With the 2024 Player’s Handbook, a lot of what made fifth editionDungeons & Dragonswas addressed, ensuring most of what we experienced throughout the life of the 2013 PHB was addressed in the revised version. Of course, that doesn’t mean they got everything perfect this time around. That’s where errata comes in.
Even with the new books, Wizards of the Coast has dropped some errata for the Player’s Handbook. To keep up with how this TTRPG is ever evolving, there’s bound to be some changes based on feedback and how tables have been playing since the launch of the new book.
8Shields Require Actions
Remember Don And Doff Is An Action
While this isn’t new, it’s an addition to the Player’s Handbook to ensure the rules are understood. The subheading Shield category now reads “Shield (Utilize Action to Don or Doff)” instead of just “Shield.” It’s an easy-to-read and understand placement, meaning if you’re taking a Shield, you must use your entire action to equip or remove it, alsoaffecting your Armor Class.
The change here is purely to ensure it’s understood and easy to find. While not major, it is a welcome change, as part of understanding the game is having easy access to the rules.
7Grappling Action Economy Explained
A Slight Adjustment To The Rules
For clarifying purposes, the grapple entry has been adjusted. “Escaping a Grapple” now reads as “Ending a Grapple.” While that’s not a big deal, the actual change comes with the sentence added to the end of the subsection. This new section reads “In addition, the grappler can release the target at any time (no action required).”
Whenever a rule is clarified like this, it’s to ensure there’s an understanding of how the rule works. Ending a grapple for free with no action required is the intention of the grappling rules to be resolved. No action required to end a grapple makes things easier to understand on both ends for the player and the DM.
6Poisoner Gets A Nerf
You’re Now Forced To Deal Damage
The feat for Poisoner got a slight nerf in that it does not allow you to use the skill as liberally as before. Originally, when you apply poison to a weapon using this feat, “…the poison retains its potency for 1 minute or until you hit with the poisoned item, whichever is shorter.” The errata now reads “until you deal damage with the poisoned item” instead of when you hit with it.
The extra requirement means you’re forced to deal damage to something you may have wanted to avoid damaging. Rolling to hit was originally all you needed to retain the potency of the poison. Now, you’ll be forced to deal some sort of damage to do so, potentially interrupting roleplay and forcing your hand. Anything that takes away options in a game like D&D is essentially a nerf, even if it’sonly for potionsor poisons.
5Telekinetic Feat Gets A Buff
Double Your Mage Hand Distance
The Telekinetic feat allows you to cast Mage Hand without any Verbal or Somatic components, while also making the hand invisible. An invisible Mage Hand is great in itself, but adding to this, the feat originally reads that when you cast it, its range would be increased by 30 feet. The revision in the errata says, “its range and the distance it can be away from you both increase by 30 feet.”
Mage Hand has a range of 30 feet for casting, and it disappears when it moves more than 30 feet away from you. The feat now means that you may have Mage Hand move 60 feet away from you before it disappears, and it can be cast 60 feet away from you as well. Clarifying that the range it can be away from you is also doubled makes this feat even better for versatility.
4Polymorph And Shape Change: Temporary Hit Points Removed
Remember, You Aren’t A Druid
Generally in D&D, it’s assumed that Temporary Hit Points carry over when you drop a form that grants them to you. Fifth edition has worked this way for years, but now you’ll need to change your way of thinking, as the errata for Polymorph specifies that “These Temporary Hit Points vanish if any remain when the spell ends.”
The same goes for Shape Change. The following has been added: “When you cast the spell, you gain a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to the Hit Points of the first form into which you shape-shift. These Temporary Hit Points vanish if any remain when the spell ends.” You can’t just Polymorph and drop the form while retaining the Temporary Hit Points anymore.
The same stipulation has been added to the True Polymorph spell.
3Conjure Spells Are Nerfed
You’ll Be Doing A Bit Less Damage
For Dungeon Masters, Conjure Elemental, Conjure Fey, Conjure Minor Elementals, and Conjure Woodland Beings used to be a nightmare when your players wanted to cast the spell. Prior to the 2024 Player’s Handbook, the sheer addition of several new creatures onto the battlefield took a lot of time and effort to deal with before even considering their turn.
The 2024 PHB has completely simplified this process, making it an easy spell to handle now. In its original iteration, all summoned creatures would do two additional dice’s worth of damage, which has now been dropped to one additional dice. So, for Conjure Elementals and Conjure Minor Elementals, 2d8 per when using a higher Spell Slot is now 1d8. 2d12 for Conjure Fey is now 1d12, when using a Higher-level Spell Slot. Thesespells have unfortunately seen nerfsto their damage.
For Conjure Woodland Beings, the damage was previously increased by 1d8 for any Spell Slot above level 5; this has been changed to any Spell Slot above level 4, a nice little boon despite the damage reduction.
2Hiding Is Clarified
You Can’t Just Hide In The Open
One thing some players forget is that you can’t just use the Hide action when there’s nothing to hide behind or around. While some DMs will of course let this happen, others may require you to find a spot to actually hide before you can take the Hide action. To make this more explicit, there are some minor changes to the language around hiding. The sentence “you have the Invisible condition” has been changed to “you have the Invisible condition while hidden.”
The “while hidden” is an important distinction, meaning you’re able to’t just Hide and be invisible while not having something obstructing your view that will allow you to be hidden. The next change is “The condition ends on you” now reads “You stop being hidden”. As soon as you’re no longer hidden, you drop the invisible condition and are immediately seen.
1Goliaths Get A Buff
You’ll Probably Do More Ability Checks Anyway
A slight change has been made to Goliaths in the 2025 Player’s Handbook. The errata changes the original wording of their Powerful Build ability from “You have Advantage on any saving throw” to You have Advantage on any ability check.” Overall, this is a boon, making the skill better for those looking to choose this species.
Making species more rounded overall means the stand out, aside from aesthetics, are the abilities you have access to. Changing from saving throw Advantage to Advantage on any ability check, which you’ll arguably be using a lot more in a session, makes Powerful Build more interesting to use. Rolplay opportunities to use ability checks come up often in a single game, so an Advantage when you need it most will come to a clutch situation that the table will probably remember.
