D&D 5E New Errata & Advice For D&D Issued

WotC has issued an update to the 'Sage Advice' compilation, including new errata documents and amendments to racial attributes.

Compendium: October 2020 | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice Compendium includes updates to Curse of Strahd, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters.

dnd.wizards.com

"The PDF contains answers to a collection of new questions. To find the latest answers, search for “[New]” in the PDF.

The compendium includes links to new errata documents for Curse of Strahd, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters."

Racial attributes have been altered (thanks to @dave2008 for pointing that out).

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This isnt errata, it's sage advice.

And in the exact same sage advice, unarmed strikes are expressly noted as being 'melee weapon attacks' and thus (by the wording of Divine Smite), legal delivery platforms for Smites.

Sage advice seems to contradict itself here.

Sage advice is generally based on literal interpretation of RAW. It is not rules as intended or how the designers would personally rule.
Errata tends to be the latter.

The sage advice's ruling pointing out that an actual weapon is required is based on the end of the first sentence, rather than the beginning.

 

[Pauper]

Some teleportation effects do specify that you teleport with your gear; such specification is an example of a rule being needlessly fastidious, since no teleportation effect in the game assumes that you teleport without your clothes...

"Mr. Crawford? There's a 'Halaster Blackcloak' on line two for you."

--
Pauper

 

[Pauper]

1. Are you playing AL? If not you can ignore this because the DM of you game makes the final decision.

Actually, even if you are playing AL, you can ignore this -- the AL explicitly notes in its FAQ document:

Sage Advice (SA) and tweets from the Wizards of the Coast staff are a great barometer for the 'rules-as-intended', in any case. The DM can choose to utilize them at their discretion for rules adjudication.

--
Pauper

 

[Flamestrike]

The errata is the change to require a weapon for Divine Smite.

There is no errata. The text for Divine Smite still reads 'melee weapon attack' which an unarmed strike, IS.

 

[Flamestrike]

The sage advice's ruling pointing out that an actual weapon is required is based on the end of the first sentence, rather than the beginning.

The latter reference to adding the smite damage to the 'weapon damage'?

If unarmed strikes are not 'weapon damage' then Heavy Armor Mastery feat does not stop damage from unarmed strikes (and a lot of other wonky things happen in other areas) seeing as damage from an unarmed strike is not 'bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage you take from a non-magical weapon'.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

This is from Jan 2018, but it is Jeremy Crawford saying it is both RAW and RAI that Divine Smite requires an actual weapon to work. To see this, you need to click on the tweet, so that it opens up in Twitter and then his reply is one of the final comments.

 

[TheSword]

There is no errata. The text for Divine Smite still reads 'melee weapon attack' which an unarmed strike, IS.

Ahh. This is all just conflicting earlier sage advice with the sage advice compilation. That makes sense.

Then I’d still be inclined to follow the advice in the most recent compilation rather than individual snippets. But it definitely isn’t clear cut. And only advisory anyway.

 

[BB Shockwave]

All this mess around unarmed strikes... Maybe we should just go back to the rules where only monks and specialist fighter subclasses could use them? I mean generally you would not want to use such a weak attack anyway, unless you are stripped of your weapons. Monstrous races still have their bites and such as a secondary/multiattack but that was never intended to be a primary attack.

Nope.

Kobolds stay weak. Orcs stay stupid.

Sorry, folks.

So Kobolds do not get a strength penalty anymore? That is kinda ridiculous. Imagine a Kobold with 18/00 (well, I still prefer AD&D stats) in full plate with a giant two handed axe. The whole point of playing a Kobold is that they are at the bottom of the food chain, they are weak and hence have to use teamwork and their wits and cleverness to stay alive. To be frank, I was equally not liking how Halflings get no strength penalties either.
And if Orcs had no intelligence penalty... that'd mean Orcs are as smart as humans, and should have long ago conquered half of Faerun. Especially if they had wizards. These changes really play havoc on the lore, too. This whole "everyone is equal" thing, as we have seen in Ray Bradbury's Harrisson Bergeron, does not end well.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The latter reference to adding the smite damage to the 'weapon damage'?

If unarmed strikes are not 'weapon damage' then Heavy Armor Mastery feat does not stop damage from unarmed strikes (and a lot of other wonky things happen in other areas) seeing as damage from an unarmed strike is not 'bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage you take from a non-magical weapon'.

Good catch. So probably the punch goes into your face...

 

[Marandahir]

So Kobolds do not get a strength penalty anymore? That is kinda ridiculous. Imagine a Kobold with 18/00 (well, I still prefer AD&D stats) in full plate with a giant two handed axe. The whole point of playing a Kobold is that they are at the bottom of the food chain, they are weak and hence have to use teamwork and their wits and cleverness to stay alive. To be frank, I was equally not liking how Halflings get no strength penalties either.
And if Orcs had no intelligence penalty... that'd mean Orcs are as smart as humans, and should have long ago conquered half of Faerun. Especially if they had wizards. These changes really play havoc on the lore, too. This whole "everyone is equal" thing, as we have seen in Ray Bradbury's Harrisson Bergeron, does not end well.

You're objectively wrong. We've all discussed this to death. Ancestry-based penalties are a bad thing, have always been a bad thing, and removing them does not diminish them or any other peoples.