Death and Dying Errata Erroneous?

[amnuxoll]

I didn't see a post on this yet. Forgive me if this is a rehash.

The latest "Update" for the Player's Handbook (from July 2nd) includes this change:

Death Saving Throw [Deletion]
Player ’s Handbook, page 295
Remove “expressed as a negative number” in the last sentence.

Here is the original passage in the PHB:

Death: When you take damage that reduces your
current hit points to your bloodied value expressed
as a negative number, your character dies.

I have a personal pet-peeve with people who use the acronym "RAW" as if it bears any weight. But if you make the requested deletion to that passage it sure seems to indicate that you die when you have half your hit points. Is it just me, or doesn't this errata make the rule more confusing rather than less?

Someone please un-confuse me...

:AMN:

 

[CM]

The errata is for the "Death Saving Throw" entry in the rules block. You are quoting the "Death" entry below it.

 

[GorTeX]

you are looking at the wrong 'expressed as a negative number' phrase. Note the errata is for 'Death Saving Throws' section, not the 'Death' Section. So, look right above the 'Death section'. In the 'Death Saving Throw' Section, the last sentence (part of the paragraph that starts with '20 or Higher:..". Remove 'Expressed as a negative number' from that paragraph/sentence and it makes alot scense.

 

[amnuxoll]

Ah-hah! I knew I had to be missing something.

Thanks.