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.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Interesting. Most of these changes were expected, but the change to unarmed strikes surprised me. Was having unarmed strikes count as weapons actually causing problems?

Overall, I'm pleased. This is the kind of errata I like. It fixes typos and minor errors, but doesn't try to rewrite the entire rulebook. I just hope they release a printer-friendly version.

 

[Jeffery Clark]

Ouch. Our Sorcerer player isn't going to like the errata on twinned.

I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.

Yeah, lots of my AL DMs have already asked for clarification, since it seems to mess up what has been previously interpreted by Mike Mearls: https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/521538368698462208

 

[Mercule]

As someone who vehemently opposed the "living rule set" and changes via errata, I actually don't see much to object to. Almost everything really does look like clarifying intent. I think the only thing that raised an eyebrow from me was the unarmed strike damage. There are a few (Monk) that I can't comment on.

Really, I found at least half the page to be redundant with common sense. Were people really able to twist the wording of Empowered Evocation to mean anything other than what the errata states? Seems like you could only do that maliciously or with about a fifth of whiskey in you.

 

[DaveDash]

Yeah, lots of my AL DMs have already asked for clarification, since it seems to mess up what has been previously interpreted by Mike Mearls: https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/521538368698462208

Yeah. I actually think we're probably going to ignore this bit of errata. We haven't seen an issue really with Sorcerers able to twin things like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, and in fact, the class seems pretty weak as a damage dealing class without this ability (even using the Quicken/Cantrip combo).

 

[Evenglare]

Oh interesting I completely missed this text "Recent printings of the book include revised text that reflects the explanations
here."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Interesting. Most of these changes were expected, but the change to unarmed strikes surprised me. Was having unarmed strikes count as weapons actually causing problems?

Is it possible that the errata is being mis-interpreted?

Would everything make more sense if the monk still treated its unarmed strike as a weapon?

 

[designbot]

@JeremyECrawford:

Addressing a nuance in the PH errata: the rule lets melee weapon attacks use unarmed strikes, despite those strikes not being weapons.

 

[Jeffery Clark]

Yeah. I actually think we're probably going to ignore this bit of errata. We haven't seen an issue really with Sorcerers able to twin things like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, and in fact, the class seems pretty weak as a damage dealing class without this ability (even using the Quicken/Cantrip combo).

That is my feeling as well. I understand it was meant to prevent fireball spam and whatnot, but if the rule is now "any spell that could possibly target more than 1 creature" cannot be twinned, that is a HUGE nerf and makes spending sorcery points on twinning spells useless. If they're going to enforce that, I'm going allow my DMs to let my players swap metamagic abilities as allowed by AL rules for levels 1-4.

The errata as written is that a bunch of spells like magic missile, scorching ray, acid splash, etc that can be used to affect 1 target or can affect multiples can no longer be twinned because they are not "incapable" of targeting multiple creatures, even if they only target a single creature.

 

[MerricB]

Jeremy Crawford has tweeted a clarification:
"Addressing a nuance in the PH errata: the rule lets melee weapon attacks use unarmed strikes, despite those strikes not being weapons."

Cheers!

 

[Gladius Legis]

@JeremyECrawford:

Basically, then, the only thing that's changed from pre-errata is buff spells and abilities that specifically require a weapon don't work on unarmed strikes anymore (e.g. Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon). Makes sense.