D&D 5E D&D Beyond Releases 2023 Character Creation Data

D&D Beyond released the 2023 Unrolled with data on the most popular character choices for D&D. The full article includes a wide variety of statistics for the beta test of Maps, charity donations, mobile app usage, and more. However, I’m just going to recap the big numbers.

The most common species chosen by players are Human, Elf, Dragonborn, Tiefling, and Half-Elf. This contrasts with the stats from Baldur’s Gate 3 released back in August 2023 where Half-Elves were the most popular with the rest of the top five also shuffling around.

Also, keep an eye on the scale of these charts as they’re not exactly even. It starts with just over 700,000 for Humans and 500,000 for Elf, but the next line down is 200,000 with the other three species taking up space in that range. This means the difference separating the highest line on the graph and the second highest is 200,000, then 300,000 between the next two, 100,000 between the next, and finally 10,000 separating all the others.

Top classes start off with the Fighter then move onto the Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, and Paladin. The scale on this chart is just as uneven as the last, but the numbers are much closer with what appears to be about 350,000 Fighters at the top to just over 100,000 Monks in next-to-last with under 80,000 Artificers. This contrasts far more from the Baldur’s Gate 3 first weekend data as the top five classes for the game were Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, Rogue, and Bard.

And the most important choices for new characters, the names. Bob is still the top choice for names with Link, Saraphina, and Lyra seeing the most growth and Bruno, Eddie, and Rando seeing the biggest declines from last year.

Putting that together, it means the most commonly created character on D&D Beyond is Bob the Human Fighter. A joke going as far back as I can remember in RPGs is, in fact, reality proven by hard statistics.

 

[Clint_L]

Ok I went ahead and Monte Carloed this. I used fixed initiative (Rogue, Wizard, Barbarian, Troll, Cleric) I varied all the other d20 rolls and all the damage through 1,000,000 iterations. I did this twice to ensure this was a large enough sample for consistent results. I included crits.

Party:
Elf Rogue - 8 Strength, 16 Dex, Longbow, AC14, 8hps, athletics +3, always gets sneak attack (unless grappling),
Elf Barbarian - 16 Strength, 14 dex, 16 Con, AC15, 15hps, athletics +5
Elf Cleric - 16 Strength, 16 Wisdom, AC18, 8hps, athletics +3, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Toll The Dead
Elf Wizard - 16 Dex, 16 Intelligence, 6hps, Create Bonfire, Firebolt, Catapult spell with 2 vials of oil

Ruleset:
Characters started 20 foot apart and Barbarian moved into melee on first turn. The PC strategy was to grapple the Troll and hold him on the campfire cast by Wizard. The Barbarian would start the grapple, if he died the Cleric would move up and grapple, if she died the Rogue would move up and grapple. If Rogue died the Wizard would just keep Firebolting. While the Cleric was alive, I put sanctuary on grappler if the Troll was grappled and Shield of Faith on grappler if target was not yet grappled (subject to spell slot availability).

Rogue: Rogue gets sneak attack with Longbow every turn (readying an action until Barb closed on the first turn) until Barbarian and Cleric went down, then tries to grapple.

Wizard: Wizard cast create Bonfire under Troll (save for damage) on first turn. On second and third round she catapulted a flask of oil. She uses Firebolt after 3rd round.

Barbarian: Barbarian goes into Rage on first turn and grapples (with advantage), once the grapple is in place Barbarian dodges on subsequent turns. When he is not sanctuaried he moves the Troll off and back on the fire for extra 1d8 damage on the Barbarian's turn. Once sanctuary is up he does not move Troll back and forth. When Rage goes down he restarts it once on the next turn

Troll: Troll is pretty stupid. He attacks the person trying to grapple him. If that person goes down he moves to the next person in line. He keeps attacking after successfully grappled until the grappler goes down and does not use an action to break the grapple. If he is in the grappled state at the end of his turn he takes campfire damage. If he is not in the grappled state he moves off of the fire.

Cleric: As long as barbarian is alive Cleric uses Toll the Dead as an action. If the Barbarian dies she takes on the grappler role. Like the Barbarian, she dodges as an action if she successfully grapples (and survives through the Troll's turn). She uses sanctuary on the Barbarian (or herself) if either of them successfully grapple the Troll while the Cleric still has spell slots. She uses SOF on the Barbarian or herself if the Troll is not yet grappled and she still has spell slots or if the Troll is grappled and the grappler is already is sanctuaried and she has spell slots.

Outcome - most likely to least likely
Party wins with no losses: 72%
Troll wins, TPK: 15%
Party wins, Barbarian dies, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard survive: 10%
Party wins, Barbarian and Cleric die, Rogue and Wizard survive: 2%
Party wins, Barbarian, Cleric and Rogue die, only Wizard survives: 1%

Average combat length
Median combat length: 4 rounds
Mean combat length: 4.6 rounds

Love this!

One quibble about the troll's tactics: according to the MM,

trolls, enraged, will attack individuals making acid and fire attacks against them above all other prey.

I wonder if that would affect the outcome much.

But that aside, you've figured out how to have a four person level 1 party defeat a troll fairly reliably. Impressive! My original plan was to give the barbarian the Sentinel feat; I didn't think of grapple plus sanctuary - very smart. I also didn't think of turning catapult into a fire spell (effectively) by using vials of oil. Like I said, it was a job for ECMO3.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I’ll be honest, this has blown my mind. Genuinely shocked considering the amount you post about 5e and how absolutely certain you when you do post.

I mean, when I've been playing or attempting to play it on and off for something like five years, yes, I do feel relatively qualified to say things.

And when those experiences have almost universally pointed in a single direction, consistently, despite my every effort to alter or address it, yes, I do start to think that there's something going on beyond "ooh, bad luck with that particular DM/group."

That said, it sounds like a major problem with the groups you’re playing with. My gut feeling is you need to find some more stability. I’ve probably played about a dozen campaigns in 5e and only one failed to get to level 7+. (Rime of the Frostmaiden because of an unfortunate encounter with a woolly mammoth).

I guess? Like I said, I don't have a gaming group (that I can play in, I mean.) If I did, I almost certainly wouldn't be choosing to play 5e unless multiple friends specifically requested my presence.

There’s something fundamentally wrong if your groups can never get past 2 levels. Either join a new group and do your level best to help folks learn the game. Or try and join an existing game and do your darnest to fit into their ideal. Until you get more settled. Starting at higher levels isn’t going to fix the problem of your groups not lasting. Sounds like there are structural issues there first. If you’re not playing in published campaigns I would definitely be looking for those. Simply because they are better at maintaining continuity and try hard to keep them on track and coherent. Particularly as a party.

I have not played a published campaign with 5e, no. Most things I heard about the early ones (like Phandelver) made me have zero interest in seeking such things out. Often, those running published campaigns put a ton of (what I consider) draconian limits on the game which, to me, are major red flags, so there's a soft avoidance there. (That is, I'm not against running published campaigns--I would love to find a group wanting to run Zeitgeist in the original 4th edition version--but I have found that people posting that they want to run a published campaign have a strong tendency to want a huge amount of control over what people play...up to and including prewritten character sheets, which are a hard no from me.)

 

[Hussar]

Ok, still don't have time to go back to my fight scenario, but, a couple of things pop out.

@bedir than - I like your picture. However, couple of points. Number one, on your computer screen, that horse is a couple of inches high. In real life, that's a seven foot, several hundred pound animal that is not exactly stealthy. If that horse got within 60 feet of you without you noticing, you really have no business being in a forest. At 30 feet, that's a pretty easy kill shot with a hunting bow by a competent hunter. True, behind the tree, it would have cover, but, the idea that I wouldn't know it was there? Yeah, not likely. Notice you have clear sight lines pretty much to the ridge, some 100 feet behind.

@ECMO3 - You have highlighted exactly the problem I have with casters in 5e. Because 5e is written in plain, conversational English, you get all these weird interactions between rules packets, like spells, and the general rules. Is "grapple" an attack or not? See, if you rule that it is an attack, then Sanctuary remains a pretty solid defensive spell. However, if you rule that it's not an attack, then Sanctuary becomes a much more powerful spell, as you have demonstrated.

And there are thousands of spells in the game. Many of which have these same sorts of interactions with the spells and require adjudication. It's such a huge PITA. Particularly, again, for someone like me who is running games with 4 or 5 casters in every group. It means that you have to make these kinds of adjudications every single session, if not every single encounter. And then another supplement book comes out and now there are a hundred more rule packets called spells and feats that need to be adjudicated and possibly we have to revisit earlier adjudications to reflect the new rules packets.

On and on and on. It's such a huge PITA.

 

[TheSword]

I mean, when I've been playing or attempting to play it on and off for something like five years, yes, I do feel relatively qualified to say things.

And when those experiences have almost universally pointed in a single direction, consistently, despite my every effort to alter or address it, yes, I do start to think that there's something going on beyond "ooh, bad luck with that particular DM/group."


I guess? Like I said, I don't have a gaming group (that I can play in, I mean.) If I did, I almost certainly wouldn't be choosing to play 5e unless multiple friends specifically requested my presence.


I have not played a published campaign with 5e, no. Most things I heard about the early ones (like Phandelver) made me have zero interest in seeking such things out. Often, those running published campaigns put a ton of (what I consider) draconian limits on the game which, to me, are major red flags, so there's a soft avoidance there. (That is, I'm not against running published campaigns--I would love to find a group wanting to run Zeitgeist in the original 4th edition version--but I have found that people posting that they want to run a published campaign have a strong tendency to want a huge amount of control over what people play...up to and including prewritten character sheets, which are a hard no from me.)

What do you mean by pre-written character sheets? They want you to have them written out, or they want to fill your character sheet out for you? What other draconian restrictions.

The problem with homebrew with complete strangers is that it is a lottery with quality. Plus it requires a lot of effort and preparation and so is easier to derail by waning DM enthusiasm or players not engaging. Unless the DM is very experienced at it. If you’re a very experienced great DM capable of doing this you’re more likely to have a regular group already. It’s supply and demand right?

In the online world, by sticking to homebrew only, looking for niche stuff like 4e style or Zeitgeist, and coming with your own expectations it sounds like you’ll be forced to choose from a very narrow selection of DMs. I’m not surprised you’re struggling to get anything stable or long lasting. Good luck with it. I really would consider broadening your expectations though. I think you’d get a better quality of experience. It can’t be fun being stuck always at levels 1-3. I’m not saying you’re not qualified to comment on 5e. Every one can post. It just blows my mind that you’ve only seen such a narrow slice of 5e in play. Just surprised is all.

 

[TheSword]

Ok, still don't have time to go back to my fight scenario, but, a couple of things pop out.

@bedir than - I like your picture. However, couple of points. Number one, on your computer screen, that horse is a couple of inches high. In real life, that's a seven foot, several hundred pound animal that is not exactly stealthy. If that horse got within 60 feet of you without you noticing, you really have no business being in a forest. At 30 feet, that's a pretty easy kill shot with a hunting bow by a competent hunter. True, behind the tree, it would have cover, but, the idea that I wouldn't know it was there? Yeah, not likely. Notice you have clear sight lines pretty much to the ridge, some 100 feet behind.

@ECMO3 - You have highlighted exactly the problem I have with casters in 5e. Because 5e is written in plain, conversational English, you get all these weird interactions between rules packets, like spells, and the general rules. Is "grapple" an attack or not? See, if you rule that it is an attack, then Sanctuary remains a pretty solid defensive spell. However, if you rule that it's not an attack, then Sanctuary becomes a much more powerful spell, as you have demonstrated.

And there are thousands of spells in the game. Many of which have these same sorts of interactions with the spells and require adjudication. It's such a huge PITA. Particularly, again, for someone like me who is running games with 4 or 5 casters in every group. It means that you have to make these kinds of adjudications every single session, if not every single encounter. And then another supplement book comes out and now there are a hundred more rule packets called spells and feats that need to be adjudicated and possibly we have to revisit earlier adjudications to reflect the new rules packets.

On and on and on. It's such a huge PITA.

I guess in D&D 5e, spells are the method by which player characters and NPCs reshape reality. Which is in itself quite good fun.

It sounds that you’ve reached a similar ruling to me - and many others - based on common sense and balance. There’s your answer. I’m not sure why it has to be any more complicated than that. No reason for anyone to get het up.

It cracks me up that you have 5 casters in every game you play. Partly because it’s just so strange for me as we usually have an even balance, rogues, fighters, rangers and paladins being so popular and all. I wonder if there is a reason in your group casters are so disproportionately popular? I wonder if your players or doing a funny on you… do they read the forums by chance?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What do you mean by pre-written character sheets? They want you to have them written out, or they want to fill your character sheet out for you? What other draconian restrictions.

I mean pre-made characters. As in, the DM has already written up several characters, and the players get to choose one of those characters to play.

As for draconian restrictions: arbitrarily casting out PHB classes or races without explanation, only allowing specific backstories without actually saying what the requirements are, that sort of thing. Others that I wouldn't call "draconian" per se but which also read as red flags to me (and would thus incline me to not participate) would be forbidding particular spells or feats for being "overpowered" when they're actually pretty mid-tier at best, or a blanket ban on all feats because frankly feats are one of the only mostly-good design areas of 5e.

The problem with homebrew with complete strangers is that it is a lottery with quality. Plus it requires a lot of effort and preparation and so is easier to derail by waning DM enthusiasm or players not engaging. Unless the DM is very experienced at it. If you’re a very experienced great DM capable of doing this you’re more likely to have a regular group already. It’s supply and demand right?

In the online world, by sticking to homebrew only, looking for niche stuff like 4e style or Zeitgeist, and coming with your own expectations it sounds like you’ll be forced to choose from a very narrow selection of DMs. I’m not surprised you’re struggling to get anything stable or long lasting. Good luck with it. I really would consider broadening your expectations though. I think you’d get a better quality of experience. It can’t be fun being stuck always at levels 1-3. I’m not saying you’re not qualified to comment on 5e. Every one can post. It just blows my mind that you’ve only seen such a narrow slice of 5e in play. Just surprised is all.

The problem is...I just flat don't like the style of game 5e offers. I prefer 4e. I tried, very very hard, to find an actual 4e game, or a near-4e game (like 13th Age), for ages. I finally broke down and tried finding 5e games that might vaguely let me experience some slice of that. Effectively what you're saying then is, "Look for games that offer nothing at all of what you enjoy, and maybe you'll enjoy it!" Which is pretty damn disheartening.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I guess in D&D 5e, spells are the method by which player characters and NPCs reshape reality. Which is in itself quite good fun.

It sounds that you’ve reached a similar ruling to me - and many others - based on common sense and balance. There’s your answer. I’m not sure why it has to be any more complicated than that. No reason for anyone to get het up.

Yes. But it's exhausting to need to do this for even, say, three dozen spells--and that wouldn't even be 10% of the spells in 5e.

It cracks me up that you have 5 casters in every game you play. Partly because it’s just so strange for me as we usually have an even balance, rogues, fighters, rangers and paladins being so popular and all. I wonder if there is a reason in your group casters are so disproportionately popular? I wonder if your players or doing a funny on you… do they read the forums by chance?

The game encourages it by giving greater rewards to well-played full casters than to well-played characters of other classes. Or by applying smaller costs to well-played full casters than to well-played non-casters.

Unless, of course, the DM is constantly putting in the effort to keep their thumb on the scale, but not too much. Which just exacerbates the problem from above.

 

[Hussar]

I guess in D&D 5e, spells are the method by which player characters and NPCs reshape reality. Which is in itself quite good fun.

It sounds that you’ve reached a similar ruling to me - and many others - based on common sense and balance. There’s your answer. I’m not sure why it has to be any more complicated than that. No reason for anyone to get het up.

It cracks me up that you have 5 casters in every game you play. Partly because it’s just so strange for me as we usually have an even balance, rogues, fighters, rangers and paladins being so popular and all. I wonder if there is a reason in your group casters are so disproportionately popular? I wonder if your players or doing a funny on you… do they read the forums by chance?

I don't believe any of my players are on here anymore. Not that I'm aware of, no. I mean, I talked way, way long ago about never seeing single classed fighters. And that's still true, I think. I cannot remember a single, single classed fighter in any 5e game I've played or run. At least, nothing other than a couple of one shots in any case. ((Poll found here: https://www.enworld.org/threads/poll-for-pcs-with-4-or-more-levels-in-a-class.592445/)). So, yeah, I have no idea why casters are so dominant, but, it's been that way for a long time, across multiple groups and multiple DM's.

I don't have a problem with the "reshape reality" thing. That's not really the issue. The issue comes more in the edges. So many of the spells in particular (although class and race abilities can come into here as well) are worded in such a way that the DM constantly has to double check and police every bloody thing the players try. Can they do X? Can they do Y? What, exactly does Z mean in this context? And it's so exhausting. If it only came up once in a while, I'd be fine, but, with so many casters in the groups, it comes up every freaking session it seems. And it never, ever ends. "Can I do this? Can I do that? Does the HP from my Abjurer class stack with the temp HP from my Artificer class (and, as written, yes they actually do.) On and on and on.

I'm just so tired of it.

 

[TheSword]

Yes. But it's exhausting to need to do this for even, say, three dozen spells--and that wouldn't even be 10% of the spells in 5e.

Part of this is because you’re changing DM all the time so needing to have these discussions over and over again. If you had a stable group you would have the discussion once in 10 years then it’s done.

My group knows not to use rope trick or Leo’s tiny hut. That last was used to great effect for the party to defeat a Balor once in curse of Strahd and after that we all agreed - well done. That was clever. Now let’s never speak of this again .

The other element of regular groups is that if a player in a regular group tried to dominate the game with a chain of endless simulacrums to cast unlimited wishes, it wouldn’t be the DM that had to stop them, it would be the other players and the social contract. Some aberrations just aren’t an issue in live play. The forbiddance offensive option has simply never been done because the social contract wouldn’t allow it. Even knowing about it now I wouldn’t dream of undermining @GuyBoy by using it to invalidate the dungeon. It would never cross my mind to use a flaw in the spell to cause that kind of disruption. Now you can say that 5e is flawed because it doesn’t actively prevent this option. I would say it probably never needed to, until some guy on a forum somewhere came up with it and started spreading the word around.

The game encourages it by giving greater rewards to well-played full casters than to well-played characters of other classes. Or by applying smaller costs to well-played full casters than to well-played non-casters.

Unless, of course, the DM is constantly putting in the effort to keep their thumb on the scale, but not too much. Which just exacerbates the problem from above.

What kind of rewards?

Don’t forget that at its heart this is a co-operative game. If you’re playing with new players in the internet every time and not building up trust, rapport and team building then it’s ever likely you are looking at classes in terms of individual power rather than how they support each other.

My rogue in Scarlet Citadel has the mastermind subclass class for rogue so can use the help action as a bonus action. Does that make me more powerful than an assassin rogue or less powerful?

 

[TheSword]

I don't believe any of my players are on here anymore. Not that I'm aware of, no. I mean, I talked way, way long ago about never seeing single classed fighters. And that's still true, I think. I cannot remember a single, single classed fighter in any 5e game I've played or run. At least, nothing other than a couple of one shots in any case. ((Poll found here: https://www.enworld.org/threads/poll-for-pcs-with-4-or-more-levels-in-a-class.592445/)). So, yeah, I have no idea why casters are so dominant, but, it's been that way for a long time, across multiple groups and multiple DM's.

I don't have a problem with the "reshape reality" thing. That's not really the issue. The issue comes more in the edges. So many of the spells in particular (although class and race abilities can come into here as well) are worded in such a way that the DM constantly has to double check and police every bloody thing the players try. Can they do X? Can they do Y? What, exactly does Z mean in this context? And it's so exhausting. If it only came up once in a while, I'd be fine, but, with so many casters in the groups, it comes up every freaking session it seems. And it never, ever ends. "Can I do this? Can I do that? Does the HP from my Abjurer class stack with the temp HP from my Artificer class (and, as written, yes they actually do.) On and on and on.

I'm just so tired of it.

10 years in, I guess we’ve just worked through that stuff. Or just don’t really care overly about it, to the point we wouldn’t let it derail things. If we weren’t sure and couldn’t find an answer in under a minute the DM would make a snap decision and we’d review another time.

Of course the Arcane ward stacks with temp hp. It never mentions temp hp at all in its description. I like that there is enough complexity in the system that it requires a bit of adjudication. If it didn’t, I probably would be playing something else.

That said, it’s a good reason why I don’t want to see a 6th edition and have to go through the whole process again. I feel like I have a good understanding of 5th and don’t see a pressing need to have to learn a whole new edition.