D&D 5E Race Class combo, together, defines a character ‘type’

Race Class combo, together, defines a character ‘type’

The race-class combo, together, is what defines a character ‘type’.

The raw data from Dungeons and Dragons Beyond demonstrates that when players create a character that they want to play, they are selecting a flavorful specific race-class combo, rather than just a class alone or just a race alone.

A *character* is a specific character concept that blends together both its race flavor and its class flavor. This concept is what makes a playable ‘type’. Players seem to strongly want overall character concepts that combine a specific race and specific class together into a single comprehensive flavorful idea.

It is vital that D&D makes sure that each specific race-class combo can synergize mechanically optimally.

If a race-class combo is popular, how much more important it is to get its mechanics right.



The most popular classes and the most popular races are an abstraction when considered in isolation from each other. In reality, it is the specific race-class that players care about.

In abstraction, on average, the most popular classes are Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Barbarian. And the most popular races are Human, Elf, Half-Elf, and Dwarf. But the raw data displays the specific incidences. So the most popular *characters* are as follows.

(Technical note. Here the top-20 characters cluster together according to their decimal magnitudes, approximating the proportions of the inverse Golden Ratio.)



Top 20 Character ‘Types’

Human Fighter

Elf Ranger
Elf Wizard
Human Wizard
Human Rogue

Human Cleric
Human Paladin
Elf Rogue
Dwarf Cleric
Tiefling Warlock
Dwarf Fighter

Human Monk
Half-Elf Bard
Halfling Rogue
Elf Druid
Goliath Barbarian
Human Ranger
Human Warlock
Half-Orc Barbarian
Dragonborn Paladin



Comments

So, the Human Fighter is the most popular character type that players want to play. It is in a magnitude all its own. (Would love to know about stats for Variant Human and Battle Master Fighter.) This is the Bronze Age warrior king archetype, incarnates as King David of the Iron Age, as Alexander the Great in the Classic Age, as King Arthur in the Medieval Age, and still a favorite today as the Jock. Occasionally in both ancient and modern times, a woman hero shows up to incarnate this Warrior King archetype. A Human Fighter, who proves competence in battle and is able to save the population from various threats.



Then comes the Elf Ranger and Elf Wizard. Presumably, these two types are Wood Elf Ranger and High Elf Wizard. These two combo types are top priority. For both, it is extremely important to make sure that the mechanics for the Ranger and Wizard classes and their respective Elf cultures, Wood and High, all have extremely good mechanics to synergize excellently with their counterparts.

It is important to improve the mechanics for the Ranger. The Ranger class (or several spin-off classes from it) must make players happy − especially Wood Elf players that are most prominent. Already, the Wood Elf culture synergizes with the current Ranger. It is the class that needs to be better. Conversely, the Wizard class is decent, it is the High Elf culture mechanics that need to synergize with the Wizard.

The fact the Elf Ranger is so popular, while the Human Ranger is significantly less popular, is one of the indications that players are choosing for the sake of overall character concept and flavor. Not class in isolation. (Even with regard to the Human Ranger, it is likely a specific combo type that players are trying to play. Namely, Aragorn from Tolkien.)

The Wood-Elf-Ranger type seems to have inherited all of the traditions from the early D&D High Elf being a gishy ‘Fighter/Magic-User’. The Eldrich Knight Fighter seems unable to serve in this capacity.

Thus, in the attempts to improve the Ranger class, one of its options must have the Wood Elf in mind to synergize optimally with it. This kind of Ranger must be a magical warrior, with strong gishy, overtly magical offense spells, as well as woodsy wilderness flavor. At the same time, this kind of Elven Ranger is light armored, dex-fighting, and skilled at archery, as well as stealthy. In other words, this is more a magical version of ‘special ops’, rather than a skirmishing ‘light infantry’. But for the Wood Elf, magical warcraft is central to the concept.

The Wood-Elf-Ranger type is a stealthy magical warrior. In the top 20 list, the Rogue shows up to emphasize the stealthy warrior aspects of the Ranger and the Druid shows up to emphasize the magic aspects of the Ranger. Yet the prevailing concept of the Wood Elf is both magic and a special ops warrior.

The only time the Druid class makes an appearance is because it happens to be part of the comprehensive Elf Druid combo ‘type’, a woodsy full caster, tapping into the aspects of the Ranger gish. Nevertheless, Wood Elf flavor is mostly a gish combining fighting with magic in the form or a Ranger, despite mundane Rogue and full caster Druid making an appearance.

By contrast, the High Elf flavor is almost entirely a full caster, a Wizard.

These two types that prevail for the Elf are the Wood Elf Ranger and the High Elf Wizard. The game works better when both of these concepts are mechanically optimal.

The most wanted Elf flavor is innately magical, and is either a Ranger gish or a Wizard full caster. These are the vibrant archetypes for the Elf cultures. They are the two ‘types’ that players most want to play.



Human Fighter, Human Wizard, and Human Rogue seem good indications for popular classes, but moreso typify the flavor of Human culture itself. Warrior, technologist, badass.

In a third magnitude cluster, come the Human Cleric − presumably because of the perceived need for a dedicated healer − and the Human Paladin holy warrior. Both express a sacred mystical dimension to the Human race. The Human as a mysterious ‘soul’.

Altho Cleric and Paladin do slightly less well on average when abstracting the most popular classes, they make a good showing here as part of overall Human character concepts. Especially what ‘types’ constitute the Human race.

Later in a fourth magnitude cluster, the Human Monk makes an appearance, perhaps blending all of these Human qualities − warrior, ki-wielding technologist, badass, and mysterious mystical soul.



Dwarf Cleric and Dwarf Fighter. In that order. These are virtually the only concepts that typify the D&D Dwarf cultures. Probably each should dominate one Dwarf culture. Wisdom Cleric prevailing among the Hill Dwarf, and Strength Fighter prevailing among the Mountain Dwarf. Make sure each class-culture combo synergizes mechanically.

The fact Tiefling Warlock enjoys significantly more popularity than Human Warlock, suggests most players want the overall character concept that combos both the race and the class together as a single comprehensive concept.

Half-Elf Bard. Half-Elf only appears in the top 20 characters as a Bard. This is currently the only place where the Fey flavor can happen for the Charisma as charm, magic, beauty, art, and playing with minds. Similarly, the Elf that is indigenous to the Feywild, the Eladrin, is primarily a Charismatic Bard culture. It is all about magic, beauty, and playing with minds.

The only time Halfling makes an appearance is as the childlike Halfling Rogue combo.

The only time a Goliath makes an appearance is as the rugged Goliath Barbarian. A surprisingly strong showing for an otherwise less popular race. It is the combo that matters.

The only time a Half-Orc makes an appearance is as the savage Half-Orc-Barbarian.

The only time a Dragonborn makes an appearance in the top 20 is as an ironically noble Dragonborn-Paladin character type. The flavor of the Paladin is decisively Human. Yet the remix fusion of the medieval Knight-versus-Dragon archetype, seems to find traction in the form of an ironically noble Dragonborn Paladin.



In sum, the evidence demonstrates how players are choosing specific race-class combos, rather than races alone or classes alone. Together these comprehensive combos are what define a ‘type’, the specific archetype that players want to play. Players choose this because the specific combo is what creates the desirable flavor.

Advanced players will occasionally want to play ‘against type’. But each type itself, in the first place, must work well as an optimal synergistic combo.




In Sum

The character ‘types’ that players most want to play are:

Human Fighter, Human Wizard, Human Rogue, Human Cleric, Human Paladin, Human Monk.
= warrior, technologist, badass, mystical soul

High Elf Wizard
= only full caster, Harry Potter School for Wizards

Wood Elf Ranger, Wood Elf Rogue, Wood Elf Druid
= stealthy gish

Dwarf Cleric, Dwarf Fighter
= devoted, idealistic, intrepid

Half-Elf Bard
= Fey Charisma, charm, magic, beauty, and playing with minds

Halfling Rogue
= only

Goliath Barbarian
= only

Half-Orc Barbarian
= only

Dragonborn Paladin
= only

One thing which tends to get overlook is being humans ourselves IRL we might have the least problems in roleplaying human characters. Someone like a halfelf raised in human society might also fall in this concept.

But if you go beyond that, of the demihuman races only gnomes seem to be close to humans and maybe halflings.

Tiefling or Aasimar are like humans with divine or fiendish influences, consequent role play of these is possible because that influence might not be visible all the time.

To RP an elf or a dwarf and staying in role all the time is challenging. A halforc might be a bit more easy and guess why, he is half human.

Of course this mainly applies if you want to do the RP aspect of the game in depth. For those mainly about the numbers (who I do not condemn, it is just a different way to play the game and can be as much fun) it does not matter so much

Yaarel said:

The only time a Dragonborn makes an appearance in the top 20 is as an ironically noble Dragonborn-Paladin character type. The flavor of the Paladin is decisively Human. Yet the remix fusion of the medieval Knight-versus-Dragon archetype, seems to find traction in the form of an ironically noble Dragonborn Paladin.

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The Dragonborn race, in it's first incarnation, was archetypically noble and honor-bound, the scions of an ancient, militaristic, deeply religious empire that revered Bahamut, and had near-ideal stats for a Paladin to 'support' that in the system mastery sense.
The Paladin lost it's humans-only-club aspect in 3.0 at the latest.

Tony Vargas said:

The Dragonborn race, in it's first incarnation, was archetypically noble and honor-bound, the scions of an ancient, militaristic, deeply religious empire that revered Bahamut, and had near-ideal stats for a Paladin to 'support' that in the system mastery sense.
The Paladin lost it's humans-only-club aspect in 3.0 at the latest.

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Yeah. The dominant flavor of the Paladin class is part of the Human-Paladin combo type. But the Nonhuman Dragonborn-Paladin type makes a significantly high showing.



The only Barbarian class in the top 20 is Nonhuman, namely the Goliath-Barbarian type and the Half-Orc-Barbarian type. Interestingly it is the Nonhuman flavors that most inform the flavor of this class. Goliath seems gentle giant fierce protector. Half-Orc seems bloodthirsty savage. The archetype paths of the Barbarian class do well to have these two favorite types in mind.

*Deleted by user*

I thought all this data simply came from the D&D Beyond program.

Do you really think it reflects the most played character types, rather than the ones most created with the software by the subset of people who use that software? (I.e. just because you create a character in the software doesn't necessarily mean you are going to play that character. Among other issues.)

lowkey13 said:

I view this as a chicken/egg problem.

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Is it the chicken or the egg? Yes, it is both.

Sometimes an official race-class combo is a well designed ‘type’ that has great flavor, great mechanics, and the fandom loves it right out of the gate (Tiefling Warlock, Halfling Rogue).

Sometimes, the fandom embraces an official flavor for a race-class combo despite the official mechanics being terrible (Elf Wizard). Sometimes a demand for better mechanics to support a popular combo makes it into officialdom.

Sometimes, the mechanics inspires a race-class combo that the fandom embraces despite unfavorable official flavor (Drow Elf ambidextrous Ranger) that eventually works its way into officialdom.

Sometimes the emergence of a race-class combo is weird (Charisma Drow). Original 1e evil Drow has less to do with Charisma. But evil, matriarchal, perverse flavor ≈ evil as sexy/kinky ≈ Charisma. At the same time, evil ≈ misunderstood hero playing against type ≈ Drizzt, sympathizable Drow ≈ popular ≈ Charisma. The 1e Drow is either Cleric or Wizard, yet always high Dexterity. Now, there is dissonance between flavor and mechanics, a sign that the Drow concept is still unsettled and evolving. Would Cleric become a high Charisma Dex-fighting Paladin, while a Wizard becomes a high Charisma Dex-dodging Warlock? Or will both Cleric and Wizard end up somehow benefiting from Charisma and Dexterity riders? Perhaps the only constant is the Dex makes a popular antihero Rogue. In any case, the Drow has not yet achieved a stable race class combo. Expect future developments - as both chicken and egg remain in flux.

Even so, in all cases, it is the race-class combo, together to form a single holistic ‘type’, that players want to play, whether officialdom supports its flavor or mechanics, or both.

*Deleted by user*

Yaarel said:

Yeah. The dominant flavor of the Paladin class is part of the Human-Paladin combo type. But the Nonhuman Dragonborn-Paladin type makes a significantly high showing.

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I think Tony was talking about the fact that you call dragonborn paladins ironic, and it seems like you're attributing it to a whole knight v. dragon imagry here and a desire to mix them. That's not what's happening - Dragonborn have had paladins as a favored class since 3.0 - that's not ironic anymore, when its been a thing for so long. Bahamut, the goodly dragon god, and his metallic children have always been champions of paladins, especially in the Dragonlance setting, and that goes back further than 3e(Dragonlance also firmly establishes the idea of dragon riding paladins, further cementing the association). Its kind of a natural fit at this point.

lowkey13 said:

I appreciate the thoughts and the work you put into this, but I have a fundamental issue with this- I view this as a chicken/egg problem.

Do people choose Dragonborn Sorcerers and Paladins because, um, that's what a Dragonborn is .... or do people choose that because that's what Dragonborn mechanically represents?

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More than a bit of both. Take the tiefling, for example. An overwhelming number are warlocks, yes. And that's pretty much the only thing the phb warlock is good for - no physical attributes, hellish rebuke really becomes outdated unless you have warlock levels, and darkness is best with the Devil's Sight Invocation. The Tiefling Warlock is not only a classic image, but its also what the mechanics are built for. Tieflings also seem to heavily feature sorcerers and bards, thanks to the charisma, though its fair to say that a fiend-themed sorcerer is also a thing, so that's likely influenced by the whole fiend race, fiend class bump that warlock gets.

However, tieflings are also heavily known for being rogues (especially back in 2e/3e). You'll notice that Rogue is actually rather popular still with tiefling, despite the complete and utter lack of mechanical synergy here. That's roughy equal to the number of tiefling bards. Think about that. Warlock and sorcerer both carry an association with fiends. Rogues, something that has no mechanical benefits, is just as popular as the bard, something that resonates with the tiefling benefits but has no thematic connection.

The Rogue thing is also very likely the reason we have no few rogue-style subraces in the new UA. Quite a popular choice is now being mechanically supported, as well as one for bard (Fierna) to give that a bit of a flavor bump and one for the occasional tiefling paladin (Zariel, actually ironically noble this time). There's at least three new tiefling races for fiendish sorcerer fans too.

Its not a chicken-egg argument, its the nurture-nature stance - both mechanics and story have major influence on the outcome of the vote, I'd say.

Yaarel said:

Sometimes, the fandom embraces an official flavor for a race-class combo despite the official mechanics being terrible (Elf Wizard).

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Bwa? What? High Elf mechanics for wizard are great. The only one better is the Gnome, and even then, the difference is small enough that it becomes a question of preference. I'd say they're better than a fire genasi.

Sometimes, the mechanics inspires a race-class combo that the fandom embraces despite unfavorable official flavor (Drow Elf ambidextrous Ranger) that eventually works its way into officialdom.

Sometimes the emergence of a race-class combo is weird (Charisma Drow). Original 1e evil Drow has less to do with Charisma. But evil, matriarchal, perverse flavor ≈ evil as sexy/kinky ≈ Charisma. At the same time, evil ≈ misunderstood hero playing against type ≈ Drizzt, sympathizable Drow ≈ popular ≈ Charisma. The 1e Drow is either Cleric or Wizard, yet always high Dexterity. Now, there is dissonance between flavor and mechanics, a sign that the Drow concept is still unsettled and evolving. Would Cleric become a high Charisma Dex-fighting Paladin, while a Wizard becomes a high Charisma Dex-dodging Warlock? Or will both Cleric and Wizard end up somehow benefiting from Charisma and Dexterity riders? Perhaps the only constant is the Dex makes a popular antihero Rogue. In any case, the Drow has not yet achieved a stable race class combo. Expect future developments - as both chicken and egg remain in flux.

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You know, I have never once seen a drow ranger outside of the Drizz't books. Just saying. Ranger and wizard drow have really been a relic of mimicry of high and wood elves, which, to be fair, is something Lolth is likely to do just to prove her elves are better. And the clerics because Lolth is basically a psychopathic demon-cult leader.

Sadly, I have to agree with the Charisma drow reasoning, since the whole stripperific drow was published in books, alongside that +2 charisma, starting around 3e era. It still irks me that the drow book spent time to talk about drow women walking around mostly naked. Despite that, the Charisma actually works for them now, though. Charisma and Dexterity became the main stats for the drow in 4e, because they were to make good warlocks and rogues. They even made a drow specific Dark Pact Warlock for Lolth powers to make the whole drow-warlock thing click. Meanwhile, Rogue keyed off both Dexterity and Charisma, making drow a natural fit. So, while the Charisma started off as the result of sexual fantasies, it kind of evolved into something more over time. Rather, its the direction drow have evolved to - rogues, assassins and warlocks. Drow are renowned for their poisons, for hunting from the shadows before making an appearance or causing chaos while disguised and lying their asses off (both disguise and bluff are Charisma). Their innate spells naturally lend themselves to rogue tactics as well. Warlocks, I mentioned above.

So, the drow did undergo a bit of an evolution here, but its mostly cemented now. Drow suffer from Light Sensitivty now, so occupations that keep them in the shadows tend to be favored - rogue, and a darkness/devil's sight warlock are especially notable. The rogue also benefits from a high charisma for social skills, and warlock's main stat is charisma.

still make excellent rogues thanks to social skills and dexterity, plus stealthy innate magic.

lowkey13 said:

SDe facto support is what you are arguing- that the rules support certain race class combos because they are popular, or fans want them, or whatever. But that's the chicken/egg problem. Why do certain combos become popular? Because they are mechanically supported. And why are they mechanically supported? Because they are popular.

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There's more going on here than just that. Ultimately, your argument is missing out that this is a roleplaying game, first and foremost, and mechanics aren't just driven by popularity. In the end, they're driven by story and imagry just as much as anything else. And popularity isn't just the result of what people want to make as a D&D character, but what filters into people's mind as the result of pop culture.

The whole elf wizard and elven ranger ultimately do end up lying at the feet of Tolkien. The whole cycle starts off with outside works providing inspiration. D&D and Tolkien in turn influence other works, which evolve the idea, and then those new ideas feed back into D&D, especially the developers when they're thinking about what kind of story they want to tell with the game.

It's a matter of preference, in the end. I don't want race/class combos supported so strongly that they become de facto requirements.

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Honestly, I think you're reading too much into this. The numbers are being taken as an indication of popularity, right? So, naturally, you're going to be seeing popular figures with higher numbers. But that, in no way, indicates anything else about the game other than the different archetypes (elf wizard, elf ranger, human fighter, tiefling warlock) are all highly popular choices.

Playing against the type is, by definition, an unpopular choice. You are not going to have as many people doing it. Therefore, naturally, the numbers are going to be lower. That hasn't stopped anyone from making a dragonborn berserker (quite fun, tbh), a dwarven monk, halfling druids or gnome paladins. These all happen. Not nearly as frequently as you'll see gnomish artificers or half-elf bards, but it does happen.

And the game is flexible enough that you can still contribute meaningfully in the majority games. Its only in high end, heavily optimized games where the issues crop. And these games are the minority.