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.

 

[Vaalingrade]

why? do 12 year olds not know that the word or place exists (I mean I bet in the internet age most if not all 12 year olds know more about sex then I did at 18) and was this problem new, did it not matter 3,5,7, 10 years ago? I mean they are going to make a NEW Dungeons Masters guide in a year or so, and no one will notice or care if they put other things in... but by calling out errata they call attention, why?

1) A lot of DMs for youth groups are adults. Adults who don't want to discuss sex with minors.

2) It's now rather than 10 years ago because clearly they weren't thinking about that 10 years ago and were also trying to win back Random Harlot Table enjoyers from Pathfinder at the time.

3) Seriously, why is D&D having brothels in canonically so personally important to you, dude?

 

[FormerLurker]

This is just nonsense.

You've decided this is the case. WotC haven't said anything of the sort. You, @FormerLurker, have personally decided that, because you don't like the changes, you're attributing them to malice against you, and that you are somehow "no longer allowed to play" and being told to piss off.

That's not real. That's in your head. You can't claim that as fact. You can't claim "5E was aimed at everyone and now it isn't", because your only evidence is "I don't personally like these changes", which just self-regard nonsense of the silliest kind.

When was the last time they did a compilation or update of old adventures?
How respectful of the past was Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft?
You can notice how they switched sharply from nostalgia and respect for the past to “continuity doesn’t matter, the only think canon is the current books.”

And you can bet the forthcoming 6e will have changes to lore rivalling 4th Edition.

They don’t care about anyone over 25. And you’re kidding yourself if you think they still give a **** about you and won’t burn you to get some college aged kid’s cash.

 

[Blue]

And WotC are only now realizing how successful 5E is with kids, particularly the 8-12 yo kids of people who are aged 30-40.

Just to support this, one of the recent big surveys gave me a rather long and comprehensive set of questions when I answered positively to playing with younger players. This seems something they have awareness and focus on.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Does anyone really do anything 'Italian' on Columbus day? In fact, the country that gets mentioned most on Columbus day is Spain!

I mean, we can totally have a day where drunk people enact offensive Italian stereotypes. No need for the guy who wanted to pork a manatee.

The parade, hosted by various Italian-American groups, followed by a picnic featuring Italian food and music and other traditions. It's more Italian around here (New Jersey, with significant IA populations) is probably more Italian than St Patrick's Day is Irish.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And would you have felt comfortable inviting those 40yo back to your place to continue the game?
Would you have felt comfortable going into their house?

In college, we had two dudes in their forties in our group that we met at the card shop and found out our gaming interests (high RP, snarky comedy games) aligned.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The parade, hosted by various Italian-American groups, followed by a picnic featuring Italian food and music and other traditions. It's more Italian around here (New Jersey, with significant IA populations) is probably more Italian than St Patrick's Day is Irish.

So change it to Italian American Heritage day and celebrate Italians who know how to follow a map.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Thank you for taking the time to explain, and I understand your position much better now. We have competing forces of well developed races from a thematic perspective that makes them special and of interest, and the market force for additional races combined with "kitchen sink" settings where everything can be played so players can do whatever they wish.

I don't know that there is a real answer, though my personal preferences definitely come down more on your side. One of the many things I really like about Eberron is how it gives a fresh take to even the most standard races. I think that's a strong, needed point for a setting - otherwise it's just generic. But I understand the wish to play with all the new toys - I've run out-of-setting races like Loxodon, Fairy, "Custom Lineage". ("Out-of-setting" I mean like playing a warforged in FR, vs. playing a warforged in Eberron where they are strongly tied to the lore of the setting.)

I don't know that there can be a solution for that - new races will come out, often in setting books, and they can't have the barrier to publish that they need to be back-fit into all previously published settings. Especially since with homebrew that still wouldn't cut it.

Best answer I can come up with is: if it's a setting book, be specific. If it's not a setting book, be generic: some rules and some tropes to get started. It seems to be WotC's approach as well, but it makes sense to me (for whatever that's worth.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When was the last time they did a compilation or update of old adventures?
How respectful of the past was Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft?
You can notice how they switched sharply from nostalgia and respect for the past to “continuity doesn’t matter, the only think canon is the current books.”

And you can bet the forthcoming 6e will have changes to lore rivalling 4th Edition.

They don’t care about anyone over 25. And you’re kidding yourself if you think they still give a **** about you and won’t burn you to get some college aged kid’s cash.

Dude. Read your own post.

If you think WotC ever wouldn't have burned a 40-something to get cash from a college kid, you're absolutely deluding yourself. TSR would have done it too! Planescape, Spelljammer and Dark Sun weren't aimed at 40-somethings, mate, they were aimed solidly at 14-24, hell Spelljammer arguably younger (given comic book tie-ins and so on).

You're claiming this is something new and malicious towards you (and presumably me, given I'm 43). That's nonsensical. WotC and TSR before them have always aimed for players in their teens and twenties because those are the most likely to keep playing and spending.

If you're only playing D&D because of "nostalgia and respect for the past", well, buddy that's an incredibly weak reason and you were essentially "looking to leave".

And let's be real, I'm assuming you're say, 40. If you want the maximum people to play with in, say, 10 years, you should be behind WotC on these changes, because annoying 20-somethings now will be much more chill 30-somethings then, and they're not going to have a problem with a 50yo if he's nice/polite/clean etc. I know, because I was 30-something once, and I interact with 30-somethings all the time.

I love how you say 4E-level lore changes as if some of D&D's best lore didn't come from 4E.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So change it to Italian American Heritage day and celebrate Italians who know how to follow a map.

I'm not in charge of it, but that's what I'd vote for.

But more people are clamoring to call it Indigenous People's Day, because Columbus is evil and they only know the name, not the traditions.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You can notice how they switched sharply from nostalgia and respect for the past to “continuity doesn’t matter, the only think canon is the current books.”

Probably because they've now been shown what 'respect for the past' apparently entails.

And you can bet the forthcoming 6e will have changes to lore rivalling 4th Edition.

YAY! dons Dawn War Jersey

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not in charge of it, but that's what I'd vote for.

But more people are clamoring to call it Indigenous People's Day, because Columbus is evil and they only know the name, not the traditions.

I mean they kind of deserve a day too.

And for us to honor our treaties, stop selling their land from under them, not assume all of them are sexpots or magic...

Days for peoples aren't all their cracked up to be anyway. My people get a month and not only is it the worst month weatherwise, but people still grumble about that.

 

[Cadence]

And would you have felt comfortable inviting those 40yo back to your place to continue the game?
Would you have felt comfortable going into their house?

The circumstances where it is appropriate to game with a group including 6th graders is very different from where it is ok to game with a group where the youngest player is 18+.

 

[Cadence]

why? do 12 year olds not know that the word or place exists (I mean I bet in the internet age most if not all 12 year olds know more about sex then I did at 18) and was this problem new, did it not matter 3,5,7, 10 years ago? I mean they are going to make a NEW Dungeons Masters guide in a year or so, and no one will notice or care if they put other things in... but by calling out errata they call attention, why?

I'm guessing a lot of folks access the game online. Removing it now at least stops some parents from needing to figure out how to explain what one is to their pre-teen reading the material that way.

Having it as one line among many in a huge list of errata doesn't really seem like calling things out to me. In any case, I have to believe there will be a big list of all the changes between 5e and 5.5 and that a lot of folks upset about it now would be upset the .

 

[UngeheuerLich]

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

Probalbly you mixed up "most" with "every"...

 

[Hexmage-EN]

It's also interesting to compare and contrast tieflings with orcs and drow. All three have an evil god in their origin story, but whereas orcs and drow have traditionally lived in homogenous communities governed by rulers who are fanatically loyal to their evil gods, tieflings live with the other player character race peoples, don't have their own communities, and aren't particularly loyal to Asmodeus (in the 4E Tiefling supplement book, at least, that's because Asmodeus already has a cosmic claim to their souls he can invoke and doesn't have to do anything else).

Now, this is probably due more to all three's original intent in D&D and how that's influenced what's come after. The original purpose of orcs and others was to be the bad guys you fought (much like how you fight moblins in Zelda, super mutants in Fallout, brutes in Halo, etc). The drow at least had a civilization you could enter without necessarily getting abducted or killed in, but was definitely evil (though Lolth being the primary deity of the drow was, if I understand correctly, a later invention when the early drow worshiped demons and Tharizdun). Tieflings, in contrast, were originally mutants born to non-tieflings who had been affected by the Lower Planes in general; being a people group with a specific link to devils was a later invention. It's very easy to imagine that had the 4E take on tieflings been the original intent for tieflings we'd have whole societies of always Lawful Evil devil worshipping tieflings alongside orcs and drow.

 

[Bagpuss]

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.

Almost the exact same point has been made about Orcs, didn't stop them being changed.

 

[Azzy]

This to me suggests a lack of empathy. If you dont understand someone else's opinions, that's fine. But don't suggest that maybe there's something wrong with them for feeling that way. That just plays into those same concerns.

You can suggest whatever, but it seems unreasonable to take criticism of aspects of one's hobby as criticism of people. It's very concerning.

 

[Umbran]

You're claiming this is something new and malicious towards you (and presumably me, given I'm 43). That's nonsensical. WotC and TSR before them have always aimed for players in their teens and twenties because those are the most likely to keep playing and spending.

Let us look at the demographics, as WotC published them this spring:

If you are 30+, you're already in a group that represents less than half of the current players. If you are 40+, that's down to 13%.

The game, to remain healthy, must over time change its focus to meet the needs and desires and style of new players. Yes, I am sorry, but you can and will age out of relevance to their plans. Sorry, to tell you, but that's the way of it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's also interesting to compare and contrast tieflings with orcs and drow. All three have an evil god in their origin story, but whereas orcs and drow have traditionally lived in homogenous communities governed by rulers who are fanatically loyal to their evil gods, tieflings live with the other player character race peoples, don't have their own communities, and aren't particularly loyal to Asmodeus (in the 4E Tiefling supplement book, at least, that's because Asmodeus already has a cosmic claim to their souls he can invoke and doesn't have to do anything else).

Now, this is probably due more to all three's original intent in D&D and how that's influenced what's come after. The original purpose of orcs and others was to be the bad guys you fought (much like how you fight moblins in Zelda, super mutants in Fallout, brutes in Halo, etc). The drow at least had a civilization you could enter without necessarily getting abducted or killed in, but was definitely evil (though Lolth being the primary deity of the drow was, if I understand correctly, a later invention when the early drow worshiped demons and Tharizdun). Tieflings, in contrast, were originally mutants born to non-tieflings who had been affected by the Lower Planes in general; being a people group with a specific link to devils was a later invention. It's very easy to imagine that had the 4E take on tieflings been the original intent for tieflings we'd have whole societies of always Lawful Evil devil worshipping tieflings alongside orcs and drow.

that is an interesting consideration.

You can suggest whatever, but it seems unreasonable to take criticism of aspects of one's hobby as criticism of people. It's very concerning.

concerning yes but it is utterly common as most people build their identities on the stuff they like not one whatever it is we were supposed to build them on.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just to support this, one of the recent big surveys gave me a rather long and comprehensive set of questions when I answered positively to playing with younger players. This seems something they have awareness and focus on.

I play with my students... And I certainly don't really want to expose them to overexaggerated brutality (like torture) and overtly sexual things.
So that is actually something WotC should keep in mind when designing core books. In Adventures or even settings, that is a different thing. You have a choice to opt in or out.