Errata
So you’re minding your own business, scrolling through your social media feed when one of your gaming pals pops up with a notification. It says simply, “Read this.”
“What jolly good fun!” you think to yourself. “One of my fellow practitioners of the nerdly arts wishes to engage in a bit of a palaver. I do wonder what he wishes me to see?”
And so, like the unsuspecting dupe that you are, you click the link. Suddenly you’re accosted with developer clarifications, angry forum posts, and a mounting pile of evidence pointing towards one inescapable conclusion: You were wrong about the thing. Cue your gaming pal piping up again.
“Still think you understand how the thing works? >:3″
And it’s the angry-eyebrows kitty face that really pushes you over the edge. This is not jolly good fun at all. Now you’re outraged and appalled. You check your books. Your books say that you’re right. And now you’re set up perfectly for the shouting match.
“I don’t care what they say on the forums. This is how we’ve always played it.”
“But it’s unbalanced!”
“Your mother is unbalanced!”
And so you’ve descended into head of Henry Kissinger territory. Nobody wants to spend time in those dread and dismal lands.
For my money, I don’t think it matters what the thing happens to be this week. You can go with the errata or stick with the original; your game will probably survive either way. But when it comes to rules disputes, the best advice I ever heard boils down to this: When there’s a questionable ruling at the table, make it a point not to always argue for your character’s benefit. You undermine your credibility when you do that. Rulings are rarely clear-cut, and if you calm your tits long enough to consider the matter impartially, you can usually see the other fellow’s point of view. There’s always room for interpretation in these things. That’s why there’s an argument in the first place.
Question of the day then: What was the thing for you? What was the rules dispute that caused the most controversy in your group? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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I usually let the GM rule the controversy. If I happen to be the GM, I usually go with the “if you don’t like it, run your own dang game” argument.
30% of the time, works 100% of the time.
I think the “this is your game, run it how you like” philosophy of 5e has helped to reinvigorate this style of GMing. It certainly streamlines the rules argument process!
so have you or your friends ever tred to play as the cast as the handbook. i would think it been fun to play as an one off.
something i forgot to add who would you play as i had to guess either fighter becuse he is the face of the comic, or wizard as you seam to be a heavy in to rp
Laurel has informed me that I am not allowed to play Wizard. She’s got dibs as the resident drama queen.
As a self-confessed rules lawyer, I would have to say Cleric. However, insofar as my players like to remind me that I am a raging asshole (when they aren’t busy dying like the pathetic worms they are), Fighter is probably a better fit.
Unfortunately I am usually the rules lawyer at the table and I almost always fall into the trap of correcting the DM. Luckily our DM is quite chill so generally he takes my word for it. It is now at the point where if he doesn’t know a rule he asks me, as does the rest of the party.
“Oh, yeah man. They changed that in the 2017 FAQ. My wizard has a d12 hit die now. I know! I thought it was weird too.” >_>
Ah I wish that wasn’t so close to whats happened. The amount of times our wizard has tried to get away with multiple concentration spells at a time, i wouldn’t be surprised if he messed with his hit die
I have the most trouble with Pathfinder vs 3.5… they are so similar I tend to assume I know how the one I am playing works, but I am wrong! Most recently was the trip property on weapons. In 3.5, you could trip without an attack of opportunity, but not so in pathfinder.
According to this page…
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Trip
…In order to trip in 3.5 you must, “Make an unarmed melee touch attack against your target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from your target as normal for unarmed attacks.”
I actually couldn’t find a 3.5 equivalent of the trip quality. Am I missing something?
For me, the move from 3.5 to Pathfinder to 5e to Exalted etc. etc. leaves me wondering what to say when I want to look at something. “I roll a Perception check. I mean Spot. I mean Awareness. I LOOK AT THE THING!”
Yeah, skills are troublesome moving between systems. One of the podcasts I listen to, Godsfall, just throws in a buzzer every time the gm calls for the wrong check, which is fun. It’s fine if everyone knows what you mean, but call for a “save against breath weapon” an it really confuses players…
As for the trip thing, I found it in the wiki at least. Weapons like zcythes, flails, and the infamous spiked chain had the trip property, so you never needed improved trip…
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Trip#Tripping_with_a_Weapon
“Some weapons can be used to make trip attacks. In this case, you make a melee touch attack with the weapon instead of an unarmed melee touch attack, and you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity.
If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the weapon to avoid being tripped.”
I’m nearly finished with the Glass Cannon Podcast, and I do need another one to replace it. Does Godsfall get the nod?
Good call on the trip ruling. I always thought that the trip quality in Pathfinder was a weirdly unnecessary thing, so it’s good to know the rule’s pedigree. 🙂
Godsfall is pretty ok. I can also recommend The Adventure Zone for D&D(ish) podcasts, or Wolf 359 for a great scifi drama.
There’s a bit at the end of the trip rules that say certain weapons don’t provoke AoO when used to trip. Pathfinder got rid of that passage. They also added a trip quality so you don’t have to look at the weapon description to figure out if it’s a good tripping weapon.
As a side note: I personally detest dandwiki, though I will admit it has gotten a lot better in recent years. I still recommend d20srd.org though.
Amen to d20srd.org. That site has saved my rules-bacon a lot over the years.
I had the opposite problem when I was doing some 3.5 after really getting into pathfinder and having not done 3.5 for around 7 years.
The first was that nobody had actually been aware of the one-spell-per-turn rule, which I feel really de-values the quickening metamagic. The balance issue is fairly obvious once you start tossing out double fireballs, but at the same time quickening full spells leaves a sorcerer with very few slots for the next encounter, so the problem corrects itself over the course of a day.
The second was the errata that nerfed draconic sorcerors and evocation wizards by only letting them add their modifier to damage once per round.
Wait… Was the idea that you could cast as many spells as you want each turn? Holy crap! What if the enemy wizard got a surprise round? That’s like…instant TPK!
Quicken is still amazeballs! You can cast a spell that uses your Action every turn, and keep casting! You can throw out a debuff and keep using Firebolt (or Eldritch Blast, if you have it.) You can throw out any kind of full spell, then Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Hide, whatever. You can do anything but cast two full spells.
And then I realized we were talking about 5e. I am not a clever man. :/
Yeah, that threw me off too for a minute.
I had a player recently get mad at me because I ruled his attack wasn’t allowed to do what he wanted (IDR what it was, it’s been a few weeks since then). I’ve made it a rule that if you don’t agree with a ruling & there is evidence to support it, then we can always retcon it. But during the game is NOT the time to start the flame war.
The virtual flame war is obnoxious. The at-the-table version gives me +4 to Str and Con, because that shit is rage inducing.
Yeah. I don’t mind ret-conning decisions after the game, especially if I’m wrong. If you can not only present your evidence, but do it in a calm & civil manner, odds are good I’ll walk back my decision. But if you slam it down & act like a petulant child, you’ll be lucky if I don’t inflict further damage on you.
As a player, I make sure to know beforehand what my spells & feats do. And I always make sure to explain to the DM as calmly as I can why I think this should work. For example, if I attack an enemy behind 1/2 cover wth Sharpshooter, I’ll make sure the PHB is bookmarked to that section & show the DM why the 1/2 cover AC bonus won’t apply. To me, it’s all about civility & grace. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Not “the thing,” but I did have a character that got massively reramped due to change in rules. I was playing a mystic immortal in 5e (admittedly a UA source so liable to change). I had built him like a strength based psychic warrior in 3.5. My goal was survivability and a very high AC, so he walked around in splint mail, a shield, and a warhammer.
Then the mystic v3 came out. No longer does the immortal have proficiency in martial weapons, shields, or heavy armor. Instead, they have the barbarian’s unarmored defense, except they still can’t use shields which really hampers their AC. Fortunately my DM was very gracious and let me restat my character to work with the existing changes, but to keep the tankish archetype he went from a high strength, heavily armored guy with a warhammer to a high dex, unarmored warrior monk wielding a dagger. Kind of frustrating, but it did lead to the funny moment when it happened in game and the explanation that “The gods are playing darts again.”
Heh. I dig that “the gods are playing darts again” bit. That might be my new go-to version of “ummm, actually.”
I always have to be that person.
“You can’t actually quicken Fireball and cast Fireball.”
“Nope, can’t make a Booming Blade OA with Polearm Master… yes i’m aware the wording should by all means work, but JC said no…”
“Don’t forget Disadvantage from your Sunlight Sensitivity…”
But you’re right, everyone’s cool because I do it for all sides. I’m just as happy to remind you about your extra d4 from Bless, your advantage from Guiding Bolt, or that yes, you can actually use Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master on the same attack. I’m also an endless source of amusing and powerful builds.
OK. I’ll bite. How can you use Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master on the same attack? One refers to melee attack, and the other seems to refer exclusively to ranged attacks.
It wasn’t exactly an argument with my DM or table, so much as an argument with the general playerbase. But I had made a Kitsune (Sort of – my DM had his own version of the race for his personal campaign setting) Titan Mauler Barbarian. Now, it should have been common sense. My table assumed it was common sense. The Massive Weapon archetype ability says you learn to wield massive weapons looted from titanic foes, and details how the penalties for doing so increase at low levels, but go away at high levels.
Great fun! I’m gonna give my Titan Mauler a Crystalline Large Great Axe she took off a Hill Giant.
Except the playerbase said “No, that doesn’t work.”
What do you mean it doesn’t work, the archetype says it works.
“No, that doesn’t work. A Certain Someone at Paizo released errata that says that since the ability doesn’t EXPLICITLY say it lets you ignore the basic rule that you can’t wield a two handed weapon sized for someone larger than you, that the ability doesn’t actually do anything it says it does. The best you can do with it is wielding a large Bastard Sword and making it count as a one-handed weapon through Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and even that is subject to DM fiat.”
What. That’s stupid. Even the errata says that the point of the ability was to let you do that – what moron releases errata that says ‘This is the problem, so it doesn’t work’ instead of ‘This is the problem, so add the text that makes it work.’
“Well they didn’t, so you can’t do that.”
It was just such a silly situation that persisted for such a long time. Paizo eventually did reverse the errata ruling and add the text that let Massive Weapon work as normal – but there were a LOT of people arguing about it after that errata and I was very much NOT in the camp of ‘Just do what the errata says and pretend Massive Weapon has no actual application.’
Laurel and I were in a similar situation. Her Oracle badly wanted the pre-errata Divine Intervention:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/divine-protection/
I was of the opinion that it was OP. Errata ultimately vindicated my position, but so what? The rules supported her side of the argument first, then the rules supported me second, but neither one means diddly in a home game. It’s always a game of give and take between GM and player, and it just takes a bit of talking-it-out-like-adults to make the game playable.
I play PFS, so every Errata is the new word of god. Of course, it’s often tucked away in random FAQs, and sometimes in scattershot blog posts that are harder to track down that the long-lost MacGuffin in your average mission.
My favorite class, the Summoner, was pretty much written out of the game with Unchained. Other than that, there are little erratas here and there, usually nerfing combat feats and magic items that could kind-of reproduce spell effects. Thankfully, the Unchaining shenanigans aside, my caster-heavy roster is relatively untouched by most changes.
You and your chained summoners. I bet you dumped a dozen eagles on the table every round. I bet your eidolon had nine butts and eleven tentacles attacks. I bet you dumped your physical stores down to 7. Why I oughta…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM9MW-QfEaw
😛
I played a crit-fishy Keen Rapier Butterfly Sting Rogue in Pathfinder who enjoyed sneak-attacking people in combat, either with her Gang Up feat for free flanking or Feint-spamming. At one point, we run across a mini-boss Barbarian who’s at least a level higher than us and so has access to Improved Uncanny Dodge.
Now, our GM had some interesting ideas. He simultaneously made being knocked prone terribly debilitating by making virtually EVERY action incur an AoO, while also trivializing it by letting you take a 5-foot step while prone without any of the required feats/class abilities. He also decided that even if your familiar has languages listed they aren’t able to actually communicate with anyone except its master.
Anyhoo, back then the IUD description stated that it prevented Flanking, and so stopped Rogues from being able to sneak attack them. I had always interpreted that to mean that it only applied to sneak attacks they’d get specifically from flanking. Our GM thought otherwise, and you can probably guess who won out in that situation.
(It didn’t help that he and his best buddy in the group had a know-it-all attitude and a tendency to speak to people that disagreed with them like they were idiots; more so with his buddy.)
In the week between that battle and our next session, they updated the wording on the Barbarian page to more accurately clarify how IUD works, proving I was right. He thought it was interesting, but had no other thoughts to share on the subject.
Yeesh. Sounds like a less-than-awesome group. I hope you found better.
Like I said, rulings are RARELY clear-cut. When they are however, it behooves a GM to eat a little crow and admit the mistake.
It wasn’t all bad. I can stand a certain amount of abrasiveness without too much trouble, and he was still a good enough GM and the rest of the group was fun enough that I was still sad when he just up and left one day.
Haven’t really found another group (might be easier if I started looking), but I do play 2nd edition with some members of my family and a few friends. Haven’t really feeling it for a while, sadly, but it’s still an enjoyable night. Finding the Handbook of Heroes a week or so ago has put me back in the mood to look, though.
Right on. Glad you’re digging the comic!
My group picked up our last recruit via this thing:
http://nearbygamers.com
It looks a little Web 1.0, but it works pretty well. Good luck on the game group hunt!
so, in the original printing of the advanced class guide, there is every (and I do mean EVERY) oracle’s wet dream of a feat:
Divine Protection
Prerequisites: Cha 13, Knowledge (Religion) 5 ranks.
Benefit: add your charisma modifier to your saving throws. If you already add your charisma modifier to your saving throws, instead add your charisma modifier +1 to saves.
the eratta? A hefty kick in the teeth:
Once per day as an immediate action before rolling a saving throw, you may add your charisma modifier on that saving throw. As usual, this does not stack if you already apply your charisma modifier to that saving throw. if you possess the “Charmed Life” class feature, you may instead apply divine protection’s bonus after you have rolled, but before the result is revealed.
sigh
Yeah… That might be the one that prompted this comic.
Laurel was not a fan of me when I introduced that decision. I’m pretty sure her dark tapestry oracle was peering from between the thin membrane of realities to give me dirty looks too.
I mean, I shouldn’t complain too hard – oracles still make the “eldrich heritage” feat tree disgustingly good, and if they go arcane bloodline, they can even pick up a couple otherwise unavailable spells.
but still, playing the idiot-savant tank by virtue of indestructibility and wisdom as a dump stat was too much fun. I kinda miss it, so many really, really stupid decisions.
triggers a trap, get hit with implosion
“Guys, I think this room might be lonely, it just gave me the nicest hug”
neothallid uses psychic crush
“Aww, he’s friendly! What is it boy? Do you wanna play fetch?”
It’s too bad that Wis and Con can (almost) never be dump stats in 3.X. They do indeed open some fun RP potential as you justify your stats.
No, no, you’re doing it wrong. You don’t say “Your mother is unbalanced!” You say “Your face is unbalanced!” Then they say “Your mother is unbalanced!” And you counter it with “Your mother is a whore!”
If you simply say “Your mother is unbalanced!”, then they say “Your mother is a whore!” And what you are gonna do? You can’t win that one.
I think I’ve heard this somewhere before….
http://www.thebestclass.org/uploads/5/6/2/4/56249715/a_christmas_story.pdf
For me it was not having accurate battle layouts.
I was playing a swashbuckler rogue. If you don’t want to have some sort of battle aid, then either let me know before character creation so I can be a cleric or something, or be prepared for a long tactical conversation every round.
“so, where exactly are the baddies in relation to me and the party? what baddies are directly adjacent to my ally? any that I can attack without being adjacent to more than one enemy at once?” etc. etc.
When you class revolves around mechanics that are based on a battle map layout and the exploitation thereof, wibbley wobbley combat effectively turns your op rogue build into a fighter with less hp and a terrible weapon. I get the freedom of only telling the player so much, I get the convinienco of not bothering with minis, but why play a rogue if you can’t fight smart?