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.

 

[JEB]

In the section on the Abyss, they changed one entry in the table from "Mad Ambition" to "Overwhelming Ambition".

Wonder if we'll see "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" get a rename, too. (Perhaps not "Dungeon of the Overwhelming Mage", though.)

Former employees of WotC have commented that the higher ups actively push mechanics into every single product they can because mechanics sell more books.

Sounds like a strategy going forward for sourcebooks could be more and more new more mechanics (because mechanics sell books) and less and less defined lore (because it's easier to remove potentially problematic lore than to fix it). Sounds kind of like... all the D&D books I tended to skip over in previous editions. (The 4E Monster Manual was what unsold me on 4E, for example; Monster Vault came along too late to pull me back.)

If something like that is the strategy for the future of 5E, should be an interesting test of the execs' theory. I'm a bit skeptical that any game can sustain its sales mainly on new mechanics, though...

 

[Li Shenron]

Interesting that they are still making PHB technical changes after all these years... I am referring here to those couple of "nonmagical weapon" replaced by "nonmagical attack" and the Find Familiar changes.

Alignment-related changes are part of the general shift. Frankly I don't mind it one way or another, as usual it is up to the DMs to decide the alignment nature of creatures (individually and as a group) in their fantasy world, so it won't bother me if alignment sections are missing from new books while my copy of Volo's will still have them.

One change though seems overly callous to me: the removal of the "cultural alternations" paragraph from DMG. The way I read it, that paragraph is actually about your own freedom to vary the standard races (and doesn't even mention alignment, just other stuff) and I think this kind of freedom actually goes together with ending the alignment suggestions.

 

[pukunui]

One change though seems overly callous to me: the removal of the "cultural alternations" paragraph from DMG. The way I read it, that paragraph is actually about your own freedom to vary the standard races (and doesn't even mention alignment, just other stuff) and I think this kind of freedom actually goes together with ending the alignment suggestions.

I suspect the reason they got rid of that part is because it’s in the “creating a new race” section, and they’re trying to separate innate racial features from learned cultural traits.

 

[JEB]

One change though seems overly callous to me: the removal of the "cultural alternations" paragraph from DMG. The way I read it, that paragraph is actually about your own freedom to vary the standard races (and doesn't even mention alignment, just other stuff) and I think this kind of freedom actually goes together with ending the alignment suggestions.

Just noticed that myself. In addition to the excellent point you mention, it really makes me wonder how much support they plan to provide to DMs for designing cultures (for all races). Note they're not modifying this section, it's going away entirely. Taking away tools to inspire DMs to create unique cultures is going to discourage diversity, and encourage flat, stereotypical portrayals...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Just noticed that myself. In addition to the excellent point you mention, it really makes me wonder how much support they plan to provide to DMs for designing cultures (for all races). Note they're not modifying this section, it's going away entirely. Taking away tools to inspire DMs to create unique cultures is going to discourage diversity, and encourage flat, stereotypical portrayals...

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".

 

[JEB]

It's redundant. Since DMs are not being told: "this is how it is" there is no need to tell them "but you can do it differently".

Ha, guess that works out pretty well for Wizards, doesn't it? Now, when novice DMs rely on pop culture and memes to fill in the void for NPC behavior, and present elves and dwarves and goblins and orcs that are ten times more stereotypical than what D&D had in 2014, at least their hands are clean!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ha, guess that works out pretty well for Wizards, doesn't it? Now, when novice DMs rely on pop culture and memes to fill in the void for NPC behavior, and present elves and dwarves and goblins and orcs that are ten times more stereotypical than what D&D had in 2014, at least their hands are clean!

It what we always did.

 

[JEB]

Errata for the following books, in PDF.

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

Interestingly missing from this list are Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Xanathar's Guide to Everything, which - like Volo's and Tasha's - are represented - partly and in full, respectively - in the upcoming Rules Expansion Gift Set. I wonder if we'll see errata for both by the end of the year, or if somehow they didn't merit the same sorts of changes. (I could buy that with Xanathar's, but not with Mordenkainen's.)

 

[see]

Looks like they didn't remove the Hypersensitive trait from the description in the "Grognard" entry, though.

(Looks over to the left, then up, then back to the left, then back up.)

Hmmm.

 

[Alby87]

Maybe they will release a Forgotten Realms "something" setting (book, boxed or new kind of thing) that can scale based on sensitivity of the reader? For example, checkboxes on "mad", "cannibalism" and other sensible arguments. The base Volo's Book is for everyone, then you can adjust the cruent details based on some variable thing? (like adictional PDFs, D&D Beyond/WotcVTT texts, etc?)