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.

 

[Zardnaar]

Countless were the number of times in 1e-3e where I heard, "Hey, we don't have a wizard/arcane caster yet and need one." Far more often than I heard a request for a front line fighter.

Wizards easiest on to go without.

I don't require PCs to pick anything. I suggest you cover warrior, expert, support, artillery/control and leave it at that.

If you get an oddball party roll with it. If they get TPK'd oh well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Further confounding the numbers. Now we have people who play and like martials, people who just mess around, people who make characters and level up offline, and people who use DDB the whole way. And by the by, that also applies to all those forced to play casters and don't like them, which happens just as often or even moreso.

Fighter also includes the good ones like EK, Psi Warrior, Battlemaster, Rune Knight.

They start off good and are very good mid level.

 

[Ancalagon]

Thing is, this goes a long way to explain where people are coming from thought.

When I talk about not successfully doing this or that in 5e D&D, I get repeatedly told that I'm just playing the game wrong. That if I only was a better DM, I wouldn't have these problems. Thing is, if your groups (and I mean this as a generic "your", not you personally @Ancalagon ) are predominantly non and half casters with only one or two full casters in a group, then sure, you won't have the issues that I have. Of course not.

For example, I talk about how I don't like how casters can radically alter and control the game. They simply have so many spells that let you bypass challenges and automatically succeeding. And I get told, "Oh, that never happens because the group might not have this or that spell or power or whatever". But, here's the thing. When you have five full casters in a group, they ALWAYS have that spell. Someone will always have that spell/power/whatever. Simply because by fairly early levels (say 5th onwards), you're looking at a group with dozens, literally dozens, of spell options. And options that can be easily switched around given a long rest. Plus all those lovely infinite use options like cantrips and rituals.

Now, advance the group into double digit levels and see what happens. Tomb of Horrors? Poof, one Forbiddence spell and every undead in the dungeon instantly dies. Nothing can teleport and escape. They just die. Yay, that was fun. And the resources are never ending. In my current game, the artificer/Abjurer cranks out a 26 AC whenever he likes. Given that the party is only 8th level, virtually nothing can hit him. ANd that ignores things like Wall of Force shenanigans and the like.

But, sure, if you only have one wizard and one cleric in a group and you end your campaigns around 8th level, of course you never have any issues.

My Drakkeheim game (where I'm a player, not the one where I am a DM) had a cleric, a wizard, an apothercary (sort of a full caster), a ranger and a soul knife rogue (not a caster, but very useful). The amount of shenanigans we can pull is astonishing. We once infiltrated a place via my apothecary casting gaseous form on 3 party members, short rest, and then transferring the rest. Magic really expands on what you can do and problem solves.

I think this is what a lot of people trying to balance martials vs full casters miss - it's not how much damage, or control or buffs in combat that really give the edge to the full casters - it's the capacity to shape events. Violence is just one solution.

What to do about this? I see three solutions

1: As you suggest, limit the number of full casters in your game

2: as a GM you present challenges to the party. They solve it. Does it really matter if they solved it with magic?

3: Perhaps use a system where full casters have a lot less spells. This gazillion spell things is a D&D thing. Troika!, the Glog or Warhammer frpg 2e could work.

(I have to go so I didn't have time to write this very well, I hope it's not too harsh/judgy/etc. Ultimately as a GM you have the right to play the game in a way you enjoy!)

 

[Minigiant]

Wizards easiest on to go without.

This is because a good DM doesn't lock solutions behind arcane tricks.

However having someone who doesn't wilt until combat focus or can remove the consequence of bad rolls is extremely handy.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is because a good DM doesn't lock solutions behind arcane tricks.

However having someone who doesn't wilt until combat focus or can remove the consequence of bad rolls is extremely handy.

Well you can do the old kill stuff faster routine eg warlock eldritch blast/archer or replace with bard/druid/Cleric/sorcerer.

Sorcerer can blow things up just as good or maybe better and twin haste the martials.

There's a trade off eg exploration but it's minimal.

 

[Minigiant]

Well you can do the old kill stuff faster routine eg warlock eldritch blast/archer or replace with bard/druid/Cleric/sorcerer.

Sorcer can blow things up just as good or maybe better and twin haste the martials.

There's a trade off eg exploration but it's minimal.

It's like the 4e roles. You want a defender and striker first. Making sure you have a leader is tertiary in 4e as it is in 5e. And a contrller is least neccesary but gets the coolest stuff..

So it makes sense that the list is

1. Defender/Striker
2. Striker
3. Defender/Striker
4. Striker/Controller
5. Defender/Leader/Striker
6. Striker/Controller
7. Defender/Leader
8. Defender/Leader/Striker
9. Everything
10. Everything but worse
11. Striker/Controller
12. PHB Other
13. NonPHB Other

 

[Zardnaar]

It's like the 4e roles. You want a defender and striker first. Making sure you have a leader is tertiary in 4e as it is in 5e. And a contrller is least neccesary but gets the coolest stuff..

So it makes sense that the list is

1. Defender/Striker
2. Striker
3. Defender/Striker
4. Striker/Controller
5. Defender/Leader/Striker
6. Striker/Controller
7. Defender/Leader
8. Defender/Leader/Striker
9. Everything
10. Everything but worse
11. Striker/Controller
12. PHB Other
13. NonPHB Other

I also subscribe to learn the hard way. If you make an oddball party and you get killed so be it.

Most of the time it's fine I've had 1 fatality in last 5 years. 3 or 4 strikers and a healer also works. Death is still the best debuff

 

[Hussar]

All of that assumes a lot of things. Like a caster with hideous laughter or vicious mockery, etc. and using one of their 2 spell slots to cast it and that it works. It likely assumes the PCs win initiative and the troll doesn't just eat the wizard first.

We just started a new campaign and, after a couple of intro sessions as kids they're going to be first level so I just verified a few things using average attack and damage. First, on average 1 PC drops per round likely with an attack left over. Even if they did all survive every round, it would still take 3 rounds to kill the troll even if it were not regenerating ... but they don't have a wizard so no fire bolt or any other flame based attack. Time for someone to break out a torch and do minimal damage I guess. Assuming a caster in the group has healing word (my group does not ), that can only be cast twice per long rest.

The only way I see a level 1 party surviving against a CR 5 monster is if they can ambush and have the right combination of PCs and get lucky. My current group of 4? it's basically a guaranteed TPK.

Spoiler: My current level 1 group

• barbarian AC 13, 14 HP, +5/11.5 damage (raging greataxe)
• monk AC 16, 10 HP, +5/14 damage (dwarf with warhammer and unarmed attack)
• rogue AC 13, 8 HP, +5/10 (assumes sneak attack)
• cleric AC 18, 12 HP, +5/7.5 (note: no healing spells)
• fighter AC 17, 12 HP, +5/14 (polearm master w/spear)

Troll, 3 attacks, AC 15, +7/7 + +7/11x2 (total dmg 29) HP 84

The group hits 55% of the time so if they're all alive they'll do on average around 30 points of damage, so it takes 3 rounds. However, in that 3 rounds ... oof.

Round 1: barbarian likely drops. If the troll attacks her with claws, in most cases, she drops. Most of the time the troll will still have an attack left over for a double tap.

Round 2: the barbarian is down, go after the monk or rogue. Rogue is practically guaranteed to go down and suffer another attack to kill.

Round 3: again, if the troll uses claws first, the next PC drops to 0.

And on we go. Every round, the troll on average takes out a PC. Even if the cleric had healing word (they don't) they only have 2 spell slots. The PCs don't have fire based attacks so someone will have to spend an action or two hitting with a torch. Unless there's an ambush, it's a TPK.

ROTFLMAO.

This is EXACTLY the problem.

In my groups, where I have five casters in a group of 5 PC's, it's almost guaranteed that they would have vicious mockery (after all, it's virtually the best Bard cantrip, so, if you have 5 casters, odds are, you have a bard, which means that you have Vicious Mockery) and Hideous Laughter. You have a group with one caster. So, your group gets curb stomped by an encounter that my group cake walks over.

But, apparently, that's my fault as a DM? That's not a systemic problem at all? Not exactly sure how that works, but, that's what I'm being told. Of COURSE you aren't having the problem of too much caster power in a group with no casters.

 

[Clint_L]

ROTFLMAO.

This is EXACTLY the problem.

In my groups, where I have five casters in a group of 5 PC's, it's almost guaranteed that they would have vicious mockery (after all, it's virtually the best Bard cantrip, so, if you have 5 casters, odds are, you have a bard, which means that you have Vicious Mockery) and Hideous Laughter. You have a group with one caster. So, your group gets curb stomped by an encounter that my group cake walks over.

But, apparently, that's my fault as a DM? That's not a systemic problem at all? Not exactly sure how that works, but, that's what I'm being told. Of COURSE you aren't having the problem of too much caster power in a group with no casters.

You think a group of five level 1 casters is going to cake walk over a troll?

You guys are playing a very different version of D&D than we are! Unless I specifically designed the encounter to give significant advantages to the party, they would be annihilated in a couple rounds. Two would likely be KOed, possibly insta-gibbed, in the first round.

 

[Oofta]

You think a group of five level 1 casters is going to cake walk over a troll?

You guys are playing a very different version of D&D than we are! Unless I specifically designed the encounter to give significant advantages to the party, they would be annihilated in a couple rounds. Two would likely be KOed, possibly insta-gibbed, in the first round.

I agree, one swipe hits and a mage will be dead. A troll has 80 some HP and even if it fails its save, every time it takes damage it gets a save with advantage.

If the PCs get surprise and can attack from range and have the spell slots available and have the appropriate spells and they get lucky and initiative favors them and the encounter setup favors them maybe. But if they're using their spells to incapacitate then they're using cantrips, likely doing D10 damage if they hit.

Dice can be fickle but I see no way it ends well for the party. Solos have never worked particularly well, but there's a limit.