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.

 

[hgjertsen]

Wizards going to take the cowards way out and say 'compatible'.

Are half-races confirmed to be removed from 5.5 or something?

 

[Scribe]

Are half-races confirmed to be removed from 5.5 or something?

I believe the last word was that they are being removed, and no update since saying otherwise but I would have to go back and look.

 

[hgjertsen]

I believe the last word was that they are being removed, and no update since saying otherwise but I would have to go back and look.

Any word on why? Half-elves are certainly pretty overpowered mechanically speaking.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I believe the last word was that they are being removed, and no update since saying otherwise but I would have to go back and look.

Well, "removed" and also "expanded." Last we heard, almost any race can produce offspring with any other race (the 3E dragons are clearly in charge of writing the next books), but while you can flavor them however you want, but you have to just pick one race's stats, for balance sake.

I mean, we already have people saying everyone should play Reborn Owlin for maximum mechanical cheese. This puts a lid on things getting too crazy with future content.

 

[Scribe]

Any word on why? Half-elves are certainly pretty overpowered mechanically speaking.

Some claim that the "Half" is racist and/or a sensitivity issue. Others claim to remove "Half" is racist and/or a sensitivity issue.

 

[hgjertsen]

Some claim that the "Half" is racist and/or a sensitivity issue. Others claim to remove "Half" is racist and/or a sensitivity issue.

Ah, I see. Probably won't change much to shuffle some wording around and will help with the icky racial language so why not! I'm guessing half elves and half orcs will just become options for humans or something.

 

[jmartkdr2]

As always with D&D beyond statistics, I'm curious about how many of these characters are actually played, and how many are build experiments, and if there is a significant difference in distribution between the two. Interesting stats none the less!

Once in a while they'll release results that control for that (paid only, or using "adjusted current hp" as a way to single out played characters.)

The order of things doesn't change - fighters and humans are still the most popular, followed by elves and rogues, dragonborn and barbarians, tieflings and wizards, etc. There might have been some shifts near the bottom but I don't recall ever seeing that.

The degree of difference between options does reduce - ie barbarians aren't 20% more popular than wizards, more like 10%, but they're still in 3rd and 4th place respectively.

 

[Stormonu]

Another way to look at it?
Humans 7:1
Elf 5:1
Dragonborn 3.5:1
Tiefling 3:1
Half-elf 2:1
Dwarf 1.8:1
Halfling 1.5:1
Half-Orc 1:1
Genasi 1:1
Gnome .9:1
Goliath .9:1
Aasimar .8:1
Lineages .5:1
Custom .4:1

I am surprised Half-orcs are pretty much in the middle of the pack. Makes me happy to know they aren't on the bottom, forgotten heap of playable races.

Also, I call that 80% of the elves are Drow, with some variation on spelling "Drizzle".

 

[Oofta]

I was procrastinating a bit and redid the chart a bit and did some approximate measurements and redid the chart using a single scale if anyone cares.

 

[Oofta]

Are half-races confirmed to be removed from 5.5 or something?

Last I remember there were going to be mixed lineages where you pick and choose things from either of your parental races. So someone with dwarf and elf parents can be a thing I guess? We'll see later this year.