D&D 5E The Most Popular D&D Classes & Subclasses

D&D Beyond posted these stats on the most popular D&D subclasses by class based on the "high thirties" in millions of characters on the platform. This is a revisit from last year, with updated data, and only includes single-classed characters.

Fighter is the most-played class (as has always been the case with these stats), followed by rogues, warlocks, clerics, and wizards.

The 'free' (SRD) subclasses are the most popular subclasses on D&D Beyond, which is no surprise.

 

[heptat]

These stats confirm that we should go back to the original three classes.

 

[Mistwell]

The 4e Barbarian's Rages were powered by Primal Spirit (somethng specifically separate from Arcane and Divine powers) but everything else was pretty much mundane. 4e Rangers were purely Martial until Essentials (and they had the Warlord to make 4 Martial classes).

I am thinking the majority of editions. 4e, which lasted the fewest years, has the least tradition to me. Rangers, to me, always had an element of magic.

 

[Minigiant]

The 4e Barbarian's Rages were powered by Primal Spirit (somethng specifically separate from Arcane and Divine powers) but everything else was pretty much mundane. 4e Rangers were purely Martial until Essentials (and they had the Warlord to make 4 Martial classes).

And if you think about it, the 4e Barbarian was only Primal because the Primal Power source lacked a striker and the Fighter already had all the "Hit for more Ws" powers. The 4e barbarian only really got blatantly supernatural because classes didn't share powers and the Barbarian would only have copies of fighter powers if it didn't get spiritual.

When t came to Ranger, rangers were only pure martial in 4e because "utility magic" was stripped out the class system and made into rituals. The classic Ranger would just take the Ritual Caster feat

If classes only gave at will powers and but shared daily/encounter powers, both Rangers and Barbarians would have access to Martial and Primal powers based on player choice. Maybe even Arcane for rangers and Diven for barbarians too.

That's why I wish that they'd rework the "Brute" Fighter and remake the "Thane" and "Shout" Barbarian. I'd suspect both would be extremely popular based on this table.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We went from a concept of a barbarian that hates magic and some go out of their way to destroy magic they encounter, to every barbarian except one seeming magical in some way. It's weird. There should be more non-magic barbarians.

I’m fine with more no magical Barbarians, but like...what would they be?

And every top subclass is the one listed in the free srd/basic rules. Color me surprised. rolls eyes

Less sarcastically, the data is interesting to at least look at on some levels.

BadEye has stated, and we have no reason to doubt it, that the layout looks basically the same, with only the percentages, but not the placements, changing, if they only look at people with full access to all the options.

These stats confirm that we should go back to the original three classes.

Even 1% of 34 million active characters is a lot of active characters, and that’s the number for the lowest, only non-PHB, class. The Druid is at 6%, and is the lowest from the PHB.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The 4e barbarian only really got blatantly supernatural because classes didn't share powers and the Barbarian would only have copies of fighter powers if it didn't get spiritual.

I disagree. The Barbarian was primal because it would be bonkers to have a primal power source and not have the barbarian be primal, and they weren’t designing from traditionalism, so there wasn’t any particular reason for it not to be.

 

[Minigiant]

I disagree. The Barbarian was primal because it would be bonkers to have a primal power source and not have the barbarian be primal, and they weren’t designing from traditionalism, so there wasn’t any particular reason for it not to be.

Feels more like the barbarian was primal because it didn't make the cut to the 4e PHB1 and the 4e PHB2 wasn't going to have martial classes. Really only the rages blatantly displayed primal aspects.

If the 5e PHB had a 3rd barbarian subclass that was less blatantly magic, It could have possibly taking 1st place.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Feels more like the barbarian was primal because it didn't make the cut to the 4e PHB1 and the 4e PHB2 wasn't going to have martial classes. Really only the rages blatantly displayed primal aspects.

If the 5e PHB had a 3rd barbarian subclass that was less blatantly magic, It could have possibly taking 1st place.

Again, I completely disagree. The Barbarian should always have been primal, and was only not primal because of how magic worked in prior editions.

The concept is directly and unequivocally part of what “primal” is in the 4e description. It would have been incredibly wierd to make it martial. Even weirder than it was to have the ranger be martial.

The fact that it’s daily powers (and many utility powers, but okay) were the main primal magic of the class is an odd point to make when...the class is totally defined by its daily powers. Like...it’s daily powers are it’s rages, and are designed to define how the character fights in most battles during a day.

 

[pnewman]

something is wrong with the Druid numbers. How is it possible that the 3 most popular subclasses together cover 50% of druids with the 3rd one being 7% only?

Many characters are level 1. Druids don't pick a Circle until level 2.

 

[Marandahir]

Many characters are level 1. Druids don't pick a Circle until level 2.

Also, notice that Circle of the Land is given it's particular land formation here. This implies that the other Land formations are somewhere on the Druid list, which pads out the numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if you added up all the Circles of the Land subtypes, and you'd get a much higher # than for Circle of the Moon.

 

[Scott Christian]

What is the percentage of players that use D&D Beyond to create their character? Are they experienced? Less experienced? It seems like it is too evenly distributed to provide any basis for conjecture. It might be spot on, but stats like that always seem skewed. It's like a pizza or ice cream shop saying all their toppings or flavors are consumed on proportional levels.