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Message: <blockquote data-quote="D'karr" data-source="post: 6282986" data-attributes="member: 336">On this point I whole-heartedly disagree.  When a rule is not working specifically as intended, because it is ripe for "rules lawyering" abuse, or because it needs clarification so that the clear intent is obvious - then it should be fixed.  Errata should be issued for it.  It should not be a "stealth" change to the rule.  If anything the consumer is able to decide if the change is needed/wanted for them, or if they don't care and simply continue to use the "broken" rule.  Errata also serves to highlight for the DM things that might be problematic with the ruleset, and he can choose to make an adjustment of his own that is not covered by the changed rule or is a wide departure from the rule.Fixing misspellings, grammatical edits, etc., I view as simply corrections.  Nobody is going to care if the spell is called Mordenkainen's Faithful Hind, or Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound.  Those are not needed corrections, and don't really impact gameplay.  But if the spell lasts significantly longer than expected/intended, or does much more damage than expected/intended, or is missing vital information to work as intended then it does impact gameplay, and errata is a way of "fixing" that.This is IMO the worst of all approaches, if an electronic download is not also provided.  Also known colloquially as "stealth" errata - WotC did this with some of the rules.  See "stealth" in PHB2, magic item availability, and rewriting the classes as Essentials classes for blatant examples of this.  But they did publish the changes in electronics errata documents so it was not really a stealth errata.Electronically published "free" errata allows for multiple "corrected" printings of a book to be published without leaving anybody behind.  If the consumer doesn't have the "corrected" edition they can see what the changes were, and they have the option of "fixing" the stuff themselves if they want.Once again agendas show - Paizo can do no wrong, but WotC sucks.  That line of reasoning is getting really tiresome.  I agree that playtesting and better editing/proof reading can possibly reduce this but let's see how well that worked for Paizo once we look at the actual errata.  The Pathfinder game was built entirely on an engine that WotC designed and published, the game (3.x) had been in publication and play for many years.  On top of that Pathfinder had a lengthy open playtest.  Using your proposed reasoning that game (Pathfinder) should have no errata, but the numbers don't support that.  Pathfinder has had 6 printings to date.  There are hundreds of errata "changes", just to the core book, in their published errata document between the 1st and 6th printing.  Some of them are significant changes, and some of them not.  The errata document between the 5th and 6th printing alone has over 20 "corrections".  One of them to the "grapple" rules.  Was grapple something that didn't get playtested enough?  It is one of the most derided rules in 3.x, but 6 printings later Paizo is still "correcting" it.  I hope that you are not proposing that the consumer needs to spend more money to purchase another product, that includes in it some of the "corrections" that the developers have decided upon for the game. Don't get me wrong I appreciate that Paizo does their best to put these "corrections" in subsequent printings of the books, but I also appreciate that they went ahead and published the corrections for free for those that don't want to continually buy new corrected versions of the same ruleset.  However what I appreciate most is that they recognize that things that need fixing should be fixed, and not left as is.  "better playtesting and actually going over what they are putting out before releasing it to the public" - hasn't worked that well for Paizo if we look at the facts.  It is obviously not the panacea some are claiming it to be.  So let's be honest and stop the WotC bashing and Paizo praising when it is obvious both of them are pretty much putting out books that have lots of errors that need fixing.In a game as rules-heavy as D&D, if the clarifying language is going to be such an extensive "rewrite" then sometimes the best way is to actually rewrite the rules to make them clear.  WotC did this about 3 times with Polymorph in 3.x (a rule that is ripe for abuse).  There might have been others they did the same with but I don't recall them all.  As a consumer I want them to provide these "fixes" to me, and I want them free of charge.</blockquote>

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