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.

dnd.wizards.com

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.

 

[Remathilis]

There's an ideal that people can choose to work in the sex industry of their own volition and without issue... but in many places in our world's past, that ideal has not been present. People working in the sex industry have not been there by choice, or could make their own decisions, or were harassed / cajoled / assaulted / threatened etc. to be a part of it.

So if I had to venture a guess... the term 'brothel' has cultural reference and significance of not being a place of choice for the people involved. The same way the use of the term 'pimp' has its own connotations that imply cultural indicators of less than above-board conduct.

Now yes, we always have the "But not all..." excuse built in to any of this stuff, but usually if the lowest common denominator of implication from hearing a word is not that great... people are choosing to just try and remove the terms from common use. If there's a newer and better word, then maybe they'd go with it. But whatever that word is that would replace 'brothel' would probably be a modern one that would look out of place in a supposed medieval landscape.

I see your point, but I kinda feel it's very akin to removing "demon and devil" from 2nd edition because those words have strong implications for certain religious people who took offense to them. Now, the reason for the words removal might be different and the group who would be offended certainly had a different motivation, but the idea that we are sanitizing D&D again to avoid offensive or sensitive topics just feels a little like deja Vu ...

 

[HammerMan]

There's an ideal that people can choose to work in the sex industry of their own volition and without issue... but in many places in our world's past, that ideal has not been present. People working in the sex industry have not been there by choice, or could make their own decisions, or were harassed / cajoled / assaulted / threatened etc. to be a part of it.

wow...just wow. Most people don't 'choose' Mcdonalds either... places where SW isn't looked at as a crime find LESS of all of that (look at NV.

So if I had to venture a guess... the term 'brothel' has cultural reference and significance of not being a place of choice for the people involved. The same way the use of the term 'pimp' has its own connotations that imply cultural indicators of less than above-board conduct.

where I can see pimp, Brothal is normally the SAFE place.

Now yes, we always have the "But not all..." excuse built in to any of this stuff, but usually if the lowest common denominator of implication from hearing a word is not that great...

it should be... again look at anywhere SW is legal (and it should be, it is work) brothels' are the safest places to do it, and least likely to have trafficking's.

If there's a newer and better word, then maybe they'd go with it. But whatever that word is that would replace 'brothel' would probably be a modern one that would look out of place in a supposed medieval landscape.

 

[Li Shenron]

It's redundant. Since DMs are no longer being told: "this is how it is" there is no need to tell them "but you can do it differently".

Well ok, but then almost half of the DMG is "redundant"

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm a fan in general of these changes, but I don't think WotC quite gets what they're implying by removing the mannerism entry for NPCs to have speech impediments/disorders.

Does seem odd with the push for representation in some areas like wheelchair adventurers and then to remove representation in another.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is not the removal of presentation. It is the step away from absolutes.
While in an adventure or setting book, I could accept more narrow desriptions, a core book should not have implied setting assumptions.

In Menzoberanzan most drows are evil, because they never learnt a different way of life is different than saying all drow tend to be evil because it is their nature.

 

[Geoff Thirlwell]

I think the thing with barbarians is to distinguish between the barbarian class and a tribe of barbarian people where probably only a small part are members of the barbarian class

 

[HammerMan]

In Menzoberanzan most drows are evil, because they never learnt a different way of life is difderent than saying all drow tend to be evil because it is their nature.

yeah that doesn't sound much better... so each merchant, each slave, most beat down children are evil... in a huge metropolis?

 

[DEFCON 1]

wow...just wow. Most people don't 'choose' Mcdonalds either... places where SW isn't looked at as a crime find LESS of all of that (look at NV.

where I can see pimp, Brothal is normally the SAFE place.

it should be... again look at anywhere SW is legal (and it should be, it is work) brothels' are the safest places to do it, and least likely to have trafficking's.

If this was a Modern rpg, then the implication of the word 'brothel' would more likely denote the modern locations you speak of, sure. And quite possibly be more acceptable and less prone to invoking the issues that sex-work has had over its history. But for a game that takes place in a pseudo-medieval setting, the word 'brothel' taken from that time period I imagine invokes much different ideas than the modern use, which is why WotC might be deciding to go in the direction they are going.

I mean, this isn't anything new. Every single word connotes different things depending on the context it is being used. Look at a word like 'Master'. That word can imply all sorts of things, many positive and many quite negative. So depending on what the book is you are writing and what the context for the word is, using the word 'Master' might be a right call or a very, very wrong one. 'Brothel' can be seen the exact same way I think.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I see your point, but I kinda feel it's very akin to removing "demon and devil" from 2nd edition because those words have strong implications for certain religious people who took offense to them. Now, the reason for the words removal might be different and the group who would be offended certainly had a different motivation, but the idea that we are sanitizing D&D again to avoid offensive or sensitive topics just feels a little like deja Vu ...

Yeah... but so what? All it means is that in 20 years time once our current culture discussions play themselves out... perhaps all these words find themselves being put back in because things ended up not playing out what the folks of today thought they might. And if that happens, what's been lost?

I mean, did anyone find that 2E D&D was unplayable without having devils and demons in them? Based on what I've ever heard about how people reacted to that game... I'd say No. People played and enjoyed 2E without issue. And for those players for whom it DID matter... they just continued playing AD&D and never lost those creatures.

And that's always the point. The people who feel like they NEED all orcs to be vicious monsters (for example) are going to play with them that way regardless of whatever a new book writes. So there is absolutely no reason why the book can't change. The only reason why someone wants a book not to change is so that they don't have to feel like their beliefs are being left behind. But I mean come on... we're all adults here. We can and should get over that need for a cultural pat-on-the-back.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The other big change in the PHB has to do with removing alignment from all the race entries and changing the way its worded elsewhere in the book.

They've also rearranged some of the wording in the find familiar spell and made it so Small PCs can legally use the clone spell on themselves.

They've also clarified that the various bonus cantrips that certain clerics and druids get don't count against the normal number of cantrips they know.

In the DMG, they've changed a number of things in various tables - e.g. swapping out "brothel" for "music hall" and "stutters / lisps" for "speaks in an unusually formal manner" and such. In the section on the Abyss, they changed one entry in the table from "Mad Ambition" to "Overwhelming Ambition". They must have had a sensitivity reader go through the book.


There's some interesting changes in the Storm King's Thunder errata, like changing "pixie dust" to "faerie dust". They've also redone all the spellcasting dragons, giants and humanoids, giving them the newer spellcasting action option. They've reworded stuff about the Northlanders and Uthgardt -- looks like they're trying to remove the word "barbarian".


With the SCAG, they've finally gotten rid of the extraneous "Keen Senses" half-elf variant swap, and they've updated the radiant soul's sun bolt and swashbuckler's rakish audacity - presumably to bring them into line with their more recent versions.


Tales from the Yawning Portal now actually has errata, but still nowhere near as much as it should have.


ToA has had "mad monkey fever" renamed "blue mist fever" and it just causes you to see illusory blue monkeys. Given this change, and the removal of other instances of "mad" or "madness", it's a wonder they didn't completely remove the section on madness effects in the DMG.

With Volo's, they've removed all the race references to alignment, and they've added in some disclaimers about how the book is entirely Volo's perspective and may not reflect "reality" in worlds other than the Forgotten Realms. Most of the "roleplaying X race" sections have been removed or have had a "use this as inspiration" disclaimer added to them.


The CoS changes are all pretty minor.

That's funny because certain sections of Volo's doesn't represent even the Forgotten Realms well, the Yuan Ti section doesn't even mention the creator races, it's a weird blend of generic with FR lore and just messes things up, just like MToF and FToD. The Hag and Giant sections are an exception, they don't mangle FR lore and the only major issue with Mindflayer lore is they messed up the Mindflayer Gods who are not only very real in FR, they ended up stranded on Toril like the other Gods during the time of troubles.

I also don't like they removed the Brothel reference in the DMG.

I'm surprised the Drow section didn't mention the Udadrow, Lorendrow, and Aevendrow split given they High Elf section mentions Sun and Moon Elves.