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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tell that to the "no new x no new y. Don't put stuff in the PHB" crowd that WOTC used to cater heavily to.

Nothing has to be in the PHB. The data shows plenty of people are playing races that aren't in the PHB. It's irrelevant.

 

[Minigiant]

Nothing has to be in the PHB. The data shows plenty of people are playing races that aren't in the PHB. It's irrelevant.

That's the point

These races that people play are popular and should have stats updated to the new design paradigm.

 

[Maxperson]

WOTC tried that.

Turns out the community hates generic templates.

I absolutely do. Your deer(medium size ground animal) shouldn't have the same stats as my black bear(medium size ground animal), and neither one should have the same stats as a giant crab(medium size ground animal).

 

[Maxperson]

What about a 10 option template?
I mean there were only 5 or so good forms for combat and out of combat forms don't really need full statblocks.

Druid had too much going on and too little inspiration to be popular. If Monk wasn't a mess, Druid would be dead last.

Of course you need full stat blocks outside of combat. Forms lift things or try to push/break/pull objects. Forms go swimming. Forms exert for extended periods. Forms use abilities outside of combat. And on and on. Saying forms don't need full statblocks outside of combat is the same as saying PCs don't need full statblocks outside of combat.

 

[Oofta]

I absolutely do. Your deer(medium size ground animal) shouldn't have the same stats as my black bear(medium size ground animal), and neither one should have the same stats as a giant crab(medium size ground animal).

Then have a bear, deer and crab template with instructions on how to make them more powerful as the druid gets to higher levels. You'd want to add in something for climbing, like a spider and flying at higher levels.

I get that you don't want the critters to be overly generic but I also don't want to have to flip through book after book looking for a beast I can transform into. It really exacerbates the issue of higher level druids when you run out of creatures you can turn into because there are so few at higher levels. Especially if dinosaurs or "giant" forms of beasts aren't a thing in the world you cap out at CR 2 or so.

That's my issue, I understand wanting the beast forms to be iconic but there has to be a way for a higher level druid to switch into something that's going to contribute. But ... this is a topic for a different thread.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps what the surveys bore out was that the game didn't really need a change at this time as far as the community was concerned, and WotC is trying to push for something we're not ready for or really want?

No. WotC nailed their foot down on this by insisting that 5.5e will be backwards fully compatible with 5e. You can't make any major changes and keep that promise.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's the point

These races that people play are popular and should have stats updated to the new design paradigm.

I'm sure they will all be updated. It takes less than a page. And in the meantime there is enough compatibility that people can continue to use the 5.0 versions.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course you need full stat blocks outside of combat. Forms lift things or try to push/break/pull objects. Forms go swimming. Forms exert for extended periods. Forms use abilities outside of combat. And on and on. Saying forms don't need full statblocks outside of combat is the same as saying PCs don't need full statblocks outside of combat.

Many OOC beasts don't have stat blocks.

 

[Maxperson]

Many OOC beasts don't have stat blocks.

Sure. There's no sparrow, finch, bluejay, etc., but you don't need individual stat blocks for every tiny bird and if there isn't one to adapt, like getting a falcon from the hawk statblock, the DM can just make one block for a finch and say all tiny birds of that size have these stats. Falcons and ospreys use the hawk block, etc.

The lack of tens of thousands of statblocks does not mean that there shouldn't be statblocks for out of combat use. If you turn into a finch and want to try and carry a gold writing quill back to the group, I need to know if you can do it and stats are the easiest, best way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

bluejay,

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Blue_Jay