A new errata for the 2024 Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook was released by Wizards of the Coast on April 17. Among the small tweaks, there is one major change – many of the ‘Conjure’ spells have seen a broad nerf. That includes Conjure Minor Elementals, the most infamously broken spell to come out of the revised rulebook.
In case you haven’t picked up your copy of the 2024 Player’s Handbook yet, Conjure Minor Elementals is a fourth-level D&D spell that costs an action to cast. For up to 10 minutes (with concentration), you summon a 15-foot emanation of spirits to swirl around you, which deals 2d8 damage when you hit a creature inside the emanation.
The truly broken part of this spell is its scaling. For every spell slot above level four you use to cast Conjure Minor Elementals, the damage increases by 2d8. This is how we got the divine lawnmowers and Valor Bards who could deal hundreds of points of damage per round.
In Wednesday’s errata, Wizards of the Coast announced that the damage increase for upcasting this DnD spell is now 1d8 rather than 2d8. Similar changes have been made to the spells Conjure Elemental and Conjure Fey. The former now gains an extra 1d8 damage when upcast rather than 2d8, and the latter gets 1d12 rather than 2d12.
Another new change affects Polymorph, True Polymorph, Animal Shapes, and Shapechange, all of which now specify that the temporary hit points they grant vanish when the spell ends. Animal Shape and Shapechange also only grant temporary HP on your first transformation. Plus, any stat blocks in the Player’s Handbook have been replaced with their more recent versions from the 2024 Monster Manual.
Various wording tweaks have been made to the chapters on equipment, feats, and the rules glossary. The remaining changes are from a previous errata, and they clarify the rules for the Goliath species, as well as the spell Giant Insect. You can see the full list in the changelog on D&DBeyond.
For more Dungeons and Dragons updates, here’s all you need to know about this year’s DnD release schedule. We can also tell you all you need to know about DnD classes and DnD races. Or, if you want to discuss these rules changes with the community, head over to the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
