D&D 5E Player's Handbook Official Errata

There's a new printing of the 5E Player's Handbook a'coming. It "corrects some typos while clarifying a few rules." But for those of us who already have a 5E Player's Handbook, there's a one-page PDF of official errata now available. It contains 51 items, covering classes, equipment, feats, spells, and more.

Download it right here! The errata has already been incorporated into the free Basic Rules.

 

[DaveDash]

What I don't get is why people are making a big deal over this. Twinned Spell isn't useful offensively against strong solo monsters anyway, so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time (admittedly that does sound like fun) or you were relying on Quickened Spell anyway (e.g. Heightened Hold Monster with Bend Luck + Quickened Fire Bolt) or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures (e.g. two dozen Wights) in which case you weren't going to use Twinned Scorching Ray anyway, you were going to use Fireball! Besides, Twinning a high-level spell like Scorching Ray V is more expensive than Quicken anyway (5 sorcery points vs 2).

I just don't see why folks don't just adjust their thinking and say, "Okay, the Twinned Spell trick doesn't work any more, but it was inferior to Quickened Spell anyway except as a way to turbocharge the concentration economy, and it still works for that."

It made the guy in our party feel like the glass cannon mage he wanted to play - you know that archtype that is incredibly popular in CRPG gaming.

 

[Celtavian]

Welcome to another episode of nerd rage. Embarrassing.

Haha. You just love to wander from thread to thread to provide the Miss Nerd Manners running commentary.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Are you serious? You're saying it's balanced because at level 17 my cantrip is doing 4d10? Really?

Alright, you want to compare endgame, aka the levels that less than 1% of the playerbase will ever experience? Let's do math funtime!

Sorcerer Fire Bolt at 20: 4d10+5 = 27! And you can twin it up to 20 times I guess, so 8d10+10 = 54

Barbarian Raging Reckless Swing at 20: 2d12 + 14 (STR) + 8 (Rage) = 35 minimum with a higher chance to hit. If he drops a creature thanks to GWM, he can take a bonus action swing, so 3d12 + 21 + 12 = 52.5 . Ah, but if he crits, thanks to Brutal Critical and double crit chance due to that on-demand advantage, it's 6d12 + 21 + 12 = 72.

This is ignoring that -5/+10 still, of course. Otherwise bump the minimum damage to 55, then bonus swing to 82.5, and the one crit bonus swing to 102.

Ah yesssss, my cantrips at theoretical endgame is soooo good. Balance!




Yes, of course, I do get other nifty things. I readily admit that. Not many though! It's that gosh darn "I-only-have-15-spells-total-ever" problem. Contrary to popular belief, the sorcerer is NOT a wizard!

Want to see my spells at level 7? These are my current spells. I got my blasting spells, I got Shield because I don't have D12 HP, then for my "nifty stuff" it's Disguise Self, Fly, Greater Invis. Polymorph is my overpowered spell! Note how many times I can cast these spells, up there in the top right.

Take away from the barbarian? Have you seen them in action? I have. In every playgroup, even. They are the action. They are in the frontlines, shrugging off hits that would KO me, and dealing consistent huge damage. All I ever wanted was to be the glass cannon, the Black Mage, that can outpewpew when needed. And now it's stuck on Fireball or bust.

Is everyone supposed to be able to do exactly as much damage as everyone else? I thought spellcasters bump was versatility?

 

[Hriston]

The Vision and Light change is interesting. If I'm reading it correctly, this means a creature attacking someone heavily obscured now has disadvantage, instead of advantage for attacking a blinded creature and disadvantage (canceling each other out), is that correct?

Not necessarily. If the attacker is also heavily obscured then the attack has advantage, which cancels the disadvantage. If the target has darkvision, however, then yes, the attack is made with disadvantage because the target can see its attacker.

If a creature inside of a heavily obscured area (like a ranger in the middle of a 25'x25' fog cloud with a bow) is attacking someone outside of that area, is the creature outside of the area still considered to be heavily obscured to the creature inside the area due to the intervening squares of heavy obscurement?

Yes, so the attack roll would be made normally because the disadvantage of attacking a target you can't see would be cancelled by the advantage of being an unseen attacker.

In other words, will a Ranger in the middle of a fog cloud have advantage on his attack rolls (since the target is "effectively blinded" when he tries to see the creature shooting at him) while sniping at things outside of the fog cloud? Or is the attack roll from within on a creature outside still adv/da cancel each other out?

As above. However, the answer would be different if the heavily obscured area was an area of darkness, as opposed to opaque fog. You can see through (or out of) darkness, even if you can't see the things in the darkness, while through opaque fog you cannot. I think that's what this erratum was aimed at, because of course someone who is in an area of darkness is not blinded when they are looking at someone who is in a lighted area.

 

[Psikerlord#]

The rules on contagion are far from clear, and one interpretation of that spell can be game breaking. Much worse than interpretations of Twinned spell.

The fact that Crawford missed this doesn't give me any confidence in his errata methodology.

If you have two interpretations, and one is game breaking - there really is only one interpretation in practice. Still I would have liked to see it clearer. Also, the summon pixie thing, they should delete the line about following orders (but keep the one about they are friendly toward you).

 

[Eric V]

...

This:

"There's a ton of variety in D&D encounters, more than you are apparently giving credit for..."

Was in response to this (from you): " so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures"

a classic false dichotomy. Which, no offense, didn't add anything to the debate.

If that's the scenario you're interested in (avoiding friendly fire casualties) you might consider investing in Hypnotic Pattern + Careful Spell metamagic, now that Twinned Spell is no longer available. It would cover your situation nicely.

You offered an answer to a question no one was asking, and your answer to the players of gold/red dragon sorcerers was to pick different spells and metamagic choices, essentially re-doing their character. Thanks for explaining your thinking.

 

[gyor]

If I was to play a Sorcerer again, that is the kind of Sorcerer I would play.

The guy in our group however has no interest in such a class. Hr wants to play the glass cannon, and I think the Sorcerer class is now a trap for players who are attracted to that style of play.

Sorcerors still make great glass cannons, you've just got to change your approach, look beyond just twinned spell.

 

[gyor]

Immolate is a great spell for a Blaster Sorceror, you can still twin spell it for multiple targets, heighten it instead for single targets, boost its duration for more damage over time, Maximize Damage, or use flexible casting to cast it more often, or cast elemental bane on it for to squeeze out more damage over time.

 

[Parmandur]

It is not actually a rule change, if those who wrote the rules played it the same way before and after the correction was issued.

 

[gyor]

Something cool I just realized, an Aasmir can use twin spell on lesser restoration racial spell.