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.

 

[Delandel]

(2d6+5)*6: Scorching Ray gives you three rays at 2nd level, plus one ray per extra spell level, so Scorching Ray V will have six rays. Do I misremember? I'm AFB but I'm pretty sure about this.

You roll 2d6+5, and multiply that by the number of rays that hit. See details in post #173 of this thread. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Official-Errata/page18&p=6638271#post6638271)

That's an optimistic interpretation of the errata. I hope you're right, but I'll be convinced once we get a confirming tweet or something.

I see. But why did you pick 5th level Scorching Ray? That seems random. But okay, 5th level it is.

Scorching Ray 5th level. You get this at 9th level. You can cast this once, or twice if you spend most of your sorcery points, or a third time if you cannibalize most of your other spells. I doubt you'll be doing Scorching Ray + Quicken more than once.

So this SR + Quicken combo is either (2d6+5)*6=72 plus Quicken Firebolt 2d10+5=16 so 88 total, or the other interpretation is (2d6)*6+5=47; +16=63. Once per day realistically, twice if you really like casting nothing but Fire Bolt for the rest of the day.

Let's see that Barbarian with just GWM at 9th level. On-demand advantage, of course, because when you have D24 effective HP while raging why wouldn't you. We won't even give him a magic weapon, despite the published modules indicating he probably has at least a +1 weapon at this point:
No -5/+10: (1d12+5+3)*2 = 29 regular attack, (1d12+5+3)*3=43.5 if he drops a minion with one of his swings, and an additional 1d12 + swing if he crits (50)

If we're generous and ignore the auto-advantage of the Barbarian and assume all the rays hit, then yes, the Sorcerer's nova does more damage, significantly so if we go with your interpretation of the new errata (sad we have to interpret it). Which is good, because the Sorcerer can do this realistically only once per long rest, while the Barbarian is doing this for 4 entire battles.

But now we add the -5/+10, which at 9th level should be a simple decision for the barbarian as he has a +9 to hit PLUS advantage, possibly more if he has a magic weapon:
-5/+10: (1d12+15+3)*2 = 49 regular attack, (1d12+15+3)*3=73.5 if he drops a minion with one of his swings, and an additional 1d12 + swing if he crits (80)

With GWM, the bonus attack and -5/+10, the barbarian's regular swings are not far behind the sorcerer's biggest spell of the day. That's not right.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Yet things like Contagion were given a free pass.

Makes you wonder how much thought and discussion really went into this

Not really, since you're referring to actual fixes/changes to the rules, and this errata was only mean to make the intent of some existing rules clearer, and fix a couple of printing mistakes. In general, they're going to try and keep actual rules changes to a minimum

 

[Mistwell]

And you have proven the same faulty logic. Nowhere in the book does it support your interpretation.

Scorching Ray says "you can hurl them [the rays] at one target or several." If I'm hurling them at one target, then I'm targeting only one creature.

It's not YOU who is "targetting". You cut the critical part of the sentence (not surprising). The word "SPELL" is there. Not "I'm" targeting more than one, the SPELL can target more than one or not. Some spells can target more than one, others cannot - you can twin a spell that cannot target more than one.

I know you understand this - the insults to me and others that our logic is flawed because it disagrees with your opinion doesn't help anything. There is logic behind our argument as well. It's just as sound as yours, and less pedantic.

 

[DaveDash]

Not really, since you're referring to actual fixes/changes to the rules, and this errata was only mean to make the intent of some existing rules clearer, and fix a couple of printing mistakes. In general, they're going to try and keep actual rules changes to a minimum

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.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I have to say I never interpreted it that way. If the spell gained via Magic Initiate can be used as a slot spell, too, that is huge!

I'm using this errata and ignoring the Sage Advice. I thought about this concept way back when and talked to one or two of my buddies about whether they felt it would be overpowered to let you do things like have a wizard pick up healing word or cure wounds and cast it in any of his spell slots. The main point I asked them to consider is whether, if they were playing a wizard, they would always take this feat. If people are always going to take it, it's likely overpowered. If people are never going to take it, it's probably underpowered. If it depends more on character concept whether you take it, it's probably fine. We agreed that the liberal interpretation isn't making it a must have feat, just a good feat. Since feats are supposed to be good, I'm fine with that.

If we use Jeremy's twitter response as a guide to interpreting the errata (sigh), then Magic Missile and Scorching Ray only roll 2d6 once (+CHA/INT), and then you apply that to the target X number of times. It benefits "only one damage roll" so it's not (1d6+CHA)+(1d6+CHA), it's just 2d6+CHA times 3/5/7/whatever. So Magic Missile/Scorching Ray will have a very high variance.

Yeah, I was on the fence about whether to use that interpretation from when it first came out. My main mark against it was simply that my players and I are all used to rolling individual d4s for a magic missile. Familiarity. But the way that Empowered Evocation and Elemental Affinity have changed is making me strongly consider using the 5e take of just rolling damage once.

The interesting question is whether Jeremy's interpretation would have you make a single roll with eldritch blast, which would make its damage a lot swingier. Agonizing Blast wasn't given the same "one damage roll" errata that Empowered Evocation and Elemental Affinity were, but if you went with the single damage roll (1-4 blasts doing the same 1d10+Cha) take it would actually be pretty much following the same rules as everything else, at the cost of making the damage swingier.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

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.

What's the non game-breaking interpretation of contagion?

 

[Mistwell]

What's the non game-breaking interpretation of contagion?

That it gives you the disease - which goes through it's normal stages of disease, a very slow process taking days not seconds.

 

[DaveDash]

That does sound pretty lame for sorcerers. I might adjust by adding a bonus spell list to each sorcerer. Twinned doesn't seem overpowered. You basically get to hit two targets with a single casting of scorching ray. Not the same target twice. I understand why the game designers did it, but I doubt it was for reasons of balance so much as clarifying intent. I don't think it hurts the game at all to keep it as is.

Did you try an enchanter type sorcerer? How did that work? Double hold spells or double suggestion early on. Did that work out ok?

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.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see. But why did you pick 5th level Scorching Ray? That seems random. But okay, 5th level it is.

Mostly because I use SP in my games, so 5th level is a convenient break point for lots of things. Most of the spells that get cast in my games are cast at 1st, 2nd, or 5th level.

But now we add the -5/+10, which at 9th level should be a simple decision for the barbarian as he has a +9 to hit PLUS advantage, possibly more if he has a magic weapon:
-5/+10: (1d12+15+3)*2 = 49 regular attack, (1d12+15+3)*3=73.5 if he drops a minion with one of his swings, and an additional 1d12 + swing if he crits (80)

With GWM, the bonus attack and -5/+10, the barbarian's regular swings are not far behind the sorcerer's biggest spell of the day. That's not right.

I was assuming GWM on the barbarian, so yes, I didn't meant that the sorcerer's nova vastly outclasses the barbarian, just that his nova actually is bigger. Quicken isn't really expensive, just two sorcery points, so the sorcerer can repeat this combination practically as often as he has spell points for it. I'm not a nova guy, I prefer consistency, but let's say your Sorcerer does want to nova because he's trying to kill a bad guy nownownow before he can kill civilians or escape or something. Let's see how much damage a 9th level sorcerer could output:

1st round: spend 2 sorcery points + 5th level spell slot for 88 damage times hit percentage, compared to the barb's 49 to 73.5. (I won't say "times hit percentage" from this point on, but readers bear in mind that both the sorc and the barbarian are probably only really doing 50 to 70% of these numbers versus AC 15, since +9 (sorc 9 with Cha 20) hits AC 15 70% of the time, and +3 with disadvantage (GWM barbarian with Str 18 using power attack) hits AC 15 only 64% of the time.) Has three 4th level slots remaining and seven sorcery points.
2nd round: spell 2 sorcery points + 4th level spell slot for for 76 points of damage. Has two 4th level slots remaining and five sorcery points.
3rd round: spell 2 sorcery points + 4th level spell slot for for 76 points of damage. One 4th level slot left and three sorcery points.
4th round: spell 2 sorcery points + 4th level spell slot for for 76 points of damage. No 4th level slots left and one sorcery point.

After the 4th round, the sorcerer is out of novas. He can drop back to regular old Scorching Ray IV (or just plain Fireball) and do 48 points of damage, just like the barbarian has been doing on many of these rounds. (If the mooks were so weak that the barbarian's two attacks were guaranteed to kill something every round, the sorcerer would probably just have fireballed everything anyway.)

Personally I think blaster sorcs are boring anyway. (Mass) Suggestion: "Why don't you show me how tough you are and fight me with your bare hands?" is more my style. Cooperation and synergy with the Barbarian, not competition.

Edit: Besides, wasn't burning 5 sorcery points on a Twinned Scorching Ray even more expensive? If you're worried about efficiency, you don't even care about the Twinned Spell nerf(?) to Scorching Ray--it was never efficient in the first place.

 

[DaveDash]

That it gives you the disease - which goes through it's normal stages of disease, a very slow process taking days not seconds.

I think also there is confusion over whether or not you get the saves first - ie fail three saves and you get the disease, which makes it kind of weak. More of an out of combat / NPC type spell.