D&D: New Errata Released For Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide And More
Just released from WotC: a new batch of errata for 5th Edition, hitting four different books with changes great and small.
As we talked about late last week, new errata have been expected soon. Well soon is now–four books have been updated: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Player’s Handbook, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and Out of the Abyss. We’ll be taking a look at what’s new for each of these books below, so let’s dive right on in.
Player’s Handbook
There’s only one change in the PHB, but it’s an important one for sorcerers, a clarification for Twinned Spell, one of the more frequently misused metamagic abilities. From the surface the ability is meant to allow you to target two creatures when you would ordinarily only be able to target one, but that needs some revision.
As you can see, it now explicitly works only with spells that target only one creature, specifically at the level it’s been cast at. Further, if you look at what disqualifies a spell from twinned spell at WotC, that means if a spell can target an object–so spells like Fire Bolt, Disintegrate, and popular choices Green Flame Blade/Booming Blade are right out. It’s a pretty significant nerf to sorcerer abilities.
Out of the Abyss
Most of the changes here are corrections to typos that made it through to the printer. Things like having Orcus’ stat block refer to the Madness of Jubliex table, or referring to Gauntlgrym when they meant Gacklstugh–an understandable mistake, I mean I get them confused all the time. But the one worth calling out is the Duergar Soulblade changes, which provides some much-needed clarification about how their psionic ability works.
Mostly because it could signify that WotC still has psionics on the brain, and are getting a better understanding of it from continued work on the rules. Fingers crossed for that one folks.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Xanathar’s Guide contains, among other things, the previously released nerf to the Healing Spirit spell, which means it only can heal a number of times equal to your spellcasting modifier + 1 (so a maximum of 6 times).
Other changes include a change to the talking doll, making it reliant on a condition that’s visible–so no more esoteric “the talking doll lets me know whenever a cleric is nearby, or a level 13 creature” or the like. Finally a few more spell changes:
Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
Updates to some of the bigger baddies abound for Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Orcus, demon prince of undeath, gets a buff–losing the save from his first lair action. Red Abishai get a nerf, losing 2d10 from their bite attack, Hellfire Engines get pushier, and Zariel’s javelin is a melee weapon with 10 ft. reach.
You can read the full listings for yourself below.
Player’s Handbook Errata
Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes Errata
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Errata Out of the Abyss Errata
Happy Adventuring!
