# D&D 5E Player's Handbook Official Errata



## DaveDash (Jun 10, 2015)

Ouch. Our Sorcerer player isn't going to like the errata on twinned.

I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.


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## Remathilis (Jun 10, 2015)

Interesting.

Some of these appear common sense (1/day = long rest), but some (the ammo property, unarmed strikes) are bigger. None seem on the level of 4e level errata (no re-writes, sorry GWM/SS, beastmaster, or Concentration haters) but solid stuff.

This is the level of errata I can handle.


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## Leatherhead (Jun 10, 2015)

I get the feeling they should have defined what a free hand is, the concept seems to come up often enough.

Also, they nerfed the Sling.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 10, 2015)

Remathilis said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Some of these appear common sense (1/day = long rest), but some (the ammo property, unarmed strikes) are bigger. None seem on the level of 4e level errata (no re-writes, sorry GWM/SS, beastmaster, or Concentration haters) but solid stuff.
> 
> This is the level of errata I can handle.




Well...I mean...*other* than the stealth and skill errata for 4e, which I think everyone agrees was major and necessary...was the errata for the 4e PHB all that much more substantial than this less than a year after publication? It sounds a lot more like you're comparing the mid- to late-cycle errata (which was for far, far more books) of 4e to the just-barely-started-cycle errata of 5e, which will never be a fair comparison.

My only real thought now is, "So much for having no errata," which is something I got told, vehemently, numerous times about 5e.


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## Kinneus (Jun 10, 2015)

Looks like a major nerf to Sorcerers and Evokers, as well as to Scorching Ray specifically (previously THE damage spell to take).

I guess they don't like magic-users blasting stuff, huh?



> My only real thought now is, "So much for having no errata," which is something I got told, vehemently, numerous times about 5e.




Yeah, I have to admit I'm disappointed to see any errata at all. I was a 4e fanboy but that always irked me. Still, I suppose this was inevitable.


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## Remathilis (Jun 10, 2015)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Well...I mean...*other* than the stealth and skill errata for 4e, which I think everyone agrees was major and necessary...was the errata for the 4e PHB all that much more substantial than this less than a year after publication? It sounds a lot more like you're comparing the mid- to late-cycle errata (which was for far, far more books) of 4e to the just-barely-started-cycle errata of 5e, which will never be a fair comparison.
> 
> My only real thought now is, "So much for having no errata," which is something I got told, vehemently, numerous times about 5e.




I was just referring the 4e (and late 3e) level of "replace X power/spell/feat with Y text", which happened to powers like come and get it. Nothing here reaches that level. 

They always said it would be a "living ruleset", but I think they meant "we're not re-writing the beastmaster in the second printing of the PHB" version of errata.


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## Mistwell (Jun 10, 2015)

Looks good.  I am also surprised nothing on contagion.


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## steeldragons (Jun 10, 2015)

hohoho. Annnnd so it [posting errata] begins.

Time to sit back and watch the blood bath.


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## Evenglare (Jun 10, 2015)

Im pretty happy with this errata. It actually corrects errors and doesn't rewrite the damn game like 4e. I'm good with this. I LOVE 4e, but man I have a binder FULL of errata, it's ridiculous.


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## Kinneus (Jun 10, 2015)

Another concern: re-defining unarmed strikes as specifically definitely 100% not weapon attacks might have some serious repercussions for Monks. Specifically, it messes up the dwarven Fighter/Monk character I wanted to make pretty bad.


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## BrockBallingdark (Jun 10, 2015)

I'm good with the errata but maybe I should have waited to have bought the extra two PHBs.  I'll just stick, the errata page in those two and my copy and now I have three PHB for players and I'll get the new errata PHB for me. Just an excuse to get a new book on my part.


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## GlassJaw (Jun 11, 2015)

Kinneus said:


> Another concern: re-defining unarmed strikes as specifically definitely 100% not weapon attacks might have some serious repercussions for Monks. Specifically, it messes up the dwarven Fighter/Monk character I wanted to make pretty bad.




If you were planning on going the Battle Master path, it looks like you'll have to use a monk weapon to use most of those abilities.

I certainly don't like that unarmed strikes don't count as weapons for monks.


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## Shadowdweller00 (Jun 11, 2015)

The elemental monk errata was...quite exceptionally misguided in my opinion.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 11, 2015)

This looks pretty good. There are about 3 entries that won't apply to me (since I have house rules that invalidate them), but everything else seems pretty solid.

The clarifications on Hiding and Vision and Light are particularly good. That single little blurb on Hiding just made about a thousand or more pages of internet debate (too many of which I've participated in myself) completely meaningless, and hopefully will eliminate it happening again.


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## AverageCitizen (Jun 11, 2015)

Kinneus said:


> Another concern: re-defining unarmed strikes as specifically definitely 100% not weapon attacks might have some serious repercussions for Monks. Specifically, it messes up the dwarven Fighter/Monk character I wanted to make pretty bad.




What were you going to do?


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 11, 2015)

The biggest repercussion for the Monk WRT unarmed strikes no longer being a weapon is that unarmed Monks can't use Stunning Strike anymore. Pfffffffft.


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## Shadowdweller00 (Jun 11, 2015)

Gladius Legis said:


> The biggest repercussion for the Monk WRT unarmed strikes no longer being a weapon is that unarmed Monks can't use Stunning Strike anymore. Pfffffffft.



Unarmed strikes also now bypass almost all resistance to nonmagical damage.  Since most forms of physical resistance specify that they apply to weapon attacks.  Which I guess makes ki-empowered strikes redundant.


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## Kinneus (Jun 11, 2015)

GlassJaw said:


> If you were planning on going the Battle Master path, it looks like you'll have to use a monk weapon to use most of those abilities.
> 
> I certainly don't like that unarmed strikes don't count as weapons for monks.



Actually I was interested in going Champion and getting an expanded crit range on my Flurry of Blows attacks. Either way, though... yeah. This puts a crimp on multi-classing monks.


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## Parmandur (Jun 11, 2015)

Mostly language clarification.


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## Falling Icicle (Jun 11, 2015)

Interesting. Most of these changes were expected, but the change to unarmed strikes surprised me. Was having unarmed strikes count as weapons actually causing problems?

Overall, I'm pleased. This is the kind of errata I like. It fixes typos and minor errors, but doesn't try to rewrite the entire rulebook. I just hope they release a printer-friendly version.


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## Jeffery Clark (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Ouch. Our Sorcerer player isn't going to like the errata on twinned.
> 
> I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.




Yeah, lots of my AL DMs have already asked for clarification, since it seems to mess up what has been previously interpreted by Mike Mearls: https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/521538368698462208


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## Mercule (Jun 11, 2015)

As someone who vehemently opposed the "living rule set" and changes via errata, I actually don't see much to object to. Almost everything really does look like clarifying intent. I think the only thing that raised an eyebrow from me was the unarmed strike damage. There are a few (Monk) that I can't comment on.

Really, I found at least half the page to be redundant with common sense. Were people really able to twist the wording of Empowered Evocation to mean anything other than what the errata states? Seems like you could only do that maliciously or with about a fifth of whiskey in you.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeff Knight said:


> Yeah, lots of my AL DMs have already asked for clarification, since it seems to mess up what has been previously interpreted by Mike Mearls: https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/521538368698462208




Yeah. I actually think we're probably going to ignore this bit of errata. We haven't seen an issue really with Sorcerers able to twin things like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, and in fact, the class seems pretty weak as a damage dealing class without this ability (even using the Quicken/Cantrip combo).


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## Evenglare (Jun 11, 2015)

Oh interesting I completely missed this text "Recent printings of the book include revised text that reflects the explanations
here."


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 11, 2015)

Falling Icicle said:


> Interesting. Most of these changes were expected, but the change to unarmed strikes surprised me. Was having unarmed strikes count as weapons actually causing problems?



Is it possible that the errata is being mis-interpreted?

Would everything make more sense if the monk still treated its unarmed strike as a weapon?


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## designbot (Jun 11, 2015)

@JeremyECrawford:


> Addressing a nuance in the PH errata: the rule lets melee weapon attacks use unarmed strikes, despite those strikes not being weapons.


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## Jeffery Clark (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Yeah. I actually think we're probably going to ignore this bit of errata. We haven't seen an issue really with Sorcerers able to twin things like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray, and in fact, the class seems pretty weak as a damage dealing class without this ability (even using the Quicken/Cantrip combo).




That is my feeling as well. I understand it was meant to prevent fireball spam and whatnot, but if the rule is now "any spell that could possibly target more than 1 creature" cannot be twinned, that is a HUGE nerf and makes spending sorcery points on twinning spells useless. If they're going to enforce that, I'm going allow my DMs to let my players swap metamagic abilities as allowed by AL rules for levels 1-4.

The errata as written is that a bunch of spells like magic missile, scorching ray, acid splash, etc that can be used to affect 1 target or can affect multiples can no longer be twinned because they are not "incapable" of targeting multiple creatures, even if they only target a single creature.


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## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeremy Crawford has tweeted a clarification: 
"Addressing a nuance in the PH errata: the rule lets melee weapon attacks use unarmed strikes, despite those strikes not being weapons."

Cheers!


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 11, 2015)

designbot said:


> @JeremyECrawford:




Basically, then, the only thing that's changed from pre-errata is buff spells and abilities that specifically require a weapon don't work on unarmed strikes anymore (e.g. Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon). Makes sense.


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## Jester David (Jun 11, 2015)

Remathilis said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Some of these appear common sense (1/day = long rest), but some (the ammo property, unarmed strikes) are bigger. None seem on the level of 4e level errata (no re-writes, sorry GWM/SS, beastmaster, or Concentration haters) but solid stuff.
> 
> This is the level of errata I can handle.



They did give the beastmaster something though. 

"Bestial Fury (p. 93). When you commandthe beast to take the Attack action,the beast can attack twice or take the Multiattackaction if it has that action."

Bam. Beast damage now doubled.


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 11, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> They did give the beastmaster something though.
> 
> "Bestial Fury (p. 93). When you commandthe beast to take the Attack action,the beast can attack twice or take the Multiattackaction if it has that action."
> 
> Bam. Beast damage now doubled.




It's no different than before at Lv. 11, except the Giant Badger is completely pointless now.


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## Jeffery Clark (Jun 11, 2015)

DELETED


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## Jester David (Jun 11, 2015)

Ignorant poster is ignorant. 

This is post has been retracted by the author for being dumb.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeff Knight said:


> From the Adventures League Local Coordinator's discussion: http://prntscr.com/7fk83i
> 
> That's the most authoritative answer we have so far, an AL Regional Coordinator. The clarification so far is that for example: if I knock down something with magic missile with darts left, the other darts cannot target another creature if I wish to twin, they are "wasted".



No, you can't twin Magic missile at all.  It can target multiple creatures, thus it can't be twinned....


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## Jester David (Jun 11, 2015)

Actually, can someone explain the reason we needed an update/change to unarmed strikes? What problem was it fixing?


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## gyor (Jun 11, 2015)

Anyone notice how much more powerful Magic Iniate got as a feat. I heard a rules interruptation rescently that if the 1st level spell chosen belonged to a class you have the spell was basically an extra spell known, but the errata does not have that restriction. If your playing a single class wizard for example and you take Magic Iniatate cleric and choose healing word, you can now cast it using any of your wizard slots.

 Also I did not know Beast Companions had reactions so that's new to me and a big buff, while I was always under the impression that beasts could use they're multiattack as an attack.

 And the unarmed strike being a weapon did cause problems in any situation that required you to have a limited set of weapons. Example say you take the dualist fighting style and weild a rapier, if unarmed strikes can as a weapon, it would count as weilding two weapons, now it doesn't. That being said it seems to have unfortunate side effects.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 11, 2015)

Remathilis said:


> I was just referring the 4e (and late 3e) level of "replace X power/spell/feat with Y text", which happened to powers like come and get it. Nothing here reaches that level.




Except that there is at least one like that--not for a power, sure,  but for the Weapon rules, where it gives replacement text in quotes.

And _several_  of these are "natural language" equivalents of exactly what you're  talking about--appending an extra line (like "Paladins can use any spell  slot, not just Paladin ones" or "doesn't benefit cantrips"), tweaking a  line already present ("The third benefit should say climbing doesn't  cost extra movement"), or cropping out a line that was present ("Ignore  the third benefit.")

Yes, many of these things are not small  tweaks to individual powers...because "individual powers" is a concept  that makes little to no sense within the 5e framework. But the errata's  effect, here, is identical to that of most of the errata from  4e--adding, cropping, or tweaking individual lines/paragraphs from a  variety of things.



> They always said it would be a "living ruleset", but I think they meant "we're not re-writing the beastmaster in the second printing of the PHB" version of errata.




Did the 4e Beastmaster get that heavy of an overhaul? No one has ever mentioned something like that to me...but I don't really like rangers so my ignorance does not necessarily mean anything.



DaveDash said:


> I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.




I, too, am surprised that they haven't addressed several of the super-ambiguous spells, with Contagion being the chief among them.


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## Jeffery Clark (Jun 11, 2015)

Coredump said:


> No, you can't twin Magic missile at all.  It can target multiple creatures, thus it can't be twinned....




Look at the facebook discussion - magic missile can be twinned if it only targets a single creature. Just because it can target multiples doesn't mean it can't be twinned. There are 2 conditions, 1 of which must be no:

1) Can it potentially target multiple creatures? Yes/No
2) If 1 is Yes, does it target multiple creatures? Yes/No

1 or 2 must be no. Acid Splash is another example. It can target 1 or 2 creatures. So the answer to 1 would be yes, but 2 can be either yes or no. If 2 is no, then acid splash can be twinned.


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## gyor (Jun 11, 2015)

And Twinned Spell still has a use, twinned charm, twinned dominate, twinned raised the dead (Life Favoured Soul), twinned cure wounds, twinned haste, ect...


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## steeldragons (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeff Knight said:


> From the Adventures League Local Coordinator's discussion: http://prntscr.com/7fk83i
> 
> That's the most authoritative answer we have so far, an AL Regional Coordinator. The clarification so far is that for example: if I knock down something with magic missile with darts left, the other darts cannot target another creature if I wish to twin, they are "wasted".






Coredump said:


> No, you can't twin Magic missile at all.  It can target multiple creatures, thus it can't be twinned....




Right. ...and you're the guy with the link. Did you read it? No twinning Magic Missile. No twinning Burning Hands. No twinning Scorching Ray. 

If it can target multiple creatures, not "if you choose to target or not", if the spell, as written, can be used to target more than 1 target, no twinny.

As for all of this unarmed strikes hullabaloo...what is everyone up in arms [heh heh...unarmed strikes...arms...ehem] about? Monks still do d4 + Dex. instead of Str. with their unarmed strikes. Monks still can spend their ki point and get a stunning strike. Monks can still have their unarmed strikes count as magical attacks at [6th?] whatever level it is. All of this is what monks do. Someone/ANYone else who wants to throw a punch uses these general "unarmed strikes in combat" clarification. WHAT is with all the whining about the unarmed strikes "not counting as weapons"...which, I have seen no where in the Monk's description to claim they were counted as weapons before?


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## pukunui (Jun 11, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> Actually, can someone explain the reason we needed an update/change to unarmed strikes? What problem was it fixing?



On Twitter, I asked Jeremy: "What is the idea behind making unarmed strikes not weapons? How does this change affect monks?" His response: "Unarmed strikes never should have appeared as weapons, hence the correction. The monk is barely affected."



gyor said:


> Anyone notice how much more powerful Magic Iniate got as a feat. I heard a rules interruptation rescently that if the 1st level spell chosen belonged to a class you have the spell was basically an extra spell known, but the errata does not have that restriction. If your playing a single class wizard for example and you take Magic Iniatate cleric and choose healing word, you can now cast it using any of your wizard slots.



That's not how I read it, but then I don't think that erratum is entirely clear.


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## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> Actually, can someone explain the reason we needed an update/change to unarmed strikes? What problem was it fixing?




You can no longer use Magic Weapon on unarmed strikes. You may still use Stunning Strike with unarmed strikes.

That's the main change. There may be other things I haven't spotted yet.

(Here's my take on the important changes).

Cheers!


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## pukunui (Jun 11, 2015)

MerricB said:


> You can no longer use Magic Weapon on unarmed strikes. You may still use Stunning Strike with unarmed strikes.



Indeed. As per Jeremy: "You can make a melee weapon attack with an unarmed strike, so a monk can use Stunning Strike with an unarmed strike."


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## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

Shadowdweller00 said:


> The elemental monk errata was...quite exceptionally misguided in my opinion.




Seriously.

Good thing they brought those overpowered sorcerers and elemental monks under control!!


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## Nebulous (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Ouch. Our Sorcerer player isn't going to like the errata on twinned.
> 
> I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.




Right.  He's been impressed by how amazing his damage output is.  Which i thought was suspect, but it seemed right according to the rules.


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## Lancelot (Jun 11, 2015)

After scanning through the errata, the only change to my game is a couple of spells (e.g. _phantasmal killer_) make saves at end of turn, instead of start of turn.

That's it. Everything else (in my game) was basically just clarification of things we kind of knew anyway. A monk's fists aren't valid targets for _magic weapon_. You can't Twin Spell a _burning hands_ or a _scorching ray_. Reach can be used for opportunity attacks. You need a hand free to load a missile weapon (i.e. the bolts or bullets don't somehow jump into it automatically). In all honesty, my players would have been surprised if anyone at our table had a different interpretation to this, or if our DM would somehow allow it.

Of course, other people's mileage my vary. If anyone out there disagrees with a ruling, the good news is that it can be ignored. Their DM decides the interpretation anyway, so it only impacts organized play. And if my participation in organized play was contingent on whether my sorcerer can Twin multi-target or area-effect spells, then... well, even without the clarification, I'm probably asking for trouble with the DM. 

I'm pretty happy about it, overall. I generally hate and fear errata, because I feel compelled to place stickies in my books or have print-out sheets lying around. But there are no really significant changes here. Frankly, I could ignore this errata completely (other than a mental note that a few of the ultra-weak illusion spells are now ever-so-slightly better), and it makes no impact to our game. Excellent news.


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## Psikerlord# (Jun 11, 2015)

I think errata looks fine. The one thing I wanted a bit of guidance on - hiding - we got, and basically: it's up to the DM - cool beans.  

As a bonus they also clarified reach OA is ok, beast multi-attack and act on its own is ok, and free hand to load crossbows. Overchannel cantrip thing doesn't work. All fine. I agree with the water whip nerf too. 

I would have liked to see paladin smite requires a bonus action, instead of no action, but ... eh. No complaints. I prefer to have this errata than not.


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## famousringo (Jun 11, 2015)

steeldragons said:


> As for all of this unarmed strikes hullabaloo...what is everyone up in arms [heh heh...unarmed strikes...arms...ehem] about? Monks still do d4 + Dex. instead of Str. with their unarmed strikes. Monks still can spend their ki point and get a stunning strike. Monks can still have their unarmed strikes count as magical attacks at [6th?] whatever level it is. All of this is what monks do. Someone/ANYone else who wants to throw a punch uses these general "unarmed strikes in combat" clarification. WHAT is with all the whining about the unarmed strikes "not counting as weapons"...which, I have seen no where in the Monk's description to claim they were counted as weapons before?




1. It messes up a lot of multiclass options. Less options means less fun for a lot of players.

2. It takes some handy attack buffs off the table for the martial class that probably has the biggest damage scaling problem. 

3. Par for the course for these after-the-fact rules changes, it muddies the rules as much as it clarifies them. Now monks need to carefully scrutinize every ability to determine whether it says "weapon attack" or "melee weapon attack." When the book says one, does it actually mean the other? Other martials don't have this problem.

4. They fixed a non-problem. Nobody was complaining about muliticlassing monks breaking encounters with Magic Weapon. Those complaints are about things like Sharpshooter and Contagion.

Edit: it's been a long day, now second guessing myself on whether there's meant to mbe any distinction between "weapon attack" and "melee weapon attack."

You know what? Screw rules clarifications. The more of them I see, the more annoyed I am by 5th Ed rules.


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## Saeviomagy (Jun 11, 2015)

Doesn't this re enable polearm mastery + warcaster?


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## steeldragons (Jun 11, 2015)

famousringo said:


> snip perceived issues




I see. Well, I don't see, actually...any of that as being problems. But appreciate the explanation/"reasons" behind the whin-eh-"complaints." Thanks for the list.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Gladius Legis said:


> The biggest repercussion for the Monk WRT unarmed strikes no longer being a weapon is that unarmed Monks can't use Stunning Strike anymore. Pfffffffft.




That seems unintentional.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Shadowdweller00 said:


> Unarmed strikes also now bypass almost all resistance to nonmagical damage.  Since most forms of physical resistance specify that they apply to weapon attacks.  Which I guess makes ki-empowered strikes redundant.




That part is helpful, though this also seems unintentional. If not intentional, I hope they catch it quick.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Falling Icicle said:


> Interesting. Most of these changes were expected, but the change to unarmed strikes surprised me. Was having unarmed strikes count as weapons actually causing problems?
> 
> Overall, I'm pleased. This is the kind of errata I like. It fixes typos and minor errors, but doesn't try to rewrite the entire rulebook. I just hope they release a printer-friendly version.




Not in our campaign. Monk unarmed strikes extremely weak. Low damage. No magic items to boost them. Not sure why they felt the need to address unarmed strikes.


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## Salamandyr (Jun 11, 2015)

Screw that, unarmed strike will continue to count as weapons in any game I run.


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## Blue (Jun 11, 2015)

Looks fine.  Simple clarifications to natural language for the most part that play out as common sense with the rules not rulings.  Unarmed strike a bit of an unexpected rewrite.

They said living document, we got some updates.  Nothing big and only one thing that was surprising.  Keep it up D&D team.  I hope the haters get over it.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

I understand the unarmed strike ruling now. Not sure why they felt it was necessary to ensure monks don't get a magical bonus on their unarmed strikes, but it does make sense from a simulationist approach. I can see why they don't want _magic weapon_ or the like to work on a  monk's whole body.


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## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

Quick update: 

Jeremy has also clarified that although the new wording of unarmed strikes means they no longer deal "weapon damage", meaning that they can bypass resistance to bludgeoning damage from non-magical weapons, the intent of the resistance is to work against non-magical sources of bludgeoning damage; he hash-tagged it as a MM errata preview.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/608808064716701696

I've added that ruling to my errata clarification article (which Jeremy retweeted the link to, so there must be something good about it. )

Cheers!


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## Connorsrpg (Jun 11, 2015)

So, why didn't they just write unarmed strikes not allowed into the actual magic weapon spell? As it now stands this is quite confusing. Plus, like others, I had no problem allowing unarmed strikes to be magicalised  I mean, that's is exactly what happens 'naturally' at level 6 anyway?

The proficiency part is no big deal to us - we use weapon groups anyway.


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## Rune (Jun 11, 2015)

Saeviomagy said:


> Doesn't this re enable polearm mastery + warcaster?




Don't see how, but it does specifically enable Shillelagh + Polearm Master.


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## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

Hmm.

This seems to be a very convoluted, hyper-rules-y way to stop monk bodies to benefit from the magic weapon spell; why didn't this fall under 'rulings, not rules' I wonder.


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## Rune (Jun 11, 2015)

Regarding the unarmed strike, the language makes it clear (to me) that:

1. Of the two types of attacks in the game (weapon or magic), weapon attacks can use unarmed strikes if the are melee (as opposed to ranged). 

2. Things that specifically affect weapons do not affect unarmed strikes, but things that affect/are triggered by melee weapon attacks do also affect/are also triggered by unarmed strikes.

3. Everyone is proficient with unarmed strikes.


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## Rune (Jun 11, 2015)

Eric V said:


> Hmm.
> 
> This seems to be a very convoluted, hyper-rules-y way to stop monk bodies to benefit from the magic weapon spell; why didn't this fall under 'rulings, not rules' I wonder.




Also prevents sundering/disarming shenanigans.


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## spinozajack (Jun 11, 2015)

Eric V said:


> Seriously.
> 
> Good thing they brought those overpowered sorcerers and elemental monks under control!!




They've been making those kinds of over-nerfs for undeserving issues for a long time in 4e times, and under nerfing or completely ignoring others. 

Here's another : as if anyone who was using a polearm and had PM feat was trying to use dexterity to attack with only their bonus attack in their d10 + 15 / d10 + 15 / d4 + 15 combo.

So they nerf blaster damage and don't touch the top feat for melee users in the game. Warriors and caddies. Well, if you can't beat em, join em. My paladin will be picking up his halberd next session.

Was there ever any clarification about thrown weapons being used with sharpshooter and archery style? Or more conflicting info from Crawford v. Mearls on twitter.


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

Falling Icicle said:


> I just hope they release a printer-friendly version.



Looks printer friendly enough to me. To get any friendlier you'd have to copy and paste the text in a word processor and make the text colour light grey.


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## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

Rune said:


> Also prevents sundering/disarming shenanigans.




Right, ok.  True enough.

Though, somehow, that makes it seem _more_ like 'rulings, not rules' not less. :S


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## steeldragons (Jun 11, 2015)

Why does ANYone think the Magic Weapon spell would apply to Monk unarmed attacks? Was there a memo or something that apparently busloads of people figured they could just ignore the spell description?

First sentence: "You touch a nonmagical weapon."

I guess the designers didn't think that needed any further clarification for, ya know, anyone old enough to read it.


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## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

steeldragons said:


> Why does ANYone think the Magic Weapon spell would apply to Monk unarmed attacks? Was there a memo or something that apparently busloads of people figured they could just ignore the spell description?
> 
> First sentence: "You touch a nonmagical weapon."
> 
> I guess the designers didn't think that needed any further clarification for, ya know, anyone old enough to read it.




I don't think anyone did.  That's my (and other peoples') point: Why issue the errata on it?  If ever there was a case for 'rulings, not rules' this was it.


----------



## pukunui (Jun 11, 2015)

steeldragons said:


> Why does ANYone think the Magic Weapon spell would apply to Monk unarmed attacks? Was there a memo or something that apparently busloads of people figured they could just ignore the spell description?





Eric V said:


> I don't think anyone did.  That's my (and other peoples') point: Why issue the errata on it?  If ever there was a case for 'rulings, not rules' this was it.



According to Jeremy: "Unarmed strikes never should have appeared as weapons, hence the correction."


----------



## steeldragons (Jun 11, 2015)

Eric V said:


> I don't think anyone did.




This thread would seem to disprove that.


----------



## Rune (Jun 11, 2015)

Presumably they had some reason to believe the ambiguity was problematic. Maybe they were getting a lot of questions about it. Or maybe a lot of people were showing up to organized play games trying to exploit a loophole.


----------



## Falling Icicle (Jun 11, 2015)

Even if a DM did allow someone to cast magic weapon on a monk's fists, why is that a problem? Does it actually break anything?


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## Obryn (Jun 11, 2015)

Eric V said:


> Hmm.
> 
> This seems to be a very convoluted, hyper-rules-y way to stop monk bodies to benefit from the magic weapon spell; why didn't this fall under 'rulings, not rules' I wonder.



WotC did just rehire SKR. Weird monk nerfs were inevitable.


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## Louis Brenton (Jun 11, 2015)

"Wizard, Spellbook:  A spellbook doesn't contain cantrips."  Does that mean if a Wizard finds a scroll for a cantrip, he can't copy it into his spellbook & learn it?


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeff Knight said:


> That's the most authoritative answer we have so far, an AL Regional Coordinator. The clarification so far is that for example: if I knock down something with magic missile with darts left, the other darts cannot target another creature if I wish to twin, they are "wasted".



I think the caster has to fire them all at once anyway so that scenario wouldn't happen. I think the last time a caster could hold the missiles in the air was Larry Elmore Cover Basic edition.


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

Jeff Knight said:


> That is my feeling as well. I understand it was meant to prevent fireball spam and whatnot, but if the rule is now "any spell that could possibly target more than 1 creature" cannot be twinned, that is a HUGE nerf and makes spending sorcery points on twinning spells useless. If they're going to enforce that, I'm going allow my DMs to let my players swap metamagic abilities.
> 
> The errata as written is that a bunch of spells like magic missile, scorching ray, acid splash, etc that can be used to affect 1 target or can affect multiples can no longer be twinned because they are not "incapable" of targeting multiple creatures, even if they only target a single creature.




I am not understanding your view on this.  You linked to the prior Tweet from Mearls as if it supported your view - but it didn't.  What it said was, "Mearls: I am leery but sure, " followed immediately by Crawford saying, "No way, it's intended for spells that target just one target".  And I think you misunderstood Crawford on that - he wasn't saying spellcasters who choose one target, he said SPELLS that target just one target.

This ruling is the same as that one - this has always been the ruling on this issue.  The intent was for it to apply only to SPELLS that target only one target, not choices of a spellcaster to decide to target just one target.  Seems consistent, and not a nerf but the rule as written and intended.


----------



## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

Louis Brenton said:


> "Wizard, Spellbook:  A spellbook doesn't contain cantrips."  Does that mean if a Wizard finds a scroll for a cantrip, he can't copy it into his spellbook & learn it?




He never could. Cantrips can't be learnt except through gaining levels.


----------



## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

steeldragons said:


> Why does ANYone think the Magic Weapon spell would apply to Monk unarmed attacks? Was there a memo or something that apparently busloads of people figured they could just ignore the spell description?
> 
> First sentence: "You touch a nonmagical weapon."




And if you go to the PHB, you'll discover that under weapons it lists "unarmed strike". Therefore unarmed strike is a weapon!

Yes, you and I may know better, but given the number of people who argued that they didn't need a hand free to reload a hand crossbow, I can see why the clarification was required.

Cheers!


----------



## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

Louis Brenton said:


> "Wizard, Spellbook:  A spellbook doesn't contain cantrips."  Does that mean if a Wizard finds a scroll for a cantrip, he can't copy it into  his spellbook & learn it?



Wizard couldn't copy & learn a cantrip anyways based on the carefully read text of the un-errata'ed PHB. Errata just removes cantrips from all Wizards spellbooks to lessen folks assuming one might be able to copy them.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 11, 2015)

Louis Brenton said:


> "Wizard, Spellbook:  A spellbook doesn't contain cantrips."  Does that mean if a Wizard finds a scroll for a cantrip, he can't copy it into his spellbook & learn it?




Cantrips can't be written onto scrolls in the first place, as I had understood it. You simply have a fixed number you know, based on class, and (possibly) race/feats.


----------



## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> I am not understanding your view on this.  You linked to the prior Tweet from Mearls as if it supported your view - but it didn't.  What it said was, "Mearls: I am leery but sure, " followed immediately by Crawford saying, "No way, it's intended for spells that target just one target".  And I think you misunderstood Crawford on that - he wasn't saying spellcasters who choose one target, he said SPELLS that target just one target.
> 
> This ruling is the same as that one - this has always been the ruling on this issue.  The intent was for it to apply only to SPELLS that target only one target, not choices of a spellcaster to decide to target just one target.  Seems consistent, and not a nerf but the rule as written and intended.




That's was my thinking as well without the clarification. We know from 3E how some groups are with the rule lawyering. If you don't spell it out for them exactly, they will use the most liberal interpretation of the rule that is possible to gain the most power.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2015)

Evenglare said:


> Im pretty happy with this errata. It actually corrects errors and doesn't rewrite the damn game like 4e. I'm good with this. I LOVE 4e, but man I have a binder FULL of errata, it's ridiculous.




And like...they made binders of errata, but no errata on the binder? 


terrible.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 11, 2015)

gyor said:


> Anyone notice how much more powerful Magic Initiate got as a feat. I heard a rules interpretation recently that if the 1st level spell chosen belonged to a class you have the spell was basically an extra spell known, but the errata does not have that restriction. If your playing a single class wizard for example and you take Magic Initiate cleric and choose healing word, you can now cast it using any of your wizard slots.



I thought that much should have been obvious. This edition doesn't really go for the whole "separating out your different spellcasting classes" thing. Classes control how you learn new spells, and your total effective spellcaster levels determine your spell slots, but you could always cast any spell you know in any of your slots. The feat just gives you one more spell known, and one spell slot in case you didn't otherwise have any.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2015)

MerricB said:


> You can no longer use Magic Weapon on unarmed strikes. You may still use Stunning Strike with unarmed strikes.
> 
> That's the main change. There may be other things I haven't spotted yet.
> 
> ...



I read your take on the monk.

I still don't understand what the problem was, and why errata was needed?

What is broken with unarmed as a weapon?

(That fists don't bypass resistance is a given)


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2015)

So now the Ranger needs to trick its animal into believing you are absent, for it to act by itself.

Sigh.


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## MerricB (Jun 11, 2015)

CapnZapp said:


> What is broken with unarmed as a weapon?




I don't know if anything was broken, but there may be implications we're not seeing. (Also, there may be future design potentials this enables).


----------



## Psikerlord# (Jun 11, 2015)

spinozajack said:


> They've been making those kinds of over-nerfs for undeserving issues for a long time in 4e times, and under nerfing or completely ignoring others.
> 
> Here's another : as if anyone who was using a polearm and had PM feat was trying to use dexterity to attack with only their bonus attack in their d10 + 15 / d10 + 15 / d4 + 15 combo.
> 
> ...




Anything that is optional though, like feats, is unlikely to see errata for that very reason. Each table can choose which feats it uses (or doesn't use), or amend them as they wish. There is no real "need" to errata feats even if they thought it might be a good idea for a select few in hindsight.


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

MerricB said:


> I don't know if anything was broken, but there may be implications we're not seeing. (Also, there may be future design potentials this enables).



Looks like it keeps Rage bonus damage from adding into unarmed strikes.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2015)

I don't have the PHB yet, but having read all these "errata" I feel confident that indeed all of them really are just *text corrections * and *clarifications*, and none of them is really a *rule change*.

Or in other words, none of these seems because the designers _changed their mind _about a rule, but rather because they just noticed that the first printed version doesn't correspond to the wanted rule (or doesn't explain clearly enough).


----------



## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> I am not understanding your view on this.  You linked to the prior Tweet from Mearls as if it supported your view - but it didn't.  What it said was, "Mearls: I am leery but sure, " followed immediately by Crawford saying, "No way, it's intended for spells that target just one target".  And I think you misunderstood Crawford on that - he wasn't saying spellcasters who choose one target, he said SPELLS that target just one target.
> 
> This ruling is the same as that one - this has always been the ruling on this issue.  The intent was for it to apply only to SPELLS that target only one target, not choices of a spellcaster to decide to target just one target.  Seems consistent, and not a nerf but the rule as written and intended.




It is a Nerf. A lot of damage output for the Sorcerer came from twinning spells like Scorching Ray and Magic Missile. Now they can't.

We've already decided to ignore this Nerf as the Sorcerer is already under powered enough as it is, and it actually feels right for them to be able to twin spells like Scorching Ray - provided they're shooting at one target.

Designers got it badly wrong on this one IMO.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> Anything that is optional though, like feats, is unlikely to see errata for that very reason. Each table can choose which feats it uses (or doesn't use), or amend them as they wish. There is no real "need" to errata feats even if they thought it might be a good idea for a select few in hindsight.




Except that, in this very document, we have errata for several feats. Including Polearm Master and Sentinel, which are considered top-tier feats for offensive and defensive melee characters--the former being a pedantic and almost-totally-superfluous clarification (can you even USE Dex with polearms??), and the latter being a straight-up improvement (albeit an appropriate improvement).


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## Kinneus (Jun 11, 2015)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Cantrips can't be written onto scrolls in the first place, as I had understood it.



On the contrary, cantrip scrolls are listed in the Dungeon Master's guide. Their rarity is Common, actually.

Since it seems germane to this conversation, I'd like to post a link to a rules question I asked a few months back regarding whether or not a monk's unarmed strikes are weapon attacks. People seemed to universally agree; yup, they are.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?407358-What-Exactly-is-a-Weapon-Attack

It seems (based on clarifications others have written), that unarmed attacks are still "weapon attacks," and that the rule simply means your fists aren't "weapons" that can be enchanted via Magic Weapon and similar spells. Which, um, okay, fine. That's a perfectly sensible clarification. But why did they have to write it in the most confusing way possible?

I'd think editing the text of the Magic Weapon-type spells itself would've been simpler?


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

As a person who has played a Sorcerer from levels 1-7 so far, and all I want to do is be a blaster, these changes really suck.

Levels 1-4 I put up with subpar damage. I was the squishy hiding in the back while the barbarian did all the work. Sometimes I got to shine briefly with a good burning hands, that's it. My Scorching Ray was a small way I can spend an extremely limited resource to do big damage.

Level 5 I could Fireball, and that's amazing. Big groups I got to shine, when it happened. Otherwise it was the martials and their Extra Attack that left me in the back again not doing much.

Level 6, aha! +CHA to damage! Suddenly my Scorching Rays (6d6+15; 36) were pretty sweet, equal to the raging barbarian's ON DEMAND SWING (on-demand advantage; 2d12+24;35), but not as good if he manages to crit (double crit chance because of advantage) or kill (duh, minions die when you do 35 damage) = 3d12+36. But hey! When I twinned Scorching Ray, it kicked ass. I got to finally be the glass cannon blaster I wanted to be. I used my signficantly more limited resource to do big damage when needed. And Fireball+CHA! Woo!

And now comes the nerfs. No more twinned scorching ray. No more CHAx3 rays. Back to being the glass slingshot that can't keep up with the martials. There's still Fireball, which is nice, but that's it.

Ironically, my best combat strategy, even before this errata, was Polymorphing into a Giant Ape. But hey, it's polymorph, can't nerf that right? Gotta nerf the blasting spells!

This is super upsetting for me.


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## MightyZehir (Jun 11, 2015)

Gladius Legis said:


> The biggest repercussion for the Monk WRT unarmed strikes no longer being a weapon is that unarmed Monks can't use Stunning Strike anymore. Pfffffffft.




You got it wrong, you can still use it.

“*Instead of using a weapon to make amelee weapon attack, you can use an unarmedstrike:* a punch, kick, head-butt, orsimilar forceful blow (none of which countas weapons)."

So you can still use an unarmed strike to make a melee weapon attack, it just doesn't count as weapon.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 11, 2015)

Kinneus said:


> It seems (based on clarifications others have written), that unarmed attacks are still "weapon attacks," and that the rule simply means your fists are "weapons" that can be enchanted via Magic Weapon and similar spells. Which, um, okay, fine. That's a perfectly sensible clarification. But why did they have to write it in the most confusing way possible?
> 
> I'd think editing the text of the Magic Weapon-type spells itself would've been simpler?




That would have meant failing to employ Natural Language™. Unambiguously defined terms are jargon, which would be the equivalent of stealing forty cakes!


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## Psikerlord# (Jun 11, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> I thought that much should have been obvious. This edition doesn't really go for the whole "separating out your different spellcasting classes" thing. Classes control how you learn new spells, and your total effective spellcaster levels determine your spell slots, but you could always cast any spell you know in any of your slots. The feat just gives you one more spell known, and one spell slot in case you didn't otherwise have any.




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!


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## Psikerlord# (Jun 11, 2015)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Except that, in this very document, we have errata for several feats. Including Polearm Master and Sentinel, which are considered top-tier feats for offensive and defensive melee characters--the former being a pedantic and almost-totally-superfluous clarification (can you even USE Dex with polearms??), and the latter being a straight-up improvement (albeit an appropriate improvement).




Hahaha. Ah yes, er, there is that !


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## Psikerlord# (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> As a person who has played a Sorcerer from levels 1-7 so far, and all I want to do is be a blaster, these changes really suck.
> 
> Levels 1-4 I put up with subpar damage. I was the squishy hiding in the back while the barbarian did all the work. Sometimes I got to shine briefly with a good burning hands, that's it. My Scorching Ray was a small way I can spend an extremely limited resource to do big damage.
> 
> ...




This is an issue with the -5/+10 mechanic, not so much spells. Take away that +10 damage and you're looking much more competitive. I recommend putting that to your group.


----------



## Rune (Jun 11, 2015)

EzekielRaiden said:


> the former being a pedantic and almost-totally-superfluous clarification (can you even USE Dex with polearms??)




You can use Shillelagh with a quarterstaff. This errata makes it clear that doing so with Polearm Master lets you use Wis or Cha (depending on whether you're a druid or bard) with your bonus attack. That's kinda great.


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## MightyZehir (Jun 11, 2015)

Kinneus said:


> Another concern: re-defining unarmed strikes as specifically definitely 100% not weapon attacks might have some serious repercussions for Monks. Specifically, it messes up the dwarven Fighter/Monk character I wanted to make pretty bad.




Well, you can still make melee weapon attacks using unarmed strike , it just doesn't count as a weapon.


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## scottcoz (Jun 11, 2015)

deleted


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

Shadowdweller00 said:


> The elemental monk errata was...quite exceptionally misguided in my opinion.



It put the water whip on the same level as the Fist of Unbroken Air as it should be. Bonus casting of anything  represents an enormous increase of power.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

CapnZapp said:


> I read your take on the monk.
> 
> I still don't understand what the problem was, and why errata was needed?
> 
> ...




Errata is not a 'change', it is a correction for something that was presented incorrectly. Errata was needed in this case because an unarmed strike was never a weapon, but it was presented incorrectly in the PHB. That mistake has not been corrected. It has nothing to do with Nerfs, or OP, or Broken, or anything else like that.  The game rules were created a certain way, and some were presented incorrectly.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> It is a Nerf. A lot of damage output for the Sorcerer came from twinning spells like Scorching Ray and Magic Missile. Now they can't.
> 
> We've already decided to ignore this Nerf as the Sorcerer is already under powered enough as it is, and it actually feels right for them to be able to twin spells like Scorching Ray - provided they're shooting at one target.
> 
> Designers got it badly wrong on this one IMO.



It is not a nerf. It has *always* been this way.  The way you were reading it was not the 'correct' way.  The fact that you allowed Twinned Magic Missile was never part of the rules; but it wasn't presented well and you misunderstood that passage.

Correcting your misunderstanding is not a nerf.


----------



## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> This is an issue with the -5/+10 mechanic, not so much spells. Take away that +10 damage and you're looking much more competitive. I recommend putting that to your group.




Okay, no Power Attack at all:

New Scorching Ray (6d6+5=26) vs. Raging Reckless (auto-advantage) Swing (2d12+14=27 or 3d12+21=40.5). No, that's not good enough. 

I run out of Scorching Rays much faster than a martial runs out of swings, but I'm getting either less damage (remember, no advantage) or blown out by that third swing. And that's without the -5/+10!

Also, what am I supposed to do exactly? Poop on my friend's character by whining to the DM? Not happening. The most I can do is hope that the people I play with won't force me to use this errata. It's a  position to be in either way.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> This is an issue with the -5/+10 mechanic, not so much spells. Take away that +10 damage and you're looking much more competitive. I recommend putting that to your group.




Yep.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2015)

Shadowdweller00 said:


> Unarmed strikes also now bypass almost all resistance to nonmagical damage.  Since most forms of physical resistance specify that they apply to weapon attacks.  Which I guess makes ki-empowered strikes redundant.




My opinion is that there should be some clarifications on _resistance_ rather than weapons or unarmed strikes.

It's quite obvious to me that "resistance to nonmagical damage" really means that you are resistant to getting hurt by physical damage. It doesn't matter if it's a sword, a punch, a rock, falling damage or getting squeezed, they are all the same. Other stuff like starvation (if it ever causes HP damage in 5e, which I don't know) not included. Then there can be some more restricted forms of resistance e.g. to bludgeoning only. Magic weapons, spells, or magic creatures for which even their unarmed strikes cound as magic (including Monks of level high enough) typically bypass this kind of resistance.

That's all. Splitting hair about someone's hand or horn or tail not being technically a weapon and therefore being actually _better_ than a weapon when it really makes no sense, then someone else countering by splitting the already splitted hair by saying you can make weapon attacks with something that's not a weapon... huge waste of time in my book.



pukunui said:


> On Twitter, I asked Jeremy: "What is the idea behind making unarmed strikes not weapons? How does this change affect monks?" His response: "*Unarmed strikes never should have appeared as weapons, hence the correction. The monk is barely affected.*"




We should just listen to the designers more often to understand better how to play the game as intended. Those who insist to stick on the RAW and ignore the RAI are creating their own problems.


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## pukunui (Jun 11, 2015)

Li Shenron said:


> My opinion is that there should be some clarifications on _resistance_ rather than weapons or unarmed strikes.
> 
> It's quite obvious to me that "resistance to nonmagical damage" really means that you are resistant to getting hurt by physical damage. It doesn't matter if it's a sword, a punch, a rock, falling damage or getting squeezed, they are all the same. Then there can be some more restricted forms of resistance e.g. to bludgeoning only. Magic weapons, spells, or magic creatures for which even their unarmed strikes cound as magic (including Monks of level high enough) typically bypass this kind of resistance.



Also from Jeremy: "The intent is resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning damage, regardless of source (MM errata preview)."


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Okay, no Power Attack at all:
> 
> New Scorching Ray (6d6+5=26) vs. Raging Reckless (auto-advantage) Swing (2d12+14=27 or 3d12+21=40.5). No, that's not good enough.
> 
> ...




Don't you also have a _fire bolt_ that does up to 4d10. So you'll eventually do 23, twin it for 1 point, 46? While the barbarian is still doing 27 or 40.5 (with crit?). And you get to toss out a bunch of other spells on top of it, while he continues to swing his weapon. 

That's why that is balanced. Barb takes hits and swing his weapon. You get to do other nifty stuff. Don't you eventually get wings? You get to fly around, blast at range, while the barbarian continues to run around and swing his weapon.

C'mon now. Why you trying to take everything away form the barbarian?


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

Li Shenron said:


> My opinion is that there should be some clarifications on _resistance_ rather than weapons or unarmed strikes.



Ask and you shall receive...

Crawford put out a tweet that the MM errata will change resistance to be any non-magical, not just 'weapon attacks'.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2015)

pukunui said:


> Also from Jeremy: "The intent is resistance to nonmagical *bludgeoning *damage, regardless of source (MM errata preview)."




This is worth of clarification.

There is usually quite a clear connection with the _narrative_ when a monster has some resistance - assuming the monster is of good design of course. In some past editions for example, skeletons were resistant to piercing damage but not bludgeoning. It is ok for me whether 5e wants to make a distinction or simplify instead. 

Then we should accept that it's never 100% safe-proof, there are always corner cases where a weapon which is given a primary form of damage (e.g. axe = slashing) could be reasonably also used in another way (bludgeoning).


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Also, what am I supposed to do exactly? Poop on my friend's character by whining to the DM? Not happening.



This is the real problem. It is the duty of ALL people at the table, not just the DM to be stewards of game balance. All people at the table are in this together, but far too often players get some notion that only the DM should object to overpowered options and it is wrong for a player to voice balance concerns.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

gyor said:


> Anyone notice how much more powerful Magic Iniate got as a feat. I heard a rules interruptation rescently that if the 1st level spell chosen belonged to a class you have the spell was basically an extra spell known, but the errata does not have that restriction. If your playing a single class wizard for example and you take Magic Iniatate cleric and choose healing word, you can now cast it using any of your wizard slots.
> .




That's not how it works.

If you take Magic Initiate and Sorc and grab Magic Missile, as a Wizard you still have no permission to use your spell slots to cast the Sorc magic missile. Thus you can cast it once via the MI feat and thats it.
If you take Magic Initiate and Sorc and grab Magic MIssile,  as a Sorcerer you do have permission to use your spell slots to cast the Sorc magic missile. Thus you can cast it once via the MI feat, and also use your spell slots for it.

So it works exactly the same as the Sage Advice said.

Folks, there are no rule changes here.... just clarifications and corrections. It is going to work just like the Sage Advice says it does.


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## scottcoz (Jun 11, 2015)

deleted


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> A nerf is when the designers change their mind on something, and reduce it's power level. That's not the case here. As has been shown by the link to Jeremy Crawford's tweet - https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/521538368698462208 - he clarified 8 months ago, last October, "The Twinned Spell feature is intended to work on spells that can normally target only one creature." So, this errata was a clarification, because people like you were misinterpreting the rule, and thus making Sorcerer's overpowered.
> 
> Don't think that made Sorcerer's overpowered? Really? So, a 2nd level spell (Scorching Ray), that can be cast by a 3rd level character, that does up to TWELVE d6 of damage (averaging 42 damage on 6 hits).... is UNDER powered? Ok, granted, some of those shots could miss. How about a 2nd level Magic Missile? Doesn't miss, so 8 missiles do average damage of 28.
> 
> Your logic seems seriously flawed to me. Please explain how any other class can come even close to that kind of alpha strike?




Sigh.

I'm not even going to bother. There's already an excellent post in here by a Sorcerer player who covers why this IS a Nerf and terrible errata.

I'll refer you to that post.


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## scottcoz (Jun 11, 2015)

deleted


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> I read it, and replied to Delandel, too. I'll refer you to that reply, and all the other replies to him, and to you, too.
> 
> Of course, if you insist on your own definitions of words, instead of their actual defined uses, it is no surprise you find yourself "sighing," when surrounded by people who disagree with you.




I'm quite happy to call it what it is then - bad game design decision.

I'm playing with a Sorcerer in the group through HoTDQ and without twinned he is woefully under powered. I've also played a level 11-17 Sorcerer and it was also woefully underpowered.

This makes what is a bad class design to begin with even worse. The Sorcerer is far too limited to do anything now except be a buff bot. They're now officially the AD&D Cleric in disguise.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Don't you also have a _fire bolt_ that does up to 4d10. So you'll eventually do 23, twin it for 1 point, 46? While the barbarian is still doing 27 or 40.5 (with crit?). And you get to toss out a bunch of other spells on top of it, while he continues to swing his weapon.
> 
> That's why that is balanced.




Are you serious? You're saying it's balanced because at level 17 my cantrip is doing 4d10? Really?

Alright, you want to compare endgame, aka the levels that less than 1% of the playerbase will ever experience? Let's do math funtime!

Sorcerer Fire Bolt at 20: 4d10+5 = 27! And you can twin it up to 20 times I guess, so 8d10+10 = 54

Barbarian Raging Reckless Swing at 20: 2d12 + 14 (STR) + 8 (Rage) = 35 minimum with a higher chance to hit. If he drops a creature thanks to GWM, he can take a bonus action swing, so 3d12 + 21 + 12 = 52.5 . Ah, but if he crits, thanks to Brutal Critical and double crit chance due to that on-demand advantage, it's 6d12 + 21 + 12 = 72.

This is ignoring that -5/+10 still, of course. Otherwise bump the minimum damage to 55, then bonus swing to 82.5, and the one crit bonus swing to 102.

Ah yesssss, my cantrips at theoretical endgame is soooo good. Balance!




> Barb takes hits and swing his weapon. You get to do other nifty stuff. Don't you eventually get wings? You get to fly around, blast at range, while the barbarian continues to run around and swing his weapon.
> 
> C'mon now. Why you trying to take everything away form the barbarian?




Yes, of course, I do get other nifty things. I readily admit that. Not many though! It's that gosh darn "I-only-have-15-spells-total-ever" problem. Contrary to popular belief, the sorcerer is NOT a wizard!

Want to see my spells at level 7? These are my current spells. I got my blasting spells, I got Shield because I don't have D12 HP, then for my "nifty stuff" it's Disguise Self, Fly, Greater Invis. Polymorph is my overpowered spell! Note how many times I can cast these spells, up there in the top right.

Take away from the barbarian? Have you seen them in action? I have. In every playgroup, even. They are the action. They are in the frontlines, shrugging off hits that would KO me, and dealing consistent huge damage. All I ever wanted was to be the glass cannon, the Black Mage, that can outpewpew when needed. And now it's stuck on Fireball or bust.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

miniaturehoarder said:


> It put the water whip on the same level as the Fist of Unbroken Air as it should be. Bonus casting of anything  represents an enormous increase of power.




He's saying it's misguided because Elemental Monk is widely acknowledged as a terribly underpowered subclass, down there scraping the barrel with Beastmaster, and water whip was the only good thing it had going. Now it's nerfed instead of actually bringing the class up to par. Hence misguided.



scottcoz said:


> You're forgetting the probability of the attack roll, I think - the Barb using GWM has -30% chance to hit (he also gave up +2 Str to get that Feat), so, even with advantage, he's going to hit a lot less often than the Sorcerer.
> 
> Also - the advantages of range are many and varied. If you find you're being outclassed by melee types... all I can say is, play more to those advantages. I DM for many groups (running both Encounters and Expeditions), and the clever players almost always seem to prefer ranged types, and are often able to end the combat before the melee types even get in position to do anything. And then there's the versatility of a magic class, as opposed to the one-trick ponies that are most melee types (ie. said Barbarian). If those things don't appeal to you, and all you want is ranged DPS, and by your estimations, Sorcerers don't provide enough of it, maybe try a ranged Rogue?




I'm too tired right now to figure out if you -30% even with advantage statement is true, regardless, this is a SINGLE feat, he will get that max STR in a jiffy. Or he just starts with it as a Human with no less STR bonus than anyone else (16 vs 17 are both +3).

The dragon sorcerer has been advertised by Wizards as the blaster. Many times. That's what I wanted to play. I wanted to play the Black Mage, the magical glass cannon. And it WAS as advertised, at least from level 6 on, and I enjoyed it. I've also shown the math on why this change is bunk. Telling me go play a Rogue when I'm already in a campaign that's spanned half a year is, well, yeah. Obviously I wouldn't pick Sorcerer again under these conditions. But the rug was pulled from under me.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Are you serious? You're saying it's balanced because at level 17 my cantrip is doing 4d10? Really?
> 
> Alright, you want to compare endgame, aka the levels that less than 1% of the playerbase will ever experience? Let's do math funtime!
> 
> ...




If you were talking about a Sharpshooter, I would be more sympathetic. Barbarians start to slow down as battles start to spread out and enemy casters start to slow them down. Melee martial not fun at high level (save for perhaps paladin). 

I do agree they should have added bonus spell lists to the sorcerer. Not sure why they didn't. 15 spells is ridiculously weak. Metamagic isn't good enough to make up for the limit. 

Let's not also pretend you can't convert spell slots into more sorcery points to twin more. You're attacking at range. As you admitted, you shine pretty bright AoE. Mr. Barbarian looks good now. We'll see how he looks at higher level.

Though I will admit the sorcerer needs some tweaking. I can see why they put this limit in. It affects the Evoker as well and makes Sorcerer and Evoker consistent. Twinning might lead to problems with future spells they may design. Specifically for _scorching ray_ and _magic missile_,  I don't see an issue.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> I'm quite happy to call it what it is then - bad game design decision.
> 
> I'm playing with a Sorcerer in the group through HoTDQ and without twinned he is woefully under powered. I've also played a level 11-17 Sorcerer and it was also woefully underpowered.
> 
> This makes what is a bad class design to begin with even worse. The Sorcerer is far too limited to do anything now except be a buff bot. They're now officially the AD&D Cleric in disguise.




Was the sorcerer that bad at high level? What if you gave him an expanded spell list such as bonus spells like they did with new sorcerer archetypes?


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## scottcoz (Jun 11, 2015)

deleted


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> If you were talking about a Sharpshooter, I would be more sympathetic. Barbarians start to slow down as battles start to spread out and enemy casters start to slow them down. Melee martial not fun at high level (save for perhaps paladin).




You're the one who brought up the high levels. I don't care diddly for what level 17 does. Last survey result showed that the vast majority of players are still playing levels 1-6, and most realistically believe they won't ever pass level 10. Levels 1-10 are the levels that need to be done right, because those are the ones that are actually played.

Even then, I don't buy into the theoretical "melee starts becoming bad" idea. You don't see that in their two published adventures, RoT or PotA. High levels don't mean the battlefields are suddenly sniper contests.



> I do agree they should have added bonus spell lists to the sorcerer. Not sure why they didn't. 15 spells is ridiculously weak. Metamagic isn't good enough to make up for the limit.




It seems they realized 15 was too few after the fact and they're making it up with the new subclasses. I agree that bonus spells would be great. Also don't get me started on metamagic: the big selling point on sorcerers, you get 2 early on, then you have to wait eons for your 3rd and 4th? That's it. And you don't get to retrain them either. 4 total spread over 17 levels. 



> Let's not also pretend you can't convert spell slots into more sorcery points to twin more. You're attacking at range. As you admitted, you shine pretty bright AoE. Mr. Barbarian looks good now. We'll see how he looks at higher level.




Of course I can convert spell slots. It's highly inefficient, and makes me waste my precious resources though. It's also the same resource that gets me more spells, which Wizards get as a separate resource. Cannibalizing my spells to get more Twin Scorching Rays is -- was, a fast way to being stuck with crappy Fire Bolt for a long time.

Barbarian has looked spectacular from levels 1-7. I look at future spells and don't see that changing any time soon. You can Twin Disintegrate once per day eventually I guess?



> Though I will admit the sorcerer needs some tweaking. I can see why they put this limit in. It affects the Evoker as well and makes Sorcerer and Evoker consistent. Twinning might lead to problems with future spells they may design. Specifically for _scorching ray_ and _magic missile_,  I don't see an issue.




All I can do is show you the math on why it was fine and now crappy. You've heard my personal experiences, and you can see my spell list isn't some fountain of utility. If that doesn't move you then we agree to disagree!

I personally wouldn't choose a Sorcerer with this errata. Maybe my last hope is a Warmage port from 3.5 . Absolutely no utility spells so people can't harp on that. Then give it blasty spells that keep pace with the martials. Would make me happy.


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## Baumi (Jun 11, 2015)

What does the change in "Vision and Light" do?

About unarmed Combat .. isn't one of the changes now that everyone has Proficiency in it (I don't think that this was before)?

Overall I am really missing some additional Errata (-5/+10 Feats, Continagation), I hate the Ammonition Rule (makes Handcrossbows and Slings even more useless) and the Errata could have also included some needed Buffs for some weak Rules (Feats, Subclasses, etc.) instead of only makeing things weaker.


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## aramis erak (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> Anything that is optional though, like feats, is unlikely to see errata for that very reason. Each table can choose which feats it uses (or doesn't use), or amend them as they wish. There is no real "need" to errata feats even if they thought it might be a good idea for a select few in hindsight.




Except that attribute arrays, attribute point build, feats and multiclassing are standard for Adventurer's League play. Unlike the other optional rules.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2015)

Baumi said:


> What does the change in "Vision and Light" do?
> 
> About unarmed Combat .. isn't one of the changes now that everyone has Proficiency in it (I don't think that this was before)?
> 
> Overall I am really missing some additional Errata (-5/+10 Feats, Continagation), I hate the Ammonition Rule (makes Handcrossbows and Slings even more useless) and the Errata could have also included some needed Buffs for some weak Rules (Feats, Subclasses, etc.) instead of only makeing things weaker.



Whatever you feel about this: such changes will never be errata.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> Except that attribute arrays, attribute point build, feats and multiclassing are standard for Adventurer's League play. Unlike the other optional rules.



Then expect AL to "house"-rule these things.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2015)

Coredump said:


> Errata is not a 'change', it is a correction for something that was presented incorrectly. Errata was needed in this case because an unarmed strike was never a weapon, but it was presented incorrectly in the PHB. That mistake has not been corrected. It has nothing to do with Nerfs, or OP, or Broken, or anything else like that.  The game rules were created a certain way, and some were presented incorrectly.



I still maintain "needed" is a strong word to use here.

I honestly thought the items in this errata list were things with a pressing need. Now I realize there are items on the list that are included only to satisfy the designer's obsessive compulsive condition...


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Was the sorcerer that bad at high level? What if you gave him an expanded spell list such as bonus spells like they did with new sorcerer archetypes?




Poor spell selection made me feel very limited in what I could do compared to playing a Wizard. Damage could be nice with Quicken + Spell but not really on par with the big damage dealers like SS Fighters, and my resources were more limited than theirs. My big once per day is a meteor swarm and a quickened cantrip, which I've hit for 160ish damage, all well and good, but other classes as you know can do this a lot more. A wizard shapechanged into a Dragon will get a lot more mileage out his 9th, or putting foresight on his SS fighter buddy will equate to lots more damage effectively.

Main issue again was poor spell selection. Playing a Wizard you can pull out the right spell that saves the encounter. Sorcerer you couldnt. What you could do was nova damage though, and twinning spells like scorching ray felt as natural as a fighters action surge. It felt right on a class that was supposed to be more damage focused. 

At lower levels when our Sorc finally started twinning we were like "Ah, so that makes up for the other 99% of combat when you're tossing around cantrips for 3-4 damage". Seriously slow start to the class, and now it's even worse.

And for those reasons everyone at my table is agreement this errata is trash.

Looking forward to some of the Sorcerer options coming out of Unearthed Arcana status, and yes, Princes players guide is helpful. But we haven't fully integrated those spells into our campaigns yet.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> I'm playing with a Sorcerer in the group through HoTDQ and without twinned he is woefully under powered.



 You have *never* been allowed to twin magic missile or scorching ray. If you were playing that way you were not following the rules.  There is no nerf.... they just wrote it more clearly so you and others would stop reading it the wrong way.

That is not a nerf. That is fixing your misunderstanding.




> The Sorcerer is far too limited to do anything now except be a buff bot. They're now officially the AD&D Cleric in disguise.



Sorry you feel the Sorc is underpowered.  But it hasn't changed, it was always at that power level.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jun 11, 2015)

CapnZapp said:


> I still maintain "needed" is a strong word to use here.
> 
> I honestly thought the items in this errata list were things with a pressing need. Now I realize there are items on the list that are included only to satisfy the designer's obsessive compulsive condition...




I would suggest that you probably have not experienced or received nearly the same number of queries, tweets, emails etc. about the rules that were clarified in this document as the designers have... and thus what you feel is a "pressing need" might not jive with what they've determined actually is.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jun 11, 2015)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I would suggest that you probably have not experienced or received nearly the same number of queries, tweets, emails etc. about the rules that were clarified in this document as the designers have... and thus what you feel is a "pressing need" might not jive with what they've determined actually is.




Or, I would say, what they've _decided_ is needed--which may or may not reflect what actually _is_ needed any better than CapnZapp has.

"Understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth."

In fact, it could be like 3.5e--tweaking a bunch of little things, while leaving enormous holes (like Natural Spell) completely untouched. Or it could be like some of 4e's errata--I mean, some things were errata'd almost instantly, while others were a long time coming. The PHB Wizard, for instance, was a change a long time in the making.


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## spinozajack (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> Anything that is optional though, like feats, is unlikely to see errata for that very reason. Each table can choose which feats it uses (or doesn't use), or amend them as they wish. There is no real "need" to errata feats even if they thought it might be a good idea for a select few in hindsight.




Some spells and optional class features were quote "errata'ed". So in that sense everything is optional.

Just because you can choose not to play your current character or even campaign, with a given game element doesn't mean it doesn't have issues that deserve fixing in the general sense across the board.


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## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Ah yesssss, my cantrips at theoretical endgame is soooo good. Balance!




Not to add to your woes or anything, but it's also FAR more likely for you to run into fire-resistant creatures at that level than it is for your barbarian friend to run into magic weapon-resistant creatures.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Poor spell selection made me feel very limited in what I could do compared to playing a Wizard. Damage could be nice with Quicken + Spell but not really on par with the big damage dealers like SS Fighters, and my resources were more limited than theirs. My big once per day is a meteor swarm and a quickened cantrip, which I've hit for 160ish damage, all well and good, but other classes as you know can do this a lot more. A wizard shapechanged into a Dragon will get a lot more mileage out his 9th, or putting foresight on his SS fighter buddy will equate to lots more damage effectively.
> 
> Main issue again was poor spell selection. Playing a Wizard you can pull out the right spell that saves the encounter. Sorcerer you couldnt. What you could do was nova damage though, and twinning spells like scorching ray felt as natural as a fighters action surge. It felt right on a class that was supposed to be more damage focused.
> 
> ...




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?


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## 77IM (Jun 11, 2015)

Regarding *twinned spell*, at least now _chromatic orb_ has a reason for existing and not just being a poor man's _magic missile_.

...but the infernal warlock with _hex_ is laughing at all the poor draconic sorcerers trying to cast twinned, elemental-affinitied _scorching ray_.


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## spinozajack (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Ouch. Our Sorcerer player isn't going to like the errata on twinned.
> 
> I'm quite surprised contagion didn't get errata.




So they did in fact errata actual mechanics.

Just not the right ones.

Not surprised. Wizards is playing is safe with their profits and don't want to rock the boat by actually improving their product at the risk of some forum angst. But now instead they issue a document with 90% minor phrasing issues that nobody complained about (which they should do anyway), and 10% is nerfing stuff that didn't need nerfing while not nerfing stuff that does.

It's 4e all over again, except in slow motion. 1/year errata, I've lost confidence in their ability to do the right thing. If they're going by survey satisfaction data, I wonder how many people complained that twin spell was too powerful, compared with some actually overpowered things like polearm master stacking with GWM and giving free dual wielding + twf fighting style too.

I was looking over the list of things that benefit from each additional poleram attack I get (Including OAs and free hits from crits and kills due to GWM), and the list is pretty long. Sacred Weapon, Magic Weapon, GWM's +10, improved smite (+1d8 damage on each attack, including the bonus attack). I guess I should thank them that my character is now going to be a multi-attacking blending machine. It's just sad that my next melee character will probably gravitate towards polearms as well. And the one after that.

If you want to make a damaging character in 5e, you needn't look further than polearms. Period. No matter what the melee class, polearm aka spiked chain is the answer.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

77IM said:


> Regarding *twinned spell*, at least now _chromatic orb_ has a reason for existing and not just being a poor man's _magic missile_.
> 
> ...but the infernal warlock with _hex_ is laughing at all the poor draconic sorcerers trying to cast twinned, elemental-affinitied _scorching ray_.




Yes. _Eldritch_ blast is king.


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## 77IM (Jun 11, 2015)

Also, two *multiclassing* changes that I haven't seen mentioned:
-- Paladins can smite using any spell slot, not just a paladin spell slot
-- Warlock invocation level requirements are warlock levels, not character levels

Both are things that most people ruled that way already anyway, but it's nice to have it official. I'm no longer afraid to bring my paladin/warlock to an AL game.


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## spinozajack (Jun 11, 2015)

I guess they thought paladins were underpowered? I wonder if they got that idea from their oh-so-astute-and-always-right survey data.

Maybe it's backwards day.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

spinozajack said:


> So they did in fact errata actual mechanics.
> 
> Just not the right ones.
> 
> ...




Twinned Spell was a clarification, not a mechanics change. So was the one damage roll per spell. It changed the way some folks were running it. But it was they way the designers intended the mechanics to run the entire time. 

I don't think they made many (if any) changes to mechanics save perhaps Sentinel and reach weapons. It was all about spelling out rules intent with the usual caveat tables can run it as they wish.


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## justinj3x3 (Jun 11, 2015)

I didn't see this yesterday (I was watching Chappie... really good movie...) and now I'm at work. They busted me and blocked the D&D site so now I have to wait to go home to check this out! Good thing this thread is here to give me the info until I can read the actual errata! Thanks!


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

spinozajack said:


> I guess they thought paladins were underpowered? I wonder if they got that idea from their oh-so-astute-and-always-right survey data.
> 
> Maybe it's backwards day.




C'mon, spinzo. You know paladins had a weakness that needed to be shored up when multiclassing.


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## Chocolategravy (Jun 11, 2015)

Coredump said:


> You have *never* been allowed to twin magic missile or scorching ray. If you were playing that way you were not following the rules.  There is no nerf.... they just wrote it more clearly so you and others would stop reading it the wrong way.
> 
> That is not a nerf. That is fixing your misunderstanding.




  No one was misunderstanding what "targets one creature" means.  This is a change.  It may be a change to what was intended, but it is a change.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Chocolategravy said:


> No one was misunderstanding what "targets one creature" means.  This is a change.  It may be a change to what was intended, but it is a change.




The game designers did not realize the player base would interpret it that way. It wasn't a change to them, but a clarification of intent.


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 11, 2015)

justinj3x3 said:


> I didn't see this yesterday (I was watching Chappie... really good movie...) and now I'm at work. They busted me and blocked the D&D site so now I have to wait to go home to check this out! Good thing this thread is here to give me the info until I can read the actual errata! Thanks!



Is there anything specific about which you're dying of curiosity (that hasn't already been stated inthis thread)?

What class(es) of character concern you the most?


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## Uder (Jun 11, 2015)

Obryn said:


> WotC did just rehire SKR. Weird monk nerfs were inevitable.




They did what?

Bad news for me & D&D. I won't buy a product with his credit on it.


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 11, 2015)

Uder said:


> They did what?
> 
> Bad news for me & D&D. I won't buy a product with his credit on it.



I don't believe he is a designer or a developer this time around; If I recall correctly, he is the Forgotten Realms Historian± and deals with external companies licensing D&D product for video games.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

Chocolategravy said:


> No one was misunderstanding what "targets one creature" means.  This is a change.  It may be a change to what was intended, but it is a change.




Yes they were, because some folks thought you could twin Magic Missile.... which you can't, and couldn't.  But some folks interpreted the rule wrong and thought you could.

They didn't understand that "targets one creature" was a characteristic of the spell itself, as opposed to a characteristic of one particular casting.

Some folks got it right, others got it wrong.  They didn't change the rule, they just made it so everyone could get it right.


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## justinj3x3 (Jun 11, 2015)

TarionzCousin said:


> Is there anything specific about which you're dying of curiosity (that hasn't already been stated inthis thread)?
> 
> What class(es) of character concern you the most?




Thanks for asking, but the thread has pretty much covered the gist of it all. I can wait 3 more hours to go home and read the actual document over. Thanks again!


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## procproc (Jun 11, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> Wow - your credibility is now completely shot. Clerics have been, in almost every iteration of D&D, one of the most versatile, and among the most powerful, of all classes. They get to wear plate mail, cast spells, heal & buff, and contribute as a secondary melee combatant if need be. If you chose to play them as nothing but a buff bot, that's your own failure to recognize their potential.
> 
> As for the intent on Twinned Spells being a bad game design decision...
> I don't see it. As intended, Sorcerers are on an equal footing with Wizards... they have the exact same spell slot progression, and I'd say that the respective features of the classes put them on par with each other. YOUR interpretation would have Sorcerers way outperforming Wizards.




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.


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## ehren37 (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> C'mon, spinzo. You know paladins had a weakness that needed to be shored up when multiclassing.




It's the internet and all, so sarcasm/tone are hard to detect, so maybe I'm being dumb here... Were there seriously complaints about paladin weaknesses? They seem pretty much the king of at least the non-full casters with great offense, defense and party utility, plus their high cha lends well to the social pillar.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

ehren37 said:


> It's the internet and all, so sarcasm/tone are hard to detect, so maybe I'm being dumb here... Were there seriously complaints about paladin weaknesses? They seem pretty much the king of at least the non-full casters with great offense, defense and party utility, plus their high cha lends well to the social pillar.




It was sarcasm.


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## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> It is a Nerf. A lot of damage output for the Sorcerer came from twinning spells like Scorching Ray and Magic Missile. Now they can't.




It's only a nerf if you can show it did that before.  As it never did this before, how can it be a nerf now? That's like complaining that there is a ruling that swords now don't crit on a 15-20...well, if they never critted on a 15-20 before, it's not a nerf to reiterate that they still don't do that.  Twin Spell always applied only to spells that target just one target - reiterating that is not a nerf.  It's right there in the text, "When you cast a *spell that targets only one creature*".  It never said, "when you choose to target only one creature with a spell" or even "when you target only one creature with a spell".  But it clearly said "when you cast a spell that targets only one creature".  The limit was always on what the spell text says, not on the choice the caster makes with that spell. I am not even sure why people thought it made sense that the power changes depending on what the caster decides as opposed to the nature of the spell they are using. Clarifying that for those who had misread the text of the ability isn't itself a nerf.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Eric V said:


> Not to add to your woes or anything, but it's also FAR more likely for you to run into fire-resistant creatures at that level than it is for your barbarian friend to run into magic weapon-resistant creatures.




Fire-resistance shouldn't be that big a deal at the endgame since there's a feat tax around it. Fire-immune though, that's the pain.

My calculations also ignored the barbarian having a magical weapon at all. At level 20, what type of weapon is he wielding? A +3 greataxe maybe, with other bonuses? At least I have my +3 -- or wait there's no equivalent weapon for blasters. I wouldn't want to encroach on the poor barbarian's territory!

Also if we're talking endgame, a Dragon Sorcerer needs to cast Scorching Ray as a 5th level spell to beat a high level Agonizing Eldritch Blast in average damage. Then we can add that 24 hour concentration of Hex on EB and the Sorc isn't keeping up, period. And the funny thing is that the Warlock's damage is absolutely fine! I'm not looking to drag Warlock through the mud, just the absolute joke they did here.



Mistwell said:


> It's only a nerf if you can show it did that before.  As it never did this before, how can it be a nerf now? That's like complaining that there is a ruling that swords now don't crit on a 15-20...well, if they never critted on a 15-20 before, it's not a nerf to reiterate that they still don't do that.  Twin Spell always applied only to spells that target just one target - reiterating that is not a nerf.  It's right there in the text, "When you cast a *spell that targets only one creature*".  It never said, "when you choose to target only one creature with a spell" or even "when you target only one creature with a spell".  But it clearly said "when you cast a spell that targets only one creature".  The limit was always on what the spell text says, not one the choice the caster makes with that spell.  Clarifying that for those who had misread the text of the ability isn't itself a nerf.







Oh, I can do that easily:

"When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self..."

I cast Scorching Ray targeting Bob. Bob is only one creature, and Scorching Ray doesn't have a range of self. Therefore, I qualify for the prerequisites.

Oh, but Scorching Ray could target more than one creature, you say! Therefore if it could then no no no!

Then by that logic, I cannot twin Fire Bolt, because Fire Bolt can target a creature OR object. Because it COULD target an object, this logic states that it doesn't qualify. As you say, I'm CHOOSING to cast it on a creature, not on an object, therefore Fire Bolt cannot be twinned because it should work on spells that ONLY target one creature. Same goes for Disintegrate and others.

But that is, of course, absurd.

So no, Twin Spell did NOT always work this way by RAW. The intent was not to work this way according to Crawford, hence the change.


----------



## vandaexpress (Jun 11, 2015)

The Vision and Light change is interesting. If I'm reading it correctly, this means a creature attacking someone heavily obscured now has disadvantage, instead of advantage for attacking a blinded creature and disadvantage (canceling each other out), is that correct?

If a creature inside of a heavily obscured area (like a ranger in the middle of a 25'x25' _fog cloud_ with a bow) is attacking someone outside of that area, is the creature outside of the area still considered to be heavily obscured to the creature inside the area due to the intervening squares of heavy obscurement?

In other words, will a Ranger in the middle of a fog cloud have advantage on his attack rolls (since the target is "effectively blinded" when he tries to see the creature shooting at him) while sniping at things outside of the fog cloud? Or is the attack roll from within on a creature outside still adv/da cancel each other out?

Explanations would be appreciated, thanks.


----------



## guachi (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> I don't think they made many (if any) changes to mechanics save perhaps Sentinel and reach weapons. It was all about spelling out rules intent with the usual caveat tables can run it as they wish.




I think the change to Ready qualifies as a mechanical change. I think. Mr. Crawford answered this in a tweet before the errata came out, so the actual errata didn't surprise me, just the tweet. The original wording said something like "Readying an action allows you to act later in the round." But the errata says "until the start of your next turn" or something similar. Later in the round =/= start of your next turn (which would be some time next round). Ready now aligns with just about everything else that lasts until start/end of next turn, so that's good.

One of my players really didn't like when I said that a readied action expired at the end of the round. He should be happier now.


----------



## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

Crawford should probably do a Sage Colum on vision and obscurement just to get things clarified. We all kind of understand how it is supposed to work, but it gets a little wonky with advantage and disadvantage rules combining with blind creating this neutral condition that shouldn't be the way it is.


----------



## evilbob (Jun 11, 2015)

Less than 24 hours and we're already at 16 pages!  Well I didn't read them all but I am still on the fence as to my opinion of the errata.  I mean, it's nice that they are fixing typos and such, but I sort of hate that they substantially changed anything - errata killed 4.0 for me and it put a serious, serious hurting on 3.5.  On the other hand, there are several things I wish they WOULD change, and they didn't - so I am also sort of annoyed they didn't change the things they could have!  So yeah, not sure how I feel about it.

One interesting thing is that I thought the dwarf racial change was a nerf - until I realized there is no throwing hammer!  That's what a light hammer just does anyway.  Also, I'm not sure why they changed things like evocation wizard +Int damage and overchannel on cantrips, but I'm guessing there was some broken combo somewhere that actually made that school good, so they got rid of it.


----------



## evilbob (Jun 11, 2015)

vandaexpress said:


> If I'm reading it correctly, this means a creature attacking someone heavily obscured now has disadvantage, instead of advantage for attacking a blinded creature and disadvantage (canceling each other out), is that correct?



That is how I would interpret that as well.  (I would have interpreted it that way before as well, though.)



vandaexpress said:


> If a creature inside of a heavily obscured area (like a ranger in the middle of a 25'x25' _fog cloud_ with a bow) is attacking someone outside of that area, is the creature outside of the area still considered to be heavily obscured to the creature inside the area due to the intervening squares of heavy obscurement?



Yes.  I don't think that's changed.  The ranger in the cloud is "effectively blinded" and would have disadvantage on attacks against anything outside the cloud.



vandaexpress said:


> In other words, will a Ranger in the middle of a fog cloud have advantage on his attack rolls (since the target is "effectively blinded" when he tries to see the creature shooting at him) while sniping at things outside of the fog cloud? Or is the attack roll from within on a creature outside still adv/da cancel each other out.



I would rule straight disadvantage, like above.

Basically, the creature in the fog cloud isn't blind, nor is the creature outside the fog cloud.  Therefore, there isn't advantage given either way.  The only thing left is the disadvantage on the part of the creature taking the action.  It's simpler that way as well, in my opinion.  Here's a summary:

A ranger inside the fog cloud shooting at something outside the fog cloud:  disadvantage.
A ranger outside the fog cloud shooting at something inside the fog cloud:  disadvantage.
Two rangers inside the fog cloud shooting each other:  disadvantage.  (Multiple, but that's moot.)
Two rangers outside the fog cloud:  normal.


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## Sir Brennen (Jun 11, 2015)

evilbob said:


> Less than 24 hours and we're already at 16 pages!  Well I didn't read them all but I am still on the fence as to my opinion of the errata.  I mean, it's nice that they are fixing typos and such, but I sort of hate that they substantially changed anything - errata killed 4.0 for me and it put a serious, serious hurting on 3.5.  On the other hand, there are several things I wish they WOULD change, and they didn't - so I am also sort of annoyed they didn't change the things they could have!  So yeah, not sure how I feel about it.
> 
> One interesting thing is that I thought the dwarf racial change was a nerf - until I realized there is no throwing hammer!  That's what a light hammer just does anyway.  Also, I'm not sure why they changed things like evocation wizard +Int damage and overchannel on cantrips, but I'm guessing there was some broken combo somewhere that actually made that school good, so they got rid of it.



I understand not wanting to read through the entire thread, but the errata is pretty much like the example you cite, and described in the opening paragraph of the article: it's just typo fixing and clarifications, not any substantial changes. Just making RAW more inline with RAI. I think the 4E errata was often included large changes to the rules, actual "corrections" or re-balancing of things, and people are making the assumption that these changes are doing the same thing, when they're not.


----------



## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

evilbob said:


> Less than 24 hours and we're already at 16 pages!  Well I didn't read them all but I am still on the fence as to my opinion of the errata.  I mean, it's nice that they are fixing typos and such, but I sort of hate that they substantially changed anything - errata killed 4.0 for me and it put a serious, serious hurting on 3.5.  On the other hand, there are several things I wish they WOULD change, and they didn't - so I am also sort of annoyed they didn't change the things they could have!  So yeah, not sure how I feel about it.
> 
> One interesting thing is that I thought the dwarf racial change was a nerf - until I realized there is no throwing hammer!  That's what a light hammer just does anyway.  Also, I'm not sure why they changed things like evocation wizard +Int damage and overchannel on cantrips, but I'm guessing there was some broken combo somewhere that actually made that school good, so they got rid of it.




I really wanted an official change to Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Mastery. Pretty unhappy I didn't get one. I wrote one I can live with for the moment. I get tired of feats that create ridiculous damage spikes that trivialize encounters. Both Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are feats that I as a DM have to account for all the time when building and running encounters or the encounters will be trivial. How the game designers don't see this, I don't now. For example, an enemy mage has approximately 40 hit points. Without GWM or Sharpshooter, the mage can take a few hits from a party and still be a viable enemy. With Sharpshooter and GWM, the mage is dead in a round if they show their face. Even one Sharpshooter hit is approximately 20 damage. Add in things like Hunter's Mark or a magic weapon, they go higher. It creates serious issues for DMs, yet they don't do anything to correct it starting the power up cycle that tends to kill games like D&D.


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## evilbob (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> I get tired of feats that create ridiculous damage spikes that trivialize encounters.



Really?  I'm sure this is well-proven in a myriad of threads I've not seen, but "effective disadvantage" for +10 damage is game-breaking?  It's not intuitive to me.  I guess at high levels characters don't miss much?
(Sorry for going way off topic!)


----------



## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

vandaexpress said:


> The Vision and Light change is interesting. If I'm reading it correctly, this means a creature attacking someone heavily obscured now has disadvantage, instead of advantage for attacking a blinded creature and disadvantage (canceling each other out), is that correct?




I think that still requires a house rule. The only thing that errata changed was that now, when you're holding up a torch in the darkness, the goblins lurking in the dark can see you but you can't see them. Previously it was the opposite: they were blinded for being in a heavily obscured area, and you could see them because you were not. Of course nobody ran it that way (I hope) because that would be insane, but the errata simply codified the sane interpretation.

I don't see anything that would prevent advantage/disadvantage from cancelling out when two humans fight in the dark. I have a house rule that _does_ change it ("if you cannot see an attacker *who can see you*, it gains advantage on its attacks against you") but I don't see it in these errata.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 11, 2015)

guachi said:


> Later in the round =/= start of your next turn (which would be some time next round). Ready now aligns with just about everything else that lasts until start/end of next turn, so that's good.



It depends on how you define the start or end of the round. There's no change here if you read a round as starting on your turn and lasting until your next turn.


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## Celtavian (Jun 11, 2015)

evilbob said:


> Really?  I'm sure this is well-proven in a myriad of threads I've not seen, but "effective disadvantage" for +10 damage is game-breaking?  It's not intuitive to me.  I guess at high levels characters don't miss much?
> (Sorry for going way off topic!)




It is game breaking even at lower level, just not as obvious. No, high level characters don't miss much due to Bounded Accuracy. There's a lot of ways to gain advantage to offset the penalty, one of the easiest is the 1st level _bless_ spell. 

The damage gets multiplied per attack. So when a fighter with three attacks and Action surge with four superiority dice, _bless_, and a magic weapon tees off with maybe a bard dice thrown in for good measure, he hits usually 4 or more times in that round against most things for an average of 92 points of damage in one round. Unless the creature is a dragon or other huge brute, it trivializes the encounter. Often coupled with the other party members doing damage as well, it trivializes things. Throw in the even sicker combo of a paladin using Vow to offset the penalty and smiting on top of using GWM, you get some really sick damage you have to carefully plan for as a DM.

I don't like a feat being a more important factor in DM encounter building than any other character ability. That is how both Sharpshooter and GWM work (though Sharpshooter is the worst as it eliminates nearly every negative of using a ranged weapon). 

It's very, very annoying as a DM as it informs nearly every decision when building and playing encounters. You see what an Eldritch Knight Sharpshooter archer can do with _haste_ and action surge. Try looking at that damage on paper. Well, it translates just as well to the real game.


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Fire-resistance shouldn't be that big a deal at the endgame since there's a feat tax around it. Fire-immune though, that's the pain.
> 
> My calculations also ignored the barbarian having a magical weapon at all. At level 20, what type of weapon is he wielding? A +3 greataxe maybe, with other bonuses? At least I have my +3 -- or wait there's no equivalent weapon for blasters. I wouldn't want to encroach on the poor barbarian's territory!
> 
> ...




The emphasis is on the word "one" not on the type. I think that's pretty obvious.  Also, it's a strawman as I was not arguing that. 



> So no, Twin Spell did NOT always work this way by RAW. The intent was not to work this way according to Crawford, hence the change.




I disagree, it did always work that way by RAW.  If the spell can have more than one target at the same time (not types of targets, quantity of targets simultaneously, as in more than one at the same time) then it cannot be twinned.  That was always I think the pretty obvious read on the ability, and I still don't really get the argument that the ability is based on what your intent is as opposed to the text of the spell in question.  Seemed like the "what's the casters intent" is a means of trying to game the rules beyond the obvious intent of those rules.


----------



## evilbob (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Throw in the even sicker combo of a paladin using Vow to offset the penalty and smiting on top of using GWM, you get some really sick damage you have to carefully plan for as a DM.



Don't forget that vengeance paladins can haste themselves as well!  Wow, and they can vow 1/short rest as well.  Never noticed that combo before.  Excuse me while I go roll up a human vengeance paladin...


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> The emphasis is on the word "one" not on the type. I think that's pretty obvious.  Also, it's a strawman as I was not arguing that.
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree, it did always work that way by RAW.  If the spell can have more than one target at the same time (not types of targets, quantity of targets simultaneously, as in more than one at the same time) then it cannot be twinned.  That was always I think the pretty obvious read on the ability, and I still don't really get the argument that the ability is based on what your intent is as opposed to the text of the spell in question.  Seemed like the "what's the casters intent" is a means of trying to game the rules beyond the obvious intent of those rules.




No, what you're doing is now cherry picking which words you want to focus on to suit your idea of what the sentence means. There is no "clear emphasis," you either apply your logic to the complete sentence or you do not.

"When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self..."

If you say that "only one creature" means spells that CAN do otherwise are ineligible, then Fire Bolt is ineligible too, because it too can target something beyond one creature (objects). But you're just ignoring that because it doesn't suit your interpretation.


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## evilbob (Jun 11, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> The emphasis is on the word "one" not on the type. I think that's pretty obvious.



Sorry Mistwell, I know you've been around here forever but I have to agree that this was more ambiguous than you're claiming.  I think "as long as it only targeted one creature" was a completely valid way to interpret that sentence - thus the ruling to take away that interpretation.  (Whether or not someone can rightfully claim it as a "nerf" is still subject to debate.)


----------



## ehren37 (Jun 11, 2015)

procproc said:


> 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.




That was one way to play them. Or you could play a multiclassed fighter/cleric, which, thanks to 1st/2nd edition's utterly broken multiclassed rules, put you at most a whopping 1 level behind the single classed chump fighter, and with much better saves.

Beat on the bad guys during the fight and heal up afterwards. You got hold person at 3rd level (and odds are 3 of them thanks to bonus spells), which was effectively a save or die. Same with heat metal (which had no save).


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## spinozajack (Jun 11, 2015)

Starting to agree that Feats might need to be turned off entirely to keep 5th ed playable long term, given their inability / unwillingness to deal with their arguably excessive effect on the game. Greatswords aren't meant to be lightsabers. +10 to damage on each hit is really excessive already. By 5th level my current character will be applying it up to 3-4 times per round. Combats are already pretty short, we don't need them to be over in two rounds.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

Coredump said:


> Sorry you feel the Sorc is underpowered.  But it hasn't changed, it was always at that power level.




I don't think the Sorcerer has changed as much as some people think. The new wording for Elemental Affinity is the same as Empowered Evocation, but Crawford has been explicit in the past that each Magic Missile is intended to benefit from Empowered Evocation.

New wording: "Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls". I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but check this out:

https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/557820938402947072




			
				JeremyECrawford said:
			
		

> @BrailSays Empowered Evocation does benefit magic missile's damage roll.






			
				BrailSays said:
			
		

> @JeremyECrawford +x per bolt,even on same target?






			
				JeremyECrawford said:
			
		

> @BrailSays Yep. It's one damage roll, just like fireball, but that roll can damage the same target more than once.




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.

Anyway, the only Sorcerer "nerf" I see in this errata is therefore the Twinning thing, which was controversial anyway. Evokers are actually hurt much more because Overchannel has been clarified to not work at all on cantrips.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Oh, I can do that easily:
> 
> "When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self..."
> 
> ...




And you have proven that you misunderstand the written rule.

"targets only one creature" is a requirement of the *spell* selected, not just that particular casting of the spell.

The rule has always been the same, many people interpreted it correctly, you interpreted it incorrectly.  The Errata makes it so that everyone interprets it correctly.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

procproc said:


> 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.




That isn't true[1]. AD&D2 clerics post-Tome of Magic were pretty awesome. Mental Domination is one of my favorite spells, and the Mathematics sphere is just plain cool. I also like the one (Spacewarp?) that lets you create a wormhole. Unlike Teleport, which can go wrong spatially, that spell can go wrong in the _time_ dimension.

Also, multiclassed cleric/wizards (Priests of Isis with access to all spheres _and_ magic resistance of 5% per level!) were insanely good.

[1] Edit: unless you're pointing out that Legends and Lore was published before the Tome of Magic? If so, I apologize for misunderstanding your point. My point is that standard clerics are fantastic if you allow Tome of Magic spells in the game, since they have access to almost all spheres.


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## Coredump (Jun 11, 2015)

evilbob said:


> Sorry Mistwell, I know you've been around here forever but I have to agree that this was more ambiguous than you're claiming.  I think "as long as it only targeted one creature" was a completely valid way to interpret that sentence - thus the ruling to take away that interpretation.  (Whether or not someone can rightfully claim it as a "nerf" is still subject to debate.)




Of course it was ambiguous.... that is exactly why it needed errata.  The point is the rule has always been the same, it was just written in a way that lead to misunderstandings.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Coredump said:


> And you have proven that you misunderstand the written rule.
> 
> "targets only one creature" is a requirement of the *spell* selected, not just that particular casting of the spell.
> 
> The rule has always been the same, many people interpreted it correctly, you interpreted it incorrectly.  The Errata makes it so that everyone interprets it correctly.




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.

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.

The Errata is a change in RAW to be in line with Crawford's apparent intent of the metamagic. "That's how it always is and you're just wrong" is laughable. Anyone who plays Magic: The Gathering can back me up, we've been drilled into how to read these lines.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> The Errata is a change in RAW to be in line with Crawford's apparent intent of the metamagic. "That's how it always is and you're just wrong" is laughable. Anyone who plays Magic: The Gathering can back me up, we've been drilled into how to read these lines.




Changing RAW to match RAI is sort of the point of errata... as the Vision rule changes illustrate.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> Changing RAW to match RAI is sort of the point of errata... as the Vision rule changes illustrate.




No argument here. I'm refuting Coredump's claim that the previous RAW had always agreed with this RAI and that the errata isn't changing anything.

EDIT: Of course, I majorly dislike this new RAW, for the reasons I described a couple post back.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> No argument here. I'm refuting Coredump's claim that the previous RAW had always agreed with this RAI and that the errata isn't changing anything.
> 
> EDIT: Of course, I majorly dislike this new RAW, for the reasons I described a couple post back.




Yet things like Contagion were given a free pass.

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

The ruling itself isn't bothersome since we will just ignore it. I'm far more disturbed at the thought process at WoTC. Their high level approach is good, but their execution on this errata is very poor, and doesn't give me confidence in them. Not to mention the Sorcerer thing seems to fly in the face of rulings not rules, and the whole "We're only going to errata things that cause arguments at the table".
The game is now worse off than before, as the hugely popular glass cannon blasty mage archtype has been reduced to a buff bot.

Meanwhile you can still cheese the game with stunlock contagion, summoning pixies, etc


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> EDIT: Of course, I majorly dislike this new RAW, for the reasons I described a couple post back.




You're still doing 66 points of damage with Scorching Ray V (2d6+5 x6, assuming CHA 20). Is that really so bad? And then you can throw in a quickened Fire Bolt on top of that for another 21.5 points of damage: total DPR is 87.5 (against a low-AC foe), which outmatches even a GWM Polearm Master Barbarian's DPR. And you can do that at range, not to mention other tricks like Twinned/Heightened Hold Person/Monster and Heightened Polymorph[1]. (Wild Sorcs are better at this than Dragon Sorcs are, due to Bend Luck, but even Dragon Sorcs can do it pretty well.)

I don't love Sorcerers in 5E, I think they are boring due to the restricted spell list, but they are still viable even without Twinning Scorching Ray.

[1] The new errata makes it very clear that if you Polymorph the Tarrasque into a mouse and drown it in a fishbowl, it _stays dead_ even after it turns back into a Tarrasque. "Suffocating (p. 183). If you run out ofbreath, you can’t regain hit points or bestabilized until you can breathe again." Just to be safe I'd do it in something larger than a fishbowl, but you get the idea.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> You're still doing 66 points of damage with Scorching Ray V (2d6+5 x6, assuming CHA 20). Is that really so bad? And then you can throw in a quickened Fire Bolt on top of that for another 21.5 points of damage: total DPR is 87.5 (against a low-AC foe), which outmatches even a GWM Polearm Master Barbarian's DPR. And you can do that at range, not to mention other tricks like Twinned/Heightened Hold Person/Monster and Heightened Polymorph[1]. (Wild Sorcs are better at this than Dragon Sorcs are, due to Bend Luck, but even Dragon Sorcs can do it pretty well.)




Where are you getting (2d6+5)*6 from?  You only get 6 rays from casting it in a 6th level spell slot. Unless you could twin -- but you can't anymore.

Also, they nerfed Elemental Affinity, so you're only applying CHA to a single ray now.

I've already shown my math at high levels in a previous post -- which, by the way, I don't much care for in the first place, because the last Wizards survery already shows that hardly anyone will ever be actually playing levels 11+. But yeah, a GWM Polearm Master Barbarian is going to laugh at any attempts at a sorcerer to keep up in damage outside of a lucky Fireball.


----------



## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

BTW, I also just noticed that the "new" interpretation of spell damage rolls makes Wild Sorcerer's Spell Bombardment feature pretty good instead of trash. Whenever you cast Magic Missile, you roll 1d4+1, but if you roll a 4 you get to reroll with a +4, so 1/16 of the time you will do 9 points of damage per missile whomever you hit: 63 points of damage with Magic Missile V, instead of the 17.5 of a regular Magic Missile V.

I still don't think Wild Sorcs are well-suited as blasters (they're mostly debuffers), but at least this explains why the 5E designers thought Spell Bombardment was an 18th level feature instead of irrelevant trash: it scales with number of effects.


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## scottcoz (Jun 11, 2015)

deleted


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Where are you getting (2d6+5)*6 from?
> 
> Also, they nerfed Elemental Affinity, so you're only applying CHA to a single ray now.
> 
> I've already shown my math at high levels in a previous post -- which, by the way, I don't much care for in the first place, because the last Wizards survery already shows that hardly anyone will ever be actually playing levels 11+.




(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)


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## famousringo (Jun 11, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> I don't think the Sorcerer has changed as much as some people think. The new wording for Elemental Affinity is the same as Empowered Evocation, but Crawford has been explicit in the past that each Magic Missile is intended to benefit from Empowered Evocation.
> 
> New wording: "Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls". I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but check this out:
> 
> ...




I gave XP for this clarification of the clarification, but then I saw that these tweets were made back in January. Now I'm not quite convinced whether the Twitter ruling which explicitly states +stat damage applies to each bolt is correct, or the new errata that seems to imply +stat damage only applies once to a single bolt is correct. I'm not quite clear as to whether your clarification of the clarification has actually made the rules clear.

You can keep the XP for a valiant effort at trying to untangle the knot. This is why I drink.


----------



## Eric V (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Yet things like Contagion were given a free pass.
> 
> Makes you wonder how much thought and discussion really went into this errata.




The same amount that went into the last Unearthed Arcana!


----------



## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

famousringo said:


> I gave XP for this clarification of the clarification, but then I saw that these tweets were made back in January. Now I'm not quite convinced whether the Twitter ruling which explicitly states +stat damage applies to each bolt is correct, or the new errata that seems to imply +stat damage only applies once to a single bolt is correct. I'm not quite clear as to whether your clarification of the clarification has actually made the rules clear.
> 
> You can keep the XP for a valiant effort at trying to untangle the knot. This is why I drink.




I agree that the errata is unclear and need to be errata'ed. :-/ It would be better if they had also errata'ed this passage:



			
				BasicPage75 said:
			
		

> If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell’s damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast.




According to Crawford's interpretation, it seems that this passage should say "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, *or to the same target more than once,* roll the damage once..." But even though the passage doesn't actually say that, you _need_ to interpret it this way for the rules to be coherent. Here's the scenario:

I'm a Gold Dragon Sorc. I cast Scorching Ray V, directing five bolts at an Oni and one bolt at a zombie. If I roll 2d6+5 damage separately for each bolt for the Oni and get ( 14 + 12 + 13 + 12 + 10 ) = 61, how much damage does the zombie take? Obviously not 61 since there was only one bolt that hit him. But the zombie was hit at the same time as the Oni. So does he take 10 points or 14 or something in between? The only way to resolve this is to go with Crawford's tweet from January and say, "Oh, the 5E designers intended to minimize the number of damage rolls. Roll 2d6+5 only once. If I get a 14, the Oni takes 70 points of damage and the zombie takes 14."

I hope that attempted clarification of the clarification of the clarification helped.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

ehren37 said:


> That was one way to play them. Or you could play a multiclassed fighter/cleric, which, thanks to 1st/2nd edition's utterly broken multiclassed rules, put you at most a whopping 1 level behind the single classed chump fighter, and with much better saves.
> 
> Beat on the bad guys during the fight and heal up afterwards. You got hold person at 3rd level (and odds are 3 of them thanks to bonus spells), which was effectively a save or die. Same with heat metal (which had no save).




Yeah and now you can still multi-class your way out of this by going Warlock2/Sorc X - because I think Agonizing Blast still got a free pass - so you can still do decent damage using quickened  + EB. But when we see Sorcerers who want to keep up with other classes damage wise having to MC to do it, we know something is broken in the rules.


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## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> No, what you're doing is now cherry picking which words you want to focus on to suit your idea of what the sentence means.




I am reading it the way I think most people would read it.  I didn't cherry pick anything.  That a spell might be able to target an object on very rare occasion doesn't change the primary meaning of the sentence, any more than being able to do subdual damage with a weapon on rare occasion changes the primary intent to do damage.  You're playing a game of pretending the idea behind the ability was differentiate between target creatures and objects, when we both know damn well from a plain reading of the sentence it isn't focused on that concept at all but is concerned with quantity.  You're free to play that game with your DM but don't pretend I am changing something when I am just giving my opinion on what I think the reasonable-person plain interpretation of it looks like.



> There is no "clear emphasis," you either apply your logic to the complete sentence or you do not.




Life isn't as black and white and you're trying to make it, including reading sentences.  If there is more than one way to read something, it's OK to pick the most obvious and reasonable interpretation given the circumstances.  It's not about pedantry. 



> "When you cast a spell that targets only one creature and doesn't have a range of self..."
> 
> If you say that "only one creature" means spells that CAN do otherwise are ineligible, then Fire Bolt is ineligible too, because it too can target something beyond one creature (objects). But you're just ignoring that because it doesn't suit your interpretation.




Because it's nonsense, and I suspect you know it as well.  You know what they mean by that, just as you'd know if they said "weapons that do damage" that would include the subset of weapons than can do subdual damage on the rare happenstance that a PC might want to do that instead with it.  But hey, if you want to live in that sort of rules lawyering over-reading of sentences and you have fun with that, go right ahead.  But I am telling you my opinion, and I don't "have" to read it differently because you want it that way.


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## Delandel (Jun 11, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> (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.


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## Sir Brennen (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> 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


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## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> 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.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Sir Brennen said:


> 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.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 11, 2015)

Psikerlord# said:


> 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.



Hemlock said:


> 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.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 11, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> 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_?


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## Mistwell (Jun 11, 2015)

Sword of Spirit said:


> 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.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> 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.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 11, 2015)

Delandel said:


> 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.


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## DaveDash (Jun 11, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> 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.


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## aramis erak (Jun 12, 2015)

procproc said:


> 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.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Sword of Spirit said:


> *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.


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## Delandel (Jun 12, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> 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.


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## scottcoz (Jun 12, 2015)

deleted


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> 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).


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## Delandel (Jun 12, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> 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.


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## scottcoz (Jun 12, 2015)

deleted


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## Celtavian (Jun 12, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> 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.


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## Celtavian (Jun 12, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> 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.


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## Coredump (Jun 12, 2015)

Delandel said:


> 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.


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## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2015)

Delandel said:


> 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.




No, you're misunderstanding me.  Not WHICH targets, but whether or not it CAN target more than one.  That is dictated by the spell, not you.  Yes, the spellcaster chooses WHICH targets, but the spellcaster cannot make the spell target more than one target if the spell doesn't allow for that - that is up to the spell description, not you.  And the ability is based off the spell description, not you.





> 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.




I am applying my logic to the whole sentence.  My logic is "read it as you would anything else in the English language using a reasonable person standard - what do you think this means?" That's my logic, it's applied to the entire sentence, and that logic dictates it can only twin spells which are capable of hitting one target only based on the spell description, and it doesn't really care if it "could" be an object instead of a creature.  That is logical.  You don't need to be so literal about the word creature there - the word creature is fairly meaningless in this context, and context is crucial for understanding English. I also explained why that is consistent with the rest of the rules, with comparison to "damage" meaning both hit point damage and the possibility of subdual damage.  Creature in this case means both creature and the possibility of an object for the rare use of the spell for an object - as if you want to twin spell a fire bolt against an object, an example we both know will not come up in games.



> 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.




I didn't start catty - it was only when, instead of merely disagreeing with me, you opted to instead tell me I am being illogical if I dare disagree with you, that the catty came out.

Fortunately, what I am advocating is what the game designers are also explicitly also advocating - I am right on this one, per the game designers, in their official errata.  You might consider therefore it's not illogical - it's just plain old something you disagree with.  Contrary opinions can also be logical and still contrary.  Heck, they can be logical and wrong even.  Logic isn't the deciding factor, so stop tossing it around like it's a gem only you possess.


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## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> 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.




There is rules text to support it.  The diseases are all listed in the DMG with their incubation times.

Mind you I am not saying I necessarily agree with this interpretation of the spell, but it's an interpretation.  You cause the listed disease, the DM looks it up in the DMG, and you go from there.


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## Delandel (Jun 12, 2015)

scottcoz said:


> I just figured you didn't know any better, and made a mistake.   My confusion came because what you actually typed was, "... + swing if he crits." But, you DID clear things up for me just now - thanks for that. Might help our debate move forward if you made an effort to be that clear in the future.






> 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.




Naw, you didn't think I was making a mistake, you said that I enjoy breaking the rules. Nice backpedal though: it's almost an apology but then you say I'm the one who needs to put more effort. So close!



> So, you've gone from mathematical, logical analysis to anecdotal evidence?




This is gold.

Look dude. I was showing that pre-errata Sorcerer damage was a-okay, and that the changes weren't needed. I made a quick post showing some math. I don't know what you were sipping when you decided to go on a rant against me calling me a cheater and talking about 896 damage fireballs. It was hilarious though, which is why I'm deciding to respond.

Then you start with:



> 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!




Which, of course, is just a random opinion thrown out there. To which I respond, yeah, they can be KO'd, but I personally don't see it happen often. Opinion for opinion.

And now you give me this gem:


> So, you've gone from mathematical, logical analysis to anecdotal evidence?




I don't even know what to say. Wow. Can I have some of what you're sipping?



> Ok... I'll entertain it. I've been DM'ing for 5th edition since the Starter Box came out. I run both Encounters and Expeditions, as well as play in Expeditions and Epics, every chance I get. I'd venture to bet that I've seen more tables of 5th edition D&D, and different players and characters in action, than you have. And in MY experience, they do not. It's actually very common for characters with multiple melee attacks per round to be left with no available target for their last attack. This is one of the drawbacks built into playing a melee character, which ranged characters face much less frequently.




I've played with three different playgroups, seen maybe 20 different characters from levels 1-12, since the Starter Set. I've played through LotP. I've DM'd it. I've done homebrew and most of Hoard. My experiences are Barbarians are powerhouses and their resiliency makes swinging recklessly an easy choice. As the DM, you really have to have it out for that barbarian to drop him. And he won't be getting a bonus attack every swing, but still very often. Turns out when you're doing upwards 30+ damage to a minion it tends to drop. And there's usually another creature in range to hit.

You have different experiences? Good for you! Now what do you want?



> Heh - apparently you ignored the part where I stated I was just trying to make a point.




And it was a crappy point. Getting three swings isn't as hard as you make it out to be. Doing 896 Fireball damage never happens. Next!



> Let me see if I can make it a little more clear for you. If you're talking about a target rich environment, full of minions, the Sorcerer is going to be much more effective, with AoE spells, than the Barb who MIGHT get 3 attacks/round. Even assuming the Sorcerer can only get 3 targets into his Fireball's area of effect, he'll still outperform the Barb, on average - and if it's such a target rich environment, odds are probably pretty good you can get more than 3 enemies in an 8x8 area, no?
> 
> The point is, if you want to continue to argue that, in a room full of minions, a Barb will outperform a caster... the only conclusion I can come to is that you are woefully inexperienced, or incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Now, if you want to talk about a boss fight - that's a whole different story - but you seem stuck on this extra attack from GWM.




If by "target rich environment" you mean TWO ENEMIES, then yes. With TWO ENEMIES, a barbarian can get his three swings. He can on one enemy too if he crits, but less frequently.

If you bothered looking at my posts, or remembering them, I said that Fireballs are indeed good! I say that, hooray fireballs! But that's all they've got left now. THAT is my problem. I'm not "stuck" on anything, people like you are stuck on the same things so that is what I respond to.




> More importantly - my main point is just that Barbs vs. Sorcerers are apples and oranges. There are so many other considerations (melee/range, single-target focus vs. AoE, one-trick pony vs. versatility), that I think a strict dps comparison is not really a fair way to evaluate the classes.




Your main point is whatever your new sentence is. You went on a rant about GWM double bonus action swings. You're all over the place now. It's a shotgun argument where you're hoping something sticks, ignore previous posts like they're not a scroll up away.

My main point was the nerfs weren't warranted, that the Sorcerer was already not some overpowered blaster before this errata, and he got significantly worse now. I don't care about your quibbles for barbarian survivability or the merits of ranged vs. melee. Seriously dude. You're looking, hoping, to win some argument about whatever the crap else. I don't know why. THIS IS MY MAIN POINT.

More please!


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## Remathilis (Jun 12, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> There is rules text to support it.  The diseases are all listed in the DMG with their incubation times.
> 
> Mind you I am not saying I necessarily agree with this interpretation of the spell, but it's an interpretation.  You cause the listed disease, the DM looks it up in the DMG, and you go from there.




Granted, my PCs are rarely the type to cast such a spell, but methinks if they do THAT is the interpretation I'll use. TBH, I doubt they even notice doomlocking is a thing.


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## Ashrym (Jun 12, 2015)

Contagion is overrated. Bestow curse in the same slot works without needing to fail 3 saves for the duration or damage the target, and hold monster also doesn't need to damage the target while allowing range.

Slimy doom is pretty good but the spell has competition in similar options. Being an attack roll instead of a save is probably it's best benefit.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Ashrym said:


> Contagion is overrated. Bestow curse in the same slot works without needing to fail 3 saves for the duration or damage the target, and hold monster also doesn't need to damage the target while allowing range.




You misunderstand. The "broken" interpretation of Contagion because it works off of an attack roll instead of a save, while forcing multiple followup saves, without concentration. In short, you use it to bypass and simultaneously ablate Legendary Resistance.


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## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> You misunderstand. The "broken" interpretation of Contagion because it works off of an attack roll instead of a save, while forcing multiple followup saves, without concentration. In short, you use it to bypass and simultaneously ablate Legendary Resistance.




I agree it's an issue.  I wish it had been clarified.  I think it was reported plenty to their customer service and again in the surveys.  Ah well.


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## Ashrym (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> You misunderstand. The "broken" interpretation of Contagion because it works off of an attack roll instead of a save, while forcing multiple followup saves, without concentration. In short, you use it to bypass and simultaneously ablate Legendary Resistance.




I didn't misunderstand. I stated that the attack roll is probably the best benefit. 

That's a niche ability, however. Legendary resistance encounters happen but so do encounters with creatures immune to disease. In the case of a legendary creature, unless the spell caster can also inflict damage after casting the spell and succeeding in the attack roll on his turn the legendary creature can still take a legendary action at the end of the caster's turn.

It's possible no one will damage the creature before it's turn and it will have enough opportunity to respond. 

Legendary saves still work on the subsequent saves so it's still temporary. 

I find it overrated.


Edit - second thought, immunities might not apply to the spell, but it still seems niche as primarily a tool for legendary creatures.


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## Jeffery Clark (Jun 12, 2015)

Delandel said:


> My main point was the nerfs weren't warranted, that the Sorcerer was already not some overpowered blaster before this errata, and he got significantly worse now. I don't care about your quibbles for barbarian survivability or the merits of ranged vs. melee. Seriously dude. You're looking, hoping, to win some argument about whatever the crap else. I don't know why. THIS IS MY MAIN POINT.
> 
> More please!




Amen. People forget that this isn't a spammable thing. Sorcerers give up getting their "extra" spell slots to use metamagic. Sorcerers don't get sorcery points back on a short rest, only long. Wizards and Warlocks get to reclaim spell slots on a short rest. Using metamagic vs creating extra spell slots is a trade-off. Now it is very unbalanced. The usefulness of sorcery points took a huge hit, especially at early levels. The key thing is that people forget that we can really only do this stuff reliably once or twice per long rest. LONG REST. Not short rest like wizards/warlocks and just about every other class's abilities. Wizards get ritual casting so they don't burn spell slots outside of combat, get spell recovery on a short rest, and each of the tradition schools gives them some pretty good abilities at 2nd and 6th level. Look @ Fighters' extra attack at level 5, or Rogue's sneak attack at that same level - 3d6 extra damage PER TURN. Sorcs were supposed to be flexible casters who could occasionally open up and save their party from a sticky situation. Now, they're Wizard wannabes.

Anyway, my AL games will follow the new errata as written per league rules, and my homebrew games will not.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Ashrym said:


> I didn't misunderstand. I stated that the attack roll is probably the best benefit.




Pardon, but by comparing Contagion to Bestow Curse you appeared to misunderstand that Contagion's "broken" reputation comes from its niche as a tool against legendary creatures. The sentence, "Bestow curse in the same slot works without needing to fail 3 saves for the duration or damage the target" led me to believe you do not fully appreciate how much easier it is to stunlock a legendary creature with Contagion (under the straightforward, broken interpretation) than with Bestow Curse. Hit a dragon with Bestow Curse and it still has a 50%-ish chance each round to save without even spending any legendary resistance; hit a dragon with Slimy Doom and every single member of your party has multiple chances per turn to stun it with no save allowed.

If I'm wrong and you fully understood that, hey, sorry for underestimating you. But hopefully the tip will be useful to someone out there on the Internet, somewhere, even if it's not useful to you.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Jeffery Clark said:


> Amen. *People forget that this isn't a spammable thing. Sorcerers give up getting their "extra" spell slots to use metamagic.* Sorcerers don't get sorcery points back on a short rest, only long. Wizards and Warlocks get to reclaim spell slots on a short rest. Using metamagic vs creating extra spell slots is a trade-off. Now it is very unbalanced. The usefulness of sorcery points took a huge hit, especially at early levels. The key thing is that people forget that we can really only do this stuff reliably once or twice per long rest. LONG REST. Not short rest like wizards/warlocks and just about every other class's abilities. Wizards get ritual casting so they don't burn spell slots outside of combat, get spell recovery on a short rest, and each of the tradition schools gives them some pretty good abilities at 2nd and 6th level. Look @ Fighters' extra attack at level 5, or Rogue's sneak attack at that same level - 3d6 extra damage PER TURN. Sorcs were supposed to be flexible casters who could occasionally open up and save their party from a sticky situation. Now, they're Wizard wannabes.
> 
> Anyway, my AL games will follow the new errata as written per league rules, and my homebrew games will not.




What I don't get is why people are making a big deal over this. Twinned Spell isn't useful offensively against strong solo monsters anyway, so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time (admittedly that does sound like fun) or you were relying on Quickened Spell anyway (e.g. Heightened Hold Monster with Bend Luck + Quickened Fire Bolt) or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures (e.g. two dozen Wights) in which case you weren't going to use Twinned Scorching Ray anyway, you were going to use Fireball! Besides, Twinning a high-level spell like Scorching Ray V is more expensive than Quicken anyway (5 sorcery points vs 2).

I just don't see why folks don't just adjust their thinking and say, "Okay, the Twinned Spell trick doesn't work any more, but it was inferior to Quickened Spell anyway except as a way to turbocharge the concentration economy, and it still works for that."


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## cmad1977 (Jun 12, 2015)

Welcome to another episode of nerd rage. Embarrassing.


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## Eric V (Jun 12, 2015)

It isn't inferior to quickened spell, just different.  Sometimes there are 2+ "lieutenant" type enemies who aren't conveniently in fireball formation (or your friends are in the way).  Twinning SR was very helpful against the giant spiders in LMoP, for example.

There's a ton of variety in D&D encounters, more than you are apparently giving credit for, and Twinning things like SR were helpful in many of them.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Eric V said:


> It isn't inferior to quickened spell, just different.  Sometimes there are 2+ "lieutenant" type enemies who aren't conveniently in fireball formation (or your friends are in the way).  Twinning SR was very helpful against the giant spiders in LMoP, for example.
> 
> There's a ton of variety in D&D encounters, more than you are apparently giving credit for, and Twinning things like SR were helpful in many of them.




I have a ton of variety in my own game (in the last three sessions we've had: a fight against a lone roper in a cave; a fight with a double-strength roc; another fight against two ropers at the same time; a fight with five phase spiders in the forest; a space battle against 26 umber hulks and 16 neogi, with catapults and ballistas in both sides; a followup fight against the remaining 16 umber hulks (at half health) and 15 neogi after they regrouped; and the very beginning of a fight between the PC barbarian, solo, and four guards plus a Rakshasa that he doesn't know is a Rakshasa[1]) but I don't have a good handle on the amount of variation other people expect in their own games. Thanks for explaining your thinking. If that's the scenario you're interested in (avoiding friendly fire casualties) you might consider investing in Hypnotic Pattern + Careful Spell metamagic, now that Twinned Spell is no longer available. It would cover your situation nicely.

[1] Outside of combat, they also: found a site for their proposed space colony of New Desdemoria; discovered a new fuel source for their ship (ropers); uncovered an interdimensional portal; negotiated (with much trepidation) a treaty with the Elven Imperial Navy to lift the Interdict preventing spacefarers from landing on their planet, as an alternative to losing their spelljamming ship; started some spell research; and started to investigate the recent disappearance of King Andruin. So it's not really a game about combat, but combat does happen.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 12, 2015)

Eric V said:


> Not to add to your woes or anything, but it's also FAR more likely for you to run into fire-resistant creatures at that level than it is for your barbarian friend to run into magic weapon-resistant creatures.



Not to pile on, but a level 20 barbarian without a magic weapon? 

Yes, I would say it's FAR more likely for the monsters to resist your Firebolts than the barbarian's axe.


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## Hriston (Jun 12, 2015)

Would anyone like to explain what adding the word "clearly" does for the hiding rules? Does this mean you don't need to be heavily obscured? If so, what good is Mask of the Wild? At any rate, I feel I'm missing the point of this bit of the errata.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Hriston said:


> Would anyone like to explain what adding the word "clearly" does for the hiding rules? Does this mean you don't need to be heavily obscured? If so, what good is Mask of the Wild? At any rate, I feel I'm missing the point of this bit of the errata.




It means that you don't _necessarily_ need to be heavily obscured. Without that clarification, there are people who would interpret Mask of the Wild as being useless because "you can't hide from someone who can see you."


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## Hriston (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> It means that you don't _necessarily_ need to be heavily obscured. Without that clarification, there are people who would interpret Mask of the Wild as being useless because "you can't hide from someone who can see you."




So, it's for people who don't understand "specific trumps general"? I guess that jibes with letting us know that the DM is in charge.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Hriston said:


> So, it's for people who don't understand "specific trumps general"? I guess that jibes with letting us know that the DM is in charge.




I think so, yes. That's why it's just an erratum.


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## Celtavian (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> What I don't get is why people are making a big deal over this. Twinned Spell isn't useful offensively against strong solo monsters anyway, so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time (admittedly that does sound like fun) or you were relying on Quickened Spell anyway (e.g. Heightened Hold Monster with Bend Luck + Quickened Fire Bolt) or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures (e.g. two dozen Wights) in which case you weren't going to use Twinned Scorching Ray anyway, you were going to use Fireball! Besides, Twinning a high-level spell like Scorching Ray V is more expensive than Quicken anyway (5 sorcery points vs 2).
> 
> I just don't see why folks don't just adjust their thinking and say, "Okay, the Twinned Spell trick doesn't work any more, but it was inferior to Quickened Spell anyway except as a way to turbocharge the concentration economy, and it still works for that."




I want to try an Heighten Spell enchantment or polymorph type. That looks fun.


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## DaveDash (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> What I don't get is why people are making a big deal over this. Twinned Spell isn't useful offensively against strong solo monsters anyway, so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time (admittedly that does sound like fun) or you were relying on Quickened Spell anyway (e.g. Heightened Hold Monster with Bend Luck + Quickened Fire Bolt) or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures (e.g. two dozen Wights) in which case you weren't going to use Twinned Scorching Ray anyway, you were going to use Fireball! Besides, Twinning a high-level spell like Scorching Ray V is more expensive than Quicken anyway (5 sorcery points vs 2).
> 
> I just don't see why folks don't just adjust their thinking and say, "Okay, the Twinned Spell trick doesn't work any more, but it was inferior to Quickened Spell anyway except as a way to turbocharge the concentration economy, and it still works for that."




It made the guy in our party feel like the glass cannon mage he wanted to play - you know that archtype that is incredibly popular in CRPG gaming.


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## Celtavian (Jun 12, 2015)

cmad1977 said:


> Welcome to another episode of nerd rage. Embarrassing.




Haha. You just love to wander from thread to thread to provide the Miss Nerd Manners running commentary.


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## Teflon Billy (Jun 12, 2015)

Delandel said:


> Are you serious? You're saying it's balanced because at level 17 my cantrip is doing 4d10? Really?
> 
> Alright, you want to compare endgame, aka the levels that less than 1% of the playerbase will ever experience? Let's do math funtime!
> 
> ...




Is everyone supposed to be able to do exactly as much damage as everyone else? I thought spellcasters bump was versatility?


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## Hriston (Jun 12, 2015)

vandaexpress said:


> The Vision and Light change is interesting. If I'm reading it correctly, this means a creature attacking someone heavily obscured now has disadvantage, instead of advantage for attacking a blinded creature and disadvantage (canceling each other out), is that correct?




Not necessarily. If the attacker is _also_ heavily obscured then the attack has advantage, which cancels the disadvantage. If the target has darkvision, however, then yes, the attack is made with disadvantage because the target can see its attacker.



> If a creature inside of a heavily obscured area (like a ranger in the middle of a 25'x25' _fog cloud_ with a bow) is attacking someone outside of that area, is the creature outside of the area still considered to be heavily obscured to the creature inside the area due to the intervening squares of heavy obscurement?




Yes, so the attack roll would be made normally because the disadvantage of attacking a target you can't see would be cancelled by the advantage of being an unseen attacker.



> In other words, will a Ranger in the middle of a fog cloud have advantage on his attack rolls (since the target is "effectively blinded" when he tries to see the creature shooting at him) while sniping at things outside of the fog cloud? Or is the attack roll from within on a creature outside still adv/da cancel each other out?




As above. However, the answer would be different if the heavily obscured area was an area of darkness, as opposed to opaque fog. You can see through (or out of) darkness, even if you can't see the things in the darkness, while through opaque fog you cannot. I think that's what this erratum was aimed at, because of course someone who is in an area of darkness is not blinded when they are looking at someone who is in a lighted area.


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## Psikerlord# (Jun 12, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> 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.




If you have two interpretations, and one is game breaking - there really is only one interpretation in practice. Still I would have liked to see it clearer. Also, the summon pixie thing, they should delete the line about following orders (but keep the one about they are friendly toward you).


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## Eric V (Jun 12, 2015)

...

This:

"There's a ton of variety in D&D encounters, more than you are apparently giving credit for..."

Was in response to this (from you): " so either you are used to fighting e.g. two ancient dragons at a time or you are fighting large mobs instead of tough creatures"

a classic false dichotomy.  Which, no offense, didn't add anything to the debate.










Hemlock said:


> If that's the scenario you're interested in (avoiding friendly fire casualties) you might consider investing in Hypnotic Pattern + Careful Spell metamagic, now that Twinned Spell is no longer available. It would cover your situation nicely.




You offered an answer to a question no one was asking, and your answer to the players of gold/red dragon sorcerers was to pick different spells and metamagic choices, essentially re-doing their character.  Thanks for explaining your thinking.


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## gyor (Jun 12, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> 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.




 Sorcerors still make great glass cannons, you've just got to change your approach, look beyond just twinned spell.


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## gyor (Jun 12, 2015)

Immolate is a great spell for a Blaster Sorceror, you can still twin spell it for multiple targets, heighten it instead for single targets, boost its duration for more damage over time, Maximize Damage, or use flexible casting to cast it more often, or cast elemental bane on it for to squeeze out more damage over time.


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## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2015)

It is not actually a rule change, if those who wrote the rules played it the same way before and after the correction was issued.


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## gyor (Jun 12, 2015)

Something cool I just realized, an Aasmir can use twin spell on lesser restoration racial spell.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

Eric V said:


> ...
> 
> This:
> 
> ...




None taken. I could have sworn "e.g." meant "exempli gratia" though, in which case if it is a false dichotomy "there are 2+ "lieutenant" type enemies who aren't conveniently in fireball formation (or your friends are in the way)" is another instantiation of that same example instead of a third scenario. I still honestly can't think of a third scenario where Twinning Spell would be useful besides "two tough creatures" or "large mobs", so I still don't see the falseness of the dichotomy.


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## famousringo (Jun 12, 2015)

Teflon Billy said:


> Is everyone supposed to be able to do exactly as much damage as everyone else? I thought spellcasters bump was versatility?




Versatility is something that happens to other casters. Apart from the unofficial Unearthed Arcana subclasses, sorcerers are the least versatile in the game. Hence why players expect the class to make up for it with power.



gyor said:


> Immolate is a great spell for a Blaster Sorceror, you can still twin spell it for multiple targets, heighten it instead for single targets, boost its duration for more damage over time, Maximize Damage, or use flexible casting to cast it more often, or cast elemental bane on it for to squeeze out more damage over time.




Oh wow, really not recommended. Heighten only applies to the first save, so it's best used with save or suck spells that only have an initial save, like Suggestion or Polymorph.

You can Twin it, but it costs a horrible amount of sorcery points to accomplish what a fireball would probably accomplish better with a lower slot.

Doubling duration is probably a total waste, since it's unlikely that:

1. The combat will last a minute.
2. The target will survive a minute.
3. The target will fail ten saving throws on the spell.

Also, 3d6 damage is a godawful waste of precious concentration that could be maintaining an awesome buff or valuable control spell.

And finally, sorcerers cannot cast Elemental Bane. If they could, they couldn't concentrate on both it and Immolation at the same time.

Sorry, even metamagic can't stop Immolation from being a crummy spell.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 12, 2015)

famousringo said:


> Versatility is something that happens to other casters. Apart from the unofficial Unearthed Arcana subclasses, *sorcerers are the least versatile in the game*. Hence why players expect the class to make up for it with power.




They're on par with non-Tome Pact warlocks.

An aside: I actually really like paladin/wild sorc as a combo. Paladin adds some much-needed versatility and spells to Twin (twin Shield of Faith, twin Sanctuary, etc.). Wild Sorc adds Blur/Blink/Shield for durability, spell slots for smiting, ability to Fireball, and Bend Luck and advantage on saves which stacks with paladin aura for some truly crazy levels of protection--and you can even help the druid do Planar Binding more efficiently! I don't think I would ever in a million years play a single-class Sorcerer, but Sorcerer is a good mix-in for paladins.


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## famousringo (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> They're on par with non-Tome Pact warlocks.
> 
> An aside: I actually really like paladin/wild sorc as a combo. Paladin adds some much-needed versatility and spells to Twin (twin Shield of Faith, twin Sanctuary, etc.). Wild Sorc adds Blur/Blink/Shield for durability, spell slots for smiting, ability to Fireball, and Bend Luck and advantage on saves which stacks with paladin aura for some truly crazy levels of protection--and you can even help the druid do Planar Binding more efficiently! I don't think I would ever in a million years play a single-class Sorcerer, but Sorcerer is a good mix-in for paladins.




All warlocks are more versatile than sorcerers. The tome for rituals, the blade for superior martial prowess, and the chain for powerful and stealthy familiars. All three warlocks can add spammable at-will Invocations.

Edit: Best part of pally/wild combo is the save bonus you give your allies to resist your accidental fireballs.

Yeah, I've concluded sorcerer is pretty much meant for multiclass. You almost have to to cover the class weaknesses if you're going deep sorcerer, and metamagic synergizes well with just about any class with spells. Even Eldritch Knights.


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## steeldragons (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> I still honestly can't think of a third scenario where Twinning Spell would be useful besides "two tough creatures" or "large mobs", so I still don't see the falseness of the dichotomy.




Dont' have my books/spell list in front of me at the moment, but I'll give it a go...

There are 2 guards guarding the gate/vault/prisoner. Twin Charm Person. Twin Suggestion.

Two water/fire elementals (or really 2 of anything attacking the party). Twin Ray of Frost. Twin Fire Bolt. Twin Ray of Sickness (is that on the Sorc's list?).

Want to freeze areas of water to walk across or light two censers/torches/campfires (or set any two fires in two different places, e.g. pyromanics/arson) at once. Twin Ray of Frost/Fire Bolt, respectively.

Two incoming attacks (or any variety). Twin Shield. Twin Blur.

Sneaking into/out of town/gala/prison/dragon's lair/eloping with the farmer's daughter. Twin Invisibility.

I'm sure there are others I'm just not thinking of...but seems to be quite still useful...and scenarios need not include tough or numerous foes.


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## Eric V (Jun 12, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> None taken. I could have sworn "e.g." meant "exempli gratia" though, in which case if it is a false dichotomy "there are 2+ "lieutenant" type enemies who aren't conveniently in fireball formation (or your friends are in the way)" is another instantiation of that same example instead of a third scenario. I still honestly can't think of a third scenario where Twinning Spell would be useful besides "two tough creatures" or "large mobs", so I still don't see the falseness of the dichotomy.




Well, I don't know what to tell you: we are not usually fighting the only options you gave in your argument: a) 2 solo type creatures ("two ancient dragons") or b) large mobs.  

We more often encounter: c) Something other than the only 2 choices you presented as your argument. As such, I feel you engaged in a false dichotomy ("Well, it's either this or that!") fallacy.


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## Delandel (Jun 12, 2015)

@_*gyor*_

The only thing they're good at now is casting Fireballs if you want to be a glass cannon. That's about it. Melf's Minute Meteors too, but that's the same spell level.

It's not just the Twin change, but (potentially) the Scorching Ray change too. Here's hoping each ray still gets +CHA, not just a single one. Otherwise yeah it really sucks.

 @_*Hemlock*_

Twinning Scorching Ray II costs 2 sorcery points to get 6 rays, 3 per target. That's as many rays as a 5th level version, which costs 7 sorcery points to make and is only available at 9th level. It's highly efficient in that regard, better than Quicken Fire Bolt for the same amount of sorcery points (assuming you want to hit 2 targets).

Multiclassing Paladin/Sorc is a decent combo. I'd only consider it after 11 levels of Paladin personally. 5th is extra attack, 6th is aura of protection, 9th you get haste (if vengeance), and 11th is improved divine smite. After that maybe.

EDIT: Actually I was thinking about it more and if Stormborn Sorcerer is allowed then some amount of Paladin / SB could be very fun. Thunderous Smite is a level 1 spell and procs the SB's Heart of the Storm, which has the major downside of getting close in melee nullified since you're a paladin anyway. Looks like a sweet combo.


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## Zaruthustran (Jun 12, 2015)

gyor said:


> Anyone notice how much more powerful Magic Iniate got as a feat. I heard a rules interruptation rescently that if the 1st level spell chosen belonged to a class you have the spell was basically an extra spell known, but the errata does not have that restriction. If your playing a single class wizard for example and you take Magic Iniatate cleric and choose healing word, you can now cast it using any of your wizard slots.




Not sure if this has already been discussed, but: this clarification to Magic Initiate is kind of a big deal, if it turns out to work as described above. 

Magic Initiate says "You learn that spell and can cast it at its lowest level."

The Errata clarifies that the restriction "Once you cast it, you must finish a long rest before you can cast it again" is limited "only to the casting granted by the feat."

So how does this all interact with spellcasting? It's worth pointing out that the feat does NOT grant a Spell Slot, 1st level or otherwise.

The rules for Multiclassed spellcasters are irrelevant, here. Magic Initiate does not grant a level in a spellcasting class.

So, we only have the rules from each spellcasting class's "Spellcasting" description. And the rules in Chapter 10: Spellcasting. 

This passage from Chapter 10, "Known and Prepared Spells" is interesting: 







			
				PHB p201 said:
			
		

> "Before a spellcaster can use a spell, he or she must have the spell firmly fixed in mind, or must have access to the spell in a magic item. Members o f a few classes, including bards and sorcerers, have a limited list of spells they know that are always fixed in mind. The same thing is true of many magic-using monsters. Other spellcasters, such as clerics and wizards, undergo a process of preparing spells. This process varies for different classes, as detailed in their descriptions. In every case, the number of spells a caster can have fixed in mind at any given time depends on the
> character’s level."




The Magic Initiate feat says you "learn" the spell. That sure sounds like "always fixed in mind." Perhaps it should be treated that same way.

The Wizard's "Preparing and Casting Spells" description says "The Wizard table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot o f the spell’s level or higher."

The crux, then, is if the spell you "learn" from Magic Initiate counts as one of "your spells." I'd rule YES. So, you can use a Wizard slot to cast it. 

However, that section furthermore says "You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so. choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of one spell)."

Magic Initiate effectively bypasses the normal limit on Prepared Spells or Spells Known. It bypasses one of the main restrictions on spellcasting classes. The feat should probably be renamed "Magical Talent."


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 12, 2015)

Jeffery Clark said:


> Amen. People forget that this isn't a spammable thing. Sorcerers give up getting their "extra" spell slots to use metamagic. Sorcerers don't get sorcery points back on a short rest, only long. Wizards and Warlocks get to reclaim spell slots on a short rest. Using metamagic vs creating extra spell slots is a trade-off. Now it is very unbalanced. The usefulness of sorcery points took a huge hit, especially at early levels. The key thing is that people forget that we can really only do this stuff reliably once or twice per long rest. LONG REST. Not short rest like wizards/warlocks and just about every other class's abilities. *Wizards *get ritual casting so they don't burn spell slots outside of combat, *get spell recovery on a short rest*, and each of the tradition schools gives them some pretty good abilities at 2nd and 6th level. Look @ Fighters' extra attack at level 5, or Rogue's sneak attack at that same level - 3d6 extra damage PER TURN. Sorcs were supposed to be flexible casters who could occasionally open up and save their party from a sticky situation. Now, they're Wizard wannabes.




Not exactly. It's a daily feature for wizards; they simply use it on a short rest--no more than 1/day. 



Hriston said:


> Would anyone like to explain what adding the word "clearly" does for the hiding rules? Does this mean you don't need to be heavily obscured? If so, what good is Mask of the Wild? At any rate, I feel I'm missing the point of this bit of the errata.




There was a lot of argument claiming that if you had line of sight to a creature RAW made it impossible for it to hide from you. It had to be completely impossible for you to see it (ie, behind a wall from which you are not peeking out or invisible) in order for it to even attempt to hide. This clarifies that that is not the case, and it's the DM's call whether conditions are sufficient to hide. So this clarification is kinda a big deal.


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## aramis erak (Jun 13, 2015)

Coredump said:


> 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.
> 
> 
> 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.
> ...



The intent was that spells which can target multiples can't be twinned. My read of it was that way from the get go, and I've seen that I'm correct in my read because it's been clarified again, and again, and again, over the last 5-6 months. And now, it's in the errata (and new printings of the PHB) with it being clear that if the spell can target multiple critters the spell cannot be twinned.

Quit your whinging, and either house rule it, or accept it. It's NOT a change, it's just your group misread it, and that's why they are errataing it.


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## DaveDash (Jun 13, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> The intent was that spells which can target multiples can't be twinned. My read of it was that way from the get go, and I've seen that I'm correct in my read because it's been clarified again, and again, and again, over the last 5-6 months. And now, it's in the errata (and new printings of the PHB) with it being clear that if the spell can target multiple critters the spell cannot be twinned.
> 
> Quit your whinging, and either house rule it, or accept it. It's NOT a change, it's just your group misread it, and that's why they are errataing it.




If it was perfectly clear and understandable from the beginning it wouldn't have required errata.


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## Athinar (Jun 13, 2015)

Louis Brenton said:


> "Wizard, Spellbook:  A spellbook doesn't contain cantrips."  Does that mean if a Wizard finds a scroll for a cantrip, he can't copy it into his spellbook & learn it?




You should never find a scroll with a Cantrip written on it


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## Mistwell (Jun 13, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> If it was perfectly clear and understandable from the beginning it wouldn't have required errata.




Half this stuff was just clarifications for those who misunderstood the text.  Are you honestly saying none of this errata is stuff you already thought was how it worked?


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## DaveDash (Jun 13, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> Half this stuff was just clarifications for those who misunderstood the text.  Are you honestly saying none of this errata is stuff you already thought was how it worked?




It had multiple possible interpretations IMO, since you can cast a Scorching Ray at ONE target.

Since that seemed like a much more natural fit for the Sorcerer and was hardly game breaking we went with that interpretation.


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## Mistwell (Jun 13, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> It had multiple possible interpretations IMO, since you can cast a Scorching Ray at ONE target.
> 
> Since that seemed like a much more natural fit for the Sorcerer and was hardly game breaking we went with that interpretation.




I understand.  I don't think that was a crazy or illogical interpretation.  I can see it.  I was more talking in general about this errata - a lot of it is stuff I think most people already understood that way anyway.


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## Ashrym (Jun 13, 2015)

Athinar said:


> You should never find a scroll with a Cantrip written on it




Spell scrolls with cantrips are on the tables. A person cannot add it to the spell book.


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## Coredump (Jun 13, 2015)

gyor said:


> Immolate is a great spell for a Blaster Sorceror, you can still twin spell it for multiple targets, heighten it instead for single targets, boost its duration for more damage over time, Maximize Damage, or use flexible casting to cast it more often, or cast elemental bane on it for to squeeze out more damage over time.



Which is exactly why I think sorcerers should get access to more metamagic than they do now.  They only get a few spells, so they should have a lot of options on how they cast them.


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## Coredump (Jun 13, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> The intent was that spells which can target multiples can't be twinned. My read of it was that way from the get go, and I've seen that I'm correct in my read because it's been clarified again, and again, and again, over the last 5-6 months. And now, it's in the errata (and new printings of the PHB) with it being clear that if the spell can target multiple critters the spell cannot be twinned.
> 
> Quit your whinging, and either house rule it, or accept it. It's NOT a change, it's just your group misread it, and that's why they are errataing it.




Maybe next time you want to attack someone's post... you should bother to actually *read* the post first.  Since you are *agreeing* with everything I said, and have been saying.....


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## Coredump (Jun 13, 2015)

Zaruthustran said:


> Not sure if this has already been discussed, but: this clarification to Magic Initiate is kind of a big deal, if it turns out to work as described above.
> 
> Magic Initiate says "You learn that spell and can cast it at its lowest level."
> 
> ...



Hi bolded the important part.

As a wizard, you only have permission to use spell slots to cast wizard spells.  So if you use Magic Initiate to learn a wizard spell, you can cast it with your spell slots. If you used MI to learn a sorc/druid/etc spell....then you can't use your slots to cast it.

There is no change from the very recent Sage Advice article that says the same thing.


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## Sword of Spirit (Jun 13, 2015)

Coredump said:


> As a wizard, you only have permission to use spell slots to cast wizard spells.  So if you use Magic Initiate to learn a wizard spell, you can cast it with your spell slots. If you used MI to learn a sorc/druid/etc spell....then you can't use your slots to cast it.
> 
> There is no change from the very recent Sage Advice article that says the same thing.




This is true. It's also a really, really stupid way for the rules to work. If you take a single level in another caster class you learn multiple spells (along with all the other benefits) and can use any of your spell slots to cast any spells you learn via that class. I don't see any good reason not to let you effectively use the multiclass spellcasting rules with that single 1st level spell you gain from Magic Initiate.

Again though, according to the Sage Advice interpretation of RAW, you can't. Ignore the RAW and the Sage Advice and go with what's more fun (and I can't see the more generous method not being more fun in this case).


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## Hriston (Jun 13, 2015)

Sword of Spirit said:


> There was a lot of argument claiming that if you had line of sight to a creature RAW made it impossible for it to hide from you. It had to be completely impossible for you to see it (ie, behind a wall from which you are not peeking out or invisible) in order for it to even attempt to hide. This clarifies that that is not the case, and it's the DM's call whether conditions are sufficient to hide. So this clarification is kinda a big deal.




Oh ok, got it. I was having a little trouble understanding the rationale behind that one because I didn't have that misconception in the first place. Now I see how it's helpful, especially when "hiding" is actually sneaking. It's kind of hard to find a situation where you can sneak past someone and remain behind 100% cover. It was clear, to me, that the rules were meant to allow sneaking of this sort, and that the answer was for the DM to determine in what situation it was possible, but the additional language has gotten rid of some of the dissonance between that reading and the idea that you need 100% cover/obscurement to be able to hide. Thanks.


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## Wik (Jun 13, 2015)

Wait.  My PHB Warlock "Slot Level" table never goes past "5th".  That's actually correct?  I always thought it was a typo...


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 13, 2015)

Wik said:


> Wait.  My PHB Warlock "Slot Level" table never goes past "5th".  That's actually correct?  I always thought it was a typo...




Yes, it's correct. High-level warlock spells are powered by Mystic Arcanum, not by spell slots.


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## Wik (Jun 13, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> Yes, it's correct. High-level warlock spells are powered by Mystic Arcanum, not by spell slots.




Hunh.  Weird.  Never really put those two together.  Mind you, the warlock has absolutely zero interest among my players once I disallowed multi-classing, so that's probably why it's been ignored up till now.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 13, 2015)

Athinar said:


> You should never find a scroll with a Cantrip written on it



I disagree. It allows you a single casting of a cantrip you otherwise can't cast.


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## Celtavian (Jun 13, 2015)

Crawford has clarified that _contagion_ effects work after three saves. Makes the spell relatively useless given most combats don't last three rounds or are over by that time. So no cool and effective disease delivery spell in 5E. Over-nerfed again by the designers.


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## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Crawford has clarified that _contagion_ effects work after three saves. Makes the spell relatively useless given most combats don't last three rounds or are over by that time. So no cool and effective disease delivery spell in 5E. Over-nerfed again by the designers.




Rather than the Sick-locking of epic creatures? I'll take this.


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## Celtavian (Jun 13, 2015)

Remathilis said:


> Rather than the Sick-locking of epic creatures? I'll take this.




Yeah. Sick-locking was too much. But this will only be useful for perhaps punishing some enemy for a week. Con saving is usually the highest for most creatures.


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## daem0n (Jun 13, 2015)

I would have liked an erratum for Jeremy Crawford's clarification of Crossbow Expert:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats


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## famousringo (Jun 14, 2015)

daem0n said:


> I would have liked an erratum for Jeremy Crawford's clarification of Crossbow Expert:
> 
> https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats




That's mostly what the ammunition and holding a two-handed weapon in one hand errata are about. What more were you looking for?


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## daem0n (Jun 14, 2015)

famousringo said:


> That's mostly what the ammunition and holding a two-handed weapon in one hand errata are about. What more were you looking for?



For it to be clear that you can use your action and your bonus action to attack with the same hand crossbow, provided you have a free hand. Crossbow Expert has been one of the more controversial rules of D&D 5e, due in large part to people getting hung up on the significance of a word that was extraneous in the first place.


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## famousringo (Jun 14, 2015)

daem0n said:


> For it to be clear that you can use your action and your bonus action to attack with the same hand crossbow, provided you have a free hand. Crossbow Expert has been one of the more controversial rules of D&D 5e, due in large part to people getting hung up on the significance of a word that was extraneous in the first place.




Good point. It's weird for a crossbow to end up as the fastest firing ranged weapon in the game, so they probably should have taken the chance to clarify that it's intentional.


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## Kanaric (Jun 15, 2015)

It's funny how mad these powergamers who were sorcerers abusing the games rules (aka cheating) are getting so mad. This isn't a nerf, it's to counteract you stretching words to the limits of their definitions or flat out reinterpreting to suit your min/max power gaming. 

I think it's funny how the powergamer is like "here's my context free manipulated math to suit my narrative" 



77IM said:


> Also, two *multiclassing* changes that I haven't seen mentioned:
> -- Paladins can smite using any spell slot, not just a paladin spell slot
> -- Warlock invocation level requirements are warlock levels, not character levels
> 
> Both are things that most people ruled that way already anyway, but it's nice to have it official. I'm no longer afraid to bring my paladin/warlock to an AL game.




When you multiclass you have no paladin spell slots. That ceases to exist. It's always been that you get the shared spell slot list in the multiclass section of the PHB.

If you weren't playing it that way you were doing it wrong. Nobody I know anywhere did it the way you are suggesting


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## 77IM (Jun 15, 2015)

Kanaric said:


> When you multiclass you have no paladin spell slots. That ceases to exist. It's always been that you get the shared spell slot list in the multiclass section of the PHB.
> 
> If you weren't playing it that way you were doing it wrong. Nobody I know anywhere did it the way you are suggesting




Yeah, that's always been my interpretation, too.

But, it was not totally clear-cut because of the word "paladin" in there:
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/11/25/paladin-slot-for-divine-smite/
If one of the game's lead designers can get confused about it, I'm guessing there are some super-strict DMs out there who would enforce "paladin spell slots" only, and it would be just my luck to wind up with one of them.

So, I am glad they removed the word "paladin" so now it's unambiguous.


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## DaveDash (Jun 15, 2015)

Kanaric said:


> It's funny how mad these powergamers who were sorcerers abusing the games rules (aka cheating) are getting so mad. This isn't a nerf, it's to counteract you stretching words to the limits of their definitions or flat out reinterpreting to suit your min/max power gaming.
> 
> I think it's funny how the powergamer is like "here's my context free manipulated math to suit my narrative"
> 
> ...




Yeah because there have been so many threads about people complaining how OP Sorcerers are.

Phew. The game is so much better now that this problem class has been reigned in. 

 :rolls eyes:.


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## Celtavian (Jun 16, 2015)

DaveDash said:


> Yeah because there have been so many threads about people complaining how OP Sorcerers are.
> 
> Phew. The game is so much better now that this problem class has been reigned in.
> 
> :rolls eyes:.




Not enough threads to make someone use the post thread count proves something is wrong argument. I don't think I've seen a single thread concerned with the power level of sorcerers.

I firmly believe the clarification was to slow down the Sorlock, not nerf the sorcerer. Sorlocks were Twinning _eldritch blast_ for 1 point, lower than Quicken cost. You could Twin _Eldritch Blast_ for more than _scorching ray_ damage at higher level all day.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 16, 2015)

Kanaric said:


> It's funny how mad these powergamers who were sorcerers abusing the games rules (aka cheating) are getting so mad. This isn't a nerf, it's to counteract you stretching words to the limits of their definitions or flat out reinterpreting to suit your min/max power gaming.



Nobody was cheating. Nobody was even _trying_ to cheat. The text was genuinely ambiguous, and given that neither interpretation was game-breaking, they went with the more generous one.

The errata could just as easily have come out saying that their interpretation was the correct one. There's no need to place blame where none is due.


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## houser2112 (Jun 16, 2015)

Kanaric said:


> When you multiclass you have no paladin spell slots. That ceases to exist. It's always been that you get the shared spell slot list in the multiclass section of the PHB.



If you MC paladin with, say, sorcerer: yes. If you MC paladin with warlock, you get spell slots (I think the feature is Pact Magic?) that don't merge with spell slots that are gained through the Spellcasting feature. So the errata is actually a useful clarification.


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## Parmandur (Jun 16, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Not enough threads to make someone use the post thread count proves something is wrong argument. I don't think I've seen a single thread concerned with the power level of sorcerers.
> 
> 
> 
> I firmly believe the clarification was to slow down the Sorlock, not nerf the sorcerer. Sorlocks were Twinning _eldritch blast_ for 1 point, lower than Quicken cost. You could Twin _Eldritch Blast_ for more than _scorching ray_ damage at higher level all day.





...but again, it's not actually a change, since that is what it meant before; that's how I read, and how the devs consistently clarified it when asked.  The only thing being fixed was making the actual rule already in place unambiguous.  If people were doing that with Sorlocks, they were mistaken from the get-go.


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## the Jester (Jun 16, 2015)

Athinar said:


> You should never find a scroll with a Cantrip written on it




That's a ridiculous assertion.



			
				DMG said:
			
		

> 51-60  Spell Scroll (Cantrip)


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## the Jester (Jun 16, 2015)

Celtavian said:


> Crawford has clarified that _contagion_ effects work after three saves. Makes the spell relatively useless given most combats don't last three rounds or are over by that time. So no cool and effective disease delivery spell in 5E. Over-nerfed again by the designers.




It's not a combat spell. It's a plot spell. At least, IMHO. 

And better in this form- which, as a plot spell, is pretty effective and powerful- than an overpowered stun-lock kill-legendary-creatures-while-they-can't-even-act monstrosity.


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## Obryn (Jun 16, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> ...but again, it's not actually a change, since that is what it meant before; that's how I read, and how the devs consistently clarified it when asked.  The only thing being fixed was making the actual rule already in place unambiguous.  If people were doing that with Sorlocks, they were mistaken from the get-go.



Clearly their fault for not accurately divining the platonic ideals of those rules in the developers' minds.

Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 16, 2015)

the Jester said:


> That's a ridiculous assertion.




If I understand the claim correctly, it's that "it is ridiculous for a wizard for scribe a cantrip scroll, since it's castable for free." I don't _quite_ buy the argument prima facie (you could scribe e.g. Mending or Message scrolls to give to other people) but neither am I really persuaded yet that the economics of scribing cantrips make sense. It _might_ be ridiculous to find a cantrip scroll.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 16, 2015)

the Jester said:


> It's not a combat spell. It's a plot spell. At least, IMHO.




You can use it tactically too--you just have to be willing to disengage from combat temporarily. E.g. wizard makes himself and druid invisible and the druid casts Pass Without Trace; they both sneak up on the waiting Balor; druid casts Contagion on the Balor and then the wizard immediately Dimension Doors them both 500 feet straight up out of the dungeon (Feather Fall to prevent damage).


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## bganon (Jun 16, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> You can use it tactically too--you just have to be willing to disengage from combat temporarily. E.g. wizard makes himself and druid invisible and the druid casts Pass Without Trace; they both sneak up on the waiting Balor; druid casts Contagion on the Balor and then the wizard immediately Dimension Doors them both 500 feet straight up out of the dungeon (Feather Fall to prevent damage).




Balors have truesight.  And magic resistance, FWIW.  And in the rare case that the Balor fails all three saves, Contagion still only lasts seven days.  So now you have a firm time limit on finding your way back to a pissed-off Balor who's now going to be very actively preparing to end you.  Sounds like a plot spell to me!


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## Celtavian (Jun 16, 2015)

the Jester said:


> It's not a combat spell. It's a plot spell. At least, IMHO.
> 
> And better in this form- which, as a plot spell, is pretty effective and powerful- than an overpowered stun-lock kill-legendary-creatures-while-they-can't-even-act monstrosity.




We already had this discussion. It's not any more a plot spell than any spell used to effect the game world. _Fireball_ is a plot spell by your definition because it resolves something in the adventure. There are only spells that are used for specific effects in the game world. Some that apply immediately like a combat spell, some that can be used over time. _Contagion_ is now a spell with some narrow uses, some of them in immediate combat, some not.


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## Celtavian (Jun 16, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> You can use it tactically too--you just have to be willing to disengage from combat temporarily. E.g. wizard makes himself and druid invisible and the druid casts Pass Without Trace; they both sneak up on the waiting Balor; druid casts Contagion on the Balor and then the wizard immediately Dimension Doors them both 500 feet straight up out of the dungeon (Feather Fall to prevent damage).




What are the chances a Balor fails three Con saves?

I can see the spell being effective if cast on a low Con creature that can move around like a caster. Not everything has a great Con. I'm probably overestimating the nerf. Now it's a combat spell that must be more carefully targeted, where before it was a spell that locked up a win. Not as many creatures have huge saves any longer. I need to remember that. This is three saves total before missing three saves.


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## Parmandur (Jun 16, 2015)

Obryn said:


> Clearly their fault for not accurately divining the platonic ideals of those rules in the developers' minds.
> 
> Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia.





Of course I am not implying any moral dimension to the misunderstanding of the rule; the error is factual, not ethical.

But the reality is, the rule works the same way with the errata as it did when the PHB was published.  The wording has been refined, but the meaning remains as it was originally (and in play, for myself).


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jun 16, 2015)

bganon said:


> Balors have truesight.  And magic resistance, FWIW.  And in the rare case that the Balor fails all three saves, Contagion still only lasts seven days.  So now you have a firm time limit on finding your way back to a... Balor who's now going to be very actively preparing to end you.  Sounds like a plot spell to me!




True.  Balors might be a bad example. It would work on Vampires though: their Con is only +4.


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## Obryn (Jun 16, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> Of course I am not implying any moral dimension to the misunderstanding of the rule; the error is factual, not ethical.
> 
> But the reality is, the rule works the same way with the errata as it did when the PHB was published.  The wording has been refined, but the meaning remains as it was originally (and in play, for myself).



No, that's incorrect. A vague rule is not the same as, and doesn't operate the same as, a clearly worded and specific rule. 

The designers have chosen one interpretation of the published vagueness. Whether or not this more closely matches the ideal rule that existed only in their minds is irrelevant. These represent changes to the (vague and/or poorly-written) published rules, which were until now the rules of the game.


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## bganon (Jun 16, 2015)

Hemlock said:


> True.  Balors might be a bad example. It would work on Vampires though: their Con is only +4.




Vampires have Legendary Resistance, and after auto-succeeding their first save can shift into mist form, which grants advantage on Con saves... 

Monsters have lots of tricks.


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## Parmandur (Jun 16, 2015)

Obryn said:


> No, that's incorrect. A vague rule is not the same as, and doesn't operate the same as, a clearly worded and specific rule.
> 
> The designers have chosen one interpretation of the published vagueness. Whether or not this more closely matches the ideal rule that existed only in their minds is irrelevant. These represent changes to the (vague and/or poorly-written) published rules, which were until now the rules of the game.





Well, sure, making the rule more clear is an improvement.  Doesn't mean it is a different rule if it operates the same way in practice as before the clarification, though, even if a subset (even the majority!) of players misinterpreted the more vague original.


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## famousringo (Jun 16, 2015)

Obryn said:


> No, that's incorrect. A vague rule is not the same as, and doesn't operate the same as, a clearly worded and specific rule.
> 
> The designers have chosen one interpretation of the published vagueness. Whether or not this more closely matches the ideal rule that existed only in their minds is irrelevant. These represent changes to the (vague and/or poorly-written) published rules, which were until now the rules of the game.




Just to back up this argument, compare it to common law jurisprudence. 

The legislators who passed a bill into law may intend one interpretation or another, but once a judge interprets the law to mean something in particular (publishing errata in this analogy), that becomes an important precedent that severely constrains future interpretations of the law. That precedent may or may not reflect the original intent of the legislators, but the point is that the law is forever changed by the official ruling. Removing ambiguity changes the law.


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## Parmandur (Jun 16, 2015)

famousringo said:


> Just to back up this argument, compare it to common law jurisprudence.
> 
> 
> 
> The legislators who passed a bill into law may intend one interpretation or another, but once a judge interprets the law to mean something in particular (publishing errata in this analogy), that becomes an important precedent that severely constrains future interpretations of the law. That precedent may or may not reflect the original intent of the legislators, but the point is that the law is forever changed by the official ruling. Removing ambiguity changes the law.





An interesting analogy, flawed by the exact identity of "legislator" and "judge" in this circumstance, and that this has been the consistant application since day one anyways.


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## the Jester (Jun 16, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> An interesting analogy, flawed by the exact identity of "legislator" and "judge" in this circumstance, and that this has been the consistant application since day one anyways.




If by "consistent application" you mean "consistent application for [your] group", sure.


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## Parmandur (Jun 16, 2015)

the Jester said:


> If by "consistent application" you mean "consistent application for [your] group", sure.





Happily, that is the case.  However, I meant as in "stated by designers when asked."

Not saying there are no straight up changes here; but if Perkins or Crawford were running a game with a Sorcerer ten months ago, they had the same ability in regards to twinning as specified in the errata.  A cha he in text, sure; bit no change in the rule.


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## the Jester (Jun 17, 2015)

Huh. I was just looking at the paladin, and I found the first thing where I think errata is actually called for, short of clarifying things here and there.

At 18th level, paladins get aura improvement, but the paladin of vengeance has no aura. Instead, at 7th level (when other paladin oaths gain their auras), it gets Relentless Avenger (basically, chase a guy after you whack him with an OA). 

I'd propose- and will prolly houserule- that at 18th level, the OoV paladin get to pursue his entire speed instead of half his speed.

EDIT: For clarity, I do realize that the OoV paladin gets the standard auras that all paladins get. But the other gusy get an oath aura, too.


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## Celtavian (Jun 17, 2015)

the Jester said:


> Huh. I was just looking at the paladin, and I found the first thing where I think errata is actually called for, short of clarifying things here and there.
> 
> At 18th level, paladins get aura improvement, but the paladin of vengeance has no aura. Instead, at 7th level (when other paladin oaths gain their auras), it gets Relentless Avenger (basically, chase a guy after you whack him with an OA).
> 
> ...




You don't want to give the Vengeance paladin any more, man. He has the best spell list of the three paladins. His abilities are pretty good as well.


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## miniaturehoarder (Jun 24, 2015)

Athinar said:


> You should never find a scroll with a Cantrip written on it



They are a common treasure so sayeth the DMG.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 24, 2015)

Cantrip scrolls are great. Although I can't remember what the rule is on man magic chats using them, raw


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## Mistwell (Jun 24, 2015)

I always assumed cantrip scrolls exist because they're commonly used to teach apprentices the cantrip.  They're not copied into books (can't be), but the scroll is what's studied and used initially by them until they get it permanently.


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## SubDude (Jun 26, 2015)

BrockBallingdark said:


> I'll just stick, the errata page in those two and my copy and now I have three PHB for players and I'll get the new errata PHB for me. Just an excuse to get a new book on my part.




What a great idea!  Just like how I buy tools for projects that I want to build.  (Want to - not actually build.)

So far, I've simply drawn a red vertical line in the margin of the affected paragraphs to indicate that an errata applies.  I probably also need to memorize it, come to think of it....


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## Zaruthustran (Jun 30, 2015)

Alas.


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