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.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Pixie Dust is like Ketamine...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Bunnies eat their young when even slightly stressed.

Owls are silent engines of death.

Totally not gritty.

Edit: as if 'gritty' was a universal positive'

 

[Mind of tempest]

Now this is more my concern, in that removing these elements of clear "good and bad" without seeing new avenues of conflict being fleshed out for new DMs and players to build off of. I admit, it's easy for me to give up these writing crutches because of my experience. But I have bought my fair share of games that had great systems but only broad strokes for setting and not near enough to easily glom on to to create drama. It's good to let go of storytelling elements that are past their social expiration date, but games should have fresh new ideas to replace them. I do worry that not enough development is occurring to fill in the gaps of the changes. I am hopeful that 2024's revisions will keep this in mind.

given I have only been in three failed campaigns I know the difficulty of starting out the game.
personally, I am not hopeful but I consider hope the same thing as self-deception, let us hope I am wrong.

 

[Umbran]

Bards.

As a founding member of the Harpers, Eliminster is a bard by association.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I still believe Gods are next up on the chopping block for major retcons and sensitivity training, and any Real World ones will be dropped for sure.

There's probably a bunch of good reasons they'd drop real world ones.

2e was the last edition to have the Hindu Gods in D&D. While I'm not Hindu, I certainly disagree with Shiva and Kali been given Evil alignments. I could only imagine how much worse actual Hindus might actually look on D&D's treatment of the rest of them.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Bards.

1. Bards are the worst.

2. Elminster is a founder of the Harpers.

3. A harp is a signature of a liar lyre. It's no coincindence that so many harpers are BARDS.

5. Marty Stu is therefore responsible for the biggest collection of Bards in the realms. It's like a brothel MUSIC HALL full of 'em.

5. Therefore, Elminster is the BIGGEST BARD in the FR.

Q.

To the E.

To the D.


Edit- Ninja'd by Umbran!

 

[Professor Murder]

100% and I get that, and I have learned to live with it, by simply dismissing Wizards work in this regard as irrelevant.

Doesnt mean I dont find it unintentionally hilarious to watch them remove and remove and remove, chasing after some utopian purity that will offend nobody.

So then, all that's left to ask is "Am I siding with scoundrels?"

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And now I want rules for Pizza in 5e...

(Which now has me sidetracked to "The Great Pineapple War" campaign)

When I am king of the known universe, I am going to errata bad toppings from pizza.

And New Zealand too. Can't be too careful when it comes to preserving pizza!

 

[Scribe]

There's probably a bunch of good reasons they'd drop real world ones.

2e was the last edition to have the Hindu Gods in D&D. While I'm not Hindu, I certainly disagree with Shiva and Kali been given Evil alignments. I could only imagine how much worse actual Hindus might actually look on D&D's treatment of the rest of them.

100% I'm honestly surprised it hasnt been done already in some capacity, but for SURE they all get dropped in 5.5.

So then, all that's left to ask is "Am I siding with scoundrels?"

Not sure I follow, but nah, I dont believe you are a scoundrel.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To me, the bottom line is that the game has become demonstrably less interesting as written. WotC's drive to generisize the game hasedme to disregard their opinion, and solidifies my earlier stance of treating them as no better than any other content creator.