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.

 

[procproc]

Wow - your credibility is now completely shot. Clerics have been, in almost every iteration of D&D, one of the most versatile, and among the most powerful, of all classes. They get to wear plate mail, cast spells, heal & buff, and contribute as a secondary melee combatant if need be. If you chose to play them as nothing but a buff bot, that's your own failure to recognize their potential.

As for the intent on Twinned Spells being a bad game design decision...
I don't see it. As intended, Sorcerers are on an equal footing with Wizards... they have the exact same spell slot progression, and I'd say that the respective features of the classes put them on par with each other. YOUR interpretation would have Sorcerers way outperforming Wizards.

It sounds like you only have experience with the 3.x flavor of clerics. In 1e AD&D (and 2e, until they made specialty priests and Skills & Powers) NO ONE wanted to play a cleric. They were essentially relegated to party support and healing. DaveDash's analogy is apt.

As for Twinned Spell, the errata makes some sense -- compared to the other metamagic options, it was essentially mandatory, which smacks of trap options and bad design. In terms of the power of the class, though, it was definitely unwarranted. Most of the games I've heard about allowed Twinned Scorching Rays, and the usual complaint was that fighters were too good, not sorcerers.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

C'mon, spinzo. You know paladins had a weakness that needed to be shored up when multiclassing.

It's the internet and all, so sarcasm/tone are hard to detect, so maybe I'm being dumb here... Were there seriously complaints about paladin weaknesses? They seem pretty much the king of at least the non-full casters with great offense, defense and party utility, plus their high cha lends well to the social pillar.

 

[Celtavian]

It's the internet and all, so sarcasm/tone are hard to detect, so maybe I'm being dumb here... Were there seriously complaints about paladin weaknesses? They seem pretty much the king of at least the non-full casters with great offense, defense and party utility, plus their high cha lends well to the social pillar.

It was sarcasm.

 

[Mistwell]

It is a Nerf. A lot of damage output for the Sorcerer came from twinning spells like Scorching Ray and Magic Missile. Now they can't.

It's only a nerf if you can show it did that before. As it never did this before, how can it be a nerf now? That's like complaining that there is a ruling that swords now don't crit on a 15-20...well, if they never critted on a 15-20 before, it's not a nerf to reiterate that they still don't do that. Twin Spell always applied only to spells that target just one target - reiterating that is not a nerf. It's right there in the text, "When you cast a spell that targets only one creature". It never said, "when you choose to target only one creature with a spell" or even "when you target only one creature with a spell". But it clearly said "when you cast a spell that targets only one creature". The limit was always on what the spell text says, not on the choice the caster makes with that spell. I am not even sure why people thought it made sense that the power changes depending on what the caster decides as opposed to the nature of the spell they are using. Clarifying that for those who had misread the text of the ability isn't itself a nerf.

 

[Delandel]

Not to add to your woes or anything, but it's also FAR more likely for you to run into fire-resistant creatures at that level than it is for your barbarian friend to run into magic weapon-resistant creatures.

Fire-resistance shouldn't be that big a deal at the endgame since there's a feat tax around it. Fire-immune though, that's the pain.

My calculations also ignored the barbarian having a magical weapon at all. At level 20, what type of weapon is he wielding? A +3 greataxe maybe, with other bonuses? At least I have my +3 -- or wait there's no equivalent weapon for blasters. I wouldn't want to encroach on the poor barbarian's territory!

Also if we're talking endgame, a Dragon Sorcerer needs to cast Scorching Ray as a 5th level spell to beat a high level Agonizing Eldritch Blast in average damage. Then we can add that 24 hour concentration of Hex on EB and the Sorc isn't keeping up, period. And the funny thing is that the Warlock's damage is absolutely fine! I'm not looking to drag Warlock through the mud, just the absolute joke they did here.

It's only a nerf if you can show it did that before. As it never did this before, how can it be a nerf now? That's like complaining that there is a ruling that swords now don't crit on a 15-20...well, if they never critted on a 15-20 before, it's not a nerf to reiterate that they still don't do that. Twin Spell always applied only to spells that target just one target - reiterating that is not a nerf. It's right there in the text, "When you cast a spell that targets only one creature". It never said, "when you choose to target only one creature with a spell" or even "when you target only one creature with a spell". But it clearly said "when you cast a spell that targets only one creature". The limit was always on what the spell text says, not one the choice the caster makes with that spell. Clarifying that for those who had misread the text of the ability isn't itself a nerf.

Oh, I can do that easily:

"When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self..."

I cast Scorching Ray targeting Bob. Bob is only one creature, and Scorching Ray doesn't have a range of self. Therefore, I qualify for the prerequisites.

Oh, but Scorching Ray could target more than one creature, you say! Therefore if it could then no no no!

Then by that logic, I cannot twin Fire Bolt, because Fire Bolt can target a creature OR object. Because it COULD target an object, this logic states that it doesn't qualify. As you say, I'm CHOOSING to cast it on a creature, not on an object, therefore Fire Bolt cannot be twinned because it should work on spells that ONLY target one creature. Same goes for Disintegrate and others.

But that is, of course, absurd.

So no, Twin Spell did NOT always work this way by RAW. The intent was not to work this way according to Crawford, hence the change.

 

[vandaexpress]

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?

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?

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?

Explanations would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[guachi]

I don't think they made many (if any) changes to mechanics save perhaps Sentinel and reach weapons. It was all about spelling out rules intent with the usual caveat tables can run it as they wish.

I think the change to Ready qualifies as a mechanical change. I think. Mr. Crawford answered this in a tweet before the errata came out, so the actual errata didn't surprise me, just the tweet. The original wording said something like "Readying an action allows you to act later in the round." But the errata says "until the start of your next turn" or something similar. Later in the round =/= start of your next turn (which would be some time next round). Ready now aligns with just about everything else that lasts until start/end of next turn, so that's good.

One of my players really didn't like when I said that a readied action expired at the end of the round. He should be happier now.

 

[Celtavian]

Crawford should probably do a Sage Colum on vision and obscurement just to get things clarified. We all kind of understand how it is supposed to work, but it gets a little wonky with advantage and disadvantage rules combining with blind creating this neutral condition that shouldn't be the way it is.

 

[evilbob]

Less than 24 hours and we're already at 16 pages! Well I didn't read them all but I am still on the fence as to my opinion of the errata. I mean, it's nice that they are fixing typos and such, but I sort of hate that they substantially changed anything - errata killed 4.0 for me and it put a serious, serious hurting on 3.5. On the other hand, there are several things I wish they WOULD change, and they didn't - so I am also sort of annoyed they didn't change the things they could have! So yeah, not sure how I feel about it.

One interesting thing is that I thought the dwarf racial change was a nerf - until I realized there is no throwing hammer! That's what a light hammer just does anyway. Also, I'm not sure why they changed things like evocation wizard +Int damage and overchannel on cantrips, but I'm guessing there was some broken combo somewhere that actually made that school good, so they got rid of it.

 

[evilbob]

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?

That is how I would interpret that as well. (I would have interpreted it that way before as well, though.)

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. I don't think that's changed. The ranger in the cloud is "effectively blinded" and would have disadvantage on attacks against anything outside the cloud.

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.

I would rule straight disadvantage, like above.

Basically, the creature in the fog cloud isn't blind, nor is the creature outside the fog cloud. Therefore, there isn't advantage given either way. The only thing left is the disadvantage on the part of the creature taking the action. It's simpler that way as well, in my opinion. Here's a summary:

A ranger inside the fog cloud shooting at something outside the fog cloud: disadvantage.
A ranger outside the fog cloud shooting at something inside the fog cloud: disadvantage.
Two rangers inside the fog cloud shooting each other: disadvantage. (Multiple, but that's moot.)
Two rangers outside the fog cloud: normal.