D&D 5E Latest D&D Errata: Drow, Alignment, & More

Sage Advice is a series of articles in which Jeremy Crawford, one of the D&D Studio’s game design architects, talks about the design of the game’s rules and answers questions about them.

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

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D&D books occasionally receive corrections and other updates to their rules and story. This Sage Advice installment presents updates to several books. I then answer a handful of rules questions, focusing on queries related to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons and Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos.

Official errata has been published for the following books:

• Curse of Strahd
• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Player’s Handbook
• Storm King’s Thunder
• Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
• Tales from the Yawning Portal
• Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
• Tomb of Annihilation
• Volo’s Guide to Monsters

Here's some of the highlights.

• Alignment is removed from the Racial Traits section of races.
• Drow have undergone lore changes which reflect the different types of drow. The 'darkness of the drow' sidebar which portrays them as only evil has been removed.
• Storm King's Thunder alters references to 'Savage Frontier' and 'barbarians'; Curse of Strahd alters references to the Vistani.
• The controversial Silvery Barbs spell has been clarified.

As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to con- jure forth both light and darkness. Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.

The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has cor- rupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is no Prism Pentad. There never was. The only Dark Sun books ever published were the original boxed set.

You have been reported to the Grognard Thought Police for references to proscribed metaplot.

If I'm going to be mindwiped, but it means the Prism Pentad is gone from my mind, I'm all for it! Strap me in the chair people!

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I can't wait for D&D to have generic cultures and teach DMs and worldbiilders to mix and match as well as throw in interesting flairs, twists and connections.

Just have forest folk, mountain folk, hillfolk, dark folk, deep folk, tinker folk, magic folk, knightly folk, wild folk, barbaric folk, holy folk, unholy folk, etc and let DMs and setting designers attached races to the cultures.

Or you know design a new setting from scratch and stop milking old ideas for nostalgia money.

 

[Bagpuss]

Personally I can't wait for D&D to have generic cultures and teach DMs and worldbiilders to mix and match as well as throw in interesting flairs, twists and connections.

Just have forest folk, mountain folk, hillfolk, dark folk, deep folk, tinker folk, magic folk, knightly folk, wild folk, barbaric folk, holy folk, unholy folk, etc and let DMs and setting designers attached races to the cultures.

Ah so instead or Elves being a monoculture (not that they have been in D&D) all folk from the forests share the same culture...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think the critics today are people arguing a strawman-like argument. The changes are being made due to hypothetical situations rather than anything that’s actually happened. The argument is "What if someone was thinking of getting into D&D and they saw the word barbarian. In theory, they might be turned off by that given it has historically been used to demean certain people. I've never met anyone who would be turned off by that but I could conceive of someone who was, so we should change it."

Every time I see these things brought up it is always in the context of "I'm not offended by this but I'm sure someone else might be. Let's change it to be safe."

Sure, you can think that, but you're demonstrably wrong, because loads of people have discussed this, and ways in which it was a big turn-off for them, or harmful to them. There's nothing hypothetical about it.

So it's a bit like saying "Women don't actually care about sexist or derogatory language! It's just people being overprotective!". Like there are plenty of people in bubbles who believe nonsense like this, but it doesn't make it any less nonsense.

 

[Minigiant]

Ah so instead or Elves being a monoculture (not that they have been in D&D) all folk from the forests share the same culture...

Actually I would do 3-4

The Forest Culture.
The Wood Culture.
The Wild Culture
The Bramble Culture.

Sorta like how you have Dark races, Shadow races, and Deep races.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The target audience will be half my age.

I mean, wasn't that always inevitable? Hasn't it arguably been true for a long time? I'd say that the primary audience target for 3E, for example, was actually people in their very late teens through mid-twenties, based on everything about the marketing, design, approaches and so on. Sure it worked fine for older people, but if you were over 40 back then, it was aimed at a target audience "half your age". Sooner or later, you were always going to be "twice the age" of the target audience.

So feeling "slighted" seems like you projecting malice onto inevitability. It'd be like me being mad most AAA video games now are aimed at people aged like 16-30 when I'm 43. I was once in the target audience, but I aged out of it. There isn't any malice involved. And being older than the target audience doesn't mean you can't enjoy something. I mean jeez, I'm pretty sure Arcane on Netflix had a target audience under 20, or not much older, but I enjoyed it.

And when I was younger I often enjoyed things I was wildly "too young" for, target-audience-wise. I mean, jeez I used to watch Last of the Summer Wine, which clearly had a primary audience in at least their 50s (it was about men in their 50s/60s), and all sort of other shows. Cheers was my favourite show and I was really sad when it ended when I was all of 15, and I guarantee the "target audience" for that was in its 30s or later by then.

So honestly, I'd say "get over it". Ageing happens. Being too old or too young to be the target audience for something does not actually mean you can't enjoy it (with the possible exception of stuff aimed at actual small children).

 

[DarkCrisis]

Didn't it just start with the ones in the module were evil and then the entire species was flanderized?

Like how people are railing against smart, non-evil orcs in the setting of Obold Man-Arrows?

That whole situation is hilarious IMO. Salvatore made good orcs, WotC made him back off it, now they come back and want him to back off the back off, but he’s already established that his main characters goddess said “yes orcs are evil” and now Drizzt has to be all agnostic for it to work….

 

[Bagpuss]

Actually I would do 3-4

The Forest Culture.
The Wood Culture.
The Wild Culture
The Bramble Culture.

Sorta like how you have Dark races, Shadow races, and Deep races.

So would these be in the Player's Handbook,

4 plant like cultures, how many mountain cultures? Are hillfolk in among the mountain ones or are there half a dozen of those as well?
Surely not one lot of dark folk and are deep folk part of mountain or dark cultures or do we have separate subcultures within those, or is deep a reference to the sea?

Just the one culture for the Tinker folk, magic folk, knightly folk, wild folk, barbaric folk, holy folk, unholy folk?

Hmm soon you end up with it being too unwieldly to fit in the PHB, better to be in a setting specific book so you could have the Dalesfolk for example or people from Cormyr, etc.

But then what do you put in the PHB? Nothing so without a setting book DM's and Players have no guidance at all, which seems to be the direction WotC is heading with Volo, removing stuff and not putting anything back. Or have a few examples which seems to be exactly what the current PHB is, so why change it?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Random musings on the creatures and races touched by the Volo's Guide errata:

• If they're going to seriously move away from orcs usually being evil WotC needs to do work to give them an identity beyond that instead of just saying "not all orcs". Most of their identity comes from Gruumsh and the other orc gods. When minotaurs were made a playable race in 4E a good deal of support was given to describing what minotaurs who don't worship Baphomet are like, including describing what alternative gods were most often worshipped. This was aided by 4E deemphasizing racial pantheons and making gods formerly associated with specific creatures more generally applicable and at times describing things like statues depicting Bahamut as a minotaur, for example.
• Unless they come up with some really interesting changes for the yuan-ti I personally am keeping the Volo's Guide description of yuan-ti society and psychology while allowing for the possibility of yuan-ti individuals and communities who grew apart from their evil ancestors. This effectively makes yuan-ti purebloods akin to tieflings and yuan-ti abominations akin to cambions. This also means you can have the possibility of the original serpent culture origins of the yuan-ti so far removed that hardly anyone remembers them or cares.
• 5E was a major stepback for gnolls, which had been given the treatment of player race in 4E only to become essentially demonic extensions of Yeenoghu clothed in hyena flesh. That said, the 4E treatment was mostly about how non-Yeenoghu worshipping gnolls resisted the demon lord (alongside amusing roleplaying advice that gnolls think the concept of politeness in conversation is silly and will say things like "give me that now" instead of "could you hand that to me" without intending to be rude). Like orcs, if gnolls aren't going to be mostly evil anymore then effort needs to be made to give them an identity independent of their patron demon lord. Maybe bring back the lore of the god Gorellik creating the gnolls but being killed by Yeenoghu, making gnolls not Yeenoghu's creations but a people whose creator was slain and are being targeted for domination by a demon lord who views them as his prize for killing a god. That single handedly gives you a reason to deemphasize Yeenoghu's central importance to gnoll society as their true master and turn him more into a bogeyman or Satan figure.

With that said...why bother with "not all Beholders are bad"? Their entire function in the game is to be boss monsters with an assortment of dangerous eye beams and their lore pretty much serves to reinforce them being lone boss monsters with minions who don't associate with other boss monsters so the DM won't throw two boss monsters at players at once. Is anyone really clamoring for Xurkgalok Doomsphere to become a respected member of society?

 

[Marandahir]

Random musings on the creatures and races touched by Volo's Guide:

• If they're going to seriously move away from orcs usually being evil WotC needs to do work to give them an identity beyond that instead of just saying "not all orcs". Most of their identity comes from Gruumsh and the other orc gods. When minotaurs were made a playable race in 4E a good deal of support was given to describing what minotaurs who don't worship Baphomet are like, including describing what alternative gods were most often worshipped. This was aided by 4E deemphasizing racial pantheons and making gods formerly associated with specific creatures more generally applicable and at times describing things like statues depicting Bahamut as a minotaur, for example.
• Unless they come up with some really interesting changes for the yuan-ti I personally am keeping the Volo's Guide description of yuan-ti society and psychology while allowing for the possibility of yuan-ti individuals and communities who grew apart from their evil ancestors. This effectively makes yuan-ti purebloods akin to tieflings and yuan-ti abominations akin to cambions.
• 5E was a major stepback for gnolls, which had been given the treatment of player race in 4E only to become essentially demonic extensions of Yeenoghu clothed in hyena flesh. That said, the 4E treatment was mostly about how non-Yeenoghu worshipping gnolls resisted the demon lord (alongside amusing roleplaying advice that gnolls think the concept of politeness in conversation is silly and will say things like "give me that now" instead of "could you hand that to me" without intending to be rude). Like orcs, if gnolls aren't going to be mostly evil anymore then effort needs to be made to give them an identity independent of their patron demon lord. Maybe bring back the lore of the god Gorellik creating the gnolls but being killed by Yeenoghu, making gnolls not Yeenoghu's creations but a people whose creator was slain and are being targeted for domination by a demon lord that many of them resist.

With that said...why bother with "not all Beholders are bad"? Their entire function in the game is to be boss monsters with an assortment of dangerous eye beams and their lore pretty much serves to reinforce them being lone boss monsters with minions who don't associate with other boss monsters. Is anyone really clamoring for Xurkgalok Doomsphere to become a respected member of society?

The 4e Gnoll article was written by Keith Baker, who was trying to import his Znir Pact Gnolls from Eberron into Nerath while keeping the baseline story of the demonic gnoll hordes of Yeenoghu being the destruction of the Nerathi empire and the fall of the Capital Nera specifically.

WotC very clearly don't want Gnolls as playable because they see Gnolls as essentially a type of non-demon/devil/yugoloth fiend, like Night Hags, Incu/Succubi, and Rakshasas. If they for some reason stopped being Chaotic Evil, they'd no longer be Gnolls, they'd be something completely different.

But there is still a role for hyena-like characters, and if you want to use Gnolls that aren't evil for some reason, why not adapt something like Leonin as a template and modify slightly? There's also Znir Pact Gnolls published in "Exploring Eberron" for 5e by Keith Baker.