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.

 

[guachi]

Really hard to make creatures and races feel like anything other than mush if they keep removing attributes and descriptions and make everything feel samey-samey. I haven't bought a WotC D&D book in two years and I don't see a reason to keep buying them.

 

[J.Quondam]

No, I wandered in this thread (at least for this discussion) answering a question about why madness was removed and was instantly jumped by several people for not explaining it to their full satisfaction.

No. You were jumped on for sounding flippant about it, as if the issue didn't matter.

 

[Faolyn]

Again, why should someone in Greece stay up to date with a taboo word in the USA and know exactly why this is a bad word when the reason for it is entirely specific to the US?

Because that is what people demand here.

So that you don't use bigoted terminology with someone from another country?

I mean, this is the internet, where you can talk to people across the world. I have no idea what country you're from. I don't want to inadvertently say something bigoted to you.

Do you think it's OK to be bigoted if the bigotry isn't common to where you're from?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you think it's OK to be bigoted if the bigotry isn't common to where you're from?

That does seem to be the gist of what @Ixal is saying. That if he doesn't know something is bigoted, it's totally cool, and he shouldn't have to learn (because people in Greece are anti-Semitic or something, I couldn't really follow that argument).

I mean, I can't say it's an opinion I think many people would subscribe to. Most people would be like "Oh oops sorry!" when being bigoted in another language/culture.

 

[Ixal]

No. You were jumped on for sounding flippant about it, as if the issue didn't matter.

The issue about madness being a bad word that needs to be replaced does not matter to me and most of the world.
If you want to take that as a sign that Americans are morally superior be my guest. That attitude is nothing new to be honest.
Just realize that in most other countries in the world people look at bewilderment and amusement at the US about what is declared problematic and replaced next and people don't automatically jump to follow the next moral guideline that comes from there.

 

[Justice and Rule]

The issue about madness being a bad word that needs to be replaced does not matter to me and most of the world.
If you want to take that as a sign that Americans are morally superior be my guest. That attitude is nothing new to be honest.
Just realize that in most other countries in the world people look at bewilderment and amusement at the US about what is declared problematic and replaced next.

It's not that it's a bad word. We keep telling you this, but you don't care to listen.

 

[Ixal]

It's not that it's a bad word. We keep telling you this, but you don't care to listen.

Wizards apparently thinks so as otherwise they wouldn't replace it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

does not matter to me and most of the world

It's amazing that some who is claiming to be so ignorant about language in the US and English-speaking countries, is also apparently so knowledgeable about the feelings and beliefs of literally the entire world. Wow.

 

[Faolyn]

Or maybe the country I live in has no real history with slavery and the word "madness" isn't considered problematic by anyone so its removal would do nothing for treating people better. The same applies to many other US specific discussions.

Are there any countries that have never had slaves, weren't founded by other countries that had used slavery in their history, or who otherwise treated a group of people in slave-like ways?

And since mental health issues are an issue wherever humans are, and there are taboos about mental health issues across the world as well, I doubt you're going to find many countries where people with mental health issues aren't stigmatized for it in some way.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Wizards apparently thinks so as otherwise they wouldn't replace it.

No, it's the context of associating the symptoms with mental illness. It's not that "madness" is a bad word, it's that saying you have a disease that afflicts "madness" by imitating a bunch of bad media stereotypes has a lot of connotations.