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.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They don't need to do that, because even the young people of today know that murder is rarely the method used for money or power acquisition.

Yeah, negligent homicide is really the modern way to go.

Like the PCs would organize to sell orcs health potions that give them heart murmurs then sell heart murmur medicine.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Radically over stated, there are far more legitimate Brothels, and by that I mean slave and children free (mostly adult message parlors and stripclubs that allow or look the other way when talent offers "extras" as in most places Brothels aren't official legal in most places in North America which causes tons of harm and puts men and women in danger).

The person you are replying to isn't from North America.

 

[Scribe]

Satanic panic was a minority of ninnies. It only took SIX letters to Sears for TSR to remove devils and demons.

These changes are ones the creators feel better about and, as far as I can tell, a huge contingent of their new customers.

On top of it the satanic panic was folks trying to STOP D&D, these changes are for folks who currently play and will continue too.

Conflating the two is disingenuous in my view.

We are at the point of crouching language about Beholders and Mindflayers in as loose and non definitive ways as possible, for reasons. It's not as far off as you think, even if the twitter algorithms make us think their are major problems.

 

[Professor Murder]

This isn't the issue. It's the line of what is or isn't problematic, and what the downstream impacts are of where the line is drawn in terms of design. RE: ASI.

The why is also debatable, but gets threads locked.

It's my observation that the two broad sides are "Some things are problematic and we want to talk about them" and "Nothing is problematic so why talk about it." I'm pro conversation.

In the same way I don't have much use for rolling ability scores, I'm fine with decoupling character race from ability scores. It frees up more design space for PCs to be the heroic standouts from the general population that they are meant to be.

 

[Vaalingrade]

See how easy it is to omit the things you don't like without changing the game significantly for everybody else...

well unless you are WotC that is.

They.

Own.

The IP.

They are free to change it as they desire.

And I had to change a major part of the PLANET to get rid of some garbage because some dude in the 60's had a fetish he put into a Book D&D's writers liked.

 

[Scribe]

It's my observation that the two broad sides are "Some things are problematic and we want to talk about them" and "Nothing is problematic so why talk about it." I'm pro conversation

I'd argue if you are going with 'Nothing' on one side, the other is 'Everything'.

Pixie Dust.
Wall of the Faithless.
Monsterous Aberrations! LOL
Brothels.

Wizards has jumped the shark.

 

[Cadence]

edit and "brothel" for "music hall" isn't even close to like for like... I mean they could have put 'casino' or 'gambling hall' or almost anything there... and they choose music hall?

Is this giving more official space to bards or restricting it ;-)

Anyway, in westerns, would it often be some combination of saloon/hotel/music hall?

 

[el-remmen]

There are things like slavery and abuse and racial oppression in my D&D games, because pretending to kill slavers, abusers, and bigots and rescuing the people they are oppressing is FUN!

In the real world there are complex problems and discovering the best way to address them without doing more harm is difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible.

In D&D there are sufficiently complex problems that can be cathartically solved through righteous violence.

That said, if people don't want that stuff in their games at all. . . I get it. It just wouldn't be the game for me.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Is this giving more official space to bards or restricting it ;-)

Anyway, in westerns, would it often be some combination of saloon/hotel/music hall?

Also bank, general store, and place for public meetings, and voting location. Occasionally also where you got your hair cut.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wizards has jumped the shark.

Congratulations! You've reached a point in your D&D playing that others had already reached back in editions 1, 2, 3, 3.5, and 4! So don't worry! You're not alone!