I enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons. For those that don’t know what it is, I always refer to it as “that game from Stranger Things”. The best way I can describe it is “cooperative storytelling”.

Every player has a character that they roleplay; a character whose personality, skills, and equipment are recorded on paper. A narrator, called a dungeon master (DM) walks the players through a story, and dictates the results of all the player’s interactions with the world, including conversations with non-player characters. It is a game that is built heavily on character design, as well as probability (nearly every outcome is dictated by dice rolls).

As a math geek and dedicated gamer, I often research character builds to figure out which combinations would be the most powerful, or would present the coolest ability combinations.

Unfortunately, there’s a word for this; munchkin. I’ve been called this a few times. The concept is so prevalent that an entire game was built on it.

Here, I aim to share some of my experience with character design so as to create the most effective characters (at least for the 5th edition of the game). If you’re joining me at a table and it’s your first time playing, then this is something I recommend reading when setting up your character. Because when I breathe life into my characters, I want them to survive.

Core stats

There’s 6 core traits that every character has: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. To understand what each one represents, my favorite way of describing that is the tomato analogy.

Primary stats vary from class to class. For barbarians, Strength is the most important; for sorcerers, Charisma is the most important.

Regardless, Dexterity should consistently be near the top of the list for every character. Consider the number of factors it influences:

• Ranged weapon damage

• Melee weapon damage

• Initiative rolls

• Armor Class

• The most common saving throw

• Several very useful skills, including Stealth and Acrobatics

Whereas for instance, Strength only affects:

• Melee weapon damage

• The Athletics skill

• A fairly uncommon saving throw.

On the other side, Intelligence is consistently the least useful trait (ironic, I know). Unless you chose to play a Wizard, the only thing it affects are 4 skills and the rarest saving throw in the game.

Nobody’s perfect, and that includes our characters. When creating a character, there’s a finite number of points that can be allocated towards these traits. And given the specialties of different classes, it’s beneficial to have some traits be stronger than others. A barbarian will rarely use their brain, while a wizard will rarely use their muscles.

In short, let’s just say there’s a reason that most of the characters I play are complete idiots.

The Holy Trinity

In every multiplayer role-playing game, there’s 3 core roles with respect to combat: tank, healer, and damage per second (DPS). Tanks soak up as much attention as possible, Healers keep the adventuring party alive, and DPS inflicts as much damage as possible.

While D&D combat mechanics can be much broader than these 3, this does provide a good basic model for new players.

Tank: Barbarians, Paladins, and Fighters make for the best tanks. They have the most hit points, have access to the best armor, and have a lot of useful abilities for either reducing damage or resisting magic. Barbarians have an option that cuts nearly all damage in half, while Paladins can grant a bonus to all saving throws (not just for themselves, but everyone standing near them as well).

Healer: Clerics are the iconic healer class, as they have access to pretty much every healing spell and are essentially the priests of the D&D universe. Druids also make for strong healers, given they also have strong access to healing spells. because natural remedies are the perfect cure for mortal wounds. And if things get even worse, then transforming into a bear is a fantastic way to enter the battlefield.

DPS: While every core class has strong options for dealing damage, I’d ultimately have to go with Sorcerer and Wizard for this. Simply because have access to the strongest spells in the game, and it’s pretty hard to argue with a fireball that can wipe out an entire room.

Multiclassing

In 5th edition, experience is represented by levels. And this boils down to character level and class level. Class levels can be concentrated in a single class, or divided across multiple classes. And the sum of the class levels has to be the same as the character level.

So for instance, a 6th level character could have 6 levels of Wizard, or 2 levels of Wizard and 4 levels of Fighter.

I generally wouldn’t recommend multiclassing to new players, just because of how complicated it can get. The main cost to multiclassing is one of opportunity cost; every level taken in a new class is one less level taken in a character’s primary class. It also can lead to character designs that are somewhat contrived. But that presents an opportunity; can you create a story that bridges all of these different experiences together for your character?

But my favorite multiclass combination is called the Sorcadin. It’s a mixture of Sorcerer and Paladin, and in short, it combines the spell versatility of the former with the melee prowess of the latter. Throw in a level of Hexblade Warlock, and suddenly you have a character that can put all its investment into Charisma.

At the end of the day

I recommend playing whatever character you want to. 90%+ of the fun is in the roleplaying aspect. And the DM’s primary job is to tailor the adventure so as to make it fun for everyone at the table.

If you want to play an Orc Wizard, then a good DM will find a way to make that fun. So regardless of your character, if you’re not enjoying the game, the it’s not necessarily your fault.

As a man of curiosity, I enjoy creating new worlds, especially ones with magic. There’s a lot of power in being able to picture ourselves as completely transformed into heroic adventurers. And with D&D, the only limit is our imagination.