Pre-Tasha's Errata Docs

[rooneg]

WotC has released errata docs for SCAG and ERftLW today, including various changes to the Bladesinger (and associated spells) and Artificer in advance of them showing up in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. I think most of this was already out in the world, but in case anyone wants the exact wording there it is.

[CMCC]

Damn not updated on dnd beyond yet

[Dork_Forge]

Well that is a huge update for the Artificer!

-Every spell now officially has a M component for them, making them the best Sword and Board/TWF Gishs in terms of casting

-The Steel Defender and Homunculus can now take any action like the Drake UA

-The Homunculus no longer needs Artificer 6 to use (big bump)

Does anyone know why the shift in SCAG to everyhting being Self now?

[Gtdead]

I have to say that I feel the Bladesinger got destroyed. I hoped that we would get both versions so I could continue using the old one. It was my favorite subclass and now I don't really want to play it anymore.

By the way, can someone make a good case why you can't swap both attacks with cantrips with this wording?
It only says that you swap one attack for one cantrip. Not that you are limited in how many times you can do it.

" “Moreover, you can cast one of
your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.”"

I'd feel better if I can cast two firebolts with it.

[MaxWilson]

WotC has released errata docs for SCAG and ERftLW today, including various changes to the Bladesinger (and associated spells) and Artificer in advance of them showing up in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. I think most of this was already out in the world, but in case anyone wants the exact wording there it is.

It's interesting that the SCAG Swashbuckler is still better than the Xanathar's Swashbuckler (able to sneak attack at range), and wasn't errata'ed to match Xanathar's.

Why oh why couldn't they have used this errata to rephrase "booming energy" to something that actually makes sense? What is "booming energy" supposed to mean?

Does anyone know why the shift in SCAG to everyhting being Self now?

Beats me but it should make Paladorcs happy, and any other Find Steed users. Now Booming Blade is a self-buff which lets your steed make an attack with the weapon you used to cast the spell, if only you can find a way to use the same weapon your steed will be using. (Maybe impossible.)

[ThatoneGuy84]

I have to say that I feel the Bladesinger got destroyed. I hoped that we would get both versions so I could continue using the old one. It was my favorite subclass and now I don't really want to play it anymore.

By the way, can someone make a good case why you can't swap both attacks with cantrips with this wording?
It only says that you swap one attack for one cantrip. Not that you are limited in how many times you can do it.

" “Moreover, you can cast one of
your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.”"

I'd feel better if I can cast two firebolts with it.

I its 50% destroyed.
I do like swapping 1 attack for a cantrip. But I do wish it was "both"
On the bright side, u can attack/cantrip and since u cast a cantrip if you pick up illusionists bracers cantrip again as a bonos action.

[CMCC]

Does anyone know why the shift in SCAG to everyhting being Self now?

so you can't OA cast BB anymore (with war caster) and can't use it with spell sniper. I suspect both were considerations.

I have to say that I feel the Bladesinger got destroyed. I hoped that we would get both versions so I could continue using the old one. It was my favorite subclass and now I don't really want to play it anymore.

By the way, can someone make a good case why you can't swap both attacks with cantrips with this wording?
It only says that you swap one attack for one cantrip. Not that you are limited in how many times you can do it.

" “Moreover, you can cast one of
your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.”"

I'd feel better if I can cast two firebolts with it.

because that would be swapping two attacks, not one. I think you're reading it as "you may swap An attack for A cantrip. It's one for one. The moment you try to sub out a second attack, it becomes two - and that is beyond the ability's numeric cap.

[Amechra]

By the way, can someone make a good case why you can't swap both attacks with cantrips with this wording?
It only says that you swap one attack for one cantrip. Not that you are limited in how many times you can do it.

" “Moreover, you can cast one of
your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.”"

This is a general "English grammar" thing - it's kinda hard to articulate, since it seems blindingly obvious to me that this is a one-time exchange, and I kinda have to do some mental gymnastics to read it in a way that would permit multiple cantrips. I'm not sure if that's just my dialect, though.

[Dork_Forge]

Beats me but it should make Paladorcs happy, and any other Find Steed users. Now Booming Blade is a self-buff which lets your steed make an attack with the weapon you used to cast the spell, if only you can find a way to use the same weapon your steed will be using. (Maybe impossible.)

Because of the weird targeting rules I don't think that works, like how Smite spells target the caster yet aren't eligible for the Find Steed connection (which is utterly ridiculous, what was the point of that clause if Paladins can barely use it for anything).

so you can't OA cast BB anymore (with war caster) and can't use it with spell sniper. I suspect both were considerations.

Ahh that makes more sense, I never personally encountered those exploits, but shutting them down would certainly reign in the power of the SCAGtrips.

[ATHATH]

Because of the weird targeting rules I don't think that works, like how Smite spells target the caster yet aren't eligible for the Find Steed connection (which is utterly ridiculous, what was the point of that clause if Paladins can barely use it for anything).




Ahh that makes more sense, I never personally encountered those exploits, but shutting them down would certainly reign in the power of the SCAGtrips.

Tbh, the War Caster + Booming Blade combo seemed like an intentional usage of the BB spell to me... until it got shut down by this errata, anyway.

[Makorel]

I've dug out my Eberron book to compare the original Steel Defender's numbers to the errata and now that everything's based off fully off of PB I'm starting to see where they got those numbers from in the first place, which is neat.

...But that just makes me even more confused as to why the Defender's to-hit is based solely off of your spell casting mod. Why wouldn't they just make it the same as a normal attack?

[Gtdead]

because that would be swapping two attacks, not one. I think you're reading it as "you may swap An attack for A cantrip. It's one for one. The moment you try to sub out a second attack, it becomes two - and that is beyond the ability's numeric cap.

I'm not so sure about this. To showcase what I mean:

Let's alter it a bit
"you may swap one attack for two cantrips".

Does your reading apply to this sentence as well? Would you just assume that this is once per turn too?

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that I want it to work like I advocate, but the wording is crap as usual.

[Gignere]

I have to say that I feel the Bladesinger got destroyed. I hoped that we would get both versions so I could continue using the old one. It was my favorite subclass and now I don't really want to play it anymore.

By the way, can someone make a good case why you can't swap both attacks with cantrips with this wording?
It only says that you swap one attack for one cantrip. Not that you are limited in how many times you can do it.

" “Moreover, you can cast one of
your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.”"

I'd feel better if I can cast two firebolts with it.

I don’t see why you think Bladesinger got destroyed. I actually like the changes makes this subclass more strategic instead of I Bladesong every encounter whether you need it or not.

At higher levels you’ll generally have the same exact number of bladesongs as the recover on short rest version.

The change to extra attack is a big buff so I like it. I plan to multiclass into the new BS with my current rogue.

[cutlery]

I assume twinned booming blade was something they wanted to stop, too.

[Millstone85]

Oh my sweet Lord Kelemvor!

[NEW] The Afterlife (p. 20). In the second paragraph, the last sentence has been deleted.

The truly false and faithless are mortared into the Wall of the Faithless, the great barrier that bounds the City of the Dead, where their souls slowly dissolve and begin to become part of the stuff of the Wall itself.

They deleted the Wall! They errata'd it down!

[Amechra]

I'm not so sure about this. To showcase what I mean:

Let's alter it a bit
"you may swap one attack for two cantrips".

Does your reading apply to this sentence as well? Would you just assume that this is once per turn too?

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that I want it to work like I advocate, but the wording is crap as usual.

That would imply, to me at least, that you can cast two cantrips in place of one of the two attacks you can make as part of your attack action. It'd have to be something like "You may forgo one or more of those attacks to cast an equal number of cantrips" or something similar to get the effect you seem to want.

[cutlery]

Oh, and apparently you can't use a SCAGtrip with shadow blade any longer - the melee weapon must be worth at least 1 sp.

You can use a SCAGtrip with an offhand weapon, but not with Shadow Blade.

Which, interestingly, kicks Spirit Shroud back to the fore for the bladesinger.

That should keep some of the bladesinger damage in check - not much, but some...

Though a dual-wielding bladesinger will catch up eventually if they really upcast Spirit Shroud.

[Gtdead]

I don’t see why you think Bladesinger got destroyed. I actually like the changes makes this subclass more strategic instead of I Bladesong every encounter whether you need it or not.

At higher levels you’ll generally have the same exact number of bladesongs as the recover on short rest version.

The change to extra attack is a big buff so I like it. I plan to multiclass into the new BS with my current rogue.

I don't care about high levels. All wizards are strong at T3 and T4. Bladesinger is just the best shapechange user. Nothing more than that. The niche of the subclass was melee performance and concentration saves. He could haste/shadowblade himself and go to town 4 to 6 times per day which is a very efficient style for a gish type.

Now he will be able to do that PB/day, perhaps a bit better, but all the other time his extra feature will go to waste because a 16 AC wizard should never be anywhere close to the frontlines. Best case scenario is to use a Bow and minor illusion for cover. But illusions are DM dependent and it will get old really fast like most tricks get.

That would imply, to me at least, that you can cast two cantrips in place of one of the two attacks you can make as part of your attack action. It'd have to be something like "You may forgo one or more of those attacks to cast an equal number of cantrips" or something similar to get the effect you seem to want.

Sounds fairly counter intuitive to me especially when this edition has gotten us used to "once per turn" and I have bit of trouble mostly because of that. Even in my mother tongue, the grammatical phenomenon you mentioned holds true, but I still read it the way I explained. The only reason I'm sure it doesn't work like that is because I've played the edition enough to understand that it would be imbalanced, but stranger things have happened (nuclear/evocation wizard for example).

[TheMango55]

so you can't OA cast BB anymore (with war caster) and can't use it with spell sniper. I suspect both were considerations.

I don’t see why you can’t use it with war caster OA anymore. Even with a range of self (5ft radius) It’s still a cantrip that targets a single creature other than the caster, which is all the war caster OA requires.

[Silpharon]

Well that is a huge update for the Artificer!

-Every spell now officially has a M component for them, making them the best Sword and Board/TWF Gishs in terms of casting

-The Steel Defender and Homunculus can now take any action like the Drake UA

-The Homunculus no longer needs Artificer 6 to use (big bump)

Yep, I was wondering if they were going to fix homunculus servant (and steel defender). As it was, it couldn't take the Use an Object action, so it couldn't use a Spell Storing Item. That's now fixed! The level requirement drop is surprising, and helps multiclass builds a lot.

The defender is incredibly tanky... That's potentially more hit points than a PC would have at the same level.

[Gignere]

I don't care about high levels. All wizards are strong at T3 and T4. Bladesinger is just the best shapechange user. Nothing more than that. The niche of the subclass was melee performance and concentration saves. He could haste/shadowblade himself and go to town 4 to 6 times per day which is a very efficient style for a gish type.

Now he will be able to do that PB/day, perhaps a bit better, but all the other time his extra feature will go to waste because a 16 AC wizard should never be anywhere close to the frontlines. Best case scenario is to use a Bow and minor illusion for cover. But illusions are DM dependent and it will get old really fast like most tricks get.

I don’t know warlocks, rogues and monks at low level have to deal with lower AC and not much more hps. They make it work. At least BS have Bladesong to fall back on for the tougher battles, i mean you just have to be more selective when to use Bladesong, Mobile feat is now worth a lot more for BS.

[MaxWilson]

Because of the weird targeting rules I don't think that works, like how Smite spells target the caster yet aren't eligible for the Find Steed connection (which is utterly ridiculous, what was the point of that clause if Paladins can barely use it for anything).

You might be right. I can't think of any way to let the steed share a weapon with a paladin anyway so maybe it wouldn't work anyway.

https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/d...Compendium.pdf

[NEW] Can I cast animate dead on the humanoid-shaped
corpse of an undead creature such as a zombie or a
ghast? When animate dead targets a corpse, the body must
have belonged to a creature of the humanoid creature type.
If the spell targets a pile of bones, there is no creature
type restriction; the bones become a skeleton.

All I have to say about this one is [rolls eyes].

[Gtdead]

I don’t know warlocks, rogues and monks at low level have to deal with lower AC and not much more hps. They make it work. At least BS have Bladesong to fall back on for the tougher battles, i mean you just have to be more selective when to use Bladesong, Mobile feat is now worth a lot more for BS.

Yes but these classes have other goodies as well. Warlocks have easy advantage generation, rogues have cunning:dash so they can literally get out of melee threat range with mobile feat. Monks can do it too and they are way better at dealing with ranged attacks.

Bladesinger will have to grab mobile and still use spells like expeditious retreat to do stuff like that (already having spend a slot for mage armor). So why not just attack from range where it's safe? An extra d8 isn't worth the trouble.
You could say that you perform better for as long as Bladesong is active, but I can't see it as a good thing overall. Also I'd never ever pick mobile over alert but that's just me.

[cutlery]

You do have to be careful in levels 1-2 as a bladesinger; this was true before the errata, really. Especially with the sort of con you'd have with pointbuy.

Once you can get mirror image or blur things open up a little bit, but you're still squishier than you think you are for a while.

[jaappleton]

A bit upset there’s now only the one, Tasha’s version of Bladesinger. The SCAG version now matches the Tasha’s one.

[CMCC]

I'm not so sure about this. To showcase what I mean:

Let's alter it a bit
"you may swap one attack for two cantrips".

Does your reading apply to this sentence as well? Would you just assume that this is once per turn too?

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that I want it to work like I advocate, but the wording is crap as usual.

Absolutely. The moment you try and sub 2 attacks for 4 cantrips you’ve gone beyond the alotted limit of 1 for 2.

In order for your reading to be accurate it would require a less general article (a) to make it ambiguous, or for the word “any” to be included to make it something like:

“you may swap any number of attacks for two cantrips per attack”.

Let me propose this question to you: how would you word this to make it clear that only one attack can be subbed for one cantrip?

[Amechra]

A bit upset there’s now only the one, Tasha’s version of Bladesinger. The SCAG version now matches the Tasha’s one.

There has always been only one version. Your memories are playing tricks on you, Citizen. Accept the truth that Big Wizard tells you.

[Gtdead]

Absolutely. The moment you try and sub 2 attacks for 4 cantrips you’ve gone beyond the alotted limit of 1 for 2.

In order for your reading to be accurate it would require a less general article (a) to make it ambiguous, or for the word “any” to be included to make it something like:

“you may swap any number of attacks for two cantrips per attack”.

Let me propose this question to you: how would you word this to make it clear that only one attack can be subbed for one cantrip?

"Once per turn, you can swap one attack for one cantrip", and if I wanted it to work with action surge
"When using this feature, you can swap a single attack for a cantrip"

Edit: Although now that I reread this, the "single attack" still sounds like my previous point.

It's quite hard to find precise language, let's try this instead:

"Whenever you use this feature, you can swap an attack for a cantrip once."

[MaxWilson]

Absolutely. The moment you try and sub 2 attacks for 4 cantrips you’ve gone beyond the alotted limit of 1 for 2.

In order for your reading to be accurate it would require a less general article (a) to make it ambiguous, or for the word “any” to be included to make it something like:

“you may swap any number of attacks for two cantrips per attack”.

Let me propose this question to you: how would you word this to make it clear that only one attack can be subbed for one cantrip?

Let's take a real example, like grappling: "When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them." Would you say that you can only attempt one grapple per turn? What stops you from replacing an attack with a grapple twice during a turn?

[Dork_Forge]

You might be right. I can't think of any way to let the steed share a weapon with a paladin anyway so maybe it wouldn't work anyway.

https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/d...Compendium.pdf

[NEW] Can I cast animate dead on the humanoid-shaped
corpse of an undead creature such as a zombie or a
ghast? When animate dead targets a corpse, the body must
have belonged to a creature of the humanoid creature type.
If the spell targets a pile of bones, there is no creature
type restriction; the bones become a skeleton.

All I have to say about this one is [rolls eyes].

Soooo you can just reanimate the same couple skeletons endlessly, that... Will not be making it into my games.


Also noticed that they took away +3 Cha from the Changeling, an odd move in light of the lineage options coming.