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.

 

[DarkCrisis]

All this Tiefling talk, I just want to throw out that Annah-of-the-Shadows is the best Tiefling character ever created.

"Jealous!? I'm nah jealous! I dun even know how to spell jealous.""

 

[HammerMan]

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

then don't

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.

wait what?

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

it isn't important, it is weird thing to pop up in errata, and the idea of it HAVING to be errataed out is a bit anti sex worker...

 

[ART!]

Because as much as we try to deny it, this is a children's game

The what now?

 

[HammerMan]

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

again America is named for an Italian

 

[Shadow Demon]

Well, that is it for me. WoTC and I have come to the fork in the road. I have never been positive about WoTC during 3e & 4e era. The D&D brand has come to the end of the line for me. I have outgrown any further patience for their nonsense. There are too many other games that exist that are in sync with my preferences. There is no value-added to sift through garbage to get to my preferred baseline. Life is too short to be in state of irritation. There is enough of that in reality without it spilling over into fantasy.

 

[Minigiant]

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?

DMG

The DMG is for race design.

The issue with 5e has is it assumed DMs are skilled worldbuilders who could adjust old worlds or fully design mass appeal new worlds on their own. There really should have been a whole half chapter on race design. Or a whole book of you wanna do it right right.

 

[Remathilis]

Tieflings are the new Drow. Gotta play the edgy race cause it’s so cool.

Eventually they will introduce a new semi-attractive mostly evil species. People will want to play it. They will. It will get watered down. It will get over done and the process will repeat.

Can I introduce you to Dhampiir's?

 

[HammerMan]

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 .

I can't imagine anyone would even notice (let alone call out) it not being in the new book,

Also the parents can tell them what ever they feel comfortable with... but sex work is work

 

[FormerLurker]

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).

That's a bit of a different time as the game was only 15-ish years old when they were doing Planescape and Spelljammer and Dark Sun. The 40-somethings playing were people who started in their 30s, and the 24-year-olds were people who started when they were 10.

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'm not "looking to leave" but after two years of products I just didn't really care about I started to wonder why I was still following the D&D news. But it was okay, because there's lots of people who play D&D and not every product needs to be geared to me. That's actually a good thing. D&D should be for everyone. That's always been my mantra.
But I'm also a huge Ravenloft fan. It was my first setting and the fourth D&D product I ever purchased. So Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft had to be for me and the Ravenloft fans, right? Nope. Also not for me. The ONE product that should have been as easy-like turned out to be the opposite of what I wanted.

An all-nostalgia product schedule is bad. The game can't live entirely on nostalgia, and every product can't be "remember when..." And I'll be the first to admit that the early years of 5e were a little too nostalgia-heavy.
But now they've gone too far in the other direction.

D&D should be for everyone. I shouldn't be an afterthought. My support shouldn't be assumed.
I've fought and argued in support of queer representation in D&D. More people of colour in the books and on the D&D team. Inclusivity in the game and among gamers.
It feels like I should give myself the same courtesy and support.

I think they need a healthy place in the middle where they respect and build on the past and have something for all members of their audiences, rather than catering entirely to a specific subgroup. Keep what works and use it as a solid foundation to build up the game rather than arbitrarily tossing out ideas and lore. Rather than dumping all the old in order to chase a fickle new fanbase who may or may not be in it for the long haul.
We don't know what percentage of the current young fanbase will grow out of the game and view it as a fad or something they did as kids.

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

For some. For others, not so much.
The catch is always when you make a change, some people will like it and some will hate it. And you're telling the latter player that they have bad taste.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Well, that is it for me. WoTC and I have come to the fork in the road. I have never been positive about WoTC during 3e & 4e era. The D&D brand has come to the end of the line for me. I have outgrown any further patience for their nonsense. There are too many other games that exist that are in sync with my preferences. There is no value-added to sift through garbage to get to my preferred baseline. Life is too short to be in state of irritation. There is enough of that in reality without it spilling over into fantasy.

It took me a while to realize I dont have to play 5th ed to get what I want out of a D&D. Ive told my group, if I run D&D it's 1st or 2nd ed. but Ill happily play 5th if someone else wants to run it.

I'm planning on trying The One Ring 2E a soon as I get the book in my hands as well.