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]

Secondly how on earth is that relevant to 5e? Dude you’re bringing up Kender to justify the behaviour. My mind is boggled. It’s 2023!

Dude, if you want to say you don't understand how examples from different editions help explain points just say so. I've been pointing things in editions matter - and I don't assume that everyone round here just plays 5e. (And that tangent came off me explicitly pointing out 2e had a thieving from the party problem which melted when the editions changed - and pre-4e paladins were problem cases that also melted when we got rid of the ridiculous alignment nannying).

Anyway I think we're getting nowhere.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Dude, if you want to say you don't understand how examples from different editions help explain points just say so. I've been pointing things in editions matter - and I don't assume that everyone round here just plays 5e. (And that tangent came off me explicitly pointing out 2e had a thieving from the party problem which melted when the editions changed - and pre-4e paladins were problem cases that also melted when we got rid of the ridiculous alignment nannying).

Anyway I think we're getting nowhere.

The thread topic is about 2023 D&D Beyond characters, so I'm pretty sure 5e characters are the subject. Why would 2e players even come into such a thread?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

And no amount of details is apparently enough. Half dozen spells? Good grief, I've mentioned more than that in just this thread.

My point is, I LOATHE having that conversation with players. Player says, "I'm now level X, and I've picked spell Y". Fair enough, frankly, I want to trust the system to the point where I honestly don't really check that often. Then it comes into play. And it turns out that no, this spell, feat, whatever, actually burns me so freaking often. Lessee, in just the past few months, just from memory:

Manifest Mind - intangible, virtually unkillable sensor with a 300 foot range, can see in the dark (and comes with it's own light source if needed) that can basically walk through walls, doors, whatever solid objects and telepathically inform the caster what it sees. Also allows the caster to cast spells through it if needed.

Forbiddence: as mentioned.

Banishment - a 4th level spell that becomes more powerful the higher the level of the party because it becomes virtually guaranteed that every monster you meet is extra planar of some sort at higher CR's. Becomes a save or die spell for most encounters. Not bad for a 4th level slot. ((Yes, yes, for the ultra-pedantic, I know the monster isn't dead, but, it's been sent to another plane and most monsters have no way back - close enough to dead.))

Project Image - allows the casters a sensor that can walk through walls, out to 500 miles for a day. All sorts of shenanigans for this one.

On and on and on. It never stops. Just endless. But, of course, since I can't actually create an exhaustive list for you, you just keep telling me that there is no problem and i'm just making things up.

I KNOW you aren't having this problem. Thank you for telling me that over and over again. Howzabout you let people who ACTUALLY HAVE THIS PROBLEM help me resolve this issue instead of repeatedly telling me that I'm either lying or incompetent? What are you trying to achieve by denying my experience? You aren't having this issue? Great? You have repeatedly stated that you don't have a lot of casters in your group and your games end before double digit levels. So, yeah, of course you aren't having this issue.

For Manifest Mind, it can move through creatures, but not objects. Limits their movement more, although it's still pretty strong.

 

[TheSword]

Dude, if you want to say you don't understand how examples from different editions help explain points just say so. I've been pointing things in editions matter - and I don't assume that everyone round here just plays 5e. (And that tangent came off me explicitly pointing out 2e had a thieving from the party problem which melted when the editions changed - and pre-4e paladins were problem cases that also melted when we got rid of the ridiculous alignment nannying).

Anyway I think we're getting nowhere.

I started in AD&D, I understand your example I just don’t agree with it.

Firstly the table doesn’t discuss theft and never did, it just rewarded acquisition of treasure. It doesn’t give a rogue license to steal from the party and more than a fighter had license to beat up other PCs for healing potions. By definition theft benefits the person that’s profiting from it.

If your rogues were encouraged to steal from the party it was by the DM and other players accepting the circumstances and not dealing with the behaviour. Not the system. If you think removing treasure awards from rogues stopped pvp theft, then just check how many threads there are for 3e, pathfinder and 5e about the issue - I’ll give you a clue, there are lots.

I’ve played in many many campaigns with Paladins. Lawful stupid, bad party selection (necromancers in paladin parties) and chaotic neutral misanthrope PCs are out of game problems projected onto the game. We know because we still see misanthropic PCs and some players who don’t know how to behave in a group dynamic. They crop up here and on other forums all the time.

In short your claim that these behaviors are encouraged by system rules and somehow stopped when rules were changed is patently not evidenced by reality.

 

[TheSword]

The thread topic is about 2023 D&D Beyond characters, so I'm pretty sure 5e characters are the subject. Why would 2e players even come into such a thread?

There was an unfounded claim that spellcasting rules encouraged selfish grandstanding because Simulacrum and Wish .

Despite the fact that less than 3% of games get to level 17+ let alone pick the wish spell.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

System may effect behaviour. However not making something impossible is not the same as encouraging it. Can you find a current example of pvp being encouraged by the system and we can talk more?

It's not PVP, but there's two very simple examples of "rules encourage X undesirable behavior", forcing DMs to police it" that both apply to 5e.

So-called "whack-a-mole" healing and the 5-minute workday.

The former is seen as enough of a problem that we've had multiple threads with dozens of pages on the subject, and the latter is enough of a problem that it was (implicitly) one of the reasons we're getting 5.5e, because most groups take too many long rests and not enough short rests, shortchanging classes like Fighter and Warlock and giving excessive power to long-rest classes.

Both things are player behaviors caused specifically by the system rewarding such behavior. So-called "whack-a-mole" healing is far more efficient than preventing characters from going down at all because there's no consequences for being briefly downed, and bonus action healing is far more efficient than main action healing--you can attack and bring your ally back up. Likewise, because the vast majority of healing is tied to long-rest resources and spells are action-for-action so much more powerful than what short-rest or non-rest classes can bring, every character has a major survival and success-chance incentive to long rest as frequently as possible, despite the game being designed to depend on many classes (such as Warlock) getting multiple short rests, and subclasses (such as Champion) getting lots of combat rounds, merely to keep up.

These are well-known complaints about 5e, specifically resulting from how the system is designed, and what actions that system makes more effective vs less effective. Does that mean literally every person playing it is mind controlled to always do that specific thing and never anything else ever? No, that would be stupid. But the incentive is real, and it actually does lead a lot of people to do those things, because players aren't stupid. They want to succeed as best they can with the tools they have, and they want to suffer the fewest pitfalls or calamities they can on the road to that success.

 

[Oofta]

It's not PVP, but there's two very simple examples of "rules encourage X undesirable behavior", forcing DMs to police it" that both apply to 5e.

So-called "whack-a-mole" healing and the 5-minute workday.

The former is seen as enough of a problem that we've had multiple threads with dozens of pages on the subject, and the latter is enough of a problem that it was (implicitly) one of the reasons we're getting 5.5e, because most groups take too many long rests and not enough short rests, shortchanging classes like Fighter and Warlock and giving excessive power to long-rest classes.

Both things are player behaviors caused specifically by the system rewarding such behavior. So-called "whack-a-mole" healing is far more efficient than preventing characters from going down at all because there's no consequences for being briefly downed, and bonus action healing is far more efficient than main action healing--you can attack and bring your ally back up. Likewise, because the vast majority of healing is tied to long-rest resources and spells are action-for-action so much more powerful than what short-rest or non-rest classes can bring, every character has a major survival and success-chance incentive to long rest as frequently as possible, despite the game being designed to depend on many classes (such as Warlock) getting multiple short rests, and subclasses (such as Champion) getting lots of combat rounds, merely to keep up.

These are well-known complaints about 5e, specifically resulting from how the system is designed, and what actions that system makes more effective vs less effective. Does that mean literally every person playing it is mind controlled to always do that specific thing and never anything else ever? No, that would be stupid. But the incentive is real, and it actually does lead a lot of people to do those things, because players aren't stupid. They want to succeed as best they can with the tools they have, and they want to suffer the fewest pitfalls or calamities they can on the road to that success.

How does "I don't like how this works" at all the same as "PvP"?

 

[TheSword]

It's not PVP, but there's two very simple examples of "rules encourage X undesirable behavior", forcing DMs to police it" that both apply to 5e.

So-called "whack-a-mole" healing and the 5-minute workday.

The former is seen as enough of a problem that we've had multiple threads with dozens of pages on the subject, and the latter is enough of a problem that it was (implicitly) one of the reasons we're getting 5.5e, because most groups take too many long rests and not enough short rests, shortchanging classes like Fighter and Warlock and giving excessive power to long-rest classes.

Both things are player behaviors caused specifically by the system rewarding such behavior. So-called "whack-a-mole" healing is far more efficient than preventing characters from going down at all because there's no consequences for being briefly downed, and bonus action healing is far more efficient than main action healing--you can attack and bring your ally back up. Likewise, because the vast majority of healing is tied to long-rest resources and spells are action-for-action so much more powerful than what short-rest or non-rest classes can bring, every character has a major survival and success-chance incentive to long rest as frequently as possible, despite the game being designed to depend on many classes (such as Warlock) getting multiple short rests, and subclasses (such as Champion) getting lots of combat rounds, merely to keep up.

These are well-known complaints about 5e, specifically resulting from how the system is designed, and what actions that system makes more effective vs less effective. Does that mean literally every person playing it is mind controlled to always do that specific thing and never anything else ever? No, that would be stupid. But the incentive is real, and it actually does lead a lot of people to do those things, because players aren't stupid. They want to succeed as best they can with the tools they have, and they want to suffer the fewest pitfalls or calamities they can on the road to that success.

I get where you’re coming at, and agree that those things are encouraged by the rules but I don’t think in either case the behaviors fundamentally spoil the experience for other players (or rather they benefit players equally) as opposed to grandstanding that leads to one player dominating the game at the others expense.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How does "I don't like how this works" at all the same as "PvP"?

I literally said it wasn't PVP.

For God's sake, at least read the first THREE WORDS.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I get where you’re coming at, and agree that those things are encouraged by the rules but I don’t think in either case the behaviors fundamentally spoil the experience for other players (or rather they benefit players equally) as opposed to grandstanding that leads to one player dominating the game at the others expense.

WotC evidently disagrees, given Crawford explicitly said one of the motivations behind "One D&D" is that the Warlock was being shortchanged by the lack of short rests. That's why they tried to replace its unique casting method, and when fans (IMO rightly) rejected that as a crap non-solution, they gave it the ability to restore some spell slots outside of short rests. They didn't go far enough, IMO, but it's clear they understood this was a problem that needed to be addressed.