The Player Character in Dungeons & Dragons is the conduit for the player's experience and their way of interacting with the game world. It's understandable that choosing such a critical path before even beginning the game can be anxiety-inducing. This guide will help you refine your character concept and see you through the particulars.

Preliminaries

Before you begin building your 5e character, make sure you get as much information from your Dungeon Master as you can. Consider: Will there be heavy combat or more focus on exploration and narrative? Is the setting urban or rural? Is there a lot of magic or is the setting low-magic? Try to come up with a character concept that would fit the world you'll be playing in.

Speak with other members of your party, too. Get a sense of what they want to play, what the party needs, and the type of character that might fit with the party. Typically, parties will be balanced with different classes so that everyone provides different strengths and covers for others' weaknesses, but playing characters of the same or related classes can provide for a fun, unique campaign, and instantly provides narrative motivation for the party.

As you make decisions for your character, you'll want to write them down on a character sheet. Wizards of the Coast provides standard character sheets, which are useful for any class. Customized character sheets with alternative layouts abound on the internet, some of them specifically designed for a particular class.

The Easy Route

You can use premade characters. Some campaigns come with characters tailor-made for the adventure. This is a great option for new players or those with decision paralysis. It's also a good starting point for customization. The D&D Starter Set offers pregenerated characters. If your DM is running an official published campaign, ask if there are characters provided with that campaign. You can also find premade characters online, either in communities like Reddit or Discord or on sites meant for hosting D&D resources and tools, such as Kassoon.

Even if you decide not to use a prebuilt character sheet, it may still be helpful to review them to get ideas. Class-specific guides, such as those collected in this post, can also provide ideas and valuable direction for bringing your ideas to the table.

Building a D&D 5e Character From Scratch

Choose a Class

A class is a character's vocation, the route they have taken in life that has led to them becoming an adventurer. A class determines a character's role and abilities in and out of combat and roughly describes how they approach exploration and problem-solving.

The 5e 2024 Basic Rules provide a handy table for quickly comparing classes' likes, primary ability, and average complexity:

• Barbarian (Likes: Battle / Primary Ability: Strength / Complexity: Average)
• Bard (Performing / Charisma / High)
• Cleric (Gods / Wisdom / Average)
• Druid (Nature / Wisdom / High)
• Fighter (Weapons / Strength or Dexterity / Low)
• Monk (Unarmed combat / Dexterity and Wisdom / High)
• Paladin (Defense / Strength and Charisma / Average)
• Ranger (Survival / Dexterity and Wisdom / Average)
• Rogue (Stealth / Dexterity  / Low)
• Sorcerer (Power / Charisma / High)
• Warlock (Occult lore / Charisma / High)
• Wizard (Spellbooks / Intelligence / Average)

You can also review the classes' full descriptions to see everything they can do in the game. Consider which abilities sound fun and inspiring, and what might best fit your character concept.

Also keep in mind what level you will be starting your game at. If a class you are thinking of playing doesn't gain the features that interest you until higher levels, you may reconsider if you are starting a campaign at level 1.

Determine Origin

Origins for characters are determined by a Species, a Background, and two Languages. The basic ruleset provides the species options of Dwarf, Elf (several lineages), Halfling, Human, Dragonborn, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Tiefling (several lineages). Certain campaigns may include other options, so be sure to check with your DM to see what you can play.

Choice of species determines your character's general appearance, size, speed, context in the game world's society, as well as special abilities/traits, which represent cultural knowledge gained. Ask your DM what races are playable in their world. Some may allow for races not included in the basic rules. Pay attention to the bonuses that races provide and weigh that against the type of character you want to create. Certain races tend be more suited towards certain classes or roles, but don't let that limit you. Part of the fun of D&D is in experimenting with non-optimal builds that result in unique characters.

Backgrounds will give you a feat and proficiency in two skills and a tool. In addition to these mechanical benefits, backgrounds also provide valuable narrative direction for shaping your character's story and how they came to be an adventurer.

You will also choose starting equipment. Each background starts with a set amount of gold that you can use to purchase some basic equipment. Check with your DM to see if there is any other starting gear or gold they are providing.

Determine Ability Scores

Ability scores give bonuses to the rolls you make for determining the success of your actions. By the standard rules, ability scores are determined randomly, but most groups allow some degree of player discretion on distributing ability scores by choosing an alternative method. If you are allowed to distribute ability scores yourself, choose abilites that benefit your class the most.

The ability scores are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. After choosing your ability scores, you will add any bonuses from your race. Generally, you will want to put as many points as possible into your class's favored ability (or abilities) and get at least 10 Constitution to avoid taking a penalty to your hit point pool.

Bonuses or penalties are determined on even-numbered intervals from 10, so an ability score of 12 would get a bonus of +1, 14 a +2, etc., and an 8 would receive a penalty of -1, 6 a -2, etc. Flaws can be fun and character-defining, but players will generally want to avoid taking more than a -1 penalty to any attribute unless they have a plan for how they will compensate for the penalty.

After assigning ability scores, you will add the modifiers from your background. If you are using the 5e ruleset from 2014, you will not gain ability score bonuses from your background and will instead choose one score to receive a bonus of 2 and another to receive a bonus of 1; or three abilities to receive a bonus of 1.

Describe Your Character

With all the mechanical details figured out, you should develop your character's personality. Start with a name. If you want to choose a lore-friendly name, the Player's Handbook can help you with some ideas in its pages for species. You can also use online name generators to get ideas. You can also choose other physical details such as sex, height and weight, and appearance.

A character's alignment describes their moral compass (good, evil, or neutral) and attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral).

Other details that help fill in your character's profile are Traits, Ideals, and Bonds. These are often overlooked on the character sheet, but can be great guidestones on how to play your character. Traits should be small, simple ways of making your character stand out. Try to think of something specific. They could describe what your character loves in life, their fears, or how they view themselves. Ideals are your character's guiding principles, and provide direction on how they go about making decisions. Bonds are what ties your character to their past life,  and may help provide direction on what decisions you make for the future of your character. 

Come up with the rest of your character's past and present, bringing their story up to current with the beginning of the adventure. Keep in mind that, typically, player characters will not be famous heroes at the beginning of an adventure (that's what the adventure is for, after all!), so try and think of somewhat humble beginnings that nevertheless led your character to a life of adventure. Go back to what you learned from your DM about the context for the campaign and imagine your character in that world.

Finishing Up

Once you make all the decisions about your character's build, background, personality, and starting gear, you need to make sure it's all accurately reflected in your character sheet. Many fields will be self-explanatory and simple enough, but some may require a little math. Make sure you understand how to calculate your:

• Hit Dice and HP
• Armor Class (AC)
• Skill proficiencies
• Proficiency bonus
• Saving throws
• Attack and damage modifiers
• Spellcasting ability
• Spell slots

Once you're finished filling everything in, it's a good idea to check in (again) with your DM to make sure your character concept and corresponding sheet is in keeping with their rules for the game. Share your character with your group, too! You and/or your groupmates may wish to make adjustments (whether mechanical or narrative) to help your characters jell better as a unit. At the very least, it's helpful to get familiarized with all the characters in the group before an adventure, even if no adjustments are made. Learning the rest of your party (the player's playstyle as well as their character's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses) is how you'll navigate which direction to take with your level ups. 

Congratulations on finishing up your D&D 5e character! Take up thy pen and your paper, or fire up the PC and join up for a campaign on StartPlaying, and go forth, hero! 

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Mike Martino is a writer, editor, and playwright in Chicago.