'm just being too legalistic. But in my Consitutional Law class in college, it was made clear that a law can't trump the Constitution, even if the law says that it does. And the FAQ, per the hierarchy of official sources, cannot add or change game rules, even if sometimes it itself says that's what it's doing.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Just out of curiosity, this is what, the 5th thread to come out of whether or not monks can take INA?

 

[Artoomis]

Maybe I'm just being too legalistic. But in my Consitutional Law class in college, it was made clear that a law can't trump the Constitution, even if the law says that it does. And the FAQ, per the hierarchy of official sources, cannot add or change game rules, even if sometimes it itself says that's what it's doing.

This is a bit different.

WotC sets it own rules as far as what is official and is NOT bound by convention as far as what the purpose and scope of the FAQ. In their defintion of the FAQ they left the door open to include new rules and/or rule changes.

 

[Artoomis]

...If he asked, "Do you think the FAQ is being used as the official source for new rules?" (effectively repacing the need for an errata, by becoming errata itself). Then perhaps my answer would be different ...

In reading this I thought that this was, in essence, the same question.