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.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Which, to me, begs the question why we have levels 1 and 2 if they are a speed bump for getting to real fun.

YMMV. Some of my most fun sessions have been at level 0. In part because of the sense of danger, in part because there are real and lasting consequences (getting a class); I run level 0 adventures as character/backstory creation that's how the gang got together. But even starting at level 0 my PCs tend to hit level 3 by the end of session four.

That said, although I prefer to start at level 0 I'd rather I think start at level 3 than level 1 with non-new players. Levels 1 and 2 are weird; they are meant to be tutorial levels and level 3 characters are quite complex for anyone new to D&D - but if you know D&D and you designed your own character in full you can prepare for this.

And yet, despite being insanely deadly per the encounter calculator, this fight would only give 58.3% of the experience required to gain level 2 (175/300).

I normally milestone level anyway. And allow risky shortcuts to reaching the milestones. (My "dungeon crawl milestones" are you get a level for making it back from each new floor of the dungeon, meaning that an abseiling trip can yield three levels - but not everyone normally returns from that sort of play).

(Oh and as I have said many times elsewhere, I have only once seen a DM hand out non-combat XP in 5e, and that was explicitly a special dispensation meant to catch that group up to a different group's level.)

Now that's weird.

 

[Hussar]

Umm, @Oofta, why do you assume that the troll can escape the incredibly long ranged party you've created, every time?

Ok, sure, in a scenario where the group is limited to 15 foot sight lines, has no scouts, and the troll surprises them, sure, troll wins. But, outdoors? It's not all that hard to keep the troll in sight while it's trying to run away. And, if the troll has run away, why is it coming back? You keep talking about playing the monster intelligently and not suicidally. The first time it came up for a snack, it gets its ass handed to it. The second time it gets beaten off too. The troll has no idea that the casters might be out of spells. But it's totally realistic for that predator, after being shown that it can be killed by the prey twice, keeps coming back for more?

Funny how "I play monsters intelligently" seems to mean, "I play the monsters with the meta game knowledge of exactly what the party can do."

The point was, and @ECMO3 has rather handily demonstrated, a 1st level party can beat the troll. Does it need a bit of help? Sure. Fair enough. But you're forgetting the other side of the coin. The non-caster party dies EVERY time. It never wins. The caster party wins sometimes.

Doesn't that demonstrate that the caster party is more powerful?

 

[Oofta]

Umm, @Oofta, why do you assume that the troll can escape the incredibly long ranged party you've created, every time?

Ok, sure, in a scenario where the group is limited to 15 foot sight lines, has no scouts, and the troll surprises them, sure, troll wins. But, outdoors? It's not all that hard to keep the troll in sight while it's trying to run away. And, if the troll has run away, why is it coming back? You keep talking about playing the monster intelligently and not suicidally. The first time it came up for a snack, it gets its ass handed to it. The second time it gets beaten off too. The troll has no idea that the casters might be out of spells. But it's totally realistic for that predator, after being shown that it can be killed by the prey twice, keeps coming back for more?

Funny how "I play monsters intelligently" seems to mean, "I play the monsters with the meta game knowledge of exactly what the party can do."

The point was, and @ECMO3 has rather handily demonstrated, a 1st level party can beat the troll. Does it need a bit of help? Sure. Fair enough. But you're forgetting the other side of the coin. The non-caster party dies EVERY time. It never wins. The caster party wins sometimes.

Doesn't that demonstrate that the caster party is more powerful?

Have you ever been in a forest? Seeing anything a hundred feet away or more is unlikely.

Assuming absolute best case scenario for the party they might be able to run down the troll. But in most cases, they'll want to try to immobilize the troll and attack from more than 60 feet away, so say 65 feet. Fire Bolt has a range of 120 feet, the first round they can close to 95 feet and do maybe 16 points of damage if every single person in the party has a 120 foot cantrip. You get one round and then it's out of range.

Why would the troll not come back? It knows it can keep kiting them and wear them down, all it has to do is fight for a bit then run away. Seems like that would be a standard tactic. But yes, if the party gets a ton of help they can win. All it takes is stacking the fight heavily in favor of the PCs. Of course if you don't assume best case scenario for the PCs then the PCs die.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, I didn't know using the standard encounter distances from the DMG was the "best case scenario".

You realize how short 100 feet is right? 100 foot sight lines, even in forest, is not unreasonable. But, again, why would the troll come back? It knows the party can actually kill it. Why not find something a lot easier to eat? Like any reasonable predator? But, sure, if we play our baddies as tactical experts, regardless of their actual natures (since when are trolls tactical?), use all the meta-game knowledge to know when the party is out of spells, stack the encounter every way in favor of the monster, sure, you'll defeat the party every time. Not really a shock there.

But, again, you are missing the point. The point isn't that the caster party will probably lose the encounter. Fair enough. It's that the non-caster party will always lose the encounter. They will never win. And, this is the absolute weakest that a caster party will be. It can't be any weaker. Bump the party up to about 7th level, or even worse, 11th level and now they're able to pretty much bypass virtually any challenge you care to throw at them. They just have that many resources to draw on.

Which means that you have to start writing your adventures to take the casters into account. Which you already do - liberal use of Forbiddence for example. The only reason you do that is to counter the casters. IOW, the casters dictate the shape of the campaign in a way that the non-casters never can.

 

[Oofta]

Wow, I didn't know using the standard encounter distances from the DMG was the "best case scenario".

You realize how short 100 feet is right? 100 foot sight lines, even in forest, is not unreasonable. But, again, why would the troll come back? It knows the party can actually kill it. Why not find something a lot easier to eat? Like any reasonable predator? But, sure, if we play our baddies as tactical experts, regardless of their actual natures (since when are trolls tactical?), use all the meta-game knowledge to know when the party is out of spells, stack the encounter every way in favor of the monster, sure, you'll defeat the party every time. Not really a shock there.

But, again, you are missing the point. The point isn't that the caster party will probably lose the encounter. Fair enough. It's that the non-caster party will always lose the encounter. They will never win. And, this is the absolute weakest that a caster party will be. It can't be any weaker. Bump the party up to about 7th level, or even worse, 11th level and now they're able to pretty much bypass virtually any challenge you care to throw at them. They just have that many resources to draw on.

Which means that you have to start writing your adventures to take the casters into account. Which you already do - liberal use of Forbiddence for example. The only reason you do that is to counter the casters. IOW, the casters dictate the shape of the campaign in a way that the non-casters never can.

Once a day. Once a day, one encounter, the low level casters will win out. The second, third or fourth? The casters are spent and doing a fraction of what the martial characters are.

Even at mid to high levels martials contribute just as much or more in games I've run or played. Casters are not superior, they are different and have different roles.

 

[Clint_L]

Wow, I didn't know using the standard encounter distances from the DMG was the "best case scenario".

You realize how short 100 feet is right? 100 foot sight lines, even in forest, is not unreasonable. But, again, why would the troll come back? It knows the party can actually kill it. Why not find something a lot easier to eat? Like any reasonable predator? But, sure, if we play our baddies as tactical experts, regardless of their actual natures (since when are trolls tactical?), use all the meta-game knowledge to know when the party is out of spells, stack the encounter every way in favor of the monster, sure, you'll defeat the party every time. Not really a shock there.

But, again, you are missing the point. The point isn't that the caster party will probably lose the encounter. Fair enough.

Well, no, you alleged that it would be a "cakewalk" with a caster party.

It's that the non-caster party will always lose the encounter. They will never win. And, this is the absolute weakest that a caster party will be. It can't be any weaker. Bump the party up to about 7th level, or even worse, 11th level and now they're able to pretty much bypass virtually any challenge you care to throw at them. They just have that many resources to draw on.

Which means that you have to start writing your adventures to take the casters into account. Which you already do - liberal use of Forbiddence for example. The only reason you do that is to counter the casters. IOW, the casters dictate the shape of the campaign in a way that the non-casters never can.

Incidentally, I eventually tried this encounter with an all melee group....and they won, through sheer DPR. They weren't as good as my mixed group, but it turns out that an all barbarian party of 8 level 1s can take down a troll in less than two rounds and pour oil on it and light it on fire. The troll can't get away and can't KO them through their damage resistance in time.

I also tried 8 wizards, and gave them all burning hands. This was about 50/50 and largely depended on initiative order and the troll not using any tactics. If it gets close, it KOs two of them each round, basically. Incidentally, I definitely think it is fair to play a troll as if it knows how regeneration works and how to make the most of it, including backing off and giving itself time to heal when necessary. Animals with a much lower intelligence than a troll will stalk prey and employ hit and run tactics.

You have a thesis - that casters are way overpowered and break the game at all levels - and you're sticking with it, no matter what evidence you are given. You keep complaining that your experience is being disrespected, but you are not open to the possibility, suggested by the evidence and by the experience of a lot of other people, that you might be an outlier. Are you respecting the experiences of other people? You make hyperbolic claims, like that a party of level 1 casters could cake walk over a troll, but can't back them up except to quibble when they are actually tested. So I don't see this discussion really going anywhere.

I don't find casters overpowered at low levels, at all, and I do not have a shortage of players wanting to play martial classes. My numbers are broadly similar to the data. When I look at actual play shows, again I see martial classes being regularly played. In fact, what all these strings of evidence converge on is the thesis that D&D5e is fairly well balanced. I recognize that at high levels, among hardcore optimizers, the results are likely different. I don't much care about that; I think it affects a fraction of a percentage of games.

Just looking at fighters, the most popular class by a significant margin, I think there are a number of reasons for that popularity, but one of them is simple: fighters are pretty good in 5e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

YMMV. Some of my most fun sessions have been at level 0. In part because of the sense of danger, in part because there are real and lasting consequences (getting a class); I run level 0 adventures as character/backstory creation that's how the gang got together. But even starting at level 0 my PCs tend to hit level 3 by the end of session four.

Which, from my experience of 5e, would be bewilderingly fast. I've never seen a single game gain more than one level per four sessions. Ever.

I normally milestone level anyway. And allow risky shortcuts to reaching the milestones. (My "dungeon crawl milestones" are you get a level for making it back from each new floor of the dungeon, meaning that an abseiling trip can yield three levels - but not everyone normally returns from that sort of play).

Sure, but milestone levelling isn't the default, and certainly isn't anywhere near common in my experience. (As in, I haven't played at a table that uses it.) Every game I've been in has tracked XP to at least the ones place, and (occasionally) even fractional XP, since you divide the XP for an encounter between everyone in the party. (Usually this isn't an issue because most XP values are divisible by both 4 and 5, but in theory it could come up with a party of 6.)

Now that's weird.

Not really sure why. Nothing in 5e tells you you should give out XP for anything except combat, as far as I was aware. The closest things come is a nearly-useless instruction to approximate the CR of the non-combat challenge and then reward XP as though it were a combat, which is...technically a system, I suppose, but possibly the worst thing that could actually qualify for that moniker. Oh, and to top it off, the wording makes it extremely clear that this is a "maybe, if you feel like it" kind of thing, not a "you really really should do this, unless you have a very good reason not to":

Noncombat Challenges

You decide whether to award experience to characters for overcoming challenges outside combat. If the adventurers complete a tense negotiation with a baron, forge a trade agreement with a clan of surly dwarves, or successfully navigate the Chasm of Doom, you might decide that they deserve an XP reward.

As a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 3 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge. Then award the characters XP as if it had been a combat encounter of the same difficulty, but only if the encounter involved a meaningful risk of failure.

Not a hint of a whisper of "this is supposed to be important, as in almost everyone should do this on the regular." Much, much more like "eh, I guess, if you feel like it." By comparison, particularly given that first sentence, you don't decide whether to award experience for overcoming challenges inside combat. Combat challenges always reward XP when overcome.

 

[Zardnaar]

Two different campaigns.

Also, I was speaking only of the players. The DM had run 5e before. That was, in fact, precisely why he believed he could throw a CR3 Mummy at a fresh 1st level party. Averting a TPK solely through DM fiat, and then dropping back to back combats on us when we had another terrible fight and tried to take a rest...which resulted in everyone but the Rogue dying. The campaign folded after that because nobody was interested in continuing an experience like that.

(Of course, I had tried to warn this DM that this was a risk... especially with a group of almost total newbies...they completely ignored me, supremely confident that there would be no problems. I tried my best, playing a support-heavy character, but there was only so much I could do.)


Considering I've never even seen a single 5e campaign gain more than two levels before it collapsed (usually as a result of a TPK due to a DM throwing excessively challenging stuff at the party), and usually not even get one, waiting for level 8 is not tenable in my experience.


These requests are always online. I don't have an in-person gaming group. Never have. Even if I didn't have social anxiety, I don't have any sufficiently close places to seek an in-person game.

Personally, I find all that buttering up is seen as disingenuous. "Oh, it'll be sooo good for the campaign, because it will be good for you huh?"

But it never even gets that far. It's literally that I merely propose it (hoping for, you know, a conversation, "what's it about?" "why do you like it?" etc.), and most times there is a response of absolutely zero-discussion, "No, no 3pp. At all. Ever." I've learned not to push any further, in this glorious age of DM empowerment such subversive, destructive requests are met with perfectly justified overwhelming force. Sometimes it's at least the courteous (but probably not sincere) claim that they'll "look at it." Given I haven't yet seen a single game that actually did allow 3PP yet, it's a bit hard to see 3PP as anything but a pipe dream.

I do allow 3pp but it's curated not anything goes.

Midgard Heroes Handbook adds around 50 more subclasses.

I would probably at least look at any 3pp and as long as it passes the mechanics test (to weak, overpowered) and theme (probably no gunslingers).

Norse games starting soon one new player is looking at rune type wizards which fits the theme great so happy with that.

Games starting at level 3

Regulars dont go for wizards much.

 

[Zardnaar]

Which, from my experience of 5e, would be bewilderingly fast. I've never seen a single game gain more than one level per four sessions. Ever.


Sure, but milestone levelling isn't the default, and certainly isn't anywhere near common in my experience. (As in, I haven't played at a table that uses it.) Every game I've been in has tracked XP to at least the ones place, and (occasionally) even fractional XP, since you divide the XP for an encounter between everyone in the party. (Usually this isn't an issue because most XP values are divisible by both 4 and 5, but in theory it could come up with a party of 6.)


Not really sure why. Nothing in 5e tells you you should give out XP for anything except combat, as far as I was aware. The closest things come is a nearly-useless instruction to approximate the CR of the non-combat challenge and then reward XP as though it were a combat, which is...technically a system, I suppose, but possibly the worst thing that could actually qualify for that moniker. Oh, and to top it off, the wording makes it extremely clear that this is a "maybe, if you feel like it" kind of thing, not a "you really really should do this, unless you have a very good reason not to":

Not a hint of a whisper of "this is supposed to be important, as in almost everyone should do this on the regular." Much, much more like "eh, I guess, if you feel like it." By comparison, particularly given that first sentence, you don't decide whether to award experience for overcoming challenges inside combat. Combat challenges always reward XP when overcome.

Expected xp progression rates. Milestone.

Level.
1. 1-2 sessions.
2. 2 sessions.
3. 3 sessions
4. 3 sessions.
5+ 3-4 sessions.

Level 1 is usually 1-3 combats, social encounter, exploration.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do allow 3pp but it's curated not anything goes.

Midgard Heroes Handbook adds around 50 more subclasses.

I would probably at least look at any 3pp and as long as it passes the mechanics test (to weak, overpowered) and theme (probably no gunslingers).

Norse games starting soon one new player is looking at rune type wizards which fits the theme great so happy with that.

Games starting at level 3

Regulars dont go for wizards much.

I mean, I wouldn't expect "anything goes." Dandwiki exists and is objectively awful 99.99% of the time.

But with literally every 5e campaign I've applied for--not even just ones I've joined--the attitude has more been "nothing goes." If it's 3PP, it's forbidden, either outright and aggressively up-front, or delayed with a "I'll check it out" only to subsequently say no.

Expected xp progression rates. Milestone.

Level.
1. 1-2 sessions.
2. 2 sessions.
3. 3 sessions
4. 3 sessions.
5+ 3-4 sessions.

Sure. I've literally never seen anyone use it. And, perhaps more importantly, such stuff isn't actually written in the DMG as far as I can tell. In fact, the long and short of the DMG's words on the use of such things (which it calls "story-based advancement"; "milestones" refers to something else, still tied to using XP) are: "When you let the story of the campaign drive advancements you award levels when adventurers accomplish significant goals in the campaign." Which doesn't even rise to the level of advice. It's literally just a description of what happens!