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.

 

[mamba]

It's the tug-of-war of "Design what I want" and "Design what sells".

not sure that is true, if they offer an option that gets 72% approval but also some strong criticism, why should the criticism win out? How does that show that the option that did not get 72% approval sells better?

 

[mamba]

We haven't reached the point when people can listen to the opinions of others seriously but know when those opinions are worth ignoring yet

I certainly have reached the point where I know which opinions to ignore. Not sure why I should take those opinions seriously however… just because someone is convinced of nonsense does not mean it should be taken seriously

I feel we need to learn to not give credence to every opinion in a misguided attempt at balance

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

All that sounds great for a character that doesn't have the utility of a full 9 level caster. At most, some of those bonuses should be spells cast in conjunction with using a wild shape charge rather than letting the druid poop out a solution for any situation by scouring the monster manual for a stat block that was never balanced or considered for PC use.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ranger, Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian were all classes needing reworks to up player satisfaction. Sometimes severely, with some of the worst subclasses in the whole game. The only full spellcaster that required any meaningful boost was Warlock, which WotC had already explicitly said was falling behind because players don't short rest often enough. Druid, by comparison, actually lost some power due to the changes to wild shape.

It would seem your experience is not entirely reflective of what WotC has already told us needed work in 5.5e.

Not so - the Sorcerer required a significant boost on its pinch point. They needed to know more spells than they do in base 4e (and this was done by the two Tasha's spellcasters).

 

[Maxperson]

All that sounds great for a character that doesn't have the utility of a full 9 level caster. At most, some of those bonuses should be spells cast in conjunction with using a wild shape charge rather than letting the druid poop out a solution for any situation by scouring the monster manual for a stat block that was never balanced or considered for PC use.

Then the solution is to take away wild shape. You can't give druids the ability to change into animals, though, and not give them the abilities of those animals. You can enhance the animals with spells. That's fine, but it's not okay to let a druid change into a bear with 10 strength, 10 dex and 10 con and no ability to attack with claws like that bear would.

 

[OB1]

Have said this before, but I still think the best solution for Moon Druids is to keep the CR range the same as all Druids, but give them ways to make those better. More Temp HP, Enlarge (first 1 step, then 2), more Temp HP, AC bumps, Damage bumps, proficiency bumps, stat bumps, etc. You'll still have a nice selection of beasts to choose from, but as you gain levels, the beasts just become bigger, stronger, faster, better. So a level 20 Druid doesn't just turn into a Brown Bear, it turns into a Huge Brown Bear with 20 STR and with fur so thick it has a 20 AC, No Dino stat block needed.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

Yeah.

The whole "the community is conservative to change" is a misread of the stats.

The community as a whole wants change. Big change.

The community however wants their old books to be backwards compatible.

Can't do both.

I certainly have reached the point where I know which opinions to ignore. Not sure why I should take those opinions seriously however… just because someone is convinced of nonsense does not mean it should be taken seriously

I feel we need to learn to not give credence to every opinion in a misguided attempt at balance

Humanity as a whole hasn't figured that out.
Neither the D&D Designers.

Many of the classes and species at the bottom display a lack of passion in their design. Or at not enough to ignore the community who isn't passionate.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah.

The whole "the community is conservative to change" is a misread of the stats.

The community as a whole wants change. Big change.

Do they? Do you have a source for this, any evidence at all?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah.

The whole "the community is conservative to change" is a misread of the stats.

The community as a whole wants change. Big change.

The community however wants their old books to be backwards compatible.

Can't do both.

And the community as a whole isn't remotely unified in the direction they want change in.

 

[ECMO3]

The community as a whole wants change. Big change.

I am not sure this is true.

It tends to be small items that people want changed the most (certain spells nerfed, certain fighting styles buffed, Monks improved).

I don't see people asking for big changes to the game design or mechanics. Also the early feedback seems to indicate that people did not even want to change the levels where subclass improvements happen.