'Dungeons & Dragons' Releases Errata for Core Rulebooks

Dungeons & Dragons has released a new set of errata for its three core rulebooks.

Yesterday, the popular tabletop RPG game released errata for the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual - the three books that form the foundation for the current edition of the games. These changes are reflected in the most recent printings of the books, which include the new Core Rulebook Gift Sets.

The errata provides mostly minor updates and clarification for various rules. These changes aren't intended to be a major update, but rather to clarify existing rules to bring them more in line with how they were originally intended.

The biggest change was, as we detailed before, to the "Beast Master" subclass of rangers. The new rules clarifies that a ranger's beast companion will take the "Dodge" action when it's not given a command. A beast companion's attacks will also eventually be considered to be magical, thus bypassing the immunities and resistances to non-magical attacks that many high level monsters have.

Another important clarification is to the "Polearm Master" feat, a common feat for many types of fighters or barbarians. Polearm Masters now gain the benefits of their feat when using a spear, which makes sense as a spear is a polearm.

The other change that could affect players is a slight buff to brown bears, an animal commonly used by druids, especially Circle of the Moon druids, which gain access to the brown bear much earlier than other druids. Brown bears now have a +6 to their attack as opposed to a +4, which makes them significantly more dangerous against creatures with lower ACs.

All in all, these changes won't significantly impact most players, but they do clarify a couple of sticky rules points and smooth over some of D&D's rougher rules. You can check out the Player Handbook's errata here, the Monster Manual's errata here, and the Dungeon Master's Guide's errata here.