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.

 

[stonemage]

I AM NOT FUELING THE FIRE
That said, WOTC has been very savvy about "field testing" their new content, example Unearthed Arcana followed by a survey.
This "might" be an attempt to see how far they can swing the pendulum without alienating the "fanbase". All with an eye toward the mythical "6.0".

Just my two coppers...
Be warned, I have a permenant "Barkskin" in place. You won't hurt my feelings if you don't agree.

 

[Cadence]

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... murder usually results from people hating other people for who they are.

This whole idea of "murder for profit" that D&D and GTA and any and all games that involving "looting" have is for the most part completely fantastical and everyone knows that. If you want to make any sort of money... no one goes out to kill people to do it, they are so many other better and safer ways to do so and get away with it and become much more wealthy because of it.

And that's why even Millenials and Gen Z aren't that much concerned about D&D's game mechanic of "kill them and take their stuff"... because that's for the most part the fakest thing in the entire game.

Going for realism, now I'm wondering what the D&D equivalent of drones would be and what class would have training to fly them to take out the opponents?

 

[HammerMan]

That’s just how errata works

normally for rules no just words that are places

 

[HammerMan]

I don't think "sex work is okay because religion" is any more acceptable...

how about just sex work is work...
farmers and serf were little more then slaves so why not remove that too.
heck most of us sell our bodies to companies that treat us bad and don't care about us... some even falling into the abusive line.

 

[DarkCrisis]

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.

They got rid of the Wall of the Faithless? Why?

 

[Weiley31]

They got rid of the Wall of the Faithless? Why?

People found the idea that anybody in DND that was an absolute Atheist becoming a Lego Block for a giant Underworld Lego Wall was not kosher. Especially since the Paladin and Cleric in 5E technically don't get their powers from Deities now.

 

[Scribe]

They got rid of the Wall of the Faithless? Why?

Stealth errata months (year?) ago. No explanation I ever saw, but I don't use twitter.

 

[Professor Murder]

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.

You can argue whatever you like. What you should observe is what your argument demands of others. It's not a challenge for me to weigh "game fidelity" against "game accessibility and inclusiveness." For others it may be. The cold fact is that WotC is going to make DnD as vanilla as possible to cast the widest net to draw in the most people to their products. Ultimately, drawing in more people to the hobby over all is a net good. If it costs me explicit language that Drow are all evil, somehow I will learn to live with that.

 

[Mind of tempest]

A dull and bland character to whom? You? You don't want your new players bore you with dull roleplaying so you need the books to give as much detail as possible so that they aren't trapped into being uninteresting?

I hate to break it to you... but if a player is "boring", no amount of detail to read is going to help them not be a boring player. They will be boring as a Human Fighter or as a Kenku Path of the Zealot Barbarian / Circle of the Shepherd Druid.

And besides... it doesn't even matter. They aren't at the table for your entertainment, they are there for their own. So if you think they're boring to watch play... well, too bad.

I am not speaking as a dm as I am only a player, not a dm so what makes it easier for my fellow player to be inspired is in my interest as we can bounce of each other to be better at role play beside some time a starting point gives you something to subvert for your enjoyment.

I do not enjoy watching people stumble at the start of a game unable to see how to role play, struggle to choose what they should be, and flounder at connecting their character to the world, hence I like a certain degree of basic fluff to act as a starting guide to how to play characters so I do not have to watch others be miserable or lost so I can get back to worrying about how to do it my self.

How about 1,000,000,000% less slavers and ex-slave peoples?

I omit the Underdark entirely in everything I run and design because that's the only thing down there.

that is the real problem of the Underdark it's all one-note, we should make a better ideas for the underdark thread.

They got rid of the Wall of the Faithless? Why?

that is more cosmically pessimistic than a big squid faced monster.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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

How many dead bards does it take to change a light bulb?

Spoiler

More than 23, because it's still dark in my basement.