This list aims to catalogue passives which do not function as would be expected based on their tooltips, or which have other problems - or missing information - in their description, function, or location. This list is unlikely to be comprehensive as it is likely there are many issues with passives of which we are unaware.
As this list deals with problems that have a high likelihood of being changed in patches and hotfixes, it is likely that entries will be incorrect following an update.
All entries are currently correct as of Hotfix 33.
The saving throw against being Blinded is incorrectly attributed in the combat log against the attacker or the attack which was used, rather than against Absolute Night.
The Bane effect does not activate when the wearer is disguised, even if it is noted in the passive effect UI.
The Bane effect's saving throw does not appear in the combat log, nor do reactions like Portent Dice trigger, even though the passive effect UI indicates there is a saving throw, and the effect sometimes does not trigger (presumably because the enemy succeeds at their saving throw).
Though not stated as such, the passive applies Bane and thus does not stack with itself or other sources of Bane.
Aegis Palms will not apply Death Ward when Revivify is cast on an already dead ally. Casting it on an ally who is downed, but not yet dead, will apply Death Ward.
The "Long Rest" cooldown restriction on Arcane Battery is per character, rather than per item. As such, Arcane Battery can be used repeatedly by passing the weapon possessing this feature to different characters, activating it once on each.
The effect of Arcane Battery is consumed if active when the character casts a cantrip, despite the cantrip not being highlighted in the character's cast bar.
Arcane Echomalefaction triggers under many circumstances even though it appears it should not, due to hidden technical conditions, such as when a ranged weapon attack misses, when Sanctuary is cast near enemies, or when revealing an invisible enemy with See Invisibility.
Arcane Vehemence triggers even if the wielder is not missing a Level 1 spell slot (or lacks any Level 1 spell slots to begin with), effectively wasting this passive until the next Short Rest.
The maximum damage reduction from Arcane Ward is always 20, even for a level 11 or 12 Abjuration Wizard with 21-24 charges of Arcane Ward.
Despite being an Abjuration spell and consuming a spell slot, Shield does not grant Arcane Ward charges.
Counterspell will always restore 3 charges, even if upcast.
Because Arcane Ward is implemented as a condition with a duration, it counts as a condition being applied by the spell cast to charge it. This means that if Metamagic: Extended Spell – which doubles the duration of any condition applied by the spell – is used when casting an Abjuration spell, Arcane Ward's charge count will also be doubled. This doubling occurs after the cap equal to twice the wizard's class level is applied, meaning that this can be exploited to gain charges up to four times the class level.
For example, a Sorcerer 2/Wizard 5 with 7 charges of Arcane Ward casting Banishment should be capped at 10 charges, but will end up with 20 charges if Extended Spell is used.
However, when Arcane Ward has been overcharged in this way, casting any Abjuration spell that would normally charge it without using Extended Spell will force it to be capped again at twice the wizard's class level.
This can be used with most limited-duration Abjuration spells, such as Banishment, Sanctuary, or Arcane Lock. However, Glyph of Warding: Sleep cannot be used for this purpose, as the warding trap has no duration limit (despite the tooltip describing it as a 4-turn duration).
There is a second bug with Metamagic: Extended Spell, which can be used to acquire infinite Arcane Ward charges, as explained in this Reddit post. To do this, an Abjuration Wizard must have at least 3 charges of Arcane Ward, then if a sorcerer casts a spell which creates a damaging surface or cloud (e.g. Chromatic Orb: Fire, Spike Growth, or Cloudkill) and then toggles Extended Spell, if the wizard takes damage from the spell, each time they take damage, the number of charges will decrease by 1 as usual, but then double. This is because each time damage is taken, the Arcane Ward condition is reapplied with one fewer charge and the source of the condition is considered the source of the damage taken. This means that Arcane Ward becomes a condition with a duration (because its charges are represented as "turns remaining") applied by a spell cast by a sorcerer currently using Extended Spell, which causes the duration to double.
This bug works whether the spells are cast by the wizard themselves, multiclassed with sorcerer, or by a sorcerer party member.
Surfaces which cause damage immediately, such as Spike Growth, charge Arcane Ward much faster than surfaces which cause damage at the end of each turn, like a Fire surface.
This doubling effect allows a wizard to amass Arcane Ward charges up to 2,147,483,647, the maximum possible value of a 32-bit signed integer, at which point it is sometimes possible to cause an integer overflow by exceeding 2,147,483,647 charges of Arcane Ward and end up with a negative amount of charges.
With negative Arcane Ward charges, the amount of charges no longer changes from taking damage, and the ward acts as though it has 1 charge, negating only 1 damage.
Casting an Abjuration spell will reset the ward back to its standard limit.
This bug does not require using surfaces or clouds. Any sorcerer who uses a damaging spell (which can be affected by Extended Spell) on an Abjuration Wizard while Extended Spell is toggled will trigger the bug, but using non-surface or cloud spells is highly inefficient, as it will quickly use up Sorcery Points.
When an Abjuration Wizard has zero Arcane Ward charges, many actions/abilities will restore as many charges as the character's wizard level, as seen on this Reddit post. Some examples:
Equipping some equipment that applies conditions, e.g. Shar's Spear of Evening or Nyrulna. This includes automatically re-equipping these weapons after throwing them.
Some class abilities, e.g. Barbarian's Rage, Eldritch Knight's War Magic, or War Cleric's War Priest.
If an Abjuration Wizard rolls an attack that is blocked by a target casting the wizard version of Shield, the Abjuration Wizard attacker will lose all their Arcane Ward charges.
The +2 bonus to attack rolls granted by Arming Enhancement also affects attacks of the spell, unarmed, and throw variety; however, throw attacks (involving weapons with the Thrown property) do not receive the +2 damage.
Artificial Sight does not provide the cone of light one would otherwise get by obtaining the Darkvision effect from a different source, such as a spell or having the passive innately through race. It also allows the wearer to see through magical darkness, despite not stating such in the description.
If you have any remaining temporary hit points from a previous activation of this feature, Dashing will not replenish them back to twice your Barbarian level. You can only gain the temporary hit points again once you've lost all of them.
Despite the tooltip warning, the condition which grants the temporary hit points does not use the "TEMPORARY_HP" StackId and thus may be active on a character in addition to other sources of temporary hit points. In this case, the character will receive the temporary hit points from the highest source, while any lower sources will be used to replenish any lost temporary hit points from the highest source.
This passive lacks the conditional check that would limit its function to actual attacks (e.g. actions that use an attack roll). As such, it will trigger on any action or effect that targets a creature. If the Barbarian themselves is Bleeding or Poisoned, self-affecting actions such as Dash will apply the Maimed condition to them.
Due to a coding error, a creature that possesses this passive and starts its turn with less than 3 m / 10 ft will consume more of its movement speed to stand up from the Prone condition than it would have if it did not possess this passive.
It is possible for the Aura of Murder effect to disappear when travelling between the Lower City and Rivington; this can be remedied by toggling the effect off and on in the passives tab of the hotbar.
Due to the way resistances and immunities are handled, enemies resistant to Piercing damage only have their resistance removed (instead of being made vulnerable) by Aura of Murder.
Battle Acuity lacks a OncePerAttack flag. As such, it may trigger multiple times per attack with spells that are considered weapon attacks and include multiple DealDamage functions, such as Booming Blade and the various Smite spells.
The reader is advised that Battlemage's Power appears to have some of the most complex and unintuitive behaviour in the game, making it difficult to distinguish what is actually a bug.
Any damage dealt while wielding a Flame Blade in the main hand triggers Battlemage's Power. The damage can be from any source such as weapon attacks, spell damage (including each dart from Magic Missile), or even damage from status effects like Burning. Battlemage's Power does not trigger if the conjured weapons are in the off-hand, even if attacking with the conjured weapon. This effect also used to work while wielding a Shadow Blade in the main hand, but this was removed in a hotfix after Patch 8.
Battlemage's Power does not function with the Mephistopheles Tiefling version of Flame Blade, as this version has a different condition applied to it which is not listed in the ArcaneAcuityGlovesCondition() .khn script.
Reaction Smites provide acuity if and only if the triggering attack provided acuity. If the source attack does trigger Battlemage's Power, reaction smite triggers them a second time, for a total of +4 Acuity.
Battlemage's Power is meant to have a OncePerAttack restriction, meaning they should only provide Acuity once per damaging event. However, the OncePerAttack limit gets reset every time the player character performs any effect which targets any in-game entity, whether that entity is an enemy, an ally, or the wearer themself.
This includes regular attacks as well as self-target abilities like Dash and Rage.
This also includes effects the game considers an "attack" (due to underlying code) such as: using the Perform action (including in combat), speaking with the Sentient Amulet (including in combat), targeting someone with the ability check version of Bend Luck, and provoking an attack of opportunity (though if the wearer takes damage from it, they lose 2 Acuity).
(As of Hotfix #11, possible Bug) Blessed Healer seems to activate on much more sources of Healing than the tooltip indicates:
Healing Spells of Level 1 and higher that target only the user will trigger both Disciple of Lifeand Blessed Healer (for a total of 4 + 2 * Spell Level).
Any application of Frightened by the wearer triggers Bolstering Smite.
Though not stated in the description, the temporary hit points only last for two turns.
The temporary hit points only have a StackPriority of 1, and as such are overridden by any other source of temporary hit points which have a StackPriority of 1 or higher, even if the new source is of a lesser value.
Despite the description, this passive also includes code which allows affected characters to ignore the effects of Fog as well as any condition in the Blinded status group.
Consuming Alcohol will place the Ki Point recovery feature on cooldown for the remainder of the day even if no Ki Points were recovered due to the Monk not having spent any yet.
The in-game description for Chilling Counter says there is a DC 13 Constitutionsaving throw, but in fact there is no saving throw to avoid the effect. Chilled will be applied on every single missed attack.
Coldbrim Chill triggers under many circumstances even though it appears it should not, due to hidden technical conditions, such as when a ranged weapon attack misses, when Sanctuary is cast near enemies, or when revealing an invisible enemy with See Invisibility.
The in-game description says that the bonus scales with "your" (i.e. the Beast Master's) proficiency bonus, but in fact it uses the companion's proficiency bonus. This means the bonus will not increase to +4 until the final level 11 upgrade to your animal companion rather than at character level 9.
Prior to the level 5 upgrade, animal companions will incorrectly have a proficiency bonus of 0 instead of +2. After the level 5 upgrade, the proficiency bonus will correctly increase to +3. Effectively, this means that at level 5, your animal companions will also receive an increase to their attack rolls equal to their proficiency bonus, but this is not actually part of this feature, merely a consequence of bugged proficiency bonus progression.
Craterous Wounds actually deals an additional 2d6Force damage, as the damage is doubled due to being a critical hit.
When damage is added to a spell or unarmed attack, it is not listed as Craterous Wounds in the combat log.
Throw with a weapon with the Thrown property activates Craterous Wounds an additional time.
Elemental Cleaver or Throwing: Lightning Damage activates Craterous Wounds an additional time. When combined, it results in Craterous Wounds activating three times on a critical hit Throw attack.
The temporary hit points lack a StackPriority and as such are overridden by any other source of temporary hit points, even if the new source is of a lesser value such as from Well-Liked and Well-Fortified.
Darkveil Precision is not automatically applied to the wielder when first equipped while already Lightly Obscured or Heavily Obscured. The wielder must first either move to Clear Area and back, or Hide.
The increased movement distance is tied to the extra weapon attack. Once the extra attack has been made, any unused bonus movement is immediately lost.
Despite misleading tooltips, Dreadful Hewer provides Disadvantage on target's Saving Throws for many effects applying Fearful or Frightened conditions.
Despite the description stating it affects the "next spell", this condition affects all saving throws caused by the Eldritch Knight until it expires. This applies also to non-spell sources such as weapon actions, weapon passives like Blood-Curdling Emission, illithid powers, etc.
Unlike other temporary hit points, the temporary HP granted by Ever Vigilant disappears at the end of combat. This limitation is not stated in the description.
Despite the tooltip suggesting otherwise, Executioner only applies to weapon attack rolls.
When using weapon specific abilities that impose a saving throw such as Pushing Attack (Melee) and Lacerate, Executioner attempts to apply its 'Natural 20' effect to the enemy's saving throw as well as the character's attack. This creates a risk of wasting the Executioner condition to help the enemy.
If the Executioner reaction is set to 'Automatic': the game forces the character's attack roll to a 20 (a Critical Hit) but also forces the target’s Saving Throw to a 20. This grants the enemy a high probability of resisting the secondary effect (e.g., they take the damage but are not pushed).
If the Executioner reaction is set to 'Ask': The game triggers two separate prompts:
First Prompt: asks to turn the character's attack roll into a 20. (Recommend: Yes)
Second Prompt: asks to turn the enemy's Saving Throw into a 20. (Recommend: No)
If the character accepts the second prompt, the Executioner condition is consumed, and the enemy receives a large bonus to their save.
Note: While Saving Throws do not technically 'critically succeed' on a 20, the high roll often results in the enemy resisting the effect.
Wasted Charges: due to a scripting error, Executioner fails to check if the attacking character has already rolled a Natural 20 normally. If the character lands a critical hit on their own, the reaction can still trigger (and be consumed) if they either accept the reaction prompt or have it set to 'Automatic'.
Exotic Material does not work if either the Medium Armour Master or Magic Initiate: Cleric feat is gained. The Magic Initiate: Cleric feat has an unlisted effect that increases the maximum AC bonus from Dexterity while wearing Medium Armour from +2 to +3.
Prophecy: Delivering Alms can never be completed because it references a passive which does not exist in the game code.
Divination Wizards can only have one die per value, yet the game only ensures unique values for Portent dice granted after long rests. This means a fulfilled Prophecy (achieved outside of resting) might result in no extra die if the Wizard already has a die with the same value. For example, a Wizard with 2 Portent dice has a 10% chance of not getting a new die, while a Wizard with a single die has a 5% chance.
Casting area spells while not in turn-based mode can make Prophecies activated by dealing some typed damage to trigger multiple times, resulting in multiple new Portent dice, often overcoming the limit of 3. Example: Casting a Fireball with Lightning Charges against a group of 5 enemies before joining combat under both Prophecy: Burn After Reading and Prophecy: Shocking Revelation results in up to 10 new Portent dice for the Divination Wizard, as both prophecies will be triggered once per enemy.
While the Fiendish Fire saving throw triggers on all damage dealt by the wielder (including spells and other weapons), the effect is only actually applied if the damage originates from this specific weapon. If the target fails the save against a spell or a different melee attack, the status effect will not be inflicted.
If Fiery Return is triggered with a Bonus Action (for example, with Metamagic: Quickened Spell), the extra bonus action granted by this passive is wasted and consumed immediately.
Hellcrawler, a class action granted by the Helldusk Boots, triggers Fiery Return, essentially negating the bonus action cost.
Despite the tooltip stating that an attacker receives Burning upon damaging the wearer, Flaming Shroud requires failing a DC 12 Dexteritysaving throw before Burning is applied.
The required saving throw is attributed to the wearer of the cloak, rather than the attacker, making successful application at higher levels less likely.
Though Flaming Shroud states an attacker must be within 2 m / 7 ft, it only triggers on a melee attack.
When fast traveling between areas that require a loading screen (such as between Act 1 and Act 2, or between the Lower City and Rivington), Freecast and many other abilities have their cooldowns reset.
This allows for multiple Freecast uses in a day, which can be quite useful for buffs or summons requiring high level spell slots such as Heroes' Feast, Planar Ally, and more.
Freecast can be easily reset by having another character apply a condition (such as Guidance or Aura of Protection) on the character seeking to (re)use Freecast.
Freecast becomes disabled when equipping or unequipping a weapon from the ranged weapon slot. It can be re-enabled by re-equipping a melee weapon.
Contrary to the in-game description, the additional Channel Divinity Charge granted by Godswill restores on a short rest. However if the extra charge is expended, and then the amulet is unequipped, the extra charge does not reappear if it is re-equipped before a long rest, and at this point cannot be restored with a short rest.
While a two-handed melee weapon is equipped and the melee weapon slot is active, this passive also triggers damage rerolls on all Throw attacks using weapons with the Thrown property that are not equipped (i.e., in the character's inventory, in a container, or on the ground).
When toggled on, Great Weapon Master reduces Attack Rolls for all melee weapon attacks. However, it also applies to weapon actions from Two-Handed and Versatile (no shield) weapons that deal a fixed 1d4 damage.
These specific 1d4 weapon actions suffer the accuracy penalty without gaining the damage bonus.
Rather than only replenishing once per turn, Grit also activates in each instance upon which the wearer's hit total points are reduced to 50% or lower. Thus, it is possible for the wearer to gain multiple additional bonus actions in a turn by being healed above and then reduced again to 50% or less Hit Points.
Despite its tooltip stating otherwise, Heart of the Storm also activates on cantrips and spells that are flagged as Lightning/Thunder-type but do not deal damage.
Although otherwise implied by the in-game description, the Resistance applied by Helm's Protection is from the standard form of Blade Ward; it applies to any source of Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, not just from weapons.
Once a weapon with the Homing Weapon passive is dropped, this passive will not show if the weapon is examined while it is on the ground. Aditionally, when a dropped weapon with this passive is subsequently picked up and thrown (regardless of which character throws it) it will return to the Main Hand (melee) of the character who initially dropped the item.
Hunter's Eye requires the wearer to be the source of the mentioned conditions on the target; it does not provide an attack roll bonus if another character is the source of the conditions.
Infernal Sight does not see through magical darkness and does not provide the cone of light that is otherwise present with the Darkvision effect from a different source, such as the Darkvision spell, an Elixir of Darkvision, or from having the Darkvision passive innately via race.
The roll for the Poisoned saving throw is not shown in the combat log for either a successful or failed save. Because it has a low DC 12 Constitutionsaving throw, this can give the impression that the poison effect does not work at all.
Lathander's Blessing does not heal allies of the wielder, but rather only active party members nearby.
Due to the way the heal is coded, the attacker who triggered Lathander's Blessing is considered to be the source of the healing. As a result, the healing will not trigger on-heal effects such as Blessed Mercy from The Whispering Promise when equipped by the wielder.
Due to an incorrectly set TargetConditions field, the additional 1d6hit points affects the wielder in addition to the 2d6hit points.
Due to a timing limitation caused by the method in which healing is applied, the wielder may not always receive all of the healing they are stated to have received in the combat log; they often receive only 1hit points (from being stabilized) or 1d6hit points, rather than the stated 1d6+2d6hit points. It is also possible for the wielder to receive healing, yet still remain dead, showing their lootable corpse with remaining hitpoints.
Due to a missing technical condition (MAG_LATHANDERS_TRACKER) resulting from The Blood of Lathander being spawned in-game via a "Local Item", this passive's "Once per Long Rest" cooldown only refreshes for the wielder during a Long Rest. Equipping the weapon on another character that did not wield the weapon during a Long Rest does not allow this passive to trigger. Additionally, Lathander's Blessing is not reset when consuming a Potion of Angelic Slumber or when affected by Divine Intervention: Opulent Revival.
Due to a coding error, a creature that possesses this passive and starts its turn with less than 3 m / 10 ft will consume more of its movement speed to stand up from the Prone condition than it would have if it did not possess this passive.
