DnD is essentially a collaborative storytelling game — sort of like playing in your backyard with your friends pretending to be cowboys or knights or superheroes. The only difference is there’s a few rules so that you don’t run into the old “Oh, actually I was wearing a bulletproof vest this whole time” trick.
Players create and play as a character, an adventurer usually in a fantasy world not unlike Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. The game is run by a Dungeon Master, or DM, who describes what’s happening, adjudicates the rules, and controls all the various allies and enemies the characters encounter.
There’s no real “winning” or “losing” in DnD; the goal is to hang out with your friends and have a good time pretending to be heroes. Games can be played in one night, but more often than not take on an episodic nature with a group meeting weekly or monthly to see what happens on the next phase of their adventure. These are often referred to as campaigns (a holdover from DnD’s war-gaming roots) and are one of the cool things about the game. Playing in a long-form campaign is like watching a TV series that you play a part in. People have games that last years, but most campaigns last a few months. The average DnD session runs around 2 or 3 hours, but some people play all-day marathon sessions. It’s really up to the group you play with.
So how does it all work? The DM will describe a situation the characters find themselves in.
DM: “While traveling up the road, about a 100 yards ahead of you, you see a wagon turned on its side, small creatures crawling over the outside of it, holding what seems to be spears — what do you do?”
The players can then ask questions or announce their intended actions. If their question is something their character would know the answer to without effort or an action is something that could reasonably be accomplished with no trouble, it happens.
“I draw my bow and nock an arrow”
“What time of day is it again?”
However, if the player asks something that there’s a chance they don’t know or performs an action where there’s a chance for failure, the DM will have them roll dice to determine whether they succeed or not.
Player: “Can I make out what these small figures are?”
DM: “Roll a perception check.”
Player: “16.” (The higher number you roll, the better.)
DM: “The long, pointy ears and green skin give them away. Goblins! Looks like they’re robbing some poor traveling merchant.”
Player: “I take aim and fire my bow at one.”
DM: “Alright, roll your attack.”
Rinse and repeat.
There’s no right or wrong actions to take, so never worry about saying the wrong thing. It’s the DM’s job to take your character’s intentions and filter them through the rules to determine what happens next. That’s the thing about DnD for me that makes it so much more compelling than video games — there’s literally no limitations on what you can and cannot do. The rules are there as suggestions, not hard and fast walls to bounce off. There are literally as many solutions to a problem as there are players.
Now for the elephant in the room: Roleplaying. It’s the thing I think people worry the most about when it comes to DnD. I’m here to tell you, there’s no wrong way to do it. You can do as much or as little as you’re comfortable doing. The only goal is to have a good time. If you wanna dress up and bring a foam sword and use a funny voice? That’s cool. If you’d rather just summarize what your character is saying, that’s cool too.
As an example:
Player: “I walk up to the bartender and ask what they have to drink.”
and
Player: “I swagger up to the bartender and say, “GOOD MORROW, INKEEP, WHAT DO YOU OFFER IN THE WAY OF LIBATIONS?”
are both perfectly acceptable ways of interacting.
Some groups will be all one type or another, but most are a mix of both. If you’ve never tried putting on a funny voice for a character though, give it a shot. You might find it’s fun.
The other intimidating thing about DnD is the rules. When you look at a bunch of big books with charts and numbers and a character sheet that looks like it was published by the IRS, it’s no wonder. And while yes, there are a lot of rules, you are only responsible for knowing the ones that apply to your character. And of those rules, you only really use a handful on a regular basis. If you don’t know how something works, look it up. There are a wealth of resources available on Google, and usually just typing “5e” and whatever your question is will turn up results in a few seconds. If you need further clarification, ask your DM. In terms of the character sheet, the majority of the session will be tackling and demystifying it.
My quick and easy answer is, whatever you think looks fun. One of the easiest ways I’ve heard of is to look at the pictures in the Player’s Handbook and see if any of those jump out at you as something you think looks cool. We’re gonna be doing a quick overview of the various types of characters you can play and that should hopefully give you a better idea.
My slightly more complicated answer is to consider the people you’re playing with. DnD is a collaborative game, and creating characters that work well together (or at the very least don’t want to murder each other) will mean a better time for everyone at the table. It’s often considered good form to talk to your DM about the character you’re wanting to play before rolling it up (establishing its attributes), to make sure it works with the game the DM is running. Ideally, this will be a two-way street where the DM is having conversations with players about the type of game they want to play.
Another smart idea is to talk to the other players about what they’re playing. A righteous knight who is utterly committed to upholding law and order may have a rough go of it with a party full of thieves and assassins. That’s not to say there’s not an interesting story to be told there, but everyone needs to be onboard with that being the story they want to play. A common thing I see with some players, too, is the idea of being some gritty antisocial antihero type. Sulking off on the side while everyone else is having a good time around the campfire swapping stories might be a little dull.
Some groups like to have a party where the roles are well distributed. The “classic” DnD party is a Fighter, Spellcaster, Healer, and a Thief. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a party of all Wizards or all Fighters — those can be fun too — but having different specializations within the group means that each player gets their opportunity to shine.
The overall moral of the story is, your character is yours. No one else has to play it but you. Don’t let anyone tell you what you should play. But with that being said: Understand it is a group activity, and the goal is for everyone to have a good time — so don’t be a jerk.
Dungeons and Dragons uses several different dice. Getting to know these types, and how they’re referred to in the game, is usually step one for beginners.
Let’s look at each of them:
|
The four-sided die (d4) is shaped like a pyramid. |
The six-sided die (d6) is the one we all know and love from Yahtzee. |
The eight-sided die (d8) is sort of a three-dimensional diamond shape. |
|
The 10-sided die (d10) also has a diamond shape but is rounder. A weird thing about the d10 is the “0” face actually denotes a role of 10. |
The 12-sided die (d12) is roundish, with a bunch of interlocking pentagons. |
The 20-sided die (d20) is the roundest die and the one you will use most commonly. |
|
Sometimes a DM will ask you to roll percentile dice, or a d100. You’ll notice most dice sets come with two d10s, one with 0-9 and another one with 00, 10, 20, 30… on it. You roll both together and use the resulting number: 00 and 1 are a 1; 20 and 4 are 24; 50 and 0 are 50; and 00 and 0 are 100. |
If you don't have your own dice, I've never been a part of a group that didn't have dice to spare for new players to borrow. And failing that, there are a near infinite amount of dice rolling apps available on your phone or the Internet. Everyone struggles to remember which dice are which when you start out, so don't be self-conscious.
A trick I learned in my first group helped me a lot. A lot of the guys were really superstitious about their dice, and would often leave them on the table with the highest number facing up, "charging them up." Doing this also makes it easy to know which dice is which — when you need to roll a d8, you just look down and pick up the die with the 8 on it.
Pregenerated (or pregens): Oftentimes, when people come to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time blind, the DM will just hand them a character sheet already filled out and ready to go. This is great for introducing new players to the game who want to try it out without any sort of commitment or investment, but you get a much better understanding of the rules by building your own.
Digital: There are tons of online character creator apps, and even more you can download on your phone. Wizards of the Coast has a great one attached to their digital version of Dungeons and Dragons that does all the dice rolling and adding for you. They’re super convenient and I highly recommend them.
Pen & Paper: I like using pen and paper to teach new players because it’s the easiest way to learn the rules and understand why your character is good at what your character is good at.
Pep Talk: Character sheets are incredibly intimidating at first glance. They look like tax forms. They look like there’s a lot of math involved. Let me alleviate some of your concerns. While playing the game, you will reference only a handful of things on this sheet. The rest of it is just showing your work, so when your DM is like, “Wait you do how much damage?” you can show him how. The character sheet isn’t your character; it’s your rules cheat sheet that allows you to quickly reference a number of things from the book while you play. If you can copy things out of a book and do basic addition and subtraction, you can fill out a character sheet. Pencil or form-fillable PDF highly recommended.
One of the more commonly known tropes of Dungeons and Dragons is alignment. You’ve probably heard of the phrase “lawful good” or “chaotic evil.” Alignment is basically your character’s moral/ethical approach toward the world. Think of it as an x-axis with good on one end and evil on the other and a y-axis with lawful on one end and chaotic on the other. This results in nine alignments as follows:
| Lawful Good | Lawful Neutral | Lawful Evil |
| Neutral Good | True Neutral | Neutral Evil |
| Chaotic Good | Chaotic Neutral | Chaotic Evil |
A brief editorial: I hate this system. I think it’s unnecessarily restrictive while also being vague and uninspiring. As a DM I often ignore these, but they can be a useful roleplaying guide, and it’s helpful for understanding the terms, as they are in the rules.
Good and Evil are basically a scale of how comfortable you are with harming others to meet your goals.
Lawful and Chaotic are how comfortable you are violating laws or social norms to meet your goals.
A chaotic good character would be a Robin Hood-like Rogue who steals from the rich to give to the poor. A lawful evil character would be a knight in service of a cruel and corrupt king, terrorizing peasants and hunting down and torturing suspected “traitors.” A chaotic neutral character is what you say when you don’t wanna have to think about any of this.
When people talk about “rolling up a character” they’re talking about rolling dice to determine your base stats or ability scores. They’re the foundation of your character’s physical and mental abilities, and most of how good you are at the various things you do is reliant on these base stats. Some are obvious, some are less so. Scores are generated on a scale of 1 to 20, with 10 being the ability of the average person. These ability scores affect how good your characters are at certain skills, which we will talk about below.
Measures: Natural athleticism, bodily power
Makes you good at: Attacking and inflicting damage with weapons, Carrying and lifting heavy objects, using the athletics skill to climb, jump, swim, etc.
Measures: Physical agility, reflexes, balance, poise
Makes you good at: Dodging out of the way of harm, attacking and inflicting damage with weapons, using the acrobatic skill to keep you balance in a precarious situation or tumble out of a long fall, using the sleight of hand skill to pickpocket or palm an object, and using the stealth check to sneak around without being noticed.
Measures: Health, stamina, vital force
Allows you to: Take more damage without dying, avoid harmful effects of poison and disease, perform feats of endurance (like holding your breath or going days without food or sleep)
Measures: Mental acuity, information recall, analytical skill
Makes you good at: Deduction and information recall, using History, Arcana(magic), Nature, and Religion skills to recall information about a topic, or using the investigation skill to search an area for clues or find the answer to a question.
Measures: Awareness, intuition, insight
Makes you good at: Using the animal handling skill to train and tame animals, using the insight skill to read a person true intentions and see through lies, the medicine skill to administer first aid and diagnose illnesses, the perception skill to use your senses to notice something important in the environment, or the survival skill to track someone across the wilderness or using the environment around you to provide for basic needs.
Measures: Confidence, eloquence, leadership
Makes you good at: Using the deception skill to lie, using the intimidation skill to make enemies cower and flee, using the performance skill to act, sing, or dance, or using the persuasion skill to convince others that you’re way is the best way.
So how do we come by these numbers? There’s a variety of methods.
The most traditional way is by rolling dice. You roll four six-sided dice and add up the total of the three highest numbers. For example, if you rolled a 4, 3, 6, and a 1, you would have 13 (drop the 1 and 6+4+3 = 13). You repeat this five more times and assign those numbers to the six ability scores. I generally allow players to roll 3 sets of 6 numbers and pick the block they like the most. This is the most random way to generate your ability scores and has the widest range of scores available (3-18), which can result in some fantastically flawed or powerful characters.
This set up closely mirrors the way characters are created in role-playing video games. Each Player Character (PC) begins with an 8 in each of the base stats. You then get 27 points to spend on various ability scores. This keeps power levels between characters more in line with each other with a smaller range of possible scores (8-15) but still allows players to really specialize if they want (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8).
|
Score |
Cost |
Score |
Cost |
|
8 |
0 |
12 |
4 |
|
9 |
1 |
13 |
5 |
|
10 |
2 |
14 |
7 |
|
11 |
3 |
15 |
9 |
In this method, all players get six numbers to assign where they like (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8). This allows for characters to be equally powerful and relatively balanced in terms of their abilities.
Races are better thought of as species, but since they’ve always been known as races in DnD, that’s what we call them. Your race determines several things about your character:
NOTE: The makers of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, recently updated their rules on how some of the racial features work in an effort to give players more freedom to create characters exactly the way they would like to play them. They now allow you to swap out any ability score increase, language, or proficiency you get as part of your chosen race. For example, if you chose to play a dwarf, but wanted to play a particularly nimble dwarf, you could swap out your +2 to CON for a +2 to DEX. Let's also say you want them to have been raised by a gnomish inventor so we can swap out Dwarvish language for Gnomish and their proficency with mason's tools for tinker's tools. The ability score increase, the language, and proficiencies listed in the Players Handbook are now considered "archetypal" for adventurers of that race, but by no means the hard and fast rule.
Dwarves are basically just like the Dwarves from Lord of the Rings and Snow White: short, stout, and tough. They dig immense fortresses under mountains and hills. They value hard work and perfection in craftsmanship. Dwarves live long lives and value a sense of good and justice.
Again, these are just like the Elves in Lord of the Rings. Magical, graceful creatures that basically can live forever, Elves take a decidedly different worldview than many of the shorter-lived races. They tend to value beauty, and tend to find strict laws and structures of other cultures to be tedious.
Gnomes are small humanoids with pointy ears who live for fun and excitement and are enthusiastic about life in general. Gnomes are curious and impulsive and are often scholars and inventors.
Combining the best traits of humans and elves, half-elves often face the difficult predicament of straddling two cultures. As a result, they often make good diplomats or adventurers.
The offspring of orcs and humans are half-orcs, larger, stronger, and tougher than their human cousins. Whether raised among orcs or humans, half-orcs feel emotions intensely; insults sting like acid and sadness drains their strength, but they will also be the first to laugh at bad joke and defend the ones they love ferociously.
Halflings are Hobbits from Lord of the Rings. They love food and family and home. They generally live in seclusion and never leave their homes, but a natural curiosity draws some out into the adventuring life.
Pretty self-explanatory. DnD treats humans as jacks-of-all-trades — not really excelling at anything, but not particularly bad at anything either.
Half-dragon, half-human hybrids, Dragonborn are covered in scales and get a breath attack where they breathe fire (or other things) and gain resistance to being damaged by the same type of element. They live in clans which they are fiercely loyal to and will protect with their lives.
Tieflings are half human and half devil, usually as the result of some curse or bargain made with a devil somewhere in the family line. While this doesn’t make Tieflings evil, it definitely changes their appearance. Tieflings come in all colors and have various sizes and shapes of horns and tails. Sometimes shunned by superstitious people, Tieflings sometimes take “virtue names” that embody a virtue or concept and then try to embody it in the world.
There are over a dozen more races you can play detailed in other Dungeons & Dragons books including Goblins, Centaurs, and even Minotaurs. The races I've covered above are all the ones that appear as options in the Players Handbook. Talk to your DM if you're interested in playing something more outside the box.
Think of class as your adventurer’s profession. It denotes the role they fill in the party and dictates the abilities they gain as they gain more experience as adventurers.
Conan. Lightly armored. Heavy hitting. If you wanna hit things really hard and laugh when they hit you, this is the class for you.
Most important stat: STR
Bards are weird, but eternally useful and endlessly versatile. They’re jacks-of-all-trades. They can cast a wide variety of spells, are decent with weapons, they sing songs that aid their party members in combat, and they usually excel at the charisma-based social skills.
Most important stat: CHA
Clerics, like Bards, are also extremely versatile, depending on the deities they worship. Clerics are essentially clergy for the various deities in Dungeons and Dragons and gain the ability to cast spells from their chosen deity. Traditionally, clerics are the primary healers of the party, but depending on the deity you select, clerics can be powerful warriors, or sneaky spies as well.
Most important stat: WIS
DruidDruids wield the power of nature. Their spells focus on plants, growth, fire, lightning, and moonlight. They additionally can turn into a wide variety of wild animals to help in combat, or scout out areas, or even carry the party on their back.
Most important stat: WIS
This is another one of those self-explanatory ones. The fighter is really good at fighting. Fighters have a number of options available to them making the class really versatile, as a fighter you can make an accomplished swashbuckler with a rapier, a well armored warrior with mace and shield, an archery expert, whatever you’d like.
Most important stat: STR or DEX
MonkMore “Shaolin” than “Friar Tuck,” the monk is an expert in martial arts that harnesses an internal power to pull off feats that seem like magic. Monks wear no armor and move rapidly around the battlefield engaging targets. If you wanna catch an arrow and redirect it back at the enemy, this is the class.
Most important stat: DEX and WIS
When you think about a guy in a suit of armor battling a dragon with sword and shield, you’re probably picturing a paladin. Paladins are the holy warriors of DnD. Like clerics, they often choose a deity to follow and swear an oath to them, upholding and defending their faith. Other paladins swear oaths to preserve nature, or oaths of vengeance against wrongdoing. Paladins have a limited ability to heal themselves and their companions, as well as a few spells they can cast, making them one of the better front line fighter options in the game.
Most important stat: STR and CHA
RangerTo oversimplify, Paladins are to Clerics what Rangers are to Druids. Rangers use their skills with weapons as well as a limited spellcasting ability to defend nature, and purge harmful species from their area. Rangers select a “favored enemy type” (like undead or goblins) they are particularly good at tracking and fighting. Rangers make excellent scouts and can even get an animal companion to fight alongside them.
Most important stat: DEX & WIS
Rogues tend to favor the “creative, morally ambiguous” route to problem solving. Someone wants to fight? Hide in the shadows and stab them in the back. Need something from behind a locked door? That’s why there are lockpicks. Rogues cover the wide variety of characters on the less-than-savory side: catburglars, conmen, hired muscle, and assassins. They’re great scouts in the wild, skirmishers on the battlefield, and extra useful for disarming traps and picking locks in dungeons. You may not trust a Rogue, but you’ll always be happy to have her around.
Most important stat: DEX
SorcererUnlike most spellcasters, Sorcerers didn’t have to work for their abilities; they were simply born with them. Whether due to bloodline or accident, magic comes naturally to Sorcerers. The number of spells they are able to cast is limited when compared to a wizard or cleric, but the versatility they get with those spells more than makes up for it. This is a great class for someone who is new to the game but would like to try the magic side of things.
Most important stat: CHA
Just like it says on the tin. This is Harry Potter and Gandalf. You slowly accumulate power over time, adding a larger and larger variety of spells to your spellbook, Wizards are the quintessential utility caster and glass cannon.
Most important stat: INT
WarlockWarlocks are weird like bards in that there’s no other class that works the same way. Warlocks are spellcasters that get their power from making a pact with some otherworldly benefactor, sometimes a devil, sometimes a fey, sometimes an unknowable Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Often this comes at a terrible cost to the Warlock, but that’s what makes great drama, right? Warlocks get strange abilities other characters may find unsettling, but they make excellent stealthy or combat focused casters.
Most important stat: CHA
So now that we know our race, class, and ability scores, we need to copy some info down on our character sheet.
Let’s work our way from top left. First let’s come up with a clever (or dumb) name for our character. In the box to the right of that, you’ll notice spots for our class and level (we’ll put 1 because we’re just starting out.) Background, which we’ll get to later, and your name, in case you leave your character sheet laying around. Below that is race, alignment, and experience points, which we’ll also get to later.
Now let’s move on to the leftmost column below our character’s name, where the six base stats are, assign the numbers we have for them. Don’t forget to add the bonuses from the race you picked. You’ll notice each box has a big box with a little circle below. We’re gonna put each of our numbers in those little circles. Why in the little circles you ask? Because they’re about to be useless, cuz we’re gonna turn them in to modifiers.
Each base stat tells us what number becomes our modifier for that stat. The modifier is the thing we add to dice rolls that make the results better for us. The higher the number, the higher the modifier, the higher the chance for success on a roll. The formula for determining the modifier is to subtract 10 from the ability score and divide by 2, rounding down if necessary. Modifiers can also be negative. However, no one uses this formula because there’s a chart, and that’s just easier.
|
Score |
Modifier |
Score |
Modifier |
|
1 |
-5 |
16-17 |
+3 |
|
2-3 |
-4 |
18-19 |
+4 |
|
4-5 |
-3 |
20-21 |
+5 |
|
6-7 |
-2 |
22-23 |
+6 |
|
8-9 |
-1 |
24-25 |
+7 |
|
10-11 |
0 |
26-27 |
+8 |
|
12-13 |
+1 |
28-29 |
+9 |
|
14-15 |
+2 |
30 |
+10 |
We’ll write these modifiers in the big boxes above the little circles. We do that because you will almost exclusively refer to these numbers for the rest of your time playing.
Now we’re getting into the “copying things out a book” section of the process. Go ahead and pull up your race and class in your Players Handbook or in the open-source rules book. Let's go ahead an put our race in the line under our class.
Next, let’s copy down all the info we get from the race we chose, working from the book. We’ve already adjusted our ability scores, so the next few lines offer recommendations about age, alignment, and size. You can pick pretty much whatever you want for these. You’ll find spaces for age, height, weight, skin color, eye color, and hair color on the top of the second page. These have no mechanical impact and can literally be whatever you want.
The one thing that is mechanical is your size. Some races are small and some are medium. This mainly affects your movement speed, but also comes in to play in some other rare situations. We don't need to put this on your character sheet but it's helpful to keep in mind. Ok, back to the first page. near the top of the center column is a box for your movement speed, which is used in combat, and to determine the speed at which you travel over great distances. Copy the number into the speed box near the top center of the first page. While we’re up here, we’ll fill in the initiative box as well. Initiative is used to determine who goes first in combat and is 99% of the time just your DEX modifier. Copy that into your initiative box.
The next several lines should be racial abilities, ending before the section on languages.
Read them over then copy whatever info you need to remember them in to the features/traits box in the lower right of the first page.
Copy the languages you speak into the box on the lower left of the first page.
That should finish off the stuff we need to know about your race, let’s move on to class.
First we’re gonna deal with things like hit points and hit die.
Hit Points are a common concept in most video games, but in case you aren’t familiar, they’re basically a measurement of how much damage you take. When your hit points drop to zero, you fall unconscious. In 5e, there is no such thing as negative hit points. You’ll see a box near the middle where you track your current and maximum hit points. Below that is a box for temporary hit points. These normally come from a helpful spell or potion, and usually disappear after a short time, hence why they have their own box, to remind you they are temporary.
Below that is a box for hit dice and for death saves. Death saves are for when your character reaches 0 hp and is knocked unconscious. You will need to make what is known as a death saving throw multiple times. A roll of 10 or higher on a 20 sided die is considered a success, a roll of 9 or less a failure, with a roll of 1 resulting in two failures, and roll of 20 instantly returning the character to 1 hp. Three successes means you remain unconscious but stable and in no danger of dying at 0 hp; three failures means your character dies. Other members of your party can also help you by casting healing spells or through the use of the medicine skill.
So how do you know how many hit points your character has? Hit Dice. Hit dice do two things, they let you know how many hit points your maximum hit points increase by each level, and how many hit points your character regains when resting. The number of hit dice your character has is always equal to your level, so let’s put 1 on the line that says total in the hit dice box. The type of hit dice you get is determined by your class. For example, Barbarians have the largest hit dice with a d12, while wizards are one of the smallest with a d4. This is usually the first bit of information you see on your class when you look it up. Write down your type of hit dice in the hit dice box. The next line usually tells you how many hit points to give yourself at first level. This is the highest number you could possibly roll on your hit die, plus your CON modifier. This is the number of hit points you have at first level. You’ll notice the next line tells you how to determine additional hit points after first level, by rolling your hit die and adding your CON modifier.
The next block of text deals with proficiencies. Proficiencies cover the various skills, tools, weapons, and armor that your character is able to wield effectively. Your class grants you a proficiency bonus to various skills, attacks, spells and abilities based on your level. You can find your proficiency bonus in your character’s table. Go ahead and put your proficiency bonus in the box near the top of the second column to the left.
The first three lines of class proficiencies cover what equipment you’re effective with.
Armor proficiency is easier to talk about in terms of what happens if you use an armor or shield that you’re not proficient in. You’ll take penalties to any action involving STR and DEX, and will be unable to cast spells while wearing armor or using a shield you are not proficient with. Copy your armor proficiencies below your languages.
Weapon proficiency allows you to hit more reliably with that weapon. Copy your weapon proficiencies below your armor proficiency.
Saving throw proficiency allows you better resist dangerous effects that require you to use an ability modifier to avoid harm. We’ll talk more about saving throws later, but just know, the higher the better. Fill in the little circles next to the two ability saves your class is proficient in in the box below the proficiency bonus.
Skill proficiency reflects skills your class excels at. You can choose two from the listed skills. There’s no right or wrong answer, just whatever you think works best for your character. Fill in the little circles next to those skills in the box below the saving throws box. We will pick up more skill proficiencies when we pick a background.
Next, we’ll get our starting equipment and start filling out some of these empty boxes near the top. There are a couple ways to get starting equipment; you can look up the recommended wealth of a character at level 1 and then look through the charts and spend your money on equipment until you’re satisfied with what you have, but most DM’s just ask you to use the starting suggested equipment which offers you a quick series of options:
First let’s talk weapons. When you look at the weapons table, it looks like a lot of weird information, but it’s pretty easy to break down. For the purposes of this we’re going to ignore both the cost and weight columns. Some DMs will be sticklers for keeping track of the weight of the items you’re carrying, but I just feel like that’s too much minutiae to keep track of and takes attention away from what you’re really there to do, which is have awesome adventures with your friends. The only columns that matter for us are damage, range, and properties. Damage is what it says: it’s the type of die you roll to determine damage and the type of damage it is. It’s important to know what kind of damage it is because certain creatures are more or less affected by certain types of damage. Skeletons, for example, since they’re made of bone, will take more damage from weapons that do bludgeoning damage — like a hammer or a club — than from weapons that do slashing damage like a sword. It’s your DM’s job to keep track of these, and they’ll adjust your damage accordingly; you’re only responsible for knowing the type of damage your attacks do.
Range is only used for ranged weapons; it indicates, in feet, how far the weapon can shoot. The first number is how far you can shoot before you start taking penalties to your attack. The second number is the absolute maximum range your weapon can shoot. “Properties” is sort of a catch-all for a bunch of different stuff. For example, if a weapon is two-handed, that means you can’t equip a shield or anything else except that weapon. If a weapon is versatile, that means it can be wielded one- or two-handed. For now, it’s important to note these properties as you’re making your choices; we’ll get into specifics as we start filling in information. Looking at the options listed in your class, and then consulting the table, pick a weapon. Then find the attacks and spellcasting box and and write the name in the smaller box near the top.
Now we’ll determine the attack bonus for the weapon and put it in the next box to the right. Your attack bonus for most melee weapons is STR modifier + Proficiency modifier (assuming you’re proficient in the weapon). Put that number in the box. Your attack bonus is used to determine whether you hit your target or not. You’ll roll a 20-sided die and add your attack bonus, or “to hit” as some people call it. If that beats the target’s armor class (we’ll get to what that is soon), you score a hit and can roll damage. We’ll copy the die type used in the damage box and then write our STR modifier and the damage type next to that, so it looks something like this 1d8+2 bludgeoning. For my characters with more DEX than STR, you’ll want to look at weapons with the finesse property, as you add either STR or DEX to attack and damage with those weapons.
You’ll repeat the same with the second weapon choice. Additionally, ranged weapons also use DEX instead of STR for attack and damage, unless they have the thrown property, and then they use either STR or DEX.
I like to note both ranges and properties for my weapons in the large space below where attack and damage are listed.
The packs are google-able for their contents; copy that into the equipment section near the middle of the bottom of the first page.
Finally, there’s armor, which also has a somewhat intimidating table. Again, we’ll ignore the cost and weight and focus on the stat columns. First you have the Armor Class (AC) column. This tells you how to determine your armor class based on the armor you’re wearing. Armor class is essentially how hard you are to hit. When someone attacks you, they are rolling their attack roll to meet or exceed the number of your armor class, so the higher the better. A character not wearing armor has an AC of 10+DEX modifier. You’ll notice that as the armor gets heavier, the contribution that DEX makes to your AC gets smaller. In medium armor, you can only get a +2 to AC from DEX, even if your modifier is higher, so factor that in. Heavy armor even has a minimum STR score (one of the few things to factor your actual ability score) to wear. Add any bonus you get from equipping a shield if you have one to equip and put your total AC in the shield shaped box near the top middle of the page.
Next comes class features, which you can find on your character’s class table along with a description of each feature below the table. Class features are too varied to really give an overview on right now, but I’ll try to cover them more in-depth and answer any questions next session.
Then there’s spellcasting, a topic also too big for the purposes of this session. What I can do is help you fill in some of the boxes on your character sheet. In the next session we’ll cover how spells and spellcasting works. On the third page of your sheet along the top you’ll see a space for your casting class, fill that it. To the right of that it asks for your spellcasting ability. Wizards use INT; Clerics, Druids, and Rangers use WIS; and Sorcerers, Paladins, and Warlocks use CHA.
The next box is for your spell save DC, or difficulty class. I don’t know why they use the word class, but basically it means the number to beat. Some spells have effects that only work on enemies who are weak, or slow, or sickly, or stupid. It requires the creature to roll a 20-sided dice and add an ability modifier to it. If it rolls less than your DC the effect does what it’s supposed to, if they roll equal or higher, the effect is lessened or avoided entirely. The formula for determining your spell save dc is Your spellcasting ability modifier + proficiency bonus + 8. I have no idea why it’s 8, but that’s what it is for all classes and has been as long as I can remember.
Your spell attack bonus in the next box over is a measure of how well you can aim your spells. Some spells require you to hit your target with a beam or touch them, and they function similar to weapon attacks for the purposes of their effects working, you roll a 20-sided die and add your spell attack bonus. If it meets or exceeds their AC the spell is successful. Your spell attack bonus is Spellcasting ability modifier + proficiency modifier.
The rest is wildly different between classes, so we’ll put a pin in this and move on to background.
Your background is your life before you started adventuring, your “Muggle life” before you took to the road and went looking for danger and excitement. Wizards of the Coast has a number of prewritten backgrounds which provide you with a nice foundation to work with. If none of them work for you, talk to your DM and work with them to create your own background. A word of advice, though — I’ve seen a lot of newer players want to write long, multi-chapter backstories for themselves, full of brave deeds and exploits. While I understand the impulse, you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons to have the adventure, not live after it. Your concept of who your character is as a person will evolve as you play more and more sessions, so a fairly open-ended backstory will still leave you plenty of space to fill in as you begin to explore the world your DM has made for you. Backgrounds can also provide additional skill proficiencies, a proficiency with a tool which makes your character good with a craft, and additional equipment. Backgrounds also provide your character with Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws which are a cool new thing in 5e to aid players new to role playing. Pick whichever ones you want from the chart or invent your own. They have no mechanical value, but should be seen as the rough skeleton of what makes your character tick. They function as a reminder to think how your character would think, and not make decisions just based on what you would do, or what makes the most sense to accomplish your goals. Great stories are told in characters overcoming or succumbing to their flaws, or being forced to choose between conflicting Ideals. Good DMs will pick up on various facets of your background and use that to better tie your character in the larger world and story.
Look at the various backgrounds and choose one that best fits our concept of your character and then fill in the relevant information regarding proficiencies, features, and equipment, as well as your ideals, bonds, and flaws.
Home stretch, just a bit of simple addition and we’re done. The second column from the left has both the saving throws and the skills boxes in it. We’re gonna go down both columns plugging in the appropriate ability modifier. Anything that has the circle filled in next to it will be the ability modifier + proficiency modifier. This will determine what to add to the dice when skill checks and saving throws are called for. We’ll discuss those further in a minute. Finally, just below the skills box is a box for passive wisdom (perception). This is a number your DM can use to determine whether your character notices something they aren't actively looking for. For example, whether your character notices a pressure plate that springs a trap, or whether you notice the goblin trailing your party
And with that, we’ve done it! We’ve mostly made a character!
Now let’s talk about how we use the character sheet during the game
So to refresh, the basic flow of DnD is that the Dungeon Master describes the situation, the players can then ask any questions and declare any actions they would like to take. If the questions are easily answered, or the action is easy to accomplish, it’s considered done and the DM describes the result. If the answer to the question is not readily apparent to the character or the action is difficult, the DM will have the player make a roll, usually a skill or ability check, to determine the outcome.
The DM will call for a skill check when the character attempts to do an action that pertains to one of the skills listed does not have a 100% chance of success. The player will roll a 20-sided die and add the skill modifier listed to it. The goal is to meet or beat a number the DM comes up with based on the difficulty of the action. As a rough rule of thumb: 5 for easy actions, 10 for moderately difficult actions, 15 for difficult actions, and 20 for heroic actions.
If there’s no relevant skill for an action, the DM may instead call for an ability check. For an ability check, simply roll a 20-sided die and add the ability modifier. It works on the same scale.
The world of DnD is dangerous and full of traps, harmful spells, and creatures with strange powers. Your ability to avoid many of those is based off your Saving Throws. Say you stepped on a trap door, your DM would call for a DEX save to avoid falling into the spiked pit below. Say you were bit by a giant spider, your DM might call for a CON save to avoid being paralyzed. You’d throw a WIS save to avoid being hypnotized. You’d throw a DEX save to take only half damage when targeted by the fiery breath of a dragon.
DnD is mostly free-form, without any real turns or anything until you enter combat, and then the game slows down and becomes a bit more structured. Before combat begins, the DM calls for everyone to roll initiative. You then roll a 20-sided die and add your initiative to it, while the DM secretly rolls the same for your enemies. The DM then records everyone’s rolls, and the character or enemy with the highest roll goes first on down to the character or enemy who rolled the lowest.
A turn in DnD consists of three basic types of action: a move action, which allows you to move the number of feet indicated in the speed box on your character sheet; a standard action, in which you can attack an enemy or cast a spell; and a bonus action, the types of which are varied depending on your class. Some spells are bonus actions, as are some kinds of movement depending on your class. The main thing to know about bonus actions is that you can take them in addition to a move and standard, and that you only get one per turn.
There are two other kinds of actions as well. There’s a full round action, which uses up both your move and standard action (but you can still use a bonus). And there’s a reaction, which you can perform even when it’s not your turn, usually as a result of some action another player or enemy has taken. Once you’ve taken a reaction you can’t take another until the start of your next turn.
We’ll go into more detail on specific actions that can be taken in combat in another session.
Sometimes things happen which help or hinder a character’s effort to do something, whether it be swing sword, or lift a heavy object or convince a guard to let you pass. In these moments a DM may have you roll with advantage or disadvantage. When you roll with advantage, you roll two dice and take the higher of the two. When you roll with disadvantage, you roll two dice and take the lower of the two. Simple as that.
