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.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

I know several people who routinely chose to play clerics during AD&D 1E and 2E, not out of party devotion, but because the characters were interesting to them. Beware the gross overgeneralizations.

I routinely saw played clerics in AD&D 1E, 2E and D&D Moldvay-Cook/Mentzer/Alston-Denning. In one party, the issue was finding someone to play a wizard.

Then again, my players knew I loved to use undead as the villains.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

I think it must. Eldritch Blast didn't get errata because in Jeremy's mind, it already has only one damage roll (1d10) whereas he's trying to prevent Dragon Sorcerers from adding +5 to each d6 of an 8d6 Fireball.

 

[Delandel]

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.

What? Of course you're the one targeting with the spell -- the spell isn't dictating the targets, you are. Come on now, you're grasping for straws here.

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.

The moment you tell me that you won't allow twinned Fire Bolt and twinned Disintegrate is the moment I agree to disagree. Otherwise your logic is flawed cherry picking of a sentence. You apply your logic to the entire sentence or you don't at all, period. Otherwise your logic is bunk.

It's funny, you've been offering nothing but catty remarks to me and now complain that I'm offering the same attitude in turn. Maybe cut out the snarky "(not surprising)" bits and I'd listen.

 

[scottcoz]

deleted

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see that you like to break the rules, and make assumptions that are improbable, when doing your math - this does not support your argument, but makes it look like you are manipulating data. Or, perhaps, the players you are used to playing with actually play this way? Since, apparently, they are happy with Twin-shotting Scorching Ray, perhaps they're also happy with letting Barbarians get two bonus actions per round?

Delandel doesn't do this. If you look again at the math, you'll see that he is just adding a single extra d12 on a crit to represent the extra damage for a greataxe crit (2d12).

 

[Delandel]

I see that you like to break the rules, and make assumptions that are improbable, when doing your math - this does not support your argument, but makes it look like you are manipulating data.

Haha, wow! Someone is riled up! This should be good.

Or, perhaps, the players you are used to playing with actually play this way? Since, apparently, they are happy with Twin-shotting Scorching Ray, perhaps they're also happy with letting Barbarians get two bonus actions per round?

Oh, two bonus actions? I wonder where you're going with this.

To be clear, characters get ONE bonus action per round. Using GWM does NOT, under any circumstances, allow a character a bonus attack for dropping a minion, and ANOTHER bonus attack for getting a crit. So, at best, the Barbarian will get 3 swings per round, not 4.

I think I know what happened: you looked at the "when he crits" part and thought I was adding another swing? No, I was just adding the Brutal Critical die barbarians get, which is another 1d12 damage, aka +6.5, aka 43.5+6.5=50.

Did that clear things for you? Don't you feel a little silly-willy for calling me a cheater? At least you made me chuckle

Also, you are assuming that there is actually another target around, after the Barb gets the bonus attack for dropping a minion. When you are a melee character, this is far from an assured thing. In fact, I'd say, if your DM is just surrounding the Barbarian with this kind of target rich environment, then the main problem you're experiencing is probably the DM's fault. He's not giving any thought to how the NPC's would strategize during a fight, but just rushing everyone to crowd around the Barb?

Hmmm, I'm looking through LoTP, HotDQ, and PotA.. seems like the vast majority of battles have tons of opportunities for the barbarian to hit a second minion. That, plus my usual experiences say that YES, they DO get to do it quite often! But please, continue.

Also, if you're going to use that kind of logic, you should perhaps apply it to the caster, as well, to be fair. By that logic (assuming maximum targets), without any other adjustments, the Sorcerer has the potential to do 896 average damage with a Fireball, even assuming ALL targets make their saving throws (64 targets x 8d6/2). And, they can do that 6 times (by just creating more 3rd level spell slots), and 4 more with higher level spell slots, which would increase the damage.

That is, of course, an EXTREMELY unlikely outlier scenario - I'm just using it to illustrate what you're doing... taking an improbable outcome, and trying to claim that it is the expected outcome.

Oh yes, me saying that the Barbarian can swing a third time is definitely the same level of exaggeration as doing 896 damage with a Fireball. You got it man!

Also, though you don't seem to think so, there IS a cost to constantly using that Reckless Attack. When everybody, including ranged attackers, has advantage against the Barb, he's going to get hit by everything! Believe it or not, Barbarians CAN be KO'd!

They CAN be, but it's quite an ordeal to actually DO so. Again, I've seen this in multiple playgroups, it turns out a D24 effective Hit Points is ridiculously good.

Please, more.

 

[scottcoz]

deleted

 

[Celtavian]

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.

I think contagion is clear, and it's clear reading is game breaking and needed to be changed. All this talk of whether it has an onset time or what not is adding rules that don't exist in the text of the spell. If the designers had intended an onset time or any other rules to be used other than the stated spell text, they would have wrote it in. All I can surmise is that not many people are using the spell. I know for all its power, it has yet to be used in our games. No one has gotten around to it. Against multiple creatures a contagion seems like a waste of time. Against legendary creatures we have yet to try because we mostly fought dragons and landing a melee attack on one as a caster maintaining a concentration spell has other dangers. I'm going to try to land this spell using the text as written. I think it's going to be a problem.

 

[Celtavian]

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

There is no rule text to support this. You would have to make up the incubation period and the like. It would be a house rule.

At best you could interpret that the disease doesn't take effect until the third save is missed, even that would be adding something not listed.

 

[Coredump]

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.

Yes, which is exactly what I said. That particular *casting* of the spell only targets one creature. But the *spell* itself does not target only one creature.

If having the OPTION to target several disqualifies it by your logic, then having the OPTION to target objects with Fire Bolt or Disintegrate disqualifies them too. "targets only one creature." You don't get to choose which word in a sentence uses your logic and which doesn't.

Nope, the requirement is it targets "only one creature". Does it target more than one? nope. There is no requirement that 'one creature' is the only thing it targets.

It is the difference between "targets only one creature" and "only targets one creature"
If there was a Windex Spell that did 2D10 damage to one creature, and cleaned every window in 60'.... you could twin that
It targets a creature.. it targets only one creature.
So....
It targets only one creature
It targets all windows
It fits the requirement just fine....

Same with firebolt
Targets only one creature
Targets one object

not a problem.